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Down declares


Raphael
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Opinion on down declares?  

135 members have voted

  1. 1. Please choose the best option that you feel represents down declares mechanically.

    • Down declares are too powerful, we should find a way to nerf them.
      38
    • Down declares are perfectly balanced.
      37
    • Down Declares are too weak, and should be buffed.
      10
    • I am indifferent to this, and would prefer other mechanical things be tackled instead.
      38


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Looking specifically to begin public discussion and feedback BEFORE the dev team spends six months debating things.

 

The background here is that the dev team is seeing 15+ city down declares as an issue that impacts and ripples through the entire meta. Whales, the top 0.00001% of players, are dominating the meta and honestly preventing the bottom 99% from being overtly relevant. In a sandbox political game, this is not an ideal situation, so we are regularly discussing ways to balance this without completely destroying the point of being a larger nation.

In the spirit of public feedback and some of the recent calls for better transparency, I'm posting this thread.

 

Keep it civil, keep it safe -- if you have good ideas for how we could balance this specific issue please post it here.

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A conventional war isn’t the only way a whale loses infra, by the way. There are plenty of whales that just maintain low infra and get to enjoy these down declares during or outside of a war

Edited by His Holy Decagon
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12 minutes ago, Canbec said:

For discussion purposes, you may want to distinguish downdecs done by the losing side of a conflict (low NS due to low military), from downdecs done by fully militarized raiders (low NS due to low infra).

Unfortunately, the mechanical reality is that there is no such distinction. Unless we somehow create one.

A whale knocked down and raiding for the next year is mechanically the same as a whale that got knocked down an hour ago -- in terms of score, war range, the relevant stuff re: down declares.

14 minutes ago, Canbec said:

If the dev team absolutely wants to examine possible fixes

There is nothing absolute about it, thus the poll.

This isn't a forced issue per se, but it's definitely one which the game admins have an interest in ensuring there is a balance.

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Half the fun of wars is showing off which alliance has more skill when it comes to fighting, winning or losing. And for the losing side, down declares play a big role in fighting back. But most people don't realize how important down declares are in a losing war since most alliances just roll over and die once their mill is zero'd. But for those who have actually fought a defensive war, you know how important down declares are for helping the smaller guys out. Also, people need to calm down about the whole "WhAlEs ToO oP" thing. While I understand that most whales are split between 2-3 alliances and it can be hard to fight whale alliances, I ask the community to think about what consequence X decision has not only on the whales, but the entire game as well.

Edited by darkblade
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18 minutes ago, Marika said:

A whale knocked down and raiding for the next year is mechanically the same as a whale that got knocked down an hour ago -- in terms of score, war range, the relevant stuff re: down declares.

Yes and no. See my last sentence re: possible fixes. A whale knocked down an hour ago may have no military but is likely to have higher infra than a whale knocked down and raiding for a year.

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28 minutes ago, Marika said:

Unfortunately, the mechanical reality is that there is no such distinction. Unless we somehow create one.

A whale knocked down and raiding for the next year is mechanically the same as a whale that got knocked down an hour ago -- in terms of score, war range, the relevant stuff re: down declares.

There is nothing absolute about it, thus the poll.

This isn't a forced issue per se, but it's definitely one which the game admins have an interest in ensuring there is a balance.

I mean, there absolutely is such a distinction, quit being an obtuse clown about it.

 

The difference is one has military and mostly bullies micros, and the other has no military, is being beige cycled, and has the option of down declaring and double buying on you to do some damage or deleting their nation for choices of fun things to do.

 

Yet you seem along with pre to be determined to push folks towards the latter.

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While I do lean towards the "nerf downdeclares camp", I'd much rather see a buff to updeclares than any sort of outright nerf on downdeclares. At the moment, updeclares feel like a high risk, low reward option, and they've been that way since the May 2020 military update (the one where tanks got the ability to kill planes, among other things). Even if hypothetically 3 city 30s could beat a city 40 in a vacuum, in reality, that situation is very likely never going to happen in alliance wars since those city 30s can get countered, the counters can get countered, and so on and so forth.

I'm not saying that we need to have a return to the planes-only meta, nor am I approving of the previously suggested declare range modifier, but I think that effectively coordinated updeclares, and effective coordination in general, should have more of a significant effect on the outcome of a war. 

Edited by KindaEpicMoah
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2 hours ago, Memph said:

This mechanic just gives the losing side the opportunity to fight back if they are determined and well organized, which I think is good for the game. Allowing for guerilla tactics is always a good thing. If the losing side can only watch their infra burn while they're getting rolled for weeks I think a lot of them would quit. As SRD said you can only do 15city down decs if you're losing and have low infra and low military.

Think that still lets tHoF who regularly run on low infra high city counts to do 15 city down declares. This problem tho could possibly be dealt with tweaking improvement rate of destruction as someone earlier stated. 

Edited by MinesomeMC
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3 hours ago, Lord of Puns said:

If you’re seeing 15 city down declares, it’s because the issue is that it’s still too easy for massive nations to play on 800 infra and not lose improvements. Increase the rate of military improvements destroyed when infra is much lower than total improvements owned. 

I feel like this is a solid point and is the real issue that should be addressed related to this topic. 

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I do not think down declaring is an issue at all.  It seems to me the position that supports nerfing downdeclares is biased (or hoodwinked) to some extent by the profile whales have in debate (which is corrupted anyway) and by the unfortunate prevalence of people being unwilling and/or incapable of fighting wars.

We shouldn’t force everyone to play a sandbox game a certain way for the convenience/benefit of a minority.

Edited by Etat
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Celer Et Audax

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6 hours ago, Autumn Annayah said:

Still gonna push for the 5 down max. Tho score rebalance and war mechanic rebalance seem like the better way to go. Improvements definitely need a higher chance of being destroyed or you should be able to target them specifically with planes. 

Dont tell Dread he will only have 8 guys to fight going forward, not that he really fights in the first place... So I guess its fine?

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On 9/6/2022 at 11:27 AM, Lossi said:

I do find it cute how you intentionally split the dissenting votes into 3 to give the approving vote a better chance to win by pure votes.

 


I know it's surprising to many, but I can actually read and see "there are way more votes in the categories that aren't in favor" even if they're split.

This isn't designed to trick the community nor is it a vote on what to do, it's just to garner opinions.

 

I hope you guys realize I'm an unpaid volunteer posting this just to see where the community officially stands on an issue. Wish y'all would mellow out but I am committed to at least giving you guys a venue to express your thoughts - despite mass downvoting me. lol.

20 hours ago, hidude45454 said:

tfw HoF is so good that people literally cannot even hide they want to nerf them directly for every war update

I'd respectfully ask that you, especially as someone on the dev team, not make comments like this. You know very well downdeclares have been an ongoing discussion for months prior to HoF hitting TKR.

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In my view I think rather then discussing if whales should be able to do this why not direct the discussion towards a better balance? 

 

For example, maybe allow down declares but increase the number of defensive slots available. If someone wants to hit someone far smaller then them let them fight 5-8 or more of a bunch of smaller nations. 

 

I am of the opinion that we should let anyone attack anyone and let the group with the best teamwork win the day but that’s just my view and I do not really care one way or the other.

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6 hours ago, Marika said:

I hope you guys realize I'm an unpaid volunteer posting this just to see where the community officially stands on an issue. Wish y'all would mellow out but I am committed to at least giving you guys a venue to express your thoughts - despite mass downvoting me. lol.

"Mass downvoting" especially now that it actually doesn't take away from your karma, is just an additional way of showing displeasure with an idea (or in the case of @Firwof Kromwell, how much of a salty B you are years after everyone has forgotten why you're upset.) beyond the root vote.  You really shouldn't be taking it personal.

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4 hours ago, Lossi said:

(or in the case of @Firwof Kromwell, how much of a salty B you are years after everyone has forgotten why you're upset.) beyond the root vote.  You really shouldn't be taking it personal.

If that's true, why are you the one bringing me up after several months of me majorly avoiding you, your peers n ppl simalar to you like a lactose intolerant person to dairy?

 

 

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I feel like the thing that is still overlooked and is a huge advantage for updeclaring, you can sit below a large nations attack range, where that large nation cannot attack you, but you can hit them any time you want.  Its why back in the day, you had tS come up with the plane only strat, the goal was to make their NS as low as possible so they could avoid the large nations, and then pick them off at their leisure.

I dont know if many of you truly understand how big of an advantage that is.

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