Some suggestion from an oldie :)
Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:55 am
Let me start off with apoligizing if this post becomes to long, but i have alot to tell. Seeing the game evolve over the last 5 years, i think i can add some feedback and i hope for alot of replies, no necessarily agreeing, but to welcome discussion among SGW players.
I wondered where i would put this post, because it is more then simply a game suggestion. Lets hope it will get some attention in here.
I put the 2 current issues in spoilers to avoid wall of text. Im gonna add more sections later, if it is not to dead out here.
Market problems
[spoiler]Alright, so the first new feature i saw was the free turns, in exchange for MT. I loved it at first, but then after a few days started to see some flaws, let me explain.
Why would anyone ever want to buy a PPT. Regardless of income, the 2600 turns would always be the best choice. If you spent half an hour farming you would get 10.4trill naq from them (based on 60bill avg, wich is imo still a low example.) Now if you would buy a PPT, it would cost you approx 2 trill naq (Dont take this literally, i have no clue what the going currency for PPT is atm.) Wich makes the grand total 12.4trill naq. Divide this by 96 and you will end up with an amazing 129bill per turn. Now i know some ppl have more income then this, but you should also know that this is purely based on somebody who is NEVER gonna be able to bank his own naq. Banking half your naq is not unreasonable, and that makes it a 260bill turn income to even compete with the free AT over taking a PPT. And that is without the loss of any farming done in those 2 days ofcourse.
Another problem with the free AT is (Besides a much lower active playerbase) that the market is dried up. And lack of AT on the player market, is creating boredom amongst farmers/raiders.
Im not particurlarly against the black market. Admin needs some money to keep fuelling the game, and that is understandable. Competing without it is still viable, so i will leave it at that.
I have another issue with the UU player market, but i will describe it in detail, in the cap section.[/spoiler]
My solution,
[spoiler]First of all remove the free AT, even though i love them i think they need to go. Give people the chance to sell their MT again, or use their own MT for AT and sell the AT for a profit.
This will stimulate the player market, and also stimulate people to come on the forum, and socialize. Another aspect wich went downhill.
Another good solution would be to add another free AT option for MT, wich gives less turns, but they would be tradeable.
I think we need to go back to the model where to get further in the game some socializing is needed. Ofcourse for some aspects this is still very helpfull (Joining alliances) but its mad someone can raid their way to the raid cap without ever buying a single AT. (At 50k per 15 AT this just takes 8-9 weeks purely on the free MT)[/spoiler]
In the end this mostly comes from my personal feelings. Ive been back now for 2 weeks, and im starting to lose interest in playing already. Simply because i cannot enjoy what i like most at the time i want to do it (Raiding) Not only because the AT market is pretty much dead, also the UU market is not very lifely. More about this down here.
Cap limits
[spoiler]So i have done some quick math on the current caps etc. And imo they are out of sync and is also 1 of the problems creating a dead market and a player base that is not interested long enough.
4 years ago you raided 500 per 15 turns to get a small profit, and the raiding cap was set at 50mill. Since then the raiding went up to some 50k per 15 turns and the raid limit is increased to 450mill.
So the cap was increased 9 fold, but the raiding was increased 100 fold. Wich means these days it is 11 times easier to raid to the cap then it was 3 years ago.
Now some might say these numbers are meaningless, because they might not raid or for some other reason. But it is one of the few things that was quite hard to achieve. It also means losing half your army size while being at the cap ( 37.5mill vs 225mill) was 10 times harder to re raid, then it is currently. That is 1 of the reasons war is not as fun as it used to be, losing 30mill UU really hurt, and you knew it was gonna be a pain to get that back. ( And before you think you would buy it back, none even had the bankspace to buy this kind of UU.)
My point is, it kept the wars fun, armies lost hurt alot more then currently the case. And even though the cap was very small, it was alot more fun.
I used the raiding cap as an example, but other caps are just as much in need of an update. Just sitting and banking is NOT fun.[/spoiler]
My solution:
[spoiler]It hard to come up with an easy quick fix for this. But the limits need to go up. According to the sync, raid limit should currently be at 5bill army. You can either divide everything by 10, 20 or w/e suits and keep the current caps. Or make the cap 5bill. Either way it will improve the game substantially. Raiding to 450mill currently is not an achievement, and with the dead market you can only just sit there and grow and bank your income. With the occasional war, wich will cost nothing, since uu is pretty much as cheap as water from the tap.[/spoiler]
I wondered where i would put this post, because it is more then simply a game suggestion. Lets hope it will get some attention in here.
I put the 2 current issues in spoilers to avoid wall of text. Im gonna add more sections later, if it is not to dead out here.
Market problems
[spoiler]Alright, so the first new feature i saw was the free turns, in exchange for MT. I loved it at first, but then after a few days started to see some flaws, let me explain.
Why would anyone ever want to buy a PPT. Regardless of income, the 2600 turns would always be the best choice. If you spent half an hour farming you would get 10.4trill naq from them (based on 60bill avg, wich is imo still a low example.) Now if you would buy a PPT, it would cost you approx 2 trill naq (Dont take this literally, i have no clue what the going currency for PPT is atm.) Wich makes the grand total 12.4trill naq. Divide this by 96 and you will end up with an amazing 129bill per turn. Now i know some ppl have more income then this, but you should also know that this is purely based on somebody who is NEVER gonna be able to bank his own naq. Banking half your naq is not unreasonable, and that makes it a 260bill turn income to even compete with the free AT over taking a PPT. And that is without the loss of any farming done in those 2 days ofcourse.
Another problem with the free AT is (Besides a much lower active playerbase) that the market is dried up. And lack of AT on the player market, is creating boredom amongst farmers/raiders.
Im not particurlarly against the black market. Admin needs some money to keep fuelling the game, and that is understandable. Competing without it is still viable, so i will leave it at that.
I have another issue with the UU player market, but i will describe it in detail, in the cap section.[/spoiler]
My solution,
[spoiler]First of all remove the free AT, even though i love them i think they need to go. Give people the chance to sell their MT again, or use their own MT for AT and sell the AT for a profit.
This will stimulate the player market, and also stimulate people to come on the forum, and socialize. Another aspect wich went downhill.
Another good solution would be to add another free AT option for MT, wich gives less turns, but they would be tradeable.
I think we need to go back to the model where to get further in the game some socializing is needed. Ofcourse for some aspects this is still very helpfull (Joining alliances) but its mad someone can raid their way to the raid cap without ever buying a single AT. (At 50k per 15 AT this just takes 8-9 weeks purely on the free MT)[/spoiler]
In the end this mostly comes from my personal feelings. Ive been back now for 2 weeks, and im starting to lose interest in playing already. Simply because i cannot enjoy what i like most at the time i want to do it (Raiding) Not only because the AT market is pretty much dead, also the UU market is not very lifely. More about this down here.
Cap limits
[spoiler]So i have done some quick math on the current caps etc. And imo they are out of sync and is also 1 of the problems creating a dead market and a player base that is not interested long enough.
4 years ago you raided 500 per 15 turns to get a small profit, and the raiding cap was set at 50mill. Since then the raiding went up to some 50k per 15 turns and the raid limit is increased to 450mill.
So the cap was increased 9 fold, but the raiding was increased 100 fold. Wich means these days it is 11 times easier to raid to the cap then it was 3 years ago.
Now some might say these numbers are meaningless, because they might not raid or for some other reason. But it is one of the few things that was quite hard to achieve. It also means losing half your army size while being at the cap ( 37.5mill vs 225mill) was 10 times harder to re raid, then it is currently. That is 1 of the reasons war is not as fun as it used to be, losing 30mill UU really hurt, and you knew it was gonna be a pain to get that back. ( And before you think you would buy it back, none even had the bankspace to buy this kind of UU.)
My point is, it kept the wars fun, armies lost hurt alot more then currently the case. And even though the cap was very small, it was alot more fun.
I used the raiding cap as an example, but other caps are just as much in need of an update. Just sitting and banking is NOT fun.[/spoiler]
My solution:
[spoiler]It hard to come up with an easy quick fix for this. But the limits need to go up. According to the sync, raid limit should currently be at 5bill army. You can either divide everything by 10, 20 or w/e suits and keep the current caps. Or make the cap 5bill. Either way it will improve the game substantially. Raiding to 450mill currently is not an achievement, and with the dead market you can only just sit there and grow and bank your income. With the occasional war, wich will cost nothing, since uu is pretty much as cheap as water from the tap.[/spoiler]