I would like to start my response by stating some facts. Lords and Ladies, I remind you that Stormfall is a free-to play game. 

In the free-to-play model certain features within the game must have a cost value because developers must make profit to keep the game running and growing.  

At the same we have made it possible for the players to earn their way up and unlock features at a slower pace for free. It may be time consuming but it is a perfectly viable way to play the game. If you feel like paying for your progress, the game is not stopping you, if you don't believe in paying for a free-to-play game, don't pay. We are not going to make apologetic statements for making some aspects of the game available for real world money. 

Now, to the questions: 

Can we get a sneak peak at how it looks at lvl 20? 

No, unfortunately. Your league will need to upgrade the fortress or to find a 20 level fortress on the map to see how it looks. 

So at what level will league members have an active Upgrade button?

Anyone with a permission from the League Marshal can upgrade the Fortress.

So the fortresses do not have any defense bonus themselves? 

No, they don't have defense bonuses. Use your units only to defend them.

Where do I go to see the strength of defense at the fortress?

The Garrisons tab shows all the Units stationed in your Fortress.

Once the fortress reaches milestone (5) or (8) and they stop there, it can't be downgraded, right?

Yes, that is correct. It's for you to decide what to do with the fortress and whether to keep your units there or not. But keep in mind that a fully upgraded fortress provides much more bigger bonuses than low level one. 

If any further concerns come up, please check the new Wiki article with a detailed explanation of how Fortresses work!  If this article does not have what you need, please inform me on this topic.

I am currently giving the article more in-depth information.

Lord Oberon said:

I would like to start my response by stating some facts. Lords and Ladies, I remind you that Stormfall is a free-to play game. 

In the free-to-play model certain features within the game must have a cost value because developers must make profit to keep the game running and growing.  

At the same we have made it possible for the players to earn their way up and unlock features at a slower pace for free. It may be time consuming but it is a perfectly viable way to play the game. If you feel like paying for your progress, the game is not stopping you, if you don't believe in paying for a free-to-play game, don't pay. We are not going to make apologetic statements for making some aspects of the game available for real world money. 

Don't think the majority of the players fail to understand that as a f2p game, there need to be some way of monetizing to fund the game. But at same time, such a game, need to have a proper "grind" aspect, so players that doesn't spend, or doesn't spend as much, can compensate with grind. With most mmo's, the more you grind the longer you stay logged into the game.The longer you stay logged into the game, the greater the chance of run into other more paying players and add to give them content.  

Grind in this game is basicaly, do your 10 raids a day, add more units to queue. Sacrifice units to the BG monster every month or so (deppending on what level they are). So we don't have any grinding really, we got waiting, and more waiting, and even a bit more waiting. Which is not good gameplay, and it doesn't encourage spending habits either. 

Way back when I used to play Conan and you could build a guild fortress/town. Your guild members had to active gather materials to make it happen, it was a joint effort to put it up and make it happen. It gave a goal for a guild to work towards to make happen, and the sense of achievement once it was done make the players feel good about what they completed. Things like this is what you really should look into make happen. Give us things to do together as a league. Goals to aim for and achievements to make happen, that doesn't have a heavy influence from sapphires.

In any case this topic is about Fortresses not about the free-to-play model. Fortresses is exactly the thing to do together as a league. 

Before Fortresses there were some minor leagues that didn't have their own Beacon. Now, there is a personal beacon for every league, even very small ones. 

Make it a challenge for your league to upgrade your Fortress to the maximum extent possible and to protect it form your enemies.  

SlopranoDark said:

If any further concerns come up, please check the new Wiki article with a detailed explanation of how Fortresses work!  If this article does not have what you need, please inform me on this topic.

I am currently giving the article more in-depth information.

Very good, Lord SLOPRANODARK. You can look through this thread and add the answers to the questions raised here to your article. 

I think Fortresses are a good addition. Better than good actually. And i think any reasonable person understands why the cash option is there. Plarium has to make money, this is a business after all. But i see room for some fine tuning.  For example, i would like to see extra milestone levels added. Perhaps at 12, and then at 16, or even just at 15 so the hard work a league puts into it is not utterly destroyed if they should suddenly find themselfs targeted. It would be a pretty heavy hit if a league almost at lvl 20, suddenly found themselfs back to lvl8. That would be reason for many to just rage quit. I think most of the negativity comes from the fact that people who cannot spend such fortunes in sapphires cannot see a way to contribute to the leveling of their fortress. Yes, you can gain tomes from league quests, but those are shared by all, coiners and non coiners alike. What is missing is a way for non coiners to turn resources into tomes, and that could be easily achieved, either by directly donating to the fortress just like any beacon, or by for example allowing the Altar of Mara to convert resources/amulets into tomes. That way each individual player could participate and feel they are getting somewhere. Those are simple things to implement, and hopefully they will get looked at by Plarium, if people are vocal about getting them in the game.

And finally, for those small leagues without beacons, perhaps it would be nice if the fortress actually worked just like a beacon on steroids, that it got attacked by Balur, and in turn received Dark Essence to distribute to its members. 

Lord Oberon said:

In any case this topic is about Fortresses not about the free-to-play model. Fortresses is exactly the thing to do together as a league. 

Before Fortresses there were some minor leagues that didn't have their own Beacon. Now, there is a personal beacon for every league, even very small ones. 

Make it a challenge for your league to upgrade your Fortress to the maximum extent possible and to protect it form your enemies.  

You say "their personal beacon" !!!! WITH NO DEFENSE BONUS !!!! A "bit" of imbalance there don't you say???

The Garrisons tab shows all the Units stationed in your Fortress.

Stop insulting our intelligence!!!!! 

Stop making excuses for fails in development and feature planning!!!

Do you expect us to go and manually calculate defense for each player???!!!!!! Do you think that we know the level of all the Lost arts for all members?!?!?!?

No, unfortunately. Your league will need to upgrade the fortress or to find a 20 level fortress on the map to see how it looks. 

I bet we got this answer cause PLARIUM designers have not designed it yet!!!

Another thing pointing that this game has very poor project planning team!

I will not talk now about things that do not work as they should.... hamlets...

IF I GOT A TEAM LIKE THAT IN MY COMPANY ..... I WOULD LET GO ALL OF THEM 

Determining defense at the fortress

Leagues typically use the number of defense points per player at beacons to determine members rank, or how to apportion dark energy; it indicates who is contributing, and whether your strategic buildings are adequately secured. 

Because the fortress is a strategic building (our own personal beacons, as you say), it must be possible to evaluate its defense, and members contributions to that defense at a glance as you would for a beacon.  

Ideally this information should be displayed along side the defense for the beacons (Players total defense, Beacon defense, fortress defense, total contributed defense).

The garrison view is not a practical alternative.  (Frankly, this is precisely why it is possible to see defense points per player for beacons at the embassy).

This is a serious flaw, and it needs to be addressed urgently.

zapelo said:

Lord Oberon said:

In any case this topic is about Fortresses not about the free-to-play model. Fortresses is exactly the thing to do together as a league. 

Before Fortresses there were some minor leagues that didn't have their own Beacon. Now, there is a personal beacon for every league, even very small ones. 

Make it a challenge for your league to upgrade your Fortress to the maximum extent possible and to protect it form your enemies.  

You say "their personal beacon" !!!! WITH NO DEFENSE BONUS !!!! A "bit" of imbalance there don't you say???

The Garrisons tab shows all the Units stationed in your Fortress.

Stop insulting our intelligence!!!!! 

Stop making excuses for fails in development and feature planning!!!

Do you expect us to go and manually calculate defense for each player???!!!!!! Do you think that we know the level of all the Lost arts for all members?!?!?!?

No, unfortunately. Your league will need to upgrade the fortress or to find a 20 level fortress on the map to see how it looks. 

I bet we got this answer cause PLARIUM designers have not designed it yet!!!

Another thing pointing that this game has very poor project planning team!

I will not talk now about things that do not work as they should.... hamlets...

IF I GOT A TEAM LIKE THAT IN MY COMPANY ..... I WOULD LET GO ALL OF THEM 

Don't be so harsh, please. There's absolutely no need for this kind of tone here. We are not going to make any excuses at all. If anything, we are very proud of the job we did on the Fortresses and expect some gratitude in return. That would be nice. 

At the same time, we are not saying there is no room for improvement here. Any constructive criticism is welcome. We agree that determining defense at the fortress is crucial. We are trying to come up with a solution for that as we speak. 

Lord Oberon said:

In any case this topic is about Fortresses not about the free-to-play model. Fortresses is exactly the thing to do together as a league. 

Before Fortresses there were some minor leagues that didn't have their own Beacon. Now, there is a personal beacon for every league, even very small ones. 

Make it a challenge for your league to upgrade your Fortress to the maximum extent possible and to protect it form your enemies.  

With no DEF bonus on a fortress as you got on a becon, there will be no incentive for a smaller league to want to protect their fortress. DEF units with no DEF bonus, have horrible odds vs OFF units. Either give Fortress's a buff that give def units a 50-100% DEF increase, or make an "upgrade" possible on the fortress that will make such a buff happen on a tiercide principle or something.

Lord Oberon said:

Don't be so harsh, please. There's absolutely no need for this kind of tone here. We are not going to make any excuses at all. If anything, we are very proud of the job we did on the Fortresses and expect some gratitude in return. That would be nice. 

Bravo.

Lord Oberon, your love for money is extreme and your dedication is commendable. Do not let evil players to interfere you in your moment of glory as you did the fortress that serves no purpose, pardon, which serves to collect the rest of money from those who are still paying. You have the Russians who love this game and on whose server is certainly more than 3000 active players, as there are on this server.

If this is not the long-awaited upgrade, eagerly expecting it.

Remember, nobody can hate you as much as you can love yourself.

Hold on to these moments, do not listen to anybody nor do now, and bravely lead us into the dark future of Darkshrine. It is essential that all is free. Of course, you can not forbid anyone to pay if they want to. And do not.

What is important is that the game has more meaning. In the extreme case, at least for you.

Cheers! 

Hey,

Thank you,

Marshal Hobbes KT-S2

Mehnslayer said:

Fortresses have an inherit defense, although its not a straight up defense bonus,

You can't downgrade fortresses below 5-8, so smaller leagues can still have a benefit even without having to risk all their defense

Yeah but the uneven stats between DEF and OFF, doesn't given any incentive to stack your Fortress and level it to the top. Units is better spent at protect becons where they actually get a DEF bonus. DEF is always at disadventage unless there is walls to give bonus in your castle or they at a becon that give the same. 

Entrenched units in a defensive positure should recieve DEF bonus, its a damn Fortress after all.

Lord Oberon said:

Don't be so harsh, please. There's absolutely no need for this kind of tone here. We are not going to make any excuses at all. If anything, we are very proud of the job we did on the Fortresses and expect some gratitude in return. That would be nice. 

Bravo.

Lord Oberon, your love for money is extreme and your dedication is commendable. Do not let evil players to interfere you in your moment of glory as you did the fortress that serves no purpose, pardon, which serves to collect the rest of money from those who are still paying. You have the Russians who love this game and on whose server is certainly more than 3000 active players, as there are on this server.

If this is not the long-awaited upgrade, eagerly expecting it.

Remember, nobody can hate you as much as you can love yourself.

Hold on to these moments, do not listen to anybody nor do now, and bravely lead us into the dark future of Darkshrine. It is essential that all is free. Of course, you can not forbid anyone to pay if they want to. And do not.

What is important is that the game has more meaning. In the extreme case, at least for you.

Cheers! 

jmw_hobbes said:

Hey,

How about adding a column for units at the fortress on the stats sheet?  It's a bit harder to see who is doing what with out that helpful information.

Thank you,

Marshal Hobbes KT-S2

Untamed Lands

Greetings, Lords Hobbes, I mentioned in this thread earlier that we are already working on it. We realize that visible stats for the Fortress is important

Lord Oberon said:

You are being sarcastic, aren't you? It wasn't funny to begin with and now it's getting old.  

Well, thing is opinions is like ......... and everyone got one. You might not necessary like it, but have to accept it or start censor heavily what people can post or not (Which would breed heavy discontent). There is also those that agree on and like what you might not like as well. Ever since I started post on this forums, I got quite a few private responses on posts, both agreeing on what I posted and some discussing things I posted. No hate mail yet so I guess that is a pluss :p

If you can keep a f2p game a weighted scale between grind and coining, you can make a happy place you know. (or at least a content one).

Gadheras said:

Lord Oberon said:

You are being sarcastic, aren't you? It wasn't funny to begin with and now it's getting old.  

Well, thing is opinions is like ......... and everyone got one. You might not necessary like it, but have to accept it or start censor heavily what people can post or not (Which would breed heavy discontent). There is also those that agree on and like what you might not like as well. Ever since I started post on this forums, I got quite a few private responses on posts, both agreeing on what I posted and some discussing things I posted. No hate mail yet so I guess that is a pluss :p

If you can keep a f2p game a weighted scale between grind and coining, you can make a happy place you know. (or at least a content one).

 

We don't like sarcastic offtopic comments that bring nothing worthwhile to the discussion of the subject. 

I've seen very good suggestions in this thread and one of them will be implemented. So let's just keep it on topic and discuss how we can realistically make the Fortresses better. I will be deleting further offtopic messages. 

djmoody said:

Question for Oberon.

Did you intentionally use the raid mechanic for the Fortress battles?

If you did could you explain why? It seems totally feature breaking from where I am sitting.

If this doesn't make sense to you, please get another Oberon personality to answer it (its not a stupid question that doesn't make sense).

Lord DJMoody, yes this was intentional. It's not the same as raid mechanic, but it is really close. 

When you attack a Fortress it is basically a raid, with the exception that you do not get the resources from it. It seemed more logical to use the mechanic which is closer to Raid than to Siege in this instance. 

Snorbits65 said:

With all the talk of the unfairness of the defensiveness of the fortresses on here wouldn't another way of evening up the balance be to let your own fortress act like your own castle as far as the infirmary goes - with some units lost there being recoverable free?

@Gadheras - I think the likely outcome is that most leagues will simply keep the fortress at level 5 to avoid the need for having to defend it. 

when they have enough wallets open or glory points accumulated to take it to 8, then they will defend for a short time until withdrawing again. Only the large leagues are likely to want to invest anything beyond that in the short to medium term.