Rebel_Virginia: forum

I’m not going to bother with a lengthy preamble. We all know the map has become stale and territory wars more frustrating than fun. We can also go on about alliances and rackets or whatever else we might think is contributing to the current state of things. However, there is one game play aspect I believe makes an outsized contribution to the present situation: fake walls.

I understand fake walls well. To be frank, they’re a great tactic. There’s really no reason not to fake wall, especially since it costs absolutely nothing to do so. Which is where the problem lies. Just about every other aspect of warring has a cost, whether it be in the energy used for attacks or assists, or the monetary cost of temp items. But what does a fake wall cost? Essentially nothing, which is why the tactic has become as overused as it has and essentially killed territory warring. Because of fake walls we can now wait weeks just to see one day of fighting. It’s no wonder no one wants to fight on the map anymore.

So, what can be done about it? Simple. Add a cost to fake walls.

Many years ago, someone in another suggestion thread made mention of something called “logistic points” as a resource for territory wars. I don’t remember who, so I cannot properly credit them, nor do I remember the exact details of their proposal. But nonetheless the words stuck with.

What this fix for fake walls would require is a new resource for factions similar to the recently added scope for organized crimes. However, whereas scope is generated from the success of organized crimes, logistics points would be generated from territories themselves (and perhaps maybe some base generation by the faction, tied to territory core upgrades). The exact amounts and mechanisms for daily logistics points generations can be tweaked for balancing purposes of course, but what will matter most is that there will need to be a cap for how many logistics points can be stored.

Now, back to fake walls and how these logistic points could be used to cut them down. To be it simply, NAPs will now have cost in logistics points, and this cost will increase for each NAP signed within a defined period (say a month). The first NAP costs a faction 10 points, the next 20 points, and then next 40 points, and so on. Eventually a faction will no longer be able to enter new NAPs for a period of time since its cost in logistics points will exceed the maximum logistics point storage capacity of the faction.

This will allow fake walling to remain as a tactic for short term staling of the war for the purposes of positioning and preparation, but it should prevent the use of fake walling as a strategy to win by never fighting.

Of course, some might try to work around the increasing cost of NAPs by letting fake walls time out naturally. So to counter this, if a faction loses an offensive wall without expending a certain amount of energy, the loss will be considered an absolute route and they lose a percentage of their banked logistic points (it just gets deleted, we don’t want this to turn into an exploit for a way to transfer points from one faction to another). Likewise, there could be an endless queue of small factions tasked with keeping a S7 wall faked. To address those fake walls, let’s add a timer to give factions that might initiate a real assault priority. Once a wall ends (including NAPs), it cannot be assaulted by any faction that does not have a direct border with it for one minute. Sure, allied factions can still fake wall, but unless they spend a fair bit of energy actually fighting for it, they’ll lose a good chunk of their logistics points.

Naturally, for fake walling to have a cost, logistics points would need to be able to be used for things other than NAPs. I would suggest adding some sort of maneuvers that factions can perform during the course of a territory war. For instance, logistics points could be used to buff the stats of members assaulting or defending specific territories, or perhaps to assault an additional territory of the same faction at once, among other things. The key is, these maneuvers would be powerful tools in a territory war, and factions would not want to use all of their logistics points on NAPs.

And finally, we need an incentive to still war for territories even after fake walls are no longer an issue. These wars are expensive, and the respect gained from territories is negligible for most mid and large sized factions. Rackets are what make it possible to break even from a territory war, but racket generation is quite random. I would suggest that while not eliminating the aspect of chance altogether from rackets, that it would be possible to give players some level of control. Add a new category of organized crime, expensive in its scope cost, that can generate a new racket (randomly from a list, based on sector, with deeper sectors having more profitable rackets) or upgrade an existing one.

And as another aside, the deeper sectors of the map are crowded with tiny factions that could never get there on their own. This sort of thing also makes the map stale. Perhaps a police presence could be added to map, where factions that cannot maintain a certain member, battle stat, or crime experience (or some combination of the three) level will be evicted from the prime territories.

However, the last two things are not really relevant to the main suggestion. They’re more random thoughts I’ve had over the months, though still related to the overall subject of the state of the map. I don’t know if this will be implemented, or even read, but I figure the least I can do before complaining again about territory wars are broken is to share my own ideas on how to fix it.

Anyway, a tl;dr. The key points for this suggestion are:

•       Introduce a new faction resource, “logistics points”, that will be generated by a combination of core faction upgrades and current territories held. Crucially, there must be a cap to how many logistics points can be stored at one time.1.
•       NAPs will cost an increasing amount of logistics points for each signed within period of time, and eventually the cost of an NAP will exceed the cap of how many logistics points can be stored by the faction. Since logistics points can also be used for powerful tactical maneuvers for territory assault or defense, factions will not want to waste all of this resource on NAPs anyway. Eventually it’ll be smarter to fight than to stale.2.
•       To provide fake wall spam from off map factions, when a territory war ends for a period of one minute it can only be assaulted by factions with a direct border to it.3.

Some things that aren’t directly connected to the main suggestion to fix the fake walling issue, but are still related to the overall map situation:

•       Factions can use scope to spawn organized crime scenarios that as rewards generate or upgrade a random racket.4.
•       Torn police can evict factions from deep sector territories that fail to maintain a certain amount of members and a level of battle stats / crime experience.5.

Rifty may be an idiot, but that doesn't mean that you, Ana, are not an emotionally manipulative piece of work and a scammer. You're ever on the look out lonely, desperate, and stupid people who you can present yourself to as a friend. At least for a while. It's an act you know how to keep up for months as they let their guards further down and trust you with assets, and more importantly with secrets, all of which you inevitably use against them.

You use your persona as a fool and troll to cover for the less savory, and more core, aspects of your nature. At heart you're nothing but a predator. You live to play games with people and tear them down for your own amusement. There's a sickness in you, and I don't know that it can be helped. All I can hope for is that after this fiasco that anyone else that would normally be vulnerable to your charms will be wise enough to see you for what you are and have the good sense to keep their distance.

You are a not leader. You have never been anything more than a sociopathic fraud, and it seems the majority of Iron Family members see right through you and reject you and your claims of leadership. You can purge as many of them as you want, but it is not a shell that makes a faction - it is the people and the bonds they share, and you will never a part of that community. One way or another the Iron Family members will find a way to go on, and they will go without you, and I do sincerely hope they manage to salvage at least something of what they've lost to the snake Ana and her fellow miscreants. However it ends, Iron Fist deserves better than either Rifty or Ana.

Can someone please answer this question? I would also like to know how. Thank you.

There is a distinction that can be made between low hitters and no hitters. Ever since requirements to make five hits before joining the event and the ability to leave teams were introduced, it has become much harder for newer players to find people they are able to hit. I can recognize these difficulties, and I have some tolerance toward some low hitters.

As others have said, it is certainly possible to contribute to your team through ways other than making hits. Mailing out messages to get no hitters to quit, placing bounties on no hitters, helping confused new players figure out what they are supposed to be doing, relaying orders at push time, etc. are all time consuming activities that are vital for any team serious about winning that do not involve attacking. However, I must also acknowledge that there is no way anyone dedicated enough to contribute to those non-hitting roles wasn't also able to sometime during this weeklong event place a few hits here and there.

Your attempts to conflate newer players who worked tireless to meaningfully help their team in spite of their low stats with actual dead weight team members is rather vexing, but it seems your efforts were for naught and no one is buying into your shill. It seems to be there is nothing left for me to say other than Happy Halloweek.

I have nothing but praise for this team. It truly was nothing short of special. I have participated in every Elimination since 2017, and this really was one of the best groups I have ever fallen in with - even possibly my top personal team. Aside from the solid leadership, the people overall were great. Never at all did I see any panicking when things got tough. I didn't see anyone freak out, tell people to ignore leadership, and promote their own farfetched ideas. No, every push we simply locked-in and made whatever needed to be done happen. I won't waste anymore time with minutia, as all that I could say has been said. It's been an honor fighting alongside everyone in High Voltage. Hopefully I'll see some of you again in future years. Until then, enjoy some rest. It's definitely been earned.

This is the same person who trusted Ana with his factions. Thinking things through isn't Rifty's strong suit.

And I've known Infernum for the better part of five years. It's been imploding for most of them, but it persists as Demon's vanity project. He ain't much of a leader himself, but he's always been able to rope in others to do the heavy lifting of faction management for him. Believe me, yours is not the first group to have left en masse, and you will not be the last either. There are always more dupes out there to refill Infernum.

No, they won't collapse. Not from this anyway. Infernum will just continue to toddle along limply as it has for the past three years.

The fact the SED seems to have vexed you enough to comment on it is all the assurance anyone needs to know it is a fair trade.

Sometimes it's not about the money. They're a small faction and heavily outnumbered now that WW has to come to the aid of a faction that doesn't have the pride or will to fight for itself, and frankly, they're putting on a damn good show.

We had thought the same of him at one point. We, and BoW especially, bailed him out of countless messes of his own making. He was a bit of an idiot, among other things, but we thought he was at least loyal. He quit the group a few times to do his own thing, but we always let him back on the map and gave him some territories (and some for his friends too). When things were good, he was the type to tell you he was your most loyal friend. Then comes the day we really needed him to come through, and he goes silent and let's Monarch in through the backdoor.

You better hope you're never in a position where you're actually going to need to count on this guy. But until that day comes, enjoy cleaning up after him.

Looks like you're going to get some action after all. It's not like Infernum was going to defend itself.

Typical. His members came under attack during Halloweek (and not just by us). Demon was nowhere to be seen. He was actually offline for a few days after the event started. When he finally logs in, what do you think Fearless Leader did? Was stopping the attacks on his members a priority of his? No, not in the slightest. He flew to some overseas country to hide for the rest of the event.

I expect he'll allow his newbs to get hospitalized for a few days, kick a bunch when he thinks they have bled too much respect, and finally recruit a new batch of dupes once this is all over. It's an old and tired tale at this point.

Infernum members cannot imagine a faction having enough active or interested members that more than one person might attack the same target at the same time.

It's a public forum. It became public business the second your little buddy decided to make it such.

I missed it as well, but it was bad enough to make RealTeel leave. And he had been a stalwart member of Infernum for almost his entire tenure in this game. He was a steadfast and loyal type, even through all the beatings Infernum got on account of Demon. But I guess LadyGary has made him reconsider if he even recognizes his old team anymore if this is the kind of character they're letting define the place.

You know, you're personally not a bad sort. Neither are some of the others in Infernum. The only real fault some of you have is a misplaced loyalty to Demon-.

We could have kept hospitalizing you for a lot longer had we wanted to, but we heard enough whining from your members to realize you were ready to agree to our simple request to not mass chain on our new recruits. That doesn't make us friends. We still remember you're backstabbing scoundrels, and we're not above laughing at you whenever you step into a mess of your own making. If you think that's enough to reignite the "beef", then by all means start hitting our newbies again. This has been a long training moth, and some of us would not object to a bit of entertainment at your expense.

I see you've still learned nothing from that whole affair. You're the one that brought your dirty laundry into the pubic (in a failed attempt to slander Sky and her faction). Just because Sky may have let you off lightly doesn't mean that everyone else has to forget about you. The fact is you made a complete ass of yourself, and you'll be catching hits for a while yet to come. Even now you try to paint yourself as a victim, rather than just quietly take the hits that you have earned.

As for the rest, I cannot say I am surprised. Infernum can't seem to help itself from constantly stepping in shit.

I very much doubt he's going to make it to Halloween.

Now, Bilbo. I suggest you just stop digging. You're not going to win anyone over to your side. Unlike you, Sky has a longstanding reputation and is largely well-regarded. You on the other hand are new and the little we have seen of you doesn't paint a flattering picture. If you have any sense at all, shut your mouth and make a sincere apology to Sky and Ringland. And then hold your silence for a long, long time. 

After seeing those bounty reasons, I can only agree. He's not coming back from this. A lack of understanding caused by noobishness is one thing, but between the bounty reasons and all lies it reveals a severe deficit of character. He'll rage for a while longer before he quits for good, but his departure is certainly on the horizon. The real question is whether his leaving will be completely voluntary. I would not be surprised if he ends up fedded in the next day or so.

This account of events doesn't bear even the faintest resemblance of Bilbo's tale. My shock is immeasurable.

First things first, yes, there are missions that require you to hospitalize a player multiple times. I had one just the other day. Usually mission targets are selected from inactive players, but sometimes those inactive players return and join a faction, which may be the case for the member of yours that was attacked.

Regardless, noobs overacting to mission or chain his is something most large faction leaders have experienced time and again. It's annoying, but if it were something raids were started over we'd be seeing multiple active raid screens on just about every faction in the game. So once more, what else is there that you're not telling us? Because I do not believe that this is the entire story.