Towns and PP

[Aezreal]

So Discord told me in IRC this is how towns work when you own them (correct me if wrong):


-For each member in town you gain 100 PP.

-When you own a town you start at -2000 PP (if your town has an average of 0 players you get -2000PP/day), if it has 20 people you get 0 PP/day and so on)

-Players are counted every 30 mins, and in the end of the day an average is made and PP is added/removed from the guild's PP bank.


Discussion: So, Discord also said their data says that there's an average of 15 players per town at any given moment. Now when I go to a major town like MK, I hardly ever see more then 5 people, much less consistently.

These numbers seem waaaaay off and in my opinion need balancing. AQ wants to do the MK community project, but if we have to keep farming PP by the thousands in a dailie basis, I srsly can't see how this is possible.

So, do you think a normal town has 15 players in every given moment? or you think these numbers are a bit off and need to be balanced? Discuss.

[ForsakenRankor]

As the owners of Bakti, which is a fairly busy place, I doubt we have 15 in town at anyone time. I can tell you that starting off at -2000 and then counting people in town every 30 minutes and then giving an average of PP at the end of the day is costing us PP. We may have people that run into town, banks stuff or sell stuff, and then run out. They are not there when the "accounting" takes place. Therefore we are not getting the needed PP to Keep the town, if it works as you explained. Unlike other Guilds, we can farm PP everyday but should we have to? We have a busy town...

[Aezreal]

Originally Posted by ForsakenRankor

As the owners of Bakti, which is a fairly busy place, I doubt we have 15 in town at anyone time. I can tell you that starting off at -2000 and then counting people in town every 30 minutes and then giving an average of PP at the end of the day is costing us PP. We may have people that run into town, banks stuff or sell stuff, and then run out. They are not there when the "accounting" takes place. Therefore we are not getting the needed PP to Keep the town, if it works as you explained. Unlike other Guilds, we can farm PP everyday but should we have to? We have a busy town...

Exactly the system is broken and nobody will bother with it if it stays the same way.

[ForsakenRankor]

Originally Posted by Aezreal

Exactly the system is broken and nobody will bother with it if it stays the same way.

Maybe a better way would be to average the activity of the town itself, IE how much foot traffic it gets, how many sales npc vendors get, how many times the crafting tables are used...but then again that opens up the idea of spamming all of that to get PP, so I don't know.

[Sensical]

It sounds like the current system needs to be put on hold for the moment. (you might want to try getting all the keep holding guilds to sign off on a partition, or put a poll up). However I think if it's put on hold, so should the ability to owning a town, other wise its a tad unfair. (imo)

I think maybe making a system were its based off how many people come and go, or how long they stay. so like 1 minute is worth 4pp points or something along thous lines of thinking.

[ID]Grack.

[Aezreal]

I really don't know of a way to change this so it works. But whatever it is, we need it before we can start going for towns.

[Harmon]

Kinda like the idea, so each town needs players.... BUT! the current amount needed is so unrealistic in regards to current population.

i would also like to suggest the player average be split into 2 parts.

1) People in Territory connected to said City, should have a CAP to be met on a daily average for activity.
2) the City's should have a much smaller CAP to be met on a daily average.

so people living in your city, can go to your near by area you control to farm... not be needed to stay in your city borders constantly.... that is a fairly stupid idea, no matter how unrealistic the current averages need to be, or even when lowered.

[serith78]

I really don't like this system of basing PP gain/loss on town population. Most towns in this game don't have much of a sustained population at all, a sustained population of around 5 people tends to be high never mind 15 (especially counting in late NA timezones). Reward for holding a town and encouraging population should be taxes from vendors and/or extraction appliances, aka based on activity.

This is positive reinforcement and it's far better IMO then the negative reinforcement this game already has far too much of. Rewarding players in money/resources for having an active town under control I think is far better then forcing them to have a certain population threshold in town or lose PP.

[Kuroi]

Originally Posted by serith78

Most towns in this game don't have much of a sustained population at all, a sustained population of around 5 people tends to be high never mind 15 (especially counting in late NA timezones). .

time for the town controllers to make their town desiderable... as AQ tried to do with Morin Khur. they can't just hope that people will come into their town all of suddenly


---------------
talking about control points (CP) i don't understand how AQ could go to 4k+ CP from 10k+ in so little time how do you lose CP that fast?

[Aezreal]

Originally Posted by Kuroi

time for the town controllers to make their town desiderable... as AQ tried to do with Morin Khur. they can't just hope that people will come into their town all of suddenly


---------------
talking about control points (CP) i don't understand how AQ could go to 4k+ CP from 10k+ in so little time how do you lose CP that fast?

It's bugged, That's PP, and we've been spending it like crazy on various things.
We like spending some monehs on them bling blings.
But yeah, I guess we need to get some more soon. lol

[Kuroi]

Originally Posted by Aezreal

It's bugged, That's PP, and we've been spending it like crazy on various things.
We like spending some monehs on them bling blings.
But yeah, I guess we need to get some more soon. lol

you sure? i mean the "Guilds By Control Points" table in the database, you say they are prominence points instead? o.o

[HrdkrH4x0r]

Moh Ki was costing us ridiculous amounts of PP/day, not only because of the high expectations/flawed measuring of the current town-ownership system, but also because WSX pretty much got up and left once we took over. Average Moh-Ki pop was 1, at best.

[Aezreal]

Originally Posted by Kuroi

you sure? i mean the "Guilds By Control Points" table in the database, you say they are prominence points instead? o.o

Yes, it's prominence, you don't loose CP like that. Learn how the system works first plz, it;s hard to explain it like this.

[Kuroi]

Originally Posted by Aezreal

Yes, it's prominence, you don't loose CP like that. Learn how the system works first plz, it;s hard to explain it like this.

mmh yea i read the territory and prominence guide, that's why i was wondering how could you lose c.points so fast... i'll take a read again perhaps. still i don't get why they are listed as control points if they are prominence ones ._.

[Mycke]

Originally Posted by Aezreal

So Discord told me in IRC this is how towns work when you own them (correct me if wrong):


-For each member in town you gain 200 PP.

-When you own a town you start at -2000 PP (if your town has an average of 0 players you get -2000PP/day), if it has 20 people you get 0 PP/day and so on)

-Players are counted every 30 mins, and in the end of the day an average is made and PP is added/removed from the guild's PP bank.


Discussion: So, Discord also said their data says that there's an average of 15 players per town at any given moment. Now when I go to a major town like MK, I hardly ever see more then 5 people, much less consistently.

These numbers seem waaaaay off and in my opinion need balancing. AQ wants to do the MK community project, but if we have to keep farming PP by the thousands in a dailie basis, I srsly can't see how this is possible.

So, do you think a normal town has 15 players in every given moment? or you think these numbers are a bit off and need to be balanced? Discuss.

Isnt 200pp per person then making it 10 people to = 2000 and not 20?


Not saying the current system is good just saying I see a math error somewhere...

[eldrath]

Originally Posted by HrdkrH4x0r

Moh Ki was costing us ridiculous amounts of PP/day, not only because of the high expectations/flawed measuring of the current town-ownership system, but also because WSX pretty much got up and left once we took over. Average Moh-Ki pop was 1, at best.

Sounds like the system is working as intended in this case. You take over a town, piss off the people who trade/farm there and it costs you PP!

Now, i don`t have any insight into the working of TC, but i guess the numbers need to be recalculated. Don`t get me wrong, if you take over a town and people leave you should be punished accordingly.
It should not be easy to take over a town and it should not be profitable from the start. This would encourage guilds to take over citys in an thoughful way, like AQ did with MK.

True, it didn`t work out but next time it happens I`ll think about moving back there, because the system they proposed seems rather interesting!

I would propose another system, which works on citizenship rules. People who live in a city are able to put down a vote for the controlling guild and will be considered a citizen of that city. Now this could be exploited by creating trial accounts and signing them up and thus driving the citizenships up without any real population.

Maybe the best way to controll citizenship is to look at the trade a character does in town, this could be tracked alongside with taxes. That would solve the problem of afking in the town, because you don`t need to be in town to give PP but just head there to trade and the server will acknowledge your citizenship.

Balancing would be tough, but give it a little thought and tell me what you think!

Eldrath


edit: I did a headcount in Fabernum and couted 7 people inside the city and about 4-6 outside, who were woodcutting, mining and running around in fancy scale armor.

[princereaper]

When moh ki went red and fear was chased out. There was only 6-10 prae in town for like 4 days, we liked the town being red, shame it only lasted like 4 days before wessex moved back and put the guard zone back

[arfus1]

As Rankor was saying Bakti is a busy Village by MO standards but we are bleeding badly since this system was introduced i think the numbers need to be adjusted at least until the server population gets higher .
And agreed there should be a punishment if a guild chases everyone out of town


Im not clear on the numbers but having a look at what Frontal was told it may be as simple as reducing the starting margin to -1000 or - 500 i will have to watch how much we are losing on a daily basis to be able to quote better figures .

[Scarecrovv]

This needs to be changed immediately

[Raknar]

Originally Posted by Aezreal

I really don't know of a way to change this so it works. But whatever it is, we need it before we can start going for towns.

1) Measuring activity based on number of people in town needs to go.

Proper activity should be measured by NPC transactions, crafting of weapons, armors. Extracting materials from butcher tables, kilns, furnaces, etc.

Measuring activity by people standing in town is a bad idea at several levels, it will encourage people afking and macroin in town just for the sake of it. Worse of all it will screw up statistics as once the system is changed and the encouragement for being AFK / macroing is gone the numbers of players in town drop dramatically.

SV is rendering its own statistics useless by encouraging players to fake activity. Although this can be useful if you want to do a marketing presentation it is extremely counter-productive if you want to analyse what towns attract the most costumers and why.

2) Tying town control to PPs need to go.

Rewards to guilds controlling the town should be economic reward and not on e-viagra to show off in the killboard. The current system is particularly bad because it encourages all towns to stay blue. Even if a guild does not particularly care about their e-peen size on the leaderboard the fact is if they do not farm for PP they cannot control the town itself since you lose control if you reach 0 PP and the town is generating negative PP.

Looking at the damn leaderboard the fact that there are 2 guilds without keeps on the top 5 shows that there is something wrong with the system already.

The town control system as it is seems targeted to guilds that are PvE based and PP farmers. These are not the kind of guilds that want to make a town unguarded. Also guilds with no connection to territory control have no way of losing PP with the exception of destroying the guild that is why there are 2 of them in the top 5. Speaking for Manu Bellator is not like we spend most of our time farming these days and we still have quite a pool of PP that has no use at all for us.

Currently the "freedom to do what you want in your territory" is theoritical only. We want to see it in practise.

[Aezreal]

Originally Posted by Mycke

Isnt 200pp per person then making it 10 people to = 2000 and not 20?


Not saying the current system is good just saying I see a math error somewhere...

corrected. It was 4 AM when I did that wasn't really thinking.

[Henrik Nystrom]

Good feedback, like we mentioned, we planned to make it a task to control a city, and changing rules etc would cost you some points, also to promote that you may want to work to get people to live there, supporting your supplies etc.

However, since each city variate a lot on population at the time, we can agree that we need to lower the negative starting value a bit, which we are doing now.

[bbihah]

Excuse me but wouldnt it be better to have the system count amount of people that have entered the town since the last round?

Say when someone enters a town they are *Bound* to that town so when they enter another town within a round you will then be *Bound* to that town instead but you can still leave the town to do things just outside of your town but still contribute to the town pp.

Wouldn't that work better than the system we have now? This would surely represent the active populace and "tourism"/trade a town has and not punishing people that want to base out of a town but still do stuff like hunting.

If say Herr Henrik entered Mohki to sell some carcass to a butcher this is at the beginning of a round so he will be contributing towards the PP gain of that round.
This one Henrik person then leaves the town to go gather some more carcass, he figures he wants to grab some shore prowler carcass down in the jungle. While on his way down he contributes to the round he joined in on when he went inside to give the butcher the carcass but while down in the jungle, hunting he misses out on one of the rounds but then returns to bakti to join in on the following round after that.

This would in my oppinion be the best way to count the amount of activity in a town, However i think people that are exiled or at war with the owners should not be bound to the city as in case of a non guarded city raid they shouldn't contribute to the owners PP....


PS, Merry christmas and a happy new year guys. Leaving home to the most awesome part of Sweden over christmas. Ill be back soon ^^ No computer over there im afraid

[Aezreal]

Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom

Good feedback, like we mentioned, we planned to make it a task to control a city, and changing rules etc would cost you some points, also to promote that you may want to work to get people to live there, supporting your supplies etc.

However, since each city variate a lot on population at the time, we can agree that we need to lower the negative starting value a bit, which we are doing now.

Reducing the numbers and not changing how the system works, won't cut it.

Towns are currently not that useful, sure you craft something you refine something, but most of the time they are 10 minute re-gear spots, where people get in and get out, making the 30 min timer obsolete.

Either change the system or I doubt anyone will bother with this.

[Alfie]

Originally Posted by bbihah

Excuse me but wouldnt it be better to have the system count amount of people that have entered the town since the last round?

Say when someone enters a town they are *Bound* to that town so when they enter another town within a round you will then be *Bound* to that town instead but you can still leave the town to do things just outside of your town but still contribute to the town pp.

Wouldn't that work better than the system we have now? This would surely represent the active populace and "tourism"/trade a town has and not punishing people that want to base out of a town but still do stuff like hunting.

If say Herr Henrik entered Mohki to sell some carcass to a butcher this is at the beginning of a round so he will be contributing towards the PP gain of that round.
This one Henrik person then leaves the town to go gather some more carcass, he figures he wants to grab some shore prowler carcass down in the jungle. While on his way down he contributes to the round he joined in on when he went inside to give the butcher the carcass but while down in the jungle, hunting he misses out on one of the rounds but then returns to bakti to join in on the following round after that.

This would in my oppinion be the best way to count the amount of activity in a town, However i think people that are exiled or at war with the owners should not be bound to the city as in case of a non guarded city raid they shouldn't contribute to the owners PP....


PS, Merry christmas and a happy new year guys. Leaving home to the most awesome part of Sweden over christmas. Ill be back soon ^^ No computer over there im afraid

I agree with the whole bound idea. Seems like an easier enough way to do it with a game mechanic. You can count people inside a town at that point, so just make it so anyone who goes into a town gets labelled with that town, and keep counting them on the counts till they go to another town.

Maybe not the most greatest system ever but would imo balance the current one. If we have Citizens of MK, they may live there but they're not on 24/7 and there around and about MK all the time, but they are still MK citizens, so realistically, they should still be counted imo.

[Cola]

It should simply check how many different characters entered and left a town during like 30 minutes and contribute PP based on that value.

[Raknar]

Originally Posted by bbihah

Excuse me but wouldnt it be better to have the system count amount of people that have entered the town since the last round?

Although not perfect it would surely be an improvement from what we currently have.

[ForsakenRankor]

Originally Posted by Alfie

I agree with the whole bound idea. Seems like an easier enough way to do it with a game mechanic. You can count people inside a town at that point, so just make it so anyone who goes into a town gets labelled with that town, and keep counting them on the counts till they go to another town.

Maybe not the most greatest system ever but would imo balance the current one. If we have Citizens of MK, they may live there but they're not on 24/7 and there around and about MK all the time, but they are still MK citizens, so realistically, they should still be counted imo.

/signed.

This IS how it should work.

[Scarecrovv]

Originally Posted by Alfie

I agree with the whole bound idea. Seems like an easier enough way to do it with a game mechanic. You can count people inside a town at that point, so just make it so anyone who goes into a town gets labelled with that town, and keep counting them on the counts till they go to another town.

Maybe not the most greatest system ever but would imo balance the current one. If we have Citizens of MK, they may live there but they're not on 24/7 and there around and about MK all the time, but they are still MK citizens, so realistically, they should still be counted imo.

/this

I don't normally agree with ducks, but when I do. I /this

[BasilTeshi]

Active use of town facilities should be what is counted.

Are people actively using the banker?

Craft tables?

Buying and selling from NPCs?

Trading with others while inside borders (this isnt directly using the town facilities, but the town is facilitating active trade)


Who cares how many people stand there, or how many alts we have 'binding' to a town. It's about usage.

The idea was already mentioned before, but it is the only one that really matters.

[Cola]

BasilTeshi your idea is not very well thought.
If that's what counts, guilds will mass produce cheap robes and get thousands of PP's.
It's unnecessary to implement a complicated system which keeps track of WHAT exactly is produced and give PP on that factor since there are better ideas, like mine.

[Scarecrovv]

Originally Posted by BasilTeshi

Active use of town facilities should be what is counted.

Are people actively using the banker?

Craft tables?

Buying and selling from NPCs?

Trading with others while inside borders (this isnt directly using the town facilities, but the town is facilitating active trade)


Who cares how many people stand there, or how many alts we have 'binding' to a town. It's about usage.

The idea was already mentioned before, but it is the only one that really matters.

This suggestion doesn't give the same incentive to help newbies / help the newbie population in your city, but rather let's the rich / active vets drive this PP gain.

[BasilTeshi]

Why not? New people constantly and actively use town facilities?

[ForsakenRankor]

Originally Posted by BasilTeshi

Active use of town facilities should be what is counted.

Are people actively using the banker?

Craft tables?

Buying and selling from NPCs?

Trading with others while inside borders (this isnt directly using the town facilities, but the town is facilitating active trade)


Who cares how many people stand there, or how many alts we have 'binding' to a town. It's about usage.

The idea was already mentioned before, but it is the only one that really matters.

While I agree that usage should be used in the calculations, this method can be abused. I could open and shut the banker all day long and not actually "do" anything for example.....I could even do it while not sitting in front of my pc.

[Raknar]

Originally Posted by ForsakenRankor

While I agree that usage should be used in the calculations, this method can be abused. I could open and shut the banker all day long and not actually "do" anything for example.....I could even do it while not sitting in front of my pc.

Using the banker is not the best of ideas. It must be something that matters and has some costs. For example, sure you can abuse the system by crafting crap armor all day but still it costs you materials so it is not "free" PP.

You can't also fake extraction of materials. They have to come from somewhere after all.

[illuminati1]

I'm pretty sure the system is already in place to track everyone's time in a particular town. We know this because you get a message every time you enter or leave a guard zone. Just need to save those times and places and have the chronicles database query them every thirty minutes

[ForsakenRankor]

Originally Posted by Raknar

Using the banker is not the best of ideas. It must be something that matters and has some costs. For example, sure you can abuse the system by crafting crap armor all day but still it costs you materials so it is not "free" PP.

You can't also fake extraction of materials. They have to come from somewhere after all.

Mine was just an easy example. But even at the cost of "gathering" I could still spam a glove quite easily.

[Raknar]

Originally Posted by ForsakenRankor

Mine was just an easy example. But even at the cost of "gathering" I could still spam a glove quite easily.

Yes, thats why I prefer ditching the whole idea as it is implemented and just put the rewards based on economic gains via taxes out of the NPC vendors when buying and/or selling stuff. We can agree that generally speaking the more active a town the more the vendors are put to use (to sell butchery proceeds, to aquire bandages, arrows, etc.)

Supposedely alot of time and effort already went into balancing the value of items when exchanging them for money so all this time and effort SV is putting to balance things around PP would not be needed.

[eldrath]

Well, since no one replied to my post, my idea seems to be rejected.

bbihahs idea combined with citizenship would be the best solution to the problem. It wouldn`t be necessary to create an extra guild for citizens, they just register at the magistrate - no strings attached!

The only problem with bbihahs idea are the crafters. Even if someone plays full time as a crafter, he rarely leaves the city. Thus no PP for the controlling guild, but if the crafter is registered as a citizen he`ll count as if he walked in and out of the gate.

To sum it up, every player who passes the citys entrances counts towards the population. Every player who signs up as a citizen is registered the same way it currently happens, and maybe give an extra bonus. It should be rewarded if a controlling guild helps the local community and lots of players sign up as citizens to support their current ruler!

Please give feedback, even if its negative. I don`t like to "talk" to a wall...

[ForsakenRankor]

Originally Posted by eldrath

Well, since no one replied to my post, my idea seems to be rejected.

bbihahs idea combined with citizenship would be the best solution to the problem. It wouldn`t be necessary to create an extra guild for citizens, they just register at the magistrate - no strings attached!

The only problem with bbihahs idea are the crafters. Even if someone plays full time as a crafter, he rarely leaves the city. Thus no PP for the controlling guild, but if the crafter is registered as a citizen he`ll count as if he walked in and out of the gate.

To sum it up, every player who passes the citys entrances counts towards the population. Every player who signs up as a citizen is registered the same way it currently happens, and maybe give an extra bonus. It should be rewarded if a controlling guild helps the local community and lots of players sign up as citizens to support their current ruler!

Please give feedback, even if its negative. I don`t like to "talk" to a wall...

Just because someone didn't quote you does not mean your not part of the conversation. Feel better now?