Old World Game Type

[Elba]

I agree with everybody except PwnLaw. I'm in W60 and a few newer worlds and honestly, the newer ones aren't as fun. I'm not hating on the new worlds, I just prefer the old. I'd love it if there was a old world with new world conditions (last guild standing, 1-5k population) but use old barbs.
Also, it was mentioned that we should mentor younger players. No, I won't. I'm more than happy to offer advice to my fellow guildies and at the same time lie to the enemy in a email. Something like "sorry I launched on your city. It's too late for me too pull back the troops but if you call a truce, it will save you" then I take the city after they fall for it.
My point is, I prefer the old worlds. I learned by losing cities and playing the game. Newer/younger players don't do that. They capture barbs and that's it. I say bring in an option to join a old world not change the whole game.
PwnLaw, please consider what myself and the others are asking.

I merely ask not as a faithful Valorian but as a customer who has paid money and either will or will not continue to do so.

[WardenBubblesX]

I agree with what they are saying, the worlds now seem to have a too simplistic feel. The ideas of scholars and a main city have been trashed because of influence, the challenge of building one city to conquer another has been dumbed down to taking a defenseless village. Barbarian villages were made an an easy access to resources apart from production villages, now, people use it for more points. Some people even neglect to build their main city because of it and instead focus on taking as much tiny cities as possible. I see it as a way of making easy points, but it makes it so that the new players are spoiled with barbarians yet stuck with less than 50 beserkers. Can't you just make a gamemode for the people who want to play valor strategically?

[Rowdy69666]

I have been playing for a long time and I am not hating on these new valor worlds but I do believe u guys at play mesh have missed the mark a bit, from what I have seen these new worlds r all for the ppl that love hunting barbs. I mean when all they have to do to change 1 to a new city is send a nerd there to support ( no fighting no chance of it being defended). It also must be a great way for u guys to make lots of money because the only way to get ahead is spending to buy resources, or u can't get anything done before some1 that has spent starts attacking u. I believe u really need to mesh both old and new worlds together have the new barbs that can be concurred via lowering loyalty with attacks but make it so that's all they can be (barbs) no upgrading them, also have the old style barbs that give ppl a chance to farm with out needing to spend money on resources and make it so u need nerds to concur them same as old worlds. I mean if u r going to make it a game that u must spend on to play competitively charge ppl to download it the first time they upload it onto there device

[McMorris]

In response to PwnLaw:

PwnLaw is that seriously what you think? Even I know that the new style worlds were designed to bring in more money. They didn't improve gameplay. They levelled the playing field for noobs by causing most of the veterans to quit. I joined a new style world and then left shortly after because it was not as fun or hardcore as before. Is that really what the purpose of the new game style was? No it wasn't and that's probably why the new worlds are full of noobs who don't understand the legacy old school Valor built. How hard is it to add an old school mode? Probably not that hard unless you were stupid enough to delete the programming for it. Or maybe it's because you weren't good enough to play old school and that's why you got a job working at Playmesh/Quark Games so you could change it to something you could actually manage. Who knows.

An example of how the new style isn't for everyone. My brother, who never got a real chance at the old worlds absolutely hates the new worlds. From day 1 he has been farmed by other players in one world. No chance to ever build up. In another he gets to 10k then gets attacked by a guild. Three different players attack and the biggest one is a 300k player with one player city built up to 10k and the rest are all barbs. No chance there as well for him. So now he is mad because he is unable to get a real shot at the game. And the guild team work is no good as he never was able to build up enough to even be considered for acceptance into a guild. There goes your improved team work down the drain. Now if he had of had those first couple weeks of grace maybe he would have stood a chance but I guess you would prefer to just crush him and make him want to play one of those pathetic zoo games such as DragonVale where he does have a chance.

Valor is supposed to be a strategy game. Not a race. I didn't start playing to cap (oh wait I mean influence) a bunch of AIs to work for me. No I wanted to knock out a real person and have the pleasure of knowing I just took out someone intelligent who had the capability to fight back. Then when you get to the bigger players having to coordinate with guild mates to take out a bigger target the game gets more crazy, more fun, and more satisfying. Barbs are just a zero challenge addition for the people who can't grasp how to play a strategy game. You're dumbing down the game.

For those of you reading this listen up: if you're not good enough at strategy games to keep up or not willing to learn don't play. All PwnLaw really wants is your credit card to buy gold and boosts so he can keep living his dream as a nobody who gets paid to play a video game.

Here's another thing PwnLaw. You claimed the reason the new barb cities are unable to build every building is because they are primitive. So should they even be able to get the same troops. I mean seriously in real life once people hit the Iron Age and made weapons with metal they weren't considered barbarians anymore. So if you're going to use the same troops they should at least not have as good of stats as troops from you're player city. You can't tell me that you're troops recruited in your civilized city are just as good as a bunch of barbarians.

As for Player to Player battles that has been effectively squashed by your update. Instead we'll just fight over barbs instead because it's easier. If you really wanted to make it PvP you would have just got rid of barbs all together.

Tell me this. Why in the world did you drastically change Valor? The game wasn't broken. People were playing it quite faithfully. SO WHY DID YOU TRY TO IMPROVE IT?? Everyone knows that you don't mess with something that isn't broken.

As for the masses of inactive players that you mentioned that is inevitable in any world. Those will be the people who just tried the game out but didn't like it and quit right away mostly because they wouldn't have a clue of what they were doing. You said earlier that you didn't build a tutorial so that older players could mentor the noobs. Do you really think players will just contact every person around them asking for help? No they won't. Within a guild players will provide the mentorship but not outside. As far as your help section goes it is like reading the dictionary. I could read from cover to cover of a French dictionary. It still wouldn't help me speak or read French. Same with your help section. It just provides definitions for various things. No explanation on how to actually use them.

Nobody said you had to make a million of the old school worlds. Even if you started one every month with like a 100,000 player limit that would keep the veterans playing.

So the long and short of it is get an old school mode in the mix. I've already lost respect for you with that stupid response of yours. You sound like a politician or bureaucrat. If you want to keep your job take heed of the voices of the players. If not I'm sure some other strategy game will replace Valor and that's where all the veterans will be. Including me.

[BANE]

Pros and cons of old and new worlds
NEW WORLD PROS
-People with short attention spans feel special because they are able to get cities early in the game
-You start to feel as if your getting an empire
-Barbs have a purpose besides farming
CONS
-Scholars have no point
-It isn't about strategy it's about how fast you can take barbs and winning comes second to points
-Old world players who focus on city building and academies fall behind the new who race to capture barbs
-Diplomacy has no meaning
-You cannot farm resources
OLD WORLD PROS
-Strategy communication and aliiances hold meaning
-With the little amount of cities you have to be smart and care for your cities
-P vs. P is actually P vs. P not a barb orgy
-People talked in their guild in order to be successful
-you can raid villages for resources
-scholars are actually important
CONS
-You don't feel like a cool kid cuz you have 10,000 barb cities

[BANE]

Pwnlaw there is no pop stage it's just barb v barb with empty alliances, pointless scholars, a disregard for winning replaced by a mad dash for points from barb cities, and the actual cities become just a distraction

[PwnLaw]

It's not just the start of the world, where people focus on barbs it's through out the entire game. Players spend all their time and efforts to capture more barbarians and people forget about fighting each other. I understand what you mean be player versus player, but it is a race not a fight. Occasionally people both attack the same barb, but again it's still a race to be first to capture the city never a fight. What we are talking about is player on player action, we want to get into wars over real cities like before not over barbarian cities.

As you say "and is deeply player versus player since inactive players are removed as a farm resource." Kicking all of the inactives from worlds doesn't add player vs player fighting, it encourages player vs barbs, which in turn limits the competitiveness. At the start of a world there are either 1K or 5K players, with such small worlds there are players nearly everywhere. I felt the pressure to grow my city quickly and the importance of taking barbs. About a week into the world the nearest player is over 2 hours away with knights (much more with scholars) there are only barbs. So I am forced to take barbs since they are the only ones near me. It's not player on player combat, it's just player on barb.

Your next point is how people have multiple cities now. It's always been like that. It may have taken a bit longer but by about a month and a half everyone who actively played would take cities. Everyone in the top 300 would have multiple cities some took strong cities and others took weaker cities, but nearly all of them took player cities. If they didn't take one, their city would be taken, it was take or be taken. That is player on player, not a race to take a neutral city. Since most people only focus on capturing barbs, this kind of combat is rarer to find. Since barb cities are so easy to take and offer no resistance expect a few hundred troops, why waste your time and resources taking a real city? All the players feel this so they don't attack each other until they can't find anyone else to attack. The only way to expand is to attack a player so they have to. People only attack each other now because the are forced to, not because they want to. Player vs player action becomes forced not wanted like you make it sound like it is.

Your next point is not the case in the world I am in and have heard about. New players don't make pushes to academies, they don't see the value in them. To them an academy is just a way to use excess resources or something to build while you sleep. Very few people I know in these worlds actually use the academies anymore. In my first new world I stayed in the Kakao chat room after I quit, its been about 6 weeks and they are the #1 guild. The guild leader asker for their progress to an academy (he was a veteran player also). 3 people out of the coalition of 130 were even going for academies. The rest said "Why should we try to get an academy all it does is wastes resources. You can take 5 barb cities for the same price as 1 scholarship." When the leader asked how they planned on capturing the enemy cities and winning the world, they said "Take their barbs and they will quit. Once they quit their city is off the map and we get more barb cities to take. If they don't quit we can farm them until they finally give up and quit." Is this the goal for valor? Everyone fighting for barbs not for cities. That's how people play now and new players pick up on these ideals. Soon it will just be people farming each others main cities and capturing each others barbs until they quit. I doubt that is how you envision valor to become but that's what is slowly happening.

Again, the data shows far more player on player activity at every stage of a new world. Players compete over barbarians and then use those barbarians to attack lord cities. Player versus player conflict is enormously increased in new worlds. I can understand a preference for a slower game type or a desire to have more access to farm or larger worlds, but an argument that old worlds are more competitive doesn't resonate with me. I'm being blunt here because I want to have this debate (because it's a good one).

Data also does not show a decrease in the instance of academies. There is some delay (because people are devoting early resources to troop building to take out barbarians), but academies as a whole are being built with the same or increased frequency. Moreover, the fact that many smaller worlds are reaching their end game, which can only be accomplished by building an academy and taking out rival guilds, leaves me a bit perplexed by your last point.

It really seems like the heart of your and empire's argument related to the early game and your preference for a more passive farm oriented experience. If my understanding is correct, you use this more quiet period to lay plans on how you would like to initiate hostility 20-35 days into a world. It's sort of like the difference between bullet chess and mail chess (not a perfect analogy, but it has that feel).

[EmperorTrajan]

PwnLaw you are misinterpreting the point that has been stated here time and time again. Many players prefer older settings, and if they don't get their wish…they will leave. All we are asking is for a 'classic' game mode for us to play in. Is that too much to ask for?

[EmperorTrajan]

A Classic Game Mode. Not to reverse the update. You can't convince us to like the new update. Just as we can't convince you to dislike it. So can't you just compromise and make the new game mode?

[BANE]

What the hell is bullet chess