Posts by Avin

Lylay, since it is not a bug, and maybe only an abuse that can be exploited only in very rare cases i think is not a high priority for game designers. I'm following the development of this travian kingdom game since the very first beta server (3 years ago? i dont remember) and changes happen very slowly, even after many month. Asking after a week if an idea will be implemented or try to understand what game designers are going to do or if they are working about it, is not ''good education'' for my standards in a game forum and 99% useless after players were warned that this thread's idea is already forwarded to game center.

I learned to keep an eye on Announcement section often, and stop. You cant expect that a game designer reply you here only beacuse you aked him, i'd be surprised cause usually it never happens in the most of idea-suggestions.

The logics behind my words are '' if everyone did it philosophy'' ''wait and hope''... and many years experience on travian forums. Probably was this that Mayo and Renuo wanted to say.
In the case you are waiting an answer or fix from game designers in order to plan your next off op with a zerg tactic or not in your servers... i suggest you to change strategy meanwhile, it could take some time, as always, for this kind of things!

Zoo Keeper#EN wrote:

Mayo is just trying to convince everyone so this won't be removed. The More i think about it this could be one of the reasons he had huge success in this game.

Let me explain how broken this could be it's hard to accomplish but lets look at extreme case.

Lets say we have 2 kingdoms that are in a war. One has 10 offensive players other plans to defend 10 targets. I would say this is similar condition in most offensive operations. Other attacks/fake are just for numbers and a good team can guess probable targets quote well.

Offense send 3 attacks, rest are fakes. Lets say all make perfect fakes to all 7 targets.
To scout where is real attack you need only 100 scouts after you see the first attack you choose 10 most probable targets and send scouts to enemy offensive villages. You just need GT tool to calculate when offensive player will launch hes attack (most people know where is offensive village) and scout should arrive 1 second before the launch time. If it done perfectly you know where attacks are coming. You can say it hard to accomplish, but you don't have to do it solo 10 players can do a trick just chose one offer (and I'm sure if this thing get popular there will be bots that do all the hard work). You can say there is more players involved then 10 on 10 but you can scale it easily.

Just imagine that everyone is using this perfectly. No need for fakes then. (I'm not saying it will be unless the person uses bots)

Now lets look how to counter it? Send hero away before attack? Well it doesn't work as get scouted 1 sec before sending time. Ex scroll maybe it can be easily seen. Don't send hero? Well it works but if i can't send my hero with my attack why do we have it in first place?

This tactic is especially good whit TK as here the distances are much smaller and it's easy to have a village near the enemy borders that scout everyone there. Only few scout and even with no upgrades.

Ok i know I gave an extreme case but i hope you understand me why i think this is huge game abuse. It was not used a lot as not a lot of people knows about it so it gave advance to some old players. I will make a guild about it so it would be fair and I hope if most players will use this cancer tactics it will be removed. (everyone or none).

One said that it makes easier to make educated guess, I would say it's more like peeking what card your enemy has in a game of poker.

I liked 2 easy fixes.
1. Don't show hero XP or round it. As msot players doesn't care precise amount of xp.
2. Hero doesn't get xp from scout as he is not in the battle.

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You make it easier than it is...

Apply this scouting xp is very hard, it requires great work from defender side, and have succes is even harder cause conditions are really hard to happen, very many factors must be known. If you can apply it with succes it means enemy has a really bad offensive plan or used it many times before without change, and you know very well enemy players offence hammer that you can guess more accurately. (scan your enemy is part of war and should be rewarding in some way) Smart or humble off plan can make many factor/condition simply not make happen , and make impossible hero xp scouting.

You like the bully zerg tactic, and make disappear capitols in 5 seconds? then risk it. High damages, High risks. Or play travian legends, where is very popular! .....maybe because there aren't so many risks at the end.....

PS: Please stop discrediting Mayo, as i said in a previous post, you dont know him. Your insinuations are ridiculous, annoying, i'd say at the edge of flame... you are beginning to be ridiculous, if you think Mayo can convince community and game disigners!

I'm sorry for you , lylai if you dont see that being SO pridictable at the point to be scouted at the right second before WHEN (and WHERE too! lol) you should launch the hammer, is a fault of offensive player not a bug abuse of defensive one...

This ''Bug'' can be exploited only against zerg strategy... if defenders are really experienced/outsiders/ dedicated/ like you want ... Other kind of offensive action will not lose effectiveness by this xp hero scouting. There are many ways to counter it.

Target capitols-treasury and offensive-key villages BLINDLY, only relying on the high numbers of targets of mid-late game , without try to weak the enemy/kingdom borders is too much simple in my opinion...And likely it can be used by bigger kindoms against smaller one, encouraging meta-gameplay once again.

Little realistic opinion: Destroy main targets at first is not usually what happened in real wars (medieval and not). Capitols should be the last to fall, only when enemy has not so much left... as is always happened in real hystory.

Zerg strategy (all hammers in one village) against a weakened enemy with few defences left will work as always. even with this so called ''Bug''

Here in travian kingdom, you want a gambling game, or a strategy game?

It seems to me the logic behind this is:
i want put 10-15 hammers and 50 cata waves in the same second, destroy a duke's or king capitol/ key villages 100%
without that experienced defenders can snipe my cata
and with no risk to lose all hammers
and sure chance to kill more offensive troops than offence lose,
and if possible i want to do it being part of a meta against a smaller kingdom!

AKA rename the thread: Bom-shi-bom-shi-bom-bom-bom!

The easyiest solution to balance it a little is remove the Morale Bonus for inactives, if make visible spikers is not technically possible.
That defensive bonus (that is very relevant cause inactives are always low pop due the chiefings, above all in late game it reach easily 30-50%) is thought to make more difficoult destroy weaker player WHEN the player IS ACTIVE, it's just stupid that this defensive bonus is exploited only to the benefit of a second part against a third.

Someone disagrees?

Croplocking.... like if skpikers cannot send 3k crop to the inactives and feed for 3 hours his 500 troops (+500 average inactive's pop) after arrival of his troops, more than enought time to kill hundreds of troops. Even without crop feeding spiking is effective in small villages.
It just make a little difficoult to spike but you lose 30%-100% resources raided, simply forever..... not seems to me a big deal.
you dont deal with spikers but create another bigger risk...

Croploking and resources... Really good idea! top raiders and skilled players would be incouraged, for avengeance, to zero inactive's infrastructure in all server that in the farmlists give them 0 0 0 0, and not do more work finding/distinguishing what inacives are crop-resources-zeroed, They would just zero all infrastructure of all inactives..... obviusly far from their kingdom!. I would be dedicated one on it, in that scenario, simmer and crop-resourcelocking players dont deserve to have neither a village with full building developed and no fields. and i'm sure they would not call them sucky.

So at the end you just risk to trigger a global war on those who destroy more farther inactives near enemy, involving even more kingdoms meanwhile...

Many seems be against inactives, and people that raids here.... i dont understand why.

Would you like to live in the world of wellness where there are more equal opportunity, meritocracy, and big goals to achieve.
or live immediately after a the end of a war where there are few resources, a lucky few and many criminals?

i tryed to do some speculation about a server with no inactive villages in this current system or very low raids from inactives.... and i arrived to some conclusion of global slowness of server, anarchy, less players, more sim city gameplay. no Great barracks and stables running for most of off governors.....more defensive players than offensive, internal fights in the kingdom, more weaker kingdom, more spread between gold user and not gold user, weaker player's cannibalization, last but not least your lovely interactions player vs player maybe will decrease, and even if for miracle they increase the Quality of these interaction will be for sure lower. Skilled travian players will leave Travian kingdom. (Multiaccount, sitting abuse, maybe increase?). TG says Goodbye to some money from this Kingdom versions.

Yeah... i know.... maybe is a bit catastrophic.

Btw by that time i'll have left TK long since. I dont care too much about future of this game. I just like guess how a game can improve, and how small factors can change the gameplay.
Current servers probably are the lasts, we are playing the best way we could, and how we wanted. No more motivation to play others, improvements happens too much slowly for me.

So please, read my words as the troll's ones. dont be scared. Travian kingdoms will become the best browser game ever, even with spiking , one day

(Oh.. I was going to forget... in that scenario players like Accord will still be able to have fun... this aspect is important too, i suppose...)

Accord#EN(1) wrote:

I'm a dedicated spiker and there is nothing i love more than hurting people that blindly send thousands of attacks a day only to build hammers to take me out later.

Last 3x.com i only defended 5 farms and managed to spike/hammer trap 40k worth of troops by day 15.I 'd become no.1 defender of the server and week ,while also being in top20 by population.All this inside the territory of the 2 biggest kingdoms of the server consisting of 140 players.

Then they decided to ignore me,even after cataing their leader's cropper(cleared with phalanxes lol).One week later i deleted out of boredom.I of course spent no more no less than 5000 gold(cards,NPC all the time,instabuild everything,items and whatnot).I hadn't had any game breaking impact on the server but gosh that was a lot of fun.I also supported the game by buying the gold to make it possible.

This upcoming x3.com i'm returning with a bunch of like minded defenders and gold abusers to cause even more mayhem.I'll retain my title of ''most hated player'' and have so much fun.

Spiking and trapping your hammers on inactives makes me as happy as farming them makes you.

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LOL if is true

Only 5 farms? i think you should raise the bar and you'll be gamebreaking with that golds and mates. Fortunately i dont play x3 speed servers.

People that claim that in about 30 minutes can hit spikers and sustain that is okey and normal hunt a spiker once per day i have to check dozens of players's stats. neither sherlok holmes has too much work (and i guess you are not at war with noone, or plan anything better if you have time to deal with spikers, ) and then It is so skeptical that it would be possible to do a ''great spike'', simply saying ''not feasible'' ''prove it''.... it just make me laught. a lot too. Coherence is not for this forum.

We simply ask to balance this aspect of the game giving more weapons to raiders to discover spikers, avoid huge losses cause server are short and make wars is difficoult even without spikers and lose troops in that way is just stupid, 90% you cant identify spikers and all other reasons expressed in the thread.

I dont care to remove this feature at all, just balance it a little cause many thinks is unbalanced and theorically IS gamebreaking if used as primary tactic from a small group of players. In very rare cases it has a strategic meaning. All the others are idiots that have fun to kill easy troops that want revenge to someone and you are too far to do anything.

There are many ways in which is possible do it without removing the feature.

Aenggd#DE wrote:

A: I think the curent system is not broken. Spiking isnt a big issue from what I can tell. If spiking was so gamebreaking, I would assume a lot of players to abuse it. I dont see that happening.

B: This is a wargame. Why not have some "terrorism" option? It is only a game after all. As you can probably imagine, I do not condone terrorism in real life.By the same logic you would have to disable features like shooting people in games like GTA. That is also against human rights. But again: It is a game.

C: You should do the same. Do you really want risk free farming of inactives?

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A: It's a your opinion. Just an opinion. I'd like know if devs thinks the same. If all inactive players in a server were spiked with dozens of thousands troops killed in few hours, they would write in the forum something like '' we definitely don't encourage or recommend such strategies as we understand that situations like this one can be very frustrating for some of you'' or they'd consider it a legitimate strategy......

B: No thanks. here is absolutely unnecessary. there are spionage and SS, VP abuse. Are enought imho. Some concepts should stay out from game's mechanics.
You mix/confuse the kind of game and the different purpose of a game. Btw GTA is PEGI 18+ and is not a strategy game, and ''It's just a game'' is not a valid reason to spread-incourage wrong messages/behaviours.

Here i'd like not see players that play with the only purpose to ruin the game to others sending reinforcements to inactives. I've seen behaviours like that in other browser games, and it's not funny.

C: Free farming inactives doesnt hurt anyone. inactives are removed after some time. I explained in the previous message what benefits could derive. maybe you missed it:

Avin wrote:

Whitout reinforcements to inactives, and the fear to lose troops, maybe more less-skilled player would start to raid due the less risks and be stimulated to do more troops? This could be a chance to have more fights, interactions with other players?
More players raiding, less spread between top and not top-raiders? more competitiveness? Tell me if i'm wrong.

Inactive players, i remember are canceled after some time, so are not free infinite resources and usually before going inactive you have to clear them, or someone fought them in a war losing troops aswell. Keep a farmlist is not so simple like many say. And who thinks even for a second that plundering inactives is a sort of abuse, has always played as simmer, without building a true WW hammer. Without plundering inactives only kings and dukes have the chance to build hammers/anvils able to defend or attack a WW, that is one of the aim of this game. So please think before write.

Whitout reinforcements to inactives, and the fear to lose troops, maybe more less-skilled player would start to raid and be stimulated to do more troops? This could be a chance to have more fights, interactions with other players?
More players raiding, less spread between top and not top-raiders? more competitiveness? Tell me if i'm wrong.

Aenggd#DE wrote:

I disagree. If it was broken I would expect it to have a major impact on gameplay. From what I can tell it doesnt have.

Explain me what you mean for broken system, maybe we have different views.

Not be able to fight invisible enemy is not an opinion you cant disagree. And worst case scenario can always happen, and about spiking is very easy if someone want make it happen. A system has a FAWL when that scenario ruin the game.
And if you are aware about the level of how much friendly VP stealing is raising in TK, the skill average in TK of players, and human instinct to abuse the aspects/rules of a game, you should expect more impact.

Aenggd#DE wrote:

And to me terrorism is warfare.

A little OT but i need to answer.
Yes you are right, terrorism (like holocaust, using chemical/gas bomb etc) would be a kind of allowed warfare in a world with NO rules. Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for me and the rest 95% of pop we live in a world with rules and fundamental human rights, at least after WW 2...

Aenggd#DE wrote:

Of course spikers can raid. But when you look at spiking, you should look into losses and gains for both sides. What each of the involved parties does beside spiking/raiding should not be taken into account, unless it directly affects the topic.

As i said you tend to simplify too much, you need to think also about the secondary effects of an aspect/rule and how they impact in the other aspects of the game, and how players could react to that. Otherwise you'll never have a balanced game.

Aenggd#DE wrote:

Spiking abuses inactives <=> Plundering abuses inactives

Spiking is too easy <=> Plundering inactives is too easy

Inactives are just a way of giving active players free resources. I dont see a problem of that coming with the risk of spiking.
As for the viability of spiking: The farmer loses troops. The farmer also gains resources from farming inactives. Currently the gained resources apparently outweigh the losses.
The spiker loses troops and doesnt gain resources. That is probably the reason it is not more common.

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Sorry for you, but you are totally wrong. Read all the thread again. You like simplify many aspects or not understand the concept of abusing. Like Victory points,
theorically is a broken sistem cause if you spike in large scale you ruin the game. But also pratically is broken too, cause you cannot counterattack invisible enemy.

If could know every time who spike me i'd choose to cata him. And even if find from statistics who spike maybe is really far from me and i cant do anything.

In a real war must be clear who are your enemies. Otherwise i cannot define it war, but likely terrorism.

Last thing. You suppose that Spikers are not allowed to be also raider. Fail.

Spiking is really broken tactic. Spiker has too much advantages against raiders. If dev dont want remove reinforcement to other inactives should at least discourage/balance spiking.
There are many and many things they can do.

The first one that i thought was to introduce an item thet gives 100%-200%-xxx% bonus to attack strenght when you attack inactive villages with less tot units, like 500 for example. (It would help to clear inactives too in early games.)
I dont know if is simple to introduce, but could balance a little this rat tactics, and gives to raider a chance to avoid many losses when he has many attacks that will crash due spikers. I suggest Attila's horn for this item XD
Maybe devs do something if they'll earn some more golds from auctions...

Second one is to remove morale bonus for inactive villages, but it will not be so effective.

BTW something has to be done to balance this broken system.

Mayo , 0omph
Who defend spiking dont know what true Fun is in travian. Dont expect they understand.

Probably doesnt fit on this rally point 2.0 ideas,

But i think it should be removed the option to reinforce grey villages.

I searched in the forum and few months ago Nyx created this thread about this argument but noone replied.

hope you'll consider it!

Please add a filter that show your hero. Find when your hero return at home among 1000 reinforcements or attacks is very problematic now!

also Com4 is down for 50 minutes by now... same error
504 Gateway Time Out
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