Ranking system encourages inactivity

I have to say that I'm not surprised that this was ignored. I've been playing since 2015, off and on, and it's always been like this. Why did I bother?

The optimists among us might hope that, one day, Bytro will realize that this impacts their bottom line. Inactive builders -- and inactives in general -- don't use gold, and they probably drive away potential customers when they make 9 out of 10 games boring. I'm not an optimist.

I have noticed that as well. Ive played 3 games of 22 Nations at war or whatever they call it, and after day 8 its pretty much bleh.

Not enough units. People make stacks and send them out around the world. They need to make some logistical changes to be fair

Really? Took me a while to figure out how rank was achieved... but is it only limited to economic aspects?

I have never noticed. Probably both.

If rank is one of the reasons players don't do much, then military aspects should be given even more weight than economic ones.

Really it should be the winning percentage. If you want to encourage activity. That's a real ranking.

soymex wrote:

Really? Took me a while to figure out how rank was achieved... but is it only limited to economic aspects?

Economic score is about constructing buildings in your cities.

I forgot what military score was about exactly, but it was equally irrelevant.

I don't think this is the source of the inactivity problem though, there's just too much free games around and people jump in and then forget about them. It is not just a problem for this game, it happens all around the net.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I don't think this is the source of the inactivity problem though, there's just too much free games around and people jump in and then forget about them. It is not just a problem for this game, it happens all around the net.

If you haven't seen at least a couple of these types of inactives in every one of your games, you've been very lucky or haven't been paying attention. And it's these types that I particularly find irritating. It can ruin a game to have several players just sit there. Especially on a map like 1939 Historic World War, where it's important for the major powers to be active. They don't care that they're ruining your game and will join as Soviets or Germany or UK and just sit there, throwing the balance of power off, just so they can increase their rank.

All you have to do to see that this is a problem is look at the profiles of the players in your current games. You will find that around 75% of the high ranking players have joined hundreds of games, but have terrible K ratios, and only a couple of wins that they probably got when everyone else went inactive. A lot of them are majors and colonels and even generals. They are clearly just grinding up their rank.

And I've played quite a lot of different games on the internet. Sure, they all have inactive players, but not on the scale of Call of War.

Zazmio wrote:

And I've played quite a lot of different games on the internet. Sure, they all have inactive players, but not on the scale of Call of War.

I would say 50 - 70% of players go inactive after Day 3, which shows that being bored is a bigger cause of inactivity than "rank spam". I don't think it's worth changing the entire ranking system.

RBoi200 wrote:

Zazmio wrote:

And I've played quite a lot of different games on the internet. Sure, they all have inactive players, but not on the scale of Call of War.

I think the difference is that Call of War often lasts for 30+ days, while other games might just last for a few minutes. Most players just get bored after a few days.

I would say 50 - 70% of players go inactive after Day 3, which shows that being bored is a bigger cause of inactivity than "rank spam". I don't think it's worth changing the entire ranking system.

I suppose if you only play the 22 player map, you'll see 80-90% of the players go inactive day 3. That's because all the brand new players get shuffled into the 22 player map. It really depends on which map you're playing.

If you're fine with having a ranking system that encourages roughly 30% of all players to do nothing but grind rank in 100's of games... well, good for you, I guess. Personally, I would prefer a rank system that actually encourages people to do well in a game.

RBoi200 wrote:

I would say 50 - 70% of players go inactive after Day 3, which shows that being bored is a bigger cause of inactivity than "rank spam". I don't think it's worth changing the entire ranking system.

Nobody is saying that rank whores are the biggest cause of inactivity, or the main problem in the game, or the source of all evil in the universe. The point is, giving points for building things for no reason (1) encourages behavior that's bad for the game, and (2) is very easy to fix. Just turn turn it off. It's like 5 minutes of work for someone to simply turn that off. Not revamp, redesign, reskin, relaunch... just... turn off construction points.

Want to encourage active games that are fun? Without any significant cost, or time spent? Reward people who finish games. Reward wins. Negative points for NOT finishing a map.

Zazmio wrote:

Then there are those who technically don't go inactive, but they get on and build lots of units and buildings and do nothing else. The last kind are doing it just to increase rank.

Changes to the ranking system will not make them play any different.

z00mz00m wrote:

RBoi200 wrote:

I would say 50 - 70% of players go inactive after Day 3, which shows that being bored is a bigger cause of inactivity than "rank spam". I don't think it's worth changing the entire ranking system.

Nobody is saying that rank whores are the biggest cause of inactivity, or the main problem in the game, or the source of all evil in the universe. The point is, giving points for building things for no reason (1) encourages behavior that's bad for the game, and (2) is very easy to fix. Just turn turn it off. It's like 5 minutes of work for someone to simply turn that off. Not revamp, redesign, reskin, relaunch... just... turn off construction points.

Want to encourage active games that are fun? Without any significant cost, or time spent? Reward people who finish games. Reward wins. Negative points for NOT finishing a map.

Agreed, there are sometimes good reasons to go inactive, so the occasional drop should be fine.

It's once the drop rate exceeds some % that things get dicey.

Bytro doesn't need people starting and abandoning a bunch of games.

More games, more server and network usage, increased costs.

Abandoned countries don't make any money, they cost Bytro money.

RBoi200 wrote:

Zazmio wrote:

And I've played quite a lot of different games on the internet. Sure, they all have inactive players, but not on the scale of Call of War.

I think the difference is that Call of War often lasts for 30+ days, while other games might just last for a few minutes. Most players just get bored after a few days.

I would say 50 - 70% of players go inactive after Day 3, which shows that being bored is a bigger cause of inactivity than "rank spam". I don't think it's worth changing the entire ranking system.

Not enough UNITS. Keep people busy with multiple units to manage, have a separate build for buildings/ infra that is SEPARATE from resources used for units.

Being able to build 5 units a day is pretty slow mo imo.

scale it down if you must, make the map bigger and make the battles "smaller" more focused. This way battle lines can be achieved, lessen the stacks.. so much can be done to make activity more exciting and "busy"

Of course no one in design will listen, thats fine its their game, but that is what I have noticed in every game regardless of strategy games played.

do multiple units, or players have "large" armies hurt the server? idk maybe all the units on a map kills the main game server.

Also, as I have said, the resource outputs are way way off. IDK what math is used, but certainly not the one I learned lol.

In the end its just a game, and all comments are made in good faith, made for a bit of comic relief and hoping some techs will pick up on these somehow.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Zazmio wrote:

Then there are those who technically don't go inactive, but they get on and build lots of units and buildings and do nothing else. The last kind are doing it just to increase rank.

I think you misinterpret the psychology of this group. Sure there will be SOME rank whores among them, but the majority is just plain afraid of losing a war. And some for very good reasons: when you consider playing this games involves logging in twice a day for ten minutes, you'll be slaughtered by anyone being even slightly more active. They may have experienced that a few times: attacking someone, driving a big stack to the enemy capital and signing off; then on the next login that stack was dead and most of their core territory was lost as well. But instead of finding a game that better suits their play style and RL schedule, they insist on playing this one. When you get burnt every time you attack, you'll try to find ways to survive anyway, and defending and building seems to be the only way to go. You build and build troops and hope that it will be deterrent enough against those playtime sharks, and make them go after easier targets.

Changes to the ranking system will not make them play any different.

Real Life strategy games involves real life, so people going inactive or offline for a bit is part of the mystery or fun.

People take losing ridiculously to hard, its a darn game.

a game.

geez lol

But increasing the map, and reducing the battlezones will fix that. As I said more focused game play will make it longer and more difficult and likely impossible to sweep a map with a few stacks (which I have said kills the fun of this game)

I hope we understand what I mean by increasing the map size and reducing the battle zone size.

I also strongly suggest a maximum of gold allowable to be spent per game.

I know Bytro is in it to make some money, but try and stay fun and relevant as well.

6thDragon wrote:

z00mz00m wrote:

RBoi200 wrote:

I would say 50 - 70% of players go inactive after Day 3, which shows that being bored is a bigger cause of inactivity than "rank spam". I don't think it's worth changing the entire ranking system.

Nobody is saying that rank whores are the biggest cause of inactivity, or the main problem in the game, or the source of all evil in the universe. The point is, giving points for building things for no reason (1) encourages behavior that's bad for the game, and (2) is very easy to fix. Just turn turn it off. It's like 5 minutes of work for someone to simply turn that off. Not revamp, redesign, reskin, relaunch... just... turn off construction points.

Want to encourage active games that are fun? Without any significant cost, or time spent? Reward people who finish games. Reward wins. Negative points for NOT finishing a map.

If it wasn’t for heavy golders, I would agree with this. I’ve archived games when someone is obviously buying a win. What’s the point.

6thDragon wrote:

z00mz00m wrote:

RBoi200 wrote:

I would say 50 - 70% of players go inactive after Day 3, which shows that being bored is a bigger cause of inactivity than "rank spam". I don't think it's worth changing the entire ranking system.

Nobody is saying that rank whores are the biggest cause of inactivity, or the main problem in the game, or the source of all evil in the universe. The point is, giving points for building things for no reason (1) encourages behavior that's bad for the game, and (2) is very easy to fix. Just turn turn it off. It's like 5 minutes of work for someone to simply turn that off. Not revamp, redesign, reskin, relaunch... just... turn off construction points.

Want to encourage active games that are fun? Without any significant cost, or time spent? Reward people who finish games. Reward wins. Negative points for NOT finishing a map.

If it wasn’t for heavy golders, I would agree with this. I’ve archived games when someone is obviously buying a win. What’s the point.

I don't mind using gold when I play, I have so little free time that when I play I want to do something, or as I said before it gets boring real fast.

Thus the need for more units and things to do. And I don't mean trading on the stock market. I mean actually moving units and stuff lol.

And if the map was more focused we could be building defensive barriers, forts, canons, artillery ranges etc.

These are just ideas of course.

Moss20 wrote:

Can someone please explain what archiving a game is?

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Moss20 wrote:

Can someone please explain what archiving a game is?

Leaving it; voluntarily going inactive.

There's no loss registration, only a win registration, and you don't get a win of course.

If you mean saving your k/d then no, you go inactive by the normal rules, 2 days on most maps, and your losses count until then like normally.

The only real advantage is that the game disappears from your current game list on the main page.