Onderwerp: Game Balancing before New Server Goes Live
I have not seen where any of the speed issues are being addressed prior to a new stable (irony in names) server going live. Here are my suggestions of things that absolutely must be done, or at least some change to address the situation if you want the new server to contain any competitive balance.
1.) No attacks between Clanmates
2.) Limit Rune Trading. Add a true trading feature to allow people to swap rune types unlimitedly, but prevent villages from "Sending" more than say 5% of village runes per day.
3.) Rebalance Human vs Elf. No time left to test balancing, but I suggested a start Here
4.) Limit the overpowering effect of outposts. Make the value per rune higher in outposts, or, vary the value of runes based on the structure built. Give a village outposts main building a value of 2k. Something to prevent a 3k outpost from having 500 guals.
5.) Stop spell stacking. Fear+Demoralize+Summon Ghosts, + Lightning Storm+Cracked earth is too much.
6.) Limit the # of runes taken by subsequent attacks from the same user. Do this to prevent the attack/laddering of runes by villages outside of clan. Also would slow down the practice of destroying enemy villages to nothing overnight.
7.) Prevent the launching of attacks for 12 hours after a village move. I am fairly certain the move village command was not intended as a Blitzkrieg tool.
8.) Limiting the purchasing of runes of specific types. I understand the desire to allow people to throw money at the game, but allowing them to buy 50 water runes specifically is very imbalancing. Limit that 50 to no more than 15 of any one specific type. This may become less of an issue if units were remotely balanced.
9.) Balance unit strength. Guals are very overpowered. If Execs were not so expensive, they would be more viable. Humans are ridiculously underpowered. As it stands, there is little desire to make anything but being elf village with high quantity of Guals.
I hope you are taking a very close look at the logs on speed to see how the game mechanics are being used. It is your role to limit the game mechanics such that there is minimal imbalances possible in the game. Banning by the mods will only reduce the player base which is an entirely seperate, but very big problem. Spreading users out across more servers is very counter-productive to their long-term best interests. Please do not add any additional servers after the current stable comes down and a new stable goes live. Experiment on your beta server, Live Testing on Speed, then, if totally balanced, introduce to stable. Hopefully you can give us a little confidence that there is at least a good faith attempt to improve this game. You are getting ready to force your primary user base (stable) onto a very flawed speed rule-set. This is where you will relegate this game to the trashcan if you do not do it right.
