Post-event analysis and critique

[hrotha]

The event is done, and now it's time to reflect on what worked and what didn't, and on what should be changed for the next one. The organizers will probably be different people next time, and they shouldn't have to start from scratch, possibly repeating some of the same mistakes.

The most obvious problem was the authentication server thing. That's a huge issue which we don't understand very well at the moment. We didn't have those problems during the Val-ès-Dunes event, in January. Your guess is as good as mine.

For other than that, what did you think of the event? What would you have done differently? What didn't work, in your opinion?

Some stuff you might want to comment on:
- Information: Were the in-game admin messages enough? Did you know what was going on, or were things confusing?
- Game mode: Did you like that the event was just Battle (little siege thingy at the end aside), or would you have preferred Conquest or Siege?
- Delays: Did you think the delays necessary to sort things out, change maps and the like were too much? Were they alright?
- Playtime: Was the event too long? Too short? What's the ideal playtime you'd aim for?
- Balance: What would you have done to ensure the game was more balanced?
- Signing up: Obviously due to the technical issues the server was never even close to full, but I was concerned that, in case we had a full server, making sure players who signed up would have a guaranteed slot would be extremely difficult. Any ideas on how to improve this process?
- Behind-the-scenes stuff: This one's for host leaders and other people who got a closer look at the organization. What would you have done differently?

Any feedback is welcome!

 

[Celtichugs]

As this was asked for, here it is. Even though I know it will be ignored - as usual - by admins, developers and the veterans of the Víkingr community.

"So, what makes you think you can criticize the event?"

I have played Víkingr mod for just over two years now with countless - literally countless - hours of public play and Event play. I have attended numerous Víkingr events from the old weekly Sheildwall events to the larger, historical battle Events - some of which I helped to organise and almost always play a Host Leader. I have experience in organising Events, both in Mount and Blade and in other games such as Battlefield series.

Organization

Organization was the pristine, well oiled machine of Víkingr - atleast the first time we attempted the event. Second time around wasn't so oiled and seemed altogether rusty. Despite the head organizer's attempts at furthering the organization, through things like an online itinerary document and the like. I feel the new date was set far too much into the future, corresponding to the first attempt's date. It was too far ahead for people to gauge weather they were otherwise engaged and too far ahead for those less engaged in Víkingr to remember and keep track of it's new date. However, I should say the later time of 7pm GMT, was much more attainable and appropriate for most people. Generally it seemed less organised, some hosts didn't event turn up, resulting in some last minute remedies, I'd like to know these hosts and host leaders who didn't turn up's excuse?

Restarting the server again resulted in people unable to see servers, "authorization key" issue and generally broken Warbands. Something I knew would happen and warned about, though, ofcourse, was ignored. I don't why this happens, but it does, I don't need to say why to know that it happens. I warned at the first Event it would happen and mentioned between then and now not to restart the server at any point. Now, in fairness, we know that this wasn't as bad as last time, however it still resulted in some real heart ace for host leaders and admins.

Everything just seemed to take an age to get anything organised and running. Yes, Víkingr events always do, but this time much more so than usual.

TeamSpeak

TeamSpeak organization was good, especially considering we use two, one for each side. However, something that was brought up was that there were many "teamspeak campers" wishing to attend the Event, who hadn't even applied to do so. This made TeamSpeak - mine/the Airslúag's atleast - a bit of a mess and require some admining hours before the Event. Using two TeamSpeaks also lead to the issue of people not actually knowing which TeamSpeak to use, even though it is clearly stated - that said, we all know what Native players are like... If all teams, all admins, all host leaders, all organisers, all developers on one TeamSpeak, then life would be much easier in all regards! I have actually offered a free, EU based, easily adminable TeamSpeak which I can keep in very good contact with Hosters - being a good friend with one of the members of the Host team. This TeamSpeak would be used for all sort of Vikingr play, Events, open hours/public play whatever, but my offer was shot-down.

Being on the same TeamSpeak would allow for easier communication, but also make balancing easier in that a Host switching team would not need to switch entire TeamSpeak. Which, in my opinion, was sorely needed.

Balance

Airslúag lost. Horribly. We got completely destroyed, and came close to winning perhaps one. No, I'm not a sore loser. This is Víkingr, you lose and die... Alot. However, balance really needed to be looked even well before half way through the event. It was not enough that one small host swapped over, by then it was too late and even then the swapping host needed to be bigger. Perhaps the admins thought any larger host would have unbalanced numbers, yes ofcourse that would happen. But, that is exactly what needed to happen. So what if numbers were unbalanced? Engle were trouncing the Norse-Celt team.

Further to the above: the distribution of old, experienced and very good players was terrible. If we look to the Engle army we find that it's ranks was much more filled out with better and more experienced players. When we take into consideration clans and experienced players distribution this is what we see:

(This isn't a list of each Teams hosts, rather those clans and hosts that we need to take into consideration when criticizing the balance)

Spoiler

• 
  Engle:
  • Fryningas
  • Víkingar
  • Maisnees del Vis****e d'Iveri
  - all experienced clans
  • Hæringar
  - which is filled to the brim with some of the most experienced and best Víkingr players
  • Vyatichi
  - didn't turn up
  
  Airslúag:
  • Erlingar
  • Fir Áraig
  - experienced clans
  • FenrisBarn
  - only started with 3 members, or 4
  • Varangian Guard
  - did not even show up
  • Uí hUiginn
  - a new clan, although had the numbers, lacked experience
  • The First Public Host
  - small in size, with next to none experienced players

• 
  
  Host leaders seriously need to be given money so that they can aquire better equipment so they can actually do some damage, or better yet survive. Now, anyone who knows me will be the first to say "Well, you're not exactly the best player..." Correct, I'm not. But, money for better weapons couldn't hurt. However, my main issue with this is the sorry and honestly pathetic excuse for not doing this - "it's too much hassle". Really? I think not. Get host leaders on early, give them money and just don't restart the map/server. Or, stop spawning - as was done too many times and for too long - and give the Host leaders the money. Simple.
  
  Once again we have been given another demonstration at the over-powered'ness of the Engle faction and the weakness of the Goídil faction. I and another have given our options to sort this, but was ignored.
  
  
  
  The above is the criticism and negative points that was asked from me. The positives and good points of this Event are much longer and more detailed than the negatives, please do not take the above points to mean I hated the Event. I didn't! I loved it like all Víkingr events, but as this was asked of me... Here we are...
  
  Thanks, Celtic/Ualraig

 

[Hugh Higgins]

I would have to agree with Celtic on the majority of things (apart from the bits about the first attempt, as I wasn't there, so it's somewhat invalid if I agreed or had an opinion on it).

And I'm going to try get my guys to play more. We got slaughtered quite a bit, thought I believe we held for quite a while a couple of times, especially when we defended the village (though one or two of my men overstretched and broke the formation and one of my men must've lost their marbles or something because he dropped his weapons and shield and then got cut down).
I'm also going to try see what formations would work best for 15-20 guys for when the next event comes around, and to get people used to some basic commands. Hopefully we'll be able to stand a bit longer than we did.

Also, I'm a very punctual and organized person and ended up getting people on and organised around 5:30-6:00 to see how many I would have and to make sure everyone could get in alright and downloaded, etc. Dedication, eh? I was a bit disappointed when some people didn't turn up as well as other hosts, as I was eager to get my people well established into the community and perhaps meet some of the older people of it. But, hey. There's always the next event and perhaps a brief meeting on the battlefield in the official server.

Anyway, it was a good event, and I'd be overjoyed to fight with and against the lads I did today.


~ Hugh Higgins.

 

[Ozwan]

I haven't participated in many events like this so far in Vikingr, but I think you did excellent job organizing this. In my opinion though it was way too short, we played 8 rounds and the whole playtime (meaning excluding the initial delay and pauses) of the event didn't last that much longer than one map in normal circumstances.

 

[Partizan_Rusi]

• Vyatichi

- didn't turn up

What's the meaning of this ? I was in Engle right flank with Vyatichi, blue & white colors.
Many Engle was killed by birins, however, most Goidil died from axes.

 

[hrotha]

Thanks for the feedback, guys! Here's my comments, to give you a better idea of how it was from within and how we did things, so that it's easier for you to know what you'd have done differently. As you'll see, I agree with most of what you guys say:



Celt
I already mentioned most of this on Steam, but I'll post it here so that people can read it and contribute to the debate.

Organization was the pristine, well oiled machine of Víkingr - atleast the first time we attempted the event. Second time around wasn't so oiled and seemed altogether rusty. Despite the head organizer's attempts at furthering the organization, through things like an online itinerary document and the like.

I feel the new date was set far too much into the future, corresponding to the first attempt's date. It was too far ahead for people to gauge weather they were otherwise engaged and too far ahead for those less engaged in Víkingr to remember and keep track of it's new date.

We didn't have much of an option here - today was literally the first day since the previous date when all the central people were available. But of course, this compatibility issue was a direct result of a conscious design decision: having 5 leaders or central characters (6 if we count Prince Ceallach). While I feel it added to the flavour, we had to pay the price in terms of scheduling inflexibility. In the future, it would be good if the list of irreplaceable people was as short as possible.

Generally it seemed less organised, some hosts didn't event turn up, resulting in some last minute remedies, I'd like to know these hosts and host leaders who didn't turn up's excuse?

Good question. I'd say I didn't prod people about as much as last time and I wasn't in such close contact with all the clan leaders. I thought it wouldn't be necessary this time, since everything was ready the first time around, but maybe people need constant nursing. Maybe they just don't give a damn, but maybe they did experience the same technical problems as other people.

Restarting the server again resulted in people unable to see servers, "authorization key" issue and generally broken Warbands. Something I knew would happen and warned about, though, ofcourse, was ignored. I don't why this happens, but it does, I don't need to say why to know that it happens. I warned at the first Event it would happen and mentioned between then and now not to restart the server at any point.

Until today I still believed the authorization key issue was a one-off thing. I was quite alarmed by reports yesterday of people getting that error message, but I still didn't make the connection. My fault. For future events, it would definitely be a good idea to not restart the server in the hours leading to the event. This might require setting the password > forbid spawning > mass slaying > asking people to leave and manually kicking those who don't, or some other workaround, but it's certainly better than the alternative.

Being on the same TeamSpeak would allow for easier communication, but also make balancing easier in that a Host switching team would not need to switch entire TeamSpeak. Which, in my opinion, was sorely needed.

I'm inclined to agree that one TeamSpeak would be more practical for events.

Airslúag lost. Horribly. We got completely destroyed, and came close to winning perhaps one. No, I'm not a sore loser. This is Víkingr, you lose and die... Alot. However, balance really needed to be looked even well before half way through the event. It was not enough that one small host swapped over, by then it was too late and even then the swapping host needed to be bigger. Perhaps the admins thought any larger host would have unbalanced numbers, yes ofcourse that would happen. But, that is exactly what needed to happen. So what if numbers were unbalanced? Engle were trouncing the Norse-Celt team.

This is true, and it was a bit of a nightmare to try to get right. By the end of the event, it was basically Fyrningas, Haringas and Myrce vs everyone else, so it wasn't for lack of trying. Only afterwards did it occur to me that we should have swapped the Haringas, who today were clearly the decisive factor. The problem is that the only Goídelc host that could have been swapped to the Engle to compensate would have been the Uí hUiginn, and that would have felt very out of place, as they're an Irish clan. Perhaps we're too constrained by this kind of thing? I don't know. After all, the Hæringar were originally asked to play as Engle (Haringas), despite being a more natural fit for the Norse-Gael side, for reasons of balance, so having the Uí hUiginn play as Engle instead of as Goídil, or even swap mid-event, wouldn't have been that strange. I think it's just that, in my mind, the Haringas were such a major part of the Engla Fyrd (numbers-wise) that swapping them would sort of adulterate the whole battle. Which means the problem might have been in the allocation of the clans and should have been dealt with before the event.

Now, on paper all the organizers thought the teams, as they had signed up, were more or less balanced. I don't want to get into a "which clan is better" debate, but suffice to say that the Hæringar were asked to play as Engle because I reckoned that, otherwise, the Airṡlúag would be much more powerful than the Engla Fyrd. The Erlingar have one of the highest average skill levels of all clans, the Fir Áraig have a core of experienced Víkingr players plus the sheer numbers of your NW mates, there's the Fenrisbarn, the Runevillians... all of which had to play as Goídil. Maybe the authorization key issues hit the Airṡlúag harder, taking out more of their better players? I don't know. I suppose if I had a chance to do things differently now, I'd have the Hæringar in the Airṡlúag and put the Væringjar and the Fenrisbarn in the Engla Fyrd. I reckon this wouldn't have been a popular move, though (and there weren't enough Fenrisbarn and Væringjar anyway).

There's no easy way around this, but I certainly should have thought of a plan beforehand. Perhaps the allocation of clans could be more open, allowing the faction leaders to win over every clan leader to their cause. The end result could be completely unbalanced, but at least that way it could be blamed on the cunning and political ability of one of the leaders. 

Host leaders seriously need to be given money so that they can aquire better equipment so they can actually do some damage, or better yet survive

This idea was considered but abandoned because, with the current admin tools, it would have been too unwieldy. Yes, it could have been done, it wouldn't have been that much work, but it would have caused even more delays.

Once again we have been given another demonstration at the over-powered'ness of the Engle faction and the weakness of the Goídil faction. I and another have given our options to sort this, but was ignored.

Here I have to disagree. According to the server statistics, the Engle are the worst faction by quite a large margin - or at least the one that loses the most maps. The Goídil are roughly on par with the Normant and the Norðmenn (a bit behind actually, IIRC). The Rus destroy just about everyone. I fear there might be some component of the Goídil being suited for smaller skirmishes but not really for larger battles, but we don't have much data to draw this conclusion.



Hugh
Thank you very much for doing things properly. It really helps the organizers massively when host leaders are ready with time to spare, and when they're responsive and cooperative in the days leading to the event itself. I really appreciate it. I'm glad what you guys saw was enough to make you want to stick around! We need fresh blood that's enthusiastic about doing things right.



Ozwan
Yes, I agree it was too short. I'd say the reason for this was the lack of balance, really. In our plans, we didn't really expect the event to be that one-sided. The structure we went with allowed for a maximum of 14 rounds if things were extremely close, and around 11 if things were reasonably close. Near the end, we considered making further changes to the teams and playing a few more rounds on Dingesmere, but by then we felt there wasn't much of a point.

At Val-ès-Dunes, the average round took almost 10 minutes. As expected, they went much faster at Brunanburh, as there was no cavalry involved. What we didn't expect was the lower player numbers due to the technical issues, and that made the rounds even faster. If the teams had been more balanced we would have switched to one of the alternative event structures we had prepared, which included more Battle rounds, but as things stood we decided it would be better to change to Siege for a change of pace and a chance for the Airṡlúag to fight back. Maybe we should have made the siege an official part of the event, but we got the feeling the Airṡlúag had had enough.

 

[ryozu]

I realize it would be more work for the organizers, but I'd pretty much remove the chance for clans to just reserve a largish amount of slots for themselves. I realize there's an inherent presumption that they would be more likely to turn up and we want to support the clans, but I just haven't seen them fill those slots to a degree that justifies it in the events I've taken part in (since Eafanheall).

Having clan members make individual applications might increase their likelihood of actually attending the event if they've personally signed up for it, instead of them just saying yea I might come in a passing-by conversation on their own forums and having someone reserve a slot for them based on that, or clans just making exaggerated estimates of how many players they can bring so no one would have to be left out in case they all show up.

 

[Orchid]

Haven't much time so sadly I can't type out an informative post as thorough as those of the gents above me! Only thing that bothered me was the map border in the first battle map, which was quite inconveniently placed. When the Norse-Gaelic host decided to defend the village and await our attack, they were pushed in to the corner of the map which looked quite awkward. Otherwise I have nothing but joyous memories and words of praise, good on ye!

 

[hrotha]

ryozu

That's a tricky one. Dealing with clans as a whole during the sign-up process makes things easier for the organizers and the whole thing works as an incentive for people to join a clan. I'm a bit reluctant to draw conclusions from this particular event, as the authorization key issue prevented many people from getting in and some clans may have been struck particularly hard, but generally speaking I think a higher degree of cooperation should be demanded, and letting the community down should have consequences. What those would be, I do not know.



Orchid

I think the map creator intended the town to be outside the map border and to be impossible to fight there, so it was probably a miscalculation ^_^. It still raises another issue: we didn't test the maps properly, which is inexcusable. Something to improve next time.

 

[rapier17]

I'll drop in a quick reply as I'm pressed for time today & will be again tomorrow, but I shall respond to this thread in a couple of days with my perceptions on the event. To put it briefly; overall a good event, dogged by problems beyond the hands of the admins & organisers but was a solid event in my eyes.

 

[Leifr Eiríksson]

I am unable to properly respond to all of Hroða's points, nor those of Celtichug, as TaleWorlds saw fit to keep me out of the event due to an error. However I think I could readily offer a few words here and there to certain points.

As this was asked for, here it is. Even though I know it will be ignored - as usual - by admins, developers and the veterans of the Víkingr community.

"So, what makes you think you can criticize the event?"

I have played Víkingr mod for just over two years now with countless - literally countless - hours of public play and Event play. I have attended numerous Víkingr events from the old weekly Sheildwall events to the larger, historical battle Events - some of which I helped to organise and almost always play a Host Leader. I have experience in organising Events, both in Mount and Blade and in other games such as Battlefield series.

Heh. I do not recall many instances of your being ignored here and I would certainly make no effort to do so on your part, Celtic. There are few people around here who less deserve a proper hearing than yourself, you've been a stalwart of Víkingr for as long as I care to remember. We spoke a little of this last night anyway, moving on!

Organization

Organization was the pristine, well oiled machine of Víkingr - atleast the first time we attempted the event. Second time around wasn't so oiled and seemed altogether rusty. Despite the head organizer's attempts at furthering the organization, through things like an online itinerary document and the like. I feel the new date was set far too much into the future, corresponding to the first attempt's date. It was too far ahead for people to gauge weather they were otherwise engaged and too far ahead for those less engaged in Víkingr to remember and keep track of it's new date. However, I should say the later time of 7pm GMT, was much more attainable and appropriate for most people. Generally it seemed less organised, some hosts didn't event turn up, resulting in some last minute remedies, I'd like to know these hosts and host leaders who didn't turn up's excuse?

Restarting the server again resulted in people unable to see servers, "authorization key" issue and generally broken Warbands. Something I knew would happen and warned about, though, ofcourse, was ignored. I don't why this happens, but it does, I don't need to say why to know that it happens. I warned at the first Event it would happen and mentioned between then and now not to restart the server at any point. Now, in fairness, we know that this wasn't as bad as last time, however it still resulted in some real heart ace for host leaders and admins.

Everything just seemed to take an age to get anything organised and running. Yes, Víkingr events always do, but this time much more so than usual.

I found that this event was actually a little slicker in efficiency than it was the first time. The Hæringar transitioned to the required TeamSpeak and had a jolly for twenty minutes or so. The password was distributed just at the moment when I was receiving the first harassments for the password.  The internal document that the host leaders and administrators used was most useful and I am happy that some of my suggestions were taken on board. Still, I think it would do many better to have the event start within a few minutes of the scheduled time. Whilst most sensible people would happily accept a delay of five or ten minutes, it can be a stretch at times to wait beyond this period. As for the date, I am perhaps inclined to agree. Setting a date so far in advance (a month?) is quite extreme and makes it difficult for people to forecast that far ahead. The Hæringar managed to turn out in fine number because I'm a stickler for reminding them all every week over Facebook, TaleWorlds, Steam and Teamspeak. Those who did not turn out I was made aware of why. Three weeks should perhaps be the maximum projection for an event. It leaves enough time for administration to be handled and for the public to gather up. It should be the priority of host//clan leaders to ensure a good turn out or at least a reasonable number of men to fill the group somewhat - I can only assume that other people are largely slack in communication or have a piss-poor memory and attention to detail. It could also be a fine indicator of perhaps something larger being wrong with certain groups; if attainment cannot be made, they must ask themselves why?

I am not sure if the restarting of the server is a problem here. Ragnor [TaleWorlds developer] PM'd me this morning to say that it is entirely at TaleWorld's end and that measures are being taken now that this will not happen any more. Again though, I am not acquainted with this problem (first time I've ever had it, doh!) and cannot comment on further.

TeamSpeak

TeamSpeak organization was good, especially considering we use two, one for each side. However, something that was brought up was that there were many "teamspeak campers" wishing to attend the Event, who hadn't even applied to do so. This made TeamSpeak - mine/the Airslúag's atleast - a bit of a mess and require some admining hours before the Event. Using two TeamSpeaks also lead to the issue of people not actually knowing which TeamSpeak to use, even though it is clearly stated - that said, we all know what Native players are like... If all teams, all admins, all host leaders, all organisers, all developers on one TeamSpeak, then life would be much easier in all regards! I have actually offered a free, EU based, easily adminable TeamSpeak which I can keep in very good contact with Hosters - being a good friend with one of the members of the Host team. This TeamSpeak would be used for all sort of Vikingr play, Events, open hours/public play whatever, but my offer was shot-down.

Being on the same TeamSpeak would allow for easier communication, but also make balancing easier in that a Host switching team would not need to switch entire TeamSpeak. Which, in my opinion, was sorely needed.

Heh. I'm not actually sure why the Víkingr events use two TeamSpeak servers. I assume it's to help split the load and ease off stress for admins but it can be a pain in the arse to manipulate people around. It also makes it difficult to contact host leaders of the opposing side. Having one clearly defined server for Víkingr events would go down a treat; especially one with an absolute minimal number of channels - it can be quite daunting for a new player (and even veterans!) to find a channel in a list that stretches well beyond imagination.

Balance

Airslúag lost. Horribly. We got completely destroyed, and came close to winning perhaps one. No, I'm not a sore loser. This is Víkingr, you lose and die... Alot. However, balance really needed to be looked even well before half way through the event. It was not enough that one small host swapped over, by then it was too late and even then the swapping host needed to be bigger. Perhaps the admins thought any larger host would have unbalanced numbers, yes ofcourse that would happen. But, that is exactly what needed to happen. So what if numbers were unbalanced? Engle were trouncing the Norse-Celt team.

Further to the above: the distribution of old, experienced and very good players was terrible. If we look to the Engle army we find that it's ranks was much more filled out with better and more experienced players. When we take into consideration clans and experienced players distribution this is what we see:

(This isn't a list of each Teams hosts, rather those clans and hosts that we need to take into consideration when criticizing the balance)

Spoiler

Engle:

• Fryningas
• Víkingar
• Maisnees del Vis****e d'Iveri

- all experienced clans

• Hæringar

- which is filled to the brim with some of the most experienced and best Víkingr players

• Vyatichi

- didn't turn up

Airslúag:

• Erlingar
• Fir Áraig

- experienced clans

• FenrisBarn

- only started with 3 members, or 4

• Varangian Guard

- did not even show up

• Uí hUiginn

- a new clan, although had the numbers, lacked experience

• The First Public Host

- small in size, with next to none experienced players

Once again we have been given another demonstration at the over-powered'ness of the Engle faction and the weakness of the Goídil faction. I and another have given our options to sort this, but was ignored.

This is not down to me to comment upon as I was not present, hopefully Leofwine (or one of the other chaps) will do so instead. I spoke extensively with Hroða on Steam after the event, I have been told that the Hæringar eventually made it quite difficult to balance out the sides as we were too large a host to switch and yet still carved through most opponents (props to Ui hUginn though! I have been told that you guys were exceptionally stubborn in the face of the duck-dog tide) Your comments are bang on though, the hosts are generally ill-balanced. Experience and veteran status of certain groups need to be assessed before distribution in future events. It would do the newer groups well to serve alongside at least one other established group, largely for experience and to pick up techniques. It is worth nothing though that the Hæringar were originally slated for the Norse-Gael side, I think we were pushed to Engle for number crunching reasons.

As for any supposed inbalance between Goídil and Engle... I am unsure. I simply think that Goídil are perhaps unsuited for large scale events, they tend to do quite well during the regular week night provided the team keeps a good head about them. I've been told by the chaps that there was an unusually low number of birins being thrown their way during this event, I specifically told them all to bring medium or larger shields. Would you care to comment on this? Was there a conscientious decision to purposely come unladen with throwing weapons? I mean, it is the greatest boon of the Goídil. We tend to **** bricks when the numbers are taken into consideration (three birins per man, seventy odd men, a good 170+ throwing weapons in one round).

And I'm going to try get my guys to play more. We got slaughtered quite a bit, thought I believe we held for quite a while a couple of times, especially when we defended the village (though one or two of my men overstretched and broke the formation and one of my men must've lost their marbles or something because he dropped his weapons and shield and then got cut down).
I'm also going to try see what formations would work best for 15-20 guys for when the next event comes around, and to get people used to some basic commands. Hopefully we'll be able to stand a bit longer than we did.

Also, I'm a very punctual and organized person and ended up getting people on and organised around 5:30-6:00 to see how many I would have and to make sure everyone could get in alright and downloaded, etc. Dedication, eh? I was a bit disappointed when some people didn't turn up as well as other hosts, as I was eager to get my people well established into the community and perhaps meet some of the older people of it. But, hey. There's always the next event and perhaps a brief meeting on the battlefield in the official server.

Anyway, it was a good event, and I'd be overjoyed to fight with and against the lads I did today.


~ Hugh Higgins.

Good man. Many groups would do well to emulate your enthusiasm for organisation, at the very least for bringing out the pledged number of men. I mentioned it above but I'll mention it again; despite being new to Víkingr, some of the Hæringar reported the stiffest resistance against your section of the line.

I realize it would be more work for the organizers, but I'd pretty much remove the chance for clans to just reserve a largish amount of slots for themselves. I realize there's an inherent presumption that they would be more likely to turn up and we want to support the clans, but I just haven't seen them fill those slots to a degree that justifies it in the events I've taken part in (since Eafanheall).

Having clan members make individual applications might increase their likelihood of actually attending the event if they've personally signed up for it, instead of them just saying yea I might come in a passing-by conversation on their own forums and having someone reserve a slot for them based on that, or clans just making exaggerated estimates of how many players they can bring so no one would have to be left out in case they all show up.

I don't understand, sorry. It is entirely down to the host leaders to maintain and present their promised pledge of fighting men. I cannot (and will not) force ex-Einherjar, Fyrd of Lewes and others to sign themselves down. I am happy to do this for them because I trust that they will turn out on the required day (all of them did) except for where reason is given for being excused (again, all of these players did). Whilst many have failed to bring the promised men (looking at Willelme and the Russian groups in particular), they should not be an excuse to penalise the more reliable amongst us. It is a problem with the host leaders on an individual basis, not endemic across all.

 

[hrotha]

Eiríkr

I am not sure if the restarting of the server is a problem here. Ragnor [TaleWorlds developer] PM'd me this morning to say that it is entirely at TaleWorld's end and that measures are being taken now that this will not happen any more.

Interesting! Let's hope it's true. However, it'd probably be wise to do as Celt suggested and develop a healthy superstitious fear of restarting the server before an event.

Still, I think it would do many better to have the event start within a few minutes of the scheduled time. Whilst most sensible people would happily accept a delay of five or ten minutes, it can be a stretch at times to wait beyond this period.

Funny thing, we were running on our schedule, everything was going fine, and all of sudden when things got real and we got on the event map it seemed like everything took five times longer than expected to set up. I'm blaming it largely on my inexperience.

On the other hand, once we got the event started I think things went pretty smoothly, and in this regard I think having a predefined structure for the event (with several alternative variants, of course) that all the admins involved were familiar with helped a lot, so that's one thing I'd advise to keep for the next event.

I've been told by the chaps that there was an unusually low number of birins being thrown their way during this event

This was my impression as well. My shield hardly caught a birín, but I thought that was largely because we spent most of the battle on a flank. However, watching Finnr's video from the point of view of the Mercians (who made up our centre) it would seem there were fewer birín coming their way than a month ago. Could have been a factor, but probably a relatively small one.

As for the balance between the hosts, it was carefully considered. Just not very accurately, it would seem.

 

[evulclown]

I mean, it is the greatest boon of the Goídil. We tend to **** bricks when the numbers are taken into consideration (three birins per man, seventy odd men, a good 170+ throwing weapons in one round).

That sums up Birins really - awesome on paper, not so much in reality.

Players made the concious choice to spend their money elsewhere... on axes and larger shields so they could attempt to compete against the Engle in melee because birins aren't worth it - Birins aren't actually that cost effective. .

They sound scary, 3 projectiles! But it's not 3 javelins you have.

In order to kill with a javelin you need 1 - 2 hits. With a birin you need 2 - 3. If someone had a stack of 2 - 3 javelins you'd have the right to **** a brick.

Sure you get "more chances" to wound a player with a birin, but you're more likely to kill someone with a javelin. Rarely does a player allow you the chance to throw a projectile at them twice, let alone 3 times in order to get a kill.

And that's the benefit of the Goídil? Their birins, that's their "range". While others get xbows and bows (not to mention horses... as if the Goídil weren't documented using horses in skirmishes and battles with javelins and spears) - Especially in large scale battles these are out in even bigger numbers + the javelins they can buy too.

...The Goídil should really get slinggers to balance this as was historical.

...Or you could raise the damage of birins.

...Or 4 - 5 birins per stack, but then there would be cries of balance issues as a seemingly silly amount of birins were filling the sky (even if their damage was lackluster). 

Nothing will change however, it's another situation where "it'll do the way it is". So Goídil are left without a range class, shortest weapons, and even used to pay more for the same armour. It's not really a shock how they perform, the larger the battles, the more the unbalance shows.

The outcome of this event however was mostly down to the players on each side as a pose to faction based balance, but it had its effect.

(And for the record, the event was fun! Was great to see so many players on, the mod really shines with epic battles of that size...)

 

[Æthelwulf]

But the Engle have equally short weapons in their lower class, the same size and cost shields and a poorer selection of swords for the higher tier class warrior. All without the added benefit of a cheap and easily renewable throwing weapon.

I always found the Engle to be one of the weaker factions throughout the history of the mod but choose them every time because somehow they just produce great team play. I racked up a hefty amount of kills using my spear in a supporting role but hardly came up against many spears users myself. My one death came at the hand of the mass charge on the Haraz ranks where I took a birin to the back from a well positioned flanker, opening me up to an attack from an oncoming swordswoman, who then decapitated me in glory. Twas a beautiful little bit of teamwork in play and we got thoroughly smashed. Sadly it meant that your public host was over run by our main force, who in their blood fury almost charged your remaining elite troops in dribs and drabs but as I noted in watching some videos from the event were stopped from charging over TeamSpeak and amassed ranks once more for a final and killing blow.

Other than that time I didn't see the Goidl expose or exploit any weaknesses in the Engle lines. From my point of view it was straight up shield walling and mass of bodies, but many times we broke through your flank and attacked in the rear on mass, loosening the formation and thus more often than not outnumbering all of our opponents. Or in the case of the gate fight, using our newly found intimidation to keep you chaps busy long enough for the public host to do its work on the larger exposed flank.

I personally don't know where I stand with the Goidl, sometimes I loathe them and can't gain any kills whatsoever but then there are those moments where a team just utilizes them astonishingly well as an unstoppable skirmishing force and wipes the floor with everybody. They are the Marmite group and I wonder if some more interesting maps and setups are required to get the best from them in future events.

Below is a just mental pipedream rant about my ultimate event. It would take a lot of work and planning and be utterly mental to pull off but I feel it could have quite the reward. It's also an absolute mess to read because it's just brain farts written down on a page with no proper thought.

This leads me on to a point I have had since the Lewes Fyrd days and the talk of campaigns and weekly events. I often wonder to make things a little interesting and perhaps help in the old team balance equation that we have admin created objectives placed upon the battle/map, say a sort of role play conquest/raid mode played out in battle maybe with admins in spec keeping score. We have our two factions one attacking the other defending, they have could have an unequal number of players and hosts under the command of a faction leader.

Prior to the battle and in the creation of the map objectives and allocated starting locations are set up. For this example lets say a small but veteran raiding force has landed a host by ship, they start en masse but exposed in an open field (or we could get some of the good ole longships to bring them onto shore to certain locations and a custom made smaller modelled ship bring small groups of skirmishes to more dangerous yet rewarding locations nearer to the objectives and thus the enemy), the defending force have been warned of the attack and have had time to prepare, a local huscarl and his men are waiting, they have use of a large public host in the town and the regions Ealdorman is on route with his men ( In this case sitting on a map border for an allotted period of time) to represent their arrival. Both teams now have several options available to them in the guise of admin refereed objectives (capture/defence of key pre allocated locations or the death of host leaders) that can gain them points in the play of the map which can be tallied at the end of each few rounds to determine the victor rather than who killed the most.

For instance, in the town we can have several buildings, granary, storehouses, a church and say a wealthy landowners home which are all viable targets to the invading host. "Capture" and "Recapture" of these objectives will score a point for each team. Capture could be counted as killing off any defenders of the buildings or if none simply keeping a small host in the area. The attackers themselves can lose objectives in the form of their ships which can be burned and thus have to balance leaving a large enough force to defend them, the same way that the defenders must risk sending a small force to burn them and fail trying or attack en masse cutting off the raiders escape but leaving the objectives in town vulnerable to capture and easy defence from the raiders for when the Ealdorman reinforcements arrive.

In the design of the map, the town could be quite defensible but have several points of entry, via bridges and fords thus again leaving headway for round start tactical planning for the faction and host leaders which will need to be adapted and changed rapidly depending on each teams tactics. This can be reflected in the entry point for the reinforcements which should be set up to be easily cut off by the raiders however leaving them open to attack from both flanks but granting them several bonus points, but a large loss of life and less chances of gaining points in the sacking of the town.

Several playthroughs of the scenario can take place where once people start getting a feel for the map and which tactics work best, fun can be had in exploiting host weaknesses, skirmishing and general ninja play and having epicly outnumbered last stands. This kind of pipedream event I really feel though insanely hard to pull off and plan would help beat the problems faced with an "overpowered" host and add a rather enjoyable tactical level to some of the smaller groups.

 

[Hengwulf]

Before the event I was worried that the goidil might prove to weak because of the birins. A player with birins hardly ever takes a spear because it will drop when you pull out your birins. I thought that this would be the big disadvantage to us since after we perforated your shields with birins we would have to face a spearwall with our puny axes.

But I agree there didn't seem to be that much birins at all, which makes me wonder where our biggest weakness really was. Also I guess after the first few rounds we got more worried and sometimes were easily outflanked. I remember when I got back from getting a beer and ran some 10 meters behind my line just to see the fyrningas coming over that light slope to our behind/left. They made sure a soon had to run to my fridge again.

 

[hrotha]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I hope it proves helpful to the next event organizers.

I would agree that the Goídil probably need some kind of boost. Maybe increased birín damage values, for a start. For future events, though, the most important lesson to bring home is that skill balance is crucial, and that there should be backup plans to quickly fix any unbalance.

 

[KickingJoub]

Sorry I'm horribly late with this reply, but I just wanted to say that the Varangians, while sorry for not attending in numbers (not to mention our leaders internet went down), were pushed into the public host on the celtic side, which made us loose interest. I understand that I, Ubbe, wasn't really mentioned to be the Varangian leader in the event, but we managed to gather 4 players. I did try to mention it in the event thread as soon as I got the info myself.

More could've arrived, but like I said, not having our own ts channel was too big a kick in the teeth and we didn't feel like gathering our people.

As for the event I can't say much. I just thought this would be the appopriate place to put this apology. Though I do to some degree blame the hosts for this, I recognise our own shortcoming.

 

[hrotha]

It's always been a rule of Víkingr that you need at least 5 players to have a separate host, otherwise you'll have to play in the public host. This wasn't mentioned in the event thread, or in any of the previous event threads, but it's always applied (for example, for the March 24th date it looked like the Fenrisbarn wouldn't be able to bring 5 players, so me and Yrminulf discussing either merging them with a public host or inviting some public players to their host).

So I don't think we're the ones to blame here when 9-13 of you were supposed to show up in the first place.

 

[KickingJoub]

Oh, I was never told of this rule And like I said, I had no idea I was in charge until the last minute so I couldn't gather people. Not to mention I had 2 who were ready to come but I called it off due to not giving a crap anymore. Welp, we'll know next time.

E: I had to leave in a hurry and pressed post by accident. Now, as for the five person rule: We had 3 people in our ts channel when, can't remember who, came on and said something along the lines of: "We're moving you to the public host, sorry" I don't recall what I replied, but the reason was never explained, which lead to me calling the thing off and the guys who were late to bugger off. It should also be said that our clan has been around since before this event only, so we couldn't know of that rule. It was never asked if we had more people coming or not, while below our channel (can't remember which) some clan also had less than 5 people at the time.

As for the amount of people that was signed up for us, well, I had nothing to do with that.

(I do still blame you for never explaining the rule, which we as a young clan didn't have a clue about )

EE: My brain is going into lockdown it seems. I was supposed to add that my server list "died" the moment I left the Vikingr server, so I couldn't have rejoined if I wanted to.

 

[Hugh Higgins]

Oh, I assumed it was 10 people. Haha.
Well, I'm glad I managed to get 16-17 out of the 20 we signed up, though near the end we ended up with 6-11.
Let's hope next time a few of my people will be able to get in, as a few had "incorrect authorization" and others just couldn't find the server.

Anyway, just going to add that we should be attending the next event and with hopefully more people.