Mbright1
Guest
The Problem
Tribal Wars requires a larger time commitment than any other game I have ever played. This in most cases results in players co playing a single account, which arguably gives an advantage against the players that are not co-playing. I believe this issue also greatly impacts new player retention. New players coming into the game are not yet as addicted to the game as the rest of us, and are not going to set alarms in the middle of the night to send attacks or snipe trains. Any seasoned player will scavenge TW Stats for any information revealing an enemies online times, then unleash a horde of attacks when they know a player is asleep. When the new player returns and their tribe tells them they somehow need to be online 24/7 to succeed in the game, 9 times out of 10 they quit. Without getting too buried in the details, lets just say the current game takes an enormous amount of time to play competitively.
I don't think it needs to be argued that these are known issues of sorts, as night bonuses have already existed on various servers/worlds. The issue on the .net server is that not all players live in the same time zone. The current night bonus gives an unfair advantage to players in the selected timezone. Casual 5 started with a night bonus, but it was removed shortly after the world started for this very reason. The fix however is quite simple!
The Solution
When a player starts the world, they select their preferred night bonus time frame, much like you would choose your starting direction. In the picture below I used 8 hour time frames, but that can of course be adjusted (There could also just be two options, one for North America and one for Europe might work). Once a timezone has been chosen, it cannot be changed for the duration of that world. This helps prevent abusing the system to enter night bonus right before attacks land, or after finding out what your enemies online times are.
Night bonus information would need to public to all players so attacks can be coordinated accordingly. Adding a field in each users profile seems to like the best route for that. (JawJaw was catted to oblivion, but somehow retained rank 1
)
I also think a warning when sending attacks would make the system a little more user friendly. To avoid surprise 100% defense bonuses on your attacks.
This would cause quite a significant shift in strategy, and of course needs some safeguards to prevent users from abusing it. For example attacking a player right before your night bonus so they don't have a chance to recap. To combat this, night bonus can be negated when attacking other players. If player A sends an attack or has an attack landing on player B in the last 12 (or 24?) hours, the night bonus will not apply for player B attacking player A. The bonus will still apply for player A attacking player B when their night bonus starts, unless a return attack is sent. Both players night bonus still apply for all other players on the world, it is only skipped if the players are actively attacking one another. A bit confusing to explain, but essentially if you attack a player your next night bonus will not apply for them. They can continue attacking you throughout your night bonus period with no penalty.
The mechanic outlined above will further reduce faking (Watch Towers have greatly reduced their effectiveness already). Another tactic used to overwhelm players unable to commit to tagging 100's or 1000's of attacks. If you send fakes at a player, they can then attack you during what would have been your night bonus.
This idea could also greatly improve the transition from a local server like tribalwars.us to the international .net server. Meaning all of the servers can easily be merged together making for some large fun worlds again!
Thanks for reading! Please share any feedback or suggestions to improve the idea!
Tribal Wars requires a larger time commitment than any other game I have ever played. This in most cases results in players co playing a single account, which arguably gives an advantage against the players that are not co-playing. I believe this issue also greatly impacts new player retention. New players coming into the game are not yet as addicted to the game as the rest of us, and are not going to set alarms in the middle of the night to send attacks or snipe trains. Any seasoned player will scavenge TW Stats for any information revealing an enemies online times, then unleash a horde of attacks when they know a player is asleep. When the new player returns and their tribe tells them they somehow need to be online 24/7 to succeed in the game, 9 times out of 10 they quit. Without getting too buried in the details, lets just say the current game takes an enormous amount of time to play competitively.
I don't think it needs to be argued that these are known issues of sorts, as night bonuses have already existed on various servers/worlds. The issue on the .net server is that not all players live in the same time zone. The current night bonus gives an unfair advantage to players in the selected timezone. Casual 5 started with a night bonus, but it was removed shortly after the world started for this very reason. The fix however is quite simple!
The Solution
When a player starts the world, they select their preferred night bonus time frame, much like you would choose your starting direction. In the picture below I used 8 hour time frames, but that can of course be adjusted (There could also just be two options, one for North America and one for Europe might work). Once a timezone has been chosen, it cannot be changed for the duration of that world. This helps prevent abusing the system to enter night bonus right before attacks land, or after finding out what your enemies online times are.
Night bonus information would need to public to all players so attacks can be coordinated accordingly. Adding a field in each users profile seems to like the best route for that. (JawJaw was catted to oblivion, but somehow retained rank 1
)I also think a warning when sending attacks would make the system a little more user friendly. To avoid surprise 100% defense bonuses on your attacks.
This would cause quite a significant shift in strategy, and of course needs some safeguards to prevent users from abusing it. For example attacking a player right before your night bonus so they don't have a chance to recap. To combat this, night bonus can be negated when attacking other players. If player A sends an attack or has an attack landing on player B in the last 12 (or 24?) hours, the night bonus will not apply for player B attacking player A. The bonus will still apply for player A attacking player B when their night bonus starts, unless a return attack is sent. Both players night bonus still apply for all other players on the world, it is only skipped if the players are actively attacking one another. A bit confusing to explain, but essentially if you attack a player your next night bonus will not apply for them. They can continue attacking you throughout your night bonus period with no penalty.
The mechanic outlined above will further reduce faking (Watch Towers have greatly reduced their effectiveness already). Another tactic used to overwhelm players unable to commit to tagging 100's or 1000's of attacks. If you send fakes at a player, they can then attack you during what would have been your night bonus.
This idea could also greatly improve the transition from a local server like tribalwars.us to the international .net server. Meaning all of the servers can easily be merged together making for some large fun worlds again!
Thanks for reading! Please share any feedback or suggestions to improve the idea!
