Game development for Dummies
Stolch
I'm in a good mood today and so I'll offer a freebie to the ...... (enter an epithet of your choosing) devs and admins of this game.
No it's not connected with the newest monstrosity of morronity which the current "tournament" is, but rather with a very basic and game killing problem with the mechanics of the game and more precisely the divisions.
Now this change was initially sold to us with great fanfare as a way to give younger and newer players more prominence on the battlefield and in general in the game.
The result has been anything but and now the game is full of farmed and sold and traded top accounts in the lower divisions operated as a second account by active players who have put their primary accounts in D4 on scripts and bots so they can play with their more "lucrative" D1 and D2 accounts which they registered years ago and farmed strength with or bought on the black market.
This of course has meant that the even minuscule retention rate of the game has become virtually 0 with the only new players coming in being multies, new farm accounts for 2 years later or some poor idiot who played the game before and for whatever masochistic reason decided to come back and see whats going on.
Thus the population has continued to shrink and of the active accounts in general more then half are almost fully robotized.
So the problem is that we now have D1 accounts that have higher strength and do more per hit then some D4 accounts, same for D2. With the addition of the IK stash, these accounts will not go up in their divisions for years if they continually buy them, this could be good for the admins in the short term a few dozen accounts spending 40-50 euros a month, however in the long term it would mean an end to new players all together.
Now the reason divisions were not set up on strength was said to be because of the 9999 strength paradox, where players can train their accounts to the max level for their divisions, never again train and thus keep them permanently there gaining an unfair advantage. Of course as we've seen that was BS, the reason was, so that that advantage can be sold for 15 euros a month.
Still there is a better solution to the divisions problem and it is simple and elegant.
Base divisions, not on XP or strength, base it on military rang. Now this will not solve necessarily the farm problem, people will still farm accounts for use, however it will make the use of these accounts finite and especially in D1 and D2 not worth the time invested as a top strength account would very quickly go up the ranks once it starts to fight if it has a very high strength.
More importantly, there will be no need to adjust ranks in the future for D1 and D2, maybe at some point for D3 to not overpopulate D4.
What should the rank requirements for each divisions be?
Well to keep the interest in the players and to keep them engaged it should be setup so they on average reach D2 after 6 months of game play, so I would say when they achieve the rang of "Legendary Force", which means that the player has done 265 Million damage, which for a new player in D1 who has played and not farmed strength is a substantial amount.
For D2 it should be the same, so the appropriate rank in my opinion would be - "God of War**", which means 2 billion damage, or about 8 times more then D1.
For D3 then it would mean achieving the rank of - "Titan*" which means 20 billion of damage and 10 times more then D2.
Finally one would become D4, when they achieve the "Legends of the New world" rank, which would mean 200 billion damage or 10 times more then D3.
This will solve the balance of the game for at least 2-3 years and allow for new players to come into the game again and have the ability to participate.
So in short for all the attention span challenged people:
Change divisions to be based not on XP, but on military ranks, with the following "proposed" (by me, could be different if after analyzing other ranks work better):
D1: from rank 1 ( Recruit ) to rank 57 ( World Class Force*** ) inclusive
D2: from rank 58 ( Legendary Force ) to rank 63 ( God of War* ) inclusive
D3: from rank 64 ( God of War** ) to rank 69 ( Titan*** ) inclusive
D4: from rank 70 ( Legends Of The New World ) and above
I know there are few legends right now, so temporarily D4 could start from Titan*** and be bumped up to legends at a later time when a long list of players who are not that far start ranking up.
I also know this will just go by the side like everything else that makes any sense at all, but for whatever reason I felt like being generous today...
Comments
много D2, бре...🙂
коригирано :П
tl;dr
Interesting idea. The impatient fighters like myself would screw ourselves even worse. 🙂
However-- the word "morronity" I believe has not existed until today. And it is overdue. Hence the endorsement. 😃
I'm an innovator 😃
Thats why better idea is to determine divisions by influence.
Cuz a player with 110 000 strength and rank lieutenant (if he is not fighting at all why not) will do much more damage than player with 35 000 strength and rank God of War***
By this way you can fight as much as you want, w/o worring about progressing in divisions. Of course ranks boost up amount of influence, but not that much as strength.
I like it.
it's impossible to compare ranks to strength in terms of influence, for the simple reason that ranks are a % on top of strength.
Also there is a basic flaw in your premise... NE gives 10% on top on influence, but more importantly there are boosters increasing influence with 50% and 100%. So basically you turn a booster on and jump in a new division, you turn it off and you're back.... not functional nor balanced at all.
Nope, Stoich, all bonuses as NE and boosters wont count. Division can be determine by pure damage, w/o any buffs, not even Q1 weapon, just the basic damage from strength and rank, w/o weapon, booster or NE. 🙂
Then you're basically recreating the 9999 strength paradox, because once someone achieves the maximum "damage" per hit before moving up they can stop training and never pass it and stay forever at that level and divisions.
The whole point is to make it inevitable that you progress in the game so you free room for new players coming fr5om below. Second point is to design it so it happens in a manner in which the players would not be overwhelmed by moving up.
No, Stoich, i am not recreating the 9999 strength paradox. It is impossible to happen by my way! Why? Because of ranks my friend. 🙂 Even if you stop to train when you fight you gain rank points and level up your rank, when you level up your rank you boost your influence, so you pass the limit and going up to next division. 🙂 Thats why it is so important divisions to determine by influence. The only way to stay in same division if it depends from influence is to not train and not fight! Well if you dont train and dont fight, then you are useless and not breaking the balance. 🙂 In any other situation you can break the balance. When it depends from influence you cant do it. If it depend from strength - like you said you can stop training. If it depend from exp points - you can use Infantry kit. If it depend from rank points, you can stop fighting for a while, till you build too much strength for your division to break to balance, but if it depend from influence you cant do anything to break the balance, cuz the only way to stay in same division is to not train and fight. Else you will boost your influence and will go to next division. 🙂
Well you were talking about basic damage before all the bonuses, which includes rank, if you take rank into account, you're basically saying the same thing as I'm in a more complicated and roundabout way.
Well yes and no. Cuz we gain strength everyday, so we are increasing our damage everyday, while on high level of ranks we will need months for next one. Thats why to determine devisions by influence is better idea, well its best idea. - That is the only thing that can bring balance in divisions, else as i told you by your idea D3 wont be balanced, and D3 will be most populated division, which on total is bad - most populated division to be without balance...
About rank it is discussable is it a bonus or not. Its all about point of view. You know damage formula - it includes both strength and rank, so at least thru my eyes rank is not a bonus. Bonuses are NE, boosters and weapons, while basic damage depend from both strength and rank. Yes, it is true - we can do damage if we dont have any rank, but come on even after our very first fight we got our 1st rank.
voted
Good idea, but still by my opinion admins need to separate devisions by influence, not military rank. You can have huge amount of strength and low rank if you are not fighting, but when you start to fight even with low military rank your strength will give you a big advantage. Ok, its true that once when such player start fighting will progress really fast in military rank, but still wont be fair to rest players in his division.
Thats why the only solution to bring back balance is to determine devisions by influence.
Using ranks is exactly separating by influence. Basically ranks represent how much cumulative influence you've done so far in the game.
A D1 account with 90K strength if you farmed to that amount of strength will make 265 million in a few days of fighting, so there is no investment- reward strategy where you farm strength for 2-3 years to fight in 4-5 battles/rounds.
For D2 is a little more, but still less then a few weeks of fighting. D3 is a little more, but D3 would be heavily populated so it won't matter that much and D4 would be d*ck measuring divisions extraordinaire for all the egocentric "tanks" to fight among themselves.
Well, there is a problem - if divisions determine by rank, then combat stash would be useless for any other division, except D4. Cuz as we know combat stash gives +30% to rank points.
And one more thing - in high levels of rank system you need to do a lot damage to get next rank, but in same time everyday you gain strength by training and your influence is rysing. When you are Titan*** and if you are not crazy spander/casher then you will need more than a year till you reach rank legend.
In total your system will introduce a balance for D1, D2 and D4, but not for D3. Where we will have players with 30K strength and 130K strength and the difference between their influence will be huge.
Anyway, we can discuss/argue all night long, but that brainless bastard Plato wont change anything... 🙁
war stash gives 10% not 30% and to a degree maybe yes, but war stash is useless for lower divisions now if you don't have IK as well, so no change there.
As for D3, well yes to a degree yes, but there is no way to avoid some differentiation, still it can be tinkered for the divisions, make it that ad titan*** you become D4, you'll lower that difference. In any case it will be many times lower then it is now, where you have D1 players with 1K strength and D1 players with 95K.
Yes, exactly cuz of D1 and D2 we need changes. I am agree with that. And if you scroll up and read my other post you can see that there is a way to avoid differentiations. 🙂
Още като излезе инф пака - разбрах , че играта е оставена на ,,доизцеждане '' от админите . Жалко ............имало едно време е'рпублик
They will never do that because they are earning thousands from Infantry kit.
Game development for dummies... http://imgur.com/gallery/biZoKgo
O7
бъркате се момци, дивизиите са само едни и те са по друг критерий:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/loyalty
виждате има бронз, сребро и тн, всичко друго което говорите Плато НЕ го интересува 😁))
There is only one simple solution: reset the game.
And what about all players that invested so much money in their accounts? They will be very angry and upset and will quit the game, so Plato will lose his money banks. W/o cashers to pay the bills game will die pretty fast. Well w/o any changes game will die too, but slowly 🙂
interesting - but why not simply base it on strength and add more divisions. games never remove the zero mot imparity.(yes google there is such a f* word). as its a sale point. players quickly becomes bored with gameplay and then need some kind of hook to stay in the game such as a perceived advantage over other players.
behind a certain point its all flash and mirrors. even looking at the west again. i can see they dropped certain stuff and implemented stuff (which 1 they perma banned basically designed for them) but their players are still dropping like flies. thats the problem one needs to build either a finite game (like truck/ railroad nation) or constantly be evolving a game. the new reality in games will be life games where you create a elife in a very complex world even then later on pulling in stuff like 3d printers etc. or just switch off the computer and explore more things in life.
Agree that divisions are better if they are based on the military rank and not on exp.
This will separate the military and economic modules more but the are separate 🙂
After some thinking... Exp is gained also when working as manager soooo... Max str infantry pack players might stop training, working (even as manager) and also voting. So division separation is my ch more complex than just fighting.
Recently some one posted that he has 100++ companies and he works in them as manager. Bb D1 farmers 🙂
5th division might be better idea.
Why not by influence? Influence is function of both strenght and rank.
Well, I explained above, if you use influence, then boosters and NE bonus become a problem, if you use basic influence before any bonuses including rank, then you're basically back to the 9999 strength paradox and if you use only basic influence + rank, you're doing the same as rank but in a roundabout way.
This would be much more simpler and straight forward and probably easier to code, which is important when you have such "high quality" coders as this game.
Dont see why the boosters and NE would be a problem. Players would be ranked based on their base influence value. If divisions are only by rank then you will have low influence high rank players in the same category as high strenght high rank players.
Well as I said if you use base influence, that is solely based on strength. So if you stop training you'll stay put for good, hence the 9999 strength paradox.
If you use influence as is, then boosters expand it by 50/100%, so at times you'll have the same player jumping in and out of divisions, same for NE bonus though less of an impact because it's just 10%.
If you use basic influence + rank, then it';s basically the same as using rank.
Yes there will be some difference with some having a higher rank with lower strength, but it would not be as bad as it is now for one and will not be that big of a difference in the lower divisions, where it matters, because higher influence will cause rapid leveling up of ranks, thus moving up to the next division. In D3 and D4 it is impossible to avoid the difference in strength as some accounts have been accumulating it for many years.
Last but not least as I said, simple is the only way to go considering the quality of this game, anything complex turns into a disaster of gargantuan proportions.
No it isn't. Base influence is strength * rank. And it is, in my opinion as well, the best variable for the division milestones to depend on. NEs, boosters, packs, ... don't count into that, only strength and rank.
О, неразумни и юроде, поради что се срамиш да се наречеш българин
ползвай кирилица !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ар ю шур ит уил би изиър фор евериуан то ъндърстенд дъ ритън дат уей?
Би се обезсмислил показателя опит, само остават бонусите на всеки 100нива. Нормално е ако някой тренира редовно на макс и почти не бие с години да е по-силен от друг, който играе от скоро, бие на макс и е качил дивизиите преди да си качи тренировъчните площадки. Както казваш проблема може би са скриптовете и мултаците, ама те са си е против правилата и админите се предполага че се борят срещу тях и без да ги подсещаш.
Това с ранковете ми хареса. Искам Д3! 🙂
Вече няма смисъл да се чака да се направи сила в Д1 - с тоя инфантри шит прецакаха всички дето не шарят евра, по принцип бих бил против такива промени, ама сега не ме интересува изобщо - правех средно по 10 медала на ден, сега не смея за 1 да скоча, че винаги идва някое лайно с инфънтри шит. За няколкостотин жалки евра на месец тия унищожават напълно Д1 - прецакват не само новите а и тия дето са чакали по 1 година да направят сила, сега сме по зле от Д4 по отношение на медалите
Забравяш,, че някой хора са седяли кротки с години без да бият. Имали са дисциплината да влизат всеки ден, за да може един ден да са актуални и да диктуват битките.
Този труд не би следвало да бъде захвърлен, с лека ръка и 3 години да отидат подяволите..
and they should modify the influence required for each rank, early levels are stupid
Имаш малък проблем с баланса на страните с играчи Legends Of The New World, или поне така мисля, но идеята не е лоша
Agreed
it might be worth the date of registration ? If you are actively playing something you are strong in your division , if not then the weak
This would only work untill plato makes new pack "YOU DONT GET MILITARY RANK FOR ONLY 14.99€ FOR ONLY THREE DAYS ONLY!!!!".
This only makes a new cyclic problem where people will keep holding on and on and on untill they get huge strength and when divs normalize again they will get BH's making only the DO. Maybe this will have an end (if plato doesnt make the military rank inhibitor) but this solves nothing. Holding kills the game.