Christmas fever commanders

[Monacle]

So let's align on terminology to make everything clear first:

Special reward: reward from hitting a fever commander, typically between 30 and 200k gold, or very rarely a HT
Capture reward: reward from capturing fever commander, can be very variable but id estimate a range around 100-600k gold
Kill reward: reward from capturing fever commander, double the capture reward (decreasing based on how many times you've captured them)
Injury reward: reward from injuring a fever commander, nothing

So currently from the (albeit non-exhaustive) testing I did on the staging site, it seems like there's a significant imbalance that can really mess up the cost/reward of going for these pvps. Generally speaking the first hit always hurts like a truck and results in a massive hospital bill (unless ur hitting cav with anticav or something) this will typically cost you 1-2 mil

I understand that the intention here is that you need to whittle them down and bear through the initial hit so you can reap the different rewards I listed above from hitting them when their armies are weakened. If that is the balance intention there seems to be a flaw, because you can often keep hitting a target and end up taking 2-4 mil in hospital bills and eventually just injure the enemy commander, which should be rewarded, but is instead punished because it prevents you from claiming a capture reward or a kill reward (very high opportunity cost as you can no longer hit them to get capture/kill reward).

In any case you get the special reward it seems for the first 2 hits which is a nice bonus but doesn't make fighting the commander worthwhile (except when you get a HT, which is quite rare)

Overall without implementing a better reward to make up for the opportunity cost, it feels like playing roullete, where after you've made the investment and sunk 2-4 mil in hospital bills (or spent HTs) you're just praying you don't injure the commander which is quite unpredictable at that stage.

A possible fix could be: getting half of the fever commander's gold when you injure them (similar to capture) - this is ideal in my opinion as it makes it so that injuring is still worse than capturing (as you will not be able to hit again for a potential kill to get the rest of their gold) but isn't so bad that it's not viable

A second solution could to allow hitting a fever commander even when injured but this essentially makes the injury worthless and a worse solution in my opinion

I hope this provides some insight and leads to a possible fix
Cheers,
Monacle

[Myth]

Well, don't forget the special medal you can win :p

That said it's exactly the way you put it. Russian roulette. Especially as someone else might go and take the victory after you've worn him down. But it could also be the other way around.

[Monacle]

I feel like that intentionally serves to encourage disharmony within the country though, which might be worth reconsidering from a directional/strategic level.

Some potential ideas for this could be that the special reward is maybe distributed to multiple players in the country, or all players who had previously hit the commander get some of the capture gold (so if you finish a commander by yourself, you would get the full reward, but if you get sniped at least you get a secondary prize)

This would then encourage harmony and cooperation between the pvpers and spreading out the damage which would be a better strategic direction in a social strategy game, but that's just my 2 cents, i would understand if this isn't a change you want to make

[Sandero]

I second this, It is very unrewarding to hit an army first, especially at high rank where the hospital bills are huge. It causes frustration within the country and frankly breaks people's armies while others reap the rewards. A 2 minute protection after a hit for anyone BUT the commander that hit the npc would work. It would not close off this pvp if the commander that hit first doesnt want to continue and it gives him/her a chance to heal and hit before everyone else ran away with it.

[Jefferson]

I like this. I think you're right where the current pvp style of the fever commanders encourage discord inside the country. which isn't fun.

[trampie]

I second this, It is very unrewarding to hit an army first, especially at high rank where the hospital bills are huge. It causes frustration within the country and frankly breaks people's armies while others reap the rewards. A 2 minute protection after a hit for anyone BUT the commander that hit the npc would work. It would not close off this pvp if the commander that hit first doesnt want to continue and it gives him/her a chance to heal and hit before everyone else ran away with it.

I would love it...I some times steel a target and its not my intention...Just slow (sorry)

[Monacle]

@myth, I really hope you are seriously considering some of the suggested solutions above for next age as I've been experiencing and hearing from many people about the problems Christmas pvp sniping is starting to cause within the countries and between players.

[Myth]

Changes made, see age 371 notes.

[Sandero]

Thanks!