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Stormhaven Revote; Because the troop strength numbers were wrong.
Topic Started: Dec 22 2014, 01:16 AM (1,000 Views)
CupcakeTrap
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Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YI9ygs3d9lUxTCPohkGvC6Hh7hAAUKlj2llIJJq4-xw/viewform?usp=send_form
Results so far: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YI9ygs3d9lUxTCPohkGvC6Hh7hAAUKlj2llIJJq4-xw/viewanalytics


Recount of strength: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cAbFa9THYI9t2uU9vfyJdYOqMb9frJ1Ass5SsRKJMAY/edit?usp=sharing

I believe that has SI's base strength at 146 and Bilgewater's at 145. However, SI gets +20% from Aatrox (175 total) but loses 5% from the army mod (bringing it to 166). Meanwhile, Bilgewater gains +25% from the match (181) and +5% from the army mod (190). That brings it to 166 vs. 190. It's also worth noting that the scenario mod that was rolled was "foothold", meaning that whichever faction wins the first round gets a 20% buff going forward. That works against Aatrox, who relies on outlasting the enemy.

Finally, there's the matter of the navies. Bilgewater will do more damage. We took back the "Aatrox doesn't work on instant casualties" rule, replacing it with a rule stating that if the entire SI army is "lost", they lose (so instant casualties aren't completely worthless).

There are three principal options. I've acknowledged a personal bias in the interest of full disclosure, but it's up to you: what role do you want SI to play in the finale?

Original result
The original plan: spin it as Karthus baiting Aatrox to his doom in order to reclaim power over the Isles. Have an epic battle where Aatrox gets eaten by a kraken and Mr. Chompers throws a galleon into Stormhaven. Then, SI can focus on its role as "gatekeeper" for the slain Nyrothians. I admit I kind of like this option, because it means no more last-minute rule debates, and because I think the most important thing is for SI to have a part in the story, and I honestly think their Karthus-y/Yorick-y role is more interesting than "we are skeleton army, raaaaar".
EDIT: Although the arc's almost over, I'd be willing to handwave casualties somewhat, so that if this option is selected we'll just say they only lost their Nyroth-only troops.

Undo
I don't like retcons, but maybe this is the time for one: just take it all back and say the attack on Stormhaven never happened. (One issue here: seems like SI would still blockade Yoroth. Which would call for Featured Matches against Ionia and the Freljord, and possibly Bilgewater.) There might be some pretty legitimate gripes from the Freljord and Ionia that "SI got to attack Stormhaven, then take it back when they lost and attack us instead, keeping us from claiming our tourney prize". You'd have a fair response in the form of "yeah, but we were given the wrong numbers to decide on", but there is serious salt potential here.

Continue battle
We could pick up the battle where it left off and see where it goes. Probably an SI loss, though conceivably they could turn it around.
Edited by CupcakeTrap, Dec 22 2014, 10:00 AM.
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StormRevolver
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i still wonder how bilge got that many reinforcements from island events, when they should start from the 15base mil + 40merc. it means they got around 90 from rewards? that seems way too much. Actualy 9 major military rewards seems more than they should have considering they mostly got commerce rewards.
Edited by StormRevolver, Dec 22 2014, 01:55 AM.
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StormRevolver
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on the other hand im always okay with karthus. especialy if it gets a nice story :)
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Kaynunot
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Kuronan Estimare, Psionic Psion of House Estimare
I'm trying to recast my vote but for some reason the Revote link doesn't seem to have worked properly. On another note, I really have to ask: CupcakeTrap, if we go with the Original Results, do our armies still get massacred or do we retcon it into Minor Losses and Aatrox loses his Hold over us? I kind of want to vote Undo just so we have Options, but if Original Result lets us keep most of our armies intact I'd actually be more in favor of that since it lets us be the Gatekeepers while not being horribly damaged in the long run.
Edited by Kaynunot, Dec 22 2014, 02:13 AM.
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CupcakeTrap
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Kuronan
Dec 22 2014, 02:06 AM
I'm trying to recast my vote but for some reason the Revote link doesn't seem to have worked properly. On another note, I really have to ask: CupcakeTrap, if we go with the Original Results, do our armies still get massacred or do we retcon it into Minor Losses and Aatrox loses his Hold over us? I kind of want to vote Undo just so we have Options, but if Original Result lets us keep most of our armies intact I'd actually be more in favor of that since it lets us be the Gatekeepers while not being horribly damaged in the long run.
Yeah, I'm okay with handwaving that. The arc's almost over, so would just say that only their "Nyroth-only" troops were lost. Then we'll move on to a general peace edict, in part because the military system is clearly more broken than we thought. So, no long-term harm to SI.
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Kaynunot
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Kuronan Estimare, Psionic Psion of House Estimare
CupcakeTrap
Dec 22 2014, 10:02 AM
Yeah, I'm okay with handwaving that. The arc's almost over, so would just say that only their "Nyroth-only" troops were lost. Then we'll move on to a general peace edict, in part because the military system is clearly more broken than we thought. So, no long-term harm to SI.
Oh, well if it's only the troops restricted to Nyroth I don't particularly care, we'll just raise more corpses from those Islands and tell them to protect the areas. No harm done and we can stick with long-term goals and stuff. So, pretty much everyone wins.
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CupcakeTrap
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Kuronan
Dec 22 2014, 10:07 AM
CupcakeTrap
Dec 22 2014, 10:02 AM
Yeah, I'm okay with handwaving that. The arc's almost over, so would just say that only their "Nyroth-only" troops were lost. Then we'll move on to a general peace edict, in part because the military system is clearly more broken than we thought. So, no long-term harm to SI.
Oh, well if it's only the troops restricted to Nyroth I don't particularly care, we'll just raise more corpses from those Islands and tell them to protect the areas. No harm done and we can stick with long-term goals and stuff. So, pretty much everyone wins.
Yeah, and I'm pretty much willing to say "no more brawling with each other", mostly for system reasons.
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501st Big Mike
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CupcakeTrap
Dec 22 2014, 01:16 AM
Original result
The original plan: spin it as Karthus baiting Aatrox to his doom in order to reclaim power over the Isles. Have an epic battle where Aatrox gets eaten by a kraken and Mr. Chompers throws a galleon into Stormhaven. Then, SI can focus on its role as "gatekeeper" for the slain Nyrothians. I admit I kind of like this option, because it means no more last-minute rule debates, and because I think the most important thing is for SI to have a part in the story, and I honestly think their Karthus-y/Yorick-y role is more interesting than "we are skeleton army, raaaaar".
I think the original plan that most of the SI players wanted was to go with the more Karthus-y, Yorick-y role, but when the arc when to hell for us in every way, including research that made it unlikely for us to ever get the the souls projects, we realized that the only way to gain anything this arc was to go full agro military.

I do like the idea of Karthus tricking Aatrox, makes him sound like one devious undead mastermind, and the gatekeeper role does sound pretty good. However, we spent a lot of our lore events focusing solely on military, it really feels like we wasted a lot if we end up intentionally destroying it. "Ok guys, we spent a whole arc worth of lore events making a huge military buildup. Time to undo everything we have done." I understand that it would have no real harm to SI for choosing it, as only the Nyroth specific units would die, but it still feels like we wasted an entire arc by choosing that way.

Maybe if we go with the undo route we can take attacking Ionia and Freljord off the table (it would really be unfair to them for us to be able to just swap targets at last second) and instead there is a giant automa army somewhere in Nyroth we can fight for some prizes. Not trying to say I don't like the gatekeeper role, it does sound like what we originally were going for and gives us some nice potential routes we can take (like the intelligent society instead of mindless undead slaves idea we talked about), I just feel like choosing it undoes everything we did in the lore events.

Also, how did bilge get to 145 military? Once again I am just in disbelief of these numbers; Bilge started arc with 5 military and used a lot of it's rewards on commerce and research and other non military gains. 120 already seemed incredibly large for them to get to, how they get 145?
Edited by 501st Big Mike, Dec 22 2014, 12:26 PM.
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Ares the Proud
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I agree with Big Mike, if we could get some research bonuses in exchange or something, i'd think about tricking Aatrox, but at this point its just not worth it, we're losing a lot. But i don't like the idea of removing the option to attack frel/ionia. We were given faulty information and it was clearly something we could have done, i think they were halfway prepared for us to do it. I don't want to be able to not attack the bilge that was a lot stronger than we thought (I thought it was like 70 or so, not 145) I'd rather be able to attack Ionia/Frel if they won't let us in.
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StormRevolver
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501st Big Mike
Dec 22 2014, 12:10 PM

Also, how did bilge get to 145 military? Once again I am just in disbelief of these numbers; Bilge started arc with 5 military and used a lot of it's rewards on commerce and research and other non military gains. 120 already seemed incredibly large for them to get to, how they get 145?
well part of it is a rule change so the mercenarys doesnt get under the upkeep rules.
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ChroniclerC
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Weren't there supposed to be several rules in place limiting the number of units you could have in Nyroth? Because Bilge has a LOT.
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CupcakeTrap
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ChroniclerC
Dec 23 2014, 02:38 AM
Weren't there supposed to be several rules in place limiting the number of units you could have in Nyroth? Because Bilge has a LOT.
Most of it is their crazy number of islands giving them lots and lots of Military rewards. I hadn't realized how much they'd stacked up.

As for the mercs, Bilgewater demanded that, if we were revising/clarifying the rules to have raised undead units count as non-capacity troops, that they should be allowed to count mercenaries the same, up to the hard limit of "half your Commerce in mercs". That sounded pretty fair: SI gained a LOT of strength from those undead units. (And having to make off-the-cuff decisions like this is part of why I really want this arc to be over so we can design better rules.)
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StormRevolver
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CupcakeTrap
Dec 23 2014, 08:25 AM
ChroniclerC
Dec 23 2014, 02:38 AM
Weren't there supposed to be several rules in place limiting the number of units you could have in Nyroth? Because Bilge has a LOT.
Most of it is their crazy number of islands giving them lots and lots of Military rewards. I hadn't realized how much they'd stacked up.

As for the mercs, Bilgewater demanded that, if we were revising/clarifying the rules to have raised undead units count as non-capacity troops, that they should be allowed to count mercenaries the same, up to the hard limit of "half your Commerce in mercs". That sounded pretty fair: SI gained a LOT of strength from those undead units. (And having to make off-the-cuff decisions like this is part of why I really want this arc to be over so we can design better rules.)


nope it was not that fair, but i got so tired of the things that has gone around this fight that i got really tired of these things. Our units are undead, the mercs are not. no rule stated that they should be inside the capacity and they never were considered inside it before we gone up against bilgewater. Not even when we were going up against frel or ionia, but the mercenary rule was changed just when bilgewater conviniently needed more units. Its a huge difference.

before we start the next arc, i would like 3 rules added if possible.
- we change no world rules (so except the pick-up, featured, tournament, and match scoring rules) during the arc no matter how broken/unfair they are. talking about whats fair or not is always a discussion that got no real end to it, and they should be balanced before the arc.
- if a rule is not properly worded or not clear enough then it will be interpreted the more lax version (i mean the way it benefits the faction it refers to better). I want this rule so we will use proper terminology for the rules, and will think every aspect of it trough, and try to avoid these.
- we don't make up new mechanics inside the arc, Like the extra bonuses if you send this or that champion (like the rewards for sending hec and mord). or that the gauntlet should give military bonus. They are usually not thought out well and get redacted at the crucial moments anyway, or they get forgotten.

i know these are maybe a bit too much, but i think it would inspire that we set out the rules before the arc, and would stop arguing about them inside the arc. Whenever we change a rule inside the arc or start arguing about them they will be always sides that don't like it, so we might as well just state these rules, and at least put off the stress from these kind of arguments into intermission, when the staff isn't that loaded with things to do.
Edited by StormRevolver, Dec 23 2014, 09:30 AM.
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CupcakeTrap
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StormRevolver
Dec 23 2014, 09:04 AM
CupcakeTrap
Dec 23 2014, 08:25 AM
ChroniclerC
Dec 23 2014, 02:38 AM
Weren't there supposed to be several rules in place limiting the number of units you could have in Nyroth? Because Bilge has a LOT.
Most of it is their crazy number of islands giving them lots and lots of Military rewards. I hadn't realized how much they'd stacked up.

As for the mercs, Bilgewater demanded that, if we were revising/clarifying the rules to have raised undead units count as non-capacity troops, that they should be allowed to count mercenaries the same, up to the hard limit of "half your Commerce in mercs". That sounded pretty fair: SI gained a LOT of strength from those undead units. (And having to make off-the-cuff decisions like this is part of why I really want this arc to be over so we can design better rules.)
nope it was not. our units are undead, the mercs are not. no rule stated that they should be inside the capacity and they never were considered inside it before we gone up against naggas faction. Not even when we were going up against frel or ionia, but the mercenary rule was changed. Its a huge difference.
SI's main block of troops was always capacity-limited, or they'd have started the arc with 90 Strength. SI also gained a lot more in raised troops than Bilgewater did by hiring mercenaries. (And neither the Freljord nor Ionia had mercenaries.)

Naggarok is obviously pro-Bilgewater, but he's proposed or agreed to rule-bends in SI's favor frequently. I think he's doing what he can to be fair. The problem is a half-finished set of World Systems that weren't playtested. It still ended up a lot less arbitrary than Hextech Revolution, despite an enormous expansion from "just Research and Military" to all these other things. But the next arc can't be allowed to start until we've really, seriously revised and playtested everything. We'll need community help for that—I will say that people were awfully quiet during the intermission before Nyroth. I'm hopeful that the forum will help facilitate discussion. And, in a way, I'm glad that we had this enormous fuckup with Stormhaven, because it will remind people that, yes, things are broken and do need fixing.
Edited by CupcakeTrap, Dec 23 2014, 09:21 AM.
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StormRevolver
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eh i should stop writing my posts in multiple phases. sry. i think i kinda wanted to make the same point at the end you made. i think these rules would kinda enforce that the we do the planing in intermission
Edited by StormRevolver, Dec 23 2014, 09:34 AM.
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CupcakeTrap
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StormRevolver
Dec 23 2014, 09:31 AM
eh i should stop writing my posts in multiple phases. sry. i think i kinda wanted to make the same point at the end you made. i think these rules would kinda enforce that the we do the planing in intermission
It's okay; I do the same thing.

And yes, I think that's the take-away message here. It's quite simple, actually—many changes made on the fly have two characteristics which together make for a very problematic combination:

(1) They are surprising. However an ambiguity is resolved, it will be something of a surprise; if it weren't, if there were only one (truly) obvious conclusion, there wouldn't be any ambiguity.

(2) They harm one side. At least one faction's interests will be negatively affected by this change.

If you can dampen one or both of these factors, then it can work out alright, but that's very hard to do. When both factors are in play, the net result is something that very much appears to be an unfair, arbitrary act of favoritism or bias. However the ambiguity is resolved, it will be (1) surprising and (2) harmful to at least one faction. This is why it needs to be worked out in advance as much as possible.

Now, it's a basic principle of all formal rule systems that ambiguities will arise during implementation. It's extraordinarily hard to craft a functional system that won't give rise to ambiguities. (I say "functional" because you can certainly craft an almost totally clear system—but such ultra-rigid systems have other problems, such as that they're very easy to "game".) But clever drafting of rules, and a "playtesting" period ("what if they do this? What if they do that and THEN that other thing?"), can significantly reduce the number of questions that have to be resolved. Clever drafting also provides clear principles and an internal logic that makes rulings less surprising, inasmuch as solutions can flow from basic principles. (For example: let's say someone says that a match must be invalidated because at the last minute both sides agreed to upgrade a Bronze slot to a Silver slot, making it non-rank-compliant. Well, the basic principle that "if both teams agree, and there's no significant harm to anyone else, it's fine" resolves the question. On the other hand, "both teams decided at the last minute that they wanted to play nine hours later than scheduled" would give rise to a different result by the same principle, because that would seriously inconvenience shoutcasters and viewers.)

This is the challenge that we need to address during intermission: creating clear, functional rules with a strong internal logic and some foundational principles with which to resolve situations that aren't strictly solved by the rules.
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Kaynunot
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Kuronan Estimare, Psionic Psion of House Estimare
I know this will sound unfair, but Factions will need Hard Caps on their Military if they are not focused on it, including Mercenaries in Future Arcs. this Military Power they have is absolutely insane and shouldn't leak out into new arcs or now Bilgewater will be beyond capable of fighting Zaun, Noxus, or even Demacia on Their Terms and still win, it's absolutely ridiculous.

Seriously, Bilgewater is 15 Military according to World Systems, they should have absolutely nowhere near this kind of power even with Mercenaries. Shadow Isles is a DEVOTED Military Power (literally our ONLY benefit) we should NOT be beaten back by any faction with an extremely lackluster military unless we purposely trip traps or sit and let their military bombard and kill half our army to start. The whole idea of Noxus and Demacia being World Powers was that other factions RELIED on them, and suddenly now Zaun is a world power-and considering they are a Super Tech nation, that kind of makes sense-But Bilgewater does not make sense!
Edited by Kaynunot, Dec 23 2014, 10:19 AM.
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ChroniclerC
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StormRevolver
Dec 23 2014, 09:04 AM
before we start the next arc, i would like 3 rules added if possible.
- we change no world rules (so except the pick-up, featured, tournament, and match scoring rules) during the arc no matter how broken/unfair they are. talking about whats fair or not is always a discussion that got no real end to it, and they should be balanced before the arc.
- if a rule is not properly worded or not clear enough then it will be interpreted the more lax version (i mean the way it benefits the faction it refers to better). I want this rule so we will use proper terminology for the rules, and will think every aspect of it trough, and try to avoid these.
- we don't make up new mechanics inside the arc, Like the extra bonuses if you send this or that champion (like the rewards for sending hec and mord). or that the gauntlet should give military bonus. They are usually not thought out well and get redacted at the crucial moments anyway, or they get forgotten.


Mostly agreed here. The players really need to consistently know how things work. If you make a bad call, we need you to either keep using the bad call until there is a sufficient lull to discuss changing it, or to call a full stop to point out a change and allow players to adjust plans. I know that both of these things sound terrible, but they are better than deceiving your players (accidentally or not).
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