Fix Guild Wars?!?!?!? Is That Even Possible???? (not Clickbait, Tl;dr At Bottom)

Introduction:
Now that I have your attention, I'll introduce myself. I've been playing Wynncraft since 2015, and I have multiple level 100+ classes. I'm also a chief of the guild LXA (despite what my profile says) so I've had my fair share of both attacks and defenses as a guild. While what I'm about to say might sound to some people useless or like complaining, I'll be thoroughly explaining why the changes are needed.

The new guild update isn't bad, don't get me wrong, but its certainly not perfect either. The new system of warring is pretty good in my opinion, and it adds a lot of depth to warring in general compared to before the update. This being said, there are still things that need to be done to fix balance issues.

And before the Goose people here say "You're just salty cause LXA can't keep the terrs they take lol" I'd like to say the following: When 1.20 first came out, I'm sure a lot of you guys were frustrated at the war system too, with us wiping any attempts at taking most of gavel early on in the assault on COTL/Fox. Since then, defenders have gotten serious buffs including halved defense costs, the 10 minute war cooldown, guilds can't transfer territories until an hour has passed, and the pity timer was reworked to be stronger somehow.

Suggestions:
Suggestion 1: Remove or modify the 10 minute war cooldown before a territory can be retaken.
Why should it be done?: The addition of the cooldown was meant in good faith, to allow smaller guilds time to attack multiple territories before a large guild could retaliate and wipe them out. Unfortunately, the reality is the large guild can simply wait out the 10 minutes and attack it later, usually crippling the attacker easily by removing that vital source of emerald and resource income. The small guild then needs to wait 10 minutes to retake the territory as well, something it most likely cannot afford to do.
How should it be done?: Instead of having the cooldown be 10 minutes always, have the cooldown be 10 minutes minus 30-60 seconds per territory the opposing guild controls. This way, large guilds can't just instantly wipe small ones, but as the small one grows it becomes more balanced.

Suggestion 2: Crack down on subguilding, on both sides.
Why should it be done?: Nearly every large guild has a subguild, and it's not exactly secret. Subguilds can easily break the balance of the current guild war system when used, and they have been explicitly banned for years. The fact that they still exist is a mystery to me.
How should it be done?: Make subguilding in wars bannable again; the guilds themselves can be allowed to continue, but they shouldn't be used for warring.

Suggestion 3: Remove the pity timer.
Why should it be done?: The pity timer sounds good in theory, but in practice it's a nightmare. Once it kicks in, the attacking guilds usually can't afford to attack the defender; this doesn't just allow the defender to easily reclaim the lost territories, but also if any future attacks on them occur the timer simply starts again, even hours after the attacks stopped. It also heavily tends itself towards larger guilds with the current system, since the large guild can lose half of their territories (triggering the timer) and then be considered a "small guild" due to the territories they used to control being in enemy hands, further increasing the cost of wars against them. To put this feature into context, the cost of wars can go as high as 32,000 emeralds per war; this would take hours of emerald generation even with a fair amount of territories owned, all the while the defending guild only has to pay 4,000 out of the tens of thousands they already had stored in their HQ. This is also not even mentioning that the pity cost will still be in effect even after the defender recaptures all their previous territories.
How should it be done?: For now, it should simply be removed. It gives larger guilds a massive advantage and small guilds have no chance when it takes effect, exactly the opposite of the goal of 1.20 guild wars. If in the future a better system is created that actually works in practice, perhaps that could be implemented into the main game.

Suggestion 4: Heavily nerf resource and emerald storage.
Why should it be done?: Larger guilds that have existed for at least a few days can build up immense amounts of resources; enough that they can effectively ignore taxes, attacks from enemies, or even using 500% of their resource income on defenses during raids. If the attackers can manage to surround the enemy HQ, that HQ's defenses won't decay for hours simply because it has built up 20,000-100,000 of every resource and only uses maybe 10,000 of each per hour; in the meantime they can retake the territories lost and regain income easily. Even if the attacker manages to take every other territory excluding the HQ, said HQ can simply wait for allies to arrive and be impossible to take in the meantime. Again, a huge advantage to large guilds that hurts small guilds as well; against the spirit of 1.20 guild wars.
How should it be done?: Quarter the extra resources stored per level of the upgrades, and halve the cost of the upgrades; this should force larger guilds to split up their resources over their empire, making them easier to starve strategically and making their HQ more vulnerable during encirclement. This would not effect smaller guilds nearly as much, since they simply don't have many resources to store. Perhaps a setting for making a territory a "resource store" could be implemented as well, or maybe territories with upgraded resource storage automatically store extra resources to make things easier for guild strategists.

Suggestion 5: Add a maximum distance a guild can war from.
Why should it be done?: I shouldn't need to tell people why a guild warring from a remote corner of Gavel attacking the furthest parts of Wynn isn't exactly fair. Even if they can't defend the territories, they still can hold them for 10 minutes guarenteed because of the war cooldown. If a critical territory is captured (say, a headquarters or a choke point) the opposing guild has to wait 10 or more minutes of taxation or resource blockage with no alternatives. This is balanced for nearby guilds, but not for ones across the entire map. A nearby guild you can counterattack and create new routes around the captured choke point. A far away guild you can't do anything against because the costs are simply too high to even start a war on them. Even with choke points out of mind, a far away guild can take the HQ of the defending guild and effectively delete the resources stored within. This forces the defending guild to wait through several minutes of attacks just recovering the resources and emeralds lost; with a nearby guild you can counterattack their HQ and possibly take it to recover some of the resources. If you were to argue that the enemy has to wait long times for the war to start, and therefore it's balanced, I would argue the opposite. A HQ can't be moved once an attack is started on it; including while the timer to actually start it is going down. If an enemy can't actually take the headquarters for 30 minutes, they still force it to be the HQ for those 30 minutes; if abused you can permanently keep an enemy's HQ somewhere and force it to take massive taxes the entire time.
How should it be done?: Simply increasing the emerald cost to start the war doesn't work, since a massive guild can easily afford almost any cost for said war. Instead, I suggest that a war shouldn't be able to be started if the emeralds to start if have to go through 6-8 territories or more the guild doesn't directly own. This way, a guild can only war so far away from their land, putting a hard limit on their effective capabilities. It still doesn't limit a guild's maximum size however, since you can create a line of territories to war further away if needed.

Conclusion:
For now, that is all I'm going to put in this post. I have a few more ideas for changes to guild wars, but they are more of reworks than rebalances; changes too big for a post like this. In my experience warring for LXA, these issues have time and time again thwarted our raids, rather than the actual guilds. I'm not saying out opponents are bad, I'm just saying that there were many assaults we should have won by all accounts, but lost due to one or more of these things. These issues are the biggest ones that need to be changed, but also won't drastically change the field of guild wars.

TL;DR:
1: Make the 10 minute war cooldown reduce by 30 seconds per territory the capturer owns.
2: No more subguilding in wars.
3: Remove the pity timer/pity war cost increase
4: Quarter the resources/emeralds stored and halve the cost of the storage upgrades.
5: Add a maximum distance of 6-8 territories your guild doesn't own for attacks.
(I explained everything in detail in the rest of the actual post)

Need clarification? Want other changes? Comment on this post and I'll get to you when I can!

Also as a reminder for Goose alliance members: this is for balance, not because I'm salty. You guys keep going strong!

 

1. As stated by the great and wise Ice. It is also used so that resources can get from the HQ to the Terr. If this was done then there would be situations and issues like desert being even worse. Since holding all of desert + a wood terr requires ~19 terrs. So if you were to constantly sit on the two ore terrs (Rymek East Lower, Rymek West Lower) you could even more easily drain them of their resources. This being since it takes ~4mins for resources to go from Almuj (one of the best slots for an hq due to the amount of connecting terrs and it being the desert entrance choke point) to the nearest terr, Rymek West Lower, and with this change as is would not give the terr a long enough time to get resources (30 - 1:30 cd so attacker would already be in the arena within 2:30 - 3:30). Add on to the fact that trying to take back the quickest territory is at a minimum 15mins (5 min journey + 10min cd).

2. Sub guilds are A++. Also still the issue I presume of how do you judge what is a sub and what is a legit guild?

3. Pity is magical. I'm not sure anyone knows when pity kicks in except <20 territories, pity cost will increase sometimes even when the guild is gaining territories, and the decay of pity cost is something like 5mins - 10mins per level maybe? (I was watching pity once and 32k -> 28k took ~5 - 10 mins, 28k -> 24k took ~10-20mins, 24k -> 20k took another 10 - 20mins, etc.)

4. I have mixed feelings about this. While yes it does make actually draining an established (a day of terrs at most with few attacks and good eco) guild a lot harder, at the same time it is both a good thing for defenders and attackers. With high storage you don't have to worry about your hq just getting drained in a few mins - hour of one or two guilds constantly circling your hq. As an attacker it is good since if you can take a chokepoint and tax it hard (w/o the enemy guild realizing/changing defenses fast enough or other cases) you can quickly build a really strong hq with 100k+ resources.

5. Honestly I have nothing to comment here. Doesn't mean I agree or disagree.

Also lastly, what defense would a defender have? Already with all of this and wynn went :crab:. (Granted not for long(?) but still).

(Keep in mind this is from almost purely attacker perspective).

 

I think I have a better solution:

 

Halved defense cost work both ways, not a buff to either side.
War cooldown once again works both ways, if you take a critical resource terr from a defending guild they have to wait to take it back.
An hour cooldown is a nerf to defenders lol, we can't as effectively help allies. How is this possibly a buff to defenders. Ceding was an extremely strong to a mega alliance and now it is barely used
Pity costs was nerfed.

 

This makes two guilds with equal war power not be in an equal loop which is incredibly cringe and by definition attacker based

we remember what happened last time lmao

yes subwaying big guilds is very fun and goes right into the entire purpose of 1.20 wars

this is flat out not how hqs work
5th point is a little cringe too but tbh not super against it, imo its unneeded because tax makes those territories undefended and pretty useless

 

consider implementing changes that'll help you take over the map will make it easy for us to retake it lol

 

pre 1.20 sure, also how many wars do you have overall in the 1.20 system? (hint: check the tome slot) For example, I have 688 wars over 3 classes and I would not say this can be considered as a lot

You've lost all your credibility right there. When your defense starts with "other ppl badt" you've lost it.

Because everyone were noobs who didnt understand the system, not to count the countless glitches (some of them still existing) which made the start of 1.20 an overall shit experience (for everyone I assume)

Fox wiped themselves by ceding it all to Imp after EDN drew a dick in canyon..?

-halved defense costs also help smaller economy guilds put more powerfull defenses early on

-10 minute war cooldown is absolutely awfull to defend yourself againts because taking 1 territory can absolutely destroy your economy, not to mention that you need bigger timers depending on where your HQ is to then war that territory (unlike attackers) which means that you can lose control of a territory for 20 minutes (assuming you kill the tower in 1 minute max)

-not being able to transfer terr is a buff to defender???? what the fuck man, I thought this was a mesure to HELP defenders between each others, so retaking a territory isn't RNG like sniper wars pre 1.20, as a matter of fact, no ally will hold a territory for a whole ass hour to be able to cede it back during a raid, let alone be able to defend it because of taxes. And before you say "the defender just have to war it back" consider that most of the timers gets canceled by attackers having sub 5 minutes timers usually. So no, putting the cede cooldown is far from being a buff to the defenders.

-How do you know pity was buffed when nobody knows how does pity work except "oh it sometimes happen when a guild gets dogpilled on"?

That is one of the best buff attackers got so far, it even bore defenders to death by having them wait 15 minutes to retake a territory their entire economy revolves around

There is water in the ocean
There is air in the sky
There is pain in my fingers from having to answer this thread
Defenders will wait for the cooldown to end before attacking and taking back the territory

These are all logicals sentences, of course the defenders will take back their territories! Unless you decide to go community guild mid raid and cede all your territories away!

Same can be said about attackers taking away your only city which accounts for 60% of your emeralds production on your claim

If you can't afford 200 emeralds wars then boi I don't know who manages your economy but he sure needs to have an economic crash course (don't emerald boost an oasis, please.)

Aka being able to wipe a guild with 40 terrs in under 10 minutes

I have never seen in my whole 1.20 experience a guild that lose their territories instantly, if you do see one make sure to post a bug report about it!

Same as old times eh?

Every moderators ive spoken to about that idea hate it because the sad truth is... define me whats a subguild? Every aspect of it will come down to "it might be a sub, it might be a 1 player guild, it might be a sub, it might just don't want to attack this alliance and that alliance don't want to attack it back, we'll never know!" Simply "subguilds are now bannable" will lead to a witch hunt that would make McCarthy cower in fear

what theory? that its an ominous creature merely existing over every defenders that choose when is the right time and place to activate itself? Cause in my experience, we can't define pity cost in theory because of how unpredictable it is

Revise your warring strategies when it comes to pity, hint: one word in that sentence needs less S

its not easy to reclaim 80% of your territories, trust me (not even accounting for potential defenses on the terrs that attackers have)

yea, its supposed to act like that. Instead of having to war for 36h in a row you have to war for 24h, I think thats a good change that everyone was asking for pre 1.20

letting yourself lose 90% of your territories is the worst defending strat and it clearly shows you haven't defended a lot. Waiting for 18h for your pity to proc is not a reliable strat, also if you control that much territories from an enemy guild, then why don't you, again, rework your strats to do... "something else that would be wayy better than continue dogpilling that guild" (being vague because I don't want to give you flat out strats, think about them yourself)

No, not everyone has to pay ;)

because they've been left unchallenged for months on end?

as entirely intended

again, rework your strat. pity doesnt serve to ban attackers from attacking, but to give defenders a time to breath when its been over 12h they've been raided

a few months*, assuming you meant "been on the map unchallenged" and not "that have existed", otherwise 2014 guilds like TNA would have trillions of emeralds I guess

@thatswhatido and the savanah, jungle, SE, the ocean, south corkus, COTL, AVO on molten reach, would all disagree with you. Not to mention there's no reason to not use 80% tax and I didnt include closing borders. You clearly don't know how taxes and the whole economy works if you think taxes are useless (not yall playing on 2% taxes for a whole ass raid so...)

ah yes, let me lose all my ore producing territories in the province of Wynn, I shall go reclaim in 4h from the current time, this is quite the efficient defensive strategy.

overspending by 500%, not including getting terrs taxed, will absolutely destroy your whole fucking economy lmfao. Its like managing your budget and putting 10$ for the whole year on food thinking you won't starve. (btw ive rarely seen people put very high on every territories when they were raided, but it might just be me)

Surrounding an HQ will absolutely cripple its defenses, again please revise your warring strat with that information and read the whole defending menu of territories. (Pro tip: We, TNI, lost our hq in about 10 minutes because we've been encircled)

with 10 minutes cooldowns on every territories yea sure, not even counting the war timers yea sure, not even counting attackers being able to retake them because they're hardly able to be defended bcs of tax issues yea sure.

I don't know many guilds that can sustain 4x11 4233 for 8h without any territories except their hq, even if their storage is maxed, but ok

well yea, of course a 5 players guild won't do much againts a 500+ players alliance sparking dozens of guild which togheter has 24/7 timezones, warring is still a team game
which means alone you won't be efficient, just like pre 1.20

You clearly don't know anything about storage economy, please come back when you've managed more economy and understand how this sentence is far from being the reality.

its already easy as hell.

well yea of course a guild with 0 territories has nothing to store. You also need to make a distinction between a small guild and a guild that control few territories please for the love of god. For example: Atlas Inc is a big guild, but they do not control any territories. TNA is a medium sized guild but they do not control any territories. GYP is (on top) a small guild and they do not control any territories.

thats called "Set as HQ" (watchout there's no confirmation upon clicking)

The ocean is deceiving you.

omg this exactly sounds like a strat attackers should use (oops!) oh wait! Not to mention it can also give great harm to the defending guild because they ABSOLUTELY NEED that territory, for example: a city, the only ore producing terr in the region, that one terr you need to not get taxed on 90% of your territories, etc.

>SE
>Jungle

have fun avoiding those chokepoints!

What? Are you saying its impossible to hit AVO in Sky from Jungle because you have only 10k ems in your bank and there's atleast 4 guilds with 80% over multiple territories on your way to sky? Isn't that basic taxes?

thats supposed to be bad?

I reread that atleast 5 times, translate this please but simpler

ah shit, here we go again...

before you use the word "abused", remember that duping is an abuse, not queing an attack on an HQ. Before you say people are abusing normal features, remember that you strongly compare them to glitch abusers (again, like dupers)

Yea! 30k emeralds per wars and 25 minutes is very efficient to war COTL from Detlas!

If your solution is to absolutely restrain a guild from warring, then I propose that hitting /gu attack when you have 0 territories starts a war on a random territory instead, restricting you from choosing where you want to war. More seriously, adding restrictions and cooldowns only hurt the game, we've seen enough of them so lets not see more.

Rework

Your

Strats.

Then just

Rework

Your

Strats

to suit yourself around these... wait im almost giving strats now, oops

ahah... if only :/


I, sadly, think thats about it for now.

Please rework your strategies before suggesting incoherent "balance changes" that will only hurt the game more.

 

Sorry AVO is a powerhouse across the map but we have a right to attack wherever we feel and shouldn't be held back :shrug:
also beached whale guilds sounds horrific and thats what in-game guild alliances should bolster.

Who does this? If this is your point of view when it comes to overdriving output during major raids then ya'll have nothing by the time an enemy pokes around with you.

Again, you got change after you complaint about it, don't need another feed. thought doing your raids a bit more strategically rather than dogpiling on the map then have a
Guild to Territory ratio of 1:3 and complain why you have no emeralds?

Turtle up, Tax out, Take down. Or think of another final territory strategy. :thinking:

 

Ive been saying something like this for a while. I think it could even go as fas as to only allow warring territories that you are touching. I think it would lead to much more strategy

 

new and undeniably better suggestion from the one and only bikesuper:

 

I’ve defended and attacked guilds before, and I can say I don’t think you understand the new system. The fact that you imply tax being useless is actually kind of mind boggling to me. Attackers are incredibly OP if you understand how to attack. I’m saying this because Rays has literally destroyed large empire guilds by ourselves. If anything defenders need a buff. Attackers have nothing to lose in attacking on map guilds, while defenders have everything to lose.

 

mfw you post this after shy attacks and dismantles 75% of wynn after being wiped

 

*laughs in idontdowarsbcpolotics*

 

And then when Artemis eventually holds the entire map because the attackers have been buffed so much, they'll ask for the attackers to be nerfed again :)

On a serious note, my biggest issue is with the fifth point, if these wars are meant to simulate with warring in a real scenario for the most part, what's to stop one ally from helping another over long distance? I understand the idea but it doesn't make much sense in practice when you think about it realistically. :v

 

TLDR: assymetric pvp is extremely hard to balance. So don't feel bad wynnteam.



Threads like these are the reason why I am completely terrified to post the numerous suggestions I have written down so far where I take the time to consider the needs of both sides and take an objective look at the state of guild and guildwars. (keyword NEEDS and not wants)

Because god forbid a reputable person from a defending guild brings up dire problem with defending while also *gasp* bringing up problems and possible solutions for the attackers as well. Creating the illusion 1 side actually has it much worse than the other.
Sadly it seems only 1 side here cares about defenders and i'm not going to break that tie in a thread where practically all propositions benefit attackers.

As last week had proven, artemis AKA "the attackers" had no trouble absolutely steamrolling the entire wynn province within hours, an event which on it's own could be deconstructed to reveal several fundamental issues with defending as well but I digress. There isn't a systemic barrier to removing allianced guilds from the map yet this thread makes it seem like there is a large gap between the 2 sides.

It's such a shame because I actually acknowledge a few of the problems which are implied here that contributed towards the countersweep during the war for the wynn province (aside from a difference in strength). But what I see here is a mere few actual problems paired with a lot a drivel, more often than not with disproportionately extreme solutions that will take guildwars into a direction of lower quality and potential. (And no I am literally afraid to elaborate for now because read paragraph 2)

Both the attacking and defending positions have their own set of issues and clearly neither of them are as overpowered as some people would want you to believe, and any significant change to one side risks completely destroying what little balance we have right now if the other side is not taken into consideration.

I apologize if I am straw manning Artemis as this single thread though this has felt like an ongoing thread with seemingly only a minority willing to meet in the middle properly. I also apologize if I come off rude towards the creator of the thread who might have had genuinely good intentions, alas I have spend a vast amount of time thinking about many guild issues myself and I'm not going to hold back when I see the wrong (non-)problems and solutions being pushed.

 

ayooo chill didn't have to destroy the dude
in all seriousness though i really dislike all of these changes except for the removal or heavy nerfing of pity cost that completely stops any raid in its tracks.

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*tni, tnl, avo, mag, gsw, edn, nia, and shy noises*

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the hell kind of argument is that
"we have a right to attack when and wherever because we're strong and nothing should stand in our way"
am I understanding something wrong or is this what you're saying?

 

incredible point never thought about that one before

when you're strong you have a right to attack ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? what about it

 

Today’s episode in do 3 wars and then make an hour long thread about how to perfectly fix them?