Archived Reworked War Declaration System

[Deleted member 2256]

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[Kidmodo]

@Tokugawryuu @jquaile @morrc5 @jes_ @Sevak

I like it but didn't read it all.

What's yall thoughts?

 

[Zacatero]

It honestly sounds a bit complicated but that might be a good thing, especially since raids and wars dont mean very much right now

 

[Zacatero]

If the aggressor faction submits a war declaration after two weeks of active aggression, they must notify the leader of the defending faction via a @ tag on the forums, and an in game mail or /msg if the leader is online. From the point of time when the leader either receives the message or reads the mail, they have one week to acknowledge the war by either messaging a game staff member in game (if they do not use the forums) or by acknowledging the war declaration on the forums via comment. Once the war declaration has been acknowledged, the war is official.

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Staff must still make a war declaration official after both sides have acknowledged the war

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Okay you say in this proposal that, the defending faction has to answer it within a week, and once its acknowledged.. THEN its official.. But what if they just dont acknowledge it within that week?

After a war is declared:

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I really like this entire section. It gives credit to the attacking factions who have put effort into their raids on a constant basis.



The only thing i have a real issue with, is that there doesn't seem to be any way to have accountability. I mean whats stopping me from just claiming to have raided some faction for two weeks in order to get the approval for the more tribute? It seems very heavy on player integrity, which I will say, if any server can pull it off its probably Massive... But its still something to keep in mind.

 

[Knyxo]

Overall, I love it.

The one thing though, is maybe the raid/skirmish tribute should actually be less than what it is now if this were to be implemented. And yes, that means PvP factions would profit less from a surrender. But the thing is, nobody surrenders anyways. If it was more affordable, in addition to this war system being added, maybe people would consider it as an option? The war system would mean that they'd either have to choose between the cheap tribute right away, or later on, potentially end up paying the much more expensive tribute or have to hide inside a lot more(if they refuse to pay it). Either way it'd punish people that don't pay the cheap tribute within the first couple weeks, and hope that the raiders will simply lose interest. Obviously lots of people still wouldn't surrender, since they treat raids like a personal attack for some reason, and refuse to even think about paying virtual money to the people that are attacking them, but it might help a bit.

Now, this isn't really a suggestion to the idea exactly, but I'll say that I feel a system like this would work a lot more efficiently and be utilized more if it was an actual plugin, as an addition to the factions plugin. That's obviously wishful thinking, since even if the server considered it, it'd probably be a year before such a plugin would see the light of day. I just feel that people are a lot less inclined to put, 'effort', into using a system like this if it's simply a long list of rules that PvPers have to either memorize or look up constantly. And then there'll be defenders that don't understand the rules or refuse to listen, etc. Staff have to make sure people follow them, as well as handle the declarations on the forums(which sometimes takes several days) constantly and it just gets complicated.

 

[Zacatero]

Now, this isn't really a suggestion to the idea exactly, but I'll say that I feel a system like this would work a lot more efficiently and be utilized more if it was an actual plugin, as an addition to the factions plugin.

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I think this is very relevant. Whats easier than using some commands to monitor and log your raids? I mean it could probably log things like who you killed and in who's territory and whatnot or even how long you spent in enemy territory. And better yet, it would be available information for the staff to look at as proof for approving a war!

 

[Deleted member 2256]

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[Knyxo]

So the max tribute for raids/skirmishes should be lowered? What do you suggest? (I think this would work. In retrospect, it does make sense to make the max tribute lower to encourage more surrenders at the raid/skirmish period.

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Just by a bit to start, to see if it means anything. Maybe make the formula 300 + 35 * members of the smaller faction.

The main reason I didn't suggest this as a plugin is because this ideally, coupled with a lot of other PVP improvements, needs to happen as soon as possible. PVP on MassiveCraft cannot feasibly wait 1+ year as you said. So I weighed time for implementation with quality of the system, and decided losing the quality of not having a plugin with in game commands (which I am 100% over this, but this is what we have to work with), was worth it.

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Oh I completely agree. Need to take what we can get as soon as possible, no doubt about it.

 

[Savantly]

Raid: A raid is defined as players entering a faction's land with intent to cause harm. This can be in the form of looting or in PVP.

Skirmish: A skirmish is a series of raids without yet a true meaning behind the raids. A skirmish can be a series of raids, and then a series of counter-raids from the defending faction.

War: A war is once one of the factions in the skirmish have given a true meaning to the skirmishes, and set an overall goal. This could be the aggressor faction making their goal the surrender of the defending faction, or the defending faction making their goal to get the aggressor faction to stop attacking them. Now the fighting has a purpose, and it is a war. A war is considered official after the raid/skirmish period has ended, and a war declaration thread has been made, both sides of acknowledged it, and a staff member has officiated the war.

Server-wide-war: A Server-wide-war is a series of battles that involve multiple factions. What makes a Server-Wide-War and a War different is that a Server-Wide-War spans multiple weeks or months, and has a considerable impact on almost every faction that participates in survival world gameplay, as well as political, economic, and social ramifications.

So what's the point of having these terms for different levels of aggression? In my opinion, as stated in other post, there need to be repercussions for factions that acknowledge that they are being attacked, come out and fight, and do poorly. As it stands, faction's that are doing poorly and don't want to fight can simply bypass the most important part of the survival world, which is attempting to survive. It's like the element of needing to survive doesn't exist anymore when they decide to either hide inside or go somewhere they can't be attacked, like Regalia.

I am proposing a rework to the war declaration system that existed some time ago, for a new system that has a series of advantages/disadvantages for all involved.

Before a war is declared:

When one faction attacks another, it will be considered a raid. When both factions involved attack each other a series of times, it is considered a skirmish. What makes raids and skirmishes different from a war?

During raids and skirmishes:

• A faction must respect the rules of engagement. A faction may raid a faction every day, for a maximum of five hours per day. The five hours must happen in one instance. If you raid a faction for two hours early in the day, you have used your one raid per day and may not attack the faction for 24 hours.

• Max tribute is calculated the way it currently is. 300 + 50* amount of members of the smallest faction. Max tribute works both ways. If the aggressor faction wants to end the war, they can pay max tribute to the defending or bargain for a custom deal. If the aggressor faction offers max tribute to end the conflict, the defending faction must accept.

• If a raid/skirmish is settled before a war is declared, both factions must truce for whatever the agreed upon duration of time is, but the raids/skirmishes are not recorded in any form that would immortalize one's victory/loss. Essentially no recognition for winning is recorded officially, and no shame for losing is recorded officially.

Raids/skirmishes favor the defending faction, or the less powerful faction. Max tribute is less, their loss is not officially recorded, and the attacking faction has been constrained by the rules of engagement.

Before war can be declared, one of the following must occur:

• Two weeks of active aggression. One raid per week from the aggressor faction must occur each week to be considered active aggression. After two weeks of active aggression has elapsed, the aggressor faction can declare war.

• 10 acts of aggression occur from the aggressor faction during the two-week period. If the aggressor faction attacks the defending faction for 10 days straight, the 10 acts of aggression have been met, and the aggressor faction can declare war.

The defending faction may also declare war at any time during the two-week period, satisfying all requirements and making the war official. In the official war declaration, they must note that they are the defending faction.

For a war to be declared, a war declaration must be filed on the forums by either faction participating. If the aggressor faction submits a war declaration after two weeks of active aggression, they must notify the leader of the defending faction via a @ tag on the forums, and an in game mail or /msg if the leader is online. From the point of time when the leader either receives the message or reads the mail, they have one week to acknowledge the war by either messaging a game staff member in game (if they do not use the forums) or by acknowledging the war declaration on the forums via comment. Once the war declaration has been acknowledged, the war is official.

If the defending faction submits a war declaration after two weeks of active aggression, they must notify the leader via the aforementioned means. Same conditions apply for the acknowledgement.

After a war is declared:

Now that a war is declared:

• No raids rules exist, beyond rules that already limit hacking, cheating, alternate account abuse, and glitching. This means that attackers can raid a faction for as long as they want. Attackers can attempt to get their members (a player's main account) in an allied faction of the person they are attacking so they can open doors. Attacking factions can do almost anything, and vice versa.

• Max tribute is now 300 + 100* amount of members of the smallest faction. Max tribute works both ways. If the aggressor faction wants to end the war, they can pay max tribute to the defending or bargain for a custom deal. If the aggressor faction offers max tribute to end the conflict, the defending faction must accept.

• The winner/loser of the war is officially recorded on the war declaration via staff comment.

Wars favor the attacking faction. No raids rules exist, max tribute is more, and their win is officially recorded.

What hasn't changed in this version of the new war declaration system:

• The forums are still the medium for posting war declarations.

• Staff must still make a war declaration official after both sides have acknowledged the war.

• All current forms of player moderation that exist now still exist. IE: players keeping track of how long they are raiding. Defending factions requesting staff assistance if the aggressor faction breaks the raid rules during raids/skirmishes.

The following is what the system is trying to achieve:

If a faction is being attacked, they have a window of opportunity to figure out how they want to proceed, and their attackers are being constrained by strict rules. Max tribute is less if they want to surrender, or they may of course settle with a custom surrender tribute. Their loss, if they do lose, is also not officially recorded anywhere.

If a faction decides to enter war with who they are being attacked by, the rewards can be higher via max tribute, but the risk are higher as well.

Factions that are being attacked are encouraged to surrender during the raid/skirmish period if they want an easier out. If they decide to enter war, they will have to weight risk versus reward.

Faction that are doing the attacking actually feel like they've accomplished something if the defending factions surrender during the raid/skirmish period.

As always, I am 100% open to constructive criticism and change on my idea. If while reading this, you see something that conflicts with other points in the idea, or come up with an idea that would make this system better and more fair for all involved, do mention it and I will add in your suggestion to the original post and credit you for what you suggested.

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This proposition has the same issue and the current system. That is, that there is no way to dictate a win without a faction manually conceding.
It doesn't sound like much of an issue, but generally two factions at war are extremely stubborn and will never concede. Many factions will die out because there is no limit on raiding, because of their lack of progress and constant attacks the faction activity fades. However, neither is it fair to limit the amount of time in a day a player should raid. For that reason there needs to be a system where staff or the server can decide a winner.

These days winning doesn't really seem to mean much anymore. There was that breif moment of time when staff used to hand out lore items to the winners of approved wars, but not there is no legitimate trophy that the winning faction can take home. The only thing you really get anymore is God weapons, which are extremely easy to obtain via gift4alls.

So in short my two propositions are:

- A system should be set in place, that declares a winner when a goal is reached (Who has taken more weapons, who has the most kills, or who has raided the longest, etc)

- Also bring back lore items for the winning faction to promote raiding.

This was one of the hardest technicalities I've been struggling with. I established that the one week counter starts running down from when the defending/attacking faction leader sees the mail (which is easily known either when you send the message if the player is online, or when the player next logs on) and then they have a week to respond.

I think what I'll write in is that once the week elapses, the war gets approved regardless. That's the only way I could see this system working, since inevitably something has to happen for the conflict to progress.


Players keep other players in check. Defending factions already submit tickets if they feel an attacking faction has violated any raid rules, so that part is covered.

Without saying too much, from my time as staff, I know the staff have the ability to determine when a raid occurred down to the minute of the day. So if the leader of the defending faction were to voice opposition that they were never attacked during the two week period, staff can determine if they were indeed attacked. I don't foresee a lot of people abusing it in the way you mentioned.


So the max tribute for raids/skirmishes should be lowered? What do you suggest? (I think this would work. In retrospect, it does make sense to make the max tribute lower to encourage more surrenders at the raid/skirmish period.


The main reason I didn't suggest this as a plugin is because this ideally, coupled with a lot of other PVP improvements, needs to happen as soon as possible. PVP on MassiveCraft cannot feasibly wait 1+ year as you said. So I weighed time for implementation with quality of the system, and decided losing the quality of not having a plugin with in game commands (which I am 100% over this, but this is what we have to work with), was worth it.


See comment above in regards to how PVP can't wait another year.

The goal I'm trying to reach is defending factions are encouraged to surrender during the raid/skirmish period if they want to get out of the conflict quickly and cheaply, and the attacking factions actually feel like they accomplished something. During the war period, the risk/reward is extremely high. Currently the system favors attacking factions in the war period. I want your guy's feedback on how that can be balanced out a bit more, so if defending factions decide to acknowledge a war and enter one, if they start doing immensely better, they can earn something for fighting the war too.

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The best way to declare a winner would be by having a pluggin that monitors and tracks player deaths. The best way to accomplish a fair result is by counting the Unique player deaths. That way someone can't get into an enemy faction and spam Kill their alt account to win. Then to make it a little more fair you'd have to give a faction a unit of war "Life's" scalable by their faction member count.

Also to prevent any abuse a regal fee or a staff approval system would have to be implemented to approve said automated war declaration.

So for example. There is player 1 and 2 in RedNation. BlueNation has Player Z, X, And C.
A theoretical war "Life" scale of 2 "Life" is applied to each faction times the number of members they have.

Players Z, X, and C all raid the faction RedNation, player 1 is quickly excecuted. Dropping RedNation to 3 "Life". Then player 2 is killed within the same day. Dropping RedNations life count to 2 "Life". No further kills in this day can be counted against RedNation, all unique members in that faction have been killed once.

Something that this can be compared too is faction power, where you have a set limit and it slowly recharges after a period of time. So a similar system could be used to track unique player deaths and put a cap/Day.

Edit: To ensure tribute is payed, the current formula would be applied. The money would then be directly moved from the losing faction to the winning faction. To prevent factions automatically unclaiming land due to taxes, if a faction does not have enough money to pay tribute, then the tribute will not be paid even partially. Instead a repercussion like doubling of tax would be applied until the faction can pay off their tribute.

 

[Kaezir]

Incredibly well written and thought out. All thats left here is some finer details worked out by the staff who regulate War Rules. As someone who PvP's on and off i wouldnt be able to point out the finer flaws, if there are any.

Otherwise, sounds solid.

 

[Zacatero]

Perhaps we should tag the @Wars staff to hear their opinions on this matter

 

[Sevak]

I like the idea a lot. All of it sounds like it could work. The idea of fights meaning something has been absent for over England: a year now. I have one thing I think would be cool to add to this though that only really effects pvpers. I think there should be some sort of formal competition and score keeping in battles between one PvP faction and another. Like, a tussle/scrap/brawl or something, idk. The point would be that a score is kept and the first side to a certain kill count would be awarded a trophy item. Both sides would have to agree to it and it would just be a way for raids between PvP factions (or just factions that feel comfortable fighting) to feel like they mean something again. I enjoy fighting but there's no real gain to me besides player heads and stuff like that. I used to love getting my opponents weapon but now that there's tens of thousands of God axes in circulation, that has lost all meaning.

Just an additional thing we could consider adding that I think would be good motivation for people to go out and get some slays.

 

[Sevak]

This proposition has the same issue and the current system. That is, that there is no way to dictate a win without a faction manually conceding.
It doesn't sound like much of an issue, but generally two factions at war are extremely stubborn and will never concede. Many factions will die out because there is no limit on raiding, because of their lack of progress and constant attacks the faction activity fades. However, neither is it fair to limit the amount of time in a day a player should raid. For that reason there needs to be a system where staff or the server can decide a winner.

These days winning doesn't really seem to mean much anymore. There was that breif moment of time when staff used to hand out lore items to the winners of approved wars, but not there is no legitimate trophy that the winning faction can take home. The only thing you really get anymore is God weapons, which are extremely easy to obtain via gift4alls.

So in short my two propositions are:

- A system should be set in place, that declares a winner when a goal is reached (Who has taken more weapons, who has the most kills, or who has raided the longest, etc)

- Also bring back lore items for the winning faction to promote raiding.


The best way to declare a winner would be by having a pluggin that monitors and tracks player deaths. The best way to accomplish a fair result is by counting the Unique player deaths. That way someone can't get into an enemy faction and spam Kill their alt account to win. Then to make it a little more fair you'd have to give a faction a unit of war "Life's" scalable by their faction member count.

Also to prevent any abuse a regal fee or a staff approval system would have to be implemented to approve said automated war declaration.

So for example. There is player 1 and 2 in RedNation. BlueNation has Player Z, X, And C.
A theoretical war "Life" scale of 2 "Life" is applied to each faction times the number of members they have.

Players Z, X, and C all raid the faction RedNation, player 1 is quickly excecuted. Dropping RedNation to 3 "Life". Then player 2 is killed within the same day. Dropping RedNations life count to 2 "Life". No further kills in this day can be counted against RedNation, all unique members in that faction have been killed once.

Something that this can be compared too is faction power, where you have a set limit and it slowly recharges after a period of time. So a similar system could be used to track unique player deaths and put a cap/Day.

Edit: To ensure tribute is payed, the current formula would be applied. The money would then be directly moved from the losing faction to the winning faction. To prevent factions automatically unclaiming land due to taxes, if a faction does not have enough money to pay tribute, then the tribute will not be paid even partially. Instead a repercussion like doubling of tax would be applied until the faction can pay off their tribute.

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The purpose of his system is not to dictate a winner for every war. The purpose is to give defending factions time to decide a plan of action in the first two weeks before everything goes downhill.
Also staff still give out war trophies. If you check out the most recent war victories by Deldrimor, they still make lore items.
But your idea is something like what I suggested above. Let me know what you think

 

[Savantly]

I think there should be some sort of formal competition and score keeping in battles between one PvP faction and another. Like, a tussle/scrap/brawl or something, idk. The point would be that a score is kept and the first side to a certain kill count would be awarded a trophy

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This idea is pretty cool, but the issue with this, is asking for the consent to fight. If this was implemented it would only encourage infighting between Raptum, Deldrimor and Wolves, and the occasional KINGS. (I think that's the name.)

My point is, not many people really are going to agree to fight you. Thats why I proposed my system earlier. Sure it's more complex, but it's less abusable in several respects. It also tends to give the Non-PvP faction a life advantage (They tend to have more members). The beauty about the system is automatic surrender, either by manually typing in a command or having your members legitimately die too often.

The idea is pretty legit, I just don't see many people accepting a fight against Raptum/Deldrimor

The purpose of his system is not to dictate a winner for every war. The purpose is to give defending factions time to decide a plan of action in the first two weeks before everything goes downhill.

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I've raided a lot of noob factions to extinction. You know as well as I know, that forcing a faction to surrender can in many cases be the best option for the defending faction. That's why I propose the system. I do understand what your saying, so perhaps they could add a "Draw" command where a faction could send a "Draw" request, and the other would have to accept. This way factions could make a custom tribute and not have their defeat announced on console. Also if both factions mutually agree that the war isn't going anywhere, they could use the command.

Like I said before, not every faction knows how much stress they can handle. That's why in some cases it is pertinent to announce a winner.

 

[65jes89]

formal competition and score keeping in battles between one PvP faction and another

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Conquest amirite

 

[65jes89]

I've raided a lot of noob factions to extinction. You know as well as I know, that forcing a faction to surrender can in many cases be the best option for the defending faction.

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I'm not altogether good with forcing factions to surrender. I mean, take SunKiss. We were one of those factions you attempted to raid. I mean, shit, you were the reason I trained my McMMO in the first place (using your darkroom we got into of course <3). And I mean, I can't say we always won, but eventually we started to get kills, and I occsasionally killed zeken or whatever his name was.

I'm not altogether good with forcing a faction to surrender based on kills. If they're still actively fighting, I think they have every right to keep on fighting. If they're just hiding inside bitching about how they don't have god armor, though, then by all means, forced surrender would be great.

 

[BenRekt]

Love the idea, but being the RPer I am, I'll just sit inside instead and do nothing, just like 99% of the server does every time they get raided.

/s

Honestly I think it should be included that if a faction refuses to defend itself against somewhat fair odds, it should be a forced surrender, but that will never happen.

 

[Zacatero]

I'm not altogether good with forcing a faction to surrender based on kills. If they're still actively fighting, I think they have every right to keep on fighting. If they're just hiding inside bitching about how they don't have god armor, though, then by all means, forced surrender would be great.

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I guess the real issue here is figuring out where that clear line between requiring a forced surrender and not should be.

 

[BenRekt]

Conquest amirite

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MassiveHCF the dream

 

[Sevak]

This idea is pretty cool, but the issue with this, is asking for the consent to fight. If this was implemented it would only encourage infighting between Raptum, Deldrimor and Wolves, and the occasional KINGS. (I think that's the name.)

My point is, not many people really are going to agree to fight you. Thats why I proposed my system earlier. Sure it's more complex, but it's less abusable in several respects. It also tends to give the Non-PvP faction a life advantage (They tend to have more members). The beauty about the system is automatic surrender, either by manually typing in a command or having your members legitimately die too often.

The idea is pretty legit, I just don't see many people accepting a fight against Raptum/Deldrimor



I've raided a lot of noob factions to extinction. You know as well as I know, that forcing a faction to surrender can in many cases be the best option for the defending faction. That's why I propose the system. I do understand what your saying, so perhaps they could add a "Draw" command where a faction could send a "Draw" request, and the other would have to accept. This way factions could make a custom tribute and not have their defeat announced on console. Also if both factions mutually agree that the war isn't going anywhere, they could use the command.

Like I said before, not every faction knows how much stress they can handle. That's why in some cases it is pertinent to announce a winner.

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The point of it would be for those big factions and I'm not asking for a score counter plugin. It would be up to the players to determine the score and the outcome fairly. I'm not expecting like, Azuria to agree to a score count against Deldrimor. It would just add to the competition between PvP factions.

Also the idea of a score count is eh but regardless its not going to happen any time soon because there's very little coding able to be done

 

[Zacatero]

I think a score count might be better used as justification of where a war is going but there would have to be several factors to it, just because somebody is better at fighting doesn't mean that defenders didn't attempt to defend

 

[BenRekt]

I think a score count might be better used as justification of where a war is going but there would have to be several factors to it, just because somebody is better at fighting doesn't mean that defenders didn't attempt to defend

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People should be heavily rewarded for defending their faction, surrender should not be forced by a death count but rather if the faction is willing to defend itself or not.

You know you've won a war when the only thing a faction does is sit inside and trash talk in local chat.

 

[Jackmo_Jones]

IMO Regalia is one of the major kinks in our PVP machine. Anyone sniffs out a hint of a raid and boom they off to Regalia. IMO the tp for Regalia should be blocked when Raiders are on your faction ground. War has much more meaning when you can't run from it. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Medifyre]

IMO Regalia is one of the major kinks in our PVP machine. Anyone sniffs out a hint of a raid and boom they off to Regalia. IMO the tp for Regalia should be blocked when Raiders are on your faction ground. War has much more meaning when you can't run from it. Just my 2 cents.

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Just to add on to this, you would have to disable all /tp most likely. People would just /tp quest or /tp factions and then to regalia or wherever. I agree with you but unless that can happen not much will change

 

[BenRekt]

so /f home and /tp home would be disabled? This is not ok. If you do not have PvP gear on you at the time, you have absolutely no way to defend yourself.

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Sorry but what are you talking about? Maybe I didn't read it very carefully but I didn't see anything about that.

 

[Deleted member 2256]

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[Savantly]

You know you've lost a war when the only thing your faction does is sit inside and trash talk in general chat.

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Raptum in a nutshell ^

 

[Deleted member 2256]

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