Support ji, whats the goal?

[gerdonat]

It seems to me that support ji quests where created with the goal of people not forming part of a clan, to be able to contribute ji in exchange of money.

Now it seems that the main use is for people to contribute to the same clan with more than 3 alts. We have already a support system for people in other clans, to be able to support the allied clan, but that does half the ji only, right?

What I say, in that case, why dont allow all the alts to join the same clan?

And what happens if I form a clan with alts of Forsaken, they do mostly support quests for the forsaken, and whatever ji I get for my clan (because I can only do 2 support quests at the same time, so some JI is "wasted") I support with my alts clan the forsaken in the remaining cities... so, I could get 75% of the ji I got transfered to the forsaken...

As I said, not sure whats the point of support quests, the population of people that play in no clan, and is not the alt to someone else seems to be 0, just get rid of the restriction of max 3 alts in the same clan, or better, just lower the number of alts allowed.

[Seitaarin]

A couple of ages back, the concept of a 'mercenary' clan arose. Support quests allow you to contract any other clan willing to take payment for rendering their services. This system allows for that as a possibility, there was just no clan created this age to bargain for their services.

There you go, now you know, question answered.

[kaldar]

The system also allows for the possibility of allowing people to have all 6 alts supporting the main clan directly, which specifically goes against any reason for the restriction to be in place in the first place.

[Tim]

The Golden Company tried to be a merc clan this age, but then Hugh went inactive and things kinda petered out.

Anyways, I knew when I added the Support Quest mechanic there would be potential for abuse. It's a new feature this age and I concede that there are some kinks to work out still. That doesn't mean it's going away completely though. Just need to refine things so its not JUST used to feed Ji directly from Support clan to a Main clan. I have some ideas for next version to address this issue some, but I'm not ready to talk about them yet.

[Seitaarin]

I could also offer another thought that would not be overly popular methinks - clans could have a limit of 2 characters per player, rather than 3. There is simply not the population to support big numbers, and I think having more clans for the amount of people compared to the number of cities would just make things a bit more interesting in terms of a political map. It would make character turns, and where they are spent just a little bit more valuable perhaps. Add that to the mix with some rebalancing of support/merc mechanics, and what results could be achieved?

[kaldar]

Your suggestion of limiting characters per clan is good but doesn't go far enough. We need to limit characters per player in general. Hardly anyone plays more than 2-3 characters more than to run turns and farm Ji. It turns the entire game into an exercise in F5 ... or I suppose scripted play of multiple characters.

My point is that your suggestion, as I read it, assumes that just because i'm playing 6 characters, in 3 different clans, doesn't mean they will all be on the same team or going after the same goals. In practice that just doesn't seem to work, and why should it? Before the age began I had talked about playing a single light character in Silver Legion and just realized it wouldn't work ... I wouldn't honestly be able to separate it from my others.

I suggest limiting characters to 2, 3 for donors. Any more than that is just nonsense.

[Tim]

I have 3 characters in 3 different clans, focused on 3 different goals. I've also had both Light and Shadow characters the same age before and while I admit I tended to favor one side over the other, I did have some success keeping things separate.

Each player is different. Just because some players play one way doesn't mean I need to change the game to make all players play that way.

I'm quite happy with the alt limits as they stand. They've worked well for a long time and nothing this age has made me feel differently about it.

[Seitaarin]

Yup Tim, couldn't agree more. For clarification, my above thought was exactly that, just a thought.

I run more than 3 characters, no scripts, nor even use F5. Don't get me wrong, automation is not difficult at all, and could be done I guess ... that is a part of what I do for work, actually ... but this is a game, I play it because I want to play a game - if I scripted it, I'd be gone by the end of the age out of boredom, that's not a challenge on any level.

Separating characters is not simple - or at least not for me. I have a 'main' and then the rest are role specific 'support' characters. That's how I'm wired, couldn't change that if I wanted to. And yet every age I say to myself '3 characters this age, that's it!', and then get started and realise I could do more for my cause, and do it within game guidelines. So I donate, and I do so - because I can and because although it can be frustrating at times it's also my kind of fun, just like it is for some other people.

And in all seriousness, the game absolutely does not need LESS characters in the world. More people, more clans, acting in opposition to each other is what the game needs, and limiting people is just not really going to do that. You want a real solution? Get more people involved, people that have the strength and the will to start their own clan and run in opposition of the current establishment as opposed to just making SL or TF bigger - those clans are big enough by far given the current game population.

[Seitaarin]

I'd also like to point out one more thing on the broader stage, both in response to this and to Kaldar's comments in TAR ... Tim does this in his spare time, and let's be honest here - the donor cash would probably barely buy a few beers at the end of an age. It's easy to get caught up in nitpicking this and that (I know this, and in poking you I have also participated myself, sorry again Tim!), but at the end of the day there is no dev team of paid coders working on this project, so treating GoS as such is not in your best interests, or anyone's ... gotta be a bit real here and be a bit more picky with things that you put forward as broken ... I mean using this particular thread as an example - You have been aware of support mechanics the entire age, and have been equally able to use them yourselves, but you spread yourselves all over the place rather than making a consolidated effort, and now that's come back around to bite you on the ass a couple of times. The mechanics didn't fail you, simply put, your usage of them did.

[gerdonat]

First of all Tim, I think the game has improved a lot in the years past, its really a game with a lot of alternatives, pretty well balanced, and enjoyable.

When I como here adding suggestions, in no means I pretend that everything I say will be translated to the game, I may have 10 ideas to improve the game, and maybe 9 are bad and one is good, but I will post the 10 anyway, because I cannot know before hand which one is the good one. 

With respect to this thread, a couple possible variations to the support thing, is, to be only one active support quest in each city, and if your clan wants the support in that city, needs to outbid the current bidder, that way, the mercenaries have the best deal, and if they are not comfortable supporting certain clan, they can just pass.

Btw, I m totally fine with people that want to use all his 6 chars to support the same goal, and I m not complaining about that. 

Seitaarin, I m really tired of you coming to comment into my posts implying I m crying about game mechanics or how I dont know how to use them, I realized in the other thread that its not worth arguing with you, so this is my final direct response to you, if you want to argue about game mechanics without referencing this age, or my abilities, I can discuss all day long, but wont even consider any other type of posts.

[Seitaarin]

Everything in this post was with reference to this age, and I'm not sure what twisted path of logic you walked to arrive at your conclusion otherwise. You lost Tear, and accusations (or at the very least, insinuations) started getting thrown around about people cheating to gain ji so fast. You lost Shol Arbela and a post pops up 'questioning' the purpose of the very mechanic. A clean and simple answer was given, which was met with what I personally consider a whine post. You have in fact neglected to mention the fact that you have your own alts in this age running in a separate clan and owning cities.

Now near as I can figure, somewhere between maybe 13k and 15k ji was paid for by SL from an alt clan with approx 24k ji, you can do the math there. Your own alt clan has over 43k ji, 100% of which is being invested back into the Shadow in the LB at zero cost to TF at all. You had every opportunity to merc your alt clan exactly the same way, but you didn't, you instead decided to invest your ji broadly rather than in a consolidated fashion, which left you vulnerable in a few places. Your vulnerabilities were taken advantage of to your detriment, and now you are here not just questioning but CHALLENGING the mechanics of the game.

Forest Walkers never advertised their merc services, they never issued a statement about mercing purely for coin, for the highest bidder. In fact, the leader of that clan is a sister-in-law of one of the SL players, and has pledged support for the cause of the Light. In these dark times, being such small fish in a big sea, advertising such hard and fast patriotism can be dangerous, so they quietly went about their way, accepting a humble payment for their services rendered.

I have removed further inflammatory remarks here, but let it be known I am equally tired of your group's (in my opinion) spoiled, unsportsmanlike behaviour. You perhaps don't like being spoken to using plain words, but I have never been one for sugar coating anything to make it taste better, so bad luck. Know that there is no malice intended in any of my posts, and if you are reading it in there then that's on you.

[Tim]

I'll just say no suggest is a bad suggestion. I won't say yes to everything and I don't try to make everyone completely happy, but I listen to every opinion players have because the more input I have, the better decisions I can make about what can be improved in the game. I also don't take suggestions in a vacuum and am aware of how current, in game activities can influence opinions on all sides and like to think I've gotten pretty good at filtering most of that out in my head when I make decisions.

If someone sees something they don't think is working as intended or is being exploited, then please continue to raise those points here. Others are also free to chime in with their own opinions on whether those issues are valid or not. Just everyone try to be respectful in their posts out of respect for the game and the goal of making the game better, even if you don't have respect for the other people making posts. Bickering helps no one. Try not to take any discussions personally, but also try not to MAKE any discussions personal.

[Jenlyn]

But I already made popcorn!

[King Richard]

Dec 13, 2016 9:34:22 GMT -6 Tim said:

I'll just say no suggest is a bad suggestion.

Challenge accepted. >

[kaldar]

We didn't spread ourselves thin by starting a second clan, we followed the rules. And no, we don't have issue with secondary characters and clans supporting the primary. What we do take issue with is the support quest mechanism allowing alts to support primary clans without the 50% penalty that normal support carries.

In other words, support quests should give support to the designated clan, but only half. The only difference being that the support can't be taken back or switched later.

Something like that anyway. Or better yet, why not just let us play all our alts in one clan rather than splitting them up in the first place ... i don't quite see the point