sancheezy wrote:On evaluating this solely on an absolute basis it would imbalance the game to a large degree. On a relative basis this advantage is smaller.
Its still an advantage that isn't needed. Making it easier to obtain scholarships will keep that balance and limit larger players from making exponential gains players do now when going negative.
sancheezy wrote:This would devalue the re-spawn of a world though.
I've got no use for re-spawns anyway, but support your position.
sancheezy wrote:I guess I take the stance because I have not seen any in GW other than defensive or chaos purposes. Again it may be a large mistake on many factions sides but if the "top players in the game" aren't using them on what is supposed to be the winner's platform, I think it isn't as relative as you are implying they are.
You can fill volumes with tactics used by players who've not yet participated in GW. Just because you've not seen it used there, doesn't mean its not an effective tactic.
sancheezy wrote:Let me clarify what I meant as I see it wasn't too clear. I think that a shorter time spent PER WORLD could potentially translate to a higher stick rate in the game overall. I think the worlds of today (lasting 3 months on average lets say) is too lengthy, time consuming and repetitive. By shortening this down (to say 6 weeks) I think you will have less inactives per world (more people likely to stick it out until the end) and also (potentially) a higher stick rate long term.
I disagree. Stick rate was higher in the early days of Valor. The consensus I see in my own players and hear from others was due to the camaraderie and esprit de corp built over a period of time. Six weeks is too short a time to build those relationships. Three months is barely enough time. Many players who have left them game took their guilds with them and are playing other games. Others may have moved on to other hobbies or individual games, but still stay in contact with each other in Kakao.
sancheezy wrote:I think this is the message that Quark has been telling us for quite some time. The quicker worlds (1ks) are the most profitable. They also lead to GWs which are (probably) the biggest profit center to them.
I think with a shorter game life per world, we would cut back on the degree of inactives. Also, a quicker world would mean people would NEED to be more active for this period of time but could make it more palatable than the current requirements.
Yes, 1k and GW are likely more profitable. However, the folks that can afford to pay steady money have jobs and cannot devote the constant attention a 1k demands. Many of my players are 30-40 years old and have jobs and families. As such, they tend to gravitate to Legacy worlds. Those players will stay around longer and can afford to spend money on a long term basis.
sancheezy wrote:My point was that it COULD make it relevant.
Anything COULD happen. It doesn't mean it is LIKELY.
sancheezy wrote:No I was saying once I have 30 cities with academies I generally don't build anymore.
Your frame of reference seems to be entirely based on 1k worlds. Realize there is more to Valor than 1k worlds.
sancheezy wrote:Again just an idea for some worlds to avoid the "recruit the world" phenomena that has been going around for a while. As I said before this is simply a separate idea and should simply be viewed in isolation (and possibly deserved its own thread initially).
Again, it appears your frame of reference is based entirely on 1k worlds and the current state of affairs in them. There is more to diplo than "recruit the world".
sancheezy wrote:Just because you can Google something, doesn't make it a good think. There a lots of things out there that people shouldn't be Googling and learning.
While that may be true with some things, its not here. There are plenty of very good primers out there for Valor. One of which helped me immensely when I started playing (back around W15).
sancheezy wrote:More to the point would be who is the target demographic for the game? It is a male age 10-30? They would likely go this route or is it the casual gamer that shops the app store and downloads the app (everybody)? I say this because the bulk of the people I play with dont check the fourms and would never Google something like this. Kids, jobs, spouses and all of the other RL things suck up too much time to go through all of this. In fact I doubt any of them know I am so outspoken here on this forum and probably never will. I agree the person maintaining a spreadsheet will look this up but is that the only Valor player we are catering too?
No, but I also don't think the game needs to be simplified so much that it takes no thought. There are plenty of simple games out there. The layers of strategy in this game is what appealed to many of the players that made this game popular (including me).
sancheezy wrote:As I pointed before out most of those suggestions will still suck up a significant amount of time still. Going through and changing city tabs require an in-depth knowledge of all of your cities. If we have the information similar to Aura's Blessing (population, resource level and troops in city) available in the side scroll bar this would be a lot easier but again on the scale you are talking about (800+ cities) tagging cities (and un-tagging) would still require a significant amount of time.
I disagree. I do this with pen and paper now. I write it down when I conquer a city and when I'm done building in it I cross it off. Tag and untag would be as simple as that. Same for recruit and such.
sancheezy wrote:An auto-scholarship purchase system would go against the nature of the game (activity) and perpetuates the problem you were against of the 800 city player versus the 1 city player.
How does auto-purchasing scholarships go against the nature of the game, but doing away with scholarships entirely does not? It does NOT perpetuate the problem I described because there is a finite limit in how many cities that 800 point player can take. On a WS2/US1 world, it takes 62.5 hours to totally regenerate resources to 500k. If all those resources are used to buy scholarships, it yields enough to train 11-12 scholars. Not a lot of scholars in relation to the city count.
sancheezy wrote:You didnt make a claim but an implication that, because three people hadn't agreed, the Valor population didn't agree. All I am saying is that Quark wasn't afraid to make these changes with TBS and shouldn't be afraid to make drastic changes again.
The implication is there because you put it there. The players who've commented have been playing a considerable amount of time and have objected based on that time playing.
sancheezy wrote:I understand you are arguing based on the knowledge gained through the survey but consider this. Your survey is ripe with biases. The survivorship bias alone (you asked people who play(ed) the game at the time) what they would like to see and also asked people to fill out a survey on a forum that is for people that CURRENTLY play Valor. I really don’t think many people that quit Valor are coming back to these forums to look for a survey to improve the game. This means that the information gained is biased towards the current users and not actually gaining new players or getting back the players that have actually left. Unfortunately, to overcome this you would need to survey an additional 9,500 people (including those that left the game) at random.
Had I relied solely on the forum, I would agree with you on survivorship bias. However, I didn't rely solely on the forums. As mentioned previously, many players that have left the game still stay in contact via Kakao. Many of those ex-players participated in the survey. In fact, over 97% of respondees came from a source other than Facebook or the Forum post. I don't dispute a random survey would yield less bias, but if you have any practical experience with market research, you know that isn't a feasible undertaking in this situation. As far as 9,500 additional respondents, Valor didn't have enough players in its heyday to require that many respondents to reach statistical relevance.
sancheezy wrote:This does pose an interesting question, is Quark looking to hold onto its (weakening) player base or try to gain a large number of players again (potentially).
There are ex-players all over who have already stated they would come back if MCM and mass-scholarship purchasing were to happen. In fact, many came back briefly when Legacy worlds came out. Quark could easily shore up their player base and gain new players again.
sancheezy wrote:In addition to this you have selection biases. Who actually logs in to take a survey and/or comment on a forum? Younger people... (I just learned how to do multi-quote thing a day ago and have a facebook I check once a month if that). Most of the people I play with wouldn't ever take that survey and would never add Valor to their facebook friends/likes. I would imagine that, if this type of marketing and demographic is what Quark was going for, the twitter bonuses would still be around. I do know about 25 people who have left recently who probably spent about $50 in gold per month each. That is $1,000/month in recurring revenue gone from a company. I don't care what business you are in but that hurts. I can say confidently that this demographic isn't what is represented in your survey...but they too would be a poor proxy for the Valor population. The reality of it is that Valor is a mobile application and (I would imagine) is/was created for broad market appeal.
Now you are trying to generalize the people you play with to the overall Valor population. As mentioned previously, Facebook and the Forums were not the main avenues used to solicit survey respondents. Kakao, which is the main communication medium Valor players use, was the avenue. While I personally solicited a few, the large majority were solicited by OTHER players. Guildmasters played a big part because of their reach, as well as folks in the Beta room and one other room. I don't deny selection bias is there, but much less than you're making it out to be.
sancheezy wrote:So, if someone doesn't put too much stock in it (I believe I read that Quark never said anything to your survey), there may be a reason behind this.
That's an assumption on your part. Its not my place to confirm or deny that assumption. There's enough players out there who have seen the traffic on MCM for me to be satisfied that is the direction Quark is moving. I've also seen enough to know Quark isn't going to do away with scholarships any time soon. My advice to you would be to broaden your horizons and try a Legacy world with some old school players. You might be exposed to a game you've not previously seen.