Suggestion What do YOU want for the townships system?

[Dielan9999]

Heroes,

I am helping pick up the slack on the townships plugin. There's only a few broken things I want to fix, and a whole lot wrong on Herocraft today that comes from how our plugin is configured. These are things we can easily change, but it needs to be changed in the communities best interest.

Right now broken things I'm trying to fix is why TNT isn't going off during wars, and the cost of war (so towns don't get sent back into several negative thousand coins after a single war).


I need some suggestions for how towns are configured. Right now there isn't much incentive for towns to go up in tiers. I want this to change. What would encourage you to upgrade your town? Personally I think the incentives currently are ok as there are plenty of towns today that are expanding to increase their size for big builds (Ark, AL, Verstad, Newerth, etc) but some towns are sitting too comfortable at the first tier. The desire to make a big town and build something big is totally player driven. Last map there were not very many towns in the high tiers with several chunks claimed, so evidence of big towns growing today doesn't mean the system is working. We can do better.

I was thinking you need to be tier 2 or 3 to START wars but any town can GET warred so you can clean the server for inactives and conquer nearby land where towns are in the way. @Kainzo thinks towns should only be able to start wars with towns within 2 or 3 levels of them, so a tier 2 town can't go to war with a tier 6 town for example. I like his idea a bit more but both are valid. Under kainzo's method it might make more sense to increase the number of chunks away a town must be from another town to create the town or claim a chunk on existing town. If we push that kind of change this map towns close together would be grandfathered in so don't discount that suggestion.

Another item is we need to fix how the war cost and reward is determined and perhaps implement a lower bound for town banks so you don't get your bank nuked. Right now it costs a large town quite a bit of money to war a small town - this seems fair, but it backfires hard because the reward is determined based on the cost to start the war. So if a big town wars a small inactive town they get TONS of money. Also a small town pays very little to war a big town, but also gains very little if they win. I don't hate the algorithm that determines the cost but I want to throw the code that determines the rewards (and where those rewards come from) out the window and do it different. We should reward more town materials than coins, because we want to encourage more towns to go to war with each other without a gross amount of town death. IMO war should only be a thread to inactive towns, your items, and your progress. If you are active you shouldn't get cheated out of your regions. So basically I think we could keep the war algorithm the same for cost as long as reward is changed because it penalizes big for picking on small like it should be.

Essentially, I'm looking for stories from town mayors or anyone with an opinion on the township system as it exists today so I can make the right changes.

mayors I know @iAlchemist @Xargun @DrHeretic @Piptendo @kongrave @Haxnn plz weigh in

 

[DeniedINC]

I like the idea of only being able to start a war after Tier 3 town upgrade. This will give a reason to upgrade your town and stop people from only risking 25 coins while big towns risk everything.

 

[Irishman81]

Heroes,

I am helping pick up the slack on the townships plugin. There's only a few broken things I want to fix, and a whole lot wrong on Herocraft today that comes from how our plugin is configured. These are things we can easily change, but it needs to be changed in the communities best interest.

Right now broken things I'm trying to fix is why TNT isn't going off during wars, and the cost of war (so towns don't get sent back into several negative thousand coins after a single war).


I need some suggestions for how towns are configured. Right now there isn't much incentive for towns to go up in tiers. I want this to change. What would encourage you to upgrade your town? Personally I think the incentives currently are ok as there are plenty of towns today that are expanding to increase their size for big builds (Ark, AL, Verstad, Newerth, etc) but some towns are sitting too comfortable at the first tier. The desire to make a big town and build something big is totally player driven. Last map there were not very many towns in the high tiers with several chunks claimed, so evidence of big towns growing today doesn't mean the system is working. We can do better.

I was thinking you need to be tier 2 or 3 to START wars but any town can GET warred so you can clean the server for inactives and conquer nearby land where towns are in the way. @Kainzo thinks towns should only be able to start wars with towns within 2 or 3 levels of them, so a tier 2 town can't go to war with a tier 6 town for example. I like his idea a bit more but both are valid. Under kainzo's method it might make more sense to increase the number of chunks away a town must be from another town to create the town or claim a chunk on existing town. If we push that kind of change this map towns close together would be grandfathered in so don't discount that suggestion.

Another item is we need to fix how the war cost and reward is determined and perhaps implement a lower bound for town banks so you don't get your bank nuked. Right now it costs a large town quite a bit of money to war a small town - this seems fair, but it backfires hard because the reward is determined based on the cost to start the war. So if a big town wars a small inactive town they get TONS of money. Also a small town pays very little to war a big town, but also gains very little if they win. I don't hate the algorithm that determines the cost but I want to throw the code that determines the rewards (and where those rewards come from) out the window and do it different. We should reward more town materials than coins, because we want to encourage more towns to go to war with each other without a gross amount of town death. IMO war should only be a thread to inactive towns, your items, and your progress. If you are active you shouldn't get cheated out of your regions. So basically I think we could keep the war algorithm the same for cost as long as reward is changed because it penalizes big for picking on small like it should be.

Essentially, I'm looking for stories from town mayors or anyone with an opinion on the township system as it exists today so I can make the right changes.

mayors I know @iAlchemist @Xargun @DrHeretic @Piptendo @kongrave @Haxnn plz weigh in

Now I know this could potentially screw up current towns sitting at tier one, but we need to reduce the population and chunk limits for tiers 1 and 2. I know we want to encourage people to create towns, which I think is fine with the current 25c cost. The issue is, because the population and claim cap for t1 is 15, that is more than enough for even a medium sized group. Tier one should be very basic - enough for small groups setting up (maybe around 5 population cap and 5 chunks) and i set the current limits for t1 to t2. Overall, lower tiered towns have too much available to claim and population size and should be reduced to encourage upgrading.

 

[Dielan9999]

Now I know this could potentially screw up current towns sitting at tier one, but we need to reduce the population and chunk limits for tiers 1 and 2. I know we want to encourage people to create towns, which I think is fine with the current 25c cost. The issue is, because the population and claim cap for t1 is 15, that is more than enough for even a medium sized group. Tier one should be very basic - enough for small groups setting up (maybe around 5 population cap and 5 chunks) and i set the current limits for t1 to t2. Overall, lower tiered towns have too much available to claim and population size and should be reduced to encourage upgrading.

tbh the big towns we have today did not stay tier one for long. It doesn't cost much to even get tier 2

 

[Boomer779]

Soooooo yah,
War: Fine with Kainzo's war method I think tier 3 and above can go to war but I believe that tiers should be able to fight ONLY the tier town they are in. I would also say that tier one and two towns can only have war declared against them if they are offline for a certain amount of time. My personal opinion is due to the fact that my town has already been subject to LARGE raids from other huge towns that we can't fend off against. Almost 5-8 people constantly attacking us (looking at you Freepers)

Chunks: Tier 1 and 2 towns get a lot of chunks and personally I'm ok with that. We have a huge map and when I started on this map again I really enjoyed the large amount of chunks. But if you want a solution I can try to put one together.
Tier 1 chunks are fine, but if you are really concerned with chunks then change Tier 2. I see it as once Tier 3 is hit the chunks are fine and should be kept the same. At that point you have dedicated players who most likely will upgrade their towns. I would also like to say that if we were to change the chunk limit that it only effect new towns that are created not ones in existence as some towns like mine have made huge builds(giant wall) along with numerous underground builds in the chunks. We have built a glass dome and and I would not like to put it together for the 10th time. Also some of you may have the ability to upgrade your towns super fast but my town is currently Tier 2 and have been like that for a while now. We want to upgrade but getting 3 stacks of emerald blocks between 5-8 people is at least 10 hours per person. We have 6 guys on everyday for at least 3 hours and we just now have 2 stacks and it's been almost 2+ weeks. If we are to lower chunks I suggest lowering the upgrade cost on the rare materials such as diamonds and emeralds. I also do not believe that castles are a viable way to get emeralds or diamonds, but that's a different discussion.

Final Notes: As a semi small town (tier 2 Trying to upgrade) I appreciate having you listen to my opinion, but I also ask that in all of this you keep in consideration all the small guys. Not everyone is a lazy town or newerth prime with tons of guys on. Some of us only have 5-8 guys BEST and are going through school. We are not all PvP gods and we just want to play level have fun and then maybe PvP. Whatever happens I and my town will most likely stay and play on the server. I only ask that we think of all of us little and big during these changes and that we hope to make the server better through these changes.

Edit: If anyone wants to talk further with me about my opinions and such hit me up in discord. Username Wolfcaper1

Thank you,
Boomer779

 

[Boomer779]

Also CAN SOMEONE PLEASE FIX THE HARVESTER BUG #BUGGEDBLACKMESA

 

[iAlchemist]

Heroes,

I am helping pick up the slack on the townships plugin. There's only a few broken things I want to fix, and a whole lot wrong on Herocraft today that comes from how our plugin is configured. These are things we can easily change, but it needs to be changed in the communities best interest.

Right now broken things I'm trying to fix is why TNT isn't going off during wars, and the cost of war (so towns don't get sent back into several negative thousand coins after a single war).


I need some suggestions for how towns are configured. Right now there isn't much incentive for towns to go up in tiers. I want this to change. What would encourage you to upgrade your town? Personally I think the incentives currently are ok as there are plenty of towns today that are expanding to increase their size for big builds (Ark, AL, Verstad, Newerth, etc) but some towns are sitting too comfortable at the first tier. The desire to make a big town and build something big is totally player driven. Last map there were not very many towns in the high tiers with several chunks claimed, so evidence of big towns growing today doesn't mean the system is working. We can do better.

I was thinking you need to be tier 2 or 3 to START wars but any town can GET warred so you can clean the server for inactives and conquer nearby land where towns are in the way. @Kainzo thinks towns should only be able to start wars with towns within 2 or 3 levels of them, so a tier 2 town can't go to war with a tier 6 town for example. I like his idea a bit more but both are valid. Under kainzo's method it might make more sense to increase the number of chunks away a town must be from another town to create the town or claim a chunk on existing town. If we push that kind of change this map towns close together would be grandfathered in so don't discount that suggestion.

Another item is we need to fix how the war cost and reward is determined and perhaps implement a lower bound for town banks so you don't get your bank nuked. Right now it costs a large town quite a bit of money to war a small town - this seems fair, but it backfires hard because the reward is determined based on the cost to start the war. So if a big town wars a small inactive town they get TONS of money. Also a small town pays very little to war a big town, but also gains very little if they win. I don't hate the algorithm that determines the cost but I want to throw the code that determines the rewards (and where those rewards come from) out the window and do it different. We should reward more town materials than coins, because we want to encourage more towns to go to war with each other without a gross amount of town death. IMO war should only be a thread to inactive towns, your items, and your progress. If you are active you shouldn't get cheated out of your regions. So basically I think we could keep the war algorithm the same for cost as long as reward is changed because it penalizes big for picking on small like it should be.

Essentially, I'm looking for stories from town mayors or anyone with an opinion on the township system as it exists today so I can make the right changes.

mayors I know @iAlchemist @Xargun @DrHeretic @Piptendo @kongrave @Haxnn plz weigh in

I am flattered that you added me directly to the post as a mayor, but I am not a mayor, nor will I ever opt to become one under my own free will. Being a mayor is a huge hassle and responsibility and I don't like to sacrifice my creative freedom to do so--with that said I have a lot of respect for those that opt to be a mayor of a town, and I still think I can give some minor insight.

I think something that has hurt towns greatly is a lack of open trade of resources. Way back on Valorium, there was a unique system where towns produced resources and required other resources based on their particular biome. This generated open trade and alliances amongst towns that led to larger scale wars/alliances amongst townships. I don't precisely remember when this system was stripped, but I think it could have a lot to offer if it could potentially return. Maybe not as a cash cow like it was before, but possibly as a town upgrade material. For example=

Those with towns in forests would produce "Essence of the Forest" which would be a required upgrade material for towns that find themselves in deserts. Furthermore, Desert towns produce Essence of Sand, which is required for towns in Tundra or Tiaga biomes and so on. The current system involving tower rewards is far too easy to collect vast amounts of a town upgrade material, so much so that it has very little value otherwise.

My next point goes to towers themselves and their lackluster rewards. When towers are taken, instead of just rewarding lackluster town rewards, maybe allow it to occasionally award weapons or armor. This allows for more reasons to actually take a tower. Also, just to shove this into there, make Deathchests unlocked on death, but allow armor and held item to return to the player. Brutal, but it makes for a stronger deterrent to keep people from rushing.

I have remained rather neutral on town claims. I think that they're usually fine for creative town builders that want to make a more sprawling design, BUT I do think that towns should be further limited on their upgrade tiers and claims based on their total player count. This encourages player retention. Towns NEED active players to maintain their town size.

I have not seen any town tax to understand how it functions currently, but to my knowledge it is percentage based. If this is correct, then I think it should be reversed to being amount based like older systems.

I'll be honest, I think this township system got a lot right. It seems to be accessible for everyone, and allows a bit more flexibility when building because you can claim specific chunks. Although I am not a town mayor I hope my opinions were useful anyway.

And for good measure, I'll tag the ACTUAL town mayor, @charger134

 

[Symbolite]

Things I would change and or look into possibly changing in the future are as follows..

- Change how many chunks towns get at each level, would lower the amount T1 and T2 get and then each level up would get progressively more until it reaches the current cap which I believe is 300 at T8? (which might be currently disabled)

- Take a look at what each town upgrade costs in both town mats and coins and adjust accordingly related to how many new chunks that tier receives. Note that each new map seems to have different ore gen rates which is why Emerald and Lapis are such a hot item right now in the town upgrade grind.

- Kingdom tiers could use the same look at as what I listed for towns in the prior two points. Increase the incentives to actually go Kingdom

- I would increase the T1 town cost to 100 coins just so stop people from just willy-nilly dropping down towns and disbanding them at will. I realize the 25c cost was to encourage people to make a town but that's so extremely cheap. I think 100c would be more appropriate and would still be very easy to get by just a single player.

- Town mats and how they are acquired probably needs a look at because I think it changed since last map. I do like the idea of biome type generating mats and promoting trade or war between towns. I also like the idea of castles giving certain town mats that biomes might not to again promote trade and war between towns. At the end of last map there was an issue with getting towns past T4 because no towns existed in a biome needed to surpass T4. I would suggest that at the exchange or in /shop there should be a place to purchase town mats at an overpriced amount just as a fall back in-case this happened again.

- For town war I think you already know what you want to do to fix war rewards so I won't bother typing that out but for TnT there is a town setting that is set to false by default in all towns. The setting is called explosion I think. When war is triggered this setting is supposed to be set to True for both towns. Currently that is what is not working. The other bug that arises when this one is fixed is that ANYONE from any town can come TnT both warring towns without being at war with them. I doubt there is an easy workaround for that bug tho.

 

[Haxnn]

I share a similar opinion to many here, however I am strongly against a population cap. Rather than retype it all again I'll just link the thread where I argued against it. I think most of my points there still remain valid despite a few other towns starting recruitment. https://herocraftonline.com/main/threads/township-citizen-limits-allies.59998/#post-475613

The biggest thing I would like to see is greater rewards for upgrading towns. These rewards don't have to grant an advantage, they could instead be cosmetic and fun. I don't know how reasonable these are, but I'll just throw out a few reward ideas:

• Town embassy in spawn - Reaching a certain tier means your town is significant enough to be represented in spawn. I was thinking about Tier 4 or 5.
• Custom town suffix or prefix - Tier 5/6
• Public Herogate to town - Tier 7, maybe restricted to kingdoms.
• Have an official town banner (towns can make them) hung up in spawn somewhere - Tier 2/3

I think any functional town upgrade rewards should be located in the lower tiers so they're accessible to most players and not just the super towns. The only advantage larger towns should be getting over smaller towns should be additional chunks, otherwise it would be incredibly discouraging for small towns. Maybe something like purchasing an additional town harvester could be tier 2. Unfortunately I'm drawing a blank for other useful town rewards.

On the subject of biome specific materials, we already have something like that in place (or we should at least) but it doesn't seem to be working 100%. It could just be because of the custom biomes the map is using. Right now our town produces pretty much everything we need to upgrade and I don't know if that's because we have a variety of chunks/biomes, or because the system is broken. I am in favor of restricting the types resources we harvest though.

 

[Xargun]

Comments on WAR first... Will post later about Towns..

I know Kainzo just said War has been disabled again but I'm not sure how many of you know the commands or how it works but there is nothing in the wiki about it except for a few sentences under Kingdoms. Maybe a good place to start would be to list out the current system / rules and then we can tackle them one at a time ?

 

[Dielan9999]

Comments on WAR first... Will post later about Towns..

I know Kainzo just said War has been disabled again but I'm not sure how many of you know the commands or how it works but there is nothing in the wiki about it except for a few sentences under Kingdoms. Maybe a good place to start would be to list out the current system / rules and then we can tackle them one at a time ?

The only info on war I know about is in the announcement post when it came out. Maybe @Danda can make a wiki page?

Also I want to make new commands to check the status of war/scoreboard and maybe make a nagging message that displays reminding you that war is declared and what the score is.

 

[radicater11]

Maybe @Danda can make a wiki page?

The wiki team can certainly work on a new war page.

 

[Xargun]

I have thought some more about Towns and come up with the following... Numbers are just my idea and are based on some logic.

Tier 1 (Ideal for small groups of people who want to play but not be involved with Wars)
25c to create
56.25c per day
Min People: 1
Max People: 5
Max Chunks: 9

Tier 2
500 coins to upgrade
75c per day
Min People: 3
Max People: 10
Max Chunks: 15

Tier 3
1,000 coins to upgrade
93.75c per day
Min People: 5
Max People: 15
Max Chunks: 30

Tier 4
2,000 coins to upgrade
112.5c per day
Min People: 10
Max People: 30
Max Chunks: 50

Tier 5
3,000 coins to upgrade
131.25c per day
Min People: 15
Max People: 45
Max Chunks: 70

Tier 6
5,000 coins to upgrade
150c per day
Min People: 20
Max People: 60
Max Chunks: 108

Tier 7
10,000 coins to upgrade
187.5c per day
Min People: 25
Max People: 75
Max Chunks: 150

New Town Addon
/Market addon - allows use of the market (and mail) from safety of the town with a 5% tax on each purchase (2500 coins with Tier minimum)

Town Perks
The ability for towns to purchase rare items such as specialty blocks or things like Hoppers / Anvils. This will allow limits quantities of these items to avoid issues yet give worthwhile rewards for certain size towns

War Tie-In

As discussed above, towns must be tier 3 to declare War. They may declare War on towns 1 tier lower and all towns same size or higher. (This will make tier 1 towns immune to war for people who just want to play HC without the whole War aspect - won't chase away new players who are not comfortable with Raiding yet).

War can only be declared on towns every so often based on their size - the larger the town the more often it can be declared against.

Once declared, the War is broadcast to the entire server and has a cool down so the defender can try to be online during the war time - this will avoid towns declaring war against towns that are not even online - like at 2 in the morning.

During this declaration time, the Defender can negoiate with the aggressor town to cancel the war for some sort of payment if they wish. basically the defender bribes the attacker to go away.

Defenders may 'invite' allies to join the war, so attacking one small town may end up with a tier 4 town fighting 3 tier 3 towns if they are allied. This will actually make alliances worth something. - If the defender brings in Allies then this opens the option up for the attacker to bring in allies as well...

 

[Dielan9999]

@Xargun there's actually a function of war called "sue for peace" where you pay to avoid a war. I believe Kainzo intended this to be the way non-combantant merchant-type towns would stay viable. Because they should be rich and prosperous right?

 

[Danda]

@Xargun there's actually a function of war called "sue for peace" where you pay to avoid a war. I believe Kainzo intended this to be the way non-combantant merchant-type towns would stay viable. Because they should be rich and prosperous right?

But then would it not be possible to drain the merchant town's bank by repeatedly until they can no longer afford to avoid the war. I think you know our player base as well as I do, someone will do it eventually.

I have thought some more about Towns and come up with the following... Numbers are just my idea and are based on some logic.

Tier 1 (Ideal for small groups of people who want to play but not be involved with Wars)
25c to create
56.25c per day
Min People: 1
Max People: 5
Max Chunks: 9

Tier 2
500 coins to upgrade
75c per day
Min People: 3
Max People: 10
Max Chunks: 15

Tier 3
1,000 coins to upgrade
93.75c per day
Min People: 5
Max People: 15
Max Chunks: 30

Tier 4
2,000 coins to upgrade
112.5c per day
Min People: 10
Max People: 30
Max Chunks: 50

Tier 5
3,000 coins to upgrade
131.25c per day
Min People: 15
Max People: 45
Max Chunks: 70

Tier 6
5,000 coins to upgrade
150c per day
Min People: 20
Max People: 60
Max Chunks: 108

Tier 7
10,000 coins to upgrade
187.5c per day
Min People: 25
Max People: 75
Max Chunks: 150

Honestly 75c for a tier 1 town isn't that much, two players can afford to keep that up just by voting each day using the links on hc.to/vote (a singular player could keep the town up by voting if they know about the additional voting links hc.to/vote1 2 ... 13 etc). Anything they get on top of that from mining or killing mobs is just a buffer ontop of that.

 

[Dielan9999]

But then would it not be possible to drain the merchant town's bank by repeatedly until they can no longer afford to avoid the war. I think you know our player base as well as I do, someone will do it eventually.


Honestly 75c for a tier 1 town isn't that much, two players can afford to keep that up just by voting each day using the links on hc.to/vote (a singular player could keep the town up by voting if they know about the additional voting links hc.to/vote1 2 ... 13 etc). Anything they get on top of that from mining or killing mobs is just a buffer ontop of that.

I don't remember off the top of my head if sue for peace gives resources or not but I'm pretty sure it's a way to quickly end the war and basically surrender so the attacker can't use TNT in the region. That's the reason you would do that besides wait out the war - if you had a lot to lose if/when they breached the town.

 

[Danda]

I don't remember off the top of my head if sue for peace gives resources or not but I'm pretty sure it's a way to quickly end the war and basically surrender so the attacker can't use TNT in the region. That's the reason you would do that besides wait out the war - if you had a lot to lose if/when they breached the town.

I'm not talking about if the town gets any thing I'm wondering about if there is any kind of cooldown to prevent someone from just declaring war again if the war was called off. Otherwise an attacking town could just repeatedly declare war until the opposing town can't afford to pay to end the war anymore.

 

[Dielan9999]

I'm not talking about if the town gets any thing I'm wondering about if there is any kind of cooldown to prevent someone from just declaring war again if the war was called off. Otherwise an attacking town could just repeatedly declare war until the opposing town can't afford to pay to end the war anymore.

Oh! Yes there is a cool down in the config. Can't look up the number right now because I'm not home though. I think it's 12 hours

 

[Danda]

Oh! Yes there is a cool down in the config. Can't look up the number right now because I'm not home though. I think it's 12 hours

tbh I think it wouldn't hurt to have it longer than that depending on how much it costs to opt out of the war vs how much it costs to declare.

 

[Dielan9999]

tbh I think it wouldn't hurt to have it longer than that depending on how much it costs to opt out of the war vs how much it costs to declare.

I think variable cooldown would be a strong incentive to upgrade your town.