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Domination: Earth

1.15 Magnet Merge & Capture Changes


Mr. D

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I suggested a sort of 'maintenance cost' in order to make not too easy to have big lands. So I cannot dislike this upgrade. We are all shocked because there was no cost before and there is now. If the game was this way since the beginning it would have seemed just normal. Big lands come with more resources inside, so you have increasingly more resources to pay for increasingly bigger lands.

I also think some big players (and myself) have some disadvantage, but this logic may help smaller players in comparison.

I see as a bigger problem the one about the things we cannot do when we are at the base, or at the center of a lvl100+ land. We cannot enlarge the lands anymore, and more options will be available in the future. That's fine, I'm waiting for those more options because otherwise the game is quite boring. In am confident that in some future release there will be enough to play, let's say, one or two hours at a time even if I stay home. 

Adding some sort of guilds, online chats and the like would be already good enough I think.

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I was thinking about this a bit... maybe it is possible that lands that are with in a larger land can exits and be grown, maybe even merge in the bigger lamd but do not grown the bigger land of they hit the 100?

The growth of the bigger land could only happen if the circle of the smaller land is at least in part out outside the larger land. This merge to make the bigger land grow could indeed cost money/resources.

perhaps this idea is something?

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1 hour ago, Mr. D said:

Please remember that I am not a corporation, I am one person; a player just like yourself, trying to make a fun game for everyone.
The fact that this game has no ads and there are so few ways to spend Unobtainium is my way of saying "this is not a cash grab".
However, it costs over $1,000 per month to run this game and pay for the associated hardware and software, so I have to sell a minimum amount of something.

Make unbotanium much cheaper - and maybe i buy something. now price is to big. and much players dont buy because prizes...

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Wow, such an impressive update! This game is most intensively updated (and supported) among all games I've ever played.

Let me describe my UX after update (well, even starting before that as I played as usual and noticed some changes). I had level 100 land nearby, base and 3-4 other smaller lands sometimes intersecting with level 100 land. After levelling up one of them, two lands merged and I was informed that I need to use magnet button. So I understood that I need to updated the game. I had about 80 supplies and several thousands of money. Probably the prices had been lowered at the moment when I started game session. So in a few seconds I passed several cycles of merging lands, using satellites to get supplies, merging again until I ran out of supplies. Now my home is inside a 304 lvl land (1.5 km radius) and I got many terrorists' lands/bases which I'll destroy soon. All I can do now is just to update the base's defense (to generate new resourses), attack terrorists, use plant and collect generated resources once per hour.

I do understand that with the previous game mechanic after long playing I'd get to the similar situation (all lands are upgraded to max level and I need to go out of radius). It's ok for me when the game makes me go somewere but it looks like I need to go for 1.5 km now just to start playing. That is not so interesting.

It needs some  time to understand new mechanic. I have 2 big lands now. Another one is near my work location merged from lvl 100 + lvl 88 lands so I will not be able to play from work too (actually I rarely played there). I just try to imagine what will happen when I merge two these lands and cover all the city. Nothing to do at all? Relocate? :) 

What I like in new mechanic is the fact that I need to visit some specific places, not just to upgrade anything anywhere. But If I have time for one hour walk I'll spend about 40 minutes just to get to/from the frontier and during 20 minutes I'll be able to upgrade 2 lands only.

Mr.D, it is absolutely not a problem that we are not able to build lands inside the other lands. I didn't like that before too so I like more clear view now. But something should be invented to have the ability to play inside huge lands too.

One more question. What about the wars now? When there was huge amount of small lands anybody could rather quickly capture some of them. Well, the defence doesn't depend on land size and spread among all lands so yes player will have to kill them all (BTW maybe it should be changed). I didn't have enough fights. But anyway new player see something small, something she can potentially capture. Now it would be one huge land  so many days will be required to demolish it. I cannot imagine this gameplay. Anyway there is nobody with lvl10+ in my city yet. I just think about new players. When they see one huge land I suspect they whouldn't have any motivation to play.

And what about their lands? Will enemy players be able to build new lands inside my lands? It seems no. 

Well, maybe some new ideas are required here.

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I am finding I do not like the removal of the 500m auto lock.  If it was a problem, let me suggest 100m?  My GPS drift made the pattern below as i sat in a restaurant updating durring dinner.  I even waited 20 minutes till it drifted back because my goal was to build up where I was sitting...

Screenshot_20180209-210201.png

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3 hours ago, AntKeeper said:

Mr.D, it is absolutely not a problem that we are not able to build lands inside the other lands. I didn't like that before too so I like more clear view now. But something should be invented to have the ability to play inside huge lands too.

One more question. What about the wars now? When there was huge amount of small lands anybody could rather quickly capture some of them. 

Actually I agree with your points.

I have a land of 3,5 km radius now. I can capture new lands only when I move from a base to another, or I make some trip out of the city. 

Also I see the problem with wars with new players.

Edited by marcofi
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What about new players? How will they collect resources if someone has land covering the whole city? The owner will just use satellites collecting every resource that was generated. No chances for newbies, maybe only at night. Moreover all factories will be owned by that player too. Without new players the game just die. 

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Another thing that came to mind is the following; other players can build lands in your land. If an active player would now attack a big player, by going to his big land, build 3 lands level 3 with guard towers walls and perhaps missiles or  so on and start shooting you would only have 1 guard tower as defence... the costs would be huge even if you would/could use your army and win... it will costs you a lot and it is very hard to defend against (even more so if the player that does this has his base at level 7 when he starts...)

I feel there should be something to counter this effect.

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16 hours ago, Z3nd said:

I am finding I do not like the removal of the 500m auto lock.  If it was a problem, let me suggest 100m?  My GPS drift made the pattern below as i sat in a restaurant updating durring dinner.  I even waited 20 minutes till it drifted back because my goal was to build up where I was sitting...

I realize that it's most likely a force of habit for everyone to use the big "Flag" button for land upgrades, but that was pretty much the idea behind the update - give you a bit more control and separation between the "new land" and "upgrade" functionality: if you'd like to upgrade an existing land, simply use the small "Flag" on its tooltip window, while the big "Flag" is now synonymous to "create new land". ;)

14 hours ago, AntKeeper said:

What about new players? How will they collect resources if someone has land covering the whole city? The owner will just use satellites collecting every resource that was generated. No chances for newbies, maybe only at night. Moreover all factories will be owned by that player too.

Exactly!
You've just highlighted the main reason why I've attempted to slow down high-level growth via the introduction of "Merge Cost". :)
This problem existed before the update, the only difference is that merging was a bit slower (you've had to upgrade all of the nested lands to level 100 before they'd expand their parent land).
Now this process is a bit more visible and the aforementioned problem became apparent.
I am indeed worried about level 500+ lands sucking in all resources within the entire city, but that is something that needs to be addressed in a separate update; it's not a problem that was created by the latest changes. :)

11 hours ago, marcofi said:

My suggestion to increase the circle area instead of radius would address this problem.

Yes, but that would only be a temporary patch; eventually the same situation would appear, except that it would be caused by a level 1000 land instead of 500 (for example). :)

The solution I wanted to propose is to make some/most/all of the resources "private". I.e. stations and most likely "boss resources" would be shared among all players, but smaller drops would be individual to every player and you wouldn't see nor be able to pick up someone else's stuff.
What do you think?

10 hours ago, The one true king said:

I feel there should be something to counter this effect.

Ok, I'll let you in on the new system I am currently designing. :)

There is going to be a brand new construction system that separates all buildings from their "land centre": i.e. instead of all structures appearing as a list in "My Lands", you would be actually placing each building one by one on a free space within your captured land (and the larger the land is, the more buildings you can place).
You will then be able to visit each building (by walking to its spot on the map) and "check in" there to either repair or advance this building to the next level (you'll still be able to repair stuff remotely, but visiting the building will allow to restore a portion of its health for free).
Both of these actions will advance your base to the next level and generate the surrounding resources, so this "construction management process" will hopefully replace the mechanics of placing new flags within an existing land.
Additionally, this will allow to have multiple guard towers in different places within the same land, and increase your defensive capabilities against lots of small lands placed by enemies within.

I hope that addresses the problems you highlighted in this thread! ;)

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9 minutes ago, Mr. D said:

You will then be able to visit each building (by walking to its spot on the map) and "check in" there to either repair or advance this building to the next level (you'll still be able to repair stuff remotely, but visiting the building will allow to restore a portion of its health for free).
Both of these actions will advance your base to the next level and generate the surrounding resources, so this "construction management process" will hopefully replace the mechanics of placing new flags within an existing land.
Additionally, this will allow to have multiple guard towers in different places within the same land, and increase your defensive capabilities against lots of small lands placed by enemies within.

This sound awesome !!!

3 hours ago, The one true king said:

As a side note... since the update and my base relocation after that I get extra defence for my base, but no resource drops. Seeing the costs I made for the first by accident merger I can also use the resources...

Is this only me or a bug?

I think we both mentioned it before in another thread and well I have the same problem again. Strangely, my ally will generate resource with the same action in the same place I wouldn't.

Edited by Ruvox
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5 hours ago, Mr. D said:

Yes, but that would only be a temporary patch; eventually the same situation would appear, except that it would be caused by a level 1000 land instead of 500 (for example). :)

 I don't want to insist too much on something that has already been dismissed. But I just make an example, let's say that a level 1 land has a radius of 30m (which is probably more than it is now), that means that a 3 km radius will be reaced at level 10000 (now it is at level 600). The higher the level, the smaller is the increase of radius, of course, being the formula A=πr².

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I think based on the conversations I'm seeing on the Forum that you have several different play styles for this game. When you make a major change like this it can enhance the game for some play Styles but eliminate the possibility of others. I will post something in the general discussion area about different play Styles because I see three distinct ways that this is being played although some players are combining them depending on what they are doing. It will be up to the developer to decide what direction he wants to take the game.

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1 hour ago, marcofi said:

 I don't want to insist too much on something that has already been dismissed. But I just make an example, let's say that a level 1 land has a radius of 30m (which is probably more than it is now), that means that a 3 km radius will be reaced at level 10000 (now it is at level 600). The higher the level, the smaller is the increase of radius, of course, being the formula A=πr².

I'm not really dismissing this concept, I personally think that it makes a lot of sense. However, there are two potential issues with it:

  • It's *really* going to affect all of our highest level players and look like a serious nerf. I've nearly been crucified after the last change and I'm a bit hesitant to roll this out too. :)
    Same as with maintenance costs, if this formula was in the game from the very beginning no one would really mind, but at this point everyone knows the extent of their kingdom and if it suddenly shrinks it would look as if I'm taking away the hard-earned square meters. :)
     
  • It's going to make it much harder to advance after a certain level and make land upgrades less appealing.
    It's one thing to merge a bunch of level 100 lands to reach a 3km radius, it's something entirely different to need level 10,000 for the same effect (I'd personally give up on that aspiration as I don't even have a level 500 land myself, let alone 1000). :)
    Which also means that resource collection via Satellite will become a lot harder.

However, I'm nothing if not flexible and happy to arrange a public vote.
If the majority feels this formula would work better I'm happy to adjust things. ;)

Updated: voila!
 

 

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Thank you for clarifying your goal with this update and the consecutive ones. I like a lot of what you have now mentioned and I enjoy the game still, despite my early misgivings. I do have one thing: can we keep the combination prices the same as they are now? I hated early pricing but the current ones are not terrible. 

Also, because supplies now are much more valuable could we perhaps see the buff of the Supplies Factory? I like the additional 10 gold but buffing would be awesome. 

I also love the greater use of the flag button. I know this is currently rather unpopular but I think it is a great fine tuning point. 

8 hours ago, Mr. D said:

There is going to be a brand new construction system that separates all buildings from their "land centre": i.e. instead of all structures appearing as a list in "My Lands", you would be actually placing each building one by one on a free space within your captured land (and the larger the land is, the more buildings you can place).

You will then be able to visit each building (by walking to its spot on the map) and "check in" there to either repair or advance this building to the next level (you'll still be able to repair stuff remotely, but visiting the building will allow to restore a portion of its health for free).
Both of these actions will advance your base to the next level and generate the surrounding resources, so this "construction management process" will hopefully replace the mechanics of placing new flags within an existing land.
Additionally, this will allow to have multiple guard towers in different places within the same land, and increase your defensive capabilities against lots of small lands placed by enemies within.

I hope that addresses the problems you highlighted in this thread! ;)

I cannot give this idea enough love (like srsly I ran out of positive ratings on this forum 😂) I love this idea and think it makes alit more sense over the current system. My only fear is what happens to player that play in rual areas, or worse, near private property that they can't walk onto? Just to let it sit in the back of your mind

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29 minutes ago, Mr. D said:

Which also means that resource collection via Satellite will become a lot harder.

As already said resource collection via Satellite is already much harder at the moment if not impossible since upgrading the base within my ca. 6,5 km radius land doesn't results in any resource spawns...
At the moment it'd take me much more effort to gain any resources than at any point before in the game.

Before the update high-level players got huge amounts of resources more or less easily which quickly results into plans to establish bases somewhere else and travel around since there was nearly nothing to do at home. But at this point I have to do whatever I can to gain at least any resources so I am forced back to a more basic/beginning gameplay

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I understand I can always click the small flag on a nearby land but the way I play I may not always have time to go through those steps before I am out of range, or when I am with someone else and did not want to have my face in the game, it was simple to click on the flag every 15 minutes, but when I am looking at my phone, and messing on it to find my land and click the small button, my wife starts asking me what I am doing....

I ask that you consider making the ability to turn on the 500 meter drop range at least optionally, for those that use it as part of our play style.

Also, see the summary and survey I put in the Q&A section... 

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3 hours ago, Z3nd said:

I ask that you consider making the ability to turn on the 500 meter drop range at least optionally, for those that use it as part of our play style.

 

No problem; if the current system is causing you headache I will add a "My Profile" setting configuring this button's behaviour. ;)

Also thank you for the summary; it is an interesting observation. :)
I'll respond about that separately!

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Since my bases overlap I noticed a change for my armies? It used to be my largest that always attacked. Now that changed to the closest??? But now I have 2 ai bases in an overlap area and I cannot use both of my armies... this seems strange, it would make sense if in  a case like this you could choose which?

Furthermore as said before; there are still no new resources being dropped in the big lands... (even when you check in on your base) it would be great is this could be corrected!

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2 minutes ago, The one true king said:

Since my bases overlap I noticed a change for my armies? It used to be my largest that always attacked. Now that changed to the closest???

I mentioned this in another thread before and suggested to change the level up of the base (to which base lands get connected) to always the nearest base which makes from my point of view the most sense. However, at the point I mentioned it it was always the first (or earlier) built base to attack which also resultet in many strange thing (I couldn't attack a land which was about 10 km away from my base). 
I also think that having the choice with which base to attack in case of overlapping base radius would be the best option.

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15 hours ago, Mr. D said:

No problem; if the current system is causing you headache I will add a "My Profile" setting configuring this button's behaviour. ;)

Also thank you for the summary; it is an interesting observation. :)
I'll respond about that separately!

Thanks.  That would help.  I doubt I have identified all the ways people are playing...

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Well, after 3 days I see that now I am only able to do about 3-4 upgrades per day and cannot play neither from areas near my home, nor from areas near my work - the places I spend most time. So I start losing interest to the game as I actually just cannot play it. Hope something will change soon.

One more thing that is required with the new mechanic. Is it possible to show circles of owned areas in any zoom level?. Typical scenario is to see how far is the new land from the bigger one but when I zoom in bigger circle disappears. If there are performance issues with that maybe at least it would be possible to select some land which I want to be visible in any zoom level. In this case it is not required to scan territory.

Edited by AntKeeper
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1 minute ago, AntKeeper said:

Well, after 3 days I see that now I am only able to do about 3-4 upgrades per day and cannot play neither from areas near my home, nor from areas near my work - the places I spend most time. So I start losing interest to the game as I actually just cannot play it. Hope something will change soon.

As mentioned in one of the posts above, I am currently working on an alternative solution. ;)
It's not a quick fix, as the new construction system is a fairly huge development, but I'm doing my best to finish it ASAP. :)

2 minutes ago, AntKeeper said:

One more thing that is required with the new mechanic. Is it possible to show circles of owned areas in any zoom level?. Typical scenario is to see how far is the new land from the bigger one but when I zoom in bigger circle disappears. If there are performance issues with that maybe at least it would be possible to select some land and only show it in any zoom level. In this case it is not required to scan territory.

I know what you mean; I'll see what can be done about this!

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