TGA
Sergeant
Reged: 01/17/05
Posts: 149
Loc: Michigan, USA
|
A look on the new features.
#164083 - 02/15/12 10:54 PM (72.53.194.237)
|
|
|
The majority of us were angry with the new changes that were made during Code Fest, new training system, building degeneration, and the new unit cap. I spent some time thinking about these things, and discussing them with a friend tha doesn't even play Neveron. Here is what we came up with.
1. New Training System
Dee pointed out the flaws in another post, but to recap. Expense is too high, skill ups seem to outweigh the skill downs, and many others.
Some changes I would like to see are of course the cost. To compare the current system to the old maitenance rate training system, to my memory of it. The old system, i believe, maxed at 225% maintenance, which gave you a good chance to skill down with little to no chance for skill ups, I don't remember how low the maintenance went before. To compare, just for 'normal training' we are paying 200% maintenance. Whereas if you want the best of the best training you have to pay 1000% more of your maintenance. There is always the option of going to war instead of paying for training, but I feel the majoity will pay for training. The price is just way to high, and I haven't seen a description of chances to skill up or down per level of training you choose.
Another feature I would appreciate is a showing of how many units skilled up. Everytime you log in you see how many training checks happened and how many units skilled down. We all hate skill ups, but it would be nice to see how many units are skilling up.
The next fix would be that my mech pilot skilled down, but it was his infantry skill. This seems pointless, it should be targetting the units actual skills.
Then the skill up needs toned down, a 1 skill should skill up onces every NevYear. I understand this is on average, but it seems it's happening too fast.
2. Building Degeneration
This has been tuned off, but truly, it is a good idea. With a small change, this could be very helpful for the game. Instead of hitting everyone with this, make it more of a 'punishment'. Example being, let's say you haven't been involved in a war in six real months, time for building degeneration to kick in. This is benificial in two ways. Empires are getting too big, this promotes war and destruction. Then you have six months to rebuild or prepare for the next war (six months is just an idea, that could be easily tweaked). Another thing, that I believe is desired by SM, it would bring down the ammount of unused money in Neveron. Pay for war, or pay to fix buildings. This may be hard for producers to deal with, but isn't it better than just losing buildings? One downfall I see to this would be that we wouldn't ever be able to have an 'end war' button. That would just create loopholes and abuse.
3. The New Unit Limt
I see no problem with a unit limit per level, I don't know that what SM posted will even happen, but if so, it needs tweaked. A level 0 doesn't need 108 units, and a level 11+ should be permitted more than what was mentioned (sorry, I don't remember the exact numbers). All this needs is a modified scale.
All in all, I hated these ideas off the start, but I spent some time thinking about what they could be. Now I really have to say, I really like the ideas, not a fan of the execution.
What does everyone think? Let's please NOT bash SM, let's try to find good tweaks and see if we can get the positive side out of these changes.
--------------------
- Lois: "Peter, how can you tell me to calm down, there are people trying to kill me."
- Stewie: "Really, oh I have so many people to thank. First I would like to thank God, then ummm.... oh yes, SATAN"
|
Katrar
Major
Reged: 09/15/02
Posts: 1314
Loc: Seattle, WA USA, Terra
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: TGA]
#164086 - 02/16/12 01:14 AM (24.17.137.174)
|
|
|
That's the basic point... the foundational concepts are workable. The implementation is horrific.
There's also the fact that SM outright said building degeneration was intended not to be costly in $ but in time. A time waster. Intended to make it boring to play the game. The thought process behind that... that you solve your design problem by making it actually boring to play your game... tells me Neveron will never have a chance under SM's leadership.
You manage player behavior through incentives, not actively seeking to bore them into a decision whether or not to continue playing your game. The fundamentally wrong game design thought process at work there is astonishing.
So, again, yes you are right. The basic concepts are all ok. The implementation is what everyone has a problem with. On top, of course, of throwing his playerbase under the bus, and all the lies about discussing major changes etc.
--------------------
HoC Gaming - Come war with us!
The HoC Archive - Neveron's definitive historical document
|
buc
Captain
Reged: 08/12/05
Posts: 710
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: Katrar]
#164091 - 02/16/12 01:44 AM (222.155.170.187)
|
|
|
The basic flaw in your ending arguement, is that you think SM will 1: Discuss with anyone about the changes, and 2: Listen to what anyone has to say.
|
TGA
Sergeant
Reged: 01/17/05
Posts: 149
Loc: Michigan, USA
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: buc]
#164097 - 02/16/12 08:09 AM (76.20.128.52)
|
|
|
It's more of a hope than a think.
--------------------
- Lois: "Peter, how can you tell me to calm down, there are people trying to kill me."
- Stewie: "Really, oh I have so many people to thank. First I would like to thank God, then ummm.... oh yes, SATAN"
|
ghostrider
Lieutenant
Reged: 03/26/10
Posts: 522
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: TGA]
#164132 - 02/17/12 12:31 AM (70.173.25.223)
|
|
|
ok. If I know right a nev year is about 12 real days. If every unit in an empire skills up every 12 real days, how soon will it be before all your units are 6 or worse? Considering the skill down frequency doesnt even come close to the skill up frequency, id say this is not a good idea. Now I definately agree the prices are set way to high. This seems more about bleeding money, then anything else.
Building degragation, I can see happening in buildings under a certain cf, on a quicker basis. The higher cf would take alot longer to have problems, though as much as I hate to say it, a training facility, before the new training system, and a repair bay are the most likely builidngs to need fixing. Accidents.
Now maybe have random things happen across the game, such as an experament goes wrong and damages some facilities, or an industrial facility has a small explosion due to mishandled ammo being built makes sense. Used extremely sparingly would work. Comms and residetial have their issues, but even this should not exceed say 3 cf. A planet quake would be useful for something big.
I agree that unit limits should be set for the appropriate level. Yes, a level 0 should not have 108 units in it. Even more then 30 sounds excessive. Instead of a unit cap, increase the amount each unit costs above a certain amount. Say a level 7 can have 1000 units. If they want to keep 1500 units then the extra 500 cost 2 or more times the normal price to have them. Now what to charge double on would be the next issue.
|
Katrar
Major
Reged: 09/15/02
Posts: 1314
Loc: Seattle, WA USA, Terra
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: ghostrider]
#164134 - 02/17/12 02:44 AM (24.17.137.174)
|
|
|
To be accurate, 1 nev year is 1 real month not 12 days.
--------------------
HoC Gaming - Come war with us!
The HoC Archive - Neveron's definitive historical document
|
ShadowMasterCM
Captain
Reged: 12/07/05
Posts: 916
Loc: New York
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: Katrar]
#164142 - 02/17/12 12:10 PM (24.103.210.226)
|
|
|
actually a NevYear is 36.5 RDays...
365 RDays in a year / 10 = 36.5 RDays = 1 NYear
so its actually just over a real month
a few 'off the record' comments about the key points of this topic:
2]Degrade: this was run for 12 hours, then disabled, and everything was repaired. I did not have the time to get a proper write up available to explain exactly what was going on. Some players where reporting 'odd' behaviors. After looking into several of them, Degrade did EXACTLY what it was supposed to do. I decided to leave that program off, and continue on the multiple other tasks that still needed to be addressed. We will address Degrade later on once we get everything else sorted out. There will be a better explanation available and some forum Q&A before we reintroduce that system
3]Unit Cap: this system was never implemented. i never said i was going to instantly drop everyone to 1 regiment per level today, or even tommorow. I simply stated the previous admins intended goals of the original unit cap program. That program was simply halted at the 10k mark due to lack of admin involvement in the game...aka another unfinished project. After discussing with Randy what the unit cap was trying to accomplish, I better understood the value of it from the game design side if things. The original plan was 1500 for all levels. I agree that lower levels dont need 1500, and that would be likely abused. So I tweaked that original goal and said what about 1 regiment per level. Stop worring about whether a L1 needs 108 units, and worry about how you can make the level you play at work with the new formula of 1 regiment * empire level.
The implementation of the lower unit cap would likely start by scaling the mid level empires into the (empire level * regiment) system. Id venture to guess that the mid level empires are going to struggle with it more than the largest empires will.
Over time, we would drop 1 regiment each phase, until we found a better balance of 'exciting' game play verses 'acceptable' defenses. I dont think we will ever need to get to 1 regiment per level, but only lowering it will allow us to see any potential gains from it.
We currently have almost 93 regiments as the unit cap. So the intial drop might be 90 regiments allowed per level, then a month later drop it to 85 regiments, resulting in a total unit cap drop of less than 1,000 units over 2 months. Gradually dropping off additional regiment(s) each month we could phase in a much lower unit cap, which would allow active players time to rethink their stratigies.
Additional comments that would have been part of a forum discussion about this would have included adding a new defense tool, like land mines to the defenders arsinal. Towers as they exist today would likely be converted to a true CBT style bunker, and might not count as a Vehicle any longer. There would need to be a limit to the number of bunkers allowed per city, likely based on its total CF...aka larger city needs better defenses. So the unit cap system will need further discussion before implementation, so there is no need to panic about that system either
1] Training: Now this system is obviously in place. It was a mixture of the current training system, with features of the older maintenance style system. The Maximum rate was meant to be extremely expensive, and not meant for every empire to simply slap on Maximum. The cost of training at various levels is being looked at, and minor adjustments may be made to the pricing. We may also leave the pricing and simply tweak the amount of training a soldier gets from the new system.
A few things to keep in mind, that several players have brought to me about 'old' costs. Neveron has had at least 14 months of skill up free training period. This means that all units only got better, and none got worse. Many soldiers / units reached the old cap of skill 2, and was no longer trained. Gradually empires where able to reduce the 'cost' associated with training, as they trained less and less units [since more and more where at 2/2 at this point].
Also keep in mind that some empires where running endless 'training raids' [while there was no skill ups] and that resulted in the entire empire getting free checks...resulting in even more 'free' training of hundreds and thousands of units. Once all the 'trainers' got to 2/2 or better, they we decommed and the unassigned masses where 'stored', or simply left as unassigned as 3/3 [or better] soldiers. So now empires have massive stores of 3/3 and better soldiers, that are standing around doing nothing...while still maintaining that 'elite' status. With the new training/ skill up system, those guys are now getting fat and lazy...and will start to loose skills.
Now lets look at one more point that seems to be overlooked about training in general [new or old system, this still applies]. For each 'better' skill, its supposed to be twice as hard to achieve that next skill. So for the average new hire at 8/8, you should see a lot of improved soldiers to 7/7. To get to 6/6 tho, its twice as hard. To get to 5/5 its twice as hard as it was to get to 6/6 and so on, all the way to the top. So people saying they cant maintain 2/2 armies with just training...well, you can actually, if your empire produces enough income to cover the Maximum training rates. Maximum will push the 'average multi' soldier into the 2 skill range.
So to see an intitially higher number of empire units taking skill losses makes sense, as they are all at 2/2 and your only 'training' them to a range of maybe 4/4.
This new training system is also training ALL units in your empire. So when 'comparing' costs, of what training used to cost you [when skill ups where running], verses some level of the new training system, and you now get ALL units trained, rather than the selected battalions that you used to manually train...are you really paying that much more? some people have stated that they are actually paying less. There is also NO high end cap on the training skills. Previously you could only train to skill 2. The new system, if your paying higher training rates, and have found some soldiers with better mutlis [or added the DP enhancement to some better than average soldiers] you could train units into skill 1, or 0, or possibly even better than that.
Now the most important other half to this story, is BATTLE CHECKS. You can no longer earn empire wide checks from war activity. You used to be able to earn a specific unit extra checks in battle, and might see a unit skill up during or just after a battle.
This new system removes the empire wide checks, and 'rewards' the units that go out into battle, and get into the middle of the conflict. Battle checks are now earned for firing your weapon, and scoring a hit. Your units will skill up during the battle. Messages currently pop up in the same screen which displayes the attack phase results. So if you want your best units to maintain great skills, then they need to get out there and earn them.
The 'results' page might not be producing the data it should be. Some units are actually getting multiple skill downs, but the results page doesnt seem to display them properly. Players have reported that after viewing a unit that showed a 8 to 7 result, the unit was actually at skill 3, 4 or 5 already. The results page may be showing only the first result it finds from that unit in the report. Im looking into this and will see what I can figure out there.
For the soldiers in vehichles...some have noticed that the driver seems to be skilling up better/ faster in its V skill, than that units actual Weapons soldier. What that means is that the driver has a better 'multi' in V than the Weapons guy...eventually his V skill will be better than the Weapons guy, and a 'Swap Crew' button will appear on that units page. A simple click on the button, and your Driver and Weapons soldier change places, resulting in a better skilled unit. I have picked up several thousand BV by doing this in my empire. Currently looking at ways to display a button or a page visable some where that can find these units for you, and then you decide to swap them or not.
This last comment is NOT intended to sound like im pushing the DP options, but I do feel its worth mentioning to be sure that players understand it properly.
Every soldier has a 'natural multi', which is not displayed anywhere. That multi comes into play when training, and battle checks, are applied to that soldier. Every skill has its own multi, as explained on the Training page.
You may get a mech that has good pilot, but poor gunner multi. You may get one the other way around. By adding the DP 'multi enhancement', you 'double' the value of all 5 of that soldiers multis. The better multi will only get better, but that worse multi will get doubled, making it better than it was previously.
this soldier is a great pilot, but not as great of a gunner...
1.2/0.2/0.5/2.1/1.0
add a single DP enhancement to it...
2.4/0.4/1.0/4.2/2.0
and it will get better results than before from the same number of checks
and another DP enhancement...
4.8/0.8/2.0/8.4/4.0
and its even better
adding a 3rd DP enhancement to that same pilot...
9.6/1.6/4.0/16.8/8.0
now this soldier has reached the max multi of 10 for pilot, but it has also improved its gunner to 8.0 with only 3 DP enhancements
ideally you would want to find a soldier with both mech skills having good multis, but being that it is totally random how they are assigned, i imagine those guys will be few and far between the thousands that we recruit every NMonth
I am working on several write ups going over all of these items for the 'official' pages and explanation. For now tho, hopefully this will allow people to see the overall view of things. Im sure I overlooked a few points in this reply, and Im sure some of it contains typos and some of it will be misunderstood by someone. We will work on things as we can, and try to get the bugs out of this system with some time.
--------------------
Is it true? Do you really suck that bad??
Neveron Promo Code: online gaming rocks
Facebook me!
My Space
|
buc
Captain
Reged: 08/12/05
Posts: 710
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: ShadowMasterCM]
#164147 - 02/17/12 06:48 PM (222.155.170.187)
|
|
|
While, of course, it would be possible for me to say many things SM, I will keep this short. What you have removed, is the ability to only train what we want to train. I may not want to train my hunter bats, but do want to train my snipers. And I MOST DEFINATELY DONT want to train my uncommissioned units. You have remove all our choices and given us a 'one size fits all' option. All without any prior discussion (although promised in the past, and again in your last post, we have yet to see it).
|
ghostrider
Lieutenant
Reged: 03/26/10
Posts: 522
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: buc]
#164148 - 02/17/12 08:39 PM (70.173.25.223)
|
|
|
under the old training, the maintainence one, not the focused skill training, could indeed skill down the hunter batts. I do agree that training the uncommed units is not good at all. Unplaced soldiers would be good to skill down, but not unused units. I do agree that i dont want to train the soldiers in the stealth towers, as it is useless bv in low levels. Only skills that are relevant should be trained, such as gunnery in towers that have weapons, and no way should driver be improved if the unit can not move.
The empire wide skill checks for units that werent in combat were bs and needed removing.
Now as for dp mulits, it looks like it doubles the chances for each point put in. So without major expenses at times, you will never find out how bad a soldier is. This needs to be changed. There should be a way to weed out someone that will require 4 dp points and still not skill down. As was said, this is a war based game, and there should be SOME way to weed out the unskillables without spending billions on them.
|
buc
Captain
Reged: 08/12/05
Posts: 710
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: ghostrider]
#164156 - 02/18/12 12:05 AM (222.155.170.187)
|
|
|
under the old maintenance one, you're right, it could skilldown hunter batts. HOWEVER, you could do specific unit/bat training on top of the maint, to run more checks on the units you wanted. That way, you could run a lower level of maint training, and suplement it with specific training as and when needed.
Another way of saying, you had options and choices. I know of NO reason why the specific training system was removed. True, units are not stuck in training for days on end, instead they are stuck at 8 or 7 gun for days on end, and depending on the training level, may not ever get past 6. Add that to the fact that the rest of your empires units will ALSO skillUP to 6, and you're left with very upset people.
Remember, DP Multis also expire over time.
|
Alexander
Newbie
Reged: 05/09/08
Posts: 8
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: buc]
#164157 - 02/18/12 12:29 AM (216.108.164.243)
|
|
|
I can not say I have an issue with what you are doing as much as I do with the way you are doing it.
SM, you offered us (A) and we responded to (A). We gave you donations, supported you and loved you for it. Once you were done getting what you needed, you unceremoniously offered us (B). You lied to us. You got our money and our support under the pretenses of (A), so stop being surprised and offended when we revolt at the emergence of (B). Get a grip, have some responsibilty.
|
ghostrider
Lieutenant
Reged: 03/26/10
Posts: 522
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: Alexander]
#164163 - 02/18/12 10:28 AM (70.173.25.223)
|
|
|
Would actually like to see both training forms. Have a general training for the whole empires, then have the intensive training for specific units. This will allow you to train the units you want trained faster then the current system would even allow under max setting. Yes you will have units tied up in training, but that is a cost for the intense version of training. Lower the general training by a bit, and have the intense side cost alot.
The intense side should also show better results, otherwise its a waste of time.
|
buc
Captain
Reged: 08/12/05
Posts: 710
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: ghostrider]
#164169 - 02/18/12 05:09 PM (222.155.170.187)
|
|
|
I'd be happy to see an adjustment in general training costs, and the re-addition of specific training again. It's just crazy not to have both.
And since I cant reply to the other post that SM has now closed, I don't know a single person who wanted the complete removal of the old training system? Other than SM himself of course.
|
TGA
Sergeant
Reged: 01/17/05
Posts: 149
Loc: Michigan, USA
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: buc]
#164178 - 02/18/12 11:30 PM (76.20.128.52)
|
|
|
Don't forget guys, if you want 'specific unit training' just send them into battle. Get skill checks that way, and have fun destroying other peoples things while you do it. :P
--------------------
- Lois: "Peter, how can you tell me to calm down, there are people trying to kill me."
- Stewie: "Really, oh I have so many people to thank. First I would like to thank God, then ummm.... oh yes, SATAN"
|
buc
Captain
Reged: 08/12/05
Posts: 710
|
Re: A look on the new features.
[Re: TGA]
#164187 - 02/19/12 01:43 PM (222.155.170.187)
|
|
|
Exactly! Other than my towers cant move... and oh yeah, I dont want to war with 6 gun units to try and skill them down, cause I'll lose and then where will I be?
|
|
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
