(Interim) Local Community Rule on abusive Fort Fights

[Goober Pyle]

The following is a working draft on guidance for policing abusive Fort Fights. This rule is not entirely finalized but is being posted in advance, as it will be fully enforced on the current active Speed World, and will be applied on a case by case basis otherwise.

Outside of the speed world, until finalized, generally only warnings will be issued. In the event of flagrant excessive abuse, The West International Team reserves the right to take such actions it deems appropriate to the situation.

---

Howdy Cowboys and Cowgirls,

The declaration of Abusive Fort Battles is a recurring problem on The West and can result in community dissatisfaction for this game feature and the game as a whole. Therefor we have come up with a local community rule for this frustrating situation.

"Abusive Fort Battles" are those battle declarations, not for any discernible legitimate purpose, that have as a primary effect interference with the gameplay of others. This can include:

1. Intentionally interfering with other's scheduled or planned battles
   • Declaring any battles within 3 hours after another battle by someone not within the same alliance, OR declaring any battles within a fixed window of time (not greater than 6 hours) established by alliances representing a majority of regular fort fighters for a recurring series of battles that are not part of that series of battles.
   • Declaring any battles within 3 hours before or 2 hours after an Awesomia battle organized by The West Team.
2. Declaring excessive numbers of "strategic multi" battles within a 1 hour window
   Generally >2 battles by the same player/town/alliance
3. Declaring excessive numbers of battles in a 24 hours period
   • Declaring any battles within 6 hours of the previous battle when 4 or more battles are already scheduled,
   • OR, the same player declaring 3 or more battles in a 24 hours period,
   • OR, the same town/alliance declaring 4 or more battles in a 24 hours period.
4. Repeatedly declaring battles without the features necessary to have any chance of prevailing
   • Generally a battle cannot succeed unless the declarer or his proxy:
     1. sets a topic directing offliners where to start and target
     2. recruits players to attend
     3. ranks players in some manner to beneficially control order of movement
     4. shows up to the battle themselves
     5. leads the attack
   • When a player repeatedly declares battles lacking these features, the community may report these battles as abusive regardless of whether they conflict with other battles. Whether or not action is taken with regards to the battle, the ticket history will be considered when contemplating action on future battles.

Mitigating factors may include:

1. Events that reward event currency, or quests that reward substantial awards for Fort Battle participation
   During these circumstances, no battle dug when there are no other battles during the same "quarter day" shall be punished (00:00-06:00, 06:00-12:00, 12:00-18:00, and 18:00-00:00), though they may be rescheduled to create a 3h gap to an earlier battle.
2. Repeated failed "strategic multi" battles
   Each time an alliance attempts to employ the strategic multi tactic and fails to capture any fort while turning out >10 attackers on at least one of the battles, they shall be permitted an additional simultaneous attack in their next attempt.
3. Compelling argument for the legitimate purpose, reasonable mistake, or exceptional circumstances for an otherwise abusive battle

These rules are unable to cover every eventuality.
The West Team will make decisions in any situation not covered by these measures.


What can you do?
In case you notice Abusive Fort Battles, please contact our support team as soon as possible. Always use the "Contests & Fort Battles" category to report such an incident with the correct World selection.

It is encouraged that the community coordinate to avoid the filing of multiple redundant tickets — only one ticket per abusive battle will be considered, redundant tickets may themselves be considered abusive.


What will we do?

• The West Team will analyze the situation and take appropriate steps as required. Usually when a world first faces such a problem we are going to consider increasing the declaration cost for battles within a certain time period; these changes will be always announced.
• In the case the world has already have such settings applied and the problem persists, we reserve the possibility to warn and punish the players who are involved in the abuse.
• Also, The West Team may (at its sole discretion) cancel or reschedule Fort Battles which are considered Abusive Fort Battles.

Rescheduling battles

• A battle may be rescheduled only if there are at least 6 hours before the start.
• When a battle was cancelled or rescheduled it is announced via official channels:
  • in the world's saloon chat via Henry;
  • in this thread: Cancelled and rescheduled Fort Battles
• Please note that we are not a 24/7 support system, therefore it may happen that we will not be able to react in timely manner and reschedule battles. We are sorry for these situations in advance.

We hope you like these changes! Please if you have any feedback or questions feel free to ask it here or contact us!

Your The West Team

 

[canufeelit]

This has been a problem for over ten years and now its suddenly a thing?

wow the speed world must be BIG

 

[szycopath]

Mandatory topic and leading seems a little excessive and excludes noobs/small alliances
Topics also get deleted regularly because of how the game is, imagine getting all those tickets...
If you keep the rest of the conditions those will most likely take care of the question of leads too. We've had good battles dug by random people who then asked some of the more experienced people to help them out

 

[Goober Pyle]

Mandatory topic and leading seems a little excessive and excludes noobs/small alliances
Topics also get deleted regularly because of how the game is, imagine getting all those tickets...
If you keep the rest of the conditions those will most likely take care of the question of leads too. We've had good battles dug by random people who then asked some of the more experienced people to help them out

That is primarily a "safe harbor" for players accused of abuse on a regular basis. One-off and infrequent battles are not a problem and are unlikely to generate complaints let alone meet a standard of "Repeatedly declaring battles"

 

[Goober Pyle]

Mandatory topic and leading seems a little excessive and excludes noobs/small alliances
Topics also get deleted regularly because of how the game is, imagine getting all those tickets...
If you keep the rest of the conditions those will most likely take care of the question of leads too. We've had good battles dug by random people who then asked some of the more experienced people to help them out

also, I am VERY aware of when topics get lost due to server reboots and will consider that a mitigating factor

 

[szycopath]

That is primarily a "safe harbor" for players accused of abuse on a regular basis. One-off and infrequent battles are not a problem and are unlikely to generate complaints let alone meet a standard of "Repeatedly declaring battles"

Probably, and there's also a good chance that new or unxp'd users won't even really know about this rule but if they do read it they might feel like they shouldn't be doing it in the first place
Ofc the real issue is mutli diggers like pumpkin & CO , well aware of their actions so I do agree with the rule in general

 

[Goober Pyle]

Probably, and there's also a good chance that new or unxp'd users won't even really know about this rule but if they do read it they might feel like they shouldn't be doing it in the first place
Ofc the real issue is mutli diggers like pumpkin & CO , well aware of their actions so I do agree with the rule in general

I bolded "repeatedly", hopefully that mitigates the concern of scaring off noobs from taking a stab.

(I also cleaned up the copy/paste reformatting issues)

 

[canufeelit]

sorry for negative first reply

repeated multi digs need to be outlawed

not even mods but in code

 

[Goober Pyle]

sorry for negative first reply

repeated multi digs need to be outlawed

not even mods but in code

While I can make recommendations for the CM to pass off to the Dev team, I mostly look for solutions within the powers of The West International Team.

Most dev requests are one-size-fits-all "solutions" that are not appropriate for all markets. This particular problem is most acute in the international market where many timezones are represented.

 

[Dr Roth]

so an alliance will be able to dig 2 battles within 1 hour and if they dont win any of these they can dig 3 within one hour? I am referring to strathegic multies

 

[Goober Pyle]

so an alliance will be able to dig 2 battles within 1 hour and if they dont win any of these they can dig 3 within one hour? I am referring to strathegic multies

that is correct.

taken to the extreme, an alliance could dig all 42 forts in 1h, but first they'd have to have failed at an attempt with 41, and before that an attempt at 40 and so on.

 

[Goober Pyle]

that is correct.

taken to the extreme, an alliance could dig all 42 forts in 1h, but first they'd have to have failed at an attempt with 41, and before that an attempt at 40 and so on.

also, if they fail to turn out at least 10 attackers to at least one of the fights then the limit resets to 2

 

[Victor Kruger]

Do whatever on these speed / temporary worlds... but please leave the main game worlds alone... this obsession to regulate and control this game has imo only contributed to its downfall.. ... ... so a few get upset from time to time..boo hoo.

If you have to "protect" the community from such a terrible threat use the vague rules already in place and the ban hammer to get the point across to the "repeatedly unruly" should it become necessary but the less rules the better... the only ones who cant handle multis rare as they are now are imo the faint of heart and those who lack imagination and or .... there are many reasons to use or call or have multis .. not always for the bad

We once did the call every single fort in one evening to "blow " up the world because we had won them all.. the world was over if something wasnt done immediately and was a great solution entirely for the benefit of the world. It was ofc legendary, hilarious & fun but also did what it was supposed to. Rejuvinated w9 all over again allowing small town and alliances who helped to gain some foothold again and despite others new worlds opening w9 stayed busy for years longer than it would have, no question about it ...

Ive used multis in the past for various reasons and strategy, often after dominating a world having won most forts ive switched sides or simply bailed & called multis on my own old forts to also help re-balance things fast when i know its the only way to dispose of forts immediately & rejuvenate things, this was W1 and i did it twice there to again benefit the world and again it did for years to come ..

Maybe with some of these one alliance dominated worlds multis should be encouraged not frowned on... can anyone say El Dorado or Houston as examples ? im sure there are others too... but instead the just wither and die .. shame.. now ofc cant do any of that because of previous and imo silly rules making it prohibitive and overly expensive... so we got dead worlds instead all over the place and i suspect partly its because of these rules no one has thought out longterm... simple actions can have unforseen consequences

No to more sanitising this once great game from me.

Dont mess with the main game more than it has been already... uber alliances have everything already & if they cant handle the occasion hiccup ? they arnt worth a poop imo.

 

[Dr Roth]

I get was Victor says, but I have also suffered from the naughty madness. I think it's a good idea to have some kind of ruling to refer to when people misbehave. As you can see in the ruling though, it's incredibly difficult to make any rules that will be fair and cover everything. There is the caveat that the mod team will use their judgement.
Would it be possible to make it shorter and make the caveat larger? It could be a good idea. Most new players wouldn't understand half of this text.

 

[Goober Pyle]

I get was Victor says, but I have also suffered from the naughty madness. I think it's a good idea to have some kind of ruling to refer to when people misbehave. As you can see in the ruling though, it's incredibly difficult to make any rules that will be fair and cover everything. There is the caveat that the mod team will use their judgement.
Would it be possible to make it shorter and make the caveat larger? It could be a good idea. Most new players wouldn't understand half of this text.

Well, the short form is “Abusive battles are not allowed”

The rest is offering some safe harbors and explaining what happens when violations occur

 

[Goober Pyle]

Do whatever on these speed / temporary worlds... but please leave the main game worlds alone... this obsession to regulate and control this game has imo only contributed to its downfall.. ... ... so a few get upset from time to time..boo hoo.

If you have to "protect" the community from such a terrible threat use the vague rules already in place and the ban hammer to get the point across to the "repeatedly unruly" should it become necessary but the less rules the better... the only ones who cant handle multis rare as they are now are imo the faint of heart and those who lack imagination and or .... there are many reasons to use or call or have multis .. not always for the bad

We once did the call every single fort in one evening to "blow " up the world because we had won them all.. the world was over if something wasnt done immediately and was a great solution entirely for the benefit of the world. It was ofc legendary, hilarious & fun but also did what it was supposed to. Rejuvinated w9 all over again allowing small town and alliances who helped to gain some foothold again and despite others new worlds opening w9 stayed busy for years longer than it would have, no question about it ...

Ive used multis in the past for various reasons and strategy, often after dominating a world having won most forts ive switched sides or simply bailed & called multis on my own old forts to also help re-balance things fast when i know its the only way to dispose of forts immediately & rejuvenate things, this was W1 and i did it twice there to again benefit the world and again it did for years to come ..

Maybe with some of these one alliance dominated worlds multis should be encouraged not frowned on... can anyone say El Dorado or Houston as examples ? im sure there are others too... but instead the just wither and die .. shame.. now ofc cant do any of that because of previous and imo silly rules making it prohibitive and overly expensive... so we got dead worlds instead all over the place and i suspect partly its because of these rules no one has thought out longterm... simple actions can have unforseen consequences

No to more sanitising this once great game from me.

Dont mess with the main game more than it has been already... uber alliances have everything already & if they cant handle the occasion hiccup ? they arnt worth a poop imo.

A couple points:
1) I cannot act if no tickets are filed,
2) I have flexibility to consider your “Compelling argument for the legitimate purpose” which would permit what you described.
3) The intent is to address “ those battle declarations, not for any discernible legitimate purpose, that have as a primary effect interference with the gameplay of others.” The primary impact I foresee is going to be against pointless no effort digs (eg many of NPs battles) and opportunistic digs that cause “real” battles to suffer with no realistic chance of winning (Ie “have as a primary effect interference with the gameplay of others.” )

 

[Goober Pyle]

3 points to clarify that would be addressed if/when this is made official:

1) the “strategic multi” allowance is designed to be a one time per day thing — it still counts against the n battles per 24h


2) “alliance” doesn’t mean “allyid”, any formal coordination will establish an “alliance” for the purposes of the rule (eg two alliances can coordinate a strategic multi)

3) adjustments to normal battles without a conflict aren’t addressed; I hope to be able to offer this service under limited circumstances but for now that is not permitted

 

[Clever Hans]

I wonder on how many of the regular worlds you have an ongoing issue with multies right now. Most of the worlds in 2022 don't even have regular daily digs so not sure how much of an issue this is. I also highly doubt that this is such a burden ticketwise for Support team. The game should be less regulated like the others mentioned above.

 

[szycopath]

Victor is right that over-regulating everything kills the fun for those of us capable and willing to enjoy freedom as it was meant to be
But just like in real world, most people are not exactly meant to be given liberties because all they do is stupidly abuse it (on the cost of people who just wanted things to be nice). See pumpkin andt he alikes. I definitely support anarchy in all forms but that would require people wiht 3 digit IQs and at least some basic understanding of groupwork and the such
I guess we can agree that this doesn't quite describe the majority of tw players (or ppl in general)

 

[Cactus Poke]

This is a good common-sense plan. It is not much different than a market thief in your town – if they don’t stop, you boot them. If common sense is applied to the issues already mentioned and to future issues, there should not be a problem.

In my opinion, the right of the 1 to dig should be weighted proportionally to the rights of the 180 enjoying a daily fort battle.