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LordMarlock -

Newspaper from Croatia -

Improving the game: suggestions

Published in Croatia - First steps in eRevollution - 09 Nov 2018 13:19 - 17

Dear readers,

Here's my take on the upcoming journalist missions.

1. News writer – Gain 50 votes in one of your newspapers articles
2. Franz Kafka – Gain 200 votes in one of your newspapers articles

My intention is focused on the Admin's call for suggestions on how to improve the gameplay and game itself.

Regarding further advancement of the game, we already have many things planned for the future, but together with you, your suggestions and critics we can make ways for further improvement. Write us your suggestions about what would you like to see implemented
in the game, so maybe we can make such changes happen at mutual
pleasure.

So here we go...

1. Sustainability of Player Strenght Development

We all know how difficult it is to collect enough gold for TC upgrade. With every new level, the task is further frustrated by the exponential rise of gold requirement. Whereas 70g was a possible goal, especially if you were able to construct strategic bomb factories, thus enabling a more steady flow of gold through patriot, ally and resistance medals, the next level - 170g in just 20 days - will be an unreachable cornerstone for many players, at least as far as the early deadline is concerned.

Why is this an important issue? Even though the Admins reserve the right to earn money out of this
endeavor, and the players who purchase gold should be applauded for the effort in rewarding the Admins (to their and our benefit), the Admins should make a clear distinction between:

TC upgrade vs. basically everything else (companies upgrade, weapons and food purchase, etc.).

A failure to upgrade the TC as early as possible frustrates the players to the point of quiting the game alltogether. Whereas all other aspects of the game are acceptable in terms of long-term planning and strategic investments, whereby most of the players accept the regular flow of slow and gradual upgrade, the unability to keep up strenght-wise with the gold-purchasing players creates an inbalance that is not sustainable. Simply put, a gold-purchasing player, as time pes by, exponentially
surpes a regular non-purchasing player to the point that no comparison is possible.

So, what to do about it?

Recommendation: through a calculated use of regular and special missions ensure that regular
(non-purchasing) players can acquire enough funds (gold) to be able to upgrade the TC to the next level (170g) on the very first day that the upgrade is available (currently, on Day 50).

Of course, this does not immply that the successful accomplishment of the upcoming missions will grant us 170g, but at least a fair portion of that amount, having in mind other usual sources of gold earning (medals, MM, etc.). Hopefully, this was already considered when planning the announced
missions. This core-mechanic should, of course, exist for all new players as they begin to play the game. I strongly believe that if players recognize the effort made by Admins to make their development sustainable, they will reward the Admins with affection and willigness to continue being a part of this community.

2. Energy Limit

I have recently realized that there is no daily limit on energy purchase. This is a game-breaker.

A person willing to spend enough RL money will simply undermine the group efforts by multiple other players in achieving war goals to the extent that the large amount of regular players will loose the will to play.

Recommendation: the Admins should do some math, and allign the not-necessarily opposing
interests of earning money and keeping the core of players happy. Simply put, put a daily limit that is satisfactory in terms of revenue, and satisfactory in terms of giving the other side a chance to fight.

3. National Org

Irrespective of the experience in other games when it comes to exploiting the orgs (organizations, ie, company structures), it is fairly difficult to maintain national companies (ie, national army companies, ministries' companies) and official journals without a national org. This especially as the CP and ministers positions are prone to change on every election.

Recommendation: the Admins should allow one national org per nation, with the ability to open up one (official) newspaper, and set-up a number of companies (the limit should be higher than the 20 as determined for players).

The access to the org should be automatically granted to persons holding political functions, thus making this the responsibility of those players and their supporters (trust-wise).

In order to prevent exploitation, the orgs should not be allowed to receive money donations, other than law donations from the State Treasury. The orgs should be granted other kind of donations (ie, weps and food - for military purposes, taking care of new players, etc.).

4. Additional Bonuses

I haven't done a proper scouting as to the global resources, but I did notice that certain kinds of bonuses are in abundance, whereas some are a rare commodity. This, of course, has its value, as it pushes the player communities and nations to compete for bonuses. However, it does put
certain parts of World into an unfair strategic position, with some of the bonuses simply unreachable.

Recommendation: the Admins should consider adding some more extra bonuses on the map. I am
not advocating new bonuses - simply adding a bit more bonuses of a certain type by random method, ensuring a balanced spread through the Map.

I can see objections to this proposal, especially from the perspective of those nations who are already successful in obtaining 80-100% in bonuses (congrats btw!), but - and again, without a proper
research - I have a feeling that a number of such nations is quite small and limited.

5. Group Rewards and Individual Traits

This one is a bit tricky, especially with regard the second bit.

Group Rewards
By group rewards I am referring to, primarily, MUs and their individual achievements. Ie, the MU that has attracted the biggest number of new soldiers for the past 30 days, the MU that has achieved the highest DMG for the past 30 days, the MU that has traveled and fought the most for the past 30 days, the MU whose members have scored the highest number of medals for the past 30 days, and so on.

I think that such group rewards/medals would enhance the teamspirit of each any every MU willing
to work together in trying to achieve such goals. When it comes to rewards, different things are possible (ie, a new type of medal for MU, a new type of medal for players (MU medal), other kind of rewards (ie, instead of gold, 100 q5 wep or food, or something like that), etc.).

Recommendation: the Admin should introduce the MU award system.

Individual Traits and Skills

This one is difficult to explain. Image a bit of RPG inserted into your profile whereby, with time, you gain certain traits and skills that affect your overall efforts.

In some games, this was implemented by means of work specialization. The more you work in certain kinds of factories (wep, food, mining, agriculture, construction, wood choping, etc.), the more skilled you become in the particular work, thus adding more to your overall productivity (for example, instead of 32 q1 weps, in time you start producing 35, then 40, then 45 etc.).

In other games, I've seen combat specialization, whereby in addition to training your strenght, you train using a certain kind of weapons (tanks, planes, ships, mortars, helicopters, etc.), and with time, you produce more DMG when fighting with such weaponry.

In addition, I imagine additional stuff that could be inserted into the game API. For example, if you prinantly fight in national wars and battles (focus on patriot medal), over time you could
gain a "patrior cl 1" trait, giving you additional DMG when fighting for you country. If you are focused on revolutionary stuff, same thing ("che cl 1") but for DMG in supporting rebels.
Or, if you continuosly fight against a specific enemy, over time you could earn a "nemesis" trait, giving you additional DMG against that specific enemy. Things like this.

Recommendation: the Admin should consider adding more layers to player development other than just strenght. This would enhance the adversity of gameplay, and add an additional tactical layers to the overall strategy.

6. NAP System

This one I haven't seen elsewhere, but I haven't played all of them.

Image an ingame NAP system, just like MPP or ingame contract. Imagine one party breaking the NAP in any way. Of course, this would mean a war between the ex-NAP parties.

However, imagine that the party that breaks the NAP does not automatically trigger its allies getting
involved in the fighting on its side, whereas the other party's allies would automatically get involved?

In addition, imagine all third parties gaining cus belli against the NAP breaker without the DoW?

NAP breaker would suddenly face the former NAP party, its allies and all willing third parties, on its own, without the backing of its allies.

Recommendation: the Admin should ponder over possible ingame solutions like the NAP system to make the game more strategically challenging.

7. Techology Tree

This one I've seen in a game I have played a long time ago - it was a very complex game involving a lot of economics, long-term group play and planning; quite a different game from this one - but, I liked the technology bit. Also think of games produced by certain Sid M.

Imagine a new type of building: a research centre. Two kinds of research centres. One for individual players to be able to, in addition to working, training and fighting, do some research per day. One for each nation (build on the national org for example).

Imagine different branches of technology a research centre can study one at a time: war (different categories, focus on strategy, DMG, weapons, shields, etc.), economcy (taxes, production, etc.), diplomacy (cheaper MPPs, more diplomacy options (this could be fun)), etc.) and similar.

Each nation can research one particular technology at a time (main catergory, then picking a specialized sub-tech). CP or other Gov members pick the tech to be researched, and the way this is done is through individual research of all citizens. The more active they are (ie, they must have built a research centre, and must research every day (also a medal for having done research 30 days!), and the more citizens do active research, the sooner is the tech acquired (gaining a certain number of tech points per tech).

Rewards you wonder? For example, for weps tech, more DMG with a particular type of weapon (+2% for level 1, +5% for level 2 and so on), higher shields, cheaper airborne operations (travel costs less for people with CS), special ability to travel back with one owns CC. Or, for economy: better production, at a certain level - ability to rest without a house, higher tax return to citizens, etc. For diplomacy, ehnaced alliance types: for example, a research alliance (higher levels for higher techs), NAP system I've described above, MPP that gives the ability to parties not to automatically participate in certain wars, etc.

Basically, the rewards affect the nation as well as the individuals. The higher the levels, the higher the overall effect on both.

Of course, this would put the larger nations at an advantange, but therer is a remedy to this. The smaller the nation is (less citizens), the smaller is the number of research points for individual techs. Actually, this might push players to consider moving to smaller nations, setting up a very active group of players, and developing faster than they would in a larger nation.

Recommendation: the Admin should give it a go. Why not? I suppose this would not require any spectacular programming skills, and would definitely add a totally new layer of gameplay and strategy, not to mention that the small nations would get a new chance. I've tried it in that other game, its fantastic, and it really adds a new layer of teamwork with regard the longterm planning.

8. Alliances

The Alliances System is quite good, with only one thing that I find problematic. Too big alliances can break the balance and sometimes even ruin the game, at least for a certain period of time.

How about putting some restrictions into the alliances' core mechanism? For example, maximum number of members, restrictions as to the size (ie, one alliance can only have 1 nation among the top 5 nations per number of citizens), restrictions as to the overall DMG capacity (combined MUs, or
combined CS, similar rule as the previous one), restrictions as to the scarce bonuses spread (this one could be interesting), and similar restrictions.

One could think further: if an alliance is involved into one conflict, its members cannot initiate attacks on other countries not a member of a beligered alliance, whereas they can get attacked by third parties? This one could be quite interested strategy-wise, and would definitely give more opportunity to weaker parties seeking alternative defense methods and strategies.

Recommendation: the Admins should consider making the alliance system more challenging, step by step of course. It would make the HQs' life more complicated, but much more fun at the same time.

9. Advertisement Wall and Advertisment Banner

Please. Just do it! :D

As to the advertisment banner, I've seen this in another game - basically, you pay with gold to get a small square (ie, the one with the tutorial for new players) where you can advertise your products, paper, MU, election stuff, propaganda :), perhaps even trolling against Atro and Fikme :P

This should be cheap for starters, ie, 1 gold for 1 hour, or something like that, and more expensive if you want it up there longer. Also, prices wary if you want to have an international advertisment
(ie, selling houses abroad over the ingame contract system, enemy propaganda and similar :)).

Recommendation: the Admin should definitely make another wall for buying/selling, s4s and, from
tomorrow I suppose, v4v. As for the advertisments, it's just a way to earn more cash, so why not :) This is a feature a regular player can work without ;)

10. World Map - Major Events

For those of you who like that very lar game which started back in the day with samurais, the latest installments have introduced landmarks on the strategic map, on places where, for example, major battles have occured.

Just a few days ago, we have had a MAJOR battle happening, with literally millions of DMG. Would be nice to have a landmark feature on the World Map, to memorize and remember such historic events (ie, first battle over 500 million DMG, first battle with one player over 100 million DMG, first battle with one player winning BH on both sides, first battle where the victor totally occupied its enemy, stuff like that). Would be nice to scroll around a map one day and check this sort of stuff out. Not to make things to crowded, I would recommend a new layer to the map: landmark and major events layer.

Recommendation: the Admin should make an ingame system of producing history records;
players like to remember stuff like this, and if this collective memory could become an ingame mechanic, players would appreciate this even more.

There's plenty of other stuff.

Ie, custom nations: for just 1000g gold, create your own nation (ie, you must hold a certain number of provinces for a certain period of time), give it its own name and flag, and stuff like this.

Ie, State Treasury Bonds - this is regurarly done in other games, but there are exploits one can envisage here, so I am not advocating this unless the Admins are ok with the option to donate directly to the State Treasury (or national org).

Same thing for Stock Exchange, same problem, only multiplied by private orgs or profiles.

One thing I as a journalist would like to see is anchors in the article writing panel.

Finally, an uncomplete list of journalists who I personally think deserve to win both journalism medals:

Sons of Anarchy - rocking videos :)
Kosingas
The Seven Seas - democracy and other useful fake news :P
La Plume Française
Newspeak Minitrue
Observer Georgia 9MILDMG - should get 9 million votes :)
Quebec Times
Zeus News
Insights

Hope you've liked at least one idea :) Vote (and sub) if so, comment with regard the rest :D

Yours,
Lord Marlock