LS War shortening idea.

[Elysia]

One of the things in the war feedback forum was that LS wars were deemed too long. They do seem to burn out players.

My reason for keeping them two weeks is to allow inactive clans to call in members, which seemed to take a few days for Mayene. So that part of it is obviously necessary.

So I had an idea that in order to declare a war, a clan has to post an ULTIMATUM of one week (at least!) on Tales of Light and if that isn't met, war can start, with a duration of one week. That would give clans a headsup and allow them to rally members and call them back from the time sucker called Real Life.

Does that appeal to people, or not?

[Fyra]

I like this idea

[Alvana]

I like it.

[Terinor]

Of course 2 people not supposed to partake in wars post!

[granit]

I think something along those lines would work well. Did I understand you right?

1. once war is declared, a neutral week begins before it's official wartime. No QPS gained/etc during this week. This week is used for people to perform diplomacy, get their clan together and prepped, etc. Then the war starts officially.

[Rentris]

This would help reduce the people that hit general 2-3 times before the defending clan even knows they're at war.

[Paigey]

Set the General component to be the second week only? Some (one?) of the wars already had an ultimatum phase.

If people want to PK for a week they can, test each other's mettle. Takes away the starting free hit the declaring side likely gets. Call it the skirmish phase. People will play and fight or they won't. They'll do the mob/qps portion. Perhaps some clans will want to end it at that point.

The general guarding and grinding and camping and all that garbage is probably the more exhausting part though I don't disagree the whole thing is probably exhausting since most of the wars have been incredibly antagonistic.

I'm sure the Tower would love another chance to fight an emasculated Dragonsworn.

[zeek]

how do we fix random groups hitting the general in off peak hours i.e. 3am or when none of the other clan's members can protect it etc.

Seems like that takes away from the intended purpose to promote pk. I'd say remove the general hits, and give people +qps for every pkill during war time. Maybe general hits could count as long as 3+ of the opposing clan members are actively online (represented on the who list) to keep things from becoming lopsided.

The goal is to make more pk, for more people to rip, and for more qps to be generated. Thoughts?

[Elysia]

We can't fix people doing things in off hours, that's a mud wide thing. Just like we can't make it so people in off hours can do everything at the same speed/amount people in peak hours can. E.g. pk.

@Granit: I was thinking more ULTIMATUM "Do this or else!" > declaration > war of 1 week.

[Paigey]

how do we fix random groups hitting the general in off peak hours i.e. 3am or when none of the other clan's members can protect it etc.

Seems like that takes away from the intended purpose to promote pk. I'd say remove the general hits, and give people +qps for every pkill during war time. Maybe general hits could count as long as 3+ of the opposing clan members are actively online (represented on the who list) to keep things from becoming lopsided.

The goal is to make more pk, for more people to rip, and for more qps to be generated. Thoughts?

(1) Its always someone's prime time hours ie. Australians, Europeans, Americans. That said, my suspicion has always been that the always on, always general grinding people are college kids or the ever present "Wheel of time player who has a job that apparently expects nothing of them that they can play at".

(2) You're trying to make something fair that in general can't be made fair. Clans are uneven. Cities are uneven. Some people can't even warrant.

(3) Jokingly, an unprotected general is for the most part the only general that can be killed. These patrols are pretty buff. Not to rag on them, but somehow the QGs were losing people to General hits with no opposing players at them.

(4) There's always going to have to be a General somewhat because otherwise a clan could just sit out a war. No play, no get PKed, no points for the other team.

(5) If I'm being unkind - the war system isn't about PK. It was invented for retribution and punishing other clans to get what you want. Lancers somewhat refused to fight/pardon/etc Civil Watch and the Imms invented a system to allow a clan to go after a clan that wouldn't fight it.

What happened though is clans who had something to achieve from it were much more excited about it than others. Andor getting a patrol in some CoL zone wasn't going to do anything for them or change their lives. Cloaks were desperate to stuff it down everyone else's throats and had outsize rewards to gain.

Do you think a clan having watched the QG kerfuffle would tell their members - just PK and have fun. If you have a clan member who dies regularly - you will lose the war. Some people are big enough and mature enough for that, and maybe someday we'll have a process where that's the way it should be, but if you look at the sleeziness in a lot of wars I suspect there are clans that would lose their crap over it. A lot of the wars are very antagonistic. I think a bunch of the clans involved still hate each other when all is said and done. Grievances do not get resolved.

I personally think we'd have been better with a system that allows people who are normally allies to be temporarily opponents - rather than enemies. Course everything right now is evolving around this idea of diplomacy and benefits for treaties. Maybe we'll never have a war again since peace is just so darn profitable.