[Poll] Variable Flag Times

[Dr_Chocolate]

It has become evident that something has to change with the current meta of flag war. This was a fear amongst upper staff during the down period, and now that it's become a reality, it's time to get your guys' input. I also want to thank the Mod team for their great contributions and help in rounding up this idea.

So, people are afraid to log on. They believe that not logging in will keep them safe. And as long as people feel that way, it will remain difficult for CivWars to hold a player base on warring days. Now before you say that flag war isn't the reason for the server lacking players, I understand that, part of that is our fault as staff for rolling out a lackluster ad campaign (which we are picking up as we speak) and we apologize for that. But we can not ignore, the detrimental effects flag war has on the player count.

Flag war is an imperfect system. But it's the best towny war system. We are the only maintainers of flag war at this point, and its quite shocking to see people to switch over to siege war given its many flaws, as it was developed by a random towny dev on a whim. Now that doesn't mean siege war is useless, the suggestion we propose borrows some ideas while maintaining the flag war we all have come to love.

1. Flagging will be enabled with no one on.
2. Flagging while no one is on will change the flag length to 4 hours.
3. Perms in flag chunks will be disabled.
4. Offer temporary protections for players being busy/vacations via ticket system.
5. Removal of 2:1 rule, lesser warlog penalties.

For changes 1 and 2, this removes the crutch people are relying on, on being safe when they don't play. This is one thing siege, and even factions, got right - you can't punish players for being online. Flagging will work normally with no players online, except it will take 4 hours per flag. This time was chosen due to the average town size on the server as of right now. If you are not online for 24 consecutive hours, the attacker can theoretically only place a maximum of 6 warflags, which is a decent amount of time to make an attempt at a defense. If you will be gone for an extended period of time, this is where change 4 comes in, and you can petition in a ticket for a temporary protection while you are away. As for change 3, this is important because normally in a flagged chunk, all perms are enabled for all players. Enabling full permissions for that length of time will lead to players just abusing the offline flagging feature and placing and breaking flags to find plots of importance. And due to being able to continue warflagging if a player logs or numbers, the 2:1 rule and warlogging enforcement would not have to be as strict. Outside of these changes, flagging would remain as is while players are online.

To me personally, we can put as many band-aids on flag war like white flag surrender, peace days, 2v1 rule and anything else, but it won't be enough as long as the core mechanic of people being safe when they don't play holds true. These changes aim to fix some of the flaws in flag war, while maintaining the war system we all love. And before you make comments like "This isn't classic CivWars" or something along those lines, please know something has to change. The current trajectory of the server is not good. CivWars has to evolve beyond the 2013 framework it was built on. Ultimately though, the choice is in your hands.

Voting will end in one week's time. Feel free to discuss below and ask any questions about things you may be unclear on.

 

[Pudmuffers]

Allowing people to flag while people are offline will just lead to to next to no fights; Along with that, 6 warflags is next to nothing in distance, especially since its unlikely someone would be off for 24 hours.

It would be a decent idea to allow some time to be unflaggable in order to grind gear or do other things which we see in the peaceful days with no war

 

[Dr_Chocolate]

Allowing people to flag while people are offline will just lead to to next to no fights; Along with that, 6 warflags is next to nothing in distance, especially since its unlikely someone would be off for 24 hours.

It would be a decent idea to allow some time to be unflaggable in order to grind gear or do other things which we see in the peaceful days with no war

Most towns have an average radius of 10ish chunks till their homeblock. 6 chunks is considerable progress in that regard, while also maintaining the balance of not losing everything because you had a busy day, or overslept a little. As for the second point, peace days would be kept in their current capacity (or reduced by a day by one of the suggestions).

 

[Pudmuffers]

Most towns have an average radius of 10ish chunks till their homeblock. 6 chunks is considerable progress in that regard, while also maintaining the balance of not losing everything because you had a busy day, or overslept a little. As for the second point, peace days would be kept in their current capacity (or reduced by a day by one of the suggestions).

it would seem like a good idea to not lose everything by day one until you're able to move basically everything out within an hour; which, with the new system, would be time you cannot get flagged, allowing you to easily move everything out. Most Towns who have a clue on whats going on (the warring towns) are smart enough to have 10+

 

[Moosebobby]

Better System IMO:

A player can gain attacks through playtime (Attacks as in how many flags a town can do in 1 day)

A player gives towns they join more claims through playtime (Example: 12 hours of playtime add 50 claims)

Towns have a set of attacks of they can do a day that lowers as member count increases (Example: Joe has 3 attacks, Bob has 2, their town has 5, so their town has 10)

Larger towns restrict the max attacks per player even if your personal attacks are higher (Kind of like a trade off where the town you join gets more claims to defend itself but loses offensive power, while solo towns have high attacks and lower amount of claims ofc) (Example: Joe has 3 personal attacks but his town is over 10 players so the cap imposed on him by the town is 2 attacks)

Towns have a % of town blocks they can lose per day at a maximum (maybe 10%?)

and to take a homeblock the town under attack must have lost a set percentage of their overall used claims before the homeblock becomes vulnerable

Additionally claims surrounded by 3 sides can be taken without the need for the defenders to even be online (obviously except homeblock) but count as half an attack + take an hour

Automatic warlog detection that deducts playtime from the person who warlogged, thus weakening their offensive and defensive capabilities (less attacks, less claims their town can claim)

Bring back the annexation system from the start of Map 3 that taking the homeblock takes the entire town

These additions would
1. Prevent entire towns being captured in a day and thus preventing wars to be ended in a day.
2. Promotes activity + establishes power players
3. Allow greater advantages to Defenders
4. Prevents outpost stashing
5. Punish warlogging without gay rules like 2:1
6. Lower the requirement for staff to supervise wars as much and no drama about warlogging, 2:1, etc

Example: Smaller Town
Moosebobby has 4 days of gameplay on civwars and has 6 personal attacks from that. He joins a town with 17 attacks already, consisting of 2 other players. The town is so small that the base number of attacks the town has is 10. They have a lower amount of claims overall but Moosebobby's 6 personal attacks are added to the 17 others making that town have 23 attacks, or 23 claims they can take from other towns within a 24 hour period. If Moosebobby's town becomes under attack and he warlogs maybe 12 hours are subtracted from his playtime and lowers his personal attacks to 5 instead of 6.

Example 2: Larger Town
Asdeo recruits Randall0208 into Lofi, Randall0208 has lots of gameplay time and has 6 personal attacks from that, but Lofi has 50 members. Due to Lofi's large amount of players there is a cap given to each player in the town, with only 2 personal attacks of each member counting towards the cap. So when Randall0208 joins Lofi his personal attacks are capped at 2 per day. Additionally, with that many members the base number of attacks from the town are canceled, leaving their attacks entirely dependent on the players.

As you can see between the examples the smaller town has a lower amount of claims obviously, but their attack power is almost half of what a major town like Lofi. Of course those are all example numbers but the goal would be for larger towns to have a lot of claims (defensive power) while limiting offensive power and smaller towns to have a lot more attacks (offensive power). This would simulate the cost real nations have to pay to mobilize a larger force.

Last point, there would also have to be limitations on nation size to prevent exploitation from dividing up into smaller towns.

LMK WHAT YOU THINK GUYS, I KNOW ITS A LOT TO READ!!!

 

[Pudmuffers]

Better System IMO:

A player can gain attacks through playtime (Attacks as in how many flags a town can do in 1 day)

A player gives towns they join more claims through playtime (Example: 12 hours of playtime add 50 claims)

Towns have a set of attacks of they can do a day that lowers as member count increases (Example: Joe has 3 attacks, Bob has 2, their town has 5, so their town has 10)

Larger towns restrict the max attacks per player even if your personal attacks are higher (Kind of like a trade off where the town you join gets more claims to defend itself but loses offensive power, while solo towns have high attacks and lower amount of claims ofc) (Example: Joe has 3 personal attacks but his town is over 10 players so the cap imposed on him by the town is 2 attacks)

Towns have a % of town blocks they can lose per day at a maximum (maybe 10%?)

and to take a homeblock the town under attack must have lost a set percentage of their overall used claims before the homeblock becomes vulnerable

Additionally claims surrounded by 3 sides can be taken without the need for the defenders to even be online (obviously except homeblock) but count as half an attack + take an hour

Automatic warlog detection that deducts playtime from the person who warlogged, thus weakening their offensive and defensive capabilities (less attacks, less claims their town can claim)

Bring back the annexation system from the start of Map 3 that taking the homeblock takes the entire town

These additions would
1. Prevent entire towns being captured in a day and thus preventing wars to be ended in a day.
2. Promotes activity + establishes power players
3. Allow greater advantages to Defenders
4. Prevents outpost stashing
5. Punish warlogging without gay rules like 2:1
6. Lower the requirement for staff to supervise wars as much and no drama about warlogging, 2:1, etc

Example: Smaller Town
Moosebobby has 4 days of gameplay on civwars and has 6 personal attacks from that. He joins a town with 17 attacks already, consisting of 2 other players. The town is so small that the base number of attacks the town has is 10. They have a lower amount of claims overall but Moosebobby's 6 personal attacks are added to the 17 others making that town have 23 attacks, or 23 claims they can take from other towns within a 24 hour period. If Moosebobby's town becomes under attack and he warlogs maybe 12 hours are subtracted from his playtime and lowers his personal attacks to 5 instead of 6.

Example 2: Larger Town
Asdeo recruits Randall0208 into Lofi, Randall0208 has lots of gameplay time and has 6 personal attacks from that, but Lofi has 50 members. Due to Lofi's large amount of players there is a cap given to each player in the town, with only 2 personal attacks of each member counting towards the cap. So when Randall0208 joins Lofi his personal attacks are capped at 2 per day. Additionally, with that many members the base number of attacks from the town are canceled, leaving their attacks entirely dependent on the players.

As you can see between the examples the smaller town has a lower amount of claims obviously, but their attack power is almost half of what a major town like Lofi. Of course those are all example numbers but the goal would be for larger towns to have a lot of claims (defensive power) while limiting offensive power and smaller towns to have a lot more attacks (offensive power). This would simulate the cost real nations have to pay to mobilize a larger force.

Last point, there would also have to be limitations on nation size to prevent exploitation from dividing up into smaller towns.

LMK WHAT YOU THINK GUYS, I KNOW ITS A LOT TO READ!!!

This is why moosebooby a civwars veteran

 

[Moosebobby]

Most towns have an average radius of 10ish chunks till their homeblock. 6 chunks is considerable progress in that regard, while also maintaining the balance of not losing everything because you had a busy day, or overslept a little. As for the second point, peace days would be kept in their current capacity (or reduced by a day by one of the suggestions).

Just an extra comment here. No where in the original post does it mention how many claims the offline town can lose, thus I will use the following information from the original post:
Flagging works the same as online flagging except the flag timer is lengthed to 4 hours if they are offline

This doesnt mean you lose 6 chunks in 24 hours. This means you lose 6 chunks PER PERSON in 24 hours. Since each individual player can place a single flag, logging in 10+ players every 4 hours is no issue for the current warring powers. This means towns could lose 60+ claims every day.

This is not a good idea, I am not opposed to change but something like this is very dangerous and I only forsee it backfiring and making players quit.

 

[Dr_Chocolate]

Just an extra comment here. No where in the original post does it mention how many claims the offline town can lose, thus I will use the following information from the original post:
Flagging works the same as online flagging except the flag timer is lengthed to 4 hours if they are offline

This doesnt mean you lose 6 chunks in 24 hours. This means you lose 6 chunks PER PERSON in 24 hours. Since each individual player can place a single flag, logging in 10+ players every 4 hours is no issue for the current warring powers. This means towns could lose 60+ claims every day.

This is not a good idea, I am not opposed to change but something like this is very dangerous and I only forsee it backfiring and making players quit.

This is a good point. How about a limit on how many people can flag an offline town - only 1 active flag allowed.

 

[Moosebobby]

This is a good point. How about a limit on how many people can flag an offline town - only 1 active flag allowed.

Two things:

1. If you are going to such lengths to enact this you may as well just use my idea, since despite me despising the creator of siege war with a raging passion - he does dedicate a lot of time and effort into that plugin. If you are looking to rival siege war with a better war type you need to rival his time and dedication. You literally have 3 good devs and one dev that can code dupes into the plugin, a total of 4 devs - maybe if you entice them with all that donor money you've raked in since launch you can recode flag war into a plugin that will one day rival retarded siege war.

2. Offline raiding is retarded and will then set you into another camp of having to rival factions servers. Towny War is different gamemode. We who play it dont want to get raided while we are offline. You may claim siege war is offline war, but in siege war you literally dont lose your town or anything other then the gear you spent fighting for the banner control. This is a dangerous thing to add especially with a war type as brutally punishing as flag war.

 

[RedTillDead]

Better System IMO:

A player can gain attacks through playtime (Attacks as in how many flags a town can do in 1 day)

A player gives towns they join more claims through playtime (Example: 12 hours of playtime add 50 claims)

Towns have a set of attacks of they can do a day that lowers as member count increases (Example: Joe has 3 attacks, Bob has 2, their town has 5, so their town has 10)

Larger towns restrict the max attacks per player even if your personal attacks are higher (Kind of like a trade off where the town you join gets more claims to defend itself but loses offensive power, while solo towns have high attacks and lower amount of claims ofc) (Example: Joe has 3 personal attacks but his town is over 10 players so the cap imposed on him by the town is 2 attacks)

Towns have a % of town blocks they can lose per day at a maximum (maybe 10%?)

and to take a homeblock the town under attack must have lost a set percentage of their overall used claims before the homeblock becomes vulnerable

Additionally claims surrounded by 3 sides can be taken without the need for the defenders to even be online (obviously except homeblock) but count as half an attack + take an hour

Automatic warlog detection that deducts playtime from the person who warlogged, thus weakening their offensive and defensive capabilities (less attacks, less claims their town can claim)

Bring back the annexation system from the start of Map 3 that taking the homeblock takes the entire town

These additions would
1. Prevent entire towns being captured in a day and thus preventing wars to be ended in a day.
2. Promotes activity + establishes power players
3. Allow greater advantages to Defenders
4. Prevents outpost stashing
5. Punish warlogging without gay rules like 2:1
6. Lower the requirement for staff to supervise wars as much and no drama about warlogging, 2:1, etc

Example: Smaller Town
Moosebobby has 4 days of gameplay on civwars and has 6 personal attacks from that. He joins a town with 17 attacks already, consisting of 2 other players. The town is so small that the base number of attacks the town has is 10. They have a lower amount of claims overall but Moosebobby's 6 personal attacks are added to the 17 others making that town have 23 attacks, or 23 claims they can take from other towns within a 24 hour period. If Moosebobby's town becomes under attack and he warlogs maybe 12 hours are subtracted from his playtime and lowers his personal attacks to 5 instead of 6.

Example 2: Larger Town
Asdeo recruits Randall0208 into Lofi, Randall0208 has lots of gameplay time and has 6 personal attacks from that, but Lofi has 50 members. Due to Lofi's large amount of players there is a cap given to each player in the town, with only 2 personal attacks of each member counting towards the cap. So when Randall0208 joins Lofi his personal attacks are capped at 2 per day. Additionally, with that many members the base number of attacks from the town are canceled, leaving their attacks entirely dependent on the players.

As you can see between the examples the smaller town has a lower amount of claims obviously, but their attack power is almost half of what a major town like Lofi. Of course those are all example numbers but the goal would be for larger towns to have a lot of claims (defensive power) while limiting offensive power and smaller towns to have a lot more attacks (offensive power). This would simulate the cost real nations have to pay to mobilize a larger force.

Last point, there would also have to be limitations on nation size to prevent exploitation from dividing up into smaller towns.

LMK WHAT YOU THINK GUYS, I KNOW ITS A LOT TO READ!!!

TLDR.
But offline raiding is stupid. I feel like we are being pushed more and more towards the "war" of servers such as DatBlock. We are catering to a group of players that do not even log on except to pvp and then log off. Why?
I agree with the stuff that Moose said that I could bother reading. It was a lot though so zzzz.

EDIT: If you are worried about players not logging on because they are afraid of war, then making it so they can't even be offline to avoid war will make players not play at all. It's that simple. That's like someone who avoids going to the skating rink on Saturdays because the school bully is there- so they solve this by having the school bully show up *every single day of the week*. Now the bullied person doesn't go to the skating rink at all. I'd rather have a playerbase active 3 days of the week and scattered around the war days than nothing at all.
Disabling perms in flag chunks is a bad idea, I have seen it implemented on several servers and it just doesn't work.
Putting the current administration in a position where they have to check more tickets, and at a higher volume than before, doesn't seem like a good idea. From what I've seen and heard, not just from myself but from other people, the current administration is struggling to keep up with the tickets sent in now. Correct me if I'm wrong though. Not me trying to be harsh or insult staff team, just speaking from what I've seen. Please don't get offended or take it the wrong way
I completely agree with removing 2:1 and lessening warlog penalties. CivWars flourished when there wasn't all these dumb rules surrounding war. FlagWar is already anchored towards the defensive, why make it more so by adding all these rules?

 

[Camarena]

Better System IMO:

A player can gain attacks through playtime (Attacks as in how many flags a town can do in 1 day)

A player gives towns they join more claims through playtime (Example: 12 hours of playtime add 50 claims)

Towns have a set of attacks of they can do a day that lowers as member count increases (Example: Joe has 3 attacks, Bob has 2, their town has 5, so their town has 10)

Larger towns restrict the max attacks per player even if your personal attacks are higher (Kind of like a trade off where the town you join gets more claims to defend itself but loses offensive power, while solo towns have high attacks and lower amount of claims ofc) (Example: Joe has 3 personal attacks but his town is over 10 players so the cap imposed on him by the town is 2 attacks)

Towns have a % of town blocks they can lose per day at a maximum (maybe 10%?)

and to take a homeblock the town under attack must have lost a set percentage of their overall used claims before the homeblock becomes vulnerable

Additionally claims surrounded by 3 sides can be taken without the need for the defenders to even be online (obviously except homeblock) but count as half an attack + take an hour

Automatic warlog detection that deducts playtime from the person who warlogged, thus weakening their offensive and defensive capabilities (less attacks, less claims their town can claim)

Bring back the annexation system from the start of Map 3 that taking the homeblock takes the entire town

These additions would
1. Prevent entire towns being captured in a day and thus preventing wars to be ended in a day.
2. Promotes activity + establishes power players
3. Allow greater advantages to Defenders
4. Prevents outpost stashing
5. Punish warlogging without gay rules like 2:1
6. Lower the requirement for staff to supervise wars as much and no drama about warlogging, 2:1, etc

Example: Smaller Town
Moosebobby has 4 days of gameplay on civwars and has 6 personal attacks from that. He joins a town with 17 attacks already, consisting of 2 other players. The town is so small that the base number of attacks the town has is 10. They have a lower amount of claims overall but Moosebobby's 6 personal attacks are added to the 17 others making that town have 23 attacks, or 23 claims they can take from other towns within a 24 hour period. If Moosebobby's town becomes under attack and he warlogs maybe 12 hours are subtracted from his playtime and lowers his personal attacks to 5 instead of 6.

Example 2: Larger Town
Asdeo recruits Randall0208 into Lofi, Randall0208 has lots of gameplay time and has 6 personal attacks from that, but Lofi has 50 members. Due to Lofi's large amount of players there is a cap given to each player in the town, with only 2 personal attacks of each member counting towards the cap. So when Randall0208 joins Lofi his personal attacks are capped at 2 per day. Additionally, with that many members the base number of attacks from the town are canceled, leaving their attacks entirely dependent on the players.

As you can see between the examples the smaller town has a lower amount of claims obviously, but their attack power is almost half of what a major town like Lofi. Of course those are all example numbers but the goal would be for larger towns to have a lot of claims (defensive power) while limiting offensive power and smaller towns to have a lot more attacks (offensive power). This would simulate the cost real nations have to pay to mobilize a larger force.

Last point, there would also have to be limitations on nation size to prevent exploitation from dividing up into smaller towns.

LMK WHAT YOU THINK GUYS, I KNOW ITS A LOT TO READ!!!

I do feel like something new has to happen because it has become very dry. Moose's idea is 300 IQ. I also support what Red said aswell.

I would also like to add that if you do end up having the temporary protection, make it so you have to pay a fat amount of cash per 24 hours.

 

[Ben]

Offline flagging seems like a bad idea to me and will scare people off the server and/or mean they don't want to put time into building. I don't like Moose's idea tying playtime and claims together as it penalises new players, especially as the new map ages.

After a homeblock is captured I would give access to all claims to the conquering town in a way similar to but less permanent than the historical annexation system; only for a set looting period after which all claims are returned to the original owner and the town made unflaggable for a set period of time while rebuilding. The defeated town should be able to opt out of this grace period if they want to continue fighting or go on the offensive. During the looting period /t spawn and /t outpost commands should be disabled for the looted down during this period to prevent loot smuggling. For ease of the admins/devs this could be done with town perms being forced public rather than any town retaining the claims. This will also encourage pvp as outside groups not involved in the initial attack could turn up and join the fray to try and win some loot.

As I see it, the main thing holding back the player count and preventing people putting serious hours into their building and basework is the risk that a large group can completely and indefinitely lose all of their progress in about 10 minutes if a single member is online and losing a 1v1. This makes flag warfare exiting but is the fundamental reason why siege is more popular.

TLDR: Change the penalty for losing rather than the war mechanics we know and love. Let blockgame players keep their blocks.

 

[Phurry]

so ima lose 4 chunks a day for working and sleeping. nice. civwars