The Solution to Inactivity

I think it would work...

interesting idea but think gold pat outs should be higher to those active at game end - would keep ppl trying to stay in longer

rewards are pretty crap for winning in coalition 1800 coming 9th 1000 that's barely one speed boost in production

Here's why I don't like this idea

- It will make the game literally pay to play, if you don't have any gold then what happens then?

- If I'm dealt a bad hand in poker, then I fold. The case is the same with Xingjiang. If I'm playing a country that weak, then I abandon the game, and for a good reason too. You'll probably lose no matter what. While I don't think that abandoning a game because you're a weak country is a good thing to do, I also don't think that forcing people to play as a weak country is a good idea. The best thing that Bytro can do is even out all the countries in the historic world war map. It may not be realistic but at least it'll be fair.

Here's why I like this idea

- This probably will reduce inactivity.

But forcing people to pay gold in order to play games is not the way to go.

I have a better idea. Instead of paying gold, you can pay something like game tokens. Basically game tokens allow you to play games, one token per game. If for example, I have 5 game tokens, then that allows me to enter five games. If you pay a token to enter one game, and if that game ends when you're active, and have logged on at least 5 days in a 10 day period (it doesn't matter if you lose or win) then you get two tokens back. But if that game ends, and you're either inactive, or haven't logged on for five days in a 10 day period, then you get only one token back. Simple, and effective.

I agree with the tokens. However I have seen Xingjiang win a game. Xingjiang swallowed Soviet and are germany and japan

I was thinking of something on similar lines Except

With Following costs for games;

1-3 - Free to Join

4 - 10,000 Gold (as security deposit) go inactive and gold is lost

5 - 20,000 gold (as security deposit) go inactive and gold is lost

6+ Each successive game increases the deposit by 10k Gold so that by game 10 it would require a 70,000 Gold Deposit.

If you're active and play, you don't lose the gold. If you're not active, you help support the development of the game.

That’s a really good idea actually

Marginal costs of $ to join a game is not going to give people an incentive to playout a bad position. It is a matter of game attitude.

Also remember that people play games to have fun. It is entertainment. When it is not fun, they walk away regardless of the original costs. If that cost actually is of a number that impacts them that they will play in an unfun game, then they make it unfun for everyone else.

There may be no 'solution' to the inactive player but there may be approaches:

1/ any player that is inactive in the first 24 hours is replaced by a new player.

2/ any player in the first 48 hours that is inactive for a period of 24 hours is replaced with a new player

3/ any player inactive in the first 7 days is replaced by a new player.

EZ Dolittle wrote:

Also remember that people play games to have fun. It is entertainment. When it is not fun, they walk away regardless of the original costs. If that cost actually is of a number that impacts them that they will play in an unfun game, then they make it unfun for everyone else.

My proposal meant that to get into 5 games would cost 30,000 gold deposit, 6 games 60,000 and 7 games... 100,000 gold.

Not many players have that kind of gold sitting around...

Could also tie the costs of the deposit to be tied to the number of games someone has abandoned. Add another 10,000 to deposit for 4th game for every game you've abandoned in last 3 months.

So if you've dropped 2 games, then first 3 are free, game 4 deposit to join would be 30,000, and game 5 and additional 40,000.

I like both the idea about game tokens from Vamaw as well as the one of gold deposit by OneNutSquirrel.

I'd like to add two more options:

1.: One hour after the player joined the game, display a button labeled "confirm to stay on map" (or similar) with a timer ticking down 5 hours. In case the player hasn't clicked this button when timer runs out, he immediately goes inactive - so his slot is free again to be picked by somebody else.

Results: Those who join a map and immediately lose interest block their slot for only 6 hours instead of 48+ (as they do now), because they either don't log in after the first hour again or then decide not to click this button.

Also it could help some of those players - in case you quickly regret having joined a map, you'd be grateful to have an option to retreat from it quickly, without risking the others on the map to ruin your stats during the upcoming 48+ hours.

Note that if a player couldn't be online in between 1 and 6 hours after joining a map (for example because he joined a map just before going to bed) and thus didn't click the button, he can still come back afterwards simply by logging in again (as it works with regular inactivity) - unless he was so unfortunate that someone else already picked his country. But in that case, he wouldn't lose much, since the game's still young.

2.: Add a new ranking "VP ratio" which is calculated by "VP gained"/"VP at start".

"VP gained": The victory points you have when a game ends and you're still active.

"VP at start": The victory points you have when joining a map.

Both of course accumulated over all your games.

This new figure should be shown in your player profile.

Additionally there should be a new tab in the "Ranking" section labeled "Honors" or "Success". It should sort players by "VP ratio" descendingly, but always filter for all players of a selectable rank. By default, your own rank would be selected. So if you have for example rank 23 (Corporal), when opening the new tab you see all Corporals sorted by "VP ratio" and your own position in that list.

This new ranking would not only motivate to do your best in every game and to hold on til the end, even if you can foresee you won't be the winner. No, it would additionally motivate to play a lot, since if you reach a higher rank, you have a lower number of competitors in the new ranking - not so many players have a high rank. Also of course the real honor / goal would be to be amongst the best with rank General and not amongst the best with rank Recruit.

This new ranking would provide big long-term motivation for all players who care about stats / rankings / creating something that lasts after their current map is over.

I have been in a game where both the US and USSR were inactive, and most of the still active were small countries (except Germany and me as Australia)

But I don't really like your idea. That would make CoW P2P, which is bad since not all people are willing to pay for a game

KrestelGaming wrote:

That would make CoW P2P

No, that wouldn't really be PayToPlay. In his proposal you get your gold back if you stay active (or get erased). It's only a deposit, not a payment.

Hans A. Pils wrote:

KrestelGaming wrote:

That would make CoW P2P

With that, you're referring to OneNutSquirrel's suggestion about the gold deposit, I suppose(?)No, that wouldn't really be PayToPlay. In his proposal you get your gold back if you stay active (or get erased). It's only a deposit, not a payment.

My proposal was such that IF you bailed on a game, you lost your deposit.

Bailed could be many metrics;

-went inactive

-failed to earn certain amount of Experience

-failed to kill x number of units

-failed to give you units x number of orders over x number of days

And if you actively played in 15 games with X00,000 in deposit for all those games... you would get the deposits back as the games finished... with the HIGHEST deposit returned first.

So if you had 6 games, and you won a game, you would now have 5 active games and you would get your highest deposit back. If you went inactive and you had 5 games... you would lose ALL your deposits on all the games.

That would be my proposal.

EZ Dolittle wrote:

Marginal costs of $ to join a game is not going to give people an incentive to playout a bad position. It is a matter of game attitude.

OTOH, a reason to go inactive could be to avoid counting the likely deaths of one's army in player statistics.

OneNutSquirrel wrote:

My proposal was such that IF you bailed on a game, you lost your deposit.

Nooberium wrote:

Alternatively, could just charge gold for going inactive. Would't need all the effort of implementing deposits.

You will get gold if you win and is active at the end of the game

Vamaw wrote:

What if you ran out of gold? and went inactive during a game?