Hitchens polling agency :V

What?
Howdy m8s, hitchens is here again with another idea thread. Actually this time, is rather a comment on all earlier ideas, than an idea itself. I have never seen any data on what those who are "unknown" think, and "even" my own ideas have been a little inaccurate of that reason. How after all, are we going to please the community, if we do not know what half of it thinks? Well, obviously it is possible, as some things like the guild bases are just common sence when you think about it, but some things can be harder to see.

Though many think the fighting aspect is what makes wild west wild west, I see there is a lot else, that really is what makes wild west wild west for a lot of people. I think I explained this point rather well in an earlier discussion with Glock aka Riels earlier today, so let me show you what happened;

kommune [12:04 AM]
Here you are wrong

[12:05]
New players does not necessarily see fighting as the goal

[12:05]
It might be getting a new horse, a house etc

glock_fanatic [12:05 AM]
Mhm

kommune [12:05 AM]
Theres plenty of such goals

glock_fanatic [12:05 AM]
Oh

[12:05]
Hold on

[12:05]
I get what you're saying

[12:05]
The staff team, experienced players, etc

[12:05]
Are so blinded by the PvP aspect of the game

Without further building up of the mysterious feeling, let me present a sneak peak of what I have been doing and am doing in order to measure what the "unknown" players think should be done to wild west.

Here is a little screenshot of what my drive spreadsheet looks like:

Spoiler: link to the spreadsheet

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DsyrTjNCRVRomF8DYzR3hf9ET0pVmF_9mEn6YEr3n00/edit#gid=0

Idea/opinon 1-3 are all ideas brought up by the player indipendently. I have then written the core of the idea up.

The question: "Is it too hard or too easy to get money", is a question I have asked everyone, unless it have been extreemly clear from the discussion so far. I start with a question like; "Is there anything you think could be improved in Wild West?".

As I was pretty interested myself in how wealth changes the way people look at the game, I decided to also write up how wealthy the player is in column g. I am writing a short comment for every discussion in row f. This is probably the least interesting, but fun for myself, as I like to remember interesting discussions I have had.

*Note: Even collecting data from 20 people is hard in eu timezones, as it is often hard to even find people who arent well-known/have not already responded/ do respond to msgs.

So why is this interesting
First off, if we want new players, the "unknown" people are those who we need to understand. What they like in wild west, what they dislike etc. For example from the spreadsheet, we can see there is a lot of people wanting more low risk ways of making money, as seen here in the summary of the spreadsheet:


What can also bee seen is that nearly half thinks the economy is fine, while a little smaller group think it should be buffed a little bit. An even smaller group thinks it should be nerfed.

In general, it is clear from the spreadsheet people want more variety, as a total of 7 ideas suggest new things to do/new features, like water (warz drinking) or renaming horses as a non-donor.

But with all this, something I really am learning while doing this, and I really think is interesting, is that very few see wild wests appeal in the pvp aspect of the game. After all, this is a common argument for focusing more on the pvp aspect (again quoiting Glock and myself):

glock_fanatic [12:02 AM]
My question to you is

[12:02]
If you dont win fights

[12:02]
But you get money

[12:02]
What is the point of buying gear (edited)

[12:03]
When you dont win fights

[12:04]
And if you dont buy gear because you cant win fights

kommune [12:04 AM]
None

glock_fanatic [12:04 AM]
What is the point of money

[12:04]
And if there is no point to earning money

kommune [12:04 AM]
But ah

glock_fanatic [12:04 AM]
What is the point of the game

kommune [12:04 AM]
Here you are wrong

But why is it wrong? Scroll up and see. It is not about the pvp for the masses I think. It is about those goals like getting a cool gun, affording a house etc. The reason they process is not to fight, is not to afford loosing gear, no, it is to reach those goals.

This however does often change as a player have played the game for a longer time. There is no longer that many goals to achieve. The players starts looking around and searching for fights. And this is the point when combat is nice.

For many new players, the real fight is about wether he/she has to fight during a drug run, not wether he/she wins it.

All in all, I would personally hope that wild west does not become to much just pvp, as from what I have seen this is not what keeps new players playing. Allowing players to afford pvp is important though, as it might be a large part of what keeps experienced players playing.


Comments on recent ideas based on this type of a player lifespan from the pov of improving the playercount;

Spoiler: Pyrotheum - move coco field closer to the coco base

At the moment the Coco field on Wild West is 2400 blocks away from the Coco Rebel base. This is quite far especially for people with starter horses. I think it should be moved a lot closer to the base. Like 1000 blocks at max.

I can not think of any way in how this type of a lifespan would affect this apart from the fact that some more experienced players would find more comfort in doing coco.

Spoiler: Hitchens - rank balancing and economy buffs

*Before any sheriff start crying about the title, let me state this: I have nothing to gain personally from this, as what i suggest would make ALL processing times higher or they would stay the same for level 10 elites.

I made a quite similar thread about this a while ago, but I think this needs to be brought forward again, as I think this is a simple issue to fix but still an important one. The way processing times are calculated is:

processing time / rank boost (if any) - skill level boost.

What does this mean you might ask? Well, I explained it poorly in my last thread, so I decided to create a few graphs for you, so the issue becomes easier to see:

Wild grass processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);

Coco processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);

Poppy processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);

Shrooms processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);

Tobacco processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);



As you can probably already see, the drug processing times tend to become less equal when the drug gets cheaper but especially when the skill level increases. Just to get a better picture of this, imagine one level 10 elite processing poppy with a level 5 normal player (getting those levels require around the same amount of works as elites get levels easier). The level 10 player will make 100 800 per hour, while the poor ranked player will make a whopping 19 384 per hour. Then remember that these will both loose some of it in food and especially other gear if anyone attacks or a sheriff comes. This can push the already off ratio of difference in earnings (about 5) to an even higher number.

As the processing times for drugs seem to be off, lets take a look at what really is scary - mining processing times.

Emerald processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);

Diamond processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);

Gold processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);

Iron processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);

Coal processing time ELITE vs NORMAL players (per level);


Lord_Roke once complained the economy was inflated and needed a nerf. Personally as a ELITE with drug processing level 10, I do not think my economy is inflated. I think the normal players (non-ranked players) economy is deflated. They hardly afford fighting, which according to @randomcitizen1 should be the real thing in wild west. At the moment all wild west promotes is fighting only in those rare situations when you do not risk fighting gear. Maybe this can kind of explain the team scene as well?

So what is the solution to this situation where ranked players economy is so close to inflated and no economy buff can be made for low level non ranked players of that reason?

Here is what I said in my old thread:

Changes in processing drugs;
Change the way processing time is calculated. Change it from (time/rank)- skill to (time-skill)/rank. Also lower the proccing times of drugs with around 1 sec each (havent done calculations on all o idk).

This would mean wg would be:
3-2s for whitenames instead of the current 4-3.
1.5-1s for elites instead of the current 2-1s.
The other ranks would be in between.

This would simply make the difference between the ranks smaller, by buffing normal, vip, mvp and low level elites economy.

Changes in harvesting:
Make normal players get 2, vips 3, mvps 3.5 or 4 and elites 4 drugs.

Making mvps get 3.5 would be preferred (as it would keep some incentive to donate for elite), but i am not sure if mario is too lazy to add a 50% chance for mvps to get 4 instead of 3.

*note that I have now calculated the proccing times, and came to the conclusion lowering all with 1s would be the best solution.

Even though there is many more small changes I would like to make, I think these would be a good start. Opinions?

Sources:
https://www.brawl.com/threads/61520/
https://www.brawl.com/wiki/wildwest-economy/
@randomcitizen1

Tags:
@ChicknSlayr
@Verlyn
@Everyone!

For those interested in the data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VFDqZd8Wk_J85y-pVKGhhNzXSYXuXcWSiGSvUm9ZNCs/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KD5BulkLMm__EVYeZAxN-GQfxSIv_13SSvy0qr-QlpM/edit?usp=sharing

This kind of an economy where the economy gets buffed heavily when you play more seems to be a good idea based on the lifespan I have presented, but the rank differences should probably still be fixed. What this would do as procesing times would be lowered and thus make the non-ranked skill boost matter more, is help players make the jump from trying to afford the carcano to afford fights at wild grass

Spoiler: TheTitaniumTitan - Events

Hey all.

This thread is headed towards the staff team.

On Wild West there hasn't been many events, at all. Events are the way to get players on and start to get the hooked.

I suggest hosting more events, bandits vs. sheriffs, 1v1 tourney like @Miskey's CTF one, cartel takeover, etc.

What do y'all think?

HG gets more events then we do :'(

@randomcitizen1


The idea would mostly make the game more enjoyable for experienced players, and of that reason it does improve gameplay in the later end. Has close to no effect on those who are fighting with their first goals though.

Spoiler: TheTitaniumTitan - Sheriff respawn time

Hey all!

So as a Sheriff if you die it takes you 120 seconds to respawn. If a reboot happens, or you log off, that time resets if you haven't respawned yet.

It's really annoying to have to go, or the reboot happens, then you have to wait a second 120 seconds. If it's possible, I suggest the timer carries over to when you log back on.

Thoughts?

As this only affects those at the end of the lifespan (though someone might have getting sheriff as a goal like buying a house etc), and a small group of them, this is a rather minor detail in general. To conclude, It has some effect in the end, but no effects in the beginning.

Spoiler: SoCool21 - Buff bacco, shrooms and poppy

At the moment, one of the biggest issues in Wild West is monopoly teams. I don't intend to have this thread to call out Dev - they're simply taking advantage of a game mechanic which was poorly designed on Brawl's fault, and its not something they can be blamed for. However, due to most players being on one or two teams, WG is almost impossible to process without joining one of these teams.

Doing other drugs is obviously a choice. Coco isn't too bad - its not far worse than WG, but as for the other drugs... honestly, there's just no point in doing them. Even if you exclude the risk from doing drugs, I still think its more time-effective to mine than do anything other than WG and coco.

So the main point of this is that poppy, shrooms and bacco all need to be buffed. I don't really care about what the exact numbers should be, but it should be faster than mining as there is absolutely no risk involved with mining.

This would certainly help a lot of players gain the fighting gear they need, and as it is clear based on my polling the economy should rather be buffed than nerfed, This idea seems to work well together with everything. Have to be combined with Hitchens processing time fixing idea though

Spoiler: Hitchens - drug fiels & sheriff pay

So the first thing I wana talk about...
I think there is no one who would have anything against fields regenerating the drugs faster. At the moment it takes ages for non-ranked players to harvest, which honestly as someone who needs to wipe the field once with my rank, seems a little painfull. It takes literally 10 times as long for a non-ranked player to harvest 4 rows than for me, as I get 4 rows from 1 field, while the non-ranked player has to wait for the field to regen 3 times and harvest it 4 times. This just adds to the insane inequality I talk more about here:
https://www.brawl.com/threads/65889/

Changes to sheriff pay
In order to make sheriff go for experienced players instead of unexperienced ones when there is experienced ones to go for, I'd like to see drug pay changed a little bit. The pay for higher tier drugs should be higher. Sheriffs should get 1/3 of the drug price. This means they should get 2.6666666 per tobacco, 3.66666 per shrooms, 4.666666 for poppy, 6.6666666 for coco and 8.3333333 for wg. Some might say they will get less income as sheriffs, but if all their income is from cuffing noobs at bacco and shrooms, I do not think we should promote that. We should rather promote them cuffing people at coco and wild grass, which would be slightly more profitable than before with this update.

*Note that this requires sligthly more work than the other thread I just posted (https://www.brawl.com/threads/65889), while providing a smaller boost for new players. That is why I think the economy rework Idea should be implemented first.

These would help new players process their first drugs while avoiding pvp. As there clearly is a need for new low risk methods of earning money (8 responces), the idea of lowering the risk seems to be smart. This would be in line with what those in their early lifespan responded to my questions.

Spoiler: TheTitaniumTitan - loweing the price: kevlar

Does it not seem to everyone that 15-20k is too much for 1 set of armor that's only a small portion better then diamond armor?

The Kevlar price is ridiculously overpriced right now. I know I'm going to get a lot of comments: You get free gear!

But most of the time sheriffs are severely outnumbered and Kevlar can be the only way to win, paying 18k for one life seems a bit over the top.

I think it should be more like 10-12k. Thoughts?

As this would have literally no effect on the new players as they loose to sheriffs anyway, I think the comments to the thread it self is what we should look at. In general, they tended to be negative. So all in all, the lifespans early stages would not be affected, while the later ones would be affected negatively

Spoiler: ChicoDunnin - Sheriff hq confisqator

As most sheriffs know you get a lot of diamond armor and carcs. Ik that the idea of an Npc that you can sell your diamond armor to but I would like to expand that. What if there was an Npc in the sheriff hq that buys any legal guns, pots and armor for half the price? Half the price would be good so sheriffs don't farm carcs and farm them for more. (If they cost more to sell to the Npc.) Like I get really annoyed when I fill up my inventory with carcs and dia and I have no space in horses, I feel bad just leaving it all on the ground. What do you all think?

This would have a rather small affect on players lifespans, as new players would have nothing to do with it, and just a small part of the experienced players are sheriffs.

Spoiler: UnknownPleasures - axes idea

cutting is boring and nobody that's not desesperate for money does it.
I suggested to add axes, and the first problem people noticed is that we had just 1 free axe, the diamond one so I came up with the idea of selling like 3 types of diamond axes with efficiency I, II and III and nerf the price of the wood. Another way could be making axes with mine fatige while you hold them so the most expensive would not have mine fatige.
I don't really like the tree cutting thing in anyway but I think this could work if the prices are balanced and tested.

As this is something the players I have asked have told me specifically, I do think this could boost the experience especially in the beginning of the players lifespan.

Spoiler: Chilled_67 - channel viewer

This idea is pretty simple, but it basically adds a channel viewer to the scoreboard in wildwest. What I mean by channel viewer is that you can view what text channel you are in (global, local, team). It can be frustrating to talk in the wrong chat, especially in fights because you give up the advantage of surprise. I mainly had the idea for this because people complain a lot about talking in the wrong channel at any given time. Though you can do /profile or just type something random to see what channel you are in, it would be easier if there was something in the scoreboard that told you want channel you were in.

Hopefully this would be pretty easy to code and add, and I think it would be very useful.

**EDIT** Also could a command be used to go directly into team chat? Global channel uses /g, local channel uses /l, but there is no /t for team channel. It would just be nicer to type /t instead of /team chat.

I asume the effect would be small, but as 7 of the ideas/opinions was about small new features, I see this kind of stuff might be a part of boosting the experience in the early lifespan, and why not a part of boosting experienced players experience as well? Is not Chilled one of those after all?

As you can see, a lot of these ideas focus on rather meaningless stuff, while some actually would make a difference (like SoCool21's drug price buff idea). It would be nice to see ideas take the kind of statistics I presented in account in the future.

The polling is to be continued.

Glock_Fanatic's mirror thread: https://www.brawl.com/threads/66280/

Thanks for reading - Hitchens.