Steal resources

[Chris]

-There are several resources (5-8 kinds of resources).
-There is army readiness (increases by 10% each hour, decreases by 10% after each attack, you can attack only if readiness >0).
-When you attack succesfully you steal up to 25% of target player resources.
-You can attack only those within your score range (the lower score targets get reduced max resources stolen to 20%, then 15%, then 10%, then 5% and then to 0%).

What do you think? Do you know of a better way for weaker players to not get crushed (some protections...)?

It is OK for this combat system to be cruel and merciless. The game round lenght would be probably 1-2 weeks.

[AcidicOne]

I cant believe I am suggesting this but why not something Like Evony's storage, basically when you where attacked anything that did not fit in your storage amount was available to be stolen, given that the attackers army could actually carry the resources. So basically each unit would have a carrying capacity, and each resource would have a individual weight. I only suggest this method because having played Evony for a bit, i know as a newer player My resources where always lower then my storage amount due to the fact I was always spending them on something. Only downside for this method would be if your game does not have building that you build and upgrade, but if it does then it would be perfect.

[codestryke]

-There are several resources (5-8 kinds of resources).
-There is army readiness (increases by 10% each hour, decreases by 10% after each attack, you can attack only if readiness >0).
-When you attack succesfully you steal up to 25% of target player resources.
-You can attack only those within your score range (the lower score targets get reduced max resources stolen to 20%, then 15%, then 10%, then 5% and then to 0%).

What do you think?

It's a bad idea, a very bad idea. I used a system like that before and what ends up happening is players will hide themselves within the formula. Decreasing / Increasing attack strength allows players to manipulate the system to there advantage. It also puts those players that casually play at a disadvantage. At some point you'll have to decide if you want to make a game that is about attacking and stealing resources or are you going to make a game that caters to care-bears.

Do you know of a better way for weaker players to not get crushed (some protections...)?

If you want to go the care-bear route you could put the player in protection once he/she has lost x% of there resources in total for that day.

[133794m3r]

Hmm since you said that rounds will only last 1-2 weeks, i'd make it so that players can't attack or be attacked for the first two days or so of their accounts creation. Also i don't think that calling it carebear so to speak to do what code said. You should make it so that someone can't just completely lose everything in one day. This way you don't have FFA pvp which'd restrict your possible playerbase since FFA PVP has a way of deterring players. Controlled pvp though has a chance to remove some of the FFA PVP "HARDCORE PVPERS" but honestly, i doubt they'll outnumber the people who don't want to be ganked over and over from day one and never able to get anywhere in the game.

[jannesiera]

@AcidicOne That's exactly the system travian and tribal wars use. Evony still is a cheap rip off...

[133794m3r]

@AcidicOne That's exactly the system travian and tribal wars use. Evony still is a cheap rip off...

ah i played a tad bit of tribal wars, never did Evony b/c their ads scared me+how their site looked was an immediate no no for me. Also clickjacking on their site since you have to give them some scripting abilities who knows how many things they've recorded from people in the past from bugging their mic to their webcam.

[Chris]

At some point you'll have to decide if you want to make a game that is about attacking and stealing resources or are you going to make a game that caters to care-bears.

Yeah, I know what you mean...
The audience of that game is more vicious than average so I will go for stealing resources part. But, I want to save as many carebears as I can I know I can not save them all, it is not preferable game style for them, but still, I'm not gonna sacriface them without a fight

I used a system like that before and what ends up happening is players will hide themselves within the formula. Decreasing / Increasing attack strength allows players to manipulate the system to there advantage.

There are tricks to avoid this:
- players can not untrain army
- not power is compared by score (which can consist of non combat power assets too, for exaple you get reputation after successful attack which actaully is bad for you since it bumps your score and without any power increase)


I was thinking about these solutions:
- each player has cummulative resources stolen variable, if you attack someone that has stolens less than you you get penalty.
But wouldn't it lead to a stagnant gameplay? Maybe add sopmething like "and the total stolen is reduced by 1% each hour"?

If you want to go the care-bear route you could put the player in protection once he/she has lost x% of there resources in total for that day.

The problem is I do not know what daily production is. (you convert turns to resources, so it could be 0 or zillion...)

I cant believe I am suggesting this

something Like Evony's storage, basically when you where attacked anything that did not fit in your storage amount was available to be stolen, given that the attackers army could actually carry the resources.

Yes... but how exactly balance how much should be allowed to put there? Sounds tricky...
In Trivan/Ebony production is based on buildings so if you have farm level X then you should be using storage level X to protect resources for Y hours. In my game the production is based on population and is very irregular (triggered by player's action, not time).

[AcidicOne]

they may have changed it since i played, but the X amount that was safe was dependent on the "storage" buildings level, the catch with evony if memory serves was that each town had like a building limit based off the population. Meaning each building and upgrade required so many workers, but the town would only support so much population, they catch there is, it was never worth upgrading your keep passed like level 4, and was only worth it during the start, otherwise you demolished it to make room for other buildings, so in essence its basically "carebear" newbie protection for resources.