None of those really address what I seen as the key problem, which was some of the crazy cache farming. I'm sure its an unpopular opinion to have, but the crazy payouts for termed wars (the 3 hit war in particular) is pretty ridiculous. Outside factors are an economy in their own right, using mercs and revivers doesnt seem like the issue to me.
I know that its not even on the list of fixes, but something along the lines of a referee seems to make the most sense to me. Staff member reviews each war, checks the activity, amount of hits, etc, and if it looks like a bullshit "we scored points and waited out a five day timer" they get penalized for it. Delay payouts by a week if needed to have someone review wars, instead of immediate payout, you get it on the next enlisting day or something.
I may have missed the point of peoples anger on the first few forum posts, but idk, removing mercs/revivers from the equation doesnt really seem to fix the main issue in my eyes.
I wonder if any of them could be amended to include ‘When war starts, all members currently in hospital will be released immediately’? Just like chains are reset.. everyone could be forced out of hospital to avoid ‘outside hitters’ taking advantage and hitting a minute before the war officially starts? Means would force a little war to begin with atleast
I feel like there isn't enough information about how the RW system would interact with Torn in general to vote on any of the options after #4--how would being in a territory war or raid interact with RW? Can you be locked out of enlisting for a RW if someone has an open raid against you or does enlisting in a RW end a raid? What if you have a bounty from before the ranked war, can you not be hospitalized then to have it claimed outside the faction you're fighting? If RWs are in their own arena, can you open a bazaar and sell things with build in mug protection for the entire duration? There seem to be a lot of complications/interactions with the rest of Torn that will be highly impacted.
These suggestions all seem to treat RW like it is the most important thing to protect without suggesting how it may fit into larger faction conflicts or gameplay.
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.
Why say this and then put your spin on each of the opinions?
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.
Then why not build a sandbox environment that runs simultaneously to the rest of Torn where players who register can exist at the same time where RWs take place that shields them from outside interference but keeps them vulnerable for the rest of the game? Option 4 is the best option but not if you want to base it on the current warring system.
I voted for #7 because f**k you merc bitches. You deserve to be banned from your money printer. Wars should be between the two factions and nothing more.
But I know too many greedy children exist on Torn for that to be a voted solution. So, mix of 5 and 6.
Stop outside attacks for 60 seconds, disable the Hospitalize button.
It is interesting to me that among all the problems with ranked warring, merc situation got precedence for a change.
Problems of factions waiting for timer to run out, taking advantage of underdog bonus etc were I think more crucial to make it fair.
As for the given options, I like that faction is given ED at the start of war so they don't have to pay, start walls etc. That has always been a lot of nonsense things to go before wars. Bounties, mercs hitting on walls etc.
As for merc hits, probably 5s is plenty. Not sure why anyone need 60 sec. 15 is the lowest so I'll go with it. This will limit merc business to times when faction is in control only. It pretty much gets rid of all the business so I don't understand how it is goes with everything else written before about keeping mercenary and revives as a play style.
Just throwing out another potential suggestion would be to level the field in ranked warring. I.e equalize the battle stats for the ranked war period. Though this wouldn't work when territory wars and ranked wars are ongoing but it would fit nicely in if ranked wars became closed to only the two participants. Ranked war then becomes a battle of strategy and activity. I do appreciate in the current form you can still win if you are out statted. Just my .02 cents. There would still be mitigating factors with RW weapons etc
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.
It says in the post they've already got plans for this stuff, but this is the one issue they're not sure about
This could be making it where they cant be hit from outside hit for a few sec would force leaders to watch thier members tike closey and try to hosp themselves
Thank you for the long and detailed post chedburn. I'll detail your options from my point of view. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not, but I'd like to be as constructive as possible with my response.
#1 Don't fix what ain't broken: Leave it the way it is No. We need to find a happy medium that we do not have.
#2 Remove Early Discharge: And nothing else No. Early Discharge served a useful purpose against mass merc attacks.
#3 Don't Stop Now: Venture deeper into the dark forest of arbitrary rules and mechanics Giving all factions immediate early discharge would be terrible, how are you supposed to max their med CD's to help win the war?
#4 Closed Arena: Place all ranked wars inside of a protective bubble Absolutely not. Protective bubble on players? Can't you see the abuse potential here?
#5 Reducing the impact of outside hosps: Outside hitters are restricted to Leave and Mug methods only This idea has merit, but there's an inherent problem, mercs will still have a massive influence. Even if restricted to leave or mug, players still need 2-3 bloodbags to get back to full health. Seems like a misplaced bandaid idea.
#6 Outside hit protection: Outsiders can't initiate an attack for 60 seconds after member leaves hospital I actually like this idea the more I think about it. It would be just like the travel timers that prevent muggers from instantly stealing from people that are landing. Plus it promotes a competitive environment without completely killing the merc mechanic to take down extremely powerful players. Only addendum I'd make here is that we keep Early Discharge for this option. Merc's would be quite OP even with the delay if Early Discharge was off.
#7 Ban such activities: Implement game rules to dissuade anti-competitivity I can see this going from bad to worse. Banning people for playing the game is not an option. Plus what if a guy just casually mugs a few players from their blacklist and gets banned? I mean, it's a stretch, but I can see innocent players getting banned left and right.
#8 Artificial intelligence: Use AI to detect outside hits and take action on the faction benefiting from them I'm not sure that I'd trust an AI with ranked wars. Considering I've filled out over 3000 bothunter captchas since the bothunter AI was implemented a few years ago, I think that it's hard to trust AI to actually understand what's happening. Your AI already thinks I'm a cheater every 2 or 3 weeks, I don't think we need it interfering with our wars.
So at the end of it all, I vote #6. Start with that and lets go from there. I'm happy to see you giving some serious thought into all of the possible options. It's obvious that something needs to change, what that is, is really hard to put a finger on. Baby steps in the right direction without massive sweeping overhauls will be best for the game in the long run.
Does removing mercs from the equation make more factions viable to beat? Hopefully.
I think to holistically address the deal-making aspect requires changing the reward system in some capacity.
For my faction, we just love to fight and see who we can beat with our activity and coordination. Isn't that what ranked warring should be about? I would rather see losers who make 0 effort get $0 and try to find some ways to encourage people to actually try and win wars.
That being said, I am in favor of seeing how reduced outside impact changes things and then work on the rewards/ranking stuff later. (True Ladder, Seasonal Rewards, etc)
I really like your protective bubble idea. Ive been saying it ever since RW'n started. Its BS that that alot wars are determined from outside interference. All the problems youve expressed are simply fixed by not allowing any outside interefernce during a rw. ED will then only be useful during regular terr wars and raids, etc. I also noticed that we didnt get to much into the bounties people get and when there used to encourage ED as well. Its hard to say if the bubble is fair to the people that have legit bounties opposed to the ones using it to encourage the ED. This is a heck of a delimma you have on your hands Ched and community :) I stand by the bubble idea tho.
The word 'arbitrary' describes quite well the timer-based solutions, as well as those involving reducing hosp time/disabling the hosp button on an outside hit - where's the logic behind that, except 'we need to nerf mercs'?
#2 would make outside influence way too powerful, and #3 would make it way too weak.
#4 has a slew of issues and will be abused in the next island war, regardless of what territory 'fixes' are made
Adding RW clauses to the game rules, as you rightly mentioned, will open a colossal can of worms, especially when the leaders of factions engaging in RWs are Committee, Staff etc etc. Imagine a "bogie directly assisting Relentless" type uproar, but happening most weeks.
Can mercs still have an effect? Yes - they could still be useful for trying to dodge bonus hits or turtling for short amounts of time but would get incredibly costly if you are using them for longer periods.
I voted 6, but honestly dont think that should remove ED, this removes the ability to use mercs defensively, but ED allows for decrease of impact of mercs offensively as well, (which seems to be a goal) so I dont think it should just be removed as a part of it. (note I did not have time to read everything so apologies if someone already said this)