Sloooowwww it doooowwwn.....

[xvi]

There are a lot of things I could suggest or gripe about in current day Bush. And I have several times. But, the main thing that gets me grumpy about this game is that alliances are structured into their ranks too early in the round.

Its painful when the winner is always decided within 15 days of a 75 day round. I know I know, its not all about winning. I definately agree as I have never been on the winning team; but, the finale for first seems to happen before some alliances have even settled in for the fight. The resistances never really work because its too rushed and people decide it would be better to just keep teching or building to fend off their own incomings.

I say, let's slow down the round by the following or any other idea you have:

1. Increase the cost of developments.
2. Increase the time it takes to develop.
3. Add more units to each tech tree (I know this wont happen any time soon but it would help)
4. Add some developments that do things (Like boost AD, HD, ETA speed, Land grab %, AR triggering % (both for and against), Ability to house a few friendly units from a pal).

Irregardless, I will probably be playing Bush for a long time, but certainly shaking things up would make it more fun. It just seems so status quo right now.

 

[tobapopalos]

Slowing the dev mod down wouldn't be a bad idea. It was sped up because of the decreasing playerbase, but this round it was at 1 after about a week I think, and maybe I'm wrong but that seems too fast.

 

[Toast]

I like this suggestion. I think the dev modifier should be higher AND slower. Although this could make allies with early units dominate and thus still providing the same outcome.

As a suggestion, what about the possibility of delaying any developments from taking place for say 24-72 hours or something.

 

[LuckySports]

slowing it down won't change how quickly the round is decided.. There is almost always only 1 truly FTW alliance, with no one else even able to compete (with few exceptions)

I don't mind the idea, I enjoy flak wars.. I'm just saying it won't accomplish what you want it to.

 

[dave]

Its painful when the winner is always decided within 15 days of a 75 day round.

totally agree. i still play the game and have my own personal goals.
but it is the same every round, rank 1 is decided almost straight away.
i wouldnt have moaned about it but seen as someone else has bought it up, im just agreeing, its an anoying fact of modern day bushtarion.

 

[willymchilybily]

slowing it down won't change how quickly the round is decided.. There is almost always only 1 truly FTW alliance, with no one else even able to compete (with few exceptions)

I don't mind the idea, I enjoy flak wars.. I'm just saying it won't accomplish what you want it to.

100% this.

btw it was 2 weeks in when resistance started toby i know because i went on holiday just before it started.

but when recon lead kleptomaniacs. the round was won within the first week as in actually the first 7 days. as we hadnt even hit the weekend when the second place alliance rage quit and twigs ftw allaince suicided. they had alot of CG and probably could have land raped us if they could be bothered and we had so few poms etc. they could easily have given us a competition but decided not too.

we got the id list iirc. (may have been mlp) by flying over every one in the top 100-200 that were defending our targets and matching up the tick of lunch and the troops sent. and we started attacking properly with spies


point is round was decided before SA were out, before dragons and before striker? (maybe one or two had them) CW were out but mostly on the shields route not on pa..maybe on nanos side.


no matter how much you slow it down people cant hit in the dark for long before it gets annoying. and they want thier intels complete. as soon as intel is complete the mass attacks begin. and some people even stop attacking between the apprentices zombies and flak killers coming out, and the time it takes for the first members to get intel.

 

[[Thinking]]

I don't know if making it any more expensive/timely to dev will have any effect on deciding the win one bit. It is what it is and i doubt anything could possibly change this once was amazing game unless a miracle happened and the player base quadrupled with dedicated players.

 

[Dax]

I don't know if making it any more expensive/timely to dev will have any effect on deciding the win one bit. It is what it is and i doubt anything could possibly change this once was amazing game unless a miracle happened and the player base quadrupled with dedicated players.

But extending the only fun us more veteran players have in this game will definitely help keep some of us around...

 

[CFalcon]

As others have pointed out, the real reason rounds are decided so quickly is the lack of ftw players. Delaying technologies won't change how dominant an alliance is, it'll only change their route choices. Quite a few decent alliances in recent times have shown that team dedication makes route choice inconsequential. The conventional wisdom 10 rounds ago was that you needed an even spread of SA/striker/rpg/robo/pb/pom to do well, and that arsonists, rangers, dragons, extremists, puppets didn't have any place in ftw play, but now they're fairly wide-spread. By changing development times, all that'll change is that the ftw alliance for that round wins inside 2 weeks with good use of apprentices instead of good use of CWs, for example.

I'm not saying that slowing devs down won't make the round more interesting in general, but it won't make any real difference to how fast rank 1 pulls away.


If you really wanted to increase competition you'd need to entice more players back to ftw play. There are still plenty of players knocking around here with ftw knowledge, and others capable of learning, but they quite simply can't be bothered with the required activity/contactibility and the burn-out that follows from that. *That* is what needs to be tackled for more competition: burnout.

 

[Dax]

If you really wanted to increase competition you'd need to entice more players back to ftw play. There are still plenty of players knocking around here with ftw knowledge, and others capable of learning, but they quite simply can't be bothered with the required activity/contactibility and the burn-out that follows from that. *That* is what needs to be tackled for more competition: burnout.

We didn't have this issue in Jukebox. But saying that, we took control early so as to not require any dedication that could burn us out.
I won't play contactable or active anymore. I just can't give that sort of committment, and unfortunately this game does require it, and that won't lessen, and there is very little that can be done to do it, either.

 

[LuckySports]

Dax - Jukebox also had no real competition ofc, most rounds there is almost no real competition.. and after you pull-ahead a bit, you dont even need to be particularly active anymore.. just make sure there's 24 hr coverage and your good.

 

[Dax]

Dax - Jukebox also had no real competition ofc, most rounds there is almost no real competition.. and after you pull-ahead a bit, you dont even need to be particularly active anymore.. just make sure there's 24 hr coverage and your good.

We were up against a group of totally contactable and active veterans? Is that not competition these days?

 

[tobapopalos]

Dax - Jukebox also had no real competition ofc, most rounds there is almost no real competition.. and after you pull-ahead a bit, you dont even need to be particularly active anymore.. just make sure there's 24 hr coverage and your good.

We were up against a group of totally contactable and active veterans? Is that not competition these days?

I wasn't massively active last round but I do remember the competition being pretty much non-existent. MLP were basically a classic rank 2 alliance by my reckoning. Very active and contactable as long as it was for defence.

A lot of contactable players will log in for incoming in a second, but they won't for an organised attack. In the fight for rank 1 that makes all the difference.

 

[LuckySports]

Dax - Jukebox also had no real competition ofc, most rounds there is almost no real competition.. and after you pull-ahead a bit, you dont even need to be particularly active anymore.. just make sure there's 24 hr coverage and your good.

We were up against a group of totally contactable and active veterans? Is that not competition these days?

I wasn't massively active last round but I do remember the competition being pretty much non-existent. MLP were basically a classic rank 2 alliance by my reckoning. Very active and contactable as long as it was for defence.

A lot of contactable players will log in for incoming in a second, but they won't for an organised attack. In the fight for rank 1 that makes all the difference.

couldn't have said it better myself.. of the 20 people in the ally, maybe 8 MAX were reliable to send on attacks, the rest only got on for defense.

 

[DarkSider]

I didn't play for a good while but i think it was hard to get the right balance between keeping the round open for longer and making it so alliances under the "winning one" (the only that actually care about that point) don't burn out due to needing more activity and fast reaction to combat the larger armies coming their way.

If you want the round open for a longer period i could suggest decreasing the income for each new acre so while sitting on large amount of acres it is a bit more painfull to blow up your army. For example 20k acres would give just 50% more income than 10k so the lower alliances would have the advantages of fighting in defensive most of the time and with an income not too far from the rank 1 ally.
Probably top alliance would have to attack with brute force (Twigley: you 5 go this tick) but that could leave them open to retals from other alliances and they wouldn't have as much income to recover looses.

 

[tobapopalos]

zomg a DarkSider. Welcome back

 

[Dax]

If you want the round open for a longer period i could suggest decreasing the income for each new acre so while sitting on large amount of acres it is a bit more painfull to blow up your army. For example 20k acres would give just 50% more income than 10k so the lower alliances would have the advantages of fighting in defensive most of the time and with an income not too far from the rank 1 ally.

Probably one of the better ideas I've heard concerning the "SHIZNIT, BIG ALLIANCE WAY 2 FAR AHEAD" issue. It makes more land still an advantage, but lowers the advantage that bit more.
May even encourage an actual resistance (Oshit, I've jinxed it now).

 

[Deloitte]

zomg a DarkSider. Welcome back

:shocked!:Indeed!


:grin:

 

[Enrico]

Hmm, no one though of the other possibility, shorter rounds?
Maybe 50 days would be enough. (With the appropriate reduction in cost for P-units down to 4BC perhaps).

Less chance of burnout, people changing around more, and new players gets a chance to learn from their mistakes faster...

 

[Dax]

I still rate the idea of lengthening flak wars to be a good idea to keep people interested. I always have loved flak wars, and other older players are of the same mindset. Keep people interested = More players sticking around all round.