Please forgive the rambling nature of this post. I will be dealing with several concepts here, and it's difficult to tie them all together in a coherent manner, but I'll try. The thrust of this discussion is regarding player retention/growth in KaW, so, with out any more preamble, I'll just jump right in. Player growth is an important part of any game. If you stop being able to grow, or you run out of things to do, you'll quit and find a a new game. To that end, ata has always answered the question of "how do we get players to grow?" by adding new lands or increasing the tiers on existing buildings. This plan has, in the past, worked. I remember the highlands coming out. It was fun! I was beavering away trying to become hlbc when suddenly the hoarfrost lands were released. I found this to be frustrating, as I still hadn't completed my highlands. Still, I went on and tried to earn the hoarfrost board and Max those buildings out (I'm not even close). Before I could finish even moderately upgrading the HF lands I had, a new board skirt new buildings came out. It was at this point that, from a game perspective, I went into retirement. I used to do EE and very much hoped to be on the upper half of the roster (being on the Lowe half and getting crapped in is much less fun). Every new addition to this game kept me on the lower rungs of those rosters, and eventually my enjoyment dwindled because the work that I needed to invest to get where I wanted to be got to the point of being unreasonable. Now, I hang out, moderate, and chat with friends. Stirring crap on the BL is about all I'm good for these days. My point is, KaW needs a new way for players to grow. At this point, I sincerely believe that the more lands and tiers we add, the more players we will lose. Making more boards to cover is no longer viable, and it's not a very creative way to accomplish what ata wants to do (keep the game alive and the player base happy) To that end, I have a VERY rough idea that may work. You, the community, can fill in the details. I apologize in advance if any other players have had/proposed similar ideas to this in the past. Any idea duplication is unintentional, but in a community of this size is also sometimes unavoidable. Anyhow, We need growth that is attainable to the general public, but is not permanent (like a land or a building). Permanent growth simply widens the gap between old and new players. TEMPORARY growth that is attainable to the public will keep players coming back when they need an edge. Here are a few ideas for temporary growth. The easiest idea is to HIRE A MERCENARY. You can use gold to "hire" a mercenary which will boost your stats. There are 4 levels of mercenaries, depending on your income level. Rogue (weakest) Pack of wolves Herd of unicorns Dragon (strongest) Basically, these mercenaries act exactly like spells, but are purchased with gold instead of of mith. I am proposing this because this can act as a money sink, which helps kill inflation. It also gives a nice opportunity for a temp stat bump and some fun for the common player who either has no time for EE or who thinks EE is Problematic. DOES THIS DEVALUE MITHRIL? The answer is "no". Anyone can still cast spells, so, if you wanted to be super mighty you could hire a dragon and cast a few spells. People who use mithril and are utilizing all aspects of the game could still maintain an edge. A more complicated idea is this SIDEKICKS In this scenerio, you can take my above mercenaries and make them a permanent part of your army. How you get your sidekick would need to be ironed out, but, you could have only one at a time. The sidekick you own would have slots for armour and weapons, just like your main character! The key is this....... Your side kick has a base permanent stat boost to your over all numbers. That stat boost never goes away. But, what ever Equipment you buy/earn is Temporary and either "breaks" or simply disappears after a set time. The temporary nature of the Equipment keeps players in the game and offers them a chance to grow WITHOUT making a permanent chasm between the new and old players. It's also an activity that doesn't end in despair or frustration, which is how many players feel when new lands or building levels are released. Anyhow, sorry for the rambly nature of this post. If you have any thoughts or comments, please write them below. I'll be flagging this thread for developer review.
I like the idea, as someone who got about halfway into HL by HF I got pretty discouraged, I've recently come back and having some new mechanics aside from hit player/eb-> get gold-> dump gold into building/land would be really nice I support the idea, but it could be abused by those at the top
I agree I started playing like 4 months ago and I'm not even near hoarfrost complete, or even highlands complete for that matter
I agree, with this idea. As someone who doesn't find the time or interest to play anymore because I believe Kaw has lost it's edge. Something overall new and exciting might be worth while.
I can see this getting abused, hiring a mercenary looks to be an awesome farming tool an with 50% of kaw being alts. It just what this game needs for a speedy death...
No support I read it all how is this going to get anyone to stick around people will support you because you are moose.
Interesting idea. Not sure where I stand on it. I think just adding more equipment slots would be good. How about 12 more slots for new pieces - could require something like scrolls or banners to upgrade.
This idea only preserves the chasm long term. A money sink will only slow down mid size players from growth and get the whales to spend more to stay permanently maxed. This idea will do the opposite of what u intend. Of course it would enable a mid size spender to succesfully hit larger players. So ata may love the idea as it may motivate more spending. Just like the last idea I remember u posting which eventually became the pvp event. An interesting idea which was monetized into a spending contest.
More war types would be good to keep people interested too. Seems like there was a thread about a gladiator concept a while back that had a lot of support. Would be cool to see a free for all arena for indis. Or a clan vs clan vs clan war.
Not sure how I feel about this with the mercenaries or side kicks your working towards them and not growing as buying them would take gold away from growth leavening the big players big and the small kinds big then back to were they were needing to get more gold to do it again
Another thing this would do is create another purchase that has to be made for ee. So not only must u mith and xstal. You would then have to sidekick/merc for each ee war. This would wring more gold/nobs out of the spenders and further shut out budget players.
No Support. This concept would potentially kill off OSW even more. It would kill strip funds and growth amongst OSW clans and it would also make EE even more expensive and less enticing to play. This idea would be a good one if the Abyssal Lands never was released and if Hoarfrost was cheaper to attain. I feel this idea would only make the game less desirable. Especially since all this is really doing is creating an "ally" that you are going to lose without getting gold back.
All the past great ideas, such as this one, or creating another action bar that has it's on speciality like flight or naval fight bars. They all was basically killed off and made undesirable after the last two lands came out. Allies use to be a better means to increase your stats when HF came out but recently the ally market is in shambles.
I think because of the nature of armor breaking for a sidekick, the equipment for him/her should be desperate from your own, and there should be a new set of unenchantable equip specifically for the sidekick. This way, the grind for inferno doesn't get any harder.
Moose: This might actually be considered by the Support Team. Unless you took it from supports to do list.
Great idea...but the only big problem in the game is the inflation that there is.this makes that all is expensive (allies,lands,builds...) that when a new player try to play and see what left to complet all,its frustatring.i have an alt now with 8m cs .i have started to grow it after completing Lowlands one year ago...its hard to complet it in Hl,Hf...im doing ss,ts,tsg for it and seriously if a new player cant do these ebs only left to do hte for growing...
Although I dont like the sidekick idea, I like threads like these. This BC race is boring me and Im juggling the idea of retirement after osw