New Changes are BAD(Beta)

Supremacy 1 started on or about 5 September.

_Pontus_ wrote:

the press release does not even contain a link to the game.

the link is :

supremacy1.com

seems to have very few of the recent downgrades that CoW is suffering,

however, there are so few players in games that I have tried, it is difficult to

get trades going, or even simple conversations, for that matter.

Most of the 20 player games I have joined start with only 2-6 players, and wind up with 2 players after just a few days

WayneBo wrote:

Supremacy 1 started on or about 5 September.

_Pontus_ wrote:

the press release does not even contain a link to the game.

Yes, a strange omission, indeed.the link is :

supremacy1.com

seems to have very few of the recent downgrades that CoW is suffering,

however, there are so few players in games that I have tried, it is difficult to

get trades going, or even simple conversations, for that matter.

Most of the 20 player games I have joined start with only 2-6 players, and wind up with 2 players after just a few days

And thanks for the link. Trying it out right now.

If you read my post again, you will notice that I no where mentioned a "CoW 1", but Supremacy 1. The game is currently still in a test phase, that is why we did not ramp up marketing yet. Technically you can play it already but officially it is not fully released yet. We will ramp up the player base in the coming months.

As for your demands: I think we don't have to prove anything, as harsh as it may sound. We take actions which we believe are in the best interest of the game and its longevity. I know to some this may sound unbelievable, but perhaps this stems from different viewpoints. Players often think that the best way to increase longevity is by just improving and deepening gameplay and doing nothing else. But there are many other view points as well. One example is that improving longevity also means the need to keep growing revenues, as those enable us to keep improving the game long term. Because of that sometimes there are decisions which are not liked by long time players, we know that. Sometimes we have to make such decisions based on technical reasons or based on our data and numbers instead of player opinion, even if it contradicts opinions of long standing players. If our data shows that updates do not have the desired effect, we will of course take measures to correct that. And no, we don't have to publicize such internal data. Feedback and requests are always welcome though, and it indeed shows that you are caring. But we just cannot fulfill everything.

Hopefully you will like the next features more

Thanks freezy ...

Here is my feedback request,

Silly taxes and trade restrictions outside coalitions are killing this wonderful game! ... Go back to a tax free market without restrictions dependent on what coalition you belong to (that is what trade embargo is for) ...

Thank you ...

freezy wrote:

If you read my post again, you will notice that I no where mentioned a "CoW 1", but Supremacy 1. The game is currently still in a test phase, that is why we did not ramp up marketing yet. Technically you can play it already but officially it is not fully released yet. We will ramp up the player base in the coming months.

As for your demands: I think we don't have to prove anything, as harsh as it may sound. We take actions which we believe are in the best interest of the game and its longevity. I know to some this may sound unbelievable, but perhaps this stems from different viewpoints. Players often think that the best way to increase longevity is by just improving and deepening gameplay and doing nothing else. But there are many other view points as well. One example is that improving longevity also means the need to keep growing revenues, as those enable us to keep improving the game long term. Because of that sometimes there are decisions which are not liked by long time players, we know that. Sometimes we have to make such decisions based on technical reasons or based on our data and numbers instead of player opinion, even if it contradicts opinions of long standing players. If our data shows that updates do not have the desired effect, we will of course take measures to correct that. And no, we don't have to publicize such internal data. Feedback and requests are always welcome though, and it indeed shows that you are caring. But we just cannot fulfill everything.

Hopefully you will like the next features more

First off, thank you for replying in detail to many points.

And pls do understand that we - the older than 12 yrs old players - do understand that Bytro is a business.

Our point is that we like to shop at Bytro for a multitude of reasons, but when we are looking for wall-nuts and you only sell the empty nut shells... right?

Your points:

- having to prove or not:

Indeed, you don't have to. One might want to though; you know: client journey, user satisfaction etc?

- actions for the best interest//longevity:

Nobody doubts the intentions. It is the impact of the factual changes and the lame explanations that cause doubt...

How dumbing down the game should result in longevity is what goes beyond most players here, as well as reducing options (which equals less options or reasons to spend gold). But you may have had valid reasons that we could dig...

A valid and understandable reason could be:

"We have to do reduce options because we see our future in mobile devices for which we have to adjust the game towards the possibilities of these. Unfortunately that results in mutilating changes for PC players, but it can't be helped".

What we got instead, however, and which basically is not far from an insult to most players:

"We are dumbing down the game and robbing you of some much used and loved options and kill RP, because we are enhancing your game experience and try stop the 0,1% of cheaters from doing something you did not care about anyway"

-If you care about longevity, you should also care about your communication towards your clients. Serving them BS to dress up a set of horrible changes as "enhancing the game experience" etc. may not even work for the 12 yr olds...

In such a case, be a tiny bit transparent, tell the truth (not necessarily the entire truth) & above all: skip the infuriating obvious BS.

Thát is how you garner support for impopular measures; been there, done so, succeeded; and I am average; is why I am furious that Bytro still cant manage that...it is so simple!

Example:

After 200hrs of continuous programing horrid changes into CoW, you blacked out and wake up in the hospital and at your bed stands a doctor, holding your right pointing finger in a glass jar. That is bad, bc you need that one for every left mouse-click... But before you even grasp what has happened, the doctor explains to you what happened.

Now, which explanation would your prefer?:

a. "Sir, we had to amputate your favorite pointing finger, because we wanted to give you the life enhancing opportunity to learn to do what you did with this finger in the jar, but now with your middle finger. Isn't that just great?"

b. "Sir, you developed gangrene in your pointing finger form 200hrs continuous programming bad changes into CoW. We tried everything to save your finger, but unfortunately we couldn't. To safe your life, we had to amputate. Ofc we will do our very best to help you adjust to this awful experience, but I trust you understand it was necessary".

I only know that if the doctor gives me (a), I would bite off his pointing finger...

Pls take note that a large part of your loyal players - the ones that read your news bulletins - are people that are way past 12 yrs old... Especially those who actually discuss stuff on the forum.

Having voiced our (not just 'mine') opinion about the BAD CHANGES and having received your response, may we or may we NOT conclude:

- that certain changes will not / cannot be reverted? (and which would these be?)

- that certain parts may be reverted if these do not yield the intended effect? (like resource hiding, super-stacking etc.) or have unintended side effects like favoring event/map-mobbers?

Or is this whole batch of changes 100% irreversible?

In short: is there any hope for the killed off features?

Here is my feedback:

gusv wrote:

Thanks freezy ...

Here is my feedback request,

Silly taxes and trade restrictions outside coalitions are killing this wonderful game! ... Go back to a tax free market without restrictions dependent on what coalition you belong to (that is what trade embargo is for) ...

Thank you ...

freezy wrote:

If you read my post again, you will notice that I no where mentioned a "CoW 1", but Supremacy 1. The game is currently still in a test phase, that is why we did not ramp up marketing yet. Technically you can play it already but officially it is not fully released yet. We will ramp up the player base in the coming months.

As for your demands: I think we don't have to prove anything, as harsh as it may sound. We take actions which we believe are in the best interest of the game and its longevity. I know to some this may sound unbelievable, but perhaps this stems from different viewpoints. Players often think that the best way to increase longevity is by just improving and deepening gameplay and doing nothing else. But there are many other view points as well. One example is that improving longevity also means the need to keep growing revenues, as those enable us to keep improving the game long term. Because of that sometimes there are decisions which are not liked by long time players, we know that. Sometimes we have to make such decisions based on technical reasons or based on our data and numbers instead of player opinion, even if it contradicts opinions of long standing players. If our data shows that updates do not have the desired effect, we will of course take measures to correct that. And no, we don't have to publicize such internal data. Feedback and requests are always welcome though, and it indeed shows that you are caring. But we just cannot fulfill everything.

Hopefully you will like the next features more

But, when you have to hide your true reasons, and your true numbers, from a group you purposefully put in place to beta test your changes (you know, us Frontline Pioneers)... there is a serious communication issue. You don't want to reveal your massive 'grow our revenue' change? You can do it with out deception with your game testers.

The other problem I see is one of resources. IF Bytro wants to tax the market AND prevent players from trading with other players, FORCING most players to rely on the resources they start with AND the resources they conquer.... then being limited to 25% of the resources you conquer FORCES a LIMIT on how far a player can develop their country AND military. MAKING for much longer games, some of which will have either no winner or AI winners (with Elite AI, because with NO INFORMATION to the contrary - Elite AI has no such trade restrictions).

I would have to GUESS, but Bytro leaning toward TIMED event games and new RESTRICTIONS on player created games, indicates that MANY long play games are something that they are now trying to avoid. Presumedly, because long played games tend toward less "gold" (i.e. cash) expenditure. Perhaps, these trade changes are intended to offset the long play games you have already restricted, but as less "gold" (i.e. cash) can be directed toward winning, and MORE must be directed to mere SURVIVAL, fewer players are going to use "gold" (i.e. cash)for anything (as being obviously fleeced is the quickest way to get anyone to put their wallet away, and paying to win, is not paying to merely survive).

In my humble assessment, Bytro will eventually be forced to lift the (historically unfounded) 25% limit on conquered resources (so that "gold" (i.e. cash) players can go back to winning), or remove the recent trade restrictions (so that "gold" (i.e. cash) players can go back to winning).

Alphared hit the mark when he said,

Alphared wrote:

In my humble assessment, Bytro will eventually be forced to lift the (historically unfounded) 25% limit on conquered resources (so that "gold" (i.e. cash) players can go back to winning), or remove the recent trade restrictions (so that "gold" (i.e. cash) players can go back to winning).

Alphared wrote:

The other problem I see is one of resources. IF Bytro wants to tax the market AND prevent players from trading with other players, FORCING most players to rely on the resources they start with AND the resources they conquer.... then being limited to 25% of the resources you conquer FORCES a LIMIT on how far a player can develop their country AND military. MAKING for much longer games, some of which will have either no winner or AI winners (with Elite AI, because with NO INFORMATION to the contrary - Elite AI has no such trade restrictions).

Plus 3 other unwanted wars... But at least I additionally own Germany, Poland, Hungary, NL, mainland BE and mainland Italy and then some.

So, I am number 1 in provinces, army strength, economy and points; I am actually half way the required victory points.

BUT... I log in once a day only now; just to not go inactive and do some construction and production.

For the rest I can't do shyte.

The market is dead.

My Popularity is now 8% (up from 5% ONLY because I share map with all AI...EEK!) and all my neighbours are Elite AI...and I have hardly the capacity to produce forces for border protection.

SO... I am just farming resources, putting them all in Supplies production (which was far far behind anything else), produce cheap regular troops for the border, when I have something to spare.

That game is DEAD, despite still 7 active players.

It is just farming for resources and slooooowly building up the economy.

I can't attack, bc my popularity will drop again (while having huge stretches of open borders with Elite AI).

I can't really produce troops, unless I do not develop the economy, bc there is nothing to buy.

This has been going on for 2-3 weeks!!!!

Before the BAD CHANGES, I would have rolled up the AI and whoever was in my way, gotten the points and won already.

But the combination of a DEAD MARKET, pro-active Elites, low popularity and until recent a total shortage of Supplies, has stifled all players that remain. NOTHING IS HAPPENING FOR WEEKS, bc nobody can do anything.

Ofc I will win, bc the rest will go inactive, and if not, my provinces at some time will all have Factories and Infra maxed, after which I will be able to put up border protection and an air fleet for rapid intervention.

But ONLY then I will be able to go wipe out other countries again.

At this pace that means I can start playing the strategy and war game again in about ... 4 more weeks!!!

For now I am forced to FARMING!!!

The recent changes seem to all be directed at reducing player interactions.

War fighting has been further discouraged by the potential "popularity' penalty. This above and

beyond the -5 "at war with" penalty.

Diplomatic interactions with other players have been reduced to a minimum. Hardly any reason

to open the diplomatic menu any more; but it has always been so laggy, anyway.

And perhaps therein lies the true motivation behind the recent changes:

Could it be that the intent is to reduce the server load by discouraging diplomatic and combat interactions between players?

Considering that text consumes so little memory and bandwidth, that would be a bad way to reduce server load ... One way to do it would be to take away the silly clouds ...

maintaining the diplomacy menu is NOT just ''text''!

staff have often pointed out that the lag in the diplomacy menu is due to high demand to maintain all the stored messages.

And you do not address the second point:

battle calculations certainly do require bandwidth.

Kindly withhold your commentary until you are better informed.

WayneBo wrote:

due to high demand to maintain all the stored messages

I simply noticed that when I deleted all messages the whole thing seemingly went smoother/ And the more you delete, the faster the deleting goes, pointing to lag due to stored messages being reduced by deleting....I guess.

But that doesn't make Gusv's remark less valid: reducing server load by reducing player interaction is not a smart way to go... Ofc, you will reduce the load, bc you will have less players, but was that the aim?

that is the question:

you will have less players, but was that the aim?

_Pontus_ wrote:

freezy wrote:

If you read my post again, you will notice that I no where mentioned a "CoW 1", but Supremacy 1. The game is currently still in a test phase, that is why we did not ramp up marketing yet. Technically you can play it already but officially it is not fully released yet. We will ramp up the player base in the coming months.

As for your demands: I think we don't have to prove anything, as harsh as it may sound. We take actions which we believe are in the best interest of the game and its longevity. I know to some this may sound unbelievable, but perhaps this stems from different viewpoints. Players often think that the best way to increase longevity is by just improving and deepening gameplay and doing nothing else. But there are many other view points as well. One example is that improving longevity also means the need to keep growing revenues, as those enable us to keep improving the game long term. Because of that sometimes there are decisions which are not liked by long time players, we know that. Sometimes we have to make such decisions based on technical reasons or based on our data and numbers instead of player opinion, even if it contradicts opinions of long standing players. If our data shows that updates do not have the desired effect, we will of course take measures to correct that. And no, we don't have to publicize such internal data. Feedback and requests are always welcome though, and it indeed shows that you are caring. But we just cannot fulfill everything.

Hopefully you will like the next features more

Freezy,First off, thank you for replying in detail to many points.

And pls do understand that we - the older than 12 yrs old players - do understand that Bytro is a business.

Our point is that we like to shop at Bytro for a multitude of reasons, but when we are looking for wall-nuts and you only sell the empty nut shells... right?

Your points:

- having to prove or not:

Indeed, you don't have to. One might want to though; you know: client journey, user satisfaction etc?

- actions for the best interest//longevity:

Nobody doubts the intentions. It is the impact of the factual changes and the lame explanations that cause doubt...

How dumbing down the game should result in longevity is what goes beyond most players here, as well as reducing options (which equals less options or reasons to spend gold). But you may have had valid reasons that we could dig...

A valid and understandable reason could be:

"We have to do reduce options because we see our future in mobile devices for which we have to adjust the game towards the possibilities of these. Unfortunately that results in mutilating changes for PC players, but it can't be helped".

What we got instead, however, and which basically is not far from an insult to most players:

"We are dumbing down the game and robbing you of some much used and loved options and kill RP, because we are enhancing your game experience and try stop the 0,1% of cheaters from doing something you did not care about anyway"

-If you care about longevity, you should also care about your communication towards your clients. Serving them BS to dress up a set of horrible changes as "enhancing the game experience" etc. may not even work for the 12 yr olds...

In such a case, be a tiny bit transparent, tell the truth (not necessarily the entire truth) & above all: skip the infuriating obvious BS.

Thát is how you garner support for impopular measures; been there, done so, succeeded; and I am average; is why I am furious that Bytro still cant manage that...it is so simple!

Example:

After 200hrs of continuous programing horrid changes into CoW, you blacked out and wake up in the hospital and at your bed stands a doctor, holding your right pointing finger in a glass jar. That is bad, bc you need that one for every left mouse-click... But before you even grasp what has happened, the doctor explains to you what happened.

Now, which explanation would your prefer?:

a. "Sir, we had to amputate your favorite pointing finger, because we wanted to give you the life enhancing opportunity to learn to do what you did with this finger in the jar, but now with your middle finger. Isn't that just great?"

b. "Sir, you developed gangrene in your pointing finger form 200hrs continuous programming bad changes into CoW. We tried everything to save your finger, but unfortunately we couldn't. To safe your life, we had to amputate. Ofc we will do our very best to help you adjust to this awful experience, but I trust you understand it was necessary".

I only know that if the doctor gives me (a), I would bite off his pointing finger...

Pls take note that a large part of your loyal players - the ones that read your news bulletins - are people that are way past 12 yrs old... Especially those who actually discuss stuff on the forum.

Having voiced our (not just 'mine') opinion about the BAD CHANGES and having received your response, may we or may we NOT conclude:

- that certain changes will not / cannot be reverted? (and which would these be?)

- that certain parts may be reverted if these do not yield the intended effect? (like resource hiding, super-stacking etc.) or have unintended side effects like favoring event/map-mobbers?

Or is this whole batch of changes 100% irreversible?

In short: is there any hope for the killed off features?

_Pontus_ wrote:

reducing server load by reducing player interaction is not a smart way to go

Hello all,

Just joined Frontline Pioneers, do you know how sadistic you guys all are to make me read this giant thread?

Looking forward to getting to work

I actually used to make tens of thousands in the market by buying low and selling high. That was the best part of the market in my opinion. Now with the new taxes I can hardly make a hundred. I think the best way to reduce the amount of mults is to remove the browser version of CoW and make a standalone. There is a steam version but not everyone knows how to make a steam account.

General Nightman wrote:

Hello all,

Just joined Frontline Pioneers, do you know how sadistic you guys all are to make me read this giant thread?

Looking forward to getting to work