Inflation of team assets

[Chris]

An everlasting game (no resets/eras/ages/restarts). There are guilds/clans/whatever that can build shared buildings that benefit all the members or the guild.

The obvious problem arises, after a while they will build *all* stuff you prepared, what then?
One would say it is a similar problem to the inflation of individual players assets, but it is not exactly. Inflation of individuals start always a while after the player joined the game while the guild they join will be inflated immediately (since the guild started earlier than the player that joined it). Also an old player might stick to the game for other reasons (made too many friends in the meantime) plus you can always make them pursue some lame infinite numerical goals. Anyway, for individual players the problem is less difficult/damaging and triggers later.

I thought of:
- levels - each building the guild build have levels, each level is more expensive than the previous one (not really fun, after a while buildings will take like a year to build...)
- maintenance - each building require maintenance, this slows down building new one (or even stop it; but the nice thing about stop of progress here is that the players still need to work to keep the current "standard of living", some would hate it through, also it becomes devastating if the number of members in the guild is declining)

[Delifisek]

Design of Eve online best answer for MMO's problems...

Limit everything, put lots of instruments to break down tough guys (clans) (like band of brothers)

and have an computer controlled enemies for filling blanks...

[DV8]

I'm building an everlasting game and plan to (for as long as it interests me) to expand upon it so that players with some regularity get some new content. But more importantly, I think you need to have a clever "end-game". Personally, I'm focussing on crews (guilds, cohorts, groups, etc.) that are going to try and take over and hold as many assets as possible. So unless everyone joins the same crew, that's something that could last for as long as it interest them.

[Chris]

I'm building an everlasting game and plan to (for as long as it interests me) to expand upon it so that players with some regularity get some new content

That's the road to hell Constant content creation is something I strive to avoid at all cost (I don't want my game to become unplayable when I got bored of it or when I go on vacations or take 1 year break of game dev).

crews (guilds, cohorts, groups, etc.) that are going to try and take over and hold as many assets as possible. So unless everyone joins the same crew, that's something that could last for as long as it interest them.

But that solves only assets that can be stolen. What about non competitive assets? Buildings, reputation...

[Chris]

Maybe something like this:

The team constructs a building. A building has an age. The age of building determine efficiency of building (degradation of -1% per day). The team can start construction of the same building anytime, once the building is completed it replaces the old building.

Each building has a level, it affects the efficiency of building (it still degenerates by -1% per day, it does not affect longevity). Buildings level 1 are much cheaper than buildings level 10. Team can start construction of any building level (no need to build level 1 first). There can be only one completed building, once finished an old building is replaced regardless of level (only age counts).

[Freyr]

One can implement an attack system against buildings, which could be another way to look at it.
Each building will represent like a real player, having a health stat, and (all members in clan's damage = damage to building).
It will make the game proceed at a faster paste, as this could happen at any given time, so it's a point that should also keep a player's interest focussed.

As for inflation of buildings in a whole, adding real estate value to the properties could be a solution, rather than having an age.
They could receive an amount of currency each day/week depending on the building's level and/or condition(if you prefer to have age).
The way this will work is that say a building is at a low level, they receive an low amount of currency, but when it is higher, it has a higher chance to be targeted by enemy clans. This could either be a raid/attack, or change of ownership of the building.

The two suggestions I gave above should be used together, to make it more sustainable and practical.

[Chris]

OK, let's assume there is no combat of any kind. Like SimCity Each team has a separate city they build. They might compete in some indirect way, but no combat, sabotage or destroying anything. How to make it then?

[Sim]

OK, let's assume there is no combat of any kind. Like SimCity Each team has a separate city they build. They might compete in some indirect way, but no combat, sabotage or destroying anything. How to make it then

Spells i would guess. Making players wait longer to build.

1 building takes 10hrs only works once
for next 5 minutes you can't build.
for next 2minutes all buildings trying to be built take 2x as long to build.


my 2 cents.

[cylentwolf]

OK, let's assume there is no combat of any kind. Like SimCity Each team has a separate city they build. They might compete in some indirect way, but no combat, sabotage or destroying anything. How to make it then?

At the end of the day you have to figure out a way that they players are having fun with a game resource that you have stopped adding features into.

There is the rub.  Since if you have a persistent world there needs to be either competition between players to provide them entertainment or some repeatable fun activity.

But you are stating there is no way to compete directly.  So you can have leveling in guilds + a leader board.   Or you can have NPC cities connect to guilds and there by an indirect leader board as some NPC cities get better than others.   Or maybe even indirect ways to mess with NPC cities via Guilds.  So when the guild gets to be a certain size then it can affect more cities, both for their guild and against other guilds.  Size of guild = size of city affected.

At max level the guild hall is a way to cap the interactions in the game.  The more people in the guild could influence how effective those interactions can be.

my two cp.  off base? on base? near base?

[SacreBleu]

What I found quite entertaining, is a system where you can collect various items by doing activities.
So for example, you are able to play missions with your character, and in turn receive loot.

Now, you could make things more interesting by implementing a small factor of 0.5% chance of obtaining a very rare item.
This allow players to thrive for something.

Also, limiting content to an extend until the player has reached a threshold such as research requirements or experience requirements also
adds some depth and aim to your game.

Lastly, custom, random events, if you manage to create small custom events that you and the staff frequently exploit it will
keep the community and gameplay fresh.
Officially, hosted tournaments, or 'invasions' can actually, spice up your game.

[Chris]

I need this feature for http://community.bbgamezone.net/projects/europe-1300/
The "team" is a kingdom made up of players speaking the same language (which means that the team size will differ greatly, the kingdom of England will be obviously always much bigger than let's say Serbia, because there is much more EN speaking players worldwide). So, we have a system with permanent huge differences in team sizes and power.
There are also predefined cities (several per kingdom).

The purpose of this feature is to let team do some cooperation. To build social bonds by sharing the same goal. To build something together.

Therefore, the feature does not have to be interesting or very fun or sophisticaled (because it's purpose is cooperation and the fun of this will come mostly from doing things together, not from doing an interesting thing). Of course, if we could invent a feature that would be also exiting on its own it would be nice, but that is not required.

[Chris]

I thought of this solution.

Each team has a level of a building. The level on its own means nothing, what counts is the relative level compared to others. So, the team can have 1st barracks (best, no one has higher) and 3rd factory (2 teams has higher level). The bonus depends on the rank of the building, not the level.
With such system level's cost can be even flat and the level count could be infinite.

I guess, there could be also fire event which downgrade a random building from time to time...

[BlackScorp]

what about a "Main Building" by increase the level of it, the maxium amount of members will increase as well. so if any "Kingdom" want to have more ppls, they have to work and build bigger main building.

[Nox]

Each team has a level of a building. The level on its own means nothing, what counts is the relative level compared to others. So, the team can have 1st barracks (best, no one has higher) and 3rd factory (2 teams has higher level). The bonus depends on the rank of the building, not the level.
With such system level's cost can be even flat and the level count could be infinite.

Great idea.
It has a bit slippery slope characteristics though, (the more buildings, the less notable it would be imho) ... but if higher levels would be more prone to downgrade then I guess it would be fine

[Chris]

what about a "Main Building" by increase the level of it, the maxium amount of members will increase as well. so if any "Kingdom" want to have more ppls, they have to work and build bigger main building.

I dislike limiting number of members, it goes in the way of social aspect of the game... But level proportional to number of members could work I guess. Like, each level of the main building grants 5 members a bonus (members are sorted by prestige or some other statistic, so it is always clear which one will get it). They want to extend that bonus to more members they have to upgrade.

It has a bit slippery slope characteristics though, (the more buildings, the less notable it would be imho) ...

Not exactly... I was thinking of top to bottom method, like: 1st rank +100, 2nd rank +95, 3rd rank +90, then 4th +70 (so first 3 are better than next ones) and then +1/+5 around 100th rank.

Also, each team could have some tie breaker stat (actually, I will be using it for cities, not exactly teams, so each city could have culture value and in case of equal levels (quite often) the rank goes to the one with higher culture).

[BlackScorp]

I dislike limiting number of members, it goes in the way of social aspect of the game...

you know its a human nature, most ppl ingame dont want have everyone in the guild, they will sort only active or only strongest

[Nox]

Not exactly... I was thinking of top to bottom method, like: 1st rank +100, 2nd rank +95, 3rd rank +90, then 4th +70 (so first 3 are better than next ones) and then +1/+5 around 100th rank.

Still - if you fall behind, then your chances of falling behind increase by your production getting decreased. Dunno how many groups you plan, we should consider also mid-tier and low-tier teams and 90% x 70% x perhaps 50% are quite big differences