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Index » Muelsfell Game Forum » Clan Discussions Muelsfell World v1.0 Forums
AuthorThread: game dynamics once there are clans
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Gryfter
Posts: 52
Location: Last Alvia Dawning
Magus Age: 122 years old
Message #464 Posted: Mar 20, 2008, 6:33 am

Right now it is really hard to penetrate someone's defenses, probably too hard (to do alone). You basically have to get lucky or find someone who accidentally left out a flesh golem to take anyone down and raid their stash.

Once there are clans this is going to change dramatically. A group planning together could easily take down one person in a matter of minutes and reduce their workshop to rubble.

Is there going to be anything to discourage or prevent this? Or is this what you want? It would be pretty discouraging to log in after a few hours (or be working in Mott) and find your workshop raided and destroyed without being able to do anything at all.

Eventually you will have warring clans completely demolishing each other one person at a time.


I'm worried that this might be a breaking point for a lot of people where they would just give up the game. They've spent days or weeks building up their workshop to have it completely destroyed overnight.


How are you invisioning clans working?
[ADMIN] Arkham
Arkham's Avatar
Posts: 902
Location: Mallow
Magus Age: 124 years old
Clan: AGOMC
Real Name: Kep
Website: Click Here
Message #469 Posted: Mar 20, 2008, 6:48 pm
It's odd that you mentioned this because I was thinking late last night that I should probably post what people can expect from clans. Hopefully this outline will answer your question.

* Creating a clan will have a Magus Level 5 requirement. There is no level requirement for joining a clan, though the clan leaders will be able to set one as well as other requirements (alignment, invite only, must be from a specific town or province, etc).

* Each clan will have a "path." The path is chosen on creation and can not be changed. It determines what sort of items or weapons a clan is able to create. For example, a clan that takes the Ranged Weapon Path will be able to make more ranged weapons than other clans. All clans will have access to basic weapons -- a sword, a mace, a bow, a lantern, etc -- but more advanced items can only be made by clans that focus on that type of item.

* Clan buildings will work very similar to a Magus' workshop. Each building will have a maximum level of 20 and have extremely high requirements: 240k+ resource costs. Clans will not generate their own resources; they will rely on donations from members.

- Headquarters: This will determine how many members you can have in your clan as well as affect how quickly buildings are created.
- Armoury: This determines how many weapons you can store. Forty(40) to start and then increasing.
- Artificer: This is the building that creates the weapons of the clan. The higher the level, the faster the weapons are created.
- Barricade: Protects the clan from other clan attacks.
- Depot: The level of the depot determines how many golems you can store in the clan and subsequently how many can be in the clan's army. Twenty five(25) to start, and then increasing.
- Warehouse: This will work just like the storage bin, only at a much greater scale.

* Members will be able to donate resources, money, and golems to the clan. Resources are used to increase the building levels and make weapons. Golems get moved to the clan's golem army. Any member of a clan can take an item from the clan armoury to add to their golems, but if they leave the clan the item will automatically be taken back. Clan items can not be sold by magi (though eventually I might let the clans themselves sell them).

* Clan combat will be based around clans sending armies of golems at other clans. Unlike a workshop -- which if totally destroyed means the player can move to another town and start over -- a clan can be destroyed to the point that it's automatically disbanded. I am pondering removing the building destruction stuff from individual magus' workshops once the clans go live for the very reasons you mention in your post.

An individual magus will have no chance at winning an attack against a clan headquarters, so I may disallow it. Likewise, a clan will be unable to attack a single magus' workshop with its golem army as that would be woefully unfair. Likely this will be explained away as being blocked by the local provincial government armies. Since clans will live or die by the actions and donations of their members, it may prove a waste of resources to destroy an individual magus; the better choice would be to recruit them instead.

Essentially the dynamic will move away from single attacks with a lone well prepared golem to bulk combat with hordes of similar golems, though the members can continue to use their own personal golems for hunting, attacks, etc.

I'm also toying with the idea of letting clans take over other clans, so you could have one group clan members running multiple sets of headquarters, etc. I'm not sure I'll actually do this, but it seems like an interesting idea.

A lot of the code is only partly done, so I'll know more as I get further along with it.

Kep
Gryficus
Gryficus's Avatar
Posts: 239
Location: Mottonsborough
Magus Age: 120 years old
Message #470 Posted: Mar 20, 2008, 8:36 pm
cool, that all sounds good.

I would recommend that either you remove the "destroy" function for individuals or you limit it to once per day from anyone or something like that. Perhaps say that you cannot attempt to destroy this workshop because previous damage is being investigated by local law enforcement.


One last question, how will motivation work for clans and clan combat? What is the dynamics around sending out the army and how often you can do it?


One last last question. What's to prevent one UBERclan from basically demolishing any new clan that starts up to the point of disbandment? Any newcomers would be at a severe disadvantage. Perhaps a similar once per day destroy command or a grace period where your clan is unattackable like a new magus?
Gryficus
Gryficus's Avatar
Posts: 239
Location: Mottonsborough
Magus Age: 120 years old
Message #661 Posted: Mar 29, 2008, 11:52 pm



I've just recently had this happen to me.

3 people acting in concert attacked me 10 times within an hour and completely demolished my defending golem.

They *could* have then began to destroy my workshop, but instead just raided it.


How are you planning on handling this as it becomes much more common as the amount of people grow and clans are instituted?

I think there needs to be some way to prevent, or dampen this effect. So that you don't have groups of people basically roving around and picking off indeviduals.
[ADMIN] Arkham
Arkham's Avatar
Posts: 902
Location: Mallow
Magus Age: 124 years old
Clan: AGOMC
Real Name: Kep
Website: Click Here
Message #667 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 12:34 am
To answer your earlier question first (I for some reason thought I'd already answered it), new clans will have a "newbie" period much as individual players do. This safety period is just intended to give them an opportunity to get defense in place; the destruction of a clan wasn't going to have a detrimental effect on the members (except of course for the loss of whatever items/resources were donated to the clan before its destruction).

For the other issue, perhaps the best solution might be to disable building destruction on an individual level. You can recover from a lost golem and resources; recovering from a building loss is going to be much more difficult even if building repairs are comparatively cheap. I'm pretty sure that I'll disable it once clans are ready for release; perhaps sooner if it starts to be a real problem. I think one reason it's not a huge problem at the moment is because damaging buildings is quite hard to do and consumes a lot of motivation, while raiding free loot is easy.

Another "soft" defense was going to be the realm of spells. Some would be purely defensive boosts, some would mend the golem automatically, some would slow attackers, etc, etc.

I'd also toyed with the idea of having clan golems guard a workshop, so if you destroyed the first guardian, there might be a queue of additional golems to fight your way through. This however would pretty much mean everyone would have to join a clan to survive long term, which isn't optimum.

My goal right now is to get a basic clan system in place (including weapon making), disable destruction of individual magus buildings, and then go from there.

Kep
Halftea
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Posts: 1307
Location: Darghelm
Magus Age: 132 years old
Clan: ADV
Website: Click Here
Message #668 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 12:43 am
Just curious, will there be any penalty for leaving a clan?
Obviously I'm thinking from more of a role-play perspective, but since it seems to me that clans are essentially like a Guild with 'trade secrets', I would think the Clan Leader/Guild Master would discourage folks joining, getting stuff, and then leaving for 'greener pastures'.

Game balance wise, I don't think it makes any difference, as it just limits the access you have to certain items, minus the bazaar of course. Just curious.
[ADMIN] Arkham
Arkham's Avatar
Posts: 902
Location: Mallow
Magus Age: 124 years old
Clan: AGOMC
Real Name: Kep
Website: Click Here
Message #669 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 12:47 am
There will be no penalty for leaving a clan. I'll leave that up to the roleplayers to enforce as they see fit.

If a person leaves a clan, the clan does take back all its clan-only items however -- even if they're already on your golem.

Kep
Halftea
Halftea's Avatar
Posts: 1307
Location: Darghelm
Magus Age: 132 years old
Clan: ADV
Website: Click Here
Message #677 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 2:02 am
I guess that would satisfy the protect Clan secrets requirement we role-players love so much. :)
Daniel
Posts: 102
Location: Last Alvia Dawning
Magus Age: 113 years old
Real Name: Daniel
Message #679 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 2:09 am
On the note of multiple people attacking one person, why not set a maximum amount of attacks in a short time, If someone gets raided x times in y hours, Give them a day or two of safe time or something to help them get back on their feet so they don't become cattle.
Sepren
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Posts: 70
Location: Dethsfell Rest
Magus Age: 128 years old
Message #680 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 2:17 am
I totally agree with daniel on his point. Otherwise you can just keep pounding away at someone while they aren't even logged in.
Daniel said:

On the note of multiple people attacking one person, why not set a maximum amount of attacks in a short time, If someone gets raided x times in y hours, Give them a day or two of safe time or something to help them get back on their feet so they don't become cattle.
Daniel
Posts: 102
Location: Last Alvia Dawning
Magus Age: 113 years old
Real Name: Daniel
Message #681 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 2:22 am
There are limits on how much one person can attack someone, Than theres an eight hour resting time. But I'm talking about when three or four people start ganging up on one person
Gryficus
Gryficus's Avatar
Posts: 239
Location: Mottonsborough
Magus Age: 120 years old
Message #687 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 3:08 am
thats only a 2 attack PER golem for 8 hours. If a person has multiple golems they can attack more.


I agree...there needs to be something along the lines of if someone is attacked more than 6 times in an hour, the local cops move in to investigate the unusually high activity, and people can't attack that person at all for 4 hours or something.
Pegga
Pegga's Avatar
Posts: 702
Location: Jaaron
Magus Age: 121 years old
Clan: ADV
Message #688 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 3:23 am
Hehehehee.... didn't stop me. Course, the particular player hasn't been on in five days, but I was desperate for some resources. Only took three poundings over the full day with the iron golem to knock the opposing golem into pieces.

Vacation people! Use the vacation feature!

Muhahahah... oh wait. I'm neutral again, leaning good. Uh... the scourge has been vanquished.

No, don't like that. Better find me someone good to attack next time.
[ADMIN] Arkham
Arkham's Avatar
Posts: 902
Location: Mallow
Magus Age: 124 years old
Clan: AGOMC
Real Name: Kep
Website: Click Here
Message #690 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 3:29 am
I've decided to go ahead and shut down building destruction. It's off as of right now.

Hmm. Pondering the additional timer. That could be a good idea. At the same time, with defense so high, the only way to really attack a single magus is to gang up on them.

What's the largest part of this problem? That people, once defenseless, get farmed/raided too often and can not rebuild their defense, or that the golem guardian can be trounced too easily with multiple attacks?

What if there were some other solution, like an automatic swap of a golem in the basement if the guard gets destroyed?

Kep
Gryficus
Gryficus's Avatar
Posts: 239
Location: Mottonsborough
Magus Age: 120 years old
Message #691 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 3:36 am
The automatic swap is interesting...but I fear would be counter productive.

You do want people to be able to destroy and raid someone, even when they gang up...

what you don't want is them to get basically raided into oblivion in a matter of minutes.


Another thing that might help this is to be able to send an email notification of your workshop gets attacked. Of course, you'd also have to implement a "cutting work short" command then as well.
[ADMIN] Arkham
Arkham's Avatar
Posts: 902
Location: Mallow
Magus Age: 124 years old
Clan: AGOMC
Real Name: Kep
Website: Click Here
Message #694 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 3:43 am
Also, the release of clans may be a double edged sword.

On one hand, it'll provide additional options for defense. If you're attacked, your clan members can organize retaliation. Plus you'd get better weapons to fight with in the first place, and there could potentially be a queue of golems guarding a workshop.

On the other hand, it'd be easier to use clan forums to organize attacks against a single mage.

A random idea just came to mind; and I'm just thinking aloud here, so don't assume this is going to be implemented.

What if a magus could seek aid from the local government, which would step in and prevent repeated attacks against their workshop. This might work like the additional per hour timer Gryficus suggested, and would require the magus to perform regular missions for the government in exchange. Essentially a trade of motivation for better workshop protection. However, once he or she joins a clan, the local government refuses to help them anymore, quoting political reasons and expecting that the clan will take over the task of protection.

Kep
Daniel
Posts: 102
Location: Last Alvia Dawning
Magus Age: 113 years old
Real Name: Daniel
Message #695 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 3:47 am
I'm working on getting my iron golem to the point where its a tank and it'll take much more than a few raids to take it down, The automatic swap may be a nice, optional feature but I don't like automatic features, The player should have to swap it themselves (assuming if their at work) at the cost of losing an hours wages (running home and turning the oven off type of thing)

Also with the additional timer, I was thinking along the lines of about 10-15 raids before starting it, 10-15 times should be enough to take down a standard golem. If not than the attackers didn't prepare well enough with armor or that sort'ove thing.

As for the email notification idea...I check my email when i'm confirming the address, Almost no other time, I check muelsfell at least once every five minutes when I have a browser open =P but it would be useful for some people, but again an option.
Daniel
Posts: 102
Location: Last Alvia Dawning
Magus Age: 113 years old
Real Name: Daniel
Message #696 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 3:52 am
Government aid? Heh I could just imagine what looking at a protected players workshop would be like

'Two Heavily Armed Iron Golems Wearing the Armor of the Local Government of *insert country* are standing guard outside'
Sepren
Sepren's Avatar
Posts: 70
Location: Dethsfell Rest
Magus Age: 128 years old
Message #712 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 4:31 pm
Yeah I imagined the same thing. It might be a requirement once clans come out to keep someone from just getting steam rolled. Perhaps another job where you earn money at a GREATLY reduced rate and the government offers protection for it.

But the automatic switch golems isn't a horrible idea either. Especially considering you can get attacked when you yourself are nowhere near a computer. Though the option should be under the players control so you don't send out a golem you don't want to.
Daniel said:

Government aid? Heh I could just imagine what looking at a protected players workshop would be like

'Two Heavily Armed Iron Golems Wearing the Armor of the Local Government of *insert country* are standing guard outside'
Tallis
Tallis's Avatar
Posts: 30
Location: Villuno
Magus Age: 115 years old
Real Name: Kel
Message #713 Posted: Mar 30, 2008, 4:49 pm
I think that the clan system will be great once it's up and running. I like that you're thinking that clans shouldn't attack players directly - It would be easy for a new person to just get pummeled if they annoyed the wrong person in the wrong clan.

I also like the concept of queued golems* - maybe allow the queue to refresh the golem after a period of time. i.e. I get attacked, and my primary "Outside" golem is destroyed - my workshop is unprotected for X-amount of time to allow me to come do something, but if I can't for some reason, the queue activates. (30 minutes? an hour? what's reasonable?)

The RP reason for this could be that it takes the "stored" golem some time to be activated and move into position unless I'm there to direct it.

*maybe make golem queues a defensive spell?

Otherwise I can see the system getting annoying - if I'm around, I'd want some time to respond - either allow the attacker to take something and not have another golem to repair or whatever...
Trader
Posts: 9
Location: Agoia Talia
Magus Age: 119 years old
Message #727 Posted: Mar 31, 2008, 2:58 pm
I've read through this thread, and to be honest, I see nothing in here except the 'prevent attacks after X attacks have occured' that would stop the griefing/gang attack behavior.

It's pretty prevalent in many browswer style games, but Muelsfell is currently worse due to numerous reasons - one of them being the relatively short amount of time it takes to do an attack. Many games use at a *minimum* a 40 minute round trip for a nearby target,and much more for a more distant target - makes ganging up on someone much harder, especially if your friends are scattered around, and makes the game more 'local'. Right now, everyone in the whole world can easily jump anyone else.

I don't want to be a douche, but Arkham, I think you need to rethink the way PvP works, rather than just trying to tune the current system.
[ADMIN] Arkham
Arkham's Avatar
Posts: 902
Location: Mallow
Magus Age: 124 years old
Clan: AGOMC
Real Name: Kep
Website: Click Here
Message #764 Posted: Apr 1, 2008, 5:01 pm
After taking a couple of days to sleep on it, I've really come to like the idea of the aforementioned mission system. So I'm going to implement something along those lines. Hopefully this week, but work has kept me busy.

Kep
Ileazar
Posts: 125
Location: Hans Mina
Magus Age: 118 years old
Message #789 Posted: Apr 2, 2008, 1:21 am
If building destruction is off, then the FAQ needs to be updated. Also, if buildings can't be destroyed, and thus magi can't relocate due to losing everything, would there be any mechanism added for voluntary relocation?
[ADMIN] Arkham
Arkham's Avatar
Posts: 902
Location: Mallow
Magus Age: 124 years old
Clan: AGOMC
Real Name: Kep
Website: Click Here
Message #796 Posted: Apr 2, 2008, 4:13 am
Yup, I'm considering allowing mages the ability to move. I'm also going to change building destruction to "wrecking the place." This won't wipe you out, but it'll slow down your ability to make items, golems, etc until you clean up.

Since clan leaders can make a particular province or location a requirement for joining, the ability to move becomes quite important. It won't be implemented until after I get clans live, however.

Kep
Jellikal
Jellikal's Avatar
Posts: 298
Location: Ogsden
Magus Age: 117 years old
Real Name: jellikal@ymail.com
Message #832 Posted: Apr 2, 2008, 11:09 pm
Think very carefully about the effect that clans will have. I have played games that I left because of the politics of player groups. It often seems that once this is implemented , you have to join a group becasue otherwise you get squashed. Perhaps a limitation that clans can only fight members of declared clans ?

Other games I have seen also have research or buildings unique to clans that require resources. So perhaps have a research on politics and X levels allows for X number of clan members.

Or a building for Clan shared storage that would be leveled up -- that sort of thing.

Think about how Clans could unbalance the game, cause they WILL if not established right.


 
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