Suggestion to help even out sides

I know before the game went live, there was a problem with Light players heavily outnumbering Dark players. Not sure how that's changed since then, but I came up with an idea to help keep the sides even, which will in turn make for a better game in my personal opinion.

Simply offer a join-up bonus based on how heavily outnumbered one side is. For instance, if Light players are heavily outnumbering Dark players, then inform new players when they start the game that if they choose Dark side, they get a bonus of a few hundred resources or a free weapon for the L infantry, something like that. But if one side is only outnumbering the other by a little bit, the join bonus is decreased. Maybe to a common fragment or maybe 50 of each resource, something like that.

That's a common solution games have implemented. I'm not sure if this is the case as I've seen a very large amount of new dark players talk in chat after launch. Unfortunately many were complaining about their troops so it wouldn't surprise me if the made a new kong account to play as light.

The real problem with this is how does the system register which side presently has the advantage, you can't just consider which has more players because any number of them may be inactive. Hard to do it based off CP earned by 1 faction over some recent period of time because the active players from one faction may have just not been around. While something should be considered and put in place the real problem is determining how to go about it.

Great posts all.

We have already implemented a system which calculates the active players from both sides in a period of 7 days.

When a new user is at the registration screen and depending on the ratio, Dark/Light, the system will provide some bonuses to the Faction which needs more population to try to regain balance.

RuneSlayer wrote:

Great posts all.

We have already implemented a system which calculates the active players from both sides in a period of 7 days.

When a new user is at the registration screen and depending on the ratio, Dark/Light, the system will provide some bonuses to the Faction which needs more population to try to regain balance.

What is that bonus? And will it be shown to the players joining?

Hegorn wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:

Great posts all.

We have already implemented a system which calculates the active players from both sides in a period of 7 days.

When a new user is at the registration screen and depending on the ratio, Dark/Light, the system will provide some bonuses to the Faction which needs more population to try to regain balance.

What is that bonus? And will it be shown to the players joining?

Of course.

The bonuses vary from XP bonus for units/heroes to gold production bonuses.

Before you start balancing the sides consider the current cp formula logic, personally it seems a little off.

With the current formula it scales by total amount of units used, tho fine in logic it is however limiting the balance of power instead making the current map the battle of ants- quantity with complete disregard for quality.

Balance that out, as of right now your punishing people who progress in the game by effectively scaling this ratio down with difficulty rising (longer battles, longer healing time as you progress).

Once that’s done let it run for a week to actually see the power balance between the sides. As of right now you’re trying to manage numbers of players without taking any consideration into how capable they are, aside being able to sit behind the pc for 9 hrs a day to loop battles.

soviet wrote:

Before you start balancing the sides consider the current cp formula logic, personally it seems a little off.

With the current formula it scales by total amount of units used, tho fine in logic it is however limiting the balance of power instead making the current map the battle of ants- quantity with complete disregard for quality.

Balance that out, as of right now your punishing people who progress in the game by effectively scaling this ratio down with difficulty rising (longer battles, longer healing time as you progress).

Once that’s done let it run for a week to actually see the power balance between the sides. As of right now you’re trying to manage numbers of players without taking any consideration into how capable they are, aside being able to sit behind the pc for 9 hrs a day to loop battles.

That is not completely correct. The higher the difficulty of a battle, the higher the CP gain in a battle, combined with the number of units participating. Thus, an army of 8 units on Normal would get far less CPs if victorious, than an army of the same number of units on Hard or Nightmare.

As best i can tell the rewards for normal/hard/nightmare are 3/4/5 with an additional +1 for 5 or more units, so what soviet is pointing out is kind of true it benefits the faction more overall to do more battles with fewer units. I will test it out later with 9 units in a bit to see if it makes any significant difference though.

Edit: did a normal with 7 units which is my cap with AP unless i restrict it to lights/archers and received 5 AP. Would still be better off running my usual 2 for 4 each with 5 units and just burn the extra command point before moving on to co-op.

Yanvicious wrote:

As best i can tell the rewards for normal/hard/nightmare are 3/4/5 with an additional +1 for 5 or more units, so what soviet is pointing out is kind of true it benefits the faction more overall to do more battles with fewer units. I will test it out later with 9 units in a bit to see if it makes any significant difference though.

Edit: did a normal with 7 units which is my cap with AP unless i restrict it to lights/archers and received 5 AP. Would still be better off running my usual 2 for 4 each with 5 units and just burn the extra command point before moving on to co-op.

I have found that with the population during prime time, I can grind Co-ops and never have to worry about CommandPoints. I dont know if this is true on the darkside as well, but I suspect it is from what I see in chat.

What was the intention of Command Points?

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Also, I think balancing may be better accomplished if you skew the requirements to flip hexes based on population instead of offering additional gold/xp. I also like the idea of any corrective measures being on a 3-5 day "lag" behind the cyclical imbalances. It allows for one side to push into territory a bit. If corrections are good and are made too quickly in response to imbalances, the game will become too static.

This would fit into the other suggestion about scaling difficulty of flipping hexes based on distance to your capital (Farther hexes would be generally harder to flip).

Overall, I find myself working on the same 1-2 hexes for multiple days. I like the tactical play in battles, but I also want map strategy to be more active and dynamic.

I get what Soviet is saying and agree that numbers favor high population a bit too much.

One possible solution:
- Re-normalize the "base" number of Conquest Points awarded for wins to 100x what they are now (Normals give 300, Hard 400, Co Ops 500, PvP 600).

- Adjust the requirements for flipping hexes by the same factor of 100 so that there is no net effect.

- Now, add/subtract CP based on the APs of the armies used. Perhaps a variance of +/- 50 so that very big armies that do normals might get 350 CP instead of 300.

- You could even take it a step further and offer bonus CP based on how efficiently you killed your enemies based on a similar variance to the AP variation.

Numbers would need tweaking, but the effect is to make the size of the battle and the skill of the general mean more than it does now. I would think size variance should matter more in PvE, while skill variance should matter more in PvP.

Quote :

I have found that with the population during prime time, I can grind Co-ops and never have to worry about CommandPoints. I dont know if this is true on the darkside as well, but I suspect it is from what I see in chat.

What was the intention of Command Points?

Same thing applies for both Factions. Command points are basically used to motivate people to either do CO-OPs or PvPs as they do not require any command points.

Quote :

Also, I think balancing may be better accomplished if you skew the requirements to flip hexes based on population instead of offering additional gold/xp. I also like the idea of any corrective measures being on a 3-5 day "lag" behind the cyclical imbalances. It allows for one side to push into territory a bit. If corrections are good and are made too quickly in response to imbalances, the game will become too static.

The regional containers with CPs already depend on population. The bigger the population, the bigger the regional containers. The system uses a dynamic algorithm which is altering the regional containers.

I don't understand the "3-5 day lag".

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Overall, I find myself working on the same 1-2 hexes for multiple days. I like the tactical play in battles, but I also want map strategy to be more active and dynamic.

Hegorn, you are not supposed to be able to conquer a whole region by yourself. The whole point of the game is to organize with other players to strategically attack at certain points of the map. This will be even more important when Guild Warfare is enabled and regions will have specific bonuses given to the Guild which control them.

Quote :

I get what Soviet is saying and agree that numbers favor high population a bit too much.

One possible solution:
- Re-normalize the "base" number of Conquest Points awarded for wins to 100x what they are now (Normals give 300, Hard 400, Co Ops 500, PvP 600).

- Adjust the requirements for flipping hexes by the same factor of 100 so that there is no net effect.

- Now, add/subtract CP based on the APs of the armies used. Perhaps a variance of +/- 50 so that very big armies that do normals might get 350 CP instead of 300.

- You could even take it a step further and offer bonus CP based on how efficiently you killed your enemies based on a similar variance to the AP variation.

Numbers would need tweaking, but the effect is to make the size of the battle and the skill of the general mean more than it does now. I would think size variance should matter more in PvE, while skill variance should matter more in PvP.

Currently the CPs are awarded according to the difficulty of the battle and the number of units involved and therefore APs used. I like the "efficiency in a battle" variable, so that is something that we could work on. Also, we could tinker with the CPs award a bit more to create bigger differences between difficulties and number of units.

RuneSlayer wrote:

Quote :

What was the intention of Command Points?

Command points are basically used to motivate people to either do CO-OPs or PvPs as they do not require any command points.

That is a good thing in my eyes. I wouldnt want to see the "energy" system that limits playtime in many facebook/flash games. In the interest of balance though, it does make the Dark Legion's racial bonus pretty ineffective.

Quote :

The regional containers with CPs already depend on population. The bigger the population, the bigger the regional containers. The system uses a dynamic algorithm which is altering the regional containers.

I'm also glad to hear that regional containers scale with population. It feels like all regional containers are about the same size. Is this true?

Quote :

Currently the CPs are awarded according to the difficulty of the battle and the number of units involved and therefore APs used. I like the "efficiency in a battle" variable, so that is something that we could work on. Also, we could tinker with the CPs award a bit more to create bigger differences between difficulties and number of units.

That would be great to see. It is always nice to see metrics that show that we as players are getting more skilled or progressing our armies more.

Even if its a token amount more, I think players will appreciate that their extra skill / carefulness in battle makes a difference - even if its relatively minor.

Also, I think players are seeing that it takes days/weeks of vertical progression to reach the point that they can do hard/nightmare difficulties. When finally reaching that point, they earn a "measly" 1 more CP and it can feel very anticlimactic.

Sure, its a bit of a perception problem because that 1 CP might be a ~20% improvement, but it feels like a very small amount that doesnt acknowledge the work we put into bettering our armies or ourselves as generals.

Quote :

Hegorn, you are not supposed to be able to conquer a whole region by yourself. The whole point of the game is to organize with other players to strategically attack at certain points of the map. This will be even more important when Guild Warfare is enabled and regions will have specific bonuses given to the Guild which control them.

I may not have explained myself well enough in the previous post. When I said that I'm working on the same 1-2 hexes all the time, it is not because I want to personally flip regions on my own. I like the social side of strategy games and I would like to see that matter a lot in BattleCon.

I'm saying that if all regions are roughly equally difficult to flip, then there is not much reason to work on any other region other than two - (1) the region that is most progressed on your side, or (2) the one most in danger of flipping away from your side.

What I am seeing is that despite both sides fighting for key regions, I tend to see shifts of about 1-5% per day in even the most contested regions.

I think 1-5% per day is a bit slow for central hexes, while I also think that 1-5% per day would be too fast for the final hexes near the capitals. That is what I meant by the game map being a bit too static. My suggestion is to create more volatility in the central regions of the map while making sure that the regions near the capital stay relatively stable. Right now, the entire map feels very stable.

This is why I made the suggestion to allow the central regions of 48-53 to be somewhere in the order of 3-5 times easier to flip than regions near the capital. If some regions are more vulnerable than others and over time different regions "become" more or less vulnerable, then it adds a layer of strategy to the map that would be a lot of fun. So players might see up to 25% movement per day in some of the central regions.

More variation in the region "CP Containers" would compliment guild warfare too (more on this below). Guilds might "scout" regions to figure out which ones have smaller containers at the time by attacking them to see how much % is moved by adding a relatively small amount of CP. Or perhaps those vulnerabilities are visible and guilds will make a quick switch to a less contested territory that is vulnerable right before the timer runs out for the current round. When regions all have roughly equal CP containers, that sort of strategy does not come into play.

I understand that guild warfare will add an interesting layer of strategy to the map and I am looking forward to it. That said, I also wonder if it may add motivations that skew the population more because of how stable the map is.

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About Guild Warfare and a too Stable Map:

If there is little movement in the Light V Dark warfront, and if one side slowly pushes to have an advantage of 60-70% control, the guild rewards will increasingly motivate people to join the winning side. Sure, you can curb this motivation by offering rewards to the low pop side like gold / XP increases, but then you get into an arms race of which rewards are better. Eventually no matter how you try to counter reward the lower pop side, it will cause the map to be even more stable which in my opinion is a bad thing - even if the map is roughly balanced.

Also, if regions become harder and harder to acquire the more you push towards the enemy capital, guilds will be more motivated to look inward for expansion of their own guild even if it lessens their efforts against the enemy side. When one side is losing, they have an increasingly defensible position and increasing motivation for all guilds to work together to recapture regions from the enemy side.

This will help create a cyclical balance between the two sides that will also help counter population issues.

And again, thanks for taking the time to read these long posts. I've liked what I see from BattleCon and from the dev team, so I hope my feedback has been helpful to you guys.

Hegorn wrote:

And again, thanks for taking the time to read these long posts. I've liked what I see from BattleCon and from the dev team, so I hope my feedback has been helpful to you guys.

Some suggestions by the community will be implemented, some will have to join the "queue" and some can sadly not be implemented for various reasons. However, ALL suggestions are welcome, especially the ones which are constructive.

As it was discussed here previously i figured this would be the best place to bring it up. Are there any plans to modify the way CP and regional "containers" currently work, i know Rune that you'd mentioned earlier in this thread that there is a dynamic algorithm that modifies the regional container as we grow in population. What you didn't mention is if that includes inactives, it has become painfully boring to try and make any sort of progress with how drastically it has changed, i can't help but feel this is due to players who join and therefore increase the regional pool size but quit shortly after and the container never shrinks to make up for that. At the same time it is rather frustrating that there is no real consideration for army strength or a number of other things when CP earned is calculated, at this point i earn just as much for a Co-op as players who have been around less than 48 hours. I personally liked some of Hegorn's suggestions regarding base values as they are with additional earnings based on CP and some other factors.

So basically while i realize there is a long list of to-do's and some of those things i feel should take priority over this, what are the dev teams plans to modify the way the current CP system works because as it is this has just become an exercise in futility, i don't realistically see any regions changing sides in the next couple of weeks.

Yanvicious wrote:

As it was discussed here previously i figured this would be the best place to bring it up. Are there any plans to modify the way CP and regional "containers" currently work, i know Rune that you'd mentioned earlier in this thread that there is a dynamic algorithm that modifies the regional container as we grow in population. What you didn't mention is if that includes inactives, it has become painfully boring to try and make any sort of progress with how drastically it has changed, i can't help but feel this is due to players who join and therefore increase the regional pool size but quit shortly after and the container never shrinks to make up for that. At the same time it is rather frustrating that there is no real consideration for army strength or a number of other things when CP earned is calculated, at this point i earn just as much for a Co-op as players who have been around less than 48 hours. I personally liked some of Hegorn's suggestions regarding base values as they are with additional earnings based on CP and some other factors.

So basically while i realize there is a long list of to-do's and some of those things i feel should take priority over this, what are the dev teams plans to modify the way the current CP system works because as it is this has just become an exercise in futility, i don't realistically see any regions changing sides in the next couple of weeks.

I couldn't agree more Yanvicious. As we discussed on Kongregate's chat, we want to change it as well, adding different regional containers per zone (middle, closer to the capital, even closer to the capital, adjacent to the capital) and take into consideration the APs number as well.

One thing though, the dynamic algorithm isn't just calculating population, it is calculating ACTIVE population during a week.

RuneSlayer wrote:

I couldn't agree more Yanvicious. As we discussed on Kongregate's chat, we want to change it as well, adding different regional containers per zone (middle, closer to the capital, even closer to the capital, adjacent to the capital) and take into consideration the APs number as well.

One thing though, the dynamic algorithm isn't just calculating population, it is calculating ACTIVE population during a week.

Thats great to hear and a huge first step towards making the warfront matter more. I'm glad constructive feedback affects the development of the game and I liked some of the ideas that were mentioned in the chat today (like a possible 3rd faction of NPCs to help balance the map and create another layer of strategy).

I've always thought that 3 factions RTS games were far superior to 2 faction games as far as creating dynamic map strategy - even if the 3rd faction is an NPC faction. Are there intentions to make an additional player faction as well?

Also, are there any discussions to have other inputs that affect the CP containers per region instead of just the zone they are in? Things like:
- Random map events (to create variety from day to day in the metagame of map strat)
- Neighboring regions influencing each other (easier to capture a region that is almost surrounded)
- Guild structures that increase / decrease CP container sizes

In any case, any major game systems that deepen the strategy of where/when to attack/defend are what will create meaningful endgame play in my eyes. I'm looking forward to testing the changes.

Thanks again.

The other thing I wanted to ask about was CP decay. Is there any right now and if so, how does it work?

Hegorn wrote:

The other thing I wanted to ask about was CP decay. Is there any right now and if so, how does it work?

There was, but we removed it so we can alter the formula. We surely want to add it again.