Community Project: Fort Limit Rebalancing

[Syntex]

Howdy Cowboys and Cowgirls,

Our Mission​

The International market of The West has dedicated themselves to find the best attacker:defender ratio for Fort Battles. Thanks to all your cooperation in this matter we are very positive about trying out new combinations and finding the most balanced settings for the current formulas.

To help us in this process we have also invited @Goober Pyle in our team, a very experienced Fort Fighter and veteran The West player. From now on, he will be your main contact person if you would like to discuss anything related to Fort Battles balancing.

Affected Worlds​

We have already started testing new limits since August 2021.

Fort limits can be individualized per world, as we believe that the best ratio can depend on the community and server offered possibilities, therefore we are open to change and test limits on all our servers based on feedback and various statistics.

Current fort limit settings
You can review in this table the current fort limit settings for all worlds. This list will be always updated when world settings are changed.

Fort size​	Colorado​	All other servers​
Small​	43s46​	46vs42​
Medium​	90vs93​	94vs86​
Large​	132vs138​	136vs129​

Ratio display: attacker vs defender
Basic values (after 2.125 version): 46vs42 (small), 92vs84 (medium), 130vs120 (large)

While we appreciate the perspective that the needed changes to achieve balance are formula changes, tower bonuses changes, set nerfing, and/or complementary set creation, this balancing mission is specific to the fort battle settings under control of Community Management. However, you can still share your feedback regarding that perspective as well, we are more than happy to forward them!

We are looking forward for your questions, feedback and suggestions in this thread.

Your The West Team

 

[Goober Pyle]

Greetings Fort Fighters!

We are announcing three new initiatives to help spice up Fort Fighting on all worlds:

1. Rolling Awesomia Digs
2. On-Demand Fort Building reductions
3. On-Demand NPC digs of owned forts.

1) Rolling Awesomia Digs:
Every day (that he is up to it) Henry NPC will dig an Awesomia battle. He will rotate through the worlds in Order (yesterday he dug Dakota, today he will dig El Dorado, tomorrow Fairbank). The battle will be 2 days out at a similarly rolling time between 18:00 and 24:00 (Dakota's at 23:00, El Dorado at 23:59, Fairbank at 18:00). Each world should end up with 2-3 battles per month and over time will see battles on all seven days of the week and all 7 timeslots.

In addition to regular reward, the "disfavored" side (whichever side had fewer participants the previous battle) will receive a bonus award after the fact (generally speaking a 25 bond letter, but this may be revised to increase or decrease the incentive over time). Please note, that this reward is being granted separately, and can take up to 7 days.

To make things even more interesting, starting with the dig on Fairbank, Awesomia's Towers walls and gate will be reduced to level 1. Each time attack prevails on a given world a random structure will be upgraded. Watch those Lines of Sight! They may not be what you are used to




2) On-Demand Fort Building reductions
Provided the number of requests is within reason (e.g. one request per day per world) the mod team is willing to lower building levels within forts.

The process is: a black hat from the town that owns the fort submits a ticket request to, say, "please reduce all towers in fort <name> (county <#> size <s/m/l>) by 1"

They will not INCREASE the fort building levels -- if you have them administratively reduced you need to in-game rebuild them if you want them restored.

Interested worlds could use this functionality to implement the concept of "Fort Damage" -- it could well be a fun dynamic that after every attack the winner requests their fort be reset to zero and races to rebuild it before the next attack.


3) On-Demand NPC digs of owned forts
On ticket request by a black hat from the owner of a fort, HenryNPC may dig battles against their non-awesomia fort (no extra rewards would be offered). If requested, Defense could be restricted to the fort owner's town or alliance. Requests should be made for a specific date and time no less than 4 days in advance.

Additional possibilities continue to be explored and we hope to bring more changes within the functionality available to the International Team of The West.

Best regards,
Your The West Team

 

[Goober Pyle]

ATTENTION:
After much debate and eventual agreement by the major factions on Colorado we are revising the caps for Medium battles on Colorado to 96 vs. 80.
HOWEVER, the intent is to use these larger numbers not as a new normal but as a buffer in which to experiment with different caps for different fort configurations:

When battles are fought against level 3 towers the 93:78 caps will be manually applied -- this is a rather stable value that has resulted in many good fights

When battles are fought against level 2 towers we will first try 92:80, and keep increasing the number of attackers until an attack wins, then go back down 1 -- the goal being to allow more defenders to get in without requiring massive attack recruitment efforts.

When battles are fought against level 4 towers we will first try 96:78, and keep decreasing the number of attackers until a defense wins, then go back up 1 -- the goal being to help identify the relative value of tower levels

If all goes as planned we will be able to provide a data-driven proposal for the devs to modify tower strength accordingly to support restoring all Medium forts to full strength without requiring massive attack numbers to offset the defender advantage in the current meta AS WELL AS a model for future adjustments if/when the meta shifts.

Updated fort limit settings
You can review in this table the current fort limit settings for all worlds.

Fort size	Arizona	Briscoe	Colorado	Dakota	El Dorado	Fairbank	Galveston	Houston	Idaho	Juárez	Kansas	Las Vegas
Small	46vs42	46vs42	46vs40	46vs42	46vs42	46vs42	46vs42	46vs42	46vs42	46vs42	46vs40	46vs40
Medium	92vs84	92vs84	96vs80	92vs84	92vs84	92vs84	92vs84	92vs84	92vs84	92vs84	93vs78	93vs78
Large	130vs120	130vs120	145vs120	130vs120	130vs120	130vs120	130vs120	130vs120	130vs120	130vs120	145vs120	145vs120

Ratio display: attacker vs defender
Basic values (after 2.125 version): 46vs42 (small), 92vs84 (medium), 130vs120 (large)


Note: this "on demand" setting of fort caps is a service I will gladly offer to all worlds. Whenever you have a battle you want to apply adjusted caps, I just need to hear, on a timely basis, from a Fort Owner Black Hat and either the Digger or a Black Hat from the town that dug.

While I am amenable to being reached in-game, which, if successful will give faster results, this would best be done via a support ticket "Please ask Goober to set the caps to x:y for the battle at <fort>" upon confirmation from both parties I will implement the one-time reduced cap provided I have seen both messages in time for me to make the change no less than 2h before battle.

 

[Goober Pyle]

When battles are fought against level 3 towers the 93:78 caps will be manually applied -- this is a rather stable value that has resulted in many good fights

When battles are fought against level 2 towers we will first try 92:80, and keep increasing the number of attackers until an attack wins, then go back down 1 -- the goal being to allow more defenders to get in without requiring massive attack recruitment efforts.

When battles are fought against level 4 towers we will first try 96:78, and keep decreasing the number of attackers until a defense wins, then go back up 1 -- the goal being to help identify the relative value of tower levels

If all goes as planned we will be able to provide a data-driven proposal for the devs to modify tower strength accordingly to support restoring all Medium forts to full strength without requiring massive attack numbers to offset the defender advantage in the current meta AS WELL AS a model for future adjustments if/when the meta shifts.

I want to add a bit of clarity here:
1) Caps will modified on a per-side basis based on subjective assessment of the results in offline discussion;
e.g. The Offensive wipeout on Feb 17 by Toons resulted in the caps for their next Level 4 attack to be reduced to 95:78

2) changes to the above numbers will always be posted to this thread

3) We have a good set of caps for L3 battles (93:78) where, in a filled battle, both attack and defense have a decent chance to prevail. The hope is to find a similar set of numbers for Level 4 towers during this even where we have the best chance at filling larger numbers, and a similar set of numbers in level 2 towers where we expect to be able to increase number of defenders with a fillable number of attackers in non-event times.

4) my hope is to have these "ideal L4 and L2 caps" settled by March 15, and develop and present a data-back proposal for the Dev team shortly thereafter. Keep in mind that the changes we are requesting would apply to all worlds in all markets regardless of the prevalence of Union, Cortina, and Gringo -- there needs to be a solid picture of the impact these changes make. We can only generate data within our own current meta, and hope the proposed impact here provides confidence that it won't be a disaster in other metas

 

[Goober Pyle]

The caps (for Colorado) are currently:
All Large battles: 145:120
All small battles: 46:42
Medium battles:
Level 4 towers: HWGA: 96:78 Toons: 95:78
Level 3 towers: (both sides) 93:78
Level 2 towers: (both sides) 92:80

 

[Syntex]

Limits have been changed on Colorado:

Small: 46vs40 to 48vs42
Medium: 96vs80 to 96vs84
Large: 145vs120 to 141vs124

 

[Goober Pyle]

Fort Fight Capacity on Colorado is being altered to address the current imbalance.

Changes are expected to take effect immediately (that is, including already scheduled battles)

	Attackers	Defenders
Large:	132​	138​
Medium:	90​	93​
Small:	43​	46​