Feedback Holiday Speed 2021 (premium-free)

Goober Pyle

The West Team
Fort Balancing Strategist
You should TRADE Cortez for Cortina with builder! TRADE, not just GIVE them, so builder can just build and wait for all the Cortez you get! Same thing with duel stuff you get and don't need, you can TRADE it to dueler for equipment you NEED, not just GIVE it away FREE, because that's PUSHING! Also stuff given and goten should be about the same, not that he gives you some useless set from 2015 for Cortez for example! And only YOUR town doesn't understand rules and is PUSHING people! And i hope all those you're PUSHING get BANNED!

This isn't normal server, where you can trade as you want! This is COMPETITION and EVERYONE must have SAME CHANCE, not like you think who got better town and team! That's why we have TOWN REWARD too!

FWIW, my opinion is that we need to develop a clear and objective standard for defining "pushing" as applied to selling items at minimum price when they have value that far exceeds minimum price; at least when it comes to speed worlds.
This would include tombola sets as well as farmed items and/or buffs.
For example, I would personally consider it "pushing" to have a town full of players that are not in any way trying to win but who are farming raven feathers and fools gold and selling them at minimum to townies to quickly get their XP clothing.

I think "trading" tombola sets of similar vintage (e.g. from the same year exclusive of DOTD (say Captain's for Joseph Warren's), or from DOTDs within 1 year of each other (say Cortina for Vaquero) would be a reasonable defense against pushing.

Likewise I think trading comparable quantities of products would be a reasonable defense against pushing.
(e.g. trading 450 knocked out tooth (24% base drop) for 100 raven feathers (16% base drop) and 100 fools gold (8% base drop) would be "comparable quantities")

Thoughts?
 

Goober Pyle

The West Team
Fort Balancing Strategist
This is a tough problem to address; why it probably has been left pretty subjective and largely unenforced.

I stand by my opinion expressed opinion that 1) tombola items of comparable vintage can be used as an imperfect approximation of like-value that could satisfy a safe-harbor and 2) base drop rate can be used to establish an imperfect approximation of like-value for products that could satisfy a safe-harbor

Likewise I stand by my implied opinion that this would be a "defensive response" and "pushing" would be a ticket-level complaint for which evidence of safe-harbor counter-trades would be a defense.
 
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Aryastark

Active Member
First of all it's just my opinion, so everything written should or should not be taken seriously, it's just a simple opinion.

Speed worlds, how I see them, even designed without this intention, are worlds where everybody tries, or at least wants to abuse the mechanics of the game. And this happens in every contest, crafting, forts, duels etc. I see very few options how this could be restricted.

First of all for crafting it would be enough to give everybody the instruction that gives you a low chance for a point from 826 onwards, yes the person who will start crafting it will have the biggest chance but still the race would be much more open :). Make the quest from the crafting event available, that will do it, sort of :). Also as an idea, make all instructions unsellable, so this way one will have to grind and waste time in order to gain them.

Dueling, the winner of the contest shouldn't be named the person with the most experience or duels won, instead develop and make public before the start of the contest a formula which will have as variables experience, duels won and lost, or make the protection from dueling longer, so this way duels will happen only between players who target this specific segment, will this be abuse in a ay, probably, will that be harder also probably.

Fort battles, the only thing that comes into my mind is that there should be one battle a day, gm town attacking another gm town's fort, and make the deserter rank final, if possible, if you did not listened previous battle then you will miss next one, similarly to red card in football. Also there could be a formula the same as for duels, something like score / fort battles lost * fort battles won, or something like that.

Other contest categories would be difficult to be framed, in my opinion.

Good luck everyone and have a nice day/evening/night.
 

Caerdwyn

Well-Known Member
Also as an idea, make all instructions unsellable, so this way one will have to grind and waste time in order to gain them.

If all Instructions are unsellable, I hope drops are restricted to my craft and no Instructions drop for the Untrained.
 

Goober Pyle

The West Team
Fort Balancing Strategist
What I am suggesting is that using cash to buy things at minimum price would be presumptively pushing if there is a pushing accusation filed. Then an affirmative defense would be that the other party to the transaction received comparable goods at minimum price (or that there was insufficient interaction with the other player to claim a pushing arraignment plausibly exists)
 
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What I am suggesting is that using cash to buy things at minimum price would be presumptively pushing if there is a pushing accusation filed. Then an affirmative defense would be that the other party to the transaction received comparable goods at minimum price (or that there was insufficient interaction with the other player to claim a pushing arraignment plausibly exists)

So if I'm a tank, and have a fort damage set, I should charge a crazy amount of money to an alliance member that just started getting into forts and has nothing? Or demand even gear that they might not have, so I can't give them the damage gear? Wtf happened to teamwork?

When I first started the game in 2011, I was gifted a lot of gear, no favors expected in return. I've tried to return the favor to chars that I play with.

Or I've been farming a ton of products, and chars without good drop gear would take forever to get, but I give them 50, 100, with no expectations? Maybe help with future considerations? A lot of IOUs if needed?

The speed world, do whatever there. The-West wasn't designed for speed, so the game shouldn't have speed worlds anyway :D
 

Beefmeister

Well-Known Member
let's be serious...nobody did only fair, equal trades on this game. but normal servers are normal servers, contest servers are contest servers.

i suspect some of the people that won HAVE BEEN HELPED WITH THE PURPOSE OF WINNING THE OP GEAR, as it happened in previous contests as well. if you gave even 10 berries/one piece of gear/accepted one arranged duel, it could be considered pushing. even 5 playes doing that together is already creating an unfair advantage over other players who talked to no friends for help before the contest server started


and honestly, on previous contest servers, i did ask for help with trivial matters, like a few buffs...don't wanna be a hypocrite. it didn't sit well with me and just gave up.
i know very well how on previous speed worlds a full town helped one single player to win the crafting category and was nowhere near banned...if even that was not pushing what are we talking about

also, if we got here with this argument, i am not really too fond of accepting people that give 30-40 players full gear for their alliance domination benefit either...but that can't be held accountable i guess. that's open for discussion, subjective matter
 
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Goober Pyle

The West Team
Fort Balancing Strategist
So if I'm a tank, and have a fort damage set, I should charge a crazy amount of money to an alliance member that just started getting into forts and has nothing? Or demand even gear that they might not have, so I can't give them the damage gear? Wtf happened to teamwork?

When I first started the game in 2011, I was gifted a lot of gear, no favors expected in return. I've tried to return the favor to chars that I play with.

Or I've been farming a ton of products, and chars without good drop gear would take forever to get, but I give them 50, 100, with no expectations? Maybe help with future considerations? A lot of IOUs if needed?

The speed world, do whatever there. The-West wasn't designed for speed, so the game shouldn't have speed worlds anyway :D

I was mostly addressing the speed world and new (<1y old) worlds. In established worlds established players pushing new players is still pushing but I would absolutely support continuing to allow it. However what is frequently seen is “new players” pushing established players (Ie a low level account logging in daily to collect their dotd spins, then selling it all to one established player and disappearing again until the next event, rinse repeat
 

Caerdwyn

Well-Known Member
The contest prizes should be unsellable and non-upgradable so that you can only ever have one. If 5 prizes are offered and you get one you already have, you just screwed your #5 teammate out of his.
 

SUPERSKOUPIDIARIS

Well-Known Member
All major reward categories have been rigged in some way or another by 1 single town and a handful of people.
If u want to call that teamwork, then by all means go ahead. Just on the next speed server u start, remove the "no pushing" rule because u are making fools of urselves. Most of the people who joined wanted clean competition, 1 vs 1, in the individual categories at least. U cant blame them for leaving or giving up
 

Mr.anonymus

Member
I am not going to pinpoint what's wrong with Aryastark's, Goober's or JWillow's propositions, because in case you accept and apply these suggestions I'll already have a game plan for next speed server which will exploit some loopholes that you are overlooking. And if it won't be me to do it, there will be another, as I can't be the single smartest player in this game. I may not even be in top 10 smartest players of this game; thus if I can exploit a mechanic, you can bet that there are many more that can as well.

Now. Speed servers are a special animal. In order to get to the bottom of what set of additional rules is necessary, you have to think first and foremost what is the PROFILE of the player you deem worthy of winning. What are promoting? Are we promoting time spent online clicking? Are we promoting team play? (On regular servers, yes. On speed, maybe it's for the best to give up on it, although this is the one quality I value the most in a player, together with his honesty, as honesty + fairness + team spirit is what loyalty consists of and what makes a good leader as well as a good team player). Are we promoting skill? (as in: the best skill point distribution for a task like FF or dueling combined with the best gear for the build, upgraded as much as possible). Or maybe we are promoting experience (as in: the knowledge about which quests to do to prolong your bonus premium, to gain more skillpoints, to earn more achievement points, how to best spend your bonds and your veteran points depending on what goals you pursue). Because some of your suggestions promote LUCK (you have to be lucky enough to drop your own recipes in case they won't be trade-able and you have to be lucky enough to manage many extras while crafting so that they further increase your diversity without having to farm products for that). After we decide what human treat is required to win a speed server we can redesign the rules so that they best suit this.

I will however mention some flaws of the propositions above and some of my propositions (the ones that I am unable to workaround/bypass myself either).
  • Disabling markets: favors the lucky ones, in all aspects. Be it clothing droppings from jobs for achievements or recipes. What purpose would a town serve if 2 players cannot trade in a mutually beneficial way...?
  • Trading sets for their suggested value: totally wrong. You're not fooling anyone when you claim Nick set is worth the same as Vaquero just because they came from the same event. Nick is a garbage set for .... basically for nobody. I stopped playing one world after I got 3 of those sets during Christmas 2020. And nothing can make me come back to it. Unless you trade me cowgirl or vaquero for my spare Nick sets LOL.
  • Enforcing a specific price for set items: No. If a player is being helped and he is trying for captain sets for FF, they both drop 1 boatswain each and then the helper drops a captain, you cannot possibly expect me to believe that swapping a captain for a boatswain is fair. Nor that they can be sold for the same price. We need a guideline-table with prices of each of these tombola sets. I was lucky enough this server to find 3 cortinas. And I didn't even use them once in FF. For someone who found 3 cortez and 2 santas already instead of cortina, agreeing to pay 4.000.000 for a cortina was a no-brainer. (this did not happen, I'm just illustrating a point).
  • GM fort digs only: This is beyond useless. What good to have a battle if nobody tries to win the fort. Assuming we change the ranking system of towns and some town grabs 10-20 forts in the first day like Little Town did this event: how am I supposed to win them for my town anymore, for the community reward? You want to stop players from running around for FF stats and rather play the battle as we play them on regular worlds? Or you want chaos and everyone for themselves? Take my case and SUPER's for example. Super has been regularly joining the opposite side of his friend, gate 7 for ever, in a battle, so they can shoot each other and boost each other's FF reward gains. I see this as a correct strategy. My town did the same to some extent, choosing to shoot and dodge bullets from town members where possible, rather than shoot at SUPER, John Doe or wolphis. Note that if SUPERSKOUPIDIARIS was in my town, I would have done the same for him as I did for the other fort fighters of my town. Also, when our forts were dug, due to the fact that we had so many defenders from our town, foreign defenders only helped the attacking side (FF-wise), as they consistently shot blanks at the likes of SUPER. It's a legit strategy and if we want to remove it, I can't think of a way to counter it. There are always noobs who join battles with sub-par gear and feed the strongest tanks more points. You cannot blame a noob for being a noob or an experienced player for taking advantage of the noobs.
  • Trading products for products according to drop rate: OMFG, what is this proposition, it's like you're not even trying. Are players supposed to compute which amounts are fair according to the drop rate? Which drop rate? an adventurer's with full drop gear and buffed with candy cane or a soldier's, unbuffed with no drop gear? What if I spam 15s and another farms full hours? What if one farms solely cash while another farms products, while they both wish to buy sets from the tombola?
Now some solutions. Brace yourselves, they are radical.
  • Either or all of these 3: No alliances, no alliance leaving, no alliance market. Alliances are the no.1 source of pushing. Players who hire farmers send them to other towns and only invite them in alliance for brief moments to trade with them and then dismiss them (a gray hat is enough for this to happen, I saw it happening, I tested it myself). Currently alliance leaving and joining has no cooldown. Maybe enabling a cooldown would also help. As a town founder, like that, I won't be able to organize deals with strangers and invite them over for a quick trade anytime I want.
  • Maximum 24 players in a town. A town does not need more than 5 builders, 4 crafters, 5 achievement pursuers, 5 fort fighters, 5 duelers which don't necessarily have to be different players either (crafted can be fort fighters too, achievement pursuers can be fort fighters too, builders can be fort fighters too, but realistically speaking duelers cannot be anything else with the current dueling raking system as they need to stay low level to earn more XP from wins. Limiting the maximum amount of players in a town will create more competition and will tickle L00natik's fancy in a pleasant way. And will stop me to bring all the good players in my own town.
  • Trading sets for pre-established values only: like cortina hat for 150.000k, phoebe hat for 125.000k and warren for minimum price (unless there's a gringo prize for top adventures, which I hope to God there won't ever be, because mixing regular worlds with speed worlds in a competition is so unfair. Not to mention the possibility to spawn multi-accounts on random old worlds, loan some gear and head into adventures to help or to prevent certain players from winning. (at this point I don't need to name the player I am talking about, he knows who he is). This involves a lot of work from mods or perhaps from the player base, but is the only way. You cannot price all sets the same. Who needs marshall anyway when you have highlander, behan and cortez already?
  • Trading products for a fixed amount. EG: raven feather? 1k. Can't be sold for less, cannot be sold for more. Corn? 2k. Beans? 2.5k Gold dust? 10k. But this unlocks a large pletora of new problems: I have the same drop rate at 15 for all of the above.... you can see how I can easily exploit such a system. Better yet: don't allow trading of raw products. Allow only crafted products for fixed prices. EG: you want resin from a peddler? He has to farm for it himself and sell it to you. He needs your charcoal? You have to farm for it yourself and sell it to him. Amounts don't matter, as the price will be fixed for both charcoal and resin. And incense. And vegetable dumplings. And viewfinders. And disappearing ink. You're seeing the pattern I hope.
  • DISABLE THE PUBLIC DISPLAY OF RANKINGS. The sooner a players discovers he's far ahead in a competition the sooner he can focus on helping his friends, which if I understand correctly it's a giant no-no. This is precisely what towns are for in regular worlds, but if we decide against team play for speed servers, this rule will help. Let the players in question do the maths for themselves and count their points. Then try to approximate or guess or calculate how the competition is standing in the rankings. This will keep the race open until the last moments, giving an edge to players who know how standings are computed (hence the experience part) and who kept an eye on their most likely competition. Same goes for players that discover early that they cannot compete for any prize due to their noobness, or lack of time to play, or get sick during the event (it happened in our town) and only come back towards the end. What are they supposed to do? They only make sure the town wins no.1 rank at the end end help the other town players in pursuing their goals while making sure the team does not lose the 1st spot in town raking. We want to prevent them from doing this? make rankings unavailable.
  • Everyone who joins a town is instant town founder and cannot be demoted. This will allow for more fierce competition, more backstabbing possibilities and a lot less trust. Fort digs, alliance invitations, forum (??) invitations and town member recruiting shall be possible for everyone in a town. This favors a speed server and is extremely unwise / inadvisable on regular worlds, but I think we already established speed servers are a different animal.
I may be overlooking things, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think I'm the best fort fighter, the best crafter, the best dueler, the smartest player, the most experienced, the "most veteran" or the best town leader. I'm just a guy. I forgot to place my skills before one of the battles (I joined with all skills in hand), I bought pickaxes for no reason (I thought I need them for craft and it turns out I didn't), I farmed thousands of berries which I never got the chance to use and I farmed turkey instead of ham for half a day... So I'm not saying I know all, I too am a noob to some extent.

True to the game,
Mr.Anonymus
 

Mr.anonymus

Member
All major reward categories have been rigged in some way or another by 1 single town and a handful of people.
If u want to call that teamwork, then by all means go ahead. Just on the next speed server u start, remove the "no pushing" rule because u are making fools of urselves. Most of the people who joined wanted clean competition, 1 vs 1, in the individual categories at least. U cant blame them for leaving or giving up
I am not blaming them for leaving the speed world or giving up. I worked hard for that to happen. Removing the competition is what helped my town members win. As I always say: pushing is not allowed, so let's pull the competition down.
 

L00nat33k

Well-Known Member
FWIW, my opinion is that we need to develop a clear and objective standard for defining "pushing" as applied to selling items at minimum price when they have value that far exceeds minimum price; at least when it comes to speed worlds.
This would include tombola sets as well as farmed items and/or buffs.
For example, I would personally consider it "pushing" to have a town full of players that are not in any way trying to win but who are farming raven feathers and fools gold and selling them at minimum to townies to quickly get their XP clothing.

I think "trading" tombola sets of similar vintage (e.g. from the same year exclusive of DOTD (say Captain's for Joseph Warren's), or from DOTDs within 1 year of each other (say Cortina for Vaquero) would be a reasonable defense against pushing.

Likewise I think trading comparable quantities of products would be a reasonable defense against pushing.
(e.g. trading 450 knocked out tooth (24% base drop) for 100 raven feathers (16% base drop) and 100 fools gold (8% base drop) would be "comparable quantities")

Thoughts?
Well i like the idea. And pushing is not something that everyone has different opinion on. Pushing by definition is when someone makes unfair advantage and that is, he got something cheaper than he should and gaining unfair advantage. It was alot of that on last Speed server, and it wasn't punished, even rules clearly said pushing isn't allowed.

Most of got rules of no pushing clear, as they should be (in the way you're describing them in your post) and set proper tactic to that before server started, but as was seen later there were a lot of machinations with sets, people giving everything they got from duel set to one player in town that was dueler, other got construction stuff, than another ff stuff ... and so on, and their deffence was players that gave those things didn't need them, ... but pushing prevention rule is there for reason, and doesn't mean if i don't need, i can donate ... it means ... i need duel cloths, i get duel cloths from you, and give you ff clothing of same year you need ... so you can understand frustration of most players on this server, because server was boring purely because of one town playing rules and nothing happend to prevent pushing, even we started complaining early on.

So yes, on next server make rules clearer, as it seems players here got no honor to follow rules as they meant to be, but will play the rules to their limits.
 

L00nat33k

Well-Known Member
All major reward categories have been rigged in some way or another by 1 single town and a handful of people.
If u want to call that teamwork, then by all means go ahead. Just on the next speed server u start, remove the "no pushing" rule because u are making fools of urselves. Most of the people who joined wanted clean competition, 1 vs 1, in the individual categories at least. U cant blame them for leaving or giving up
Couldn't say better! Server was ruined on day 3 and lost all competition meaning and most just stop playing after seeing what's going on and no one doing anything against it.
 

L00nat33k

Well-Known Member
I am not going to pinpoint what's wrong with Aryastark's, Goober's or JWillow's propositions, because in case you accept and apply these suggestions I'll already have a game plan for next speed server which will exploit some loopholes that you are overlooking. And if it won't be me to do it, there will be another, as I can't be the single smartest player in this game. I may not even be in top 10 smartest players of this game; thus if I can exploit a mechanic, you can bet that there are many more that can as well.

Now. Speed servers are a special animal. In order to get to the bottom of what set of additional rules is necessary, you have to think first and foremost what is the PROFILE of the player you deem worthy of winning. What are promoting? Are we promoting time spent online clicking? Are we promoting team play? (On regular servers, yes. On speed, maybe it's for the best to give up on it, although this is the one quality I value the most in a player, together with his honesty, as honesty + fairness + team spirit is what loyalty consists of and what makes a good leader as well as a good team player). Are we promoting skill? (as in: the best skill point distribution for a task like FF or dueling combined with the best gear for the build, upgraded as much as possible). Or maybe we are promoting experience (as in: the knowledge about which quests to do to prolong your bonus premium, to gain more skillpoints, to earn more achievement points, how to best spend your bonds and your veteran points depending on what goals you pursue). Because some of your suggestions promote LUCK (you have to be lucky enough to drop your own recipes in case they won't be trade-able and you have to be lucky enough to manage many extras while crafting so that they further increase your diversity without having to farm products for that). After we decide what human treat is required to win a speed server we can redesign the rules so that they best suit this.

I will however mention some flaws of the propositions above and some of my propositions (the ones that I am unable to workaround/bypass myself either).
  • Disabling markets: favors the lucky ones, in all aspects. Be it clothing droppings from jobs for achievements or recipes. What purpose would a town serve if 2 players cannot trade in a mutually beneficial way...?
  • Trading sets for their suggested value: totally wrong. You're not fooling anyone when you claim Nick set is worth the same as Vaquero just because they came from the same event. Nick is a garbage set for .... basically for nobody. I stopped playing one world after I got 3 of those sets during Christmas 2020. And nothing can make me come back to it. Unless you trade me cowgirl or vaquero for my spare Nick sets LOL.
  • Enforcing a specific price for set items: No. If a player is being helped and he is trying for captain sets for FF, they both drop 1 boatswain each and then the helper drops a captain, you cannot possibly expect me to believe that swapping a captain for a boatswain is fair. Nor that they can be sold for the same price. We need a guideline-table with prices of each of these tombola sets. I was lucky enough this server to find 3 cortinas. And I didn't even use them once in FF. For someone who found 3 cortez and 2 santas already instead of cortina, agreeing to pay 4.000.000 for a cortina was a no-brainer. (this did not happen, I'm just illustrating a point).
  • GM fort digs only: This is beyond useless. What good to have a battle if nobody tries to win the fort. Assuming we change the ranking system of towns and some town grabs 10-20 forts in the first day like Little Town did this event: how am I supposed to win them for my town anymore, for the community reward? You want to stop players from running around for FF stats and rather play the battle as we play them on regular worlds? Or you want chaos and everyone for themselves? Take my case and SUPER's for example. Super has been regularly joining the opposite side of his friend, gate 7 for ever, in a battle, so they can shoot each other and boost each other's FF reward gains. I see this as a correct strategy. My town did the same to some extent, choosing to shoot and dodge bullets from town members where possible, rather than shoot at SUPER, John Doe or wolphis. Note that if SUPERSKOUPIDIARIS was in my town, I would have done the same for him as I did for the other fort fighters of my town. Also, when our forts were dug, due to the fact that we had so many defenders from our town, foreign defenders only helped the attacking side (FF-wise), as they consistently shot blanks at the likes of SUPER. It's a legit strategy and if we want to remove it, I can't think of a way to counter it. There are always noobs who join battles with sub-par gear and feed the strongest tanks more points. You cannot blame a noob for being a noob or an experienced player for taking advantage of the noobs.
  • Trading products for products according to drop rate: OMFG, what is this proposition, it's like you're not even trying. Are players supposed to compute which amounts are fair according to the drop rate? Which drop rate? an adventurer's with full drop gear and buffed with candy cane or a soldier's, unbuffed with no drop gear? What if I spam 15s and another farms full hours? What if one farms solely cash while another farms products, while they both wish to buy sets from the tombola?
Now some solutions. Brace yourselves, they are radical.
  • Either or all of these 3: No alliances, no alliance leaving, no alliance market. Alliances are the no.1 source of pushing. Players who hire farmers send them to other towns and only invite them in alliance for brief moments to trade with them and then dismiss them (a gray hat is enough for this to happen, I saw it happening, I tested it myself). Currently alliance leaving and joining has no cooldown. Maybe enabling a cooldown would also help. As a town founder, like that, I won't be able to organize deals with strangers and invite them over for a quick trade anytime I want.
  • Maximum 24 players in a town. A town does not need more than 5 builders, 4 crafters, 5 achievement pursuers, 5 fort fighters, 5 duelers which don't necessarily have to be different players either (crafted can be fort fighters too, achievement pursuers can be fort fighters too, builders can be fort fighters too, but realistically speaking duelers cannot be anything else with the current dueling raking system as they need to stay low level to earn more XP from wins. Limiting the maximum amount of players in a town will create more competition and will tickle L00natik's fancy in a pleasant way. And will stop me to bring all the good players in my own town.
  • Trading sets for pre-established values only: like cortina hat for 150.000k, phoebe hat for 125.000k and warren for minimum price (unless there's a gringo prize for top adventures, which I hope to God there won't ever be, because mixing regular worlds with speed worlds in a competition is so unfair. Not to mention the possibility to spawn multi-accounts on random old worlds, loan some gear and head into adventures to help or to prevent certain players from winning. (at this point I don't need to name the player I am talking about, he knows who he is). This involves a lot of work from mods or perhaps from the player base, but is the only way. You cannot price all sets the same. Who needs marshall anyway when you have highlander, behan and cortez already?
  • Trading products for a fixed amount. EG: raven feather? 1k. Can't be sold for less, cannot be sold for more. Corn? 2k. Beans? 2.5k Gold dust? 10k. But this unlocks a large pletora of new problems: I have the same drop rate at 15 for all of the above.... you can see how I can easily exploit such a system. Better yet: don't allow trading of raw products. Allow only crafted products for fixed prices. EG: you want resin from a peddler? He has to farm for it himself and sell it to you. He needs your charcoal? You have to farm for it yourself and sell it to him. Amounts don't matter, as the price will be fixed for both charcoal and resin. And incense. And vegetable dumplings. And viewfinders. And disappearing ink. You're seeing the pattern I hope.
  • DISABLE THE PUBLIC DISPLAY OF RANKINGS. The sooner a players discovers he's far ahead in a competition the sooner he can focus on helping his friends, which if I understand correctly it's a giant no-no. This is precisely what towns are for in regular worlds, but if we decide against team play for speed servers, this rule will help. Let the players in question do the maths for themselves and count their points. Then try to approximate or guess or calculate how the competition is standing in the rankings. This will keep the race open until the last moments, giving an edge to players who know how standings are computed (hence the experience part) and who kept an eye on their most likely competition. Same goes for players that discover early that they cannot compete for any prize due to their noobness, or lack of time to play, or get sick during the event (it happened in our town) and only come back towards the end. What are they supposed to do? They only make sure the town wins no.1 rank at the end end help the other town players in pursuing their goals while making sure the team does not lose the 1st spot in town raking. We want to prevent them from doing this? make rankings unavailable.
  • Everyone who joins a town is instant town founder and cannot be demoted. This will allow for more fierce competition, more backstabbing possibilities and a lot less trust. Fort digs, alliance invitations, forum (??) invitations and town member recruiting shall be possible for everyone in a town. This favors a speed server and is extremely unwise / inadvisable on regular worlds, but I think we already established speed servers are a different animal.
I may be overlooking things, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think I'm the best fort fighter, the best crafter, the best dueler, the smartest player, the most experienced, the "most veteran" or the best town leader. I'm just a guy. I forgot to place my skills before one of the battles (I joined with all skills in hand), I bought pickaxes for no reason (I thought I need them for craft and it turns out I didn't), I farmed thousands of berries which I never got the chance to use and I farmed turkey instead of ham for half a day... So I'm not saying I know all, I too am a noob to some extent.

True to the game,
Mr.Anonymus
exploit some loopholes that you are overlooking

Exactly the thing that's wrong with you! You're looking how to exploit rules, instead of follow them as they're meant to be and also stuff problem, because they don't ban you when you start exploiting rules and ruining competition for others!
 
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