Conquest, Beachheads and More!

[TheFragileBlade]

As this debate has been going on since the fourth of this month I figured it is time for me to weigh in. While I mainly agree with Skuhoo and Sparky I believe I need to bring up a few concerns I have with this beachhead debate. As much as we would like to think entities would only use beachheads it could allow a group to make a two prong attack on an enemy in the power struggle for continent capital. This being done by creating a proxy town on the continent and launching attacks from both. If world cap is supposed to stay on Balak then what is the point in adding this feature but to interfere with established powers? In closing I dislike the idea of beachheads because it will contradict the entire point of Balak.

 

[Steve5729]

So I recently suggested the bountiful Invasion idea and I think it's a good middle ground for beach heads so I've decided to flush out the idea more here. This may have been better as it's own suggestion thread and can be moved to one. However, I think it is relevant here since as a whole it's an alternative to beach heads and should be brought up on the beach head thread.

As either a cap ability or a world cap ability you are capable of attacking bountiful territories on other continents. Doing so would cost you a fee in shards or other resources (this fee goes straight to the server). This would start the equivalent of a beach head style fight with a 2 (or 1) hour warm up, ping in Loka discord, Automatic reins etc. When the defenders lose the Tgen is not neutralized (debatable) but the modules are not refunded and any radar in the territory is also removed. The wealth of the bountiful is then deposited into the attacker's town NPC as well as a portion of the shards originally paid (debatable). If the attackers lose then the bountiful is deposited into the defender's town NPC as well as a portion of the shards originally paid by the attackers (debatable). However any modules lost during the fight remain gone. Strength does not change what so ever.

How this solves the Problems:

1. Removes the intensive to move for resources.
2. Able to remove an enemies bountiful and modules.
3. Fighting for the bountiful gives you the resources, you can also choose which bountiful to attack and when.
4. Does the ping in Loka discord and is auto reins.
5. This problem is fixed by balak revamp and more content.
6. This problem is fixed by balak revamp.

Possible Adjustments:

An argument I've heard is that this isn't enough risk for the defenders. In that case I suggest that it leaves some sort of lasting effect. For example losing an invasion could cause the once bountiful to not contribute to industry output for the rest of the month or something to that degree. Or, just have the tile fully neutralize (without strength loss).

If a shard risk isn't enough for attackers then there may need to be a lasting effect there as well.

Why this is better than Beach Heads:

Beach heads do not solve the 6 problems in a way Invasions can't. Why Beach Heads don't solve the problems is something that's already been discussed here so I won't get into it. However, Invasions are better because they're easier to balance. There is no realistic way that an Invasion could effect strength or continent cap because they don't directly involve cut offs or claiming tiles. Invasions are also less cheese potential because you don't have to fight something to make it go away afterwards. It isn't as big a deal if you get placed attacked on Balak and Invaded at the same time because they aren't nearly on the same level of priority.

 

[TheFreshLemon]

I have nothing to add and don't want to argue, but big words are being used, so I'll leave it to the others who have already spoken about their liking to this form of beachheads. Basically, I agree with Magpie, Cryptite, and Wolf Force.

 

[GeekyKidGamer]

I agree with Lemon

 

[ACwavelength]

I know they sound fun and all, but what is the point of beach heads, if proxy towns are easier to create with less fighting and could bag you more resources?
I made a post about the problem with a few simple suggestions, but I think the answer to proxy towns lies with beach heads.

 

[GeekyKidGamer]

It has come to many people’s attention that people at becoming less and less active, there are many reasons for this. People want a place where they actually do stuff for a reward, such as grinding materials for pots for fights, or making money to buy lored swords like jibblypop. People want to play on Loka for action, not just “Role Playing” or “Building”. Sure people can do that, but LOKA is a CONQUEST server, and so far this server is not very conquest like. Add beach heads! ELSE OR!

 

[SigmaFlash]

The server playerbase is kinda really inactive and that is directly affected by the fact that there is no conquest at all. Please do fix this because the staff team is against the one thing(beachheads) that would really bring activity to the server.

 

[TheFragileBlade]

The server playerbase is kinda really inactive and that is directly affected by the fact that there is no conquest at all. Please do fix this because the staff team is against the one thing(beachheads) that would really bring activity to the server.

To preface this this is not an argument but on observation. I believe that the 1.15 update should be able to yield a good amount of more active player at least for a while. Along with an advertisement push on the servers part and I believe it would be quiet a lot more players active.

 

[GeekyKidGamer]

To preface this this is not an argument but on observation. I believe that the 1.15 update should be able to yield a good amount of more active player at least for a while. Along with an advertisement push on the servers part and I believe it would be quiet a lot more players active.

just because a server updates does not equal activity, pvp and or conquest does tho. and beachheads are a main fix to this problem. if covantanat would stop being wooses and just let the server update and get better just like conquest 2, we would all be more active again.

EDIT: we had a reins fight yesterday with TheCrewV2 vs Spaghetto (https://eldritchbot.com/fight?id=SyD28$ZII) and people came on to fight, which means most players are in it for the conquest. So if conquest wont update, neither will the inactivity rate.

 

[SigmaFlash]

To preface this this is not an argument but on observation. I believe that the 1.15 update should be able to yield a good amount of more active player at least for a while. Along with an advertisement push on the servers part and I believe it would be quiet a lot more players active.

you would be lying to say that conquest isn't the time when activity is the best. There is always more people on grinding, practicing, and bantering when there is active conquest.

 

[TheFragileBlade]

you would be lying to say that conquest isn't the time when activity is the best. There is always more people on grinding, practicing, and bantering when there is active conquest.

I agree with you there, however beacheads most likely aren't gonna make more people get on then would for a normal reins fight. Also is there not enough opportunities to pvp on the server? It just feels like there is no balance to it. Admittedly most people are more into conquest and pvp then I.

 

[GeekyKidGamer]

I agree with you there, however beacheads most likely aren't gonna make more people get on then would for a normal reins fight. Also is there not enough opportunities to pvp on the server? It just feels like there is no balance to it. Admittedly most people are more into conquest and pvp then I.

conquest dead.

 

[mindblaster007]

conquest dead.

It’s dead cause its not 1.8.9 pvp.

 

[GeekyKidGamer]

It’s dead cause its not 1.8.9 pvp.

https://eldritchbot.com/fight?id=SyD28$ZII says who

 

[SigmaFlash]

I agree with you there, however beacheads most likely aren't gonna make more people get on then would for a normal reins fight. Also is there not enough opportunities to pvp on the server? It just feels like there is no balance to it. Admittedly most people are more into conquest and pvp then I.

Beachheads are completely different from the regular reins fight. You are really making it seem like you just don't know what beachheads are. There is a 2-hour wait till the fight and a discord ping and they are known to be the biggest fights on Loka. There aren't enough opportunities for PVP on the server because there haven't been more than 2 fights this month where more than 30 people showed up.

 

[Skuhoo]

Beachheads are completely different from the regular reins fight. You are really making it seem like you just don't know what beachheads are. There is a 2-hour wait till the fight and a discord ping and they are known to be the biggest fights on Loka. There aren't enough opportunities for PVP on the server because there haven't been more than 2 fights this month where more than 30 people showed up.

They know what beachheads are. They're just making the same observation that others have made in this thread:

I went back and looked at some of the fights that happened around the same time as beach heads. On average Beach heads attract about 5-7 more players than other reins fight did. Only about 2-3 of these players were from towns that weren't allied to or related to the towns involved.

While it is fair to say that beach heads make up some of the largest fights of the server's past, the context of beach heads around late 2017 and early 2018 is that fight participation in general was already pretty significant. Consider that this was the rise of Jotunheimer and the birth of the Elysian Pact after the already considerable growth of the Kalros Coalition. It is easy to cherry pick logs or "statistics" to support the claim that beach heads directly translate to the largest fights ever, but that is not a given.

Beachheads do not mean big fights.

 

[GeekyKidGamer]

They know what beachheads are. They're just making the same observation that others have made in this thread:




Beachheads do not mean big fights.

whats the harm in adding them, seriously.

 

[Steve5729]

whats the harm in adding them, seriously.

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 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:

View attachment 1375

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.
View attachment 1371
View attachment 1373
View attachment 1374


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

View attachment 1376
tru fax tho

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.

I would like to bring attention to this mentality, simply because there is this notion that beach heads have to happen I think that was firmly implied by Magpie's original response (which essentially read like a get on board or get out of the way) to both Skuhoo's and my own response. I think that is a very blatantly unfair decision to make, given the apparent lack of consideration given to the impact of a legitimate 180 degree decision.



Not sure how this discussion has come to disregarding reality, but Iblis did in fact lose control of those biomes more than once in the past year. Moreover, it is factually inaccurate to claim that opposition forces did not have the opportunity to get at those resources, because I know first hand that Stromgarde did collect and store those resources. At the end of the summer they won world cap and quit the server, giving me their supplies to store in my town, which consisted of a considerable amount of spruce wood and other restricted resources. This idea that biome restricted resources are impossibly unattainable is flat out false and just a talking point people want to use to promote this system and it is insufferably frustrating to listen to. Loka's economy is already far too rewarding to anyone willing to put in the time, there needs to be more ways to lose wealth, not more ways to gain it.



While it is fair to say that beach heads make up some of the largest fights of the server's past, the context of beach heads around late 2017 and early 2018 is that fight participation in general was already pretty significant. Consider that this was the rise of Jotunheimer and the birth of the Elysian Pact after the already considerable growth of the Kalros Coalition. It is easy to cherry pick logs or "statistics" to support the claim that beach heads directly translate to the largest fights ever, but that is not a given.

The discussion is centered around both how to address these issues AND whether or not these are actual issues. Feel free to reread my posts at your leisure, I am concerned you may have missed a few things. That being said, it is not a necessity that I come up with a solution simply because I disagree with the proposed system. Since you raise a valid point, however, I will indulge you. It was my comments that prompted Steve to bring up the previously suggested bountiful territory idea, something I also raised with Cryptite & Magpie in another setting. With that in mind, it is a good time to point out there is a lot of behind the scenes discussion about beach heads being had that should at this point be had here so everyone can take part in it directly.




Spruce and dark oak have historically been the hardest resources to attain on Loka, it is a distortion of reality to pretend otherwise, example or not. Roofed forest or not, Silverhand still lost control of the spruce forest, which speaks volumes, and also lost world capital. I feel like we can all agree that from a trading perspective spruce and dark oak are nearly one and the same. Your point is as shaky as some of the people I sell alcohol to at 8 in the morning.



I am inclined to agree that there is indeed no high risk high reward system on Loka. That does not necessitate that beach heads be implemented, especially given the outstanding concerns that people are blatantly ignoring, because they are fueled by this (very fair) nostalgia. This undermines the argument that beach heads will limit/remove the need for players to move continents, which is probably one of the most pressing perceived issues. In my post I addressed the problem the high risk portion of beach heads raises. I will share it here for you in case you missed it in my lengthy post.





Yeah, you are right here that the issue with this suggestion is there is limited risk involved, but I am convinced most people only really care about the large fights and being able to mess with other continents. I feel like this issue can be overlooked by the majority of people. That being said, there are alternatives that could be very easily implemented into Loka for resource sinks. Chief among them being drastically increasing the cost of town upkeeps.


You are pretty optimistic about the development pipeline if you think that this has zero impact on it. The reality of the situation is that development of anything takes time and it is important to consider that. Any suggested solution to the perceived issues will require an amount of time that can be spent doing something else. That is how development works and I know there are players that feel time could be spent less on Conquest changes and on various other things instead, whether or not they require Crypt to accomplish them.

Lastly, I want to emphasize that the lack of an alternative idea, does not mean beach heads are the sole way forward. Nor does it mean that the issues I or other people have with this system should be ignored.

The absence of players' individual opinions as opposed to them showing their support through likes or via their LCRs does not mean they should just be ignored. Whether they favor or do not favor the implementation of beach heads. Not everyone wants to take the time to break down their thoughts.

 

[ACwavelength]

yeah I haven't read any of this but this should fix all your problems
1. stop town hopping
2. add beachheads that can also be used on your own continent
3. deter proxies

Now I'll just go and read anything above that might change what should be on this list

4. make it so any beachead on your continent pings on disc so you can get on to defend it
wait that's already a thing forget that
5. sigma's got a point, more conqest means more active players, and for that you need more motives for conquest.

 

[ACwavelength]

whats the harm in adding them, seriously.

Just adding something won't make conquest any better... with proxies there's no use in doing a big massive fight which you could use to get some resources or strength which you could get any other way...