Make scouts Great again.

Discussion in 'Ideas + Feature Requests' started by wrath_oG_Grave, May 20, 2020.

  1. Hey everyone that still uses fourms, long time no see

    I have a simple suggestion to improve the general use of scouts slightly.


    Make it so scouts show how much gold someone has out .

    That's actually pretty much the entire concept,

    What do you think?
     
  2. I’ll break this down.

    So, your initial thread is rather lackluster, so for that i give it a 5/10.

    The idea imo is actually interesting and i would be on board with that. 10/10

    however, i think that maybe something better would be to show a percentage of gold, like a random percentage from 5-25%? idk a random idea that’s probably not even good, but that way people have to do math and it doesn’t give away ALL the gold bc that’s kinda busted i think. 8/10.

    your name is pretty solid, so i’d say a 8/10.

    i also think that scouts aren’t necessarily important anymore, and haven’t been for a long long time. 7/10

    Overall score: 38/50

    You have 76% of my support.
     
    Thrawn and wrath_oG_Grave like this.
  3. I can live with that.
     
  4. No. Scouts should not show gold out.
     
  5. All pvp actions should be banned and players should only be able to hit EBs!
     
  6. Any particular reason? It supports pvp (which is what the scout is for) by giving information (which the scout is outdated at).

    This change doesn’t really help EE/Event Wars as far as I know (unless buying allies from a PS somehow?) so that’s somewhat of a con, but there’s some positive reasons to implement this change (or a similar one, if you have any ideas).

    EDIT: For those with concerns about having counter-play against a possibly powerful new Scout ability, the developers could release (at the same time) a new spell similar to “Hide Allies” spell, but one that hides Scout results instead (defending spies still die for combat).

    This gives ally traders/banks/the LB another defensive tool, while making anyone who casts the spell suspicious. Keep in mind the scout has to succeed to get the information in the first place, so very huge players are already relatively safe.

    This would increase revenue for the devs (for the spell protection in mith sales), fight inflation if any banks get caught, and possibly help better identify mass alt or botting abuses.

    Reduced inflation would then allow there to be delays in pushing out new lands, EBs for the new lands, etc., without the devs needing to add even more clutter to the UI / complexity budget through some other, less subtle, idea.
     
    #6 Corinthian, May 20, 2020
    Last edited: May 20, 2020
  7. This would have massive issues in wars. It will warn people much easier when clans are pooling cash. It will destroy reverse stripping Bc they can prove you did something with the gold if they were clever enough to hide it. Also a fear of programs being about to exploit this and just know when people have random ally sales ect.

    this would encourage more botting...

    Reverse strip is tricking the enemy to keep stripping you so you continue to use that money to strip them back. If they can see how much you have out they just know your online.
     
    DeFi-Novelist likes this.
  8. 1. In the first part of your message, you’re stating that this would cause issues because scouting would actually be useful. That’s not an issue, just an extra tool for both sides to take into account.

    2. The “meta game” involving stripping would change, this is true. One could hope it would even allow OSW’s swifter conclusions as soft targets are quickly identified and worked down. Screenshots of zeroed out clans make for convincing victory arguments, as do tracking player’s floating-gold amounts on both sides in a way that merely seeing people DTW or out of potions does not. (Edit: Bonus, it allows outside participants a good way to sort the truth from the lies, and adds to the “Hardcore PVP” brand that ATA markets this game as in the AppStore).

    (Edit: Regarding reverse stripping, unless you’re starting with gold out prior to the strip happening (which should be known before they begin), you’re still hiring allies off of the strip money they are giving you. If they’re trying to maximize the strip window, they won’t be waiting after buying your ally for a confirmation scout. Even if they mix in a scout, it’s only somewhat helpful - and again that’s just the Scout action doing it’s job. If this update does neuter reverse stripping, then it helps to punish those using “unfair advantage” tools to notify them about stripping, which is a win in my book.)

    More legal, non-botting information without having to use arcane methods (or scripts/bots to automate all the steps), can’t be a bad thing.

    3. In spite of what I just said, yes, programs could be made to help tracking..except that in order to retrieve the information, an account still has to successfully scout the targets they are monitoring to get the information. If those scouts are scripted / automated, it will be detected by the dev’s anti-cheat efforts.

    At best, the “unfair advantage” community could maybe run a script that directly sends scout results to a tracking program (that can then be exported for communication), but that just speeds up the gathering process that someone (who is running the software) still has to manually initiate. Plus, such software would likely be limited to working on Android accounts, and if it exists, is probably already being used (or was attempted and caught) for EE wars. (If such a program was made, used, and then eventually detected by the devs, we could get “lucky” and see more alliance-wide bans, or equally shocking, endorsement.)

    If it can be anticipated, it can be mitigated by both devs and players, and the loss for what could slip through is minor.

    What this addition could give to the game far surpasses what you’ve said so far as possible detractors.
     
    #8 Corinthian, May 20, 2020
    Last edited: May 20, 2020
    wrath_oG_Grave likes this.
  9. Additional suggestion since i think it would be very interesting, add 25-50% of what you steal from the opponent to your own rewards for stealing, making it possible to approximate people's left gold and actually assist in funding future ally strips .


    Im tired of people's strip totals being a "we said, they said " thing and now clans can prove how much they have looted


    In addition id love a " gold looted" stat and individual/ clan LB for it, maybe even a pvp plunder bonus based on teirs like perm stats are given for years in game.


    This is a lot to ask for but would hugely tie into the pvp equipments importance along with blood stained crux chests, incentivizing spending in that area, it would be well worth the time invested into it.


    This would also give a clear view at whos winning any given osw which is great.

    Lastly we all know Pvp plunder deserves a buff that doesn't encourage OSF's this is it.
     
    Thrawn likes this.