A while back in the State of the Game thread Bogie suggested they were open to making changes to ranked wars in the hope of making things competitive, but that all too often potential changes lack any sort of long term vision or thoughts about the consequences. And so myself and a few of the other folks from the Journal of Torn Science came up with this. Big shout out to Andyman and Savitt for the bulk of the help.
The Short Short Version
- Lower the score requirements for wars to help create shorter wars.
- A faction that does not have at least two players in torn and out of the hospital will grant their opponent a small increase in score based on the total score required to win AND will also lose an equal amount of their own score. A faction which has an active chain will not trigger this regardless of players in/out of the hospital. I call this mechanic “score bonus.”
- Half the rewards earned for individual wars.
- Create an end of period reward based on ladder rank (monthly or quarterly).
- Reduce payouts for the longer a war goes past 48 hours.
This is a series of linked changes to ranked wars. Many have been suggested before. But the magic is in how and why they will work together. You can find my analysis of the problem(s) these changes are designed to target and how I think these changes would work together to solve the problem(s) below.
Analysis of the problem
Before I get started I want to clarify some differences in wording. In the forums we often see “termed” used to describe both agreed upon terms for fighting (maybe no mercs or bounties) and terms for who is going to win and how the win will happen in terms of score. I am going to be using the word “termed” to mean agreeing upon terms and “rigged” to describe when the result is prearranged.
Rigged wars are not automatically bad. There are some fights where the outcome is known beforehand and the result can only be described as a bloodbath. In an ideal world both factions might agree to some creative terms to make the fight a bit more interesting and enjoyable, but with rewards on offer the stronger faction is going to do everything they can to get those rewards.
So if rigged wars are not always bad, what do I see as “the problem?” Loosely speaking, ranked wars have lost the elements of war, competition, and activity. They have been replaced by farming. Despite all of the hate farming gets, the majority of top factions are farming the ranked war environment. Even those factions that don’t want to farm are often forced to do so in order to keep up with their peers.
However, simply saying that the problem is farming doesn’t adequately identify the problem and enable us to propose solutions. For the purpose of this analysis I am identifying the following problems and I will discuss each problem in more detail:
- Rank is generally meaningless
- Wars often timeout for maximum gain
- Most wars are actually boring snoozefests
Rank is generally meaningless.
This is largely self explanatory. Except for the minor bragging rights associated with a top rank, there is no real incentive to stay at a higher rank. A higher ranked faction can take a loss (maybe from a much weaker faction in the family) and it won’t have any real negative repercussions aside from that single loss and a slight decrease in their payout.
Timeout wars for maximum gain
Factions have figured out that allowing a war to timeout can give a really large payout relative to the amount of energy spent. And so they take the rigged war concept and add the narrowing score target to really juice their rewards compared to the effort put in.
The boring nature of many wars
At the end of the day a lot of our wars are boring for a few different reasons: many wars are huge mismatches; factions are busy timing out wars; some factions straight up refuse to fight and only want to farm; and preventing score bleed by keeping your side in the hospital is the dominant meta (it is more important to prevent your opponent from gaining score than it is to gain score for yourself).
Interaction between the problems and my suggestions
Rank is generally meaningless - by halving the rewards for individual wars and then instead supplementing the rewards with end-of-period rewards, factions would be incentivized to remain at a high rank. With end of quarter payouts you would probably see more farming behavior early in the quarter and then a desperate rush to be at the top as the quarter comes to an end. If end of month rewards were used, factions would feel more pressure to stay at the top, but monthly rewards would also need to be smaller than quarterly (because they are more frequent), and thus falling down a rank or two might not be as punishing. End-of-period rewards would hopefully push some factions to try and win a war that they would be expected to lose if it is just prior to the period rewards dropping (more on this below). End-of-period rewards would most likely need to be paired with a more punishing/rapid rank down schedule than currently exists to prevent factions from farming a high rank, particularly if monthly rewards are preferred.
Timeout wars for maximum gain - lowering the payouts factions receive the longer a war goes on it would force factions to actually bring their wars to a conclusion. Wars might still be rigged, but factions would actually need to attack for their score instead of allowing the system to do all of the work for them. I would propose to keep the score reduction starting at 24h as is currently the case. The time when score reduction begins could be changed to be 48h into a war, but I hesitate to suggest that payouts be reduced earlier than 48h because we do want to see more contested, hard fought wars and those will often go beyond 24h. So there is likely to be some overlap of score reduction before payouts go down.
The boring nature of wars part 1 - there are multiple reasons wars can be boring. Some of these boring aspects are dealt with above. For example, nerfing the timeout aspect will force wars to actually be fought by attacking, even if the outcome is rigged. Similarly, with end-of-period payouts factions will hopefully choose to fight wars that they would currently dismiss as a loss because they are outmatched in the hope of getting that push up to a higher rank and bigger payout. The "gain" from a faction winning a long-shot fight against a higher ranked opponent would be more tangibly felt than the "loss" from a high-ranked faction losing that same fight, which I hope would lead to some interesting behavior by underdog factions.
The boring nature of wars part 2 - Lowering the score requirements for a win will encourage factions to fight because there would be more space for a quick take-them-by-surprise win. Furthermore, when paired with the score bonus triggered by an opponent that does not have a chain going (or members out of the hospital), I believe this will lead to factions choosing to actually fight. Preventing bleed by putting offline players in the hospital will still remain a viable and potent strategy, but factions will not be able to sit there doing nothing for hours on end without giving up score, thus further forcing factions to fight.
Why do all of these suggestions need to go together?
A lot of these suggestions have been made before. But when considered individually they often just trigger another obvious change in the meta. For example, lowering the score targets in the hope that people would fight more, would also make it even easier to timeout wars. However, implementing the penalty to payouts for wars that go beyond 48h mitigates some of the risk associated with the abuse of score decay at lower target scores. At the same time, penalizing wars that go beyond 48h might hit real fights, which we have seem go beyond 48h, and so the twin changes of lower target scores and the new score bonus will limit the total time a war is likely to take and minimize the chance that a real war is impacted by the reduction in rewards for wars going beyond 48h.
Similarly, period-based payouts have been suggested before, and the response we have seen is that it would discourage factions from trying because they would have nothing to show for losses (or wins) to compensate players or make up for incurred costs. And so, I have suggested to half the immediate payouts so that factions are still able to meet their costs and pay members something in the immediate aftermath of a war, while also making rank mean something.
Addressing some common concerns and misconceptions
Won’t factions just continue rigging things since RWs are about making money?
Factions may very well continue to rig their wars. However, the need to do more hits will force factions to work for their rewards. Furthermore, underdog factions may choose to fight instead of rigging a war because they want to take their chances at moving up a rank for the end-of-period bonus. It is possible these changes will simply add more hoops top factions need to jump through before they get their prizes, but removing the ability to timeout wars (and get the same rewards) will likely result in fewer deals because factions don’t want to make the additional attacks needed to make up for the score they “allow” their opponents to gain.
Clarify what end of period rewards are and how that works
End of period rewards would be made up of caches and points, just as rewards are now. The principle is to give out larger amounts of rewards based on position that makes up for the lower rewards seen from individual wars. As I mentioned in my analysis above, this would probably need to be paired with a faster-moving rank-down mechanic to prevent factions from farming their end-of-period rank for free rewards. I would suggest that at a minimum all factions could rank down at the end of every reward period automatically as a way to force people to continually fight their way back up, eg. D3 is pushed down to D2 or P0 is pushed down to G3.
Do end-of-period rewards use your tier rank (D3, P2, etc) or your actual spot on the ladder?
Ladder rank, sort of. Below Diamond a faction’s tier rank and their spot on the ladder are the same, hence sort of. In diamond tier rank end-of-period rewards would use their ladder rank. End of match rewards (the rewards we currently get) would remain based on tier rank (eg. D1, D3, P2, G0).
What kind of score penalty-thing are we talking about for change #2. How would the whole thing work?
If a faction does not meet either of the conditions to prevent the score penalty their opponent will gain a very small percentage of the total score target every second and they will lose an equal amount. This is done every second to avoid the jump out mechanic/feature/strategy of elimination. The penalty is designed to be 2.5% of the total score per hour or .00069% per second. For example, in a war with a target of 13k score, a faction would gain 325 score and their opponent would lose 325 score every hour. This would create approximately .18 in score gap per second. It is not a lot when considered as an individual penalty, but over the course of multiple hours, it becomes substantial, as the total swing is 700 per hour in net score differential (editor's note: "net score differential" is a mouthful and something we hope never needs to be uttered again).
How would cache rewards work with this score penalty-thing?
I don’t know how the math with caches works, but I would suggest that the system looks at both who is the winner and loser, and then also the actual respect earned by making attacks so that a faction which loses points from the score bonus mechanic does not somehow end up “losing” rewards that they would otherwise be entitled to. This mechanic of looking at respect earned by making attacks (after determining who is the winner/loser) would also limit abuse of the score bonus in unforseen ways to avoid making attacks at all.
Why two different paths for that score penalty thing
Creating two different paths to negate this score bonus will create some avenues for different strategies. For example, factions can use a pair of very strong players to keep this bonus from triggering, but at the same time opposing factions would have an incentive to try and take them down in an orderly fashion to trigger this bonus. Alternatively, factions can organize chains overseas or have members jump out of the hospital every 4+ minutes to keep the chain going.
Furthermore, the “need” to have 2 players out of the hospital (or an active chain) to prevent this score bonus from triggering will ensure that there are either players available to be farmed OR the faction in control would be gaining a small bonus because no one is out of the hosptial. Those players might be popping out every 4 minutes to save a chain or overseas, but there are players somewhere.
I believe it will be very difficult for smaller factions in the bronze/silver/gold space to keep chains going for long periods of time. Many of these wars seem to be characterized by long periods of inactivity. Having 2 players out of the hospital (which seems to happen a lot when I look at these wars) will prevent this score bonus from being applied constantly to these less active wars.
Why do both factions have a score change from the score bonus?
While it might be simpler to have just a score gain or score loss on one side, instead of the dual change I am proposing, having a change on just one side would open up a variety of problems.
If the score bonus was just a gain it would be possible for factions to make deals and abuse this mechanism to finish a war without making attacks. For example, one side could self hospitalize for a period of time causing their opponents to gain score. The factions could then switch so that the other side gained score. The end result would be a seemingly competitive war with a relatively high total score, where no actual attacking was done. Alternatively, if the score bonus was only a subtraction it would potentially create a situation where a faction with 0 score could turtle without any penalty. By combining a positive and negative score change it makes rigging wars difficult and always moves the score differential.
EDIT #1:
As it concerns the score bonus mechanic: some folks in smaller/weaker factions have come to me concerned that I am only thinking about big HOF factions and that megazord style players necessitate them turtling and waiting for those players to go offline. This is not the case. I actually spent a lot of time thinking about this as it concerned both very small cache farm style factions and more normal middle of the road factions.
First, that is why a faction needs 2 players out of the hospital to keep the score bonus from trigger (or of course having a chain). A single very strong player cannot prevent this from occurring simply by existing. The faction in question would need a second member out of the hospital. Which means a single megazord does not prevent the mechanic unless the faction in control is ignoring multiple players on the opposing side while they are farming points.
Second, it is my belief that this opens up a whole tier of strategy around the need to keep chains alive overseas to prevent score bonus from triggering. A faction could have multiple players overseas attacking in different countries. This might create a cat and mouse game of flight delays (which expands what a ranked war is beyond just attacking people in torn). It also creates extra uses for the logistic perks by allowing people to fly while hospitalized or the theatre perk that hides destination (so a faction doesn't know what destination a given player is going to). At the end of the day the score bonus mechanic necessitates doing something.
Third, it encourages/requires factions to deal with big players even when they have control. I know Arcadia has one of those big players, but we have also had wars where our big gun was basically unavailable and so we ended up ignoring our opponent's big gun, even when we had control. By forcing us to figure out how to get that big gun hosp'd it opens up new avenues for mercs. Maybe they can be smaller players taking less pay to be a pillow squad (as we saw in the island war), or maybe other big guns can merc by using damage-over-time weapons so an inside player can get the kill (I personally did that during the early days of ranked wars to help a 10 person faction with no one over 100k defeat a faction that was probably 100x stronger).
Fourth, I see the score bonus impact both sides. It is not simply penalizing smaller factions who like to turtle. Those sides with the stat beasts often rely on having control, and with turtling I see their chains drop because they don't have targets. They don't want to waste energy and they are not prepared to keep their chain going for hours on end because they don't need to. They are bigger and they have their big gun to keep things going in the event of a problem (Arcadia has fallen into this trap because we have relied on Aunt). When their chain drops and players go offline because of boredom, the turtling faction will be able to organize a push and hosp everyone creating that score bonus mechanic in a way that benefits them because the "stronger" faction is not properly prepared to keep their chain alive during a long turtle period. The stronger faction may eventually recover from a push back, but while the weaker faction controls (maybe because the stat beasts have gone to sleep) the score bonus will trigger in the weaker factions favor. Assuming no attacks, it takes 20 hours of uninterrupted turtling to finish a war. Even a 6-hour turtle only gives up 30% of the total points required for a win.
Fifth, while turtling is and should remain a viable strategy, as should mercs/self-hosps to prevent bleed, there should be a tradeoff of some sort so factions are making choices and decisions. Turtling still is a great way to bore your opponent and get their players to go offline and to help your own players recover med cooldown etc. But you need to have a strategy in place to maintain a chain or to just bite the bullet and eat the score bonus for a little while.
Sixth, beginning of war turtling, which is something that has been brought up in a few different examples to me would be less punishing than it first appears. While the faction which is not turtling can gain points, the turtling faction cannot lose points (can't go below 0). And so instead of it being a 5% swing, it is only a 2.5% swing. If faction A turtles for 6 hours, they would only need to be in control for 3 hours to completely negate that penalty.
Edit #2:
For small factions in the lower tiers, say 30 members maybe in silver or gold, the anti-turtle mechanic comes into play in a different way. Surely, some factions turtle in these wars too, but when I have watched these wars I see long periods of inactivity on both sides where players are out of the hospital because these factions don't have the round the clock coverage. Now I don't know if these wars are rigged or not, but if your opponents only have 30 members it is not hard for 2-4 people to come online and hospitalize every member of the opposing faction. This would enable then to earn the score bonus and move their war along. It also means, their opponents can come back on and quite easily turn things around. Creating a very dynamic war.
Mentions: The State of the Game