Popular Post Prefontaine Posted June 9, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted June 9, 2022 For those unaware, baseball has several issues in terms of balancing with respect to the game. When used casually it is not disruptive, however there are some who do not use baseball casually. Here are the main talking points There are players bringing in over 8M a day playing baseball (240M per month) These high end players largely use bot assisted tools Recent game disruption (serve crashing) was a result of these tools. Some other points to note: Baseball is heavily used by some alliances as part of the military strategy for funding nations in blockade, or otherwise down and out in a war. I expect them to have a heavy protesting presence here. Baseball is not intended to be a core, or necessary mechanic in the game. In our solutions to how to address Baseball problems is that we don't want to burden the players who want nothing to do with baseball to have be essential to growth. An early solution to this was a proposed daily 5M cap that was much easier to reach. 5M per day is 10x the normal max login bonus, 10% of a whales income, over double a newish players income, and would be the largest single source of revenue outside of lucky raids. Anyone who didn't play baseball for this 5M would fall behind easily. Baseball is proposed to have the following changes: Daily revenue from baseball is capped at $1M Players age rate is reduced by 25% (retire more slowly) Revenue from baseball is increased 25% (makes getting to the $1M easier) If you're largely against these changes, please suggest an alternative that follows the concept of not making baseball a pivotal part of the game for income. I'm open to other ideas, but not open to leaving things as is. Baseball has become a growing issue that has more and more been met with a "Lets get rid of it" response. The idea is to avoid that, so a change needs to happen or it'll just go away at this point. 46 33 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Itachi Posted June 9, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted June 9, 2022 A cap of $1M/day makes it just not worth doing. If its going to get capped it should definitely be higher than $1M. Perhaps a monthly cap that makes it still appealing to those with the time but not feeling mandatory to those without the inclination? 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prefontaine Posted June 9, 2022 Author Share Posted June 9, 2022 2 minutes ago, Itachi said: A cap of $1M/day makes it just not worth doing. If its going to get capped it should definitely be higher than $1M. Perhaps a monthly cap that makes it still appealing to those with the time but not feeling mandatory to those without the inclination? How much would a monthly cap look like in your opinion? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Ben Zene Posted June 9, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted June 9, 2022 (edited) I know you already have your mind set on nerfing baseball, so I'm just gonna raise up something else which I think is also very important. Over the past few weeks, there have been a lot of new players joining the baseball community. If you were to implement such a massive nerf to baseball, you should consider having an option that allows a player to get a refund for their investments in the stadium (perhaps team members as well, although it might be more iffy). It's not fair for players who dumped in $40M into baseball, and then you suddently change the income to $1M a day. Edited June 9, 2022 by Ben Zene Grammar 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itachi Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 1 minute ago, Prefontaine said: How much would a monthly cap look like in your opinion? I'd think somewhere in the range of 75M-100M at least. This assuming that the answer is that it either gets capped in some way or removed entirely. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prefontaine Posted June 9, 2022 Author Share Posted June 9, 2022 5 minutes ago, Itachi said: I'd think somewhere in the range of 75M-100M at least. This assuming that the answer is that it either gets capped in some way or removed entirely. What about a scaled cap? Something that say stops growing around 25 cities? Starts at being able to ear 40M per month at 1 city, and then grows by 2M per city up to something near 80M? 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post BelgiumFury Posted June 9, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted June 9, 2022 (edited) 25 minutes ago, Ben Zene said: I know you already have your mind set on nerfing baseball, so I'm just gonna raise up something else which I think is also very important. Over the past few weeks, there have been a lot of new players joining the baseball community. If you were to implement such a massive nerf to baseball, you should consider having an option that allows a player to get a refund for their investments in the stadium (perhaps team members as well, although it might be more iffy). It's not fair for players who dumped in $40M into baseball, and then you suddently change the income to $1M a day. I agree; fairness and stability of investement is fair and important. Just like we wouldn't nerf expensive projects if people have them without compensation, the same should apply here. I propose once the details and bits have been finalized we enter a thirty day grace period where everything keeps going as it does now. Once this grace period starts we place a fancy announcement at the top of the baseball page, saying baseball will be nerfed on X date, then people can decide to keep investing or not doing so (obviously knowing the risk ahead of time). A grace period of a month should be more than enough to return the 40M and even make some good profit. Will also be easier to code than a whole refund. Edited June 9, 2022 by BelgiumFury 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Itachi Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 15 minutes ago, Prefontaine said: What about a scaled cap? Something that say stops growing around 25 cities? Starts at being able to ear 40M per month at 1 city, and then grows by 2M per city up to something near 80M? Something like this sounds interesting. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Ben Zene Posted June 9, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted June 9, 2022 (edited) To address a few more points other than the refund: 1 hour ago, Prefontaine said: Daily revenue from baseball is capped at $1M 1. Investment in maxed stadium and baseball team costs about $40M. The home game player typically pays the away player 30% of their earnings (tips), otherwise nobody would play aways. If the daily earnings were capped at $1M, daily profits would be $700k, the return of investment will be 60 days. Even longer if we consider players retiring. This will change baseball from a mechanic that somewhat affects the game, to something that is completely inconsequential. If that is indeed your goal, why not just remove baseball? 1 hour ago, Prefontaine said: These high end players largely use bot assisted tools 2. To clarify, we use a script written by Doc because the game UI itself is really bad, requiring a few clicks and a page reload to play a game. Even worse are the thousands of clicks needed to fully upgrade the team. The script in no way automates the playing of games, it just allows us to play 1 game per click. The person who crashed the game edited the script against the game rules, and was rightfully banned. 1 hour ago, Prefontaine said: There are players bringing in over 8M a day playing baseball 3. It's not as if the $8M is free money. I am one of these players and I have decided that spending a few hours clicking mindlessly (for about $2k a click after the daily 250 limit) is worth my time. I don't mind some mechanic stopping my competitive self from doing this though. I have no suggestions for the actual changes because that's not my job. But the idea of a scaled monthly cap sounds ok, the increase in player lifespan and income per game are good too. Edited June 9, 2022 by Ben Zene formatting 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynn Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 4 minutes ago, Prefontaine said: What about a scaled cap? Something that say stops growing around 25 cities? Starts at being able to ear 40M per month at 1 city, and then grows by 2M per city up to something near 80M? I remember reading in a previous post that part of your negative view about baseball was due to some players making exorbitant amounts of money out of it. I also know that most (if not all) of those players are whales. That said, I understand baseball can be unbalanced when you have multiple whales profiting millions daily. But it is important to mention that for new players (who are extremely important for the game's future), baseball is a way to close the gap between them and the older nations. So, don't you think it would be smarter for the cap to reduce according to the player's city count? You could set a base gap of $100mil a month and after c15 it reduces $2.5mil per city built until it reaches $50mil. I think it would be a healthier way to handle this issue. 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prefontaine Posted June 9, 2022 Author Share Posted June 9, 2022 Just now, The Whale said: I remember reading in a previous post that part of your negative view about baseball was due to some players making exorbitant amounts of money out of it. I also know that most (if not all) of those players are whales. That said, I understand baseball can be unbalanced when you have multiple whales profiting millions daily. But it is important to mention that for new players (who are extremely important for the game's future), baseball is a way to close the gap between them and the older nations. So, don't you think it would be smarter for the cap to reduce according to the player's city count? You could set a base gap of $100mil a month and after c15 it reduces $2.5mil per city built until it reaches $50mil. I think it would be a healthier way to handle this issue. Last I looked it wasn't whales using it to the extreme. I'm fine making it a decreasing cap as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynn Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 Just now, Prefontaine said: Last I looked it wasn't whales using it to the extreme. I'm fine making it a decreasing cap as well. Because as @Ben Zene said, a lot of new players started to play baseball the last couple of months. I do agree that nowadays most players aren't whales, but baseball is an important tool that helps closing the gap between whales and the rest of the pack. Making it an increasing cap is only going to make the problem worse. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgiumFury Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 6 minutes ago, Ben Zene said: 3. It's not as if the $8M is free money. I am one of these players and I have decided that spending a few hours clicking mindlessly (for about $2k a click after the daily 250 limit) is worth my time. I agree and I don't think anyone claims you do. The point I am making (from the "anti-baseball" camp). Is that I don't like that an inconsequential (or at least a mechanic that was not intended to be meta defining) has the potential to be meta defining if someone clicks for 2 hours in an end. Clicking 2 hours on end is what cookie clicker is for, not PnW. But thats my 50 cents. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiji God Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 Just kill it already, and stop the slow meandering death of baseball. 2 3 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isjaki Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 This seems like a good suggestion and a great way to level the playing field between individuals with time and those without. Naturally, there will be pushback from the players who have time on their hands. A 30 day grace period for baseball investors to redeem their investments seems appropriate. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florania Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 1 hour ago, Prefontaine said: For those unaware, baseball has several issues in terms of balancing with respect to the game. When used casually it is not disruptive, however there are some who do not use baseball casually. Here are the main talking points There are players bringing in over 8M a day playing baseball (240M per month) These high end players largely use bot assisted tools Recent game disruption (serve crashing) was a result of these tools. Some other points to note: Baseball is heavily used by some alliances as part of the military strategy for funding nations in blockade, or otherwise down and out in a war. I expect them to have a heavy protesting presence here. Baseball is not intended to be a core, or necessary mechanic in the game. In our solutions to how to address Baseball problems is that we don't want to burden the players who want nothing to do with baseball to have be essential to growth. An early solution to this was a proposed daily 5M cap that was much easier to reach. 5M per day is 10x the normal max login bonus, 10% of a whales income, over double a newish players income, and would be the largest single source of revenue outside of lucky raids. Anyone who didn't play baseball for this 5M would fall behind easily. Baseball is proposed to have the following changes: Daily revenue from baseball is capped at $1M Players age rate is reduced by 25% (retire more slowly) Revenue from baseball is increased 25% (makes getting to the $1M easier) If you're largely against these changes, please suggest an alternative that follows the concept of not making baseball a pivotal part of the game for income. I'm open to other ideas, but not open to leaving things as is. Baseball has become a growing issue that has more and more been met with a "Lets get rid of it" response. The idea is to avoid that, so a change needs to happen or it'll just go away at this point. I strongly disagree with your points. The threat of a ban, while not preventing all exploits, is surely a better way to prevent cheating then a 1 mil cap. I don’t use any form of bot, and I collect about 2-4 mil a day from baseball, excluding any home game fees that we give out. Putting a cap of 1 mil would utterly destroy any reason most players play baseball in the first place. It takes from my experiences 2ish million to fully upgrade a player to max stats. Multiply that by the entire team, and you’re looking at 20 million spent on players alone. Then add that to the quick ageing and most times only getting 30+ yo players after a retirement, and this adds up quickly. I have a 100 rated team with max stadium upgrades, and it has costed me close to 75 million overall. While 1 million is already small enough, it doesn’t account for the standard 33% fee most away teams charge home teams for playing games. Therefore, a home team’s max is really 666k, and a away team’s max is so much higher then 1 mil, given how pitiful the winning team’s reward is (I’ve never had it go over $800, even when two max teams face off in a packed maxed out stadium), it would effectively encourage boting from away teams to try and make money. By adding this cap, you’re adding a incentive to cheat. I almost exclusively log in to P&W to keep my baseball team as good as it can be, but if this cap is created I would seriously consider deleting or stop using my account, as I would assume a lot of other baseball-focused players and alliances would. The baseball mechanic is in dire need of a overhaul, and while decreasing ageing and increasing profits is nice, it is completely overshadowed by what terrible consequences would arise if such a small cap is introduced. If you want solutions, try and make leagues for the player to progress in that give more money for better teams, or being able to upgrade your stadium past 30,000 with more customisation. You could introduce academy bonuses and such, all that cost money and gives a rewarding experience for the player. If what you say is true and that there have been talks around scrapping the baseball feature, I would much rather you get rid of all of this instead of butcher it like these changes would. I hope this has at least partially changed your mind, if only to increase the cap to a appropriate amount, say 5mil. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Isjaki Posted June 9, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted June 9, 2022 9 minutes ago, Florania said: I strongly disagree with your points. The threat of a ban, while not preventing all exploits, is surely a better way to prevent cheating then a 1 mil cap. I don’t use any form of bot, and I collect about 2-4 mil a day from baseball, excluding any home game fees that we give out. Putting a cap of 1 mil would utterly destroy any reason most players play baseball in the first place. Baseball was never meant to be a means for making money. We have precedent for that in Alex's earlier nerf of baseball when GOONS exploited it. Main money earner is national income. 1 11 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florania Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 2 minutes ago, Isjaki said: Baseball was never meant to be a means for making money. We have precedent for that in Alex's earlier nerf of baseball when GOONS exploited it. Main money earner is national income. The previous nerf was also a mistake. If baseball isn’t profitable, then it’s just a money pit that only exists to be a number on a screen. With the money I invested into baseball I could have made multiple cities, or other more traditional things. Having some like baseball as a money maker adds depth, removing it would make the game more generic. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hwan Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 Yeah just put an end to its misery already I don't see why you would keep it around when it clearly only brings problems again and again. Just so people can get baited into spending an hour to click for what i make in a turn? (at this point it's probably handled by scripts anyway) 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isjaki Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 3 minutes ago, Florania said: The previous nerf was also a mistake. If baseball isn’t profitable, then it’s just a money pit that only exists to be a number on a screen. With the money I invested into baseball I could have made multiple cities, or other more traditional things. Having some like baseball as a money maker adds depth, removing it would make the game more generic. I might say it makes the gameplay more fair to all players, actually. I played baseball manually back in the day without bots because I had time, and I don't have time to use bots these days. Politics and War is a game that fundamentally relies upon a player's skill, and keeping baseball high favours just clicking on a screen as opposed to an actually skilled gameplay. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgiumFury Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 15 minutes ago, Isjaki said: Baseball was never meant to be a means for making money. We have precedent for that in Alex's earlier nerf of baseball when GOONS exploited it. Main money earner is national income. This. Baseball was meant to be purely a time sink, and that's all. 5 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 I would say allow players to redeem the money they sank in and have a grace period then it becomes purely cosmetic. 1 Why are you reading this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Posted June 9, 2022 Share Posted June 9, 2022 I know second comment in a row but so be it. Let's say hypothetically speaking there our no nerfs and the baseball system stays as is. The biggest issue in my mind is the cheating and the server issues it causes. At the very least an increase of moderations time would be needed to police it and remove the bad apples witch are all too common. Certain people wish to discount how much baseball bot usage there is and I believe that is a key misunderstanding of the current issues the game faces in terms of baseball related issues. Why are you reading this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post His Holy Decagon Posted June 9, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted June 9, 2022 (edited) Where are the comments where people are complaining about baseball? I’ve never really seen any actual person bring up baseball of all things, as an issue. I think raising “issues” because a few people go wild, is almost a form of gaslighting, meanwhile I never see a single soul complain. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but who is actually complaining? (Also, I literally just maxed my team/stadium and have had a lot of fun delving into this little baseball sub-community; really unsure what the big whoop is.) Edited June 9, 2022 by His Holy Decagon 9 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Canbec Posted June 9, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted June 9, 2022 5 minutes ago, His Holy Decagon said: Where are the comments where people are complaining about baseball? I’ve never really seen any actual person bring up baseball of all things, as an issue. I think raising “issues” because a few people go wild, is almost a form of gaslighting, meanwhile I never see a single soul complain. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but who is actually complaining? (Also, I literally just maxed my team/stadium and have had a lot of fun delving into this little baseball sub-community; really unsure what the big whoop is.) The gaslighting was pretty obvious when he made it seem like the server crashing two weeks ago was the result of legitimate baseball players rather than one person trying to cheat. Sadly I can't say I'm surprised though as it seems par for course. I have a few thoughts on this which I hope to make later when I have more time. In the meantime, spoiler alert: this is an overall a terrible proposal from someone who clearly hasn't bothered to understand the dynamics of baseball despite the fact it's apparently been his sole concern with the game for months now. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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