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Domination: Earth

Strange idea


marcofi

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Hi,

I have a suggestion that might be a nonsense, but I'd like to write it anyway:

I see that every land upgrade increase the radius always of the same fixed amount. Since a level 100 land has a radius of 500m, every level is supposed to increase the radius of 5 meters. 

In this way I see some problems even if  considered negligible so far:

1- the land upgrades increase the area in different way. If the land is at low level an upgrade will have a little area increase, if the land is at high level an upgrade will have a big area increase. So players that have few lands at high level have much more area than players with many flags at low level, even if they did the same amount of land upgrades. It doesn't look fair to me, first for the leaderboards and the country leaders, but especially because the land contains resources.

2-when two lands level 100 merge, the resulting land level 200 doesn't have the area which is the sum of the other two, but it has a much larger area. The player gets a huge area with a single update, with all resources inside, so it is a big advantage. And this effect increase when the level is 300, 400 etc. 

3- in this way a single land upgraded to high level covers a huge area. A single player may get control of an entire city too easily, considering that in a city there might be hundreds or thousands of different players

 

Which can be the solution? 

Instead of increasing the radius of a fixed amount when upgrading a land, increase the area of a fixed amount. 

This can be easily done with a little mathematics. 

So:

1- the area will actually reflect the effort in capturing land, since every land upgrade counts always for the same amount.

2-when lands merge the players will gain a fair amount of land, not a huge amount suddently.

3- there won't be huge circles anymore so easily. And probably the initial land can also be a little bigger than the tiny spot that is now.

 

Well, probably this suggestion will remain only theoretical, but I had nothing to do this evening so I wrote it. 

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23 minutes ago, marcofi said:

but especially because the land contains resources

I think having more lands or even bigger lands needs time. If you played for a specific amount of time you will have accumulated a bunch of area(s) which means older players who put much in the game don't have those resource problems new players have. For me this is one of the main reasons to expand.

23 minutes ago, marcofi said:

A single player may get control of an entire city too easily

Gaining control of a whole city would definitely take you some time and many many upgrades but I get your point.

23 minutes ago, marcofi said:

And this effect increase when the level is 300, 400 etc.

I have to admit that this is really a little bit extreme after a few merges. 

I would go with the following:
Keep normal upgrades as they are up to level 100. When merging 2 level 100 lands just allow them to be the doubled size (or something similar maybe 2.5 times) of a level 100 land and so on. This would make the effort of capturing the same spot again and again much smaller and wouldn't make it so easy to capture very huge areas. (At the moment it seems like you get rewarded for sitting at the same spot all the time instead of encouraging to travel).
But I would really keep everything under level 100 as it is.

Edited by Ruvox
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Just some simulations. Let's say that a level 100 land could have a radius of 500m as it is now.

The corresponding level 1 land would be 1/100 of the area, that is a circle with radius of 50 meters.

When two lands level 100 merge, the level 200 land would have a radius of 707m.

20 minutes ago, Ruvox said:

der players who put much in the game don't have those resource problems new players have. For me this is one of the main reasons to expand.

This would still be true, but in a more fair way in my opinion.

22 minutes ago, Ruvox said:

Gaining control of a whole city would definitely take you some time and many many upgrades but I get your point.

Well, it depends on how big is the city. Anyway I'm glad that you see the point.

24 minutes ago, Ruvox said:

When merging 2 level 100 lands just allow them to be the doubled size (or something similar maybe 2.5 times)

Why 2 or 2.5 times? Isn't it much more elegant to just increase the area always of the same amount (as it is now for the radius)?

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As one of the high-level players, I don't see much issue with the current radius increase system.  This isn't because of the resources I get; it's because of the nature of the game.  Having more resources to collect doesn't matter much.  My resources have been pegged for around a month now, but that hasn't helped me to continue to be a top player. 

The trick to 'winning' this game isn't collecting resources, it's consistency in grinding the capture button.  Hitting that button every 15 minutes. 

My motivation to continue playing, right now(absent other endgame features), is to see how big I can get my land.  The payoff when I get another land to 100, and see it merge with that big circle to make it even bigger, is why I've stuck with this game.  

 

That said, if there is going to be a change to the fundamental way the merge mechanic works, it should definitely be done while the game is small. 

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8 hours ago, Riylan said:

That said, if there is going to be a change to the fundamental way the merge mechanic works, it should definitely be done while the game is small. 

I agree with that statement completely, but unfortunately I don't think the game is "small enough" anymore for any sort of fundamental experimentation.
We're at 50,000+ downloads for Android alone and our last "experiment" cost us over 1200 active players (which is *a lot* of advertising down the drain).

So I'm all for introducing new game elements, but I must admit I would be hesitant to reinvent what everyone's already used to. :)

That said I do agree that there's a slight issue with resources spawning over high-level lands, as after a certain point there is very little incentive to actually travel.
It does work as sort of a high-level feature "to work towards" (as some aspects should become easier the more powerful you get), but it somewhat defeats our overall objective to send people "outside". :)
I have a few theories on how this issue could be addressed, but I'm not sure if reducing the land size would actually help; this would just reduce the amount of remotely gained resources by a certain percentage and there are so many of them that it wouldn't really make an impact!
I'll keep this suggestion in mind though and will probably post again once I get to making adjustments in this area. ;)

8 hours ago, Riylan said:

My motivation to continue playing, right now(absent other endgame features)

While we're on the subject, I would be actually very grateful if you could share your thoughts on what endgame features you feel are missing or what functionality could be added to make the game more fun for you as a high-level player (in a separate forum thread though not to hijack this one)! ;)

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21 minutes ago, Joris said:

The borders just don't feel 'real' if there's a territory that is posessed by two players.

That is right, however consider that those two players (if not allied) are always in competition. Every time a land is upgraded there is an attack on the enemy lands, which will become smaller and smaller.

So this is a unstable situation.  You see a territory possessed by two players only when a fight is occurring between two active players. One of them will eventually win, and in normal peaceful situation a territory is always possessed by one player.

At least I see it in this way to justify it. It is different than in other more traditional games where you own a land, or you own not. There is not a real border.  But I don't see it as a big problem.

Edited by marcofi
precisation
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I'm always open to ideas, as long as they're not fundamentally game-breaking. :) 

I hear where you're coming from with the idea to have only one owner per land; we've tried that with allies and ran into problems with large cities owned by high-level players: new players just don't have any more land to capture!

If you can think of a way to bypass that issue and keep everyone happy (old and new players) I would be more than happy to look into its implementation. :)

But at this stage I agree with @marcofi: multiple lands on the same territory simply indicate an "unstable political situation" and land sizes will constantly shift (think of it as smaller countries making an "independence claim"!). 

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Hmmm i was thinking about this a bit... but at this point i do notice that for me it is also more fun to move and build a new base than grow my main one. 

The idea of building bases elsewhere is what is keeping me in the game. Having a big land is Nice, but even of it was half it's size i would not have to move around for resources... I think the growth of my biggest land has gone slower after i hit the 5km radius more or less

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