djmoody said:

Well in theory defence has a massive advantage at beacons and fortresses. An entire league of 160 people can defend and only 3 people can attack.

It's just that due to uncontrolled coining, for a limited few that 3 can be billions and bigger than even the biggest leagues defence.

Spying is completely unnecessary. If you understand the mechanics you can read beacon defence from even very small test hits. That is skill and tactics. Building an enormous spy bomb on an alt isn't something to get excited about in my books (not saying you do that, but many do).

Imho, if you look at it sort of realistic. A fortified position got only room for so much troops, before you can't add more. And as an attacker you can only field so much the field of battle give room for, or else you will trample down your own troops, or press the frontline to hard. 

The whole mechanic should have been changed. 

In EVE, Corps/alliances can have starbases and structures. Other players can attack these, but they will have timers. So you can't just walk over them with a massive force. Initial attack put them into a reinforced state. In Stormfall this could be a "lay siege". The reinforced stage last for x time and give the defenders time to figure out a response, or call it a lost cause. Stormfall lack a lot of tactics and gameplay for beacons and fortress's.

A game where overwhelming force is the end of all, is just terrible. If you played any TW games. And in particular siege battles. Few can stand against the many with proper tactics and right units, but there is a limit to what you can deal with. At same time, attacking yourself with the right units and you can make an siege rather painless yet dull affair.

The game is what it is, we suffer from how terrible the game become. I say become, because I assume from the early days, what we see these days was not possible back then. So In a way Plarium screwed the game by chase the sapphires without adjust the game mechanics at same time. Ignoring consequence of changes. Now we probably reached a critical mass that is so flawed it would take a massive undertaking by Plarium to fix, and at this age and time and flash being what it is. I don't see them do that. The more "p2w" features and coining options being added to this game will just speed up the demise of the game. 

There is those that will just shrug this off as doom and gloom, well so be it. We ride a train that is reaching the end of the line. But oh wait we got the Stormfall App now.... right. You cram flash into a stand alone client, because browsers stop support the use of flash due to security reasons and the discontinued support of. I'm sorry, but it doesn't make the kitty any less dead.

Imho it would been better if Plarium took the experience they got from Stormfall, both good and bad. If not re-make it, so make something similar in a new engine and start over from scratch and actually have players beta test it before go live. The base concept is still sound. The current execution is not.

As a game leveller I suggested a mechanic where league strikes could be have more than 3 members.

BUT as you add more members an increasingly putative cap should apply to the league strike.

This would allow smaller leagues to strike with meaningful hammers while not allowing the uber hammers to get any bigger. I quite like this balance method. Leveling the playing field by letting more people have a chance at launching a major attack. Effectively closing the gap between the biggest and normal sized hammers.

I posted a lot more about the idea in a thread to a CM but it got totally ignored because its a cracking and amazing idea.

Snowgoon said:

djmoody said:

As a game leveller I suggested a mechanic where league strikes could be have more than 3 members.

Leveling the playing field by letting more people have a chance at launching a major attack.

If losses had been maintained at 1:1 then none of this would be necessary - This entire thread would be unnecessary

If two equal armies fight then we should expect both to lose 50%

If 1 million defense is attacked by 9 million offense then both players should lose 900k

If 1 million defense is attacked by 99 million offense then each player should lose 990k

etc

B / (A+B) - http://prnt.sc/bgrn44

The problem is that armies can be 'overwhelmed' and that attacking army size is not capped for stormfall beacons (but are capped in other games - http://prnt.sc/f77qnb    )

Ask yourself why

Oh that is easy; Its all about the sapphires/money. 

djmoody said:

As a game leveller I suggested a mechanic where league strikes could be have more than 3 members.

BUT as you add more members an increasingly putative cap should apply to the league strike.

This would allow smaller leagues to strike with meaningful hammers while not allowing the uber hammers to get any bigger. I quite like this balance method. Leveling the playing field by letting more people have a chance at launching a major attack. Effectively closing the gap between the biggest and normal sized hammers.

I posted a lot more about the idea in a thread to a CM but it got totally ignored because its a cracking and amazing idea.

A cap?   Noooooooo.  Then I'll never achieve my dream of sending a 10 million pikeman raid :O

As a game leveller I suggested a mechanic where league strikes could be have more than 3 members.

BUT as you add more members an increasingly putative cap should apply to the league strike.

This would allow smaller leagues to strike with meaningful hammers while not allowing the uber hammers to get any bigger. I quite like this balance method. Leveling the playing field by letting more people have a chance at launching a major attack. Effectively closing the gap between the biggest and normal sized hammers.

I posted a lot more about the idea in a thread to a CM but it got totally ignored because its a cracking and amazing idea.

BiohazarD said:

One of the main reasons this is a problem is the outnumbering mechanics.  If you get a big enough army, the game lets you kill smaller armies for almost no losses.  So if a 3 billion hammer hits a beacon with 20 million defense on it, the hammer won't lose close to 20 million offense, it will lose maybe 1-2 million.  This means that smaller leagues can't even wear down the big spenders, they just get squashed. That's why I think there should be some limit on either the amount of offense a player can have, or at least the amount that can be sent in a single attack.  

This is the result of inadequate or non-existent Force Limits

Every Castle, Hamlet, Settlement, Beacon and Fortress should have a meaningful Force Limit - It should never be possible to send 3 billion

You should be aware that the Force Limit on Pirate Beacons is only 100k but on Stormfall there is NO LIMIT

http://prntscr.com/f77qnb

All Stormfall Castles have a 250k Force Limit, but that is also insane
How can they justify the same limit for all castles?
Smaller castles should have a much smaller Force Limit - http://prntscr.com/f70b5j

How does this work in other games? .... and why should Stormfall be different??

brunsonthomas said:

Jezebel said:

Gadheras said:

Jezebel said:

Gadheras said:

Jezebel said:

djmoody said:

Gadheras said:

Its the recovery after absolute defat or losing big that is the crux for faster unit build time. Because it decide when you can do something worth the while in the game again. Coiners and big hammers will always be there regardless. What do I care if a hammer is 1b, 2b, 3b or whatever? I can't do much about that. 

For me it's the other way around.

Because Plarium allow direct purchase of end game - infinite troops, immediately. The 1b,2b, 3b hammers mean you will never be able to achieve something worthwhile in the game. The speed of rebuild is kind of irrelevant, because the gap between real players and coiners is simply too huge.

It is never going to change here thought, because the whole business model for Stormfall is simply to catch 'whales' and make easy money.

agree totally with that

The easy solution is.... hey there is a lot of other games out there -)

unfortunately I have spent 2 1/2 years playing what used to be a great game - its kind of hard to let go after putting so much work into it

Well, I play a lot of games. After a while, you start play one game less than others, and one day you find yourself not logged into some game for a very log time. How much you spent on this game after 2 and a half year?

It not money its TIME I have logged daily and built my castle I raided every day and worked to build an army - I spent some - not as much as others I would rather use my money on things that will benefit me in real life - spending on a game that's your entertainment is not really an issue is it?  Everyone spends money on entertainment -  HOWEVER those that spend enough to feed a family of 5 for a year need to get their heads examined - USE THIS MONEY FOR GOOD SOMEWHERE

Not everyone makes the same income. Some of us struggle to make ends meet while others have plenty to spend on anything. This is their chosen form of entertainment and Plarium enjoys the profits of the ones who have plenty to spend and the rest of us have a game we play for enjoyment not spending fortunes we do not wish to waste on this game.

One of the main reasons this is a problem is the outnumbering mechanics.  If you get a big enough army, the game lets you kill smaller armies for almost no losses.  So if a 3 billion hammer hits a beacon with 20 million defense on it, the hammer won't lose close to 20 million offense, it will lose maybe 1-2 million.  This means that smaller leagues can't even wear down the big spenders, they just get squashed. That's why I think there should be some limit on either the amount of offense a player can have, or at least the amount that can be sent in a single attack. 

Jezebel said:

Gadheras said:

Jezebel said:

Gadheras said:

Jezebel said:

djmoody said:

Gadheras said:

Its the recovery after absolute defat or losing big that is the crux for faster unit build time. Because it decide when you can do something worth the while in the game again. Coiners and big hammers will always be there regardless. What do I care if a hammer is 1b, 2b, 3b or whatever? I can't do much about that. 

For me it's the other way around.

Because Plarium allow direct purchase of end game - infinite troops, immediately. The 1b,2b, 3b hammers mean you will never be able to achieve something worthwhile in the game. The speed of rebuild is kind of irrelevant, because the gap between real players and coiners is simply too huge.

It is never going to change here thought, because the whole business model for Stormfall is simply to catch 'whales' and make easy money.

agree totally with that

The easy solution is.... hey there is a lot of other games out there -)

unfortunately I have spent 2 1/2 years playing what used to be a great game - its kind of hard to let go after putting so much work into it

Well, I play a lot of games. After a while, you start play one game less than others, and one day you find yourself not logged into some game for a very log time. How much you spent on this game after 2 and a half year?

It not money its TIME I have logged daily and built my castle I raided every day and worked to build an army - I spent some - not as much as others I would rather use my money on things that will benefit me in real life - spending on a game that's your entertainment is not really an issue is it?  Everyone spends money on entertainment -  HOWEVER those that spend enough to feed a family of 5 for a year need to get their heads examined - USE THIS MONEY FOR GOOD SOMEWHERE

Not everyone makes the same income. Some of us struggle to make ends meet while others have plenty to spend on anything. This is their chosen form of entertainment and Plarium enjoys the profits of the ones who have plenty to spend and the rest of us have a game we play for enjoyment not spending fortunes we do not wish to waste on this game.