Revitalizing Ikariam

Quote from User12996

Quote from A.A

Quote from User12996

I know my version would cause a problem, but the problem is intentional because of people using alt accounts with 2000M donation score. Forcing them to donate and then have a debt reduces the utility of those accounts which was the design goal. Yep, some players might get penalized if a large account ghosts but they aren't losing mine levels and can simply choose to pay the debt off or not. As mines are community features, it should be a community debt. Plus, as the mine levels aren't going down, you aren't losing anything anyways, you just have to catch the debt up to the current mine level.

Did you read all the way through what I wrote? Or you just stopped reading and started writing a new reply when you encountered the "your version would cause a problem" part?

Because what I said would get exactly the same effect you want without harming other players!

The only person who would prefer your version would be a backend engineer who doesn't want to implement the extra code out of laziness. That engineer doesn't happen to be you, right?

Now you say "as the mine levels aren't going down, you aren't losing anything anyways" but you are obviously wrong, the player in this case will indeed lose a very important thing which is the ability to upgrade the mines!

The said player may end up paying tens of millions of wood before being able to upgrade his mines again, especially if when sharing more than one island with the removed account.

What will you do then? Give all the guys on the island a free city relocation? Or just keep them unable to upgrade their mines?

Now we can all see what I meant when I said sometimes players request changes but they "Don't take into consideration the the long lasting effects of such changes"

Please read what I wrote again, I know it's a bit lengthy but when you carefully read it you can clearly see that I do achieve your goal while addressing the potential problems.

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Yes. I read everything you wrote and I wrote why I disagreed with it. You want an individual punishment. I want an island wide punishment.

Yes, if it's 10s of millions, then they have to donate 10s of millions and then they can upgrade the mines. That's just how it works. If you don't like it, guess what? You can also ghost your account, too.

I am considering the long lasting effects of these changes and I believe that these changes would be better for the game overall, especially since mines aren't capped at 60/60 anymore.

I'll enumerate why now.

1. With the way donation accounts are used, this punishes you for ghosting them. You don't lose the mine levels, but you do have a huge donation debt. That means large donation accounts can only go once per island. With your solution, they can, too, but the users of the donation accounts still benefit as long as the account doesn't come back to the same island.

2. It does not require any additional data to be saved. When a player is deleted from an island, their donations are negated, but mine levels stay the same.

3. The mines can still be upgraded, you simply have to donate the debt off.

4. Islands with debt can have a special warning symbol on the mines that can be hovered to elaborate how much debt is present.

Honestly, I'd take the status quo over your solution. Assuming I'm a "lazy programmer" because I want a different solution certainly is a choice of words lol.

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I wanted to reply to this earlier but I was very busy and had very little time to give a proper reply, I apologize for that

Now let me reply to each point you mentioned:

I'd like to start with your number 2:

a) The game already saves all the needed data for all active players.

b) A quick story: Sometimes I build piracy towns and when I want to demolish them I donate any extra wood I have in such towns to their islands. When I build a new piracy town on any of those islands and l want to donate the extra wood as usual I find that the island has a record of my previous donations, donations made a month or more earlier. Conclusion: the game saves the donation data for islands on which you don't have any towns anymore.

c) The game used to save which island did you donate for before they came up with the donation compensation system. When an account returned to the game we could see the donation amounts it made to each island as soon as it returned.

So you need to save the exact same data as before the compensation system, same as in point (c) and you need to make this data assigned to player accounts instead of the island if it's not already assigned to player accounts.

Your number 1:
Your solution also makes them benefit if their account doesn't come back to the same island, what's your answer to this?

Let me guess, it will be either:

a) "Oh, they will be having a large penalty on the first island so it's not a problem if they go to another island". As your current faulty design suggests.

If so you they will be donating until they reach a very high level beyond which they aren't willing to upgrade then "ghost" their donation account, as you like to call it, and finally come back to another island and donate, so we are only giving innocent players large unfair penalties whenever a large legit player leaves the game to only make it a bit more expensive for cheaters.

b) "We will not allow the same player to donate to other islands until dept is paid on all islands". Since you already mentioned something like that.

Well, I thought you said your solution "does not require any additional data to be saved... their donations are negated, but mine levels stay...." so how can we keep track of this without saving additional data?

c) I won't mention because I want you to say it yourself to prove that you indeed don't know what you are talking about

Your number 3:

- "You can't take a breath while underwater"

- "You still can take a breath while underwater you will just suffocate and die"

If you can't see the analogy then I don't know what to say

I know that for someone like you who has 11 accounts on the same server paying 10s of millions of wood is considered a simple task as you mentioned "you simply have to donate the debt off."

But for the average player this might be undoable especially if the server is either active or old.

Your number 4:

Why do we need the warning and the tooltip? The current concern is players already on the affected island not players who are yet to colonize the island, because those new colonizers will, if you implement the idea of collective punishment you want, be checking the mines as soon as their colonies are built.

They will only lose 9000 gold and 1000 wood for building the colony, how thoughtful of you to consider this and prevent such a great loss

Finally, when I said:

Quote from A.A.

"The only person who would prefer your version would be a backend engineer who doesn't want to implement the extra code out of laziness. That engineer doesn't happen to be you, right? "

That was meant to be a joke since Cheech mentioned he thinks you are badidol's "burner account", you can also tell it's a joke by the smily/emoji, whatever you call it, I used at the end, I really don't know how you didn't get that.

Anyway, please don't get so personally offended and say nonsense like "That's just how it works. If you don't like it, guess what? You can also ghost your account, too."

This is has one of two meanings:

1."If you don't like it ghost you account and leave the game for good", I hope you don't mean this because:

a) It's very rude.

b) I didn't know you own the game.

c) Even if you own the game it still is very rude.

2. You mean "ghost your account then come back and change island" which is even worse than being rude because it will ruin the game even more.

If I do so the island will have event more dept wich will encourage more players to ghost their accounts and do the same until the island is empty and has a dept equivalent to the donations required to reach its current level and no one will build any town on this island again, in other words Congratulations you managed to produce uninhabitable ghost islands, YAY!

Keep this long enough and only cheaters with islands full of permanent multis are going to be able upgrade their mines.

Also why should I have to ghost my account and risk getting all of my cities looted and risk loosing spot on islands that aren't affected by the removed player?

And if I do so will I be able to donate freely to the new islands? or would you like to activate the rule that will forbid me from donating to new islands until I pay the dept of all other islands first?

There's a popular saying in the game industry:

"Everybody thinks they are a game designer"

Unfortunately it applies way more than I used to like to admit

Quote from User12996

Honestly, I'd take the status quo over your solution. Assuming I'm a "lazy programmer" because I want a different solution certainly is a choice of words lol.

Now that you said you prefer the status quo over someone else's solution you didn't only turn this purposeful discussion into a competition but also showed you are a bitter loser, for preferring to keep cheaters cheat over having a non toxic remedy doesn't make any sense at all, even if you think this remedy is incomplete.

I really hope that you have nothing to do with game team because with this mentality I'm highly concerned.

That said, you can always raise questions and generate ideas rather than whatever you call this thing you are doing.

So please if you have good, non toxic ideas share them, otherwise stick to mentioning your concerns regarding the ideas shared by others.

Thanks!

Quote from User12996

Quote from A.A

Quote from User12996

Quote from A.A

Quote from User12996

I know my version would cause a problem, but the problem is intentional because of people using alt accounts with 2000M donation score. Forcing them to donate and then have a debt reduces the utility of those accounts which was the design goal. Yep, some players might get penalized if a large account ghosts but they aren't losing mine levels and can simply choose to pay the debt off or not. As mines are community features, it should be a community debt. Plus, as the mine levels aren't going down, you aren't losing anything anyways, you just have to catch the debt up to the current mine level.

Did you read all the way through what I wrote? Or you just stopped reading and started writing a new reply when you encountered the "your version would cause a problem" part?

Because what I said would get exactly the same effect you want without harming other players!

The only person who would prefer your version would be a backend engineer who doesn't want to implement the extra code out of laziness. That engineer doesn't happen to be you, right?

Now you say "as the mine levels aren't going down, you aren't losing anything anyways" but you are obviously wrong, the player in this case will indeed lose a very important thing which is the ability to upgrade the mines!

The said player may end up paying tens of millions of wood before being able to upgrade his mines again, especially if when sharing more than one island with the removed account.

What will you do then? Give all the guys on the island a free city relocation? Or just keep them unable to upgrade their mines?

Now we can all see what I meant when I said sometimes players request changes but they "Don't take into consideration the the long lasting effects of such changes"

Please read what I wrote again, I know it's a bit lengthy but when you carefully read it you can clearly see that I do achieve your goal while addressing the potential problems.

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Yes. I read everything you wrote and I wrote why I disagreed with it. You want an individual punishment. I want an island wide punishment.

Yes, if it's 10s of millions, then they have to donate 10s of millions and then they can upgrade the mines. That's just how it works. If you don't like it, guess what? You can also ghost your account, too.

I am considering the long lasting effects of these changes and I believe that these changes would be better for the game overall, especially since mines aren't capped at 60/60 anymore.

I'll enumerate why now.

1. With the way donation accounts are used, this punishes you for ghosting them. You don't lose the mine levels, but you do have a huge donation debt. That means large donation accounts can only go once per island. With your solution, they can, too, but the users of the donation accounts still benefit as long as the account doesn't come back to the same island.

2. It does not require any additional data to be saved. When a player is deleted from an island, their donations are negated, but mine levels stay the same.

3. The mines can still be upgraded, you simply have to donate the debt off.

4. Islands with debt can have a special warning symbol on the mines that can be hovered to elaborate how much debt is present.

Honestly, I'd take the status quo over your solution. Assuming I'm a "lazy programmer" because I want a different solution certainly is a choice of words lol.

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I wanted to reply to this earlier but I was very busy and had very little time to give a proper reply, I apologize for that

Now let me reply to each point you mentioned:

I'd like to start with your number 2:

a) The game already saves all the needed data for all active players.

b) A quick story: Sometimes I build piracy towns and when I want to demolish them I donate any extra wood I have in such towns to their islands. When I build a new piracy town on any of those islands and l want to donate the extra wood as usual I find that the island has a record of my previous donations, donations made a month or more earlier. Conclusion: the game saves the donation data for islands on which you don't have any towns anymore.

c) The game used to save which island did you donate for before they came up with the donation compensation system. When an account returned to the game we could see the donation amounts it made to each island as soon as it returned.

So you need to save the exact same data as before the compensation system, same as in point (c) and you need to make this data assigned to player accounts instead of the island if it's not already assigned to player accounts.

Your number 1:
Your solution also makes them benefit if their account doesn't come back to the same island, what's your answer to this?

Let me guess, it will be either:

a) "Oh, they will be having a large penalty on the first island so it's not a problem if they go to another island". As your current faulty design suggests.

If so you they will be donating until they reach a very high level beyond which they aren't willing to upgrade then "ghost" their donation account, as you like to call it, and finally come back to another island and donate, so we are only giving innocent players large unfair penalties whenever a large legit player leaves the game to only make it a bit more expensive for cheaters.

b) "We will not allow the same player to donate to other islands until dept is paid on all islands". Since you already mentioned something like that.

Well, I thought you said your solution "does not require any additional data to be saved... their donations are negated, but mine levels stay...." so how can we keep track of this without saving additional data?

c) I won't mention because I want you to say it yourself to prove that you indeed don't know what you are talking about

Your number 3:

- "You can't take a breath while underwater"

- "You still can take a breath while underwater you will just suffocate and die"

If you can't see the analogy then I don't know what to say

I know that for someone like you who has 11 accounts on the same server paying 10s of millions of wood is considered a simple task as you mentioned "you simply have to donate the debt off."

But for the average player this might be undoable especially if the server is either active or old.

Your number 4:

Why do we need the warning and the tooltip? The current concern is players already on the affected island not players who are yet to colonize the island, because those new colonizers will, if you implement the idea of collective punishment you want, be checking the mines as soon as their colonies are built.

They will only lose 9000 gold and 1000 wood for building the colony, how thoughtful of you to consider this and prevent such a great loss

Finally, when I said:

Quote from A.A.

"The only person who would prefer your version would be a backend engineer who doesn't want to implement the extra code out of laziness. That engineer doesn't happen to be you, right? "

That was meant to be a joke since Cheech mentioned he thinks you are badidol's "burner account", you can also tell it's a joke by the smily/emoji, whatever you call it, I used at the end, I really don't know how you didn't get that.

Anyway, please don't get so personally offended and say nonsense like "That's just how it works. If you don't like it, guess what? You can also ghost your account, too."

This is has one of two meanings:

1."If you don't like it ghost you account and leave the game for good", I hope you don't mean this because:

a) It's very rude.

b) I didn't know you own the game.

c) Even if you own the game it still is very rude.

2. You mean "ghost your account then come back and change island" which is even worse than being rude because it will ruin the game even more.

If I do so the island will have event more dept wich will encourage more players to ghost their accounts and do the same until the island is empty and has a dept equivalent to the donations required to reach its current level and no one will build any town on this island again, in other words Congratulations you managed to produce uninhabitable ghost islands, YAY!

Keep this long enough and only cheaters with islands full of permanent multis are going to be able upgrade their mines.

Also why should I have to ghost my account and risk getting all of my cities looted and risk loosing spot on islands that aren't affected by the removed player?

And if I do so will I be able to donate freely to the new islands? or would you like to activate the rule that will forbid me from donating to new islands until I pay the dept of all other islands first?

There's a popular saying in the game industry:

"Everybody thinks they are a game designer"

Unfortunately it applies way more than I used to like to admit

Quote from User12996

Honestly, I'd take the status quo over your solution. Assuming I'm a "lazy programmer" because I want a different solution certainly is a choice of words lol.

Now that you said you prefer the status quo over someone else's solution you didn't only turn this purposeful discussion into a competition but also showed you are a bitter loser, for preferring to keep cheaters cheat over having a non toxic remedy doesn't make any sense at all, even if you think this remedy is incomplete.

I really hope that you have nothing to do with game team because with this mentality I'm highly concerned.

That said, you can always raise questions and generate ideas rather than whatever you call this thing you are doing.

So please if you have good, non toxic ideas share them, otherwise stick to mentioning your concerns regarding the ideas shared by others.

Thanks!

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Uh, wow.

First, I was not aware the data already existed on the island. That's great. That doesn't change how I feel that it should be an island wide penalty and not an individual penalty.

1a) Yep, any account can donate to an island and that's it. I didn't see how your solution changed this, either. IIRC, your solution was that if they came back to the same island, they'd have to pay off an individual debt. My solution is that they'd have to pay off the island's debt. I am completely fine with penalizing legitimate players when a large donator leaves, too. It happens regardless when a merge happens, plus, they still get the benefit of using a high level set of mines in the mean time.

1b) Player A is on Island B and Island C. Island B has a debt of X wood. Player A can't donate to Island C until Island B's debt is clear. This doesn't require any additional data, just a simple check of which islands player A are on and if they have any debt. I'd even be fine with letting Island C's towns donate directly to the debt without shipping wood.

1c) Won't mention what? Kind of a pointless conversation if you're not going to make a point but instead make an empty point about not having a point.

3) And what's the problem? You're already benefiting from the high level mines. Either donate the debt off or don't. You can wait until the next merge, you can decide to ghost your own account off and find other islands, etc. For the average player everything is doable and if the average player can't do it, then the mines are already much, much higher than they would be normally anyways.

4) We need the warning and the tooltip because if you're trying to shop around for mines, you should know if the island is in debt or not, especially since it would prevent you from donating elsewhere. Otherwise, you find a high set of mines, land a new city there, and have an unexpected penalty.

I honestly have no idea why you'd think I'm badidol's burner account. It's pretty funny. I'm probably just a realist.

I wasn't offended. Ghosting your account is a legitimate strategy in Ikariam that a lot of players don't consider. I ghost accounts all the time because it gives me free warps, etc. Ghosting your account does not imply leaving the game for good. It implies using a tool that we have, ghosting, and using it strategically to merge on your own terms and rechoose what islands, etc., that you want. I didn't mean to imply that you should take it or leave it, but instead use ghosting as a strategic tool in your arsenal.

If the mines are high enough, players will move their accounts there and pay the debt off. The debt isn't any different than moving to a different island and starting over with donations. That's the whole thing, you act like the debt is a huge penalty. It isn't. It's simply the price that was already donated to get the mines where they currently are.

You don't have to ghost, like I said, it's a strategic option that you can either choose to partake in or not partake in. If you don't? Then pay off the debt.

I don't even know what to say to the last part. I'd prefer an island wide penalty system over an individual penalty system because the mines in Ikariam are supposed to be about cooperation and that should cut both ways. There's nothing toxic about my idea, either, it's simply a different approach because I believe that mines and miracles should be shared per island. All it is is a difference of opinion.

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1.a) In case of a merge we:

1. Get free town relocation.

2. Have empty islands.

3. Coordinate with a friend or two and move together to suitable islands and cooperate to get the mines working quickly.

You don't get anything of this when a large player on your island goes to the graveyard server, if we follow your suggestion and ghost our account we are at risk of losing our place(s) on other islands when we get ghosted and loosing our resources to because getting ghosted requires not logging in for 30 days straight during which we are defenseless.

That said, a large amount of players hated resetting mine levels and wanted to keep things as is to keep the old mine levels but the devs got the wrong conclusion from their protest and made one of the new merge target worlds to be "the good old days" with no bonuses and ended up having it pretty much a ghost server in most language communities.

Other than this your reply to 1.a) did not remedy the design flaw I mentioned, a donation account will donate to one island until it gets it to a high level then move to the next after its owner is happy with current level which is making it expensive for cheaters same as my suggestion but mine does NOT have your problem of Penalizing honest players in needlessly.

1.b) Problematic donation accounts have only one city so there is no islands B and C it's just one island so they are having no problem.

1.c) I was expecting you to give certain answer, a not so smart one, but I didn't want to mention it and adress it like a) and b) actually I was not going to mention b) but changed my mind at the last minute.

3. What can I say, you don't see the analogy

I keep mentioning the draw backs of ghosting your account and you insist on it, you even gave a more flamboyant idea, wait for the next merge

Also what about new players, and soft merges? Because, make no mistake,the next merge is going to be a soft merge transferring the new small worlds they keep releasing every now and then to the older ones.

I know the benefits of ghosting but it's not easy for everyone as it's easy for your 11 accounts on the edge of the map, I hope you can get this.

4. Isn't the penalty island specific? So if they remove the colony they will not have the penalty anymore, are you confused about your own design? Because according to your design what I said is totally correct, you are concerned about players losing 9000 gold and 1000 wood for building the colony that you a tooltip to stop this from happening but you are not concerned about players having huge penalties.

Quote from User12996

I honestly have no idea why you'd think I'm badidol's burner account. It's pretty funny. I'm probably just a realist.

I did NOT say you are badidol's burner account, Cheech said so and I made a joke about it, a joke you didn't get.

Read carefully please.

Quote

The debt isn't any different than moving to a different island and starting over with donations. That's the whole thing, you act like the debt is a huge penalty. It isn't. It's simply the price that was already donated to get the mines where they currently are.

I thought you said "mine should be shared per island" now you are saying it's same as starting over with donations i.e. as if there were no cooperation or "sharing" per island, a bit contradictory.

Quote from User12996

Just for the sake of it, let me put some numbers to this.

Let's pretend the Saw Mill is level 30. This is a total amount donated of 7,657,355.

Player X is ghosting off and he's donated 6,130,869. The Saw Mill now has a 6,130,869 wood debt, but still functions as a level 30 Saw Mill. Plus, other players can now move to the island to take Player X's spot.

Once the players on the island pay off the 6,130,869 wood debt, they can continue donating to level up the Saw Mill. If that player never donated, the Saw Mill would be just under 23.

Saw mill | Ikariam | Fandom

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That's a bad example, try considering luxury goods, it takes more than 22M wood to reach level 29 for luxury goods not 30, just 29.

Now consider this for resources that doesn't have production boost in a certain world, like marble in the 3rd target world in the last merge.

Quote from User12996

All it is is a difference of opinion.

Correct, I'll have to leave it at this point and let the devs and the community decide on the subject.

Maybe even remove the whole idea of refunding donations unless there's a merge, like it was before.