Training Wars: The Root of All Evil
RATAJKOWSKl
I remember logging back in for the first time after a long break from the game and looking at the list of ongoing battles. What I saw was completely foreign compared to what I remembered. It seemed like everyone was at war with everyone! My timing seemed to be perfect as I came back just in time for another World War. I was excited to see my beloved game bursting from activity and looked forward to getting back into the action.
Unfortunately as I looked into other areas of the game I was met with a very different picture. Articles in the Top 5 were from a month ago instead of 2 days ago as before. Political discussions were scarce, no one seemed to care much about elections. Presidency seemed more of a burden which was being thrown around like hot potato between the 5-10 old players still active than a position people strived for. I could find no explanation anywhere as to why we were only at war with countries who were supposedly our allies. It was not until I read through weeks worth of international media and comments that I started to get a picture of what was happening.
The reasoning in support of Training Wars usually goes like this: TWs provide our strongest players with a large amount of gold income, which they will be able to convert into Energy Bars and damage when push comes to shove and save the sorry asses of the other 98% of the playerbase that doesn’t have the Strength or the time to farm BHs on a daily basis. While even the largest beneficiaries of this system agree that it has its downsides, it is considered to be a necessary evil whose necessity comes from the fact that other countries are doing the same. Then of course there’s others who have absolutely no intention of ever fighting for a larger community and only fall back on this reasoning to justify their own anti-social behavior and unending pursuit of individual “achievements” but I think these players are beyond saving.
Indeed, this surplus gold income for tanks would not be required were it not for other countries and their tanks also systematically farming on a massive scale. If there were no TWs, no country would have a competitive advantage from BH gold, but if one country runs TWs and others don’t, they immediately fall behind. If Country A farms 20k gold a week and opposing Country B also farms 20k gold a week, the net effect is zero as if there were no Training Wars in the first place.
It only takes a pop science level of game theory knowledge to recognize this situation as a typical example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma). Countries are forced into joining the endless upkeep and continual expansion of Training Wars because if they didn’t other countries would gain an advantage over them and could threaten their sovereignty. This is despite the numerous negative side-effects that TWs have on the longevity of the game and its community. These negative effects are the main points I'd like to drive home in this article:
1. Enrichment of an Apolitical, Anti-social Ruling Class
BH hunting is an activity that requires little to no cooperation, communication and has no social aspect. It is an individualistic activity, which reduces this Massive Online Multiplayer game to what is practically a single-player experience that the large majority of the playerbase have no chance of participating in. TWs encourage and select for this behaviour by enriching and giving disproportionate military power to a class of players that do very little for the larger community (with a few rare exceptions of course). This class of players can then force their style of play onto the rest of the population of their respective countries using their inflated economic and military strength. Examples of this can be seen worldwide, be it in the form of military coups or buying elections.
Clickclickclick.com, the game which eRepublik is becoming a successor of has closed after 10 years. A bad omen?
2. Degeneration of the Military Module
Military policy is no longer guided by what makes sense economically (i.e. fighting for resources) as nothing beats the gold income from TWs. New players are forever confused as to why seemingly everyone is at war with everyone when in reality no one is. Instead of engaging, long-run military campaigns we have mindless back-and-forth attacks that require very little strategic thinking. The joy of fighting alongside fellow players in epic battles is exchanged for the ephemeral dopamine rush of another meaningless 2-3-4-5 gold.
3. Degeneration of the Political Module
The political module had historically been an area where players could make value-judgments on what’s important, what makes sense economically, socially and these ideas could clash. As the above-mentioned group converts their military and economic power into political power, this debate is decided and made mute. BH hunter turned political leaders no longer need worry about playing politics as their goal of continuous gold accumulation needs no consensus from the populace (see: threats of military coups, election fraud).
Leaders are also no longer required to reason and argue the validity of their military plans, as they don’t need any such plans. This further removes an important dimension from the Political Module that used to drive discussion and player engagement.
4. Degeneration of the Economic Module
Most of the problems that required thought in company management are removed with the abundance of TWs. Company placement is a non-issue with the lack of real military campaigns. Demand for goods is no longer driven by military maneuvers instead it is held constant with the number of TWs being relatively constant. Instead, economic decisions are made in large part solely based on external meta-game events (promotions ran by eRep Labs).
5. Alienation of New Players
As the game is stripped of most of the things that made it fun, newcomers are left wondering why they should play this primitive game and why anyone else does still. Usually new players are told to try sniping BHs with bazookas, or focus on their air rank but even there they quickly realise how far behind they are. This problem is of course exacerbated by Div 4 BH hunters/Low Div Hit Merchants taking 99% of low div BHs, further ensuring that new/small players lose hope and find no enjoyment in this game. All areas that new players could enjoy outside of fighting (see above) are dumbed down and made irrelevant. With minimal new player retention, the business model of eRep Labs further shifts towards exploiting the addiction of BH hunters for 10-20 Euros a month which hurts the game even more.
So how do we escape from this prisoner’s dilemma that is making our once beloved game into a lifeless, barren copy of the late clickclickclick.com? It is clear that TWs do much more harm than good, but no country is incentivized to stop them as that’d put them at a competitive disadvantage. For now I won’t offer a solution (that might come in a later article) instead ask you all to share your thoughts on this below. Maybe with our collective effort we will arrive at a solution but the first step of that process is starting a discussion.
~rata
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Comments
I too agree. that the goal of the game being to get all the gold possible seems useless if the gold is not used for anything!
however I do feel with time once players hoards a bajillion gold. and realize gold is worthless they will try to hoard game tokens!
then once game tokens get too expensive the game will make those worthless,
hm, maybe we will just be stuck in an infinite pattern!
However, before the October event we had deflation! and that caused some excitement.
once i buy 4000 more air weps. i think then we will go back to deflation.
and then the training wars will be seen as bad, because players no matter how much gold they have they will not be able to afford food nor weps to fight with. becasue people will not be able to produce food and weps, because prices will be too low! because currency will be too expensive!
so i say be patient. the economy and war goals are the game are slow moving , but they do change every few months.
Game token demand is driven by old players' need for packs (players that can finance their packs using BH gold) and supply is driven by new/small players wanting to buy CC cheaply. Token price is actually a good proxy for the game's health in general.
Also you are crazy for investing in Air Weps but I'd love to hear the reason for it lol
OH there is no reason for air weps. I just decided that i fight as often as i can using q7 weps. yet i still produce more than i consume. so using air weps is the only way that i can consume more than i produce! I used to be able to use combat orders to pay people to fight thus increasing consumption. but the game removed that ability. so now the only way to easily consume more is using air weps.
Save cc to buy packs? That should give you a pretty high ceiling for surplus production to still make sense.
Good article..
Like you said.. it's a necessary evil.. but I disagree with the notion of it being individualistic thing .. Most of my interaction in game comes from farming and tw.. having to speak with fellow countrymen to avoid conflicts or coordinate hits.. speaking with other country people to set tw up..
And more people could benefit from it other than tanks and legend is these people wanted to spend the time necessary to rank up and farm.
But it's an accurate description of the game situation today unfortunately..
Blame the game, not the players. Obsolete game mechanics (Legends, TP) in combination with never-ending ''new'' ways to spend gold (or cc) on Packs, Spins, very often ''promotions' or whatever is in fashion,' incentivize the rational utilisation of these same broken game mechanics (TWs) to sustain them. It's not a discussion about how some 1-2% take all the gold or comparative advantages, but structural failure in the system - which is not deemed a failure by those having assets in eRepublik, of course.
I fully agree that the majority of the blame should fall on the terrible, short-sighted game design. But this is the hand we're dealt, it sucks but we still need to make the most of it. In fact the only way I see we can pressure eRep Labs into change would be if the Maverick Pack and the Infantry Kit became economically unviable (due to fewer battles) for tanks to buy, which could make at least a dent in the company's bottom line.
Good article
I agree in that many players play the game differently, but neither sides play should be imposed nor impose on the others game or you get rough waters, like now. That is where the conflict lies ..
I need a few more Legend Ranks
"Div 4 BH hunters/Low Div Hit Merchants taking 99% of low div BHs"
I think most of the ills of TWs can be found here, the constant denial of new and low level players getting BHs does exist and it is a problem.Though I will say that low level players can get BHs if they persist, I just got a BH in South Dakota div 2, I consider myself low level but others may disagree.
I do agree with the premise of TWs though, indeed they provide activity and the ability for players to hone their skills and stats. Medals are only part of the equation, adding rank points is important as well.
Having said that, TWs are supposed to be preparation for the real thing, that aspect needs development.
This a a fairly good informative article, however I don't agree with the conclusion. TW's are not the root of all evil, it is the game itself based on individuality and high ranked fighters being able to fight in low divisions. TW's have some negative aspects, but most of it could be resolved by good informative actions to inform new players and social programs to help them.
The positive aspect besides the heavy fighters giving a lot of BH's is that it keeps me a bit active. I like to try to support as much RW's possible. Finding out places and times and becoming the first to support a RW is fun for me. I also like to get a lot of FF's. Without these incentives I would have left this game already.
I'd say the game isn't based on individuality, it's more an experiment in cooperation to maximise individual's collective enjoyment but we can disagree on that. Getting RH and FF medals can indeed be fun, but their value also diminishes when getting them is made trivial and easy.
The game was original based on cooperation. Now I think it is based on the players who buy a lot of packs. For these packs being lucrative you need tot win a lot of medals. The other players are marginal for the admins ... In these bad circumstances we must find our way or stop playing I think. However being optimistic like you are is the best, nut I lost that long time ago.
Great article!
I agree with everything. For us "small" players this game is becoming boring. If we are not tanks, we should at least enjoy in other aspects of the game like political or economic module. But "the elite" obviously don't allow us even that. Why wouldn't there be different parties with different ideologies, programs. Why wouldn't there be players involved?
vote, sub + share
in real wars you have to spend your resources, economy can collapse because factories not work, imagine your country is deleted for months.. boring.. ?
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Another great article.
The game owners decided long ago to shift from a model that required people to work together to achieve things on the battleground, to a more simplistic individualistic model where a single person with enough cash could make a massive impact. Couple that with the simplification/destruction of the solely player driven economy and you have our current situation.
You forget one very important aspect of the TWs: MPPs are useless nowadays. Nobody, especially leg players, will fight in MPP ground battles, as leg bonus gives you only additional damage if you fight for your own country. So instead of fighting for your allies in MPP battles your country will help your allies with a direct attack on the ally´s enemy. And in this context the TWs are very important as offensive and as defensive measures: you can reach borders going through regions occupied by your allies using your TWs, and you can cut borders when needed in the same way.
You probably remember the recent Serbian airstrike into US regions. Without the TWs on US soil it wouldn´t have been posible to kick Serbian that quick from your cores. Thanks to the TWs we could enclose Serbia and the Serbs weren´t able to move anywhere.