Hi everyone,
Please avoid being coerced into voting a certain way; the choice is yours to make. I kindly request that you read my entire post before reaching a decision.
For over a year, the committee and I have been vigorously discussing three major changes spanning territory warfare, ranked warfare, and early discharge / outside influence changes. We're already looking at changes to try and disincentivize anti-competitive behavior and match-fixing separately, and a plan for a new territory warfare version is forming.
Today I'd like to focus on the problems we face with early discharge and outside influence / mercenary work, mainly affecting those in the top-end of ranked warfare. After many deep dives into this subject, I must say it's been one of the most frustrating topics to work on. Despite our efforts, we have yet to reach a consensus.
The truth is, this is an impossible problem to solve. We can't eliminate or substantially mitigate outside influence in warring because Torn wasn't built for this. We can't have a narrow and strictly competitive warring system in an open and fully collaborative world. We can't have our cake, and eat it. There is no silver bullet.
I believe we have explored every conceivable option, yet almost every case presents nuanced issues that lead to either similar outcomes to what we have now, or even worse situations. This is exacerbated by a range of opinions even just within the committee, it's clear that a significant portion of the community actively endorses at least some level of outside influence from mercenaries and/or reviving factions to keep the systems open, protect certain playstyles, and stimulate various parts of the economy.
We can only hope to provide a shakeup in the meta, see whether things fall in an overall better or worse situation than before, and keep adapting from there.
On a personal level, I have a very strong desire to find a way to mitigate the problems by adjusting Torn's core systems or applying exceptionally simple and logical changes above all else, rather than continuing to implement arbitrary rules and mechanics in an attempt to achieve very specific requirements (I.e. Early Discharge).
I'd like to provide you with some of the various options we've been discussing, and put them up to a vote to see what might have potential. I understand there may be some level of ballot stuffing, and many players may vote based on what lines their pockets rather than what improves gameplay. We also need to try to move forward with an option that doesn't isolate a minority playstyle. For all these reasons I cannot guarantee that the highest voted option will be the one we implement. This poll is for us to try and get a sense of the current community sentiment, we then want to try and make an educated decision on how to proceed.
Unfortunately, there's not going to be a single solution that makes everyone happy. But perhaps, over time, we can get an idea of what the majority of the community would prefer.
Please avoid derailing the topic, keep your responses focused towards the ranked warring meta and outside interference. This thread is not for the discussion of match fixing or territory warfare, they will be treated separately.
The current problem...
Early Discharge successfully mitigated some of the effect of outside influence, but it created a new meta that I understand has become stale and tiresome. Many factions now feel forced to exploit Early Discharge in combination with outside mercenaries in order to keep their own members in hospital without using any medical cooldown. Early Discharge is no longer a method of mitigation, but a tool that's being actively used as a method of defense.
Within the committee, we have more or less agreed on some major points...
- Turtling is an acceptable tactic and part of a strategic defense, as long as it doesn't become the only meta.
- Some level of outside mercenary work is acceptable and good for the game, as long as it doesn't guarantee the outcome of a war.
- Early Discharge should be replaced with something simpler and more intuitive, something that doesn't require a flowchart to explain.
Here are the various options we went through. I'll include them in the poll regardless of whether or not they have critical failings, to show that they've been considered, and to explain why they're not being taken further.
Which plans would you like us to explore further? Vote for multiple options if you wish.
#1 Don't fix what ain't broken: Leave it the way it is
Obligatory option for those who don't want to see any changes.
#2 Remove Early Discharge: And nothing else
Simply be rid of the Early Discharge mechanic and apply no additional changes - return to how things were originally. Ranked warring should be given a completely clean slate, and either faction should be able to utilize whatever mechanics or outside sources they want to in order to win. I'm leaving this as an option as I'm interested to see how many or few would desire this.
#3 Don't Stop Now: Venture deeper into the dark forest of arbitrary rules and mechanics
Give all factions Early Discharge by default at the beginning of the war without having to intentionally trigger it first. Implement a 15 second outside hit timer preventing mercenaries from hitting anyone in a ranked war immediately after they leave the hospital. Basically one mechanic to mitigate outside influence, and then an additional band-aid mechanic to mitigate the original mechanic's flaws.
#4 Closed Arena: Place all ranked wars inside of a protective bubble
Block all outside interference, fully eliminating mercenary work within Ranked Warring. This option isn't at all acceptable, considering all of the issues it brings with it: Ranked wars would be fully incompatible with raids and territory warfare. Outgoing hits on non-opponent factions would also need to be blocked which effectively ruins chaining. Players are 100% protected from the outside world, which can be exploited by those who want to avoid being attacked. Blocks ALL mercenary work which doesn't appear to be the desired goal.
#5 Reducing the impact of outside hosps: Outside hitters are restricted to Leave and Mug methods only
Remove early discharge to return to a clean slate. Instead, very simply disable the hospitalize button after an outside hitter defeats players involved in a ranked war to mitigate the effect of offensive and defensive mercenaries. Consider reducing the base hospital times of Leaving / Mugging to make them even less impactful. Bounty collection would be unavailable until after the war ends. Mercenaries could still be utilized aggressively by leaving or mugging the top players to keep them in hospital and/or keep their life low.
There are three additional variants of this idea that I've merged into this option to avoid splitting the vote: "Keep Hospitalize option but reduce its hospital time to the same as Leave for outside hits", "All outside hits see a -90% hospital time reduction", and "Successive outside hits produce less and less hospital time".
#6 Outside hit protection: Outsiders can't initiate an attack for 60 seconds after member leaves hospital
Remove early discharge, and implement a 60 second timer preventing outside hitters from initiating an attack immediately after a war begins or after a member comes out of hospital. A simple singular protective mechanic that mitigates both types of mercenaries. Gives plenty of time for the factions to fight 1v1, while allowing for regular gameplay to continue after a short timer has expired. The timer could be extended to be longer than 60 seconds if needed.
#7 Ban such activities: Implement game rules to dissuade anti-competitivity
If mercenaries are causing that much of an issue in ranked warring, there may be a way to make such anti-competitive actions within Torn's Ranked Warring officially against the game rules. Since there's no way to block them with in-game mechanics, manual intervention may be our best hope, maybe it's worth exploring this option? Upon enlisting in ranked matchmaking, factions would be given a list of clear rules that they must agree to, that if violated, may result in their banning from ranked warfare. Perhaps banning occurs after receiving three strikes. This wouldn't be an instant fix, and there would most certainly be gray areas, inconsistencies, controversies and general drama early on as part of the process - but maybe we'd find a way to make it work.
#8 Artificial intelligence: Use AI to detect outside hits and take action on the faction benefiting from them
It may be possible for a service to look for patterns to check if a faction has benefited from outside hits during a war, and penalize their rewards / ranks for doing so, assuming high accuracy can be achieved. Maybe there's some way we can automatically track this without the use of AI. We have some experience with artificial intelligence and neural networks, but this seems a little sensational. Still, it's a 'final straw' we can explore.
Whichever option is decided upon, won't necessarily determine the final decision. I think we can be quite dynamic here, trying out various options if the community calls for further change. In fact, for all of the options, we really have no clear idea whether the meta will land in a positive or negative place, so we really do just have to try some out until we find a setup that works well.
Thanks.
Please avoid being coerced into voting a certain way; the choice is yours to make. I kindly request that you read my entire post before reaching a decision.
For over a year, the committee and I have been vigorously discussing three major changes spanning territory warfare, ranked warfare, and early discharge / outside influence changes. We're already looking at changes to try and disincentivize anti-competitive behavior and match-fixing separately, and a plan for a new territory warfare version is forming.
Today I'd like to focus on the problems we face with early discharge and outside influence / mercenary work, mainly affecting those in the top-end of ranked warfare. After many deep dives into this subject, I must say it's been one of the most frustrating topics to work on. Despite our efforts, we have yet to reach a consensus.
The truth is, this is an impossible problem to solve. We can't eliminate or substantially mitigate outside influence in warring because Torn wasn't built for this. We can't have a narrow and strictly competitive warring system in an open and fully collaborative world. We can't have our cake, and eat it. There is no silver bullet.
I believe we have explored every conceivable option, yet almost every case presents nuanced issues that lead to either similar outcomes to what we have now, or even worse situations. This is exacerbated by a range of opinions even just within the committee, it's clear that a significant portion of the community actively endorses at least some level of outside influence from mercenaries and/or reviving factions to keep the systems open, protect certain playstyles, and stimulate various parts of the economy.
We can only hope to provide a shakeup in the meta, see whether things fall in an overall better or worse situation than before, and keep adapting from there.
On a personal level, I have a very strong desire to find a way to mitigate the problems by adjusting Torn's core systems or applying exceptionally simple and logical changes above all else, rather than continuing to implement arbitrary rules and mechanics in an attempt to achieve very specific requirements (I.e. Early Discharge).
I'd like to provide you with some of the various options we've been discussing, and put them up to a vote to see what might have potential. I understand there may be some level of ballot stuffing, and many players may vote based on what lines their pockets rather than what improves gameplay. We also need to try to move forward with an option that doesn't isolate a minority playstyle. For all these reasons I cannot guarantee that the highest voted option will be the one we implement. This poll is for us to try and get a sense of the current community sentiment, we then want to try and make an educated decision on how to proceed.
Unfortunately, there's not going to be a single solution that makes everyone happy. But perhaps, over time, we can get an idea of what the majority of the community would prefer.
Please avoid derailing the topic, keep your responses focused towards the ranked warring meta and outside interference. This thread is not for the discussion of match fixing or territory warfare, they will be treated separately.
The current problem...
Early Discharge successfully mitigated some of the effect of outside influence, but it created a new meta that I understand has become stale and tiresome. Many factions now feel forced to exploit Early Discharge in combination with outside mercenaries in order to keep their own members in hospital without using any medical cooldown. Early Discharge is no longer a method of mitigation, but a tool that's being actively used as a method of defense.
Within the committee, we have more or less agreed on some major points...
- Turtling is an acceptable tactic and part of a strategic defense, as long as it doesn't become the only meta.
- Some level of outside mercenary work is acceptable and good for the game, as long as it doesn't guarantee the outcome of a war.
- Early Discharge should be replaced with something simpler and more intuitive, something that doesn't require a flowchart to explain.
Here are the various options we went through. I'll include them in the poll regardless of whether or not they have critical failings, to show that they've been considered, and to explain why they're not being taken further.
Which plans would you like us to explore further? Vote for multiple options if you wish.
#1 Don't fix what ain't broken: Leave it the way it is
Obligatory option for those who don't want to see any changes.
#2 Remove Early Discharge: And nothing else
Simply be rid of the Early Discharge mechanic and apply no additional changes - return to how things were originally. Ranked warring should be given a completely clean slate, and either faction should be able to utilize whatever mechanics or outside sources they want to in order to win. I'm leaving this as an option as I'm interested to see how many or few would desire this.
#3 Don't Stop Now: Venture deeper into the dark forest of arbitrary rules and mechanics
Give all factions Early Discharge by default at the beginning of the war without having to intentionally trigger it first. Implement a 15 second outside hit timer preventing mercenaries from hitting anyone in a ranked war immediately after they leave the hospital. Basically one mechanic to mitigate outside influence, and then an additional band-aid mechanic to mitigate the original mechanic's flaws.
#4 Closed Arena: Place all ranked wars inside of a protective bubble
Block all outside interference, fully eliminating mercenary work within Ranked Warring. This option isn't at all acceptable, considering all of the issues it brings with it: Ranked wars would be fully incompatible with raids and territory warfare. Outgoing hits on non-opponent factions would also need to be blocked which effectively ruins chaining. Players are 100% protected from the outside world, which can be exploited by those who want to avoid being attacked. Blocks ALL mercenary work which doesn't appear to be the desired goal.
#5 Reducing the impact of outside hosps: Outside hitters are restricted to Leave and Mug methods only
Remove early discharge to return to a clean slate. Instead, very simply disable the hospitalize button after an outside hitter defeats players involved in a ranked war to mitigate the effect of offensive and defensive mercenaries. Consider reducing the base hospital times of Leaving / Mugging to make them even less impactful. Bounty collection would be unavailable until after the war ends. Mercenaries could still be utilized aggressively by leaving or mugging the top players to keep them in hospital and/or keep their life low.
There are three additional variants of this idea that I've merged into this option to avoid splitting the vote: "Keep Hospitalize option but reduce its hospital time to the same as Leave for outside hits", "All outside hits see a -90% hospital time reduction", and "Successive outside hits produce less and less hospital time".
#6 Outside hit protection: Outsiders can't initiate an attack for 60 seconds after member leaves hospital
Remove early discharge, and implement a 60 second timer preventing outside hitters from initiating an attack immediately after a war begins or after a member comes out of hospital. A simple singular protective mechanic that mitigates both types of mercenaries. Gives plenty of time for the factions to fight 1v1, while allowing for regular gameplay to continue after a short timer has expired. The timer could be extended to be longer than 60 seconds if needed.
#7 Ban such activities: Implement game rules to dissuade anti-competitivity
If mercenaries are causing that much of an issue in ranked warring, there may be a way to make such anti-competitive actions within Torn's Ranked Warring officially against the game rules. Since there's no way to block them with in-game mechanics, manual intervention may be our best hope, maybe it's worth exploring this option? Upon enlisting in ranked matchmaking, factions would be given a list of clear rules that they must agree to, that if violated, may result in their banning from ranked warfare. Perhaps banning occurs after receiving three strikes. This wouldn't be an instant fix, and there would most certainly be gray areas, inconsistencies, controversies and general drama early on as part of the process - but maybe we'd find a way to make it work.
#8 Artificial intelligence: Use AI to detect outside hits and take action on the faction benefiting from them
It may be possible for a service to look for patterns to check if a faction has benefited from outside hits during a war, and penalize their rewards / ranks for doing so, assuming high accuracy can be achieved. Maybe there's some way we can automatically track this without the use of AI. We have some experience with artificial intelligence and neural networks, but this seems a little sensational. Still, it's a 'final straw' we can explore.
Whichever option is decided upon, won't necessarily determine the final decision. I think we can be quite dynamic here, trying out various options if the community calls for further change. In fact, for all of the options, we really have no clear idea whether the meta will land in a positive or negative place, so we really do just have to try some out until we find a setup that works well.
Thanks.
![[image: media.discordapp.net]](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/899774527842709568/1204833569051115520/image.png?ex=65d62bb3&is=65c3b6b3&hm=826d15aaf4ccd28d48b30d044ee522d74a62825a2652ba0ad22787a46eb0c9e0&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=726&height=588){kind=link}