Improving the new player experience: more gold when hired

Discussion in 'Ideas + Feature Requests' started by Kapitalist, Apr 1, 2016.

  1. Improving the new player experience: more generous parameters for being hired

    I have reported elsewhere that while the devs have been generous to new players by unlocking all lowlands, new players themselves are not in a position to exploit this because of a critical shortage in start-up capital.

    I often see recommendations to new starters to fill up all of these lands with 20 forges and 4 guilds, all at level 3. This build would need 505m gold to purchase and a further 1.5b in allies to be at max plunder. Though I absolutely do not recommend buying all of these buildings more than one at a time it's a good build because it enables the new starter to join a clan and hit The Reckoning straight away. Although it does require 2b gold in start-up funds, that can be achieved quickly under the current mechanics with helpful players and a bit of time.

    I propose that more help be given to new starters who cannot rely on third-party help and so are disadvantaged.

    Status quo:

    Under the current parameters a new player (let's call him Adam) finishes the tutorial with 30,000 gold out and, after several app restarts, free potions that can be sold for 2,296,875. The T1 troop building can be sold for a further 5,000 gold if desired. This kingdom with assets of 2,331,875 gold is available to hire for 10,000 gold. When hired at this price Adam receives 39 gold.

    After 100 hires Adam is now worth 1,313,743 gold, and has received 104,025 gold in transfers. His value increases to 10m gold after 142 hires, to 100m gold after 189 hires, and finally 1b gold after 236 hires. At this point Adam has received a total of 48,374,622 in transfers. There is currently a maximum of 1,000,00 that Adam can receive from being hired, a cap, and this is reached after 209 hires when Adam's value is still only 255,242,002. So after 284 hires when Adam's value is now over 10b gold he has only received a total of 96,374,622 in gold from being hired. This is far short of the 2b Adam needs for his build.

    Proposal A: increase the % transferred from the hire to Adam.

    Under the current parameters Betty receives her 10,000 gold back and a "hefty profit" of 158 gold when Adam is hired by Charlie. Adam receives 41 gold for being hired by Charlie. Under this proposal the difference in Adam's hire values (342 gold) can all go to Adam. The percentage would increase from roughly 0.4% to roughly 3.4%. Under this scheme Adam would accumulate gold more quickly before hitting the 1m gold cap after only 165 hires (instead of 209 hires) at which point Adam would have received 21,469,285 in gold. It still takes 284 hires to reach 10b gold, at which point Adam has received a total of 140,469,285 gold. Still far short of the 2b gold Adam needs for his build.

    Proposal B: increase the maximum cap Adam receives for being hired.

    By raising the maximum cap to 100,000,000 gold we start to see results that are a lot more relevant to the current playing environment. After 236 hires Adam is valued at 1b gold and has now received a total of 79,873,723 gold in transfers, 3,803,553 gold alone for the last hire. The amount Adam now receives continues to increase until he reaches the cap of 100m gold after 304 hires, when his value is now 27.6b. After 304 hires Adam has now received a total of 2,199,383,038 gold from being hired, which is enough to fund his build.

    To put this in perspective 2b gold is not very much gold to established players. Adam can't afford a fortress upgrade or a T4 building, and could barely afford to strip two cheap 1b allies from anyone miserly enough to think that was a safe banking investment.

    As for the later game hires, well after 27 more hires Adam is now valued at 100b and receives a further 2.7b in transfers. After a total of 378 hires Adam is now valued at 1T gold and has received a total of 9.6b in transfers. It's hardly unbalancing.

    The only downside is the time-consuming and boring 304 hires it took to reach Adam's goal, because we started from such a low base.

    Proposal C: increase the initial hire price from 10,000

    It takes 49 hires to simply increase the value of Adam's kingdom to 100,000 gold, so if Adam was initially priced at 100,000 gold we can save Betty and Charlie a lot of time without penalising Adam much for the loss of income. I only mention this because I've seen volleys abandoned before getting that far, and also have you ever sat in a crowded lecture theatre while your phone is vibrating incessantly from KAW volleys? Well me neither, but I know someone it happened to. So how about a starting hire price of 1,000,000 gold instead to save 95 hires. It would now only take 95 hires to reach 100m (instead of 189). Adam still hits the 1m cap at 260m but it only took 115 hires to get there (instead of 209). After 189 hires Adam is worth 10b and has received 95,704,300 gold in transfers.

    Proposal D: 1m starting price and 100m cap

    Adam hits the 100m cap after 209 hires and now has a value of 26.8b (instead of 27.6b after 304 hires). At this point Adam has received 2,139,435,730 in gold from being hired (60m less than he would under Proposal B).

    Proposal E: 1m starting price, 100m cap, increased transfers.

    Combining Proposals A,B, and C together Adam starts to receive gold more quickly, hitting the 1m current cap after only 39 hires. At this point Adam has received 21,186,899 gold in transfers. Adam now hits the 100m cap after only 164 hires, when he is worth 2,985,668,238 gold and has received a total of 2,046,634,749 gold, enough to fund his build. It still takes another 90 hires (total of 236 hires) to reach a value of 100b; Adam receives an additional 7.2b gold from being hired (totalling 9,246,634,749).

    To increase from 100b value to 1T value takes another 49 hires, for which Adam only receives an additional 4.9b in gold. Hardly unbalancing.


    Summary:

    The real winners under the current system are Betty and Charlie. In volleying Adam to 10b gold, Betty receives a total of 1,605,344,039 gold, compared to the 96,374,618 that Adam received. Adam does not have enough starting capital for his needs so is non-competitive. The system we have is a legacy from six years of KAW but inflation has not been taken into account. Large* transfers of gold to new accounts may once have been a concern, but I suggest the transfers are not currently large enough. It's time to look at this rationally and revise the parameters.
     
  2. Support.
     
  3. Name checks out.
    On topic: It's a pretty good idea, something that's very relevant for new players but almost irrelevant to bigger builds.
     
  4. Very well thought out and put, and it's something that we need now. Do you think chaos would care about getting 100m off a hire when he can hit hte once and get 3bil? This would vastly help new players and the majority of us wouldn't really notice. With a nearly 600T bc cost now I think they can give new players a couple bil to start
     
  5. this would actually be a good idea 100m when first starting out is everything to a small build but later on 100m is nothing no one will get rich off being hired still but would greatly help new players since the daunting stats of 550m+ lcbc builds already would scare a lot of people off....rapid early growth would get people to be hooked. oh look it only took me 3 months to be 15mcs and I can join most solid clans and hit most ebs maybe this won't be so hard....nah it still will be "so hard" but they'll be tricked and get hooked before they realize it
     
  6. Support. Something like this is long overdue.
     
  7. I agree with this proposal.
    The 1 million per hire is too minimal.

    At original launch, over six years ago, there was no cap for gold earned through someone hiring you, until devs shortly later made it 1m.

    Have to look at it from the perspective then though. With the LL and tier 1-3, 1m gold was ALOT. Being hired then helped tremendously for growth. Whereas now, being hired yields little benefit besides value lb rank.

    TLDR

    Support
     
  8. 1m gold used to be a lot but with inflation and new releases a cap of 50-100m would do nicely as it's not exploitable and it gets newbies past the stage where they fail on warbeasts.
     
  9. Support. Will help new players a lot
     
  10. Full Support. Great idea to help out the newer players.
     
  11. Thank you everyone for your support. As this is simply tinkering with the parameters there is not much work involved for the development team, and this could be a huge help to new starters. I hope you all took the point about reducing the number of volleys required too as this helps Betty and Charlie while doing their good deed by reducing the time taken.

    However if interested in watering down the proposals devs should consider the consequences. If the cap was increased to 50m instead (no change to starting price, no change to percentage transferred) then Adam would hit the 50m cap after 289 hires. He would then be valued at 13,282,669,086 and have received 1,059,838,658 in transfers. Half of what he needs for his build and sufficient allies to be at max plunder. It will take another 19 hires from Betty and Charlie for Adam to receive 2,009,838,658 gold from transfers, when he will be valued at 33,564,643,230.

    Adam reaches 100b after 331 hires and would have received a total of 3,159,838,658 gold from transfers. Adam reaches 1T after 378 hires and would have received a total of 5,509,838,638 gold from transfers.

    I think the devs should err on the side of generosity here as the sums involved are demonstrably not unbalancing (and will simply be sunk back into buildings anyway, so are also not inflationary).
     
  12. Support, very high effort thread, the figures included must have taken you a lot of time to collect :p
     
  13. None of this is necessary. You get first 24 lands unlocked and 2 week plunder spell now. If you cant make it through first part of game you didnt try hard enough
     
  14. its,not about whether you try or not its bring discouraged..... im kind if discouraged now cuz of lcbc stats imagine a new player would react and the affect it would have on them wanting to continue.
     
  15. No support
    Either there addict to KAW
    Just another overprice new player
    I would rather see a statical cap

    Example A player has 400/200/150/150

    Cap the max hire too 10 million so they can upgrade

    So sick of seeing a ruin ally market cause player don't know how to priced ally
     
  16. how about an additional tutorial on quests?
    op could help. But new players should also learn to do quests, we got many players with 5-15m cs yet many don't even bother finishing them to get some free xtals.
    Improved volleys + quests.
    +easy to get low-tier goals from events.
     
  17. What if the player (Adam in your case) received a specific percentage of his hire price every time he was hired. Say his hire price is 10,000 gold and the percent he receives is 1%. He will get 100 gold for his first hire. When he reaches a hire price of 100,000 gold his bonus will then be 1,000. This system allows for a fair bonus for everyone. The more you grow in stats and get hired the bigger the bonus to keep it relative to your player. Now I'm just using 1% as an example. You could raise it or lower it and maybe change it as the player progresses. I'm sure devs could find a way to make some cash and offer permanent bonuses to that percentage.