[Suggestion] Increase training difficulty during the second half of blueranks

[Urcaguary]

I understand that training up in the past was way too difficult for new players to do well. You had to do a specific set of actions in order for you to have a feasible army at lieutenant (now ensign) and they were hard to come up with by yourself. It is a good thing it has become possible for everyone to train to an appropriate level to participate in the game. But I think training now is easy for too long. The training troubles for most armies start at lt gen now. I think, and I have heard a lot of similar voices, that this is too late.

Thus I would like to suggest making training harder at an early rank. At a stage where, the new players will have come far enough to explore other parts of the game rather than endless clicking. The admin team has stated they like the blueranks for it's purpose to let new players learn several game mechanics. I assume they mean things like PvP and joining armies. But at this point, there are no other blue ranks around except for the 7 people that train up semi and then log in once every 3 days. Even the people that check in twice a day make it to green. So there are barely any people for these new blue ranks exploring the mechanic of PvP to hit in PvP. Or get hit by in PvP.

My suggestion would be to make training increasingly harder from the rank of captain. It is the point where a lot of units start using tier 2 units. I think it would be a good idea to make training from captain and onwards in such a matter that ranking armies will reach brigadier or major general after 24 hours of CF. That way nearly all countries will still have a HC up by the end of the CF. For PvPing armies this means a lot more difference in ranks. Right now a lot of the PvPers are the same rank, which causes rivalries and irritation within a country. They all start as lt gen and vm at CF ending and promote to marshal, knight and so on on the same day as all other PvPers in the entire playerbase. By making training harder in an earlier stage, some PvP'ers will start the war at captain, some at major, some at lt colonel and some at colonel. As the age progresses there will be even more variation in ranks. Some people don't join SFs a lot (by driving main for example) and stay in the various general ranks. Some like to rank up as quick as possible to PvP ranking people and thus try to get to the ranks of marshal, knights etc as quick as possible. When the variation of ranks within the same country, people will be more likely to work together to achieve a common goal, which is winning the war.

Another benefit would be a smaller gap between the ranks of new players and more experienced players. The probability of the new player starting on the first day is low, it is more likely for him to join on any other day of the age. Let's say the new player has the motivation to click for 15 minutes straight just training. They won't be as efficient as most of us are by now so maybe he will make it to lieutenant and I feel like I am a bit optimistic here. It would mean that, a lot of the other people will be the ranks of marshal and knight. That means the new player is at about half the ranks of the rest of the entire playerbase. The authority ratio would also be about half that of the rest of the playerbase. I would give up on playing if I saw every single player is twice as far away (or more) as I had gotten. Keep in mind here that the new player doesn't know the age will be reset in about 1 week and everybody will be back on level terms. By making training harder at captain, the difference for new players with the existing players will be smaller. There will be people for them to try and overtake ranking wise. There will be more PvP targets for them to explore the PvP mechanics.

As a result to the aforementioned change, it would be wise to reduce the recently upgraded garrisons in an according fashion. All ranks and armies will be weaker than we have recently played with and all of us would like to do 3 man SFs as SF #1 during most of the age. This becomes another benefit to new players exploring the mechanics of SFs. Right now due to the garrisons being balanced for everyone to have at least the rank of vm and later at least baron, the possible bluerank joiner will get a load of injuries from the first few SFs. When garrisons are balanced with making trainng harder at an earlier stage, their army will stay healthier during and between wheels.

EDIT: As a result of the quick training by every unit to marshal certain unit types have become somewhat obsolete. In Europe Pikemen and in Asia the Magar Infantry line were used to quickly train up to vice marshal to have a rank advantage over other countries during the early days of the age. After marshal however, these units would have a set back and get passed by the other ranking units and get more hurt in PvPs. These strategies are no longer viable, as by the time their advantage is over the game is still in cease fire mode of the age. If training is made harder from halfway the blue ranks, these strategies will become viable again and thus the strong tier 2 ranking units used in a quantity similar to the other units.

[Dragline]

yes make it harder, and i dont mean adding more stupid scenarios to click around delete them as well

[Dogberry]

Sometimes I wonder why this game bothers having SO MANY ranks, just to have players be able to speed right through them. Why take the time and effort to balance a state of gameplay that exists for 10 minutes as players transition to higher ranks?

This suggestion seems like a very effective and appropriate way (though not necessarily the only way) to handle this issue. Rank diversity will improve the game, and a plan like this can help lead to this goal.

[Nuvelle]

Any suggestions on how much harder to make training?

A straight +X% on top of all training from Y rank? Or scale it up so it gets even harder harder again as the ranks climb?


I like the idea, just need some numbers throwing into the pot to go with it.

[Urcaguary]

I would increase the difficulty a lot from the rank of captain and onwards in a way that units like champions can get to brigadier or major general after 24 hours. How much the increase needs to be in order to achieve that... I dont really know. Especially since I have no idea how easy training was made. I would start with resetting training (on dev or stagin) from the captainrank back to how it was previously and tweak it from there. There are probably enough people willing to click there to test how long it takes for them to brigadier. Maybe the old settings are too hard, maybe too easy. Only one way to find out.

[Myth]

Thing is the game only really starts at General. So we don't want it to take players much effort to get there.

[Urcaguary]

Thing is the game only really starts at General. So we don't want it to take players much effort to get there.

Because training became so easy... There was always plenty to do for blueranks once wartime has started. Join SFs, PvP, drive Main as 2ic. I have even seen people plan wheels as blues.

edit = or remove blue ranks at all if that is really the admin view.

[Frans]

If the concern is the game only starts at general, why not enable HQ access, forming of armies and viewing all other cmdr stats for blue ranks?

You can increase training difficulty and thus rank diversity without creating problems of not being able to form a HC or for new players to experience the complete game.

Arguments that put HQ access and forming armies on higher ranks (massive amounts of rogue armies, spying, invasion of grey ranks to take over hq) have imo become obsolete.

[Myth]

Arguments that put HQ access and forming armies on higher ranks (massive amounts of rogue armies, spying, invasion of grey ranks to take over hq) have imo become obsolete.

Please elaborate. Spying is still an issue and will be more so if we make all those things accessible for blue.

[Frans]

Well how difficult is it currently to spy? And what are the benefits of a green rank spying compared to a grey rank?

I would argue right now if someone wants to spy, they can spy. Even with accessability on green ranks, that's done in 10 minutes.
I think the biggest benefit of spying is knowing the enemy's location, and any grey rank can view location of armies on the map.
Being green rank only gains you what, mp on commanders and exact size of armies? You can usually keep track of that to some extent as well.

In conclusion the most important info you can already spy on as a grey rank, and if you want the full info, it's easy obtainable.

So I wouldn't view spying-concerns as a major obstacle if you're trying to improve training/gameplay with some of the suggestions in this thread.

[Urcaguary]

Thing is the game only really starts at General. So we don't want it to take players much effort to get there.

Because training became so easy... There was always plenty to do for blueranks once wartime has started. Join SFs, PvP, drive Main as 2ic. I have even seen people plan wheels as blues.

edit = or remove blue ranks at all if that is really the admin view.

@Myth ?

[Tiralan]

I have to respond right

First of all, we really want to change/fix the training, exp, hero/unit/comm balance.
We know its wrong, we know how we got there, Its not that easy to fix.
We just have a new battle engine now, which is really better and was really worth it to tackle back then.

This is just one of the key aspects that has fallen behind in finetuning.
Ehm, the problem is, is that we 'repaired' the code from a lot of exceptions, exceptions and even more exceptions, inwhich every single situation had its own formula for exp, points, gold and whatnot.
We really don't want to return to a system like that, hard to understand to players, and horror to work with for the devteam.


Now, that all being said as some kind of lame disclaimer:

Exp now has a base value, which get multiplied by the amount of rounds.
SFs and Pvps have an aditional modifier to it, which makes them worth more than a training run.

We tried a exp calculation based on the army you are facing, in terms of authority, and even on numbers.
Those all were not working, yes we tried. Ofc you still would have the disbalance between rank armies and pvp armies.

So, even though I might not do a few nights of calculating the ideas im gonna ask for next;
If someone can come up with a good, solid, stable and fluid formula to calculate exp, that takes everything stated above somewhat into account, that would be great.
A think like this would have nothing to do with code really, it will be just a mathmatical equation.


And then the training of blue still should be increased, agreed.
However, the difficulty of training on blue is exactly the same as say, two years ago.
Its just that other factors (better heroes, faster exp gain) made the system flawed.
And unless somebody would have to analyse every rank's exp gain per terrainbonus, we need a better modification for this, which I didnt manage to find yet.

I dont see all lower than green disappear, for good reasons which people might or might not agree with, however, doesnt mean it can't come back to live and get more challenging/exciting.

[Urcaguary]

This isnt about the xp gain, its about injuries taken in training battles, which are lacking.

[Zen]

Also make ranking armies rank faster then PvP armies again.
A pvper should be 2 ranks lower then a ranker with the same time and effort.
(At least)

[Nuvelle]

This was added into the game in age 358 - blue rank training is now a lot harder.