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Pity Cost | Wynncraft Forums

primaryPrimary source — a record made at the time by the people involved.
Type: forum-threadArchived: 2026-09-03id: thread-286748
'Pity Cost' (IceResistance, 24 Feb 2021) — follow-up on 1.20 war-cost economics; contemporaneous with 'The Issue With 1.20 Guild Wars' (286375)
Text as archived (8,884 characters). This is the copy the wiki's citations were checked against; the original may since have changed.
### post #1 — IceResistance — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:54 PM

We are still waiting two important changes in which have been implied.

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Context: Back then warring used to be out of personal emeralds, but I sort of made a thread about it and made this suggestion

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Cost is increased with repetitive wars. . haha

That suggestion made sense back then in the prior system where warring was not free.

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It made sense back then. You were able to war out of your guild bank AND personal emeralds, personal emeralds having a great advantage. Pity made sense when it affected personal le wars, limiting the ability for guilds to use personal le that much.

Well, after a different thread, they ended up changing the system and now everyone wars for free. That brings us to today.

With personal le warring gone, pity is obsolete.

Hotfix#6 made wars free, giving guilds with less than four territories cushioned costs and the first war being completely free. With that, pity costs also kinda became problematic, with Salted also saying it seems to be a bit steep given these changes.

Before I get into it, I want to say I am not entirely against pity or a mechanic providing some protection for the defender, however the current way pity cost itself functions should be changed or nerfed to some degree.

There is only one way to protect the defender, and that is to limit the attacker. It is for this reason that there is much concern, because protecting the defender means limiting the attacker's abilities. It is not that defenders should have zero protection at all, but rather it needs to be done in a way where the attacker's ability to war is not outright revoked.

The infamous pity cost is a mechanic in which raises the cost to attack the defending guild if it is losing territories quickly or has several attacks queued up on them. It applies to all guilds, not just the attacker, however the attacker/s get the worst of it. The pity cost also stays in place for a period of time allowing the guild a small break.

It does not sound so bad on paper, and it was conceptualized for empires with land fighting each other as was much of the system, but attackers don't have land and we often end up in awkward situations.

Currently the pity cost comes into effect as such a degree to basically block a guild from warring and progressing any further. Any territory the defender gets, the price also takes effect. They basically become untouchable for sometime.

Pity cost also takes priority over the cushioned war prices for guilds with no land. For example, while I was warring I redeemed my free war since I had no territories and placed my HQ. My 2nd war, in which would have been 256, skyrocketed to roughly 5000 before tax. We have seen prices up upwards 44k+, again before tax.

This is not viable. For any attacking guild, due to the current map situation, you don't have land or resources stocked up. These prices are unaffordable. Prices in which are meant to slow us down end up making us unable to war any further and only watch as we get wiped ourselves as we physically cannot do anything.

The map situation is also futile given the fact that coordinated attacks are basically suicidal in activating the pity cost, then disabling all attacking guilds. This isn't balanced. A mega alliance can work together to mutually stomp out outsiders, but attacking guilds are unable to coordinate and work together themselves? It is not a fair playing field.

There is a lot of confusion about the pity cost as it isn't very apparent unless you are an attacker. The system is smart enough to also identify who the defender is (otherwise the protection would be useless).

I'm not against protection for defenders, however, you can only protect a defender by limiting the attacking guild and hence it needs to be balanced to some degree. An attacking guild's capabilities should not be outright blocked by these prices in which end up being impossible to afford. It brings the question that if a defending guild needs such pity to begin with, should they even be in possession of the territories?

I wasn't going to post this thread seeing that the problem was acknowledged and change was implied, but it still continues to be problematic and is essential some change to how it functions is made.

Update: after posting this thread a vote got posted in guild leader + staff discord:

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### post #2 — Xera — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:31 PM

owo war costs??!?!?

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### post #3 — Ziffler1 — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:31 PM

first i think

edit: someone got there just before me

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### post #4 — Sugo — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:32 PM

Also can we please make it so strategists can set HQs? warring is impossible without Chiefs rn, and some guilds dont have chiefs in certain timezones which is a pain for others in that timezone who just want to war.

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### post #5 — Lunatic_Lady — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:33 PM

Imagine actually being able to war without having 50k health and no guardian or ignis

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### post #6 — Razyrwynd — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:34 PM

smart decisions are hard to make sometimes

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### post #7 — IzzSt — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:36 PM

ping? izzstdoesntwar

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### post #8 — MinerDwarf222 — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:37 PM

"The map situation is also futile given the fact that coordinated attacks are basically suicidal in activating the pity cost, then disabling all attacking guilds. This isn't balanced. A mega alliance can work together to mutually stomp out outsiders, but attacking guilds are unable to coordinate and work together themselves? It is not a fair playing field."

Can't you just not dogpile a single guild and instead have two guilds war that guild and the rest block or attack the allies so that they can't help without using an absurd amount of emeralds? (increase tax min to 2 :()

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### post #9 — Pally — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:38 PM

I have the feeling as if they severely undermined how territories trade hands in an actual climate. I understand that they wanted to make warring slower and not make things take 24 hours, but with ceding, as well as the buffed territory defenses, the job of defending has been made easier.

Attackers cannot lay a claim to any area as it stands right now as there’s not enough time to set up proper defenses, and guilds on the map already with territories can easily take back their allies land. The only way for there to be any change in territories currently is either through incredibly intelligent and uppercutting strategies *cutting off wood supplies and ore and such* or if a guild of a similar size in territory count were to go to war with these guilds.

With wars that go on for longer than a few hours, pity becomes a massive issue.

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### post #10 — Hydroangeas — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:40 PM

Yes, cool also dont do tax evasion.

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### post #11 — Xera — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:41 PM

Ascended Kitten said:

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My name is hitler and I approve this message
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wtf Cath

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### post #12 — Calluum — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:44 PM

Ice cool thread yes cool epic

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### post #13 — 4Shady2Me — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:46 PM

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### post #14 — IceResistance — Feb 24, 2021 at 1:55 PM

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guild leader staff discord vote so far

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### post #15 — VoidTrasher — Feb 24, 2021 at 2:07 PM

It is not a fair playing field.
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Preach Ice, preach.

Seeing as there's countless stacks being dumped into warring, I wonder if it might affect the economy :thinking:

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### post #16 — TravusThaSlime — Feb 24, 2021 at 2:19 PM

"ok and?"

.

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### post #17 — IceResistance — Feb 24, 2021 at 2:21 PM

VoidTrasher said:

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Preach Ice, preach.

Seeing as there's countless stacks being dumped into warring, I wonder if it might affect the economy :thinking:
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Well warring became free and you can no longer war with your own money (thank goodness)

but with the change came uhhh mixed mechanics

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### post #18 — umisol — Feb 24, 2021 at 3:03 PM

As far as i know attack price sky rocketed when 4-6 guilds tried to attack one guild. Price is undoubtedly high but territory cooldowns are high as well. If attack price will be much lower then it will be nearly impossible to defend claims

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### post #19 — IceResistance — Feb 24, 2021 at 3:13 PM

umisol said:

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As far as i know attack price sky rocketed when 4-6 guilds tried to attack one guild. Price is undoubtedly high but territory cooldowns are high as well. If attack price will be much lower then it will be nearly impossible to defend claims
Click to expand...

A coordinated attack would realistically be effective.

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### post #20 — Nukewarmachine — Feb 24, 2021 at 7:53 PM

unrelated to the current discussion, but what did salted mean by him saying that he wants to buff some slots?