Bonus to new players in a favored faction

I get your point, and hence I've been very positive to adding gem rewards to playrers during all my time playing the game.

Now I couldn't care leff, I've quit, and merely checking in on this forum to vent my leftover of frustration for wasting time and resources.

Hegorn wrote:

Notelitten wrote:

Well said Hegorn. The answer is no, I would not have the same mentality towards gem earned ingame, as they are fairly distributed. Not unfairly, as this startup bonus is.

So its only unfair if you dont have access to it?

It is unfair that a set of players are given a bonus, and another set of players aren't.

How can you not understand this simple fact, which is my point?

Notelitten wrote:

Hegorn wrote:

Notelitten wrote:

Well said Hegorn. The answer is no, I would not have the same mentality towards gem earned ingame, as they are fairly distributed. Not unfairly, as this startup bonus is.

So its only unfair if you dont have access to it?

It is unfair that a set of players are given a bonus, and another set of players aren't.

How can you not understand this simple fact, which is my point?

Heh. The irony.

I'll let someone else explain. Maybe they will have better luck.

Notelitten wrote:

Hegorn wrote:

Notelitten wrote:

Well said Hegorn. The answer is no, I would not have the same mentality towards gem earned ingame, as they are fairly distributed. Not unfairly, as this startup bonus is.

So its only unfair if you dont have access to it?

It is unfair that a set of players are given a bonus, and another set of players aren't.

How can you not understand this simple fact, which is my point?

the point is the whole idea of paying is that one set of players get it and another don't - that is, poor people and people who don't have access to a credit card or the like to buy gems, and those who do have that ability.

Change demons to Dark Elves, BAM instant population swells. Or maybe vampires? SOMETHING hip and popular but not 'too' awesome like dark dwarves.

Oh come on. All ths rage is for the fucking exp bonus?

With that exp bonus my units would have now 500 exp point more. And having in account that reaching level 5 is about 4500 and it grows a lot, it doesnt seems a big % overall. And in long term just means nothing.
The gold bonus just means even less.


If you leave the game is because you dont like several things on it. Not just for this. If you are really leaving after spending that much just for this thing I would have to say that you are a retard.

And I say this because Im in a position were Im very affected by this. I joined the losing side without any bonus and now some days later new people got a bonus that I didnt have and never gonna have. And due to it maybe some people develop a little faster than I did and achieve the same than me with less effort.

Am I raging for it? NO Why? Because first , the bonus is so small that I simply dont give a fuck. And second because Im not that short minded and and I can understand this is made to balance the game and improve the experience despite Im suffering a disadvantage there.

Not like this OH NOOOO! THEYRE GIVING THEM A CHANCE TO DEVELOP 0.001% FASTER THAN ME! AGSGAGDGDA RAGEEEE IM QUITINGG!

Sorry but is the image that you are giving.

I cant imagine how you would be in real life when nowadays women are getting adavantages just for been women to overcome the machismo of previous years. Are you quitting your country too? Or there at least you can understand it is made for a reason? I hope so because if not....

AgentAAA wrote:

Notelitten wrote:

Hegorn wrote:

Notelitten wrote:

Well said Hegorn. The answer is no, I would not have the same mentality towards gem earned ingame, as they are fairly distributed. Not unfairly, as this startup bonus is.

So its only unfair if you dont have access to it?

It is unfair that a set of players are given a bonus, and another set of players aren't.

How can you not understand this simple fact, which is my point?

the point is the whole idea of paying is that one set of players get it and another don't - that is, poor people and people who don't have access to a credit card or the like to buy gems, and those who do have that ability.

In terms, a way to earn gems in the game would level the playing field for those players that wish to compensate for real money with their time. This is to my understanding a fair trade off.

If the gems in the game only could be earned by one of the sides, it would too be unfair, and I would be equally outraged.

Notelitten wrote:

AgentAAA wrote:

Notelitten wrote:

Hegorn wrote:

Notelitten wrote:

Well said Hegorn. The answer is no, I would not have the same mentality towards gem earned ingame, as they are fairly distributed. Not unfairly, as this startup bonus is.

So its only unfair if you dont have access to it?

It is unfair that a set of players are given a bonus, and another set of players aren't.

How can you not understand this simple fact, which is my point?

the point is the whole idea of paying is that one set of players get it and another don't - that is, poor people and people who don't have access to a credit card or the like to buy gems, and those who do have that ability.

In terms, a way to earn gems in the game would level the playing field for those players that wish to compensate for real money with their time. This is to my understanding a fair trade off.

If the gems in the game only could be earned by one of the sides, it would too be unfair, and I would be equally outraged.

So, to ask, are you saying that if that didn't exist, you'd call this game unfair and have had an issue with it?

Either it's available for everyone, where some have the trade-off of time, and others can compensate with physical resources.

If it existed/didn't exist is irrelevant, the issue is the fact that fairness has been removed from the game.

Quote :

No matter what we have been served a pile of hot bullshit

wow...simply......wow

So, you believe that we have been serving the community a pile of hot bullshit/?

Just to clear out that we are not serving bullshit to our community, I would like to say a few things.

When I personally mentioned that the population ratio is 47% Dark - 53% Light, that was definitely not bullshit... When we decided to trigger the population control, that was not bullshit either...

Thing is, in our monitoring process of the active populations we were also calculating signups as well, which is people who register and then leave the game the same day never to come back. When we made some new calculations, taking into consideration the number of users from both sides, battles and CPs earned, then we discovered that the ratio was a lot different than 47% - 53%. It is exactly then, when we decided that we had to trigger the population control in order to balance things out.

You seem to be missing the point.

You keep on arguing about an unfair advantage to the Dark side, when the bonuses given to a new player are not enough to threaten an already established player. They will help a new player in the beginning, but not to the extent that it will create imbalances. As Jervaj posted above

Quote :

OH NOOOO! THEYRE GIVING THEM A CHANCE TO DEVELOP 0.001% FASTER THAN ME

At that early stage of the game, the XP bonus will not provide an unfair advantage to the Dark side to the point that it can turn the tide of the war.

In regards to the CPs multipliers, which are used as a 2nd layer of balancing, they work similarly to the MVP formula. However, it will not provide THAT high multipliers as in the case of the MVP. We WANT a faction to win and a faction to lose and we are NOT going to punish the faction which has gained an advantage.

Both layers mentioned above have been implemented to:

1) Provide a more challenging game experience which involves strategy on the World Map

2) Balance the population so as to play in an interesting gaming world and prevent cases where 1 man has to face 10 opponents.

Whether a player or players will decide to quit or not, that is a personal decision and we will respect it. We will listen to the reasons, if presented, and we will definitely try to identify whether there were valid points or not.

However, it really saddens us to read posts which are clearly insinuating that:

1) We are bullshitting our community.

2) We are giving advantages to one group over another.

3) We do not respect our community.

If nothing else, we have only proven the opposite...

The winning side takes more time for their horseman to go across the map, which should give the losing faction a handicap. This means the losing side can conquer with their horseman more in a shorter amount of time. Is this correct? I have been told that the horsemen running around the map are NPC's taking random conquest points.

RuneSlayer wrote:

So, you believe that we have been serving the community a pile of hot bullshit/?

Just to clear out that we are not serving bullshit to our community, I would like to say a few things.

When I personally mentioned that the population ratio is 47% Dark - 53% Light, that was definitely not bullshit... When we decided to trigger the population control, that was not bullshit either...

Thing is, in our monitoring process of the active populations we were also calculating signups as well, which is people who register and then leave the game the same day never to come back. When we made some new calculations, taking into consideration the number of users from both sides, battles and CPs earned, then we discovered that the ratio was a lot different than 47% - 53%. It is exactly then, when we decided that we had to trigger the population control in order to balance things out.

Yet, what you communicated to the community was infact the numbers "47% - 53%" and then you went ahead and instated said "population control" consisting of unfair bonuses to new players. Not only were you bulshitting the community with false numbers, you also went behind everyone's back and instated this bonus.

Nobody were informed about the fact that you added this to the game, and well, many of us probably wish we were, so that we would not have wasted more time in the gamel.

RuneSlayer wrote:

You seem to be missing the point.

You keep on arguing about an unfair advantage to the Dark side, when the bonuses given to a new player are not enough to threaten an already established player.

As an established player, I did not feel threatened. It is the unfair advantage that gives a new dark player a 10 day bonus over a new light player that is the big issue here. And no matter how far you dig, it is still an UNFAIR advantage.

RuneSlayer wrote:

They will help a new player in the beginning, but not to the extent that it will create imbalances. As Jervaj posted above

Quote :

OH NOOOO! THEYRE GIVING THEM A CHANCE TO DEVELOP 0.001% FASTER THAN ME

At that early stage of the game, the XP bonus will not provide an unfair advantage to the Dark side to the point that it can turn the tide of the war.

I understand what you're saying here that you agree that this is INDEED an unfair advantage, but you see it as a non-issue, as you don't think it'll benefit new players. the 25% experience for the units will be far greater than 0,001%, actually I'd say it'd help up closer to 25%.

Now if you think it's fair to waste 25% more of my time, or of any new player's time, this is where you're wrong, and it's just this mentality that makes me want to see this game crash and burn.

RuneSlayer wrote:

In regards to the CPs multipliers, which are used as a 2nd layer of balancing, they work similarly to the MVP formula. However, it will not provide THAT high multipliers as in the case of the MVP. We WANT a faction to win and a faction to lose and we are NOT going to punish the faction which has gained an advantage.

Right, you're not punishing the winning faction, you are rewarding the losing faction? - And if I'm not mistaken, you don't understand that this is frustrating to any players?

RuneSlayer wrote:

Both layers mentioned above have been implemented to:

1) Provide a more challenging game experience which involves strategy on the World Map

2) Balance the population so as to play in an interesting gaming world and prevent cases where 1 man has to face 10 opponents.

1. it is not challenge if you give new players an unfair advantage.

2. There must certainly be other ways to balance the demographis. - ¨Because now any new light player will face a dark player that grows 25% as fast as him. I'm not sure what you think, but out of 200 battles, this means a dark player has to put down another 50 battles. Roughly 5hrs gametime more!

RuneSlayer wrote:

1) We are bullshitting our community.

You are.

RuneSlayer wrote:

2) We are giving advantages to one group over another.

You are. Roughly giving the dark players a 5hr head start for the first 200 battles.
You just don't see it.

RuneSlayer wrote:

3) We do not respect our community.

Then I'd like an explaination for why the community is informed of half of the changed implemented to the game.

RuneSlayer wrote:

SUCH AS this population control
If nothing else, we have only proven the opposite...

No, you have attempted to bullshit the opposite, without looking into what bonuses are given.

I wonder whether you are making an argument to actually discuss an "issue" you believe that the game has, or you are just trying to be negative. In the first case, I would love to hear your suggestions and your arguments and then I could provide my opinion. In the second case, I don't see the point answering, especially when you are continuously insinuating that my job here is to serve "bullshit"...

Quote :

Yet, what you communicated to the community was infact the numbers "47% - 53%" and then you went ahead and instated said "population control" consisting of unfair bonuses to new players. Not only were you bulshitting the community with false numbers, you also went behind everyone's back and instated this bonus.

Nobody were informed about the fact that you added this to the game, and well, many of us probably wish we were, so that we would not have wasted more time in the gamel.

The answer to your argument lies to the quote where you mentioned what I said in one of my previous posts.

Thing is, in our monitoring process of the active populations we were also calculating signups as well, which is people who register and then leave the game the same day never to come back. When we made some new calculations, taking into consideration the number of users from both sides, battles and CPs earned, then we discovered that the ratio was a lot different than 47% - 53%. It is exactly then, when we decided that we had to trigger the population control in order to balance things out.

As you can read, our calculations were wrong as we were adding signups as well, which is wrong as a lot of people could register and then just abandon the game. The new calculations revealed a lot different ratio than the one initially calculated.

Quote :

As an established player, I did not feel threatened. It is the unfair advantage that gives a new dark player a 10 day bonus over a new light player that is the big issue here. And no matter how far you dig, it is still an UNFAIR advantage

It is a common tactic of all MMOs giving a few days bonuses to a faction which is underpopulated. Here I have two points:

1) The bonuses for a new user are not creating any imbalances to the game, but rather seek to create a balance.

2) If for any reason you felt that the bonuses were such an "unfair solution", then why didn't you offer a suggestion? If you have no suggestions, then that means that we handled it correctly, as there was no other "better" way to handle it.

Quote :

I understand what you're saying here that you agree that this is INDEED an unfair advantage, but you see it as a non-issue, as you don't think it'll benefit new players. the 25% experience for the units will be far greater than 0,001%, actually I'd say it'd help up closer to 25%.

Now if you think it's fair to waste 25% more of my time, or of any new player's time, this is where you're wrong, and it's just this mentality that makes me want to see this game crash and burn.

You are comparing two different cases. The amount of XP a high lvl unit needs to lvl up is a lot more than what a low level unit needs. It will help the new user to advance his units faster, but not against the other Faction as there is no mechanism which will put him forcefully against any other member of the opposite Faction. Having said that, his advance will only work towards achieving a balanced population between the 2 Factions and nothing else.

Quote :

Right, you're not punishing the winning faction, you are rewarding the losing faction? - And if I'm not mistaken, you don't understand that this is frustrating to any players?

We are not punishing or rewarding anyone. We are balancing things out. Let me give you an example. Let us assume a game where there are 2 teams and the team which will score the most goals will win. Each member of the two teams can only shoot once though. So, in one team you have 5 members and the other has 10 members, which means that the first team has 5 attempts to score max 5 goals while the other team has 10 attempts to score max 10 goals. Do you see the imbalance here? Give the "underpopulated" team 2 attempts per member and then you balance the game out, allowing skill to determine which team is better.

Quote :

Then I'd like an explaination for why the community is informed of half of the changed implemented to the game.

We always inform the community about critical changes and we are looking forward to discussing with the community, through its top Guilds, about the coming changes. You may have been informed about our invitation to the top Guilds for an open discussion this Friday. We'd love to hear your opinion and your feedback as Leader of the 3rd biggest Guild during the meeting and hopefully with valid arguments and suggestions. All you have to do is attend and be prepared to discuss, rather than throwing around the "You are full of bullshit BC", otherwise this discussion has no meaning.

First off I don't come in here much, because on a personal level I don't really care, it doesn't affect my gameplay one iota, and I think I actually work harder at a game when I am at a disadvantage.

I have to say I agree with at least part of what I think Note was trying to get across.

If you are going to offer something for new players, offer it to all new players. Regardless of the fact that they can't see it at registration means little, because this knowledge in the right recruiter's hands can get alot of new active players which you won't see the impact right away.

I don't care that new players benefit, I want new players, not only just for one side. I think there is a way you can balance power without benefiting individuals of one faction over another. That would be with the Capital armies. Have the underpopulated hit more frequently and for higher amounts.

I would say the same thing even if it was the light side benefiting from this bonus. I was just made aware of this today(death in family).

I've been on the fence on this issue since it came up and I still am in some way. Here's why and I might contradict myself here. Things need to be balanced and population control must be done but punishing the more active side (even though the new players have not contributed to this) seems counterproductive. That said, rewarding people just for joining the winning side makes no sense either.

So I was thinking of how things could get balanced. First of all, perhaps it would help balance things if the bonuses would be given to both sides. As a way of showing them the benefits of vip status. Like a trial period to get all players hooked on it and maybe help them be persuaded into buying vip status later (helping the developers like that ;D). I've seen many games do this.

Secondly, I think that capital armies are key to this. Runeslayer mentioned several times that the active populations are something like 47% dark side to 53% light side. So the capital armies' respawn times and damage dealt should fluctuation accordingly. Currently it seems that the light army deals more damage consistently which should not happen in my opinion. Maybe the more active or the bigger the population or by the number of the regions in control the armies should deal more damage, however, the time between spawns should take longer since it literally takes longer to get to the front line.

Lastly, and most importantly, according to the same population (or should I say activities of the populations) fluctuations as mentioned before, extra time on said starting vip bonuses should be distributed. For example if the populations are at 47% to 53% then when starting the game a person should see when choosing a side that the side that is at a disadvantage has the starting bonus lasting longer by the difference of the percentages between the populations. I don't think many people would get upset over the other side having the bonus last like 3 days longer and that way the side that is at a disadvantage would not feel like they are being wronged as well.

I think the main problem is that people who complain about these bonuses think of the gains they would have at their current level. I guess the exp bonus would be great for someone who starts as 24/7 player. But really, who does?

What I'd like to know is: Would there be the same comlaints if every new player started with lvl4 buildings and the units with 600 xp. I guess not.

And now the best part: I play the game for 4 days now. I started as dwarf, read a bit, then I wanted to go elf and now I'm undead, because of the bonus. So the system works. Even if I don't get the production bonus. Yes, I checked my gold production and despite the little wheel up there I get exactly what my Gold Smelter says. I can't possibly know about the xp bonus but chances are that it doesn't work either. And I don't care.

I agree that this game has some problems with balancing but if this is one of them it's barely worth mentioning...

I believe I read earlier that Rune says the bonuses are temporary until the game achieves a more balanced population. These were implemented to create a small surge of dark players. Given the extreme amount of time it takes to get anything done in this game I do not feel that a 5-10 day starting bonus is that big of an issue. The Devs have done their best to implement fair systems. They have done a good job so far so I will continue to trust their desicions. If you have a better opinion then post it. But just bitching and moaning gets us no where. Also a benefit to one side is not a punishment to the other if the scales are already unbalanced.

Everyone knows the light side is cooler and wants to join us. The dark needs a little incentive. Its not that big of an issue. If the balance swung the other way I know the Devs would do the same for us to create a balance game enviroment. But still even if the dark did have an "unfair" advantage over us the Light will still prevail if we stay organized and work together.