Old World Game Type

[EmperorTrajan]

Alright everyone has been saying things like this, however I saw no post on it in the suggestion forum so I thought I would share my thoughts.

Obviously you guys at Playmesh worked really hard on all the new features and the 3.00.00v update. But as an old valor player I (like many) prefer the old worlds. But I'm not asking for something unreasonable like changing the whole game. I would have to be the most ignorant man on the planet to request that. Instead I say we compromise by adding a new game type. There are standard worlds, and speed worlds. And of course there is the occasional 'Guild World' as well. So I think there should be a new game mode with a few of the old world conditions but with some of the new Trial by Sword additions as well. Here are a few of my ideas.

NEW GAME MODE:

•Infinite number of players
-The quantity of people in old Valor worlds made total victory almost impossible. But now that there is a major population reduction, the game just seems to lose that competitive edge because of lack of enemies.

•Original 'dumb' Barbs
-In original worlds barb and inactive player cities were used solely for farming. And as a general rule, only inexperienced players took barbarian cities. I understand that you are trying to add a challenge to the game, but if you are you make the number of players in this new game mode unlimited. Removing the number of troops in a Barbarian city with help the players develop faster and add back that super competitive edge.

•The Removal of Barb Influence
-In these worlds I would think Barbarian influence would defeat the purpose of adding a different game mode. And so I would suggest the removal of it in that particular game mode.

•25 member guilds
-25 member guild are a favorite setting if mine as in guilds of 25 it is easier to get to know your members. As a guild leader I find it is easier to lead a family or group of friends, than to command a band of strangers. In 60 limit worlds it makes operating extremely hard and so for this game mode I would stress the ability to function. So a 25 member guild limit policy would be ideal as this would aid in the functionality and flexibility of guilds.

•Stress Player Vs Player Action and Discourage Taking Barb cities
-It seems more than ever now that barbarian influence has been added, players don't even bother attacking other players. A friend of mine posted a picture on KaKao of his guild. Each player had over at least 20,000 points and he said he was one of the few in his guild with an academy. If these worlds are to have unlimited players the stakes must be changed as to focus PLAYER attacks. No one is patting you on the back for conquering 50 barbarian cities. Now I'm not criticizing the new update as it added many cool updates. But as this new game mode would be player oriented, I would this it key to shift focus away from the barbs.

•Don't Count Barbs For Victory Conditions
-If there are to be unlimited players in the world, (as seen in prior worlds) to win a Domination Victory (or whatever it's called, I can't remember) a guild should be only have to conquer all Player Cities. Making them attack barbs as well would be a little ridiculous. Now I'm not entirely sure on that rule and if that is already the case forgive me for wasting space.

Those are few necessary conditions I think a new game mode should have. My point is to combine some new features with some of the old features to really make an over all fun experience. But incase this is a stupid idea and it ends up terrible, just make it a game mode. That way if you like worlds like that play it. But if you don't, who cares? I know almost all the old players prefer old Valor, and I seen a few new valor players post ideas similar to 'old' features. So I think instead of trashing the new update like everybody else is saying. We just bring old valor with a few tweaks back as an old timer game mode as to appease everyone's wishes. Now those ideas above aren't set in stone and I think can be bent to a certain extend but I believe firmly that should be added to the game. As a side note I know you guys at Playmesh. Are working hard to make Valor a fun experience for everyone, and so this post might never even be considered due to the fact you all are already working hard to add other aspects to the game. But I beg you all to consider doing this.
As for other Valorians, if you have any thoughts or comments (with in reason) that you would like to add. Please share them below I'd like to hear what everybody thinks.

[KMT]

I agree Emperor and i think it should be done: i am seeing new wars in old semi-inactives worlds among former allies and i think they are fighing there because they do not like features of new worlds.

- influence: i dont play in new worlds so i don't have many infos about them but i check scores after speed worlds end: sometimes i see players with a lot of cities but low score. Are they simply capping barbs sending troops? so no academy and no fights against other players? I played in old worlds were we have not resos boost or truce or prestige and so on. We had to farm to collect resos faster and barbs were really important. In old worlds with gold features i do boost resos and farm. I wonder how much new barbs make people more competitive - i think players are pushed to buy more boost due to lack of barbs to farm. So i agree: no influence in old style worlds
- guilds: i prefer 60 member guilds. More work for crowns but in 25 member worlds i saw more sister guilds than in 60 member worlds. Maybe we can do 45?
- Infinite players: maybe too much, what about old limit of 60K?
- Respawn: not sure about it. unlimited restart gave friends the possibility to give their cities to guildies, staying inactives and be back ingame after a couple of months - at the end a good guild is a group of good friends and everybody has issue in RL. On the other side it can be frustrating for almost winners to see inactives playing again. I have been in both sides: i had to kill more times same players and i helped guildies to be back in game.
- Winning conditions: right now the only way to defeat an enemy in old worlds is to force him to abandon and i like it Again i have been in both sides: i made people to abandon worlds and i have been attacked for long time (but did not quit). Not sure about new winning conditions. There's a thread of people complaining about it because they don't want to cap every single 1k town and i agree with them. Anyway those conditions are related to finite respawn. But winners should not be forced to cap every barb or inactive little citiy
- discouraging taking barb cities: in new worlds players do it because they don't need scholars; in old worlds many players like to cap big barbs because it's easier. I do believe that a cluster of cities is important, i do not like to start wars at the early beginning of a world so i think it's fine to cap barbs but maybe Valor might downgrade to 10k the cities of players who abandoned the world or went inactive for more than 30 days? this should force people to attack active players instead of barbs because they would have no big barbs to take.

[Hiitsmeeeeeee]

I agree, I new worlds are ok, but the old worlds al

[Willia]

I agree with pretty much everything here. The infinite players is not a great idea because I am sure it would require them to redo the coding for closing and opening worlds since I think they are currently based on population limits. Also I think limitless population would result in the world being slow because of too many users.

Next is respawns. Think the old worlds are limitless and that should be changed so a world can be declared done.

Basically for me, the new worlds hold very little interest. I have tried several of them and found they are harder to be competitive in unless you either use lots of gold for resource boosts and que extender or you land in a spot that the majority have not used gold at all or you have a full guild of active members. I liked the old worlds because you did not need to jump in with an active guild, you could build up and earn a position in a guild. New worlds I have found the same problem as starting in an old world. Guilds are filled fast but in first day or two lots of people just go idle but now that limits the entire guilds ability to grow since the new worlds seem to depend on assistance for the first while (influencing barbs that retrain troops). I understand that guilds are a major part of the game and love that part but idle players are also part of the game and a guild should not be punished because some people choose to leave. Probably a little confusing but basically if you are beside a person who buys resource boosts, you will have a very hard time getting troops to clear and influence barbs before they can. In one world I tried, the person beside me had 2 barbs influenced before I could even clear my first. Farming barbs used to be how you got extra resources to build fast and compete with those that get the resource boosts but that no longer is profitable (possible?) in new worlds.

In the long run I prefer the old worlds and will stick with the couple I have left. When they are done for me I will have to see what is available at that time.

[Hiitsmeeeeeee]

Ok, I had a post I had made for 4 hours and all that posted was the part you see above Willis's post. Instead of writing all of it again I would like to go over the 3 most important I had talked about.

1. Scholars- In the old worlds scholars were the most important unit in the game. Players needed a scholar to take any type of city. Now players can easily take barb cities only with berserkers. Many people have +30 cities and aren't even close to an academy. Players only go for an academy when their "useful" buildings are maxed out. Wars are fought without scholars and only involve capturing barb cities and farming the player city. In fact in one world a top player who had over 50 barb cities had their player city was less than 5 minutes away from mine. One of our members insta-scouted him and saw he had no defensive units in his city and a very low level wall. I attacked the city and took it within the hour. The next morning I got a message over Kakao from him. He said I should be banned from the game, he said "How did you take my capital? There is no way to capture a capital city with berserkers. I have sent 10,000 units and the influence wasn't reduced one bit. I would know, I have been playing since world 145. You must be cheating." Those were his exact words he told me, but cleaned up a little bit. He was a top 20 player and he didn't even know how to use scholars. This shows many players don't understand the importance of scholars to the game and focus only on barb cities. The player on player aspect of the game has been reduced significantly because of this.

2. Diplomacy- Back in the old worlds diplomacy was a very important part of the game. Within the first week you would have a general idea of your allies and enemies for the world. You would be able to start building with your allies and creating close ties to as many guilds as possible. Once you found enemies, your close allies would be start picking apart the enemies alliance. Now there are no alliances half the guild profiles say "NO ALLIANCES" exactly like that. The ones that don't say that, half of them don't reply, the other half will refuse. Very few actually accept and they don't stay as allies for long before betraying you. Guild leaders feel they can't trust each other because of the "last guild standing" win condition. They know alliances wont last too long and one guild will have to betray the other at some point.
The new update has stopped allies but not coalitions. In one of my worlds the top guild has 6 sister guilds. Their are only 15 guilds in the world and only 5 are active. The other 2 active guilds are allied against that coalition. The only thing is that it isn't a true alliance, each side is only allied in name, not in action. We have no contact with our other guild and it is the same with the other alliance. We know that we will eventually get into a war with each other, so why work together now? In my other world it may not look like it, but half the guilds are on one side, the other half are on the other. We know it and they know it, but neither side has a common name. Coalitions are still in all the worlds, but are hidden and separated.

3. Veterans- Many of the old valor players are quitting because of the update. As someone posted in the comments to one of the notifications "Many of the top players are complaining about the new worlds. My question is why do they keep playing?" Mostly that is because they are the few veteran players who are still playing the game. Most gave up because they don't understand the new worlds and can't keep up. I feel that way too, I used to be a top player usually leading the #1 or #2 guild. Now I am in the top 100 leading the #5 guild. It may not sound like a big difference, but with only 150 players and 6 active guilds its a big difference. We try and go for scholars and play with a strategy like we used to, and half the scholars in our area are taken by the time we are ready to build berserkers. I am still in contact with most of my guild members and allies from world 56. I talked to 71 of them and nearly all of them quit shortly after they joined one of the new worlds. They all were excited for the update and they quit because of it. 3 of the 71 still play valor and 1 of them is thinking of quitting soon.

Now I understand that many people like these new worlds and I am fine with that. They seem fun and I will get used to them soon enough, but they are nothing compared to the old ones. Don't get me wrong I respect the path Playmesh is taking valor. We are not asking for you to change that direction. All we are asking is for you to preserve the past ideas that made valor great.

[EmperorTrajan]

Beautifully said Hiitsmeeeeee, I completely agree. I believe with the introduction of Barbarian Influence the idea of Player V Player combat has been completely erased. Following up on what Hiitsmeeeeee said, I have attempted joining many of the new worlds myself and are amazed daily at the ignorance of some of the newer players.


In one of my newer worlds a player attempted to capture my city. I let him clear it and laughed as he sent me hate mail on me 'hacking the server' because he attacked every thirty minutes but could figure out how my 'influence' wasn't falling. In the end I just abandoned so his 'influence' aspect would start to work. Personal I completely understand the newer players. I would do the same thing in their shoes. Why would I spend 50,000K of each resource to make 1 scholar. If I can take 5 barbarian cities for free. I understand you attempted to make it difficult to capture a barbarian city without a scholar. But it is difficult, not impossible. And so the newer players don't understand what the point of scholars is. As a matter if fact I can almost guarantee that their is an increased amount of questions in the forum asking what this mysterious 'Loyalty' is. Probably assuming it is just more of this asinine Influence.

PwnLaw you posted a notification that your favorite aspect of the game was the Player V Player combat. And how Valor was one of the most competitive games on the App Store. Also that it would be useful if more Veteran players educated the newer members.

With all due respect…Valor was* the most competitive game on the App Store. To be honest this game was my life if you asked me a few months ago. But now…

I don't mean to be rude or to call you out, but when I read your Notification on
"Farm Players Not Crops"
I could have been enraged more. You stated you favorite* part of Valor was the Player V Player action. Now that we have barbarian influence, there is NO Player V Player action. It is non-existent! And the most competitive part of the game is watching 5-6 people race over a barb city each person wants. I agree with Willa on how originally Barb cities were farmed to help Build* your city. You stated you didn't like building cities and wanted to skip to the action. But the only way to get to the 'action' is to build an academy. And by the focus being shifted to Barbs academies are pointless.


A solution to this issue would be to have older players educate the newer ones into their ways. As an example, a sort of apprentice of mine think that barbarian influence is stupid and that he should focus on an academy to build scholars*. He has NEVER played an old world before! This comes to show that when educated properly, a new player can understand the concept of the game
Player V Player* combat!


This brings me to my next point of how the reason no veteran players are helping new ones are because they DON'T play anymore! I have played since W45 and been in 50 worlds at least, and yet I can't seem to get in contact with any of those people on KaKao. Because they've all decided the new ideals in the game have ruined it. Let me explain a crucial point every person in this thread had attempted to make!

PlayMesh, you have done you job! You have added plenty of new features to an already globally recognized game. But, by adding some of these features you have lead the game astray from it original path. The whole point of Valor used to be:
CONQUER THE WORLD
And now 3/4's of the players don't even understand what an academy is, let alone how to fight another player.


And it is this element that causes guild leaders to completely discard diplomacy. It is virtually gone in the new worlds unless you count the Enemy* relation. This removes multiple KEY elements to the game including but not limited to:

•PLAYER V PLAYER
•CITY PRODUCTION
•DIPLOMACY
•FARMING
•TRUST
•EDUCATION
•COMPETITION

With so many of the things that once made Valor great gone, no wonder so many people left. I refer to the original purpose of this thread. A new game type. This way people could play the way they want to, and PlayMesh can regain its former members.


PlayMesh better give all the Marketing monkeys a major raise. Because they managed to attract so many new players to valor that they hid the fact Valor lost its entire fan base. I'm not sure if a moderator has read this thread, but just make a few old timer valor players happy. Give us our own game mode to hide in.

Thanks in Advance,
EmperorTrajan

[PwnLaw]

I agree Emperor and i think it should be done: i am seeing new wars in old semi-inactives worlds among former allies and i think they are fighing there because they do not like features of new worlds.

- influence: i dont play in new worlds so i don't have many infos about them but i check scores after speed worlds end: sometimes i see players with a lot of cities but low score. Are they simply capping barbs sending troops? so no academy and no fights against other players? I played in old worlds were we have not resos boost or truce or prestige and so on. We had to farm to collect resos faster and barbs were really important. In old worlds with gold features i do boost resos and farm. I wonder how much new barbs make people more competitive - i think players are pushed to buy more boost due to lack of barbs to farm. So i agree: no influence in old style worlds
- guilds: i prefer 60 member guilds. More work for crowns but in 25 member worlds i saw more sister guilds than in 60 member worlds. Maybe we can do 45?
- Infinite players: maybe too much, what about old limit of 60K?
- Respawn: not sure about it. unlimited restart gave friends the possibility to give their cities to guildies, staying inactives and be back ingame after a couple of months - at the end a good guild is a group of good friends and everybody has issue in RL. On the other side it can be frustrating for almost winners to see inactives playing again. I have been in both sides: i had to kill more times same players and i helped guildies to be back in game.
- Winning conditions: right now the only way to defeat an enemy in old worlds is to force him to abandon and i like it Again i have been in both sides: i made people to abandon worlds and i have been attacked for long time (but did not quit). Not sure about new winning conditions. There's a thread of people complaining about it because they don't want to cap every single 1k town and i agree with them. Anyway those conditions are related to finite respawn. But winners should not be forced to cap every barb or inactive little citiy
- discouraging taking barb cities: in new worlds players do it because they don't need scholars; in old worlds many players like to cap big barbs because it's easier. I do believe that a cluster of cities is important, i do not like to start wars at the early beginning of a world so i think it's fine to cap barbs but maybe Valor might downgrade to 10k the cities of players who abandoned the world or went inactive for more than 30 days? this should force people to attack active players instead of barbs because they would have no big barbs to take.

How much have you played the new worlds?

[PwnLaw]

Beautifully said Hiitsmeeeeee, I completely agree. I believe with the introduction of Barbarian Influence the idea of Player V Player combat has been completely erased. Following up on what Hiitsmeeeeee said, I have attempted joining many of the new worlds myself and are amazed daily at the ignorance of some of the newer players.


In one of my newer worlds a player attempted to capture my city. I let him clear it and laughed as he sent me hate mail on me 'hacking the server' because he attacked every thirty minutes but could figure out how my 'influence' wasn't falling. In the end I just abandoned so his 'influence' aspect would start to work. Personal I completely understand the newer players. I would do the same thing in their shoes. Why would I spend 50,000K of each resource to make 1 scholar. If I can take 5 barbarian cities for free. I understand you attempted to make it difficult to capture a barbarian city without a scholar. But it is difficult, not impossible. And so the newer players don't understand what the point of scholars is. As a matter if fact I can almost guarantee that their is an increased amount of questions in the forum asking what this mysterious 'Loyalty' is. Probably assuming it is just more of this asinine Influence.

PwnLaw you posted a notification that your favorite aspect of the game was the Player V Player combat. And how Valor was one of the most competitive games on the App Store. Also that it would be useful if more Veteran players educated the newer members.

With all due respect…Valor was* the most competitive game on the App Store. To be honest this game was my life if you asked me a few months ago. But now…

I don't mean to be rude or to call you out, but when I read your Notification on
"Farm Players Not Crops"
I could have been enraged more. You stated you favorite* part of Valor was the Player V Player action. Now that we have barbarian influence, there is NO Player V Player action. It is non-existent! And the most competitive part of the game is watching 5-6 people race over a barb city each person wants. I agree with Willa on how originally Barb cities were farmed to help Build* your city. You stated you didn't like building cities and wanted to skip to the action. But the only way to get to the 'action' is to build an academy. And by the focus being shifted to Barbs academies are pointless.


A solution to this issue would be to have older players educate the newer ones into their ways. As an example, a sort of apprentice of mine think that barbarian influence is stupid and that he should focus on an academy to build scholars*. He has NEVER played an old world before! This comes to show that when educated properly, a new player can understand the concept of the game
Player V Player* combat!


This brings me to my next point of how the reason no veteran players are helping new ones are because they DON'T play anymore! I have played since W45 and been in 50 worlds at least, and yet I can't seem to get in contact with any of those people on KaKao. Because they've all decided the new ideals in the game have ruined it. Let me explain a crucial point every person in this thread had attempted to make!

PlayMesh, you have done you job! You have added plenty of new features to an already globally recognized game. But, by adding some of these features you have lead the game astray from it original path. The whole point of Valor used to be:
CONQUER THE WORLD
And now 3/4's of the players don't even understand what an academy is, let alone how to fight another player.


And it is this element that causes guild leaders to completely discard diplomacy. It is virtually gone in the new worlds unless you count the Enemy* relation. This removes multiple KEY elements to the game including but not limited to:

•PLAYER V PLAYER
•CITY PRODUCTION
•DIPLOMACY
•FARMING
•TRUST
•EDUCATION
•COMPETITION

With so many of the things that once made Valor great gone, no wonder so many people left. I refer to the original purpose of this thread. A new game type. This way people could play the way they want to, and PlayMesh can regain its former members.


PlayMesh better give all the Marketing monkeys a major raise. Because they managed to attract so many new players to valor that they hid the fact Valor lost its entire fan base. I'm not sure if a moderator has read this thread, but just make a few old timer valor players happy. Give us our own game mode to hide in.

Thanks in Advance,
EmperorTrajan

Emperor -- In the new worlds, player versus player battles are up enormously at all stages versus the old worlds. I understand your viewpoint, but there is no support anywhere in the data for your argument. Players are more active, more aggressive and more dedicated in new worlds. Every possible measurement of player engagement is up.

In new worlds, the first week is dominated by positional play over barbarians (and is deeply player versus player since inactive players are removed as a farm resource). By the end of the first week, many players (including many non-monetizers) have multiple cities in the new world. Compare that to the old worlds, where almost no players have multiple cities. Players leverage these additional cities to make harder pushes in the academy and scholar stage (which occurs at approximately the same time as old worlds). There is typically an extremely competitive period battle from 4-7 weeks and then the world begins to wind down around 10 weeks.

I don't really have an objection regarding having larger worlds (and I'm absolutely willing to look into getting some periodically spun up), but having masses of inactive cities (that people just farm with no interaction versus another player), infinite spawns (ensuring that a world can never end), and removing influence (ensuring that people ignore barbarians outside of resource stockpiles) is unlikely to improve the game. I don't say this from a theoretical perspective.

[Hiitsmeeeeeee]

In new worlds, the first week is dominated by positional play over barbarians (and is deeply player versus player since inactive players are removed as a farm resource). By the end of the first week, many players (including many non-monetizers) have multiple cities in the new world. Compare that to the old worlds, where almost no players have multiple cities. Players leverage these additional cities to make harder pushes in the academy and scholar stage (which occurs at approximately the same time as old worlds). There is typically an extremely competitive period battle from 4-7 weeks and then the world begins to wind down around 10 weeks.

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.

[EmperorTrajan]

PwnLaw I apologize if my last post was rash. But do you understand our thought process. This thread had left its original purpose. It has become a fight over the new update. So I want to redirect it to its original purpose. The new update has added
'Game Modes'
But so far there are only two. And I'm sure you all are thinking about more types of game modes, but let me just ask with in reason. Make a game mode that with be more comfortable to Older Players. I'm not going to tell you how to do your job. But instead can I ask you for a favor to a large number of your fan base, and make a special game mode to help ease the transfer for Older Player to the new worlds. And if you instist on defending Influence. Then at least make it a little harder to take barbarian cities. I think you misunderstand our plight. We appreciate every thing you guys have done for this game. Understand if we post here it's because we love this game and are trying to make it more fun. But as I refer to my previous post, I would insist you at least look in to the possibility of this 'Game Type'
PwnLaw now that you've posted once already I doubt that you will post again. But at least give us the satisfaction of telling us what you are willing to do. Just know many* people are unhappy but are just unwilling to speak their mind. Know that when we speak, we speak for many.
-ET