New Building Idea: Bank

Quote from User12996

Quote from Scythe

Quote from User12996

I suggested a 2 * trade ship or freighter cap. I do believe trade ships end up more expensive than freighters with the 380th trade ship costing 1b gold. This would give a protected amount of 2b gold after buying all ships.

That is excessive and defeats the purpose. I understand a reasonable amount protected, but it should also come at a cost. Which is why I suggested the bank building in the first place. It costs a building spot, for every city you place it in and also for the materials to build it. Plus, it would require cargo space to move it around. The amount pillaged would be limited to what is in that specific city. A certain small percentage of the overall capacity of that would be protected (based on building level).

Part of the whole idea is precluding people that are problematic from accumulating vast sums of gold without it being able to be taken away from them.

No need for a building, we can just reuse the trade ship formula.

Otherwise the "bank" simply becomes the alliance gold account that's 99% of the time in vmode.

No one is going to build a bank high enough to protect 1b gold to buy the last trade ship otherwise.

Again, as other people have said, if you want gold pillaging, go play on the war server.

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I never understood why people want gold pillaging on normal servers. We literally have war servers, where people can pillage gold.

All they want to achieve is making the game worse for every non-fighters. Not all of game is about fighting, they don't seem to understand it.

Leave normal servers alone and go play on wasteland that is war servers.

(just for the record war servers have a lot less players than normal servers, even though there are a lot less of them, so they should be more populated. But people don't like to play on them, guess why? .... gold pillaging)

Quote from nosorog

Quote from User12996

Quote from Scythe

Quote from User12996

I suggested a 2 * trade ship or freighter cap. I do believe trade ships end up more expensive than freighters with the 380th trade ship costing 1b gold. This would give a protected amount of 2b gold after buying all ships.

That is excessive and defeats the purpose. I understand a reasonable amount protected, but it should also come at a cost. Which is why I suggested the bank building in the first place. It costs a building spot, for every city you place it in and also for the materials to build it. Plus, it would require cargo space to move it around. The amount pillaged would be limited to what is in that specific city. A certain small percentage of the overall capacity of that would be protected (based on building level).

Part of the whole idea is precluding people that are problematic from accumulating vast sums of gold without it being able to be taken away from them.

No need for a building, we can just reuse the trade ship formula.

Otherwise the "bank" simply becomes the alliance gold account that's 99% of the time in vmode.

No one is going to build a bank high enough to protect 1b gold to buy the last trade ship otherwise.

Again, as other people have said, if you want gold pillaging, go play on the war server.

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I never understood why people want gold pillaging on normal servers. We literally have war servers, where people can pillage gold.

All they want to achieve is making the game worse for every non-fighters. Not all of game is about fighting, they don't seem to understand it.

Leave normal servers alone and go play on wasteland that is war servers.

(just for the record war servers have a lot less players than normal servers, even though there are a lot less of them, so they should be more populated. But people don't like to play on them, guess why? .... gold pillaging)

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The reality is that they want another way to bully/punish/farm people without realizing that the harder you can bully/punish/farm people the more likely they are to quit.

GameForge is cautious about this in Ikariam because they've seen the effects first hand in Ogame, which is another one of their games that favors the attacker, in almost every way, over the defender. Whenever the attacker wins, the defender, invariably, ends up quitting and they've tried so many different mechanic tweaks to try to keep people playing but the only one that seems to work is opening new servers.

If GF adds gold pillaging, people will invariably quit, and the only benefit is for people to be able to attack people that go into gold mode.

All that said, I do believe that gold should be able to be pillaged over a cap of some sort. Maybe instead of the maximum gold of trade ship or freighter, whichever is higher, multiplied by 2, it's multiplied by 2 until the protection value is greater than 10m.

For example, if your next trade ship costs 100k and you can't build freighters, your gold protection is 200k and anything over that can be pillaged. If your next trade ship costs 11m, that'd be 22m, but since the 11m additional protection is greater than 10m, it's actually 21m.

This doesn't realistically solve the problem, either, because the last trade ship is 1b so the protection would be 1.01b or so.

Quote from Scythe

Quote from User12996

No need for a building, we can just reuse the trade ship formula.

Otherwise the "bank" simply becomes the alliance gold account that's 99% of the time in vmode.

No one is going to build a bank high enough to protect 1b gold to buy the last trade ship otherwise.

Again, as other people have said, if you want gold pillaging, go play on the war server.

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The building is something that would need to be built just to accumulate gold, in the first place. The more gold you have, the more building levels you would require. You are correct, No one would ever build a level high enough to protect 1B gold. I wouldn't even want a hard capped collection of banks spread across all cities to be able to protect that much. At best, maybe a quarter billion.

If you can amass that much gold... You should have a massive military to protect it, the fact that you don't speaks volumes as to what is wrong with the game (in this aspect). Imagine modern day banks not having the vaults, security guards, and cash controls that they currently have in place (try cashing a large check sometime, and see the procedures for obtaining the cash.. You may have to wait weeks for them to have the money brought into the bank as they don't keep large amounts on hand in even large regional branches). They would get robbed blind.

I get that you like feeling safe. However, that safety brings complacency and boredom. It also allows people to be problematic in the game. There should be a balance in what you expect to remain safe, and what you need to do in order to protect it. We all make choices in how we develop our accounts. We should have to make wise choices, if we want to succeed. The bigger you are, the bigger of a target you become and the more you need to do in order to remain safe.

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Comparing a video game to reality is silly and I doubt people are on the forums, outside of you, clamoring for the game about ancient Greece with Steam Giants to be "more realistic".

Again, I stated what I'd find acceptable, something based off of the amount you could spend on trade ships, to avoid issues with gold/town, but the reality is you want this change so you can punish people more which, imo, is a poor reason to implement a change like this.

Additionally, all this does is mean that people will have alliance guild banks that sit in vmode most of the time. Woohoo! Very exciting game play!

Quote from Scythe

Quote from User12996

Comparing a video game to reality is silly and I doubt people are on the forums, outside of you, clamoring for the game about ancient Greece with Steam Giants to be "more realistic".

Again, I stated what I'd find acceptable, something based off of the amount you could spend on trade ships, to avoid issues with gold/town, but the reality is you want this change so you can punish people more which, imo, is a poor reason to implement a change like this.

I actually want to increase complexity and the need to make strategic decisions, in order to make the game more interesting.

I believe actions should have consequences, and our decision should have meaning in all aspects.

Is being able to punish people that act inappropriately in the game an aspect of my motivation? Sure, but that is only one facet of it.

I have multiple accounts, like many people that play this game do. However, I use my accounts to get a greater understanding of what you can do with patience. I have an account that I barely play, that is fast approaching the 1 billion gold mark. I have another that I built to be the perfect turtle account, which just like the name would suggest is a very slow process. Interestingly enough, I didn't even need a military for defense at all, until I got past the 2 million points mark. My point is, that without serious flaws in the game, I should not be able to accomplish either of those things.

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Regardless of what you WANT to achieve with this idea, what it'll lead to would be even more people leaving! You can talk about "more interesting" or "meaningful decisions" all you want. But the sad truth is, that this would NOT increase the number of players and you simply seem to ignore this aspect of your idea.

Quote from Scythe

Quote from Boros

Regardless of what you WANT to achieve with this idea, what it'll lead to would be even more people leaving! You can talk about "more interesting" or "meaningful decisions" all you want. But the sad truth is, that this would NOT increase the number of players and you simply seem to ignore this aspect of your idea.

What we have is an environment that has allowed and fostered sloppy account building. People have gotten away with building paper tiger accounts, because there really is no consequence to shoddy city planning. I get that this is not purely a war game, but they have essentially made a military largely pointless.

I suspect that this would make players more interested and active. I also believe it could renew interest in building better accounts. As it currently stands, you can build weak accounts that develop fast or stronger accounts that are a much slower process. The current account philosophy is built around a self entitlement to security that is absurd. While warfare is not the primary aspect of the game, it should be a useful one. Even if costly, it should be a means to be able to alter the behavior of those that impact you negatively.

And I tell you, that is NOT what would happen. Proper Warefare in Ikariam is very time consuming. Time that people like me, who work a full time job simply dont have (anymore, 12 years ago I might even have somewhat agreed with you). If you force us to change our playstyle that much, we'll simply leave. This is after all a game, we play to enjoy in our spare time. Any drastic change has to take the casual players response into account.

Again, given how dead the war servers are with gold pillaging, I don't see gold pillaging as a way to encourage people to play.

Whether you believe it or not, it is a punishing change compared to how Ikariam currently plays that favors the attacker over the defender.

The more mechanics that favor the attacker over the defender, the fewer people that stick around.

The reality is all people that want to be left alone would simply look for empty-ish servers to play on.

Also, one man's activity, "look at all this gold I can pillage" is another man's time to graveyard. Plus, you can also farm gold in the graveyard.

Finally, none of this addresses how everyone would complain about military and gold banks, because we'd simply see low TS score accounts that are used to hold gold.

Quote from Scythe

That does bring an interesting point to bear... I wonder how many players today are what would be considered rather active vs casual. I also wonder how many would become more active, if there were a reason to be. I question the ratio of those that have left as a result of the game becoming more placid. I suspect most of the active players left, as there was not enough ROI on their time.

Jut look at new war servers and new normal servers. many people start playing on every normal server all the time. and normal servers have a lot more players than war servers across the board (No not just "alpha" and "beta" - the original servers before "war server" was a thing) but even younger normal servers.

The only difference is that normal servers don't have gold pillaging.

So Sherlock what do you think is the reason?

I know I said I'd take my leave from this but I gotta step in on this.

I don't think anyone is denying that the majority would rather not have their gold pillaged, as I said before I think the vast majority of players are builders and would prefer to never have anything taken from them.

However looking at the current numbers and granted in the US it's late night / early morning so numbers are down

But the US numbers are terrible even during the day the newer servers barely have anyone on them.

We should instead compare the global normal vs the global war server

I do not know how I ended up on Delta originally when I started playing I simply can't remember that far back.
I do not know if new players even know what they're getting into when they start a game these days.

What I can tell you from my exp is I only played on Delta then it got merged to Alpha/Beta and I only play on Beta

I know some people will play multiple servers so im not saying my exp is the same as everyone elses but I personally did not want more than 1 account or play on more than 1 server and so coming from my own exp I would not start a new account on a war server, this game takes way to long to play.
it would be the same if it was a MMORPG.. thsoe games take years sometimes to max your char no one wants to start that again.. well most people don't

But at least not with the same type of charactor.. but unlike a MMORPG there aren't that many ways to play Ikariam, sure you can have difference focuses but in the end you can build you can fight and that's it, and if you compare peoples towns typically going to find the same set of buildings.

anyway im getting a little long here so before I post the numbers I just recorded I'd say looking at global 2 servers seem active the other 3 are pathetic by comparison and the war server (yes it was recently merged) is keeping pace with those 2 normal servers.

So I think perhaps yoru argument while admittedly true is grossly overstated.

Lastly we all know GF is not good at managing servers, there are now and probably always will be more servers than is healthy for this games player population, it's not by accident though, I remember getting emails about new servers all trying to lure people to start fresh and spend ambrosia getting ahead of everyone else.. but the population isn't there anymore and you're just milking a ever shrinking player base.

The trend in games is usually one of decline, sure you'll have new players come in still but the net loss of players is par the course.
Eventually the well will run dry, Actually I'd say we hit that point several years ago.. now we're just boiling it all down all the while they desperately still open new servers to a population that is worn out.

They're merging servers that are less than 1 year old.. chew on that for a minute.

US

Beta 6

Orpheus 0

Zephyros 2

Alpha 76

Hydra 3

NY 38

Adonis 20

Aeneas 3

Hera 1

Kerberos 6

Archeron 2

Herakles 1

Global Nromal

Pangaia 5 72

Pangaia 4 393

Pangaia 3 34

Pangaia 2 63

Pangaia 1 418

Ares 1: 377

tous les miracles sont plus ou moins utilisés pour certains styles de jeux hermes très pratique

je suis contre le pillage de l'or pour diverses raisons la 1ere suffit d'être plus grand que son adversaire et si certains ensembles vous font attaquer en continu et d'autres ne peuvent rien faire

pour le pillage de l'or il y a le serveur de guerre

et si vous voulez plus d'or sur un serveur mornal vous vous mettez en mode production ou coupez toute production et passez à pluton sur le domaine des dieux où vous pouvez vendre des ressources pour acheter des bateaux ou vendre des troupes

Quote from Rastan

So I think perhaps yoru argument while admittedly true is grossly overstated.

No it is not.

In fact it is even worse than it seems for war servers. here is why:

1. War servers have been recently merged, so there is more activity

2. Every single war server has been merged into 1 global one. So everyone who played on their national war server was merged into single 1 (all existing accounts who played on war servers)

3. For normal global servers it has been completely new world, where you had to start with new account

4. Despite all that, the only war server is still less active than 2 global servers

5. The more fair way it would be to compare all normal servers combined to all war servers combined, minus the oldest 2 servers of each community. (still not perfect but more even representation).

6. I have not done the math, but i would not be surprised if ratio of normal players to war server players would be something like 50:1 or even more

Quote from Scythe

I suspect that this would make players more interested and active. I also believe it could renew interest in building better accounts. As it currently stands, you can build weak accounts that develop fast or stronger accounts that are a much slower process. The current account philosophy is built around a self entitlement to security that is absurd. While warfare is not the primary aspect of the game, it should be a useful one. Even if costly, it should be a means to be able to alter the behavior of those that impact you negatively.

You can still attack and pillage accounts who build weak accounts that develop fast. You know steal their resources, right? the resources they produce instead of producing gold, since they want to develop faster.

Sure they can go in gold mode, but in that case they will develop more slowly than those with "better accounts". There is punishment for those with badly made accounts already. Not everybody can turtle up for a year like you can.

Quote from nosorog

Quote from Rastan

So I think perhaps yoru argument while admittedly true is grossly overstated.

2. Every single war server has been merged into 1 global one. So everyone who played on their national war server was merged into single 1 (all existing accounts who played on war servers)

ok that's a fair point, I thought the war severs was always global.

My point still stands though.. they're folding "normal" servers less than 1 year old, the overall player base is shrinking.

Quote from Rastan

Quote from nosorog

Quote from Rastan

So I think perhaps yoru argument while admittedly true is grossly overstated.

2. Every single war server has been merged into 1 global one. So everyone who played on their national war server was merged into single 1 (all existing accounts who played on war servers)

ok that's a fair point, I thought the war severs was always global.

My point still stands though.. they're folding "normal" servers less than 1 year old, the overall player base is shrinking.

If you argue that the game is losing players i would 100% agree with you.

If you argument is that bringing gold pillaging to normal servers will in any way stop that trend i 100% disagree with you.

Lets just look at last batch of servers. currently there are 688 currently online active players on all separate national servers (the last bunch 43 days old), there are 313 currently active players on previous patch of new servers (134 days old)

Ares global has at same time 416 players (all war servers ever created)

I think an inactive account could be robbed of its gold. If it is frequently left idle then you are only interested in collecting gold. It is not always used for that account. He buys the army at the maximum price and then resells it at the minimum price. Why can't I steal that gold? This is protected by the server ... according to the rules, there is nothing wrong with it, but I have to look at it???