More accessible plots
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Ok, this is my last feedback post, I promise!
"How can I claim a plot?" has been one of the most asked questions in this test. The tutorial should cover that, but that's for the other post. The problem here is the answer to that question.
"Find 4k gold and buy one."
4k gold to a new player is a daunting task. They want to experience that part of the game, and find it gated behing a (perceived) huge grind. Now, the old lads know that 4k isn't particularly hard, but new players can take days to get those gold, and many times get killed and lose it.
At the same time, a plot for a governor is currently worth 2k initial gold and then 500 gold of taxes per week. That's not much, and won't drive governors to attract residents.
Another point. The plots usually turn into factory backyards, and this is bad for the visuals of the game. One expects a residential area to have houses, not be a nightmare of tanning tubes.
Hence my proposal.
Lower the initial cost of the plot to 500 gold, so that a player can immediately set into one, but...
Increase the recurring cost of such a plot. In particular, make it cost based on the structures that are built on it.
An empty plot may cost only 1k gold per week, but each processing facility has an additional recurring cost tied to it. A tanning tub costs 300 per week, like a smelter. An advanced smelter costs 650 per week and so on. Crafting facilties cost nothing because using them is already taxed.This way, a player can immediately start making his house, which is an important part of this game's experience. At the same time, the income generated by the plots becomes higher for the governor in the long term, especially if they researched techs that get used by the residents. You also add a cost to making too many processing facilities in your plots.
I think that this solution would solve many problems in one go.
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I think the 'find 4k gold and buy one' is more about encouraging players to join guilds and invest in towns and gain access to the resources that way. The towns can give players a small spot to build a house while they work toward building up the town and later the town can help them move out to the residential area to help increase the towns resident population which they need to go up ranks. In past tests towns were happy to pay people the 4k if they would join and help the town get past the hurdles.
There will always be tanner and smelter lots. Inside and outside the town. Players want everything now, and the only way to get that is to make lots. Until there is an active market place where they can get what they want they are stuck with this. I believe that with a longer test (a month or more) the market will fill out and stabilize and reduce the number of industrial lots.
The scaling lot costs is an idea. Not sure how much of a hassle it would be to program.
And it would not stop towns from making a whole lot of them inside the town walls, thus giving more power to large guilds/groups.note that using your own crafting facility in your house is not taxed, just the ones in the town.
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I kind of remember the private crafting facilities to be taxed.
Consider that taxes were zero in this test, so you wouldn't have noticed them.
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4k is not a problem. Problem is that you dont know that posibility even exist at start. You will know about it later, after you see conversations about it in chat.
For me it would be perfect if tutorial will give me a description of the
- homeownership system,
- a description of what the tech level is and how to raise it for the player (along with the city).
- Tell that the houses are connected with the city even at a distance at certain area and have a certain cost.
- It's good to explain how to install the house (you need to stand inside the house installation site and click on the new house icon and pay cash)
So with that in mind player will ask how to earn gold coins. Let him interact a little in chat. It's much easier and there are a lot of options. Thanks!
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so something like this:
To claim a house plot, be in the roped area and click on the house button.
This is a cut down version of the town tech tree, each town rank only gives 1-2 research points, this town is rank 2 and spent it all on these three basic technologies. To get access to tanning tubs the town would need to be a minimum of rank 5 and invest 3 research points. To get mage apparel it would need to be minimum of rank 5 and invest 5 research points.
As such there are seriously hard decisions to make. Not possible to please everyone at any one, or even two, cities. Thus giving value to specialization, creating niches for inter town trade, and giving players reason to travel to different towns.
The area inside the blue lines are the territory of the town. (toggle on map view).
The red circles are places where people can claim plots and get access to that towns tech.
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For the new people also seriously think about the size of the house you want to build, and where you want to build it.
You do want to be near a good PVE location to get gold, but you also need good access to stone and wood. Building a large house can take time and requires lots of wagons filled with stone and wood!
The last few Alpha's I started with a small house to get a base and some chests, I later upgraded when I got the cash and assets to do so.
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Also be good to remember that forges and tanning tubs cannot be placed inside !
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Would it be beneficial for a guild to start three cities close together to split the research? Eventually they could all hit the major milestones but if it allows the main researches to be done early it might be worth it.
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They need some impressive numbers.
3 cities of that level consume almost all the surplus food production of a continent.
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ok, but other groups/guilds/players will be starting cities as well. What's the diff between one guild doing three, and other players? Plus, again, there's still other cities being built.
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@spoletta said in More accessible plots:
4k gold to a new player is a daunting task. They want to experience that part of the game, and find it gated behing a (perceived) huge grind. Now, the old lads know that 4k isn't particularly hard, but new players can take days to get those gold, and many times get killed and lose it.
It might be just me, but I find that contradicting. A new player should be exploring and gather points/skills first before they would even know where to build (and what area they like to live/build in the first place).
Taking a few days to be able to build is nothing compared to the time people play games in general. They already can start fighting at the start, Why would anything be available from the start ? I know the youngster want instant satisfaction, but aren't there other sort of games who do that already ?
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@DarthJafo
It is theoretically possible... but not likely.
those food costs are bags, each bag takes 10 units of the material, so 10 cooked steaks, or 10 grains of wheat.
I am not sure if they dropped the resident requirements, but the prestige requirements are real and often require residents building houses in the outskirts to obtain.To get 5 towns to rank 10 you would need 150 'residents', 40 of which were actually active.
With the crop numbers from last test, all 3 of them would need to be high fertility and have at least 12 fields inside the walls to meet the weekly food costs.
Note that the crop numbers will change when they introduce the third crop (greens), making my spreadsheets cry and need re-working.
Note that high fertility zones are usually not that close together, and dont have much in terms of other resources. -so you would have to travel to get your stone, ore, and other mats.
alternatively a rank 5 farming town could supplement a rank 13 average fertility town. But that rank 13 town had better protect its feeder town (thus rank 5, for walls) or they will find themselves de-ranking.If towns are going to reach rank 15 it will likely be in short 1 week bursts after a month of saving up. Unless the devs remove the 'research respec 1 point / day' it would be easier to just move around research points to access a technology temporarily then try to hit rank 15 to have more things.
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@DarthJafo Part of the growth of a city is reliant on how many citizens and residents are a part of said city. Splitting a guild between 3 locations also splits the manpower of that guild. It is a lengthy process to grind resources to rank up a town, let alone sustain that town while also having enough residents to prevent that city from deranking. There will be alliances between cities and large guilds for sure, but the only way for one guild to properly run multiple large cities is if they have hundreds of members.
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@DarthJafo
How comfortable are you with being dependent on the good graces of another town for your alloys? your food? your leather? etc...The last two week test Meridian and the new order aliance had really good relationship.. but even so both complained about the others taxes on our different trade goods and technologies. And neither were comfortable with relying on the other for our food. (and because of bugs neither had to =P)
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ok i get it
so i we have two cities, are only citizens of one? Or can they be combined to the kingdom and then residents of both? Or I suppose citizen of one and resident of one?
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Basically the latter.
You can only have one house per account per world, and can only be a citizen of one town per world.
So your account can only be part of one town in syndesia, one in tarterous, one in arborius.
Resident means you have a house outside of town (the red circle regions).
Citizen means you can have a house inside of town, but are tied to the town in any case as your account can only be a citizen of one town.
So Citizen of one town, and build a house outside another town in order to get the benefits of both, more or less. Rely on the city bank in the town you are a citizen for all your stuff (as you cant build a 2nd house).Or have friends and share permissions to each others houses.
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Can I, for example, build a chest in your house? Or do you build a chest and assign me permissions? I don't know exactly how large my Palace will be, but i could definitely see having a "vault" of sorts with chests for different members. That way we get around the 2nd house limitation.
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I would build a chest, give the chest 'friend' or '?co-owner?' permissions, and then people who I added to the properties 'Friend" and "co-owner" lists could have access to it.
So I could still have private chests, cuz the diamonds are mine ! MINE I SAY ! -cough-As I have said many times many places... there are plenty of ways to get access to all the techs without having to be part of a town and doing the real work. Most of the ways are easier if you have friends.
The problem is that -someone- has to build and upkeep those towns.
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The way I played all the alpha's was to base out of the starter city. Use the chest and do lots of exploration and get the knowledge points up. Grind the goblin camps and get the skills from the mobs you need for a build. You can get a good build using leather and base materials. At that point I joined a town, and built a house.
Built a house with a couple of chests and a fire. Added the stations I needed for my character, and then contributed to the town.
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That's essentially my strategy going forward as well. Didn't really have the time to build a house this past alpha as it was my first.
I plan on getting the knowledge completed for all of the starter area critters before moving on to higher stuff. The spiderlings have a Venom ability that i think would be useful against the gobs and bandits
