Archived A Reason To Raid

[Mafrorific]

Some of the folks I've invited to the server just had an off-putting experience and I wanted to share it in the hopes it could be discussed and remedied, or at least improved.

The fundamental issue was that they couldn't see a point to raiding. Here's why:

Two of them (super excited with all the amazing features and plugins!) wanted to try out raiding during their first hours on the server (even though we don't even have decent gear yet), so they headed off to SteelOath - a faction with a strong, PvPish name and a base that's not too far from ours. There were two members of SteelOath online, so we enemied them and my two guys went after them thinking it'd be a nice 2v2. One stayed inside, while they killed one of them 5 times, enough to be down to zero power. After dying 5 times that other one stayed inside too.

I reached out to an officer in SteelOath and after a brief conversation it was pointed out that there really wasn't anything that we could do to them. They saw no reason to sue for peace or even offer a few regals as a token surrender or acknowledgement of being bested. They appeared content to hang out inside the enclosed portion of their base or just log off (which that officer promptly did). I was told that this server wasn't really for raiding, and they didn't bother raiding on it for the very reasons we were encountering.

Now, I'm used to Factions where I can launch TNT to blow up a base, loot chests, and overclaim territory. I understand none of those things are MassiveCraft, and for good reason. However, if the best you can do raiding is slightly inconvenience your opponent by making them shut-ins, and the only way of doing that is through the mind-numbing task of sitting outside their walls...well...I don't see much of a future on MassiveCraft for most of the Factions players I know, especially the good raiders/PvPers.

Unless I'm missing something, perhaps there could be a discussion about creating real - yet reasonable - consequences for a faction being raided, and real - yet reasonable - reasons to raid.

For example, if members of an enemy faction are on claimed land, perhaps the defending faction members could receive an alert and if that enemy is still on claimed land 20 minutes later the invader receives 1r from the bank of the invaded faction.

In other words, perhaps there could be a way to create a reasonable consequence for factions that just sit indoors to avoid a raid (a type of "raid tax", in the example I just gave), which might encourage them to engage with other factions (form mutual defense alliances) or even surrender when that really should be a good option for them. As it stands, with next to no consequence for those with a decent base, there's next to no reason to form strong, active mutual defense pacts, and little reason to fork over a bunch of regals.

If there are concerns such a "raid tax" might effectively result in an overclaim, due to factions being unable to pay their real taxes, perhaps only factions with enough in the bank for a day or a week of taxes could be subject to it. That would result in poorer factions being more often left alone, while richer factions would be more often targeted, which seems both realistic and beneficial to players on all sides.

Anyway, just some observations and thoughts coming from several fresh pairs of eyes....

 

[LordSylveon]

If you really want regals from attacks, stealstrike is always a thing.

As for raids and war, its tricky. If you're opponents can hide somewhere you'll never reach, then they have no reason to surrender. Even if you waste them out in the open, not being able to get past their defenses can always be a problem.

Most of the value in this server's war comes from loot from killing. You should expect your pay from raiding to be what you get when you kill them. Never expect to get tribute, not unless you can raid them every day during their most active hours.

 

[Percuriam]

One prospect you're kind of missing here is that not every faction is capable of defending themselves. Small factions, say ones that just started, also cannot afford to be taxed extra regals just because you're standing at their door with an axe. And 1r per every 20 minutes (I'm guessing that would be the proper interval, since you mentioned it above) also isn't really enough to keep a raider there, I would think. At the most you could camp a faction by yourself for 3-5 hours, meaning the max number of regals you would get is 15. I'm not much of a PVPer, but when I do raid I tend to go for more than just 15r. So, in the end, you have two sides that are unhappy. The raided, because they're trapped inside of their faction and unable to leave for fear of dying, and the raider, who can't slaughter their enemy and is only making somewhere around 15r.

Another point I'd like to touch on is that Massive encourages nice-looking buildings in your faction. This can be evidently seen in some of @PariahFolk's faction buildings, @BillyTheScroofy's Mithril, and @Th3_Drunk_Monk's Ujakmal. Thinking back to building in some of the factions aforementioned, raiders ARE a big inconvenience. If you've seen any of the factions mentioned before, you would know that they definitely weren't build over night. Raiders are especially annoying for this, just jog out to a faction and slaughter everyone while they're building. And it isn't always just prems that are building, either. I've gotten inventories full of building supplies. So, really, if you're careful as to which enemies you pick, theres quite the opportunity to grab some extra loot from builders and even impede progress. Another thing you can do is bring along fireballs, and fireball any animals the faction has. Not just animals either, I've gotten lots of kills in raids by just fireballin the f homes of factions.

While the above paragraph is just one aspect, there really isn't a solution that I could find to this. Maybe you could base the "Raid tax" on the number of players in the faction. I do, however, remember a raid where Monk and I built cannons outside of their faction and bombarded it for about half an hour, -chuckles-.

 

[thor5648]

Preach brotha preach!!!!!!!

 

[Mafrorific]

If you're opponents can hide somewhere you'll never reach, then they have no reason to surrender.

Click to shrink...

That's kinda my point. Give me 5 seconds in a claimed chunk, and I can hide somewhere you'll never reach. Dig down three blocks, place one dirt above my head, and we're done: raid over.

 

[GladiatorAnthony]

Some intelligent ideas you posted and I agree completely, I have 4-5 friends who I always play factions servers, and I love this server but they don't see what I see. They like to PvP and I told them how to attack people and one time my friends went to attack a faction which took them 30 minutes walk to get there just for them to get off one kill and then they hid inside their walls. The problem with taking out money is that if it hits 0 your faction disbands, and if lets say it was only 1% of the bank and limited of how much it could withdraw then people would put low amounts of money inside their faction bank. I do agree though something of raiding and hiding needs to be thought of to get the thrill of getting loot back.

 

[Mafrorific]

One prospect you're kind of missing here is that not every faction is capable of defending themselves. Small factions, say ones that just started, also cannot afford to be taxed extra regals just because you're standing at their door with an axe.

Click to shrink...

Thanks for your thoughts here. I was hoping this would spark some intelligent discussion that might offer with it the prospect of action. Your response, and those of others, has satisfied that first goal.

I agree that a flat "raid tax" isn't appropriate. It could be something based on the number of people in the faction, the number of claimed chunks, or even a flat 1% of whatever is in their faction bank. While the latter of these might decrease the amounts people keep in their faction banks, they'd have to balance that with needing to keep enough to pay their taxes.

The main point is to see if there's some value that can entice raiders - give them a reason to raid - without the wearying destruction and total robbery that is found in typical Factions servers. To put this into perspective, it's not uncommon to log onto a typical Factions server only to find that your vault has had a nice big hole blown in it while you slept and any and all valuables not stored in your ender chest have been looted.

Now, in my opinion, the act of taking something from someone else isn't a terrible thing in Minecraft Factions. In fact, that's what happens whenever you kill someone who doesn't have the KeepInventory flag set. However, when you lose everything you have, or items that might have sentimental value to you, or a structure that you put your heart and soul into, then it can drive people from the server.

However, we have here a system with currency, and that would seem to fit the bill.

I propose those in charge consider if there might be a tweak to the system that achieves the following goals:
1. Gives raiders a reason to raid. Specifically, some value that they can be reasonable assured they will gain from a successful raid (e.g. a raid where they aren't driven off by the defenders or the defender's allies).
2. Gives defenders a reason to form mutual defense pacts. Another reason to interact with other players isn't a bad thing.
3. Avoids crippling small or young factions. Putting a limiter on who ends up paying this "raid tax" and/or how much they pay is one way of achieving this.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts...I hope the community will embrace this as a concept and flesh out a solution. I'd really like to see the wonderful culture and technology that is the beating heart of MassiveCraft embraced by a more massive audience. However, with this critical limitation in gameplay, I'm concerned that won't happen.

 

[BenRekt]

Me and another PvPer, @thor5648 discussed a very similar topic. We have talked a lot about how PvP is dying because there is no incentive to raid and defend your faction. This has been the ultimate downfall of the server in my eyes, and as long as it continues like this it will probably slowly die out until everyone has gone, for the most part, inactive.

 

[krios41]

For example, if members of an enemy faction are on claimed land, perhaps the defending faction members could receive an alert and if that enemy is still on claimed land 20 minutes later the invader receives 1r from the bank of the invaded faction.

Click to shrink...

The problem i see with this is that it's way to easy to abuse.
All i have to do is find a faction with no members online, enemie them and stand on their land to get their money.
and let's not forget teh fact that if a faction bank runs out of money right before tax hour, and the faction has no tax raised because the bank contains enough for that day (under normal circumstances) then teh whole faction get's disbanded unclaimed.
I don't think i have to point out what's wrong with this last part...
I agree, something should be done, but i don't think this would be a good solution.
don't ask me what would be a good one, cause i don't know, i just like to point out flaws
edit: i derped, unclaim, not disband

 

[Jackmo_Jones]

For the record a faction doesn't disband after losing taxes. The only way a faction disbands is if the leader disbands it or if the leader and all officers go inactive. If you run out of tax money your faction loses all it's claimed land but the faction remains.

But yes this server does have a pretty severe problem when it comes to motivated raids. I for the most part have quit raiding I don't really see the point anymore. It was kinda cool when we had wars still because there was actually something unique to achieve in the way of War Tokens made by the staff. I've tried to continue this by forcing the people I conquer to make war tokens for me but more often than not they refuse and the best I can get is some more regals that I couldn't care less about getting as I already have way more than I need as I never actually buy anything.

I honestly don't think there is a reasonable solution to this problem though. I've never really played on other faction servers but from what I hear the mechanics of those other servers are just awful. I mean from what I gather raids on other servers consist of raiding a faction when they aren't online just to steal their loot but who really gives a crap about loot when everyones sneaking around you while your offline to take it? No fights just ripping people off that sounds dull as hell. Also in regards to TnT cannons blasting through the walls to fight people who have no desire to fight is just gonna make them quit playing and they won't be much of a fight anyway so again still pointless.

The majority of PvP on Massive I wouldn't really classify as a raid as most the time both sides are fighting because they want to fight and often times people message each other beforehand to make sure they'll actually come out and fight or you'll have someone announcing on PvP chat that they wish for someone to raid them.

 

[CanteringCodfish]

As far as I can see, your mistake was raiding a faction with no papers online. There will be factions that will cower inside, and those that rush out to meet you, axes swinging. Raiding a faction looking forwards to PVP would have played out completely different.

 

[enderdragon]

I think that MassiveCraft is trying to have people use many different strategies instead of the usual mass slaughter. Ok so the people in the faction will have to leave at some point, even if it's just to see if the raiders have left. I don't pvp too often but it seems that if you wait awhile(a distance away) they may be tricked into thinking they are safe. An underhand strategy is you try and ally them. If their permissions allow it you can teleport to their f home(using /to) and then kill them from the inside.

Not really sure if the second is allowed but it seems to be allowed so far.

 

[65jes89]

Honestly, pvp pretty much doesn't exist for people who either aren't good at pvp, or who don't have full God gear and premium. Now, one of these thing isn't particularly hard to get, as you can get prem for $7, or if needed, buy it for 3 or 4k from your local premium vendor. Unfortunately there isn't much place for pvpers who don't really know how to pvp. This is because, due to the extremely small pvp community on massive, just about everyone knows everyone, and knows who sucks at pvp. For example, if I'm in a group fight with mag, and lazullai and Thor are both fighting me, I would target laz, as I know laz doesn't pvp much. And this is what keeps the pvp community do small. Newb factions don have to fight, so they don't, and people who are new to pvp have difficulties entering the pvp world due to what I mentioned above. That doesn't mean that pvp doesn't exist on massive anymore. I personally don't enjoy for other reasons, but it isn't due to the fact that nobody fights, especially since pvp is starting to make a come back, however slight. For example, this fight happened rather recently, and although it was mostly a laith v mag proxy fight. Anyways, it does show that there is pvp, you just have to look in the right place. Personally, I think that rather than making everyone pvp, we should focus on making pvp fun again for those of us who do Pvp. Anyways here's the video:

 

[PariahFolk]

Another point I'd like to touch on is that Massive encourages nice-looking buildings in your faction. This can be evidently seen in some of @PariahFolk's faction buildings, @BillyTheScroofy's Mithril, and @Th3_Drunk_Monk's Ujakmal. Thinking back to building in some of the factions aforementioned, raiders ARE a big inconvenience. If you've seen any of the factions mentioned before, you would know that they definitely weren't build over night. Raiders are especially annoying for this, just jog out to a faction and slaughter everyone while they're building. And it isn't always just prems that are building, either. I've gotten inventories full of building supplies. So, really, if you're careful as to which enemies you pick, theres quite the opportunity to grab some extra loot from builders and even impede progress.

Click to shrink...

Aye, Shaolin's had a fair share of raiders in the past, luckily mostly when I'm either offline or staring at a wall in my castle, however there are many times where progress has been pushed to a halt because of raiders (H) @DarShauwn @jquaile (H) . While it grows annoying during 'The Act', I still love and respect them, as I personally know why they do it, and have myself raided facs while they build, its quite a lucrative enterprise

 

[Pyrooooo]

I'm not much of a raider, but it seems to me like this is exactly the kind of problem the Warzones system was designed to solve, at least to some extent. Invite people to try out your warzone, or go to someone else's, and thus battle people who actually want to fight you, and on fair ground at that.