Feedback Regarding Recent Feedback

[xivarmy]

Who is going to spend 60K+ FP to save a few days (5-15) in AF and OF research? It does not directly affect how long it takes to get through the space ages as at that point it only helps with obtaining the special good from the previous ages. I keep reading that it's folks who don't prep. Isn't standing up a GB and investing 60K+ FP in it part of prepping? Again, I ask where is this target audience? Are these players already swimming in daily FP or are they going to sit still and prep? New players who want to get through as fast as they can are going to prep and spend 30+ days to build up a GB to save a week or two through AF and OF? How is this saving any time? Yes, it stops moving through other ages because FP is needed for all ages, so it is a hard stop for x amount of time. This is solving for a non-existent problem by increasing the overall time to complete all steps to be happy about finishing two ages a bit faster after opening the research, than we who went through prior to the GB? For most of these players they may even take longer than we did because getting through the ages isn't important enough to prep for to begin with so this levels no playing field. Again I ask, where is the niche? Who does this benefit?

I don't know who's saying it's for those "who don't prep" - I've said it's for those who haven't been camped for ages a long while for one reason or another. But currently AF+OF the only prep is to be ready to speed-level carrier once after you're in them to get all the bonus collections. And my experience with that is that while it helps it still comes up short in OF of what I'd hoped. This provides an additional way to prep to do it faster. If that's what you want.

If you have an Arc80+, a few GbG reward buildings, and an Obs you are already providing more goods to your guild than they will spend on GE and an average GbG season. That makes this GB's guild good's assistance minor at best. In 24 squares I can provide 160 guild goods, obtain 1,448 guild points, 14FP, and 729,280 coins every day from 2 SoHs... just by being active in GbG for a few seasons (or less). The AI core has to be L78 before it gets up to the guild goods of these 2 SAV SoHs and it provides none of the other benefits and uses one more square. Of course, now, the Great Elephant is even better. So, why would anyone plant this for guild goods?

It really depends on the guild. If the guild's not so big but is involved in the 4-hour flip farming, they may have a need for more goods. Usually yes in some specific age where their members aren't as up to par as others. In such a situation one might hope the guild would help subsidize those AI cores they really want to exist.

The larger the guild gets, the less necessary it becomes because they're blocked by the same 4 hour lockout between spending anyways and have more people to fund it.

And you're comparing the statues to the AI core wrong : the non-GB when they say 80 guild goods mean 80 goods. GB when they say 80 guild goods mean 80*5 = 400 goods (80 of each). Because of its massive footprint the comparison between Atomium and GBG buildings wasn't so rosy (it takes the space of ~4 of em), but AI core is more moderate space-wise. And as for the cost to level "it's only FP" - personally I have > 150k FP banked on a couple worlds for no other reason than I'm too lazy to spend it on something.

Which doesn't mean I have any plan to build it anywhere, or that I thought the bonuses were perfect the way they're at (I had suggested at least removing the charge count on the boost so that it could work decently with synthesizers for people powering through space ages as fast as possible without saving one age's ore up for the next one in advance). But even as is, it does have a niche. It's just not my niche atm. I could imagine situations I'd want it though.

 

[mcbluefire]

Don't get me wrong, Xiv, I know you aren't saying this thing is great. ;0)

What I seem to be failing to convey is that it takes longer to get this thing to a decent level than it saves days in AF and OF. It's trading time one place for time saving elsewhere only it's more time lost than saved. Thus it provides no solution, period.

Good catch on the guild goods calculations. Reduces the GB level to Level 4. LOL. However it will never produce the other items that I find much more important than guild goods, and yes, I'm in a guild that does flips every 4.5 hours in any season where we can find a guild that will do it with us.... we do not run out of goods in any age.

 

[xivarmy]

What I seem to be failing to convey is that it takes longer to get this thing to a decent level than it saves days in AF and OF. It's trading time one place for time saving elsewhere only it's more time lost than saved. Thus it provides no solution, period.

The difference is there's lots of different ways to make FP - you may not be time-throttled by FP at all (and if you're in arc 80+ territory, you're probably not throttled by FP when it comes to research anymore).

But there's typically only one source for a specific special good in any given age. So if you have more than enough FP to blast through AF, your time through AF is throttled by the harbor instead. This lets you turn some of your excess FP into time saved on the harbor.

 

[mcbluefire]

Then your argument is it takes less time to convert 60K+ excess FP than a week or two? (Potential best savings in AF and OF.) These players have FP to burn and it won't hold them up on getting through ages, just slow them down on building up another GB? I suppose this is feasible, but if they are trying to get attack boost in line or goods, supply, or FP production "reasonable" they are likely investing these FP in other GBs and don't have excess.

My argument is it takes more than a couple weeks to get 60K excess FP. It takes most players more than a month to get 60K FP if they completely focus on it. even when rock starring in GbG. This includes me with Arc163 and a collection of over 1300FP/day, if decently lucky I'd probably get that many built up in 28-33 days.

Isn't excess FP only something that players not trying to burn through ages have? Granted FP was not my holding point in any age as the research that needed lots of FP was throttled by the special good.

I get it, though you're viewing this as FP is a parallel production and if focus is moved to this new GB, while in lower ages, instead of other less important GBs it might save more time than it loses. This may ring true for a few players, or those who already have a large FP bank because they've camped in lower ages for a long time. I still stand with it creates no overall efficiency. The smaller investment and footprint of the Obs will fit the guild goods assistance aside the Arc.

 

[Owl II]

This has already been said above, but I will repeat: 1) any costs of the goods in GBG will be compensated by the obs, atom, arc and several SoH. Any! 2) Leveling these three GB will cost you the same amount of FP(almost) as the AI core. 3) AF and OF are really unpleasant ages. We level up to the lvl70 SC of our players who have stepped into the AF. The price of the issue is 35k FP. 2 good seasons of GBG. This allows them to step over the age.

But we have well understood now that this is not the game that developers are focused on. That they are guided by players who will chew and swallow in silence everything that is shoved into them.

 

[drakenridder]

This is because Mojang has a very different approach. But comparing it to us is like saying: "Hey, your brother goes out partying and drinking. Why don't you do it?".
This example might be extreme, but it shows that just because one does anything, does not mean that others have to do so too. There are always a lot of reasons why this and that is done and why not. But this goes very far to the topic of company policy, which we really should not discuss in a game forum like here.

Tbh comparing Minecraft's feedback on ideas/suggestions isn't comparing apples with peers but comparing two game developing companies in handeling ideas/suggestions. Both get many from their community. The one is transparent, the other is not. The one achieves and maintain what the other claims to be impossible. I've picked Minecraft as an example of the up most extreme. To me it's rather odd that the largest game by player count can manage and handle feedback from assumable the largest active global community and be transparent towards them, in their considerations and ideas/suggestions.
I don't say just because one does this the other should do it too. That's not my point at all. My point is that the community is asking for an long while to Inno for changing their policy towards more transparency. That has been claimed to be impossible due to the number of ideas/suggestions. I simple pointed out that Minecraft as an example receives probably way more yet manages to giving feedback to the community and be transparent. Basically all this community is asking.
The devs could take some inspiration from how transparency and feedback towards the community is handled by Minecraft. They've proven to be masters of copy pasting with that last space ages: copy paste anyways.

Also, you can also flip it around: Why don't they make more updates? Some features are not liked by players, for example the phantoms, so why don't they address this?
Every game has it flaws and some can and will be fixed, but others can't or are intentionally not done. Not only for Forge, but for all video games.

In you're flipping around way, why does Minecraft not only listen to their community but even outdo their community? E.G. they wanted an boat on lava, they gave something better and more creative. They didn't just release an cave update, they released 2 large cave updates. Inno is asked for years to rebalance GbG, they reskinned GbG. Inno is asked to make space ages more interesting, more strategy, etc. they've keep on releasing Space Age: Copy paste instead. They're asked to be more transparent regarding potential solutions brought by the community, it's claimed by a mod that it's impossible due to the number of ideas/suggestions.

You always have to find the right balance between bringing new features and improving existing ones. This is not only the case for Forge, not even only for InnoGames, but a major point in the whole software programming industry.

I'm aware of it but leaving community concerns raging on for several years, while continuing to release new ''features'' and not improving existing ones once released with pilling up concerns and exploits is the right balance? I find it doubtful but I give the benefit of the doubt on Inno's policy. As I personally am someone who prefers perfecting existing features until it's across the board balanced and hardly exploitable (kuch sc exploit) before moving on to the next project. To me deploying mathematics.

This, we will address in the post coming probably later this week.

It sounds hopeful. I give Inno the benefit for the doubt until Space Age: Copy paste 4 Titan. Really hoping for some more strategy
and exciting units pool. Rather then the basically same stats with only an escalating keen eye skill.

Game Design always experiments with new ideas. But again, there is a big difference between thinking about things and having them.

There are many FoE forums with tons of ideas/suggestions. If they don't have them, perhaps they could look up in their archives of the ideas/suggestions, or just asking their community for some ideas/suggestions by starting a topic like this. Then asking their CM to collect and rank the provided ideas/suggestions with an automated excel seed. Which ranks the ideas/suggestions based off likes for an guideline of community support. Something if I'm not mistaken was done with the perks.

Once, only once in 10 years of gaming have I seen a multiple poll sent by Innogames directly to the in-game account to narrow down ideas.

Heavily underrated comment. This could greatly help with certain things. Though I can see why for Inno it'll be difficult to do this all the time. That been said a poll in a similar way as some other game developer does could be done:

What do you prefer?
A.) New Features
B.) Improvements existing features
Directed to: All servers, all players
Time: 14 days(?)

Which feature do you prefer?
For more details see announcement
A.) New Feature A
B.) New feature B
C.) New feature C

What new GB-bonus do you think is the most interesting?
For more details see announcement
A.) Bonus A
B.) Bonus B
C.) Bonus C

Note, losing bonuses might find their way in the game at a later date. <- example purpose only, if the devs feel confident enough to implement the losing bonuses at a later time

Which new Cultural Settlement do you prefer?
For more details see announcement
A.) Culture A
B.) Culture B
C.) Culture C
Note, losing cultures will be implemented at a later date

Which new Cultural Settlements mechanics do you prefer?
For more details see announcement
A.) Mechanic A
B.) Mechanic B
C.) Mechanic C

Do you like to see the lost cultural settlement mechanics to be implemented in the future?
A.) Yes
B.) No
C.) Only losing mechanic 1
D.) Only losing mechanic 2

Which solution for Space Age: copy paste do you prefer?
See announcement for more details regarding the concepts.
A.) Concept A
B.) Concept B
C.) Concept C
Directed to: All Space Age: Asteroid belt & later players
Time: 14 days(?)

Explanation: Inno could come up with 3 different concepts based off community feedback and their own vision on possible brand new ages. The limitation for this poll towards SAAB and higher age players is simple. While in SA:M you're not yet dealing with Space age: Copy paste. While in SAAB you're for the first existing example of Space Age: copy paste. Players of lower ages are generally unaffected or simple lack the first-hand experience with the Space Ages: copy paste. Including them would bringing in votes from players that are forced to speculate on the Space Age: copy paste dilemma. Further more narrowing down to 3 potential solutions will provide a reasonable direction for Inno to further dig down into and perfect.

To be honest I've seen them making a poll before. It was for a Winter Event building. It was generic for the looks of 1 of the winter town set buildings. The 2nd time I've seen them putting out votes was I think with the community sprint but I might remembering this wrong. I also find it exceptionally difficult to see them putting out an general voting system beyond the examples above and what I've described.

 

[drakenridder]

What do you prefer?
A.) New Features
B.) Improvements existing features
Directed to: All servers, all players
Time: 14 days(?)

Which feature do you prefer?
For more details see announcement
A.) New Feature A
B.) New feature B
C.) New feature C

With votes like this inno can save themselves tons of time and resources to drop off features with low community support. While focusing resources and time that actually has an larger support level.
It also provides an definitive conclusion to the speculative nature of many discussions regarding majorities and minorities. As those voting poles are publicly viewable. I think inno can gain a lot from this when used strategically and smart.
To a more specific degree it’s also for cultural settlements, future GB’s and the exploration of new space age concepts.
In the end an occasional general voting system yield high transparency, providing inno more direct and general sense of what has a larger community support level and what doesn’t. It has the added benefit of providing an strong sense of transparency while changing very little towards what already exist.

 

[Thunderdome]

Tbh comparing Minecraft's feedback on ideas/suggestions isn't comparing apples with peers but comparing two game developing companies in handeling ideas/suggestions. Both get many from their community. The one is transparent, the other is not. The one achieves and maintain what the other claims to be impossible. I've picked Minecraft as an example of the up most extreme. To me it's rather odd that the largest game by player count can manage and handle feedback from assumable the largest active global community and be transparent towards them, in their considerations and ideas/suggestions.
I don't say just because one does this the other should do it too. That's not my point at all. My point is that the community is asking for an long while to Inno for changing their policy towards more transparency. That has been claimed to be impossible due to the number of ideas/suggestions. I simple pointed out that Minecraft as an example receives probably way more yet manages to giving feedback to the community and be transparent. Basically all this community is asking.
The devs could take some inspiration from how transparency and feedback towards the community is handled by Minecraft. They've proven to be masters of copy pasting with that last space ages: copy paste anyways.

In you're flipping around way, why does Minecraft not only listen to their community but even outdo their community? E.G. they wanted an boat on lava, they gave something better and more creative. They didn't just release an cave update, they released 2 large cave updates.

I wrote something like this in the first year Inno was around with FoE on a different developer's forum site of a different game I had played. Inno was like Minecraft, the saving the day kind that I had quit the other game and had played FoE until real life calls for me and I left my city (beta one got deleted after many years of inactivity, lol, that I had to start anew).

I guess when a game is x-years old, the developers lose their luster and it starts to rust. Had they (Inno) listened to their players like they did in the first year (or two), we wouldn't have a mess like we have now.

So, yes Inno, I would like to ask: what in the Hell happened to you?

 

[JosefD]

I explained, that there are different sources and all sources are being listened to.

First of all, thank you, Juber, for being more active now. That's at least a small improvement. It seemed to me as if you as moderators and admins were at a loss as to how to react to our criticism and then, for a long time, you didn't react at all. But now you did, and thank you for that. It was very informative, and it looks as if you yourself are receiving very little information from Inno too, so that you haven't got much to forward to us.

By the way, there may be lots of sources for feedback and info for Inno but it still seems to me that Inno is doing very much their own thing, sitting in their ivory tower and not listening at all - or, maybe, just to their investors.

I would guess that Inno may have promised investors huge revenues and now they must produce them by whatever means possible, and then most of the revenues goes to the wallets of the aforementioned investors instead of the development of the game - hence, for example, the paste & copy ages. I think this is a very common problem in today's economic system and a rather faulty development. (though not one we need to discuss here since we can hardly change the economic system of our time in this forum). It is necessary to point out, though, that I am under the impression that to Inno the often-stressed expression "balanced" mostly means "tilted toward the investors' wallets".

You have never seen these sections of the forum, have you?

https://forum.beta.forgeofempires.com/index.php?forums/do-not-suggest.110/

I think this "do not suggest" thing is very wrong. That way many good suggestions get lost or aren't even made. Of course it may be sometimes necessary to state that a suggeted change cannot be made for whatever reason. But prohibiting large numbers of suggestions by Inno is tantamount to self-paralysis.

And I am reading about the polls - good idea! I think polls should be introduced on a regular base as an improved feedback to Inno. Maybe they'll even listen.

 

[DEADP00L]

This is something, that will be handled by one of the projects we plan

do we have any news on these projects?

 

[Yekk]

If that would be true, the ranking list in the pvp-arena would be empty, but it isn't. So you are speaking for "everyone" and "all players"? Just tell me how pls

For the most part it is empty Amdira... Of truly active players less than 25% do any arena but if you include Juber's "silent masses" that are less than active the number drops greatly. Down to less than 10%... Of those many do the minimum possible. PvP Arena can only be looked at as a failure.

 

[Amdira]

For the most part it is empty Amdira... Of truly active players less than 25% do any arena but if you include Juber's "silent masses" that are less than active the number drops greatly. Down to less than 10%... Of those many do the minimum possible. PvP Arena can only be looked at as a failure.

Maybe that'ts the fact on US servers or anywhere else - on DE servers it looks like this - guess that's more than the minimum ?

 

[mcbluefire]

@Amdira thus you're saying that 3,930 and 4,010 players is MORE than 35% of the active players on the DE servers?

Showing the points from the front page just shows the folks willing to spend tons of medals and some diamonds to get silly big numbers. On my server the two top players are 2,627,400 and 2,615,961. #3 is well below that at 969,816. By the third page folks are down to 529,641 which is something that can be maintained without spending any diamonds at all. Still not following how any of that would show "success"?

 

[Amdira]

@Amdira thus you're saying that 3,930 and 4,010 players is MORE than 35% of the active players on the DE servers?

Showing the points from the front page just shows the folks willing to spend tons of medals and some diamonds to get silly big numbers. On my server the two top players are 2,627,400 and 2,615,961. #3 is well below that at 969,816. By the third page folks are down to 529,641 which is something that can be maintained without spending any diamonds at all. Still not following how any of that would show "success"?

Why has everything have to be a success for everyone? The Arena doesn't hurt anyone. You can use it or just ignore it.
If you would break down features to something ALL players have in common, you probably would end in "having a town hall and having streets.
- not everyone is having houses
- not everyone is having production buildings
- not everyone is having goods buildings
- not everyone is having cultural buildings
- not everyone is having decorations
- not everyone is having military buildings
- not everyone is having great buildings
- not everyone is playing GE
- not everyone is playing gvg
- not everyone is playing gbg
- not everyone is using the Arena
- not everyone is actively using the castle system
- not everyone is playing settlements
- not everyone is playing events
- not everyone is doing the DCs
- not everyone is in a big guild or in one at all
- not everyone is using the global chat
- not everyone is using the forum

There are as many playing styles as there are players and everyone is worthy - at least for them. Of course Inno has to build the game according to the majority, but this are still those who you are calling the silent masses. Like it or not.

 

[mcbluefire]

Why has everything have to be a success for everyone? The Arena doesn't hurt anyone. You can use it or just ignore it.
If you would break down features to something ALL players have in common, you probably would end in "having a town hall and having streets.
[...]
There are as many playing styles as there are players and everyone is worthy - at least for them. Of course Inno has to build the game according to the majority, but this are still those who you are calling the silent masses. Like it or not.

I believe the argument was that recent additions to the game do not appeal to most players. PVP Arena is the one that's easy to get numbers on.

I played the Arena for two weeks, then gave up on it because the rewards are not worth anything to my city. Then a few months later I figured it would help with the Monday fighting lull between GE and GbG. A buddy of mine reached out and asked how in the world some players were getting the numbers they did so I took it further and started to use it as a medal sink to help figure out what they were doing to get 2M+ points. For me it has been okay as a feature, but do I think that development cycles should have been focused on what the community regularly brings up instead of adding a non-pvp "PVP Arena"? I don't fight one person in my Arena because real players are never listed in the top tier. I find that amusing considering several players on my list have much better defenses than the bots. (Which, I know, goes back to part of what you were saying earlier on in the thread.)

Thus the "PVP Arena" feature not only doesn't appeal to most players, it also doesn't adhere to it's namesake, and it almost cost us the Tower system! It's only because of the community on these forums that the tournament tower system was preserved.

I'm certainly not advocating for the removal of any existing system, but rather that these forums be used to discuss new systems before it is brought to beta for us to groan over and the sentiment from Inno being that this was a system some mysterious group wanted.

 

[Yekk]

Maybe that'ts the fact on US servers or anywhere else - on DE servers it looks like this - guess that's more than the minimum ?
View attachment 7964View attachment 7964
View attachment 7965View attachment 7964View attachment 7965

Germany 3 (DE3) has over 14,500 active players daily 3930/14,500=27% not including the players Juber says do not log on each day
Germany 8 (DE8) matches that closely
Most people do not use the arena now do they?

 

[Yekk]

@Amdira thus you're saying that 3,930 and 4,010 players is MORE than 35% of the active players on the DE servers?

Showing the points from the front page just shows the folks willing to spend tons of medals and some diamonds to get silly big numbers. On my server the two top players are 2,627,400 and 2,615,961. #3 is well below that at 969,816. By the third page folks are down to 529,641 which is something that can be maintained without spending any diamonds at all. Still not following how any of that would show "success"?

Actually the number of pages is at the bottom. It shows total players playing atm if multiplied by 5. Her post validates what I put.

 

[Owl II]

Excellent. Let's remember now 1 fight gives 450 points on average. And we have 10 free fights a day on average. That is, an active player will gain at least 130k points in a month without spending medals and diamonds. Do you see how many players have more than 100k points? Here it is, the true popularity

 

[CrashBoom]

Let's remember now 1 fight gives 450 points on average.

you can't say how much 1 fight gives without saying in which age

 

[mcbluefire]

Pretty sure that was tongue-in-cheek, aka facetious.

Actually the number of pages is at the bottom. It shows total players playing atm if multiplied by 5. Her post validates what I put.

That's how I got the numbers, and then asked if those numbers showed more than 35% of the active server population with those numbers... I definitely support what you were saying.