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Slagpit Game profile

Administrator
Game Development
4375

Mar 6th 2021, 0:51:49

We're considering a change to how bonus turns and acres are awarded. Specifically, I'm talking about these messages that appear ingame:
* "You were given a daily bonus of 20 extra acres."
* "Your people appreciate you leaving them alone. They have granted you 3 extra turns!"
* "Your people appreciate you leaving them alone. They have granted you 6 extra turns!"

The new system would give rewards at most once per day. Players will get bonus turns at the same time that they currently get bonus acres. The amount awarded would be based on the number of consecutive days logged in:

* day 1: 1 turn and 20 acres
* day 2: 2 turns and 24 acres
* day 3: 3 turns and 28 acres
* day 4: 4 turns and 32 acres
* day 5: 5 turns and 36 acres
* day 6+: 6 turns and 40 acres

We hope to encourage players to login at least once per day. We also want to avoid situations where players receive advantages over other players due to extreme levels of activity or situations where players are penalized for logging in. There will be no change to the bonus point system where you can trade bonus points for turns and other benefits.

Please share any thoughts that you have on the idea.

Gerdler Game profile

Forum Moderator
5077

Mar 6th 2021, 1:10:51

The two main issues I feel with the current system are;
1. The turn bonus text still suggests you get rewarded for not logging in even if that was changed. This causes loads of confusion with anyone who is new or comming back.
2. The acre bonus is used to tell if players are online, and it's too 'free'.

Bonus points are still rewarded every 22 hours only if you are logged in so if you are going all the way with this, countering advantages gained through 'extreme levels of activity', you should really consider giving bonuses points for premium automatically instead of at login. The voting bonuses for non-premium should likely stay unchanged.

The negative part of the 22 hour being automatic is that they wouldnt align with reset starts. Consider making it 10 point/24 hour automatic at 00:00:01 gametime?

Slagpit Game profile

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Game Development
4375

Mar 6th 2021, 1:58:34

The text would be changed as part of this so it wouldn't be wrong.

How do you propose resolving 2? If you don't want bonus acres for tagged countries on clan servers then that's easy enough to do on our end, although I don't know what the impact would be.

We're not looking at a change to bonus points at this moment. I will say that I don't personally like the current system: both how points are given to players and the options that they can choose from.

Brigg Game profile

Member
417

Mar 6th 2021, 2:11:48

I honestly really like the "Consecutive Login Bonus" approach.

Something to add, based on a game I played for a while with a similar system, if the player misses logging in on day, the next time that player logs in, the bonus is reduced by 1 day instead if having to start over from the beginning.

For example:

I log in for the 4th consecutive day and get my 4 turns and 32 acres.
The next day, I forget to log in and play.
The next day I log in and receive a bonus of 3 turns and 28 acres
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En4cer Game profile

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1014

Mar 6th 2021, 2:42:09

maybe make it so that you have to click and claim the bonus acres? and its stored for as long as you want it to be stored in any given set ??? - alternatively everyone just gets assigned those acres and turns pushed through ingame at 00:01 each day that has met the login requirements thus also eliminating the ability to use that as a way of tracking who is online and when ?

Also i believe the bonus point system should just be given to each players country that has it every 22 hours and shouldn't have to be logged in an refreshing a screen to receive it.

also how far do you plan to take this one ?

* day 1: 1 turn and 20 acres
* day 2: 2 turns and 24 acres
* day 3: 3 turns and 28 acres
* day 4: 4 turns and 32 acres
* day 5: 5 turns and 36 acres
* day 6+: 6 turns and 40 acres

- so at like day 50 you get +50 turns and 220 acres ?

To get those bonuses you just have to be logged in at some point on the date so for example you are logged in at 00:01 on the 6th and then not again until 23:59 the next day you would still receive both days worth of turns and acres?

Slagpit Game profile

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Game Development
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Mar 6th 2021, 3:36:49

A link to click sounds hard. I could add a country preference to allow countries to forfeit the bonus acres. Maybe some techers would like that too. However, isn't part of the challenge of stonewalling to drop the acres before the other side notices? Or has that changed too?

The maximum that you could get per day (00:00 to 23:59 game time) is 6 turns and 40 acres. The daily reward stops growing at six consecutive login days.

"To get those bonuses you just have to be logged in at some point on the date so for example you are logged in at 00:01 on the 6th and then not again until 23:59 the next day you would still receive both days worth of turns and acres?" - Yes

Edited By: Slagpit on Mar 6th 2021, 3:50:52
See Original Post

En4cer Game profile

Member
1014

Mar 6th 2021, 4:41:44

at this stage i would still much rather the other 15 turns we lose out here - and having to start from day 1 again for those people - who well just get life in the way of things sucks for them - right now they are only out of pocket 6 turns for missing a day - not a minimum of 15 each time it happens... the more i look at it the more i think it rewards the super active players more so than it does now.

Maybe don't have it reset back to 0 but each day u don't log in you go back down 1 tier on the bonus turns ? So if your at 6 you go back to 5 then 4 etc...

i like that your thinking about it though :)

Slagpit Game profile

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Game Development
4375

Mar 6th 2021, 6:00:25

If enough players want some kind of slack in it then we're more likely to do that.

En4cer Game profile

Member
1014

Mar 6th 2021, 6:09:14

how do you propose to gauge that?

IE is there a place or poll or something of the like where you would like to see feedback besides just this thread ? - otherwise you might find yourself catering to the whims of a very few and upset far more people.

Basically i'm offering to try and help get you some more feedback - i just need to know where you would like to see it.

Brigg Game profile

Member
417

Mar 6th 2021, 10:53:49

Originally posted by En4cer:

Maybe don't have it reset back to 0 but each day u don't log in you go back down 1 tier on the bonus turns ? So if your at 6 you go back to 5 then 4 etc...


I agree, and reiterate:
Originally posted by Brigg:
...based on a game I played for a while with a similar system, if the player misses logging in on day, the next time that player logs in, the bonus is reduced by 1 day instead if having to start over from the beginning.

For example:

I log in for the 4th consecutive day and get my 4 turns and 32 acres.
The next day, I forget to log in and play.
The next day I log in and receive a bonus of 3 turns and 28 acres


As far as this...

Originally posted by En4cer:
how do you propose to gauge that?

IE is there a place or poll or something of the like where you would like to see feedback besides just this thread ? - otherwise you might find yourself catering to the whims of a very few and upset far more people.

Basically i'm offering to try and help get you some more feedback - i just need to know where you would like to see it.


...goes: Perhaps have an announcement when people log in to their countries, similar to the "Play Other Gametypes" prompt. Have it read.

(Big, huge, horkin', unmissable font) CHANGES ARE COMING TO EE AND DEVELOPERS WANT YOUR UNPUT AND FEEDBACK!

(Normal Font) We are planning a new changeset and would like to hear your voice on the matter. Come to the forums for more details, and to help us improve the Earth Empires Experience!

Then, create a new section of the forum dedicated to input on the changes you wish to implement and provide a link to that in the announcement. Perhaps a "2021 Changeset" forum nestled under "Forum Category: Administration" could grab more attention.

Make it to where only admins can make new topics in 2021 Changeset, and if people want to add any suggestions unrelated to any of the current discussions in the chnageset forum, they can post them in BUG/SUG.
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Gerdler Game profile

Forum Moderator
5077

Mar 6th 2021, 11:38:35

I'm just glad we are not getting changes snuck into the game on us anymore lol.

Honestly losing 15 turns for not logging in one day seems quite a small loss considering it is over 6 days. The loss from lower activity is bigger now by far. That said 15 turns a loss that could be set-determining so it might be worth reducing it to something like you miss your bonus that day and get one turn lower bonus the next day? That would ~halve the loss and you'd still have a strong reason to play every day.

Slagpit Game profile

Administrator
Game Development
4375

Mar 6th 2021, 14:01:55

Originally posted by En4cer:
how do you propose to gauge that?

IE is there a place or poll or something of the like where you would like to see feedback besides just this thread ? - otherwise you might find yourself catering to the whims of a very few and upset far more people.

Basically i'm offering to try and help get you some more feedback - i just need to know where you would like to see it.


Posting on this forum is the right mechanism. We already encourage players to visit the forums once a week. If they choose to post in "bonus" threads instead of having a voice in the game's future direction, then that's on them.

DruncK Game profile

Member
2090

Mar 6th 2021, 15:41:53

Would it be too hard to award bonus turns that are based on the amount of turns in a given server? This change would give a very noticeable advantage to players in tourney, where it wouldn't make a huge difference in team or ffa.

DruncK Game profile

Member
2090

Mar 6th 2021, 15:43:23

Also it seems like you are awarding players that know the exact formula for bonus acres/turns as it is. I've logged in a bunch in tourney and had considerably less bonus acres than others.

Slagpit Game profile

Administrator
Game Development
4375

Mar 6th 2021, 16:06:43

How does it give a noticeable advantage on tourney? If you log in once per day on tourney, you will eventually get 6 bonus turns per day. The current state allows for more turns than that with careful logins.

Requiem Game profile

Member
EE Patron
9056

Mar 6th 2021, 16:17:55

I don't see why it needs to be overly complicated as it is right now.

This is an unnecessary complication of a simple mechanism:

IF(country gains a turn)
{
bonus_to_give = 0
IF(logout_timer_12 WAS SET more than 12 hours ago)
{
bonus_to_give = bonus_to_give + 3
SET logout_timer_12
}
if(logout_timer_18 WAS SET more than 18 hours ago){
bonus_to_give = bonus_to_give + 3
SET logout_timer_12
SET logout_timer_18
}
}

DruncK Game profile

Member
2090

Mar 6th 2021, 16:38:11

Originally posted by Slagpit:
How does it give a noticeable advantage on tourney? If you log in once per day on tourney, you will eventually get 6 bonus turns per day. The current state allows for more turns than that with careful logins.


I just meant bonus turns in general. There are less turns in tourney so the 6 bonus turns per day make a huge difference. I'm no gerd but it also seems like the best possible bonus use is for turns as well in tourney, after free gdi.

Molotov Game profile

Member
EE Patron
398

Mar 6th 2021, 16:39:38

Slagpit, please do change this! I've been yearning for this, haha, with a frankly somewhat embarrassing amount of posts on this small subject :P Thank you!!!

Interestingly, Requiem, I've discovered that mock code isn't even correct. Getting the 12 hour bonus does not actually reset a switch. The mock code implies you can log in every 12 hours and you'll be maximizing your turns, and that would be manageable for me (8am, 8pm, sure!) but to actually max turns you have to push the 18 hour timer back repeatedly, which means logging in during the middle of the night, which I don't do and can cost me an average of 1 turn/day over a reset.

This means I finish a Primary set with 50+ fewer turns than people that can log in more often. A change that will give everyone playing once a day the same number of turns would be much appreciated.

Requiem Game profile

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EE Patron
9056

Mar 6th 2021, 16:46:38

Yep, you have to play every 6 hours all set to get the most, but the overarching point stands: it's overly complicated for no reason.

Gerdler Game profile

Forum Moderator
5077

Mar 6th 2021, 17:00:27

I think it makes total sense before premium to use this current type of bonuses. The more people browse the more ads they see. That matters to revenue right? So its arbitrage for the player at the benefit of the owner. Fine.

But since the advent of premium it doesn't seem at all as important and the cons outweigh the pros, imo. On the other hand the turn bonus and the premium points require the same thing right now, which is extreme activity.

Consider giving everything(10 bonus points, bonus acres and bonus turns) at 00:00:01 every day automatically, regardless of logins but scale the turns and bonus acres with yesterdays logins like original post suggests.

Dont worry about giving us 2% more bonus points either, because you take away 2 turns a day and give us 20 acres a day extra, which is a net loss for sure. :)

Tmac Game profile

Member
890

Mar 6th 2021, 17:44:05

I'd like to see everyone get their bonus the same whether they login or not. 6 turns every x amount of hours, bonus acres every x amount of hours, and 8 or 9 bonus turns every x amount of hours. Logging in every day gives plenty of advantages without jumping through hoops to maximize your bonuses.

Tmac Game profile

Member
890

Mar 6th 2021, 17:52:32

I meant 8 or 9 bonus points last post, not turns.

Requiem Game profile

Member
EE Patron
9056

Mar 6th 2021, 18:10:14

Originally posted by Gerdler:
I think it makes total sense before premium to use this current type of bonuses. The more people browse the more ads they see. That matters to revenue right? So its arbitrage for the player at the benefit of the owner. Fine.


Assuming they are not using ad blocker but I suppose you could argue it equals more ad revenue. Still feel like it is clunky and bad UX overall.

I’m sure Slag will consider all opinions.

enshula Game profile

Member
EE Patron
2510

Mar 6th 2021, 21:48:25

i made a slightly different proposal recently:

Originally posted by enshula:
bonus points and bonus turns however you can get a lot extra with perfect playtimes, id prefer a system where you can still do it every 22 hours if you want to but it banks the extra checkins and gives out rewards on a 24h cycle regardless

and for bonus turns maybe cap it at 6/24 hours but let you build up extra at the 8/24 hours rate



basically i meant allow the crazy login schedule to still happen but instead off rewarding it with 2 extra turns a day and .8181 extra bonus points a day just make it so if you did bonus turns perfect 3 days in a row you could skip the 4th one but still get double bonus turns when you logged in on the 5th day

of course that could lead to a dumb game of optimising extra bonus turns for FS's but in general it would be casual friendly

and its sort of the opposite of the login once a day idea here

sounds like this one would use the login once a day during a 24h calendar day similar to mobile games or whatever, which for most people is much more flexible, i guess you could set individual timezone to do it at 00:00 based on where people play from or let people choose but i dont think its critical

Originally posted by enshula:
so it would be nice to have any bonus got on the creation day banked then applied at the same time for everyone at the start of the first day which would help with cross server play, because one reason multiple game accounts are useful is to get optimal bonuses on multiple servers without choosing which you prioritise


if your banking all points and turns then its fine to make everyone start of with first bonus at same time, either start or end of first day

if bonuses were auto for premium (which i like the idea of, perhaps limited by staying above x% of recent daily logins) then i guess you could prorate missed bonuses from being on cooldown when reset starts, can even do that without auto bonus's, i dont like it as much but i think its definately worth encouraging people who want to play offset servers


presumably the things to balance are:
1) equality and hassle
2) server load
3) activity

Slagpit Game profile

Administrator
Game Development
4375

Mar 8th 2021, 18:13:22

Can someone explain to me the issue with bonus points? I didn't log into my tourney country for a few days yet got my points as expected?

0 mins ago
Thank you for being a premium member of Earth Empires! You have been granted 9 bonus points!

0 mins ago
You have been granted 6 bonus turns!

0 mins ago
You were given a daily bonus of 20 extra acres.

17.2 hours ago
Thank you for posting on the Earth Empires forums this week! You have been granted 4 bonus points!

1 days ago
Thank you for being a premium member of Earth Empires! You have been granted 9 bonus points!

2 days ago
Thank you for being a premium member of Earth Empires! You have been granted 9 bonus points!

Brigg Game profile

Member
417

Mar 8th 2021, 18:25:13

Originally posted by Slagpit:
Can someone explain to me the issue with bonus points? I didn't log into my tourney country for a few days yet got my points as expected?

0 mins ago
Thank you for being a premium member of Earth Empires! You have been granted 9 bonus points!

0 mins ago
You have been granted 6 bonus turns!

0 mins ago
You were given a daily bonus of 20 extra acres.

17.2 hours ago
Thank you for posting on the Earth Empires forums this week! You have been granted 4 bonus points!

1 days ago
Thank you for being a premium member of Earth Empires! You have been granted 9 bonus points!

2 days ago
Thank you for being a premium member of Earth Empires! You have been granted 9 bonus points!


If you log in to ANY of your countries, you will be granted the 9 bonus points on ALL of your countries, regardless if you log into that specific server or not.

So you still got the bonus points, but ONLY because you ligged in and played your countries on other servers.

So it still remains that you MUST log in and MUST go into any server or you will not get the bonus points.

Edited By: Brigg on Mar 8th 2021, 18:27:28
See Original Post
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enshula Game profile

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EE Patron
2510

Mar 8th 2021, 19:02:28

i think it triggers off the portal as well as things like old scores or clan t25's, not sure about profile pages, you dont even have to be in a country for bonus points

i dont think it triggers purely from forum stuff though

its also an issue when you dont want to get the points yet because your waiting until 00:00 utc for a server to start

Tmac Game profile

Member
890

Mar 8th 2021, 19:36:05

I'm pretty sure it doesn't trigger off the portal either. I don't know if there is certain ways to trigger it outside of logging into a country, but I thought the same thing brigg said.

Molotov Game profile

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EE Patron
398

Mar 11th 2021, 16:48:58

Originally posted by Tmac:
I'd like to see everyone get their bonus the same whether they login or not. 6 turns every x amount of hours, bonus acres every x amount of hours, and 8 or 9 bonus turns every x amount of hours. Logging in every day gives plenty of advantages without jumping through hoops to maximize your bonuses.

Yes, this