[DECLINED]Reduce cooldown time for surrender for faction war

Dianmir · Dec 4, 2020

Dianmir said:
I invested quite some time over the last days thinking about this and also looked at server files.
First, let's get some topics cleared out.

1. As it currently is, declaring war on another faction doesn't require any actual reason, faction leaders can do what they want.
There is no rule against using war declarations for whatever reason people want to (trolling, annoying, competition,etc.)
2. Since nobody has broken community rules, there won't be any bans. We don't ban people without violation of rules.
3. We see the necessity to adjust the war declaration system for the greater good of the server.

We believe that the war declaration system has multiple purposes, namely the following: PVE and PVP competition.
We don't want to change anything about the system that would take players possibilities to use this for actual competition.

Yet we also believe that the war declaration system doesn't serve any purpose for killing players from enemy factions for fun or to annoy them.
The best example for this would be the middleground where players just want to AFK farm for a couple of hours. Killing such a player doesn't serve any competitive purpose.

As stated by players before, players who get killed in a repetitive manner could evade this problem by being factionless or stop AFK leveling/farming.
The server population doesn't allow such a luxury though, factions are a major factor for the community and keep players invested into the game.
It is true that killing other players just for fun is another aspect of "freedom of choice" and we believe that freedom of choice is important.
Yet this freedom of choice can also have a negative impact on other players to an extent where they leave the server out of frustration.

Now for the actual solutions to this issue.
1. Decreasing the duration of faction wars (14 days) isn't possible, the function is hardcoded and can't be configured.
Furthermore this would cause actual issues between factions that use this function for competitive aspects.
2. Adding a delay after the war declaration has ended isn't possible for the same reasons as point 1.
3. Decreasing the count of war declarations from 10 to lower isn't possible, we would have to end current declarations for all factions.
Furthermore this wouldn't solve the issue as players could simply create 2 factions instead of 1 (1 with main account, 2 with alt account).
4. Increasing amount of war declaration points required to declare war isn't possible, the function is hardcoded and can't be configured.

5. Solution: Decrease the amount of war declaration points that can be obtained. This can be configured, doesn't require any changes in database and could be implemented within 1 hour of work for any upcoming maintenance.
This requires factions to actually do activities like Faction Missions to obtain war declaration points and to household with them.
Yet it won't have much influence on factions that consist of multiple players. It will only make it harder for factions that are made up of mainly/purely alt account which declare war without the competitive aspect.

We welcome players to keep discussing this matter, especially what you think about the possible change (point 5).

There is quite some high quality discussion going on about this topic currently on Discord.
There have been strong arguments why point 5 does have negative effects I didn't account for, so it won't be viable any further.

What hasn't been taken into consideration enough so far is the fact that there are are neutral Factions, which can't get a war declaration upon them.
Neutral factions do have the full social aspect of a faction, you can do Faction Missions, Clique Battle.
Since they can't get a war declaration, they are suited for players that like the AFK-playstyle (upside) yet miss out on the faction buffs and Tierra de la Sed (downside).

The compromise for players who want to avoid PVP trough war declarations is to create/join a neutral Faction.
To close the gap between neutral and normal Factions slightly, the buff "Ancient Blessing" (Ancient Blessing Statue outside of towns) could be improved slightly.

Virath · Dec 4, 2020

ECEXEC said:
1. I'm not sure if currently in official server there's still pvp and pve server, as we are all in 1 PVP server, this will provide place for PVE only faction / players in PVP server.
Some players are just not interested in pvp, namely me!

As Dianmir has stated it is not possible to implement the threads actual suggestion so I won't get into that debate as it's not necessary.

Your first point is entirely false, at least if we look at it from the Gamersfirst/T3fun servers. There was a similar misconception back when the GamersFirst servers Orpesia, Bristia, and Illier all merged together that the game had just merged two PvP servers with the only PvE server. This was incorrect and I came from the so called "PvE" server. These servers were actually only Baron servers and non Baron servers. PvP/PvE are mislabels, as the same declaration of war mechanic had been used on all three before the merge. Specifically at time of merge there was a new system where if you were the royalist or republican side you were permanently red to ALL factions of the opposite side. This also, was enabled on all three servers prior to the merge. So I don't ever recall there being PvE and PvP servers asides from that is what they were called. Mechanically the only difference was baron and non baron. And there is no difference on this server, the problem people are complaining about isn't that people are being baroned it's that they are being warred.

ECEXEC said:
2. Newer player can join PVE faction wont get harassed by troll that just hunt for afk player.
3. And it's not even a PVP if the troll just hit and run.

The problem here is that it's near impossible to implement any change that would not have a severe impact on end game content like world bosses.

ECEXEC · Dec 4, 2020

Dianmir said:
I invested quite some time over the last days thinking about this and also looked at server files.
First, let's get some topics cleared out.

1. As it currently is, declaring war on another faction doesn't require any actual reason, faction leaders can do what they want.
There is no rule against using war declarations for whatever reason people want to (trolling, annoying, competition,etc.)
2. Since nobody has broken community rules, there won't be any bans. We don't ban people without violation of rules.
3. We see the necessity to adjust the war declaration system for the greater good of the server.

We believe that the war declaration system has multiple purposes, namely the following: PVE and PVP competition.
We don't want to change anything about the system that would take players possibilities to use this for actual competition.

Yet we also believe that the war declaration system doesn't serve any purpose for killing players from enemy factions for fun or to annoy them.
The best example for this would be the middleground where players just want to AFK farm for a couple of hours. Killing such a player doesn't serve any competitive purpose.

As stated by players before, players who get killed in a repetitive manner could evade this problem by being factionless or stop AFK leveling/farming.
The server population doesn't allow such a luxury though, factions are a major factor for the community and keep players invested into the game.
It is true that killing other players just for fun is another aspect of "freedom of choice" and we believe that freedom of choice is important.
Yet this freedom of choice can also have a negative impact on other players to an extent where they leave the server out of frustration.

Now for the actual solutions to this issue.
1. Decreasing the duration of faction wars (14 days) isn't possible, the function is hardcoded and can't be configured.
Furthermore this would cause actual issues between factions that use this function for competitive aspects.
2. Adding a delay after the war declaration has ended isn't possible for the same reasons as point 1.
3. Decreasing the count of war declarations from 10 to lower isn't possible, we would have to end current declarations for all factions.
Furthermore this wouldn't solve the issue as players could simply create 2 factions instead of 1 (1 with main account, 2 with alt account).
4. Increasing amount of war declaration points required to declare war isn't possible, the function is hardcoded and can't be configured.

5. Solution: Decrease the amount of war declaration points that can be obtained. This can be configured, doesn't require any changes in database and could be implemented within 1 hour of work for any upcoming maintenance.
This requires factions to actually do activities like Faction Missions to obtain war declaration points and to household with them.
Yet it won't have much influence on factions that consist of multiple players. It will only make it harder for factions that are made up of mainly/purely alt account which declare war without the competitive aspect.

We welcome players to keep discussing this matter, especially what you think about the possible change (point 5).

Thanks Dianmir for taking time to look into this, it's unfortunate that it's impossible to reduce the surrender time. strangely the troll is more tame this few days, maybe due to screenshot of his name in this thread

. I guess it is what it is, it'll just stay toxic as it is until the troll is bored, to everyone else that's affected, don't feed the troll, just ignore them, and smack them when you see them in CTB.

Dianmir · Dec 4, 2020

The initial suggestion and following suggestions about changing mechanics arround the war declaration functions will be declined.
I have re-read the complete discussion that took place today on Discord four times and the forum thread three times by now.
On top of that I have been thinking about this topic more than once since it was posted. Changing the mechanics will cause more harm than good.

We will still make an improvement that allows players which want to be in a faction and play AFK to enjoy the game.
This is mostly aimed towards new and returning players, which often don't want to participate in any PVP activities early on.

Players can create or join a neutral faction, this is an official, often overlooked function.
- Neutral factions can go up to faction level 50. They offer the same social aspect of the game, you can play together with your friends.
- Players can receive buff "Blessing of Ancients" outside of town maps. Neutral factions can't declare war or receive a war declaration.
- Players can participate in Faction Missions, Clique Battle, yet can't participate in Colony Wars, Field Raid bosses and Tierra de la Sed.
Please take note that this won't protect players from the Baron system. Players can still get killed by a Baron.
- There is a risk for the Baron though, that player can lose equipment while Baron status is active, which acts as a countermeasure.
Buff "Blessing of Ancients" will be improved and can be used by players from Neutral Factions so they can participate in higher PVE activities.
- Buff Effect
  - Before: Base EXP +20%, A.R. +1, D.R. +1
  - After: Base EXP +20%, Stance EXP +10%, Max HP +5%, Monster Damage +10%, A.R. +1, D.R. +1
- Pricing
  - Before: 300x Family Reputation
  - After: 300x Family Reputation + 100x Shiny Crystals

Belligero · Dec 5, 2020

I again extend my hand to any Offline and Eloquence members that if this person is giving your members trouble in PvP-enabled field areas feel free to PM me in-game and I'll warp in and defend you.

Do note that adjusting this feature will not stop people like this from PKing you if they are set on doing so. They will always have baron-ready accounts in waiting if they aren't able to kill you through these methods.

forumstone · Dec 5, 2020

ECEXEC said:
Thanks Dianmir for taking time to look into this, it's unfortunate that it's impossible to reduce the surrender time. strangely the troll is more tame this few days, maybe due to screenshot of his name in this thread . I guess it is what it is, it'll just stay toxic as it is until the troll is bored, to everyone else that's affected, don't feed the troll, just ignore them, and smack them when you see them in CTB.

I wonder why the game is built that way, developers might be trolling.

ECEXEC · Dec 5, 2020

Belligero said:
I again extend my hand to any Offline and Eloquence members that if this person is giving your members trouble in PvP-enabled field areas feel free to PM me in-game and I'll warp in and defend you.

Do note that adjusting this feature will not stop people like this from PKing you if they are set on doing so. They will always have baron-ready accounts in waiting if they aren't able to kill you through these methods.

thanks Belligero, it's not really matter of pvp tbh, it's hit and run, if its about pvp, id rather have more maps even town turned pvp on, so we i can hunt those trolls down.

vonDrach · Dec 5, 2020

i would to note that Ancient Blessing is obtained by MCC, while La Tierra is a Family wide buff.

SilverCross8 · Dec 5, 2020

Today marks the 10th major faction the afk killer faction has declared just now.

As Dian you mentioned in this thread, most of the stuff are hardcoded hence impossible to change, however in my opinion, you don't have to change the mechanics nor ban trollers, but you can have the third option: administrator's arbitration - a.k.a. warning him to stop trolling or suspension 14 days.

As of now, if no actions are taken at all to deter nor punish trollers, this means indirect approval of such toxic behaviour and any potential copycats. It has nothing to do with being either being PVP or PVE as many others have argued before me, which does not solve the root cause. If this continue more people are going to quit, and we do not want that since many players just came back for v32.

Reducing pts gotten from fac mission does not change anything since they have maxed out declaring all 10 major factions, which represents 60-70% of the population (?). Converting to neutral faction means 6-8/10 of the faction needs to disband and remake from lowest level just for one person? That isn't wise also, given the time and sweat?

And I understand Dian your stance that you do not wish to set precedent of banning players as long as they do not violate regulations directly, however something must be done to from hurting the community no? Sacrificing the well-being of whole of community for one trollers is not a wise choice, and continues to give rise to neverending headache in the same topic in the future, as long as this problem persist (it will persist either this form or baron mode).

Hence warnings or suspension does not consider as punishing for violating TOS but as causing mischievous or toxicity offense, which is arbitrary within administrator's powers, and is actually bannable offense in many other games, while and protects the aGE community at the same time.

This is just my suggestion and input, hope this helps.

Dusted · Dec 6, 2020

If the only solution is to give PVE players no choice but to downgrade(remaking) a new lv50 faction with "buffed" ancient blessing, I'm going to have to put this out here for every player that has beef with Kimeyu to read on. His mule is peacefully afk-ing at Bristia Scar farming feso day in day out. Feel free to gang up on him since he isn't letting players enjoy this game in peace. His mule's IGN is Kiryuu.

SilverCross8 · Dec 6, 2020

As I've mentioned in this thread, this is the problem when trolls are not dealt appropriately, it becomes indirect approval condoning such act. From afk killers, now afk baron killers mules. This will continue with many copycats as long as there is no proper regulation/deterrence. Any inaction will continue to hurt the community.

Belligero · Dec 6, 2020

It's still a feature in the game and when you choose to AFK in a field map, you run that risk, regardless of who you are.

I don't condone his actions targeting strictly PvE factions and AFK people from said factions who can't fight back, but if you start issuing warning and bans for using a feature that's in the game, you open up a can of worms because it leads to questions like "okay, how many times can I use this feature before I am seen as 'abusing' it?"

Dianmir · Dec 6, 2020

SilverCross8 said:
As I've mentioned in this thread, this is the problem when trolls are not dealt appropriately, it becomes indirect approval condoning such act. From afk killers, now afk baron killers mules. This will continue with many his killer mules (?) or future copycats as long as there is no proper regulation/deterrence. Any inaction will continue to hurt the community.

View attachment 1071 View attachment 1073

Again, it is a game feature that hasn't been introduced just yesterday, it has been arround for quite some time and according to official patchnotes it will stay as it is.
We will not punish or even go as far as ban someone who is using a game feature, furthermore this doesn't violate any of the community rules we have set for the server.
IF a player is using a game feature that player and/or his/her action can not be considered unfair,mischievous or toxic.

A solution within the game features has been presented to the players, namely joining a neutral Faction.
We are aware this may not be the change that some players wish for but as this is a sensitive topic it is just like on many other topics, a compromise.

Personal though: Why don't the 10 factions mention here just team up to turn tables and kill the players from that 1 specific faction?
This would also be within the range of game features/mechanics and could possibly also solve this matter.

SilverCross8 · Dec 6, 2020

@Belligero - I am very much agree with ur points that this is a grey area that requires great debate to avoid opening up a can of worms like in rGE, which is why we are currently talking about it. However, the idea against totally avoiding going beyond premium maps or cities - which is maybe 70-80% of the maps in the game just to avoid getting killed when exploring, farming or quest item farming from a few bad apples, would be that absurd no? Whats the point of playing anymore if you cannot have fun in your own way in a 14 year game, and are only restricted to certain pathways? That'd be quite similar to those browser MMOs or archaic RPGs I used to play, where you must adhere to the "recommended path" or punished.

If you are a pvp faction players (I was formerly in one) and get killed afk in any of those maps I blame myself for dumb enough, but pve faction and those not even in a faction also got assaulted? Plus If you don't allow 50% of the players to farm items, resources, mats to support the economy for the remaining 50% players who not do farm but purchase through the market, I'm hesitant who will replace the supply shortfall/gap? It is only matter of time before inflation will flare up like crazy and damage the economy.

@Dian - Thank you very much for ur replying Dian, I was wondering if my postings reached you. I fully understand your reasoning and logic on the reluctance to avoid setting precedent, especially you wanted to adhere to the original stance as much as possible. However as I've mentioned in the thread, the option of Neutral faction compromise only solved little - as now Baron mules are now being created, not to mention it requires all factions to disband and remake. There are no longer any safety in ANY factions or even without one. I'm of humble opinion that community rules are meant to protect the community no? Hence can be slightly and subtly changed in times to suit any new changes, just like the CB mule ban. Previously, there was no such issue until recently - when people started to exploit the grey area. Since then, this issue has been discussed minimum 3+ times in this forum alone discounting discord, which I reckon will reappear sometime in the future unless we can find a good solution.

Also to answer your question, the other factions DID try to retaliate. However it is virtually impossible to guard any map or hunt anyone 24/7, which is beyond human capabilities. While the opposite has zero downsides, it can kill players at any given time, as they have now become sitting ducks in red color everywhere. Plus the hit and run and warp tactic rendering any retaliation difficult by the time you changed into pvp team, they've been long gone. And it has now evolved less from 1 person issue, to now a copycat issue, and if left unchecked essentially opens the floodgate to more. We've hoped to resolve within ourselves, but i think the situation goes beyond the capabilities of players as you can see in the voices in the forum.

Would very much love to hear more if there is a better solution than my suggestion. Cheers!

Dianmir · Dec 6, 2020

We will not invest more time into this topic as a server staff, as it would delay version upgrades.
People are free to continue discussing but server staff will stop reading/answering here.

Again this is neither a grey area, nor is it an exploit because what players do is a game feature and it is not against the rules.

Furthermore it has been explained that the Baron System is also just another game feature that exists almost since launch of the game.
You can protect yourself against Barons by killing them so they lose equipment and by playing on maps that don't allow Barons to enter.

Community rules are in place to protect the community against players that break rules. This includes gaining unfair advantages.
We already go very far and we are by far the strictest server beside kGE regarding enforcing rules.

Sidenote: AFK-playstyle isn't in our interest anyways and we will continue to improve the gameplay arround active-playstyle, which isn't influenced by Faction Wars or Baron System.

Frunzila · Dec 7, 2020

that is... cool

today surrender and after 1 hour war again whit same shit faction

I and my friends out... time to delete AGE from my PC

Have all nice play!

Dianmir · Dec 7, 2020

Frunzila said:
that is... cool

today surrender and after 1 hour war again whit same shit faction

I and my friends out... time to delete AGE from my PC

Have all nice play!

Why don't you switch to a neutral Faction or team up with other factions to surpress that faction until they have lost their will to declare war on you?
If you don't want to change your mind we say thank you for playing here and wish you all the best. I would like to suggest you another server which doesn't have a similar situation but it's pretty much the same on all servers.

ECEXEC · Dec 7, 2020

Dianmir said:
Why don't you switch to a neutral Faction or team up with other factions to surpress that faction until they have lost their will to declare war on you?
If you don't want to change your mind we say thank you for playing here and wish you all the best. I would like to suggest you another server which doesn't have a similar situation but it's pretty much the same on all servers.

no one is making neutral faction, there's probably market for that, best case scenario 20% might move there, the rest will move mules there, same as other server or official does not mean its right or good and we can do better, my initial suggestion is to make it difficult and lost their will to declare, but as you mentioned it's hard coded i guess nothing can be done, and i accept that, and thank you again for taking the time to look into this matter. It'll just have to stay this way unfortunately :S.

The group of troll actually went rather quiet this past few days, my guess is due to the attention they are getting, but as nothing and can be done and its finalized they are back on it again yesterday, probably seeing this as greenlight for their actions.

Virath · Dec 8, 2020

SilverCross8 said:
Today marks the 10th major faction the afk killer faction has declared just now.

As Dian you mentioned in this thread, most of the stuff are hardcoded hence impossible to change, however in my opinion, you don't have to change the mechanics nor ban trollers, but you can have the third option: administrator's arbitration - a.k.a. warning him to stop trolling or suspension 14 days.

As of now, if no actions are taken at all to deter nor punish trollers, this means indirect approval of such toxic behaviour and any potential copycats. It has nothing to do with being either being PVP or PVE as many others have argued before me, which does not solve the root cause. If this continue more people are going to quit, and we do not want that since many players just came back for v32.

Reducing pts gotten from fac mission does not change anything since they have maxed out declaring all 10 major factions, which represents 60-70% of the population (?). Converting to neutral faction means 6-8/10 of the faction needs to disband and remake from lowest level just for one person? That isn't wise also, given the time and sweat?

And I understand Dian your stance that you do not wish to set precedent of banning players as long as they do not violate regulations directly, however something must be done to from hurting the community no? Sacrificing the well-being of whole of community for one trollers is not a wise choice, and continues to give rise to neverending headache in the same topic in the future, as long as this problem persist (it will persist either this form or baron mode).

Hence warnings or suspension does not consider as punishing for violating TOS but as causing mischievous or toxicity offense, which is arbitrary within administrator's powers, and is actually bannable offense in many other games, while and protects the aGE community at the same time.

This is just my suggestion and input, hope this helps.

The problem with issuing sanctions on the players killing you is that there's the question on what actually determines them not being able to kill a certain player over another. I hear things like "PvE faction" thrown around, but a few that claimed PvE have shown up to PvP content and world bosses which is widely disputed through PvP. How are we determining who you aren't allowed to war? Then there is the debate on what grounds would be sufficient enough to war someone. There's really no reasonable way you can determine who should be killed and who shouldn't other than neutral factions and royalist/republican factions.

forumstone · Dec 9, 2020

ECEXEC said:
no one is making neutral faction, there's probably market for that, best case scenario 20% might move there, the rest will move mules there, same as other server or official does not mean its right or good and we can do better, my initial suggestion is to make it difficult and lost their will to declare, but as you mentioned it's hard coded i guess nothing can be done, and i accept that, and thank you again for taking the time to look into this matter. It'll just have to stay this way unfortunately :S.

The group of troll actually went rather quiet this past few days, my guess is due to the attention they are getting, but as nothing and can be done and its finalized they are back on it again yesterday, probably seeing this as greenlight for their actions.

It's hard to live huh? people don't kill you, you stay safe, don't provoke. Is that hard? Or do we need to leak all of your mules all over the maps? 1 click away, those screenshots are safe to be delivered to the admins.

[DECLINED]Reduce cooldown time for surrender for faction war

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