High Level Players Comp - Statement of Intent

[Miss Lioness]

 

 

 

Given that leeching ruins the minigame for everyone, I think a lot more players have a stake in the issue than just the trimmers.

Oh please. There are a hundred empty worlds for Castle Wars. And most people who want to Trim typically join a FC for it which hosts private games in empty worlds where leech trimmers are the only participants, and they all leech. In these games, there are no actual Castle Wars players there, since they aren't part of the FC, who are interested in actually playing the game. So no, leechers don't ruin it for actual Castle Wars players. People who are actually interested in playing Castle Wars and not leeching can use any of the other dozen worlds to host their own game, or they can play in the official game. Also, even if this Trim requirement is removed, there will still be people who leech for Profound Armour, as that's a prestige item.

 

So that objection doesn't quite stand.

 

That is basically the effect this requirement had on Castle Wars. I remember back in summer 2013 that people were really trying to have fun games, but subsequently got 'crashed' by trimmers forcing tie games. Due to the longevity of this requirement, it has pushed all potential players of this minigame away. Back then, the game was still played actively by people who loved that minigame. Now less so because people was withheld from playing that game properly as people going for trim basically forced people to.

 

 

I am sorry but this is just not how it works. Most of the trim FCs host tie games, as using alts to rig games is illegal. As such, Trim FCs (and I have been part of one), never crash other worlds, they always find quiet worlds for themselves, and hate it when outsiders join because there is always a chance they might ruin the tie game. In fact, Trim Fcs frequently have to fight trolls who crash them and try to break the ties, and they do this in a number of ways, either by hopping, or by having an anti-squad who kill the crashers and keep killing them as soon as they leave base for the duration of the game in order to preserve the tie.

 

 

They might not do that now, but they sure did back then. The 'trolls' are a natural response from the CW community who feel that their fun is being cheated out on.

 

One very famous group of trolls who hunted Trim Fcs was Midas Veel, until he got banned by Mod Lee.

That seems an unfair ban in my eyes as it is a fair response. It is of course bad to cause intentional annoyance, but if they get cheated out of their gameplay, it is a fair response. And do not forget, it is a war ;).

 

Trim FCs do not, as you describe, crash worlds - that would be a very poor strategy for them to use and it would not work, and it would be extremely tedious.

 

Castle Wars is dead because the metagame evolved to be experience/level centric, and as such people don't have time for minigames which don't offer experience rewards or other substantial rewards, that's the reason why practically all PVP minigames are dead. Also, the declining popularity of RS and the casual players (who typically aren't experience centric), and the establishment of one official castle wars world, as opposed to several unofficial ones, contributed to the decline of Castle Wars. It has absolutely nothing to do with Trimmers.

 

Whatever happened to you when you were crashed by a Trim FC was most assuredly an exception and an isolated incident.

I have no intention in denying that the Paradigm shift didn't play a role, but the game as it was back then was still not dead. It was however dying. Whether the final cause was the paradigm shift or the toxicity of the trim requirement, cannot be determined. What can be sure is that both play a major role in the current state of Castle Wars.

[Urza285]

What if they made special rewards each trim requirement. Maybe something like titles, cosmetics and such for each trim requirement. On top of that they could have titles and cosmetics for how many trim requirements you complete.

[Alg]

At the end of the day, Trim Cape is a stupid status symbol (in a time where there are countless status symbols ranging from money, to titlescape to petscape), and a bunch of particles. It isn't that big of a deal if current Trimmers say we want to keep the Castle Wars requirement, and a bunch of non-trimmed people can't get it because they can't do the Castle Wars requirement. They can still get Comp, which has real functionality, and a bunch of other prestige items. If this were Comp Cape, and Castle Wars was a requirement, I'd say current Compers be damned, this is an important item and it affects non-Comped people, the requirement should be amended. But it's Trimmed Cape, it's a bunch of particles, whatever... I have never intended to Trim, and don't think I ever will.

Cosmetic status symbols are all well and good, but the requirements behind them still have to have a degree of consistency. We can't keep justifying bad design by saying that it's not supposed to be for everyone.

[strilmus]

if the requirement isn't even being done in the actual spirit of its creation (if we can claim it had any to begin with), what purpose does it actually serve when something else could do it better, for reasons that make sense, in a way that doesn't cause intense division and unhealthy play habits?

 

"this requirement is simple in my point of view because we're doing it in such a way that robs any kind of enjoyment from anything associated with it and we're good at it" doesn't cut it for justification

 

there's no challenge, no fun, no accomplishment (standing around in a castle where nothing of significance is happening, for several months, is not worth paying a subscription for), and the only thing it has created is a bunch of major [wagon] strongarming everybody else into putting up with their stockholm syndrome because they can't be arsed to actually protest against it

 

just because it had a reward slapped onto it doesn't make it automatically worthy of acclaim or protection

[Yoko Kurama]

 

 

 

 

Given that leeching ruins the minigame for everyone, I think a lot more players have a stake in the issue than just the trimmers.

Oh please. There are a hundred empty worlds for Castle Wars. And most people who want to Trim typically join a FC for it which hosts private games in empty worlds where leech trimmers are the only participants, and they all leech. In these games, there are no actual Castle Wars players there, since they aren't part of the FC, who are interested in actually playing the game. So no, leechers don't ruin it for actual Castle Wars players. People who are actually interested in playing Castle Wars and not leeching can use any of the other dozen worlds to host their own game, or they can play in the official game. Also, even if this Trim requirement is removed, there will still be people who leech for Profound Armour, as that's a prestige item.

 

So that objection doesn't quite stand.

 

That is basically the effect this requirement had on Castle Wars. I remember back in summer 2013 that people were really trying to have fun games, but subsequently got 'crashed' by trimmers forcing tie games. Due to the longevity of this requirement, it has pushed all potential players of this minigame away. Back then, the game was still played actively by people who loved that minigame. Now less so because people was withheld from playing that game properly as people going for trim basically forced people to.

 

 

I am sorry but this is just not how it works. Most of the trim FCs host tie games, as using alts to rig games is illegal. As such, Trim FCs (and I have been part of one), never crash other worlds, they always find quiet worlds for themselves, and hate it when outsiders join because there is always a chance they might ruin the tie game. In fact, Trim Fcs frequently have to fight trolls who crash them and try to break the ties, and they do this in a number of ways, either by hopping, or by having an anti-squad who kill the crashers and keep killing them as soon as they leave base for the duration of the game in order to preserve the tie.

 

 

They might not do that now, but they sure did back then. The 'trolls' are a natural response from the CW community who feel that their fun is being cheated out on.

 

One very famous group of trolls who hunted Trim Fcs was Midas Veel, until he got banned by Mod Lee.

That seems an unfair ban in my eyes as it is a fair response. It is of course bad to cause intentional annoyance, but if they get cheated out of their gameplay, it is a fair response. And do not forget, it is a war ;).

 

Trim FCs do not, as you describe, crash worlds - that would be a very poor strategy for them to use and it would not work, and it would be extremely tedious.

 

Castle Wars is dead because the metagame evolved to be experience/level centric, and as such people don't have time for minigames which don't offer experience rewards or other substantial rewards, that's the reason why practically all PVP minigames are dead. Also, the declining popularity of RS and the casual players (who typically aren't experience centric), and the establishment of one official castle wars world, as opposed to several unofficial ones, contributed to the decline of Castle Wars. It has absolutely nothing to do with Trimmers.

 

Whatever happened to you when you were crashed by a Trim FC was most assuredly an exception and an isolated incident.

I have no intention in denying that the Paradigm shift didn't play a role, but the game as it was back then was still not dead. It was however dying. Whether the final cause was the paradigm shift or the toxicity of the trim requirement, cannot be determined. What can be sure is that both play a major role in the current state of Castle Wars.

 

 

This is going to sound arrogant, and I don't intend for it to be, but I think you're completely mistaken on the role of the Trim Requirement on the popularity of Castle Wars, and the way the FCs work. There is literally no way that Trim FCs could have caused the popularity of Castle Wars to decline. It is literally impossible. As for the way the FCs operate, they've always operated this way, it is not a recent development.

 

--

 

Also Midas Veel was banned for boosting Castle Wars (he crashed Trim FCs out of spite, demanding that they boost like he did, rather than tying games). Many of the trolls who were his companions did so for the same reason. So you're wrong with regards to people trolling because they felt Trim FCs were ruining the game. That never happened. The trolls were exclusively CW boosters.

[essiw]

^Not everyone who leeches uses a FC. busted the "impossible"

[helring]

I would say the best response would probably be to give those who get full profound or 5k games a title. it wouldn't get rid of absolutely all the leechers/boosters, but I think a title would have considerably less of them. Perhaps "_________ the Professional"  for 5k games, or "The Profound ________" for showing Lanthus full profound. Then those who did the req can still show off, but its no longer on the trim cape where it didn't really fit.

[Yoko Kurama]

^Not everyone who leeches uses a FC. busted the "impossible"

 

There are a handful of people who use the official world to 'leech', literally a handful. The vast majority don't, for the simple reason that W24 (the official server) is way too unpredictable, and you are likely to end up on the losing team and get nothing, it's far more efficient to join a tie game FC where you are guaranteed tickets. Also W24 games are rigged by people going for Hybrid Armour. It is literally impossible that a handful of people who afk/leech in world 24 are the cause of Castle Wars' decline in popularity. Most people ignore those AFK'ers, or kill them. Also, there have always been people who just stood in Castle Wars and just did nothing. Leechers are not a recent development. Castle Wars always had such people. So yes, it's literally impossible.

[helring]

 

^Not everyone who leeches uses a FC. busted the "impossible"

 

There are a handful of people who use the official world to 'leech', literally a handful. The vast majority don't, for the simple reason that W24 (the official server) is way too unpredictable, and you are likely to end up on the losing team and get nothing, it's far more efficient to join a tie game FC where you are guaranteed tickets. Also W24 games are rigged by people going for Hybrid Armour. It is literally impossible that a handful of people who afk/leech in world 24 are the cause of Castle Wars' decline in popularity. Most people ignore those AFK'ers, or kill them. Also, there have always been people who just stood in Castle Wars and just did nothing. Leechers are not a recent development. Castle Wars always had such people. So yes, it's literally impossible.

 

 

When I did my trim there were 20+ leechers on each side. I think it was incredibly detrimental to the game.

[essiw]

 

^Not everyone who leeches uses a FC. busted the "impossible"

 

There are a handful of people who use the official world to 'leech', literally a handful. The vast majority don't, for the simple reason that W24 (the official server) is way too unpredictable, and you are likely to end up on the losing team and get nothing, it's far more efficient to join a tie game FC where you are guaranteed tickets. Also W24 games are rigged by people going for Hybrid Armour. It is literally impossible that a handful of people who afk/leech in world 24 are the cause of Castle Wars' decline in popularity. Most people ignore those AFK'ers, or kill them. Also, there have always been people who just stood in Castle Wars and just did nothing. Leechers are not a recent development. Castle Wars always had such people. So yes, it's literally impossible.

The problem is that not everyone knows about those FC's, or they simply do not care about it. When I played castle wars years ago you would maybe have one or two people doing nothing. Then after the comp cape came out you would sometimes have more than 20-30 people leeching on each side, I am not sure how it is now, but to say that it didn't do any harm is a bit strange imo.

[Wkw]

I would say the best response would probably be to give those who get full profound or 5k games a title. it wouldn't get rid of absolutely all the leechers/boosters, but I think a title would have considerably less of them. Perhaps "_________ the Professional"  for 5k games, or "The Profound ________" for showing Lanthus full profound. Then those who did the req can still show off, but its no longer on the trim cape where it didn't really fit.

I think "____ The Professional Castle Warrior" would work nicely.

[Yoko Kurama]

While I don't doubt your experiences, I can confidently say that the number of leechers on Castle Wars has been minimal for quite a while. There are always exceptions of course (Castle Wars is very different on weekdays than it is on weekends, for instance). The major problem for Castle Wars, for quite some time now, has been what's called 'stacking', that's when a dedicated team of PVP'ers decked out in Hybrid armour and what not effectively rig the game, and all go on the same team for hours and get all the wins for it.  Castle Wars and all other PVP minigames died off about the time when EoC came out, and it had literally nothing to do with Trim leechers.

[Saradomin_Mage]

Pretty sure Castle Wars became a shadow of its former self after EOC came out. Most of the pro CW players I saw in 2012 moved to OSRS to play CW there instead.

 

Mida got banned for boosting with an alt I believe. Boosting isn't against the rules, and some FCs still do it instead of ties.

[Arceus]

I thought the rules more or less straight-off prohibited using alternate accounts to effect the outcome of a minigame, e.g.

 

 

Similarly, multi-logged accounts must not interact with each other to exploit gameplay mechanics, such as attempting to rig the result of a minigame. 

 

How is boosting not against the rules, then?

[Saradomin_Mage]

Boosting WITH AN ALT is against the rules. Having a FC where half of you win half the time is not.

[Arceus]

Ah okay, thanks. Yeah, it would be hard to suppress cooperative teams even if Jagex desired to do so lol.

[Yoko Kurama]

Pretty sure Castle Wars became a shadow of its former self after EOC came out. Most of the pro CW players I saw in 2012 moved to OSRS to play CW there instead.

 

Mida got banned for boosting with an alt I believe. Boosting isn't against the rules, and some FCs still do it instead of ties.

 

 

I mentioned it in my earlier post, but not the very last one regarding Mida. As Gwyn says, he was banned for using an alt to boost, not boosting in general. Most Castle Wars FCs host tie games, I believe, since they are a lot easier to host than non-alt boosted games (I think there may have been a few who did non-alt boost games in order to get the hybrid armour though). The reason for this is that to have an FC where you win half the time and lose the other half, would require fixed teams and that's somewhat annoying to enforce, though not impossible. 

 

It's also true that it was EoC which lead to the PVP minigames dying, since it was pretty much universally disliked by the PVP'ing community. I did not mean to suggest in my previous post that stacking lead to the decline in popularity of Castle Wars. It died off due to EoC; I only suggested that these days, one of the major issues is stacking, but that's not what caused the death of Castle Wars.

[Bxpprod]

Boosting is against the "spirit of the game". 

 

 

 

The major problem for Castle Wars, for quite some time now, has been what's called 'stacking', that's when a dedicated team of PVP'ers decked out in Hybrid armour and what not effectively rig the game, and all go on the same team for hours and get all the wins for it.  Castle Wars and all other PVP minigames died off about the time when EoC came out, and it had literally nothing to do with Trim leechers.

THIS. SO much this. Boosters migrated onto a 'secret' (lol) world to avoid any problems, but if you were to play on the official world(s) [not sure if more than one still] and were able to spot/recognise stackers it made it extremely easy to effectively boost anyway. 

 

The real problem with all of this - boosting primarily - is that it is a player reaction to the ridiculous nature of the requirement. YES, ok, I get it, trim is for those willing to go all out and dedicate much of their time to rs, blah all that, but still, at some point, you need to step back and say WHY are they doing this. Treating the underlying issue would be helpful to the situation (I mean, CWars would still be all but dead but we have eliminated a player rule breaking issue have we not)

[Miss Lioness]

Mod Osborne made a few posts again on the thread:

 

Hi all,

Thank you for your feedback, and apologies that it has taken a little while to get back to you.

First of all, I have made a couple of amendments to the Statements. These are listed below and on the front page post:

EDIT - We have made some amendments based on your feedback:

- RNG is specifically called-out as a causer of frustration and lack of engagement. We will aim to be less reliant on RNG.
- 'Unchanging' has been amended to 'Agile', and is less definitive about how we deal with suspect requirements. 

There has been a lot of discussion about some other points, and I will try to cover the big stuff here.

- You acknowledge that old requirements are broken, so why keep the Castle Wars req?

I'll be honest, and I was wondering whether to even approach a Statement of Intent, simply because of the above question. There is a big group that doesn't care what we do with old requirements (or would likely agree with removing requirements, because they might get near trim eventually and they're hedging their bets), and there are two groups that are split evenly between anti-CW req and pro-CW req. Anti-CW players tend not to have the req, so would benefit from its removal. Pro-CW players tend to have the req, and don't want to lose the prestige and effort. And, ultimately, any player's appreciation of trim is dependent on whether we do something about that CW req. It's the crux of everything.

While it may seem like there is a consensus of opinion on this thread that CW reqs should be removed, I can promise you that the thread would explode equally, if not more, if we did remove/declassify them. 

I'll be honest, and the question is just as divisive at Jagex. But we've chosen as a group to go this route FOR NOW. We are not changing anything at this time, as so much of trim's exclusivity is dependent on that requirement and the dedication of players who achieved it cannot be ignored. We cannot remove it without a strong plan.

Note that capitalised FOR NOW. I say that because - probably foolishly - I wanted this document to be about refining requirements that we are creating NOW for updates IN THE FUTURE. I created problems with the Elf City comp reqs, and this doc would have helped me. I wish it existed earlier. Changing reqs retroactively is a bigger problem for another day, and this document has a smaller but still important goal.

Know that we plan to spend more time in the future on the subject of retroactive changes, find a way of adequately polling people, research ways that both parties could feel happy, and find a decent way to recompense those who achieved the task, perhaps. That's a lot of time, and - for now - is not the conversation I feel we should be having.

- Why not poll the removal of the Castle Wars req?

Players who have achieved trim are inherently in the minority - trim was designed to be exclusive. You would be asking 99% of our community whether they want something to be more obtainable, and communities will always take this path. 

You could say that the poll should be limited, perhaps only to max players. But the vast majority of max players do not have trim. So where do you stop? What line do you choose? Ultimately, no line would be satisfactory. People would feel aggrieved - either because we are not giving them a voice on the problem, or we are trivialising a minority (this happened when we polled a lore update against a combat update, and lore players felt aggrieved). 

Is PvP valid game content or not?

This is a hugely tough question. My perspective is that it is valid content, but it should NOT have trimmed requirements attached. It creates its own exclusivity - Player A is the best at PvP, so always wins against Player B. Player B can never achieve this requirement. Player A has never been balanced or tweeked by game designers like a PvM has. Player A acts as an insurmountable obstacle to trim for Player B.

Why doesn't the Maw update with the trim reqs I have achieved?

The drop tables weren't designed to be that intelligent, I'm afraid! But, regardless, we have created a job for it and we fully intend to do something about it. Hopefully there will be more news in the future.

Why aren't the guidelines more precise? They are very fluffy.

Strangely enough, my first draft was obsessively detailed. It even stated how long in hours a trim and comp req should be. The problem with being detailed is you a) make a document unreadable and unused, b) you scare everyone away from ever creating requirements, c) each update is different, and cannot be governed by the same rules, and d) details can be just as subjective as broad statements. "Jagex said that RNG shouldn't be bigger than 1 in 1000 for an item, but it took me 5,000 goes" etc.

Ultimately, there is a 'feel' of a comp req and a 'feel' of a trim req. We know what they should both feel like, and as developers we have tried to communicate those feelings to you.

 

and

 

Apologies for not mentioning all the ideas you had for compromises and work-arounds. There were good ones, and I wanted to explain why they are not feasible right now.

The pro-CW argument is based on trim cape retaining its exclusivity; not removing it's identity, which is dependent on the CW req; and not devaluing their achievement of gaining the CW req.

That argument is hugely rigid, which makes compromises virtually impossible. Hybrid armour requirements are certainly difficult to obtain, but are not on the same value as current CW. Everything mentioned here would, in a pro-CW's eyes, move the goalposts. The cape would be easier to obtain, more people would have it, their achievement would be devalued.

Anti-CW arguments are less hardline. Generally, these players have reached the end-game, and they simply want something feasible and engaging to aim for. It is my belief that it is in this direction that a solution will come from (and we are looking into it). If there were more achievements to aim for in the end-game, if there was something more between comp and trim, if there were more reasons to stay engaged, then I think anti-CW players would be happier. This is the direction that I think we will go in, but we're not there yet.

Also, you may have noticed that we are nudging the players closer to trimmed comp with things like the maw. But remember the savaging that the maw took when we announced it in the Elf City design documents? It may seem like a storm in a teacup now, but the idea was not greeted with warmth. However, small steps to making the requirement more achievable will also be an avenue for ideas. It seems that small steps towards a change are more accessible than one huge stride.

[Alg]

 It's the crux of everything.

These five words are a pretty big point in favor of removing it. It's just one requirement that people are so strongly against, and most of the people in favor of it are the ones who have it. I mean, it's not even really an argument anymore: they've more or less acknowledged that it doesn't fit with the rest of the requirements, and making an exception for it would eliminate the point of making that statement of intent and shuffling around some of the other requirements in the first place. And if they're going to back down on it only a few weeks after releasing it... Well, why did they bother in the first place?

 

It's not weighing players' interests against each other, it's weighing a handful of players' interests against consistent application of the rules they made solely for that purpose. It shouldn't require this much discussion, and it's kind of disgusting that they're trying to frame it that way in the first place.

[Miss Lioness]

Can I quote on that and post it on the HLF?

[Alg]

If that's at me, sure

[Miss Lioness]

Thanks Alg. Greatly appreciate it =3!

[Sy_Accursed]

At least they seem to be showing some willingness to actually fix the reqs now (quite the 180 on the 'unchanging' to 'agile'). Even if they are making a big song and dance about oh but chaning cwars will upset a lot of people, wowzer just wait til you see the rage.

 

But to be brutally honest to me its still a case of so what?

They said themselves it can't be polled because those in favour are mostly those who did it who are very much a minority.

Why should we all have to suffer just because a minority already did it?

 

Yes they might rage and whine and moan, but at the end of the day it would be upsetting one small minority of players for the betterment of the game design as a whole and improve the end-game playing experience for the majority.

[Kaur]

I wonder what would happen if they polled people only with that requirement complete (including the hardcore noncomped cw people).

I have a feeling the poll of removing the req would still pass.