Originally Posted by
Milburn Pennybags
We're going to be doing another AMA on Thursday this week where we discuss these or any other questions you have for us.
However, there are also a few things I can clarify now.
First, as far as how the battle works, the calculation is about 50% army power, 30% army equipment, 20% solider equipment. Each one of those is computed separately. Within each segment, the attack of the attacker versus the defense of the defender is the most important factor. We do also allow for the attack of the defender versus the defense of the attacker to have a lesser influence as well. Within each segment we basically look at a margin of victory in percentage terms. Then we add up each segment weighted according to the above to determine the final outcome. Chance also plays some role, as it has throughout the history of warfare. The impact of randomness on battle outcomes in the formula is roughly comparable to where it has been throughout the history of the game.
At this point we haven't changed the impact of player attack and defense stats. We would like to increase the influence these stats have on battle outcomes, but we would like to wait until we can offer players the option to reset their skill points before making such a change in order to be fair to everyone.
The goal of introducing soldier equipment is to allow a new avenue for players to strengthen themselves and bring some importance back to your player in the game. We want you to be able to feel your power grow as you get better and better equipment for yourself and your army. Our goal is that this should be a fun and exciting way to develop your character in addition to building up the army. Your army is still the most important factor in determining your success or failure in war, but equipment will come into play particularly when armies are close in strength.
A number of people have asked about why equipment is not in the store for purchase. Right now, we wanted to allow equipment to be earned in the course of gameplay to reward active players and allow everyone a fair chance to accumulate strength on this. In the future we are planning to increase the number of ways players can get equipment, but for now we wanted to distribute things in the way that seemed the most fun and fair.
As I mentioned before we're having another AMA this week, and we'd love to answer more of your questions during that time.