A question for long-term campers

[DeletedUser33036]

There are 4 main reasons to age up and one major reason to stay put.

The first reason to age up is aesthetics. Let me tell you the baroque music that starts in the IE gets very old by the CE.

The second reason is expansions. Everyone wants more room to work with.

The third reason is new units to try out. Units in colonial era are quite a bit more interesting than those in LMA.

The forth reason is it is easier to get goods and blueprints of ages you have already been in.

The reason not to age up, is that Guild Expedition gets much more difficult through the ages, and level 4 GE is quite rewarding.

 

[DeletedUser31592]

There are 4 main reasons to age up and one major reason to stay put.

The first reason to age up is aesthetics. Let me tell you the baroque music that starts in the IE gets very old by the CE.

The second reason is expansions. Everyone wants more room to work with.

The third reason is new units to try out. Units in colonial era are quite a bit more interesting than those in LMA.

The forth reason is it is easier to get goods and blueprints of ages you have already been in.

The reason not to age up, is that Guild Expedition gets much more difficult through the ages, and level 4 GE is quite rewarding.

Music? This game has music?

















..




In all seriousness, expansions are the only thing on this list I sort-of agree with. (Plunk an Arc down in EMA and gather all of your Victory Expansions and it isn't as big of a deal)

 

[DeletedUser33036]

Music? This game has music?

I have never once turned sounds off, not even when the unit sounds were bugged.

 

[Czari]

Probably more to the point, campers also pay real money to play (and there are many towns that are easy evidence of this).

I've actually seen more examples of the opposite - the people who want to advance quickly are the ones I've seen pay real money. Campers, imo and experience, are more content to use time as their currency instead of money. I've camped in some ages longer than others but have yet to put a penny into the game.

 

[Czari]

Those are actually really valid points. There is a lot of development that goes into all of the new features and no doubt, It takes less time to play through it all than it does to devise build and implement. So in order to keep the masses from pressing against that wall forever, offering a means to delay progress is definitely viable for the business. And a happy player, that remains engaged and interested will be more profitable regardless of age progression, over a dissatisfied player that moved up in tech.


I do think there should be more of an incentive to move up. It shouldn't necessarily punish a camper for staying in lower ages. But players that do push farther do deserve something rewarding for their efforts.
Early on in EMA we had a whole side challenge on the Cmap fighting the barbarians and winning the monestary. But there hasn't really been anything like that since. No special side quest leading us against an actually challenging map enemy to give up a one time special reward.

I think there should be a special one-off reward for each age, more valuable than monestary, but similar in concept. And only accessible by completing a story quest / bonus line that would include completing an age or some kind of advancement. ( this borders on a different proposal idea I plan on making for use of the still cloudy map bits)

The best thing about being at the end of tech and the map are the auto completed event quests. Which do make some events significantly easier, but even those prizes have debatable value depending on the player.

The added challenge of the harbor goods in arctic and oceanic is a huge added cost with no added reward. And while I really like it in concept, as a slow down and regulator for tech progress, as well as a great lead in for a much larger future age making use of 5 harbor goods, and I want to see more things that actually make it challenging to advance other than a clock. It needs a counterbalance for payoff.

GE is tons of fun but after a couple years, by now most of us have all the Tfarms and sky watches we will ever need, they have no real increased value or ability. Which is fair in one sense, but given the incredible increase to demand of resources for these ages, it becomes a burden.

I love being in the higher ages. even in my other cities, if it's a city I plan on doing anything more than well collections in, I'm planning on getting to the end. I do want to do a speed run city and see how quickly one could make it to the end at some point. I guess I never found an age I wanted to camp in. Maybe that was due to varying strategies and a lack of certain abilities back in those ages but I think it's personally more of a feeling of stagnation. Which is why I like the new chapters, one has relatively little time for things to wear out before at least a few new things get brought in to play with.

I honestly don't mean this as a snarky question but...why do you care if other players camp?

 

[Czari]

I'd be wary of taking others advice as gospel in terms of which ages are simply 'better' (get reasons if asking for opinions). Everyone's feelings about them are different because people play the game for different reasons. People might have different preferences wrt: difficulty, efficiency, aesthetics, military balance, questing options, etc, etc.

Thus my asking for clarification of specific points - which were graciously answered. I know this sounds weird to others but aesthetics are of interest to me and I seriously don't like the look of Tomorrow's Town Hall...lol.

I actually personally liked Tomorrow Era the first time through. I found it to be one of the better balanced ages militarily in a while with only 1 unit i consider to be useless (anti-materiel sniper). It is harder than CE so if easy GE is your thing - I can understand not leaving it (on diamond mines if I manage to make it there, that'd be my choice). But TE is more pleasant to fight in my eyes than anything from PE to PME. And more interesting than CE.

Then when time came that i asked my friends if I should move to Future Era they said I'd love it - that it was way better than TE. I hated it. FE has to be my second (maybe 3rd now) least favorite era in the game - I HATE railguns, hate using em, hate facing em - they're boring as hell, don't have a good counter in age (drone swarms are terrible, so are spotters), and attritiony on both ends unless you have ridiculous boost already.

I then kinda liked Arctic Future because it saved me from FE - it's not my favorite age by any stretch, but ignoring the treasury GB issue and the sheer amount of effort needed, i'd get through FE as fast as i could. AF GE4 was an interesting puzzle that I was slowly figuring out how to fight more and more of it - but I was accepting of needing to negotiate the last bit (I was in TE when GE came out, so I never got caught on the crutch that 4 must be fightable for me to be happy).

Oceanic Future is then my least favorite age in the game - GE4 wasn't a puzzle, hovertanks ruled over it and it was just tedious, especially once turturrets came out - it was neat the first time I did it (yayyy i fought all of GE4), but as the weeks passed it became more and more a chore i dreaded and put off til the last 2 days of the week. And Virtual Future is off to a terrible start in that regard as well.

One of the advantages of going forward whether you like the new age or not comes with advanced GBs and the goods required for them. If you're in the age you get to build the building on your own power and help set the terms for others to acquire the goods - it often makes up for a lot of the bad aspects of ages.

Thank you for your specific input as well. Re: advanced GBs, especially in the older worlds so many people sell the goods for higher level GBs that it's not necessary to advance for that reason alone. It's almost common now to see Arcs in Iron Age worlds and has become so expected that we've had more than one person join the guild in one of my worlds (which is not a high-level guild nor a GvG guild), be in LMA to Colonial Age and immediately announce that "they've been told" it is the guild's responsibility to "get an Arc for them" and become incensed when we explain that the majority of our members, even those in the highest ages, do not have Arcs, I don't know of anyone in that guild who could sell Arc goods, those of us who do have Arcs had to go outside the guild for our goods and often waited a long time, etc. The response: "You're trying to keep the little guy down." That was an actual comment we had from a player new to FoE who joined our guild.

In another world I decided to try my hand at GvG and, during the past year, have been in the #1, #2, and #8 ranked guilds on the server. Some definite pluses to being in a high-level guild but, for my play style it was almost boring. The main activity of the #2 guild was the 80% and 90% Arc leveling threads. What I found interesting and applicable to this thread is that one of the founders of that guild told me that it wasn't necessary to go any higher than FE. Of course many of the guild members were in AF, and OF - VF hadn't yet been released.

 

[Czari]

How many people do you think actually bother to look at your city? I've looked at maybe 20 in about a year.

I look at cities a lot, especially those of the higher players on the server to see which GBs they have, which ones they level up the most, etc.; I look at lower level cities age-wise that have a high point total to study how they achieved that; and, my favorite - making note of cities whose layouts I really like and may want to incorporate into some of my cities.

 

[Czari]

New cities can be started at any time, to try again and avoid any mistakes made the first time through. This forum contains tons of helpful advice and different perspectives, and videos can be found on YouTube that cover different strategies and different ways to play the game. So I don't think there's any need at all for an in-game strategy guide, or any other in-game help. Players learn as they go and can seek out advice and guidance if they want to, I see no need for any hand-holding beyond the existing tutorial.

Totally agree! When I've provided info in response to a question in a couple of my guilds I'm often asked, "How do you know all this?" My response: "From spending time on the Inno forums." Usual next question, "Inno has a forum???" /facepalms I've found the same re: all PC games and Virtual worlds I've played - the % of forumites to player base is generally very tiny.

 

[Czari]

Music? This game has music?

First thing I did when I began playing FoE was turn the music off.

 

[Salsuero]

I've actually seen more examples of the opposite - the people who want to advance quickly are the ones I've seen pay real money.

Did I say that they were outnumbered... more campers paying real money than non-campers? Does it matter if it's 2:1... 3:1... 10:1 in favor of those who move up in a game where Inno undoubtedly wants to extract as much money as possible? If there are campers spending money, it makes business sense to not piss them off unnecessarily, right?

 

[DeletedUser15539]

I camped out in PME for close to a year, until I got my boost up to 220%. I really like playing in Contemporary, and won't even think of moving on until my boost is somewhere north of 300%. Or more.

 

[DeletedUser10720]

I honestly don't mean this as a snarky question but...why do you care if other players camp?

I don't care so much that others camp. I question why, to understand the motivation behind it; as my mind always wants to push for progress, and complete things. Beyond camping long enough to stock up inventory it's not a strategy that ever made sense to me.

A part of me does think it is a little unfair to stick long term campers into the same hoods as new players. Say a new player who just started IA being stuck with someone that's been IA for 2 years. Regardless of strategy or skill the new guy has no chance.
I believe some things like that can chase away new players, making it a bit harder to get the player base to grow and limiting the number of people willing to spend money. Yes it's only temporary, but a few weeks of it, at the start of your game, can equal half your play time and really become discouraging.

There is also a part of me that looks at tech as though it were a timeline for player-lifespan. And in a way, I see people who camp as people who are choosing to spend an extra 4 years in high school. Sure you're bigger than most and you know more and can pass the tests easier. But it's still high school. Why would you want to stay there?

Totally agree! When I've provided info in response to a question in a couple of my guilds I'm often asked, "How do you know all this?" My response: "From spending time on the Inno forums." Usual next question, "Inno has a forum???" /facepalms I've found the same re: all PC games and Virtual worlds I've played - the % of forumites to player base is generally very tiny.

This is partly why I brought up the idea of an in-game guide. Honestly I've been playing for a little more that 4 years, and I knew the forums existed as a means of event and age announcements, with a little feedback. But I didn't get to digging into then or find these threads until probably the very end of 2017, if not the beginning of '18. This is surely in part to my laziness and not caring enough to dig. But there is certainly some info hate that could be used by lots of people who don't even know of its existence.

Music? This game has music?

I was kind of surprised too. When I started my recently founded Z world city I forgot I had muted all the game sound. I've decided to keep that one world with audio so I can see what different ages sound like.

 

[Mustapha00]

This is an interesting topic, and the replies have been equally interesting. The game as as many perspectives on playing styles at it has playing styles themselves....well, actually more, because, for every style, there is an opinion supporting it and an opinion opposing it.

On two Worlds, I'm camping- although not for even one year so far, much less three. Yes, I do rather like consistently being ranked near the top of the Neighborhood, and, yes, I like the ability to attack neighbors (for points- mostly) with my hard-earned ATT bonus and troops that I find interesting. At some point, I'll probably become bored and give in to the temptation to Age up....but the urge hasn't become overwhelming yet, and there are many GBs that I'd like to level first, and not being constantly the target of higher-ranked players gives me the ability to do just that.

On the flip side, space is absolutely a huge concern. When it comes to spending Diamonds, I could give Ebeneezer Scrooge lessons in being miserly.

On the other three, I'm certainly not speeding through the Ages. My first world, in which I did precisely that through maybe Contemporary, cured me of any fixation to rush through. On that world now, I'm in Future, and the point range (for whatever good that particular criteria is) in my current Hood is a bit over 2 million at the low end to over 60 million on the high end. It's easy to see who the wolves and the sheep are in this one.

Fortunately, there is no single best way to play this game. There are ways to get to the end game quickly for those who deem that to be their goal, and there are ways to more enjoy the journey for those that find that appealing. We all just have to find our niche.

 

[Salsuero]

my mind always wants to push for progress, and complete things.

Campers also push for progress... just at a much slower, calculated pace. There's nothing stopping campers from progressing in every way other than the tech tree... and that's exactly what my town has been doing... progressing... other than the tech tree. There are people who disagree with my choices. That's fine. I'm not playing for them and I'm enjoying my choices.

A part of me does think it is a little unfair to stick long term campers into the same hoods as new players. Say a new player who just started IA being stuck with someone that's been IA for 2 years. Regardless of strategy or skill the new guy has no chance.

Yes, but the alternative would be to segregate players who are advanced from those who aren't... which would ultimately lead to two types of "factions" in the game... hoods with excellent players and hoods with players who haven't been stressed into learning a thing. It sounds like advocacy for farm hoods that just do the bare minimum to advance up the tech tree... and to what end? What would they get at the end? Because at some point they'll have to cross a threshold of points that would take them from the "weak" side to the "strong" side. And they'd still be at the bottom of the ladder, only with the biggest and baddest in the game above them that they'd then have to somehow contend with. The way it is now, you get a few "maybe" bullies to deal with... and so what... you lose "maybe" a resource or two per day for two weeks? But then you either learn to swim or you sink. That's kinda the point of competing in a game, in my opinion.

I believe some things like that can chase away new players, making it a bit harder to get the player base to grow and limiting the number of people willing to spend money.

Are those the kinds of players you want to grow this game? Are those the kinds of players that would spend money on this game? The ones who are content never to actually compete... and just race up the tech tree? Perhaps some of them do. But really, how long before they are bored to death and still quit the game?

There is also a part of me that looks at tech as though it were a timeline for player-lifespan. And in a way, I see people who camp as people who are choosing to spend an extra 4 years in high school. Sure you're bigger than most and you know more and can pass the tests easier. But it's still high school. Why would you want to stay there?

What if it's college... and that's the difference between a simple certification vs. a full on BA... or a PhD? I would think that the extra time spent could be quite worthwhile in that case, no? Your high school analogy makes it (I believe unintentionally) sound like campers are immature and don't know what they're doing... and so they're just "staying in high school" and thus learning nothing beyond that level. I would say college would be a much more accurate analogy because you can leave college quickly and go on with your life... or you can stay and get better at your chosen field and then leave and go on with your life. Some people spend their entire lives in academia and are none the worse for it. Some go right into a career out of high school and are very successful. And there are the opposites of both of those cases too. Running up the tech tree fast or taking your time... neither one has to be catastrophic, but one is certainly more prone to be than the other. For those who wish to take their time, how can you say they aren't progressing? Your metric of progress is based on what you believe it to be. This game has many ways to progress.

 

[DeletedUser10720]

Campers also push for progress... just at a much slower, calculated pace. There's nothing stopping campers from progressing in every way other than the tech tree... and that's exactly what my town has been doing... progressing... other than the tech tree. There are people who disagree with my choices. That's fine. I'm not playing for them and I'm enjoying my choices.

That's a fair point. I guess since the advancing GB levelling and stockpiling is less directly visible, it feels less like advancing and more like polishing, at least to me.
----
The hood system is more balanced now than before. So I don't want to complain too much about it. And everyone does need to have that trial-by-fire hood eventually with a hood bully or two, to test them. Earlier in the thread I suggested an alternate idea of basing hoods on city-age rather than tech. Or rather play time hours being a factor. Clearly this would be more punishing to the campers and I don't think it should necessarily be implemented. But something similar could radically change the way the camping strategy is valued.

As for the high-school vs college analogies, I'll agree with them both. My original intent was not to say that the campers are immature and staying in high school because of it. But rather they are choosing to stay in a setting where those around them will be generally less experienced and pose less of a threat. Surely anyone can grow immensely from learning more, in any setting. But the crowd around you shifts, or doesn't.

 

[Salsuero]

As for the high-school vs college analogies, I'll agree with them both. My original intent was not to say that the campers are immature and staying in high school because of it. But rather they are choosing to stay in a setting where those around them will be generally less experienced and pose less of a threat. Surely anyone can grow immensely from learning more, in any setting. But the crowd around you shifts, or doesn't.

Ok, well my issue with your high school analogy is that it implies stagnation, which is a very common view of campers. But just because one stagnates on the tech tree does not mean one is stagnating in general -- or rather it doesn't have to imply that. There are campers who appear to be doing nothing valuable, other than maybe bullying their neighbors... I'll give you that. But there's a lot you can do without advancing on the tech tree, and it is impossible to do everything simultaneously, so the FPs and other resources you spend scaling the tech tree are not going into other areas of the game, such as GB growth. One has to determine which is more valuable to define stagnation through just these two metrics. I value growing my GBs more than the tech tree... for now. When that changes, I will advance to the next age. It has happened a few times so far (and I haven't even been playing the game for two years yet), and I aged up. So far, that trigger point hasn't yet come again... but it will.

 

[DeletedUser29726]

Thank you for your specific input as well. Re: advanced GBs, especially in the older worlds so many people sell the goods for higher level GBs that it's not necessary to advance for that reason alone. It's almost common now to see Arcs in Iron Age worlds and has become so expected that we've had more than one person join the guild in one of my worlds (which is not a high-level guild nor a GvG guild), be in LMA to Colonial Age and immediately announce that "they've been told" it is the guild's responsibility to "get an Arc for them" and become incensed when we explain that the majority of our members, even those in the highest ages, do not have Arcs, I don't know of anyone in that guild who could sell Arc goods, those of us who do have Arcs had to go outside the guild for our goods and often waited a long time, etc. The response: "You're trying to keep the little guy down." That was an actual comment we had from a player new to FoE who joined our guild.

Yes, that trend is alarming and I've noticed it at times too - best is to let them go somewhere else as someone with that much attitude about being entitled to a building just for joining a guild is bound to be problematic for other reasons eventually. Even in medium-old worlds though I hate the feeling of having to hunt for a deal i consider acceptable for higher age buildings. I much prefer having people come to me

 

[DeletedUser10720]

Ok, well my issue with your high school analogy is that it implies stagnation, which is a very common view of campers. But just because one stagnates on the tech tree does not mean one is stagnating in general -- or rather it doesn't have to imply that. There are campers who appear to be doing nothing valuable, other than maybe bullying their neighbors... I'll give you that. But there's a lot you can do without advancing on the tech tree, and it is impossible to do everything simultaneously, so the GBs and other resources you spend scaling the tech tree are not going into other areas of the game, such as GB growth. One has to determine which is more valuable to define stagnation through just these two metrics. I value growing my GBs more than the tech tree... for now. When that changes, I will advance to the next age. It has happened a few times so far (and I haven't even been playing the game for two years yet), and I aged up. So far, that trigger point hasn't yet come again... but it will.

Very true points. Everyone has that goal to reach for each age and the trigger of boredom that will make them push farther through, eventually.

I do like how many varied responses this has gotten so far, and how different players, even ones utilizing similar playstyles vary in motive and goals. It is quite interesting.

My high school analogy did have the tinge of stagnation, but that's mostly due to my personal views of the long term camping. Though I get how others can gauge their progress on a different scale to feel differently. In the broader form of the debate I'm clearly one that is bent toward progressing in tech relatively rapidly in comparison to many here.

There have been a few comments here that have put ideas for proposals in my head that I'm going to try and work out some details on, and a few that have put ideas In for secondary cities for me to test out some of these alt strategies that I usually wouldn't have been inclined to do, should I find time to set them up.

Thus my asking for clarification of specific points - which were graciously answered. I know this sounds weird to others but aesthetics are of interest to me and I seriously don't like the look of Tomorrow's Town Hall...lol.



Thank you for your specific input as well. Re: advanced GBs, especially in the older worlds so many people sell the goods for higher level GBs that it's not necessary to advance for that reason alone. It's almost common now to see Arcs in Iron Age worlds and has become so expected that we've had more than one person join the guild in one of my worlds (which is not a high-level guild nor a GvG guild), be in LMA to Colonial Age and immediately announce that "they've been told" it is the guild's responsibility to "get an Arc for them" and become incensed when we explain that the majority of our members, even those in the highest ages, do not have Arcs, I don't know of anyone in that guild who could sell Arc goods, those of us who do have Arcs had to go outside the guild for our goods and often waited a long time, etc. The response: "You're trying to keep the little guy down." That was an actual comment we had from a player new to FoE who joined our guild.

In another world I decided to try my hand at GvG and, during the past year, have been in the #1, #2, and #8 ranked guilds on the server. Some definite pluses to being in a high-level guild but, for my play style it was almost boring. The main activity of the #2 guild was the 80% and 90% Arc leveling threads. What I found interesting and applicable to this thread is that one of the founders of that guild told me that it wasn't necessary to go any higher than FE. Of course many of the guild members were in AF, and OF - VF hadn't yet been released.

I haven't yet met anyone that has told me that it's the guilds responsibility to get them an arc. No doubt in my mind that level of entitlement exists, perhaps my guild has just been lucky or more selective in their recruitment. Either way though, that would be a one way ticket out of my guild in about 5 seconds.
One reason I have pushed so far ahead in tech is so I can easily provide goods across several ages to support guild GB construction and treasury costs. I've lost track of the dynamic towers, innos, and arcs I've thrown goods at for my guildies and will break my own progress to get them something.
The moment one of them tells me that's my responsibility and not my being the nice guy trying to help them. They would be gone.
I really enjoy helping people get those things. But that ain't my job.

 

[*Arturis*]

Play one world only if you want to be the best at it.

 

[DeletedUser10720]

Play one world only if you want to be the best at it.

I have my main, and that's where I am *the best * but it wouldn't be half as powerful if it weren't for my diamond farms feeding it. With them I've been able to earn thousands of diamonds for use in events and expansions. And its very much because of the amount of focus my farms allow me to give my main, I've made it this far.