Website [In progress] Fortbattles.online

[NovaStar]

I know that all you guys are just trying to help make this outdated game more playable than it is, and we all do sooooo appreciate it. But, the "common" player, as myself...well, we see "West Team" and just assume it is all ok... Most of us do not want to quit the game entirely. Some of us here have made good friends over the years, some of us actually enjoy aspects of the game. Others knowingly and purposely use the scripts that they KNOW are not approved and are cheats...those folks are on their own.

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but I had friends that were banned. I had a friend that was banned...he did have a script enstalled and it was enabled, but he didn't ever use it once he learned it was prohibited so actually forgot it was even there.

We get conflicting information from the "powers that be" that a specific list of scripts are approved, then 2 CM's down the road they are prohibited. Yet, "nothing changed with the CM's, only the job".

I know it can be frustrating, not only for the player base but also for you techie guys. We just want to play an enjoyable game, make friends and I wish it were easier for you guys to help keep it that way.

 

[roland jacobs]

Hi @roland jacobs !

The development of my project was not affected by the current management or rules. I was unable to continue the development as I left Scotland a while ago for the Christmas break.
The data is transferred via a custom script indeed but hopefully @mnnielsen will get us a list of approved safe scripts we can use.
I am sure she is already on the case and we will see a result in the following days/weeks. We cannot blame the management for doing their job and enforce the rules. If the scripts of all kind will have to be permanently banned I’m afraid I will have to abandon the project as there is no other way to save and send data safely from the game.

Best regards,
Criminus

Thanks for the measured response. I understood you were traveling on break, and yes, we're on the same page - waiting for clear precise answers. We both know that scripts make the game manageable, and enable the information and playback that sites like yours provide. I hope it continues in the future and this is just another unfortunate blip in the timeline.
RJ

 

[NovaStar]

That's a good one.
What do your fellow staff members use every time they update the official The West Wiki ? Oh wait. Scripts.
I've always been amazed at the level of hypocrisy at Innogames

If it is true that a script is being used to update the official Wiki site...are there other areas that staff use scripts in? What about those scans used to locate script users? Is that a script also? If so, are you at all able to without using scripts? Say manually? So, why don't you apply the same reasoning to the use of various scripts within the game? If WE are expected to do without, why not the staff also?

 

[Killer Bonnie]

Not only that the scripts are all created by someone from the west team but they also all have the name The West (or TW meaning The West) on them in copyright meaning exclusively this game site only and not any other. Maybe the script creators need to give inno main copyright rights? this way inno would own all those sites? When you type in search bar TW Toolkit it brings up an exclusive site for the west game and says useful tools for The West.
The same when you search TW Essentials It says The West 3.0 < which we hope is coming soon .

As far as including stuff in the game that people lose by disabling these scripts (and there are other scripts than only the ones I have mentioned so far)
The color chat enabled a more personalized messages in both forums and telegrams by being able to color their text (me as a non script user I can use codes from wiki and color my chat in saloon places but not in telegrams or forum posts)
It is nice to see some live stats while I am leading a Fort battle (me as a non script user do not see begining hp and damages per round) also their reports at the end of the battle are not the same I think reports should show how many times the duelers critted and how many times advents ghosted. (me as a non script user I see none of that and I am an advent) Also they recieve a second report that gives a little more information than the regular ff report does as a ff leader I think this is also a useful tool I have no example of this other report but click the torches on regular reports and you will find it. Also it is with a script that enables Fort battles to be uploaded to west fort stats
Tw friends is more than just being able to send event currency to all Thank you Inno for giving us a send to all button. Tw friends also helps with the upkeep of the friends list and shows which friends are not sending the event currency maybe they are inactive or went on vacation mode but the feature makes it easier to see who you can delete from your friends list to put someone more active in their place who might not be able to fill their friends list. (me as a non script user doing this manually using the event currency log is a pain that can take me hours to do with a pen and paper)
The ability to send mass telegrams is necessary to be able to reach out to the player base for various things whether it be quest help or crafting help or market trading (me as a non script user am limited to town alliance friends or manually adding anyone not in those no world telegram reach abilities)
There are more functions than just these I have named No I don't really find any of these things I have mentioned as game changing They just make the game more user friendly

 

[Killer Bonnie]

Can you give us a roadmap for 2024 like Inno used to do every year?

 

[buchstabensuppe]

reports at the end of the battle are not the same I think reports should show how many times the duelers critted and how many times advents ghosted.

Well, these battle reports…

The data sent to the client (browser) for these report contains much more information than is shown in the report. It contains per-round data, which isn't used anywhere in the client side software of the game. It is clearly _meant_ to be used by scripts, and that is even stated on the TW developer blog regarding fort battle logs:

I stated sometimes that the there are logs of all battles that have been fought and that the players could analyse them themselves if they know how to use javascript.​

​

So what this blogpost is about is: Explaining the battle logs so that you can (maybe) build your own statistics tool. If you are not a programming nerd, you probably can skip this post as boring and useless for your gameplay, but if you are one, you’ll most likely find this interesting unless you haven’t figured this stuff already out yourself. So here we go.​

Stated by a TW developer, 2009-10-28. Never withdrawn. An API documentation for script developers.

Or regarding the API registration of scripts:

In 1.28 we introduced a new The West API. It’s main purpose right now is to check versions of scripts so that incompatible updates are recognized [...] we kindly ask you to register your script using our API. This allows us to identify problems quicker and by saving some time here.​

2010-08-20 or so. Never withdrawn. An API to register scripts.

Or regarding a necessary update of scripts:

Calling all userscript developers: synchronous ajax (on the main thread) is bad, news at 11. We will soon trial blocking the use of jQuery’s async: false on the public beta and eventually live worlds. If you use this legacy feature, please rewrite your userscripts so all ajax calls are asynchronous.​

2017-03-06. Innogames _obviously_ wanted to keep scripts working. Never withdrawn.

Obviously innogames developers intended us to write scripts.

The API for script registration introduced in version 1.28 is still there and works.
Question: Is my understanding correct, that this intention to let users extend the game was never rescinded on the level of the developers or higher?

By the way, in the FAQ thread i asked:

But understand me, too: "pure" TW has too many limitations in its user interface for me, and i will not play that. So ban me, or tolerate the script.​

​

Please decide fast.​

This decision hasn't happened until today. Not deciding is a kind of toleration, though not the explicit toleration i'd like.

I'm talking about clothcache, formerly known as duellstat. I got the german team to tolerate it, and i'd like the .net team to tolerate it, too. In short: it's a kind kind of replacement for clothcalc and TWIR with a lot of extra features. Don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions.

Regards, Uwe

 

[Tom Robert]

In order to approve any scripts, I see the need to actually "hire" a person via INNO to view scripts and understand how they are used within the game (and maybe actually play the game USING them) AND that person would have to continuously monitor those scripts and any upcoming new ones. I, personally, do not see that happening. It sure would be nice, though if they did.

I kinda do that. And I'm part of the German The West Team. So any other TW Team member can reach out to me regarding questions to existing scripts.

 

[Snr Sarg]

I kinda do that. And I'm part of the German The West Team. So any other TW Team member can reach out to me regarding questions to existing scripts.

Except the ones that are not tolerated on .net

 

[Snr Sarg]

By the way, in the FAQ thread i asked:

But understand me, too: "pure" TW has too many limitations in its user interface for me, and i will not play that. So ban me, or tolerate the script.​

​

Please decide fast.​

This decision hasn't happened until today. Not deciding is a kind of toleration, though not the explicit toleration i'd like.

I'm talking about clothcache, formerly known as duellstat. I got the german team to tolerate it, and i'd like the .net team to tolerate it, too. In short: it's a kind kind of replacement for clothcalc and TWIR with a lot of extra features. Don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions.

Regards, Uwe

This script looks really useful, I'd also like to know please if this would/could be 'tolerated'?

 

[Goober Pyle]

This script looks really useful, I'd also like to know please if this would/could be 'tolerated'?

We cannot explicitly tell you that a script is tolerated, only that specific versions of specific scripts do not currently have any particularly problematic elements that are prone to lead us to investigate their usage and impose a ban.

I can tell you that that particular script (clothcache, formerly known as duellstat.) has at least one problematic element:
"Use previously calculated equipment for the job" effectively adds an additional saved set for single click equiping and automates the set-saving process.
As an example, in my personal game play I have two slots in my equipment manager I dedicate to spamming jobs: "tempqueue" and "tempfinish". When I am spamming a job I use the "work clothes" button to identify and equip the best gear; I then save that gear to "tempqueue" and queue the job. I then switch to the best drop gear for that job I am able to equip and save that to "tempfinish". When my queue is near empty I equip "tempqueue", queue more, then equip "tempfinish" ("tempfinish" isn't truly necessary but it helps when doing high LP jobs where you typical best drop gear sets have too few labor points)

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to see how "clothcache" non-trivially reduces the effort and number of available saved sets of using that process.

 

[Goober Pyle]

Well, these battle reports…

The data sent to the client (browser) for these report contains much more information than is shown in the report. It contains per-round data, which isn't used anywhere in the client side software of the game. It is clearly _meant_ to be used by scripts, and that is even stated on the TW developer blog regarding fort battle logs:

I stated sometimes that the there are logs of all battles that have been fought and that the players could analyse them themselves if they know how to use javascript.​

​

So what this blogpost is about is: Explaining the battle logs so that you can (maybe) build your own statistics tool. If you are not a programming nerd, you probably can skip this post as boring and useless for your gameplay, but if you are one, you’ll most likely find this interesting unless you haven’t figured this stuff already out yourself. So here we go.​

Stated by a TW developer, 2009-10-28. Never withdrawn. An API documentation for script developers.

Or regarding the API registration of scripts:

In 1.28 we introduced a new The West API. It’s main purpose right now is to check versions of scripts so that incompatible updates are recognized [...] we kindly ask you to register your script using our API. This allows us to identify problems quicker and by saving some time here.​

2010-08-20 or so. Never withdrawn. An API to register scripts.

Or regarding a necessary update of scripts:

Calling all userscript developers: synchronous ajax (on the main thread) is bad, news at 11. We will soon trial blocking the use of jQuery’s async: false on the public beta and eventually live worlds. If you use this legacy feature, please rewrite your userscripts so all ajax calls are asynchronous.​

2017-03-06. Innogames _obviously_ wanted to keep scripts working. Never withdrawn.

Obviously innogames developers intended us to write scripts.

The API for script registration introduced in version 1.28 is still there and works.
Question: Is my understanding correct, that this intention to let users extend the game was never rescinded on the level of the developers or higher?

By the way, in the FAQ thread i asked:

But understand me, too: "pure" TW has too many limitations in its user interface for me, and i will not play that. So ban me, or tolerate the script.​

​

Please decide fast.​

This decision hasn't happened until today. Not deciding is a kind of toleration, though not the explicit toleration i'd like.

I'm talking about clothcache, formerly known as duellstat. I got the german team to tolerate it, and i'd like the .net team to tolerate it, too. In short: it's a kind kind of replacement for clothcalc and TWIR with a lot of extra features. Don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions.

Regards, Uwe

You repeatedly say "never withdrawn" while ignoring that they were in fact withdrawn:

The 2020 rules changes banned scripts: "The use of bots or scripts is strictly forbidden."
This over-rides anything previously stated regarding scripts.

Game Rules changes 2020

Dear The West players, As our game develops, we need to keep making sure that the applicable Game Rules remain well-suited to the entirety of the game environment. Over the past few weeks, the current Game Rules have been subjected to a detailed analysis, as a result of which we have made...

forum.the-west.net

Before the change, yes, scripts were allowed, even encouraged.

Regardless of the merits and reasons for that rules change, that is in fact the current official rule, and The West International Team (nor any other market's Team) cannot change or deny that rule.

 

[mnnielsen]

I kinda do that. And I'm part of the German The West Team. So any other TW Team member can reach out to me regarding questions to existing scripts.

I know you do
But your work is still not the same as a golden approval from Innogames - we as team members, wherever we are, need to obey and enforce the rules that we are obliged to according to our contracts.

 

[buchstabensuppe]

Sorry, Goober, i never saw it that way before.

>"Use previously calculated equipment for the job" effectively adds an additional saved set for single click equiping and automates the set-saving process.
When i wrote that, i tried to emulate clothcalc behavior (because that was broken for me), and i seem to remember that clothcalc does the same thing you described. I never even thought about it in terms of saved sets.

The single click equipping will only happen if automation premium is active, otherwise the equipment to use will be shown in the inventory window, and the user has to click on the "equip items" button.
I use the same logic, and in fact the same routine, everywhere i trigger a wear change (equipment sets, calculator, job-, build-, fairwindow), and i seem to remember (though i can't find it right now) that this behavior was OKed for the german servers.
Is it, with the premium switch, OK for here, or shall i disable the single click wearing completely for the international servers?


Just to be clear: Apart from the single click thing the "previously calculated cloth set" button does nothing more than the "work clothes" button itself does. It works like this:
1. When you click on "work clothes", a) the usual calculation is done, (b) the result is stored on your computer, and (c) everything else continues as normal.
2. When you click on "cached" aka "previously calculated cloth set", the stored result from step 1b is taken, and then the wear change routine describe above is called.
It reduces the equipment calculation time on my desktop computer from between 240ms (idle computer) and 900ms (compiler or image processors running in the background) to 0ms, and on the notebook from 1000+ ms (and easily far more) down to 0. This speedup makes the game usable on that notebook, and without it i don't want to play it there anymore (the notebook is not even the slowest on the market).

Regards, Uwe

 

[Goober Pyle]

Sorry, Goober, i never saw it that way before.

>"Use previously calculated equipment for the job" effectively adds an additional saved set for single click equiping and automates the set-saving process.
When i wrote that, i tried to emulate clothcalc behavior (because that was broken for me), and i seem to remember that clothcalc does the same thing you described. I never even thought about it in terms of saved sets.

The single click equipping will only happen if automation premium is active, otherwise the equipment to use will be shown in the inventory window, and the user has to click on the "equip items" button.
I use the same logic, and in fact the same routine, everywhere i trigger a wear change (equipment sets, calculator, job-, build-, fairwindow), and i seem to remember (though i can't find it right now) that this behavior was OKed for the german servers.
Is it, with the premium switch, OK for here, or shall i disable the single click wearing completely for the international servers?


Just to be clear: Apart from the single click thing the "previously calculated cloth set" button does nothing more than the "work clothes" button itself does. It works like this:
1. When you click on "work clothes", a) the usual calculation is done, (b) the result is stored on your computer, and (c) everything else continues as normal.
2. When you click on "cached" aka "previously calculated cloth set", the stored result from step 1b is taken, and then the wear change routine describe above is called.
It reduces the equipment calculation time on my desktop computer from between 240ms (idle computer) and 900ms (compiler or image processors running in the background) to 0ms, and on the notebook from 1000+ ms (and easily far more) down to 0. This speedup makes the game usable on that notebook, and without it i don't want to play it there anymore (the notebook is not even the slowest on the market).

Regards, Uwe

I have no authority to speak on the matter, but from a user perspective of "why might someone using this script have an unfair advantage" I see 2 issues with the script:
1) the cached gear provides a single click way to load gear that is not in my saved sets (even saved sets without scripts requires 3 clicks)
2) you have a single click way to queue 9 jobs (without scripts that takes 5 clicks the first time, and each subsequent time after you drop something from the job)
For 1 I would _personally_ be satisfied if instead you had a process that actually used the saved sets (triple click "Save clothcache" button over-writes a set in your TW-Sets named "clothcache" [if it exists -- if not it tells the user to create one]; triple click "Equip clotchcache" equips it) This also provides the benefit of it being a "full gear change" where you (generally) avoid the risk of getting into invalid gear.
For 2 I would _personally_ be satisfied with making that number work as follows:
each click alternates between effectively clicking the "+" next to the "how often..." dial and effectively clicking the "queue <15s> job" button
That way you queue 9 jobs by clicking 6 times in the same place rather than needing to either click 9 times or move your mouse.

If both those changes (eliminating saved clicks and avoiding simulation of an extra saved set) were implemented one would be hard pressed to say the script violates any of the expressly prohibited items listed in the rule.

And while I'm on the subject I'll make a suggestion: when defining "best regenertion"
1) if two sets have equal regeneration but one has more HP, generally the one with more HP is "best"
2) there are two definitions of "best regeneration"
i) best EP regeneration
ii) best HP regeneration
I for one miss clothcalc's ability to tell me that If I gave up a little "regeneration" and instead wore this high HP piece of gear my HP would actually go up faster.

 

[mnnielsen]

Eventhought this is a very interesting discussion, please move the talk to another thread - this is regarding a work in progress

 

[Snr Sarg]

We cannot explicitly tell you that a script is tolerated, only that specific versions of specific scripts do not currently have any particularly problematic elements that are prone to lead us to investigate their usage and impose a ban.

I can tell you that that particular script (clothcache, formerly known as duellstat.) has at least one problematic element:
"Use previously calculated equipment for the job" effectively adds an additional saved set for single click equiping and automates the set-saving process.
As an example, in my personal game play I have two slots in my equipment manager I dedicate to spamming jobs: "tempqueue" and "tempfinish". When I am spamming a job I use the "work clothes" button to identify and equip the best gear; I then save that gear to "tempqueue" and queue the job. I then switch to the best drop gear for that job I am able to equip and save that to "tempfinish". When my queue is near empty I equip "tempqueue", queue more, then equip "tempfinish" ("tempfinish" isn't truly necessary but it helps when doing high LP jobs where you typical best drop gear sets have too few labor points)

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to see how "clothcache" non-trivially reduces the effort and number of available saved sets of using that process.

Thank you for the concise response, I'll leave that one well alone, for now at least

 

[criminus]