AssassinatorS
2018-11-04 |  | Compensation/Game Development |  |
I was going to post this in the `nerf guards` thread, but it`s a tangent that has little to do with just Guardians any more.
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Just to stir the pot, why would ANY compensation be given out for any game changes?
This game isn`t a democracy. It isn`t player owned. As far as I can tell it`s BW who now steers this ship. And it`s BW who should make the decisions. The admins should have some weight in giving BW their opinions, and the guides should let the admins know theirs, and us players should keep voicing ours so that anything note worthy can be passed up then chain.
To put it bluntly, a severe change/any change that removes/resets/reallocates all the weight of the old empires will anger those empires, but by not doing so you prevent the influx of any new players as they just cannot compete. By stagnating at the fear of annoying a handful, you`ve prevented the allure of this game from developing and the influx of new players (keep ten happy, keep ten hundred from staying).
No change also means a lack of repeat playability. You need to add an element of the fear of missing out (IE, cause an addiction), but once you`ve played the missions through once, you aren`t missing out on anything. The opposite occurs - the fear of losing what you`ve worked on for so long.
The game needs to continue to address the large issues as well as adding little events (thanks KalZul) and developing the depth of game play - all races should have had two full acts of missions to complete by now, this is a 15 year old game for goodness sake.
For new players, those kinds of things are relevant, even if old empires don`t think they are.
I would also, personally, not offer a free paid for the first week of gameplay. Instead offer a 72 hour paid to be redeemed whenever the player wishes, so they can get to grips with the game first, and then work out what the bonuses of a paid account actually are. I`d also limit restarts during the length of that paid account being used. |
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KatzRule
99+ day(s) ago | Your Compensation for playing on on a TB server that needs to be reset would be this.
After the complete reset, You get 1 extra turn for every day of your current Empire, (Empire age under Player Profile)
That could work on Slow, and maybe adjusted it on other servers.
My Slow account is 4400 days. Wow, I could start my new empire with 44 Large Time Caps. Like a head start of 80 days. That`s a lot, but hopefully isn`t too many, the core idea is to increase usage. A simple reset on Slow could do this. Slow is a great server to play on, and if everybody from all servers had a chance to get in on the ground floor, we could see a dramatic increase. I think people would try it.
It might be easier than you think! If All player requested or volunteered for a server reset, you could do it. I would do it, on Slow and Fast. |
EPrussia
99+ day(s) ago | I think its more than badwolf needs like 5 coders who can quickly pick up stephens code to put in new changes faster. |
AssassinatorS
99+ day(s) ago | Lovely ideas, would certainly create a deeper complexity to the game and help bring in other currently useless aspects (planets and raw especially).
How can I/we help? Is there anything we can do to expedite the process? Fund a month off work for BW to do nothing but coding? |
EnderWiggin
99+ day(s) ago | Good read. Tons of good ideas that sound really interesting. Missed ya EE |
GrumpyOldMan
99+ day(s) ago | And this is why i love EE. Kisses from the GOM. |
EphemeralEternity
99+ day(s) ago | Firstly since this comes up yet again, Gordo`s are an issue and a major one at that, but as it`s been said time and again by BW and myself in the past. there are solutions that doesn`t require removing gordo`d land nor does it require compensating anyone.
the best solution in my eyes is making it so that base br is based on land with planets only playing a minor role, BW even had a formula ready to go where every one would be able to explore up to around 80k land. we could even possibly tweak it so that amount could vary from race to race if need be for economy balancing purposes. this also makes it so gordos are still useful in that having a few massive planets over clusters gives you more border space so there would still be a point to gordos, but at the same time clusters would likely need to see a boost so that having them is preferable, perhaps making it so that a planets Income gen ( no matter the type) is boosted by x amount for each planet in the cluster, again race dependent.
The other option is simple remove gordos and make it so that everyone who has gordo`d land would have said planet turned into a cluster at a rate of 1000 land per planet so then if you have a 60k large or c2 or what have you that becomes 2x 25,000 c2`s and a 5k c1 or if you`d rather a 60k c3. After that gordo`s effects would be made null and void.
Another hot topic which has always been a huge topic an no one has ever liked any solution we`ve came up with is guards and their Build rates and or ability to build massive amounts of ships. Well first off with regards to this topic I would like to say that before any ship tweaking it would be best and highly suggested that all econs for all races be reworked prior to any ship tweaking i`ve been trying to beat that into some heads over the years but it`s a difficult task and not a easy subject, but it remains why change ships, then fix econs to find out that econs play just as much a role in one races success over another then you have to go back and rebalance ships once again to suit econs.
By Econs I don`t just mean the economic formula and research in general, I mean planets, planet stats, cluster stats, min and maxes for cash, mins, and the whole gambit. I`ve always been a firm believer that planet types should play a more pivotal role in the game than just land. Meaning that planets stats play a role especially when clustered so that having multiple forest types in a cluster actually boost the Agri mod of the planet by a percentage for each one in the cluster and at the same times having barrens would negatively influence this mod. Adding this alone would change up Economic balance in the game dramatically. Also I believe that mining minerals from a planet should be more complex than just a ratio depending on the cluster and requiring no real effort in the way having to maintain a planets pop .
I also think that the caps on agri, and minerals and cg`s should be dependent on research, meaning that each level of agri that you research makes your max food cap increase by x amount, same with minerals. Even making the starting caps vary from race to race. With this though also increase the max amount of research an empire can have to maybe 500 or some other number though cap the amount that you may have in one field at say 250. again this could also vary by race.
But again balancing econ is a very very complex issue that will require another server, a clone of RT preferable to be made with everyone testing and giving feed back with tweaks made every so often. All this over the course of at least 6 months if not a year. Or perhaps said server staying live for ever.
But back to guard ships. A big issue with guards is the variety they now have in damage types and resistances and it is my fault, I made the current ships after all. K class has been a favorite in the past to pick on and lowering it`s shield resistances would help as would lowering the hull to pr ratio of other guard ships. Though a simple solution would be cutting the pr of all guard ships by 10, 20 or 30% and then lowering each of their stats aside from shielding and cost by the same amount so their ratios stay nearly the same while leaching their br.
I always thought it would be neat to absolutely murder guard br rates and increase their ships cost but at the same time when a UW is active over a certain pr depending on the server have their br double and cost cut so that way during normal times guards can be on par or sub par in comparison to other races but during the time they`re supposed to have plot armor, during a UW they can. Also guards should retain a small boost to br and ship cost for up to 6 months after a UW is defeated provided they attacked the UW and did sufficient damage to the UW while it was up either in one battle or over the course of the entire UW determined by a percentage based on the starting pr of the UW bearer and all ships they build during the UW, fodder killed and built excluded perhaps. And on the other side of the coin if a UW does go off all guards the server over suffer some negatives what ever they may be for failing to do their duty.
I`ve also do believe last time all this was going around mentioning adding in a new race to the game which would also usher in a new research type. The race, Reclaimers a robotic races that makes money purely out of battle. And I have got a good bit of math done for this as well as for some of the other ideas mentioned above.
Reclaimers called such because they reclaim debris from battle they would have very few planets max of 8 with attacking perhaps, though aside from staying alive the would serve no real purpose to them.
reclaimers would research “salvage” which would increase the yeild given by ships they destroy in battle this research type would be available for all and all races would see some profit from battles, more with maruaders and collective also reciving a decent mod to salvage. Salvage research level would also increase plunder gains from planets, so it could be a viable path for both races. Though plunder would likely be a negative mod for reclaimers themselves.
Before I explain battles there would be a change to ships building reclaimers ships would also cost raw materials, though I think all races ships should cost raw materials to build as it gives raw mats more of a purpose. And the cost should be at ½ that of credit cost..also I wouldn`t think it a bad idea for raw mats to be needed for ship upkeep, though when you run out of raw mats with a fleet you don`t lose ships or go into debt but all ships you currently have take more damage and do less damage in battle, perhaps base it on a percentage that increases for every turn you take without raw mats so at 200 turns used they do 2% less damage and have 2% less hull.. at 500 turns it goes up to 4% at 1000 turns 8% 5000 turns 15% to a max of perhaps 50% or 25% or what have you, again this would be a definite for reclaimers but I don`t think it`d be a bad idea for all races. Also goes in line with an idea I had called attrition who would lose a percentage of ships for 3 hours they stayed out of dp not using turns which would go into effect 24 hours after first leaving dp.. which would make the ranks more dynamic and keep it so people couldn`t just build up to max pr and sit and do nothing out of reach for weeks at a time...you know it keeps people playing the game
So what would happen with battles is the victor and loser, to a much much less extent, (say 99%victor 1% loser) would receive cash minerals and raw materials based on the ships destroyed in the battle. for example you had battle where the total cost of ships destroyed was 20 bil credits, 10,000 of each mineral, and a number for raw mat. So winning for lets say a terran with no levels in salavage would be 1% returns or less...but for reclaimer with a few levels in salvage would see maybe 20% of that given to them with a boost in raw mats given to them that they could then sell on the market. And a reclaimer with a higher salavge level could see nearly 100% of that given to them.
By nature reclaimers ships would be cheaper than most with high damage to pr ratio, low shields low hull to pr ratio with probably slightly above average range for most ship classes.
But anyhow these are some of the idea BW and I have worked on and discussed in the past some of which of course are much easier to implement than others and all the numbers provided are just there to be an example. So don`t get stuck on any one particular number and i`m not promising anything but I`d figured i`d put back up some of the suggestions and solutions we`ve made in the past.
Edited by EphemeralEternity on 2018-11-06 |
blabla
99+ day(s) ago | BW, you don`t need caps on this game. What you need is an ENDING server. UW kills everything and everybody and the federation that wins ofcourse gets all kind of goodies for the next game. Lollipops to make them feel happy and important.
It`s a serious lack as well on UC as GC, there is no ending, nothing to win.
But before you even start thinking about this, you`ll need to fix everything, get some interesting graphics (and when i look at a game like travian they realy don`t need to be superspecial), balance things you can buy (especially on UC ofcourse), etcetc.
I`ve seen people spend 100s, if not 1000s of $$ on travian just to lose it all when the server gets killed. It interests people to be "THE WINNER".
You don`t have that here. Here you just end up big and fat and even cheating to keep it all.
And new players see you being big and fat and quit once they realise that took 10 years... |
Zaland
99+ day(s) ago | nobody should get compensation. your investing time in a game, you should expect to lose everything you have spent your time on. its a game.... and if u spent money on gordos then thats your own dumb fault when there part of a game that u can make them for FREE by playing the game... |
Zaland
99+ day(s) ago | if i see this game get updates ill run a marathon naked ... how long ago was the last 1? 4 years? what we get? some dungty E class that nobody ever uses and instead of demolishing all the housing it just nocks it down to 1? |
CaptainCharisma
99+ day(s) ago | I meant to say if race mods are going to be adjusted, collective marauder and tax miner guard etc People should be given the option to change incomes as a once off instead of restarting via admin changing say food to housing or housing to industry or minerals
if they don`t like the changes |
CaptainCharisma
99+ day(s) ago | and I agree with HD which will shock him
I only went miner for the tax income. I hate playing the dang race. Like I`d say I hate collective but they are so rare I don`t have to waste energy on hating them |
CaptainCharisma
99+ day(s) ago | my RT tax miner with 5 planets as a c1 makes near 1.5 million per turn or more. Over 100 levels to max.
Miners when set up and have the large piggy bank if you go tax or industry can explore 3 20 k plus c2`s. so 75 k land + no gordos. Still exploring. If you really want to be risky as miner the explore ability of miner is 84 planets to 86 I forget.
Meaning you could if its 86 explore 3 good c2s 2 good c1s and then fight for borders hitting base PR guards to do it
Or 3 c2s, and one c1 with 6 borders exploring and gordo the c1 for months or years then fight to make a amazing 4th c2.
Most people don`t know about miners can explore up to that at least on RT, maybe ultra. Fast and the rest well I never tried it but it would take way longer.
As i explained to ankaar last night I can have a 100k tax c3 in less than a month with crazy income as miner regarding nerfing other things.
lastly I agree with a nerf to tax, boost industry. I mean i could make money up to around 30 isn`t it but i refused to buy food higher than 14 or 15 just because I`m a git.
20 food price is more than enough still for tax miner to make money |
EnderWiggin
99+ day(s) ago | I for one would LOVE Miners income to be nerfed, if it meant that their upkeeps were nerfed too. It`s a massive weakness to have to rely on selling/hoarding minerals to climb because having an appropriate cash reserve makes you vulnerable to dinero. |
EnderWiggin
99+ day(s) ago | A good measure of races income is how high they can build with a set amount of land before they hit the breakeven point. As that is ultimately what matters. If anyone has numbers for average upkeep vs income that`d be informative to post. Because if a race has 10x the income, but it takes them 10x as much to build to a certain PR, that races income is the exact same as everyone elses, it just looks bigger. |
Omegian
99+ day(s) ago | @i agree with Helms on all comments mentioned, alot of players don`t realize that it takes years on TB to make a good guard, even then that empire has to remain exploreable as it`s base would keep it out of most of it`s targets.
@ Ank that was me suggesting a miner buff and guard nerd, the reason is to Helms point, you have to look at the entire ship ecosphere, in the past miner sbs were over powering and their ships we`re good, but then they got heavily nerfed. There needs to be a better balance, but that requires a ship committee similar to what BW, EE and a few others (Omeg, Mara, Deiloche, etc.) On testing all the cases. I am open to a master shiplist rebalance.
Lastly, on turn limitations. RT is the only issue where activity can make or braeak the ranks and empire setup taking 2-3 months versus a year or two. So you have to be careful approaching turn limitations.
Lastly, I`ve done mineral and tax miner, the incomes are absurd and incomes have to be adjusted to comparable of other income empires. It would probably shift people to go tax viral over miner, but then I would question is if we should attack the source of income generation for each race and do rebalances at the income level first, loyalty second, ship rebalance third, artifact caps 4th. No one clusters but a select few, rest remain exploreable which restricts cash flow on TB players more so than RT which is why I think we need to revisit more in whole the 4 items mentioned above.
Maybe I am overkilling my opinion, but a new server without fixing those items will bring you back here to some degree. I am open to another server, but to what extent and how would want it setup where everyone has a fair chance on defeating the server based on their race selection, teamwork and activity online? |
Helms{}Deep
99+ day(s) ago | One of the things I want to be be taken very serious about is the ships. I suffered through years and years of nerfs upon nerfs in UC after it was changed, then changed again. I see a lot of talk around nerfing Guards build rates and buffing Miners ships. I want to address each of these separately, and I wont go into huge detail, just things that I want to be considered. Guards ships can build fast. Really fast. However it takes a long time to get a solid Guardian account, one that is able to handle sustained high PR battling. Once one does, their base PR is so high, often times they need to get well beyond their base in order to be successful to fight, hence one of the reasons why a Guardian SB builds so fast. They have a few ships other than the Diamond that can build extremely fast, but others cant build so fast. They need to because their ships are susceptible to aggressive attacks, even from below. I am not sure cutting their BR too much is really needed, not on most of their ships. Perhaps on the Diamond, since it is built in DP usually, but not too many other ships.
I am a bit more concerned though on the Miners ships that everyone is talking about. The reason I say this is simply this: Miners have more ways to generate income (Tax, which is extremely high, too high IMO; Industry and then mineral generation). They are cash positive very fast and early when they are new empires, and it just compounds from there. Miners are also the go-to race for UW`s, given 3 SB`s, high high income and defensive ships. Giving their ships more power and making them stronger will only make any wanna-be UW`er go Miner, even more than we are seeing now. I feel if you give them the buffs that Miners are looking for, strip away a SB or two, or rework their income generation to make it harder to get going. Otherwise we will see a server full of Miners all lining up for the inevitable UW attempt, and if their ships are buffed, UW success after success after success. |
Asmodean
99+ day(s) ago | I`m sure the sentiment is shared among a good many of you; RT is hopelessly broken. What I mean by that is that any major change implemented will end up pissing off more people than it will help. A new server is the way to go. |
AssassinatorS
99+ day(s) ago | No, there certainly isn`t an easy answer - and trying to please people by taking ideas and discussing it will just cause you a whole word of stress. Why do you think Stephen wasn`t very available?
Unfortunately I think you have to be a bit of a dictator, only listen to admins and that structure, and risk things, try different things, and if it works you`ll have people play the game. If it doesn`t work, well, it`ll die a death.
Personally a copy/paste/edit and launch a new game/server/whatever you want to call it, I think is the way to go. |
Ankaar
99+ day(s) ago | /me votes for new server with even faster turns |
BW
Game-Admin
99+ day(s) ago | Being even more honest I`ve been at a bit of a standstill not too sure how to handle various things, there`s no real easy answer for a lot of it. |
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