Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby Judaism » Sat Jun 03, 2017 11:17 am

Lazun123 wrote:This brings up the issue of doughnut claiming waste and tbc. Which is *****. People have clearly worked around the claim restrictions so either get rid of them or prevent people from making doughnuts. The doughnuts literally undo what it's supposed to do. I mean from my understanding it is suposed to be a offensive tool, and yet all it dose is force the aggressor to become the defender using a broken raiding system as an advantage, as now they are hiding behind a wall. It's one thing to let somebody have a chance at revenge it's another to guarantee the death of crime alt. It's broken when one player can hide behind a wall with a tbc and murder multiple raiders while having little to lose doing so.


The thing is, the very first day it got implemented it was used on our base with legacy scents, crimes that were commited under an entire different crime system. The very first TBC was enclosed like this and it was directly monitored by the lead developer himself.

This has been brought up by so many people and its far from the only flawed mechanic. It all has been denied or simply ignored, just like the other issues and that is exactly why so many people gave up their hope, rather years ago already. The expeditions were heavily flawed (cannons that shot through pclaims/town bells, cannons that were blockable by objects, animals that were broken and so on). It took them months to fix those issues, that was besides the fact of hardly any adaptations to the mechanical behavior of the server and include silly mechanics such as TBC's and TBF's in a supposedly fast paced expedition. The changes never came or simply were too late as the outcome was set in stone already.

Instead of fixing raiding, they left unfinished systems like locked houses, without pick-locking in place for over a year without any updates regarding the matters. A counter package with ''pity'' crimes was supposed to be dropped before the new type of wall and defences. You do not implement half-baked mechanics, nor do you ignore so many concerns listed by numerous vets prior to implementation. Now when final remaining players actually get more advanced, bored and aware of the situation, they see that it is not what it was advertised for, a perma-death full lootable open world game. It featured these aspects in a more serious manner under Jorb & Loftar, maybe it was too quick but better that than a ***** rigid game with so many flaws and work-arounds.

Besides literally two or three people, I cannot think of any old vets that still play the game actively. That sort of is only normal, sometimes you are bored of a game after playing it for years, however if you look at Heaven and Hearth, it still holds a large core playerbase which has been around before Salem even got developed.

As years have progressed, I can understand why Jorb & Loftar always ended up with server resets, it is not easy to re-balance the game in a stagnated game. Like was every farmer supposed to have 700 h&s to yield four times as much, was everyone supposed to pay 1/4 of the town upkeep with their high L&L, were lasso's supposed to drag out of render range due to a high F&F, were towns supposed to yield 100.000's of passive silver due to an ignored poopclaim system, were towns supposed to expand to this extend, or this heavily protected, were pclaims supposed to be 500.000 silver in size and I can list quite a few additional issues that have been left unadjusted and have really only become clear the last 2 years, while the development was on a low pit.
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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby Dallane » Sat Jun 03, 2017 12:39 pm

Judaism wrote: if you look at Heaven and Hearth, it still holds a large core playerbase which has been around before Salem even got developed.


Haven community is also a ton less toxic minus the forum **** posting . Even people from rival factions will constantly change their relations. Most of the people you see there have been around since the start and people are constantly coming back to the game. There have been 10 worlds in the game and there are tons of people playing, fighting and posting forum drama.
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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby MaxPlanck » Sat Jun 03, 2017 1:39 pm

it is not easy to re-balance the game in a stagnated game. Like was every farmer supposed to have 700 h&s to yield four times as much, was everyone supposed to pay 1/4 of the town upkeep with their high L&L, were lasso's supposed to drag out of render range due to a high F&F, were towns supposed to yield 100.000's of passive silver due to an ignored poopclaim system, were towns supposed to expand to this extend, or this heavily protected, were pclaims supposed to be 500.000 silver in size and I can list quite a few additional issues that have been left unadjusted and have really only become clear the last 2 years, while the development was on a low pit.


One of the many reasons I enjoy Salem is the fact that you can climb infinitely in proficiencies, and somewhat infinitely in biles(limited by inventory size and being unable to reach high feasting sessions after reaching 4x biles)
Of course its not fair to the new players(but new players will eventually reach these high numbers), but if this server were to wipe like it did in the past then I'd completely quit the game. I almost quit the game after Jamestown got dropped.(a long break until I finally returned on providence)

If I wanted to play some wipe frenzy game I'd go to public rust servers. And thats why I don't play rust anymore because of things like that, and the same reason I've decided not to play Haven heavily(I did play it a week or so then went back to Salem)

While I definitely agree that some things need adjusted, I see nothing wrong with an infinite-sized pclaim given that the person has money for it, high prof. to allow for cheaper tclaim/pclaim costs and better yields.

I do find it wrong that pclaims can be left empty and have no consequence. Also the current black bile drain is a bit too much (I've suggested before that pclaims should shrink X tiles every 5-10 seconds if left empty, which I find to be a ***** great idea given the fact the pclaims are better than tclaims and they cant even be destroyed if it has money in it, people are getting the benefit of a big ass drainage area for no cost other than the cost for the tiles themselves)
I find it wrong that lassoes can reach off map no doubtedly, and I find it wrong that the top ten towns can get a **** ton of tax with no effort other than to pay their townclaims with their huge Law&Lore stats.
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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby Taipion » Sat Jun 03, 2017 5:31 pm

MaxPlanck wrote:I do find it wrong that pclaims can be left empty and have no consequence. Also the current black bile drain is a bit too much (I've suggested before that pclaims should shrink X tiles every 5-10 seconds if left empty, which I find to be a ***** great idea given the fact the pclaims are better than tclaims and they cant even be destroyed if it has money in it, people are getting the benefit of a big ass drainage area for no cost other than the cost for the tiles themselves)

There is more to it.
First off, JC said that it should not be the case, that if you take a break from Salem, then your base is likely gone as an unpayed claimstone used to offer no defense and in fact invalidated all the walls and defenses on it,
in other words, Salem is a game of hard work, and free loot does not correlate well to that basic idea, yes there is a lot of free loot out there, but turning every base whose owner(s) take a break or just left, into free loot, no.
Second, if you invested 500k into your pclaim, you likely signed a bad deal, as that cash would have been way better spent to add more or better walls, and tons of defenses.
(Also, for the current, partly broken state of claim and crime mechanics, you do need a pclaim that goes at least further than your defenses range anyways, having it shrink by itself would mostly invalidate the defense on it.)
And lastly said, IF you attack something with a 500k pclaim, then you are likely at a pretty high level of raiding, and there likely is a full defense and some iron wall(s) on it, and to a 1k or 2k raiding char, even a that huge pclaim only adds proportionally, so, if you can't raid a town because it has a 500k pclaim, then you likely could not raid it without that pclaim (= with it being minimum secure size, just extending over the defenses range).

[edit:]
Almost forgot, my proposal for changing pclaims would go like this:
- keep it as it is, just with a little lower BB drain than it is now, just a little lower like 2/3 of what it is now, IF it is not payed
- increase the BB drain when the pclaim is payed to like 4/3 of what it is now

This adds several new tactics and depth with just a little change, that is:
- you can now tell, if you are a paying attention, if the claim is payed or not with just stepping on it
- having a too big pclaim would actually be a disatvantage in case of being attacked, as upkeep cost increases square whereas the path an attacker has to traveses increases only linerarily
- you could scare people into paying their huge claims by faking attacks, and cause massive financial damage that way without actually risking anything
- probably a few more things...
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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby TotalyMeow » Sat Jun 03, 2017 7:05 pm

I already mentioned that we plan to add a line of sight mechanic to tbf because we also don't like the donut claims and never have. But I guess you'll complain about it anyway. :/

I'd be for the claim shrinkage mechanic, though maybe not shrinking so quickly. I think the whole idea of letting people take a 'safe' break from Salem would be perfectly well served by increasing the storage capacity of the stones to six months or so instead of the current two.
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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby Taipion » Sat Jun 03, 2017 7:13 pm

TotalyMeow wrote:I'd be for the claim shrinkage mechanic, though maybe not shrinking so quickly. I think the whole idea of letting people take a 'safe' break from Salem would be perfectly well served by increasing the storage capacity of the stones to six months or so instead of the current two.


It still poses the problem, that pclaims would continually shrink and "vanish" over time, leaving free loot, which is, as far as I understood it, not what JC wanted for the game.
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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby MaxPlanck » Sat Jun 03, 2017 7:19 pm

If the stone were to be maxed out at 6 months I think it would be nice for it to still be destroyable by others if the payment passes 2 months aka filled only 4/6 of the fraction. Just so shrinkage and destroyability have different intervals and can be balanced around the two instead of trying to balance the two around a single range.

I do admit that shrinking every 5-10 seconds would prolly be too much for ppl taking a break, but any amount of shrinkage in X time would be nice as long as its not too long of a time where ppl can just ignore it.
(The numbers around it would have to be based on how much silver it cost per hour on the pclaim vs. how often it shrinks so its still detrimental to leave the pclaim empty over keeping it paid)

It still poses the problem, that pclaims would continually shrink and "vanish" over time, leaving free loot, which is, as far as I understood it, not what JC wanted for the game.


If someone can't log on for 6 months straight to avoid shrinkage then shouldn't there base be wiped off the map or taken over by another player at that point?
We are speaking strictly pclaims btw, if someone has both a tclaim and a pclaim then the tclaim coverage would still stand as is and protect all the goods while the pclaim shrinks.
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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby Taipion » Sat Jun 03, 2017 7:40 pm

MaxPlanck wrote:
It still poses the problem, that pclaims would continually shrink and "vanish" over time, leaving free loot, which is, as far as I understood it, not what JC wanted for the game.


If someone can't log on for 6 months straight to avoid shrinkage then shouldn't there base be wiped off the map or taken over by another player at that point?
We are speaking strictly pclaims btw, if someone has both a tclaim and a pclaim then the tclaim coverage would still stand as is and protect all the goods while the pclaim shrinks.


First off: No, shrinking to nothing means free loot, which means you can take it without leaving a scent, without any risk, and that is the point, risk free loot is a bad thing.

Second: No, a tclaim alone is worth nothing, as you can drain any defense with little to no effort if there is no sufficient pclaim coverage.

I'd still say my proposed solution would be just the right thing, maybe with adjusting the payed/unpayed drain to JCs liking, but not shrinking in size and always requiring actual crime to break in, plus adding new tactics is pretty much all it needs.
After all, "huge" pclaims are not an impenetrable defense, and actually add only a bit to whatever defense is there, putting to much potentially bad mechanics in as a workaround is therefore a bad thing, rather tweak it a little (as I proposed) and see from there, tweak again a little if needed, or a little more.
Simply invalidating all semi-active players defenses would be kind of an overkill for this ..."problem".
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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby Goodman12 » Sat Jun 03, 2017 7:51 pm

TotalyMeow wrote:I already mentioned that we plan to add a line of sight mechanic to tbf because we also don't like the donut claims and never have. But I guess you'll complain about it anyway. :/

It's a norm for you guys to mention things that you want to fix and then do jack **** about it. Instead of actually implementing the critical changes that you claim to want or fix KNOWN BUGS THAT HAVE BEEN EXISTING FOR OVER A YEAR you add stupid mechanics and unnecessary care-bear crap.

On another note, I find the shrinkage of p claims to be a dumb idea.
Empty p claims should not have the benefits of the claim drain and even after it is paid(after being empty)the claim drain should take about a week or so to activate.
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Re: Was Salem a better game before MM took over?

Postby TotalyMeow » Sat Jun 03, 2017 8:00 pm

Goodman12 wrote:It's a norm for you guys to mention things that you want to fix and then do jack **** about it. Instead of actually implementing the critical changes that you claim to want or fix KNOWN BUGS THAT HAVE BEEN EXISTING FOR OVER A YEAR you add stupid mechanics and unnecessary care-bear crap.


*sigh* No, that's not the norm. It's just a fact that John hasn't had time to work on Salem for the last several months and so none of the bugs or ideas from that time frame have had a chance. And when he does do something, yes, sometimes he goes against all my arguments, my lists of things we NEED to do, and the wishes of the entire community and adds something he thinks will be fun to code and test instead of something that needs to be done. I can't do anything about that, and lambasting me about it won't do you any good at all as I am frustrated enough by it myself.
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