The West (as of 3/09, Bat Country will be on World 8)

[Hawkbit]

- some fancy weapons will be available at shops in forts

This has potential to ruin the game.  Its pretty obvious that large factions like FOM will hold forts out of sheer numbers.  If they get a gear advantage because of it, there's no way smaller towns like ours can compete. 

[Mosesandstick]

Can I get a re-invite for Mosesandstick?

[Prospero]

Done.

[Mosesandstick]

Cheers.

[Ghambit]

You need money to attack a Fort?   

[Aez]

- some fancy weapons will be available at shops in forts

This has potential to ruin the game.  Its pretty obvious that large factions like FOM will hold forts out of sheer numbers.  If they get a gear advantage because of it, there's no way smaller towns like ours can compete. 

It depend on the scope of forts and the possibilities of alliances.  If there is 2-3 forts spot per region, we should be able to secure one.  We are the biggest town in our region I think. 

For the possibility of alliances :
option 1 : multiple towns can own a forts  - better for the FOM crowd but we could probably find an other independent town for an alliance.
option 2 : only one town can own a fort - better for us since we are pretty competitive as a single town.

They might also cap the players who can participate in a fights to prevent the zerg.
Worst come to worst you could always get an invite from an other town who is currently owning a fort and shop for a while.

[Kageru]

It's a bit of an unknown, but we should be able to see the actual mechanics when it hits beta. Likewise there's been the suggestion that build forts will need a lot of products from working such as wood and stone. Could be an impressive grind.

[rk47]

Man, Jacob the lvl 35 Adventurer quest NPC duel is kicking my arse. He hit me thrice for 100 each, I hit him around 5 times for 18-20 dmg even though I'm equipped with the nice whip (30-46 dmg). Which stat should I pump to beat this guy?

[Viin]

Man, Jacob the lvl 35 Adventurer quest NPC duel is kicking my arse. He hit me thrice for 100 each, I hit him around 5 times for 18-20 dmg even though I'm equipped with the nice whip (30-46 dmg). Which stat should I pump to beat this guy?

Dodge? heh.

[rk47]

hmmm i'll give it another later once i regen my 300 hp then.

[Amarr HM]

Sounds like he has a fairly high resistance build you could try pump your shooting/vigor

[rk47]

i think i need either a full respec or really good dodging gear to win this npc duel. Fuck it, I'm doing Charlatan job and i find it odd that i get more loot by just doing it on 30 mins chunk instead of 2 hour chunks. Sure it's more micromanaging but it seems i never get more than one random lucky drop when i do a job for 2 hours.

[Kageru]

I believe that's correct. You can only find one lucky drop per work period but your chance is cumulative over the 30 minute blocks you've worked. So it should end up being the same in the long run.

They've just patched the beta to include forts but apparently not battles. Obvious differences include:

- characters gain a 2-handed weapon slot and some of the shops (beta is really sparsely populated) sell crossbows, bows, rifles and I saw a really expensive gatling gun. No stat or level requirements on the weapons atm.
- Each map area has 3 forts on it that are like the "place town here" spaces. Only a town founder can interact with it. I just noticed the forts are different showing from 1-3 flags. Different ranks of forts maybe?
- Someone has already seized one and it uses an interface like the town but has a headquarters and a warehouse (which looks like a water tower for some bizzare reason). Clicking on a building gets you a graphic of a guard telling you to naff off.
- Some UI "improvements" like health and energy having numbers overlaid (ugly and redundant), jobs have mouse-overs giving their difficulty vs. your labor points and the map allows you to fade out things you don't care about.

[Nebu]

Has anyone talked to Rock Ridge before about joining their town for the purpose of purchases?  I'm interested in knowing if they are agreeable to this before I send a telegram to their leaders. 

Thanks

[Samwise]

Has anyone talked to Rock Ridge before about joining their town for the purpose of purchases?  I'm interested in knowing if they are agreeable to this before I send a telegram to their leaders. 

Yes, Rock Ridge folks are friendly.  They didn't even ask me for any money before sending me an invite; I left $200 in the tip jar anyway.

[Amarr HM]

I've a pending invite from Rock Ridge just need $1800 before I go there.

[Amarr HM]

Also I hear they are changing the soldier bonus in the next update so I'm gonna choose class then.

[Amarr HM]

Here's a rough translation of the changes they are implementing.

[Phildo]

Wow, I'm so glad I specced my character to take advantage of the Soldier's bonuses.

[gryeyes]

The +tactics bonus was a bit much, especially compared to the duelist. Especially with premium bonus stacked on top. Duelist get a 50% to appearance would be pretty ideal. Offset the soldier bonus and actually make them better at combat. More interesting is how they are changing the way duels work. Does it specify what the solider change is?

[rk47]

The way current dueling system works , it gives too much advantage to the attacker. Pretty much most fights ended with the attacker equipped in premium attacking gear while the defender is in his working clothes. And people say it's 'dishonorable' to attack builders. Yeah right, what about adventurers who were just doing cash jobs?

[Kageru]

Frankly the soldier tactics bonus is fairly useless because you can't choose to use it (since it's defence only) so a smart duellist will either know they are going to win anyway or simply won't bother. The duellists are certainly on the forums with their plate out wanting ridiculous things like +50% appearance (a bonus they can and will abuse unlike defence) and +15% experience (when the worker bonus is +5%). Nor is anyone certain how much of a difference to aiming the appearance / tactics comparison makes anyway.

I would imagine with forts, where the goal is to survive being attacked and there are zones that give +% bonuses to stats like tactics, the bonus suddenly looked too good. Will be interesting to see what they come up with in its place.

Oh, and in response to Aez a fort can be shared by multiple towns. The one on beta currently shows a population of "5 towns".

I bet it will be an impressive grind though. "building forts costs wood, stone, roll of cloth and silver and lots of money."

[gryeyes]

How is +50% to tactics useless compared to the other bonus's. Its the only one that impacts combat and it is not even on the "duelist". If that is useless the other bonus's are ultra fucking worthless. A premium soldier with proper gear and skill distribution has a significance advantage over any other class in combat. Especially late in the game when everyone who uses duels to level and has a rank 20+ levels higher than their base level. Forcing you to attack other combat characters. Its not random chance that the top 50 in dueling is 99% soldiers. Thats based on exp accrued through duels when the duelist has both a bonus to the exp he gets and to the regen of motivation.

[Amarr HM]

Yeh the tactics bonus is way overpowered you don't even need to put any points into it to achieve 120 you can get that just using gear, plus then being able to use a weapon six levels up and a hitpoint buffer. Dueler got the raw end of the stick in this game, 20% speed bonus  

[Kageru]

Soldier bonus may be overpowered, duellists need to cry less. The design logic of them getting abilities that enhance their ability to make a living from attacking is sound, though the numbers may be too weak. Giving them an offensive bonus when they are already free to pick soft targets would be a bad idea.

The soldier ability is a 3 weapon level advantage unless you are premium. Duellists continue to overlook the fact that a passive ability has inherent limits.

Anyway, the tactics is bonus is scheduled to be changed, so it's all a bit irrelevant. I do hope they change it to something that is less passive and gives the soldier a role. Even if it's weaker.

[Kageru]

Which reminds me, a translation of the German developer notes courtesy of Bonez on the forums:

Pls remember that some of the planned changes and new enhancements detailed below will be open to further changes that arise during the thought/planning process.

Forts

    * concept finalized
    * Implementation for Public Beta planned for next week (my (Bonez) add: it might well be this applies to German public beta only)
    * For World 1 the implementation is planned for end of June (again, not sure how this extends to the English Worlds)
    * Products of all kinds (e.g. wood, stone) will be needed for fort construction
    * To put the growing funds in town treasuries to use, it will require town treasury funds to build AND attack forts

Features for NEW worlds to be introduced:

    * The soldier character bonus will be revamped (same might apply to other characters)
    * the map will change
    * Potential restriction to inventory capacity

Note: Not clear yet which new World (10, 11 12...) those changes come with

Key:

    * You won't get to the walking stick through obtaining key 2 or vice versa
    * Aim of the 3 keys is the retrieval of another "special" item (the special item is not yet implemented)
    * You can also find key three already today

Fancy/special weapons:

    * Fancy weapons are implemented today but hard to find
    * To some extent fancy weapons will be obtainable from fort stores

Ranking order:

    * The ranking order will be changed from alphabetical order to date of max lvl achieved
    * The points from town owned forts will be added to the town score in rankings

Dev-Blog:

    * Public Dev blog in English language planned
    * Visualization/Explanation of the high level concept of forts planned

Miscellaneous:

    * so called "pushing" through duels shall be limited
    * an additional worker quest is planned
    * When trade will be introduced items AND products will be tradeable
    * The dueling system will be reworked/revamped
    * the look & feel of early flash game versions (e.g. rock, scissors, paper) were not be satisfying and thus flash games will not be implemented near term

[Xanthippe]

Yeh the tactics bonus is way overpowered you don't even need to put any points into it to achieve 120 you can get that just using gear, plus then being able to use a weapon six levels up and a hitpoint buffer. Dueler got the raw end of the stick in this game, 20% speed bonus  

Is 120 a cap for skills?

[Amarr HM]

Soldier bonus may be overpowered, duellists need to cry less. The design logic of them getting abilities that enhance their ability to make a living from attacking is sound, though the numbers may be too weak. Giving them an offensive bonus when they are already free to pick soft targets would be a bad idea.

The soldier ability is a 3 weapon level advantage unless you are premium. Duellists continue to overlook the fact that a passive ability has inherent limits.

Anyway, the tactics is bonus is scheduled to be changed, so it's all a bit irrelevant. I do hope they change it to something that is less passive and gives the soldier a role. Even if it's weaker.

I'm not even a dueler just calling it how I see it brutha.

[Amarr HM]

Is 120 a cap for skills?

No what I mean is you can get 60 tactics (roughly speaking) just from wearing gear which with premium bonus results in 120, so soldiers don't even need to pump SP into this skill to have it at a level where it's beyond most attackers appearance.

[Ghambit]

   * When trade will be introduced items AND products will be tradeable
   

This is the biggest change to the game imo.  Everything else is beans by comparison, even forts.  Tradeable items = uber-buff for large/established towns;  no one's gonna earn shyt anymore, everyone will be using high level handmedowns.  

The light at the end of the tunnel is the inherent bounty system that will arise, which as a fighting class is a great thing.  Maybe I wont have to do these stupid jobs anymore and can just act as "protection" (mafia quotes) for workers.

[Pezzle]

If 'trade' is a trading post where you can sell an item at minimum of store price there is no real issue with trading.  Item farming monsters like myself can help our town by putting up the goods we find.  We get money, town members roam for shopping less.  The town swapping aspect of this game is terrible.

[Ghambit]

Is 120 a cap for skills?

No what I mean is you can get 60 tactics (roughly speaking) just from wearing gear which with premium bonus results in 120, so soldiers don't even need to pump SP into this skill to have it at a level where it's beyond most attackers appearance.

It's a defensive skill, which in this game is meaningless except to perhaps enable you to work unbothered.  Once a soldier decides to actually play and duel someone, their advantages are out the door aside from the weapon bonus.  Duelers can duel 20% more than soldiers whilst receiving more money while doing-so AND moving faster.  Over time, it's a much more proficient combat class in the attacking sense.  It might not be as sexy as soldiers-stats, but they still have their uses.

And once trading becomes active, everyone's gonna wanna be a dueler/bounty hunter.

If 'trade' is a trading post where you can sell an item at minimum of store price there is no real issue with trading.  Item farming monsters like myself can help our town by putting up the goods we find.  We get money, town members roam for shopping less.  The town swapping aspect of this game is terrible.

I agree it's terrible, but it's not a mechanic you can just throw in down the road.  The lines in the game have already been drawn, therefore allowing the upper-echelon the ability to trade gives them a HUGE advantage over other towns in a million different ways.  You can pretty much kiss any kind of feasible "war" down the toilet unless you're gonna pick on someone your own size or smaller.

[rk47]

ooh trading. this is good. I can finally get some quests done without respeccing skills and such.

[Nebu]

Trading kills the game if it includes products.  I'm fine with trading gear that you no longer need or get as a drop, but being able to trade products will allow the larger towns to have a HUGE advantage.

[Pezzle]

I do not think the tactics bonus is worthless.  The best pvp builds are capable on offense AND defense.  Some players avoid fighting soldiers because the soldier has a better chance.  If anything the soldier can make a better pvper because they are capable of less point investment.  You cannot really start comparing advantages advantages the way you have.  When not dueling the dueler bonuses are worthless outside movement.  If anything, dueler bonuses are simply silly.  More cash is fine, the duel motivation is not good (it only really matters for xp anyway, do you really want to outlevel all your victims?).  Movement is ok, but not especially good.  You cannot give any class an attack bonus in this structure or they will totally dominate the field.

One of the troublesome aspects of this game is the single sided character.  Look at the 'pure' builder.  Massive building points and a complete victim.  Nothing in the game encourages a different behavior.  Look at the advantages in accessing high level jobs and doing it quickly.  Instead of the designers making a game alteration players form these no worker attack unions.  Maybe they need bigger penalties for fighting, shorter ko times, lower productivity after a ko (and even after fighting period I guess).  The game should not encourage pvp OR not pvp.  Rewarding people for being one dimensional is never a good idea.  It should be set up so you do some of both, or are at least capable of it.