Lower kd sizes

[WolfDGrey]

What I don't understand is why this point has been overlooked?

If you reduce a KD from 25 to 20 prov's which prov's are gonna get kicked out (in SKDs at least)?

It is overlooked because it is a non-issue. The numbers are above.

W Thus there would be a fairly large exodus of players in a time when the player base is already small.

Saying that shows us that you don't care about evidence or arguments, as the numbers are above. In fact the number of players affected is VERY small, but to prove your point you use strong but vague words.

[WolfDGrey]

@ Luc

But on the flipside, full KDs at the moment (which are mostly established KDs) would be kicking out 5 people.

No they would not. At the moment, there is no kingdom with real 25 players, who don't change during a whole age! Your argument is false.

[Coke]

My KD has 25 Real players....sure we have change over age to age and sometimes need to trade someone in the middle in ages past. But runs with 25, so please revise your statement. 25 player KDs are rare, but do exist.

You can bash all you want, but your idea is more or less to have the rejected players still stay around and organize themselves to form new KDs. It just doesn't seem very feasible.

Ok so, even if you say most KDs aren't full, but the ones that are, and have to kick ppl, are most likely established KDs. Thus the people they kick are more or less going to be people with a decent understanding of the game and competent players. Aren't those the people the game at the very least need to keep not force into a situation where they may or may not come back?

Like the numbers said, it gives no consideration to the quality of the players being affected.

[WolfDGrey]

My KD has 25 Real players....sure we have change over age to age and sometimes need to trade someone in the middle in ages past. But runs with 25, so please revise your statement. 25 player KDs are rare, but do exist.

My statement is correct, as even you, in fact admit it. You need to read it again to understand it.

Again: There is no kingdom who would have zero player movement, so all the boast from your behalf about "running" with 25 is a false track and not the point.

1) Many kingdoms run with 25. ZERO have the same 25 at age end as at age start.
2) Many kingdoms recruit. ZERO kingdoms never kicked anybody.
3) kingdoms run on 25 because that is the number set by mehul 12 years ago. If the number would be 20 or 5 or 178 they would run on that.
4)Bishop says: the devs will not release statistics about how many real full players kingdoms are out there (a.k.a. account numbers). A false statement because that is not more account info than rankings. Under same statement they should remove all the rankings too, because we can find out account numbers. Let's just please remember that statistics don't mean account info, as "account info" refers to a specific account, not about anonymous statistic... Thanks.
That means: a) that the situation is in fact worse than I thought, and b) they are afraid of an exodus if we find out the real numbers, as the numbers kept at 25 with sitting and different other stuff, seem to be lower than the official records.

ergo: your points, in the circumstances people described the change in this thread, don't stand.

There can be an age long reduction, even two ages long, which can mean you don't even have to kick anybody. Please do not come with the same refuted arguments over and over again, when there are several solutions posted for them already.

You can bash all you want, but your idea is more or less to have the rejected players still stay around and organize themselves to form new KDs

I only bash in cases like this when somebody puts words in my mouth, or other times when somebody is unreasonably idiot. Please point out where I said that I want to have the players who left their ex-kingdom to band togedher and organize into new kingdoms by themselves?

[Bishop]

do not accuse me of making false statements to back up your bad ideas wolf, you get this warning only.

[elozop]

lowering sizes to 20 provs will be a total fail. Halving kd sizes, or to 15, is the only option. As already said lowering to 20 will make very little difference except a few slackers in top kds quiting after being booted. Halving at least has a hope of creating 2 kds from the original one.

A lot of these arguements are flawed, the idea is to create more kds/diversity and competition. Not save utopia or increase new members or let ghettos compete at the top. Our kd is around 35th in the world or something, split the kds in half and I have no doubt we would drop significantly, and the intensity of play inside the top 50-60 would increase. It's all hinged on keeping the split kds together though, which may be a little idealistic. This suggestion is not going to solve every problem there is with uto, its to create a larger number of kds, and if done correctly it could definately work imo.

[WolfDGrey]

do not accuse me of making false statements to back up your bad ideas wolf, you get this warning only.

you wont get info on other peoples accounts, that is private data.

Sorry man, we allready get info on people's accounts and we get pretty exact statistics, updated daily. Yes, numbers. Yes, they are same kind of info I was asking for. Numbers.

I see no bad thing on getting other kinds of statistics which would ease our struggle in refining ideas to help out the game (yes, even temporarily).
It is not about asking for login and pass or email. It is about anonymous data, not individual info on separate accounts, but a bunch of data slapped togheder much like Comport posted.
I fail to see what is so secret in saying that x kingdoms are sitting y provs for long time and struggling to keep 24-25 players. It is not even about all kingdoms in the game, it is the few who are full or allmost full.

Well, yes it is not according with your line of thinking, doh!, but c'mon, realistically it is not that hard. That could answer some questions and clear some doubts for either side. Maybe next time we can suggest better things. After all, the goal is to see the game go upwards, not downwards, even if we have to wait awhile for that.

[Coke]

I only bash in cases like this when somebody puts words in my mouth, or other times when somebody is unreasonably idiot. Please point out where I said that I want to have the players who left their ex-kingdom to band togedher and organize into new kingdoms by themselves?

Then please explain where you expect the booted players to go? If reducing the KD size to 20, increases more full KDs hence reducing the KDs booted players can join, then where are the booted players suppose to go?

[comport9]

Much of the disagreement here hinges on intangibles such as the "leadership qualities" of the players forced to leave their KD's. This is a losing argument, as it can't be resolved with the data that we have. Perhaps you can make the assumption the the "worst" players in the KD might be the ones kicked, however, you can also make the assumption that the "worst" players kicked from an SKD are still better the "best" players in the smaller KD's they'll be transferred to.

Bishop's argument earlier that reducing KD sizes wouldn't affect anything because the ratio of full KD's would remain the same. This argument is flawed because if you follow it's logic, then if you INCREASED KD sizes you'd keep the same ratio's as well. (Resulting in more players overall, what a great idea!) So that argument against lower KD sizes must be rejected out of hand, not only for it's failed logic, but also because there is no evidence to support it.

The objective is to increase competition, and thus fun, in the game as a whole. So what can we agree on that increases competition?

* Equal number of players.
* Greater number of KD's.
* Greater depth of understanding of Utopia.

All things being equal, the KD with the most players has an advantage. Granted, in Utopia things are never 100% equal, but for the sake of the argument we must assume so.

While lowering KD limits wouldn't necessarily increase the number of KD's, it would increase the number of KD's of the same number of players.

As I mentioned earlier, the players of the top KD's would be most affected, these players joining the rest of Utopia would share their knowledge of the game with their new KD's. Rather than have all the talent in a few KD's, it would be spread around a little more. Creating parity. (Kind of like a salary cap in professional sports)

Now, there is a limit to how far you can lower KD's and still maintain what Utopia is: a cooperative war game. (A limit of 2 would conceivably increase the number of KD's and KD's of equal number of players, but it would hardly be Utopia any more) Furthermore, reducing KD sizes DOES negatively affect some people. This can't be discounted. For if too many people are affected in this way, many may choose to simply leave the game, effectively killing the whole reason for it in the first place.

Therefore, I can't see reducing KD sizes to 15 players as a good thing. It would negatively affect nearly a third of the community, far too high a number in my opinion for the potential gain. 20 players seems like the right fit, as it affects only about 5% of the community. (And one might argue that this portion of the community is most committed to Utopia, reducing the possibility of defections) while creating perhaps over 136 more KD's of 20 players. Resulting in a Utopia community of over 280 KD's of equal max size. (As it stands, KD's of 17 have the most equal competition of 65 KD's, with the next nearest being 18 player KD's of just 43 KD's) In my opinion the benefits of this scenario outweigh the costs.

I'll touch on one other argument, that of the changed strategies resulting from lower KD sizes. First, this would affect only 5% of the players (if KD sizes reduced to 20). Thus if there is any strategy changes, only a limited number of players are affected. Second, I've played in both 17 - 22 player KD's and currently in a 25 player KD. I haven't noticed any changes with regards to strategy. Third, if there was any change to strategy, that's simply part of the game. Utopia is a game about change. It's what makes Utopia unique.

[WolfDGrey]

Then please explain where you expect the booted players to go? If reducing the KD size to 20, increases more full KDs hence reducing the KDs booted players can join, then where are the booted players suppose to go?

read comport's post.

[Bluefaerydust]

as a monarch of a kd that has 25 provinces pretty consistently - and luckily have been able to fill all spots when I get the invites - I would be willing to see the kd size shrink some. I have been monarch since 2001 - and have sadly watched the game shrivel - I would not want to see kds smaller than 20 provinces - and I would not want to lose 5 at once - I could handle having the kd lowered to 22 next age and then 20 the following age - but is this going to be enough to make a significant change?

if we do shrink kd size:
As monarch I would want to be able to approve who goes and who stays - those who get the boot should have some sort of free pass into another kd that doesnt count as the other kds invite - so that if you got several who got booted and they want to make a new kd they can do that. if the magical 100 full kds lose 3 each that would only give us 14 new kds - but they should be able to form new kds with other players of similiar skills without being confined to the invite limitations.

I understand that many feel this could cause people to leave the game - but let me tell you that the status quo is also causing the others to leave the game. Currently there are only 7 kds that are within 800k nw from my kd - not long ago out of desperation we were going to wave a kd 1.3 mil bigger and then we went to wave and they were deleted .... we are used to 7 wars an age - this age we have had 3 - people are restless all over the game - its the same story - not enough kds to war

instead of worrying about who might leave if we shrink kds - lets worry about who might leave if we dont get more kds and more players - because my kd wants wars and its boring when we dont have them - i fear that many will give up - across the game


how can we get more kds if omac refuses to advertise or even admit our game exists? the only way i can see it happen is if we MAKE MORE kds - by sacrificing our players for the good of the game -- I am sure if there is a special provision for those who get the boot to be able to easily merge with others to form a kd this wont be as disastrous as some predict. of course an even better solution is for omac to put us back on their pages as a game and for those of you who like to whine a lot to be nicer so that omac will give us a chance - if they dont want to pay to advertise us a link on the jolt page would help a lot -

stop thinking about whats best for you or best for your kd and lets think about how to make the game more viable -

[lichemaster]

Why is everyone talking about this like it is a good idea and ignoring the bad side effects?

By the logic of the people in this thread the ideal would be 1 player kingdoms so everyone would have 6862 kingdoms to war with - Lots of variety - and the best thing is it doesn't change the game at all because "it scales down".

Some of the things you decided to ignore:
- Disgruntled players.
- It doesn't scale down because individual ops and attacks don't become stronger.
- Alliances would become much more important and dangerous to unaligned kingdoms.

It seems to me that what is going wrong here is that you guys want to stay the same size the entire age. If you already warred all the kingdoms in range go into pump/whore mode and get in range of some bigger kingdoms.

What we need is publicity and more players not this bull****.

[Bishop]

obviously staying in range of people is not something a kd can control...

[Palem]

Some of the things you decided to ignore:
- Disgruntled players.

There will be disgruntled players no matter what. You can't please everyone. I'm sure all of the decent-but-not-all-that-good kds who have already beaten all the targets around them are pretty disgruntled at this point.

- It doesn't scale down because individual ops and attacks don't become stronger.

So strategy changes. God forbid we reward good strategist in a war game. I'm sorry if it's not as comfortable as our usual change of orcs leet from 8/2 ->9/2.

- Alliances would become much more important and dangerous to unaligned kingdoms.

Alliances are purely of the concern of the community. The game plays no part in that.

What we need is publicity and more players not this bull****.

Yes. That's exactly what we need, but we don't have that. They don't just not help people with AIDS just because there's no cure yet.

[comport9]

Lichmaster, you obviously didn't read many of the posts. "Disgruntled players" is the key concern with this proposed change. However, the benefits of such a change can't also be ignored, and by looking at the numbers, the benefit is worth the price.

Your other points don't make any sense... "scaling down"? What is that supposed to mean? "Alliances will be stronger"? I don't see how you come to that conclusion, or how it's at all relevant even if it is true.

BlueFaery made a great point: We're losing players NOW, if with this change we lose some, will we in the long run lose less by doing it? By increasing equal competition by a factor of 5 - 10, I'd say that is a strong argument that suggests we'd lose far less people, if not actually bring people back to the game.