Closed Discussion Fairness with Flags

[Jumpish]

@One Last Shot...
Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm under the impression that
you are assuming that new players don't want to stick around because of the advantages that veterans have other than the veterans' familiarity with the game.

But let's suppose the assumption is correct.

The flags became like achievements that most games offer nowadays.
I believe flags system is a GOOD thing for both the new players and veterans. If it's executed correctly, it will allow both veterans and new players to stick around. Veterans stick around to finally use the bonus they really wanted, and new players stick around to earn the bonus.

This is the entire premise of the flags system, which is great.

The problems lie in how the system was executed.
There is very little sense of progress in earning the flags. Farming these flags require lots of PPs (which veterans arguably say PPs are easy to farm) OR progress considerably into the game enough to earn these.

To me, the pace of earning the gray flags in completing early quests is the perfect pace. It makes me feel like I've earned something and am benefiting from the system. Then this feeling of progress quickly tapers off because in order to earn green or yellow ones, you need to do considerably more like earn 5000 points. Without using PP, it takes around 2 to 3 weeks to reach this point and all you've earned is a lousy yellow or green flag that may not even have the effect you want.

Then the table is turned. You look at people who have black or purple flags and see the purchase flags button.
No matter how hard you try, you know it'll be many years to earn those. Many years to FARM those.

So, my suggestion is to revamp the pace of earning flags to be much quicker (not necessarily give valuable green or yellow flags but give grey ones more often so players have a choice to upgrade them).

Even revamping the UI of the flag system to hide the unearned flags instead of showing everything may trick the new players to stay & invest too much to turn back. Giving too much information can be overwhelming for the new players.


To also bear witness as a player from W23 (where all 100 continents were actually filled with players),
Tribal Wars has already lost the players who've spent thousands of hours when PP system was introduced for constructing buildings, buying/selling resources, buying/selling flags. It's a financial move and I don't think it's wrong.

However, when you come back and say flags give unfair advantages over the new players and to give an example for arguments' sake, take away the flag system, Tribal Wars will lose the remaining player base which has gladly stayed & paid $$$ and/or the time to earn these advantages.

 

[Deleted User - 11549951]

My last serious world was also the first portuguese server world to have flags in them.

In my opinion its not a serious disadvantage to an experienced player (flags or the abundance of them in old accounts) other than in sprints.
Although we didn't use flags for pt27 (speaking for myself and my tribe-mates at the time - fast paced world meant we grew too fast to get 2000 decent flags in 1 year for example);
we did use the best flags for sprints and that proves very useful and disadvantageous. I believe this was the concern.

Ultimately, the biggest disadvantage in this Tribal Wars series is the PP system.

 

[Unjustified Killer]

A good option could be to change the purchase flags option, New accounts or accounts with lesser flags could get for example a package of 5 flags instead of what older accounts or accounts with X amount get of 3 flags depending on having X amount of each flag category obtained ?

 

[Deleted User - 11549951]

this is gonna be controversial but,
what if the flags above level4 got conversed into lower flags and level4 was made the highest level for example.
i.e. highest is 10% production

i would propose a similar action on some items.
for example, you could put -16% coining costs on all villages and use the -10% coining costs item from the start, whilst removing the double flag booster item which compensates activity too much ( along with resource package sales).

 

[world8vet]

No new player cares about flags, you're looking at a non issue.

Actual issue for new players is:

-1- Overall world population world/desnity and the amount of new players.
-2- The big knowledge gaps that they have (pp makes this worse by adding another system/learning curve).
-3- Lack of in game tutorials.

The whole concept of "fariness" in a PP system is hypocritical.

 

[Deleted User - 11549951]

You also have a large imbalance between noobs and experienced players whereby they wouldnt bother playing in a tribe with new players or even less experienced players.
over time, a lot of experienced players have stuck to the game whilst the newbies havent been given a chance to learn the ins and outs of this game properly.

this is yet another original and random idea however,
what if tribes had the option to assign an academy whereby new accounts ( asked if they are newbies on the entry page) would be randomly assorted, given some respect to location, however, without any access to the claims system or forum:
- you can ask questions, ask for resources, support
- at the same time it makes this game seem more "possible" or even "feasible" for a newbie.
- entry of newbies straight into premades/ decent teams ( who knows, you meet some nice people out there ey).

 

[Radioactive]

I like the fact that it rewards players for sticking around. So my suggestion would be for players on a brand new account with no flags.

- Maybe give them 10 free flag packs. So they begin a world with at least 10 green flags.

Rather than taking away from what people have earned you level the field a little by rewarding new players with decent flags to start off with. Obviously some people will abuse this as I myself have broken the rules many years ago and joined a world with both my accounts to trade all my good flags to my account I wanted to keep playing with. I am sure this will be done by many to get more green flags and some will get caught and some won't. But maybe add a rule like pp that is farmed and you can't trade flags that you get with the 10 free packs for 90 days or at all (if you can do that). I think this would be better to even the playing field than taking away black flags from players who have saved up flags for 3-4 worlds to get those black flags.

 

[DaWolf85]

I think it is worth noting that any sufficiently complex system will inevitably be used more efficiently by experienced players than newbies. I honestly think even if you give experienced players and new players the same exact flags the newbies will still be outperformed just based on the flags alone, and it will likely not even be close given the current meta surrounding flag booster minting sessions.

 

[world8vet]

I think it is worth noting that any sufficiently complex system will inevitably be used more efficiently by experienced players than newbies. I honestly think even if you give experienced players and new players the same exact flags the newbies will still be outperformed just based on the flags alone, and it will likely not even be close given the current meta surrounding flag booster minting sessions.

Agreed, either way i don't think that the game needs s system where you accumlate "wealth" (in this case) flags from world to world. Making flags unique to worlds would help with their fairness.

 

[HotLikeDat]

Ok firstly, this discussion has been open for 2 months now. It would be good if we could at least get some sense from a developer/JawJaw about what ideas might be possible or which definitely aren't, or some kind of vote maybe on suggestions so we could get this moving. Some good ideas have been put forward and it would be nice if we could get the feeling that this isn't just wasted breath....

Secondly, if nothing is possible about giving flag packs, then perhaps it could be done in a different way. A new world opens where old players get to select 1 or 2 flags to take with them, and all other flags they have to earn on the world itself if they want to use it. I thought perhaps initially about a world where no flags could be carried onto, but this just too heavily favours big spenders, and completely disregards the previous work of a player to earn flags. If a player could select say 2 flags to take with them to the new world, this would be removed. Defensive players would want to carry different flags to offensive players for example.

Lastly, in response to those who say flags is a non-issue. Sure, I don't think it is the single biggest issue in TW right now in terms of player retention or even perhaps trying to expand the game (shocking idea I know). But, it's definitely significant.

Let's look at start-up: new players won't know proper start technique to fully exploit farming or scavenging, and so as a result they depend more heavily on mines. However, it's their first world and so they have no PP or flags, and aren't willing to spend £ yet as they just joined a new game.
Let's look at the difference in production between mines, and mines+flag+PP boost. I'll take game speed as 2x, and assume 16% flag.

	Base production	Plus 20% + 16% flag	Daily difference in res (of each)	(% Increase)
Level 12	316	430	2730	36
Level 15	498	677	4303	36
Level 17	674	917	5823	36
Level 20	1060	1442	9158	36
Level 22	1434	1950	12,390	36
Level 25	2254	3065	19,475	36

So as I said, for new players who more heavily rely on mines, they suffer a lot more because of these simple things. and giving them a decent flag who help to narrow this gap, and bring it down from 36% to like 24% if you gave them a green production flag for instance.

 

[Radioactive]

Flags are for sure a huge boost in my opinion. Yes veteran players with the same flags as a new player will be able to use them more effectively but like posted above at least the res flag during start up is a huge deal. I however do not like the idea of losing my flags simply because I have never spent pp on flags so all my flags are from building them up and after years of playing and wanting to retain a good amount of blue flags I finally got my first few purples flags. So for players like myself if we lost our flags every world and we didn't spend pp on more flags we will likely only ever seen green or blue flags. So at that point if that is the direction we go with flags I would suggest 1 of two things.

1: Making higher flags easier to get. Maybe give yellow flags for OD and red flags of nobles.

2: Get rid of all the flags level 7-10 and make the benefits for flags 1-6 higher.

Otherwise you will get rid of the newer players not having good flags but you will cater to players who are willing to spend money even more.