A letter to Dave from an old player

Hello Dave,

since one month i'm watching the game on my alt accounts, looks like you made some good decisions but the community reflexed those things negatively; number of active players went down, high toxicity grew(from spoiled players).

First, let me explain you, which things fucked up this beautiful game and how it started; until 2015 everything was good, there was many players and player base was growing so fast. but toxicity of old players made new players stay away from the game; rankism, hate on rpers and not letting rpers play on scenarios and other maps, clan elitism. Experienced players were aware of letting new players play in high ranked matches. Elitism of 'pro' players really effect the game negatively. They make the game their own habitat. Changed strategies by their wills, made events just for theirself(tourneys etc.). The elitism also effected other old players. The guy named 'Laochra', his changes on the game really made most of old players leave this game, at least i can talk about my own clan. The strategies were really balanced until he started to change them for his and friends own goods. Before Lao, the strategies were balanced by an experienced old player 'Tophats'.

How Laochra fucked up the strategies and abused his power?

He added Imperialist militias +1 defence in cities. Why? Why would you do that? Whats the point of it? In my opinion he made this because he was sucking so hard with Turkey against Ukraine players. Main goal with Ukraine was jewing in balkans in early games and not letting Turkey expand to west. This change made rusher players weak. The change was totally for late game players, who likes to expand and wait for late game hell. Maybe the change isnt really important in scenarios and world games where high stacks being used. but for europe this is really so important and none said anything for this shitty change. There is no logic to add militias +1 def in cities. The change was absolutely for Europe and Lao's own good.

Lucky Bastard units become cheaper and this strategy completely broke the game. Lucky Bastard is a premium strategy and to play it you need to take risk and use its powerful stats. It required wise use because money was limited but powerful units. These guys made it cheaper and all toxic premium 10+ level players abused its power. also even boosted it... Who will deny that fact? LB completely fucked the game in 2016-2017.

Naval Commander changes was good but still no logic to add +1 capacity for Destroyers. Compelety bullshit reasons.

Blitzkrieg got nerfed. When they nerfed it for the first time infs and militias got -2 defence also extra defence in cities got removed. My clan mates opi and croat tested this fucking madness and they turned it to -1 defence but extra defence nerf still stay (https://atwar-game.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=18994) The strategy wasnt even powerful they are just too scared to face with fast-rush gameplay cause it was giving low tier players a chance to win but these guys couldnt stand to this and took their chances away.

PD got nerfed. its defence bonuses removed for no reason. RA nerfed. All strategies that for new and low tiers got nerfed.
and many many bullshit changes i dont remember...

This game isnt their habitat they cant just change everything for their own goods but old admins always let them. Also old admins made such dumb things... Mods were cancer of this game. What in a world would you make a fascist dumbfucker MOD? there is too many rightist mods, not doing their job and letting all nationalists insult each other, there was anti-semitism in forum and too many white supremacist retards... it because mods always let them. because they were too like them. Mods only become mods when someone abuse global. it was always same. There was a rule, if a guy got banned for any reason, he-she cannot become mod. the guy used range bugs for months before i realized and reported their all clan. Tophats banned all of them for 30 days. but after 2 years they promoted them. they promoted their friends... Also old admins abused the game. yes the game is theirs but they cannot betray their players by cheating. I reported Laochra that The guy named 'Tristayne' or Trynstane were using old accs that doesnt belongs to him. i reported nearly 5-6 accs with proof. Laochra approved me the guy was really using them. He also gave old accs (they had free prems) to his friends. Laochra send it to mod forum and they discussed on it. later ivan closed the case cuz he said 'i gave them to him'... okay an admin can give premium accs to anyone its his game but they abused those accs to troll and damage other players. none said anything for this. i reported to amok and he said nothing. these abuses fucked up the game.

Mods always abused their powers. And mods and adminds were never trustful. Many players got banned and got hard punishments for bullshits of Mod power abusers. I will give my example; were early days of HTML5 and game had plenty of bugs. One day we were cwing against clovis' clan. i killed one guy and clovis capped me, opi were east and he had won in east and expanded like god, he was coming to kill clovis and i was still alive but had only1 turn. it was obvious we were gojng to win. opi told me to break benelux wall. then i attacked the wall, turn ended and i died then clovis started typing like a crazy donkey in chat 'you are dead panteri, you are not a thread anymore' my 1 units didnt break thebenelux wall and took the city. one turn later he got capped by opi. Laochra banned me for that and told me 'you always cheated i knew it.' why the fuck i would cheat in this situation? if i always by passed walls why dont you ss'ed it? why none saw it?... they took our trophy away(we were #1) my clan got disappeared after this bullshit. my clan mates opi and commando eagle reported it its a bug and if you move you unit in two moves to wall it takes the city by passes the wall. after their report the bug is removed but our trophy still got stolen and i stayed banned. My friend opi also got banned multiple times for bullshit reasons.

You need to restore your mod team. There is still abusers. Funny but a mod adds himself and his clanmates trophies... I even reported it but nothing happened.

You cant just let a guy change everything on this game just because he is a good player.

Bunch of racist shitbrains still there. you shouldnt show any mercy. And dont think you are free of Laochra by banning him. Half of the mods are his close friends. Thats how he gets information from mod forum. I think he shouldnt stay banned. But took all the power from them. Enough they fucked up this game.

Hope this might help you to understand what happened to this game. also sorry for my weak english.

Moved to a more proper forum.

I'm locking it till Dave sees it.

Γραμμένο από salazar23, 29.07.2019 at 05:34

Thank you for your message, and for sharing some atWar history.

I agree the game became very focused on the old time players, and rankism is a real problem. When I was a new player myself, before I bought atWar, I encountered some not very friendly people. I thought, "what a crazy, toxic bunch of people!" If I could notice this, then I'm sure a lot of new players notice this too. Many new players don't stay because of it. That's why I've been working so hard since day-1 on cleaning up the community.

Of course I don't think the community is 100% bad... there are also really good people here and I'm happy to know some of them. On my top-secret alt, where nobody knows who I am, I've met people who are really nice and helpful to noob players like me. The good people are accustomed to ignoring the trolls and the drama, but it shouldn't have to be like that... the good people should be free to play in peace! So we've gotten rid of some of the most toxic people now, and I think the situation for new players is slowly improving. But of course there is still more work to be done.

The mod team has been extremely helpful in this effort to clean up the community. I couldn't do it without them. They are doing a hard job, because nobody likes getting muted or banned even when they deserve it. Unfortunately the mod team takes a lot of shit just for doing their job. I have seen players actively spreading lies about mods to stir up trouble, and I can understand how people in the community would be confused. If you friend says he was "muted for no reason", maybe you believe him because he's your friend.... but that doesn't mean it's true.

If you have experienced real abuses then of course report it to Brianwl or myself. We take anything like that very seriously. But honestly, from my perspective, I have not seen any such abuses by the current mod team. (I believe you that maybe there were abuses in the past, but I don't see anything like that now.)

Regarding strategies, I agree they are tilted too much in favor of high ranks, at the expense of noob players. I respect the old timers and want them to have fun, but there needs to be a better balance so that noob players have fun too. Without new players coming in, the game slowly dies, which is exactly what's been happening for the last 5 years.

Every change I've made so far has been met with resistance from certain quarters. Look at Insurrection, for example. I add a new strat for 1 month, and some of the old timers practically had a meltdown because of it. Insurrection was a noob-friendly strat and I actually got several encouraging messages about it from lower-rank players. Some still ask me to bring it back (maybe I will). I even added a new "disable strategies" option where you can disable individual strategies you don't like, so the high ranks can keep playing the same game they always have without any changes whatsoever. (I guess they never get bored of the same thing... I don't understand it...)

With other strats like LB for example I already nerfed it. It was too powerful but I still got shit for nerfing it. I think Blitz is weak and we actually started talking about boosting it a couple months ago, I just haven't had a chance to do it yet. Whatever strat changes we make will be slow to give people plenty of time to adjust. But, generally speaking, I do think we need to find a balance that's a little more noob-friendly, and also not just balanced for one map (eu+ of whatever).

I know, right now certain people are already grumbling about what I just said... they are thinking "Dave, you just don't understand because you're only an r5 blah blah blah". Well, that's the whole point isn't it? If you don't want any noobs having fun, then enjoy your closed little community as it slowly dies. Anyway I'll get off the topic of strategies since it seems to divide a lot of people.

Anyway thanks again for the message. There is still so much work to be done but I hope we can restore atWar to it's former glory.

Hi

Ivan gave me an account to replace one which somehow "disappeared", I'm not sure where the other 4 or so accounts come into this though. Gotta love a lowkey cheeky jab at me for no reason

Γραμμένο από Dave, 29.07.2019 at 14:48

On my top-secret alt, where nobody knows who I am, I've met people who are really nice and helpful to noob players like me.

So glad i'm kind to lowranks and politely explain them why are they kicked among highranks who scream 'kick'

Your alt is lowrank right? Most lowranks don't talk much, but one particularly replied 'no problem i understand' after i explained him why he was kicked in highrank game. His calm attitude surprised me, but i didn't had more time to think about it because game started.

Γραμμένο από Skanderbeg, 29.07.2019 at 17:31

So glad i'm kind to lowranks and politely explain them why are they kicked among highranks who scream 'kick'

Your alt is lowrank right? Most lowranks don't talk much, but one particularly replied 'no problem i understand' after i explained him why he was kicked in highrank game. His calm attitude surprised me, but i didn't had more time to think about it because game started.

Lol... yes my alt is still r5.

Now people will be nice to all the random r5 players... just be rankist to r1-4's.

Γραμμένο από Dave, 29.07.2019 at 19:16

Γραμμένο από Skanderbeg, 29.07.2019 at 17:31

So glad i'm kind to lowranks and politely explain them why are they kicked among highranks who scream 'kick'

Your alt is lowrank right? Most lowranks don't talk much, but one particularly replied 'no problem i understand' after i explained him why he was kicked in highrank game. His calm attitude surprised me, but i didn't had more time to think about it because game started.

Lol... yes my alt is still r5.

Now people will be nice to all the random r5 players... just be rankist to r1-4's.

I dont play much but i would like to destroy you sometime lol

Γραμμένο από Caesar Immortus, 29.07.2019 at 16:43

Ivan gave me an account to replace one which somehow "disappeared", I'm not sure where the other 4 or so accounts come into this though. Gotta love a lowkey cheeky jab at me for no reason

liar dumb. how can you lie that easy? you were my doggy who begs to join my clan before i reported your cheats to laochra.
you gave as i know at least 3 beta accs to other players. ivan told me that ''i gave them to trynstein for something related to game but didnt know he used for his own willings.'' go fool yourself dickhead.

Γραμμένο από salazar23, 30.07.2019 at 06:24

Γραμμένο από Caesar Immortus, 29.07.2019 at 16:43

Ivan gave me an account to replace one which somehow "disappeared", I'm not sure where the other 4 or so accounts come into this though. Gotta love a lowkey cheeky jab at me for no reason

liar dumb. how can you lie that easy? you were my doggy who begs to join my clan before i reported your cheats to laochra.
you gave as i know at least 3 beta accs to other players. ivan told me that ''i gave them to trynstein for something related to game but didnt know he used for his own willings.'' go fool yourself dickhead.

no ss never happened

Γραμμένο από salazar23, 30.07.2019 at 06:24

Γραμμένο από Caesar Immortus, 29.07.2019 at 16:43

Ivan gave me an account to replace one which somehow "disappeared", I'm not sure where the other 4 or so accounts come into this though. Gotta love a lowkey cheeky jab at me for no reason

liar dumb. how can you lie that easy? you were my doggy who begs to join my clan before i reported your cheats to laochra.
you gave as i know at least 3 beta accs to other players. ivan told me that ''i gave them to trynstein for something related to game but didnt know he used for his own willings.'' go fool yourself dickhead.

Stop talking you make yourself even dumber

Γραμμένο από Dave, 29.07.2019 at 14:48

Γραμμένο από salazar23, 29.07.2019 at 05:34

On my top-secret alt, where nobody knows who I am,

Top secret, you say? Nothing stays top secret to me, time to go on the hunt for an active R5

Γραμμένο από Praedyth, 30.07.2019 at 13:22

Γραμμένο από Dave, 29.07.2019 at 14:48

Γραμμένο από salazar23, 29.07.2019 at 05:34

On my top-secret alt, where nobody knows who I am,

Top secret, you say? Nothing stays top secret to me, time to go on the hunt for an active R5

bugs know dave's alt both got skill to find alt XAXAXAXAXAXAXAXAXAXA

Γραμμένο από salazar23, 30.07.2019 at 06:24

liar dumb. how can you lie that easy? you were my doggy who begs to join my clan before i reported your cheats to laochra.
you gave as i know at least 3 beta accs to other players. ivan told me that ''i gave them to trynstein for something related to game but didnt know he used for his own willings.'' go fool yourself dickhead.

Show us your proof then...

Γραμμένο από Dave, 29.07.2019 at 14:48

so the high ranks can keep playing the same game they always have without any changes whatsoever. (I guess they never get bored of the same thing... I don't understand it...)

Γραμμένο από Dave, 29.07.2019 at 14:48

I do think we need to find a balance that's a little more noob-friendly, and also not just balanced for one map (eu+ of whatever).

Wait wait wait... hold the phone... I just realized none have cojones to face Dave on this matter haha. And i checked this topic posts believe me, nothing.

So i will try again, to tell this to a new admin, since it seems he understands (risking highrank/mod rage again), to offer him different point of view: Think of all wars/maps when you consider nerfing or buffing strategies, not just eu+ or world map, because then maybe strategies won't work in some (popular/good) maps. Try to find compromise, middle ground. Until now, admins listened only eu+ players when it comes to strategy updates, but that is not fair to the game as a whole.

I am not defending scenario community, trying not to be biased here, all i want is middle ground, where both scen and eu+ players can be happy.

P.S.
To be honest this shouldn't be an issue at all, i feel weird i try to get involved, because we are just players and nothing more, game owner decides everything, i just thought i'd voice my concern because i saw others do it as well.

I liked industrial powerhouse, where is it? I liked insurrection, where is that? I liked counter-insurgency, what the hell is going on? Industrial powerhouse might have been a little over powered, especially on WW1 and many of Aetius's maps, including NWE, but it added an entirely new dynamic to the game and I loved it.

Γραμμένο από Tribune Aquila, 31.07.2019 at 21:55

I liked industrial powerhouse, where is it? I liked insurrection, where is that? I liked counter-insurgency, what the hell is going on? Industrial powerhouse might have been a little over powered, especially on WW1 and many of Aetius's maps, including NWE, but it added an entirely new dynamic to the game and I loved it.

I liked them too. They will probably appear again someday.

Γραμμένο από Skanderbeg, 31.07.2019 at 18:40

So i will try again, to tell this to a new admin, since it seems he understands (risking highrank/mod rage again), to offer him different point of view: Think of all wars/maps when you consider nerfing or buffing strategies, not just eu+ or world map, because then maybe strategies won't work in some (popular/good) maps. Try to find compromise, middle ground. Until now, admins listened only eu+ players when it comes to strategy updates, but that is not fair to the game as a whole.

I am not defending scenario community, trying not to be biased here, all i want is middle ground, where both scen and eu+ players can be happy.

Agree there needs to be compromise. Strats can't be balanced just on eu+, but at they same time we can't balance for every single map or scenario. That would be crazy. So I'll find what I think is the middle road, but probably the scenario people will never be happy with it anyway. I've just accepted that, and that's why they can disable certain strategies they don't like.

Γραμμένο από Dave, 01.08.2019 at 00:16

Do you think it's good idea to implement a "Custom" strategy tab, where we can make our own strategies? Pick and choose negative(Have to) and positive options to actually make the strategy unique to our playstyle while still keeping it balanced.

Maybe as a "Slot system" or "pick system"?
+1 to something = one slot taken
+2 to something = two slots taken
-3 to something = three slots taken
-10 cost for something = one slot taken
Etc..
Could have up to 5 or 6 slots to make a strategy?

Γραμμένο από Dave, 01.08.2019 at 00:16

Agree there needs to be compromise. Strats can't be balanced just on eu+, but at they same time we can't balance for every single map or scenario. That would be crazy. So I'll find what I think is the middle road, but probably the scenario people will never be happy with it anyway. I've just accepted that, and that's why they can disable certain strategies they don't like.

First few years on this game, i spent playing eu+/world map, last few years i'm playing only maps/scenarios, but still i can't talk for all scen community. I can only tell you that from my experience, scen players disable strategies (or certain strats) because scenario demands it (map playstyle, or storyline etc), not because they dislike the update.

And strategy changes is not really big deal in maps/scens, it is big deal, but not apocalyptic as some people react. Because such games have unique units and incomes, very different from eu+. For example 13 range ground units, so if you for example nerf blitzkrieg to +2, the unit will be 15 range instead 16, not big deal. Some other units are 15 critical, or 9 hp, so if you nerf/buff LB or IF, it will have an impact, but it won/t have an impact it has on eu+ units.

Or imagine +1 upkeep for LB militia, it can be big difference for eu+ gameplay, but not really for maps/scens.