How to fix the broken game-play philosophy

[731698]

Dear Ricardo and members of KOC community;

After some period of playing this game, I arrived to the conclusion:

• This is very nice game
• The game play philosophy is broken and need to be fixed.

I start with assumption that the ultimate goal in the game is: be the strongest alliance in the game world .
Second assumption is: The strongest alliance is defined alliances might score board.

We can discuss this assumption, but this is not the main idea of my message.

Now, the problems I see:

• The wall is very nice thing to protect the city from the random attacks, but wall might distorts the might score at leaders board -> as a result, leading alliances don't have any wall defence at all.
• The possibility to hide troops is inevitable in the game, otherwise, low level players can never become strong ones -> but the alliance wars become a long and boring process of "empty" strikes and rare catches of an unhidden player, that leads to frustration and fatigue at the end.

And finally how to fix it:

• Make the wall defence counts as ZERO might, this removes the might distortion and allows to use the wall defence benefits
• Create a new concept (totally different from the Hostile alliance) in the game: possibility to "Declare a WAR" to another alliance, this declaration should be approved by the opposite alliance
• The fact of mutual war declaration between two alliances grants that hidden troops will defend automatically vs. the player of alliance at war, but stay still hidden from attacks of other players.
• The incoming attacks from the players at war are published at the alliances reports, with the time when the attack will land.
• The war can be end by any alliance in the war, or when the might of the one alliance becomes lower than a specified threshold (for example, 10% of initial might)
• Any player can avoid the war by quitting the alliance at war.

The benefits:

• Wall defence, if not counting in the score board, will become an additional and useful defensive utility.
• "WAR" concept with mutual accord will allow having a very intensive and interesting fights between alliances, and keeping the possibility to hide the troops from the occasional raiders or when you was defeated and reconstructing.
• "Attack incoming" reports during the WAR allows to defend an ally even he's not online, reinforcement as a tactic will become much more useful.

Besides the supplementary work for the programmers, I don't see any drawback in this suggestion, instead, the Battle for the North becomes the real battle of alliances, players will, force, and determination.

Ricardo, if you have some time, please out your "10 cents" into discussion, I greatly appreciate this.

Regards,
Grim

[bydxwjrlyuc]

Dear Ricardo and members of KOC community;

After some period of playing this game, I arrived to the conclusion:

• This is very nice game
• The game play philosophy is broken and need to be fixed.

I start with assumption that the ultimate goal in the game is: be the strongest alliance in the game world .
Second assumption is: The strongest alliance is defined alliances might score board.

We can discuss this assumption, but this is not the main idea of my message.

Now, the problems I see:

• The wall is very nice thing to protect the city from the random attacks, but wall might distorts the might score at leaders board -> as a result, leading alliances don't have any wall defence at all.
• The possibility to hide troops is inevitable in the game, otherwise, low level players can never become strong ones -> but the alliance wars become a long and boring process of "empty" strikes and rare catches of an unhidden player, that leads to frustration and fatigue at the end.

And finally how to fix it:

• Make the wall defence counts as ZERO might, this removes the might distortion and allows to use the wall defence benefits
• Create a new concept (totally different from the Hostile alliance) in the game: possibility to "Declare a WAR" to another alliance, this declaration should be approved by the opposite alliance
• The fact of mutual war declaration between two alliances grants that hidden troops will defend automatically vs. the player of alliance at war, but stay still hidden from attacks of other players.
• The incoming attacks from the players at war are published at the alliances reports, with the time when the attack will land.
• The war can be end by any alliance in the war, or when the might of the one alliance becomes lower than a specified threshold (for example, 10% of initial might)
• Any player can avoid the war by quitting the alliance at war.

The benefits:

• Wall defence, if not counting in the score board, will become an additional and useful defensive utility.
• "WAR" concept with mutual accord will allow having a very intensive and interesting fights between alliances, and keeping the possibility to hide the troops from the occasional raiders or when you was defeated and reconstructing.
• "Attack incoming" reports during the WAR allows to defend an ally even he's not online, reinforcement as a tactic will become much more useful.

Besides the supplementary work for the programmers, I don't see any drawback in this suggestion, instead, the Battle for the North becomes the real battle of alliances, players will, force, and determination.

Ricardo, if you have some time, please out your "10 cents" into discussion, I greatly appreciate this.

Regards,
Grim

Firstly I don't agree with making wall defenses zero might. The entire might system needs fixing and zeroing wall might is not the way to do it. The might value between troop tiers is busted as well. Currently tier 1 troops are twice as strong as their might indicates. Any fix Kabam introduces that lowers might overall will be met with protests. They tried to do this with the release of v4 and had to go back to the old system due to the amount of complaints they received. One fix that will result in accurate might representation and not result in lowered might for players is:

Supply (all tiers): 0
Tier 1 (troops or wall except supply types): 8
Tier 2: 16
Tier 3: 32

I think your system will lead to less wars and not more. People refuse to defend as it is. I can't see why they would accept a war declaration that forces them to defend. Not that I would dislike seeing it implemented but I can't see it working.

Your concept of having mutually accepted war is a good one. It is something we already do as an agreement between the bored top alliances.

[oohelilipil]

Dear Ricardo and members of KOC community;

After some period of playing this game, I arrived to the conclusion:

• This is very nice game
• The game play philosophy is broken and need to be fixed.

I start with assumption that the ultimate goal in the game is: be the strongest alliance in the game world .
Second assumption is: The strongest alliance is defined alliances might score board.

We can discuss this assumption, but this is not the main idea of my message.

Now, the problems I see:

• The wall is very nice thing to protect the city from the random attacks, but wall might distorts the might score at leaders board -> as a result, leading alliances don't have any wall defence at all.
• The possibility to hide troops is inevitable in the game, otherwise, low level players can never become strong ones -> but the alliance wars become a long and boring process of "empty" strikes and rare catches of an unhidden player, that leads to frustration and fatigue at the end.

And finally how to fix it:

• Make the wall defence counts as ZERO might(excellent idea), this removes the might distortion and allows to use the wall defence benefits
• Create a new concept (totally different from the Hostile alliance) in the game: possibility to "Declare a WAR" to another alliance, this declaration should be approved by the opposite allianceb(both chancellors would need to agree to this
  and perhaps also designate on "when the war starts to give members time to train troops")
  
• The fact of mutual war declaration between two alliances grants that hidden troops will defend automatically vs. the player of alliance at war, but stay still hidden from attacks of other players outside of the two alliamces).
• The incoming attacks from the players at war are published at the alliances reports, with the time when the attack will land.
• The war can be end by any alliance in the war, or when the might of the one alliance becomes lower than a specified threshold (for example, 10% of initial mightor as specified by both chancellors)
• Any player can avoid the war by quitting the alliance at war.yes )

The benefits:

• Wall defence, if not counting in the score board, will become an additional and useful defensive utility.
• "WAR" concept with mutual accord will allow having a very intensive and interesting fights between alliances, and keeping the possibility to hide the troops from the occasional raiders or when you was defeated and reconstructing.
• "Attack incoming" reports during the WAR allows to defend an ally even he's not online, reinforcement as a tactic will become much more useful.

Besides the supplementary work for the programmers, I don't see any drawback in this suggestion, instead, the Battle for the North becomes the real battle of alliances, players will, force, and determination.

Ricardo, if you have some time, please out your "10 cents" into discussion, I greatly appreciate this.

Regards,
Grim

yes make wall defenses be 0 might.

both chancellors need to agree on declaring war and designate thepercentage of might loss from initialmight) for example alliance A started at one million might alliance B started at two million might the designated might loss 50% so the war will end when either alliance Adrops to 500k one million might or alliance B drops to one million might)
million / billion all relative.

this should give the alliance with the most might an advantage over the other.

[oohelilipil]

yes make wall defenses be 0 might.

both chancellors need to agree on declaring war and designate thepercentage of might loss from initialmight) for example alliance A started at one million might alliance B started at two million might the designated might loss 50% so the war will end when either alliance Adrops to 500k one million might or alliance B drops to one million might)
million / billion all relative.

this should give the alliance with the most might an advantage over the other.

additionally only the members in each alliance will be part of the war. all other players cannot help.


both chancellors could make peace outside of the victory conditions.

[bydxwjrlyuc]

This is a pointless system. Every alliance that actually fights already does this anyway. Every alliance that doesn't fight will never agree to the war declaration. This system will do nothing to fix the problems in this game and only makes a system that is already being used 'official'.

Besides that this will require a huge amount of reprogramming on Kabams part. Just changing it so players will appear as unhidden to hostile alliances only is huge and will result in a massive increase in server load.

[yznzgwo]

Hi Runey, thanks for your comment.

Firstly I don't agree with making wall defenses zero might. The entire might system needs fixing and zeroing wall might is not the way to do it. The might value between troop tiers is busted as well.

I'm not arguing about the correctness of the might system. It could be far from perfect but it's what we have now and it works in some way. But, having the wall might impacts the total might score, and the fact that this might very easy to kill, pushes the top alliances not to use the wall at all. And this situation I propose to fix with 0 might.

I think your system will lead to less wars and not more. People refuse to defend as it is. I can't see why they would accept a war declaration that forces them to defend. Not that I would dislike seeing it implemented but I can't see it working.

I suggest to add another form of war, not to remove existent one. So I don't see how we can obtain less wars than now. But we need a way to deal with troops hiding without to remove it completely (this is a chance to gain might in the hostile environment).
So mutual accepted war without a hidden troops gives the opportunity to challenge world leader alliance or strong concurrent without a exhausting, long, and boring war, which noone knows how to end.

What's at your opinion the ultimate goal of the game? And do you see a clear way to attain it?
Thanks,
Grim

[bydxwjrlyuc]

Hi Runey, thanks for your comment.

I'm not arguing about the correctness of the might system. It could be far from perfect but it's what we have now and it works in some way. But, having the wall might impacts the total might score, and the fact that this might very easy to kill, pushes the top alliances not to use the wall at all. And this situation I propose to fix with 0 might.


I suggest to add another form of war, not to remove existent one. So I don't see how we can obtain less wars than now. But we need a way to deal with troops hiding without to remove it completely (this is a chance to gain might in the hostile environment).
So mutual accepted war without a hidden troops gives the opportunity to challenge world leader alliance or strong concurrent without a exhausting, long, and boring war, which noone knows how to end.

What's at your opinion the ultimate goal of the game? And do you see a clear way to attain it?
Thanks,
Grim

Sorry if I seemed argumentative. I'm just old and cranky lol I totally agree that something needs to be done about troops being hidden indefinitely. There are a number of threads with suggestions on how to solve this. I've played a great many games of this style. They all have there pros and cons. Kabam typically use a model that favors the casual player by not having troop desertion, allowing the hiding of troops with no way to force them out and not allowing player cities to be taken. Valor goes the exact opposite and forces troops to defend all the time and allows cities to be taken until you have to start from the beginning again. Evony seems to take the middle ground. It allows you to hide troops but provides a method of forcing them out. It allows player cities to be taken but lets you keep one so you don't have to start from the beginning. There are many other models out there.

Personally I like many aspects of both the Kabam and Evony models.

1) I like no troop desertion. I often get busy at work and that prevents me from logging on. With no troop desertion I can at least pick up from where I left off rather than coming back to a significantly reduced army.
2) I like the way Evony forces troops out from hiding. By being repeatedly attacked your happiness drops. When happiness reaches zero your troops are forced out to defend. The closer you get to zero happiness the harder it is for the attacker to drop your happiness. So it takes times and many many attacks to force the troops out. This gives the defender time to do something about the attacks. It also gives a good alliance time to reinforce someone to prevent the city from falling. They also allow a player to go into holiday mode for days or even weeks. Once set it can't be removed until the time expires. This prevents people abusing it to keep themselves safe but allows people to take time off without the fear of losing everything. When in holiday mode you cannot build, train, research. All production halts and you cannot attack or be attacked. Basically the only thing you can do is chat.
3) I like the city capture method of Valor (well mostly). Siege engines can be used to actually demolish buildings and walls. Special troop types, which are expensive and slow to make, are needed to actually take the city.

These games don't really revolve around an ultimate goal. They are designed to be pretty much endless. However I would say my personal goal is to actually kill troops. As long as I can fight and kill others people troops then I'm happy. If I'm hitting empty walls then I'm bored stupid and it is pointless playing. Other people have different goals, eg highest might or highest kill rate. The game needs to allows multiple goals and multiple play styles. So in that regard there is no easy answer. What I really want to see is a balanced way to force troops out of hiding that still allows the casual player to take some time off. My preference is a combination of Evony and Valor. Siege engines are used to actually physically knock down walls. Once the wall is gone then troops must come out and fight. Siege engines are ineffective if wall defences are in place. They are slow and get picked off easily. That means if you want to stop siege engines getting to your city you need to build wall defences. If you want to force troops out of a city you need to destroy those wall defences first. If you want to stop someone easily destroying your wall defences then you need actually unhide your troops. When people have a risk of actually losing something then they will start to fight.

One of the reasons people are not willing to fight though is because of the horrible battle mechanic in this game. There is very little strategy involved. Generally it is simply a matter of overpowering your opponent. This is mostly because the game does not have range or battle field. All troops are dropped into a sack and duke it out. If Kabam want people to fight then they need to fix the battle mechanic and open up the strategic side of this game. When that is done smaller players can help take down larger players effectively. Right now smaller players don't want to send their troops because they lose everything and do little damage. I can understand their hesitation. All that work down the toilet to barely scratch an opponent. With range and a field of battle smaller players can effectively work together by sending the right combination of troops. Once this is possible you will start seeing more attacks happening in the game.

I actually like your suggestion. Like I said the big alliances tend to do this already. At least in my world they do. People still complain that there isn't enough fighting though and that is because they don't want to throw wave after wave at some guy defending with several million troops (like I am). Though I have been zeroed a couple times So whilst I like it I don't think it will fix the problem. It just makes an unofficial system that is already being used official. The people who are afraid to lose their might, and therefore dont fight, just wont accept the war declaration. So you remain in a stalemate anyway. The people who are willing to fight will do so regardless.

Anyway sorry I've rambled long enough lol

[yznzgwo]

Hi Runey, and thanks for such extended reply, I appreciate it!

The game needs to allows multiple goals and multiple play styles. So in that regard there is no easy answer.

I would agree in the whole, we are all different with different play styles. Personally, I like in this game such mix of economy development and military alignment, also team work is also very attractive for me and this game offers me it. But trying to see forward, when all researches will be done, economy boosted maximally, what will keep me playing? For me answer is team play, i.e. a war.

So whilst I like it I don't think it will fix the problem. It just makes an unofficial system that is already being used official. The people who are afraid to lose their might, and therefore dont fight, just wont accept the war declaration. So you remain in a stalemate anyway. The people who are willing to fight will do so regardless.

Seeing from this perspective, you are right, probably it will not change a gameplay much, but at least we can officially call the people who are afraid to fight "cowards" in global, lol.

I'm relatively new in this game, but I like the idea, and think that it has a great potential to become a great MMO game. But for this, the end level game philosophy should be re-thinked and changed. The real challenge is to mix the two things :
- a possibility to grow from tiny to strong without being erased at when you have no chances to win
- and a chance to reach your enemy when you really really want to, regardless the price

IMO, without having a fun at the high levels of the game, without a goal at the end, the game will struggle to keep players from leaving.

Thanks, runey for discussion, It helped me to understand where the real problem is.
Hope the Kabam guys (hello Riccardo ) read this thread and will do something about it in the future.

Cheers,
Grim.

[bydxwjrlyuc]

Team play is my main reason for hanging around as well. Unfortunately people leaving as the game progresses is very common with this style of game. I left Dragons of Atlantis, another Kabam game, because there was no way to force troops out and no one would fight any more. There were so few active players left on the world and most of those were just there to chat. So it became boring and I left. I left Valor because I lost all of my cities. I went on holidays and when I got back all 50 of my cities had been taken over and I had to start from the beginning again. I left Evony because of troop desertion. In order to stay as one of the top players you had to farm for food 24/7. When a game starts interfering with your sleep because you wake up in the middle of the night and realise you don't have enough food then it is time to move on LOL

If Kabam can find a balance between these issues then they are on a winner and I can see me playing this game for the long haul. As it is the game is already boring and I'm only hanging around because I'm enjoying trying to crack the battle mechanic Actually fighting is simplistic and easy. Whoever can train troops the fastest wins. So that means either the person with the best build or the most money ultimately wins any fight.

Hopefully Kabam do listen and try to find the right balance. No doubt they will get it wrong at times but if they continue to listen and tweak the game, to the benefit of the players, then they will create a long term user base. Unfortunately given the CEOs comment 'It's not how many users you have, it's how much they spend' I don't hold out a huge amount of hope. Having said that the development team here does listen more than the dev team for Dragons of Atlantis. So who knows maybe we are in with a chance

[vflkzlb]

Can I PLEASE get some people to agree with me on this --- No flipping wilds!!!!

They should make it to where you can't attack other peoples wilds at all or you can not abandon them right when you take them over or have the troops that you fought to take it over fight when someone attacks... Getting hit with 1 supply cart is getting my alliance stressed. We are rank one so no one will actually fight us, but we have 2 alliances just taking wilds and hiding troops. It's VERY unfair.

[vflkzlb]

Team play is my main reason for hanging around as well. Unfortunately people leaving as the game progresses is very common with this style of game. I left Dragons of Atlantis, another Kabam game, because there was no way to force troops out and no one would fight any more. There were so few active players left on the world and most of those were just there to chat. So it became boring and I left. I left Valor because I lost all of my cities. I went on holidays and when I got back all 50 of my cities had been taken over and I had to start from the beginning again. I left Evony because of troop desertion. In order to stay as one of the top players you had to farm for food 24/7. When a game starts interfering with your sleep because you wake up in the middle of the night and realise you don't have enough food then it is time to move on LOL

If Kabam can find a balance between these issues then they are on a winner and I can see me playing this game for the long haul. As it is the game is already boring and I'm only hanging around because I'm enjoying trying to crack the battle mechanic Actually fighting is simplistic and easy. Whoever can train troops the fastest wins. So that means either the person with the best build or the most money ultimately wins any fight.

Hopefully Kabam do listen and try to find the right balance. No doubt they will get it wrong at times but if they continue to listen and tweak the game, to the benefit of the players, then they will create a long term user base. Unfortunately given the CEOs comment 'It's not how many users you have, it's how much they spend' I don't hold out a huge amount of hope. Having said that the development team here does listen more than the dev team for Dragons of Atlantis. So who knows maybe we are in with a chance

And yes I was disappointed when I read that. That is one PATHETIC CEO.

[yznzgwo]

Can I PLEASE get some people to agree with me on this --- No flipping wilds!!!!

They should make it to where you can't attack other peoples wilds at all or you can not abandon them right when you take them over or have the troops that you fought to take it over fight when someone attacks... Getting hit with 1 supply cart is getting my alliance stressed. We are rank one so no one will actually fight us, but we have 2 alliances just taking wilds and hiding troops. It's VERY unfair.

Agree, this is rather boring issue. I see several ways to fix it without doing a big impact on the rest of the game.
First one is, just let the wild regain troops, even it is not "wild" anymore
Second one is possibility to reassign troops to the wild, like to the other city. To simplify, let's make that reassigned troops don't need feeding and can not be reassigned back.

Any of this will stop the wilds flip.

[jedfsad]

The wild regaining troops is an excellent idea and it would absolutely deter wild flippers.

I pointed out some other ideas earlier that would hinder the ability but not stop it altogether if this is one aspect of game play Kabam wants to employ:
1. Remove the blue and red flags from wilds so that they are harder to spot
2. Allow cities to "reassign" troops to the wild instead of "reinforce" thereby freeing up the rally point for transports and attacks