Have you ever wondered what ally market inflation looks like? I have some screenshots for your consideration, and after that I'll talk about some ideas to put a stop to this problem that has been damaging KAW for too long. This inactive pro-pack ally with humble stats was hired by my wife from No Owner some time ago: Today, the ally was hired away: 8 minutes(!) later, it looked like this: You may not have noticed, but the ally was volleyed from around 9bil to more than 2tril! This is absolutely ridiculous, and yet neither the first nor, probably, the last time this kind of thing has happened. It gets harder and harder for low through middle stats players to hire and keep decent allies. This is one of the key problems that lead to the extinction of ATA's games Gangs At War (GAW) and Future Combat (FC). So before it happens to KAW as well, some countermeasures should be taken. 1. Make low-price allies exclusive for non-LCBC players Allies below, say, 1bil should only be for hire to players who have not reached LCBC (lowlands complete, buildings complete) yet. Similar thresholds could be implemented for higher stat ranges. Or just give the very small players a virtual-ally spell that will cover their max plunder bonus without a need to own allies. 2. Do not delete inactive non-pro accounts, but keep them as potential allies Instead of deleting non-pro accounts after some time of inactivity, they should just be taken from their current owners, who should be given the usual refund, and reset to a hire value of 10,000 (or higher if their stats are worth it). 3. Create another way to transfer gold between accounts I know, I know, most people think that this idea has been suggested many times, and that it sucks. To some extent, I do, too. Yet other people seem to have a need of transferring billions upon billions of gold from one account to another. And they just can't abuse the ally market for this need any longer -- I cannot imagine any other reason for volleying a sorry-stats ally from the example above than the need to transfer gold. Another example: my wife used to advise new players to get the Commander Achievement level 5 (own 250 allies at once, if even for a brief moment) very soon in their kawreers by hiring lowest-cost allies (10k), not volleying them. Well, this has not been possible any more for quite some time. Back then (about two years ago), it was possible, even easy, for every new player. Disclaimer: I'm not implying that active new players shouldn't get their startup volleys - I don't care if they get volleyed up to 10 or even 20bil. But it's inactive ones we're talking about here, and even the active ones get ridiculously overpriced these days. We may one day reach a point at which no one else than LB players can own allies at all, and that will be the death of KAW.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. And don't forget that 30mil in FC was comparable to around 3bil in KAW, or even more. Well, let's hope that the new lands will keep the LB players busy, at least for some weeks, so that they leave the ally market alone for a while.
I haven't played this game in a while so when I got on recently I was shocked to find out how hard it is to find and ally starting under 1bil. I hope it's just some dumb error on my part because that is quite an inflated price
I believe a way to keep player retention with new players is to add more to the newbie spell, not just the bonus 100% plunder, but complete removal of the MP ally cap for them. Once the spell expires when said player logs into the game they get a tutorial on how to buy allies and what else they need to know about the market.
I lol'd Also use of the imgfit code would be nice to device users, it stops that pesky side scrolling
I agree with getting rid of MP for them for a bit. Think back to when you first started. 1 nil was a lot of money especially to be "wasting" it on allies. No one starts this game and thinks right away to buy allies. They want to build and that what makes it fun and draws them in. Allies are way too overpriced for beginners.
When a player does the tutorial, doesn't it make them hire an ally? (At least on PC it does). This dev-created ally should stick with the player when they start the game, so that when ever someone starts the game, there is a spare ally created. This way there will be lots of small allies for new players to hire.
Yeah that's true they do make you hire an ally. I wonder how that works now because it's legitimately hard to find an ally that cheap now haha. Unless only people that small can find them now. Huh now I wonder if that's the case and that's why I can't find them anymore... Edit: proved that theory wrong by finally finding an ally under 20k. But still they do not stay that cheap for long.
I really like the suggestion of allowing certain types of people to hire low level allies. While it's nice that my allies get hired from me to receive profit, I am unable to hold onto allies to keep max plunder I am currently new and unable to make decent money hitting the epic battles because I don't have ally bonus. By the time I go in to hit, my allies have already been bought
While my wife and I have passed this annoying stage long ago, we still do remember it, if not from KAW, then especially from the other ATA games, GAW and FC, which had to be shut down for reasons like this. In the "KAW middle class" where we currently are, it is still possible to hold enough allies for max plunder bonus or even half-decent BFA. But with inflation going on and never getting better, there will be a point at which even players my size can't hold onto their allies or get enough new ones to keep their max plunder bonus, let alone BFA. Besides, I firmly believe that people shouldn't burn the bridges they just crossed. They will be sitting on the other site quite lonely, and this is a bad idea for a community-based game. Unfortunately, many LB players don't seem to share this thought. They behave like "the 1%," not caring about society as a whole. Asking them nicely not to hire low-priced allies will sooner get you farmed than make them stop. "Free ally market" and "How to make billions as an ally trader" seems to be their way to go instead. So most of us even stopped commenting on it, and sadly, many even left for good. I'd like to see a change in those LB players' way of thinking, that's the only way to save KAW in the long run.
Last time I checked, most clans weren't so generous that they granted item phases to poor newcomers. And you won't get new players excited about this game if you tell them that the only way to grow is to constantly buy SoDs for $5 a piece.
If he really wants it and has a place which will allow him to take all the time he needs for the item phase I'll give one to him.
That's nice. We have fostered some new players or our clan mates' smaller alts this way, too. But in KAW as a whole, how many players would do the same?