11/5/2016 - Treasure Anti-Trust Act

[LordRahl2]

I'll note quickly that I think it's probably an awful idea to try to figure out who Alex's "trusted players" are. It's nonsense that so few people should have so much influence, sure, and I certainly have my suspicions about their motivations which I think are valid, but ultimately it's not those people's responsibility so much as Alex's for doing a poor job of aggregating.

 

I have been complaining about this for like two years.  It is very frustrating that sheep has some inner cabal advising him that clearly does not represent the player base.

[Yosodog]

It's probably NPO bribing this admin too lulz

[Kemal Ergenekon]

All these people !@#$ about being given a 10day warning when one was never needed to be given in the first place. You're getting a huge bonus for 10 additional days when Sheepy has every right to change any mechanic at any time without warning to prevent people from prepping for it (as has always happened in the past)

 

The point of treasures was to generate war, not to be sold to the highest bidder anyway

 

I think you are having math difficulties. Let me elucidate:

 

Suppose there is an asset that earns you 4 million every day for 90 days. Assuming a zero interest rate for simplicity, the net present value of this asset would be 4 * 90 = 360 million.

 

Now, seeing its high NPV, you buy the asset for 180m -- after all, 360m - 180m = 180m net profit.

 

Then suddenly the rules of the game is changed such that the asset's lifetime is down to 10 days.

 

10 * 4 = 40m revenue

 

40m - 180m = 140 million losses

 

Yes, not benefit. Loss. A huge loss. Now multiply this with the number of treasures...

 

I will get the exact figures from Jessica, but I think the damage is well above and beyond 1 billion.

I have been complaining about this for like two years.  It is very frustrating that sheep has some inner cabal advising him that clearly does not represent the player base.

 

He didn't ever mention this in the CDD.

[Apeman]

That's it, it's official. Since 10 days of the treasures isn't good enough for those with treasures (not that I've ever had one spawn) I say you make the change instant.

[Kurdanak]

He didn't ever mention this in the CDD.

That part is a little strange to me, considering the entire point of the CDD forum.

[LordRahl2]

He stopped listening to his Browser Game Experts (BGE not CDD) once it was infected with people that held a different opinion.

[Flame of the Flawed]

I'll note quickly that I think it's probably an awful idea to try to figure out who Alex's "trusted players" are. It's nonsense that so few people should have so much influence, sure, and I certainly have my suspicions about their motivations which I think are valid, but ultimately it's not those people's responsibility so much as Alex's for doing a poor job of aggregating.

 

I would agree if the point was in reference to those players' responsibility; but that isn't what was meant. It is about elucidating Alex's responsibility in that, as you said, he doesn't seem to be aggregating. 

[Sisyphus]

I'll note quickly that I think it's probably an awful idea to try to figure out who Alex's "trusted players" are. It's nonsense that so few people should have so much influence, sure, and I certainly have my suspicions about their motivations which I think are valid, but ultimately it's not those people's responsibility so much as Alex's for doing a poor job of aggregating.

The point is that it shouldn't even be a point.

[Kemal Ergenekon]

That's it, it's official. Since 10 days of the treasures isn't good enough for those with treasures (not that I've ever had one spawn) I say you make the change instant.

 

Perhaps we should just ZI you and others who revel in shadenfreude to make up for this shit.

[LordRahl2]

 

So, sheepy is reading.  Just not replying.

[Alex]

I generally do not like to reverse or change decisions made as a result of player complaints, as I do not wish to set a precedent in which complaining = game mechanics changing. Now I expect you will call me a hypocrite and say that this change, and many other changes, are a direct result of such complaints. I'd say that's a fair criticism, as it is more or less true that feedback does guide my attention to particular aspects of gameplay. However, as I initially stated, I do not believe that I make changes as a direct result because someone wants me to do something.

 

That said, the feedback in this thread, which I expected would be negative and the kind of reaction which this announcement received, has guided my attention to the issue of the timing of this change. Truth be told, when I opened this thread, I did not have any intention of changing anything. But after going through multiple pages of criticisms and some introspection, I decided I was ultimately being stubborn and defensive, and that I would have more to gain from a fresh analysis.

 

To me, it does not particularly matter when this change takes place. I think most have agreed that it is a reasonable and beneficial change to the game, and the issue was particularly with the timing. When I made this announcement I did not fully consider the time, effort, and cost put into acquiring treasures immediately after they were spawned. To spurn players for their coordination and successful execution of superior gameplay is not the behavior that an effective game developer should emulate.

 

All things considered, I will further postpone this change to gameplay mechanics for another 35 days, or 45 days total. That is, on December 20, 2016, this change to the Alliance Treasure Bonus will go into effect.

 

Lastly, while the accusations of any particular bias by me were limited, I would just like to reiterate that I maintain an air of objectivity and this change was not intended as a direct nerf to any particular group of players. Yes, I was aware that the alliance Treasure Island and Terminus Est held a disproportionate number of treasures, however, I hold no particular opinion about those alliances or players within, or any alliance or group of players. I have distanced myself significantly from the inter-alliance politics, to the point that some may even argue I am too out of touch with the players and how the game is played. In the future, I will do my best to bridge this gap whilst maintaining objectivity in regards to alliances.

 

So, sheepy is reading.  Just not replying.

 

Maybe I was writing a long reply

[Buorhann]

I'll note quickly that I think it's probably an awful idea to try to figure out who Alex's "trusted players" are. It's nonsense that so few people should have so much influence, sure, and I certainly have my suspicions about their motivations which I think are valid, but ultimately it's not those people's responsibility so much as Alex's for doing a poor job of aggregating.

 

Manthrax confirmed as one of trusted people. Time to tar and feather him.

[LordRahl2]

 

Maybe I was writing a long reply

 

I sit corrected. 

[Alex]

It's probably NPO bribing this admin too lulz

 

I have not, and will not take bribes, from anyone. It's been attempted before, and I've turned down offers every time. To me, it's not worth destroying my credibility with the community and in turn, the business.

[Azaghul]

I generally do not like to reverse or change decisions made as a result of player complaints, as I do not wish to set a precedent in which complaining = game mechanics changing. Now I expect you will call me a hypocrite and say that this change, and many other changes, are a direct result of such complaints. I'd say that's a fair criticism, as it is more or less true that feedback does guide my attention to particular aspects of gameplay. However, as I initially stated, I do not believe that I make changes as a direct result because someone wants me to do something.

 

That said, the feedback in this thread, which I expected would be negative and the kind of reaction which this announcement received, has guided my attention to the issue of the timing of this change. Truth be told, when I opened this thread, I did not have any intention of changing anything. But after going through multiple pages of criticisms and some introspection, I decided I was ultimately being stubborn and defensive, and that I would have more to gain from a fresh analysis.

 

To me, it does not particularly matter when this change takes place. I think most have agreed that it is a reasonable and beneficial change to the game, and the issue was particularly with the timing. When I made this announcement I did not fully consider the time, effort, and cost put into acquiring treasures immediately after they were spawned. To spurn players for their coordination and successful execution of superior gameplay is not the behavior that an effective game developer should emulate.

 

All things considered, I will further postpone this change to gameplay mechanics for another 35 days, or 45 days total. That is, on December 20, 2016, this change to the Alliance Treasure Bonus will go into effect.

 

Lastly, while the accusations of any particular bias by me were limited, I would just like to reiterate that I maintain an air of objectivity and this change was not intended as a direct nerf to any particular group of players. Yes, I was aware that the alliance Treasure Island and Terminus Est held a disproportionate number of treasures, however, I hold no particular opinion about those alliances or players within, or any alliance or group of players. I have distanced myself significantly from the inter-alliance politics, to the point that some may even argue I am too out of touch with the players and how the game is played. In the future, I will do my best to bridge this gap whilst maintaining objectivity in regards to alliances.

 

Maybe I was writing a long reply

Thank you for doing this.  I'm sure being an admin and trying to be fair and keep people happy isn't easy.  I appreciate all the hard work that you've put into this game, and the effort you've made to be open and fair.  Keep it up!

Edited November 6, 2016 by Azaghul

[Yosodog]

I have not, and will not take bribes, from anyone. It's been attempted before, and I've turned down offers every time. To me, it's not worth destroying my credibility with the community and in turn, the business.

I was kidding. I know you wouldn't do that

 

Nice knowing this though. I'll just have to offer more money on my next bribe.

[Prefonteen]

Treasures are still something to compete for, and they are still desirable. It's will be just as desirable to have one treasure after this change takes effect as it will be to have one treasure before. The incentive just diminishes as you aggregate treasures, preventing a "snowball" effect.

 

 

It is discouraging, I acknowledge that. However, what I believe is consolation is that you've already had a significant amount of profit from this mechanic, and will continue to do so for the next 10 days. I don't know how much you invested, exactly, but a 22% gross income bonus for the next 120 turns is not insignificant.

 

Also, what prompted this change was a discussion I was having with a player who insisted that treasures needed to be changed and that they were a force for alliances at the top to stay on top. I told him to negotiate with those alliances, work together with other smaller alliances to take a treasure, etc. and he repeatedly insisted this was not possible due to the power disparity. We'd been having this conversation for a little over a week, and I repeatedly told him he could address this in-equality through in-game mechanics without ever investigating the issue myself. I only did that after one of his treasures was immediately taken, and after negotiation/war he simply had no choice but to give up his treasure to a larger alliance. That was when I checked out who actually held the treasures and was shocked to see how aggregated they have become in so few alliances. After considering how this could be addressed, and conversing with a couple of players whose judgement I trust, I went ahead and made this announcement. There was no political motivations, other than to help topple (or at least reduce the support for) the current alliance power structure.

 

Just a quick base-touch: I definitely agree that a nerf was necessary (frankly, I always preferred color stock over treasures and never quite understood why you decide to implement treasures anyways when color stock had been a significant cause for political tension on multiple occasions in the past - exactly what it was intended for- ). Ideally, i'd like to have seen a removal of treasures.

 

I have probe you on this explanation though. According to this post, a player insisted that treasures needed to be changed because it 'kept the top at the top'. Okay, fair enough. Treasures were unbalanced. Did the player complain to you before or after his treasures was forced off of him? The player's insistence on power disparity making it impossible for him to do *anything* is in itself disingenious. Having been in both the underdog and dominant position while leading a major player, I can confirm that powerstructures are always more fragile internally than they externally appear, and any event or action can have the potential to snowball into a permanent change of the status quo. Especially if external actors with hidden agendas are placing political pressure on "weak" links in the dominant alliance. 

 

So what I do not understand is why you decided to initially tell the player to handle it on his own with ingame means, indicating that you did not believe there to be an issue, only to flip flop and investigage when the player in question lost his treasure to a larger alliance. In this case too, I will note that politically speaking, might has always made right to an extent, and alliances will at times bully smaller parties for reason A, B or C. Nerfs to exploitable mechanics do not change this. They only move that problem elsewhere. Hence my puzzlement at muscle-flexing by a dominant party being a catalyst for your investigation. 

 

You then conversed with a couple of players whos judgement you trust. Fair enough. I have to admit that I am curious whether those players are the same players who advocated and/or supported the proxy war rollback, the arrgh nerfs and the initial treasure implementation. You do not have to answer that question as I respect opsec.

 

Your very last (bolded) statement is a huge, huge red flag to m. You directly contradict yourself and outright stated that a motivating factor for this nerf is to setback one group of alliances. That statement in light of the rest of your post is a faux pass and frankly disturbing.

 

Sheepy, I'm okay with changes and nerfs. Its your game. But there has been a precedent of many of your major changes and decisions putting one set of alliances at a mechanical disadvantage. Though I am confident in the demonstrated ability of these alliances to adapt (as they have historically) to your changes, it's discouraging to once again see this hypothesis confirmed. I'd be appreciative if you could provide us with a more in-depth explanation here- be it in public or in private.

 

 

 

tl;dr: treasures were shit and needed to be removed/nerfed. I do question motivations based on what I'm seeing though.

 

 

EDIT: will read up. Seems I dropped my post right when sheepy posted. Now I feel stupid

Edited November 6, 2016 by Partisan

[Spaceman Thrax]

That's appreciated, Alex. I was more snarky than was necessary so I apologize.

 

Also lol @ Parti dropping his WoT three minutes too late hahaha.

 

Edit: I still think the treasure system could probably benefit from a pretty earnest review. But with a longer timeline I don't see why that conversation can't happen after people have cooled off a bit.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Manthrax

[Hooves]

I have not, and will not take bribes, from anyone. It's been attempted before, and I've turned down offers every time. To me, it's not worth destroying my credibility with the community and in turn, the business.

Would you be willing to accept...

[Speaker Faris Wheeler]

I generally do not like to reverse or change decisions made as a result of player complaints, as I do not wish to set a precedent in which complaining = game mechanics changing. Now I expect you will call me a hypocrite and say that this change, and many other changes, are a direct result of such complaints. I'd say that's a fair criticism, as it is more or less true that feedback does guide my attention to particular aspects of gameplay. However, as I initially stated, I do not believe that I make changes as a direct result because someone wants me to do something.

 

That said, the feedback in this thread, which I expected would be negative and the kind of reaction which this announcement received, has guided my attention to the issue of the timing of this change. Truth be told, when I opened this thread, I did not have any intention of changing anything. But after going through multiple pages of criticisms and some introspection, I decided I was ultimately being stubborn and defensive, and that I would have more to gain from a fresh analysis.

 

To me, it does not particularly matter when this change takes place. I think most have agreed that it is a reasonable and beneficial change to the game, and the issue was particularly with the timing. When I made this announcement I did not fully consider the time, effort, and cost put into acquiring treasures immediately after they were spawned. To spurn players for their coordination and successful execution of superior gameplay is not the behavior that an effective game developer should emulate.

 

All things considered, I will further postpone this change to gameplay mechanics for another 35 days, or 45 days total. That is, on December 20, 2016, this change to the Alliance Treasure Bonus will go into effect.

 

Lastly, while the accusations of any particular bias by me were limited, I would just like to reiterate that I maintain an air of objectivity and this change was not intended as a direct nerf to any particular group of players. Yes, I was aware that the alliance Treasure Island and Terminus Est held a disproportionate number of treasures, however, I hold no particular opinion about those alliances or players within, or any alliance or group of players. I have distanced myself significantly from the inter-alliance politics, to the point that some may even argue I am too out of touch with the players and how the game is played. In the future, I will do my best to bridge this gap whilst maintaining objectivity in regards to alliances.

 

Maybe you should start taking your customers opinions for granted. You implement stupid ideas (e.g. Treasures, Nuclear Index) and then fight the people who are actually telling you to differently, or give you another idea instead of yours. It's almost like you are purposely going against what people are recommending, and then create a post like this for propaganda in attempt to let the people know you actually take what they say seriously.

 

I am not trying to call you out here, it just seems suspicious. 

[Flame of the Flawed]

It is good to know you read these comments and looked at the situation reasonably, Alex. Hopefully this will be a learning experience for us all, in both that it shows you are able to learn from the players, and that the players can again start putting trust in you. I haven't thought that you yourself were biased, but that you disproportionately surrounded yourself with players that came from one particular perspective, which gave off the sense of bias. Moving forward I think we can all continue to improve and grow this game. Thanks. 

[Alex]

Just a quick base-touch: I definitely agree that a nerf was necessary (frankly, I always preferred color stock over treasures and never quite understood why you decide to implement treasures anyways when color stock had been a significant cause for political tension on multiple occasions in the past - exactly what it was intended for- ). Ideally, i'd like to have seen a removal of treasures.

 

I have probe you on this explanation though. According to this post, a player insisted that treasures needed to be changed because it 'kept the top at the top'. Okay, fair enough. Treasures were unbalanced. Did the player complain to you before or after his treasures was forced off of him? The player's insistence on power disparity making it impossible for him to do *anything* is in itself disingenious. Having been in both the underdog and dominant position while leading a major player, I can confirm that powerstructures are always more fragile internally than they externally appear, and any event or action can have the potential to snowball into a permanent change of the status quo. Especially if external actors with hidden agendas are placing political pressure on "weak" links in the dominant alliance. 

 

So what I do not understand is why you decided to initially tell the player to handle it on his own with ingame means, indicating that you did not believe there to be an issue, only to flip flop and investigage when the player in question lost his treasure to a larger alliance. In this case too, I will note that politically speaking, might has always made right to an extent, and alliances will at times bully smaller parties for reason A, B or C. Nerfs to exploitable mechanics do not change this. They only move that problem elsewhere. Hence my puzzlement at muscle-flexing by a dominant party being a catalyst for your investigation. 

 

You then conversed with a couple of players whos judgement you trust. Fair enough. I have to admit that I am curious whether those players are the same players who advocated and/or supported the proxy war rollback, the arrgh nerfs and the initial treasure implementation. You do not have to answer that question as I respect opsec.

 

Your very last (bolded) statement is a huge, huge red flag to m. You directly contradict yourself and outright stated that a motivating factor for this nerf is to setback one group of alliances. That statement in light of the rest of your post is a faux pass and frankly disturbing.

 

Sheepy, I'm okay with changes and nerfs. Its your game. But there has been a precedent of many of your major changes and decisions putting one set of alliances at a mechanical disadvantage. Though I am confident in the demonstrated ability of these alliances to adapt (as they have historically) to your changes, it's discouraging to once again see this hypothesis confirmed. I'd be appreciative if you could provide us with a more in-depth explanation here- be it in public or in private.

 

 

 

tl;dr: treasures were shit and needed to be removed/nerfed. I do question motivations based on what I'm seeing though.

 

Let's see if I can address your concerns.

 

This conversation that I had with the (unnamed) player was over the course of at least 10 days. We spoke in depth several days before treasures respawned most recently, at least.

 

I decided to flip-flop on my decision after looking at who held which treasures, and was surprised to see how disproportionate the allocation was, and how large the bonuses some alliances were receiving were.

 

Often it is far easier for me to consult one or two people on a (relatively) small change like this than make a big public post, as public posts quickly become overwhelmed with unrelated feedback. As with anything, the smaller your group of people, the more efficient you are. And the conversations I had were something like this:

 

Me: I'm thinking of changing the alliance treasure bonus to sqrt(treasures * 4). Other than those who are disadvantaged by this being upset, can you think of any other unintended consequences I may be missing? I don't think this will cause alliances to split up and form colonies, or anything else similar, etc. but I wanted to check with you if you can think of anything

Player: No, I can't think of anything. Seems pretty straightforward

 

Lastly, when I mentioned toppling the existing power structure, that's just in reference to my belief that the alliances in power should change from time to time. Which is the motivation for this change -- so that one alliance can't remain at the top perpetually. I like the idea of top alliances and nations being cyclical in that they'll change and vary over time; otherwise, what's the point of playing if you're never going to be in the lead? All that said, it was not in specific mention to the existing alliances in power.

 

I hope that sets some things straight here.

[Prefontaine]

Yes, I was aware that the alliance Treasure Island and Terminus Est held a disproportionate number of treasures, however, I hold no particular opinion about those alliances or players within

 

I personally know that to be a lie. Very personally. I have pics. Logs. Voicemails left crying on my phone that show that statement is a lie.

 

Also I like the change, hated the execution and we didn't even pay for any of our treasures. Unless you consider murdering units to be payment. 

[Kurdanak]

Compromise is a beautiful thing.

[Lord Bagel]

I'm glad to see you were willing to adjust the new implementation. I had no qualms about you changing the system, but am glad you have decided to change it in a manner that was not hurting our sphere. Many are very quick to knee jerk to anything changes you make, but overall I think that you have been moving the game in more or less the right direction.