Jump to content
Domination: Earth

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/25/18 in all areas

  1. The ability to "disappear" off the map for one other player/enemy by surrendering and never proposing a truce is a somewhat frustrating mechanic. It seems at times counter to the very idea of an augmented-reality-domination-war-strategy game. Domination and strategy mean nothing when an enemy can remain a threat to your allies by making himself invisible to you, at no cost, with no time limit. As an alternative to this mechanic, I would like to propose a time-limited, resource-intensive, binary option for a player to be in-game (and able to attack or be attacked) or out-of-game. For simplicity, let's call being out-of-game "Going Underground," to describe when a player is unable to attack or be attacked, but still able to grow flags/bases. Going underground should have a cost: limiting resource production throughout and costing resources upfront, else it provides too much of an advantage. The cost and resource penalty should also scale with base level, to provide some measure of protection to new players and to prevent exploitation by established players. When "underground," a player can gather his forces and resources unseen but cannot interract with any other players. He should still be able to see all players "above ground." Meanwhile, "above ground" players cannot see the underground players' forces until some number of days before he returns to the battlefield. Longer periods underground should result in longer periods of visibility prior to being able to interact with the active "above ground" players. The price of going underground should be significant unless following a defeat and surrender, with price dependent on resources and troops lost (i.e. more losses = cheaper transition to underground). This change would: -disincentivize resource-free surrendering for strategic advantage. -prevent players from permanently removing themselves from the battlefield for only select players/enemies. -still protect new, developing players from established "bully" bases by providing a safe-haven in which to grow. -allow teams of small players to effectively counter established "bully" players by preventing strategic surrendering. Ultimately, this change would likely keep all players more engaged and satisfied. Currently, the game has a tendency to unravel after a war, becoming far less interesting when an enemy disappears by surrending at no cost to his strategic or financial position. And the game then becomes frustrating when your invisible enemy destroys your allies as you are forced to watch, unable to assist. Then the game loses all integrity when the enemy offers you a truce and you are actually tempted to accept, just to see him again, just for the chance of revenge. But of course when you attack, if he is in any way disadvantaged, he need only surrender, and repeat. I feel like this may be the game's greatest hurdle and limitation at the moment, and I look forward to Mr. D's solution. Hopefully this discussion can help guide the change. What do you think?
    2 points
  2. As I said earlier today on Discord, while I think that some changes are needed, I'd rather disagree with the idea described in the initial post here, for the following reasons: The existing Disappearance feature addresses two loosely connected, but otherwise separate issues: the problem of high-level players bullying lower-level players, and thus a solution for latter to withdraw from conflict; the problem of land congestion in city areas, ie. when lands of one player cover an area wide enough to prevent other players for playing effectively. The Underground scheme proposed above keeps only the first problem addressed, and it does in fact somewhat lower the guard protecting lower-level players. The Underground scheme disregards the second issue. The players will not be able to expand if another, older player already covered large areas of a given city with his bases. Also, with the idea there was a rationale provided that I do not think is strong enough to support the case, as explained here: Rationale claims, that current feature, in an existing Menace vs Alliance scenario, allows the Menace to immediately surrender war with higher-level Alliance members (and disappear to them), picking on lower-level members only. This scheme, as suggested in rationale, prevents Alliance members to support each other effectively and allows the Menace to hit the Alliance selectively and safely on it's weak points. This indeed sounds unfair, but in my opinion, only when we forget, that current Disappearance feature is also available to the Alliance members and they too can use it to disappear from the Menace, leaving him thus in solitude and with complete separation from all Alliance members. The only thing that current mechanism prevents is in fact a chance of retaliation on the Menace. And it may be seen as a problem, since it allows the Menacing player to perfom "hit and run" attacks without any consequence. To address this problem, I would rather propose a following feature, composed on two simple rules: Create a player attribute/token I'd now call WARMONGER, that is timed and locks the "surrender" option against ANY player. When a player attacks any other player that has no WARMONGER token on him, put a 7-day WARMONGER token on the attacking player. This way, when a player attacks anyone, he or she will be accountable with a possible retaliation in a limited time, while the "surrender" option will still be available to any party or ally. This could be enough for immediate solution and could be expanded in future eg. to limit the safe retaliation (that does not result in triggering the WARMONGER token on retaliator) to the alliance members only.
    2 points
  3. Oh wow! If that's the case, yes,we definitely should make the game easier for you! We just had no idea that you have a good excuse! But guess what! I have a child too! Crazy, right? And I have a perfect excuse to have a 15 mins longer walk than usual or motivation to bring him to the playground (you guessed it, I have a solar panel right on the swing!)
    1 point
  4. I like the theme if this idea but I'm going to suggest a few things... (Oooh bullet points) and in all reality, I think your idea is really pretty solid as a basic foundation and we can build from there. Here are a few changes I think we need (either to your idea or just in general that are similar to yours) - After a player loses a war (the seven-day war) they are automatically placed in the Underground at no fee. - All players spawn with this and keep it till level ten and can pay a fee every time they level up after that so that it encourages them to exit the Underground (more on the fee later) -I disagree passionately that players should be able to see outside off Underground, in a kind of “one-way mirror”, I think this builds a lurking mode that could actually be abused even easier than the current (admittedly broken) system to abuse. If you're in underground you can't see out, they can't see in. or visa Versa idc I just don't want an easy abuse. - I think that the Underground system should be automatic and free up to level 10, after that you pay a certain fee to maintain it. (say 100,100,1000) and it increases by 50% each level (so that level fourteen maintaining it would be 337, 337, 3375) so that by level 14-15 it is unaffordable and they are forced to come out of it. A simple msg like “As long as you have Underground Mode you can't see other players and they can't see you, deactivate it so that you can join Alliances, trade lands, and battle foes for Points of Fame!” would suffice as a warning if you ask me and it will explain to why users can't see others. I think though that under level 10 players should be totally allowed to see out of their base and see other players so that people don't quit and cause ‘“Nobody plays around me… your game sucks” Syndrome’. - Also, I suggest that the time off or Underground feature be time-limited. Not just like you can only do a max of 1 month, but if you choose 1 month you don't get to come out of it until you're 1 month in. So, for example, you could choose an option like 1 month but during that time you suddenly decide that you want to attack Mr. Grayhound98 you can't … not till you have done the time you agreed too. - A cooldown is probably a need too but I suspect others will better be able to flesh that one out for the group. - Also, I think it would be nice to have push notifications when a player exits Underground in your area. That way if they are a big angry player you know to be up till 2 am prepping for the stealth attack. Just an idea. - I think a payment system like a few days could just be a flat X amount but I think that if you want to toggle longterm it would make sense if it was a huge X fee and then a % of collected rss. And I think that we need an Underground that can be activated with U$ and that last a flat seven days… basically a vaca mode but no rss cost. By using U$ it would make it accessible to other players… a bit p2w but frankly this fine devs gotta eat. I will wait for the hate to come pouring in, (it will probably happen tbh but we can always hope for a peaceful talk) but this is where I will leave this and get ready for my rebuttal of others arguments. GG and GL to all In all reality thank you for reading my lengthy post. And thanks for your time, Dan.
    1 point
  5. Poor GPS is always a frustrating thing. I could tell you about a bunch of stories where I just hated my GPS... However, as soon as I know Mr. D and the rules of the game, I am sure this should not affect you in any additional negative way. For sure you can keep this lands, otherwise yo had captured lands just where you were which you would then be missing. If anybody who faces GPS issues would want his lands removed we would get a big list of to be deleted lands. The important thing is that you never faked your location intentionally. You have no control about where the bad GPS places you. You are just playing the game as honest as you can and capture lands where your location services say you would be which can only be influenced by you moving somewhere in real world or improve your GPS chip. As I had several strange situations myself (I once had a ferry trip and after I returned my GPS recognized it but then placed me back to my origin (about 50 km away) and placed me back again to my current position) and Mr. D has stated more than one time that he constructed an amazing anti-cheat which is able to identify the difference between "bad GPS behavior" and spoofing I am sure you are not recognized by the anti-cheat in any way. You would have immediately got a message in that case.
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...