2015-11-05 Blog post discussion

Strategy, feedback, or anything SUBTERFUGE-related
Fri Nov 06, 2015 12:24 am

  • First of let me say: I hate the idea of Paid tournaments! I would pay for t-shirts, I would pay for in-game “skin” changes and I would pay for a Patron badge to support the devs.
    I would stop playing if I had to pay for tournaments! (also pleas no subscription model …)
    That said let me tell you my opinion to all the other ideas.
    I love all the expansion Ideas as long as most of them stay optional. As for the social matrix I agree with what has been said by the other posts. Not sure if it is easy to implement and or useful. What I would like to see though is an alliance system for the Team play modes. It makes the organization much easier and there could be a leaderboard for it and I simply love looking at my name on a leaderboard with some statistics.
    You could make money when it costs you like 5$ to open a team (L3?) and you would not have to pay a price to enter a tournament…! People that want to enter a team have to be L2. (Make it a Team of 2 players for 5$ and a team of 4-5 players for 10$) Let your fantasy range free. Maybe make it look like arena teams in wow…
    Until you arrive at such a point where this is possible finance yourselves with patron badges and let me chose my color in-game, make my subs look different form everyone elses , give me a t-shirt (good quality pleas) or stuff like that.
    I hope they come up with a lot of NONE game effecting Monetization methods. (If you need help I’m always full of ideas! ;)
    I see so much potential in this game I can’t wait for the future! 
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    umpusten
     
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Fri Nov 06, 2015 8:57 am

  • I had an earlier post when I first started playing in beta about Neptunium.

    The basics were each game you played, whatever Neptunium you mined you collect in your account. Then, there may be tournaments or special game types where you could purchase a seat with the neptunium. If you didn't have enough neptunium to buy a seat, then for a $1 or so you could buy 100.

    So in games, instead of people resigning or leaving, people may be more inclined to just build a mine and try to mine some neptunium for their account. Also, perhaps the winner of the game can get a neptunium bonus or something.

    Then, like how they mentioned ads to grant a movement slot, maybe you can purchase one for 1000 neptunium. That way, L1's start with 4 movements, then as they play games and mine more, they can open more slots.
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Fri Nov 06, 2015 10:05 am

  • Braxo wrote:I had an earlier post when I first started playing in beta about Neptunium.

    The basics were each game you played, whatever Neptunium you mined you collect in your account. Then, there may be tournaments or special game types where you could purchase a seat with the neptunium. If you didn't have enough neptunium to buy a seat, then for a $1 or so you could buy 100.

    So in games, instead of people resigning or leaving, people may be more inclined to just build a mine and try to mine some neptunium for their account. Also, perhaps the winner of the game can get a neptunium bonus or something.

    Then, like how they mentioned ads to grant a movement slot, maybe you can purchase one for 1000 neptunium. That way, L1's start with 4 movements, then as they play games and mine more, they can open more slots.


    I really love this idea! Was there a reason the devs didn't want to do it?
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    roadkiehl
     
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Fri Nov 06, 2015 10:32 am

  • +1 to the "Account total Neptunium Count" I think this is a great idea!
    therealben
     
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Fri Nov 06, 2015 10:38 am

  • I also like the idea of transfering Neptunium to your account. I'm sure this was implied by Braxo, but you should only be able to purchase Neptunium for your account, not in-game to reach the 200 faster.
    stefan
     
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Fri Nov 06, 2015 6:12 pm

  • Custom game modes could be interesting (and locking some of the creation options behind L2 clearance could help encourage purchases). Only thing though is rated games would always need to be "Standard" games.

    Another idea would be Leagues. 3/6 month seasons, maybe different settings each season. Maybe this season Sonar range is cut in half, maybe there are no Shields, etc. All kinds of things to keep it interesting. You'd get assigned to games at random, one every 2 weeks. Maybe a small tournament between the top 32/64 players at the end of the season. You could charge $1 for entry into the season, or free entry for L2 Clearance owners (another incentive to purchase).
    kalzekdor
     
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Sat Nov 07, 2015 2:39 am

  • Neptunium as a currency is an interesting concept. However, if you could take it out from a game, a savvy player could just create 100 games, build mines and farm the resource for their account.

    Rather, I'd say a fixed percentage of your neptunium from all completed games is added to your account, it could be used for tournament entry, unlocking game creation options, badges to award other players, alternative art and colours, the list is endless.

    Or, you could buy neptunium outside of games to get these options.
    rosslessness
     
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Sat Nov 07, 2015 11:48 am

  • I had some many good thoughts last night before I went to sleep that I didn't write down because I was lazy. :cry:
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Sat Nov 07, 2015 12:02 pm

  • rosslessness wrote:Neptunium as a currency is an interesting concept. However, if you could take it out from a game, a savvy player could just create 100 games, build mines and farm the resource for their account.


    That was my first thought too when we started talking about neptunium totals being tied to your account. But if you're eliminated you lose your nept. So if someone was to start a bunch of games to farm nept they'd probably just be attacked by all their neighbors if they weren't still putting the effort in to either defend themselves or broker peace with their neighbors. At that point they are basically playing correctly anyways.

    The problem would be private games where all of the players join explicitly to farm, but i think this could be fairly easily autodetected from lack of activity/fighting/messages.
    pmoney
     
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Sat Nov 07, 2015 2:50 pm

  • Expansion 1- Stat graphs + projecting expected values.

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    I think the Intelligence Reports should be as simple and basic as possible. I think adding graphs for projected expected values is a bad idea. It would take the simplicity out of Intelligence Reports and makes the game seem more complicated. Not good for new players.

    At the same time, I would love to see Intelligence Reports reworked to some degree. Mainly, I would like:

    (1) The Intelligence Reports worked with the time machine in a way that only displayed expected future values based on what the player sees.

    (2) The funding tab was removed, and instead, funding was shown by a dot next to the players name.

    (3) The Intelligence Reports to take up the whole screen width and be scaleable like the chat, time machine, and events tab.



    Expansion 2 - Social matrix with alliance stats.

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    I think this is a wonderful Idea.

    I’m not sure how this could be done, but It would be extremely beneficial when playing against players who are ‘friends’.

    One of the first games I played was a 5 person game. One person went AFK immediately. Another was AFK for a long periods of time. The last two ended up being boyfriend and girlfriend. I was almost able to take them both on, but due to their relationship it was impossible to get one to backstab the other.

    Adding the ability to see this so called 'social matrix' would be very cool. And would also bring the dynamic of Randoms vs Wolf Pack players into the game. And would do so in a way that doesn't punish players for wanting to play with their friends.



    Expansion 3 - Game creation options (generator/factory balance, fog of war, game speed/
    pausing).

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    Absolutely love this. Would love to be able to generate maps based on:

    -Casual/Private
    -Casual/Rated
    -Player Count
    -Factory to Generator Ratio
    -Fog of War
    -Option to disable mine building (For a ‘Death Match’ style game)
    -Map symmetry
    -Option for the host to set up the game and not play. (for tournament purposes)
    -Standard game speed and maybe a “live” speed. Where every hour takes something like 10 seconds.

    Not huge on pausing though. Takes away strategy from the game and its hard to work with due to time zone differences.



    Expansion 4 - Game modes (tournaments, king of the hill, teams).

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    At first I thought this was a good idea. But the more I think about it, the more I don’t want any of these features.

    -Tournaments can easily be ran by the community. Implementing dedicated tournament support I can only imagine would be extremely time consuming and difficult.

    -Other game modes, while great in theory, I feel do not fit into what subterfuge was designed in mind for. And therefore would be a bit boring and very predictable. Also: these game modes will require specially designed maps. But that’s not a bad thing.





    Monetization 1 - Ad supported free play, for example temporary unlimited time machine use after watching an ad.

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    Not a bad idea. Free players will probably do it. Watch a 30 second ad and gain unlimited moves for a day. Or, Watch a 30 second ad and gain 1 move slot for a week.



    Monetization 2 - Patron badge giving to players who donate extra.

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    This is easily done. And would probably make an easy few thousand dollars at the least. But at the same time, its done mostly for the really dedicated players to throw some more money your way. And it could be argued as way of showing the current financial failure of the game. Which risks it not being updated/maintained. Which risks people not wanting to buy the L2 Access.

    If this is done, I’d hope its put off for as long as possible. Or at least until the game is 6 months old. Either way, it would probably be better to just set up one of those paypal “donate” buttons on the forums and give anyone who donates a special forum badge or color and maybe a mention in the game credits. That way, you cut out apple/google for being the middleman.


    Monetization 3 - Paid tournaments.

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    I don’t really like this idea. Unless theres a pool prize. But even then, theres a huge number of legal issues with that.


    Monetization 4 - Selling alternate art.

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    Another very easy source of revenue. Theres a lot of ways you could take this. You could sell individual skins for ships, generators, factories, and the map background. Or sell everything in a Art Pack.

    Back it looks like you have to contract the art out. So there is that. And for the record, the current art is absolutely beautiful.


    Monetization 5 - Giftable medals to reward to other players for their outstanding gameplay.

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    This reminds me of Reddit Gold. Which isn’t a bad idea or concept to copy. But I’m not sure if it would work as well in an app game.
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