Formal War Declaration

[Deantwo]

A lot of players don't like the idea of being wiped out in a couple of hours with no warning what so ever. Most call it "newbie-stomping" or "noobstomping".

The general idea of a "formal war declaration" mechanic could be implemented to delay and inform players of what is going on.
For example disallow empires from damaging military bases and buildings on claimed worlds without first declaring a formal war.

The war declaration would have to be sent to the empire and wait about 24 (or more) hours before it goes into effect. The time before the war declaration becomes active could scale the size between the empires. If a large empire declare war on a tiny empire, the activation could take longer.

Once the war declaration is active the empires can attack and destroy buildings on claimed worlds.

This would prevent empires from wiping each other out before at least one diplomatic action with obvious intent. As the delay would mean that the defender has time to prepare to either flee or fight back, maybe even call on allies.

[AnrDaemon]

This kind of mechanics require some better tooling than currently availabe in the game, IMO.
At best, it would only delay the inevitable destruction by a day.

[Deantwo]

This kind of mechanics require some better tooling than currently availabe in the game, IMO.
At best, it would only delay the inevitable destruction by a day.

Yeah, but that is at least one day more the new player has time to figure out what is happening.
It definitely won't fix the issue, but it would help a little.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the subject though.

[AnrDaemon]

0. Make spawn mechanics more consistent.
1. Put limits on ship sizes or think of better ship weaponization paradigm.
2. Think through the combat mechanics on all levels.
3. Decide what the desired player experience should be.

In general, noobstomping is not happening because it happens, there's always a reason. Often it is because somebody spawned within a claimed sector of another empire.
Making enourmous ships is entertaining for sure, but after you've made it you start looking for its application. Theres' not much of application for a ship. And a big ship is most often just a big gun. What uses you can find for a gun?
I think this goes without saying that current combat mechanics are owerwhelmingly in favor of a developed empire. The higher quality resources you have, the better is your weapons, armor is essentially useless, and overall it is "who have laser rifles, wins".
As a summary of the abovementioned points, and in reference to "displeasure with being stomped out of existence", a game developer should make a decision, if they want a "hello kitty online" or a playable game of competition. If somebody is so displeased from being introduced into gameplay mechanics, there's always a neutral zone.

[Mr. Mortius]

Japan didn't warn the US before attacking. Why should it be required?

[Vectorus]

Japan didn't warn the US before attacking. Why should it be required?

I believe the US were at least online, though...

I wonder if, preferable to this, would be some kind of rapid response system which (1) protected cities for a short time (2) allowed ships from nearby locations to respond to friend distress hails or enemy warp detections based on ship policy, ideally arriving during the protected time. 


The problem with war declaration is that both sides may still face insurmountable timezone problems throughout the conflict, leading to unnecessarily dramatic loss of cities for all sides compared to their armed forces' strength.

[Deantwo]

I wonder if, preferable to this, would be some kind of rapid response system which (1) protected cities for a short time (2) allowed ships from nearby locations to respond to friend distress hails or enemy warp detections based on ship policy, ideally arriving during the protected time. 

I made a suggestion about this literally a year ago.
See: (Idea thread) Empire Defense Fleet and Encounters

The problem with war declaration is that both sides may still face insurmountable timezone problems throughout the conflict, leading to unnecessarily dramatic loss of cities for all sides compared to their armed forces' strength.

This is very true. But I would start would making players more aware of impending danger before trying to make war fun.

We don't have a "space UN" or Concord, but maybe we should have some form of it.

[expert700]

A lot of players don't like the idea of being wiped out in a couple of hours with no warning what so ever. Most call it "newbie-stomping" or "noobstomping".

-snip-

Hazeron in the conflict zone is a PvP game, even though lots of people don't seem to see it that way. If people want to be protected they can go into the Neutral Zone, which exists purely for that purpose and is now functionally identical. It is very easy to prevent yourself from being wiped out instantly with the tiniest bit of effort by building shipyards in deep space. Taking the events of the last few days into account, it looks a lot like you're mad that Mortius wiped you out so easily and think the rules of the game should be changed because they don't work for you. 

Unfortunately, the Conflict Zone is mostly populated by peaceful individuals nowadays. Because of the low player population they don't play in the Neutral Zone, but they also don't want to be involved in any actual conflicts. People have to realize that fighting is a core part of the game, not just a penalty that happens to you when you piss off Mortius. To quote the original welcome page from years back, "Shores of Hazeron is an ambitious and revolutionary game of science fiction adventure, intrigue, and war." Note how Haxus put down the three most important concepts in the headline of the game's description, and war was one of them.

[AnrDaemon]

If you did not know, EVE-o solved timezone issues… 15 years ago.
They simply run two battles on each contested checkpoint, one when attacker decide, and the following one when the defender wants (but no later than, say, 48 hours since initial attack, that brought the checkpoint into reinforced state).
And this is about instant capture of the checkpoints. SoH back in the day had a deterring mechanics that prevented occupants from fully controlling the city right after capturing, so a defender could fight back and recover control within a reasonable time frame (the longer, the more population the city had).

[Vectorus]

Interesting...then what? Do you have to win both battles, or is there some way of weighting the score between them?