Topics

31

Game Balance Discussion / Make shield difficulty Strength based

« on: February 24, 2012, 10:40:55 pm »

OK - I'm tired of all the "archery is OP" whines and the "I can't use a shield because i can't spare the skill points" excuses.  So a simple solution that i'm sure has been asked for before.

Make shield difficulty (not skill) Strength based

Archery gets a slight nerf due to more people having shields but is still capable of actually killing people.  Meanwhile 2H and Polearm users get their main excuse for not using a shield removed.  It even ticks the realism box.

EDIT: Added a poll so people can vote

32

Game Balance Discussion / Kicking vs Shield

« on: February 14, 2012, 07:24:04 pm »

I'd like to suggest the following change that will hopefully be possible using WSE that would make shield walls a bit more useful imo.

Whenever you kick somebody that is blocking with a shield, it takes your strength and their shield skill into account to decide if the kick is successful.

I would say that Strength has to be greater than the shielders base skill + 2x the shield wall boost.  This means that shield walls with the current skill boosts will become extremely difficult to break up with kicks and they will require Maulers and Cav to break them (or superior tactics).  Meanwhile a lone shielder is still easy to kick as even if they have 13 shield skill, you only need 14 strength to successfully kick them.

Failed kicks that still connect should still stun the shielder but in a way that does not remove their blocking shield.  This means they can't retaliate, but they aren't left vulnerable either.

EDIT:  Just realised the maths didn't quite work so I've changed it slightly

33

Strategus General Discussion / Signing up against your faction

« on: February 03, 2012, 02:59:57 pm »

Are you allowed to sign up against you own clan or has special exception been given to Crusader Alliance?

15+ Crusaders currently signed up for Fishara

I have no idea how Crusaders lost all their fiefs in the first place so if it was a bug and they have been given permission then fair enough

34

Strategus General Discussion / Strat Raiding Suggestion

« on: January 30, 2012, 11:49:13 pm »

Yet another idea

Option to immediately sell all raided goods after a battle at a price of 15 * Distance Bonus. 

So if you raid a caravan 20km from where it came from you will get approx 19 gold per stolen good
If you raid a Caravan 100km from where it came from you will get approx 70 gold per stolen good

Notes
- The distance bonus is based on the distance of the battle from the site of crafting
- The option is only available for 1 hour after a battle and can only be used on the goods captured in that battle

Impact on Strat
- Raiders no longer need to escape with their stolen goods. 
- Distance bonus is still taken into account so picking targets is more important
- Prices are not as good as if you actually take them into a fief so its a choice between a quick but modest profit, or a larger but risky profit
- Raiders can still get stomped by factions to wipe out their troops/equipment but at least they get some gold
- This change will see more raiders since raiding will actually be viable
- The increased raiding will lead to better armed caravans which should then bring raiding back into line

35

Strategus General Discussion / Equipment Crafting Suggestion

« on: January 30, 2012, 12:05:12 am »

Allow Battle Commanders to gain automatic and non-random equipment crafting skills according to the gear used in their battles

I'd say you should gain 1 skill point for every 50 of an item used in battle.

So if I fight a battle and use 150 Lordly Light Kuyaks - then I will gain 3 skill points in Lordly Light Kuyaks. 

Further Notes
- It is based on items used and lost.  So it only counts if someone dies with the item on them.  This means you won't gain anything if your enemy is a no show.
- The numbers should be cumulative between battles - so if you use 50 of something spread over 3 battles then that still gets you your skill point.
- Battle Commander skill should be limited to 40 skill points so that the individual crafters are still important.
- Skills gained by commanders are seperate from skills gained by chadz text and will therefore not go down when you get chadz text for using different equipment.
- Your total skill = chadz text skill + Battle Commander skill
- It doesn't matter if you win or lose the battle

PROs
- Reward for fighting wars either defensively or offensively, win or lose.
- Reward for proper raiding with actual battles over picking off unarmed, 0 troop targets.
- Greater control of clans over what they gain skills in.
- No need to lower Strat Prices anymore since clans will naturally gain more skill in what they want to use as they progress through the game.
- Less importance on the loss of equipment through battles as it will be cheaper to replace the lost items as you lose them.
- Chance for high level Chars to gain skills by leading armies.
- Added choice for clans to either start quick using peasant gear and then have to start using better gear from scratch later on, OR a clan can start slow with good gear and get a headstart for the late game.
- Landless clans that are still active fighting can gain these skills.

CONs
- Big clans benefit more than loners because they will be involved in bigger battles with more troops/equipment.  However big clans already benefit and at least this way loners can craft everything they want to use instead of just what they can carry in cRPG. 

36

Strategus General Discussion / Battle Roster Sizes Idea

« on: January 28, 2012, 06:43:58 pm »

Would it be possible to have a system where you can sign up 20% more people up for your battles than there are places on your roster but only the correct number of people can be spawned at once?  So in the battle there is effectively a queue to spawn and when you die you join the back of the queue.  This means the number of people sawned is alwasy the same, but people can have breaks in the longer battles and factions can use subs.

Other pro's include
- No shows are less of an issue since their are already subs on the roster
- More people can get involved in Strat Battles
- People who die less get more battle time whilst those that waste their lives will spend more time in the queue
- If someone has to leave early - they have a sub to take their place
- People can rotate in large battles

Possible addition
- Commanders can pick upto X people to queue jump where X = 20% of the orster size.  These people will always respawn straight away.  If you want everybody to instantly spawn then just don't pick any extras

37

Game Balance Discussion / [Stat changes] Ranged

« on: January 23, 2012, 02:53:12 pm »

Ok, so we've had the ranged nerf and the Devs aren't showing much intent towards reversing or reducing it so i think its time to accept it and move on to the next step in this change.....rebalancing of stats within the xbow and bow classes.

Currently the best bows are the cheaper lighter ones since they are accurate enough to just go for head shots.  This obviously means that archers end up with more arrows (1 slot bow instaed of 2 slot) and more athletics (less PD needed).  All in all once the rage quiters come back and adapt we'll just end up with lots of fast moving spamming archers paying very little upkeep and making a lot of cash.  Xbows are a bit different but whilst i have the time I figure i'll do them too

So here goes:

BOWS

Short Bow
Price: 871
missile speed: 35
weight: 1
accuracy: 95
difficulty: 1
speed rating: 75
thrust damage: 14 cut
slots: 1

Bow
Price: 2155
missile speed: 36
weight: 1
accuracy: 96
difficulty: 2
speed rating: 72
thrust damage: 17 cut
slots: 1

Nomad Bow
Price: 4087
missile speed: 37
weight: 1.2
accuracy: 97
difficulty: 3
speed rating: 69
thrust damage: 20 cut
slots: 1

Tatar Bow
Price: 6474
missile speed: 38
weight: 1.2
accuracy: 98
difficulty: 4
speed rating: 66
thrust damage: 23 cut
slots: 1

Horn Bow
Price: 8896
missile speed: 39
weight: 1.2
accuracy: 99
difficulty: 5
speed rating: 61
thrust damage: 26 cut
slots: 1

Rus Bow
Price: 9974
missile speed: 40
weight: 1.5
accuracy: 100
difficulty: 6
speed rating: 56
thrust damage: 29 cut
slots: 2

Long Bow
Price: 11100
missile speed: 41
weight: 1.7
accuracy: 101
difficulty: 7
speed rating: 51
thrust damage: 32 cut
slots: 2

Overall the low end bows are generally nerfed and the high end bows are slightly buffed in order to creater a greater difference between each bow.  The Longbow's buffs all round are balanced by upping it to 7 difficulty.  I've not done anything to the Yumi since I believe it has skewed stats to discourage over use of it.  Prices of the 1 slot bows have also been increased slightly to mirror their increased useage.

I'd prefer to see more varied and drastic changes to archery that take peoples style preferences into account - but they are complicated so a simple rebalance of bows would be good for now.

CROSSBOWS

Hunting Crossbow
missile speed: 42
weight: 2.2
accuracy: 81
difficulty: 3
speed rating: 165
thrust damage: 37 pierce
slots: 1

Light Crossbow
missile speed: 46
weight: 2.5
accuracy: 83
difficulty: 6
speed rating: 148
thrust damage: 49 pierce
slots: 1

Crossbow
missile speed: 50
weight: 3
accuracy: 85
difficulty: 9
speed rating: 122
thrust damage: 61 pierce
slots: 2

Heavy Crossbow
missile speed: 54
weight: 3.5
accuracy: 87
difficulty: 12
speed rating: 100
thrust damage: 73 pierce
slots: 2

Arbalest
missile speed: 58
weight: 3.7
accuracy: 89
difficulty: 15
speed rating: 78
thrust damage: 85 pierce
slots: 2

So overall some basic damage buffs to the heavier crossbows, some missile speed buffs to the mid range crossbows, some difficulty rebalances that won't effect much and a chage of the crossbow to 2 slots to prevent its use as a sidearm. These changes should make the mid tier Xbows useable again but won't bring them anywhere near what they had before.


The damage buffs used above for xbows may not be balanced against bows but a further stat buff to all xbows is easy enough to do in the future if it is though necessary.  My aim was not to balance bow and xbows as classes, it was merely to balance the individual weapons within the 2 classes to make sure the more expensive weapons are still the most desireable.

38

Strategus General Discussion / Neutral Faction and fief reports

« on: January 14, 2012, 12:45:28 pm »

Two ideas for Strat

1)  Fief reports
- When in a fief you get a 4th "report" option alongside beg, craft and recruit
- When set to report you send info to a Fief Info page every hour
- Info displayed = good price, prosperity, goods type crafted, population, garrison, money, visiting fee and transaction tax
- Possibly the info could be staggered so that some of it takes 2 or more hours of reporting to appear
- The reports on your clans info page (other than your own reports) are only visible to rank 5 and above and say how many hours/days old they are.
- After 7 days the report disappears

Basic idea is to simplify faction organisation in a way that still requires activity.  It only sacrifices an hour of production and only costs the visiting fee to do.  It also ties in with the 2nd idea below

2) Create a proper Neutral Faction in Strat
- Everybody gets automatically assigned to the neutral faction when they enter Strat (no need to apply or be accepted)
- If you join a proper faction then obviously you leave the neutral faction
- Neutrals CANNOT see each other like other factions (perk of being in a proper faction)
- If a neutral gets attacked, their roster is auto managed by the AI in the same way as a neutral fief
- At any point however, the neutral player may take over their roster management by ticking a box
- Neutrals can also use the reports described above to identify good trade routes
- Neutrals DO NOT effect efficiency in fiefs so factions will welcome them and lots of neutrals in one place will not be a bad thing
- When applying for neutral rosters (inc neutral fief defenses) neutral players get a 10% bonus to their XP (perk of being neutral).  For instance, a neutral with 10m XP will be considered to have 11m XP and will therefore get in ahead of someone with 10.5m XP on a neutral roster
- If a neutral ever attacks anything they are branded an outlaw for 10 mins per troops in their army, starting from when the battle ends. So 60 troops = 10 hours
- Being branded an outlaw changes your faction name to "Outlaw" and your faction colour to Black
- Outlaws MUST manage their own rosters and do not get the perks of being a neutral
- Outlaws get slightly increased movement speed (10% - perk of being an outlaw)
- Once your outlaw time is up you get automatically re-added to the neutral faction

Basic idea is to collect neutrals and new players together into an unofficial faction so that it is easier for them to get into Strat

39

Realism Discussion / All unbalanced weapons should be unsheathable

« on: January 13, 2012, 05:04:33 pm »

It just makes sense - you would have to spend 5 minutes strapping a Great Maul to your back in order to secure it sufficiently to allow you to run without it flapping about and seriously annoying you

It also probably balances them out a bit

40

Strategus General Discussion / Discussion and trolling opportunity :D

« on: January 09, 2012, 09:23:09 pm »

Situation 1
- Being able to attack your own fief is reported as a bug, although it is never acknowledged as such by Devs
- Fallen then deliberately use that bug to gain a Strat advantage over another clan
- Devs immediately hit Fallen with a punishment to remove the advantage gained

Situation 2
- Union attack a Castle and an equipment bug is discovered and reported where the castles wastes its gold on Dresses
- The bug is then acknowledged and assigned to chadz in the new MantisBT tracking system
- DRZ and Hospitaller have since attacked castles as well
- Whilst it can be weakly argued that DRZ and Hospitaller were not aware of the bug on their initial castle attacks, DRZ have since made 2 further Castle attacks and gained an advantage in Strat
- Devs have immediately............ ?

Pot stirred.  Time to sit back and see who bites   Unless of course everybody really has given up on Strat and no longer cares ;)

41

Game Balance Discussion / Secondary Mode

« on: January 06, 2012, 03:58:23 pm »

Two questions rather than a suggestion.  Sorry if it in the wrong place.

1) How does switching to secondary modes effect item stats?

Is it a set penalty for all items used in secondary mode? Or a set stat change based on what modes you are switching from and to (i.e. 2H -> 1H is different to 1H -> 2H)?  Or is it based on individual items which each item having set secondary mode stats unique to that item?

2) Does using a spear with a shield count as the spear being used in secondary mode or have some other such penalties?

42

Strategus General Discussion / Why the distance bonuses need changing part 2

« on: December 23, 2011, 04:26:48 pm »

Part 1 was an attempt to get the distance bonuses changed because they devalued the central villages on the map as they had nowhere to trade with in order to get the best trade bonuses.  This  disadvantages anybody settling there in terms of economy when personally I feel these villages should be the best economically as they are in theory the hardest to hold.  Unless of course the people in the middle have lots of allies propping them up ;)

See - http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,21863.0.html

My arguments were countered by the fact that these villages can dominate the trade routes giving the owners a chance to make cash from raiding.  So rather than continue to fight using my orignal argument i've decided to move on to another argument in order to try and get the trade bonuses changed.

So, on to part 2

Currently the maximum distances between fiefs on the map are between EU fiefs.  Kulum -> Bariyye is 143463m (thanks to the Wolves spreadsheet for the value).  This can be travelled without having to set foot in NA territory.  Meanwhile the best NA trade route possible is Odasan -> Asuagan Castle which is only 103304m.  The difference in bonuses between these 2 routes is approximately 100% making the best EU route far more profitable than the best NA route.

To make matters worse, there are actually only 2 NA trade routes over 100km, whereas there are over 50 potential EU routes over 100km.  50% more routes over 100km makes sense as EU is supposed to be 50% bigger. 2400% more routes over 100km is just daft!

Finally, for all those people who say the NA guys should just use both sides of the map and travel into EU territory.  Why should they have to risk fighting on the wrong server when the EU guys don't have to?  The NA/EU divide was brought in so that people didn't have to do this so why force NA players back across it?

Before anybody says anything I'm an EU player so i'm not crying about being disadvantaged myself here.  I just seriously think the trade bonus system is flawed.

So to the Devs -
you won't change trade bonuses beacause they encourage carebears
you won't change trade bonuses beacause they disadvantage people holding the central fiefs without lots of allies
so please will you change trade bonuses so that they peak at around 50km, because it goes against the whole point of the NA/EU divide?

43

Strategus General Discussion / [Suggestion] Server Primetimes

« on: December 17, 2011, 05:13:51 pm »

How about introducing a 6 hour server primetime that overrides any individual player's nighttimes?

EU could have 15:00-21:00 GMT+0 as primetime which would be reasonable for anybody up to GMT+4 and should therefore cover most EU players

NA could have the same but based on Pacific time instead.  So primetime would be 15:00 - 21:00 Pacific Time which will cover people on the east coast nicely.

Further notes
- This is bit unfair on Aussies and Asians, but if there are enough of them to matter then they should really be getting their own server and having their own section of the map with their own primetime.  No offence intended ofc.
- Possibly, neutral players could be exempt from the primetime as they have no-one else to manage rosters for them.  There would need to be some sort of cooldown on gaining your exemption after leaving a faction to prevent abuse. 24 hours should be enough.
- Neutral fiefs could be set to only be attackable during primetime.  Not 100% decided on this myself though yet.
- Player nighttimes could be extended to 12 hours so that they cover a larger window allowing more time for sleep/work.  They can't dosrupt the server primetime so i don't think it would hurt.

44

Strategus General Discussion / Strat Suggestion - Houses

« on: December 15, 2011, 04:00:06 pm »

The suggestion is pretty simple but requires 5 initial changes to Strat to work

(click to show/hide)

1) Anybody with 0 troops and 0 crates should be invisible to everybody else on the Strat Map
2) Crafting as it is now is removed from the game and replaced with the main house building idea below
3) If you own the fief you can conscript troops on the spot.  However house crafting efficiencies are dependent on fief pop % so it will hinder crafting
4) Visiting Fees are removed and trade tax rates are limited to 50% and take 1 week to come into effect after they are changed.
5) You can only sell goods in Towns

So on to the idea itself   - Allow people to build ther own house in either a Village or Town

Building a House in a Village does the following

(click to show/hide)

- Removes your char from the Strat Map
- Adds 5 to the max pop of the village
- Generates 1 Good per hour for free.  This rate is then multiplied by the fief population % which is used as the efficiency.
- Automatically uploads those goods to the village marketplace at a price that you set and can change
- Protects you from being kicked from the village and hides your name from anybody outside your clan
- Gaurantees you roster priority for the defence of the village if it is still neutral
- Automatically transfers all your gold to your cRPG main

Bulding a House in a Town does the following

(click to show/hide)

- Removes your char from the Strat Map.
- Adds 5 to the max pop of the Town.
- Allows you to craft equipment for free with an efficiency% equal to your crafting skill multiplied by 100 and divided by the item's base Strat price.  So Axe crafting (15 base price) with a skill of 30 = 200% efficiency = 48 per day = 672 gold per day if sold for 14 gold.   Plated Charger crafting (2624 base price) with a skill of 30 = 1.14% efficiency = 0.3 per day = 750 gold per day if sold for 2500 gold.
- Automatically uploads your equipment to the Town Marketplace at a price that you set and can change
- Protects you from being kicked from the Town and hides your name from anybody outside your clan.
- Gaurantees you roster priority for the defence of the Town if it is still neutral.
- Automatically transfers all your gold to your cRPG main

Further notes to avoid exploits

(click to show/hide)

- You must have 0 troops and 0 equipment/goods in order to build your house
- You can sell your house whenever you want but it takes 24 hours.
- If you sell your house there is a further 1 week cooldown before you can rebuild in the same place or elsewhere

The impact of this idea

(click to show/hide)

- First of all anybody and everybody will effectively be able to join a mini clan by building a house in a neutral village or Town
- Building a house means you support a local economy open to all instead of just your own clan.  This lessens the gap between the smallest and largest clans and grinders are universally accessible to all.
- People that aren't particularly interested in Strat can use it to make cRPG money for their main if they build a house.
- If a lot of people build in the same place it will increase recruitment capacity and give the village/town extra tickets.  But it will also increase competition and therefore lower prices.
- Fief Owners will have to carefully consider their tax rates, as if they are too high they will drive out the crafters as they will be the ones paying the tax when a trader buys their goods.  Driving out crafters will reduce the fiefs recruiting rate and also the number of troops that can be conscripted.
- Crafters that do get driven out will be able to move freely around the map without being seen so that they can re-home
- The invisible chars will also open up the possibility of spying in Strat but you pay for it as the spy cannot be productive for their clan.
- With less people visible on the Strat map their will be far less characters running around and therefore far fewer pointless battles.
- If you go on holiday you can build a house and know that your char is safe, and is making you money.
- For equipment crafters, it doesn't really matter what you make, it is your skill that matters.  Again though, if too many people craft the same stuff then prices will be driven down

Further possibilities

(click to show/hide)

- House improvements.  Use cRPG gold to make your house better in Strat either with real benefits or just e-peen benefits
- Fief democracy - voting to hand your fief over to a Strat Char
- Fief Democracy - voting in a Village Elder or Town Mayor that has certain powers that i've yet to think of

45

Strategus General Discussion / What is the aim of Strategus?

« on: December 10, 2011, 10:25:20 pm »

I've been playing this game for a long time now and have made many suggestions that would make the game better in my eyes.  I have always based the ideas (rightly or wrongly) around the idea that Strategus is meant to be a persistent world that once finished and set going, will never need resetting and will dynamically shift with its population, always leaving room for new clans/people whilst naturally countering factions & Empires that over expand. 

At the moment though, Strategus gameplay seems to be more like a short term war game, where clans use diplomacy, backstabbing and anything else they can think of to knock all their rivals out of the game entirely.  Once they have suceeded in taking over the entire map with their Mega Alliance then Strat either dies, or restarts with a new map and therefore a new challenge.

Neither option is wrong but they are mutually exclusive in my eyes and right now I think that Strat is hovering between the 2 options.  It would be nice if chadz could confirm which way he actually wants Strat to go so that I (and others) can tailor our ideas to match.  Or maybe there is some other aim i'm missing?  Either way, it will save a lot of people a lot of time and typing if they new before hand whether or not their ideas take Strat in the right direction.

Failing that I've added a poll to see where the vocal minority of Strat want it to go ;)