2/24/2015 - Missile Patch

[Clarke]

Excellent changes, Sheepy.  I do, however, think that raising the upkeep costs of missiles even more should be on the table.  And I say this as someone who has missiles.  So clearly I'd be hurting myself too.

 

Call me.

I sometimes have missiles, my suggestions are awesome and everything else is garbage. 

[Donald Sterling]

I like this for the most part.  #5 I'm iffy on but other than that it adds needed changes.

[Flame of the Flawed]

So how does the Iron Dome work? I know it has a 50% chance of taking out incoming missiles, but what does it use to take those missiles out, a laser, missiles? If it uses missiles as interceptors and with the chance of knocking down incoming stuff has doubled, to me that would suggest more missiles are being shot out, having missiles now has increased in upkeep costs, has the upkeep cost for the Iron Dome increased based on what it uses?

 

I assume it works like the actual Iron Dome in Israel. It shoots missiles. But let's not get too realistic here. If we want to base it on rl, then missiles should be very cheap as compared to using the Iron Dome, which would be ridiculously expensive. But imo, let's just ignore unneeded complexities and stick with what is best for gameplay.

[Alex]

Well, that's operating off the belief that if your opponent gets superiority on you it's game over, which isn't true. With actual coordination and a half decent warchest you can break superiority easily enough.

 

This is an excellent point, and it's important to remember that you can coordinate with other nations to break blockades, air superiority, and ground control. If you get an IT victory on a nation in, say, a ground battle, they lose all Ground Controls they have in any other wars. Heaven forbid we encourage tactics like cooperation and coordination in wars.

 

Alright... 

 

Missiles needed balance, there was no question about it. But all 6 of these changes combined make missiles next to useless. Meh. Whatev appeases the masses I suppose.

 

I understand that when you see "6 changes" and things like "3x the upkeep" it looks like a massive change. However, I looked at many different formulas, tested them in excel sheets for various scenarios, and came up with what I found to be pretty fair balances. Missiles aren't entirely useless now, I imagine they'll still be a useful facet of war, but this should shift the meta game away from "all missiles" and towards things like ground attacks and air force strikes.

 

Keep in mind that at least 2 of the "6 changes" really didn't affect missiles at all. Increasing loot in ground battles and changing missiles' score contributions hardly affects the mechanics of missiles themselves.

 

So how does the Iron Dome work? I know it has a 50% chance of taking out incoming missiles, but what does it use to take those missiles out, a laser, missiles? If it uses missiles as interceptors and with the chance of knocking down incoming stuff has doubled, to me that would suggest more missiles are being shot out, having missiles now has increased in upkeep costs, has the upkeep cost for the Iron Dome increased based on what it uses?

 

The Iron Dome national project theoretically uses small short-range missiles to intercept incoming missiles. You can really imagine it however you want, a laser, a kitten cannon, etc. but at the end of the day it doesn't cost any upkeep and it doesn't use any of your actual missiles to intercept other missiles.

[Hansarius]

This is an excellent point, and it's important to remember that you can coordinate with other nations to break blockades, air superiority, and ground control. If you get an IT victory on a nation in, say, a ground battle, they lose all Ground Controls they have in any other wars. Heaven forbid we encourage tactics like cooperation and coordination in wars.

 

 

These tactics are already encouraged and are already what wins wars.

Breaking control/blockade might be possible in conflicts were you are on the winning side, but for those on a losing side of a conflict, it's next to impossible as all those you'd need to coordinate with are all suffering the same fate.

#5 is making it so that the losing side of a war now has even less chance of fighting back, no chance in fact and all you can do once you've lost your footing is watch as your nation is destroyed.

 

The other changes are all good and should be enough to put the proper balance to missile warfare, and it was needed.

But #5 now leaves missiles a weapon that is only reliable for those who are already winning the war

[Donald Sterling]

These tactics are already encouraged and are already what wins wars.

Breaking control/blockade might be possible in conflicts were you are on the winning side, but for those on a losing side of a conflict, it's next to impossible as all those you'd need to coordinate with are all suffering the same fate.

#5 is making it so that the losing side of a war now has even less chance of fighting back, no chance in fact and all you can do once you've lost your footing is watch as your nation is destroyed.

 

The other changes are all good and should be enough to put the proper balance to missile warfare, and it was needed.

But #5 now leaves missiles a weapon that is only reliable for those who are already winning the war

I agree with this, but there should be a slight penalty.  Maybe a 50% chance of missing if you have all 3, but not 100% chance of missing.  

[Tenages]

These tactics are already encouraged and are already what wins wars.

Breaking control/blockade might be possible in conflicts were you are on the winning side, but for those on a losing side of a conflict, it's next to impossible as all those you'd need to coordinate with are all suffering the same fate.

#5 is making it so that the losing side of a war now has even less chance of fighting back, no chance in fact and all you can do once you've lost your footing is watch as your nation is destroyed.

 

 

 

Hans remains 100% correct. What this change has done is condemned those on the losing side to sit back and get blasted for literally as long as the winning side feels like it, with absolutely no ability to do anything at all to fight back. To pretend otherwise is so blatantly untrue that it's actually offensive anyone would true. If you want the system that way, fine it is your game (though it's a stupid way to set up a war system.) But for the love of god stop pretending that isn't what you've done. 

[Saru]

This is !@#$ retarded. I wish you would get some feedback from the community who actually play the game on the features before you go about implementing them into the LIVE version.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Saru

[naTia]

Hans remains 100% correct. What this change has done is condemned those on the losing side to sit back and get blasted for literally as long as the winning side feels like it, with absolutely no ability to do anything at all to fight back.

 

And what is the alternative? That the offending nation be forced to watch as his or her nation takes missile damage despite obvious superiority? Talking from experience, it is nerve racking to be in an alliance based war that you are supposed to prolong due to orders. Whether or not your enemy has missiles makes no difference during planning, even if you have none yourself. Against nations with missiles, I sustained more damage than I could possibly dish out with repeated airstrikes. So we are to pretend that having clear occupation of an enemy nation allows for them to repeatedly fire missiles? This fix seems like a fine patch against turtling, which unless you disagree, should not be part of your war strategy.

[Alex]

Hans remains 100% correct. What this change has done is condemned those on the losing side to sit back and get blasted for literally as long as the winning side feels like it, with absolutely no ability to do anything at all to fight back. To pretend otherwise is so blatantly untrue that it's actually offensive anyone would true. If you want the system that way, fine it is your game (though it's a stupid way to set up a war system.) But for the love of god stop pretending that isn't what you've done. 

 

There's no pretending, I simply don't believe it's true. This patch is all public, formulas are available for everyone. If you don't think missiles are as viable now, then don't buy them. This should discourage you from just stockpiling missiles as a way to fight back, instead get an air force or a navy or a ground force. If you look at the second change I made, and run those formulas, you can now take up to 75% of your opponent's cash in one battle. That could very easily flip the tide of winning/losing a war, and make stealing money a more viable tactic than just lobbing infrastructure at each other.

[Alex]

And what is the alternative? That the offending nation be forced to watch as his or her nation takes missile damage despite obvious superiority? Talking from experience, it is nerve racking to be in an alliance based war that you are supposed to prolong due to orders. Whether or not your enemy has missiles makes no difference during planning, even if you have none yourself. Against nations with missiles, I sustained more damage than I could possibly dish out with repeated airstrikes. So we are to pretend that having clear occupation of an enemy nation allows for them to repeatedly fire missiles? This fix seems like a fine patch against turtling, which unless you disagree, should not be part of your war strategy.

 

And this is why I think that the AS/GC/B disabling missiles is a good idea.

[Dr Rush]

Just an FYI, the wiki has now been updated to reflect these changes.

[George W. Bush]

Suggestion made: 07:29 EST

Patch Made: 23:23 EST

Not sure if this is good or bad.

[TheNG]

And what is the alternative? That the offending nation be forced to watch as his or her nation takes missile damage despite obvious superiority? Talking from experience, it is nerve racking to be in an alliance based war that you are supposed to prolong due to orders. Whether or not your enemy has missiles makes no difference during planning, even if you have none yourself. Against nations with missiles, I sustained more damage than I could possibly dish out with repeated airstrikes. So we are to pretend that having clear occupation of an enemy nation allows for them to repeatedly fire missiles? This fix seems like a fine patch against turtling, which unless you disagree, should not be part of your war strategy.

 

No. Talking from my experience however "nerve racking" it may feel to step into the second round of a war and blast someone with planes for 5 days, trust me, its a lot less fun to log on once a day, scroll through the war notifications, and then log off because there is nothing at all you can do. For a good two weeks to boot. When that happens to you, then you can be nervous and complain about how you are so inconvenienced.

But since you talk about damage, lets talk about that. As I recall, you were one of my opponents in the Marionette War. I launched two missiles into your nation, and you did roughly equal damage with 5 days of airstrikes. However, I had 5 other people doing the same exact thing. So, at the end of the war, you lost 600 infra. I lost 3,600. You were set back a couple days, maybe a week. I was set back a month and a half. I had missiles, and none of my opponents did, yet I still lost. Badly. The defender in a situation like that (as pretty much all wars are now) is always going to come off worse. 

Besides war isn't supposed to be a free ride. Sheepy has said since the start of this game that wars are supposed to be costly for both sides. If you can't handle losing a little infrastructure in a crushing victory then don't fight a !@#$ war. Join GPA and be a pixel hugger there. But don't come and whine about how you deserve a free ride just because you attacked first and got nervous about taking a little damage. 

 

There's no pretending, I simply don't believe it's true. This patch is all public, formulas are available for everyone. If you don't think missiles are as viable now, then don't buy them. This should discourage you from just stockpiling missiles as a way to fight back, instead get an air force or a navy or a ground force. If you look at the second change I made, and run those formulas, you can now take up to 75% of your opponent's cash in one battle. That could very easily flip the tide of winning/losing a war, and make stealing money a more viable tactic than just lobbing infrastructure at each other.

 

I'm sorry, but the willful ignorance here is astounding. No one who thinks this is a good idea has ever been in a situation where missiles are the only option you have left. Trust me Sheepy, no one wants to missile turtle in wars. You can build all the ships and planes you !@#$ want and they'll still get mowed down in a 3v1. Then what? Your change would give aggressors a free ride, have three people pile on to someone, wipe out their conventional forces quickly and then they are basically immune to taking any damage. They can do whatever they want to the poor guy for however long they want. Missile turtleing is a bad tactic, but it gave attackers at least a reason to consider ending a war early, and when you designed the war system how it is, it was a valid option for those with nothing else but waiting two or three weeks until the war ends. Now attackers can go in and destroy people without fear of taking any damage at all. I thought this was Politics and War, not Politics and One-Sided Beat Down Simulator 2015.

If you really think this is a viable solution to anything, you are only deluding yourself.

 

As for the ground battles, it is laughably inconsequential. Nobody at high levels goes to war for money. They go to war to do damage to the other guy. Thats why nobody does ground battles, 1000 score nations don't need more money to fund their war effort, and all stealing 75% of on-hand cash will do is help raiders going after inactives and new nations. Nobody will do ground attacks in real war, they just aren't good.

 

But with all that said, I do really like some of these other changes, and they really needed to happen. But I can assure you that change #5 is not good for the game, and will only serve to unbalance the war system even more. Getting beat down isn't fun, I know people who quit or considered it after the largely conventional Marionette War. This will just make a bad situation worse.

[Tenages]

There's no pretending, I simply don't believe it's true. This patch is all public, formulas are available for everyone. If you don't think missiles are as viable now, then don't buy them. This should discourage you from just stockpiling missiles as a way to fight back, instead get an air force or a navy or a ground force. If you look at the second change I made, and run those formulas, you can now take up to 75% of your opponent's cash in one battle. That could very easily flip the tide of winning/losing a war, and make stealing money a more viable tactic than just lobbing infrastructure at each other.

 

 

Then you're wilfully naive Sheepy. Or lying to yourself. Look at every war that's happened to date. Once you lose A/G/N superiority, unless the people you're fighting have no idea what they're doing you aren't getting it back. The attackers have the advantage of surprise to start with, allowing them to inflict significant damage before you even realize there's a war going on. Assuming a coordinated attack (which we're going to assume because that's how alliance warfare is run) you're getting hit by multiple opponents, and your forces are severely depleted. Because of restrictions on buying military, once your forces have been initially worn down by a surprise attack from multiple opponents, you simply aren't going to be able to build enough of an A/S/G force to change that equation. 

 

All of your other changes already limit the utility of missiles. If they have an Iron Dome (which anyone who isn't stupid will buy under the new system) there's a 50% chance the missile won't hit you anyway. If it does, you lowered the amount of damage it does. As you said it's possible you can steal the money so they can't launch one. Missile upkeep tripling means they won't have a huge stockpile on hand. All #5 does is completely remove an attack option, when a nation literally has no other realistic avenues left to defend themselves. Why on earth should superiority completely remove the ability to launch a missile? It doesn't remove your ability to launch any other kind of attack. 

 

Change #5 overpowers attack to such a ludicrous extent that I can't even believe we're talking about it. It's obvious. If you lose A/S/G superiority you've basically got two options now. Find a way to self-beige, or just take a vacation until the war is over, since there's no point in you being present anyway.

 

The fact is, you designed a game/way system that prioritizes blowing the !@#$ out of infra, rather than anything else. In an alliance war, there is no incentive to "defeat" (game mechanics wise) your opponent. You then designed a weapon that blows the !@#$ out of infra way better than anything else, making in the natural be all end all of warfare. And now, while "fixing" your previous mistake, you've made it so nations who are losing can't use that superior weapon, but have to sit there and continually get hit by said weapon.

 

Saru is 100% right. There's no other way to describe what you've done than as !@#$ retarded. 

 

I've said my piece. It's your game. Do what you want. But this recent change was poorly thought and !@#$ stupid. 

Edited February 25, 2015 by Tenages

[Clarke]

It's not impossible to keep firing missiles, just not against that opponent. But I see how issue can arise when opponents are caught off guard by war.

 

However I propose to change things a bit and encourage fighting with other attacks

1) When a war starts until you do either a naval/air/ground attack then missiles will only do 50% normal damage

2) If you fire a missile in a war and you did not do a naval/air/ground attack within the last 24 hours then the missile only does 50% of normal damage

3) The more ground/naval/air attacks you do in a war the more damage your missiles do as the war goes on

[George W. Bush]

 

5) Having Air Superiority, Ground Control, and a Blockade will prevent your opponent from launching missiles at you. Previously, the only way to stop an opponent from hitting you with missiles was to beige them and end the war. Now, if you can best them on land, air, and sea, you can prevent them from lobbing missiles at you while still allowing the war to continue.

 

On the flipside, it will discourage the turtle tactic of only lobbing missiles and will force players to focus on at least one facet of conventional warfare.

Suggestion: Ground control should limit the amount of missiles you can launch similar to what it does to aircraft. Air superiority should do nothing as it doesn't do much IRL either. Blockade should give a chance to shoot down the missile.

[Clarke]

Well I have being in the situation where missiles were my only method of attack many many times so I can see how it would suck for me not to be able to fire them. 

[Dwynn]

This is an excellent point, and it's important to remember that you can coordinate with other nations to break blockades, air superiority, and ground control. If you get an IT victory on a nation in, say, a ground battle, they lose all Ground Controls they have in any other wars. Heaven forbid we encourage tactics like cooperation and coordination in wars.

 

 

I understand that when you see "6 changes" and things like "3x the upkeep" it looks like a massive change. However, I looked at many different formulas, tested them in excel sheets for various scenarios, and came up with what I found to be pretty fair balances. Missiles aren't entirely useless now, I imagine they'll still be a useful facet of war, but this should shift the meta game away from "all missiles" and towards things like ground attacks and air force strikes.

 

Keep in mind that at least 2 of the "6 changes" really didn't affect missiles at all. Increasing loot in ground battles and changing missiles' score contributions hardly affects the mechanics of missiles themselves.

 

 

The Iron Dome national project theoretically uses small short-range missiles to intercept incoming missiles. You can really imagine it however you want, a laser, a kitten cannon, etc. but at the end of the day it doesn't cost any upkeep and it doesn't use any of your actual missiles to intercept other missiles.

 

You're forgetting the one thing here. You implemented missiles and nukes to be better than the other methods of war. Nobody was saying that missiles needed to be nerfed this hard (nobody who's been involved in wars with missiles that is). They were saying that missiles needed to be balanced.

 

A few of the options at first would have been awesome. All of them together? Not so much.

 

And no matter how you spin it, there were six changes to the war system all done at once. Instead of implementing minor tweaks and seeing the results, you've simply upended the war system based on your spreadsheet results. If you were going to address balancing the entire war system, you should have addressed the entire war system. As it remains, tanks are still unbalanced, and you didn't touch nukes at all. But hey, at least the spreadsheet told you that you were doing right. Who cares what the players who actually play your game and have experience in it.

[Placentica]

Oh yea I'm not debating it would have been a shock, but you guys were hoarding for seemingly the sole reason of boosting score. I agree maybe some notice would have been better, but what's done is done now I guess.

I'm in complete aggreement that a score change was needed.  I just think Sheepy could've left off a few of the changes.  Nerf missile damage, leave upkeep alone.  3x upkeep, leave score or dmg alone.  Change score, keep upkeep the same.  But when Sheepy nerfed all of them he made missiles worthless.  I've used and taken a lot of them so I have a good idea on what's going to happen.

 

I think what he's going to find is that now missiles won't be used at all.  When everyone has Iron Domes like most of us have MLP's, it will be a waste to use missiles given the dmg nerf, the chance it's blocked and the resulting loss of MAPs in a block.  I know I'm never going to waste money on missiles..

 

This isn't a nerf, this is an elimination of a weapon.  That's not balance, it's just swinging the pendulum the other way.  Still unbalanced.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Placentica

[Mortimer]

 

I know this isn't the long awaited Nation Perks patch adjustment to the alliance color threshold, but this is an important mechanics change and a lot of these ideas have been flung around for a while. I thought it was important that I finally addressed the missile problem, as it's a concern that had been brought up numerous times over the last few months.

 

Now, go ahead and tell me why this was the worst update ever and that I should undo it immediately 

This is the worst update and you should undo it immediately. 

[Tenages]

No. Talking from my experience however "nerve racking" it may feel to step into the second round of a war and blast someone with planes for 5 days, trust me, its a lot less fun to log on once a day, scroll through the war notifications, and then log off because there is nothing at all you can do. For a good two weeks to boot. When that happens to you, then you can be nervous and complain about how you are so inconvenienced.

But since you talk about damage, lets talk about that. As I recall, you were one of my opponents in the Marionette War. I launched two missiles into your nation, and you did roughly equal damage with 5 days of airstrikes. However, I had 5 other people doing the same exact thing. So, at the end of the war, you lost 600 infra. I lost 3,600. You were set back a couple days, maybe a week. I was set back a month and a half. I had missiles, and none of my opponents did, yet I still lost. Badly. The defender in a situation like that (as pretty much all wars are now) is always going to come off worse. 

Besides war isn't supposed to be a free ride. Sheepy has said since the start of this game that wars are supposed to be costly for both sides. If you can't handle losing a little infrastructure in a crushing victory then don't fight a !@#$ war. Join GPA and be a pixel hugger there. But don't come and whine about how you deserve a free ride just because you attacked first and got nervous about taking a little damage. 

 

 

I'm sorry, but the willful ignorance here is astounding. No one who thinks this is a good idea has ever been in a situation where missiles are the only option you have left. Trust me Sheepy, no one wants to missile turtle in wars. You can build all the ships and planes you !@#$ want and they'll still get mowed down in a 3v1. Then what? Your change would give aggressors a free ride, have three people pile on to someone, wipe out their conventional forces quickly and then they are basically immune to taking any damage. They can do whatever they want to the poor guy for however long they want. Missile turtleing is a bad tactic, but it gave attackers at least a reason to consider ending a war early, and when you designed the war system how it is, it was a valid option for those with nothing else but waiting two or three weeks until the war ends. Now attackers can go in and destroy people without fear of taking any damage at all. I thought this was Politics and War, not Politics and One-Sided Beat Down Simulator 2015.

If you really think this is a viable solution to anything, you are only deluding yourself.

 

As for the ground battles, it is laughably inconsequential. Nobody at high levels goes to war for money. They go to war to do damage to the other guy. Thats why nobody does ground battles, 1000 score nations don't need more money to fund their war effort, and all stealing 75% of on-hand cash will do is help raiders going after inactives and new nations. Nobody will do ground attacks in real war, they just aren't good.

 

But with all that said, I do really like some of these other changes, and they really needed to happen. But I can assure you that change #5 is not good for the game, and will only serve to unbalance the war system even more. Getting beat down isn't fun, I know people who quit or considered it after the largely conventional Marionette War. This will just make a bad situation worse.

This is 100% accurate.

[Grayshadow]

Tenages and TheNG are correct. The war system was unbalanced before this change. Now it is even more unbalanced. Very poor and not properly thought out update.

[Alex]

5) Having Air Superiority, Ground Control, and a Blockade will prevent your opponent from launching missiles at you. Previously, the only way to stop an opponent from hitting you with missiles was to beige them and end the war. Now, if you can best them on land, air, and sea, you can prevent them from lobbing missiles at you while still allowing the war to continue.

 

On the flipside, it will discourage the turtle tactic of only lobbing missiles and will force players to focus on at least one facet of conventional warfare.

 

This change has been rescinded as of the latest update. I do believe I had the best intentions when making this change, but I have been thoroughly convinced by the players that it is in the best interest of the game to undo this change.

 

Still, 5/6 isn't bad

[Phiney]

I'm in complete aggreement that a score change was needed. I just think Sheepy could've left off a few of the changes. Nerf missile damage, leave upkeep alone. 3x upkeep, leave score or dmg alone. Change score, keep upkeep the same. But when Sheepy nerfed all of them he made missiles worthless. I've used and taken a lot of them so I have a good idea on what's going to happen.

 

I think what he's going to find is that now missiles won't be used at all. When everyone has Iron Domes like most of us have MLP's, it will be a waste to use missiles given the dmg nerf, the chance it's blocked and the resulting loss of MAPs in a block. I know I'm never going to waste money on missiles..

 

This isn't a nerf, this is an elimination of a weapon. That's not balance, it's just swinging the pendulum the other way. Still unbalanced.

I disagree, as it stands missiles still do more damage per war than anything else even if you can only land 4 of em