Originally Posted by
Zauper
Sending aid and deleting (or now, resetting) has been in the game forever. It's an expected action for someone to take when they're quitting (or changing what they want to play). Bishop has now decided that sending aid is a hostile action for the purpose of those (and I suspect VM as well).
Last age it was not abuse of resetting to do it to fund/slay dragons though, interestingly.
I think that the issue we have is that Bishop implemented a mechanic so that resetting couldn't be abused (without announcing it), but then decided that resetting STILL constituted abuse, in spite of the mechanic he put in place to balance it. That's the issue. If there wasn't a mechanic in place to balance it (no 24h window before you can reset after sending aid), you could argue it was abusing a game mechanic. The issue is that a mechanic was designed specifically to prevent abuse, and they just decided that it still constituted abuse.
If resetting is the problem, why not remove resetting? Aid can't be the problem, people send aid then reset or abandon all the time. (Bishop didn't action me last age when snaggletooth sent ~2mil gc and some soldiers in aid and then abandoned!)
It's the lack of consistency. Some game mechanics are 'ok' to abuse (mass sending soldiers to win provnw [this is legal so long as you don't use vacation, which is an interesting difference], hiding in vacation to win provland) as some examples in the last few ages. Or dropping NW to declare war, dropping NW to get better gains -- those are not only ok, but encouraged game mechanics for us to abuse. What exactly distinguishes abusing NW mechanics from abusing reset mechanics? Honestly, what is the difference between what Bishop said was ok last age (resetting crappy provs to get stronger provs during war) and what we did (resetting crappy provs to get stronger provs)?
Will we be actioned for homes pumping? What about soldier swapping, is that an abuse of EOW mechanics?
Here's another example -- Two or three ages ago, I asked Bishop about cow NAPs in war. He told me that if you agreed to a cow NAP before a war began, it would be ok (agreeing not to hit certain provs) -- this was when strippers / pew2 were warring with one agreed, but if you agreed to one during the war, it would not be. The age before he had actioned strippers for making a similar deal, and the two ages later he would have no problem with a full CF agreed to during war between RBL/AMA except for some agreed hits before WD -- something that I have been told a number of times would explicitly be FW, and thus actionable (because it extends war protection to allow folks to train safely).