REMOVE INSTANCE BATTLES FROM LIF

I hereby acknowledge,

 

The current state of Instanced Battles or ‘IBs’ has been and continues to be so exploited, broken, and unoptimized to render the game Life Is Feudal MMO unplayable. While we understand the IB system was a necessary experiment to develop the information needed to support the eventual launch of a siege system, it is doing real world damage to guilds and players, and it is time for the experiment to be finished. We are a patient group of gamers and are dedicated to the game. We are willing to wait until the siege system is properly finished before removing claims from the map.

Below are a list of reasons ‘IBs’ are a concern:

 

-Irremediable Destruction – First and foremost IB systems promote the destruction of tens of thousands of man-hours of bases with no chance for redemption. While IB’s themselves do not damage claims it leaves claims exposed to the damage. While exposed during Judgement Hours the balance between attacker and defender is far in favor of the attacker. Trebuchets and sapper charges can level series of walls and castle keeps in under 30 minutes. This does nothing to support the growth of the population of this game. This we are fundamentally opposed to. Additionall the time zones for oceaniac players make their positions untennable as they would have to play the game near 10am in order to defend their claims

 

- Optimization – The ability for players to be at their best is severely restricted by the latency issues in battle. One of the key features of the game is that you can have a small guild of expert fighters survive against a large one of mostly unskilled players. This artificial battlefield totally negates any real skill and experience and leaves the future of your claim to luck. - Quantity – It is not possible for anyone, alliance or not, to fight 3+ IB’s at the same time. The primetime population of this game is currently around 400-450 players. To fill 3 hundred-man IB’s requires the entirety of the game population, and then some.

 

- Exploitation – There are multiple exploitations of the system at any given time. What’s worse is the developers self-admitted inability to counteract any of the exploits, so they are ignored. Firstly, Defense IBs; it is inconceivable that an ally or alt claim can shield alliance claims from the enemy – Next, last min que. This goes together with quantity; when multiple IB’s launch at or near the same time, and the same characters/accounts are enlisted across multiple battles, there is no way for the defender to know which one is the actual IB the enemy will focus on until the last moment, when it is too late. There are many more exploits, including combat logging and reconnecting etc however this is all we will discuss to save time.

 

- Terrain – Maps are chosen at random, regardless of where you have set up your base, where a totem was dropped, or any predictive factor. There is no opportunity for either force to prepare the proper unit make-up for the field. Teams will show up with 100 lancers and fight on mountain peaks or be force to defend a totem at the bottom of a hill while the attackers can reach the totem before infantry has even had the opportunity to get anywhere near it. The entire concept pulls us away from a sandbox style of gameplay and forces us into a fine ruleset with strict win/loss criteria. It removes the ability of defenders to choose terrain as is typically their prerogative and almost completely removes the concept of asymmetrical warfare from the game. In summary while IBs certainly can be fun (and in our opinion should be returned to just that role), the current system is effectively broken.

 

If you agree with the premise that IB’s need to either be eliminated from the game, or be disconnected from actual claim loss, until the aforementioned issues are cured please sign this petition.