10000 votes against Morale

[DeletedUser809]

So basically, i am being punished for being more successful than that little b****** who spends perhaps 2 minutes a day on the game every 3 days, and gains very few points? Why am i to be punished just because i actually spend the time to play the game and am really active?

I would also like to point out that if you are going to play the activity card, then why would you go on a 2x server if you do not expect to be active?

I rarely play mmos. Most of them lose me when i hear they are limiting my potential, mostly when i learn they have a limit on the number of cities. This one, on the other hand, has held my attention, and has actually made me consider spending money on it before this moral issue.

Dont these games want to suck in those kinds of people? if you are addicted to the game, you are much more likely to spend more money on the game.

Again, i would like to use the example of Gamma. drb81, the top player on the server, has 150k points more than anyone outside of his alliance. He has 160k points more than anyone who is of an alliance his alliance does not have an NAP with. He has 70k points more than anyone else. Who is he supposed to fight while these others "catch" up to him?

sure, i agree, we need something to stop smaller players from being picked on, but this is not it. Moral, i think, is way too over powered.

I will also note that i never make excuses to get home and fill a queue or make an attack. I once did come home and pop on for a while during my lunch period, but i would not have considered it if i did not have another reason to come home in the first place.

I will admit that i do not do the work i should be doing at home, but on the other hand, i was not doing that months before grepolis came out.

and sure, they do have a big picture in mind, but do these guys ever play this game? i doubt it. There has been an overwhelming objection to moral. Look at this; 800 people have voted on it here on the english servers, and 90% of them want moral gone. There are similar results on the german servers. This goes beyond simple objection, this shows it's unpopularity.

Yes, if you make a change, there will always be a few who will object to it. but on the other hand, few changes gain this amount of objection. The only major things that people have objected to are Moral and Revolt. Every other change has had a relatively minor objection as far as i know. Look at the objection to the disappearing gray villages that has been happening. They do not have much support, and players are arguing that it is ok. So far, you are the only player who has come out on the side of this and bothered to actually argue in favor of moral. There are several hundred people who have come out and argued against it.

and what happens when the style of play you are locked upon is the one being completely changed? then you have a right to object.

Also, i would like to point out that it will be a long time for the top players on the server to get any competition, because everyone else will not be gaining many points since they cannot attack people weaker than themselves, and they thus cannot conquer cities as easily as before.

I dont expect to dictate the way the game is going. What i expect is for the devs to listen to their customers. The majority of which is saying that they do not want this.

If you're not in the top 100 ranks you'll have plenty of targets in your range. Go take a look through the rankings and you'll see what I mean. Morale should flatten out the curve somewhat to the point where there are plenty of targets for everyone. This will take some time, probably not as long as you think. For those top 100, if it isn't worth it to conquer new cities from lower levels they can either war with each other, which is probably the most fun you can have in this game, or they can start helping other players to catch up to their level so that they have more players to compete against.

The reaction simply shows that the most active players will go on the forum to retain the advantage they gain from their activity. I've already said this before but what it comes down to is you have the other 90% of players who don't have the time or the inclination to go on these forums. This attitude that they somehow don't count because they don't spend as much time on the game is counterproductive. They are just as essential to the success of this game. The irony in this whole situation is that it is because of the importance of these players to the success of the top players that the top players are coming here and complaining about features that make it more difficult to feed off the less active. Even if none of these less active players ever pay a cent to play (which I don't believe is entirely accurate) the success of this game depends more on them than on the elite. These games wouldn't be massively multiplayer if they weren't free.

Tailoring improvements to that 90% is probably the best thing the developers could do. A lot of people who have busy lives but love these kinds of games and only give up on them because they can't manage an account playing an hour here and thirty minutes there. Should THEY be punished and just be fodder for the addicts because they have less time? If they could grow viable accounts on their limited playing time, how many of them would pay? Do you think the devs haven't given this a lot of serious thought? They'd be crazy not to. And you'd be crazy to discourage that. Some of the premium features are especially geared to those kinds of players. Administrator and Merchant are excellent if you are offline a lot. Bringing in more money means more money goes into developing the game further, offering more servers with different features etc etc.

That is why I keep saying that you guys really don't know what's good for you or the game. You've got your blinders on and you're not looking at the big picture.

 

[DeletedUser]

The reaction simply shows that the most active players will go on the forum to retain the advantage they gain from their activity. I've already said this before but what it comes down to is you have the other 90% of players who don't have the time or the inclination to go on these forums. This attitude that they somehow don't count because they don't spend as much time on the game is counterproductive. They are just as essential to the success of this game. The irony in this whole situation is that it is because of the importance of these players to the success of the top players that the top players are coming here and complaining about features that make it more difficult to feed off the less active. Even if none of these less active players ever pay a cent to play (which I don't believe is entirely accurate) the success of this game depends more on them than on the elite. These games wouldn't be massively multiplayer if they weren't free.

Tailoring improvements to that 90% is probably the best thing the developers could do. A lot of people who have busy lives but love these kinds of games and only give up on them because they can't manage an account playing an hour here and thirty minutes there. Should THEY be punished and just be fodder for the addicts because they have less time? If they could grow viable accounts on their limited playing time, how many of them would pay? Do you think the devs haven't given this a lot of serious thought? They'd be crazy not to. And you'd be crazy to discourage that. Some of the premium features are especially geared to those kinds of players. Administrator and Merchant are excellent if you are offline a lot. Bringing in more money means more money goes into developing the game further, offering more servers with different features etc etc.

That is why I keep saying that you guys really don't know what's good for you or the game. You've got your blinders on and you're not looking at the big picture.

I completely agree with this, with the exception that I think quite a bit of revenue is made from the less active players. I would be willing to venture that at least 50% of the money earned by this game comes from the less active. The percentage of very active players that pay is probably higher than that of the less active, but there are many more part time players than full time.

 

[DeletedUser]

This is just rediculous. I like how you guys are debating on the direction of the game.

Being a college student majoring in architecture its most common to start a design based on a concept, and you then design everything around your concept. I imagine it is somewhat similiar within the "gaming developer world". Concepts change, sure. But thats typically in the designing stages and not the physical output stage.

Problem here is this game started out as a concept designed around conquring, take-over, war like strategy. Its now changing to favor the weak, less active, uneducated players. The active, dedicated, hard working players are now being punished. This game started off unique, one of a kind, nothing like it in the world which attracted a specific audience (based on a specific war-like concept). What happens to this specific audience when the direction of the game ends up in a different direction then originally started?

In other terms, lets say its like designing a building based on a specific religion. 75% into the building constrcution the original designer/owner decides to convert to a different religion. (and just for this conversation, lets say the construction process was all voluntarily done) Not so great of an analogy, but what im trying to say is that everything i've worked for up to this point; my strategy, direction, time, hard-work, MONEY have all been a WASTE! all because the developer decided he wanted to take a different personal direction then initially started.

** even if these changes intended on being implemented, there should atleast be a heads up of what I should expect. I definitely did not expect such a change in game-play, drasitcally effecting my personal strategy.

 

[DeletedUser]

(Sorry that I have not read all the posts - with over 100 pages, I hope you understand)

To add my 5 cents worth:
I'm a middle active player with 6 cities and ranked in the 400's on alpha - so not a big player but part of an active alliance that can stand its own against the bigger ones because we are localised - and that is a lot of fun that I also pay for.

Morale was always going to be part of the game - it was expected in some form or the other. To complain about it being there is just wrong. To suggest modifications to make it 'fairer' is, however, very reasonable. I would suggest that the brief encounter I had with it shows that it needs tweaking and agree with a lot of the sentiment of this thread.

BUT, lets look at the REAL problems:
1. The more players the better - so how do your encourage players to stay and grow?
2. Balance is required so that the majority (not everyone) feels the rules are fair

There are so many kinds of players - from sim city fans to psychopaths. Catering for all those needs to encourage the flow of money is at best difficult - they all look for different things - so balance is hard to achieve - positive feedback from the paying customers is required.

My suggestions:
1. Make colonizing easier - to let the sims people grow - the sheep for the aggro wolves.
1.1 make colonies cost 2 Culture points, conquest cost 3 culture points and reduce the cost for each culture point to a quarter of the current level.

This would encourage less active players to grow and still give active/aggressive players 'farms' to feed off. It may even allow people who play as 'defenders' a natural growth options, too. To grow in the existing format you need to be an aggressive player and there are just not enough of those, so you should also give options for the less aggressive players - some of whom are great natural defenders needed by any alliance. The morale system then has a part to play as the 'sheep' can still grow so the gaps between aggressive players and the sheep will not be as great. Those that can't grow get bored or eaten so leave the game. Growth is an important factor in keeping players of all kinds interested.

2. Limit Morale to -30%
Don't discourage players who like to build empires!

 

[DeletedUser]

I am currently in the top 10 of my ocean. Everyone else in the top 10 either is of my alliance,or is of an alliance more powerful than mine.

This presents me with a lack of local targets. Geographically, i cannot conquer into the ocean above mine because everyone is much more powerful. I cannot conquer into the ocean to the left of mine because that is territory of the alliance more powerful than mine. The ocean to the right of mine is too far away for me to be able to support a conquest there. So where am i to conquer?

And those less active players were welcome to have their say, yet i did not see them coming here and voting in great numbers. Thus, they cannot object to these changes. Sure, the amount of people voting is a much smaller number of players than the amount of actives, but then i am sure that despite requests from myself, my alliance leader, and several other members not all of my alliance bothered to come here to vote. I am positive it is the same with every alliance.

If they want to tailor this game to those types of people, then they should make a server tailored to them, rather than destroy the servers you already have running. Frankly, i would like to know what those types of people are doing on a x2 server if they are on gamma if they do not have the time to play quite active.

And i have told you again and again. People who are less active are unlikely to be the target of a conquest because their cities will be not worth grabbing. If you are at the core oceans, then you are safe until you get something like a 10k city, and your very powerful neighbors notice you. Frankly, you should have grabbed a 2nd city long before you have a 10k city. out on the rim, those that are less active will be under threat, but only from those of similar power to themselves.

Perhaps dropping the level of academy needed for a colony ship to be researched would be a good idea. It would allow the sim cityers to expand quicker, and thus have a 2nd city when the larger players go for a conquer.

I completely agree that moral needs to be limited if they keep it in, although Lizroth is confusing luck and moral. Moral is currently too powerful with all of the other defenses this game has. Perhaps they cap it from not affecting you if you get over 10k points, because frankly, once you get to that stage, you are going to come under attack from someone anyway.

or they could, as my alliance leader suggested, make it affected by the size of the city the attack was sent from, which is much fairer. Those with smaller cities would be safe then, since it is unlikely you could build a city small enough to attack them with sufficient numbers.

 

[DeletedUser]

My alliance takes on alliances who can defend themselves on a regular basis. The Rule of Gods alliance was a powerful local force, and we destroyed them in a war. They could have easily defended themselves, and some of them did, and they could have counter attacked if we had not wiped out their navy in the opening attacks.

thegreatpl
are alliance took on three alliances at the same time
all of them active

 

[DeletedUser]

Don't like it.

 

[DeletedUser]

thegreatpl
are alliance took on three alliances at the same time
all of them active

I have a question for you. which account and which alliance? Your biggest account is your gamma account, and yet you have changed alliance on there at least 10 times.

 

[DeletedUser]

I have a question for you. which account and which alliance? Your biggest account is your gamma account, and yet you have changed alliance on there at least 10 times.

my biggets account is Epsilon
and i am talking about Gamma

 

[DeletedUser]

My suggestion is still to make the warehouse protect more resources.

Right now noobs are farmed for 2 things. Battle points and resources.

Battle points can be dodged. You never have to fight a war you dont want to if youre active. Send them to another city, send them farming, whatever.

Resources are protected in such small proportion by the warehouse its almost pointless. 100 for every level? Cant I make that back in like 20 minutes even early on in the game?

Why not make the warehouse protect the 3000 resources right off the bat and not increase gradually over time? Could even add a tech for greater protection. Then people getting farmed could keep enough resources to continue to grow as well as their soldiers.

Moral is just wrong. The game should not have a handicap for better players.

Warehouse idea is one of the worst ones I've heard.

 

[DeletedUser]

This update is by far one of the most ill conceived actions by a gaming company in a long time and has really killed the game. Nobody is around anymore. The forums have grown quieter than ever, all the veteran players are jumping ship and many more are still thinking of quitting.

InnoGames needs to do some major damage control before they end up going the route of Mutable Realms and other defunct MMO companies that failed to listen to the players.

 

[DeletedUser]

I completely agree that moral needs to be limited if they keep it in, although Lizroth is confusing luck and moral.

No, I'm not confusing the two and I just don't see how you think I am. Very strange. These two factors are different and should be treated separately.

 

[DeletedUser]

you said -30% lizroth. Moral is between 100% and, erm, i have no idea what the lowest amount is.

damn, i was talking about epsilon when i said your biggest account. I knew that in my head. guess i am just so used to thinking about gamma.

.... and now i have just looked at your gamma statistics, and realize what you mean by our. When exactly did we take on three active alliances?

There has been a number of experienced players leave, but I think most of them are in a sort of standby mode, waiting for inno's decision on what they will do about moral. If they do not handle this correctly, they will most likely lose their major players. I myself will leave if the change makes things too bad.

 

[DeletedUser634]

I Hate Morale

I agree with thegreatpl

Morale is disliked for many reasons:
1) This game is already heavly favouring the defender. With walls, towers and militia if you are a smart enough player you can easily defend yourself. If you have a lvl 25 wall with 400Hops, 400Swords & 400 Archers, (+maybe 375militia) it doesn't matter how many villages the other guy has you are probably safe as his losses far outweigh his gain. So please don't complain that a semi active person doesn't have a chance - they do you just need a strong defensive base to start. Militia adds to this ridiculous defensive bonus and is way overpowered, you've seen how much offence can be taken out with just militia. Its ridiculous.

2) There are many tactics to a game but once you've got a strategy having to change it because the game changes halfway through completly messes you up! Once the rules have been stuck at the beggining of a server they should stay (and only bugs be fixed). People will accept changes but you need to tell them before they start to plan how they plan the game(i.e. when the server starts).

3) Don't tell us that players shouldn't be attacking players half their size. This game isn't about player versus player, its about alliance versus alliance. Alliances will have members ranging from 200K -3k in points. If a member of alliance A with 10k points(m2) is farming a member of Alliance B with 7k points(m1) how is m1's mate who's also in alliance B who has 50kpoints going to help him if he can't take out m2 despite being a lot bigger because of this silly morale system.

4) It makes it a one-way system. Sometimes Smaller players will take on Bigger players. If you implement morale the bigger players have no way of evenly fighting back and all they can do is sit there and defend, when they get earthquaked and bolted they can't send attacks back as all their troops will die on only militia!

5) Servers will die, I'll give you an example on Delta. Daniejam is ranked 2nd overall. He would only be able to attack 12 people on the whole server (at a later date this number will get fewer and fewer). 6 of those he's in the same alliance with and 5 are more than 48hours away. Leaving him with one person to fight who is only just at 100% morale (a few more thousand points for danie and he'll suffer morale penalties attacking this person too). Therefore its killing his game despite the fact that he could still have a challenge if he were involved in alliance wars. Just because you are huge doesn't mean you can necessary win, a number 1 ranked player could easily loose to 3 ranked 50players if those players where well organised but morale doesn't give the number 1 ranked player a chance to do anything. It'll get boring for them and they won't be able to attack anybody that's not grey and this is meant to be a war game. Morale is going to force them to attack inactives!

Finally
6) Ranking allthough not entirely acurate should be there for one reason. It gives off an indication of how good the player is. If a player is active, good, and has spent time and money on a game then they shouldn't be punished for it! You shoudn't get done just because your more active/better than another player. You worked hard to grow faster than your neighbours at the start and after a few months they're going to punish you because you did better? that makes no sense! Infact thats worse that not making any sense, That's absolutly CRAZY! Instead of aiming and pushing to be rank number 1 you'd be aiming to be ranked bottom.
You could soeasily just build a few 1200point cities with high walls and nothing else. You'd have thousands of defensive troops (sw/ar/hop) and no-one could even touch you. Turtling would be the only way forward.

If you worked out morale based on when you started the game rather than points total then that'd be more reasonable and might work. As this would stop a 20k player bullying someone who's just started etc but wouldn't hinder players who got ahead of their neighbours (as your neighbours would have started at the same time as you)

Keep players happy! :--> Leave the already exsisting servers as they are, try out your morale systems on new servers!

I have not looked at the revolt system in detail enough to say whether its good or bad but it can't be worse than morale.

 

[DeletedUser]

you said -30% lizroth. Moral is between 100% and, erm, i have no idea what the lowest amount is.

I'll spell it out a bit more for you then, since you seem to have trouble with it.

Morale reduces, goes down from 100% to some other level - cap that reduction to -30%, so that morale never falls below 70%.

Happy??

 

[DeletedUser]

I'm honestly amazed at how many people are willing to quit over this. Quitting over this latest update is a pretty foolish thing to do. It's like a 10 year old throwing a temper tantrum because he got chocolate ice cream, instead of vanilla. This game's only about 5 months old. It's still new and there are still a lot of features to be worked on. They're going to make mistakes with some changes and get it right with others. It's a trial and error process with a new game like this. There's no reason to act like a little kid because you got something you didn't want. When you're little, I'm sure people get those hand-knit sweaters from their grandmothers or aunts as presents. You hate it as a kid, but when you get older and more mature, you'll realize it's not about the gift, but the thought and love put behind it that matters. So, Inno changed morale and conquest, so you don't like the changes. Grow up and deal with it. Inno's doing the best they can and trying to make this game enjoyable for everyone. Right now, all the players threatening to quit are looking at it from their own selfish, narrow-minded points of view, no one bothers to put themselves in Inno's shoes and see how difficult it can be for them. Temperance to restrain yourself and control your beavhior, Patience to resolve conflict peacefully and to forgive mistakes, Kindness to be empathetic with cause and to remain calm, and Humility to respect others and to be selfless are all virtues. There's no reason to quit over this.

 

[DeletedUser]

I'm honestly amazed at how many people are willing to quit over this. Quitting over this latest update is a pretty foolish thing to do. It's like a 10 year old throwing a temper tantrum because he got chocolate ice cream, instead of vanilla. This game's only about 5 months old. It's still new and there are still a lot of features to be worked on. They're going to make mistakes with some changes and get it right with others. It's a trial and error process with a new game like this. There's no reason to act like a little kid because you got something you didn't want. When you're little, I'm sure people get those hand-knit sweaters from their grandmothers or aunts as presents. You hate it as a kid, but when you get older and more mature, you'll realize it's not about the gift, but the thought and love put behind it that matters. So, Inno changed morale and conquest, so you don't like the changes. Grow up and deal with it. Inno's doing the best they can and trying to make this game enjoyable for everyone. Right now, all the players threatening to quit are looking at it from their own selfish, narrow-minded points of view, no one bothers to put themselves in Inno's shoes and see how difficult it can be for them. Temperance to restrain yourself and control your beavhior, Patience to resolve conflict peacefully and to forgive mistakes, Kindness to be empathetic with cause and to remain calm, and Humility to respect others and to be selfless are all virtues. There's no reason to quit over this.

If you bought a ticket to a football game & the second half turned into a naked, all male ballet, would you stay & watch or would you leave & raise hell until you got your money back?

I am honestly amazed that some people like it.

 

[DeletedUser]

If you bought a ticket to a football game & the second half turned into a naked, all male ballet, would you stay & watch or would you leave & raise hell until you got your money back?

I am honestly amazed that some people like it.

Love the analogy because it is so true.

 

[DeletedUser]

Love the analogy because it is so true.

Amen to that, pun unintended

 

[DeletedUser]

to be honest, i am more likely to buy a ticket to an all male naked ballet than a football game. ;3

Still. many of those objecting to the changes by threatening to leave are doing so because it is not what we signed up to play. We signed up to play a war game, and now they are limiting us in who we can fight, and which of our allies we can help. I object strongly to this, as do many others.

and yes, that is acceptable Lizroth.