NW Scores after new Map.

ouch lol....
maybe it will be more balanced with a populated server

I'd like to click there but mcafee doesn't like it

looks similar to dreamweaver- we had three very equal nations and one really strong one.

Those scores seem a little lopsided.

This map change, unfortunately, is bad.

Here's the thing. For example, I want you to imagine a pro Frost nation that can hold the top half of the map. Look at these two pictures:

http://i781.photobucket.com/albums/yy96/DUDE2509/newtwmap-1.png

http://images-cdn.perfectworld.com/www/01/99/0199a64a7a2881e96be6867299572f8d1362702576.jpg

Base-locking was popular because when you base-lock, you're protecting the ENTIRE corner of lands behind you. It was strategically wise to do so and drastically helped your Nation by defending TONS of lands just with 2-4 good squads, allowing all other squads to focus more on the opposite nation.

I want you to count, from Light's base to Dark's base, how many lands there are just north of them. You'll find that with the old map, if Frost wanted to hold the top half of the map, they'd need to hold 9 (5 for Dark, 4 for Light) different lands, and by doing so, they'd protect all the lands north of those they're fighting in.

With the new map? Frost needs to defend 12 lands (6 for Dark, 6 for light) to hold the top half. That's a difference, but the thing is the difference is TINY compared to the increased amount of lands and points that Frost gains for holding those lands north of the battles. While you're expected to hold 3 more lands to properly defend the top half, you're rewarded 50 Nation points for doing so instead of the old 32. JUST for successfully winning 3 more battles than before!!

And base-****? Speaking for a squad that did it professionally b:cool (treated it like our job), you don't need to base-lock both sides; no, you just wanna base-lock your side, to encourage the nation to go the other direction. Used to be you had to hold 2 lands to do so, 3 if the nation was resilient and insisted on attacking your nation. Now? Now you need to hold 3.....that's NOT that big of a deal, given the effect it has. Frost now gets SOOOOOOOOOO many more points for holding the corner north of Dark, but they're only expected to fill ONE more battle to actually hold that entire corner.

Again, if Frost held the corner north of Dark pre-map change via a base-lock, it required Frost to successfully hold 2-3 lands, and by holding the corner, afforded Frost ~16 Nation points per 10 minutes they were held. With the new map, Frost needs to hold 3 lands to base-lock and hold the corner, and by holding the corner, they gain ~25 points per 10 minutes. Keep in mind also that it would take MUCH longer for Dark to take that corner back simply because there's more lands to take. The longer it takes, the longer Frost is getting points for those lands.

It's RIDICULOUS. It's requiring barely any more effort while rewarding WAAAAY more, thus polarizing the winners and losers even further.

All this map does is dramatize and polarize the winning and losing nations. They've increased the amount of lands without actually doing much to increase the amount of front lines; all those extra lands in the corners does LITTLE to balance out the nations because it's still all the same when it comes to simply needing to hold the lands in FRONT of the corner to protect the corner entirely. Meanwhile, it takes longer to actually capture lands and advance on other nations, simply because they're more lands to take.

All this means that nations that have a strong start and stronger, more offensive front lines are basically good to go. The gap between them and a losing nation has only INCREASED, not decreased, simply because there's more points being gained for BASICALLY holding the SAME amount of lands and doing the SAME amount of work. Meanwhile, any nation that has a slow start or just plain weaker people on average needs to do A LOT more work to actually turn around their nation score; yes ok, breaking out of a baselock is basically the same (3 wars instead of 2), but TAKING that corner behind the baselock? That'll take a while, and that's quite significant and noticeable.


The result is that the gap between the winning and losing nations is dramatically bigger; not smaller. Base-locking STILL exists because Base-locking has and always will be the result of idiots refusing to give up on fighting squads they cannot beat.

As an example, before this change Harshlands' typical Nation War would see one nation getting ~160 points while the other three get 210-260 points. My squad typically would get at least ~120 tokens each (obviously varies by member) in losing nations and ~200 in winning nations.

Now? Winning nation members reported as high as 500 tokens, losing nations struggled to get 50. Base-locking still existed.


The result is that overall, in some ways Nation war has become a lottery; more random and chance-based. The reason being is that you enter the Nation war, and basically you just wanna pray you have competent squads with you that successfully push out ASAP and hold those front lines; you yourself can do little to nothing to actually influence your nation's success.
It used to be my squad could baselock other nations and viola. It wasn't fool-proof; we had to hope another competent squad covered the land that neighbored the one we covered, but we had a way to do something that helped our nation.

Now? You can't do jack. You enter the war, and within the first 20 minutes, you'll know if you're in a winning nation or losing nation. Why? Because whichever nation has the strongest initial push is untouchable. Even if they fall the **** apart about 40 minutes into the NW and suddenly can't win or defend worth a darn, it DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL, because it'll be another 20 minutes before the other nations can successfully cap and take all those tiny little lands from the nation that had the strongest initial push. The result is that -JUST- by having a strong initial push, your nation is guarenteed a great score.
Likewise, your individual skill matters less because the lands you can cap? Just one drop in a freaking ocean of lands.

Lastly, your tokens and personal points? More luck-based. Why? With more lands, it means it's harder to guarentee you find full battles and not tiny, pointless wars. Since the amount of tokens you get is based on how you compare to other players, this means that you could do your job, play perfectly fine and perform well in every battle you're in, but your cut of the tokens at the end might STILL be sub-par simply because you were comparatively unlucky in which battles you entered; you might get less tokens solely because it's more likely that you may enter 20v4 wars (you're the 20) while another competent player finds an 8v20 (him 8) and manages to win it, awarding him WAAAAAY more personal points than you could ever get in your 20v4.



Some people may like it this way, I do not. It waters down how much individual skill and coordination actually matter and basically turns NW into a lottery...

Longknife - Harshlands wrote: »

This map change, unfortunately, is bad.
You enter the war, and within the first 20 minutes, you'll know if you're in a winning nation or losing nation. Why? Because whichever nation has the strongest initial push is untouchable. Even if they fall the **** apart about 40 minutes into the NW and suddenly can't win or defend worth a darn, it DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL, because it'll be another 20 minutes before the other nations can successfully cap and take all those tiny little lands from the nation that had the strongest initial push. The result is that -JUST- by having a strong initial push, your nation is guarenteed a great score.
Likewise, your individual skill matters less because the lands you can cap? Just one drop in a freaking ocean of lands.

While I enjoyed reading your post, I would like to disagree. Our goal was to occupy more lands to place our Nation higher. I was in Light on RT tonight and we started well but quickly dropped to 4th place. We concentrated on taking land in unopposed or lightly defended battles. We wound up in 2nd place. We got our points in the last half hour by joining moderate sized battles with opposition, like 9 from our Nation vs 20 of the opponents. My squad was mostly TT2 members and many broke 8k contribution and hit in the 80's for tokens. (That might not be high as a farmer; but, good for land farming to move our nation up 2 spots.) You can pick your fights to get points as opposed to just luck or lottery.

It may be too early with these new maps to have the ultimate strategy determined yet.

b:bye

Got a few less tokens than usual...was in flame on harshlands. Did not see a difference one way or another. I actually lagged less and did not d/c at all unlike last Sunday. All in all no big deal. I actually liked the lack of base lock. They failed to mention that flame was very close to being base locked in the first 30 min but it did not happen thanks to new map and we were able to get 2nd after being very far behind. I would say at least for nw (aside from everything else) a successful update. I swear I have seen harshlands map look more unbalanced that those points/nations.

Irca - Harshlands wrote: »

Got a few less tokens than usual...was in flame on harshlands. Did not see a difference one way or another. I actually lagged less and did not d/c at all unlike last Sunday. All in all no big deal. I actually liked the lack of base lock. They failed to mention that flame was very close to being base locked in the first 30 min but it did not happen thanks to new map and we were able to get 2nd after being very far behind. I would say at least for nw (aside from everything else) a successful update. I swear I have seen harshlands map look more unbalanced that those points/nations.

Think what happened is that we (Flame) basically got the full brunt of Light and Dark at the start so Frost kinda just...yeah. We did get out of it and ended up second place, but there was nothing we could have done about Frost at all.

I think the new map is great. b:victory

Our server went back and forth. In the very beginning Light was almost based locked, but then they fought back and with only 30 minutes left they ended up owning half the map and base locking both Flame and Frost. For the last 30 minutes all 3 nations ganked Light; with too much land to defend they lost the majority of it but still ended up in first place.

With the new map it is still possible to base lock a nation, but it makes it extremely difficult to keep them lock.

The only issue I saw tonight was that people were not spreading out. Often a nation would win a land with only 2 or 3 people in a battle because no one from the other side showed up even though that nation had 20 players in a nearby battle fighting against 10 or less. I think it will just take time for people to realize that they do not have to fill a battle.

As a lower level I must say I love the new map. I was able to pick and chose which battles to fight in instead of before when I had either the option of going to a battle or sitting at base. In certain battles that had many op player I now could just leave and easily find a different battle. My score was one of my best yet, and I also ended up with the most tokens to date.

Well... the 6 lands surrounding the bases could have been achieved by simply moving the bases away from the walls as I have stated on numerous occasions.

This would have kept the armies more in each others faces as it was before.

However, they added a motherload of lands to the map instead.

Sure, everyone is more spread out and you might get less personal contribution depending on which battles you get into while flying blindly into crosshaired icon lands where the battles are already or in taking on the next objective on your path in an attempt to baselock another nation.

Battles however, are not at all like lottery, not for those who watch what the map is doing with a little bit of scanning the lands. You can see how many members from another nation are in each land. You can see how many left from one land, are moving to surrounding lands toward your own nation. You can see which direction you can move to be in the direction of those opposition's numbers. You can CHOOSE which battles to be in. I damn well know I did on numerous occasions, against top tw faction "OP squads" on purpose, because they do yield me greater contribution. And you can fairly easily tell which squads are the OP squads on their way over by watching the 5-10 people making their way through frontlines toward the base, those are the only people that move in such a manner.

I must have even surprised a few flag carriers that thought they were "OP" and that the way before them was an open road... Black Voodoo and Jones swapped (when I more often am in white voodoo and malley swapped)... pew pew pew... try again b:bye b:chuckle

Any who... I think overall, this change is better for the majority who do not go baselocking oppostion nations, cant baselock opposition nations, and had no way of unlocking bases as it was prior to this change... The only people i am seeing have a problem with this latest change, apparently all know the mechanics and tactics in baselocking... all of the "OP squad" types from top tw factions that dont really need to get tokens to just compete... they are the ones everyone else is trying to compete with... if this is doing better for the greater majority of players, the people that are trying to compete, then STET b:cool (let it stand)

Wickedbrew - Raging Tide wrote: »

I admittedly have no chance against the op squads, however, I know most of the names of players in various TW factions, (thanks to their incessant belittling of each other in wc), and if I see some in my nation, in the same battle, I stick to them, help where I can (stun, HF, etc). Otherwise, I try protecting the flag, or attacking the opposing team's flag carrier.

In time I'm sure the op squads will figure out a way to baselock opposing teams, but for now, its a nice reprieve to actually spend time in battle, rather than watching the minutes roll by at base. I'm pleased with 9400 contribution from last night.

And your strategy is wiser than mine, my hat is off to ya b:cute... I go into nw solo, and go according to how the people in the lands are moving, and try to get to the disadvantaged battles to help out my nation... Sticking to the "OP's" is definitely a smart tactic if not R9+ oneself... I suspect Boartracker is as good a teacher as a leader from what I have seen....

In time perhaps (in reference to op squads figuring out baselocking again), but I actually doubt it will be as consistent as it was previous to this map update... I have said it before... more lands surrounding the base will specifically reduce baselocking and potential baselocking durations, not end it entirely... I definitely see this upping my personal contribution by about 30-40% due to not getting baselocked or as much... and increasing my own chances of improving my nation's score by being able to get out of base and to where I see fit...

Actually let me clarify, when I stick to them like glue, it is only during that particular battle, especially if the opposing team is using me like a sponge,which often happens. I look for names in that battle of people that are in the same nation and once the battle is over, I go my separate way.

One thing I did notice, people that can cast on others (clerics/venos) seemed much more at ease in casting on fellow nation members to give them buffs, whereas before the map change, it was few and far between since the instances were more often than not, quite lopsided and it was do whatever one could to survive.

I also noticed, I was able to stay with my squad longer, until I got separated from them and was on my own.

I may be a gimp, but I give it my all.

I see a good discussion and many who seemed to have a better NW experience with the new map. And, as much as I wish I knew exactly what to do, I think that we're all still looking at new strategies for the new map. I'm guessing that the higher number of lands are more important than the PK portions of NW for nation positions. This makes farming less important than nation placement.

However, the OP squads still have an option to divide into 2 squads and increase their chances of a good fight along with helping out by adding additional squads to the nations. If we have 200 ~ 300 players per nation, at 10 peeps per squad, that gives you 20 ~ 30 squads. Cut the squads in half and you have 40 to 60 squads. Just a thought...

Something else I haven't seen mentioned is that 3 nations now have fast attack avenues to them that OP squads could use for attack & defense. Mentioned here. I'd have thought the OP squads would have used this to meet & greet each other. (Flame still gets the short end of the deal, lol.)

Ganking a nation will still drop their placement. It's simple math. But, since we have a finite number of folks playing (squads,) keeping an eye out for cut off lands and getting lands quickly becomes more important. Blocking off lands with just 1 player was working Friday night. (I even know of one battle won by just 1 player as I got there as they planted the 2nd flag.) (This brings up getting folks ready for NW with proper apothecary.) Team work in small groups is very important. This makes playing with non-faction mates and communicating efficiently very important. The lost art of typing messages makes a comeback With just a little luck, the folks who stopped doing NW for various reasons may come back. (We all need those additional squads now.) Those squads that used to base lock others might now look at cutting/ blocking off portions of opponent's lands to let fellow nation squads pick up land quickly. Maybe we can co-ordinate actions on a larger scale than doing one squad in Vent...

I would suggest that old TW grudges and egos be set aside and let's see some leadership develop on the servers that can adapt to the teamwork and Nation leadership in NW. This would actually need folks who understand NW tactics and can go from squad member to leader as required weekly. Now that would be interesting to see.

Just my thoughts for free and worth about that much.

b:bye

I had 3800 personal credits and dark nation got 2nd place and i had got no tokens. A freind was in flame nation and had 3700 and got 33 tokens, why i not get any.

I thought it felt faster but I wasn't sure if it was just wishful thinking. I was able to cross the map 3 times last night in a reasonable amount of time so maybe it is faster.