Forum: empire-en
Board: [816] News from the world of Empire
Topic: [88125] Letter from your Game Design Team
[-88125]
WuerfelWilly [None]
:: April 5, 2013, 12:32 p.m.
Letter from your Game Design Team
Dear Community,
we, the Goodgame Empire Design Team have been looking forward to hearing the reaction to our latest update from 3rd of April with great suspense. Unfortunately, most of your feedback revolved around the changes made to currency looting from the robber baron castles and other kingdom towers. So we would like to take this opportunity to thoroughly explain our reasons for making this change as well as give you an insight into the work of design and balancing.
The difference between resources and gold is clear. Resources are stored locally within castles thus taking up storage space and are transferrable to other locations through the resource transport system. Correspondingly they must also be carried by units after being looted. Gold coins on the other hand are exactly like Rubies, a currency. Currency can be used globally and has no specific storage requirements across the kingdoms. Therefore there is no capacity limit for it and it does not take up any looting capacity.
Against our original intentions, the loot bonus gained from research and equipment has also affected looted Gold.
This bonus has the effect of allowing an army to loot significantly more resources than the enemy currently has in storage. That way, your gold looting is based on your own allocated looting capacity, which gives us the opportunity to set this bonus reasonably high.
However, in the case of currency there is no such limit and therefore players are able to receive a huge quantity of currency just by having a high resource looting bonus without it being limited by the size and looting capability of the army.
This has led to many players using the system in order to collect vast amounts of currency with very little effort. Some have even been able to completely bypass the need to collect taxes and have therefore demolished all of their dwellings. This has a very large impact on the game balancing, since the requirement for dwellings and decorations, which are important for public order and therefore resource production, determines the amount of free space in a castle or outpost. Tax collection is a primary component of the game that accompanies our players from level 1 upwards. Finding the perfect balance between collecting money from your people and increasing resource production through having a high level of public order is a key part of the Empire challenge!
In demolishing dwellings, levels of public order and food production have reached a point that is out of proportion. We reviewed the option to increase the construction area, but we felt that the affected players already have more than enough space. Additionally we cannot offer any extra options to improve equipment in terms of offering new qualities in the future. Furthermore, this imbalance is forcing us to demand more and more gold from our players in order to compensate for the uncontrollable amount of gold arising in the game. This endless spiral is gradually ruining the feel of the game for all of those players who haven’t decided to specifically target the currency looting exploit.
This left us with no other choice, but to put a stop to this exploitation.
We are in the unique position to be able to inspect and analyze precisely all of the game data of our players. With the help of this information, we are able to track player behavior and evaluate whether or not a particular development is detrimental.
The average level 60 Empire player has approximately 900,000 gold in his account. This is an inappropriately high figure that has been hiked up by certain players.
In the daily activity of level 60 players, only 60% regularly attack robber barons. A much smaller percentage does this several times throughout the day and a few of them earn vast amounts of gold simply by having an excessive looting bonus.
The vast majority of players have not been directly affected by the update. For those players who want to loot gold from robber barons, we have made sure that attacks with appropriate compositions will remain financially viable.
It was a mistake to tolerate this bug for so long, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of data to truly see how a function will develop in order to evaluate which measures need to be taken. Equipment items are still fairly new and many players have only recently discovered the true extent of the looting bonus.
You have our assurance that we do not make such fundamental intrusions into the game without taking due diligence. When it’s necessary, such changes are only made to ensure the long term enjoyment of the game for the players. The fact that we’re prepared to make such large changes shows that almost two years after the emergence of Goodgame Empire, we are still committed to offering the most enjoyable player experience to as many players as possible as well as keeping the player experience alive for many more years to come.
We are willing to learn from our mistakes and when necessary, make changes. Furthermore we will continue to monitor the development of this update closely. We will consider the influence that the update has on PvP and PvE activity and react accordingly. It’s even possible that at some point in the future, we might offer one off targeted bonuses for the collection of currency if it becomes apparent that players continue to need to receive special rewards from robber barons.
We still have great plans for the future of our game and need to make sure that the system works flawlessly so that we can maintain it for many more years.
With the introduction of the new resources we have given players completely new possibilities and we’re excited to see the new tactics that you will come up with. Local kingdom resources to unlock units, opening new dimensions and learning new ways to master the Empire endgame!
Your Goodgame Empire Game Design-Team
Dear Community,
we, the Goodgame Empire Design Team have been looking forward to hearing the reaction to our latest update from 3rd of April with great suspense. Unfortunately, most of your feedback revolved around the changes made to currency looting from the robber baron castles and other kingdom towers. So we would like to take this opportunity to thoroughly explain our reasons for making this change as well as give you an insight into the work of design and balancing.
The difference between resources and gold is clear. Resources are stored locally within castles thus taking up storage space and are transferrable to other locations through the resource transport system. Correspondingly they must also be carried by units after being looted. Gold coins on the other hand are exactly like Rubies, a currency. Currency can be used globally and has no specific storage requirements across the kingdoms. Therefore there is no capacity limit for it and it does not take up any looting capacity.
Against our original intentions, the loot bonus gained from research and equipment has also affected looted Gold.
This bonus has the effect of allowing an army to loot significantly more resources than the enemy currently has in storage. That way, your gold looting is based on your own allocated looting capacity, which gives us the opportunity to set this bonus reasonably high.
However, in the case of currency there is no such limit and therefore players are able to receive a huge quantity of currency just by having a high resource looting bonus without it being limited by the size and looting capability of the army.
This has led to many players using the system in order to collect vast amounts of currency with very little effort. Some have even been able to completely bypass the need to collect taxes and have therefore demolished all of their dwellings. This has a very large impact on the game balancing, since the requirement for dwellings and decorations, which are important for public order and therefore resource production, determines the amount of free space in a castle or outpost. Tax collection is a primary component of the game that accompanies our players from level 1 upwards. Finding the perfect balance between collecting money from your people and increasing resource production through having a high level of public order is a key part of the Empire challenge!
In demolishing dwellings, levels of public order and food production have reached a point that is out of proportion. We reviewed the option to increase the construction area, but we felt that the affected players already have more than enough space. Additionally we cannot offer any extra options to improve equipment in terms of offering new qualities in the future. Furthermore, this imbalance is forcing us to demand more and more gold from our players in order to compensate for the uncontrollable amount of gold arising in the game. This endless spiral is gradually ruining the feel of the game for all of those players who haven’t decided to specifically target the currency looting exploit.
This left us with no other choice, but to put a stop to this exploitation.
We are in the unique position to be able to inspect and analyze precisely all of the game data of our players. With the help of this information, we are able to track player behavior and evaluate whether or not a particular development is detrimental.
The average level 60 Empire player has approximately 900,000 gold in his account. This is an inappropriately high figure that has been hiked up by certain players.
In the daily activity of level 60 players, only 60% regularly attack robber barons. A much smaller percentage does this several times throughout the day and a few of them earn vast amounts of gold simply by having an excessive looting bonus.
The vast majority of players have not been directly affected by the update. For those players who want to loot gold from robber barons, we have made sure that attacks with appropriate compositions will remain financially viable.
It was a mistake to tolerate this bug for so long, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of data to truly see how a function will develop in order to evaluate which measures need to be taken. Equipment items are still fairly new and many players have only recently discovered the true extent of the looting bonus.
You have our assurance that we do not make such fundamental intrusions into the game without taking due diligence. When it’s necessary, such changes are only made to ensure the long term enjoyment of the game for the players. The fact that we’re prepared to make such large changes shows that almost two years after the emergence of Goodgame Empire, we are still committed to offering the most enjoyable player experience to as many players as possible as well as keeping the player experience alive for many more years to come.
We are willing to learn from our mistakes and when necessary, make changes. Furthermore we will continue to monitor the development of this update closely. We will consider the influence that the update has on PvP and PvE activity and react accordingly. It’s even possible that at some point in the future, we might offer one off targeted bonuses for the collection of currency if it becomes apparent that players continue to need to receive special rewards from robber barons.
We still have great plans for the future of our game and need to make sure that the system works flawlessly so that we can maintain it for many more years.
With the introduction of the new resources we have given players completely new possibilities and we’re excited to see the new tactics that you will come up with. Local kingdom resources to unlock units, opening new dimensions and learning new ways to master the Empire endgame!
Your Goodgame Empire Game Design-Team