Thoughts

[Tupac]

It has been a long time......

Some thoughts about the game in its current state. I have really enjoyed this makeover, and having a chance to play. Below are some thoughts I've had while playing. I've seen it on both sides of the equation.

MP Limitation
I think this is going to be a downfall in your pocket, and to the state of the game. Once you gain control you really will have no worries if you can climb into power with this limitation. Once orbs are held and defenses are laid down a team, or even a single player has extreme difficultly taking an orb. For example we fought KillEmAll for the fire orb a total of 4 times prior to this limitation. I'm sure you can see we spent over $200 on 3 of those fire fights. We spent almost 2 million MP and a little over 28000 credits in those 3 fights (between MP, Temps, Defenses(Auto Build)). We never took the orb completely. It really doesn't matter how much you spend it doesn't give a large advantage. MP does get to a point that its outrageously priced anyway, and we will refuse to buy it at that point. Smaller nations will get knocked down because they don't require as much MP per attack, therefore the top stay at the top. My question to you is how are you going to balance out the MP with defenses? Also how are you going to level out the MP points taken away per attack?

Defenses
I believe some balance here needs to be achieved the most. I really think Geo should modify how the defenses respond. I also feel that it should be a limited number of defenses per square area based on either tech or level. It will level the playing ground a lot. If you are going to keep the defenses how they are now. I suggest changing some of them to higher pricing for limit availability.

Noobland
I also think defenses shouldn't be accessible to nations between the level of 1 to 30. This will give the new players time to adjust, allow them to take orbs, prevent veteran player domination at that level, and give a tremendous growth in new players.

Resources
Resources are a large part of what empower you in WOC. I have a few suggestions. Resources expire and move around after x amount of time. This would really level the playing field, and randomly time each one out of a pool of say (3 Hours, 6 Hours, 12 Hours, 1 day, 3 days, 7 Days). If this can't be achieved I believe that they should at least burn x amount of MP per hour. It takes something to manage and use resources some of manpower or energy. This would also cause energy resources to be more powerful instead of just defenses. I also think that after a +10% overage of resources should begin to create a negative impact on your stats. That will prevent players from overstocking, and will prevent anyone from staying overpowered. Its hard no matter how much MP you buy or how many temps you have running to take down a nation that is overstocked without long hours, and tons of money.

High Level Nations
I think at the high level of nations it becomes stale. You run out of things to do. You can't go for the level race or your stuck against the far side of the map, and can't collect resources to be able to take an orb! I do have a question here. What happens if you out level the barrier? One more question does the barrier every stop?

Events
I'm sure that this has already been suggested in some form or fashion. I am thinking about XP Events, Orb Taking Events, Resource Taking Events, and Checker Events. I'm not sure how this would exactly work, but if you rotated these alot it would keep player interest, and stability. For XP events say for a weekend you allow level 1-50 get quadruple xp, 50-100 triple xp, 100+ double. I know the complaint will be seeds, but you got to give these new guys something to power up to face the guys who have shaped this game. For Orb and Resource taking event say for every orb you take that weekend you get 1000 XP for a noon, 5000 xp for a shad, 10000 xp for a dest, and 25000 xp for fire. This would encourage more orb fighting I believe. Checker events I'm not sure how to run them, but it could be a picture contest where you pick the best screenshot of a checker (that isn't obscene). Winner gets x amount of free creds.

Moving (aka Walking)
I believe that walking should even burn MP. Atleast 1 per tile moved.

Natural Disasters
I think this could be a big balance to the game also. Weather events and crazy things happen like a comet crashing into the earth. I think these should randomly happen all over the map especially around the orbs. It will help knock things out of balance and cause shakeups. I would even like to think of resources drying up in areas so nations are forced to move, or the top dogs of the game get thin on resources it will be cut throat, and allow smaller nations to come in behind the line and take orbs.

Subscription (I'm calling this hardcore mode )
I believe you should implement this for your hardcore players. Make it a map about the 1/4 of the size of the current map, no MP, no defenses, and all out clicking, and put fire right dead center in a big area. This will make it very interesting! I would be more than willing to pay for something like this. Even if it only has 3-5 players it would probably take away a few that are dominating in WOC currently.

Food for thought. I thought about all these as either ways to stop myself, or other players that I watch taking advantage of game play mechanics. WOC needs to be more dynamic, and less static. Once the veteran players find everything its over with. You have to throw a curve ball at some point to allow others to climb. I by far take advantage of what's available to me in game play. So I thought these would be ways to create shake ups constantly through the game, and give everyone a better chance.

Thanks,
The Infamous Tupac

[Mike]

Thanks for the very well thought out post. Here are some comments.

MP Limitation
I think this is going to be a downfall in your pocket, and to the state of the game. Once you gain control you really will have no worries if you can climb into power with this limitation. Once orbs are held and defenses are laid down a team, or even a single player has extreme difficultly taking an orb. For example we fought KillEmAll for the fire orb a total of 4 times prior to this limitation. I'm sure you can see we spent over $200 on 3 of those fire fights. We spent almost 2 million MP and a little over 28000 credits in those 3 fights (between MP, Temps, Defenses(Auto Build)). We never took the orb completely. It really doesn't matter how much you spend it doesn't give a large advantage. MP does get to a point that its outrageously priced anyway, and we will refuse to buy it at that point. Smaller nations will get knocked down because they don't require as much MP per attack, therefore the top stay at the top. My question to you is how are you going to balance out the MP with defenses? Also how are you going to level out the MP points taken away per attack?

Defenses
I believe some balance here needs to be achieved the most. I really think Geo should modify how the defenses respond. I also feel that it should be a limited number of defenses per square area based on either tech or level. It will level the playing ground a lot. If you are going to keep the defenses how they are now. I suggest changing some of them to higher pricing for limit availability.

By MP limitation, do you mean the limit on how much MP can be bought per day, that I added yesterday? That's intended to prevent players with a lot of money to spend from having too great an advantage over others. It only kicks in after 2 complete fill-ups worth.

I agree that defenses can be too strong right now, and so like you said, once a nation is set up with their defenses it can become almost impossible to dislodge them, even when using a large amount of MP. Ideally I'd like building and defeating defenses to be more a matter of strategy and cleverness than brute force and repetition.

Geo does have an effect on defenses, by slowing energy gen rate and once the nation runs out of energy some of their defenses go inert. But maybe geo's effect on defenses should be more direct. How about if geo < 100% directly determined how many defenses went inert -- geo of 90% meant that 10% of a nation's defenses went inert, and geo of 15% meant that 85% of defenses went inert? This would be a major change that could either be added in addition to the energy cost system, or replace it completely. I would think it should be in addition, and the energy cost system should remain, because energy cost is what makes some defenses cost more to maintain than others.

It would also be possible to make it so that certain defenses, or even all non-walls, could not be placed right next to other defenses, so there would have to be at least one empty space (or wall) between them. This would thin out defenses some.

The rules of how the defenses work could also be changed. For example I changed cannon/artillery/rocket so that they would only fire when an empty square in range of them was attacked. However, the result seems to be that players just stopped using those types of defenses and switched to others.

Finally yes, the energy cost of some defenses should be increased. Let me know which ones are the most powerful/overused these days and I will increase their costs.

Noobland
I also think defenses shouldn't be accessible to nations between the level of 1 to 30. This will give the new players time to adjust, allow them to take orbs, prevent veteran player domination at that level, and give a tremendous growth in new players.

I hope this would be unnecessary if we can find a good balance for defenses, so they aren't as unbeatable as they are now.

Resources
Resources are a large part of what empower you in WOC. I have a few suggestions. Resources expire and move around after x amount of time. This would really level the playing field, and randomly time each one out of a pool of say (3 Hours, 6 Hours, 12 Hours, 1 day, 3 days, 7 Days). If this can't be achieved I believe that they should at least burn x amount of MP per hour. It takes something to manage and use resources some of manpower or energy. This would also cause energy resources to be more powerful instead of just defenses. I also think that after a +10% overage of resources should begin to create a negative impact on your stats. That will prevent players from overstocking, and will prevent anyone from staying overpowered. Its hard no matter how much MP you buy or how many temps you have running to take down a nation that is overstocked without long hours, and tons of money.

I've brought up the idea of moving resources in the past, but a lot of people seemed to be against it. What do others think now?

So far I've been relying on geo efficiency to prevent nations from over-extending and taking too many resources. That hasn't been as effective as is needed, though. I'm wary of having resources take away from their stat instead of adding to it, if a nation has too much... because it seems counter-intuitive and difficult to communicate to players in a simple way. Something like an hourly manpower and/or energy cost per resource held might be worth a try, though.

High Level Nations
I think at the high level of nations it becomes stale. You run out of things to do. You can't go for the level race or your stuck against the far side of the map, and can't collect resources to be able to take an orb! I do have a question here. What happens if you out level the barrier? One more question does the barrier every stop?

More on this below, but to answer your questions: the barrier keeps moving east until level 300, where it reaches the right side of the map. It should be impossible to get anywhere near level 300 though, since the amount of XP per level keeps increasing exponentially.

Events
I'm sure that this has already been suggested in some form or fashion. I am thinking about XP Events, Orb Taking Events, Resource Taking Events, and Checker Events. I'm not sure how this would exactly work, but if you rotated these alot it would keep player interest, and stability. For XP events say for a weekend you allow level 1-50 get quadruple xp, 50-100 triple xp, 100+ double. I know the complaint will be seeds, but you got to give these new guys something to power up to face the guys who have shaped this game. For Orb and Resource taking event say for every orb you take that weekend you get 1000 XP for a noon, 5000 xp for a shad, 10000 xp for a dest, and 25000 xp for fire. This would encourage more orb fighting I believe. Checker events I'm not sure how to run them, but it could be a picture contest where you pick the best screenshot of a checker (that isn't obscene). Winner gets x amount of free creds.

What I've been thinking about doing lately is some kind of regular tournament event, where nations can opt-in and then score in that tournament based on how well they do against other nations in the tournament. The top nations then win prizes, and the next tournament begins.

A variety of occasional special events like you mention would also be possible.

Moving (aka Walking)
I believe that walking should even burn MP. Atleast 1 per tile moved.

Why?

Natural Disasters
I think this could be a big balance to the game also. Weather events and crazy things happen like a comet crashing into the earth. I think these should randomly happen all over the map especially around the orbs. It will help knock things out of balance and cause shakeups. I would even like to think of resources drying up in areas so nations are forced to move, or the top dogs of the game get thin on resources it will be cut throat, and allow smaller nations to come in behind the line and take orbs.

Again I would hope this would be less necessary once defenses can be balanced better. And it could be really disappointing to put a lot of effort into one's nation just to find it ruined in the morning by some random event. But some version of this may be a good idea eventually.

Subscription (I'm calling this hardcore mode )
I believe you should implement this for your hardcore players. Make it a map about the 1/4 of the size of the current map, no MP, no defenses, and all out clicking, and put fire right dead center in a big area. This will make it very interesting! I would be more than willing to pay for something like this. Even if it only has 3-5 players it would probably take away a few that are dominating in WOC currently.

Eventually I'd like to make multiple servers with different maps and rule variations.

Food for thought. I thought about all these as either ways to stop myself, or other players that I watch taking advantage of game play mechanics. WOC needs to be more dynamic, and less static. Once the veteran players find everything its over with. You have to throw a curve ball at some point to allow others to climb. I by far take advantage of what's available to me in game play. So I thought these would be ways to create shake ups constantly through the game, and give everyone a better chance.

Thanks again very much for the input!

[Tupac]

So I've pondered on this for a few days to reply....

MP
The reason I bring the MP issue up. I see your side of limiting players that spend, but its also a downfall. Do you think this should be level based? I mean a lower level team fighting a larger nation will run out of MP quickly, and this is another limitation designed for the bigger teams, but really is a downfall to a lower level team trying to achieve the same thing. 1-50 Can but 5-10 Times a day, 50-80, 5 times a day, 80-100, 3 times a day, and normal restrictions after 100.

Defenses
I do like your point of making it a strategy to defend. It is fun, and aggravating at the same time. Its exciting being the one executing the defense, but never on the receiving end, lol.

Great work with the geo hurting defenses. Does help alot with teams concerned with holding large amounts of "orbs", and not so much for hunting nations (These are what I call the guys that just knock everyone around). I think the non-walls placed right next to defenses is not a bad idea, but Ill let you decide that one.

I think the most overpowered defenses are the zoths. I think the time should be adjusted for faster gameplay, and will not discourage solo and new players. I feel like its crazy what they do, but a cool thing in the game, but I think they should go as follows:

Zoth 1 - 5mins
Zoth 2 - 10 mins
Zoth 3 - 15 mins

Maybe I'm wrong, but that is how I'm looking at it.

Nubland
After watching my brother's wife play it was discouraging. She had no prior WOC experience, but she did have in my eyes on of the best players teaching her. She spent hours tearing down all these defenses players have built around these orbs, gets to the orb, and levels out. I really think defenses should be removed from level 1-30. The game is a lot to grasp mechanically, and I feel like for large user base it should start later down the road to build a better foundation for the newbies. The reward of hard work on this game is the chance to hold "orbs", but these veteran players abusing it is unfair.

Resources
No player is going to like any of this happening. Its hard enough to establish yourself, and constantly defend attacks. Moving and/or timed resources will make gameplay interesting. Geo does make a big difference with the last few updates on balance. I can choose more resources, and less orbs, and less defenses.

Events - 1
I liked the new tournament stuff. I think you should release a youtube video on future tournaments so the rules are a little more clear.

Events - 2
World Tournament

I know the goal is to get this to steam. I think this needs to be established now. I think there should be a World Tournament for Players. Here is how this would work. The same rules apply for each, but your either play as a team or alone. So you can't have players upset either way. You get a world with only x amount of teams on it, very small map, and very chaotic. You have 5 days whoever either scores the most points, or makes the most credits takes home the gold. Then you get whatever crazy reward you would give for that, a custom logo, and maybe a trophy beside your name in chat like the fire orb. Some players will wait all year for that, and you will generate more competition.

State of Game
I see a lot of complaints currently across the board of domination, and being fair. My question for you as the game developer are you here to prevent domination, or are we catering to the average player? I'm assuming both.

The biggest problem is the lack of active players, and balance will return when we have more people to play against. We have 10-15 truly dedicated WOC players on average that I see. By this I mean that play a ridiculous amount of hours (This includes me )! The larger teams are preparing for this now. We know what a large influx of players it going to do. I'm all for it!

Here is my opinion on this. A lot of these teams don't put in the hours. Money doesn't really help you unless you play a lot, and stay dedicated. Money doesn't hold off enemy attacks. I run a very coordinated, and organized team. We run statistics on everything, and work formulas to improve our efficiency. I coordinate my players, and direct them in every direction I can to stay in the fight. Prior WOC experience has helped maximize this a lot.

Finally!

Everyone doesn't have time to do play a lot, and I'm very lucky I'm at a place in my life that I can for now. I understand that. I started this post prior to doing any domination, and I truly want leverage across the board. I have seen how new players fail, and discouraging factors for them. I think we need to start at he lowest levels of the game, because we need more players that want to play! They get overloaded at a low level, and feel as if they have no chance. Trust me I have had a few friends get interested in the game, and get highly discouraged quickly in the beginning stages to defenses, and lack of understanding of the game (this needs heavy work. I'm sure you could encourage players with free c's, rb, or xp for youtube tutorials to quickly build up information for the up and coming wave of players, and put a youtube video stream in the client for access? I suggest this big time! ). From a business perspective that is where I would start. I understand why your going after the dominating ones to keep business.

Thanks,
The Infamous Tupac

[Mike]

Thank you for all the thoughts!

I definitely agree that the new player experience needs to be improved. One thing I plan on doing before putting it on Steam is having a dedicated newbie area, like in old WoC, that vets can't get into. More in the way of info/tutorials will be necessary too.

As for defenses I'm hoping that with recent changes (geo making defenses go inert, 20% chance of fast crumble after capturing a defense) defenses will be less of the impenetrable obstacle than they were before. If necessary defenses could be held off completely during the first few levels... though I worry that without even cannons and walls for new players, the game might just seem too simple to keep players' interest.