In my opinion the mod mechanics works against lords

[Erk]

Crafting is a failed experiment. No matter how much it should add in theory, most wars can be conducted without any crafting at all. Why? because when scene makers plan otherwise people cry and stock piles get refilled by admins or reset.

Now having functional crafting is damn hell. Most people can't be bothered with it. Also, it is not "simple" from a scene making perspective as Semi says. If it is so simple, show me a server where crafting occurs on a regular basis.

I suggest making money the center of the economy. Of course, this means it cannot stay the same way as it is. Nowadays people mine solo and go cry "war war!!" in a faction.

There is also the group of people who join just to troll with their buddies while on ts. Whatever.


What I suggest is making money making rough. To make good money, you would need to hold a castle. Serfs on individual basis wouldn't be making much (completely opposite of current situation). To accomplish this, one needs to:

1. Get rid of crafting.

2. Exports linked to chest.

3. Good pricing system:

- Few castles. They make money out of many serfs going to sell to the castle. No serfs, no money. Holding a castle gives you a cut on the oligopoly of chest ownership. Of course, you only make money if serfs make it to the castle.

- You have an incentive to keep faction in low numbers, else you do not make much per person. Once people realize what the chest gives, they want a part of it.

- Since there aren't many castles and factions are more exclusive, people either serf or rob. Or fight to get a castle.

- Robbers need some love from the scene making. It should be helped via map design.

- In addition, one needs limits on bank withdrawal. Else, people get super rich exploiting glitches and the system in general and don't care at all about money for weeks. Or they mine at weird hours, whatever.

- This combined with high prices for gear.

Conclusion:

With this system, a faction that is not organized and only cries for war will run ut of cash and be unable to keep fighting.

I have sketched a different system from what we have nowadays. These days faction suck. Castles suck. People don't give a damn about the lord and a long etc.

I have sketched a system that actually encourages cooperation, unlike what we have now.

 

[Korbal]

Crafting is a failed experiment. No matter how much it should add in theory, most wars can be conducted without any crafting at all. Why? because when scene makers plan otherwise people cry and stock piles get refilled by admins or reset.

Now having functional crafting is damn hell. Most people can't be bothered with it. Also, it is not "simple" from a scene making perspective as Semi says. If it is so simple, show me a server where crafting occurs on a regular basis.

I suggest making money the center of the economy. Of course, this means it cannot stay the same way as it is. Nowadays people mine solo and go cry "war war!!" in a faction.

There is also the group of people who join just to troll with their buddies while on ts. Whatever.


What I suggest is making money making rough. To make good money, you would need to hold a castle. Serfs on individual basis wouldn't be making much (completely opposite of current situation). To accomplish this, one needs to:

1. Get rid of crafting.

2. Exports linked to chest.

3. Good pricing system:

- Few castles. They make money out of many serfs going to sell to the castle. No serfs, no money. Holding a castle gives you a cut on the oligopoly of chest ownership. Of course, you only make money if serfs make it to the castle.

- You have an incentive to keep faction in low numbers, else you do not make much per person. Once people realize what the chest gives, they want a part of it.

- Since there aren't many castles and factions are more exclusive, people either serf or rob. Or fight to get a castle.

- Robbers need some love from the scene making. It should be helped via map design.

- In addition, one needs limits on bank withdrawal. Else, people get super rich exploiting glitches and the system in general and don't care at all about money for weeks. Or they mine at weird hours, whatever.

- This combined with high prices for gear.

Conclusion:

With this system, a faction that is not organized and only cries for war will run ut of cash and be unable to keep fighting.

I have sketched a different system from what we have nowadays. These days faction suck. Castles suck. People don't give a damn about the lord and a long etc.

I have sketched a system that actually encourages cooperation, unlike what we have now.

I agree Erk. The system simply doesnt work nobody stocks up really. They rather wait for reset or admin refill.

 

[Knüppel]

So we agree it's mapmakers and admin's fault, not the crafting system. Cheers, I can now go to bad happily.

 

[Erk]

haha freudian slip!

Bad reasoning!

But I don't care about "winning" an argument. You say that crafting is good, I say that it is not working. Maybe you can make it work; I have given up on it.

I post my ideas here so that scene makers get to think about it. Some will try them out, hopefully then we will see if a money centered economy is more fun than the current ones.

 

[Prade]

- Few castles. They make money out of many serfs going to sell to the castle. No serfs, no money. Holding a castle gives you a cut on the oligopoly of chest ownership. Of course, you only make money if serfs make it to the castle.

Good ideas but this point seems problematic. Do you know any player who will agree to do the hard, and sometimes boring, work so that another player can get all the cash of it?

If serfing doesn't provide any gold every player will want to hold the castles.

 

[Knüppel]

I do not say crafting is "good", I said that maintaining economy is what differs pw battles from native battles.
I am neutral on that (you might have noticed I, if possible, prefer to force others to do the grinding and crafting for me ), But if we scrap crafting and only let money grinding exist, we are somewhat native gameplay with no end of the round, but permanent warfare since the gear supply never ends.

Why? because when scene makers plan otherwise people cry and stock piles get refilled by admins or reset.

Here your quote which proves my point, Erk. Let Freud in his tomb, please.

I am simply ranting against mapmakers and server hosts that are afraid to lose troll kid players from the community because they donate 1 euro.

 

[Erk]

- Few castles. They make money out of many serfs going to sell to the castle. No serfs, no money. Holding a castle gives you a cut on the oligopoly of chest ownership. Of course, you only make money if serfs make it to the castle.

Good ideas but this point seems problematic. Do you know any player who will agree to do the hard, and sometimes boring, work so that another player can get all the cash of it?

If serfing doesn't provide any gold every player will want to hold the castles.

I am worried about this too. However, my hope is that the people who cut wood or sticks nowadays would be the ones doing it. There seems to be some people who cannot be bothered to do much to earn money. I am surprised at how many of them there are everyday in servers. Hopefully those would work in the low reward low effort activities.

 

[Splintert]

If taxes are high enough, a serf would make 100% of his own profits, and the castle around 20% of that. Serfing would still remain the most profitable, but a castle with many serfs could create a good amount of passive income.

 

[Knüppel]

Here lies the rabbit in the pepper (Oh how I love to violate the german language by translating sayings in english).
Being a Lord should grant the most income, not being a miner or smith. To enforce this, stockpiles as well as potential exports must not be publicly available, but controlable by the factions to demand taxes, and serfs should not have a neutral village faction as most maps have nowadays, but be forced to either directly be part of a castle faction, or to be taxed the **** out of them as commoners.

 

[Erk]

Actually, a castle can make up to more than 100% of what the serf makes. Taxes allow for it (you can set the tax proportion at will up to 110% I think).

I don't know what a good amount is, probably trial error is the way to go. In the end, the goal is to make wisely sized organized factions more viable than serfing.


Nevertheless, I think that this approach requires an specific map design to support it.

PS - Semi, you misunderstood. Export locations can be automatically linked to castle chest. You do not need the faction to do anything. Tax or what not.

 

[Splintert]

The multiplier will only be a % of the % of the sale price. 100% multiplier will double the tax, whatever the default value is. Unless I'm completely misunderstanding the scene editor's F2 information.

 

[Knüppel]

Instead of more and more specific map designs, how about we go back to the basics, place castles, ressources they have to fight over and screw that ridiculous "neutral" villages and merchant castles.

Best time I ever had on pw was in January 2012 with Lowlands on United (before all these changes were made), when 60% of the population was either peasants or low bob brigands. and guess what we peaked at ~100 players back then on the biggest server just as nowadays. despite factions having to grind ressources and craft for hours to supply weapons back then every day.
Why? because this grinding was done by the broad mass, and the majority of the population did not wear swords and armor but instead worked, to be valuable for the soldiers of the factions, so they cared to protect them from brigands.

 

[Splintert]

No.
One.
Wants.
To.
Grind.

It's alot easier to run a map where everyone has to do boring things when there is no server competition. There were as many people angry about the map and not playing as there were playing. PW is at a peak in total playercount right now, so don't say "we had 100 players" as if it means anything.

 

[Erk]

Do you know what is more boring than grinding? CRAFTING!

Regardless of what happened in lowlads - United, but I think that my idea can make things more fun.

 

[Splintert]

Crafting = grinding.

It's just faster, more profitable, and less dangerous.

 

[Erk]

Not more profitable, though, given iron prices in most maps. It is safer though, hence BORING!

BORING to be in an armory moving pieces up and down and holding f forever. BORING!

It doesn't add much, IMO.

Lords will pay smiths and the most organized faction will........buuuuu!!

Doesn't happen.  Why would the lord pay anyone so that his berserkers can go capture a worthless castle from some other berserkers? With which gold is the lord going to pay anything?

The incentive design is FLAWED!

 

[Splintert]

Yeah, because popular scenes and admins always circumvent everything that could possibly be used as an incentive.

I've not yet abandoned the quick battle version of Undying Trench. I just need to actually work on it, really. It'll go up on Oprec sometime in the coming weeks.

 

[Erk]

Great. I am sure there is a lot of work to do to find the best way to go about the money economy. Just need to keep trying.

There are tons of players nowadays, so one can afford it.

 

[Aldric]

Yeah, because popular scenes and admins always circumvent everything that could possibly be used as an incentive.

I've not yet abandoned the quick battle version of Undying Trench. I just need to actually work on it, really. It'll go up on Oprec sometime in the coming weeks.

This got the best potential to get back the normal players

 

[Xerone]

I wish though, that capturing other castles actually meant something. As of now, it doesn't seem like owning more than one castle has any advantages (Some has a few, possibly). I see lords selling castles for 5k and that's it... Considering you may very well loose tons of money fighting a war, then you get the castle and you might have lost more than gained.