That's not at all what I got out of that. They're saying you can't gripe and complain about the massive expenses of running a real war in Diamond when those expenses were brought upon the factions fighting those wars. They choose to use mercenary hits. They choose the amount of needles and boosters and revives to use. The top-tier factions have collectively decided to compete away their profits in escalating the extracurricular costs of war. If it's not profitable enough to fight an "all out" war then don't do it. You might lose to opponents who do, but clearly for them it's profitable enough.
It sounds to me like they're saying the people claiming to be in the red from real wars or not having enough profit are not balancing their expenses, and then they point out the extravagant use of funds that goes into such a war as an explanation.
I've never been in diamong or even mid-platinum, but at a certain point it just sounds like the winner is the faction with the biggest wallet going in. People ask what the point of stats and equipment are if you're not going to actually fight. Another question is, what's the point of stats and equipment if what really decides the war is billions of dollars in mercenaries, and billions of dollars in steroids and FHCs.
War in Torn, like many things, is a matter of standard economics. The purpose of war, for the faction, is potentially threefold: the acquisition of respect, the earning of money, and the gaining of prestige. Respect has a quantifiable benefit, but can be acquired in other, more predictable means including chain events. Money has a quantifiable benefit, and the amount of money gained from a war can be significant, but also has more predictable (if slower) methods to gain it. Prestige of position has no tangible benefit to the game. At the extreme upper levels of gameplay, when respect and money are virtually ubiquitous, prestige may be the lofty goal that separates the true elites, but for the overwhelming majority of factions in Torn, war classification exists only to determine how much you receive at the end of the war.
War in Torn, like in real life, is a waste of resources. Unlike real life, there are guaranteed rewards from on high when you complete a war, and it is possible for both sides to achieve a profit. (In real life, the destruction of human and physical capital necessary for war ensures a net loss overall.) The most efficient economic outcome for both factions involved in a war is to come to an agreement ahead of time about who will win the war and follow it. Each faction should have the optimal number of members participate in mock attacks in order to maximize participation bonuses, and then consere their resources and put them towards other efforts. Wars divert energy from training and attacking any target to attacking restricted targets. They expend faction items. They interfere with spending nerve on crimes and carrying out organized crimes. In short, wars disrupt the most optimal progression of players and factions in exchange for the expected payout.
People comparing wars in Torn to any other sort of sport or competition are either mistaken or being purposely disingenuous. Torn is not a spectator sport unless you count the occasional tales spun in the Torn City Times as spectation. There's no betting on war outcomes, no season tickets to be sold to attendees, no worries about the honor of the league being tarnished or regulations from the government coming into force. The glory won in wars in Torn is fleeting at best, a very what-have-you-done-lately attitude. Unlike yearly events such as Halloweek and Elimination, there is nothing to be gained in war that you cannot gain elsewhere, so the smartest move for both factions is to perform the bare minimum of effort required to reap efficient rewards in war, and spend the remaining resources they might have squandered in war on those actions elsewhere.
In short, effort should be put towards war only so long as the marginal benefit of each unit of effort is greater than the marginal cost (measured against the greatest opportunities afforded elsewhere). This does not occur when two factions go all-out against each other. As soon as the minimum effort needed to claim full war rewards based on player participation are met, the war should effectively be over. If any given faction gains enough interpersonal benefit from the "honor" of legitimately competing, then they should do so, as long as that benefit is greater than what they are giving up compared to other factions. If Torn ever implemented an actual benefit to others of the uncertainty of war between two factions, such as spectatorship or betting, then the net benefit to the game itself might swing in favor of actual fighting, but for now it's merely wasteful.
But whatever the solution is, the answer shouldn't be "penalize people for making an optimal choice within the current system." It should be to offer rewards that actually incentivize real fighting in a war. And based on what I've read elsewhere in the thread, we're unlikely to get that. I'm pretty sure I read some people say that Ched thinks rewards are already too high for wars. So, the chances of further increasing war rewards and tying it to legitimate participation seem slim at best. The other option would be to reduce existing base (minimal participation) rewards significantly, slightly reduce the current maximum rewards for winning, and make those tied to high expenditures of energy by each faction -- how many factions want to put up 100+ attacks per member for rewards that are less than what we get now? (Sure, the reduction in number of caches awarded would likely increase the overall value of caches somewhat, but I think the overall effect would still be negative.)
You may not like my writing style, but it's my writing style, not "ChatGPT trash." It's the results of a four-year degree in economics. Someone doesn't have to be a ten-year-vet to look at the basic results of war and call the smartest financial play.
The original intentions of caches as war rewards are immaterial; what we have now is what we have now. Under the current system -- or any system in which rewards are offered -- the most optimal method for a faction to put in the minimal effort to get those rewards, and that can only consistently happen when both sides agree on a winner. If some sort of reward was offered that was connected with and proportional to participation, then there might be a reason for factions to exhaust themselves slugging it out. As it stands right now, there really isn't one unless the faction itself wants the glory of being the strongest or the best or whatever, in which case they can choose to spend the resources to maintain that.
That's not at all what I got out of that. They're saying you can't gripe and complain about the massive expenses of running a real war in Diamond when those expenses were brought upon the factions fighting those wars. They choose to use mercenary hits. They choose the amount of needles and boosters and revives to use. The top-tier factions have collectively decided to compete away their profits in escalating the extracurricular costs of war. If it's not profitable enough to fight an "all out" war then don't do it. You might lose to opponents who do, but clearly for them it's profitable enough.
It sounds to me like they're saying the people claiming to be in the red from real wars or not having enough profit are not balancing their expenses, and then they point out the extravagant use of funds that goes into such a war as an explanation.
I've never been in diamong or even mid-platinum, but at a certain point it just sounds like the winner is the faction with the biggest wallet going in. People ask what the point of stats and equipment are if you're not going to actually fight. Another question is, what's the point of stats and equipment if what really decides the war is billions of dollars in mercenaries, and billions of dollars in steroids and FHCs.
But whatever the solution is, the answer shouldn't be "penalize people for making an optimal choice within the current system." It should be to offer rewards that actually incentivize real fighting in a war. And based on what I've read elsewhere in the thread, we're unlikely to get that. I'm pretty sure I read some people say that Ched thinks rewards are already too high for wars. So, the chances of further increasing war rewards and tying it to legitimate participation seem slim at best. The other option would be to reduce existing base (minimal participation) rewards significantly, slightly reduce the current maximum rewards for winning, and make those tied to high expenditures of energy by each faction -- how many factions want to put up 100+ attacks per member for rewards that are less than what we get now? (Sure, the reduction in number of caches awarded would likely increase the overall value of caches somewhat, but I think the overall effect would still be negative.)
You may not like my writing style, but it's my writing style, not "ChatGPT trash." It's the results of a four-year degree in economics. Someone doesn't have to be a ten-year-vet to look at the basic results of war and call the smartest financial play.
The original intentions of caches as war rewards are immaterial; what we have now is what we have now. Under the current system -- or any system in which rewards are offered -- the most optimal method for a faction to put in the minimal effort to get those rewards, and that can only consistently happen when both sides agree on a winner. If some sort of reward was offered that was connected with and proportional to participation, then there might be a reason for factions to exhaust themselves slugging it out. As it stands right now, there really isn't one unless the faction itself wants the glory of being the strongest or the best or whatever, in which case they can choose to spend the resources to maintain that.
War in Torn, like many things, is a matter of standard economics. The purpose of war, for the faction, is potentially threefold: the acquisition of respect, the earning of money, and the gaining of prestige. Respect has a quantifiable benefit, but can be acquired in other, more predictable means including chain events. Money has a quantifiable benefit, and the amount of money gained from a war can be significant, but also has more predictable (if slower) methods to gain it. Prestige of position has no tangible benefit to the game. At the extreme upper levels of gameplay, when respect and money are virtually ubiquitous, prestige may be the lofty goal that separates the true elites, but for the overwhelming majority of factions in Torn, war classification exists only to determine how much you receive at the end of the war.
War in Torn, like in real life, is a waste of resources. Unlike real life, there are guaranteed rewards from on high when you complete a war, and it is possible for both sides to achieve a profit. (In real life, the destruction of human and physical capital necessary for war ensures a net loss overall.) The most efficient economic outcome for both factions involved in a war is to come to an agreement ahead of time about who will win the war and follow it. Each faction should have the optimal number of members participate in mock attacks in order to maximize participation bonuses, and then consere their resources and put them towards other efforts. Wars divert energy from training and attacking any target to attacking restricted targets. They expend faction items. They interfere with spending nerve on crimes and carrying out organized crimes. In short, wars disrupt the most optimal progression of players and factions in exchange for the expected payout.
People comparing wars in Torn to any other sort of sport or competition are either mistaken or being purposely disingenuous. Torn is not a spectator sport unless you count the occasional tales spun in the Torn City Times as spectation. There's no betting on war outcomes, no season tickets to be sold to attendees, no worries about the honor of the league being tarnished or regulations from the government coming into force. The glory won in wars in Torn is fleeting at best, a very what-have-you-done-lately attitude. Unlike yearly events such as Halloweek and Elimination, there is nothing to be gained in war that you cannot gain elsewhere, so the smartest move for both factions is to perform the bare minimum of effort required to reap efficient rewards in war, and spend the remaining resources they might have squandered in war on those actions elsewhere.
In short, effort should be put towards war only so long as the marginal benefit of each unit of effort is greater than the marginal cost (measured against the greatest opportunities afforded elsewhere). This does not occur when two factions go all-out against each other. As soon as the minimum effort needed to claim full war rewards based on player participation are met, the war should effectively be over. If any given faction gains enough interpersonal benefit from the "honor" of legitimately competing, then they should do so, as long as that benefit is greater than what they are giving up compared to other factions. If Torn ever implemented an actual benefit to others of the uncertainty of war between two factions, such as spectatorship or betting, then the net benefit to the game itself might swing in favor of actual fighting, but for now it's merely wasteful.
The irony is that because (like reasonable adults) we don't air all our dirty laundry on the forums, nobody would be able to read through forum posts about ViraLostrich to realize that this is just sour grapes over dealing with the consequences of her actions.