-Was the the motivation behind the figurine quest?
-Someone can initiate the quest and cock-block anyone else from completing it because of the cooldowns. Airamaya was afk and I could not complete the quest because she didn't turn in the can. Then the quest reset and the can was empty. The we refilled the can and it didn't complete. Then I got locked out because the quest didn't complete.
-City specific figurine quests are predicated on people joining townes, which they don't, because townes are meaningless. Can we decouple this and allow any citizen of the mother org to complete the quest for the townes? Dealing with the quest 5 times is misery enough.
-Can we get unique attendant messages upon completion to make it seem like it's part of my org? Right now it's bland like tofu.
-P.S. When you rage kill the bugged quest giver and blow a warhorn it summons devil imp priests. Just fyi. Don't ask how I know this.
I had some feedback on some facets of the new commodity system, which I've detailed below.
1. The Transition
The transition to the new system made it difficult to ensure that we were not selling for less than an item was worth. Shops were also drastically effected, as the prices for which many items/comms were listed was no longer sufficient. While we technically purchased the initial comms for these items at a price that did not impact the city/council, keeping the old prices intact during the change made it possible for other players to enter your city/council and purchase vast amounts of comms at a drastically cheaper price than what they would need to be changed to in order to break even.
Luckily for Khandava, Aleutia was around at the time of the change and ensured there were extra guards in place to avoid this, leading to a few untimely deaths.
2. Townes: Production
With the advent of this change, it also appears that all townes' production rates were set to 'Abysmal'. While there may be a reason for this that I am currently unaware of, it makes it quite difficult to plan for the future when you have to begin by scraping the bottom of the barrel. I would much rather have seen these set to 'Average' or 'Neutral' while we work on discovering the mechanics of the system, ensuring that we are still able to produce sufficient commodoties to feed our towne and city guards.
3. Townes: Figurine
Currently, there is a quest you can complete to up your towne's production amounts. The item that you receive is supposed to impact the production rate for one IG year, but resets after 2 days. This was tested with Mylani earlier, and subsequently bugged.
4. Guards & Food
Tying in with the above points, and granted, there is no true way for me to gauge this as we have been set to Abysmal/not seen the upper limits of production, it also seems a statistical impossibility that we will be able to generate enough food commodities in our townes to actually feed our city guards. I know that currently, with the figurine, my towne is only capable of producing 20 crop/livestock a month at 'Poor'.
If all of our guards are elite (2.5 food comms per day) and we have the full amount in the council/city (100) and each of five townes (20), we are utilizing 500 food commodities per day.
Mylani makes 20 crop and 20 livestock per month for a total of 40 base comms. Every refined food comm takes 2 base comms (either 2 food or food/water). This means that my towne is only capable of making enough food in one IG month to feed less than half of its own guards, without any of that food ever reaching the council.
On the same note, is there any way the information on how much food each guard type eats in a month could be inserted into a helpfile?
5. Purchase of Base Comms
This ties into feeding guards as well. One alarming difference in the way that comms are now being handled, is that another player may simply purchase all the available commodities in your commshop (be they of your organization or another) and then....simply hold onto them. Without the inconvenience of caravans - and note, I am glad they are gone now - this means that a sole player can simply log on, purchase all the commodities that your organization needs for food, inrift them, and then log off.
This has already happened once in Khandava, and although remedied swiftly by the citizen in question, raises a definite concern. There would be nothing to stop someone from doing this endlessly in a fit of pique. Unless you obsessively check your revlogs, you may not even notice that this is occuring. You can also (fun fact) purchase from commshops that do not belong to your city/council.
6. Horde Caravans
I do kind of love the idea of this, but will express a dislike that it has turned into another PK-centric event. While the orcs are too difficult to kill without a decently sized group, the general consensus seems to be to let another faction power them down, and then PK the daylights out of them to steal the caravan itself.
If the orcs were a little tamer, or perhaps there were caravans specific council/city channels (in addition to the PK-able ones outside the immediate area), I think it could be an engaging common goal for members of an organization to work toward that was also inclusive to our more PVE players and lowbies.
7. Townes: General Worth
All in all, one frustration that I do have with the system as it is, is that it essentially has made townes less 'useable' for players. While they are a necessity for commodity production, in order to keep enemies out of your comms, you basically need to camp all of your guards in one location. This leaves enemy players free to amble around the towne, spamming up your townetells with a hundred pointless NPC deaths.
It also makes it substantially more difficult than it already was to move housing plots. I know that I have voiced similar frustrations with this before, but with the lack of security features within Guildhalls and Houses (and now Townes), there really remains no reason to purchase the former or spend time in the latter. In the two years that have elapsed since the Tzolkin guildhall was input, I have not been able to encourage players to linger inside or engage in the random bells/whistles that were instituted due to the security risk that it poses to do so.
Unless there are alterations made, I feel that townes (which were already in that category) will move even beyond that, as we must now choose between clotting our defenses on the commshop, or defending the general towne and risking the commshop being plundered.
That said, I hope that no one is discouraged by the feedback I have provided. As a whole, I think that the system has a great potential, and that the inclusion of other faction caravans, it could become quite innovative.
Currently, there is a quest you can complete to up your towne's production amounts. The item that you receive is supposed to impact the production rate for one IG year, but resets after 2 days. This was tested with Mylani earlier, and subsequently bugged.
I won't speak to the rest of your points, because others are better able to do so, but I can say with confidence that this particular bug has been fixed.
With the advent of this change, it also appears that all townes' production rates were set to 'Abysmal'. While there may be a reason for this that I am currently unaware of, it makes it quite difficult to plan for the future when you have to begin by scraping the bottom of the barrel. I would much rather have seen these set to 'Average' or 'Neutral' while we work on discovering the mechanics of the system, ensuring that we are still able to produce sufficient commodoties to feed our towne and city guards.
Sounds like a bug, I'll investigate.
3. Townes: Figurine
Currently, there is a quest you can complete to up your towne's production amounts. The item that you receive is supposed to impact the production rate for one IG year, but resets after 2 days. This was tested with Mylani earlier, and subsequently bugged.
The 2-day reset is a rather weird bug (it's set to an IG year). Investigation pending.
4. Guards & Food
Tying in with the above points, and granted, there is no true way for me to gauge this as we have been set to Abysmal/not seen the upper limits of production, it also seems a statistical impossibility that we will be able to generate enough food commodities in our townes to actually feed our city guards. I know that currently, with the figurine, my towne is only capable of producing 20 crop/livestock a month at 'Poor'.
[cut]
On the same note, is there any way the information on how much food each guard type eats in a month could be inserted into a helpfile?
Sure on the helpfile, as for the rest, will see how things looks like once the two bugs above are squashed. The intent is that roughly 70% of materials come from townes and 30% from caravans, the ratio may however change.
5. Purchase of Base Comms
This ties into feeding guards as well. One alarming difference in the way that comms are now being handled, is that another player may simply purchase all the available commodities in your commshop (be they of your organization or another) and then....simply hold onto them. Without the inconvenience of caravans - and note, I am glad they are gone now - this means that a sole player can simply log on, purchase all the commodities that your organization needs for food, inrift them, and then log off.
This has already happened once in Khandava, and although remedied swiftly by the citizen in question, raises a definite concern. There would be nothing to stop someone from doing this endlessly in a fit of pique. Unless you obsessively check your revlogs, you may not even notice that this is occuring. You can also (fun fact) purchase from commshops that do not belong to your city/council.
All purchases are in revlogs, will look into some additional measures if that is not enough.
6. Horde Caravans
I do kind of love the idea of this, but will express a dislike that it has turned into another PK-centric event. While the orcs are too difficult to kill without a decently sized group, the general consensus seems to be to let another faction power them down, and then PK the daylights out of them to steal the caravan itself.
If the orcs were a little tamer, or perhaps there were caravans specific council/city channels (in addition to the PK-able ones outside the immediate area), I think it could be an engaging common goal for members of an organization to work toward that was also inclusive to our more PVE players and lowbies.
Not sure what you mean by caravan-specific city/council channels? For new players, the figurine quests exist, the caravans themselves aren't really meant for them, though I'm always open to ideas in this regard.
7. Townes: General Worth
All in all, one frustration that I do have with the system as it is, is that it essentially has made townes less 'useable' for players. While they are a necessity for commodity production, in order to keep enemies out of your comms, you basically need to camp all of your guards in one location. This leaves enemy players free to amble around the towne, spamming up your townetells with a hundred pointless NPC deaths.
Yup, hence the Defensive tactics shard tree. Whether it will be enough I have no idea (we'll most likely need to do something more beyond that), but I definitely want to discourage the "all guards in a single room" approach.
So, dude. What's the reasoning on some of the caravan rewards? Namely the fake-shards and the rats?
When we see that rats make up like 20-50% of a caravan at times, it's really no wonder that the horde got its **** kicked. They really need to step up their quality control because this is just ridiculous. You can't maintain an army when the rats eat all the noms.
System wise, it's disheartening as a player to have to dunk a team 5 times in pk, juggle 4 shard walls, manage 3 caravans, kill 10-30 orcs, and then get rewarded with 0 quartz, 2 cows, a gallon of water, 20 gold and some rats. It reminds me of grad school, except it's ramen instead of rats.
This could use a little bit more variation in your caravans...or, better yet, undead caravans. Right now, the caravans are relegated to the routes between gongen/scourge/nagmara/schrov'ik. That's a really small part of the world. Could you establish new horde outposts (the ones outside cities maybe from the event) for longer (larger) caravans that have more time to marco polo? Or you know, undead caravans could be neat.
**Anyone else notice that Imperian has british flavor to it but we're measuring water in gallons?
You can't maintain an army when the rats eat all the noms.
This is the Horde; the rats are the noms.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
We'll be adding more trading outposts, yes. Not sure what you mean by fake-shards.
When you kill the orc guards, sometimes they will drop the black mithril shards (that I guess used to be what the orcs in Erorag would sometimes drop?).
Towne desirability wasn't intended to be reset on the change. We've boosted the desirability for all townes up into the "Alright" (averageish) range - this was a boost, not a flat set, so those of you that have put work into raising it kept that work.
The numbers for towne production may change as we assess where they currently sit.
We'll be adding more trading outposts, yes. Not sure what you mean by fake-shards.
When you kill the orc guards, sometimes they will drop the black mithril shards (that I guess used to be what the orcs in Erorag would sometimes drop?).
There are some holdover/side effect loot drops on some of the guards. We'll be fixing these up over the next few days.
2. Townes: Production Sounds like a bug, I'll investigate. Awesome, thank you!
4. Guards & Food
Sure on the helpfile, as for the rest, will see how things looks like once the two bugs above are squashed. The intent is that roughly 70% of materials come from townes and 30% from caravans, the ratio may however change.
Part of my point here, I guess, is that being shove into another forced PK system isn't fun. With shard research, it doesn't seem as imperative, as if I decide to take a break from shardfalls, I just don't end up with shard abilities.
If I decide that I'd like a break from jumping horde caravans and subsequently both getting brutalized by orcs if I don't have more than 6+ people on and then getting rolled over by enemy PKers once the orcs have been knocked down, the retribution is that I don't have enough food to feed the guards and then get rolled over by enemy PKers anyways.
This theorizes that A) I am able to successfully plunder the caravan That I survive the wave of PK and C) I get something useful from plundering.
5. Purchase of Base Comms
All purchases are in revlogs, will look into some additional measures if that is not enough.
I know that you can see these in revlogs (Aleutia has been checking them obsessively to make sure this doesn't happen again, as well as spending the whole week doing a ridiculous amount of math to ensure we aren't losing money), but that doesn't stop one person from consistently logging in and hoarding everything. We could theoretically enemy them while logged off, thus ensuring that they die on re-login, but we are still out the comms that they squirreled away over time, as the items are riftable and you don't have to turn in a caravan on them anymore.
What if purchase of comms in a towne loyal to your city/council automatically resulted in them being refined by the city/council you are loyal to? This still allows for the plunder command and accounts for outliers.
You could even throw in a message like "Purchasing x amount of comms, NPC packages up a bundle and sends it whizzing down the path toward the council" or something and make it so the message (like the storage attendant) was customizable.
6. Horde Caravans
Not sure what you mean by caravan-specific city/council channels? For new players, the figurine quests exist, the caravans themselves aren't really meant for them, though I'm always open to ideas in this regard.
If I were a new player and was asked if I would rather be included in an awesome orc-smashing caravan raid or water some strawberries, I 10/10 know which one I would choose. As systems become less and less inclusive/engaging for our newer players, we will continue to lose more of them.
By city/council caravans, I meant that in addition to the broad-range Horde caravans that are announced on every city/council's CT, there could also be specific caravans that only show on one org's CT and are in the area. So say, there would be Horde/Undead caravans that travel through the Areish and are only announced on Khandava's CT, or travel near the Parans and are only announced for Antioch. This would allow our PVE players and younger players a chance to get in on the excitement without getting rolled over by enemies after killing all the orcs, and provide a more inclusive system.
I also think that if 70% of all non-vital comms came from townes and 30% from caravans, that would be totally fine. But when we are talking vital comms, such as food for our city guards, we should be able to provide what we need from townes (or combination townes & PVE caravans specific to orgs).
7. Townes: General Worth
Yup, hence the Defensive tactics shard tree. Whether it will be enough I have no idea (we'll most likely need to do something more beyond that), but I definitely want to discourage the "all guards in a single room" approach.
I do see the defensive tactics shared tree, with level one listed as 'Guards of the Knight type now do 50% more damage against prone enemies'. Without being able to see the remainder of the skills for it, it sounds as if the majority of the unlocks may be guard centric. With the limited number of guards able to be purchased by a towne, it still would make the most sense to keep the clotted in the commshop at this rate.
It is also asking us to invest comms into the shard tree, while simultaneously juggling the new production system and not knowing if we will have enough food to feed our guards once the current stocks are depleted, and we are relying solely upon towne stocks and caravans. For instance, 40k leather. I certainly won't be refining leather from livestock, when I don't know how guard-feeding will pan out and could turn it into meat instead. Alive, guaranteed guards are more useful to towne security than the maybe of having super-guards and not enough comms to feed them.
I would just like it to be feasible for us to use our townes, I suppose, without risking security compromise of this level. As I said before, it's sort of the same thing as guildhalls/housing right now. No one wants to be involved in it because it's a security risk. This is now coupled with the fact that the new system seems very PK-centric again. I know that PK is a driving force, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone their PK, I know some of us love it, but it can be frustrating to see another solely PK system put into place for something as simple as trade.
I guess what I'm really looking for in this is options.
Thank you @Garryn and @Eoghan for the prompt responses on this, and explaining the reasoning behind some of the points listed, as well as the super-quick fixes in the case of 'Abysmal' production and the towne figurines. I really appreciate it.
Will reply more tomorrow, for now - the numbers on shard skill costs are chosen so that the existing stockpiles (combines for both cities in each circle) can cover it. You shouldn't need to refine new comms to handle those costs (unless I miscalculated something, anyway).
Could we get either get a "SELL ALL LUMBER"? Having to sell everything to the commshop by specific numbers is frustrating and leads to the "hold down SELL LUMBER" thing that clogs up logs for no reason.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Could we get either get a "SELL ALL LUMBER"? Having to sell everything to the commshop by specific numbers is frustrating and leads to the "hold down SELL LUMBER" thing that clogs up logs for no reason.
You can do SELL <#> <thing> to do it at once. Not sure if you can do like, SELL 50 LUMBER and have it autorift up to 50 lumber out and sell, but maybe?
I'd be okay with BUY ALL LUMBER, BUY ALL COMMS(only in towne commshops), and SELL ALL COMMS as well, but those would all be secondary to a SELL ALL LUMBER command.
Dicene said: If I'm not mistaken, it's not autorifting comms when you sell them. So you have to outr all lumber, sell <number> lumber. Not a terrible burden, but if you're running 15 comms over 5 townes, can be a bit of a hassle. While we're at it, I'd be okay with buy all lumber as well. =P
Not sure what you're doing but I just tested it at the Antioch refinery with SELL 15 WATER and it autorifted for me.
Can something be done about the Scepters of Protection/Repulsion/Whatever Iniar has during caravans?
The ability to eject the entire room is so amazingly powerful in this situation, especially if you're not trying to harvest the caravan yourself and you're just denying them the caravan by flinging them out of the room and letting it roll on.
I understand that the sceptres are supposed to be powerful, but the time windows on caravans are so tight that the sceptres are quite ludicrously powerful in this type of PvP; while they may not be an outright "I win" button, they're certainly effective as a "you lose" button.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
e2: I'm actually going to say that caravans are probably the perfect situation for my sceptres: alas, in this Imperian meta where AM outnumbers the Horde caravan guards, if the path is long and slow, you're going to get it anyway - I'd probably never even bother with my sceptres. This way, at least I have -some- use for something I paid a great deal of $$$ for. Finally: with research, I suspect the pathing will be much clearer and interceptable-er, so uh, your concern may not be that legit given time. Stop being like me, the master alarmist.
Comments
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Sounds like a bug, I'll investigate.
Awesome, thank you!
4. Guards & Food
Sure on the helpfile, as for the rest, will see how things looks like once the two bugs above are squashed. The intent is that roughly 70% of materials come from townes and 30% from caravans, the ratio may however change.
Part of my point here, I guess, is that being shove into another forced PK system isn't fun. With shard research, it doesn't seem as imperative, as if I decide to take a break from shardfalls, I just don't end up with shard abilities.
If I decide that I'd like a break from jumping horde caravans and subsequently both getting brutalized by orcs if I don't have more than 6+ people on and then getting rolled over by enemy PKers once the orcs have been knocked down, the retribution is that I don't have enough food to feed the guards and then get rolled over by enemy PKers anyways.
This theorizes that A) I am able to successfully plunder the caravan
That I survive the wave of PK and C) I get something useful from plundering.
5. Purchase of Base Comms
All purchases are in revlogs, will look into some additional measures if that is not enough.
I know that you can see these in revlogs (Aleutia has been checking them obsessively to make sure this doesn't happen again, as well as spending the whole week doing a ridiculous amount of math to ensure we aren't losing money), but that doesn't stop one person from consistently logging in and hoarding everything. We could theoretically enemy them while logged off, thus ensuring that they die on re-login, but we are still out the comms that they squirreled away over time, as the items are riftable and you don't have to turn in a caravan on them anymore.
What if purchase of comms in a towne loyal to your city/council automatically resulted in them being refined by the city/council you are loyal to? This still allows for the plunder command and accounts for outliers.
You could even throw in a message like "Purchasing x amount of comms, NPC packages up a bundle and sends it whizzing down the path toward the council" or something and make it so the message (like the storage attendant) was customizable.
6. Horde Caravans
Not sure what you mean by caravan-specific city/council channels? For new players, the figurine quests exist, the caravans themselves aren't really meant for them, though I'm always open to ideas in this regard.
If I were a new player and was asked if I would rather be included in an awesome orc-smashing caravan raid or water some strawberries, I 10/10 know which one I would choose. As systems become less and less inclusive/engaging for our newer players, we will continue to lose more of them.
By city/council caravans, I meant that in addition to the broad-range Horde caravans that are announced on every city/council's CT, there could also be specific caravans that only show on one org's CT and are in the area. So say, there would be Horde/Undead caravans that travel through the Areish and are only announced on Khandava's CT, or travel near the Parans and are only announced for Antioch. This would allow our PVE players and younger players a chance to get in on the excitement without getting rolled over by enemies after killing all the orcs, and provide a more inclusive system.
I also think that if 70% of all non-vital comms came from townes and 30% from caravans, that would be totally fine. But when we are talking vital comms, such as food for our city guards, we should be able to provide what we need from townes (or combination townes & PVE caravans specific to orgs).
7. Townes: General Worth
Yup, hence the Defensive tactics shard tree. Whether it will be enough I have no idea (we'll most likely need to do something more beyond that), but I definitely want to discourage the "all guards in a single room" approach.
I do see the defensive tactics shared tree, with level one listed as 'Guards of the Knight type now do 50% more damage against prone enemies'. Without being able to see the remainder of the skills for it, it sounds as if the majority of the unlocks may be guard centric. With the limited number of guards able to be purchased by a towne, it still would make the most sense to keep the clotted in the commshop at this rate.
It is also asking us to invest comms into the shard tree, while simultaneously juggling the new production system and not knowing if we will have enough food to feed our guards once the current stocks are depleted, and we are relying solely upon towne stocks and caravans. For instance, 40k leather. I certainly won't be refining leather from livestock, when I don't know how guard-feeding will pan out and could turn it into meat instead. Alive, guaranteed guards are more useful to towne security than the maybe of having super-guards and not enough comms to feed them.
I would just like it to be feasible for us to use our townes, I suppose, without risking security compromise of this level. As I said before, it's sort of the same thing as guildhalls/housing right now. No one wants to be involved in it because it's a security risk. This is now coupled with the fact that the new system seems very PK-centric again. I know that PK is a driving force, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone their PK, I know some of us love it, but it can be frustrating to see another solely PK system put into place for something as simple as trade.
I guess what I'm really looking for in this is options.
Thank you @Garryn and @Eoghan for the prompt responses on this, and explaining the reasoning behind some of the points listed, as well as the super-quick fixes in the case of 'Abysmal' production and the towne figurines. I really appreciate it.
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Can something be done about the Scepters of Protection/Repulsion/Whatever Iniar has during caravans?
The ability to eject the entire room is so amazingly powerful in this situation, especially if you're not trying to harvest the caravan yourself and you're just denying them the caravan by flinging them out of the room and letting it roll on.
I understand that the sceptres are supposed to be powerful, but the time windows on caravans are so tight that the sceptres are quite ludicrously powerful in this type of PvP; while they may not be an outright "I win" button, they're certainly effective as a "you lose" button.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."