• Those wishing to contribute to the game by making suggestions (both small and large) should read the following before doing so.

    Bushtarion largely runs completely automatically, and has been designed intentionally to be as self-maintaining as possible, with mechanics and balance considered at a completed point.

    Please do not spend large amounts of time coming up with complex suggestions in the hope that they will be read and possibly implemented in the future, unless you just enjoy the discussion, theory-craft, and such.

    The most likely changes will be rules-changes, specific number-tweaks to units, techs, and similar sorts of changes, and only if a large community consensus is reached as "proof" that a change would, overall, be an improvement, and are more likely to be done in batches, occassionally, not as a regular thing.

Suggestions to increase late sign ups?

Dark_Angel

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As things stand, the majority of people who will play a round all sign up and are playing within the first 24 hours (certainly by the end of the first weekend).The number of new accounts after this (that aren't restarts) is a nominal figure compared to the bulk of people who play at round start.

We need a fix for a number of reasons. The most important:

Starting late is a drag. Teching up takes time, its a slow, cumbersome process. If you're solo there is very little to do. If you find an alliance to shelter you, you're of no use to them and don't get the feeling you're part of the team for a substantial amount of time (you can't defend your new-found alliance members, you're a burden).

You don't mind growing very slowly at the beginning of the round because everyone else is in the same position. It is made more bearable if you're part of an alliance because there's the community aspect. Each alliance members usefulness is generally the same.

-

What can we do to make joining the round more desirable for new/existing players?

One possible fix:


  • Allow players to choose and unlock an entire route in one development. Players joining late start on an increased amount of land and enough funds to start this development. It unlocks all units in their chosen tech-tree (except the P-Unit) and allows them to get involved in the game in X amount of time (Perhaps as little as a few hours, rather than the ~week it takes to get up and running at the moment).

Making everyone tech up from scratch at the beginning has a clear purpose, to give everyone an equal start.

Later on in the game, this purpose disappears and we make playing Bush less desirable by making people "catch up".

I'm struggling to find a reason why we don't afford new players this opportunity. There are no balancing issues because the player is still tasked with gaining land in order to get bigger. We're simply allowing them the chance to get involved more quickly.

There's a similar impact on existing players who missed round start - They're put off by the invariably boring process of tech-ing, when they want to be up and running, defending alliance mates and attacking.

Only real drawback is that for brand new players it doesn't teach them how to tech up. But is this actually something you need to learn? It is one of the most basic elements of the game, if they choose to play at the next round start they won't find a massive gap in their knowledge.
 

Dax

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Alot of people can easily exploit not teching in order to boost land - I will ALWAYS ask a new-new player to tech intel and Geos, then not tech anything until they are at a seriously high land level.

This helps demonstrate two things to me as a leader/senior member:

1) They can steal land effectively given a good enough opening to do so
2) They can learn/understand/demonstrate that they understand basic flak ratios, as that is a major and terribly basic part of this game - Obviously any assistance needed is granted, but the willingness to learn is key if they don't know already.
 

Dark_Angel

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I see your point DaX, but that's just one particular play-style. People can still hit this unlock-all dev button and still make those choices.

But for me, personally, I like to get involved with attacking and defending as early on as possible. I get extremely bored if I ever sign up late in that I am sitting there doing bugger all but trying to get land while my allies are burdened with having to cover my back.

I think there's an argument for people wanting to play an important role as soon as possible in any game genre - There's a will to succeed and dominate. We stifle this impulse by making people sit on the sidelines for anything up to a week, and for no real reason in my mind.
 

Dax

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Oh if it's an optional choice (and teching can still be done normally), then I'm totally cool with this idea.
 

'Tiger'

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If its a choice...the round could be annoying for some?

Take DaX for example. If he chooses to tech normally, then fine. But say if i choose to tech all at once...then id be done quicker..then able to kill DaX countless times, steal all his land and make his round beginning even slower than normal? :/
 

Garrett2

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this suggestion is bordering on the inane. while the intention might be in the right place, this is a great example of go back to the drawing board and start over.
 

LuckySports

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I don't really see an issue with this as long as it is only much later in the round when this options becomes available.

Tiger - The idea is that it wouldn't be available until later in the round, after folks that started normally have already finished developing their route. Anything besides that is down to personal choice.


Garrett - If your going to criticize, at least explain what your criticizing and not generalize so much. It looks like your condemning simply because you don't like it, and without solid reasoning.
 

Garrett2

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where do i begin? the assumption by having no time limit imposed comes off as getting land is a hard thing to do. even if you buy it, it's not hard to buy land and get some acres to start buying units you can bounty hunt off others with quickly. this is one of many examples.

i'm all for making the game better but right now just cuz it's been announced it's changed hands (without changing hands) people are typing the first thing that comes to mind rather than taking the time to put forth thoughtful suggestions.

there's no way you could ensure that it'd be used for only new players as an introduction either. the premise is to gather more/new players after the round starts... if you don't make it as an acct sign up option for the first round you play... then the mechanism is beyond abusable.

then you give someone the option of starting instantly, then they can't in a later/subsequent round. then they quit. see foot, shoot foot.
 

Dax

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I dunno if you realised (pardon me if so), but this suggestion was for late round joiners. I shouldn't see this as appropriate anywhere below 4 weeks being left to go.
 

'Tiger'

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Tiger - The idea is that it wouldn't be available until later in the round, after folks that started normally have already finished developing their route. Anything besides that is down to personal choice.

In that case, seems a good idea.
 

Dark_Angel

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i'm all for making the game better but right now just cuz it's been announced it's changed hands (without changing hands) people are typing the first thing that comes to mind rather than taking the time to put forth thoughtful suggestions.

I haven't put forward my suggestion as the perfect fix, my main suggestion is people start thinking about very low late sign-ups rates as a bigger issue: I'd like people to respond with constructive suggestions to fix this issue.

I'm identifying a flaw in the game and asking people to come up with a solution. Mine may/may not work; I'm looking for ways to reduce the (currently) negative experience of starting late on. It is difficult to get involved, particularly if you're new. I'm looking at ways of reducing that difficulty. My suggestion is just one of (I'm sure many) ways we could make starting late a less daunting prospect for new players.

At the moment you join late and do a lot of sitting on the sidelines before you can start doing anything meaningful. This is at odds with the mindset of most casual/mainstream gamers, who want to be part of the action as soon as they step into the game.
 
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LuckySports

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where do i begin? the assumption by having no time limit imposed comes off as getting land is a hard thing to do. even if you buy it, it's not hard to buy land and get some acres to start buying units you can bounty hunt off others with quickly. this is one of many examples.

i'm all for making the game better but right now just cuz it's been announced it's changed hands (without changing hands) people are typing the first thing that comes to mind rather than taking the time to put forth thoughtful suggestions.

there's no way you could ensure that it'd be used for only new players as an introduction either. the premise is to gather more/new players after the round starts... if you don't make it as an acct sign up option for the first round you play... then the mechanism is beyond abusable.

then you give someone the option of starting instantly, then they can't in a later/subsequent round. then they quit. see foot, shoot foot.

I wouldn't go for it being instantaneous, or even a few hours, but if you could drop it to 2 days? That would be great. There is no way I would say implement this unless it was late round though, where there is considerably less time to tech before round end. It's not really abusable if it's only useable after everyone else has finished developments.

It doesn't affect how a person gets land really, many folks put off their developments a bit so they can keep uncapped land grabs for a bit longer. Whenever I go Pom, I will develop Gurus, Geos, and then speed through intel while getting nice and fat. This change wouldn't really affect that, but it would allow for individuals to get into the fight much quicker, once they hit the land goal they were aiming for.

It's not a big change, but I can see a few positive things it could have for the game. As long as the right limitations were put in place, its not easily abused. It's not just a change for new folks, a lot of the current folks that end up restarting late round would benefit from this.
 

Garrett2

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remember the more limitations you have to place on something, the more cumbersome the project as a whole becomes.

sure there might be a few quick hits and wins and there are many suggestions that have a few positive things that could happen. but change for change sake is not good. weighing the few positive things that could happen with the overall scope of what would need to be accomplished.

to make something like this work, there would need to be many/heavy limitations set/placed that (depending on how implemented) would need constant monitoring for a 'few positive' things... that may or may not happen.

the cost/benefit ratio is slanted heavily in the cost category. one cannot simply slap improvements here and there continuously and have something good happen in the long run.

anything that is attempted *should* take a round or two to be implemented. like most changes (unless some sort of major bug) happen between rounds and even if shortened... a round is a long span of time. because of this, one must be careful in what and how things are implemented.
 

LuckySports

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That's why I said in the other thread, that any potential change needs tested first :p

And this wouldn't be that hard to control. You could just place the single limitation of keeping it from activating until after a certain time period has passed, such as 50% of the round.
 

Max

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Another suggestion to think about that may also solve this problem:

Allow the development multiplier to drop below 1. If it kept falling, developments would continue to be quicker and quicker until it hit zero - after which if you have the money, you can get the development instantly.

At current development multiplier drop rates - this idea would not work. However, if the development multiplier was falling at the rate it used to (hitting 1 after 3 weeks instead of 1 week) then it could continue falling to zero after 4-5 weeks total, which I think is exactly what you may be after DA?

Azzer has already made changes (like scaling starting cash, gards, harvs, wheelies etc.) so that you can hit the ground running, so it's not too big a problem IMO.
 

LuckySports

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If you let it fall to zero, the techs would be free and instant.. might as well implement what DA was saying :p
 

Steve_God

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As long as it's after an appropriate length of time, eg, the same period that the alliance stats takes to come out (is it after 15% of the ticks?), then it would work well, as the vast majority of players that have played from the start will have tech'ed up by that point.

DON'T set this to link to the development modifier, as when playing fairly actively, it's quite common to not have started your final developments by the time it's dropped down to one, and it could be abused whereby those that have been forced to tech up the standard way, could be starting their main killing killing units (eg, CWs) at the same time as someone that has just started, managed to steal land quickly, and save the funds for only a main tech.
 

LuckySports

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I would suggest no less than 25% of the round having passed. I personally like the idea of 50% of the round passing myself.
 

No-Dachi

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I quite like the idea. This will give new players a taste of the game without falling hopelessly behind. By 25% of the round the rank 1 fight is usally decided, so it wont affect that struggle at all. For restarts in the top allies they have the option to hoard land like a mofo without techs. Spending no funds on basics and early techs to cover your land means you can chaintech once you're at a proper rank. For new players without an alliance, or a low ranked alliance, this is not an option, and having to to buy cost ineffective blockers to try and keep your land while teching takes a long time, especially if you're a casual player with a limited time online each day.

For those who are signing up late in a round to check out the game before the new round start it would be beneficial for all of us if those people were to get a good look at the game, instead of seeing hippies and yobs and land loss.

Another addition could be the implementation of a safe period. Say that new players who start after X ticks have passed gets a safe time of Y ticks where it cannot be attacked, for instance 432 ticks (three days). This safety is breached if the target hits the "tech all" button, or if the target attacks a non-bot player. This will allow them to build up a bit before they are raped, learn the basic of attacking, teching, planting etc without being landraped senseless. Apart from removing a few targets from the odd guy restarting I fail to see how this would hurt anyone.
 
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