M
MalaWolf
I want to throw out a different opinion and possibly one that has not been considered by the admins and moderating team, as-well as the general player-base. Why not revamp the current township plugin and fix the 'problems' that it has. This in my opinion would be easier to do, would be less confusing for the player base and would allow more time to be spent on things that will be more beneficial to keeping players on the server and even bringing back some of the players who left.
============================================Township 2.0 (the current system)==========================
FIX TAXES, this will allow for inactive towns to die, and would put pressures on people owning a town. I don't know much about code but even without editing the plugin we could go back to the manual system we used on previous maps as a temporary substitute. Taxes were an essential part of the plugin that helped the server create communities, people would actually recruit players to towns in order to help with taxes, there would be pressure on mayors to keep towns active and well funded. You can have a money sink without having to add an over complicated new plugin that has obviously created a lot of negative backlash.
FIX TOWNSHIP/KINGDOM REQUIREMENTS, I mean 50 dragon eggs is impossible to get I have seen 3 since the inception of the map. Furthermore it is really hard to acquire the large amount of special items that drop. This lowers the incentive of people to expand once they have a hamlet as it is to hard and to expensive. This is a slight tweak that would lower the requirement costs to something achievable and realistic would see towns prosper and expand.
These are 2 really simple changes that I'm sure most players would agree with, and do not require mass amounts of effort and will help remove this 'change is bad' attitude that is deterring players away.
======================================Township 3.0 (the new system)===================================
I'd also like to list our main gripes with the township 3.0 system that is in test atm.
I feel I speak for the players most vocal against the plugin and test world, when the main gripe with the 3.0 system atm is pvp defenses being used in a way that is preventative to pvp. These defensive structures, (Arrow Turret, 25% Damage Boost, DOT when present in enemy town) are working perfectly on preventing pvp on the test map, these extreme defense are needed as one town has a majority of pve players vsing a town of pvpers, however on the pvp server, where people want to pvp and are all reasonably skilled, the defenses are so over-powered that every time you would raid, you would lose. The pvp community are the ones who are most vocal agaisnt this, and are the ones who will ultimately be left with this when the system goes live. (For the love of town pvp, please remove all of this.)
The second element of pvp defenses and in my opinion the part that is worst of all, is pvp safe-zones. "It really really really really sucks to be chasing someone, keeping them in combat, only to have them run into a house and becoming invulnerable. take them out! The walls of your structures should be what keeps you safe not the magic room of invulnerability." - Ahrall. This is also something that will only affect the pvp server, and again the pvp community is in outrage about it. I would even go as far to say that pvp safe zones encourage camping, as the only cheap and effective way to lower power is to kill players, who will sit in their safe-zones to prevent death.
In addition, as fun as it would sound I would not like to be able to permanently destroy a town and be able to grief it using tnt cannons in order to fully destroy it's region. Hell, being able to remove a region at all is wrong in my opinion and will deter new players away as they see their base getting destroyed by veterans with seemingly endless money. This server has been 100% against grief since it's inception and being able to blow up town regions (after you have lowered their power) in my opinion goes against everything this server stands for. Players work hard putting in time and money on their towns and the fact that they can be sieged down and destroyed is a negative mark. This was also the main cause of problems with the tnt inception, and a 'regeneration' effect was necessary to stop all mass rage.
Furthermore, mandated building is something I do not feel is healthy for the server, more specifically the individualism of each and every building in the town. Currently as the system is each player is assigned to a house within the town, and not only that but with regulated sizes and regulated blocks (I mean why? if people want to have unique and creative houses let them). The primary house a shack is a mere 7x7x7, contrasting the current 15x15x15 or 21x21x21 plots that you will regularly see on live map towns. Yes they can be upgraded, but why should you be forced to pay more money to upgrade to a reasonable house size that will allow for creativity. Secondly individual houses require every player to be active to keep them generating power/souls/items for the town and also create 'residence esq' buildings or 'nanny state' houses that prevents townies from even opening doors of townies houses. It's almost like player residences in towns and that has been a serious issue for town mayors previously. (I think it was banned, not 100% sure)
Finally from the aspect of newer players this system is to complicated. Okay so I want to make a town with my friends, I'll need 5 'shack's' a council room, I'll need a farm too. I'll need to keep xx building constantly fed xx item and I'm not sure what items, I'll go check the wiki and spend hours working out what I'm going to do. While it might be cheaper for them to make a town from scratch (not 100% sure because all income on the test map was generated a lot faster as souls where worth 4 times as much.) It is more complicated and there is more chance something could go wrong. As it did on test 2 where we accidentally destroyed our own town due to inexperience with the plugin, if we where having issues with it what hope would that innocent lost soul and his friends have? This is also further enhanced as a town expands, it needs more buildings with more requirements and more upkeep. This even applies to besieging other towns. It costs 3700 souls to make a tnt cannon that can shoot at other towns, not just because you need the cannon, but because you need a command tent and an outpost all with set blocks and upkeep.
==================================What we should do instead=============================================
Below is just a list of things that I feel needs more attention, and what we should do instead of devoting the server efforts to a township system that has received a really negative response.
-Samurai, This has been promised for a while and I think this is something the community wants. It has been work in progress for ages due to lack of coders and I feel it would be an awesome class to have finished. There are also a majority of older players that would appreciate this as the Samurai class has been etched in to Herocraft history.
-Finish all balance patches,
We are still in a hiatus following the Warrior Balancing, and some of the support classes/warrior classes need to be revised. I understand issues have come up including illness but this should have been looked at and work been made. I understand that some classes may need total reworks and that this will take time but according to the Heroes Balance Area, all work has clearly stopped. It is no October 13th and this road-map, has not been followed to due focused efforts in the new township system.
-Make Lost Soul easier to level, or more enjoyable. Despite some claims that pvp/camping of lost souls is the main cause for players leaving the server, every new player that joins is unlikely to stay because they are being ripped apart by mobs. Maybe something like a passive damage reduction against them? (Even opening this discussion will be a positive step in the right direction.) In all other video games, mmos ect, the game gets harder as you go on, on HeroCraft there is a stark contrast as leveling lost soul is some of the hardest challenges you can do here.
-Controversial opinion here, but remove some of the more complicated aspects of heroes to cater for new players joining the server. I am referring to attributes and reagents. Attributes really do nothing in terms of customization (except for armor) and add another layer of complication that is frankly, not needed. This is also the same for reagents, for veterans it is a bother to have the items and can force some classes to be out of action when they die due to the importance of reagent skills in their kit, (wizard, ninja, druid) this also makes it hard for new players who do not have an abundance of these items. (I would be fine with keeping reagents for some out of combat skills that are pretty essential, such as gtp revive and teleport.)
-Add a macro-mod tutorial, the plugin is pretty much required for the server and a simple easy to understand tutorial would go miles in helping players on the server.
-Mythic mobs have been promised for a while, and after testing them out with Phoenix_Frenzy they seem awesome and I want them on live, this would also help create activity for players on the server and a big reason to play.
-This in my opinion will create a situation similar to what is happening at the moment with Townships 3.0 (to much attention in one place), is adventure map, I know a lot of players are keen for something like this and if implemented well, would be amazing and create heaps of server activity.
-More EVENTS, those doubloon hunts whilst had problems where fun, the zombie one was great (got a bit excessive, but a step in the right direction) but more importantly the addition of conquest have been great things that create pvp and server activity, we should be having an event every week, and by event I mean something on the live server, not to drag players away to a test server that does not have a large impact on the live servers. Players love events, have more of them.
=====================================Thank You=================================================
tldr; get rid of townships 3.0 (or seriously revamp it), fix up the current system and work on stuff that the players actually want.
EDIT 1; grammar and spelling
EDIT 2; another suggestion on what to do, a macro-mod tutorial
EDIT 3; 3 more suggestions - mythic mobs and adventure map and more EVENTS
============================================Township 2.0 (the current system)==========================
FIX TAXES, this will allow for inactive towns to die, and would put pressures on people owning a town. I don't know much about code but even without editing the plugin we could go back to the manual system we used on previous maps as a temporary substitute. Taxes were an essential part of the plugin that helped the server create communities, people would actually recruit players to towns in order to help with taxes, there would be pressure on mayors to keep towns active and well funded. You can have a money sink without having to add an over complicated new plugin that has obviously created a lot of negative backlash.
FIX TOWNSHIP/KINGDOM REQUIREMENTS, I mean 50 dragon eggs is impossible to get I have seen 3 since the inception of the map. Furthermore it is really hard to acquire the large amount of special items that drop. This lowers the incentive of people to expand once they have a hamlet as it is to hard and to expensive. This is a slight tweak that would lower the requirement costs to something achievable and realistic would see towns prosper and expand.
These are 2 really simple changes that I'm sure most players would agree with, and do not require mass amounts of effort and will help remove this 'change is bad' attitude that is deterring players away.
======================================Township 3.0 (the new system)===================================
I'd also like to list our main gripes with the township 3.0 system that is in test atm.
I feel I speak for the players most vocal against the plugin and test world, when the main gripe with the 3.0 system atm is pvp defenses being used in a way that is preventative to pvp. These defensive structures, (Arrow Turret, 25% Damage Boost, DOT when present in enemy town) are working perfectly on preventing pvp on the test map, these extreme defense are needed as one town has a majority of pve players vsing a town of pvpers, however on the pvp server, where people want to pvp and are all reasonably skilled, the defenses are so over-powered that every time you would raid, you would lose. The pvp community are the ones who are most vocal agaisnt this, and are the ones who will ultimately be left with this when the system goes live. (For the love of town pvp, please remove all of this.)
The second element of pvp defenses and in my opinion the part that is worst of all, is pvp safe-zones. "It really really really really sucks to be chasing someone, keeping them in combat, only to have them run into a house and becoming invulnerable. take them out! The walls of your structures should be what keeps you safe not the magic room of invulnerability." - Ahrall. This is also something that will only affect the pvp server, and again the pvp community is in outrage about it. I would even go as far to say that pvp safe zones encourage camping, as the only cheap and effective way to lower power is to kill players, who will sit in their safe-zones to prevent death.
In addition, as fun as it would sound I would not like to be able to permanently destroy a town and be able to grief it using tnt cannons in order to fully destroy it's region. Hell, being able to remove a region at all is wrong in my opinion and will deter new players away as they see their base getting destroyed by veterans with seemingly endless money. This server has been 100% against grief since it's inception and being able to blow up town regions (after you have lowered their power) in my opinion goes against everything this server stands for. Players work hard putting in time and money on their towns and the fact that they can be sieged down and destroyed is a negative mark. This was also the main cause of problems with the tnt inception, and a 'regeneration' effect was necessary to stop all mass rage.
Furthermore, mandated building is something I do not feel is healthy for the server, more specifically the individualism of each and every building in the town. Currently as the system is each player is assigned to a house within the town, and not only that but with regulated sizes and regulated blocks (I mean why? if people want to have unique and creative houses let them). The primary house a shack is a mere 7x7x7, contrasting the current 15x15x15 or 21x21x21 plots that you will regularly see on live map towns. Yes they can be upgraded, but why should you be forced to pay more money to upgrade to a reasonable house size that will allow for creativity. Secondly individual houses require every player to be active to keep them generating power/souls/items for the town and also create 'residence esq' buildings or 'nanny state' houses that prevents townies from even opening doors of townies houses. It's almost like player residences in towns and that has been a serious issue for town mayors previously. (I think it was banned, not 100% sure)
Finally from the aspect of newer players this system is to complicated. Okay so I want to make a town with my friends, I'll need 5 'shack's' a council room, I'll need a farm too. I'll need to keep xx building constantly fed xx item and I'm not sure what items, I'll go check the wiki and spend hours working out what I'm going to do. While it might be cheaper for them to make a town from scratch (not 100% sure because all income on the test map was generated a lot faster as souls where worth 4 times as much.) It is more complicated and there is more chance something could go wrong. As it did on test 2 where we accidentally destroyed our own town due to inexperience with the plugin, if we where having issues with it what hope would that innocent lost soul and his friends have? This is also further enhanced as a town expands, it needs more buildings with more requirements and more upkeep. This even applies to besieging other towns. It costs 3700 souls to make a tnt cannon that can shoot at other towns, not just because you need the cannon, but because you need a command tent and an outpost all with set blocks and upkeep.
==================================What we should do instead=============================================
Below is just a list of things that I feel needs more attention, and what we should do instead of devoting the server efforts to a township system that has received a really negative response.
-Samurai, This has been promised for a while and I think this is something the community wants. It has been work in progress for ages due to lack of coders and I feel it would be an awesome class to have finished. There are also a majority of older players that would appreciate this as the Samurai class has been etched in to Herocraft history.
-Finish all balance patches,
We are still in a hiatus following the Warrior Balancing, and some of the support classes/warrior classes need to be revised. I understand issues have come up including illness but this should have been looked at and work been made. I understand that some classes may need total reworks and that this will take time but according to the Heroes Balance Area, all work has clearly stopped. It is no October 13th and this road-map, has not been followed to due focused efforts in the new township system.
-Make Lost Soul easier to level, or more enjoyable. Despite some claims that pvp/camping of lost souls is the main cause for players leaving the server, every new player that joins is unlikely to stay because they are being ripped apart by mobs. Maybe something like a passive damage reduction against them? (Even opening this discussion will be a positive step in the right direction.) In all other video games, mmos ect, the game gets harder as you go on, on HeroCraft there is a stark contrast as leveling lost soul is some of the hardest challenges you can do here.
-Controversial opinion here, but remove some of the more complicated aspects of heroes to cater for new players joining the server. I am referring to attributes and reagents. Attributes really do nothing in terms of customization (except for armor) and add another layer of complication that is frankly, not needed. This is also the same for reagents, for veterans it is a bother to have the items and can force some classes to be out of action when they die due to the importance of reagent skills in their kit, (wizard, ninja, druid) this also makes it hard for new players who do not have an abundance of these items. (I would be fine with keeping reagents for some out of combat skills that are pretty essential, such as gtp revive and teleport.)
-Add a macro-mod tutorial, the plugin is pretty much required for the server and a simple easy to understand tutorial would go miles in helping players on the server.
-Mythic mobs have been promised for a while, and after testing them out with Phoenix_Frenzy they seem awesome and I want them on live, this would also help create activity for players on the server and a big reason to play.
-This in my opinion will create a situation similar to what is happening at the moment with Townships 3.0 (to much attention in one place), is adventure map, I know a lot of players are keen for something like this and if implemented well, would be amazing and create heaps of server activity.
-More EVENTS, those doubloon hunts whilst had problems where fun, the zombie one was great (got a bit excessive, but a step in the right direction) but more importantly the addition of conquest have been great things that create pvp and server activity, we should be having an event every week, and by event I mean something on the live server, not to drag players away to a test server that does not have a large impact on the live servers. Players love events, have more of them.
=====================================Thank You=================================================
tldr; get rid of townships 3.0 (or seriously revamp it), fix up the current system and work on stuff that the players actually want.
EDIT 1; grammar and spelling
EDIT 2; another suggestion on what to do, a macro-mod tutorial
EDIT 3; 3 more suggestions - mythic mobs and adventure map and more EVENTS
Last edited by a moderator:
my play time is limited and i wanted to get NeoSanmak up and running first) you were one of the few people actually doing stuff with it Trazil, however a Tribe is rather limited. As of now NeoSanmak has 4 members and we can not build any new structures or upgrade to hamlet since no one else from the town is online. Current owners are myself and Malawolf so we can add new townsfolk. Current town members are you and _D4sssy, and our bank is only at 550 souls + about 1.5k in my bank from donations. we need activity and souls to further test other structures for the plugin so we can give constructive feedback.
Rawr he will burn Amoria to the ground!
