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6/28/2020 - War Slot Filling, Removing Beige


Alex
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This is a ridiculous decision and I swear it will just force more players to quit the game at some point. Being in no beige means the player will never get any recovery state at all. They can't do a thing during blockade, no trading, no action with zeroed military. (wait, the only thing they can do is fortify???) They can't even rebuy if they're out of warchest. And when the war is over, they can't even have enough time to do what they want and will be forced into a new war with no way to even fight back. I don't really care if you're bringing some other ideas to compensate of 'no beige' system. Beige is something necessary in the game. Killing it = Killing the players. 

No Beige = can't recover, under blockade forever (most likely), can't do trades at all, can't even fight back, gives advantage only to the aggressor
Only Solution = Fortify, send unlimited nukes and missiles, and play baseball forever

Edited by Sunara
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6 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Okay, first off, "lol you're upset" is no argument. There's been actual arguments as to why this change is garbage, which you've not merely failed to address but in fact are outright denying in complete bad faith.

Second, with his final sentence alone, Alex has proven beyond any possible doubt that there is indeed no "thought process". He's had dozens of well-formed and productively discussed suggestions regarding the issue, which he has never even looked at. He's completely unaware of all the work we've put into this already, or he'd have seen the suggestions that we've put in over years of the problem existing. But no, he straight up asks for suggestions like there aren't already plenty?

Now, sure this will change the dynamics. Obviously it will do that. The fact that it will change nothing for the better is apparently okay with you?

I try to give Alex the benefit of the doubt as much as possible.  Being a game admin is hard, people love to complain, and there almost always is a lot of knee-jerk opposition to change even when the changes are good.

That being said, I share your frustration about beige just being removed without warning when there have been tons of suggestions over the years about how to fix it that don't seem to have been seriously considered.

Edited by Azaghul
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1 hour ago, Sam Cooper said:

And since we all agree that this update is bad, I'd request @Adrienne, @Valkorion Baratheon, @Lord Tyrion, @Prefonteen or @Sphinx to come up with something of this sort (a pledge not to perma-roll unprotected players or just anyone out of the NAP until there's an alternative in place) : 

Funniest thing I ever read. Good luck getting them to agree, to anything. You'll have better luck nailing jello to a tree.

 

1 hour ago, Sam Cooper said:

there are fairly big alliances whose entire economies are supported by war, what are they gonna do now

This is a lie. A real economy supported by war is continuous raiding and investing in better tech.

The previous changes were made in response to the majority wanting to farm and to max out military without being in range of higher city count nations, which is a net negative in my opinion.

It also was because alliance minimum military requirements intentionally inflated the scores of new players(max planes, ships and soldiers) and when they lost wars to, say 20 city people, alliance leadership became upset. And so they mitigated the consequences of their decisions by redirecting their members to complain endlessly about downdeclares.

 This max mil practice and score inflation was tied into the global with NPO/ Old Col B using the mechanic to their advantage, up until they started losing, cheating to save face.

THAT caused the score changes.

Edited by Deulos
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1 hour ago, Deulos said:

Funniest thing I ever read. Good luck getting them to agree, to anything. You'll have better luck nailing jello to a tree.

 

This is a lie. A real economy supported by war is continuous raiding and investing in better tech.

The previous changes were made in response to the majority wanting to farm and to max out military without being in range of higher city count nations, which is a net negative in my opinion.

It also was because alliance minimum military requirements intentionally inflated the scores of new players(max planes, ships and soldiers) and when they lost wars to, say 20 city people, alliance leadership became upset. And so they mitigated the consequences of their decisions by redirecting their members to complain endlessly about downdeclares.

 This max mil practice and score inflation was tied into the global with NPO/ Old Col B using the mechanic to their advantage, up until they started losing, cheating to save face.

THAT caused the score changes.

I mean, no? That's based on absolutely nothing lmao.

 

The majority of alliances are opposed to the mechanic updates which have occurred since the end of the war as far as i've been able to see. Let's not pretend we have much of an influence on these updates.

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I see a LOT of messages here that indicate ppl are not in favor of this change.... some are downright irate... might i suggest, rather that uselessly venting your anger which accomplishes nothing; to either cancel subscriptions (show alex your displeasure where it counts and actually hurts - his wallet), and/or deleting your nation. Venting here does nothing as it has already been shown Alex doesn't care to read a lot of the comments or suggestions (many claim)

Proofs of this include but are not limited to, the number of 1 member alliances (everyone knows these are mostly banks for alliances to hide their money in, an issue Alex said quite some time ago he was banning the practice of), this current no beige change - watch how many active players this adversely affects, watch how many active players either quit or go on VM) and quite a few other instances.

What it comes down to in the end, Alex retains the right to do whatever he wants to this game, it's his creation and if he wants to destroy it then thats his right. he can take the game completely down tomorrow and never bring it back, that is also his right..

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25 minutes ago, durmij said:

I'm really glad Alex didn't go into medicine. The only treatment he would ever reccomend would be amputation. 

I don't like to hate on Alex too much, he does his best for a bunch of ungrateful people.

 

That being said, this update gave me whiplash with how sudden it came. Waking up and deciding to remove a core mechanic of the game is... lol. Do we still get beige loot?

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9 hours ago, Sam Cooper said:

And since we all agree that this update is bad, I'd request @Adrienne, @Valkorion Baratheon, @Lord Tyrion, @Prefonteen or @Sphinx to come up with something of this sort (a pledge not to perma-roll unprotected players or just anyone out of the NAP until there's an alternative in place) : 

The issue here is not forcing a term is not a critical feature of the game. Any war that will be fought will take advantage of beige removal. Ignoring the logistical challenge of saying, "Okay troops, after you defeat an enemy in war, start a 5 day timer and let's not hit them in that period", it's just not practical if you want to actually win the war. Frankly, I'd be really disheartened if I were on the shit end of a dogpile, but bet your ass I'd sit on people if I had the upper hand, not because I'm evil but because the incentives give me literally no other choice. That added with the ongoing debate over what constitutes a victory could lead to really long, ugly wars. As for just waiting for Alex to fix it, we might as well sign an extension to the NAP and that seems even worse an option.

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2 hours ago, Roberts said:

I don't like to hate on Alex too much, he does his best for a bunch of ungrateful people.

 

That being said, this update gave me whiplash with how sudden it came. Waking up and deciding to remove a core mechanic of the game is... lol. Do we still get beige loot?

Yes. You still get beige loot and you do 4% infra damage to each city still.

"Most successful new AA" - Samuel Bates

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6 hours ago, The Boofinator said:

What it comes down to in the end, Alex retains the right to do whatever he wants to this game, it's his creation and if he wants to destroy it then thats his right. he can take the game completely down tomorrow and never bring it back, that is also his right..

You're not making sense. Why in the world would Alex hurt his wallet by deleting a game he created? Nobody says, "I'm just going to delete the whole corporation and leave with $0 because I'm mad".

Edited by Deulos
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On 6/28/2020 at 10:33 AM, Alex said:

War Slot Filling has been a hot topic recently, and it's become more apparent than ever that some thing need to change to make it less of a judgement call on my part to determine what is and what is not war slot filling.

Therefore, I have updated the Game Rules to clearly and explicitly state that declaring wars on your allies is generally war slot filling. This means that going forward, you should not be declaring wars on allies, whether they're in your alliance or an alliance you're allied to. These wars, for the purpose of raiding, sending a notification to remind them to become active, etc. are not allowed.

If you have a nation in your alliance that is inactive, for example, and you want to raid them, then you can kick them from your alliance and do so. At that point, I would generally not consider them still an ally. But leaving your alliance so that you can evade the mechanics and declare war on an alliance member, then immediately rejoining the alliance is now clearly and explicitly against the rules.

The reason for this change is again to make it as clear as possible what is and what is not allowed so that I am not forced to make judgement calls which generally leave no one happy.

Furthermore, for far too long the "beige" mechanic has left perverse incentives in war, such as not wanting to complete a war or intentionally defeating allies to help them. As such, I have removed "beige" time given from losing wars.

New players will still start with 14 days of beige time, but going forward no one except these new nations will experience "beige." When you lose a war now, you will remain on your previous color.

I understand that the point of beige is to help out the defender and give them a chance to rebuild, but unfortunately the unintended consequences are so problematic that it has been and still is a pressing moderation issue. By removing the beige time issued as a result of losing a war, it will be much easier to determine what is and what is not war slot filling because there will be no incentive to do a "fake" war against an ally that results in a defeat and beige time.

My intention is not to make the game punitive and impossible to rebuild / recover from a lost war (or series of lost wars) and I will be exploring alternatives. However, the beige time from losing wars is a broken, abused mechanic that can no longer exist as-is, thus it's removal.

Lastly, with these changes I have notified two players who recently received moderation strikes for war slot filling that their strikes have been removed. It is now crystal clear that what they did would be considered against the rules, but it was not so clear before, which is why I have removed the strikes.

If you have suggestions for an alternative to the now deprecated beige mechanic for losing wars, I am all ears and would encourage you to make a post in the suggestions forum here: https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/forum/52-game-suggestions

So with the knee jerk removal of beige, there is no longer any way to rebuild your military because you can be perma blockaded. If you do not create ALL the resources for keeping a military (muns, gas, steel, alum) [which is a literal impossibility due to the continent system] the first striker will typically win unless the defender is SUPREMELY more coordinated.

How do you think anyone can 'rebuild' and fight a war if they cannot receive resources from the alliance bank, Trade system, or produce them?

I agree with most here, You should have had an alternative ready to go before you rolled out an update that has the ability to FORCE PEOPLE TO QUIT THE GAME until your next update to the system (which could be anywhere from today to never).

I believe most players will admit that if you were blockaded for months straight, with no reprieve, no bank, no money, no trading, no changing improvements (because now you have more improvements than available to your cities cause infra loss) There isn't even a point to logging in to play the game, it'd be time to move on to a new game.

 

The system may not have been working as you initially intended, but that doesn't mean it needs removal without replacement. A simple games rule change would have literally solved this issue (which you did) that you claim is "abused".

Another major thing i noted is one thing you said in your piece: "Furthermore, for far too long the "beige" mechanic has left perverse incentives in war, such as not wanting to complete a war"...

The removal of beige literally enables what you, personally, complained about people abusing Alex.

 

Edit: added a reference that producing all resources is impossible if blockaded due to continent system

Edited by Ridcully7a
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14 hours ago, Azaghul said:

I try to give Alex the benefit of the doubt as much as possible.  Being a game admin is hard, people love to complain, and there almost always is a lot of knee-jerk opposition to change even when the changes are good.

See, I actually agree with you here. That's why I'm doing my absolute best to keep my temper in check regarding the update, hard though that is.

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Just bring back perma-fortify and we don't have to worry about beige.

Also

Let's run this test-server style and give a MAP every hour instead of every two. It would make things twice as fast (if i ran my figures correctly) and discourage sleep in overly obsessed players, which in turn could lead to sleep-deprivation-insanity, which cures cancer via rapid-onset death (world-record was 11 days if anyone wants to give it a go).

or

Keep beige as it is (was) and ignore people that whine about slot-filling unless they "donate" a credit or two..you know..."kick a buck if you're able".

or also 

Change the color from beige to purple. I don't know what this solves but it's less harmful than destroying a core part of the combat system.

Also or

Everyone is going to have an opinion or a gripe or a complaint or another word that means the same thing as a gripe or a complaint. Put beige back in effect for now, stop kowtowing (never used that word in a sentence before, so i'm feeling powerful) to people who think they can run the game better than you and tell them to design, implement and run their own MMO if they don't like this one.

Jesus man. You're the god of Orbis. Conduct yourself as most gods do: Remain silent, accept praise and only speak in Earthquake and/or Tsunami when angered. 

 

 

 

 

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 Registered slot thief

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

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12 minutes ago, KingGhost said:

Someone perma blockade alex’s Nation and see how he likes it, ez.

...if we needed any more proof Alex doesn't actually play the game, we have it now.

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I think something needs to be said that the WHOLE PURPOSE of test server was to test out planned changes to see how they worked before putting the proposed changes onto live server... seems Alex forgot about this (HIS ) reason for test server.... for the last - what.... 5-6 changes?

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