High Speed Rounds

I think everyone agrees, that this game is not the same game, that many of have been playing for the last decade (and a half).

I also think it is safe to assume that the hardware that the game servers run on, has improved significantly.

I'm sure many players enjoy the fast paced rounds and would love have more options for game speed, I know I would!

My proposal would be 24x speed rounds that are permanently available like the 4x speed rounds. Personally I would also love 48x and 96x rounds. That would be a nice adrenaline boost. Furthermore, I think the game being faster paced would urge players more to use boosters or GM, since you have to react more quickly you also will tend to react more impulsively.

I understand that there are concerns from the developers regarding faster rounds. This is how I would address some of them.

What I regard as the main issue with speed rounds is that operations would be a lot faster to complete. I would therefore propose that the speed rounds progress towards operations should be divided by the game speed.

In a 24x round, instead of getting 500 progress points for a capital you would only get 500 / 24 = approx. 21 points. Therefore you will not be able to play the faster rounds to get the operation progress faster.

Computational intensity: While the faster games would be more intesive for simulating them, they would also end quicker, so the total computational need should stay manageable.

At 24x speed, one real hour represents a full game day. That's a lot! sleeping for eight hours means missing eight game days, making victories depend heavily on availability rather than strategy. However, this affects everyone. Players would have to setup strategic defenses in a way, where they will be safe for the next 6 hours.

The current 4x and 6x speed maps have the same issue. Going to sleep for 8 hours, misses 48 in-game hours, that's two full days. Plenty enough, that pulling an all nighter in the early game can be decisive. The 24x rounds would be played differently for sure, but it would not be less strategic in my opinion!

The speed events should feel special:

I would argue that the events with the special maps, 100 players, 500 players speed (gold rush) are already quite special. Having the 24x speed variant of the 31 player "the great war" or "shattered america" maps would not take away from the special events.

Joining just two hours late puts you at a massive disadvantage:

Have two types of game available:

• start when full, send a notification to players waiting

• start right away. joining late can already be plenty unfair with how fast one can rush using the hank hero lvl 10. the AIs are really bad at defending this type of rush

Inexperienced players might struggle extra hard:

new players are already mostly helpless. especially against high level heroes. just make the game have a minimum level of 10 or 12, problem solved.

If there's anything i missed, i'm sure we can discuss this and find potential solutions!