Community Reports Discussion

[DeletedUser34767]

I don't like putting dueling in a specific area. If it is in addition to the current dueling rules with some special features ( duel level doesn't apply in this area, etc... ) I'd be fine with that.

I think when they refer to 0 motivation dueling as a problem, they are likely referring to those 0 motivation duelers who hang out at levels 18-30 and rack up their wins against new players who are just figuring out the game. Players at that level still are trying to get used to the features of the game and try things out. The usual advice of not joining / founding a town just means some leave because they cannot use all the features of the game. I'm sure that they feel this frustrates new players and is one factor that causes players not to stick with the game.

Those that stick with it figure things out eventually and it really is not that big of a deal at mid levels and above.

It makes no real difference to my adventurer whether or not I get hit by a 0 motivation dueler or a experience dueler, the end result to me are the same.

 

[jarograv]

I actually don't mind the idea of improving NPCs. I have a dueler on dakota and can honestly say I feel bad when I see "XYZ passes out. jarograv wins the duel, gains 147 experience, 49 duel experience and steals $6,500 from XYZ." You could bring out the idea of duelers shouldn't even touch workers then, but that makes little sense, duelers need cash to get gear, buffs, etc. just like everyone else does, if duelers only dueled duelers, we would be broke and that would make it no fun. So in short I would love to see myself get to a duel difficulty of 40 or so and be able to see myself hit the NPC and take a decent amount of cash, I wouldn't feel like I just ruined somebody's day of jobbing, and I wouldn't feel the need to duel workers to make a bit of extra cash.

On the other hand I do like the idea of bounty hunting, nothing more thrilling than coordinating attacks on a target to secure his bounty. IMO this is a feature that can't be touched, or restricted to a certain area of the map.

 

[Nisa]

I think when they refer to 0 motivation dueling as a problem, they are likely referring to those 0 motivation duelers who hang out at levels 18-30 and rack up their wins against new players who are just figuring out the game. Players at that level still are trying to get used to the features of the game and try things out.

And quite a big number of lvl 10 + players have bounty on them already cause of the dueling quest and ppl placing bounty on them cause of the less cost.Doesnt make it easy for them.

 

[DeletedUser8269]

Hello all,

I would like to give my opinion on FFs, balance and attendance. Would like to suggest some ideas, spins of the mind, and probably many are not new and also many are unwanted but for me its mostly to bring up a discussion there and also am interested in the opinion of other players.

Da Twista wrote : "The fort battles are the coolest feature we have for sure". On the http://devblog.the-west.net/?p=1228&lang=en there is a list of 9 items how the attendance could be increased. Even though they are all good ideas, I don't think they work in achieving a bigger attendance, except the first ("You will no longer need to belong to a town to attend on fort battles"). The others are all nice but basically (a little generalized) make it a bit easier for those who FF already, and don't bring in new people.

So, I think if we want to get a better attendance, we should first look at why people are NOT joining Fort Fights. There are a few reasons for that in my opinion :

1. They really don't care
2. They do not want to loose their current HP and/or Energy they have
3. The idling and dueling risks
4. The FF takes too long
5. The travel times are too long
6. The balance in FF is wrong

So then what can we do ?

1. Nothing really. some people just don't care and whatever we do, they never will.

2. and 3. are very close together and this takes some text Im afraid.

A) : problem : people have quite some energy and need to go offline (sleep irl or something) so they want to queue work and the FF. They have to either choose to queue work in FF gear, or FF in dueling gear to prevent being dueled. Both are not ideal, and it prevents people to come to FFs because the FF will usually then work in FF gear and are (too often) dueled.

B) : problem : after a FF, (offline) survivors are often quite badly hurt and duelable, even when they survive the FF they are very likely to be dueled right after

C) : problem : after a FF, (offline) survivors idle. So instead of being able to sleep the entire night (for example) and regain HP and energy, they do nothing and 6 hours later still have close to nothing. Surviving an offline FF is quite unwanted, because when you log in again, you can (often) only go to sleep because you have (possibly) almost no HP left, and quite often no energy since a lot of FF try to enter a FF without energy.

From these items I KNOW for a fact that it stops people from attending.
I think there are several solutions to make it 'better', some are more 'drastic', or 'out of the box' then others but some can be :
- Implement 1 (or 2, attack and defense) FF-sets. Meaning when a FF starts, the player will automatically be wearing the chosen FF set. This way people can set for example 5 hours of work in their dueling clothes or best work clothes, and then queue a walk to the Fort, and when the FF starts, still fight offline in the right set. It will lower their chances of being dueled while having a FF queued big time.
Also, as a second option it could be possible to automatically switch back after a FF, meaning offline idling FFers will no longer be very easy dueling targets because they are in FF gear. Together this could mean one can queue 6 hours of work in dueling defense clothing, do a FF in FF gear, survive, and idle in dueling defense gear.
(note : this option could also be reversed : The moment someone is being dueled, he or she automatically will be using the preset dueling gear which basically has the same effect for FFers, they can still work in FF gear, its just for duelers harder to find 'easy' targets).

- Make survivors sleep no matter what. Don't really mind where that is. Could be the Barracks of the fort (if the fort is owned after the FF and it has barracks), or the home town. so you will know no matter what after the FF you will be sleeping. Makes sure you won't be idling all the time and end up with still no HP and energy after a long time, removes the risks of being offline dueled right after the FF. Takes away HUGE negative aspects of offline FF, and I think this could really make a huge difference when you think of the consequences.

- And what would happen if totally out of the box, we would say after a FF no matter the outcome, everyone still has the same HP and energy as they started with ? A huge risk of FFs is you can only sleep for at least like 6 hours right after and can't do anything else. Therefore many people don't join. But if they have 100 energy and full HP, and they can still do a FF without having to be afraid they'd loose that all, it will be way more valuable to join. And this also has a very positive effect on the risk of being dueled right after a FF (which again is still I think one of the major concerns of people who only join online battles).

- "You will no longer need to belong to a town to attend on fort battles". Why do we even have to be at site to join the battles. Might be an idea to make that not mandatory. Saves a lot of time to travel, saves the risk of dueling (again). Every battle a lot of people signed in but fail to show up. Easily 10% or more. You can win those 10% participating by not require them to be at the Fort (like maneuvers obviously). A bit drastic perhaps, but it would improve numbers I'm sure.

So what else we have ?
The time of a FF. Often an hour is too much for people to be online. Is there a way to speeding the rounds up a bit ? At least the first one, being 5mins. People are complaining on that for as long as the FF exist. I realize leading FFs will be a lot harder but a 10% gain on every round (8 seconds or so) would make a difference. Won't get many more FFers but it might help a little.
Idea : Don't make someone who is KOd sit out the entire battle but let him/her get on with the game. Get KOd in round 1 and then having to watch a FF for another hour not being able to do anything is really boring.

Travel times. Well I think it speaks for itself. Often people don't even travel to a Fort because they are not sure to get in (especially on small) and will end up traveling for hours for nothing. Just make it not mandatory to be on site : problem solved.

Balance. Guess that is being worked on pretty hard. I have no real input on that except that I (also) think the HP is too important.

Also : I think it would be a good idea to get the good old boxes back. And Doctor's Bags. I have heard so many times from so many people they loved those way more than the bonds. Adds to the excitement for many players. Do I get a box ? Oh yes I got a steel one.... whats inside it ?.... Now basically what you can get max is I think 26 bonds. It would take at least 3 very good FFs to be able to purchase 1 steel chest. Meaning rewards have gone DOWN. So, want to get more people, improve rewards. Get them back.


Summarizing :
- In my opinion if you want to improve the attendance of FFing, you need to carefully look at why people are NOT participating now and change that. What I read in the current solutions is far more improvements for people who already FF. You won't get more people to attend with that.
- Most people don't attend to FF offline because of 2 reasons. First to loose HP and energy, second the dueling risk before and after. Solve that and you'll have way more FFers, I'm convinced of that.
- The huge importance of HP might stop people with different builds to join FFs, but I am not sure of that.

Apologies for the long story.......

Sincerely,
Gryph

 

[DeletedUser25606]

I dont think its wise to do away with 0mots...a lot of duelers are very active players, happily throw around a few nuggets , and are 0 motivation. Its a solid strategy. ( I remember doing before npcs were even thought of..they just made it so you didn't have to be onto it all the time).. at this stage of the west I dont think alienating a player base is such a good idea.. I really think it would be game over for a significant amount

 

[DeletedUser36029]

I understand the appeal of 0 mot to duelers, but to anyone who is not a dueler its pretty frustrating to be KOd by the same ppl who are just looking for a target to farm. And thats especially true for newer players. Level 30 and below that just started the game, and are constantly being knocked out by some guy with the same actual duel level but a far higher real level. It chases people from the game, and what we would like is more players, not less.

Most 0 mots seem to have one of two reasons for staying there:
1) More targets. why get to the rarified heights of 600 DL and then only have 10-15 ppl to duel?
2) Easy targets. They want a high win ratio so go after players who have no duel skills at all

the first I respect as a valid strategy. The second just sounds like cowardice and bullying to me. (no disrespect intended to those that 0 mot for that reason)

But here's an idea; you want to 0 mot? fine... but maybe after you are level 120 and have initiated attacks xxx times you should be open to be dueled by even those players with a 600 duel level. It gives them more targets again. And objectively 0 mot duelers are often just as highly skilled as those with a DL of 600... its just that they can't duel each other.

Personally I like the idea that if you are 0 mot you shouldn't earn money from duels (but still can collect bounties) the same way that having 0 motivation at a job means you earn no money, but can still find products. I know that won't get any support from duelers though. lol

 

[DeletedUser]

There are really only 2 active genres of interactive player types, duelers and FFers.
Why in the world would you attempt to eliminate one of the major player types? How many active crafting and adventurer towns are there???

I think baby steps are also the way to go. I like the idea of increasing the KO timeout. It protects non-duellers from getting KO'd as often, and will also cut down on the duellers offense when they get KO'd.

 

[DeletedUser]

There are really only 2 active genres of interactive player types, duelers and FFers.
Why in the world would you attempt to eliminate one of the major player types? How many active crafting and adventurer towns are there???

I think baby steps are also the way to go. I like the idea of increasing the KO timeout. It protects non-duellers from getting KO'd as often, and will also cut down on the duellers offense when they get KO'd.

There are still a big number of towns with people for those things.
Yeah... right now 80% are fort fighters, 18% are duelers and the other 2% do something else.
There was a massive rise on the duelers (and a 1500000% increase on the 0 motivation duelers...) since the duel level arrived.
There are many towns like 3 on the a beta server that they just rack over 1000000 duels and have less than 100 experience per duel. But they are happy that they have over 100000 ko and keep getting between 100 to 200 per day.

But there is another problem that inno must solve: those are the ones that use many thousands of nuggets to get those tombola sets, howdah, innogames belt and on the turtle rocket powder.

 

[DeletedUser]

Honestly i have no patience to read last 3 pages, just wanted to raise my voice against dueling changes.
Dear inno, changes to dueling you are proposing are downright ed. Without solving absolutely anything you are expecting to improve PvP experience through castrating one of few game elements worth playing.

You are limiting number of opponents for duelers and expect to compensate with few uninteresting NPCs.

To sum it all up, as a former forter and dueler, my first reaction on basis from i what i've read is that i am extremely dissapointed with lack of visiom and intention to make a barbie wrold from The West.

Shame on you Inno...

 

[rohith4444]

I never liked getting dueled before until i started to dueling
i m a regular fort fighter in Colorado i don't mind getting dueled there if i get dueled when m traveling to fort i refill my HP from bond shop buffs (fort fights gives a lot of bonds)
if i don't want to get dueled i do job ko's isn't it simple ? job ko's also give u 48 hours duel protection after all The West is mainly a dueling game :shootout:
please don't mess with current dueling system

 

[1Big Chief]

I say yes to changes like you can Fort Fight without being in a town - increases attendance
I am open to the Idea of an Area for duelers to attack other duelers - larger idea to my Duel Showdown Proposal
Also rather let any level 120 duel any other level 120.. as should have same skills & attributes anyway

But I think Inno need to listen to the players... or find less players than ever before

I started this game as a Fort Fighter on world 1.. and was ForEver a Tank.... Until this year.. now a Dueler
I enjoyed both aspects.. Fort Fighting & Dueling... and when I was a FF'er.. I was dueled by Hans & Co.. and now that I have reskilled.. I can beat pretty much most out there.. but still lose gracefully too lol
But the whole point.. it takes time.. you respec.. and get revenge
I think these changes will take that away from the game... revenge over time
Your players will come ang go.. much faster.. things made too easy... whoosies bred
It is not soppossed to be easy out there.. without worrying about who's coming !!

When are they going to introduce the LAWYER.. so we can't troll each other in chats or forums ?

Make changes... but sensible ones.. a Yes for good progress

 

[DeletedUser26412]

The name of this game is "The West" not Romans and Gladiators!
im a dueler who likes to FF and quest. there are lots of great parts to this game.
i think an arena for dueling is a very bad idea and would kill all the fun of dueling. i dont duel for xp, i duel enemies of my town/alliance.

if you want to make dueling better remove hp tanks and go back to the way dueling was when i started playing. HP tanks make dueling hard, im not anti FF just pro duel but why is HP even a skill? each level should have the same hp in my opinion.

How about just getting rid of duel level. After almost a year of playing the logic of having it still does not make sense to me ( I do understand the mechanics ).

Characters of the same character level have approximately the same (AP/SP) and have the "opportunity" to put attribute and skill points into dueling skills. Players should be dueling players of approximately the same character level or higher.

yer what he said.

I like the idea of a specified area on the map to duel. I saw the wink on the suggestion for location, so I am thinking center of the map under all those clouds. So the clouds would really be gunsmoke from all the dueling! Those who live for quests would breathe
a sigh of relief, being able to work without fear of getting KO and blasted back home from a quest giver that has taken an hour to reach. I have spoken to quite a few adventurers and they all like this idea very much.

this is The West not happy happy farm, get a gun and learn to use it your in the wild west
you can KO yourself by doing jobs to prevent people dueling you. there is no need to ruin dueling for those of us that like it.

i would go even further and include no FF for 48hrs when KO'd making duel as important as FFing again.


Grrrreat post by Black Max Kudos

"Fighting fit"
To prove im more than just a dueler here are my thoughts on FF.

# tanks may make the battles last longer but its just about who has the most fatties online. all other tactics have been lost. if your team has more HP you win 99% of the time.
your idea to give tanks less shooting power was a good one but I don't know if its enough to restore balance.

## Fort Damage, when attackers stand on a walls, towers or buildings the structurs should take damage. the longer the position is held the more damage is taken. this would make both sides think about tactics more and give builders something to do after.

i love the team aspect of ff and want it to remain fun as much as any fort fighter dose.

How the West Was Won
another idea i had is about towns;
The threat of Indian raids was a constant source of anxiety for settlers in the old west. so why not have random attacks on towns that cause damage to shops ext (more work for builders). to stop these attacks you could have to pay money out of the town treasury to get the US Cavalry to chase them away. Or maybe there is a way to use the new multilayer feature here? a marker could be on the map over a town a bit like the ones for fort battles or maybe a flashing tomahawk when its under attack! player go there to help fight off the attack.

I think this would be a fun addition, there is not enough involvement from the native Indians in the game.

 

[DeletedUser]

Getting rid of 0% motivation duelers, (I'm one of those but it's NOT why I'm against it)
It'll ruin for others too, for an example: bounty hunters, no 0% mot duelers, will get less bounties on people, meaning less targets for said bounty hunters.
I'd rather see that you added a duel block (A person can toggle it if they don't want to get dueled, but it costs nuggets to take it away, and you are not allowed to have dueled someone yourself in a week or month to toggle it, nor have a bounty on you)
Because, it'll remove the fun, yes 0% motivation duelers duels for FUN, and not getting owned by level 100 people with golden weapons when you're level 50 due to dueling level...
That's all for me, for now.

 

[DeletedUser29831]

As one of those that have ranted about 0-mot duellers before, I changed my opinion after I tried duelling myself. It is very easy to get a high duelling level, and then you start running out of targets you might win about. The 1500-duels achievement will be very hard to get if you can't go 0-mot. But the idea that all level 120 should be free game is a good one. For those low-levellers, could it be an idea to let the numbers of duels somehow be a factor? If you have won 100 duels, you cant attack someone who has below 50 until they reach level 30 or so?

 

[DeletedUser8269]

"Fort Damage, when attackers stand on a walls, towers or buildings the structurs should take damage. the longer the position is held the more damage is taken. this would make both sides think about tactics more and give builders something to do after."

Agreed on that, I have suggested that before.

Want to clear out though my post was merely about getting more attendance to FFs, not to make life harder for duelers. Although I do also think duelers should not be 'dependent' on easy targets (in FF clothes for example).

 

[Deleted User - 1693871]

If duelling motivation is going to reset to 100% every night, then removing duelling level will make a big difference in ensuring duellers continue to have targets, whatever their levels. Or maybe as a compromise, have a duelling level that is capped at a fairly low point above character level, so that it doesn't spiral out of control as at present.

I can see both points of view regarding the current on the map PvP duels. When I'm a duelling build I like to have a good number of targets around without too much travelling. When I'm a different build, the last thing I want is to be an easy win for some dueller trying to push his KO total up. There are ways around this ingame for those who have got beyond the newbie stage (i.e. self-ko on jobs every 48 hours).

However for new players, if they aren't a duelling build, being farmed and KOed regularly could well be part of their decision to quit the game before they've played long enough to find out how to deal with the duels. Inno's new tutorial system for low levels clearly shows that the company has put a lot of work into trying to hook and retain new players, which can only be good for the game as a whole as we are desperately short of active players on most worlds.

So in that context, I can see how they came up with the Arena idea. I love the idea of an Arena in addition to the current on the map duels, but not INSTEAD of them.

Perhaps, in order to offer that protection to the new players until they understand how to deal with duels a bit better, there can be an optional limited opt-out from PvP for them? Or even make that a more general feature?

 

[DeletedUser26412]

Perhaps, in order to offer that protection to the new players until they understand how to deal with duels a bit better, there can be an optional limited opt-out from PvP for them? Or even make that a more general feature?

for low level, so people don't quite i agree this opt-out is a good idea.
but not for all other wise all FF would opt-out.
they chose to skill as FF same as i chose to skill as a dueler. when i do a FF will i get an opt-out option so they cant shoot at me in battle?

towns should have duelers to protect their FFers, like someone said above each town should have a mix of character classes to complement each other.

 

[Deleted User - 1693871]

when i do a FF will i get an opt-out option so they cant shoot at me in battle?

With fort battles you get the opt out of not having to attend them. The same isn't true of duels unless you remain townless or self-KO.

 

[DeletedUser35277]

this is The West not happy happy farm, get a gun and learn to use it your in the wild west
you can KO yourself by doing jobs to prevent people dueling you. there is no need to ruin dueling for those of us that like it.

I suspect the duelers who do not like the idea of a dueling arena are those cowards who prefer to duel people in working clothes and easily beaten. Let's see you go up against
REAL duelers with good skills, then you can brag. As far as ko'ing yourself to prevent getting dueled, it is a waste of time and energy.

 

[DeletedUser26412]

With fort battles you get the opt out of not having to attend them. The same isn't true of duels unless you remain townless or self-KO.

so duelers get to not play in ff or be shot by people with better skills? thats fair, just like in the main game where duelers are better at shooting FFers.
like you said anyone has the option of opt-out of being dueled (self-KOing / townless).


This is the wild west, its a cowboy game and dueling is part of that. if you take dueling out of the game you will turn it into fort fighting only. is that what you want? i believe there is a game where people can ff without being dueled its called TRIBAL WARS.
i played that game for two years before i came here and its not as good as The West believe me, thats why i quit that game to come here.


We should be making this game more realistic to the old west not less so. i would like to see much more involvement from the native Indians. whether its as NPC or a new class of player characters.
there is so much potential for wagon train attacks, stage coaches robberies, the list is endless of things to add but everyone is more interested in taking things away and making it less realistic!
can you imagine john wayne and clint eastwood in a cowboy film where they are not aloud to shoot anyone or only able to do so in an arena? i can't.

the basics of this game is fighting the bad guys. the people who don't like that should have gone to play happy happy farm and feed the chickens "Buk buk buk buk bukkaaaa" (the last part is meant as a joke not to sound nasty ).