Why is Alde/Nontrans Castles There?

[n3xus]

Nice debate going on here.??I was wondering when this would come up again.??Looks like u came back just in time krim!??=)??Long post coming...

@street
I've seen revenga in alde before.??They went in it a few times back then actually.??Before they transed and started playing in trans castles.

Now to get to actual points of the thread, hopefully with a different perspective on some points, starting with math...

This was the formula for chests.

(Economy/5) + 4 = Number of chest spawned.

Alde at 20 eco = (20/5) + 4 = 8 chests/day
Pront at 100 eco = (100/5) + 4 = 24 chests/day

So basically, a trans castle is worth 3x more than a non-trans castle.??If a guild had max eco in prontera for 10 days, it will take the Alde castle 30 days (1 month) to match the number of chests, not including the time it takes to get there, for simplicity).??Just wanted to point that out.??If this is not the formula being used now, then i made a mistake on that part =P

From what i can gather from the different points of views,??I think the root cause of the debate is the lack of CONSISTENT competition that is causing problems.??It's not Bamboo Squad taking advantage of the current system.

Looking at how things are currently:
- trans woe = 17+ vs 18+ vs 10+ vs extras on a good day
- nontrans = 8+ vs 8+ usual turnout?

When I used to participate in alde woe (last year), it was like 5+ vs 5+ on a good day.??That's not really much growth in a year.??Geffen on the other hand was raiding party vs 0-4.??This could have been abused and the castle eco could have gone to 100 possibly, from the lack of competition at the time.

For the sake of argument, let's say one of the trans alliances does take the time to create a nontrans team and takes over alde (Apoc/Behe with broken BS alliance).??They max alde eco to 20.??BS gives them good competition for alde every woe and ownership changes hands several times. Now it's probably up to 14+ vs 14+ (superior growth in a few WoEs).??At this point, STD/LoA/DD will have a much easier time taking a trans castle and investing until the eco is about 50+.??I stop at 50+ because probably at this point, Apoc/Behe may start to take interest and decide to leave alde for a few reasons:

- more eco
- originally had more fun playing trans characters in the first place
- more challenge with a different set of players, not just BS

Once this happens, BS is back to taking ownership of Alde for a long period of time again with less competition.??Actually, this example was already shown by Pistis in a different way with LW breaking alde for a little while and then choosing to go back to trans woe. LW chose to keep their 100 eco vs their 20 eco and no one came to alde to fight BS on a consistent basis.

Just to clarify, what i mean by consistent competition is competition by 2+ factions that are somewhat evenly matched.??If one of these factions were to take on the lesser guilds, the lesser guilds would have a hard time winning consistently.??If one of these factions where to join/ally with another, the balance of power would shift by a lot. They recruit. They farm. They level.??They mvp.??They pay attention to what the competition is doing.??They even sometimes spy (seen on hero as well as other servers).??ie. not the casual player.

Looking at this idea of consistent competition a little closer, take a look at the 4-year history of the server.

Guilds that put forth a concentrated effort to obtain and keep ownership of a trans castle for a long period of time:
Death Dealers
Lordz of Anarchy
Legendary Warriors
Behemoth
The Rekinjutsu Way
Order of Chaos
Guardians Spirits (any of you guys still around/visit???)
Angel Empire
Apocalypse
Cavaleiros Do Zodiaco
Sparta
Twilight Sky
Genesis
Severe Tire Damage / Nocturnal Echo / jXp / El Tricolor / ReVeNgA (not quite there, yet?)

Probably some other guilds that i forgot or where disbanded.??It's late and too tired to think harder.??Anyone remember any other ones???While some of these guilds did have similar members, it wasn't exactly the same group.??Leaders changed.??Members quit.??Some guild-hopped.??Others decided to focus on different aspects like school/work/life/WoW/etc.??

Guilds that put forth the same amount of concentrated effort for Alde castle for a long period of time:
Bamboo Squad
LW ( for <1 month? )

Granted while Alde has only been open for 2.5 years, one can clearly see that there is a discrepancy in this list.??2.5 years is by no means, a short amount of time, since heRo is 4 years old.??There has been plenty of time for consistent competition to develop for retro WoE, but the list shows that it hasn't.??

Since I've been fighting IN Alde, we've been broken at least 5 times in the past 5 months. Probably more. Just the attackers couldn't get past us once we fortified our def and called in help, so they left. Not our fault man.

5 times in 5 months???Let's double that.??10 times in 5 months.??Trans castles change ownership 10 times in 2 weeks.??No question there is far more consistent competition overall for the trans castles.??More people in this community definitely see trans woe as "more fun" since more people show up for it.??As can be seen from this thread, more people see non-trans woe as more of an obligation to go to Alde ("BS has had it too long, we gotta give up our trans fun to go try and break it a couple of times...").??This philosophy is by no means Bamboo's fault.??BS just decided a long time ago to take advantage of the system and have fun in retro woe.??

But that's the actual problem.??It's not BS, it's the system.??This isn't a bug that a person found to abuse like macroing or using a DS packet.??This is more of a design flaw in the actual system itself.??As things are setup currently, retro (or newbie or whatever) WoE is not fostering more competition and fun, like the closing of Geffen did.??You might say "it's not our fault we don't have competition" and I agree with you.??But that's precisely my point.??It's not Bamboo's fault, it's a design flaw.??Some people saw it a couple of years ago, but it took BS this much time to fully expose it to more of the community.??Hence, you got more people attacking the system now with only BS defending it.??

To look at Pistis' argument (I think it was hers), the argument of one guild being strong enough to control trans and nontrans castles at the same time is not really a strong argument either.??HeRo history has shown that if one guild is strong, SOMEONE has to come and rally the other mid-tier guilds together to change things, sometimes to the point of 1 guild vs server:

AE vs server
Twilight Sky vs Guardian Spirits/others
LoA/DD vs LW/Behe/Apoc/BS/El Tri/server
LW vs server

Imagine if Geffen stayed open, and people developed eco.??As soon as it gets to about 50 or so, people leave pront and go for geffen.??Then the eco will swing to prontera and so the cycle goes.??Consequently, the meager competition led to the voluntary closing of geffen in order to foster a bigger competitive spirit for the community.??And what happened???No one really complained about Geffen closing.??WoE became more fun again.??It's this consistency of competition that people seem to have a problem with in Alde woe.

Just like the argument "it's not Bamboo's fault no one consistently fights us every single woe to the point that we can't max out eco", "it's not guild X's fault if the server can't come together and take a castle away from guild X."

Whenever a guild comes to power, it's only a matter of time before they lose it.??It gets lonely at the top.??People move on to other things, ie. other servers, work, school, outside life, WoW, boredom, bigger challenge, or whatever reason they got pushed from the top.??Either that or the rest of the server puts their differences aside and actually joins to take them down.??

The "one guild in power" argument is BS!
(pun intended, nothing personal, small joke, couldn't resist) =P

If this truly wasn't a problem, then why are the only ones speaking up in defense of alde are from Bamboo Squad???None of these "other competitive guilds that fight all the time in Alde" saying anything???Probably because there is NO OTHER GUILD THAT CONSISTENTLY fights in Alde aside from BS.??If the system was balanced, this wouldn't happen.??It's not about majority rules, it's about balance.??If it was indeed majority rules, dual-clienting would never have been removed as more of the community actually favored it.??As it was, the GMs thought it was detrimental to the community as a whole and changed the status quo, which was dual-clienting at the time.??In this case, it is the reverse, majority WANTS the change.

Speaking of the status quo, the reason it has become what it is on hero about nontrans woe is because not enough of the community probably saw (or cared enough) to speak up.??Some tried before, but that didn't really get anywhere.??It took this much time for enough people to actually say something again.??

If I can't prove it fixed, and you can't prove it broke, status quo prevails. Change for change's sake is a shitty way to run a community.

Why would you believe that challenging the status quo is a bad thing in a non-broken state???History's filled with examples of people challenging the status quo only based on a hunch or a dream.??They merely wanted to follow their own beliefs.??

Wright Brothers & flying: status quo = "if man was meant to fly, God would have given him wings!"
Columbus: status quo = "The world is flat, wtf are u doing sir???You're gonna get us killed!??Turn back now oh noes!"

If not for these people (and other dreamers), things would have stayed under the status quo and we would not be where we are today.??

As for "resource management" and splitting forces, I think 2.5 years is enough time to figure out how to devote resources in this game.??The interest just isn't there as things are with the current system, through no fault of Bamboo's.??Simply a design flaw.

IDEAS
Take a look at the guilds in the first list again.??There is a clear indication that consistent competition for Alde barely exists (2 guilds???).??To change this, I think separating Trans and Nontrans WoE will be the closest thing to bringing the two sides together.??The advocates for splitting get what they want and those wanting it to stay the same will get more competition.??No more "come take Alde and prove it first!" talk.??Nontrans woe will be packed with several guilds and people can prove/disprove till their hearts' content.??Isn't that the spirit of WoE in the first place?

Wednesday Woe could have 1h Trans castles only.??Sunday could have 1st hour trans, 2nd hour nontrans.??The trans castles since they can go to 100, can change hands more easily by keeping it to 2 days.??Alde eco could be raised up to 50 since it's possible to keep it for a week.??If so desired, a 2nd non-trans castle can be opened (both eco maxed at 20 in this case, still change hands once a week) since there will be tons and tons more fighting for them.??Bamboo Squad can possibly be compensated by letting them keep one of the nontrans castle for a month???HeRo still keeps its uniqueness by having a retro woe.??Plus the retro woe will have a ton of action.??I've heard people join HeRo for the retro woe and saw that it was a little boring and not what they were hoping for.??At least this way, there's more consistent competition for those that actually join for this very feature.??

Don't take it the wrong way.??Personally, I like retro woe better than trans woe.??It's way more balanced.??I'm only trying to improve the system.??I'm not talking for anyone else.??This is just what I've observed here.

Like Obama said, "It's time for a change!"

Ok yeah, no more jokes/puns.??I'll stick to my day-job.??It's 3AM and I need sleep... goodnite!