New Feature: Scenario Rotation

eruth wrote:

As nemuritor said, I didn't say the update reduced inactivity; I said the point was to reduce inactivity.

I, and I imagine a lot of other players, play to have fun. I think it's would be better of Bytro to keep their old customers happy by keeping a fun game (where I can choose my country and have minimal inactivity) than try to draw in new people who only care about the game because they want to collect the shinys. It doesn't matter to me how many new players join if none of them remain active becasue they got the wrong country.

Even if it's not from Bytro itself, they are part of the same group and they worked together creating the Conflict of Nations: World War III game.

Taking in count the year Bytro joined Stillfront Group, November 2013 and when they ceased almost all official competitive activities such as tournaments, leagues and similar things, that being late 2015, when they made an Alliance League in S1914, which was really fun but due to bugs in the gameplay(which ain't solved yet) and bad concepts regarding the Warchest(Alliance Goldmarks) it didn't end really well, it's been almost 4 years since then and they haven't showed a single intention towards keeping older players around, plus the recent updates that makes the game even faster, something that it's only requested by those that join the game today and leaves tomorrow, well, I'm somehow afraid that even if Bytro would be a bit more polite, it'd be a similar answer.

Note: the alliance league they made in late 2015 included an option for alliances to have gold-free rounds by paying 5.000 for each member that was going to play the map, that means that a 5v5 would cost 25.000 Goldmarks to each alliance if they wanted a gold-free round. The members of each alliance was able to donate bought gold, not the one you get by achievements or winning rounds, to the alliance warchest, so the alliance could use that gold for more things such as increasing the limit of members, which with this update they made in mid-2015, they changed the limit members from 50(original) to 5, and you could buy 2 slots with blueprints(which is another story), but then the rest, up to 40, was with gold and the price raised every time you buy an update for your alliance. You could also buy maps with gold, to play with other alliances and boosts for experience and something else that I don't recall, the concept was good, but as always, the execution failed.

PS: I guess the developer from Dorado Games doesn't know about Europa Universalis 4, a game that you can buy the basic for 20$ but due to their updates, DLC's and such, the complete game is worth over 1000$.

PS2: It's also much easier to deal with the so called "fresh blood" than with the "old group of experts", here's a comparative chart from a simple-minded business perspective.

I could probably add more but I think the point is clear.

PS3: the part with "we have over a million registered users" just makes me laugh over and over.

I believe the answer to the drop out rate may be a fast replacement rate.

In day one if you do not move within 6 hours of a country assignment you are kicked out and another player put in the spot.

If you make a move in Day one and then do not move in Day 2, you are kicked out and a new player put in at the start of day 3.

Then rather than having the Admin player replace people, which by the way I have never seen done, allow for the inactive players over a certain size be automatically replaced by another player.

nemuritor98 wrote:

eruth wrote:

As nemuritor said, I didn't say the update reduced inactivity; I said the point was to reduce inactivity.

I, and I imagine a lot of other players, play to have fun. I think it's would be better of Bytro to keep their old customers happy by keeping a fun game (where I can choose my country and have minimal inactivity) than try to draw in new people who only care about the game because they want to collect the shinys. It doesn't matter to me how many new players join if none of them remain active becasue they got the wrong country.

You should check Steam reviews, plenty of fun there.

Even if it's not from Bytro itself, they are part of the same group and they worked together creating the Conflict of Nations: World War III game.

Taking in count the year Bytro joined Stillfront Group, November 2013 and when they ceased almost all official competitive activities such as tournaments, leagues and similar things, that being late 2015, when they made an Alliance League in S1914, which was really fun but due to bugs in the gameplay(which ain't solved yet) and bad concepts regarding the Warchest(Alliance Goldmarks) it didn't end really well, it's been almost 4 years since then and they haven't showed a single intention towards keeping older players around, plus the recent updates that makes the game even faster, something that it's only requested by those that join the game today and leaves tomorrow, well, I'm somehow afraid that even if Bytro would be a bit more polite, it'd be a similar answer.

Note: the alliance league they made in late 2015 included an option for alliances to have gold-free rounds by paying 5.000 for each member that was going to play the map, that means that a 5v5 would cost 25.000 Goldmarks to each alliance if they wanted a gold-free round. The members of each alliance was able to donate bought gold, not the one you get by achievements or winning rounds, to the alliance warchest, so the alliance could use that gold for more things such as increasing the limit of members, which with this update they made in mid-2015, they changed the limit members from 50(original) to 5, and you could buy 2 slots with blueprints(which is another story), but then the rest, up to 40, was with gold and the price raised every time you buy an update for your alliance. You could also buy maps with gold, to play with other alliances and boosts for experience and something else that I don't recall, the concept was good, but as always, the execution failed.

PD: I guess the developer from Dorado Games doesn't know about Europa Universalis 4, a game that you can buy the basic for 20$ but due to their updates, DLC's and such, the complete game is worth over 1000$.

PD2: It's also much easier to deal with the so called "fresh blood" than with the "old group of experts", here's a comparative chart from a simple-minded business perspective.

"Fresh blood"	"Old group of experts"
There's a chance they'll pay for the game as they are new here.	If they been playing the game for a while and they haven't spent any cent on it yet, they'll probably never do.
They won't know about our past mistakes.	They remember our past mistakes.
They don't about bugs and probably will think that's how the game works.	They complain about bugs because they know that's not how the game works.
They'll probably have a more positive mindset towards the company's updates because they haven't been around that much.	They are probably pissed off.

I could probably add more but I think the point is clear.

PD3: the part with "we have over a million registered users" just makes me laugh over and over.

EZ Dolittle wrote:

I believe the answer to the drop out rate may be a fast replacement rate.

In day one if you do not move within 6 hours of a country assignment you are kicked out and another player put in the spot.

If you make a move in Day one and then do not move in Day 2, you are kicked out and a new player put in at the start of day 3.

Then rather than having the Admin player replace people, which by the way I have never seen done, allow for the inactive players over a certain size be automatically replaced by another player.

ive never seen a resign when there are 3 or less players. its one of those things you either learn on the forum or if someone tells you, plus if im right only on the 22 maps its possible, 50-100 you cant

EZ Dolittle wrote:

I believe the answer to the drop out rate may be a fast replacement rate.

In day one if you do not move within 6 hours of a country assignment you are kicked out and another player put in the spot.

If you make a move in Day one and then do not move in Day 2, you are kicked out and a new player put in at the start of day 3.

Then rather than having the Admin player replace people, which by the way I have never seen done, allow for the inactive players over a certain size be automatically replaced by another player

Judging from what I saw in my last games, there is a vast majority of new players who think that they can play this game through their mobile by just logging in for 1 hour every day. Unfortunately (for them) this will never work if they happen to encounter an experienced player in their map, so they get disappointed and drop out, especially since they cannot even enjoy a single battle (it becomes a massacre). Unless this is solved, the maps will be extremely boring.

atreas1 wrote:

EZ Dolittle wrote:

Sorry but I seriously doubt that you will find many players willing to get massacred by entering a game in Day 3 or 4, knowing they have probably lost completely the critical first 2 days - you will simply enter in a country with nothing built, no troops created or even grouped, no research done, while the others have developed. I for one am not such a masochist to ever even consider that, and I think I am not alone. I consider even the option of replacing a player a complete nonsense, UNLESS it is a team game (where, again, you need a masochist to volunteer).

After we've been living with this for more than 4 months now, I'd like to give feedback again:

* Restriction of games creation to HC and one game per month only:

I welcomed this change from the beginning on and now say it's working even better than I thought. Games are filling up much better thanks to this change (and I state that's ONLY due to this change).

Additionally, it helps Bytro generate revenue from those players who are eager to create a game, because it gives them extra motivation to buy HC.

* Scenario rotation:

Obviously (fortunately) isn't implemented as strict as it was described. Waiting times for America, Antarctica or Pacific map are much less than the 4 weeks that one had to suspect after reading the description of the update. I often see one of these three being started although a different scenario is currently in the rotation... or do I miss something here(?)

Anyhow, I think it can be kept up the way it is.

* Removal of the Mediterranean, 1vs1 British Channel and Tournament Island scenarios:

That I still oppose. I understand that probably less gold was spent on these maps compared to others. But apart of that, I see no reason why I should matter for Bytro whether someone creates yet another 22player Europe game or one of these(?)

So I'd say they should be selectable again for games creation by members of High Command if they additionally pay 5000 gold to create a game on such a map. I think that wouldn't lessen Bytro's revenue and we would have more diversification / those who like these maps can still have them. It makes no sense to me they were removed completely.

Apart from that, I'm still convinced that some scenarios that are started by the system should have the "Starts when full" option set (and of course always one at a time should be open, i.e. the next game of that type be started only the moment the previous one has filled up). Not all, because for some players it's very important they can start immediately, but some. This would allow us to have a higher number of different scenarios without resulting in these filling up less reliably (they would even fill up 100%; always).

I find it necessary to keep some of the maps that you marked (Retire) Can we still have tournament island occasionally? Maybe make a system that 1-2 of these game will pop up once every 2 month so that we can play.

I keep seeing games of same scenario being created by the system at almost the same time.

That doesn't make any sense and is totally counterproductive to everything this update wants to achieve.

Why did we have to sacrifice scenarios but at the same time have to watch this taking the positive effect (maps filling up reliably) away?

Is it so hard to implement that a new game of the respective scenario only starts the moment there's not a single slot left in the previous one? Of course, if a game fills up, then one slot becomes free again from someone turning inactive and afterwards fills up again, this may not again lead to creation of a new game. Maybe that is the bug? Should I file a bug report for this?

Hans A. Pils wrote:

I often see one of these three being started although a different scenario is currently in the rotation... or do I miss something here(?)

Same here, have not seen the Dominion Antartica map appear since the start of this rotation.

Not seen any either. i've been checking new games list almost every hour since Antarctica is in rotation.

Hans A. Pils wrote:

I keep seeing games of same scenario being created by the system at almost the same time.

That doesn't make any sense and is totally counterproductive to everything this update wants to achieve.

Why did we have to sacrifice scenarios but at the same time have to watch this taking the positive effect (maps filling up reliably) away?

Is it so hard to implement that a new game of the respective scenario only starts the moment there's not a single slot left in the previous one? Of course, if a game fills up, then one slot becomes free again from someone turning inactive and afterwards fills up again, this may not again lead to creation of a new game. Maybe that is the bug? Should I file a bug report for this?

Valewonca034 wrote:

This. I've been waiting for an Antartica match to start for over a day now, even tho Antartica is the current map in rotation only games created are Pacific Conquest and Homefront...

ksboss wrote:

Not seen any either. i've been checking new games list almost every hour since Antarctica is in rotation.