A limit on who can attack who

[Paladin]

In my personal opinion a limit should be placed on how far down a player can attack from their score level. I was just attacked and am about to be conquered by a player with over 200,000 points when I barely have 9000. If this is going to happen everytime I make a city I see no point in continuing to play this game. As such I will be removing Valor from my Kindle and moving on to games where weaker players are not decimated by stronger ones. I know I can't be the only one to feel this way so this is the first and last suggestion I will be making. Please put into practice a limit on how far down players can attack; a weaker player such as myself should not be wiped out by a person with more than 20x my score.

[LordFirefall]

Please name a game that possesses such a limit now.

[Paladin]

Many games with pvp do. Now I can't name one similar to this one off the top of my head but I can name some. Dark Souls' a game on many platforms limits pvp on by percentage of level. It allows a player to attack up as far as wanted but down only by a limited amount. My friend described a game know as War to Victory(an iTouch ww2 based strategy game I believe) to me as having a similar concept. Games do put this type of mechanic in so it does exist. I am simply offering the view of a newer player who got wiped out by a larger one. It is discouraging and does not leave me wanting to play more.

[PwnLaw]

We've designed worlds so everyone starts on equal footing (that's why we shut down access to a world after a few days). Over time, players distinguish themselves by making decisions -- who to ally with, how to build, who to attack. Eventually, certain players grow powerful while others fall back. The players that fall behind can continue to invest time into improving their play in that world, or they can move on to the next world and try and do better. We really enjoy having a game where a player's decisions define their experience and have meaningful consequences attached to them. We also recognize that means some percentage of people would prefer to quit rather than make another attempt. That's unfortunate, but there are any number of games a player can play if they would prefer to focus on clicking rather than engaging in battles where their fate is on the line.

I hope your crops don't spoil.

[Oncecrazy]

Yea those other games are garbage. I have survived because of the people I have met across worlds. Been playing for 3 years+ love it! I have played worlds where I get my ass kicked and others where I have owned! The simple solution join another world world that's the fun part they open every couple days. What you did is the most annoying thing quitting! Or abondened world. Playmesh should ban players for doing this.

[LordFirefall]

I hope your crops don't spoil.

LOL - nailed it in one - this isn't FarmVille

[Paladin]

We've designed worlds so everyone starts on equal footing (that's why we shut down access to a world after a few days). Over time, players distinguish themselves by making decisions -- who to ally with, how to build, who to attack. Eventually, certain players grow powerful while others fall back. The players that fall behind can continue to invest time into improving their play in that world, or they can move on to the next world and try and do better. We really enjoy having a game where a player's decisions define their experience and have meaningful consequences attached to them. We also recognize that means some percentage of people would prefer to quit rather than make another attempt. That's unfortunate, but there are any number of games a player can play if they would prefer to focus on clicking rather than engaging in battles where their fate is on the line.

I hope your crops don't spoil.

If the members of your team are going to respond to my opinions with insults then I have all the confirmation I need that this game is not worth my time. I expressed my opinion calmly and maturely despite my frustration. Since you have not given me the same courtesy I see no reason to continue giving it to you. I hate to break it to you but this game is not that much more advanced or complex than the so called point and click games. The only thing that sets this game apart is the significance of communication. Aside from that it is essentially point and click to build or send troops to a location. Which brings me to my next point: this is a game not "battles where their fate is on the line." What I experienced wasn't a battle anyways it was slaughter. I was part of the Android/Kindle outage and as such upon returning found many cities to have grown far beyond my own. To be fair I do like your game but understand my point of view. I had no chance at all of winning and felt that the only thing I could to was express my opinion to those who could at the very least explain it even if they didn't change it. Instead I was met with rude and insulting responses. I had considered restarting after the initial frustration subsided but to come back and find responses such as this make me question whether I even want to be part of this community.
To those who seem to think that becoming frustrated with this game means I play Farmville or other crap like that I say to you this: Go take your ps3/xbox360/pc if you have one and get Dark Souls. Play that game and then insult me. That game inspires more rage quitting than any other yet I have finished it multiple times without doing so. My frustration stems not from losing but because of how unfair I find my situation to be. I didn't expect there to really be any changes made but I felt this the only course of action that might help me lessen my frustration. Instead I have only had it magnified by the quality of responses. Sorry to those who find me quitting to be disgusting but at least try to understand my point of view. I will probably simply set this game aside until I work up the will to start again. The deleting bit was a product of my initial frustration at being slaughtered. I was never attacking your game until I got hostile responses. I hope your city doesn't fall as mine did.

[JudgeDredge]

I guess I'm one of those type of players that will take out the small ones to get more citys.... Get into an alliance or guild which will let you grow to alllow you to defend yourself, this is a war game. Somebidy has to die otherwise we will all sufer from bordom.
Great reading all comments.
cheers

[PwnLaw]

If the members of your team are going to respond to my opinions with insults then I have all the confirmation I need that this game is not worth my time. I expressed my opinion calmly and maturely despite my frustration. Since you have not given me the same courtesy I see no reason to continue giving it to you. I hate to break it to you but this game is not that much more advanced or complex than the so called point and click games. The only thing that sets this game apart is the significance of communication. Aside from that it is essentially point and click to build or send troops to a location. Which brings me to my next point: this is a game not "battles where their fate is on the line." What I experienced wasn't a battle anyways it was slaughter. I was part of the Android/Kindle outage and as such upon returning found many cities to have grown far beyond my own. To be fair I do like your game but understand my point of view. I had no chance at all of winning and felt that the only thing I could to was express my opinion to those who could at the very least explain it even if they didn't change it. Instead I was met with rude and insulting responses. I had considered restarting after the initial frustration subsided but to come back and find responses such as this make me question whether I even want to be part of this community.
To those who seem to think that becoming frustrated with this game means I play Farmville or other crap like that I say to you this: Go take your ps3/xbox360/pc if you have one and get Dark Souls. Play that game and then insult me. That game inspires more rage quitting than any other yet I have finished it multiple times without doing so. My frustration stems not from losing but because of how unfair I find my situation to be. I didn't expect there to really be any changes made but I felt this the only course of action that might help me lessen my frustration. Instead I have only had it magnified by the quality of responses. Sorry to those who find me quitting to be disgusting but at least try to understand my point of view. I will probably simply set this game aside until I work up the will to start again. The deleting bit was a product of my initial frustration at being slaughtered. I was never attacking your game until I got hostile responses. I hope your city doesn't fall as mine did.

I would agree that your points were well articulated and sensibly presented. The issue is that you take umbrage with the core of our game philosophy: attaching risk to decisions. Nowadays, most games try very hard to minimize the downside risks to decisions -- permadeath is gone, items cannot be lost and progress is preserved at all costs. There are very good business reasons for designing games that way, but we'd prefer to move in a different direction. We want players to know that their choices, and the choices of those around them, will have a very strong impact on their ability to survive and thrive in the game.

Your primary complaint was about the mechanics of the game. Namely, that a person of high power can destroy a person of low power. That dynamic is intentional aspect of the game. The potential for that loss is what causes people to join guilds and work collaboratively. It makes them play with greater thought and devise new strategies. I would agree that there needs to be more differentiation in our space, and I was brought on as game lead to make sure that happens. But here's the thing: I'm going to push competitiveness and risk more, not less. I'm going to bring Valor to the ragged edge of brutality and then we're going to jump off the cliff together in a glorious flaming ball of awesome.

Other games disagree with that approach. They seek to preserve progress at the cost of meaningful consequence. I think that's a design choice they're welcome to make, but it just isn't what you'll find here. The next wave of features will be dedicated to differentiating Valor from other games in the space by significantly increasing the competitive nature of the game. It's going to be a pretty gnarly ride for those inclined to hop on the bull. Probably not for everyone though.

The fact that you're a Dark Souls (agreed, awesome game) player and are irritated by the implication that you might be better off harvesting corn are strong indicators that you're the type of person that normally thrives in the Valor environment. My suspicion is that your primary beef is with losing because you apparently couldn't access the world in order to keep up with your opponents -- that's a legitimate complaint and I sincerely hope you let our support team know about the issue. I don't mind a person quitting because they'd rather not try again after getting decimated. I do mind if a person quits because the game denied them the opportunity to succeed due to down time or glitches. Nothing upsets me more.

So where does that leave us? I'm not sure. If you're quitting because you don't like getting owned, then there's nothing more to be said. If you're rolling out because the Kindle experience was uneven (a fair complaint), then I'd recommend joining another world and bringing the pain. If you've got the stomach for a few rounds of Dark Souls, you'll find Valor is well suited to your tastes.

We could also just wall of text battle each other here as well. It's not as good as Valor, but it's a lot better than clicking cows.

[Paladin]

Honestly I really do enjoy your game and my frustration initially branched from a combination of the fact that I was not only destroyed by a significantly stronger player but that I feel that I never had a chance to keep up with them despite my best effort as a result of an extended period of not being able to log on. By the time I returned many cities had grown and many players expanded their territories. My initial frustration perhaps prevented me from expressing this as clearly as I would have liked. However the more apparent frustration of my last post was due to the quality of responses. Deleting this game over this would be stupid. I will try again and see what happens. I won't bother your support team; I'm sure that they realize the effects the Kindle outage had and I have already caused enough trouble. I must admit that half of the reason for this entire thread was venting my frustration (of course it didn't feel like that at the time). All I did was sort of make an *** of myself and I apologize for that. Thanks for the response though; it has kind of clarified a few things about your game for me so I can be a bit better prepared for this type of thing in the future. Hopefully not just in mind but also in troop and ally count.