Fort Fighting Suggestions

Bad Billy Jack

Well-Known Member
I have posted many times in the past that the real issue with fort fighting was the change in alliance leadership mindset that occurred about 3 years ago at least. In the olden daze, when a world got unblanced towns or at least ffers would change sides to rebalance the world. It appears that the "modern" game is all about super towns and domination alliances & these super towns all appear to have the very same players mostly duelers in every world.

Soo I would like to bring back my proposal from June 2019 shortly after I returned to the game and saw the problem which is now much worse.

SUPER ALLIANCES MUST DIE TO FIX FORT FIGHTING ~ https://forum.the-west.net/index.php?threads/super-alliances-must-die-to-fix-fort-fighting.58402
 

Goober Pyle

The West Team
Fort Balancing Strategist
I have posted many times in the past that the real issue with fort fighting was the change in alliance leadership mindset that occurred about 3 years ago at least. In the olden daze, when a world got unblanced towns or at least ffers would change sides to rebalance the world. It appears that the "modern" game is all about super towns and domination alliances & these super towns all appear to have the very same players mostly duelers in every world.

Soo I would like to bring back my proposal from June 2019 shortly after I returned to the game and saw the problem which is now much worse.

SUPER ALLIANCES MUST DIE TO FIX FORT FIGHTING ~ https://forum.the-west.net/index.php?threads/super-alliances-must-die-to-fix-fort-fighting.58402
I’ll note that along with capping alliance size somehow, you would have to limit fort invites to ally towns. (Or else forts can have up to 4x directed to defense)

This would also mitigate the fort gifting problem, necessitating mod intervention for out of alliance transfers
 

Annie-Bell

Well-Known Member
As for banning independent players from future ff's who miss a ff as suspected spies (many indpendents that stay outta poliitcs, RL happens, or may miss because now everyone duelling to ensure they miss and get banned) .. please dont. We know there are players that will expoit that, bank on it. Just anohter way that people leave game and dont need that in shrinking game. Spies existed forever, we all dealt with them, there is other things more harmful to game.

.. op gear (union, cortina, the gringo gear that showed up in colo that skewed a once balanced world), the decrease in player base (need to advetise)!, not updating the game, the reduciton of event worlds with issues that discourage people from game rather then promote it (ff's die out people leave every time), and about million others. SOme of the original ideas suggested sounds great that were mentioned at beginning. In terms of super allianeces, really most of the worlds dont have player base to worry about that except maybe colo, az, fb, vegas (until group abandons and goes to M). I am in alot of worlds, and biggest gap of players saw in fb where double numbers 885v45 or some ridiculous thing that they took all big and med forts, incl home fort which the know there was no spamming to inno to intervene like above, and being on team that was the 45 .. i think team wants to fight back, get some good players joining us, and win back forts way meant to without putting handicaps or restrictions on other team or forts... these are worlds that boycotting battles (ie attacks or even defends by either team) just not even a thing.

to inno, players want to feel that there is fairness in game, and that you dont need to be deceitful to play this game, many long for good battles. (still rivals but not whatever this is bullying/manipulating/trolling thing some do), so really encourage inno to truly understand before offerring inno changes as sure dont want to be seen supporting those trying to kill off game. To tez, pls keep doing what ur doing, know your agenda is to keep game going for all players despite those boycotting, spying, trolling so forth.
 

Beefmeister

Well-Known Member
there are a few interesting ideas here, the ones i don't agree with are seconds depleting off the clock, chat death, coin toss, the leader one. most were discussed before with reasons why they are not ok. players forbidden from joining the fort fight...what the hell. ban the spies instead of that...

post chat dump is an interesting idea but i've seen it removed from other games because it was mostly trash talk so i can guarantee it won't positively work here. :lol:

what i really want to see is 1-2 new maps...smaller ones with different fort/grass patterns. it's not even that hard to implement but yeah
 

Annie-Bell

Well-Known Member
like the different map idea .. another thing people keep mentioning for improving ff's is consideing not opening new world every year, but do know it pays the bills, but becomes increasingly difficult to keep players going in all other worlds.
 

Sambee

The West Team
Forum moderator
Let's keep this discussion on track. There's no point bringing personal issues into this thread. If it's not constructive to this discussion, no-one wants to hear it.
 

Goober Pyle

The West Team
Fort Balancing Strategist
Just to be clear, there should be next to no serious belief that ideas presented here are "being looked into" in any meaningful sense.

At MOST, ideas presented in the forum that have a lot of support and virtually no negative feedback will get the blessing of being presented to the developers. 99% of the time those go nowhere unless the idea requires negligible implementation work with even more negligible potential downsides.
 

Bad Billy Jack

Well-Known Member
I’ll note that along with capping alliance size somehow, you would have to limit fort invites to ally towns. (Or else forts can have up to 4x directed to defense)

This would also mitigate the fort gifting problem, necessitating mod intervention for out of alliance transfers
I can no longer find my old post goober but YES! My first thought was to totally eliminate all fort membership to prevent super alliances from bribing non-alliance towns to surrender to the world masters & become bought towns & slaves. It is a huge issue.

Also as Clever Hans posted, the super alliance can give forts to a town who leaves the super alliance to keep it under max limit or just to maintain world domination with supposidly "fun battes". This one is why my suggestion was max 25% of each fort size, cuz a super alliance giving up THAT many forts would solve the issue, I think.
 

Goober Pyle

The West Team
Fort Balancing Strategist
I can no longer find my old post goober but YES! My first thought was to totally eliminate all fort membership to prevent super alliances from bribing non-alliance towns to surrender to the world masters & become bought towns & slaves. It is a huge issue.

Also as Clever Hans posted, the super alliance can give forts to a town who leaves the super alliance to keep it under max limit or just to maintain world domination with supposidly "fun battes". This one is why my suggestion was max 25% of each fort size, cuz a super alliance giving up THAT many forts would solve the issue, I think.
FWIW, if it were up to me, an "anti-dominance rule" would have to have a trigger to take effect (i.e. a single alliance takes possession of 85% of any size fort, or 50% of each fort size, or 60% of all forts combined) with potentially a hall-of-fame title for the alliance that triggers it.
 

Bad Billy Jack

Well-Known Member
Yes I totally agree goober. All my suggestions involve coding changes by inno, NOT mod intervention. Of course mods could intervene also but coding would make it a lot easier for mods to not have to intervene. Such a case would be when inno determines that a world is totally lost and flips the switch to put a world on probation with alliance fort limits! In my original suggestion thread linked above I said a world such as colorado could be immune to domination coding.

On another subject this suggestion comes into play here about fixing fort battles.

Raising Level to L200 Game Adjustment ~ https://forum.the-west.net/index.php?threads/raising-level-to-l200-game-adjustment.59058/

I was shocked that the thread was quickly closed, with inno claiming that we had to wait until you had implimented the level cap raise before we complain about what you did! My thread was a premptive strike to get inno to think about it while still in the planning stage. The level cap increase will only affect fort fighting! Low levels die quickly, stop ffing & usually the game itself. You want new people to play this game? You must remove them from competing with L150+ players in fort battles.
 

Killer Bonnie

Well-Known Member
Depleting clock: After round 6 lose a second off the round clock. This should put the last few rounds of battle in the 15 second range. Overall game length would be shortened and engagement would increase.
No - People who lead FFs need that clock to stay the same. Sometimes I barely get my order typed out with players having time to react to it.
Second Set: For offline players they "set" with a little red icon. What if players can have a second "set" in yellow and dictate the round it takes place. So Imagine if round 40 all players go flag.
Yes - Second set sounds like a nice idea Soo many times we have soo many offies in FF and wish we could move them.
Fullscreen: Why the hell am I looking at this map for ants? The rest of the game features are on pause. Just mimic the adventures and make it full screen
No - I look at all kinds of stuff while leading FF I do not want to be limited.
Script Integration: The stats should be visible in regular game that others create script for.
Yes - I do not use script and count on others to show me HP stats at beginning of FF and there are other things like damage per round and stuff that others can see and I can not as a FF leader this could be a necessary tool.
Animation: Tiny pea crossing the board is cool. But can we have animation from when someone ghosts...or crits. Simple stuff like that.
No - This does not seem like it is needed.
Fade to Black. Entire square unit should fade with hp loss.
No - Players move around the board I think black would make stuff difficult to see.
Coin Toss: Until first round begins you don't know which team shoots then moves...the other moves than shoots.
Yes - If it was a real attack in the real west wouldnt the attackers shoot first sometimes.
Stats: You should be able to find out what gear/boosters the other team is rocking.
No - This seems like it would be spying. plus you can look at what players are wearing by way of the location dot or player rankings outside FF.
Crow flies: The AI that controls the movement pattern for "setting" should be able to set to current...or as the crow flies.
ex. start SE corner on defense and set for AT3 (Toon goes thru north). As the crow flies would mean they go thru the WT or EW or any entrance not blocked. If blocked they stay until not blocked.
No - That player would never reach AT3 having to go directly through the fort. Do you play FFs?
Leader: Each team elects one player to be "leader" That players stats are boosted. this makes them a larger target to kill from other team.
No - I am a leader and I do not need boosted stats making me more of a target while trying to lead. Again Do you play FFs?
Chat Death: Once a player dies in FF...they are terminated from the chat...protect your leader.
No - This would not be a good idea Some leaders are damagers and some are tanks but if I die I cant lead anymore because cant see chat. You do not even play ffs.
Post Chat Dump: Once game ends both teams are dumped into a post game chat for 5 minutes. Yes, there will be trash talking but also comradery.
No - I see this as a way that would promote trash talk and more trolling and stuff that we already deal with too much. That camaraderie you speak of is also done in regular saloon When we say Good Game and stuff like that It is a display of good sportsmanship and maybe people who didnt attend / participate may be encouraged to attend / participate in next FF seeing the 2 teams being friendly in public saloon.
Symmetry: The game was designed with a north we have not seen but lights up sometimes...just the edge in LOS. We should clone the south of the map and make it available in the north. Northgate and Southgate. Reds have 4 sides to setup from.
No - I am for different map styles or some type of different fort set ups but this suggestion would only make 2 sides of the fort have 4 tower los. A south attack as it is is already at a disadvantage because of 4 towers los.
Server Challenge: Do a FF event server. Let players clone their best toon. Players only start with what they have equipped...no inventory.

I wouldn't mind some kind of fort challenge on just regular servers. The player base is too spread out as it is with soo many players playing on all or soo many of the existing worlds.
I'll add: Put Deserters on the battle report, but with blank results (not zeros).
I could see putting this on the battle report Yes Then we could better see who signed up and didnt show up and if its a pattern with that particular player or not.
Black lists. An ally should be able to maintain a short list of players not allowed to join battles on their side
Not sure on this topic Would need a better explanation other than just blocking someone from choosing your side.
Position shielding. Non-ally’s can’t see where others are set (or the topic) for the first 5m or until you are ranked, and traitor ranks can’t see sets.
No - There are many non allies that are freelancers that regularly join battles on either side and we need all to see where we are set and see topic as many are also offline durring battle. Agree on traitor ranks but I have only used that particular rank a few times when being trolled or suspected someone was only there to spy.
Yes please, we have a lot of issues with some accounts signing up for our side on Vegas and never attending fights, while passing on where we start, signup numbers and battle topic to our opponents. This might be also happening on other worlds and sadly there is no way to prevent it right now.
You do this all the time in Jaurez. Sign up without having the intent of showing up.
Desertion lockout. When you desert a battle you are locked out of joining a fort fight for 23h.
No - I can think of many reasons why a plyer may accidently miss a FF. They could have some kind of power / internet outage. RL happens and something came up. I have been doing pre FF stuff ranks and chats befor battle I changed my guys clothes geared and equiped for FF set movement to FF and forgot to wake him up so he leaves the nearby fort he is sleeping in. Get dueled on the way to FF and KOed and dont have fast enough gear or enough nuggets or stuff in inventory to get filled again and get to FF. and there are probably more scenarios that I didnt think of None of these should be a reason to penalize the player and not allow them to join the next FF.
 
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