KiWilliam

Anything to improve the tutorial please. That thing is awful and is not only overly wordy, really misses the point of the actual game. It just hand holds the player through each page without really doing anything. Not to mention the actual verbiage and layout (UX/UI) of the game could be changed to make things simpler and easier for new people to pick up the game and get up to a level of "decently competent". As much as I would like to be an elitist, without lowering the barrier to entry to playing the game; while not lowering the barrier of quality drastically; we can't bring in enough foot traffic to combat natural attrition of players, but also not add to the community which is the actual driving force of the game. With your specific points Roberts, I don't necessarily agree with railroading a player into an alliance right away, part of the tutorial is taking them to the recruitment page. I do believe that the emphasis should be increased to get anyone joining to join an alliance, but not necessarily to make that the first thing and ignore their actual education with the game itself. A player should primarily be familiar & comfortable with the game they will be playing; hopefully every other day, during their stay. And your point about the grant for cities, I don't agree with the specifics, but I do generally agree with the idea I would prefer if new players started with some sort of "base" city they can then edit and grow, rather than starting from zero. Some specifics about the tutorial, it's too linear so if a player skips a step they have to redo it for the game to count it as completed. Also could you add some NPC nations that a new player can war with? Or possibly some mechanic where after a war they go to beige automatically to rebuild with some bonus, for maybe the first month. So a new player could war right away, and then if they don't like getting creamed they can get a breather and rebuild. Taking them out of *half* of the game for the first 2 weeks seems silly. Someone that isn't already joining as a friend of someone else already playing is going to miss half the game for 2 weeks, when most people are going to drop the game in the first day or three. They should get a taste of winning, and losing a war as soon as possible in my opinion. I'd even go as far as making it part of the tutorial. Reset their nation afterwards if you must. Just anything to improve that aspect of on boarding. I could list a hundred things to improve or add to the tutorial, but in general I think any handful of experienced and driven players could write a much better tutorial. Education & player retention really just goes along with the theme of what I personally believe should the forefront of game development. I won't back off of my strong stance that thing should be tested though. Why not throw up the tutorial on the test server so even older players can try it?

Why is RNG good? Too much RNG and you're just all playing separate instances of a lottery. So obviously pure RNG is bad. And no RNG would be chess. Given the spectrum, I would err to the side of chess with other human players, than a lottery.

If you want the game to not be boring, and to be fun, and not be dropped, and to be played, as to not be ignored for months during our half year long wars, or to actually be actively played by the players. If you don't care about players you wouldn't do so, while if you care about players you would do so. To say so in as few words as possible. I can't stress enough the importance of making the *video game* actually playable by a player at all times while being fun and engaging and not just when other people in the meta game decide so. Other than maybe using the test server to test things, this can't be anything but the most important thing to do if you actually want people to play your game.

I can't think of a single update ever to ever happen in the history of updates from the development of the ASCII standard to the final spec design of the newest wifi v12 AI brain waves, that would not benefit from testing on a test server first. Don't get me started on the test server itself, but small incremental steps towards a proper & good SOP for new feature introduction would make my doki doki go very heart.

Finally some real media coverage live from the battlegrounds. Cue image of Thalmor running from sniper fire to board his private plane.jpeg These people aren't the only ones who can provide quality journalism in Orbis, but they are the only ones who actually do so.

Three people can't appreciate the wordplay. These are the bants.

I'm blind so I wanted it more legible. Just posting since I thought other people with less than good vision might also like it. Hopefully I didn't mess up the formatting. I liked the poems.

I won't comment on the first part, but the second is I hope just a tongue in cheek joke from you. I'm not actually advocating personally for bounties to be removed like OP. My intent was simply to throw out suggestions for changes, and give my unsolicited 2 cents about the hierarchy of priorities for game changes. Someone completing a bounty should always get paid the bounty. Changes to how or when could be made so there doesn't need to be any moderation and it is automatic. No game breaking exploits if those existed. But something should be done so that a mechanic that is in the game can be used fully & properly if it is to continue to exist. Otherwise if it is cut off at the knees, going against the entire point of the feature (to get money posted for winning a war against a specific target) in favor of fair play (whatever ruling that I still don't honestly know the history of involving bounties not being paid to people), then it should be removed if it is causing such problems. Simple as that. If Mr. Scarfalot is lying, and bounties have always been paid out correctly to all nations who have ever completed them, then I retract all of my statements. But bounties should work properly or be removed. Having a half baked feature around because people sometimes talk about one aspect of the game on discord or use it as a joke is not proper justification in my book to keep it around. My other ideas were just spit balling because I prefer freedom & versatility of game mechanics to allow players to decide the politics & metagame. Also one quick point in my word soup; I'm very much in favor of things being documented and do not appreciate players running into a wall because something wasn't specified. So any aspect of bounties that can not be clearly read & understood in-game should be changed or documented. No exceptions.

I know they are used, but they're hardly used that often. I was being hyperbolic when I said 'never used'; the point I was trying to express was on holding on to certain game mechanics vs. reworking them.

Could we not just put a delay on when a bounty is posted and when it could be collected? Yes some people might then "abuse" (air quotes because they would simply be [b]using[/b] it) to get money when blockaded, but it's the same logic as declaring on a target who is blockading a nation in order to break their blockade on a third nation; you would declare war on another nation to get money when one nation is having you blockaded. The actual usefulness of a blockade is to stop someone from getting resources to defend (like munitions, gas, or steel) or moving those resources or large amounts of cash off their nation to someplace safe. All this would do is allow someone who is otherwise blockaded get some amount of money. It's no more broken than simply using a credit to get out of a pinch when a nation would otherwise be "blockaded" and with a credit you can get resources too. Something beyond the scope of a bounty. I still am not really a fan of how bounties work in general, but I would be in favor of something being done to make them useful or removing them. Keeping around a vestigial feature just limits gameplay changes in the future and confuses players. Yes a new player isn't going to instantly understand all of the meta game in year [current year] without some experience or interactions with the community, but features that are never used shouldn't remain simply to have them around. They should be reworked. If we really wanted to try and make bounties more useful, more features like being able to set a bounty for any alliance member in an alliance for a period of time; any nation in [x] alliance that's defeated in an attrition war will win the nation 5million for example. That would make bounties insanely more useful, and political. Nations that win should always get their money (I don't know where it goes if they are blockaded) so they should at least be able to get it later (maybe make it standard that they're paid as soon as they're out of all wars? That would be a funny mechanic, to keep a nation at war so they don't get an influx of cash they've built up. That would be an insanely interesting "abused" mechanic). An open ended bounty system like that would have its own problems, but honestly with a couple of checks, I think it would only add a few interesting ways for drama to happen.

You were officially old before we started keeping records on file. No love lost, I just had to lay out the facts. Oh and good job IRON.

Add the option for secret bounties. Only paid out once the conditions are met, but you don't know what the conditions are/how much it is. Maybe just hide the payment. Seems like that would be funny. And I think humor is the highest virtue for deciding these sorts of things.

The new Syndicate Leadership is puppeting Zygon. No way the real Zygon would've made a post without a Star Wars gif.

Or read the books...

How about a top 30 so you have a top 10 a middle 10 and a bottom 10 of the top 30? And the middle of 10 & 50 is 30 as well. 30 is 20 more than 10 but 20 less than 50 at the same time.

I don't know if this will highlight you Zig but I remembered your post which was one of my favorites recently. Thanks for the heads up Shift man. Or should I say CoTL man.

Stop ripping up the astroturf. I want to see the play on the field.

I hope I'm not disappointed when the details come out about this. If this is what I think it is, it's very clever and I like it. Good job on having a sense of humor.

I didn't reply before since that again really goes against what I thought was perfectly clear was my message in the other post; but it goes to show the steadfast spirit of human ingenuity and stalwart ability for the mind to piece together and form patterns & webs of thoughts that create a narrative where they think they are right. tl;dr It is fine (air quotes and an asterisks on that one) that you have your own take; but I do not agree. To be blunt my post was about people interacting (reacting with up or down reactions, quoting, replying, or in any other shape or form engaging with) with that dude because after the first few honest exchanges, is it clear to myself that he is not either conducting himself properly or knows what that means (I can't decide what % of it is for show or a troll and what % is real). By engaging with someone who you feel is only a negative aspect on the forums, you are only furthering the decline of the quality of discussions that can be had here. really too long; didn't understand Don't reply or react to posts of people who will not take a hint or adjust themselves to the community's standard practices at large. Anyone doing so is actively contributing to the decline in forum quality that they most likely are also complaining about really too long how dare you write more than a sentence; I don't get it buddy could you just post a meme? Stop interacting with bad posters.

At this point it's just a demonstration of the futile nature of forums controlled by the masses. The Tragedy of the commons. The failure of democracy and a tyranny of mob rule where fools & thieves are pushed to the forefront of our discourse & entertainment. "You get what you deserve" For my part I'm putting fuel on the fire while saying my own fuel doesn't stink (what curse words are allowed on the forums?), but I am doing so knowing that it's just for my own amusement. I hope no one is trapped in the loop of wanting a better experience here while also contributing to the low brow & toxic nature of the forums by feeding the very type of behavior they describe to be negative. Stay self aware people.

Unless the people in Rose/Hedge have a good sense of humor all around, and felt like trolling, [i]you[/i] are the person who would not be in peace talks was his point.

Sump pump & proper drainage at minimum. But while I agree in part; I do think multiple threads, one after another, that I believe each were just originally the same exact take just in post forum in the appropriate thread, is too much. There is a proper balance that needs to be struck for forums to be an enjoyable & positive addition to the community.

Are you just quoting anyone who posts anything in this thread now and then not responding to what they say?

What? I'm talking about a moral struggle here with Thalmor. You should take his advice.

I almost upvoted this comment, but near the very end there... idk. We are sworn mortal enemies Thalmor, but I will still pray for you since only God can save you now.