Anything interesting happening?

[StratOcastle]

What goes unsaid was when this was going on last age the healthier community didn't resort to the tactic. If that doesn't register then behold the player base. The guys that complain about not being aloud to crap on mechanics are the same that were crying about losing out to SWEA and Jerks.
Besides prettier games coming along did it ever occur to you that people left Utopia because the voices of the top are so negapuss? I already knew about this tactic before age 60 and the BoB vs Rusty war was an ugly thing to see. So guess what smart guys? I helped instead of hurting the game.

[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).

[Palem]

People found loopholes in this game forever and never have they been sanctioned like this before. Its just bad and very wrong. :/

I guess you guys are forgetting about HoDF, who had the devs change the game mechanics on her MID-AGE in order for the rest of the server to be able to screw her over...but hey, let's ignore the fact that previous ownership were complete and utter hypocrites about cheating, the new ownership has always been very firm on the stance that if you abuse mechanics, you will be actioned.

Can someone explain what CR/RBL were actually doing? I gather that they were resetting to funnel extra resources into specific provinces, but what EXACTLY were they doing? What was the supposed "super sick" strategy?

[Zauper]

I guess you guys are forgetting about HoDF, who had the devs change the game mechanics on her MID-AGE in order for the rest of the server to be able to screw her over...but hey, let's ignore the fact that previous ownership were complete and utter hypocrites about cheating, the new ownership has always been very firm on the stance that if you abuse mechanics, you will be actioned.

Can someone explain what CR/RBL were actually doing? I gather that they were resetting to funnel extra resources into specific provinces, but what EXACTLY were they doing? What was the supposed "super sick" strategy?

We took all the oop soldiers/gc on two provinces and aided it over about 10, giving them about +1k ospecs. Not super sick by any means, had we known that we wouldn't have been allowed to reset them, we would have done it anyway and just reverse banked them instead of resetting. (Is reverse banking mechanics abuse because it abuses nw mechanics to get gains?)

RBL doubled 13 provs oop using the military/gc on 12.

[Godly]

I can only speak for CR. We picked 2 provs to aid 1k soldiers to each of our non-tacts to get them to be as pumped as the non-tacts since they dont get the +800 soldier bonus. Nothing major. The devs already coded in something to make this a really bad strategy (takes 24 hrs to reset a prov after aiding and if you reset it's 72 hr protection) so we were already suffering 23 provs vs 25 for 5 real life days.

In addition to this, Bishop, in a war, released all defense on 5 key provs that were pretty much only single tappable and could 4x in return and were destroying them. He also suspended the 2 provs so they cant even train the resources and will be put into war after they come out with no owner, tons of cash, soldiers and no military. He's basically making 7 of our provs into farms -- doing everything in his power to help Pyro win when they already had a huge adv of the code change that wasn't relayed to us in the round changes post.

This entire situation is absurd. If we win this war, Pyro are completely bad at this game.

None of the aiding was the reason why we were winning big. Pyro chose to run no thieves and 4k def on all their provs. The aiding actually hurt us significantly since we didnt even need the extra military. More provs would have done more damage.

[Godly]

Zauper, it probably is abuse (reverse banking) based on the "spirit of the rules" clause. Basically anything other than a strategy that Bishop can come up with before a round strats and have the devs fix is abuse. Except in this case he already caught it LOL and STILL actioned it.

If Bishop wants to reinburse us for the military now and remove them after the war, I'll be fine with it. It's still ridiculous, but at least it isnt chart shaping.

[Godly]

I guess you guys are forgetting about HoDF, who had the devs change the game mechanics on her MID-AGE in order for the rest of the server to be able to screw her over...

Changing the mechanics mid game is fine. Going into a person's prov and selecting what you want to remove from them based on what you find to be reasonable punishment is unprecedented.

[Korp]

What a surprise, Havoc at the center of another game mechanic abuse situation.

Seems rather simple Zauper, if you are unsure about something you can always ask Bishop about it and he can clairfy and you could have avoided the spectacle.

[Godly]

Korp, if Bishop wants to sit down with me and go over the 100 different ways to "abuse mechanics" in the game, I'm here for him. To randomly select one, enact extremely strict and unprecedented punishment on it, and ignore the rest is ridiculous. From all conversations I've had with Bishop that I claim something is imba and should be balanced, he usually just ignores me and says I'm wrong.

[Palem]

We took all the oop soldiers/gc on two provinces and aided it over about 10, giving them about +1k ospecs. Not super sick by any means, had we known that we wouldn't have been allowed to reset them, we would have done it anyway and just reverse banked them instead of resetting. (Is reverse banking mechanics abuse because it abuses nw mechanics to get gains?)

RBL doubled 13 provs oop using the military/gc on 12.

So you turned two of your own provinces into farms, aided out their resources and then reset them?
While I agree that's it's certainly not the worst of offenses (nor did you receive the worst of punishments), you honestly don't see how that's abuse of the reset function? The reset function doesn't exist to be manipulated by the players. It exists as a fair out for people that screwed something up and need to restart their province. This is very different than manipulating your nw to get better gains or declare war. It's very much like abusing VM, which has a very clear intention that is capable of being abused for a kd's gain.

[Zauper]

What a surprise, Havoc at the center of another game mechanic abuse situation.

Seems rather simple Zauper, if you are unsure about something you can always ask Bishop about it and he can clairfy and you could have avoided the spectacle.

The same way he told me that you could never agree to stop hits on any provs during a war, but allowed RBL and AMA to CF last age so AMA could take free cow hits?

[Korp]

The same way he told me that you could never agree to stop hits on any provs during a war, but allowed RBL and AMA to CF last age so AMA could take free cow hits?

The same way he didnt action your kingdom even though he admitted that you abused game mechanics?

[Zauper]

So you turned two of your own provinces into farms, aided out their resources and then reset them?
While I agree that's it's certainly not the worst of offenses (nor did you receive the worst of punishments), you honestly don't see how that's abuse of the reset function? The reset function doesn't exist to be manipulated by the players. It exists as a fair out for people that screwed something up and need to restart their province. This is very different than manipulating your nw to get better gains or declare war. It's very much like abusing VM, which has a very clear intention that is capable of being abused for a kd's gain.

Palem -- the reset function has a cooldown on it so you can't aid out and then reset. We aided out and then reset 24 hours later, per the game mechanics. I don't see how that's an abuse of the reset function since there is an explicit cooldown if you aid. I don't see how it's different from using reset to slay/send dragons, which Bishop said was legit last age. What I take issue with is the lack of clarity -- if we send aid, are we then never allowed to reset those provinces? Clearly I can't reset them when the mechanics allow me to, so when is it ok? Why was it not a problem for me to send aid last age and then abandon? Isn't that the same thing? If there were clarity around this (i.e. 'the mechanic is not enough!') we would have just reverse banked with them until we wanted them to grow. Or is that not allowed, either? Can we change strategies with certain provs partway through the age?

(I'd point out that VM was abused 2 ages ago by Ryan to crown and Bishop didn't care).

I also don't see a real difference between that and abusing NW to farm to 15k honor in 3 days.

Korp -- not only did he not action it, he said there was no problem with it. http://forums.utopia-game.com/showth...-exploit/page2

Would we be actioned if we reset provs that were chained right now? Last age Bishop clearly said it was ok in that thread.

[Korp]

Korp, if Bishop wants to sit down with me and go over the 100 different ways to "abuse mechanics" in the game, I'm here for him. To randomly select one, enact extremely strict and unprecedented punishment on it, and ignore the rest is ridiculous. From all conversations I've had with Bishop that I claim something is imba and should be balanced, he usually just ignores me and says I'm wrong.

Why would he want to do that? Its not in his interest, its in your best interest to know what is right or wrong.

[Godly]

Palem, they already fixed the reset function to prevent this. We fell for it. That should be punishment enough. Not the worst of punishments? Sure, but it's pretty close. We have 2 provs that are completely out of the war and another 5 that have 0 defense. We're fighting them 18 vs 25 for 8k soldiers that were removed anyways. BUT, all of the removed stuff came from defense. Those provs trained defense in protection WELL BEFORE they received aid. My proposal is to give them back the defense and take military from them after the war. Suspending the 2 provs should be sufficient enough. You don't go through people's provs and start changing numbers. Thats absurd.


Korp, Why should we need to ask Bishop if it's ok? HE SAID IT WAS OK.
"Validate for what? Its not a rule violation to respawn." - Bishop last round

If you take a stance on something like this, you are telling people that it is OK to do. You can't change your mind the next round without informing us.

We didn't complain when our plan got foiled by the secret code change. But this? Come on. Everyone here should see this is ridiculous -- going into people's provs right before Pyro waves and releasing defense?? Wtf game are we playing here?