Bring back more players, bring back the fun

To Bishop/Dev:

The # of players keep shrinking in this game, you might consider below suggestions if you think it's feasible to help.

1) Increase elites' def points (max 6 or above) + reduce elites' off points (max at 6 pts).
2) Bring back the land based gain.

Both 1) and 2) aim to bring back more solo players. They either could be new players that lack of experience to team up with others, or the old experience players that no time to stick to the team. I joined this game since 2001, on and off playing. I was new player that not able to compete with others but fortunately could survived due to higher def/lower off + land based gain. More elites i trained and more time taken to boost the military, i would be safer. I left this game when NW based gain introduced and off increased(from 6 to 7)/def decreased (from 6 to 5), because even after grown in experience, i wasn't able to go further to play for land/nw as a solo player because new changes cause solo players much much more vulnerable (I believe all players aim for some achievements, not just for fun). I rejoined utopia on 2013, quite fortunate to team up with good players and learning lots of things but lots of time spent as well. If possible, i hope some changes on game mechanics to allow solo players achieve more like once we had with old game mechanics. In this case, more types of people can fit to this game and they can choose to play as team or solo based on the time they have, for some achievements rather than quit.

thanks.

Neither will bring back any players and solo players aren't good for the game.

Accept this game will simply die. They will not put the money into this to make it live, the fact we needed a fan to spend a years worth time to make an incomplete but promising app just to play this game on mobile is all that needs to be said.

Pretty much 3rd parties tools is the reason why this game is still probably "surviving". This game cannot compete with whats out there with them flashy graphics and pictures, kids these days can't handle something like this. This also revolves killing your RL and any sort of tweaking away from current mechanics will change this game too much from the wonderful UTO that has plagued our hearts and minds.

Now if somehow a new person joins this game they usually greeted with do this/join this or die. So yah.... just enjoy what we have for as long as they can keep this break even.

1) land based gains will favor pumped provs. this will encourage pumping which slows down the game. also, the top players will be better able to take advantage of this which means this suggestion will favor the top at the expense of the bottom

2) this will make it a lot harder to hit other provinces which will make the game boring and cost players


Utopia is a pvp game designed for teamwork. That what makes it great.
If you kill both the pvp and teamwork aspects, the game will die.

i agree totally with landro

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Originally Posted by Landro

1) land based gains will favor pumped provs. this will encourage pumping which slows down the game. also, the top players will be better able to take advantage of this which means this suggestion will favor the top at the expense of the bottom

2) this will make it a lot harder to hit other provinces which will make the game boring and cost players


Utopia is a pvp game designed for teamwork. That what makes it great.
If you kill both the pvp and teamwork aspects, the game will die.

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NWBG significantly favors the top over the bottom due to their ability to manipulate nw. Look at the 5k+ provs in BB under 100 nwa, still able to gain land off significantly smaller targets. You cannot manipulate land, only nw.

The game currently promotes pumping, LBG wouldn't change that. The focus on nw efficiency ignores that military strength wins conflicts, not opnw or dpnw.
It is an irrelevant conversation though because the devs will never change the gains system.

The elite strength thing is dumb. Utopia is more def heavy today than it was in it's prime, where it had 8 point off orc elites and the highest def elite was at 6. And forts and tgs were on par.

Zauper tends to forget how bad it was during land based gains .When farms were rampant with people mass exploring for others to reap.Net worth gains eliminated that mostly.Half the provinces in utopia run almost no defense now.Used to under 40 dpa was considered a suicide,so no idea where your getting the game is defense heavy now.

Haha, thanks for fantastic inputs. How about to bring genesis back for new players and also for experience players too if they interested, could be used for coming age testing as well but an account only could be linked to one server only so ghettos could have fun there while learning and pros mostly would remain at original server for higher challenge?

New Servers cost money, which Utopia doesn't really have.

Cant we just let players play 2 provinces in the same kingdom and increase all kingdoms to 25,will increase player base artificiialy and increase competition and help those kingdoms that are always short on players.

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Originally Posted by Thunder TA

Zauper tends to forget how bad it was during land based gains .When farms were rampant with people mass exploring for others to reap.Net worth gains eliminated that mostly.Half the provinces in utopia run almost no defense now.Used to under 40 dpa was considered a suicide,so no idea where your getting the game is defense heavy now.

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OOP was always a time for farms, and still is tbh.

Under 40 DPA was never considered a suicide -- remember, a suicide functionally meant you could 4x someone while keeping more defense than them. In a world where 40 DPA is a suicide, the offense levels would have to be over 160 OPA while keeping over 40 DPA. Our hitters in age 20 ran around 200 OPA and 30-40 DPA. That age, I was a t/m running 100 RAW dpa with 10 peasants/acre. That's... actually comparable to today's provs with ridiculous science.

What you've seen, frankly, is that kingdom strats have become more synergized over time. People realized that yes, running high offense attackers with low defense is a benefit for them strategically, and that it makes more sense to do that than to run a full kingdom of turtles like they had been.

Additionally, provs generally had, on average, better sci than they do today because it took significantly less science -- which could be purchased -- to hit the same benefits. Sure, you couldn't get +30 or 40% pop the way you can now, but that's a silly comparison to be making.

Here are some provs from age 22. All taken from the top 5 most recent posts from the age section:
https://forums.utopiatemple.com/showthread.php?t=41690 (orc - 64 opa, 67 dpa)
https://forums.utopiatemple.com/showthread.php?t=42049 (elf a/m turtle -- again superior military numbers to what we see today)
https://forums.utopiatemple.com/showthread.php?t=41905 (ghetto halfer, pretty comparable)


TBH, I don't see why you deny that the game has gotten more defense heavy when it's a pretty obvious fact. Gen mods decreased, forts stronger than TGs, mil sci doesn't boost OME only anymore. Those are significant gameplay changes that boost defense over offense.

Offense was generally what won wars, not defense -- it was nearly impossible to create safe provinces. Maybe 1-2 cows would get safe, but that would be it. You won wars by outchaining (and then killing) enemy provs whiel preventing them from doing the same to you. You wouldn't expect the other kd to have safe provs at mintime, let alone at war start.

Prob I see is simply the lack of getting the word out about this game. Aside from a friend mentioning the game in passing some years ago (like 10) I have not seen or heard anything about this game on the web, and I'm an internet junkie.

Hi Zauper, off topic question:

As you said today the defense is considered high enough, then is there any chance for a player to prov crown without supported by strong teamwork and diplo? Thanks.

Not without diplo, even if you cant break the prov you can still bounce him down.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sktoh

Hi Zauper, off topic question:

As you said today the defense is considered high enough, then is there any chance for a player to prov crown without supported by strong teamwork and diplo? Thanks.

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As Korp said, without diplo, you get bounced down even if you are UB, and the ability of a kingdom to feed multiple provs generates a significant advantage vs a solo prov if they want to take it down.

Beyond that, with the current explore system, your costs are driven by the median acreage. That said, last age Vivic provcrowned in a kingdom of 3 provs? This age, there is a solo attacker at around 8k acres -- ~t60. He's fought most of the top kds at this point.

There has never really been a chance for a player to prov crown without teamwork and/or diplo. Back in the 20s, the best shot at being a strong 'solo' prov was to run war hero, farm ghettos early on, and then explore/dice with high offense and diplo to ward off threats. You needed the honor bonuses to be able to have a shot at competing.