Balance to Invader / Defender Game

[St Mason]

OMG this is madness, total madness.

I have an Idea to fix all of this:

1. Delete ALL Nations and Regions.
2. Allow nations to rejoin with an enforced rule that everyone has ONE & ONLY ONE NATION
3. ALL NATIONS MUST BE WA MEMBER.

This will level everything.

[Halcones]

Actually this is no new tactic that raiders have recently discovered. It has been used long ago, as already mentioned before in this topic. The Jolly Roger were very good at switching during the update, and clearing the WA boards. The tactic has been known all along.

Being able to switch WA isn't what provides a 100% guaranteed way of winning, so that's not what I was talking about at all. Defenders can do that too, and have done so. What makes it a guaranteed win is for invaders to jump into their target 2 seconds before the target updates. At that moment there is no battle, the invaders simply get the delegacy. That's how the game server works. At least in a liberation there's a (supposed) active invader delegate waiting for the same update time knowing there's an incoming army. When the target is a sleepy native, there's no competition at all.

EDIT: and as far as "clearing the WA boards" is concerned... I'm still surprised that doesn't seem to qualify as spam. Clearing regional happenings is considered spam, but WA happenings clearing is ok?!?

Sorry if I'm a tad long-winded, but since I'm getting the impression you're not understanding this argument at all I'm trying to be as clear as possible about it.

Ballotonia

How the game server works? Nope. The game server works in a way that makes it difficult to do that - there is still variance. I say again, getting a region within only 2 seconds of update is incredibly rare and requires both luck and skill. We rarely achieve such accurate time. Since we make so many attempts, it creates the impression we achieve that timing a lot. It is still a small percentage.

I understand the argument fully, though I believe you are failing to appreciate the viewpoints of raiders fully. There really is no point in this discussion going on between raiders and defenders. We clearly won't reach an agreement. It's best to just leave it to the admins. If they feel a change needs to be made, they will just make the change.

Me not agreeing with you does not mean I do not understand what you are saying. Please take note of my points.

[The Murtunian Tribes]

No, you don't understand what they're saying. You keep arguing from this standpoint that what you're doing is difficult. I know that, you know that, they know that. Nobody cares. What is meant by "guaranteed" is that no one has any chance to stop you, no one has any chance to liberate, and that the only possibilty of failure comes from bad timing and not because you lost in a game of strategy.

Which is boring.

[Halcones]

The timing is a game of strategy.

You still have very good chance of liberating - we don't even stay in the regions anyway!

I get the impression defenders don't want raiders to win at all. Whenever they find a new strategy that works really well they campaign a game change to stop it. Why don't all raiders just leave the game? Surely you won't want that.

[Wopruthien]

The only one who is playing in your war halcones, is you. The game is whether you can get the calculations of your variance correct or not.

[The Murtunian Tribes]

The timing is a game of strategy.

No it's not. It's game of e-mail account management and organization. Just because something is really really hard doesn't mean it's worthwhile.

You still have very good chance of liberating - we don't even stay in the regions anyway!

That's exactly the problem. You're in and out in 5 seconds flat. There's no actual conflict. No engagement. Nothing but an endless stream of tagged WFE's and nobody to care.

I get the impression defenders don't want raiders to win at all. Whenever they find a new strategy that works really well they campaign a game change to stop it. Why don't all raiders just leave the game? Surely you won't want that.

Well that's probably true. You'll notice in my first rant that I said "colossal failure of both sides to get the point." You seem to think you're accomplishing something great, and they think you're a serious enough threat to warrant a change in game codeing. Neither is true; it's simply fruitless tagging with little to no consequences for anyone.

Which I find very, very boring.

[Sigma Fistica]

This is a load of shit in my opinion...

If you did that then raiding will be even more paralyzed than we were when RI was incorporated.


Your complain of the defenders not catching the raider... Ok... yet we boast about it constantly so can't you noobs just do the same exact tactic to retake the regions.... TBH doenst really go for control any more so much as just WFE epic post...

[Ad Infinitum]

This is a load of shit in my opinion...

If you did that then raiding will be even more paralyzed than we were when RI was incorporated.


Your complain of the defenders not catching the raider... Ok... yet we boast about it constantly so can't you noobs just do the same exact tactic to retake the regions.... TBH doenst really go for control any more so much as just WFE epic post...

Hmm. Could we try to keep it civil? Both sides are bringing good points to the table, I don't want this thread to devolve any more than it already has.

[Free Noldor States]

So now this became a discussion about which style of raiding is better for everyone and why everyone should do it? About how we are all going to complain if we don't like what the other side is doing? If you think it's not worth raiding in a certain way, don't do it. There's no reason to go on about why you think it sucks. If someone wants to do it, it's their own business. We don't need to be arguing about it.

I understood the intention of this thread to be an honest appeal to change, because lately it hadn't been as entertaining for some people to be in the whole raider / defender game if the other side is going to play in a way that leaves little room for your intervention. After all, we are all doing this because we like it and we want to have fun doing it, so the intention is definitely alright. Defenders need to see why some raiders can take this very personal. We had the same intention as this thread when it came to liberations, because simply it wasn't fun to raid a region and occupy it for a while if the other side is just going to file a complain. Maybe the original intention for liberations wasn't aimed at raiders, but it ended up being used against them and we felt that defenders had an unfair advantage there, so we complain about it and we were almost completely ignored. So you can see why now that we feel we have found a way to gain an advantage (be it fair or not to the others) we are not going to be happy and completely rational when you talk bad about it, and we will certainly justify it in any way. If we want to return to the original point in this thread, we would just be discussing and debating trying to find a way where everyone can raid and be happy doing it, where everyone has a fair chance of winning and we give out trophies to second and third places too. I really, really doubt we could ever agree on something like that. If you want to balance the invader/defender game, find a way to do it out there in the NS map. Let the market regulate itself. If you as defender think the TBH raids are just spam (or just can't stop them ), don't defend against them -which I believe is something you have already decided on doing- but don't get all fussed up about them in the forum, no one will force you to do either of those things. If we decide we want to keep doing or them on our own or to stop, well that's our own business and we will have our reasons to do it.

[Soaring Tikal]

Not only it concerns me that defenders are telling us how we should raid, but some invaders too.

We are entitled to raid as we please.

It has been pointed out, more than once, that our timings are not perfect.
There are so, but so many raids that we do, that could be stopped.

We do NOT achieve 2 and 1 seconds every single time. Those were rare occasions.

Most raids have well around 30 seconds, in average. Defenders could easily deploy troops and defend the raid. But no, they prefer giving up, and decided to come to the forum whine about it, and want a change in rules, to stop us with formalities, rather than playing the game.


Change the rules, and I might stop raiding, as many others will.

No, I don't think what I'm doing is spam.
What I'm doing is the most disciplined and accurate deploy there is.

I can do it now with another 2/3 troops.

You just wait until we have 10

[Sigma Fistica]

Not only it concerns me that defenders are telling us how we should raid, but some invaders too.

We are entitled to raid as we please.

It has been pointed out, more than once, that our timings are not perfect.
There are so, but so many raids that we do, that could be stopped.

We do NOT achieve 2 and 1 seconds every single time. Those were rare occasions.

Most raids have well around 30 seconds, in average. Defenders could easily deploy troops and defend the raid. But no, they prefer giving up, and decided to come to the forum whine about it, and want a change in rules, to stop us with formalities, rather than playing the game.


Change the rules, and I might stop raiding, as many others will.

No, I don't think what I'm doing is spam.
What I'm doing is the most disciplined and accurate deploy there is.

I can do it now with another 2/3 troops.

You just wait until we have 10

I can get you 3 freshies if you guys want them....



As for the quit if this is incorporated... I will too.

If these idea are put into play then the raiders will mostly quit... Then since they wont have anyone to whine about, the defenders will quit... Bottom Line- Without us "evil, horrible" raiders there would be no "good, holy" defenders...

So, if this is placed into effect you will lose a major part of the NS community...

[Kanaia]

The timing is a game of strategy.

No it's not. It's game of e-mail account management and organization. Just because something is really really hard doesn't mean it's worthwhile.

You still have very good chance of liberating - we don't even stay in the regions anyway!

That's exactly the problem. You're in and out in 5 seconds flat. There's no actual conflict. No engagement. Nothing but an endless stream of tagged WFE's and nobody to care.

I get the impression defenders don't want raiders to win at all. Whenever they find a new strategy that works really well they campaign a game change to stop it. Why don't all raiders just leave the game? Surely you won't want that.

Well that's probably true. You'll notice in my first rant that I said "colossal failure of both sides to get the point." You seem to think you're accomplishing something great, and they think you're a serious enough threat to warrant a change in game codeing. Neither is true; it's simply fruitless tagging with little to no consequences for anyone.

Which I find very, very boring.

^^^^^
Thank you for so eloquently explaining the point we have been trying to get across.

[Red Back]

The timing is a game of strategy.

No it's not. It's game of e-mail account management and organization. Just because something is really really hard doesn't mean it's worthwhile.

You still have very good chance of liberating - we don't even stay in the regions anyway!

That's exactly the problem. You're in and out in 5 seconds flat. There's no actual conflict. No engagement. Nothing but an endless stream of tagged WFE's and nobody to care.

I get the impression defenders don't want raiders to win at all. Whenever they find a new strategy that works really well they campaign a game change to stop it. Why don't all raiders just leave the game? Surely you won't want that.

Well that's probably true. You'll notice in my first rant that I said "colossal failure of both sides to get the point." You seem to think you're accomplishing something great, and they think you're a serious enough threat to warrant a change in game codeing. Neither is true; it's simply fruitless tagging with little to no consequences for anyone.

Which I find very, very boring.

Organisation is a key point of strategy. I'm sure an army on the move with out the correct supplies in place wouldn't go to far, in this sense having our troops organised is part of the strategy or we couldn't raid.

I'm sure if in the real world that any army that could more into a nation & take that is valuable without the loss of any troops would call that a very good mission. In our world here in NS the most valuable part of a region in our minds is the WFE, that is all we are chasing. I would say we are doing an exceptional job at present as it has made other nations regions start to complain about our actions yet they haven't used any in game mechanics first to vent their disagreement. This discussion is going on in here by only a few. Maybe you should use the Security Council to petition your plight & get a larger movement against TBH & other raiders that use the mechanics of the game.

If no one cares why has this thread been started?

[Improving Wordiness]

The timing is a game of strategy.

You still have very good chance of liberating - we don't even stay in the regions anyway!

I get the impression defenders don't want raiders to win at all. Whenever they find a new strategy that works really well they campaign a game change to stop it. Why don't all raiders just leave the game? Surely you won't want that.

There are still raids out there they dont use the game server to pinpoint update time. Some they win some they loose. You however are using the game server to achieve deployment that cannot be defended against combined with switchers to ensure you take multiple regions. You bet your sweet ass I want it changed.
I had hoped though to achieve a balance that both raiders and defenders can live with. We have no hope of that while people keep denying there is no imbalance.

[St Mason]

IW please just learn how to defend spend more of you time training and less complaining.

Taping into the Game Servers? Like recruiting software?

I do not believe Halcones has to do that.

IW please just train and not complain.

[Improving Wordiness]

IW please just learn how to defend spend more of you time training and less complaining.

Taping into the Game Servers? Like recruiting software?

I do not believe Halcones has to do that.

IW please just train and not complain.

How do you think Halc achieves the times he does? It is common knowledge he is using the XML feeds off the server.
Please do try to keep up.

[Red Back]

I have it on quiet good authority some defender organisations also use this to see where WA endorsements are being made ect, so we are only using tools that are freely available to all players to help with our raiding.

[Ad Infinitum]

IW please just learn how to defend spend more of you time training and less complaining.

Taping into the Game Servers? Like recruiting software?

I do not believe Halcones has to do that.

IW please just train and not complain.

I'm going to hold my tongue here, and give you the TL;DR edit: Read the rest of the thread.

I have it on quiet good authority some defender organisations also use this to see where WA endorsements are being made ect, so we are only using tools that are freely available to all players to help with our raiding.

Okay, someone settle this for me. There is a difference between the words "quite" and "quiet", right? Because I've seen them used interchangeably more often than I'd like to think about over the last few days, and it makes me really sad for the future of grammar.

That said, yeah, the tools are available. However, they are of very little benefit to defenders, aside from liberations (which consist of a tiny sliver of our overall operations). It's clearly a one-sided tool, one that is not intended to be used by anyone, and instead it is being used by spammers.

[Unibot II]

I'll be honest and say I find this whole affair, mildly amusing, I had a method outlined for update-time-less liberations for defenders, six months ago or so, and I got laughed at by the community. Now I'm being treated like a German Techno Band from the Seventies ( ). Ultimately I think the transparency of the update order is good, this TBH switching crap is only being made more efficient with the update order transparent, it's ultimately a choice by raiders (or forced upon them by lack of numbers). In which case, the solution needs no admin support --> raider groups need to harmonize a bit, defender groups need to work together more, bigger numbers --> more fun. We've got the Security Council in place to prevent grieving for the most part.

[Face Dancers]

What's wrong with the two raiders winning? They won because of superior skill. Such precision isn't easy (see what Halc posted), and if they succeed in such an endeavour I believe they very well deserve it (raider or defender).

It requires some skill, yes. It however has nothing to do with SUPERIOR skill, since there's no match between the skill of one side versus the other. Perhaps you mean his skill is superior compared to that of other invaders who fail to duplicate the effort? Right now it's one side playing with the game server. The other side merely watches and observes in the knowledge there's nothing in the game that can be done to counter what's happening. I understand your side has no problem with that. We've been trying to explain it's however very bad for the game overall.

Point noted, that it requires a certain level of skill before raiders are able to achieve lightning raids, and it doesn't matter what the defenders do. However, it must be emphasised that not all raids are one-second raids. Some might be half a minute or a minute off. Surely defenders cannot claim that they can't stop those raids? Maybe we do need someone to take timings for a certain update, say 7th March where TBH claimed 13 regions, and see how many raids were actually possible for defenders to stop. If only 10% of all the raids were within 10 seconds, then maybe y'all should stop complaining that the raids are impossible to stop.

What do you mean, "BEFORE variance" ?!? There's always been variance in the update times. In fact, variance was a heck of a lot bigger when the forum was still running on the same server. And in the old pre-Jolt days, when the server seemed to be powered by hamsters running around in a wheel, variance meant the update would typically last anywhere between 2 and 3.5 hours. And occasionally even longer. That used to be the variance we dealt with. With far fewer users and the forum on its own server, the regular-like-clockwork stuff you see now is totally peanuts. (just dawned on me... did you mean 'randomization' instead? Would make more sense if you had meant to write that.)

I'm sorry if I was mistaken and/or ignorant, but I didn't really notice variance "last time", before I retired from active raiding due to update time issues. Forgive my memory, but "variance" seemed to be a concept that only popped up quite recently for me. Ignore my point then.

The complaint comes forth now since after 8 years invaders have finally figured out they indeed have a guaranteed way to always win. Despite invaders always having complained, for 8 years straight, how the game was supposedly stacked against them they always had that guaranteed way to win. They apparently only recently figured that out. And so, the bulk of what invaders are doing now is executing that sure-fire way to win over and over again. Game over. And with the game over, the question is what now? Sure, we could keep sitting here watching invaders win again and again forever, but what's the point in doing that? You guys figured out how to do the trick, kudos to you. As predicted, you've won. Finally. Are we gonna do anything else now, or is this the way it'll be forever from now on?

Ballotonia

This isn't an easy style of raiding to execute, and more traditional raids are still being carried out. Regarding the game over bit, why don't we talk when this really becomes the dominant style of raiding? If that happens, unfortunately it's not really my place to decide what raiding styles will be like.

[Halcones]

I can get you 3 freshies if you guys want them....



As for the quit if this is incorporated... I will too.

If these idea are put into play then the raiders will mostly quit... Then since they wont have anyone to whine about, the defenders will quit... Bottom Line- Without us "evil, horrible" raiders there would be no "good, holy" defenders...

So, if this is placed into effect you will lose a major part of the NS community...

That would be much appreciated

Indeed, if any change is made here I will certainly stop playing. I'm sure others would follow in rapid succession.

The XML feeds are freely available to all. Many tools have previously been made which use these, and I know defenders have used a good number of scripts (for seeing founderless regions, for seeing all new WA), which we could have easily complained about.

There is no tapping into the game server. All we do is observe actual update times, and correct for any variance further on. If this changes quickly, our methods no longer work well. I do appreciate the point that our game has become more of a game with the update rather than the defenders. However, it is up to us what game we play. Personally I find it more rewarding to predict an update time successfully, and get a region within 1-2 seconds. Even if we claim a proper target using this method, it's no big problem because defenders can do just the same when liberating.

If we take a region, and leave within minutes, then who cares? All we've done is sprayed up our pretty colours in a dead region. TBH is the only raider organisation that is going full on with these tactics. Others are still targetting more valuable targets and holding onto these. Defenders should focus on the raids that really count, and TBH should simply be ignored until it starts attacking regions defenders care about.

[Czardas]

OMG this is madness, total madness.

I have an Idea to fix all of this:

1. Delete ALL Nations and Regions.
2. Allow nations to rejoin with an enforced rule that everyone has ONE & ONLY ONE NATION
3. ALL NATIONS MUST BE WA MEMBER.

This will level everything.

Nah, if we really wanted to level everything, we'd just get rid of regions altogether. They're clearly more trouble than they're worth.

:P

This is a load of shit in my opinion...

If you did that then raiding will be even more paralyzed than we were when RI was incorporated.


Your complain of the defenders not catching the raider... Ok... yet we boast about it constantly so can't you noobs just do the same exact tactic to retake the regions.... TBH doenst really go for control any more so much as just WFE epic post...

Hmm. Could we try to keep it civil? Both sides are bringing good points to the table, I don't want this thread to devolve any more than it already has.

Seconded.

[Halcones]

Nah, if we really wanted to level everything, we'd just get rid of regions altogether. They're clearly more trouble than they're worth.

Then where would nations sit?

[Mousebumples]

Nah, if we really wanted to level everything, we'd just get rid of regions altogether. They're clearly more trouble than they're worth.

Then where would nations sit?

In the Rejected Realms?

[Halcones]

That means there's still a region, which can be raided! There has to be one region....