cRPG

Strategus => Strategus General Discussion => Topic started by: Crazyi on March 20, 2012, 10:00:53 pm

Title: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Crazyi on March 20, 2012, 10:00:53 pm
So I've been thinking on how you can limit the ability of the larger clans without just gimping the game totally.

You have "classes" within the factions. You can allow any one person to as play many roles as the faction leader sees fit(ie, Crazyi The Merchant, Crazyi the Crafter, Crazyi the Scout etc etc). The smaller clans are going to have to put in more time on the strat map, BUT they can achieve what a larger organization can. The larger clans will can have 1 role per person, and thus have to focus less on the map part but needing more organization. Possibly even link the size of the organization to how many "classes" each person may play. Large ones can only have 1 role per person, smaller can play each per person.

Merchant - 1-5 per faction(or whatever you see fit). These guys control buying, selling, and all aspects of trade. There would be a raw resource mini game that connects to the crafters, where the merchants need to keep the things in stock demanded by the crafters. Need iron for weapons, wood for bows and arrows, wool for cloth, etc. How that is achieved I will leave to developers. My suggestion is to segment the map, make each area with a larger city or castle have X villages(X = total amount of the types of resources), each village you purchase one type of raw material from. The gold the merchants have to spend is a flat rate for each faction. This flat rate represents a sort of upkeep cost, larger clans have more members contributing but have to spend more on upkeep. Smaller clans have less they have to blow their money on, but have fewer members contributing.

Crafter - Unlimited BUT your resources for crafting are limited based on what the merchants can purchase, putting cap on what can be produced each day/week and still allowing a wide range of goods to be produced. Who crafts what, and what resources are needed will require communication between the faction. Smaller groups will have an easier time organizing, and the larger ones to maintain correct functionality are going to have to stay very focused(thus making it slightly harder to maintain and outfit a large organization, as it should be).

Scout - Have unlimited(or a limit if needed) - This is plain and simple, a scouting unit. It is fast, mobile unit that may only be caught in combat if it stops. Larger organizations can have more scouts due to their size, thus giving them a slight advantage in this category. They can plot their path much better being able to scout more. A small organization doesn't need to be moving all over the map anyways, they are going to have to focus their efforts in a smaller area. They may also be considered "raiders" and are allowed to pillage unguarded merchants, but can only take a small portion of what the merchant is carrying. That way you can mess with unprotected trade lines, but it wont totally destroy ones economy. More or less a penalty for not having a general attached with the merchant.
 
Generals - Have unlimited(or a cap if needed) - These are the recruiters and hold the soldier bodies of the armies. They need to be assigned to protecting territory, guarding merchants when they are traveling, and to recruit troops. They obviously also lay siege and engage in battles. You should be able to recruit anywhere. As one travels with a merchant, in each village they roll a dice at recruiting and see how many they get. You can also just set this at a cap per week for each faction, to make sure they do not get far more troops than a smaller clan can. In reality you can only recruit so many soldiers before the population would go to crap in an area and not be sustainable, so I feel the cap is needed. Another way to limit it, is have the size of the strat army effect the gold available to spend on resources. So you can have a small army and pump out resources, and once you have the supplies needed for war begin to ramp up recruitment. It would require a balance between output and solider capacity. You could "relieve" soldiers at any point and time, allowing you to ramp up production of goods. However if attacked in this "production" period you would be in a bad position, and thus needing the ability of your scouts that much more.

**added** Like others have suggested, there needs to be an NA and an EU rating when signing up for battles. When you sign up for an NA fight, the leadership gets to give you +1 or -1. Same for signing up on EU. You go negative and you are going to have a hard time joining future fights, so it is in your best interest to show up, finish, and not be a troll. 
Please, discuss.

Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Arn De Gothia on March 20, 2012, 10:10:33 pm
Sounds good. For me, strat was kind of nebulous, and when I did figure out, boring except for strat. This not only gives purpose, but more emphasis on co-op. My only concern is abuse of scouts to make being a merchant untenable because of constant raiding.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: AllTimeFail on March 20, 2012, 10:14:50 pm
Maybe a cap can be placed on raids per day or week or something. So someone couldnt just sit in an area and hit everyone coming thru and then book it when a gen comes. I like it doe.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Crazyi on March 20, 2012, 10:20:01 pm
Well the merchants would need the protection of their generals, a general with an army could "attach" to a merchant, making it un-raidable or the scout would just die :)

But if they did cap how many generals you can have, or how many merchants you can have protected some sort of limit would be needed.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Tanken on March 20, 2012, 10:24:05 pm
I like this idea Crazy, gives Strategus a little big more of a roleplay feeling and adds another level to the amount of strategy a clan has to go through in order to prep itself. Tedious, yes, but also just builds elements on top of what is there right now.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: PhantomZero on March 20, 2012, 10:57:29 pm
WORDS

Way to crib all my ideas.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: MrPink44 on March 21, 2012, 02:25:18 am
Personally as I have seen it Strat does seem to be lacking but it is still fairly new to the mod so adding things like this to flesh it out would be awesome. However, we are talking about a bunch of guys who code this as a hobby in their spare time. So even though I would like to see something that promotes more of a diverse and enriching experience that rewards planning and teamwork I don't know how difficult it would be to actually implement these things much lest test them and make the balance almost perfect before release. Very time consuming for a "hobby" but I am not much of an opinion for how to improve games or how that stuff all works I just like to enjoy the hard work the devs have put in.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Arn De Gothia on March 21, 2012, 08:15:14 am
Brown-noser.

















































JK
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Kazak on March 21, 2012, 12:50:12 pm
I have better idea... stop crying. U had a big enough faction to resist Druzhina - LLJK and Fallen, but then most of the idiots started to think that they will be a better faction leaders, that people will follow them. And what we see you got punished badly for you absent mind, for your stupidity. You all should apologize infront of CHAOS because they fought like men, for them words "Honor" and "Duty" are not just a sound in the air like for most of you. CHAOS tried to unite americans tried to tell 'em that the power is in unity, but you were dumb enough to think that you'll be good on your own.

Что посеешь то и пожнешь.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Tomas on March 21, 2012, 01:18:03 pm
I think it would be easier to code and better to find a way to get the vast majority of people that don't actually play Strat off the map.

Here's what I suggest

Allow people to be able to either build a "Workshop" or a "Smithy" in whatever fief they are in.

Basic Details
- Building either will remove your char from the Strat Map
- They cost nothing to build but you will lose any troops you have and your equipment will be cashed in for gold
- Any gold you have will be automatically transferred to your cRPG char at 10 times the amount
- Any gold you make from your Workshop/Smithy goes straight to your cRPG char at 10 times the amount
- Fief efficiencies will still exist but instead they will determine what % of the gold goes to the cRPG char.  70% efficiency means you only get 70% of the gold
- You can demolish your Smithie/Workshop whenever you want but will reappear on the map with nothing.

Workshop Details
- Building a workshop makes you a goods crafter and you craft 1 good per hour as normal
- Any goods you craft go onto your fief's marketplace at the fief's goods price where they can be bought by anybody
- The older goods will be sold first
- The money from the goods will go straight to the workshop owner's cRPG char
- Goods crafting will no longer get a 50% discount
- This represents between 1440 and 6240 cRPG gold per day so long as the goods are bought
- Prosperity in fiefs will be linked to the number of goods sold in that fief.  More goods sold = higher prices
- To prevent people buying up all the goods in a fief, the current soft cap on carrying goods will be turned into a hard cap.  So 50 troops can carry 150 goods max.  50 troops with horses can carry 300 goods max.

Smithy Details
- Building a Smithie turns you into an equipment crafter
- Any items on a Fief's buy menu that can be crafted by Smith in that fief will be replaced and so will be available for anybody to buy at the Smith's crafting price
- For example, I can craft Studded Leather Coats for 24 gold.  If I build a Smith in a fief then the base price for Studded Leather Coats (72.42 gold) will be visibly crossed out on the fief's buy menu and will be replaced by my price of 24 gold.
- If 2 Smiths can craft the same item, the highest skilled char will be used
- This can represent a lot of cRPG gold as a windfall, but the liklihood is that it will not be a consistent income
- I strongly suggest replacing the current ATHW system with a time based decay to go with this idea to ensure that new people get chance to set up as Smiths once the older people's skills have decayed.  A 10% decay per week should do.

Overall impact
- Goods and equipment crafting becomes a global affair instead of being clan based.  This levels the playing field and helps smaller clans compete.
- People are encouraged to becomes goods or equipment crafters due to the cRPG financial gains but to make the best profits you will need to be clever and set up in the right places
- The goods and equipment crafters will still be able to help their clans though on rosters and can set up in fiefs that help their clans out the most.
- The people left on Strat are the ones who really want to play it as a proper game but they will no longer provide a gauranteed economic boost to their clan without acticely trading or raiding.
- The removal of the 50% goods crafting discount adds a greater importance to buying goods in the right place instead of all the importance being on selling them in the right place.  Buy high and you limit yourself to 125 gold profit, buy low and you do not have to travel as far to get that profit and if you do travel further you can make upto 145 gold pre good.  Currently the figures are 137 and 147 gold profit which is very little difference.



Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Garem on March 21, 2012, 03:09:54 pm
Meh. This would just cause large clans to group into smaller clans and form alliances. I don't see any major added value to the game. Really, it's just an arbitrary imposition of "organization" on a clan- they already do this themselves without the mechanic structure like this.

Freedom of choice and options is, generally speaking, better for the game.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: MrPink44 on March 21, 2012, 05:31:00 pm
I have better idea... stop crying. U had a big enough faction to resist Druzhina - LLJK and Fallen, but then most of the idiots started to think that they will be a better faction leaders, that people will follow them. And what we see you got punished badly for you absent mind, for your stupidity. You all should apologize infront of CHAOS because they fought like men, for them words "Honor" and "Duty" are not just a sound in the air like for most of you. CHAOS tried to unite americans tried to tell 'em that the power is in unity, but you were dumb enough to think that you'll be good on your own.

Что посеешь то и пожнешь.
Wow completely wrong place for this kind of behavior...
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Crazyi on March 21, 2012, 05:59:28 pm
Kazak you are pretty ignorant. Read other posts by me, I'm not necissarily for making things fair, I am just trying to suggest ideas. The more ideas that are presented the developers have a larger pool to take things from that they like. Maybe you should devote some time to being constructive instead of being a prick? Might benefit everyone.../gasp

If you limit recruiting capacity in areas I don't understand how breaking into smaller groups would be a bad thing at all? Sure one group can say I won't attack you while you produce resources, but that is when you have scouts/raiders, and you go attack/raid them. Only generals within a faction can attach to a merchant party, so you MUST field troops to protect your trade. Also lock out trade between clans/alliances, so everyone is responsible for their own management. If they wish to stay together they can pool together, if not they need to act independant. Also isn't the main complaint currently the "mega alliance"? Plus some clans could break off if they felt they were on a more even plane to compete.

Thomas I like the idea but I still feel that will allow the larger clans the ability to dominate just as much. More players = more workshops, blacksmiths, gold, overall trading ability, and still have more bodies to field troops.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Kazak on March 21, 2012, 06:53:52 pm
Its about make a fair play. You were ecnouraged to write this post by getting your ass kicked. From this point you see that Druzhina are good guys who help developing strategus.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Crazyi on March 21, 2012, 08:26:08 pm
You seriously act like a child. Adults will argue a point by saying "I dislike this idea for the following reasons". If you cannot do such, stop posting. Furthermore I started playing again 3 weeks ago, so there hasnt really been a whole lot of ass kicking going on because the season is over(if DRZ cannot sweep the rest of strat...well thats sad). I started in a timebefore DRZ was a behemoth. Yes this one thread is a way to make it more balanced, and I have about 4 others saying warfare isn't ment to be balanced but the current setup is a little off from ideal. It is up to the developers to decide but I try to provide valuable input unlike you. Are you scared of an even playing field? Sounds like it.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: RibaldRon on March 21, 2012, 08:31:24 pm
Interesting ideas, but I don't like the idea of limiting a faction to the number of classes, besides maybe "KING" or something.  :P

That's not the right way to punish large factions, IMO.  Unless, you only have positions for like Trader General, ETC, and each faction may only have one - everybody else gets to be a Peasant/Commoner.  That would benefit more smaller alliances, but probably not enough to scare people away from having one big alliance.

I guess what I'm saying is I like the current strat situation but think that it could use a faster pace, and add an incentive to fight all the time.


(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Tanken on March 21, 2012, 09:21:51 pm
Its about make a fair play. You were ecnouraged to write this post by getting your ass kicked. From this point you see that Druzhina are good guys who help developing strategus.

Kazak, you all never even fought against KUTT so please stop pulling lines out of your ass to try and insult people with. Druzhina had a great tactic -- Jerk off your allies, craft a shit load of items, not get involved in any strategus conflicts until they've made a huge army, and then go interrupt a war to flex our muscle.

Wow.
Great tactic.

This is a Suggestion being made by Crazyi as a way to spice up Strategus gameplay and make it more fun for the average player, not a means to say "Oh man, DRZ whomped our asses, we need to change this to benefit us." We get it. You guys won against Chaos. Wooooooooooopty Dooooooooooooooo. Who gives a shit? We're over that, now it's about preparing ideas for the next season of Strategus as you have seen is a popular topic amongst this board.

Grow up, and keep your mouth shut.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Lemmy_Winks on March 21, 2012, 09:38:04 pm
I think the classes are a good idea, and they should DEFINITELY be limited as described in the original post. If they arent limited the whole dynamic (small clans being able to compete with big ones) doesnt even work i don't know why people are suggesting to not limit it. I still want a solution to actually even up the numbers of players in a faction. In this strat there where times where we (hospitaller) would fight a faction like KUTT that had almost no peple in it at the time but they still had mangaed to build an army. We would fight them and it didnt feel like we where fighting Kutt, because almost everyone in their army was still in Chaos, it was the same thing as just fighting another Chaos army, for the 15th time. I may be mistaken but i believe in some of these cases Chaos even lead the armies of their allies too.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Crazyi on March 21, 2012, 09:51:45 pm
So the teams dont always feel the same just reduce the number allowed in each battle on one team. As it stands right now you just kind of have to take what you can get to fill the roster. Could potentially help with the mega alliance as they are going to have to bench more people, and those members could grow restless.

Oh I do think this would encourage faster play  because it allows you to shift production and recruitment. So if you get knocked down pretty hard, ramp up production, then send the generals out to recruit once you have items to field the army.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: MrPink44 on March 22, 2012, 06:42:30 am
Maybe as an idea for the battles side of things it would be cool to reduce the number of troops required for a battle in the case of KUTT us being a smaller clan only having about maybe 10 "active" members at any given time. You could have Faction on Faction fights but fewer people are needed for the battle. But to combat the sheer size of armies that sometimes could occur from such small match up you could increase the ticket cost for someone dying that that way you aren't tied up in a 4 hour strat battle with only 30 people playing. On top of that something to spice the battles up so it's not just a "line up, slugfest, back off and repeat" for 45 mins to an hour add some control points to the maps  to give people something to fight over. Whether that be equipment or points of interest that take attrition on your ticket counts I.E. a fresh water supply or a tactical hill top. Of course this is slipping into the realm of heavy RPG influence and what I like about the game is the "nakedness" of it, just people slugging it out on a field of battle. But I would like to see the ability to utilize siege engines more often with less headaches involved (trust me I have seen a catapult being put together and operated it was painfully slow). Anything like that would make it something more to spice up a battle. Hell even a revised version of master of the field might make things more interesting. But just some ideas to throw out there.
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on March 22, 2012, 08:32:23 am
I think it would be easier to code and better to find a way to get the vast majority of people that don't actually play Strat off the map.

Here's what I suggest

Allow people to be able to either build a "Workshop" or a "Smithy" in whatever fief they are in.

Basic Details
- Building either will remove your char from the Strat Map
- They cost nothing to build but you will lose any troops you have and your equipment will be cashed in for gold
- Any gold you have will be automatically transferred to your cRPG char at 10 times the amount
- Any gold you make from your Workshop/Smithy goes straight to your cRPG char at 10 times the amount
- Fief efficiencies will still exist but instead they will determine what % of the gold goes to the cRPG char.  70% efficiency means you only get 70% of the gold
- You can demolish your Smithie/Workshop whenever you want but will reappear on the map with nothing.

Workshop Details
- Building a workshop makes you a goods crafter and you craft 1 good per hour as normal
- Any goods you craft go onto your fief's marketplace at the fief's goods price where they can be bought by anybody
- The older goods will be sold first
- The money from the goods will go straight to the workshop owner's cRPG char
- Goods crafting will no longer get a 50% discount
- This represents between 1440 and 6240 cRPG gold per day so long as the goods are bought
- Prosperity in fiefs will be linked to the number of goods sold in that fief.  More goods sold = higher prices
- To prevent people buying up all the goods in a fief, the current soft cap on carrying goods will be turned into a hard cap.  So 50 troops can carry 150 goods max.  50 troops with horses can carry 300 goods max.

Smithy Details
- Building a Smithie turns you into an equipment crafter
- Any items on a Fief's buy menu that can be crafted by Smith in that fief will be replaced and so will be available for anybody to buy at the Smith's crafting price
- For example, I can craft Studded Leather Coats for 24 gold.  If I build a Smith in a fief then the base price for Studded Leather Coats (72.42 gold) will be visibly crossed out on the fief's buy menu and will be replaced by my price of 24 gold.
- If 2 Smiths can craft the same item, the highest skilled char will be used
- This can represent a lot of cRPG gold as a windfall, but the liklihood is that it will not be a consistent income
- I strongly suggest replacing the current ATHW system with a time based decay to go with this idea to ensure that new people get chance to set up as Smiths once the older people's skills have decayed.  A 10% decay per week should do.

Overall impact
- Goods and equipment crafting becomes a global affair instead of being clan based.  This levels the playing field and helps smaller clans compete.
- People are encouraged to becomes goods or equipment crafters due to the cRPG financial gains but to make the best profits you will need to be clever and set up in the right places
- The goods and equipment crafters will still be able to help their clans though on rosters and can set up in fiefs that help their clans out the most.
- The people left on Strat are the ones who really want to play it as a proper game but they will no longer provide a gauranteed economic boost to their clan without acticely trading or raiding.
- The removal of the 50% goods crafting discount adds a greater importance to buying goods in the right place instead of all the importance being on selling them in the right place.  Buy high and you limit yourself to 125 gold profit, buy low and you do not have to travel as far to get that profit and if you do travel further you can make upto 145 gold pre good.  Currently the figures are 137 and 147 gold profit which is very little difference.

Unfortunately creating masses of c-rpg gold will cause huge inflation in the market and destroy the upkeep system once and for all.

I do however advocate for stuff like this to be added. What I was really hoping for is stuff like faction halls, that give members of your faction a boost to crafting/recruiting/or a greater discount. But I'm not sure about such tight controls on what you can and can't do. Also the gear crafting thing would really kill it.

As far as changing ATHW I'm all for that, but I don't believe we should put in a degradation system that will wipe peoples skills points when they go on holidays or take a break. I think a much fairer system would be to have it degrade as you improve other crafting.

The solution I came up with is that in a menu similar to the one where you loom items you select 4 items you own. By having them selected they can not degrade as you play. When you play and use the 4 selected items you gain "xp" in the item. As you gain "xp" you level your crafting up, I don't know what kind of curve to use, I think it should be linear. Possibly based on x4/5 ticks, 1 tick = 1 xp, 1 skill point = 30 xp (I pulled those numbers out of my arse so please concentrate on the idea not the numbers cheers).

Maybe as an idea for the battles side of things it would be cool to reduce the number of troops required for a battle in the case of KUTT us being a smaller clan only having about maybe 10 "active" members at any given time. You could have Faction on Faction fights but fewer people are needed for the battle. But to combat the sheer size of armies that sometimes could occur from such small match up you could increase the ticket cost for someone dying that that way you aren't tied up in a 4 hour strat battle with only 30 people playing. On top of that something to spice the battles up so it's not just a "line up, slugfest, back off and repeat" for 45 mins to an hour add some control points to the maps  to give people something to fight over. Whether that be equipment or points of interest that take attrition on your ticket counts I.E. a fresh water supply or a tactical hill top. Of course this is slipping into the realm of heavy RPG influence and what I like about the game is the "nakedness" of it, just people slugging it out on a field of battle. But I would like to see the ability to utilize siege engines more often with less headaches involved (trust me I have seen a catapult being put together and operated it was painfully slow). Anything like that would make it something more to spice up a battle. Hell even a revised version of master of the field might make things more interesting. But just some ideas to throw out there.

They had the ticket thing in the last strat, kind of back fired a bit. I think the slug fest is kind of unavoidable. The only way it doesn't happen is if one side is superior/inferior in some respect. As tactics advance and team play keeps improving it will get a bit more slam them all the way to their spawn and take it kind of thingish.

For instance! having a clan use a strat build.

18/18 6 shield wpf in pole arm and xbow. If you have a whole unit of guys like this, as people get beat up they could drop back and swap gear with a pike men or xbow player with out having to just hold on for dear life at the shield wall. Which could allow a well organized unit to make huge ground... maybe (or it could go horribly wrong, i don't know, I'm crazy.)
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: MrPink44 on March 22, 2012, 06:13:11 pm
Yeah i can see how the ticket system can be subject to abuse and it's tricky to work around I know Battlefield has had a really good ticket system in the works for years so I would take a page from their books. I think it's funny you mention the x-bow hybrid build because Xeen has told me before KUTT ever got big they used to be extremely effective in a tight squad as 2 Pike and 3 or 4 x-bow hybrid builds. The problem is that the cost of respecing for just a strat battle is completely retarded and unless you always have a team a hybrid build would leave you vulnerable to the more predominate focused builds. It's hard to split what you want to do in strat with what you enjoy in c-rpg. Which leads to one of my major griefs with the way the "main" and "alternates" system is set up at this point, it's incredibly restrictive for an "open" game. But now we are breaching into semantics' territory and the debate could rage forever, although I know several people are probably very dissatisfied with the whole main and alts thing.   
Title: Re: Strat Classes - Idea to Improve Strat
Post by: Crazyi on March 22, 2012, 07:12:01 pm
For a "strategy" game you should be able to tailor your army specifically for an upcomming battle versus being forced to play your current cRPG build. The games are both very different, one being more individualistic and one being 100% team oriented. I think it would spice the battles up a lot if the clans could tailor their army. Would have true regiments versus a wierd mix of people that you try to make things work. The idea also plays into the system being talked about in this post, being able to change production and recruitment. A way it could be implemented is have set builds for shielders, pikemen, archers, calvary etc. If you equip a sword and shield, you become a shielder for that ticket. A horse, obviously a calv. I don't know how difficult this would be to code though.... but it is another idea. The easiest way would obviously be to just let them make a strategus specific character, everyone is level 30(or even 34), that way the soldier bodies are more consistent too between armies atleast stat wise.