Age 47 Changes - comments

TBH, its a ridiculous change to bring in, there are currently a fair amount of bugs around which need to be fixed. I agree that thievery needs to be made stronger, but by race and personalities rather than adding more info ops.

Seriously, if every prov has to use up 30%+ stealth on getting info (considering a major increase in TPA/WT amongst the player base) it will really mean that they only get another 60% stealth to cast ops (-10% from being unable to reach 0%) remembering that it was difficult enough to get the info, it'll be even harder to do proper ops with an even higher rate of failure. And in war, if your not a rogue you only get about 72% usable stealth in 24 hrs, take away another 30% because of info gathering and your left with only 42% stealth for damaging ops. Unless they seriously lower the stealth used up in successful and ESPECIALLY failed ops, it's a seriously bad change.

Its more detrimental to thievery than it is to strengthening it, honestly everyone will be forced to use a majority of their stealth to gain info. Looking at A/T's for example it will be more difficult to play especially if they grow, their tpa goes down then they lose thieves on ops causing more of their tpa to drop not to mention deciding whether to build offence or thieves.

Seeing as most people will play hybrids, I wonder if next age people will be playing defensively or offensively in regards to thievery.

Note: Numbers only for a general view (mid-tier kdwise)

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Originally Posted by DeDLySMuRF

Stop being so negative. All you guys know you'll find some other thing to exploit next age anyways. Roll with the punches. Instead of complaining make suggestions that might actually help the game. Such as the exploit I pointed out above.

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dont worry, the top will still be the top,

ive already discussed several possible outcomes of this change and how to best take advantage of it with my co monarch.

dont see why we should then be gagged from speaking out against a pointless and potentially flawed/bugged change.

if you bring in one race and its broken then w/e the server goes on, if we cant get intel or some other horrible issue then thats game over.

if you cant get intel then they just need to tweak the intel difficulty - does'nt sound all that hard really.

doesnt sound all that hard to have a game that ticks, ambushes that work, tactician getting its bonuses, soms that dont show negative army returns, not having draft dispaly bugs.

we have any reason to believe theyll actauly listen when we say we cant get intel?

and you cant just run around saying that CB will be arbitrarily easy and arbitrarily low cost on stealth when in the changes thread it was indicated that it would be approx. as hard to get as CB currently. its a non argument because if so i would say that currently about 20% of my mana in war is used to get CBs (could be more but just for example) now if its supposed to be comparable which we have no reason to presume it isnt given that that is their aim, thats now 20% of my stealth, dont make out that isnt a big deal.

so, the argument is you dont think they can pull it off? i dislike that argument - rather than criticise you should be helping to balance it, or pointing out what areas are of concern - cos if/when it goes ahead (and brian seems adamant it will) it would be better if it went ahead with the support of the community and the minimum of flaws.

For example, instead of being able to use mana and stealth to get intel now you can only use stealth, greatly limiting your stealth pool as compared to previous ages (which in itself isn't really a great argument). Solution: make intel ops easier and/or consume less stealth.

erm i made those points ages ago bishop.

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Originally Posted by Bishop

so, the argument is you dont think they can pull it off? i dislike that argument

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it also doesn't really matter how much you dislike the argument it has been proved a valid one unfortunately.

repeating the same action and expecting a different result - insanity.

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Originally Posted by John Snowstorm

it also doesn't really matter how much you dislike the argument it has been proved a valid one unfortunately.

repeating the same action and expecting a different result - insanity.

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i dislike it because it is fail - working along that logic they should not attempt to do something that they have not done successfully before. Fear should not be a limiting factor in age changes.

So thievery gets changed, big deal - we will adapt and figure out what direction our best advantage lies in - same as we did with land/nw based gains, happiness, boats, science. Utopia is all about change.

There is a whole section devoted to suggestions with millions of threads. This one thread is devoted to something that could destroy our game.
If it goes through, our game is screwed. Not only does it do away with honor from thievery as well as nerfing thief ops, it also screws mage cuz everyone is going to be so busy trying to have enough thieves so they can take intel of all things - not a consideration of the game as far as why people play - that no one will be able to build their wpa. And no one will be able to get intel on the unbreakable thieves .. it will be horrible. People will be quitting in droves. No more unplayable changes. The UD without tog was bad enuff. Made a travesty of our most beloved race.

Please do not move the Cb and CEs over to thievery ops. This just doesnt need to happen. It is a change for the sake of change which makes it a mistake. Please just leave it as it is, and sort out the casting abilities and mechanics of magery so that it a bit more successful as opposed to fizzling which seems to be a common theme, irrespective of sciences and raw wpa etc. The only spell that really seemed to work this age was NM. MS was a chore to get on targets and the normal spells like greed etc were fairly straight forward to stick on. There is still a major issue with the duration of spells, with people getting 5 hour MS etc. Just please dont change the cb and ce over to thievery ops. it will be a huge mistake and then you are also screwing everyone else around, the guys that sort out angel for us and then when pimp and the other pimp like sites that exists, it screws them all up as well.

Just keep the cb and ce as mage ops, and thievery as it is. Theivery is hugely important. Stealth is already an issue as has been stated in wars etc. Just leave it. A change will actually force a huge swing in set ups that will end up being hugely negative on the game. A point was made about newer players etc coming in and being clueless as to how to attack etc, that is just one tiny facet of the knockon effect. So please please please just leave it as is.

Focus on sorting the bugs out, and the general gaming issues. If you really want to change anything in magery then merge the mystic pages. Have it set up like the theivery, where everything is centralised. Everyone would be happy with that. Too many clicks and scrolling around with the layout for the mystics area. centralising that would make a lot of people happy.

Theivery in general, if you seriously want to bring back halfling then you are going to do it but you dont need too. There is nothign wrong with gnome beyond the offensive and defensive numbers of their elites. Give them a 6/5 or 5/6 elite and increase the cost by 100gc to train them. That gives them a more balanced set up against the higher offensive based elites in the game because that is the biggest issue with the gnomes atm...

But again, I will re iterate what is being said by most. Do not change the CB and CE to thievery. The decision to do it doesnt make sense, given the balance of the game that exists already, which is more thievery reliant in general for intel anyway, combined with the HUGE knockon effects to all the gaming tools and the ability to teach people how to play. Just dont do it.

there was an underlying reason for all of those changes bishop

even you cant fabricate a reason for this change.

This change will supposeldy create more bugs...we already have bugs in the game stated by 100 players. Why don't Brian and Sean confirm that they acknowledge this and will try to fix them. Many of these bug are very easy to fix and still they are not fixing them. Are they reading our e mails, our bug reports...we get no feedback and no bugs get fixed almost...state over the age how many bugs fixed. And if you want the game to grow you need to fix the tick,how in hell we gonna get new players who are used to WoW to come and play a text based game that can't tick properly??? And adding new thievery page = more lag!! Where is your logic, if you want them separately so badly then make them on the same page, same with magic. Will be less load time for users.

And before to prevent cb:s only mages and Magic Shiled existed. Well, Mystic Aura too but now you has WT:s and CS. On Sabotage wizards you needed to send lots of thieves to get a decent effect but ET is much easier to cast and has a good effect. I don't understand...will the new halfling race have +5% stealth per hour?

Listen to the community and fix the bugs before you gonna do drastic changes that hasn't been done in 12 years. I will adapt, everyone will but you are just showing that you don't give a rats ass what we write here and that is why this forum is dieing and will continue to die and soon you will have no feedback.

you are failures, you know you are, but you still have time to fix it if you start to listen and get your head out of where you know.

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Originally Posted by Bishop

i dislike it because it is fail - working along that logic they should not attempt to do something that they have not done successfully before. Fear should not be a limiting factor in age changes.

So thievery gets changed, big deal - we will adapt and figure out what direction our best advantage lies in - same as we did with land/nw based gains, happiness, boats, science. Utopia is all about change.

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"Bishop

so, the argument is you dont think they can pull it off? i dislike that argument - rather than criticise you should be helping to balance it, or pointing out what areas are of concern - cos if/when it goes ahead (and brian seems adamant it will) it would be better if it went ahead with the support of the community and the minimum of flaws."

"For example, instead of being able to use mana and stealth to get intel now you can only use stealth, greatly limiting your stealth pool as compared to previous ages (which in itself isn't really a great argument). Solution: make intel ops easier and/or consume less stealth."

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Will they fix it just like they fixed the economy in the UD failed age when half or more of the people playing UD (the most popular race choice) quit because it was unplayable? Becuz UD tog was given at the last moment to the already overpowered elf?

Nothing was done.

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"Solution: make intel ops easier and/or consume less stealth."

Utopia is a complex game - always has been. To make it easier or consume less stealth would remove part of the challenge - part of the complexity. Can you get a cb or som? How much mana or stealth do you have left? If you blow it, will someone come online that can get it for you? Intel is part of the stress that keeps it interesting. Make it easier? Why don't we just push a button and it will be the same as all those no name no brain games out there. People play because it is a great game. To take away the foundation of the game on a whim when so many other real concerns exist is not a good idea.

Undead didnt need ToG, people just wanted a race that could be played in easymode. I don't think ignoring bad suggestions is an issue.

In your second point you complain initially that it will be too hard, but ignore suggestions to make it similarly difficult to what it is now, then you state you don't want it too easy. Which is it? Considering the devs have said, explicitly, that CB will be equivalent to what it is now.

great, just what I always wanted: Another thing to blow up thieves on and another reason not to bother with having too much in the way of a wpa. You want an accurate cb, you're gonna have to send a few k thieves. If you fail, your tpa falls, making the op harder, so you are more likely to lose thieves. At present, I usually succeed about 1 in 2 to 1 in 5 cb's. That is going to <SUCK> if I fail that many thief ops as a straight attacker or A/M. And as a A/T you're gonna have to have a high enough tpa that you don't fail constantly so you can actually use other ops, cos all that intel is coming straight out of your ability to use them (stealth is a finite resource), not to mention the losses intel-gathering now causes affecting their success rate negatively.

Lets face it, if I'm gonna get NM'd, odds are whatever wpa I'm running won't be enough, especially if I have to have enough thieves to still have a tpa after I get intel on all the A/T's that are going to spring up as a result of this change and still be able to attack them occasionally

Grats, Brian. You just killed the A/M and attacker, and took away two of the 4 play-styles in the game.

*facepalms*