Suggestion Looking at the server going forward

[jakeman5]

If you cap towns in an alliance, all the players will just collapse into however many towns can be in an alliance and literally nothing will change other than you would actually restrict players' freedom to create their own towns how they like. Further, any player exclusions that would result from this would cause them to likely leave as they're preventing from having fun "doing the big fights with the big towns".

Unfortunately, any caps on town/alliance sizing is regrettably a poor idea and quite the opposite, would harm growth on the server. We know this to be true as we've tried variations on this theme over Loka's 10 years.

It is incredibly difficult to manage large towns. Southern Valyria for example has been through 4 owners in the past several months for this reason. I don't think it would be possible for all these players to go into a couple towns. Players wouldn't want to get rid of their towns and also the towns would become to big to effectively manage.

It is 10 times easier to have 20 small towns rather than 3-5 large ones.

 

[Cryptite]

It is incredibly difficult to manage large towns. Southern Valyria for example has been through 4 owners in the past several months for this reason. I don't think it would be possible for all these players to go into a couple towns. Players wouldn't want to get rid of their towns and also the towns would become to big to effectively manage.

It is 10 times easier to have 20 small towns rather than 3-5 large ones.

This sounds like a failure on our part, frankly. I think going forward there will just be larger and larger towns. If we can make running those or managing them easier/better, that's something we should (and plan to) do. But capping town member size just winds up excluding players which sucks for everyone.

 

[jakeman5]

This sounds like a failure on our part, frankly. I think going forward there will just be larger and larger towns. If we can make running those or managing them easier/better, that's something we should (and plan to) do. But capping town member size just winds up excluding players which sucks for everyone.

I’m not saying cap the town member size I’m saying cap the number of towns. I think it would end up being great for the community and activity as a whole. Plus if you only need 3-5 towns to compete with other alliances the barrier to entry is significantly lower.

People can try to run mega towns but it won’t work. They are too expensive and time consuming to supply as we speak.

 

[MoistP]

Fast travel isn't broken, you literally just have to win a continent for it. The state it's in is fine, if you want it then take a continent.

I like the rotating mods, I think to spice it up, only 4 mods should be available per week, a random 4 that is, so you don't just have the top 4 mods each week, maybe strategically planning attacks instead of aping the tgen.

My own suggestion is to give bonus buffs/help to towns that warp less people in fights, to SLIGHTLY balance it out, im not saying put it at a level playing field but a lil buff to help them out.

 

[Sparky___]

I think it would end up being great for the community and activity as a whole. Plus if you only need 3-5 towns to compete with other alliances the barrier to entry is significantly lower.

Out of personal curiosity, can you elaborate on why you believe either of these?

 

[jakeman5]

Out of personal curiosity, can you elaborate on why you believe either of these?

Like the benefits that will come from it? Or do I have proof that it will work because if that’s what your asking the answer is no.

 

[Sparky___]

Like the benefits that will come from it?

Why do you think it would be great, other than thinking that players won't just pile into the limited amount of towns and instead create more alliances? Additionally, why would the barrier for entry be lower if there are limited amount of towns in an alliance? Players in theory would not be limited, just towns, so in theory the barrier to entry would not necessarily change?

There is a lot of evidence (prior experience: see every time a new group threatens the status quo and sides link up as a result) to suggest players would simply pile into towns, rather than make more of them and not a whole lot to suggest the opposite. So, I am wondering if I am just not seeing or thinking of something that others may.

 

[Zachary_N_Kaleno]

People can try to run mega towns but it won’t work. They are too expensive and time consuming to supply as we speak.

@FoxyBearGames I'd like to know your opinion on this, I know for one you run a Megatown, and I'm in it. But I'm not really managing it.

 

[Constantine10]

There desperately needs to be a way to grind gp effectively without slaving away in a gp cave for two hours or more, what amplifies this is this amount of gp probably wont even last you the week for pots, in a decent sized town it will evaporate.

I dont really believe End ganks are the worst thing on Loka and I wouldn't say they ruin the experience for other Loka players, if you need to grind pearls you can fly away from docks easily and I have never been followed , At the end of the day End ganks are optional for players almost always and so saying they are a huge money sink and are a waste of sets and exp isn't credible, and sets are not in short supply for most people and are easy to get with a trip to the ri you can probably get enough sets to last you a long time. Whilst exp may be a option the market is completely flooded with exp bottles and if you cant afford them go do shrines to get exp. Its completely understandable why people end gank and restricting them wont stop people from 'wasting' pots and sets but just drive them elsewhere as they are starved for pvp, or atleast exciting pvp.

Putting new towns on Lockdown for 3 days is a really good Idea, when me and Lemon created Donzula within 5 minutes 4 people had shown up to try and kill us which was ridiculous and for a new player would probably scare you away from Loka permanently. Its really hard for new players to actually get their town up and running, so lets cut them some slack and atleast stop them getting raided.

The Lokan shard is undergoing hyperinflation, Im selling Unbreaking III books for 1.5k and people buy it, the exp bottles are more expensive than they use to be due to the demand for them to enchant sets for ganks etc , yet there is a large supply of them on the market, I feel as if the exp bottle market has become so dysfunctional because players just decided to overload it with bottles and instead of selling lots for low prices , they sell lots for high prices because people will still buy them because of the demand. Like Nerdcat said this can be fixed by introducing an NPC which sells the standard vanilla exp bottles. Due to the growing numbers of players and the growing numbers of gankers , brewing mats prices have also inflated as no one wants to grind for their own mats(specifically gp) as its boring. So the people who do grind mats will sell them for more as people get more and more desperate. The increased player count also adds strain to this as you cant grind shrines as easily due to then often being silent, you cant grind Netherwart due to it often being harvested.You cant/dread grinding gp as its so boring or like in RP you may no longer own a gp cave due to it being conquered, So add a growing demand for mats, more players, more pvp and no change to a grinding system which is now strained and so repetitive and dull, you get the sum of a Hyperinflated economy which is lethargic and unsustainable. However adding a set price for things such as mats will solve the problem but will also stifle the player economy so unfortunately I cannot come up with a perfect solution to this.

Hope you enjoy this essay I wrote instead of doing my homework, feel free to criticise it.

 

[Tedzi_]

-1 gankzi says end ganks should be allowed, i am dissapointed in you nerdcat

 

[jakeman5]

Why do you think it would be great, other than thinking that players won't just pile into the limited amount of towns and instead create more alliances? Additionally, why would the barrier for entry be lower if there are limited amount of towns in an alliance? Players in theory would not be limited, just towns, so in theory the barrier to entry would not necessarily change?

There is a lot of evidence (prior experience: see every time a new group threatens the status quo and sides link up as a result) to suggest players would simply pile into towns, rather than make more of them and not a whole lot to suggest the opposite. So, I am wondering if I am just not seeing or thinking of something that others may.

My Rationale:

I think it will be great because from my experience it is incredibly difficult running a large town to where you can just leave pots open. It is DRASTICALLY different to run a small town. My town would be broke if I didn't legitimately put a wall in-between pots and my war room. Nothing is scalable for that large number or members/actives. Your industries aren't scalable with town members, food becomes scarce, pearls disappear, pots evaporate. Heck I went through 7k pearls when they were locked behind a wall in a month without conquest. This would create a glass ceiling of sorts as far as how many members you can take in. Towns with 75-100 actives DO NOT WORK. They might work for 1 month but they aren't sustainable. 50-100 active players per town is what some of these alliances would have to do if their actives had to be condensed into 3 towns. The notion that all those towns would just delete their towns and just pile into mega towns is a fallacy. There are reasons people make towns, they wouldn't be so inclined to give it up. I do understand that there would be some towns that would be destroyed as a result of this but my guess would be that most people would not want to destroy all their hard work just to be a regular member of a large mega town where they aren't going to be able to have fun. Kicking peoples towns out of alliances is going to create bad blood so that is also what I would bet on.

The barrier would be lower because it is exponentially easier to become a competitive alliance if you aren't fighting an alliance with 10-20 towns. With the ability to add new towns if you feel threatened.

This would also create more PvP because less people in alliance = less laggy fights = more fights = more activity = new players = new alliances = more fights…

 

[Cryptite]

I think there're two things here I want to address.

On one hand, like before I think your first point is fair, the management of big towns doesn't scale well and can quickly get out of hand. I argue there are plenty of ways to manage it now, but that doesn't mean they're easy or don't deserve some love. We can and should do more to help management of these towns. So I'd rather make this easier for town owners than presume it's impossible and try a cap.

As for the other point:

The notion that all those towns would just delete their towns and just pile into mega towns is a fallacy.

This is objectively false and we've seen this many times over Loka's history. Players by and large want to fight and they want to win. A large population of Loka is of course just the fighters. They are not interested in what town they're in or where they live, they play to fight, and logout when that's over. To presume they won't pile into a big town if that's what is required to fight is completely false. We know this is the case and we've seen it many many times.

 

[Sparky___]

My Rationale:

I think it will be great because from my experience it is incredibly difficult running a large town to where you can just leave pots open. It is DRASTICALLY different to run a small town. My town would be broke if I didn't legitimately put a wall in-between pots and my war room. Nothing is scalable for that large number or members/actives. Your industries aren't scalable with town members, food becomes scarce, pearls disappear. Heck I went through 7k pearls when they were locked behind a wall. This would create a glass ceiling of sorts as far as how many members you can take in.

Do you think this would be made easier with features/mechanics introduced to assist in the the management/distribution of resources within towns (not capping town members)? Or is your view that the issue is something else entirely (not enough resources to grind, grinding bad, etc)?

The barrier would be lower because it is exponentially easier to become a competitive alliance if you aren't fighting an alliance with 10-20 towns. With the ability to add new towns if you feel threatened.

This point confuses me the most as I am not sure you are taking into account that by limiting alliances to a certain number of towns you are not also limiting the amount of players that can be in the alliance.

 

[Mocc1]

, and a COMPLETE LACK OF ROLEPLAY.

ok, go ahead, roleplay then

 

[Cryptite]

ok, go ahead, roleplay then

Also like, bro, we made all these nether's eve and exploding spawn quests... what do you call that?!?! >:|

 

[Vescure]

Also like, bro, we made all these nether's eve and exploding spawn quests... what do you call that?!?! >:|

Spawn boom boom and Halloween parody

 

[koi0001]

The most shocking, controversial opinion I've seen so far?

He used the candy quest as an example a good quest instead of maze or the electrical puzzle...

 

[jakeman5]

On one hand, like before I think your first point is fair, the management of big towns doesn't scale well and can quickly get out of hand. I argue there are plenty of ways to manage it now, but that doesn't mean they're easy or don't deserve some love. We can and should do more to help management of these towns. So I'd rather make this easier for town owners than presume it's impossible and try a cap.

I do think that is the main thing that would make this change effective in creating more activity on the server and fights. I am not presuming, I know it is basically impossible for 3 towns with 50-100 actives to survive in the same alliance for longer than a month, it would be a mess. Hypothetically possible, in reality not so much.

This is objectively false and we've seen this many times over Loka's history. Players by and large want to fight and they want to win. A large population of Loka is of course just the fighters. They are not interested in what town they're in or where they live, they play to fight, and logout when that's over.

They want to fight, so why not give them more frequent fights by actually having opponents to fight. This also presumes that there will be fixes in order to make fighting sustainable but that is a different topic.

To presume they won't pile into a big town if that's what is required to fight is completely false. We know this is the case and we've seen it many many times.

They might try to all join a big town but like I said it won't last. The town owners will be overwhelmed. There is no way Helian could make 20 towns worth of people fit into 3 towns for example. It just would not work.

Do you think this would be made easier with features/mechanics introduced to assist in the the management/distribution of resources within towns (not capping town members)? Or is your view that the issue is something else entirely (not enough resources to grind, grinding bad, etc)?

I think it would be good for towns but then you get to the bottom of it and who wants to fight when the people you are fighting can just recruit more towns to win and it becomes old fashion whoopin rather than close fights? The server cannot handle the high numbers and it lags terribly, then players never come back. I think this would assist in stopping that. I don't think there is enough to do on the server as a whole and creating more fights and making materials necessary for fights more obtainable would alleviate that to a certain extent.

This point confuses me the most as I am not sure you are taking into account that by limiting alliances to a certain number of towns you are not also limiting the amount of players that can be in the alliance.

You aren't technically, you can have as many players in a town as you want.

 

[Mocc1]

Electrical, Candy, Sewers were all phenomenal quests, I think personally that more main quests/non holiday event quests should exist. Some quests to uncover Loka lore or just to be fun.

 

[jakeman5]

Electrical, Candy, Sewers were all phenomenal quests, I think personally that more main quests/non holiday event quests should exist. Some quests to uncover Loka lore or just to be fun.

They working on that.