Telios

all messages by user

11/5/2018
Topic:
Major changes coming that will re-balance the game

Telios
Telios
DrDread, it seems that your problem is with large players simply being too large? Wouldn't that be more easily fixed by simply making log penalty more impactful (exponential scaling or larger max but its a hard cap)?

If not, why not do only one of the changes? Demand growth or Volumes scaled down, both changes combined seems pretty extreme. Could your provide an example company for the before and after impact you are a proposing?



From talking to people in the discord, it definitely seems that the biggest issue with the game is that more players are needed. I would recommend making an effort to market the game more and grow the player base before making changes to make it harder for the big players you do have to play the game the way they have become accustomed to playing it. This change won't grow the game and will only drive away players that are used to the current system.
edited by Telios on 11/5/2018
11/5/2018
Topic:
Major changes coming that will re-balance the game

Telios
Telios
Doctor Dread wrote:
The game will get more players when the game works, it loses players when its horribly imbalanced


Build it and they will come? That is rarely a winning strategy in business.


Games always have player loss; real life, they get bored, schedule changes, etc. But the good games keep new players coming in. Look at Ogame, similar game in that it is a space empire building game. I just Googled "space browser game" and several variations and Ogame was always on page 1. I went in 16 pages without seeing Barons until I stopped looking. It is not an easy game to find or I would have been here years ago.

Also, much of your player base seems to disagree with your assumption that there is a problem, perhaps if you gave a concrete example of the a hypothetical corp in a city that currently exists and how you believe it is broken. And how your changes would impact that hypothetical corp. If it is easier, use an existing corp, as we can all see each others assets regardless.
edited by Telios on 11/5/2018
11/6/2018
Topic:
Major changes coming that will re-balance the game

Telios
Telios
Honestly, i think most of the money i have made as a new player was because big players pushed the price of products to the floor in a given city. Created the opportunity for me to buy at 10%, move it to another city and sell at a much higher rate. Way more money as a new player than I would have been able to make any other way. And given enough time of me doing that trading, I have definitely raised those rates...

If you take away the trading opportunities created by the big players, you will merely widen the gap between new and old players. Especially since they had months with their "demand engines" to create powerful empires and new players wouldn't have any way to catch up or even duplicate what the big players have done.
edited by Telios on 11/6/2018
11/12/2018
Topic:
Major changes coming that will re-balance the game

Telios
Telios
Please verify above, I thought end products were already at 50% and are going to 10%; therefore 20% of current volumes.

Please don't implement the reduction of the Corp HQ bonus without also doubling the research bonus to somewhat offset the spike in production costs!
edited by Telios on 11/12/2018
12/4/2018
Topic:
What stimulates a city's growth

Telios
Telios
Commanche, that could work but multiple those numbers by 2x, 5x or even 10x.

Use a higher multiplier and have demand not impact growth at all. Base the growth entirely off of industry in the city; the jobs being provided for. Or maybe really high demand 300+ having a negative modifier on growth but that's it.
12/7/2018
Topic:
What stimulates a city's growth

Telios
Telios
Reason I am saying that the multipler of industry impact on city pop should be greater (using your numbers of Rabat at 15,000 industry) is that getting to the higher levels of industry output should have pretty massive changes to the population.

My ideal would be city founded with 3,000 industry(current mechanic) and that 3,000 starts the city with the 900,000 or 1 million it does now but starts growing to ~6 million based on that 3,000 industry. Now if industry drops back down (often happens because the "push" to 3,000 is typically unprofitable) to say 1,250, then the growth would only be taking the city to around ~2.5M. But as the activity in the city grows, T2/T3 industry develops, and the city gets to that 15,000 industry level, the growth should be pushing the city to the target of 30 million pop. Which given the lower volumes, ~30M is enough that several people could focus on differing products and making money because the population cause greater volumes.


In addition, perhaps there is also a negative modifier on growth from demand at high demand levels (ie people leaving because they can't get what they want or its too expensive) around 250-300%. At the same time, demand levels should rise faster than they currently do to allow people to actually make money.


Under this model, a city would require 50,000 industry to reach 100 million pop. Vastly beyond what a single player could provide but still doesn't result in gaming demands to get cities growing. This would also more closely align with the "real world" in drivers of cities. I don't move to a new city because demand for products are low, I move because there is a job there.


FYI, this change would cause my city, Questa, to move from 57M to ~18M pop at current production levels
edited by Telios on 12/7/2018
12/25/2018
Topic:
What stimulates a city's growth

Telios
Telios
You are developing in dreamland if you think Earth can support 5-10 million per city with players actually making a profit and enjoying themselves...

My point about 100 million was basically saying that it would still be a near impossibility under an industry based city growth model. You completely ignored the concept that was the focus of this topic; industry focused city size rather than demand levels...

If players aren't meant to "grow" cities then why even have the growth based on actions the players make? Just set the pop to whatever you believe that it should be and be done... or based on number of players (think we are down to under 10 atm...)?

You do a lot of squashing players' ideas to try to fix the game while every "balance" you are making is just driving people away. New features (guild bank, etc) are meaningless when the core of the game (economy) allows for no growth...
edited by Telios on 12/25/2018
1/1/2019
Topic:
What stimulates a city's growth

Telios
Telios
I would love if Mega Structures became worth it!

Arcology - Valuable before but less so now as a 10% of city growth when it costs a million a turn isn't terrible cost effective. With the new system of it not really being profitable to grow a city, I can see this mega structure being completely worthless after the reset. If the growth it provided was greatly increased or provided a population "floor" for the city that would be working towards fixing it.

Hypernet - only valuable at level 1 when it costs 5,000 a turn and only breaks even if you have 500,000 of production costs in the city. Any further levels are meaningless and unprofitable as you will pay more in military upkeep that you will save in production costs. The upkeep should be vastly lower, the bonus should be much higher, it should provide a reduction to military upkeep in the city as well or should act as a spaceport for just that city to generate additional income. Right now its just the worst.

Mobile fortress- It isn't terrible but suffers from the fact that it is more economical to let your things die and then rebuild as a smaller player than maintain a standing defense. This isn't really a problem with the structure itself but the economy of the game...

Warp Gates - income doesn't really offset the per turn cost but we maintain them because space is huge, not sure I would change much. Will be much less important when the reset happens as we all just live in Sol.

Orbital Gun - Won't be seen much after the reset, same reason as the mobile fortress. Just too expensive to maintain in the new economy.

Spaceport - nearly worthless due to the reduced economic climate, the ability to sell to the spaceport at a planetary rate and have it effect all of the cities would be really cool, in addition, having the owner get an additional amount of those sales (in addition to the existing sales percent) would make the structure viable in the new climate. Or the ability to have an action house type market in them. I post to sell 100,000 units, player A buys 20,000, Player B buys 80,000 and we don't have to mess with tons of comms and lots of contracts.

Starbase - Similar to the Orbital Gun and the Mobile fortress, the military bonus is nice but no one is going to have military after the reset because there won't be profits enough to maintain. Military upkeep reduction of units sitting in the starbase would be a compelling reason perhaps to build one (50-70% off).

Also, it would be nice if the military upkeep was reduced when units were stationed at your military base or shipyard. Units in the field costing more, etc. Similar to the repair increase.
edited by Telios on 1/1/2019
3/6/2019
Topic:
Demand changes and City surplus

Telios
Telios
With the increased volumes, and the fact that players will be working to meet them, any chance the storage fees can be reduced? They are extremely high atm. I am thinking roughly currently storage cost divided by 1,000.
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