Aid Button

[DeletedUser4256]

I current have about 40 objects "aid-able" and 135 possibilities between guild mates, neighboorhod and friend list to receive "Aids"
Result: my city is almost always full polished and motivated, I've never experienced this situation in the past in this server.

I dont need any wish list, its unnecessary

 

[DeletedUser1153]

I am all for it. M/Ping is the most boring, time consuming, novel reading aspect of the game. Being able to whip through my guild in 1 minute will greatly enhance my enjoyment of the game and it will lead to most on my friends list M/Ping now that it is so quick.

So it will be up to each individual to model their city to make the aid button work for them. Adds another strategy layer to the game. When I go from about 30 or so M/Ps per day to well over a hundred, then I think I can arrange my city such that everything important gets motivated or polished every day. A far cry from before.

 

[DeletedUser]

I admit that from the motivator's/polisher's view it's a very nice thing to have - but it's not so much so seen from the receiving end, as has been pointed out above with many good arguments.
Also, don't forget that once this feature is no longer "new" and once not everyone is trying it out anymore, your villages may not be so shiny anymore either; and that's the moment that you might realise that this new feature has a few darker sides after all.

 

[DeletedUser]

I absolutely love the Aid-Tool! Removed all decorations, cultural buildings on minimum - I'm fine My town glitters. Doesn't really matter if FoE edits this tool or not - since a lot more gamers are visiting me daily, all buildings are motivated/polished.
Also I believe, even though this tool will not be "new" any longer after some time, many players will continue to use it - since it guarantees a quick way to gain blue prints.

 

[DeletedUser5608]

- since it guarantees a quick way to gain blue prints.

i have yet to gain any BPs from using the new system - there is certainly no guarantee, lol

 

[DeletedUser5800]

i have yet to gain any BPs from using the new system - there is certainly no guarantee, lol

I have gained bp's using the aid button but my city is in iron age so they tend to easier to come by plus until the aid button I wasn't polivating

 

[DeletedUser]

aid me.. not..

You get blueprints for sure (got one for the Lotus Temple) Will do a bit more investigating about how exactly the order of aid works

hiya
i just feel a need to say something about this "aidthingie".
its a great new gadget and if you want them BP it goes really fast.
but.. i have some questions.

first: to Byeordie, have you checked out "how exactly the order of aid works", like you wrote a while ago (on page 1)?
i tried to see if there was any reply from you about that reflection of yours to us in this tread, but nothing.. maybe im blind..

second: does anyone know what the parameters is for the aiding? sometimes it becomes motivation and sometimes polishing.

Gummi

 

[DeletedUser5608]

I have gained bp's using the aid button but my city is in iron age so they tend to easier to come by plus until the aid button I wasn't polivating

my city is also iron age so that can't be the difference.
before the feature i was specifically targeting a certain age of buildings to polivate - first iron age for lighthouse BPs, then bronze age for Babel, or EMA for Aachen. now i'm not getting any - but that's the nature of the random drop rate - maybe tomorrow i will get 6, lol

 

[DeletedUser2752]

my city is also iron age so that can't be the difference.
before the feature i was specifically targeting a certain age of buildings to polivate - first iron age for lighthouse BPs, then bronze age for Babel, or EMA for Aachen. now i'm not getting any - but that's the nature of the random drop rate - maybe tomorrow i will get 6, lol

Being in the Iron Age could also be the problem. You're more likely to have friends/guildies/neighbors with stone age structures during that age

hiya
first: to Byeordie, have you checked out "how exactly the order of aid works", like you wrote a while ago (on page 1)?
i tried to see if there was any reply from you about that reflection of yours to us in this tread, but nothing.. maybe im blind..

second: does anyone know what the parameters is for the aiding? sometimes it becomes motivation and sometimes polishing.

Hey Gummiguran, welcome to the forums! One of the admins already answered both questions on a separate thread:

Hi Guys!

As to the Aid thing: there is no wishlist planned, as we really want you to still visit each other . The new feature is basically a quick way for someone who currently just runs through all the cities in guild everyday and clicks a random building as quickly as possible. The difference is that it's better to use the Aid button for this, as it is not entirely random there. As I see no reason to hide the selection algorithm, I will just share it:

1. Buildings like “Shrine of Knowledge” or “Tigers’ Den” that trigger an additional effect when motivated/polished (most recent age) are prioritized.
2. If there are no such buildings available or all of them are already polished/motivated, the feature will enhance a random building from the most recent age.

If you want to polish/motivate a specific building, you're still free to do it - simply visit the city and click the building of your choice - nothing changes here .
So yes... there will be no wishlist, however it is of course possible that the selection algorithm will be adjusted in the future.

Note that by the response from the forum, the function may not be working as described, but I will only be able to get some more info on Monday

 

[DeletedUser]

Being in the Iron Age could also be the problem. You're more likely to have friends/guildies/neighbors with stone age structures during that age


Hey Gummiguran, welcome to the forums! One of the admins already answered both questions on a separate thread:

Note that by the response from the forum, the function may not be working as described, but I will only be able to get some more info on Monday

Hiya Byeordie and thanks for the welcome
lol, well.. as i said.. i am blind
just scrolled through the thread searching for your name/avatar, sorry about that (seems i am lazy too).
thanks for the answer, it is just as i suspected. i have noticed that the CA-buildings in my city are polivated, so are my SoK.
so.. to get my motivation i will need to just have happythingies from lower age in my city and coin/supply from the age im in and then "happy ending"


Gummi

 

[DeletedUser5963]

Wouldn't it be a good idea to split the Aid button on the event history into two buttons Aid and Visit so you could decide how to respond right from the history page instead of having to search for whoever you were trying to visit

Absolutely, I was thinking the exact same thing : have 2 buttons "VISIT" and "AID" so you can choose a quick P/M or go to the city, read the player's profile and P/M what is most useful for him/her. IMHO it would be the best solution.

 

[DeletedUser5729]

I have to say that I absolutely LOVE the new Aid button. I have 83 neighbors in my hood and have used it 3 times now. I p/m'd my hood in less then 3 minutes each time and have picked up 6 blueprints which were for higher Age GBs. Huge plus in my book.

Now about the choice of buildings. It clearly polishes as 1st priority since I had neighbors polish 6/8 decos yet none of my 26 Victorian houses were touched. It does seem to hit supply buildings though which is good. I removed all of my 1x1 & 2x1 decos and saw an immediate shift in polishing to the bigger cultural buildings. For the time being, just remove your small decos since the shift to bigger buildings will more than offset any lost happiness. It will also clean up some of the clutter in the town which is good.

As far trying to complicate things by making this go through different algorithm to determine preferences? I vote NO. Speed is the virtue of this feature and adding on a complex algorithm will just slow the process down and likely cause a much longer time to develop. Get this VERY helpful new feature out there in the next update and improve it further in another month or so.

I would not add a "Visit" button since you only have to click on the player's icon to accomplish this task already. But I might suggest splitting the button in half since it is a large enough. Make one Aid button for motivation & the other for polishing. It accomplishes 80% of whatever a complex algorithm could do and the greater number of m/p's on each town will more than make up for it.

Great job, developers!

 

[DeletedUser]

Does anyone know how the Aid feature treats Hall of Fame buildings? As far as I can tell, if it indeed motivates them at all it must be almos the very last option. To me it seems like the feature omitts them all together. Anyone know??

 

[DeletedUser4381]

I'm +1 for placing decos at the bottom of the priority list.

Aside from that, given the suggestion of splitting the Aid button; I think a better solution would be to split it into Polish and Motivate. (Or even three way into Polish/Supplies/Coins). That way it provides benefits to both the player and the developers. For the player it means that they can pick the one they want to apply to the city (although it will still pick a random building according to the algorithm), the recipient still has their preferred priority honoured, and on the developer side they can split the feature code so that it doesn't have to load all of the actionable buildings in a city in order to apply Aid - just load the buildings applicable to the request, the code for which is already in the game because it's used when visiting. (They could also use different algorithms per button, which would deal with the deco situation very effectively.)

 

[DeletedUser2752]

Aside from that, given the suggestion of splitting the Aid button; I think a better solution would be to split it into Polish and Motivate. (Or even three way into Polish/Supplies/Coins). That way it provides benefits to both the player and the developers. For the player it means that they can pick the one they want to apply to the city (although it will still pick a random building according to the algorithm), the recipient still has their preferred priority honoured, and on the developer side they can split the feature code so that it doesn't have to load all of the actionable buildings in a city in order to apply Aid - just load the buildings applicable to the request, the code for which is already in the game because it's used when visiting. (They could also use different algorithms per button, which would deal with the deco situation very effectively.)

I don't think that would helps as much for people wanting polishes, but it would benefit people like me who don't need polishes for sure

Does anyone know how the Aid feature treats Hall of Fame buildings? As far as I can tell, if it indeed motivates them at all it must be almos the very last option. To me it seems like the feature omitts them all together. Anyone know??

As I mentioned in one of my previous replies, it matters on the amount of buildings in your city:

That means if you have 1 CE Hall of Fame, 24 other CE buildings that can be motivated and at least 1 (any-aged) building that can be polished you have a (1/25) / 2 = 2% chance your Hall of Fame would be motivated

 

[DeletedUser4381]

I don't think that would helps as much for people wanting polishes, but it would benefit people like me who don't need polishes for sure

I'm not sure I follow... It would definitely benefit players wanting a polish. If the Aid button is split into Polish/Supplies/Coins (or just Motivate) and someone clicks the Polish button to aid a player, then it's a guaranteed polish - rather than the 50/50 it is set as now - and the algorithm can then start from highest age first and hopefully ignore decos.
(If everything is polished it can either return a message saying nothing can be polished, or automatically failover to Motivate.)

 

[DeletedUser2752]

hopefully ignore decos

^ That was my point. It would be an improvement for polishes, but if it still doesn't ignore decos by then, people will still complain about it

 

[DeletedUser4381]

^ That was my point. It would be an improvement for polishes, but if it still doesn't ignore decos by then, people will still complain about it

Ah, now I get you. Yeah, polishing decos is really a last resort thing, or should be, but hopefully guaranteed polishes would make up for it to a degree

 

[DeletedUser5769]

for a while i had no decos, and more buidlings were motivated ofc
last night i placed 16 decos in total, 8 from my current age and 8 from previous
and this morning ALL of the decos were polished while some of the buildings (previous age for sure, not sure about the current age ones tho - and it was mostly houses) were not
and all the cultural buildings were polished too
unfortunatly i wasn't fully awake at that time, so i have no snapshot before collecting
but imo this aid button still prefers polish over motivate
and i still like it, coz i still have more mots then before and my city is at 120% happy all the time
as for BPs - i got 2 or 3 by now using aid, and it looks to me this only enhances your chance of winning some, coz you'll be doing it more then usual with one downside - it will be not the age you might want... but there's a cure for it - go and visit the old way

 

[DeletedUser4951]

If I click on the city of a player I can make manually the motivation or beautify his city, or I can do it automatically with the key under his avatar.
But there are city where i cannot make any motivation because he is full, but the key uder his avatar is avaiable the same!!!
So i ask .....where finish this motivation?
I see that this is intentional and will just give you the 20 coins.
But it's incredible.
So my friends pass and motivate me but in fact I don't receive nothing motivation.
Then, when I need to be motivated to really they can not motivate me.