Ranking system encourages inactivity

Maybe Destructo can comment. He's behaving exactly like we're discussing here in he game where I met him.

I like those builders. Maybe my handle should be vulture. Focusing on getting the biggest army can leave my core short on resources to upgrade my army plants. Love finding level 4 and 5 airports and bunkers in my travels. People upgrade these even though their research is still level 1 and 2. Complete waste for them, really good for me.

I like them too. Building is part of the game, and I'm sure there are some people out there who just enjoy building up huge armies and taking their time and don't care whether they win or not. Nothing wrong with that.

I think the main inactivity issue is the folks who never play at all, like never build a single building or move a single army. They're great to start next to, obviously, but the games aren't very competitive when 80% of countries go AI after day 3. I don't know the fix for that.

I think if someone starts a game and hasn't given a single command in 4 hours the computer should immiediately take over and the country become selectable again.

Yea that's an option. I think I've proposed making them AI after one day if they never give a single command on day 1. Making them selectable again would mean existing active players are more concentrated in fewer games, so we'd have to get used to fewer games running.

I really do hope the recent changes bring additional players to the game. There's more flexibility with things like this when you have a large enough player base to still sustain a high volume of games even if they players are more concentrated.

Current 1st rated player TALLPOCKETS, has been playing for 45 months and has 758 games started (avg +16 per month) and has won 377 of those games or 7.488 games on average per month...

His last batch of games were 81 Doomsday maps ?

Starting 4 games per week... seems like a lot... though he wins about half of them.... which is a commendable ratio (yet makes me wonder if he remembers what 'outside' is ?)

Interesting, he started playing at about the same time I did, and I've got 40 games... less than one per month... and I know what outside is cuz that's where I always find my nuts.

jubjub bird wrote:

I like them too. Building is part of the game, and I'm sure there are some people out there who just enjoy building up huge armies and taking their time and don't care whether they win or not. Nothing wrong with that.

I think the main inactivity issue is the folks who never play at all, like never build a single building or move a single army. They're great to start next to, obviously, but the games aren't very competitive when 80% of countries go AI after day 3. I don't know the fix for that.

I am usually an awesome teammate tbh

ender611 wrote:

I think if someone starts a game and hasn't given a single command in 4 hours the computer should immiediately take over and the country become selectable again.

I also suggested something similar. 12 hours first time, then 1 day 2nd time, 48 hrs next time..

OneNutSquirrel wrote:

Current 1st rated player TALLPOCKETS, has been playing for 45 months and has 758 games started (avg +16 per month) and has won 377 of those games or 7.488 games on average per month...

His last batch of games were 81 Doomsday maps ?

Starting 4 games per week... seems like a lot... though he wins about half of them.... which is a commendable ratio (yet makes me wonder if he remembers what 'outside' is ?)

Interesting, he started playing at about the same time I did, and I've got 40 games... less than one per month... and I know what outside is cuz that's where I always find my nuts.

Well you do not know what his circumstances are for his high activity.

But it was very funny post

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.

Also just thinking, do we really need two days for inactivity. Say it was one day. We all can get caught up sometimes and might not log back in on time but it's not the end of the world. Just cancel some computer orders and get right back on track. Maybe just have the two day time out for premium acct holders since you can issue a couple days worth of commands.

ender611 wrote:

Also just thinking, do we really need two days for inactivity. Say it was one day. We all can get caught up sometimes and might not log back in on time but it's not the end of the world. Just cancel some computer orders and get right back on track. Maybe just have the two day time out for premium acct holders since you can issue a couple days worth of commands.

I think it should be one day of inactivity as well, even for the premium account holders.

The only reason I can think of for the current two days is to “punish” the players by letting their stats take a hit.

I’ve gone inactive twice and both times it was because another player wasn’t shy about buying a win. Both times I wished it was only one day.

Don't forget there's a group of players who only log in once a day. If that login is at 8 pm on day one, and at 8:10 pm on day two, I don't think they should go inactive, even for those 10 minutes.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Don't forget there's a group of players who only log in once a day. If that login is at 8 pm on day one, and at 8:10 pm on day two, I don't think they should go inactive, even for those 10 minutes.

2 hours to make a move or country goes back to selectable

After that, if entire day goes by without activity, a 2 hr countdown to make a move.

Still think premium acct holders should get 2 days and 2 hrs. Would be a drag losing that planning tree.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Don't forget there's a group of players who only log in once a day. If that login is at 8 pm on day one, and at 8:10 pm on day two, I don't think they should go inactive, even for those 10 minutes.

Respectfully, logging in once a day will produce results worse than the AI, and I don't really want to be on the map with that level of play.

z00mz00m wrote:

Respectfully, logging in once a day will produce results worse than the AI, and I don't really want to be on the map with that level of play.

I love finishing a 100 map with 3,620 VP.

z00mz00m wrote:

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Don't forget there's a group of players who only log in once a day. If that login is at 8 pm on day one, and at 8:10 pm on day two, I don't think they should go inactive, even for those 10 minutes.

Respectfully, logging in once a day will produce results worse than the AI, and I don't really want to be on the map with that level of play.

z00mz00m wrote:

K.Rokossovski wrote:

Don't forget there's a group of players who only log in once a day. If that login is at 8 pm on day one, and at 8:10 pm on day two, I don't think they should go inactive, even for those 10 minutes.

Respectfully, logging in once a day will produce results worse than the AI, and I don't really want to be on the map with that level of play.

Even playing the 100 player map, lately all I seem to encounter are the players who log in once or twice a day or are serious golders. It’s getting harder and harder to convince myself this is a serious strategy game. My last game I had to archive because a player kept gold spamming and gold healing at ridiculous levels. He must have spent several hundred dollars just on me alone and he took on a coalition of four before me. I was finally excited for what appeared to be a good challenge only to realize how tactically and strategically stupid this guy was, but made up for it with massive gold expenditures. He barely had any navy and tried to escort his mega stack through the Indian Ocean. I got a reveal and sent my two cruiser fleets at him. My mistake was taking him on too close to his coast because I lost track of the amount of ships he gold spammed. His mega stack was disembarking and I locked it in melee with my ships. I was shocked he was able to exit melee and gold heal his troops when he was done disembarking.

I have to travel for work a lot until October so am not starting any new games. I’m honestly considering if I want to return when I’m finally able to. I spend too much time on this game to have a player buy a win.

6thDragon wrote:

I was shocked he was able to exit melee and gold heal his troops when he was done disembarking.

I'm a golder now! Sitting on 150K Gold I finally downloaded game to phone and started watching adds. Trying to spend the 2750 gold a day. Figure that's probably below average. So much easier. Fill in those missing resources in the first week. Speed up research in the second. It's a game in itself to use the gold most efficiency. Up to 170K gold now and climbing.

Used to hate using gold. I knew there are people out there making only a couple dollars a day. But now with this add thing I'm all in. I feel so dirty.

ender611 wrote:

6thDragon wrote:

I was shocked he was able to exit melee and gold heal his troops when he was done disembarking.

That's buggy. Your ships should have immediately attacked again when he went naval.

I took the same approach with golding for a game or two. I figured if they give it to you, spending it isn't buying a game. It was just overpowering and I started only spending it when I've confirmed others are golding. That's becoming more and more challenging as gold use is designed to be discrete and the most efficient time to use it is probably in the early game.

My issue with using the free ad gold is that you can build it up and drop it all at the start of your next game. If everyone got the same amount and couldn't carry it over, I'd say that's a fair approach. Then you have the players who shamelessly buy gold who ruin the game even more. I'm not sure what to think any more.

Relax, it is a part of the business model and thus of the game. It is still possible to find opponents on random maps who are not spending (or at least, not extreme) and still manage to muster a good fight; in fact I'm having one right now. I didn't encounter any huge whales recently, so I guess it all depends on a bit of luck.