[LCN] November 11th Update - Syndicate Wars (Beta Pre-Release)

Syndicate Wars has been pre-released for the remainder of this season, there will be no official rankings until next season. This feature is in Beta and we'll be testing it for a couple days addressing any issues and listening to your feedback and suggestions.


If you are a leader or officer of a Syndicate you can enable Syndicate Wars through the edit interface, but before you do make sure everyone in the Syndicate understands the rules. Compete with other Syndicates who have wars enabled for War Points (WP). You can get war points by attacking, punching and hitlisting other players that are in Syndicates at war. Kills will give the highest WP reward. You are limited to how many times you can attack another player. Similarly to Gamer Points, at the end of each season Trophies and ranks are given out for War Syndicates.

War Rivals: If you attack a player that is in a Syndicate that is at war, you will put yourself on that Syndicates War Rival list which will allow every player in the opposing Syndicate to attack/punch/hitlist you to gain War Points regardless of your level for a period of 24-hr since your last attack against any member in the opposing Syndicate. If you do not directly attack a player that is a higher level than you, they will only be able to attack you until their War Points are exhausted, but if you do attack them you will be added to their Rival List and open yourself up for retaliation as it exists today.

War Points: You score War Points for attacking other Syndicates that are in War. There are limits of War Points that can be gained from a single player daily, below are the limits and War Points rewarded:

Attacks: If a war opponent is within XP range, on your Syndicates War Rival list or in your Rival List, you can attack that player 15 times before you reach your daily limit for that opponent. 2 War Points for an attack win and 1 War Point for an attack loss. Points are only credited to the attacker.

Hitlists: If a war opponent is within XP range, on your Syndicates War Rival list or in your Rival List, you can hitlist that player 1 time before you reach your daily limit for that opponent. 5 War Points are rewarded for a successful hitlist. For War Point hitlists, the hitlister will always pay the base hitlist cost.

Punches: You can punch an opposing Syndicate player that is in a War 4 times before that targets War Points become exhausted for the day. 1 War Point are rewarded for every successful punch on a War target.


What issues were we looking to address with this change?

1. We wanted to address player complaints about PVP fighting being neglected. With additions of challenges and bosses, many players felt that we have been ignoring PVP fights (attacks, punches, hitlists). Increase PVP opponents for those looking for more.
2. We wanted to address complaints from players that they were being over attacked / bullied by other players.
3. Better align players in a Syndicate with their interests in the game (boss killing, PVP fighting, etc). There has always been a grey area with respect to Syndicates, some use it for wars, others use it to meet new players, others use it to work together to get gamer points, others use it for additional help, and some use for all of the above. The grey zone has caused issues which was the reason for us adding in Syndicate privacy in the past.

How does Syndicate Wars address the concerns/complaints above?

1. Syndicate Wars is a feature that is targeted at PVP enthusiasts. Some of the restrictions/protection like increasing Hitlist costs are removed within the daily limit of Syndicate War participants. Higher XP rewards for fighting, punches and hitlists against players that are in a Syndicate at War is increased to offer compensation for the likelihood that you will be taking on more deaths as a consequence of participating in a Syndicate War.
2. It is our hope that those PVP enthusiasts that "over attack" and go after other syndicates not interested in PVP will now have an arena that they can compete against other like minded Syndicates. The incentives offered in the Syndicate Wars are enough to get players that are interested in PVP to participate in the War and focus less on those players that are not interested
3. Syndicate Rival list is a new concept. For those that are at War, any player that attacks a member of your Syndicate that is also in a Syndicate at War will be added to your Syndicates rival list which will open that player up for attacks and ability to get points from.

We will make necessary adjustments to this feature to find the balance where it is fun for everyone to compete in, but have no mistake about it, Syndicate Wars should not be the faint of heart and not be for those that think getting punched/hitlisted or attacked by any other player at War is unfair or bullying, it is an open arena, an open competition. We will continue to tune/tweak the War Points scoring so that every Syndicate has the opportunity to be in the running and winner will come down to the Syndicate that strategizes the best and seeks out the places to collect the most War Points.

Your feedback is appreciated.


*** WAR POINTS UPDATE / ATTACK LIMITS UPDATED 11/17/2011 ***

We just pushed an update to War Points scoring off of attacks and reduced the attack limit after initial feedback and progress through the first half of the first War Season.

We increased War Points that can be gained from attack wins from 2 to 4 and losses from 1 to 3. Attack kill has increased from 4 to 5. We also increased the XP payout for attacks slightly.

We also lowered the limit on the number of attacks that War Points can be scored from 15 to 5.

Why did we make this change? A couple reasons:

1. To entice more people of varying gameplay to enter into a war. Withstanding 5 attacks from a really high level opponent should be more bearable but still has risk of death in those 5 attacks. Retaliation window would open if player attacks back.

2. Overall goal is to have more players participating so finding the balance between rewards and consequences is what we are currently trying to do.

3. Even though limits have decreased, points have increased to keep the current season competition fair.

 

Eric,
Please change the feature to not allow high levels to attack lower level mobsters. By doing syn wars this way, it helps the higher lvls and then if I attack back I am on their rival list so its a win win for them. This truly gives them an unfair advantage and slaughters lower level players. i'm lvl 549 and being attacked by mobsters with 5 and 6 times my level.

 

it says attacks are limited though

probably just for that purpose for lower levels not to get overkilled

 

A limit of 25 attacks is no limit at all for high level players against lower level players. I've been watching this today because my syndicate wants to participate, of course. I understand this is a fighting game--and i'm ok with that. You have opened the door for something else entirely. All lower level players are now the naked, drugged chicks at the frat convention...there is no chance to even play the game. Every time I raise my head I am killed by high level players who normally cannot attack me. Please put the the normal level limits back in to give lover level players a chance.

 

We will be making the rules clearer today and make comments on our reasoning here. Syndicate Wars will not be for every player, we wanted to address concerns from players that the game was becoming a boss killing game and not a fighting one. It is very much in the early stages but just wanted to get it out for players to play around with and give their feedback.

 

any leaders fancy a war with me ?

 

Try the Kano Syndicate, we will only respond with Punches

I just updated the original post with some of the rules, please have a look over, it is also in the help.

The intent of this feature was to create a more open fighting arena to give players a chance to extend their rival list beyond what they were able to do with their personal one, but still have reasonable limits so that it would be enjoyable.

We expect the # of deaths and kills to increase which is why there is a higher XP payout on attacks as well as XP payouts for punches and hitlists, which will hopefully balance out all the additional deaths that a player will likely now be taking on in a War.

We will continue to tweak the limits based on feedback and please let us know if you encounter any issues with this feature.

 

Any chance we can get some WAR related in-game messages then? So that we can respond appropriately when people ask why we are attacking or punching them

 

I smell a rat or bullshit. this feature just seems to enable the big game players to get bigger. Lower level players will not stand a chance and think when it starts there will be a lot leaving. Comments made by heartlesshexe are justifiable and Kano show little regard for the lower levels. To say its become a boss game is crap, been in a few wars of late.

 

That's correct, limits are in place to prevent rewarding over attacks on a single target.

Wars may not be for everyone, if you are not looking for an open fight arena then wars may not be for your Syndicate. Players will have to use some strategy when in a Syndicate that is at War to understand that attacking a single opponent from another Syndicate at War puts them into their Syndicates Rival list and makes them a target to earn War Points off of.

 

Good idea, any suggestion on what you would like the msg to say?

"Syndicate War Points!"
"Our Syndicates are at War!"

 

Can you elaborate on that a bit? This feature was not to enable the big game players to get bigger, it was targeted at removing some of the restrictions with the current PVP fights, to allow players to take the gloves off if they like. There are restrictions on the number of attacks, currently it is set at 20 attacks on a single target to collect war points from daily. We will look to adjust based on feedback.

How does Kano show little regard for lower levels? It is funny, higher levels say we protect lower levels too much and lower levels say we make changes for high level players, in actuality every change we make we make for the game as a whole and not individual players. This is an example of a change that we are making for those that enjoy PVP and want to participate in a more open arena. For those Syndicates that don't want to participate that is fine, then for them the game does not change except hopefully those that really enjoy the PVP are going after others at War.

 

i dont even know where to begin with how poorly thought out this change is...

like i tried to explain to u all b4 u even implemented this feature...UR IDEA WAS NOT GONNA WORK...all it does is cater to the higher lvl players which is why the leaderboard should have been the same thing i mentioned...instead u did exactly what i told u would not work in the fact that u were gonna expect the lower lvl players to attack the higher lvls and this is ridiculous!!! there is no way that u can put a limit of 25 attacks and just allow a lvl1000 to freely attack a lvl300, thats just plain dumb and i am not gonna hold my tongue here

syn wars is a feature that has been in talks since May and is the one thing about this game that i was lookin forward to seeing how messed up it truly was gonna be after it appeared that u were gonna try to implement a health bar...now, after 6 long months this is the idea that u came up with??? allow the higher lvls to attack the lower lvls 25 times freely right??? this doesnt even begin to make any sense since they are not allowed to attack unless in retaliation to begin with

i find it very hard to believe that the developers of this game spent 6 long months of planning for this total disaster since common sense should have told u from the beginning (if u had truly used your initial thread for the purpose that it was taken up for, which was to hear the feedback) that ur idea of a health bar would not work for the simple fact that higher lvls do more damage to health bars based on the xp allowed per lvl...now instead of using this proposed health bar u decided that it would be a good idea to allow the higher lvls to attack the lower lvls and u thought that a "25 attack limit" would work

let me break it down for u but keep in mind that some syns of course are mobbed with each other, however for the purpose of the post we will exclude that fact and act as if nobody is mobbed up with anyone but their own syn to break down the syn wars...

syn 1 is built with 50% higher than lvl1000 and 25% of those are higher than lvl2000
syn 2 is built with 50% higher than lvl1000 and 25% of those are from lvl1500-lvl2000
syn 3 is built with 2 players from lvl1000-lvl1300 with 75% from lvl300-lvl750
syn 4 is built with with 2 players from lvl1000-lvl1500 with 75% below lvl750
syn 5 is built with 3 players from lvl1500-lvl2000 and 75% under lvl1000
syns 6-10 are all built with anywhere from 85%-100% less than lvl1000

the moment syns 6-10 engage in the war feature their entire crews get killed nonstop and they are forced to back out b4 people quit the game or leave the syn...syn 5 has a slight better chance at higher war pts than syns 3 and 4 since they have the ability to at least attack back for fight wins and get the 2 pts instead of the 1 pt but if the lower lvls are not all alt accts then it is possible for them to be forced to back out for the sake of their players...syns 3 and 4 are pretty much similar and have the opportunity to get more war pts than syn 5 depending on who has more active members but if the lower lvls are not all alt accts then they too can be forced to back out...syns 1 and 2 will always be 1st and 2nd on the leaderboard and normally in that order since they have the highest lvl players so this feature is a win-win for them...basically it is possible for there to ONLY be 2-5 syns still standing by the end of the week (other than the alt syns), so if this was the intended plan then it was a success...LOL

if this has not broken down what will ALWAYS happen each week then maybe that is why this feature was still put into play after the warning signs from the initial thread about the original idea of syn wars

this is supposed to be a competition where everyone involved is able to compete since this is just a game (now were this real life then only those that train the best would be able to truly compete) but the idea is so lopsided that its like yall put NO effort into it and since i kept asking where the syn wars were it seems like something was just poorly thrown together all of a sudden to shut me up...LOL

anyone who thinks that they have put the "trained" time in bc they have played the game the longest truly has no clue and will not get a response back from me since it will be a waste of my time...lol

 

Thats a bunch of crap...just about EVERY feature on this game is catered to higher lvl players

Advantages for higher lvl players
1) they are allowed to attack any lvl on the HL (there are actually achievements for this also which have now skyrocketed up to 30k...lol)
2) they are allowed to HL any player lvl300 and higher (this is completely insane since a person should only be able to HL half of their lvl)
3) attacking the world boss 25 times for them gives them a better reward for a lower than lvl1500 player attacking the SAME exact boss the SAME number of times
4) i understand that more xp is needed for them to lvl but a lower lvl player with the same amount of health cannot do close to the same amount of damage to a boss (the only difference here should be how much total attack one has but this is not the case)
5) SYNDICATE WARS...lol

Advantages for lower lvl players
1) more people on their fight list since there are more people around their range?!?!? is this really considered an actual advantage though???



i would really love to see what advantages these higher lvl players really think lower lvls have though since i cant really think of any...

 

The hitlist is completely open for everyone in the world. Those are lifetime achievements and is something that we have on our list to try to separate out better, I agree, as a new player 30k Hitlist kills can seem daunting and is definitely a different class of achievement.

Yes, after level 300 hitlist protection ends but cost does increase for repeat hitlists. Players have Rigged Ingnitions to protect themselves with.

World boss XP is mostly based on the current level XP you require to level up, so higher levels have a far more XP requirement than lower levels. The XP percentage is the same, so say we were rewarding 25% for each hit on a world boss everyone in the game would just have to hit the boss 4 times in order to level up. World Boss rewards is equivalent for everyone in the game based on where they are at in the game.

What bosses are you attacking, ones for your area or higher level players bosses? Boss attacks are based on your characters stats, if you have lower stats the result will be different.

Three issues that we aim to address with the addition:
1. Complaints from players that do not enjoy PVP getting over attacked by players that do enjoy PVP
2. Complaints form players that enjoy PVP not having any targets to attack / fight against
3. There has always been a grey area with respect to Syndicates, some use it for wars, others use it to meet new players, others use it to work together to get gamer points, others use it for additional help, and some use for all of the above.

How does Syndicate Wars address #1 and #3, it is our hope that those that enjoy PVP will align themselves in a Syndicate of like minded individuals and attack those that are also in the Syndicate War, attacking those that don't enjoy it less.

How does Syndicate Wars address #2, rival lists will open up with other Syndicate members at war that attack members of their Syndicate.

How does Syndicate Wars address #3, there is now a supported Wars feature in game, that those Syndicates that have built themselves up to fight have an arena to do so.

Protection, new content targeted towards lower level players, changes in the game to suite lower level players are all things that have been brought up in the past.

i would really love to see what advantages these higher lvl players really think lower lvls have though since i cant really think of any...[/QUOTE]

 

Bo Baby, to your previous post (the long one), I think there may be some misconception of what Syndicate Wars entails.

Having a Syndicate full of high level players does not necessarily mean a win. Strategy should be used when determining who you want/can collect War Points from. For example, you find an equal level target that is the War, you may not want to attack them depending on whether or not you can take the heat from their entire Syndicate as attacking any player in a Syndicate will put you on that Syndicates Rival list and make you open for attacks to get War Points from.

We tried to balance the scoring so that regardless of level, all Syndicates should have a chance at top spot and will likely come down to the Syndicate that strategizes and works the best together. Lower levels may have to do a bit more research on who they are attacking, but that I think should be expected for this feature as it is more of a late game addition and is not something for a level 50 player to get involved in.

 

Can we get an easy access War Rivals tab on the main screen pls? atm it's too much of a hassle to get to...

 

huh? hard to get to? the war rivals tab is where it should be, inside of your syndicate, please explain how this is hard to get to? u must not be in a syn if u cant find it...lol

 

That says it all, perfectly. I have no chance of fighting back and I love the fighting element of the game. It has opened the gate for lower levels like myself to be hitlisted and punched by those much, much higher. If I have no chance of fighting back, it's not really worth playing, is it.

 

ok Kendall, here we go...

so what u are sayin is that basically the main objective of syn wars is for syns to fish out the small fries until they all quit, right? what fun is that??? so u just want syns 6-10 in my above example to all fight each other while syns 1-5 punch and HL them all day until they exhaust those areas? either way it goes the majority of players involved in a syn are at that lvl300 range to be listed so syns 1-5 still get the most pts without even having to fight (unless they actually fight each other)...maybe this is the logic, but it will not work bc ur main focus is for the lower lvls to get slammed so much that the syn is forced to quit

u say it may not be something for a lvl50 player to get involved in...so in the same breath are u also sayin that a syn filled with fighters, who also likes to help newbies get better by accepting them and showing them the ropes, has no business being in syn wars? my main focus in any game that i play is the competition (especially team competition) and now syn wars is basically making me have to decide whether i want to continue to help people get better or whether i want to say screw them bc i love competition...that aint right!

i dont see 20 syns making it through an entire week (and thats including syns filled with alt accts...lol)

EDITED:
as far as tryin to plan a strategy on who to attack due to being opened up by that syn for retaliation, i mean take a look at the leaderboard as it stands now after only 2 days...there are currently 15 syns still engaged in war...3/15 syns have over 2k war pts...12/15 syns have less than 800 war pts and out of those 12 i propose that it dwindles down to around 5-8 b4 the day is out (unless of course new syns engage on the last day, whether its their 1st time engaging or not) so there is no such thing as a strategy bc eventually the low lvl syns are gonna have to attack the higher lvls for more war pts since all the syns around their lvl will be gone or else it is no point in them stayin engaged since they cant collect anymore pts and all they will be doing is gettin slammed...LOL

just for ur understanding i am neither a low lvl player (which i consider lower than lvl500, however nowadays it is beginning to become more like lower than lvl750) or a high lvl player (which i consider to be higher than lvl1500)