Positive brainstorming

[Rush Sykes]

My ideas to save, and rejuvenate the game:

1st Step : Hard Reset. It is clear, that when this game was created, the thought of tons of nations above 80K NS was not part of the equation. New nations look at these top nations, then they read the forum of whatever alliance they chose, and they see multiple nations with billions of dollars in warchests. Then they say "well, I will never achieve relevance, why bother".

2nd Step: End tech deals. Make nations BUY their own tech. It is incomprehensible to me, that a 1400 day old nations with 10K tech, can receive ONE tech from a brand new nation, and AUGMENT their tech with it. Its like tying a rock to the end of a nuke and counting it as extra damage. This wont be a popular idea, but it is built in control of warchests.

3rd step: Hard cap on cash on hand. Perhaps by a forumula. X cash per infra can be kept on hand. Reason: Common sense. If this is a nation simulator, what populace would maintain their happiness if their gov taxed them out the arse, then hoarded the money.

4) Eliminate trade swapping. A nation should have to maintain a trade for 7 days before it sees any benefit from that trade. Reason: Its just ridiculous that a nation in 20 days of back collecting, can at 4:00 PM, drop a marble trade, pick up a fish wheat trade, have augmented population for 30 seconds, collect taxes from that population, then drop the wheat trade and lose the population. It amounts to a game bug, and exploit. And the devs shouls treat it as such, and close the loophole.

5) Wars should be able to either damage or destroy wonders and improvements. A base % chance, possibly augmented by an option to TARGET the structures instead of Infra. The invincibility of a Pentagon is stupid. Repair cost should be somewhere between 50% and 75% of the original cost, and they lose the effect of the wonder or improvement until they repair it. Destruction should be LESS easy, but should be possible (maybe make destruction only achievable by a 1st direct hit to damage, then maybe 2 successive direct hits to finish it off. Imagine the strategy in attack coordination that this would add to the game.)

6) Really really simple. Harsh economic penalties if you dont collect and pay bills daily. I mean HARSH. Not sure what they should be, but they should be HARSH. Collection avoidance maybe... similar to bill avoidance, but citizens would cleverly hide a % of their income for each day that taxes are not collected, thereby lowering the collections significantly.

7) increase the population, and make soldier recruitment be taken from THAT pool. Increase the cost of soldier maintenance as well(significantly).

8) Encourage more war by adding population happiness erosion(due to complacency) for X numbers of days of consecutive peace.


If anyone can think of anything else to add to this list, please post.

[wickedj]

[quote]2nd Step: End tech deals. Make nations BUY their own tech. It is incomprehensible to me, that a 1400 day old nations with 10K tech, can receive ONE tech from a brand new nation, and AUGMENT their tech with it. Its like tying a rock to the end of a nuke and counting it as extra damage. This wont be a popular idea, but it is built in control of warchests. [/quote]
The thing about this is it puts emphasis on new players. otherwise would recruitment be as big of a deal as it is?

[Rush Sykes]

[quote name='wickedj' timestamp='1282854613' post='2431997']
The thing about this is it puts emphasis on new players. otherwise would recruitment be as big of a deal as it is?
[/quote]

Sure, you just offer free aid. As an alternative... maybe a nation could sell land instead of tech.

[Delta1212]

[quote name='Rush Sykes' timestamp='1282854369' post='2431995']
My ideas to save, and rejuvenate the game:

1st Step : Hard Reset. It is clear, that when this game was created, the thought of tons of nations above 80K NS was not part of the equation. New nations look at these top nations, then they read the forum of whatever alliance they chose, and they see multiple nations with billions of dollars in warchests. Then they say "well, I will never achieve relevance, why bother".

2nd Step: End tech deals. Make nations BUY their own tech. It is incomprehensible to me, that a 1400 day old nations with 10K tech, can receive ONE tech from a brand new nation, and AUGMENT their tech with it. Its like tying a rock to the end of a nuke and counting it as extra damage. This wont be a popular idea, but it is built in control of warchests.

3rd step: Hard cap on cash on hand. Perhaps by a forumula. X cash per infra can be kept on hand. Reason: Common sense. If this is a nation simulator, what populace would maintain their happiness if their gov taxed them out the arse, then hoarded the money.

4) Eliminate trade swapping. A nation should have to maintain a trade for 7 days before it sees any benefit from that trade. Reason: Its just ridiculous that a nation in 20 days of back collecting, can at 4:00 PM, drop a marble trade, pick up a fish wheat trade, have augmented population for 30 seconds, collect taxes from that population, then drop the wheat trade and lose the population. It amounts to a game bug, and exploit. And the devs shouls treat it as such, and close the loophole.

5) Wars should be able to either damage or destroy wonders and improvements. A base % chance, possibly augmented by an option to TARGET the structures instead of Infra. The invincibility of a Pentagon is stupid. Repair cost should be somewhere between 50% and 75% of the original cost, and they lose the effect of the wonder or improvement until they repair it. Destruction should be LESS easy, but should be possible (maybe make destruction only achievable by a 1st direct hit to damage, then maybe 2 successive direct hits to finish it off. Imagine the strategy in attack coordination that this would add to the game.)

6) Really really simple. Harsh economic penalties if you dont collect and pay bills daily. I mean HARSH. Not sure what they should be, but they should be HARSH. Collection avoidance maybe... similar to bill avoidance, but citizens would cleverly hide a % of their income for each day that taxes are not collected, thereby lowering the collections significantly.

7) increase the population, and make soldier recruitment be taken from THAT pool. Increase the cost of soldier maintenance as well(significantly).

8) Encourage more war by adding population happiness erosion(due to complacency) for X numbers of days of consecutive peace.


If anyone can think of anything else to add to this list, please post.
[/quote]
Could you explain what any of that actually accomplishes except to fix your pet peeves with how the game functions? By that I mean, what about each of the things that those change currently harms the game, how does it harm the game and why would implementing those ideas fix the problem? I'm not really seeing it.

[eyriq]

When we recruit we send new nations into our academy, where they work to achieve certain goals before then moving on into the main AA. Even with this system retention is no where near 100%, and even graduates fall into inactivity at times (though very rarely). But this construct allows new nations the time to learn the game and its culture in peace. Something like this could be wired into the game, where instead of starting in peace mode you start in tutorial mode like above posters alluded to.

Really though the game needs more investment of resources from admin. I'm not convinced he has lost interest yet, but the game needs more investment, whether that be through coding in a tutorial mode, more wonders, or what have you.

[Ardus]

[quote name='Rush Sykes' timestamp='1282854369' post='2431995']
My ideas to save, and rejuvenate the game:

1st Step : Hard Reset. It is clear, that when this game was created, the thought of tons of nations above 80K NS was not part of the equation. New nations look at these top nations, then they read the forum of whatever alliance they chose, and they see multiple nations with billions of dollars in warchests. Then they say "well, I will never achieve relevance, why bother".[/quote]

A soft reset, wherein nation assets are deflated, rather than wiped out, would be better. It would preserve the relative work of nations while giving scrubs a better chance to catch up.

[quote]2nd Step: End tech deals. Make nations BUY their own tech. It is incomprehensible to me, that a 1400 day old nations with 10K tech, can receive ONE tech from a brand new nation, and AUGMENT their tech with it. Its like tying a rock to the end of a nuke and counting it as extra damage. This wont be a popular idea, but it is built in control of warchests. [/quote]

Tech-deals are the core of CN economics and getting rid of them would be a terrible detriment to the game.

[quote]3rd step: Hard cap on cash on hand. Perhaps by a forumula. X cash per infra can be kept on hand. Reason: Common sense. If this is a nation simulator, what populace would maintain their happiness if their gov taxed them out the arse, then hoarded the money.[/quote]

I actually strongly support this. I imagine we'd have wars more frequently if we couldn't spend eight months stockpiling dough.

[quote]4) Eliminate trade swapping. A nation should have to maintain a trade for 7 days before it sees any benefit from that trade. Reason: Its just ridiculous that a nation in 20 days of back collecting, can at 4:00 PM, drop a marble trade, pick up a fish wheat trade, have augmented population for 30 seconds, collect taxes from that population, then drop the wheat trade and lose the population. It amounts to a game bug, and exploit. And the devs shouls treat it as such, and close the loophole.[/quote]

I don't see how this makes the game less enjoyable. It's a proper manipulation of the game mechanics, an act inherent to any game. I [i]would[/i] however propose a dramatic overhaul of all the resources/values so we have to figure out what makes for good trades again. There's not really any mysteries to research in the game anymore.

[quote]5) Wars should be able to either damage or destroy wonders and improvements. A base % chance, possibly augmented by an option to TARGET the structures instead of Infra. The invincibility of a Pentagon is stupid. Repair cost should be somewhere between 50% and 75% of the original cost, and they lose the effect of the wonder or improvement until they repair it. Destruction should be LESS easy, but should be possible (maybe make destruction only achievable by a 1st direct hit to damage, then maybe 2 successive direct hits to finish it off. Imagine the strategy in attack coordination that this would add to the game.)[/quote]

Eh... I don't like the idea of somebody getting really lucky in destroying a WRC early on in a war and winning it right on through as a result. The proposal dramatically diminishes the value of wonders. Besides, a warchest cap would take care of the problem well enough--if you have a lot of bills and no money on hand at the end of a long war you'll either need aid that might not be available or you'll have to level some of your goodies.

[quote]6) Really really simple. Harsh economic penalties if you dont collect and pay bills daily. I mean HARSH. Not sure what they should be, but they should be HARSH. Collection avoidance maybe... similar to bill avoidance, but citizens would cleverly hide a % of their income for each day that taxes are not collected, thereby lowering the collections significantly.[/quote]

Nah.

[quote]7) increase the population, and make soldier recruitment be taken from THAT pool. Increase the cost of soldier maintenance as well(significantly).[/quote]

I'm not too hot on the first part, but I stand the second part.

[quote]8) Encourage more war by adding population happiness erosion(due to complacency) for X numbers of days of consecutive peace.[/quote]

This is actually a really awesome idea. Alternatively, soldier efficiency could be used in place of happiness. After all, battle-bred veterans should be more effective than green draftees.

[Learz]

Bring back white peace.
Get rid of EZI/PZI/ZI.
Encourage people to play for fun, not play to "win".
Nullify the entire treaty web for 1 week so we [s]can have an orgy[/s] go wild and release stress and settle old scores.
Acknowledge CN is simply a game.

[Ardus]

[quote name='Learz' timestamp='1282855456' post='2432009']
Bring back white peace.
Get rid of EZI/PZI/ZI.
Encourage people to play for fun, not play to "win".
Nullify the entire treaty web for 1 week so we [s]can have an orgy[/s] go wild and release stress and settle old scores.
Acknowledge CN is simply a game.
[/quote]
Get out, hippy. We need villains, not heroes.

Edited August 26, 2010 by Ardus

[Kosh Naranek]

For those of you saying CN needs to do a better job of educating new nations, CN does have a guide for new nations. It can be found here: http://www.cybernations.net/assets/CN_Player_Guide.pdf

[Rush Sykes]

[quote name='Delta1212' timestamp='1282855103' post='2432003']
Could you explain what any of that actually accomplishes except to fix your pet peeves with how the game functions? By that I mean, what about each of the things that those change currently harms the game, how does it harm the game and why would implementing those ideas fix the problem? I'm not really seeing it.
[/quote]

Part of the list seems common sense to me. Other parts I think actually improve the game. What have we learned from past wars? Lead up to war creates the buzz. The war generates activity. The end-game of the war ties a significant number of the losing side in surrender terms(almost exclusively dictated by tech reps). Therefore, ending tech as foreign aid would end that nonsense, and allow a more stable rebuild of the enemy side.

Eliminate trade swapping significant slows down the building of the chasm between older players and newer players. If you accept that new players see no relevance to their nation within the game (and I have talked to several new players who left this game, and it was because it would take them YEARS to catch up, so I have done hoemwork on this.. if you dont have a chance to compete, you wont have fun, it seems simple to me.)

The economic penalties for not collecting taxes daily... in addition to eroding the chasm between the top and bottom, would also significantly make wars that much more harsh. If you have a $300 million warchest and 4K infra on 4/1 and you get nuked on 4/2 through 4/8, you go in nuclear anarchy(which the game engine istelf describes as economically devastating)... then wait 5 days, rebuy your infra... guess what? Your economy was unhampered. Sometimes, some things just make sense. The problem is , so many of the long time players have been exploting these to their advantage, and they wont give it up so easily now.

In the end, my point is... new players do not stay because a) the game is boring and b) they will never be relevant(real or perceived, this is what they THINK). Any action that narrows the gap, and gives new players a hope to actually matter, could not HARM the game, but it could HELP the game.

[Xellos]

Please keep suggestions relating to game mechanics in the [url=http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showforum=57]suggestion box[/url].

Posters ignoring this, will find their warn levels increased.

[Rush Sykes]

[quote name='Ardus' timestamp='1282855382' post='2432008']

Eh... I don't like the idea of somebody getting really lucky in destroying a WRC early on in a war and winning it right on through as a result. The proposal dramatically diminishes the value of wonders. Besides, a warchest cap would take care of the problem well enough--if you have a lot of bills and no money on hand at the end of a long war you'll either need aid that might not be available or you'll have to level some of your goodies.

[/quote]

Its no different than the possibility of 1000 soldiers attacking 15,000 soldiers and 3000 tanks aggressively and winning because the 1000 soldiers have 5 barracks and 5 guerilla camps in THEIR nation nowhere near the battle. Heh. Like I said, it doesnt have to be a LARGE chance , but there should be a CHANCE.

[Ardus]

[quote name='Xellos' timestamp='1282856136' post='2432017']
Please keep suggestions relating to game mechanics in the [url=http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showforum=57]suggestion box[/url].

Posters ignoring this, will find their warn levels increased.
[/quote]
So we can point out flaws here, but no solutions, at least not with regard to what's behind the drywall.

[Rush Sykes]

[quote name='Xellos' timestamp='1282856136' post='2432017']
Please keep suggestions relating to game mechanics in the [url=http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showforum=57]suggestion box[/url].

Posters ignoring this, will find their warn levels increased.
[/quote]

My apologies, I made my last post before I saw this, forgiveness would be appreciated.

[Ardus]

[quote name='Rush Sykes' timestamp='1282856346' post='2432020']
Its no different than the possibility of 1000 soldiers attacking 15,000 soldiers and 3000 tanks aggressively and winning because the 1000 soldiers have 5 barracks and 5 guerilla camps in THEIR nation nowhere near the battle. Heh. Like I said, it doesnt have to be a LARGE chance , but there should be a CHANCE.
[/quote]
No, it's [s]a little[/s] [s]pretty[/s] completely different. That said, this has been deemed the wrong venue for this particular subject. If you'd like to continue feel free to PM me.

[Delta1212]

Ok, I have a question. We have two major problems that most people agree on in terms of the core gameplay.

First, large nations have way too much money and very little to do with it. This leads to such problems as boredom from lack of options, wars that drag on for months because that's how long it takes for war chests to run dry, and then don't flare up again for months afterward because everyone wants to restock their cash before war kicks off again, and probably one or two other things that I'm not thinking about just off the top of my head.

Now, secondly, we have the newer nations who see the huge nations who have been around for years, figure the time investment it would take to get that big is way out of proportion for the reward of succeeding at a game they haven't invested any time in yet, and walk away before they've even gotten started.

It seems to me that the large nations have [i]too much[/i] access to money, and the new nations have [i]too little[/i] access to money.

[Rebel Virginia]

[color="#0000FF"]Edit: Just noticed the mods warning. I'll move the suggestions to there.

As far as the community goes, leaders with strong personalities are needed. As much as I may not get along with Xiph or Hoo on an IC basis, they can at least define an alliance. There are very few like them these days, and even fewer in positions of power and able to make things interesting. Truly people need to be a lot less rational, cold, and calculating. This is just a game, and those in power are obligated to take on a somewhat dramatic persona in order to entertain the masses. Or at least I have always thought so.

You sunk my battleship.[/color]

Edited August 26, 2010 by Rebel Virginia

[mattski133]

1) Retaining New Nations- When you join as a new nation rather than starting as "None" AA, sometime in the registration process you are given a drop down listing of alliances in the game ranked top to bottom by their score and a color indicator by their name. You click an alliance, and underneath the drop down menu an alliance-submitted description appears outlining pros of joining, alliance links, treaties, whatever. Current alliance members would be responsible for maintaining this description for submission. Once you've settled on the alliance you wish to join you click "OK". Your AA changes to this alliance and the nation name is sent to a new area on the Alliance Statistics page, joining all the other new additions to the alliance of that day. In this way alliances could keep tabs on their new members/ghosts.

There would be no way to start the game without completing this. This way people don't grounded and pounded in the opening weeks of their existence (despite this being exactly what happened to me when I joined...what like almost 4 years ago). This kind of beginning would kick-start interest in the best part of the game (alliances) by getting new members immediately in touch with people who know what they're doing and allow alliances to immediately start working with nations to show them how to play. By focusing these new nations on established, more attractive, and stable places where they can grow they'd be more likely to stay. Incentive to be higher on the list would fuel rivalry between alliances that means more than a sanction. It'd mean your alliance would be visible immediately to everyone entering the game.

2) Retaining Old Nations- Needs more wonders and improvements. Hands down. I haven't bought a wonder in a year, I think. I every 2000 infra I have something to look forward to but even that well runs dry after like five or six more. There should be so many wonders a player has to make a conscious choice in becoming a military power, and economic power, whatever. After a while we're all the same. THAT's one big reason this game is boring to me. I've got nothing to do but buy tech or put something on the Moon for $200,000,000 in three months (so as not to interrupt the building of my warchest).

Why can I only build 5 churches? What, my 60,000 people all cram their @#$% into 5 churches? Every 500 people I should be able to put up a new church. One Harbor? Must be a busy harbor. No wonder my people have such a hard time finding a trade. Open up a new harbor option for every 25,000 citizens. And so on. Give me a reason to keep building. Don't even get me started on Border Walls. I think one should suffice. Maybe 2 if you're paranoid. Who needs 5 concentric rings around their nation? It's not even profitable to have 5, if what I've read is correct.

Make the game REAL. Add some, realness. Reality, if you're a wordsmith.

-ski

[Jens of the desert]

[quote name='Sandwich Controversy' timestamp='1282840299' post='2431807']

-deleting TE which just splits the memberbase and makes people less likely to fight here

[/quote]
People leaving SE just to play TE? That's quite a funny idea.

[Feanor Noldorin]

I'm more concerned with trying to keep the nations/members we have from quiting due to utter boredom than worrying about how to get more people to join.

[Banksy]

[quote name='Feanor Noldorin' timestamp='1282861084' post='2432080']
I'm more concerned with trying to keep the nations/members we have from quiting due to utter boredom than worrying about how to get more people to join.
[/quote]
People will always leave. You might be able to stem the flow, but it doesn't benefit the game. To keep the game healthy you need new players.

[Rebel Virginia]

[quote name='Banksy' timestamp='1282861907' post='2432093']
People will always leave. You might be able to stem the flow, but it doesn't benefit the game. To keep the game healthy you need new players.
[/quote]
[color="#0000FF"]You've got a point. After three or more years people are going to get bored. They'll for something new. It is natural. Games more or less should always be for the benefit of newer players more than the old. The new blood is what is going to keep it going.

You sunk my battleship.[/color]

[Delta1212]

That's a bit like arguing about whether you should focus on stemming the blood flow of a gaping wound or getting breathing going again. You really need to do both because the outcome of ignoring one over the other is basically the same in either direction. The only difference is the cause of death.

[Banksy]

[quote name='Delta1212' timestamp='1282862199' post='2432097']
That's a bit like arguing about whether you should focus on stemming the blood flow of a gaping wound or getting breathing going again. You really need to do both because the outcome of ignoring one over the other is basically the same in either direction. The only difference is the cause of death.
[/quote]
This is certainly true. But the reason this thread was created was because of the large loss in the total number of players, which is most affected by new players (look at the number of people on the None AA). However, most of the suggestions are about helping current (active) players. This is not catering to the majority of people who play this game. Suggestions such as a reset would only be interesting for a handful of players who are already active, most people (who play to collect taxes and fight in wars - they only play because of the amount of time they have already put into their nations) would not benefit from this. The various game play suggestions mentioned here and in other arenas seem to be aimed at active players as well. If the aim is to reverse the net player drain then the issue to examine is the drop in new players and try to cater to them.

[Blacky]

I will probably never quit.
Even though I stopped caring months ago.

Explain that to me and you'll find an answer as to how to retain new rulers.

Edited August 26, 2010 by Blacky