Popular Post The Mad Titan Posted March 5, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 5, 2018 “The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for specializing in resources” 22 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Sketchy Posted March 5, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 5, 2018 56 minutes ago, Alex said: It's good for gameplay because it means you need to interact with other players to get all the things you need. If you can produce everything by yourself, you don't need to interact with other players. Specialization also means you have to make meaningful choices about how you want to build your nation, instead of one generic cookie-cutter build for everyone. EDIT: As it specifically relates to the economy, more trade is better, and more fun gameplay means more people will play and the in-game economy will have more participants. More participation = better. smh @Alex You could have implemented a simple scaling output for resources to achieve specialization, rather than upending the entire system and throwing the entire economy down the toilet. What is the justification for gutting commerce and then forcing it into competition with resources for slots? Or lowering the overall value of slots crippling the profitability of low infra builds which are primarily used by noobs, raising the minimum level of infrastructure and investment required to turn a profit to levels higher than the average noob can reasonably sustain. You literally chose the worst possible solution to the problem by reducing overall output by such a large amount that it takes significantly longer to stockpile any meaningful resources vs before. Despite what people like @James II are trying to say, its not a question of "easy" or "hard", its an question of balancing, not creating ridiculous long term resource shortages, and making it viable for players to fund large scale military campaigns on a shorter timeframe. If you care so much about "fun gameplay", more wars and dynamic politics are needed to achieve that and you've done very little to help. Also there was never a "generic cookie-cutter build" for everyone, there was a single optimal profit build per continent, and then a mix of other builds designed for self sufficiency or convenience. This is literally no different than now, the only change is what those builds are. You literally did nothing to change the variety. 99% of people did not have the infra levels to self sustain to the point of there being a singular build due to an abundance of slots, and those infra levels were not financially "safe" as being hit there would result in losing large amounts of money in damages. THAT WAS THE VARIETY. Your argument isn't really against returning to the old system. You can still incorporate specialization into the old system without bringing along all the stupid side effects that have come with the change. 32 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostWorld Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 (edited) I want ma money back you silly billy !! Edited March 5, 2018 by LostWorld 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Who Me Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 1 hour ago, Buorhann said: Hrm, PDF still doesn't work for me. Did you really expect it to? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForgotPants Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Still can't open the PDF @Alex, it says my account is not authorised to view that page. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AwesomeNova Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Can we just boycott any purchase of credits and VIP subscritions until he it rollback? He might use ads to substitute for the income loss, but his attempt will fail because we can use an adblock. This boycott will work. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Lilac Veritas Posted March 5, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 5, 2018 I'm always a fan for specialisation and all, but really what cuts me most about the update and its long term effect is how commerce has been impact. Now I know, you'll make the argument that upper teir should make commerce and lower tier should make resources etc etc Here's why that's not working under the current model: Commerce gives a flat bonus to income per citizen. This has some interesting effects: Commerce becomes better with infrastructure Higher commerce means the population lost to disease and crime hurts more Due to base upkeep, some higher commerce improvements are worse than lower commerce below 700 infrastructure But for the most part people are above 1k because you really can't do much. Consider 1.5k, 2k and 2.5k. To maximise the bonus from commerce and generally the bonus from any improvement you want to pick the ones with the highest profit per slot. At 1.5k there's a bit of a triple point between Subways, Shopping Malls and Stadiums at around 14k profit per slot. Subways are the best due to also reducing pollution, followed by Mall then Stadiums, then Banks. The benefit from Commerce is 0.725 * (1 + Commerce / 50) per citizen, using 8 slots at 1.5k (4 Malls, 1 Subway, 3 Stadiums) gives 80 Commerce, which is 2.6x more income per citizen than 0 Commerce. For 1.5k this is ~112k over the 8 slots. At 2k everything from 1.5k gets even better, more people to use it, and the size of the population is large enough to counter the larger upkeep on all commerce so Stadiums are the best at 22.6k pps, Malls at 20.7k pps, Subways at 19.95k pps, Banks at 12.7k pps. If you didnt get any more commerce you'd make very roughly 50k more from the 8 slots. Wow!~ 50k more! Everyone should build to 2k! And that's where infrastructure costs kill the dream. 0 to 1.5k infra, 6 million, 1.5k to 2k infra, 9 million. If your nation is going to be in a war you'll need to rebuild. You could build from 0 to 2k, or you could build from 0 to 1.5k and rebuild another 1.5 cities. Now there's other arguments to be made about infra paying off over the longer term (ie about 4 months, and you've got other slots which is why 2k is more or less the meta if you avoid war for 4 months or dont get completely destroyed, but realistically if you drop from 2k to 1.5k then thats more than half of your infra value gone so you should be crying) but on the margin its not great, even if it works out on the war cycle. Supermarkets still suck at this point (8.1k) so ITC is useless. If you've got 2.5k land like any self respecting person at 2k infra should (Land is cheap and cannot take damage) then under current market prices (151 ppu) farms win by 400 pps, and even banks are beaten by the current iron market. At 2.5k commerce is back, you get a huge 31.35k pps from a Stadium, thats most likely the best a single slot can do. Malls and Stadiums are above 25k, Banks at are 16.3k, Supermarkets are at 10.2k. oh oh dear the ITC is still useless, and 2.5k costs 16ish million just from 2k. You could build from 0 to 2.5k or you could build from 0 to 1.5k in 6 cities... If you've got the food project at 2.5k land or 3k land then food wins again! Sure an extra 16k from a bank could be nice at 105% commerce but its not worth a project slot, not when at 4.6ppu importing oil and producing gas gives a massive 19k pps. Commerce at 1.5k? Nope, sell gas with a project, although thats the only one that beats 14k right now. See the issue is, Commerce is both too good and too bad. At 1.5k which I'd still class as fairly lower or mid tier, malls, stadiums, subways beat any resource without a project. At the same time supermarkets and even banks in certain cases are trash so you NEVER want the ITC unless you have like 3k infra. If you have 3k infra you should feel bad for having $56,124,587.90 in infra value when 2k is only 15.2k. 1 City of 3k or 3.5 Cities of 2k? Losing 10% from beige at that level is over 16 million and thats only 300 infra vs 2k from nothing. See this sounds crazy but even with these insane market prices that have effectively killed global war as the investment is far too high, resources are still inferior to commerce at 1.5k infra. Now if prices went EVEN HIGHER to make it worth it (ie above 14k pps), what does that mean? It means every single rational player with a 1.5k infra build would cut commerce to produce, lowering their cash income by 112k per city for a higher amount in resources. But you buy resources with money, and these nations would want to specialise for project boosts and because you need to with continents. They still need to buy other resources to run a military with less cash and sky high prices. The supply of resources goes up BUT the ability for nations to purchase the resources goes down because commerce value is flat and not tied to the market. Anyway I've run out of steam for a bit, I hope I made some sort of point with these numbers. If you want trade to increase, buff commerce. If you want more nations to sell resources, buff production. Sounds a bit like something we had before no? I'm a fan of specialisation as I said before but its a bandaid fix on the wider issue that people dont have liquidity to buy so the market stagnates and cannot clear properly 21 Quote As you sow, so shall you reap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Shiho Nishizumi Posted March 5, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 5, 2018 25 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Lilac Veritas Posted March 5, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 5, 2018 (edited) Also there's an error on your formula for b. You give it as 1 + m! / 2!(m-2)! but really it should be b = 1 + m! / (100 * 2! * (m-2)!) which is what you use in the examples but even that is wrong because 2! = 2, so its literally just b = 1 + m! / (200*(m-2)!) for those of you unfamiliar with factorial, the top and bottom cancel in such a way that it becomes: b = 1 + (m * m-1) / 200, which is a heckaton easier to read and doesn't involved unneeded numerical operations. The bonus production give as a multiplied increase to the base production for each level of improvement is as follows: m b 1 1 2 1.01 3 1.03 4 1.06 5 1.1 6 1.15 7 1.21 8 1.28 9 1.36 10 1.45 11 1.55 12 1.66 13 1.78 14 1.91 15 2.05 16 2.2 17 2.36 18 2.53 19 2.71 20 2.9 There's some interesting points to make First m = 5 is the max for refined resources, so you'd only increase production by 10% which is a little lackluster when the gas project doubles it but its not nothing Bauxite and Iron max at 6, 15% extra, Oil maxes at 66% extra so Gas production with project, especially importing oil as the increased oil production will make oil cheaper, will go from being the best possible resource production you can do thats even better than bank at 2k, to THE BEST GODDAMN RESOURCE PRODUCTION EVER WHY ISNT EVERYONE DOING THIS RIGHT NOW or until the gas market adjusts due tot high supply. Uranium only gets a 3% bonus. At 20 farms you get a 190% bonus, ie they are 2.9x better than normal. 20 farms at 2.5k land, no MI gives 290 (100 currently) and 20 farms at 3.5k land with MI (hardcore food guy) would be 507.5 PER CITY. The bonus goes insane the more improvements there is, its a quadratic as b = 1 + (m^2 - m) / 200. My opinion is the bonus is too weak for low slots and too big for high slots. A 3% bonus for uranium is bugger all, I'd expect more than a 10% bonus for full refined focus (thats 200 pollution for steel), and 190% extra for food at 20 farms is absolutely insane although I'm sure Fraggle would be very happy to run an overslotted low infra, 20 farm, high land build Edit: A way to make it not crazy is to have b depend on what % of the max you have you that resource ie make having 4/5 refined slots on a resource give the same bonus as 16/20 farms Edited March 5, 2018 by Lilac Veritas 7 Quote As you sow, so shall you reap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Sketchy Posted March 5, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 5, 2018 @Alex Rather than doing that, you could just: Revert back to the old econ system. Reduce the output of the first refined improvement by 33%, keep the second improvement the same, increase the third improvements output by 33%. Keep raw usage the same throughout. In addition to the cap of 3 of each refined resource type, create a total pooled refined cap of 6. If you want, you can do the same for food in smaller increments (8 slots, -20%, -15%, -10%, -5%,+5%, +10%, +15%, +20%) Voila, focusing on singular refined resources has better returns, you can at most max produce 2/4 resources, and diversifying between all 4 becomes both unprofitable and unsustainable. You don't kill the economy by forcing commerce (a static value not determined by the market) in competition with refined resources AND raw resources AND food AND uranium. You don't make native production of refined resources impossible for smaller nations who can't afford to import since you nerfed commerce and can't afford to buy refined because you nerfed commerce. You don't kill the refined supply stagnating the game and prolonging wars by months upon months. You don't render projects like ITC completely useless to anyone but the largest whales (we are talking like 2700+ infra), which you claimed were supposed to be hurt more by this update to make things fairer (but were hurt the least). You get to say you released a good update for a change. 20 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilac Veritas Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 1 minute ago, Sketchy said: -snip- Now this I can get behind, no unnecessarily complex maths formulas (seriously simplify this stuff, if you programmed it in like that with the factorials I'd have you head for wasting cpu time), its simple and to the point, anyone can get the idea without whipping out a calculator or a spreadsheet, and we can min-max to our hearts content within parameters. Also as the bonus caps out at 33% after 3, you get constant returns to scale after that so you still specialise but its not extremely broken and its not an all or nothing affair (go hard or go home) 2 Quote As you sow, so shall you reap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codonian Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 5 minutes ago, Sketchy said: -snip- Oh would you look at that, A second system still better than this cluster frick 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Alex Posted March 5, 2018 Administrators Share Posted March 5, 2018 Sorry for anyone who was unable to view the PDF. I did not expect there to be a permissions issue. Here is the updated document hosted off-site: https://www.docdroid.net/hyQAMCD/texstudio-q10360.pdf Quote Is there a bug? Report It | Not understanding game mechanics? Ask About It | Got a good idea? Suggest ItForums Rules | Game Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post The Mad Titan Posted March 5, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 5, 2018 This is the Ideal economy. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. 21 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForgotPants Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 11 minutes ago, LeotheGreat said: This is the Ideal economy. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. I blame solar and wind for killing the coal industry. Also umm, who bought out all the coal? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweeeeet Ronny D Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 I also believe we went too far the other way, a lessening of the current economic structure would probably be a good thing. The economy is only going to get more expensive, and when that giant global war does break out, I pity the resources prices then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buorhann Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 At least Food is back down to the 120ish range. 1 Quote Warrior of Dio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfPCFQfOnLg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callisto Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 27 minutes ago, Buorhann said: At least Food is back down to the 120ish range. Back in my day, food was 90 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cazaric Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 "I want to make the game more enjoyable and rewarding for everyone." "Alex, all but two of us are not enjoying the game as much now." "No, you are. Trust me. It's more rewarding now." 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Alex Posted March 5, 2018 Administrators Share Posted March 5, 2018 8 minutes ago, Cazaric said: "I want to make the game more enjoyable and rewarding for everyone." "Alex, all but two of us are not enjoying the game as much now." "No, you are. Trust me. It's more rewarding now." Nine months ago we had 2,138 active nations and 5,764 total nations. Today, we have 4,190 active nations and 7,853 total nations. I've found that the opinions expressed on the forums are in large part those of just the super-dedicated players, which are great; I love you guys. However, there are thousands of players who are not active on the forums and I don't think it's fair to say that forum users are representative of the entire playerbase. For example, I did a randomized sample of player's opinions on the proposed war changes, and you wouldn't know it looking at the forums but ~66% of players were in favor of nerfing Fortify. In any case, I want the game to be fun, dynamic, etc. and I would really like to encourage war and help new players grow and all that. And I am confident we can do these things without rolling back the 'great deflation' update, which I think would be a step backwards. Everyone looks at the past through rose-tinted glasses, but I think P&W is doing pretty well as-is, and ultimately I can't force you guys to fight each other if you don't want to. 2 1 Quote Is there a bug? Report It | Not understanding game mechanics? Ask About It | Got a good idea? Suggest ItForums Rules | Game Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buorhann Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Nerfing Fortify has nothing to do with the request in this thread. I know that's an example, but it's one that holds no relation to this topic. 4 Quote Warrior of Dio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfPCFQfOnLg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Who Me Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 1 minute ago, Alex said: Nine months ago we had 2,138 active nations and 5,764 total nations. Today, we have 4,190 active nations and 7,853 total nations. I've found that the opinions expressed on the forums are in large part those of just the super-dedicated players, which are great; I love you guys. However, there are thousands of players who are not active on the forums and I don't think it's fair to say that forum users are representative of the entire playerbase. For example, I did a randomized sample of player's opinions on the proposed war changes, and you wouldn't know it looking at the forums but ~66% of players were in favor of nerfing Fortify. In any case, I want the game to be fun, dynamic, etc. and I would really like to encourage war and help new players grow and all that. And I am confident we can do these things without rolling back the 'great deflation' update, which I think would be a step backwards. Everyone looks at the past through rose-tinted glasses, but I think P&W is doing pretty well as-is, and ultimately I can't force you guys to fight each other if you don't want to. Yeah, about that. 106,348 nations have been simulated to date! 7,853 nations exist now. That is a really poor retention rate you have there. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Alex Posted March 5, 2018 Administrators Share Posted March 5, 2018 Just now, Buorhann said: Nerfing Fortify has nothing to do with the request in this thread. I know that's an example, but it's one that holds no relation to this topic. The argument being made was that "look, no one likes this, why are you insisting on it" and my response is that just because people on the forums don't like it, doesn't mean that no one likes it. I used the Fortify example as evidence for my point. Just now, Who Me said: Yeah, about that. 106,348 nations have been simulated to date! 7,853 nations exist now. That is a really poor retention rate you have there. The game isn't for everyone. Does everyone you know IRL play text-based games? We have about a 10% retention rate for new players signing up, which is pretty good (I think) all things considered. It's obviously a niche and many other people would rather play Clash of Clans or Madden 2018. 1 Quote Is there a bug? Report It | Not understanding game mechanics? Ask About It | Got a good idea? Suggest ItForums Rules | Game Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vack Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 2 minutes ago, Alex said: Nine months ago we had 2,138 active nations and 5,764 total nations. Today, we have 4,190 active nations and 7,853 total nations. I've found that the opinions expressed on the forums are in large part those of just the super-dedicated players, which are great; I love you guys. However, there are thousands of players who are not active on the forums and I don't think it's fair to say that forum users are representative of the entire playerbase. For example, I did a randomized sample of player's opinions on the proposed war changes, and you wouldn't know it looking at the forums but ~66% of players were in favor of nerfing Fortify. In any case, I want the game to be fun, dynamic, etc. and I would really like to encourage war and help new players grow and all that. And I am confident we can do these things without rolling back the 'great deflation' update, which I think would be a step backwards. Everyone looks at the past through rose-tinted glasses, but I think P&W is doing pretty well as-is, and ultimately I can't force you guys to fight each other if you don't want to. The super-dedicated players are the ones who best understand the game and spend hours calculating how best to set up cities, and are often the ones instructing new players on how to build their cities. So they are the ones you need to listen to. Also I highly doubt the increased playerbase has much to do with the econ changes. You've got the numbers and stuff but isn't that to do with the app? 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Alex Posted March 5, 2018 Administrators Share Posted March 5, 2018 5 minutes ago, Vack said: The super-dedicated players are the ones who best understand the game and spend hours calculating how best to set up cities, and are often the ones instructing new players on how to build their cities. So they are the ones you need to listen to. Also I highly doubt the increased playerbase has much to do with the econ changes. You've got the numbers and stuff but isn't that to do with the app? And they're probably also the ones who don't want to bother with recalculations and are more conservative toward change in general. The apps are a new stream of players coming in, but the game was pretty stagnant at 1700-2200 active players between Feb '16 and June '17. The apps launch and econ changes largely coincided, so it is tough to differentiate the effects of each, but I wouldn't expect the econ changes to really impact player retention either way. If, however, the game was so good before the econ changes and so bad after the fact now, I wouldn't expect to have seen stagnation (no growth in playerbase) before the changes, and then growth afterward. 1 1 Quote Is there a bug? Report It | Not understanding game mechanics? Ask About It | Got a good idea? Suggest ItForums Rules | Game Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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