Discussion Bonus Recalculation - Changes in Culture

[DeletedUser]

See Announcements: "With our next update (to version 0.12) ..."

Thanks for confirming I am not blind ..... "With Our next update" does not tell me the day / date .... the next update can be next month also ...if it is so, I need not worry much about losing on my output and just keep collecting it till then ...

 

[DeletedUser205]

well last updates hadn't to long gaps in between

 

[DeletedUser]

Thanks for confirming I am not blind ..... "With Our next update" does not tell me the day / date .... the next update can be next month also ...if it is so, I need not worry much about losing on my output and just keep collecting it till then ...

There are usually 2 weeks between updates, so the next one will probably be next tuesday or wednesday ^^

 

[DeletedUser170]

I am trying to maintain 200% all the time on my own from the start ... as I have a small city with lesser buildings , Now this change is going to affect me really bad ... My production and coins output are going to reduce a lot with 170% ...Also before doing this atleast the dev's should have thought of changing the 8hrs Neighborly help time limit to 12 hrs .... the current 8hrs is of no use at all as all players belong to different time zone and we cannot get enough help for the cultures throughout the 24hrs ... As others have already mentioned I hardly get 3 helps a day and all around the same time ...my offline time ....leaving me without any help during my main playing hours .... So How is this change going to be of any help to players like me ??..... Another problem being in a dead neighborhood which I do think is a temporary problem in the closed beta only but then again this change could have been brought after the introduction of a guild / alliance system ...that time this system might have been more appropriate....

Edit : I was never bothered about the lower level of bonuses as I always tried to maintain it at 200% .... SO it doesn't make any difference having those lower level bonuses increased to players like me who I think are in a majority at the moment ...

It is still better to come up with these changes in the beta (especially closed beta) - we were told there would be changes. Also after a while your city will be more productive, as you have to sell the culture buildings anyway and other buildings requires much more place. Though it asks a new question: Would this makes city planning even more 1 sided? Right now we could have choose to have more building with less culture, and less building with more culture. Now it is probably going to change.

 

[DeletedUser]

I think this will be a good change. Anything that promotes more player interaction is welcome at this stage. Also, this will relieve the pressure of having so much real estate consumed with cultural buildings.

 

[DeletedUser231]

On top of these changes, you will now also always need the same amount of Culture between Bonus levels. Example: if you need 1000 available Culture to reach the first Bonus level, you will also need an extra 1000 available Culture to go from Bonus level 1 (125%) to Bonus level 2 (150%), and so forth.

Note: The required amount of available Culture to receive a bonus is still variable, but the distance between the Bonus levels is now always the same, rather than the current varying in the distance between these levels.

The new way of calculating the required Culture for a Culture Bonus will be easier to understand for you and estimating these values should turn out to be easier as well, making planning your city just that bit more convenient.

Most of this I just plain do NOT understand. It all sounds gobbly gook. Are you deliberately speaking like a politician and making this more difficult than it should be...?

To go from one culture oto another requires 1000 culture on each level.
0 ->1 =1000
1 -> 2 =1000
2 ->3 =1000
3 ->4 =1000

So to go from 0 to level 4 requires 4000 total culture?

So what is this Variable Culture? You say the distance between each level is fixed then you bring in a VARIABLE into this equation....If you have FIXED amounts and I have my own culture plus the culture from my neighbors visiting me why is anything variable?

From the sounds of things we are losing instead of gaining anything.....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

This whole thing is to confusing....Please rephrase this whole thing to plain ENGLISH, because reading others comments they do not understand it either....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[DeletedUser205]

@RugBug as I understand this, the variable is, that 0->1 isn't always 1000 (for example),
but this amount increases with your level (and than although the other steps till ->4 similar)
I hope, I got that right

 

[DeletedUser170]

He means, that you don't need 1000 culture for 125% at the beginning, but later on you might need more too

 

[DeletedUser]

I think this will be a good change. Anything that promotes more player interaction is welcome at this stage. Also, this will relieve the pressure of having so much real estate consumed with cultural buildings.

Player interaction is good provided there are enough players to interact or there is some way to get to know of the few available .... this being a closed beta all this options are limited as of now ... And with limited options if a new system is introduced we cannot get to know the real advantages or disadvantages of it ... thats why in my comment i mentioned that if this was introduced after some kind of grouping was introduced it would have been much better ... My scenario : I have discovered around 30 neighbors till now in this game ..out of the 30 only 3 visit my city ... I visit all the 30 neighbors but i still get only 3 neighborly helps everyday ....thats because the remaining are inactive / left the game already .... Now how will this system help a player like me to know the benefits and disadvantages??

The 3 who visit me often visit during my non-playing hours ... they sincerely do their duty of providing me neighborly help ... now does their neighborly help helps me??? No ... because by the time I come onto play the time provided (8hrs) for the help is almost getting over (just about 1hr to 30 minutes remaining) ... SO how does this new system tackle that situation ??that means a player like me can never get the benefit of neighborly help which the current change is supposed to be depended upon ??

With current ongoing system I could have atleast gained good amount of coins and production maintaining 200% bonus even if i was having lesser buildings in my city and more cultures .. But with this proposed change that will not work ... I will have to increase the buildings in my city to match the previous 200% bonus output by having much lesser cultures and expecting help from non-existent neighbors and that too during my playing hours ...

As i said they could have introduced this system after making the other valid changes so that we could have really benefited from it ... Changes like making the help timer 12hrs instead of 8 hrs... a guild or some kind grouping system so that all the (few) remaining active players could have come together and helped each other ... and then we, the testers, would have known whether this system is really working for the betterment of the game & players or for the worse.

 

[DeletedUser]

Looking at the second set of graphics it looks like the neighbour help does not have much of an impact (if any) on the first 2 levels. So if you do not have sufficient culture to reach these levels does that mean that the neighbour help is wasted for the recipient on these first two levels?

If you choose your cultural buildings and the mix of other buildings properly then the current system works (I am constantly at 200%).

With the new changes;

1. If the changes free up space for you to have more buildings and workshops then you will need more culture to build and maintain these buildings. This will reduce the cultural bonus even more.

2. If you get less cultural bonus as a result of these changes then you will need more buildings and workshops to produce sufficient coin and supplies to progress at a reasonable pace.

3. If you need more buildings and workshops to produce the coin and supplies to progress at a reasonable pace then you will need more cultural buildings to build and support them, so you are back to the beginning of needing more cultural buildings to support the increased buildings you have as a result of this change.

If the cultural bonus is being reduced will the cultural requirements for buildings be reduced or will they remain the same?

Is it assumed that the reduction in the cultural bonus will slow down the progress due to the reduced amount of coin and supply that are available?

An alternative suggestion to the new proposal is to split the cultural bonus into 2 parts thus removing the player focus from trying to achieve the maximum cultural value (170% in the new proposal) and on the second level of 150%.

Part 1

The bonus gained by the player. This can be split into;

100% - This is the base requirement for the city to operate.
125% - First stage bonus triggered when first stage value is reached.
150% - Second stage bonus triggered when second stage value is reached.

Part 2

The bonus gained from neighbour help. This can be split into;

10% - First stage bonus triggered when additional level 1 value is reached
20% - Second stage bonus triggered when additional level 2 value is reached



It is human nature to try and get the maximum every time. So by separating the 2 bonuses the player is focused on the player second stage bonus, while the neighbour help bonus is a variable bonus which comes and goes dependant on your neighbours and is an added bonus which the player is not focused on too much. This could give the possibility of 9 values for the cultural bonus;

100% - no additional bonus from either player or neighbour.
110% - first stage neighbour bonus
120% - second stage neighbour bonus
125% - first stage player bonus
135% - first stage player bonus + first stage neighbour bonus
145% - first stage player bonus + second stage neighbour bonus
150% - second stage player bonus
160% -second stage player bonus + first stage neighbour bonus
170% - second stage player bonus + second stage neighbour bonus


The Cultural Bonus Diagram could be split into three areas. The top area would have the graphic for the total bonus. The middle area would have the graphic for the player bonus (Part 1 mentioned above) and the bottom area would have the graphic for the neighbour bonus (Part 2 mentioned above). The combination of both of these bonuses gives the cultural bonus, shown at the top of the graphic, at that time (as the neighbour bonus would only be valid for 8 Hours)

I will stop now as my head hurts.



Jimmac

 

[DeletedUser231]

The system's Bonus should be applied to THE NUMBER OF PLAYER YOU VISIT. And not on the amount of players who visit you. That way you get Maximum Boost because of the work you put into the system. The system as it stands now is a MESS.

Boost relies on players visiting you and if you are not online to take advantage of the boost it is wasted.
Boost relies heavily on players visiting you....

But if it was changed so the amount you visit directly reflects on your boost then you win due to your diligence and hard work.

Right now you can visit MANY players and have only a few visit you...

So who benefits in the end....?

The lazy players who do absolutely Nothing can sit back and benefit and your effort gets minimal results.

Many things wrong with this whole system...

Offline times are not addressed
Non-player participation is NOT addressed.
Player inactivity and a general lack of caring is not addressed.

Switching the system over to a reward based system where you directly benefit from You visiting them gets a Big boost in your Culture...The more you visit the higher your percentage on a scale.

As an example....

Say you have 40 neighbors.....You only visit a small fraction of them then you get very little boost. But if you visit all your neighbors then your percentage goes to it's max. It encourages players to visit each other and discourages lazy players from just sitting and benefiting from your visit...If they do nothing, and never visit anyone They get zero Boost...Zero coins etc...

Our present system is utterly flawed to the EXTREME and all the weird fiddling will not address the basic problems inherit in it's weird system. It does not address off-line times, and it does not address other players who never do any visitations at all...Does it need to be Changed YES.....

 

[DeletedUser]

Hi RugBug

when you visit a player you get a bonus of coins (dependant on the level of your main hall) if that player has visited you in the last 23 hours then you also get a bonus of supplies (dependant on the level of your main hall). The cultural bonus is additional if they help a cultural building, likewise the coins if your main hall gets their attention or the construction time is reduced by 10% if your builders get their attention. So if you get a visit from a neighbour it does not mean that your cultural building will be motivated by them (it may already have been done). Likewise when you visit a neighbour you may not be able to motivate any of their cultural buildings.

 

[DeletedUser420]

I stand by my statement that the current culture boost wasn't broken, it was just so complicated that no one was able to figure out how it actually works. But since you guys are now "simplifying" it, can we get the exact formula how to calculate it?
Or better yet, if my required culture amount (100%) is 2000, how much culture will I have to have to reach 125% boost?

 

[DeletedUser629]

I stand by my statement that the current culture boost wasn't broken, it was just so complicated that no one was able to figure out how it actually works. But since you guys are now "simplifying" it, can we get the exact formula how to calculate it?
Or better yet, if my required culture amount (100%) is 2000, how much culture will I have to have to reach 125% boost?

2000 culture.

Example. to maintain 120% i need 1700 available culture. I need 3400 to get to 140%, this is another 1700 which is fair. However, to reach 170% i need 3500 extra available culture making it a total of 6900 available culture. With this sytem the difference is always the same, so i need 1700 culture for 125%, 3400 for 150% 5100 for 160% and 6800 for 170%. This may not be alot different from the current 6900 i need to get to 170%, but it will make it alot easier to get 150%, or even 160% bonus.

Keep in mind that the required amount of culture you need to maintain a certain level will increase by 100 every time you upgrade 3/4 smaller buildings, or the main hall for example.

 

[DeletedUser285]

In my opinion the new system is as bad / or as good as the old one. Yes, something will change, but I still think is pretty much a bunch of arbitrary numbers that make calculating/planning relatively confusing.

Keep in mind that the required amount of culture you need to maintain a certain level will increase by 100 every time you upgrade 3/4 smaller buildings, or the main hall for example.

Why 100? When is 3 and when is 4? What is considered a small building? Residence 2x2 ? residence 3x3 or 3x4 is still small building? What about Barracks 4x5 or 5x6 ?

To me the most logical algorithm to calculate the culture bonus would be this: if your city (buildings) needs N amount of culture, then you would need :
N x 1.2 for 120% bonus
N x 1.5 for 150% and so forth

Adjust the amount of culture needed by buildings and the amount provided by the culture buildings, but PLEASE implement a clear and transparent way of calculating culture/bonus culture.

 

[DeletedUser]

The only thing i'd like to see is whenever i upgrade a building, and that upgrade is going to increase the amount of culture required to maintain a bonus level, i want to have a message warning me about it. Sometimes i drop from 140% to 120% because the required culture went up by 100.

Why it's a 100? I have no idea, just something i noticed happening every now and then as well. I think it will increase faster as your buildings get a higher level, or when they need more space. But a warning message would make things more clear i think.

 

[Muf-Muf]

Thanks for your feedback so far, it is much appreciated! We'll try to address as many of your questions as we can.

There are usually 2 weeks between updates, so the next one will probably be next tuesday or wednesday ^^

That's correct: updates are usually done every other Tuesday. That means, the update to 0.12 is planned for Tuesday March 17th. Should any issues arise, this date may of course change.

Also, this will relieve the pressure of having so much real estate consumed with cultural buildings.

That is the intention, yes.

So what is this Variable Culture? You say the distance between each level is fixed then you bring in a VARIABLE into this equation....If you have FIXED amounts and I have my own culture plus the culture from my neighbors visiting me why is anything variable?

The value between levels, so: the amount of culture you need to go from Bonus level 2, to Bonus level 3 (= distance between levels) will always be the same after the update. So, between levels, this distance will always be the same. But, the value for the distance itself is variable, because it depends on your working Population and your available Culture. Let me try to explain using this image:

As you can see in the image, you will need slightly more Culture to gain the first two bonus levels (125% and 150%) in the new system, compared to the amount you needed for the first two bonus levels in the old, current system (120% and 140%). The amount between Bonus levels 2 and 3 is roughly the same, and for the fourth Bonus level, you will need slightly less Culture. These adjustments have been made so that the distance between the levels, is now always the same. How big this distance is, depends on your working Population and your available Culture.

SO how does this new system tackle that situation ?

This doesn't tackle the problem of inactive players. We have another solution for that, which will be implemented at a later date. More details on that will follow once it's closer to being released.

As i said they could have introduced this system after making the other valid changes so that we could have really benefited from it ... Changes like making the help timer 12hrs instead of 8 hrs... a guild or some kind grouping system so that all the (few) remaining active players could have come together and helped each other ... and then we, the testers, would have known whether this system is really working for the betterment of the game & players or for the worse.

Changing the timers would be a huge change from a balancing point of view, especially if you make them 50% longer. Though, that doesn't mean it is a bad idea per se. Please post this suggestion in our Ideas and Suggestions forum, so that we can see what other players think of such a change as well.

Looking at the second set of graphics it looks like the neighbour help does not have much of an impact (if any) on the first 2 levels. So if you do not have sufficient culture to reach these levels does that mean that the neighbour help is wasted for the recipient on these first two levels?

Neighborly Help will always be helpful. You can still reach the first bonus levels on Neighborly Help alone - provided that you have Culture buildings that can be boosted enough the reach the Bonus thresholds, of course.

If the cultural bonus is being reduced will the cultural requirements for buildings be reduced or will they remain the same?

The amount of Culture required for buildings will remain the same.

But since you guys are now "simplifying" it, can we get the exact formula how to calculate it?

We won't be releasing the exact formula for these calculations, but you are of course free to try and figure them out yourself!

 

[DeletedUser126]

For example right now for 120% bonus I need 21832 culture points. So any change to lower it is a good change, its not like anyone would ever get 200% at higher levels EVER.

I dont even ask for polish any more just tow hall as its waste of time.

I always have 100% and i have almost 5000 spare culture atm. At 100% atm.


I have merged your 2 posts into 1. Try to avoid posting 2 or more times in a row by using the edit button.

Regards,

Goryn

 

[DeletedUser]

Congratulations on a job well done!!!

One thing that wasn't broken you decided to fix by making it less useful and by doing so you managed to make almost non-existing interactivity even less appealing.
I thought that this is supposed to be an MMO?
...

Although I wouldn't agree with Porfirio's sarcastic tone I am afraid that I absolutely agree with him contentwise.
This change discourages coop play and encourages an "I can do everything alone anyway"-attitude. The mini bonus intended for neighbourly help is negligible. Instead of changing present content towards solo play you should concentrate on creating new team play content.

Apart from that thank you (the Elvenar Team) for a frank and detailed communication about oncoming changes!

 

[DeletedUser]

Thanks for your feedback so far, it is much appreciated! We'll try to address as many of your questions as we can.

You haven't yet answered "Why reduce the maximum bonus from 200% to 170% ??? " I mean what was the main purpose of doing it ... i feel it doesn't support the balance without reducing the resource requirement in the game ... specially the coins which keeps increasing on the Map, upgrades and researches to ridiculous levels.... the game as such is so hard to collect the current requirements that many of them are quitting in closed beta itself with not being able to bear the long in-between non-action resources-choked wait and if it becomes even more difficult to get the coins / supplies the waiting time increases and thereby boredom, making more players leave the game for good.

This doesn't tackle the problem of inactive players. We have another solution for that, which will be implemented at a later date. More details on that will follow once it's closer to being released.

Exactly !!! Thats what I am trying to say ... This change could have been done after the implementation of such a solution ... would have been more appropriate ... Why is it being released in such a hurry for a very minor issue( to most of them its actually a non-existent) in the game .... Currently getting help from neighbors is non-existent so bringing this change out of the blue which heavily relies on neighbor's help is absolutely a joke and useless.

Changing the timers would be a huge change from a balancing point of view, especially if you make them 50% longer. Though, that doesn't mean it is a bad idea per se. Please post this suggestion in our Ideas and Suggestions forum, so that we can see what other players think of such a change as well.

As I already said I believe it was already suggested before .... I am sure I have read it somewhere on this forum ...did not want to duplicate a suggestion ....but if its not I will do so immediately ...EDIT : Done...suggested here