War Refuse Exploiting - ideas & discussion

If the higher pricing for War Refuse (WR) is kept for the release version, it will undoubtedly be seldom used by paying players and almost never by non-paying players. However, this does not mean the elimination of problems caused by use of this feature. One of the biggest categories of complaints arise out of people's sense of fair play or lack thereof. It's the sense that someone is cheating or has an advantage over you because of something you don't have access to that another person does.

I hope that players will offer their input and suggestions for HKRotK to become a fun, challenging, and long-lasting game environment that caters to both PvP and PvE type players. It also needs to cater to both hard-core and casual gamers if the game is going to make money.

The following are some ideas in an attempt to better balance the PvP & PvE world for hard-core and casual players with respect to how War Refuse affects fair play and "ownership":

1) 12-hour WR bypass: Player A attacks player B and player C. Immediately after combat is finished, player A purchases WR. Players B & C (and ONLY B & C) can still retaliate (attack back) player A for 12 hours following the latest attack by Player A.

This addresses the scenario in which Player A plunders several times, steals all player B's oases etc. while the defender is asleep because on the other side of the world it is nighttime. Players cannot be expected to purchase WR every night to keep playing this game and protect what they have worked for, especially at the high price of 20 gold per night. It also addresses the situation in that the person with the money has too much advantage over the other. If you are going to allow someone to attack another person, that person must be given the chance to defend his interests in a fair playing field.

I feel that it is ok to spend money to help and improve your own account progress, but it is not right to be able to have what you "own" stolen from you with no chance of defending it or getting it back just because the attacker can pay for it. An attacking/aggressive player can deny another person's right to progress this way! It is not right to enable one player to ruin another player's game experience And I know customers will be lost if it happens.

Balancing the features and their costs and effectiveness is the key to keeping the majority of customers happy, and keeping them playing for a long time. Other suggestions regarding WR and PvP:

2) Give each player one free 7-day WR card. If this is done, it needs to be explained in the tutorial.

3) Offer each player one free "opt-out" any time after Novice WR period is ended. This means that a player is PvE only (immune from attack) until the player decides to end it and join PvP. Future "opt-outs" will have a gold cost.
----- 3a) And/or when opting out of PvP, the player's account is transferred to a PvE server.

4) World Map PvE combats only earn half the XP and Prestige of PvP combat.

5) Less map energy given to players in WR, and more to players in "PvP mode."

6) Change the process of how player-occupied oases/cities are captured or adjust the difficulty and/or requirements for losing/gaining these places.

In the end, we don't want to drive too many players away before they've had a chance to level up enough to access more areas of the game. Hopefully others will offer input now and after launch.

Great topic.

1. Not sure if I agree 100% with this one.
If a player attacks another, and that player attacks back to his resources, oases or city back, then I don't feel the player who originally attacked should be able to keep attacking since that rule would allow the original attacker to keep attacking, and hence defeat the purpose of WR.

2. Love this idea.

3. I think PVP and PVE can be on the same server, there just needs to be a better balance where the hard core PVP folks don't ruin the game for the people who play casually. I do enjoy playing the game, but I don't always want to be defending my locations and constantly losing things to relentless attacks. Sometimes,,, I do want to battle people and I'll spend some times building up for it. This would not be possible on a PVE server.

4. Why? A PVP player would have the same opportunity to attack the same things. Why punish someone that chooses not to attack others on a daily basis?

5. No. Same map energy. Again, why punish someone who it trying to build and keep from getting hit?
On this topic, I would suggest that the Map energy be modified to where it's constantly recharging like the battle ground energy. It shouldn't matter if your in WR or not.

6. The process of taking a new city is VERY time consuming. I did post something about this in the past where I suggested that a new'y owned city should get it's own war protection for a little while after it's been taken. Give the owner time to build walls, transfer troops, etc.. This should also only apply to cities that were Neutral, and not apply to cities that were taken from other players.


My 2 cents on this topic.
Yes, WR can be abused by people popping in and out of it to steal cities and oasis's then popping back into WR to not give the other a chance on getting them back. This is VERY annoying.
BUT... We should not punish those folks who play in WR because they simply don't want to be attacked 10 times a day.

I think if the game offered better protection of resources and cities, there would be a lot fewer people in War Refuse.

My points
1. We need a Cranny. The current system allows attackers to drain a city completely empty of all resources. Have a cranny with a set amount of resources it protects. Allow players to build multiple crannies if they choose to do so.
By doing this, other players may not farm other players as often when they know that they aren't going to get as many resources from them.

2. Scouting shows too much info.
If a player has a higher level scout, the lower level scout should not be able to see exactly how many troops, turrets, and resources are in a city. In HK, this was a good deterrent to attackers since they had no idea if the hit was worth it.

3. Limit the amount of attacks
Right now, you can attack the same player hundreds of times a day if you wanted to. The 5 hit limit needs to come back into play here, and also apply it to oasis's.

4. Alliance wars.
I like an idea Crim had, and could be expanded to help here.
An alliance can declare war on another alliance or friendly / neutral with others. If friendly, then they can't attack each other. If neutral, then they can, but it adds alliance hostility and builds up to the alliance declaring war on the other automatically.
People would be in either Red (at war), Green (Friendly), and Yellow (Neutral). The alliance leaders would have the access to chance this color as well.
This could also help with the overuse of WR.

5. While you can attack other players in this game, it's NOT a full PVP game since almost ALL the PP is gained through non-PVP activities. There is a group of players in the game that would like to make it a full-on PVP battle, but it's very damaging to the game since it's forcing people out of the game due to the lack of protection without spending coins on WR.

I agree, there needs to be a better balance here.
I don't agree with punishing the people in WR to achieve that balance. I think addressing some of the other suggestions would lead to people using WR less often.

Good points Chicagoguy - you have me agreeing with you on some of your counterpoints. I would go with your new suggestions (1-5) too.

I agree, there needs to be a better balance here.
I don't agree with punishing the people in WR to achieve that balance. I think addressing some of the other suggestions would lead to people using WR less often.

You're right about not punishing WR people, but I think of it as REWARDING PLAYERS who do NOT use it. I could have written that better.

Regarding my suggestion 1): I thought about your concern over the potential for additional attacks from the unscrupulous player (Player A in my example). Player A would be in normal WR effect with regards to Player B until the (attacked) Player B decides to retaliate (thereby "using the Bypass"). Player B may choose not to do so, and if this is the case then Player A cannot attack for being in WR. So now, even though it allows Player A to continue attacking, he can only do so if retaliated against - at least the defending player(s) still has a chance to fight, defend, retaliate, etc. And that's what's being taken away in the first place.

Why be upset if another player is in War Refuse? It just means that other players can't attack them to steal resources, cities, or oasis's. Why be upset because they don't wish to lose their stuff?

By giving non-WR players an advantage over players using War Refuse, you are in effect punishing them for being in WR. There should be NO special awards just because your not in War Refuse. Not to mention, most of this game is non-PVP anyway. The only true PVE aspect of the game is where you are stealing from other players.

Also, how could such a system be implemented?
Player pops out of WR, uses up all non-WR energy, etc.. then pops back in...

I agree that there is some abuse. Mostly in how people steal cities and oasis's, then pop into WR to keep the other player from taking them back. I think that's the only thing that needs to be looked at, but I think if they address some of the other issues that have been suggested, it will help a lot and this would be less common. Better protection, hit limits, alliance peace/war, etc..

Keep in mind, You could do the same tactic in regular HK as well, but it wasn't as big of an issue there because of some of the limits put in place. But in HK, if you were smart and had a max cranny, you had some resources to start the rebuild. In this game, if you get hit, you could have nothing left.

Why be upset if another player is in War Refuse? It just means that other players can't attack them to steal resources, cities, or oasis's.

By giving non-WR players an advantage over players using War Refuse, ...

Tell that to Player B. It means that "other players" CAN attack, and without consequences. It's the Player A who has the advantage here. It's Player B who is getting "scammed" out of his resources and other things because he cannot fight against it. He has no chance to get stolen property back EVER if the paying WR player so wishes it. The WR player is the one with the advantage, clearly! WR allows one to attack indiscriminately with impunity! How can you not see that


( Maybe you didn't read the part that only those players that he attacked within the last 12 hours can bypass his WR if they opt to retaliate?)

I do see that. And the attack-Steal-WR is a major concern of mine as well.

That's why i suggested the other things to help combat the reason people attack that way to begin with.

Right now, it's the no-holds-barred combat that's hurting things.

Towers don't do anything against a player with a high enough tech.
No limits on how many times you can hit a player allows players to literately steal EVERYTHING.
No Cranny means they really can steal everything, even if it takes a few hits.
No Alert to attacks means that if your not looking at your screen, you lose.
Speedups mean you have no time to react, even if you were looking at your screen.
Too much detail in scouting tells attackers that they have nothing to fear and exactly how much res they will be getting.

The problem is, some people are playing this game like an HK PVP tournament, but instead of watching for troops out, they are just taking everything they can.

I just don't feel people with WR should be treated any different than someone not in WR.
I agree there is a major issue here, but I think addressing the other issues with help calm things down a lot.

Oh,,, by the way... I passed you on the leader board.
Catch back up!!!

Oh,,, by the way... I passed you on the leader board.
Catch back up!!!

Dang you've figured me out

I do see that. And the attack-Steal-WR is a major concern of mine as well.

That's why i suggested the other things to help combat the reason people attack that way to begin with.

Right now, it's the no-holds-barred combat that's hurting things.

Ah ok I understand - you've given suggestions for a different approach - which are good ones. I hope the devs are looking and listening and will make adjustments, however they do it.

Oh,,, by the way... I passed you on the leader board.
Catch back up!!!

Dang you've figured me out

You posted a screen shot with your name in another post.