Remove Relocation

[DeletedUser2369]

Hi all,
Been a while since Ive been in here, so I may have missed this being suggested.
I want to suggest the complete and total removal of the relocation feature. Bear with me here.

When this feature was first announced I immediately saw the short term benefits to me, as I was a larger player with multiple clusters. However in the long term I believe it removes strategy, instead making quantity the only important part of the game.

I will admit that since the feature was brought out I have played one world that has it, and have helped my housemate (being shown through their account to find strategies to help them be more successful, and giving other miscellaneous advice) in several other worlds.

Without relocation it took about 2 weeks to recruit a nuke, and only a certain portion of your villages would be recruiting them. So if I had 10 villages, I might get 5 nukes every 2 weeks (assuming a 50/50 split for offense to defense). similarly for defense.
With relocation, i can recruit offense in all my villages and relocate to my villages closest to where i want to fight. Not only does this mean that with 10 villages I can get my 5 nukes every week, but i can also get 1 nuke every ~34 hours (assuming that it took exactly 2 weeks to get a full nuke - i cant be bothered to get the precise math here, the point stands even if the numbers are off by a few hours).

If I am defending with say 8 villages against those 10 mentioned in the example above, id be able to get defense to match those 5 nukes a fortnight, and strategically place them to have a shot at winning, and use my nukes to get back at them, however I cannot defend 5 nukes a week, let alone a nuke every day and a half. Especially when those nuke will always come from the closest villages.
Before relocation I would know that if i killed the offense from the closest village that I could ignore the village as a threat for 2 weeks, and attacking other villages is equally damaging, maybe more damaging to my opponent. Now, taking any village other than the one where the attacks are coming from do relatively little damage to my opponent compared to taking the attacking village, which would naturally be stacked.

Essentially the relocation feature has screwed defense up, overpowered the most active players, and made fighting anyone even a little larger than you a bad idea, unless you are several times better than them in terms of skill. This is not even accounting for the fact that several players who add up to the same size as an opponent are still handicapped as they cannot relocate between all their vills.

I believe this feature to be one of the biggest reason for the current trend towards merge-to-win worlds, as there is no point in fighting the larger tribe which inevitably springs up in the core, filled with the bigger players.

I suggest at the very least that innogames tries one world where this feature is not available, and see how it goes.

Untill this feature is removed or drastically improved, this game is not worth my time. It frustrates me as this is the only game of the style that I have found that I enjoy.

Anyone have any counter arguments? Maybe someone who has more experience with the feature than I can point out elements I have not been aware of that makes this feature not as bad as I think it is. I am fully willing to be convinced that I am wrong, though it will need to be a very strong argument to do so.

--GRhin

 

[DeletedUser4877]

Sorry but I couldn't disagree more, I think relocating has been the best thing since sliced bread. I was trying to read all of your points from the perspective of a negative but all i saw was positive. I don't understand why you would want to wait 2 weeks to get a nuke in your village, it would make a slow moving game, even slower. I agree that it overpowers the more active players, but why should that be a burden for them? I've found more active players generally are more offensive and the less active are more turtly. Probably because an active person can actually use, move and dodge troops when they're under attack whereas an inactive player will just build defense and hope for the best while they're asleep/away. So why make it even harder for the ones playing the game the most. Theres no strategy in sitting weeks on end in defense, which alot of people already do. The only way to win is through offense. That can't happen if you're waiting weeks just to get a nuke close.
I haven't played normal TW in years but i don't want to think what it would've been like waiting all that time
Coming from a highly offensive player

 

[DeletedUser]

Have to agree with Jack, In a non relocation world for def villages, they become dead weight once all provisions are used, your offense villages are the only ones that are doing any part in the game for an active player. Let's say you use a 60/40 split for off/def villages even at that risky percentage 40% of your villages sit idle unless you are the defender and need defense, which most active players don't use alot of defense do to their being online to snipe incoming nobles. So therefore you do not operate at full battle capacity. With re-location you can use those idle villages to build offense thus keeping the game alive. I played TW1 for a few years and if you want to watch grass grow, die and turn green again while you build nukes I guess it could be a game to play, otherwise it's only a good game for in-active/semi-inactive players.
I would quit this game if it starts being that slow to play also.

 

[DeletedUser2369]

I agree with all your points. However, i still disagree with your conclusion. I feel you are only looking at it from the perspective of the bigger player.
I also disagree with the statement "a slow moving game, even slower" as this game runs way faster than tw1, and most similar game.
Also i feel that due to this feature the game stalls out a couple months into it, right when things should be starting to get interesting, because theres no longer any purpose to really fighting. Unless you are already the big player, or at least in the big tribe, you virtually cannot win. That makes the game unbalanced, when having only a few villages more than an opponent, or playing a few days longer than them (ie your in the core and they are on the rim) decides the outcome. Now i agree that these things should be an advantage, but i skilled player starting on the rim should have at least some chance of winning.

As for the point of burdening active players, I see your point, however I always saw tw2 as a more "casual" game, compared to tw1, where you didnt have to sit on the game 24/7 to have a chance of winning. And i dont think I am the only one to think that, as most of the serious tw1 players decided early on not to stick this game out while the casual gamers stayed. Again activity should be an advantage, but id like it to be a little more balanced, so a player who works full time, and cannot log in at work, can still play. I think that would be a win for everyone- more players = more enjoyment (also less merge to win id guess)

 

[DeletedUser2048]

This type of game is not supposed to be "easy" or super quick - it's a real time strategy, which means players should be using tactical skill. With relocation, you don't need any of this, just to be the bigger player. Which leaves those of us who used to enjoy the strategic side of the game either bored or frustrated. Bored because it's too easy as the bigger player, or frustrated as a latecomer to a realm who can play with skill, but is simply out-gunned, with little to no chance of getting around that.
In en7, Grhin was successfully able to fight off 5 players who were several times bigger than him, a full 2 days noble walk from his base, because he is a very skilled player with a mind for strategy. Later in the game, whenever he popped up in a new territory, the enemies (tribemates of the original 5) would literally run away - they'd be taking villages in a pattern that moved away from him. Once again, these players were several times bigger than him.
This does not happen on the new realms since relocation was introduced. Once a game of strategy and skill, tribal wars2 has simply become a game of who can get the most villages the fastest, and blow everyone else out through sheer size, rather than actual skill. Not to mention the ridiculous advantage the nobles and coins from gwendolines game give to the "lucky" few. MMORTS? What a sham.

 

[DeletedUser2048]

Have to agree with Jack, In a non relocation world for def villages, they become dead weight once all provisions are used, your offense villages are the only ones that are doing any part in the game for an active player.

As for defensive villages where defense isn't being used - it's not that hard to kill off defense if you'd rather an offensive village - simply send it to a known stack as an "offensive" attack. Opens up a future nuke, and kills a few enemies (though of course, not as many as actual offensive troops) in the process. For those villages where the defense is constantly out supporting, you can ignore them, build an academy and just mass mint coins. And now if you're still getting an overflow, donate to the tribe. There are always work arounds, and imo relocation, at least in it's current ability, was not a good solution to problems of slowness and "over-powered defense". Defense is now practically useless, and tbh it was never super-powered anyway - just people are lazy and can't be bothered to think up good strategies. Not to mention 5 good nukes could clear out practically any stack, even before the re-balance and relocation were added.

 

[DeletedUser3087]

@rebel117 yeah clear that in 5 nukes...

 

[DeletedUser2616]

I am fully willing to be convinced that I am wrong

--GRhin

... doubt it... i know you GRhin, lmao. relocation isn't for everyone, I love it over the old way. en17 was by far the best world I've played and relocation kept me around longer than en13, I'd get bored waiting 2-3 weeks after every offense op. for me, it's just that simple. I also like that pure 'x' nukes are an actual thing, instead of having to lame yourself in order to make them. Using heavy rams (1.2K+ rams) nukes. In saying that, I'm actually a lot more defensively inclined than I used to be, went at 80% O on old worlds because of that 2-3 week downtime. wanted to make the most of the 1 week i could actually attack. now i'm closer to 50/50.

In order to play relocation, it's all about efficiency. Both defensive and offense. see a stack? make a nuke to target its weakness. they use noble nukes? prenoble the base and kill the nuke(s) after they cap the base and take it back. strategy is still a thing, but it's more like on the spot decisions rather than sitting around with my d*ck in my hand waiting to actually get something done.

I killed about 40-50 nukes on en27 without using a single defense unit, and had defense units to protect the important bases (churches, noble/nuke bases). ended up quitting cos it was 2 v 120 with me as one of the 2.... never joining a jhin tribe again. On the plus side, met some good people and took them from him, lol.

the main suggestion I have is to be flexible, every world/fight will be different. if you swear by a build and keep trying to force it to work, you'll fail. I swear by LC and talk crap about MA but if they're the best option i'll use them. pre relocation it was just make pure HC defense bases, and some with trebs and you're set since you were fighting 90% MA and the occasional crazy mofo nukes that you'd only see from people like snsd.

 

[DeletedUser2369]

@JD619 Thats when you can easily take dozens of other villages. Besides that village is not easier taken with relocation therefore is not relevant to this particular discussion. Rebels point was that defense was never overpowered, which he believed was probably the arguement that caused of introduction of relocation (though he didnt say this outright)

@gutsman In that 2 v 120 fight that was too easy, what was the relative size of the players? A tribe cannot use relocation between players, so if you were say twice the size of the largest of those 120, then it might be possible that you have proven my point. Aside from that im assuming most of thos 120 were probably inactives or tiny players.
Also I am actually fully willing to be convinced, and was when you knew me, it was simply that people were just telling me i was wrong instead of convincing me - the difference being that convincing requires giving examples and evidence, while telling is two words "you're wrong"

 

[DeletedUser2616]

There's no convincing you that you're wrong on this one though, cos you aren't. nobody is or can be wrong on this one, within reason, because it's about preferences and how people play. my post was mainly to do with how to play it.

Also i can't remember how big i was there, tools is down and it was ages ago. but they had me beat cos it was either pull 20 hour days for a month or 2 or just quit and keep my health, lol. plus the thought of actually doing that made me want to neck myself :\

 

[DeletedUser3087]

With relocation, i can recruit offense in all my villages and relocate to my villages closest to where i want to fight.

if you recruit offense in all your villages doesn't that make your split 100/0 and not 50/50 ...

You say one thing

I believe it removes strategy,

then contradicts it in the next sentence

being shown through their account to find strategies to help them be more successful

...

Sure some of the strategy and planning that took place prior to this being introduced has gone, but new opportunities has been opened for strategies as well... Sure you don't have to worry about what you build in your villages, but you still have to plan and think how you are going to move your troops around. How many villages you want on the front line to be offensive and defensive. Coordinating attacks and defense... Planning with tribe mates to overcome an enemy...

On EN18 I was able to with stand countless attacks from top players Number 1 and 5 at the time only being just in the top 100, moving troops out of villages and letting them capture only for me to recapture, back timing , stacking villages strategically, not allowing simple entries into a province, spotting fakes and real attacks... Being active plays a big roll, you think those players gets big just from sitting on his bum and being given it? (well with scripting these days that might be the case) If you want to talk about an evil talk about co-op abuse / cheating and pushing ...

Besides that village is not easier taken with relocation therefore is not relevant to this particular discussion.

so we can only discuss things that proves your point... that relocation is making life easier regardless of the circumstances.

But anyway regardless of what is being said here... Inno doesn't listen to us so this is all meaningless

 

[DeletedUser2616]

Inno doesn't listen to us so this is all meaningless

literally this. doesn't matter what debates happen on the forum regarding rules/changes, it all comes back to this.

 

[DeletedUser2369]

so we can only discuss things that proves your point... that relocation is making life easier regardless of the circumstances.

Ill respond to the meat of your post later when i have more time. But i want to respond to this point now.
Relocation making life easier disproves my point, so no proving my point is not the only thing you may talk about. However, this thread is about relocation and its benefit/disadvantage to the game, so if you are not talking about relocation or how it effects the game, its irrelevant to this thread, and id rather have this kept on topic.

 

[DeletedUser2616]

The solution would be as simple as this. have worlds with different settings, the absence/presence of relocation can be one such setting. everyone would be happy... but yeah, not happening, lmao.

 

[DeletedUser4932]

The solution would be as simple as this. have worlds with different settings, the absence/presence of relocation can be one such setting. everyone would be happy... but yeah, not happening, lmao.

I propose we move to vote in emergency powers for me.
I love Tribal Wars 2,
When the Crisis has passed I will lay down the powers you give me!

 

[DeletedUser2616]

I see no way in which this can go wrong, you have my vote.

 

[DeletedUser4689]

Take my upboat.

 

[DeletedUser4271]

It’s been a while since I’ve been back now but this caught my interest. You say relocation has made strategies and defence useless I have to disagree on en18 near end game whilst under constant attacks from players ricky2002 and baegio (co-open one another) who were around 10x bigger than me point and village wise the only thing that kept me alive was relocation. The smashed dozens of nukes on my villages every few days for weeks and yet did not manage to take a single one why?how? Because I relocated moved and launched my own nukes in between this all something I only managed to do with the relocation feature. How is that making it useless? For the record I was somewhere around 100/150k and the two others were in their millions

 

[DeletedUser2369]

@Caelum2 I might point out that morale would have helped you more than a bit as well. That being said that is still an impressive feat. I admit that relocation has its benefits, however, I do not believe that its benefits outweigh its disadvantages. I cant comment on your fight in en18 as I dont know it. However if they had that many villages, relocation should have been more benefit to them than to you, if they focused on you only then you should be expecting a nuke every few hours instead of days. I may well be wrong, and I dont disagree with the facts as you presented them, but I cannot believe that there were not other circumstances that helped you more than relocation did.

 

[DeletedUser2369]

To Summarise the advantages and disadvantages discussed so far, along with a couple of counter points to each - trying to stay unbiased as possible.
ADVANTAGE 1 (thanks @Jackosaurus ): It speeds the game up
COUNTERPOINT: Is this really nessacary? even before relocation TW2 was a faster game than most other games of the genre, TW1 being several years to complete a game. en7, where I have my pre-relocation experience, took less than a year and a half to win by conquest.

ADVANTAGE 2 (thanks @ggwyo ) : Prevents defensive villages from becoming "Dead Weight"
COUNTERPOINT: with "Dead wieght" defensive villages its an even playing field, differing only on the play-style of the individual player, making the game more versatile in my personal opinion. I will admit, however, that this was one of the primary advantages I was excited about when it was announced.

ADVANTAGE 3 (thanks @gutsman ): Can quickly build nukes to counter a stacks weakness
COUNTERPOINT: Heavy Cavalry have no real weakness in any direction, so players that use them reduce this advantage. Furthermore the biggest weakness in a stack is that other villages are unguarded. Its easy to force an enemy to either spread the defense or risk losing undefended villages.

(these disadvantage have the same counter point)
DISADVANTAGE 1: It overpowers the active
DISADVANTAGE 2: It overpowers the bigger players
COUNTERPOINT (thanks @Jackosaurus ): Active/bigger players should have advantages, after all they are putting in/have put in more effort
COUNTER-COUNTERPOINT: Agreed, but too much detracts from the game IMO

DISADVANTAGE 3: The defender has to defend against an enemies entire production capacity, instead of just the portion that is offensive (Kind of a counter point to ADVANTAGE 2)
COUNTERPOINT: The defender has all his production capacity to defend with, so fairs fair

DISADVANTAGE 4: The defender has to defend against the closest villages all the time, meaning they have to be more active to watch for short range attacks
COUNTERPOINT: The reverse is also true if the defender chooses to become an attacker.

DISADVANTAGE 5: It limits strategy (reworded from original post due to responses)
COUNTERPOINT (Thanks @JD619 and @gutsman ): No, it just changes what you need to strategise.
-- That counterpoint is a straight up disagreement with the disadvantage, however it is the view expressed above
COUNTER-COUNTERPOINT: The amount of strategy is severly reduced, and confers little advantage to the strategist IMO

DISADVANTAGE 6: A culmination of the first five disadvantages - It becomes a numbers game, the person with more numbers wins.
COUNTERPOINT: That person must have earnt the more numbers.
COUNTER-COUNTERPOINT: ...Unless they barb-munched/sim cityd their way to the numbers

The way I see it, the advantages tend to be advantages for the larger players over the smaller players, while the disadvantages are all towards the smaller players. If this were a balanced feature there would be some advantages the smaller players would have over the bigger players, and/or disadvantages towards the bigger players, or another feature to provide such (such as morale, however I believe that already counters the existing advantages of being larger). Id love to hear if anyone can come up with these advantages/disadvantages/balancing features.

@Caelum2 has made a point that he, as a smaller player, has survived due to this feature, though I cannot understand how, all other things being equal. I can only assume there was something else going on that he was not aware of, or didnt realise was pertinent. However I could be wrong with that. Can we hear from a bigger player who has had a more difficult fight due to this feature?