Should units have a shelf life?

[crazeejay]

Don't ussually comment but this would drive folks whom already have one foot out the door to be completely out and looking for lawers. When sold to consumer as industructable it means exactly that, industructable. Always and forever on your account till servers shut the game down.

I always lol when someone mentions lawyers here. Have fun with that buddy! They took away my pixels your honor! LOL

[Danger Mouse]

I'm quite sure that if you read the TOC you'd find sufficient fine print to say that Gree retains the right to modify any and all game content at their discretion, regardless of what you may think you purchased.

[Pidgeot]

you're missing the point entirely. The biggest problem is exactly that players hang on to every unit they get that is indestructible, and since Gree aren't as generous as they once were with boosts, this leads to massive advantage for active old-timers that is essentially killing the game as they try every means under the sun to fix it and just foul things up more (equipment, monster stat inflation, etc.)

Giving all units a shelf life renews the game as a matter of routine and removes the need for all that in one action. Gives old players something to play for as they could lose their advantage and could be dethroned if they rest on their laurels and don't participate to renew units. Gives new players hope that they can realistically reach the pinnacle one day - as at the moment they have a snowballs chance in hell of getting to the top unless they part with tens of thousands of dollars to bridge that gap or all old timers bail from the game. The competition that makes the game great is renewed, and hopefully most of the snafus that make it not so great are removed as the game is greatly simplified.

But the player base dont want to have their units taken away. We all worked for them and want to keep them. Something should change but not on a mass removal process.

[Danger Mouse]

But the player base dont want to have their units taken away. We all worked for them and want to keep them. Something should change but not on a mass removal process.

well then, the game is doomed, as there is no way to counter the imbalance bought on by permanent retention of units and boosts into the infinite future. Hence the current exodus.

[Pidgeot]

well then, the game is doomed, as there is no way to counter the imbalance bought on by permanent retention of units and boosts into the infinite future. Hence the current exodus.

Like I said, there should be a way to fix this in a way everyone can agree with. No one wants to have their units taken away from them. I say we have events that use different unit stats. I do think full assault will fix this. Maybe have a cycle were dont use unit boost. There are a ton of things that can work without taking away peoples units.

[Danger Mouse]

Like I said, there should be a way to fix this in a way everyone can agree with. No one wants to have their units taken away from them. I say we have events that use different unit stats. I do think full assault will fix this. Maybe have a cycle were dont use unit boost. There are a ton of things that can work without taking away peoples units.

and given their track record of rolling out new events, doing any of these will break the game beyond repair and drive more people away. careful what you wish for my friend.

[good gawd noooo]

Hate to say it but NO ONE wants to pay the price for gree's mistakes or miscalculations. Danger mouse is correct the game can not and will not continue the way it is. The only way to repair it is to take away some things and the higher the stats you have the more you will likely lose.. everyone is fine with the idea of change as long as it doesn't affect them and their stats.. well wake up people .. if done fairly the big guys will still be the big guys just instead of being a trillion points out of reach they maybe more like a billion out of reach and if they chose to take a break then they come into reach quicker.... if this game or any other is meant for long run it has to have a sustainable income and interest a challenge.. but no one is gonna face 300 gunmen with bullet proof vests and ak 47's and 300 rounds each with only a knife.. but that is what newbies are expected to face when they make new accounts.. EVERYONE will have to pay a price to get this game on track.. not willing to give up a few units or boost.. fine then prepare to give up EVERYTHING instead when game ends.. that is the cold hard reality and that is exactly what is coming and sooner then you may think

[Pidgeot]

Hate to say it but NO ONE wants to pay the price for gree's mistakes or miscalculations. Danger mouse is correct the game can not and will not continue the way it is. The only way to repair it is to take away some things and the higher the stats you have the more you will likely lose.. everyone is fine with the idea of change as long as it doesn't affect them and their stats.. well wake up people .. if done fairly the big guys will still be the big guys just instead of being a trillion points out of reach they maybe more like a billion out of reach and if they chose to take a break then they come into reach quicker.... if this game or any other is meant for long run it has to have a sustainable income and interest a challenge.. but no one is gonna face 300 gunmen with bullet proof vests and ak 47's and 300 rounds each with only a knife.. but that is what newbies are expected to face when they make new accounts.. EVERYONE will have to pay a price to get this game on track.. not willing to give up a few units or boost.. fine then prepare to give up EVERYTHING instead when game ends.. that is the cold hard reality and that is exactly what is coming and sooner then you may think

There are 2 things wrong though. The new boost buildings provide really large boost. That with 20 levels provides 80% to my unit boost, which are large. Another thing that may work is completely remove ALL units from that epic boss and compensate all the players with gold for them. Something like 5 gold a unit, which would be fair since a lot of use spend the whole 6 day event farming. Those 2 things are the problem. I would even go as far to say nerf the new unit buildings and reduce the levels to 10 and also compensate those players.

As for new players, I was thinking maybe start them off with a unit worth 5 or 10 billion attack and defense and let them go from there.

[J-manKometh96]

Compensate? This is GREE we are talking about lol. One thing I keep hearing is that new players will never catch up to older ones. That is very true. However, who cares? The only time it really comes into play is WD. Beyond that, new people should all be roughly around each other unless one went crazy and leveled up insanely. Keep raising the level cap at a regular rate and most new players will never come into contact with the top dogs. While there may be some challenge, there is nothing stopping a new player from climbing through the faction ranks to a well ranked team and making large gains to be able to play at a respectably high level. Far more gains in far less time than the 3-4 years most of us have spent building accounts.

[ju100]

I'm not sure everyone is getting what Danger Mouse is proposing:
If units get a shelf life of one year, top players will still have an advantage, since they'll have their current advantage for one year. They be able to farm bigger rewards during this year than the average Joe. Those farmed units won't disappear at the same time than the t0 pool of unit. After 365 days, the t0 pool disappear, but top player would still have their advantage IF they are as active as everyone (not relying on their +3 yo bonuses)
It really is a good idea to get some fun in the game : but Gree would have to release some good units from time to time, like in the Funzio days

[DEWIN NUTTIN]

It's great to dream.
A dream is all you've got.
Why?
Because NUTTIN is gonna change.

[HellRaizer]

If an idea like this was implemented I would happily return to the game. It would certainly alleviate that hyper-gree-statflation and would allow new blood back into the while while allowing the leaders to remain top while they are still actively playing.

Although I wouldn't know it could initially be released.. Would all units > 1year be removed instantly? Would current units stats then be reduced back to stats of a year ago.

[Sparkle]

Elegant? You are describing Cud.
Enjoy a great meal then puke it up so that you can eat it again. Yummy.

[Danger Mouse]

J

If an idea like this was implemented I would happily return to the game. It would certainly alleviate that hyper-gree-statflation and would allow new blood back into the while while allowing the leaders to remain top while they are still actively playing.

Although I wouldn't know it could initially be released.. Would all units > 1year be removed instantly? Would current units stats then be reduced back to stats of a year ago.

I'd say you have 6 months, then all units older that 18 months (6 months warning plus 12 months anniversary) all units in your inventory older than 18 months go. Then the rolling 12 month shelf life on units kicks in.
-
Otherwise I'd say get your fork, this game is done.

[Agent Orange]

This is how the playing field gets levelled over time and the game renewed.

The game suffers from massive inequality where newbies, no matter how much money they throw at the game, will never be competitive with active old timers that have all the great boost units from 3 years ago. The are forever behind the eightball with no hope of ever locking horns with those guys.

The solution gree has for this is massive, ridiculous stat inflation where unit strengths lurch spasmodically in leaps and bounds, usually over a weekend where if you miss out, well, you REALLY miss out.

It seems to me that the much simpler, far more elegant, and far more sane solution is simply to give all units a shelf life. Say 1 year, then they disappear from your inventory on the anniversary date of when you acquired them. And with the unit also goes the boost attached to it.

Old timers have to stay active to keep ahead of the pack, not just rest on their massive laurels built up over time from the days of massive boost bonuses.

Newbies have a sliver of hope that with time and activity they will be able to get to the top of the pile eventually.

There is no need, ever, for stat inflation.

What do you think?

I don't like the idea. New players get some major advantages because of stat inflation. Most of the LLPs I've created in the past month are catching up stat wise to my 3 year ols LLPs raw stat wise. I do suspect that something unit or graphic wise in my oldest player accounts is what keeps triggering lock outs but expirey dates on units probably would not fix this.

I get the feeling that new players as in brand shiny new have dropped off considerably because as a new player with just the gree guidelines the game is now too convoluted to figure out.

As someone who has built a number of LLPs recently I can take advantage of a number of things I know about the game such as defece buildings being useless as well as unit buildings for the most part in the opening stages. Even valor units have limited appeal since you have to level up the second round of unit buildings.

Putting a brand new LLP into a small faction in WD is a fast track to ramp up stats. FL due to low to no income isn't as relevent. Actually I'm starting to wonder if money buildings are that useful any more since I stopped doing FL.

The dev effort would be far far better served by having a manager who looked at the game overall and actually fixed it with a long term vision so that buildings and cash/valor units were relevent.

Also fixing the numerous issues that still plague the game.