Just a question which has probably been brought forward but will this have any effect on the other updates we're waiting on? @Magpieman @Cryptite
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Conquest, Beachheads and More!
- Thread starter Magpieman
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mindblaster007
Well-Known Member
Ap
I was talking with you earlier, is the 1.15 update still looking closer to mid March or later?
It's basically ASAP after Quests/beachheads. Don't foresee it taking until mid-march
Then make a guide to how conquest works so new players can actually try and understand
I think one thing that's arguably fair to mention is that, in this case, Beachheads are very advanced end-game stuff. It doesn't really affect new players or players learning how Conquest works. They might be affected by invasions from time to time, but there's no need for a new or little town to understand the deep mechanics of Beachheads from the getgo.
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I can see that a lot of effort was put into this and appreciate fresh ideas to keep Conquest interesting. That being said, wanting to add beachheads while keeping continent capital warfare undisturbed is like wanting to jump in a pool without getting wet. The feature *is* the ability to disturb continent warfare.
I think a lot of players don't know history behind why beachheads were added in the first place and therefore don't have the context to understand why beachheads don't fit with Loka's core gameplay design. Before Conquest 3, which added the islands of Balak and Rivina, there was obviously no Balak or Rivina strength and world cap was instead decided by whatever town had the highest continent strength. What this meant was that if you were the strongest town on the server but didn't have anyone on your continent to fight you would lose world cap to a weaker town on another continent attacking an even weaker town simply because they had the ability to gain significant amounts of strength whereas you did not. This resulted in groups playing around the restriction by starting/joining what we called "proxy towns" to try and keep off-continent towns under the proxy town's parent's strength so they could retain world cap. Beachheads were added as a quick fix so that continent caps could directly affect another capital's strength. With the release of Conquest 3, world cap was instead decided by the victor of Balak and with their purpose now gone beachheads were removed from the game.
So how do beachheads contradict with Loka's core gameplay design? For that we bring in Cryptite:
"But Skuhoo," you might ask, "if invasions don't affect strength how would the three avenues of success compromised?". Ignoring the multitude of ways invasions in their current suggested form can be cheesed the ability to restrict an alliance down to just 2 territories completely neuters the two most powerful continent capital policies, Tax Manipulation and Industry Quotas, since they both rely on territories to be effective. That's on top of their industry output already being halved by just the existence of a beachhead on their continent. Think about it, do you really think a capital with 2 territories, halved industry output, and neutered policies can really be considered a success?
Furthermore, with the implementation of beachheads the balance of restricted resources gets completely thrown out the window. Back when the "Climate Engineering" world cap policy allowed the world cap to grow any single restricted crop of their choice it was nerfed after just a month to it's current implementation which converts the windmill output to a single restricted crop. Invasions would be just like pre-nerfed Climate Engineering except not restricted to crops and with the added ability to pick a new biome to control each week.
I'd like to close with one thing I keep preaching to anyone who will listen which is that features should never be added based on current player balance. Reins fights have been mostly balanced lately but imagine a time where it isn't. Think of the damage an aggressive group of players could do with invasions if there weren't enough players to stop them. Cryptite tells of a bad time in Loka's history where one group controlled the expansion of everyone, everywhere but beachheads would be intentionally coding that back in.
I think a lot of players don't know history behind why beachheads were added in the first place and therefore don't have the context to understand why beachheads don't fit with Loka's core gameplay design. Before Conquest 3, which added the islands of Balak and Rivina, there was obviously no Balak or Rivina strength and world cap was instead decided by whatever town had the highest continent strength. What this meant was that if you were the strongest town on the server but didn't have anyone on your continent to fight you would lose world cap to a weaker town on another continent attacking an even weaker town simply because they had the ability to gain significant amounts of strength whereas you did not. This resulted in groups playing around the restriction by starting/joining what we called "proxy towns" to try and keep off-continent towns under the proxy town's parent's strength so they could retain world cap. Beachheads were added as a quick fix so that continent caps could directly affect another capital's strength. With the release of Conquest 3, world cap was instead decided by the victor of Balak and with their purpose now gone beachheads were removed from the game.
So how do beachheads contradict with Loka's core gameplay design? For that we bring in Cryptite:
"But Skuhoo," you might ask, "if invasions don't affect strength how would the three avenues of success compromised?". Ignoring the multitude of ways invasions in their current suggested form can be cheesed the ability to restrict an alliance down to just 2 territories completely neuters the two most powerful continent capital policies, Tax Manipulation and Industry Quotas, since they both rely on territories to be effective. That's on top of their industry output already being halved by just the existence of a beachhead on their continent. Think about it, do you really think a capital with 2 territories, halved industry output, and neutered policies can really be considered a success?
Furthermore, with the implementation of beachheads the balance of restricted resources gets completely thrown out the window. Back when the "Climate Engineering" world cap policy allowed the world cap to grow any single restricted crop of their choice it was nerfed after just a month to it's current implementation which converts the windmill output to a single restricted crop. Invasions would be just like pre-nerfed Climate Engineering except not restricted to crops and with the added ability to pick a new biome to control each week.
I'd like to close with one thing I keep preaching to anyone who will listen which is that features should never be added based on current player balance. Reins fights have been mostly balanced lately but imagine a time where it isn't. Think of the damage an aggressive group of players could do with invasions if there weren't enough players to stop them. Cryptite tells of a bad time in Loka's history where one group controlled the expansion of everyone, everywhere but beachheads would be intentionally coding that back in.
I think it is fair to say that beach heads are THE most missed mechanic from Conquest 2. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment in wanting those fights to return, every beach head had a gravity to it and the stakes felt so much more real than anything I've experienced with Balak or Rivina.
That being said, I also wholeheartedly agree with all of Skuhoo's points above. Beach heads (in their previous and proposed form) are inherently an issue when it comes to Loka Conquest, because it enables the highest power to project its power over anyone, anywhere. Skuhoo already mentioned a couple of the issues that I believe explicate how it enables this power projection, by effectively nullifying capital policies and restricting biome control. However, he only touched on something I think is equally important. That is, allowing the World Capital to limit any town anywhere to two territories (effectively). Some may remember that with the release of Conquest 3 was a new World Capital policy that in its negative form would allow the world capital to limit a town/alliance to 20 territories instead of 30. Understandably, there was a great deal of frustration and pushback toward this policy. Now, obviously the difference between that policy and beach heads is that there's a fair deal of leg work a side has to do to limit a town's territories, but this again ties into the power projection that beach heads allow. Beach heads were very deliberately removed to limit a town's ability to project its power onto the rest of the continents and force the contents to be segregated. Their return in the current proposed form does not do enough to address these same issues.
In case you are confused as to which issue I mean:
Turning to the other issue that I believe is important is the origin of players' wishes for this mechanic to return which is simply that people enjoyed the attention that beach heads brought. I mean these fights were massive, there was a gravity to them, and in reviewing comments from players about beach heads they seem to agree.
While we can argue about the veracity of what Cryptite is saying above, the simplicity of it stands. At the core, the reason people want beach heads is because they want big fight, big numbers, big fun. I think it's 100% percent worth evaluating how to bring a mechanic that achieves this result, but I am very sure the return of beach heads is not how it should be done.
tl;dr beach head bad big fights good make big good fight without big bad beach head
okay cool
tru fax tho
That being said, I also wholeheartedly agree with all of Skuhoo's points above. Beach heads (in their previous and proposed form) are inherently an issue when it comes to Loka Conquest, because it enables the highest power to project its power over anyone, anywhere. Skuhoo already mentioned a couple of the issues that I believe explicate how it enables this power projection, by effectively nullifying capital policies and restricting biome control. However, he only touched on something I think is equally important. That is, allowing the World Capital to limit any town anywhere to two territories (effectively). Some may remember that with the release of Conquest 3 was a new World Capital policy that in its negative form would allow the world capital to limit a town/alliance to 20 territories instead of 30. Understandably, there was a great deal of frustration and pushback toward this policy. Now, obviously the difference between that policy and beach heads is that there's a fair deal of leg work a side has to do to limit a town's territories, but this again ties into the power projection that beach heads allow. Beach heads were very deliberately removed to limit a town's ability to project its power onto the rest of the continents and force the contents to be segregated. Their return in the current proposed form does not do enough to address these same issues.
In case you are confused as to which issue I mean:
Turning to the other issue that I believe is important is the origin of players' wishes for this mechanic to return which is simply that people enjoyed the attention that beach heads brought. I mean these fights were massive, there was a gravity to them, and in reviewing comments from players about beach heads they seem to agree.
While we can argue about the veracity of what Cryptite is saying above, the simplicity of it stands. At the core, the reason people want beach heads is because they want big fight, big numbers, big fun. I think it's 100% percent worth evaluating how to bring a mechanic that achieves this result, but I am very sure the return of beach heads is not how it should be done.
tl;dr beach head bad big fights good make big good fight without big bad beach head
okay cool
tru fax tho
While there are some good points made from both Skuhoo and Sparkys replies, there are some that are less valid IMO. Dredging up old quotes relating to a completely different conquest system (Conquest 2.0) isn't particularly relevant. The only way it contributes to the conversation is to highlight why we removed them when we changed the conquest system. Yes, we can look back at past things to learn core lesson from them, but when the past systems were so very different, it's not possible to make direct comparisons. Conquest 3 was an enormous change and we didn't get everything perfect the first time around, as is highlighted in this post:
Reflecting on that, we focused too much on balance and fairness and as a result, lost some of the fluid and dynamic aspects of conquest. To me, one of those things lost was the three continents feeling connected and part of the same world and political systems. Alliances are able to sit comfortably on their safe continent with no external threats. (Part of this could be addressed with stronger world capital policies.)
Players want to fight each other and we can't really stop that, currently, they move towns to another continent in order to achieve this, which is dumb. We need some kind of system to allow them to do it, and in doing so we can control it far better. (would also be nice to give players more of a reason to stay in a town/more downsides to leaving a town but that's a whole other conversation)
Just for clarification the implication that beachheads were added as a 'quick fix' in the past is completely false. There were numerous iterations of beachheads in development for a very long time before it was eventually added.
Something I feel is important is we move away from the black and white, extreme thinking that I'm seeing. It is not as simple as beachheads good vs beachheads bad. There is a large middle ground which appears to be going largely ignored. This is the first proper draft of the system and there is a lot of room to adapt it in order to address concerns. Regardless of what we call the system, it will involve attacking other continents in some way shape or form. That is unless people feel points 2, 3 and to a slightly lesser degree 1 are not issues and they do not need solving. This is one of the reasons for this post, is to try and get to the bottom of what people really think about conquest. What are the core issues/areas that could be improved? Rather than vague statements like Balak bad, beachheads good.
Something to note is this first draft heavily favours invaders and those placing the beachheads. This is game design 101, when adding a new feature, buff balance patch etc. always make new things on the strong side so players use it, then if it's a little too strong nerf it afterwards. Having said that we may have gone a little too far for this iteration of beachheads.
So there are a couple of points within this. The first is that it neuters two continent capital policies. I do not feel this is a reason not to add beachheads. Either it adds risk to taking the 'strongest' capital policies or alternatively we could look at changing how the policies work. The second point, however, is important. Should an alliance be able to be restricted to two territories by foreign invaders? In the majority of cases, this is not possible. Providing it is an alliance with multiple towns, there is no way an invader can prevent them from having the full 30 territories. They would simply have another town in the alliance take them. These territories may not be in the locations the alliance wanted them, but they would still have them. The only instance where this could be a problem is if it's a solo town not part of an alliance. This is where we may need to look at the mechanics of foreign invasion and tweak them. There are lots of things that can be done such as:
This is something I completely agree with. I think removing the ability for invaders to gain biome control and instead have them rely on the industry output to the bountiful tile. This also makes it a much bigger deal for the invaders to defend the beachhead tile. We can also tweak industry output numbers for foreign territories to strike the right balance.
Again completely agree with this (except maybe the language used, 'preaching') the worst-case scenario should always be considered when we design anything. Lokans are a clever bunch and very good at breaking things and finding cheese strats, so we have to Loka proof all features we add. Sometimes this is why we can't have nice things
.
The source of frustration with this policy was the lack of control the receiving town/alliance had on its own land rather than anything else. This is not the same as invasions because they have every ability to fight back and control their own future. Granted there are still possible problems with a superpower, but that's a different issue.
Overall I am slightly disappointed by the lack of responses to this thread. I would like people to step up and not hide behind others by simply liking their post and instead put things in their own words and put their own views forward. I understand the argument that you don't want to just repeat the same thing over and over again but I can almost guarantee Skuhoo and Sparky did not cover all of your concerns with the system. (big thanks to them for their responses) They certainly didn't really highlight the 6 points I first discussed. You don't have to write an essay, in fact, we would much prefer bullet points as they are a great way to get the important info across.
In order to move the discussion forward, I would like to focus on are the 6 points we believed needed addressing. Do you agree with all of them? Are we missing points? Are there no issues, but instead small things that can be added to improve it? Is conquest perfect?
Reflecting on that, we focused too much on balance and fairness and as a result, lost some of the fluid and dynamic aspects of conquest. To me, one of those things lost was the three continents feeling connected and part of the same world and political systems. Alliances are able to sit comfortably on their safe continent with no external threats. (Part of this could be addressed with stronger world capital policies.)
Players want to fight each other and we can't really stop that, currently, they move towns to another continent in order to achieve this, which is dumb. We need some kind of system to allow them to do it, and in doing so we can control it far better. (would also be nice to give players more of a reason to stay in a town/more downsides to leaving a town but that's a whole other conversation)
Just for clarification the implication that beachheads were added as a 'quick fix' in the past is completely false. There were numerous iterations of beachheads in development for a very long time before it was eventually added.
Something I feel is important is we move away from the black and white, extreme thinking that I'm seeing. It is not as simple as beachheads good vs beachheads bad. There is a large middle ground which appears to be going largely ignored. This is the first proper draft of the system and there is a lot of room to adapt it in order to address concerns. Regardless of what we call the system, it will involve attacking other continents in some way shape or form. That is unless people feel points 2, 3 and to a slightly lesser degree 1 are not issues and they do not need solving. This is one of the reasons for this post, is to try and get to the bottom of what people really think about conquest. What are the core issues/areas that could be improved? Rather than vague statements like Balak bad, beachheads good.
Something to note is this first draft heavily favours invaders and those placing the beachheads. This is game design 101, when adding a new feature, buff balance patch etc. always make new things on the strong side so players use it, then if it's a little too strong nerf it afterwards. Having said that we may have gone a little too far for this iteration of beachheads.
So there are a couple of points within this. The first is that it neuters two continent capital policies. I do not feel this is a reason not to add beachheads. Either it adds risk to taking the 'strongest' capital policies or alternatively we could look at changing how the policies work. The second point, however, is important. Should an alliance be able to be restricted to two territories by foreign invaders? In the majority of cases, this is not possible. Providing it is an alliance with multiple towns, there is no way an invader can prevent them from having the full 30 territories. They would simply have another town in the alliance take them. These territories may not be in the locations the alliance wanted them, but they would still have them. The only instance where this could be a problem is if it's a solo town not part of an alliance. This is where we may need to look at the mechanics of foreign invasion and tweak them. There are lots of things that can be done such as:
- Preventing any tiles around the lead town from being captured by invaders.
- Preventing invaders from attacking tiles that would cause territory to be cut off.
- Not decaying territory cut off by invaders.
- Instead of taking territory, invaders instead capture them as a vassal of some kind. With both invader and owner of territory splitting the benefits.
This is something I completely agree with. I think removing the ability for invaders to gain biome control and instead have them rely on the industry output to the bountiful tile. This also makes it a much bigger deal for the invaders to defend the beachhead tile. We can also tweak industry output numbers for foreign territories to strike the right balance.
Again completely agree with this (except maybe the language used, 'preaching') the worst-case scenario should always be considered when we design anything. Lokans are a clever bunch and very good at breaking things and finding cheese strats, so we have to Loka proof all features we add. Sometimes this is why we can't have nice things
. The source of frustration with this policy was the lack of control the receiving town/alliance had on its own land rather than anything else. This is not the same as invasions because they have every ability to fight back and control their own future. Granted there are still possible problems with a superpower, but that's a different issue.
Overall I am slightly disappointed by the lack of responses to this thread. I would like people to step up and not hide behind others by simply liking their post and instead put things in their own words and put their own views forward. I understand the argument that you don't want to just repeat the same thing over and over again but I can almost guarantee Skuhoo and Sparky did not cover all of your concerns with the system. (big thanks to them for their responses) They certainly didn't really highlight the 6 points I first discussed. You don't have to write an essay, in fact, we would much prefer bullet points as they are a great way to get the important info across.
In order to move the discussion forward, I would like to focus on are the 6 points we believed needed addressing. Do you agree with all of them? Are we missing points? Are there no issues, but instead small things that can be added to improve it? Is conquest perfect?
One of the LCR members, Steve5729, brought the following useful feedback to our attention. I won't dissect it right now as I'm sure you have all had enough of reading at the moment, but wanted to post it so everything is out in the open. I do however think all of these things are solvable.
- Remote bullying of players. You don't have to risk anything to chase someone off the server. You don't have to take care of your home town anymore and worry about attackers while you've moved.
- Rich get richer. Even with the bountiful in place owning the biome means you can just manually harvest. If that's removed it's inevitable that one side loses and the snowballing of the current world cap gets to the point where they have a surplus of every resource. Again this is the same thing currently with Proxys but the risk of funding a proxy and not your main town is removed.
- More of fighting the same people over and over again. It forces players into the two side system even if that's not what they want. If Eldritch beach heads some brand new Kalros town and Strom wants to do something about it, it's not Eldritch vs New Town anymore it's Eldritch vs Strom.
- There is absolutely no way to ensure that it doesn't affect cap at all. Double placing, Cutoffs and other similar things still affect cap no matter how minimally. This hurts more when to continents ally and there's a force trying to become capital because suddenly you don't just have to fight the Garama capital on your continent but the Ascalon cap trying to hinder you as well.
- Higher risk Balak cheese. What happens if you are forced to choose between world cap and a beachhead. This isn't the same as a reins fight where you could shrug it off and attack back 4 times. It would really suck to have someone be on your continent and get to play defensive for it or to risk losing world cap or double mob drops.
Ive been begging for this mechanic since it left. With this said, ***PSA***please do NOT quote nor shred my post apart as it is simply based on MY OPINION regarding beachheads. ok thanks.
That being said; my whole standpoint in all of this is that I came to Loka because back then it was risked based. No one was safe and everything you did had a risk because of one key mechanic. However, the biggest mechanic that I primarily stayed here for was beachheads, at the end of the day if you don't like being oppressed then get over it? It's not worth deleting a mechanic over (granted I understand it had some flaws). In realistic aspects, if you don't like being oppressed as a kingdom you would raise an army with a couple of allies and keep fighting. That is the same thing I would expect and do expect from lokan conflicts. That's how it used to be agree with it or not.
I personally feel the term 'unfair' will be used to a point where all of lokan PVP is nerfed and it takes away the risk factor in PVP (This is ironic coming from someone who cant PvP). If you pay attention enough, and believe it or not, a lot of stronger towns make this argument so they don't lose power / sustain power they have on their own continent, and some others make the argument for the sake of all lokans and are thinking about the greater good of us all.
Nevertheless; in regards to beachheads, this is something I 100% think should come back and am happy it has reached high staff levels to where this conversation can be talked about openly. By allowing beachheads, this brings back the notion that no empire is safe. From what I have read so far, people have talked about how they don't want cross continents to be bullied by other towns/town. However..............has anyone thought about the continent that town is on? I have. The same argument could be made that, that same town that could bully other continents is bullying the entire continent it is on, leaving the smaller towns defenseless. Whos to say these small towns could have stronger allies on other continents but they are alone since continents can no longer attack other continents. What I liked about Beachheads and (I support Mag on this effort), was that although it may have had some FLAWS, it was a vital role in the conquest cycle of Loka. It gave the server balance although this issue is very controversial.
I say this because the continent that this unbeatable town is on allows for towns from other continents to fight another boss town on another continent. This then spurs into more inter-player politics where they may want to support the invader of a continent because they may feel oppressed by the strong town on their continent. This was why I liked beachheads because it proved the notion that although no one was safe, the cycle was balanced (with flaws). Yes, you can make the extreme argument that one town can rule all the continents but you can make the same argument that that one town, can rule its entire continent unchallenged by other outside nations because the ability to beachhead is disabled.
This also supports the notion of cross-continental allies. For example, (Yes Eldritch and Silverhand, im putting you on blast mode) Eldritch and Silverhand jointly supported each other from two different continents, during the Great War of Valinor against Eldritch, this caused a world war on Loka. Id say which was the highlight and peak of our time here on the server, Garaman held TGF invaded Ascalon to support Valinor whereas Kalrosian held Iblis invaded Garama because of Garama supporting Valinor and Jotun during the war with the covenant. AS SOON AS, Conquest 2.0 came out, the war was far from over until staff turned off beacheads.
Granted I understand why staff made this choice but I understand why some of the staff members also supported by LCRs want to bring it back. In my head, Conquest and PvP support the overall idea that it's a risk-based game environment. Sure you can make the argument that there are other ways to make this happen but beachheads, in my opinion, is the way, and are one of the most fundamental instruments (that needs tweaking) to balance the wheel of power, PVP, and conquest on Loka.
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My side piece aside; in response to Mag's 6 points of conversation above this is my take on it;
- I agree with all of the points above, I am not sure if there is any other major topics of issue to add however I do believe that there are minor fixes that be implemented in order to improve it.
Obstinance
Well-Known Member
Hi, I think it's only natural for such powerful towns and alliances to want more once they conquer their continent (especially when nobody contests them). In regards to wanting more, Balak just doesn't cut it and never has. Just because beachheads are actually being considered now doesn't mean we can't act like a large part of the community hasn't been whining for them to come back for years. It allows people to stay loyal to their town and continent while still being able to settle their differences with cross continental enemies through a good old fashioned fight. The community has been asking for a long time and they've been heard.
HOWEVER
The way they're being implemented removes a lot of power from the people who are conquering internationally. Defenders are going to have to strategize it out just like the old days. The clear next move of handling local and international continent conflict won't be obvious and handed to you. But that's how it used to be anyway? I think keeping conquest clear and concise was a big thing that conquest 3 brought and beachheads are taking that away. But it's not like everything is final and nothing on Loka isn't subject to change or up for debate. I like the depth beachheads bring but making the terms and rules of a beachhead are polished clear and concise is incredibly important with such an addition to the server.
Keeping world capital on Balak was most definitely the right choice. Before beachheads making a return, Loka was kind of like a tournament. Top 3 (technically 4) teams make it to the finals with the Rivina winners being that wild card that we all know won't win. But after that the tournament is over and everyone goes home. Conquest was never intended to be like that I think and bringing back beachheads is bringing back some of that depth to the conquest system and the server.
They're coming back and I personally think it's a welcomed feature. Instead of stopping them, pitch ideas to make them better, fixed, and balanced.
Something I personally hope is addressed in some way since I don't really have an idea on how to fix it, is the amount of time and dedication the server requires and beachheads just adding more to that. Not every continent capital has the time and energy to spend on the server all day preparing. I don't remember if I read this but a beachhead cooldown whether you won or failed your attempt sounds good so the impact they have isn't AS large and less time consuming.
HOWEVER
The way they're being implemented removes a lot of power from the people who are conquering internationally. Defenders are going to have to strategize it out just like the old days. The clear next move of handling local and international continent conflict won't be obvious and handed to you. But that's how it used to be anyway? I think keeping conquest clear and concise was a big thing that conquest 3 brought and beachheads are taking that away. But it's not like everything is final and nothing on Loka isn't subject to change or up for debate. I like the depth beachheads bring but making the terms and rules of a beachhead are polished clear and concise is incredibly important with such an addition to the server.
Keeping world capital on Balak was most definitely the right choice. Before beachheads making a return, Loka was kind of like a tournament. Top 3 (technically 4) teams make it to the finals with the Rivina winners being that wild card that we all know won't win. But after that the tournament is over and everyone goes home. Conquest was never intended to be like that I think and bringing back beachheads is bringing back some of that depth to the conquest system and the server.
They're coming back and I personally think it's a welcomed feature. Instead of stopping them, pitch ideas to make them better, fixed, and balanced.
Something I personally hope is addressed in some way since I don't really have an idea on how to fix it, is the amount of time and dedication the server requires and beachheads just adding more to that. Not every continent capital has the time and energy to spend on the server all day preparing. I don't remember if I read this but a beachhead cooldown whether you won or failed your attempt sounds good so the impact they have isn't AS large and less time consuming.
Correct, the tentative plan currently is that after failing an invasion or after losing your beachhead point, you'd have to wait another week to try again.
So this is something that I agree is important and tough to find a balance between giving people the freedom to fight when they want but also being restrictive enough so people don't have to fight all the time.
Currently, to keep it simple/consistent with the rest of conquest, the number of attacks/defends once you have your beachhead is taken from the same 5/7 pool as continental conquest. The alternative is to have a secondary pool of attacks that limits you to 1 or 2 foreign attacks on another continent. It's also worth noting we could look to reduce the current 5attack/7defend pool for regular conquest to something like 3/5 for either system if people feel there can currently be too many attacks per day.
There's a few problems I had with your post but for the sake of moving the discussion forward I'll instead focus on your original 6 points:
1. Don't like people/alliances moving continents all the time.
Beachheads do not address this problem. Players move to help allies take or defend cap on other continents. In the past they've also moved to support the fight for world cap. If beachheads are specifically being designed to interfere as little as possible with continent cap then they absolutely do not motivate players to stay in their town. If anything the opposite effect would happen as allies across continents are likely to pile into a beachheaded alliance in an attempt to kick them off.
2. Want to be able to harm enemies on other continents (have everything feel more connected).
This point was pretty much the entire focus of both mine and @Sparky___ 's previous posts.
3. Want to have an alternative to trading for other continents resources (war for them).
There already is an alternative to trading for restricted resources: loot bundles. Aside from that why are more alternatives needed? The entire point of biome restrictions is to force scarcity and encourage trade. Being able to gain those restricted resources from Conquest undermines that aspect of Loka for no real reason.
4. Not enough big fights involving the whole server.
Beachheads do not address this problem. I get it, people want to experience more of the giant fights of the past (even if they were small in number and laggy to the point of unplayability). But as Crypt has said many times before, beachheads are just reins with a ping in Discord. Thinking that the reintroduction of beachheads will bring back the giant fights is some real optimism that will quickly turn into real disappointment once they're added. Virtually all of Loka is already on one of two sides. There is no untapped playerbase yearning to defend their continent. And if it's the inactives you're trying to reach then if half a dozen pings from @BoooiilSkilZZ 's boobot and @Kaph aren't enough to get them on what makes you think a single ping from Lokabot will do anything?
5. Lack of scaling, no progression. Hit 30 territories and can't get better.
Beachheads do not address this problem. This point is addressed by the world cap changes and not beachheads.
6. Balak fights do not have enough stakes and are not meaningful enough.
Beachheads do not address this problem. This point is addressed by the world cap changes and not beachheads.
Beachheads fail to properly address any of the issues listed. I'd also argue that at least two of them aren't even actual issues. Focusing so hard on beachheads as some sort of saving grace for Conquest ignores the actual roots of the problem. That's something that can be dived into in a dedicated thread but I believe at least some of the issues have been brought up in LCR discussions.
Also, on a side note, wanting lots of feedback on a thread while tucking it away into the subforum of a subforum was probably not the best idea. I couldn't even find this thread again and had to look at my previous posts to locate it.
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I think this is being severely overlooked. I am not at all convinced that beach heads will eliminate this perceived issue for two reasons, one of which Skuhoo has already pointed out. The second being that, bearing in mind the eventualities that can occur in the future and trying to think outside the mindset of "what is happening now." Some groups may decide that beach heading another continent ultimately isn't worth the cost given the possibility they might not win. Thus, opting to instead physically move continents to achieve the same result.
While I agree that the constant moving between continents is generally bad for allowing towns to grow and such, I cannot honestly say if anything can or should be done about it, based on how things work. I do not feel that much has changed from Conquest 2 to 3 in terms of the continents feeling less connected to each other/part of the same political systems (in fact arguably they are more connected given the moving between continents) I think that since world capital fights were moved to Balak, that it looks like there is less connection (less towns directly involved in affecting the fight over world cap), but I believe it is more than fair to say that is not true.
Moreover, it is not exactly fair to say that alliances can
given that people are moving continents already. Not to mention that the ability to beach head means aside from up-front costs to beach heading (which should certainly be considerable if beach heads were to be a thing), alliances on their home continent have no added risk to the security of their own homefront, since they can just sit tight and destabilize another continent. Cost of beach heading pales in comparison to the risk associated with physically moving between continents for any number of reasons. Ex: moving players and resources to another town thereby gutting your ability to defend your homefront, town locks which by extension also equate to continental locks, if you're keeping multiple towns alive: shards and resources become an added logistical concern, and if you are the capital of the world then you risk yet more by moving.
tl;dr: what Sku said, but also fairly confident that this won't actually answer #1 with any real certainty.
My post here is in response to sku's response to the questions, NOT the questions themselves.
1. I completely agree on this point
2. I agree with Sparky and Sku, but I think the actual problem here is that there aren't enough fights between the two continents when people don't move. The solution here is that Balak buff tiles may need to be re-balanced and better world cap policies added (possible oppressive stuff to encourage taking down current world cap.)
3. While loot bundles are great for this your odds of getting the resource you want aren't high enough. However, bountiful territories are also great ways to get some of these resources. You don't need to control the biome, just win one fight against whoever has a bountiful for it. However, this isn't the case cross continent but is that a bad thing? Biome claims are a part of Loka and it does two really healthy things for the server. First it messes with the economy. Think about how much leather was worth when Eldritch had an embargo over it. Similarly spruce and dark oak used to sell on the market for way more because Silverhand horded the stuff and wouldn't sell much of it. Second this lack of the resource encourages people to attack whoever does have the resource.
4. I feel an @everyone in the Loka discord would attract slightly more people but not too many. I doubt we'd get more than a slightly above average amount of players, and 95%-99% of attendees would have come without the ping.
5. Yes and maybe a couple more territories makes sense but it would definitely have to cap out at or before 50. Beach heads aren't a fix for this though.
6. This can be fixed like I said earlier with better buffs and policies. It's especially important to consider oppressive world cap options as it pressures the other caps to take down the world cap. The problem is just coming up with buffs that don't effect the continents.
A possible solution:
I have no idea why this wasn't already brought up but there's been an idea that you can attack bountiful territories on other continents. This feels like it fixes most of the problems here as it essentially fixes most of the problems with beach heads and current conquest.
Invasions / Airship Invasions:
The capital of any continent can attack any bountiful (or another type that's made just for this) territory that is owned by another capital. This fight is automatically reins and pings everyone in the Loka discord. The resources from the bountiful automatically cash into the winner's NPC even if defenders win, so no second chances. If the attackers win the tile isn't neutralized but any radar or modules stay destroyed.
It's also possible being able to do invasions could be it's own world cap policy which adds tons of incentive for balak.
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There have been some really good responses to this thread, and I would like to add some input to how I view the implementation of beachheads onto the server.
I would first like to re-mention how beachheads can be balanced and adapted. In the initial post there were some ideas that were already thought of and these player inputs by people like Castalina and Skuhoo do a great deal in helping that. There's a balance to beachheads which is what we are all working towards. So here are some points I want to talk about.
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2. Want to be able to harm enemies on other continents (have everything feel more connected)
3. Want to have an alternative to trading for other continents resources (war for them).
As a player who has had the pleasure to be on both sides of the current loka political system I can say right off the bat that there can be a large gap between continent resources and how you come about to collect them. I think its important to note that this past December was the first time the roofed forest was taken from Silverhand in over a year. Iblis, a pretty inactive alliance for the most part of fall 2019, were able to keep land and not worry about losing their resource control just because they had a few more members then the other sides who could keep the generators full. Had beachheads been in place one could question if the summer-early fall alliance lead by Obstinance would finally have gotten their chance at the dark oak tgen mats that were desperately needed. From a current alliance makeup view of loka its easy to say that the current continent resource system is balanced when you have an alliance your friendly with running garama, however personally I encourage you to look on the other side of the spectrum at alliances who don't. My point here is that thinking beachheads are strictly for war and assuming that the current continent resource system is balanced is false. If a continent alliance wants a resource across another continent and can't trade for it then they should have the ability to fight for it in the high risk fight high reward fight that we want beachheads to become.
Skuhoo mentions loot bundles and also bounty tiles and while they do exist one cannot expect players to use these sole methods to gather materials; sometimes it can be a wild goose chase. As a server we have to have more opportunities for players to gather their materials. By making it so beachhead biome control is only used in town industries, I feel like their is a fair balance to whether a town would like to go out searching for loot bundles or risk it all by beach-heading for biome control.
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4. Not enough big fights involving the whole server.
I feel like given the history of the server, it is surprising how people forget how large beachhead fights truly were. Some of the biggest and best fights in lokan history were from beachheads and actually most of them were from beachheads. A ping in the lokan public discord, a discord of 500+ people, mixed with a warm-up window of 2 hours would surely attract a larger player base than most fights today. Looking at old eldrtichbot logs the beachhead fights back in 2017 actually attracted more players than reins fights nowadays do.
See this log of eldritch vs cincia as an example https://eldritchbot.com/fight?id=rkvVAi56@.
There are many more examples just like this on EB.
The old day beachhead fights were super fun as you would have various sides come together and throw old grudges aside for the sake of peace and prosperity. Think about the Voltarnia's, Katolis's, and other towns who dont get rein pings today. There is a current part of the player base who gets excluded from reins fights. I remember personally that I was able to go to most of the old beachhead fights because of the loka discord ping.
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5. Lack of scaling, no progression. Hit 30 territories and can't get better.
Point five is in my mind the hardest for most people to wrap their minds around since most towns have reached lokas end game so easily. Sure there is ways that world cap policy's can help the lack of scaling but there is only so far they can go. Magpie mentioned in the LCR chat that he is wary of many world capital policy's and how they could potentially overlap the world and continent picks. If anyone any other suggestions you can add them here https://www.lokamc.com/forums/index.php?threads/world-capital-policies.4487/. Another thing that was brought up was granting the world capital the ability to take more tiles on their home continent at no cost. This may seem like a nice boost however personally I would like something more dynamic and allowing continent capitals the ability to beachhead other continents seems like a nice new progression idea. Keep in mind that beachheads do not always mean conflict arises with progression as a foreign alliance could claim neutral land peacefully after winning the initial beachhead. In my mind beachheads are the perfect response to today's lack of scaling.
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Now I've left off points 1 and 6 because I've already wrote so much and I'll let you all digest this.
From a conquest enthusiast perspective I welcome the idea of a new beachhead system back with open arms. It was these fights that back in the old days drove my dedication to the server. Fighting with different players you have never fought with, fighting in foreign places, and fighting with the big dogs is what made them so fun. I and many others I talk to hope that we can continue to discuss and find a balance for the implementation of beachheads
Heres a crappy edited but hella fun beachhead video from 2017 I recorded. Enjoy
I would first like to re-mention how beachheads can be balanced and adapted. In the initial post there were some ideas that were already thought of and these player inputs by people like Castalina and Skuhoo do a great deal in helping that. There's a balance to beachheads which is what we are all working towards. So here are some points I want to talk about.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Want to be able to harm enemies on other continents (have everything feel more connected)
3. Want to have an alternative to trading for other continents resources (war for them).
As a player who has had the pleasure to be on both sides of the current loka political system I can say right off the bat that there can be a large gap between continent resources and how you come about to collect them. I think its important to note that this past December was the first time the roofed forest was taken from Silverhand in over a year. Iblis, a pretty inactive alliance for the most part of fall 2019, were able to keep land and not worry about losing their resource control just because they had a few more members then the other sides who could keep the generators full. Had beachheads been in place one could question if the summer-early fall alliance lead by Obstinance would finally have gotten their chance at the dark oak tgen mats that were desperately needed. From a current alliance makeup view of loka its easy to say that the current continent resource system is balanced when you have an alliance your friendly with running garama, however personally I encourage you to look on the other side of the spectrum at alliances who don't. My point here is that thinking beachheads are strictly for war and assuming that the current continent resource system is balanced is false. If a continent alliance wants a resource across another continent and can't trade for it then they should have the ability to fight for it in the high risk fight high reward fight that we want beachheads to become.
Skuhoo mentions loot bundles and also bounty tiles and while they do exist one cannot expect players to use these sole methods to gather materials; sometimes it can be a wild goose chase. As a server we have to have more opportunities for players to gather their materials. By making it so beachhead biome control is only used in town industries, I feel like their is a fair balance to whether a town would like to go out searching for loot bundles or risk it all by beach-heading for biome control.
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4. Not enough big fights involving the whole server.
I feel like given the history of the server, it is surprising how people forget how large beachhead fights truly were. Some of the biggest and best fights in lokan history were from beachheads and actually most of them were from beachheads. A ping in the lokan public discord, a discord of 500+ people, mixed with a warm-up window of 2 hours would surely attract a larger player base than most fights today. Looking at old eldrtichbot logs the beachhead fights back in 2017 actually attracted more players than reins fights nowadays do.
See this log of eldritch vs cincia as an example https://eldritchbot.com/fight?id=rkvVAi56@.
There are many more examples just like this on EB.
The old day beachhead fights were super fun as you would have various sides come together and throw old grudges aside for the sake of peace and prosperity. Think about the Voltarnia's, Katolis's, and other towns who dont get rein pings today. There is a current part of the player base who gets excluded from reins fights. I remember personally that I was able to go to most of the old beachhead fights because of the loka discord ping.
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5. Lack of scaling, no progression. Hit 30 territories and can't get better.
Point five is in my mind the hardest for most people to wrap their minds around since most towns have reached lokas end game so easily. Sure there is ways that world cap policy's can help the lack of scaling but there is only so far they can go. Magpie mentioned in the LCR chat that he is wary of many world capital policy's and how they could potentially overlap the world and continent picks. If anyone any other suggestions you can add them here https://www.lokamc.com/forums/index.php?threads/world-capital-policies.4487/. Another thing that was brought up was granting the world capital the ability to take more tiles on their home continent at no cost. This may seem like a nice boost however personally I would like something more dynamic and allowing continent capitals the ability to beachhead other continents seems like a nice new progression idea. Keep in mind that beachheads do not always mean conflict arises with progression as a foreign alliance could claim neutral land peacefully after winning the initial beachhead. In my mind beachheads are the perfect response to today's lack of scaling.
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Now I've left off points 1 and 6 because I've already wrote so much and I'll let you all digest this.
From a conquest enthusiast perspective I welcome the idea of a new beachhead system back with open arms. It was these fights that back in the old days drove my dedication to the server. Fighting with different players you have never fought with, fighting in foreign places, and fighting with the big dogs is what made them so fun. I and many others I talk to hope that we can continue to discuss and find a balance for the implementation of beachheads
Heres a crappy edited but hella fun beachhead video from 2017 I recorded. Enjoy
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Hey whats up hello.
I think beachheads would just be the same current problem we have with conquest just with a brand new sparkling coat of paint when in reality we're all still driving our grandpa's hand me down Toyota. We're completely missing the issue the Loka's conquest system has and this issue is very similar to the game Planetside 2, which with its node based conquest-esque mechanics I think its a good analogy. The game, being quite old, has a drastically lower playerbase which caused an issue of nodes would switch hands simply due to "zerging" and just caused no one to have fun. Either there were way too many people defending or way too many people attacking leading to one side winning easily and being unsatisfied and the other side being completely crushed with no hopes at winning. Also, as soon as it looked like there was any struggle at all more people would be brought in to make the victory even more certain. Sounds familiar?
Now another PvP game mode that is essentially the same would be that of Elder Scrolls Online. Basically the same "get enough people run in and win" but the community doesn't really have anyone complaining about it. Yeah of course some servers will just be eventually steamrolled by one of the three factions but hey there's always the reset and there's plenty of people playing the game to balance things out eventually!
Yeah Loka's conquest isn't perfect, yes there are many things that could probably be fine tuned or added to make it more interesting, but at its core the issue is the ability to zerg and also too small of a community to fulfill the ambitious concept of Loka's conquest. Yeah there's no real way to fix having a small community and the only way to stop just sending over everyone to one area in hopes of a win that month isn't really in the Lokan spirit but until we suddenly get a couple hundred actives, well, I think no matter what we do we will have these same problems.
Also beachheads are just fancy reins fights and thus this whole "ree more big fights" point isn't valid and already exists change my mind. The only reason these were memorable is because of the story behind it. Winning capital of Garama? Boo-ya TGF got that last minute was clutch. Oh woah invaders from another continent? o wait that's still happening because every alliance has some sort of proxy its just a matter of how much they care about it. Besides, pinging everyone on Loka will just result in the same winner as these reins fights have been giving already it doesn't really mean much.
Don't get me wrong, these beachheads would be less problematic than the old ones but this still would be the same end problems just a bit less annoying/oppressive.
Sorry about lazy lack of formatting and if I just restated stuff other people have said, been following this thread as stuff is posted and honestly feels like both opinions are just being regurgitated back and forth anyway.
I think beachheads would just be the same current problem we have with conquest just with a brand new sparkling coat of paint when in reality we're all still driving our grandpa's hand me down Toyota. We're completely missing the issue the Loka's conquest system has and this issue is very similar to the game Planetside 2, which with its node based conquest-esque mechanics I think its a good analogy. The game, being quite old, has a drastically lower playerbase which caused an issue of nodes would switch hands simply due to "zerging" and just caused no one to have fun. Either there were way too many people defending or way too many people attacking leading to one side winning easily and being unsatisfied and the other side being completely crushed with no hopes at winning. Also, as soon as it looked like there was any struggle at all more people would be brought in to make the victory even more certain. Sounds familiar?
Now another PvP game mode that is essentially the same would be that of Elder Scrolls Online. Basically the same "get enough people run in and win" but the community doesn't really have anyone complaining about it. Yeah of course some servers will just be eventually steamrolled by one of the three factions but hey there's always the reset and there's plenty of people playing the game to balance things out eventually!
Yeah Loka's conquest isn't perfect, yes there are many things that could probably be fine tuned or added to make it more interesting, but at its core the issue is the ability to zerg and also too small of a community to fulfill the ambitious concept of Loka's conquest. Yeah there's no real way to fix having a small community and the only way to stop just sending over everyone to one area in hopes of a win that month isn't really in the Lokan spirit but until we suddenly get a couple hundred actives, well, I think no matter what we do we will have these same problems.
Also beachheads are just fancy reins fights and thus this whole "ree more big fights" point isn't valid and already exists change my mind. The only reason these were memorable is because of the story behind it. Winning capital of Garama? Boo-ya TGF got that last minute was clutch. Oh woah invaders from another continent? o wait that's still happening because every alliance has some sort of proxy its just a matter of how much they care about it. Besides, pinging everyone on Loka will just result in the same winner as these reins fights have been giving already it doesn't really mean much.
Don't get me wrong, these beachheads would be less problematic than the old ones but this still would be the same end problems just a bit less annoying/oppressive.
Sorry about lazy lack of formatting and if I just restated stuff other people have said, been following this thread as stuff is posted and honestly feels like both opinions are just being regurgitated back and forth anyway.
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