Changing the Game’s Economics

[GodlikeNay]

This is a LONG post, so if you don’t like reading long posts, just move along to the next thread. I’m very interested in serious responses from more experienced players than myself.

Based on my own experience and posts that I have read on this forum, I have given considerable thought to this game’s economic system and how it can be improved. Let me start with a bit of a disclaimer by acknowledging that my experience in the game is limited by what I’ve experienced so far. I am currently at level 25; Attack-2274; Defense-3786; Income-68542; I’ve done more attacking and raids than missions at this point.

I would like to preface my comments by saying that this is not a “dog on Funzio” session. I think that Modern War has huge potential and I would like to see it become even better. With that in mind, I think the entire economic system (regarding gold) that is in place needs to be restructured. I believe the current system is designed to target a VERY small audience that is willing to spend 100s if not 1000s of dollars and is not at all friendly to the vast majority of their market audience.

(I’m not calling anyone in particular names with my following comment, it is just my perspective.) As I’ve played this game and looked at what I would get for $5 worth of gold or $10 worth of gold, I’ve thought “man, someone would have to either be a complete idiot or much richer than I am to spend anything on gold in this game”. I don’t think I’m alone in this sentiment. You just don’t get much for your money in this game, which inherently discourages you from wanting to spend anything.

I think Funzio needs to change their market strategy for this game: Instead of trying to get a handful of people to spend $1000, try to get a lot of people to spend $5-$10. Give people more bang for their buck. For example, units that currently cost $50 worth of Gold should only cost $3-$5 worth of Gold. Offer some units for $1 worth of gold.

OK, this is where I’m going to start needing some of the more experienced players to chime in.

I’ve heard a bit of complaining on the boards of how there are a few Gold players at the upper levels that have spent ridiculous amounts of money and beat up on everyone. If that is true, and people are allowed to buy their way to dominance with no checks or balances in place, it sounds broken. Under my proposal of giving people more for their money, there would obviously need to be some rules in place to keep balance to the game. I propose some kind of limit based on level or alliance size. For example, if your alliance is 200 people (allowing 800 units), you would be limited to taking “X”. “X” can be whatever is determined to be the best limiter. Maybe it is equal to 5% of the alliance in gold (in the above example, that would mean 40 gold). So you could only bring 40 gold worth of units to battle. Or maybe “X” is a unit number, like 20 (2.5% of 800). So, they could take their top 20 gold units to battle.

Having limits on gold units would help balance the game. These units still offer a substantial bonus over regular units, but the limited number of them is diluted enough so that if someone spent enough in-game currency, they could muster a defensive force formidable enough to have a chance.

The main point is to make Gold actually worth buying while at the same time not ruining the game. I already shared the idea of offering Gold units for $1 worth of Gold and some really powerful ones for like $5. I would recommend keeping everything under $10, maybe even $7. If you price them up too much, you run into the same problem you have now… a handful of people that are willing to buy and the majority of people saying “what’s the point”.

In closing, I want to point out that gold sales don’t have to be limited to units. I’ve got an idea that I think a lot of people may like. Create a character that can be unlocked through missions (the mission thing isn’t necessary, but I think it opens the door for some more creative thinking along these lines) that is a Supply Depot Worker or whatever. This worker, when purchased, will automatically collect money for your Supply Depot. A couple ideas I had with this was to offer a Supply Depot worker that could be purchased for $1 worth of gold and would last for 7 days; and offer a Master Supply Depot worker that could be purchased for $3-$5 and last forever. The name of the character could obviously be changed and I think it would be cool if he collected income from all buildings that returned income in an hour or less. I think this is a great potential money maker for Funzio and something that players would appreciate because no one is able to capitalize on the income from those buildings, but having it be automatic would be a HUGE boost in money. Plus, it doesn’t negatively affect raiding because pretty much no one raids those buildings and if anything it could make attacking more profitable as money starts to spill over people’s vault limits automatically.

Well, there is my 2 cents for now. Let me know what you think.

PS – sorry for the book.

[Nicz]

Overall good ideas written on ur post, but dont hope this will change something, or funzio's staff will take a look or consider your thread, that's dream...

[Lo2b]

Thank you for this detailed analysis. I agree with you in the low levels: it gives a huge advantage to buy some golden units. But that is no longer true in higher levels, because you get a lot more $ and you can bring many more units to the battle. The advantages of a golden unit therefore decreases when you grow in higher levels.

Last point: all your analysis is based on the point that people buy gold units for the battle points it gives them. I think a lot do just because they like the design, or the name, or just the idea that they can count James Bond as a secret agent among their army.

Therefore you do not prove that Funzio would increase their turnover if they changed the economics of the game.

[Aidan]

It's a vry good idea bt hard to implement at this stage.
Cn u imagine the uproar if funzio suddenly decided today to give more bang for their money as u say.
All the previous gold n money buyer will cry foul if funzio do that coz new player/buyer cn buy more for a lot less thn they did.
Funzio shud've figure n plan the pricing strategy properly before they even strt to launch the game.
A bad pricing strategy cn be catastrophic failure for any company

[GodlikeNay]

Aidan,

I agree that changing things in the current game would upset all the current gold buyers (and seem very unfair to them as well). This is the kind of change that would be easiest in a Modern War 2 scenario. However, I think that Funzio could make more money switching to the cheaper economy even in the current game.

Let me ask this; if there were a Supply Depot type character available in the game, would you pay to have the auto income harvesting? I would drop $3 in a heartbeat for that.

[Aidan]

Oh yeah. I certainly would. It certainly wud be vry handy. Like i said earlier it's a vry good idea n i agree on ur point tht funzio cn make more money by making it cheaper

[youj]

I don't like the idea. For one thing, one of the fundamental part of MW gameplay is raiding and attacking. If we have an auto collect income item, it would completely changed the nature of the game.

For players who have money to spend, it will make them even more powerful than they were before. Not only they have advantage in atk/def, now they also become immune to raiding. For players who doesn't, it would become a huge disadvantage, and they would not even have the power to retaliate by raiding.

It will be almost like the game forces you to spend gold => badd

[Tanner]

youj,

I think you missed two critical pieces regarding the depot worker:
1. Limited to harvesting from buildings that are one hour or less
2. Automatica harvesting will eventually cause players to exceed their vault when they're away from the game

GodlikeNay,
these ideas (cheaper gold, limited gold to percentage of something, unlocking characters, auto harvesting capacities) are some of the most creative ones I've read on this forum to date. It's incredibly refreshing to see someone suggest stuff like this, esp. in the face of a temporary game bug and intense whining and complaining in the forum. Thanks again for your thoughts.

[zynshmily]

I dont like the idea of putting restriction "X".

For players at same level, its a level playing field. you can't blame anyone for being powerful than you other than yourself.

the debatable issue is the level range on rival list. lv50s are exposed way too early to the top-tier players.

[GodlikeNay]

Tanner, thanks for the compliment. Hopefully some of these things can be implemented in the future. I know I would enjoy the game more with them.

Zynshmily, the point of limiter "X" is to make the game more equal in regards to Gold usage. As the game now stands, some can buy their way to complete dominance. Since everyone cannot spend $100s/$1000s on Gold, there is a major point of unbalance in the game and nothing setup to bring it into check. If my recommendation of making things cheaper is put into place, I believe that more people would be able to afford Gold units and buy them. However, those that can afford to spend $1000 on Gold would be able to buy even more and the same unbalance would be in place. A limiter of some sort is needed in the game. Gold purchases should make things easier for someone or give them an advantage, but it should never allow one player to dominate another player.

[GodlikeNay]

Lo2b,

Thanks for the response.

1. On your first point: I’m pretty sure that I have read more than once on this forum about high level Gold users that have a ridiculous attacking force. Are you saying that is not the case? I’m not at the upper levels, so I have to take others people’s word on it. It sounded though like there were those who have spent enough Gold that it overshadowed the defensive forces that non-Gold players were able to muster…even with large alliances. I am interested in finding out whether this is true or not. If not, it does diminish some of my points.

However, what happens at the lower levels does matter because if people get dominated and frustrated at the lower levels, they will never play the game long enough to make it to the upper levels. With that being said, I personally have not ran into many problems with Gold users at the lower levels, and I am not currently using Gold. But, I have obviously been implementing a different strategy than most since it is pretty much only the Gold users that have more attack and defense than me. That doesn’t mean though that there has not been opportunity for abuse from Gold users at the low levels or that it is not happening to others with a lower defense than myself. One of the best examples I can give was of someone around level 24 that had about 3200 attack. This was a major Gold user. The scary thing about this player was that they had this attack with only 125 units or so. They had an alliance close to 100, so they could have brought almost another 300 units to battle with an attack rating around 5000. At level 24, no one is safe at any time from someone like that.

2. On your second point: you are correct, I cannot prove how or why most people use their Gold, nor can I prove that changing it would improve how much money Funzio makes or how many people play the game. However, I’m not interested in the “how” or the “why” people use Gold unless it affects other people. Meaning that people can spend as much as they want to get money buildings or units with cool names like James Bond and no one really cares. What people care about is when it affects them in raids and battles. This is why I am proposing some kind of limiter. As for Funzio making money and people having fun, I think that any time you fix something broken in a game, people have more fun with it and will play it longer…which would likely equate to more money for Funzio.

A couple questions for you Lo2b (and anyone else reading this):

------Should a player be able to buy their way to complete dominance, when part of that “dominance” means being able to attack you and take your money and kill your troops with little to no consequences for them?

I say no, but that is my answer, what is yours? I say it ruins a game. I say it changes it from a game where people pit their different strategies against each other to see who comes out on top… to a game that compares who has the most real life money.

------Would you buy a Supply Depot worker for $3 if it permanently provided you automatic collection for your money buildings that refresh in an hour or less?

I don’t think most people have done the math to realize how much extra income that would actually be for them. It is huge.

[GodlikeNay]

Zynshmily,

On your point regarding the rivals list, I'm no where near level 50 right now, so I've never experienced what you are referring to. But, if what you are saying is true and at level 50 you are exposed to being attacked by someone at level 100... yeah, that seems lame. I can understand Funzio wanting to open things up a bit so that upper level players have more than 10 people in their rivals list, but going all the way down to level 50 sounds excessive.

Honestly, it sounds like trying to balance attacking/raiding/rivals would be really hard for Funzio. At the upper levels, every troop you have is probably pretty expensive and would be frustrating to lose. So, getting attacked by someone that way outclasses you and losing troops to them would be frustrating. On the other side of things, if you are the big boy and attack someone way smaller than you, you expect to be able to do that without losing much if anything. So, there is a difficult balancing act that Funzio has to face here where if either side loses anything it is frustrating. This must be why I have read that a lot of people stop attacking and raiding at the higher levels because it is too difficult to still be profitable. But, if you take away attacking and raiding in this game... it doesn't sound like there is much left at the upper levels.

Maybe they need to implement something like a more interactive option in regards to attacking/raiding.

[AncientJester]

China called they want - jokes, good post. It was well-thought and I like your ideas.

[duder]

Holy crap, I would buy a supply depot worker!

...if I were to spend cash on this game

[cg-gaming]

Personally I think they should gradually lower prices (a very small percentage every 2 weeks to a month) and offer occasional chances of free gold (small amount, like once every 2 weeks or so). One thing I would say they'd do is make some indestructible valor or cash units, but make them very expensive for their stats to help balance it out. One thing I'd like to see at a point is to offer buildings that directly produces units bought by valor points, like for example one that can produce a unit at 4atk/5def @ med casualty rate every 8 hours, with upgrade paths going two different ways: one that decreases the waiting time (from 8 to 4 in about 6 levels or so) using cash and one that increases the number of units you can harvest at once (about 4-5 levels, each resulting in one more unit harvestable) using valor points.

[andymac106]

Making a fancy building like that would make the game interesting nevertheless but that would change the structure of the game

[War Priest]

No hope for any of this to happen. Especially gold prices. They make millions at the prices now so why lower it, you know.

[SeqWins]

Somebody brought this thread back from the dead.

[Mad]

If Funzio is interested in giving free/low level players any hope in this game, I would like to make a couple of suggestions.

1. Allow the free/low level gold players to buy high defence units with cash or valour that are the equivalent to gold purchase but with defence only. These units would have minimal attacking ability. This would give us a chance to fend off some attacks.

2. How about creating a defensive structure that targets gold units. Call it the "Gold-repulser radar." It would be upgradeable of course. It could not destroy gold units because they are invincible, but what it does do is it deflects gold attacking units away from the attack or raid. For example it randomly chooses (depending on how much it has been upgraded) 3 or 4 of the attacking gold units and says you cannot attack. It will do this on a raid or an attack in case the gold attackers come after that "Gold Repulser."

Like I have said before I was at one time interesting in purchasing some gold for this game, because I really enjoy it, but I realized I didn't stand a chance against the higher gold buyers. But if Funzio could create a system where I could at least hang in there, I might be tempted.

[War Priest]

Somebody brought this thread back from the dead.

Damn it cg-gaming. You tricked me...