VOTE FOR SMALLER KINGDOMS / MEMBER LIMITATION

    Quote from Snorri

    So he can accuse us in this chat thread but I can't deffend us in this chat thread?
    I'm just trying to keep the thread balanced. Deacon is obviously fighting for one idea with his opinions, Im fighting with mine opinions. I'd think it's a discussion after all.
    Also there's been many potential risks said during the last couple of weeks - ignored. But pros (even tho you can't be sure it would work like that) are there included. That was my point :)

    Snorri Could you point them out clearly that StarX could add them?

    Snorri , DainioujuDima did quoted you but all his images were a general share of kingdom's ranking so I doubt he wanted to point finger at you.

    Also, as Deacon said, if valid points are enlisted clearly and asked to be added on the main post, I'm more than willing to edit it.


    And I saw Deacon quoting Mads post while saying to check other posts before giving out negative comments, which you quoted, maybe better to go back and see how that post was worded and see how positive that post was to start with before siding with it just because it aligns with "No" Camp.

    I don't think this is good idea. if there will be limit on kingdom members then it will create an unacceptable situation for new players. if now a beginner starts a server but is not very active he still has a chance to join to a good top 5 team. This new player sees how team work, team conversations, and this new player is fascinated and more and more interested in game play. and he is becoming for regular player


    And now there is 60 players limit all top players with big fat experience will be in top 5-10 kingdoms. and this new players will found top 15-20 rank kingdom. King is online 1 time in 2 days 0 team work, 0 communication. and he after some time delete acc.


    and you need to remember that in servers there is always shortage in Kings. Not all players want to play as kings. so more governors will play out of kingdoms and this sucks the most

    Ignis_COM Please check @Scorox's post clearly showing that kingdoms below rank 2 rarely have any chance of winning the server or even influencing the server strongly (surely there will be some exceptions but generally speaking). In many servers you can also see players in Rank 3-10th kingdoms being tossing around from one kingdom to another and ultimately ending up in big metas eventually which is not really a pleasant experiences by any means for any new player.


    According to current trend :

    2 metas contending in most servers - 150 players each - 300 players truly making a difference.


    According to limited kingdom rule :

    10 kingdoms contending in most servers - 60 players each - 600 players truly making a difference.

    Alternatively,

    10 kingdoms contending in most servers - 60 players each - 420 players truly making a difference.
    (Remember it's a bit difficult to hold 2 WW with 60 players so kingdoms will go for just 1 WW, allowing other kingdoms to take rest of WWs)

    Quote from Starx

    Ignis_COM Please check @Scorox's post clearly showing that kingdoms below rank 2 rarely have any chance of winning the server or even influencing the server strongly (surely there will be some exceptions but generally speaking). In many servers you can also see players in Rank 3-10th kingdoms being tossing around from one kingdom to another and ultimately ending up in big metas eventually which is not really a pleasant experiences by any means for any new player.

    currently playing in com2x3speed WW lvl on 91


    1. AMIGO'S - DEADLY ASSASIN 146,175 (+8,768) 2,595,344 ‭+‭25‬%‬ (+137,407)
    2. WiC - Fanfun 110,188 (+3,520) 2,458,101 ‭+‭83‬%‬ (+106,685)
    3. Immortal - Rytis 103,122 (+2,431) 1,934,391 ‭+‭20‬%‬ (+100,691)
    4. BOSS - Ignis 99,887 (+1,717) 1,664,538 ‭+‭25‬%‬ (+98,179)
    5. Bitchpls - Rex 32,640 (+1,149) 597,703 (+31,491)

    and top 5 kingdoms


    AMIGO'S - 115 players
    WiC -85 players

    Immortal- 98 players

    BOSS - 92 players


    and you know will win kingdom with the smallest number of players, respectively WIC

    You really cant compare previously planned meta kingdom with random players in kingdom

    ok we will look that happens that you will add 60 players limit.


    in servers start meta is landing in first day 60 players. 60-70 % players use gold

    in second day all 60 players is all in one kingdom border relocated near WW with 3 active treasury near WW

    that is doing rest server? rest kingdoms are start to fight over territory and influence and at best they have to 15-25 players in kingdom.

    after 3 weeks meta have 5-10 times more treasuries than closest kingdom

    after 3 weeks they are starting to raid and attack nearest kingdoms. weakest kingdoms in order to reduce attacks agree to become farm kingdom and let meta to collect their treasuries.

    When WW starts meta have so much treasuries and VP that they can win without WW :D


    this is scenario if in server is one meta.

    but if in server is 3-4 metakingdoms when rest players just can delete at the beginnings because you cant fight them and you can't join to them

    Ignis_COM Please give me more examples from normal speed servers rather than one instance from speed server where gameplay is different.
    In normal speed BM have won rounds despite being in smaller numbers but in majority of the times a meta with superior members count have won.


    Also your strategy of meta moving towards WW is valid and with 60 members limitation, there can be atleast 6-7 kingdoms moving towards WW allowing for 6-7 separate teams on a minimum having 1 WW each.

    Howmuch member (players) can build WW?

    Howmuch player be WW winer?


    Ps.

    You do not need a limited number of players, but you can limit the number of the population to the kingdom :)

    or village number.

    when you be member of the kingdom, king can no longer remove u, you can only exit yourself.

    At this situation, we're facing in speed server:
    AMIGOS: mostly random guys, not very coordinated
    WiC: Very coordinated, very active
    Immortals: Mostly random dudes too
    BOSS: Not even going to talk about it :D

    So this speed server is not even close to any of Limitation examples, in the whole server there was max 1.5k registered player.
    Like we mentioned before, this topic is mostly for x1 speed servers.

    by having a 60-player limit the recruiting comes back in place, like old times. You would recruit the best players...


    But with the mindset of the big teams here, you will have meta's with 300+ players anyway which spoil all the fun.. for example on COM4 right now. The server is dead and already long decided who will win.. and this is only day 75... lame

    I feel like you (@op) and your friends still don't get the point of me and some other people who are against a limitation. If you did, you wouldn't insist on this and Scorox wouldn't have used his freetime to create this statistics thread. The point is not, that I'm saying, that the way to go should be to have a huge kingdom and invite everything that your invite button can reach. I also never said, that huge metas have no significant advantage. I never said that, nobody ever said that I guess. The point is not, that there shouldn't be a way to narrow the member count down, either. The point is, that despite having recognized a problem correctly, the solution, that you proposed, is impractical and one of the worst ways to handle this issue. The only worse solution I read until now was to limit the population of a kingdom, lol. In addition to your proposal being bad game design in my eyes, it feels like you interpret every single word against your proposal as a confession, that this person wants to have 500 member kingdoms.


    Travian: Legends is the existing proof, that people are willing to give up being in the main of the victorious meta in order to be somewhat victorious. 150+ member metas do exist in T:L despite the member limit, which exists as long as I can think back. Your whole argument is based on the assumption, that two kingdoms wouldn't work together to push one to victory. But that's what even without the member limit happens sometimes. There is absolutely no reason, that this would change with a limit. And every single of your arguments dies, if you take away this wrong assumption.


    Scorox thread shows, that the amount of passively generated victory points over the course of one gameround approaches roughly a constant multiple of its member count. But, and I'm really sorry and feel bad to say this, because I love statistics and can only imagine how long it took him, this is nothing new to anyone who thinks about it for two minutes, because victory points are generated by treasures are generated based linearly on the treasure count and treasures are generated on a per account basis. The only logical consequence is, that the amount of treasures and thus the amount of victory points grows linearly with the member count. This is why making treasure generation non-linear was one of the first things, that came into my mind, when I posted alternate approaches in post #39, a day before his post.


    Good game design doesn't enforce hard limits to try to force players to do something. At least not for a strategy game like Kingdoms. If one wants to bring the meta growth under control, one should think about reasonable options to make the players want to change their style of play and their behaviour. It works like this: You want to limit kingdom sizes by force? They make 5 kingdoms for one meta. You want to prevent their wings from protecting them? Apart from killing friendly diplomacy, they just attack together. You want to stop this aswell? They'll find another way. Also taking away decisions in a strategy game is always bad. To balance and change things in a strategy game, one is supposed to make the players want to play differently and make decisions more difficult, instead of taking them away from them.


    The huge advantage, that big planless metas have, is, that they can have a few (6 or below) main treasuries, and put all their def in there. It's easy 250k+ def per treasury, more in case of attack, with 30% water ditch bonus it's kind of unbreakable. At least very hard breakable. Compared to T:L, where there are dozends of good targets (capitals of good villages, hammer villages, def villages, artefacts, ...), most of them aren't that good in TK. You can't zero a capital very well due to wave cap, you can't chief hammers or def villages, because many players build troops only in their capital, you can't steal artefacts, because there aren't any and if you want to "croplock" a capital of an important player, it's likely a treasury and even if not, tributs compensate easily for that. So, if you're willing to sacrifice some def servants, you're easily good to go.


    It's hard to come up with a useable solution, that encourages skillful playstyle, doesn't kill new players, nerfs the power of a huge amont of noobs and isn't absurd. All four are points a well designed solution should fulfil, a hard cap for the member count doesn't fulfil at least three of them, the absurdity criterium being discussable.

    An example for encouraging a more skillful playstyle & not killing new players would be changing vp generation per treasury to a logarithmic or slow polynomial like x^0,5 instead of linear scale after x treasures (this would force a decision: Either you keep storing everything in one main treasury and thus produce less victory points, or you accept being actually attackable and having to think about where to def and store only x per treasury - therefore giving a skillful kingdom the advantage of being able to have less risk when speading treasures due to better def organisation and/or being able to steal treasures if the enemy takes the risk, due to better off planning). (This doesn't fulfil the noob-power criterium though, with the kingdomwide attack notifications one active and skillful deffplaner is enough to defeat an off action singlehandedly. Without the kingdomwide attack notifications there's a second player required, with two players you can cover all six treasury-accounts to track attacks. Every other player doesn't need skill, just be online for a second to send the small amount of def he has. Like I said, it's hard to come up with a good solution, if I had one, I wouldn't say it's hard.)

    Quote from Rexx

    Does not look that bad on com4, 3 kingdoms 100-120, and 3 with 70-80 mebers.


    I think a limmit of 100 players per kingdom sounds great. 50+50 pre merge:thumbsup:


    There is no need to limit the number of members of the kingdom.

    More Capitals more Hideout.

    But you can limit the number of the population to the kingdom, or the number of villages that are in the kingdom. So kings will have to think about how they will reign and who will take them into the kingdom. And when a player is once a member of the kingdom, the king can not remove him, only a player can he goes out.

    Make a limit of 200k pop or 200 villages #first 200 stoped all build" (city pop not be counted) + merge.

    Well, we will consider how many villages anybody will have.

    I think it’s so wrong that we can only steal VPs until both kingdoms are equal.

    I understand this was created to stop VP boosts but something like 60/40% Or 70%/30% (100%=total of both kingdoms VPs) would stop VP boost and this would nerf the metas a lot.


    Because even a kingdom with 20 members with a successful operation would not only send a meta down but emerge from the death as well.


    This is a war game 50%/50% on a successful strike benefits the looser, it should n t be like this.

    I understand it was needed to stop vp boosts but it was taken too far.

    Be2-e4


    While I mostly agree with you on "Good game design doesn't enforce hard limits to try to force players to do something", good game design and balancing in particular entails "pulling levers" on variables within your control, be it existing or new ones. A member limit can be one such lever, and whether you achieve such a limit by strictly enforcing it or by making it almost completely infeasible (e.g. by a nerf on troop strength or by making treasure production negative or w/e if your kingdom > 60 members) doesn't make much of a difference in this case.


    Anyway, I don't think the point is that having a member limit would stop metas in their tracks - it obviously wouldn't. It would only function as a small first incentive against metas. If you want to have a meta you need to organize several wings, which is somewhat more work than simply having everyone in one massive group.


    Couple the member limit with other incentives such as a morale-bonus/penalty for treasure production based on group size, a morale-bonus/penalty for troop strength based on the same, perhaps encourage organisation (and not just size) by encouraging warfare: One problem average metas typically can't handle properly is having to fight a smaller, hardened group of veteran players. So encourage having those kinds of groups. Maybe have VP production be dependent on something other than treasury production and attacks on treasuries - get VP for catting/chiefing villages of groups you are at war with (you would have to redesign the "at war" mechanic to stop abuse though). Do enough of these things and you might well end up with a solution that meets all your requirements. But yeah - it's certainly not easy, but at the same time looking into it is worth it: We had a more reasonable balance in the older versions than we do now and not stopping metas isn't an option at this point as the game isn't retaining any players, imo for a large part because of metas.