Concerns About the Change to Sitting

[Goodwitch]

I would consider us a mediocre ghetto warring kingdom and we do use sitting, quite a bit actually. We do that because we all have jobs, many with erratic schedules.

instead of recruiting only players that can play when we need them to, we opted to recruit people that enjoy playing regardless of their schedules. Their schedules don't make them any less committed to the kingdom or the game. The only thing that this change does is the possibility of shorter sit times to suit schedules such as for example military, hospitality business, medical staff, shift workers.

If you limit the competitive play only to people that have 24/7 access to the internet you limit your player base.

And while I strongly agree that in the past a lot of times the casual player's needs were overlooked, in this case I don't think it is.
The competitive tier already has high activity with members being able to log in at any given time and if not they have tools to get around that. Sure this may make it less of a hassle for them but let's face it they don't NEED this sitting change. To them it's an added convenience nothing more.

[Band of Horses]

The biggest flaw in your argument is that you present it as a "choice" to wake up in the middle of the night. It is simply not so for everyone. Plus you're switching back and forth between saying it gives no "in-game advantage" and it gives no "unfair/competitive advantage" which are not mutually exclusive things. In-game is playing the game at its base level, whereas competitive is playing the game at a much higher level. I realize waffling between those two concepts makes it easier to always be right, but you're playing both sides of the field in order to always be right and it's not like we can't see you doing it. ;)

We as people have free will. You can choose to set an alarm. You can choose to not go to work. You can choose to not go to your life saving surgery, and instead stay home and play Utopia and die, then you no longer have a choice. Arguing the definition of pay 2 win and arguing the effect of this change are different aspects of this discussion. I would recommend looking up Truth Trees and Propositional Logic.

Except they're not playing in that environment, they're getting someone else to play for them. All the aspects that turn the normal environment into a hardcore environment (waking up in the middle of the night to hit for instance) can now be passed off to someone else to deal with. It doesn't change the way the casual player plays much at all, except maybe that they're paying more money into the game than before.

"Aha" ...

A casual player playing in a hardcore environment does not become a hardcore player even with sub 24hr sitting (or above 24hr sitting, they could just set sitter the entire war). However, a casual player with more options to reduce the time commitment such as sub 24hr sitting, is able to play competitively in that higher tier without making choices that sacrifice their real life to maintain that tier.

I do find your emoticons and aha's to be cute though. I wish you could better express your chit eating grin through the internet though, it makes it more amusing to me.
I have more respect for those that argue that sitting in general is pay 2 win, than those that crusade for this reduction in time, dealing in absolutes are far better.

David did a far better job explaining this subject than I. I just don't know how to reach these keeeeeeeeeeds. (I don't mean that as an insult, just enjoy that esoteric reference.)

[Panthira]

Give everyone the ability to play 2 provinces in the same kingdom. Or listen to Caff, the voice of reason.

I hope you don't make sitting per slot, because you will limit ppl who may play. Province Moody decides to abandon province. Province Waffle, kind of wants to play, but has that conference coming up. Province Moody used up all of the sitting left from province, F-U all, abandoned before Province Moody. Following me here? F-U All took it over from Really Wanted to Play But Failed - even though he used 1.2 weeks of sitting for the slot allotment.

Really, do I need to keep going? :\

Better to put a cooldown period between new prov owner and First Sit? Perhaps? Seems less complicated to me...

[Milkman]

Give everyone the ability to play 2 provinces in the same kingdom. Or listen to Caff, the voice of reason.

I hope you don't make sitting per slot, because you will limit ppl who may play. Province Moody decides to abandon province. Province Waffle, kind of wants to play, but has that conference coming up. Province Moody used up all of the sitting left from province, F-U all, abandoned before Province Moody. Following me here? F-U All took it over from Really Wanted to Play But Failed - even though he used 1.2 weeks of sitting for the slot allotment.

Really, do I need to keep going? :\

Better to put a cooldown period between new prov owner and First Sit? Perhaps? Seems less complicated to me...

Just playing 2 provs in the same kingdom does not go far enough. The biggest problem of utopia is not the lack of players but the lack of active provs. Dear Devs. please add a (paid) feature to play an unlimited number of provs within your kingdom. This will lead to an increase in provs and make filling up slots much more easy. Having more "full" kingdoms will increase the overall experience of the game.

Next point. The change in sitting to 1 hour is a step in the right direction but the implementation is not right. We do not need "sitting" but we as player base need to be able to delegate control of our prov or certain aspects of it to our kingdom mates. Please make an option in the settings part where we can delegate control to our provs to X number of kingdom mates so that they can logon to make attacks whenever it is needed without going throught he hassle of setting sitters all the time for those 6 hours of sleep or that 2 hour meeting. Just player X, Y and Z can logon to my province whenever its needed throughout the age.

[Palem]

We as people have free will.

Except for the possibility that we don't.

But assuming you're right, everyone does have a choice in what they decide to do and clearly the best choice is to just not play the game rather than bending over backwards and catering your already busy schedule to a nearly fruitless effort of playing utopia. Speaking from a cost reward point of view there is one very clear choice in playing utopia vs not playing utopia for someone that isn't already hooked on utopia.

Maybe we should be making changes to utopia that make that choice a little closer for people if we actually want to steer the game in a more casual direction, yah? Rather than trying to do this thing where it's still a hardcore game that's totally free to play and not pay to win but if you pay us some money it can be a little less hardcore for you personally but that does have a time limit so you can't have more than 21 days/instances where you aren't available.

[StratOcastle]

If it means anything, I only use a sitter when I'm ready to let go.

It works to. My province has been pulverized every time except once, when I return.
Lots of players can't stomach my build strat and change it into the shovel ready trap they're use to running.

I'm at peace with it, but remains my reason for barely using sitters ;)

[Avenger]

Should've made a feedback poll, but I guess we already know the result.

[StratOcastle]

Take the penalty off the wall and that might get some traction. I'm starting to think I'm the best random in the game and that's a sad account.

I'd rather see a collection of kingdoms that attract randoms by some rad algorithm than be in struggling kingdom attracting dead weight. Just a number of transient kingdoms; maybe an option box.

To be honest I don't even pay attention to random farms, but they distract kingdom mates which makes focusing a real chore.

I'd also like to see some dabbling with built province recruiting. Obviously I see the egregious assault on our current system, but that's why you dabble. Turncoat killers, opportunistic cows, honor kingdom racketeering. Glory hound euphoria.

[khronosschoty]

Except they're not playing in that environment, they're getting someone else to play for them. All the aspects that turn the normal environment into a hardcore environment (waking up in the middle of the night to hit for instance) can now be passed off to someone else to deal with. It doesn't change the way the casual player plays much at all, except maybe that they're paying more money into the game than before.

"Aha" ...

I think maybe look at it from anther point of view, not from the point of view of the one getting sit but the one doing the sitting... he (she?) gets an unfair advantage because he now has two provinces to work with vs only having one; I do not feel I really have to explain why this is an advantage over a player who can only play one province.

[Universe]

I hope you don't make sitting per slot, because you will limit ppl who may play. Province Moody decides to abandon province. Province Waffle, kind of wants to play, but has that conference coming up. Province Moody used up all of the sitting left from province, F-U all, abandoned before Province Moody. Following me here? F-U All took it over from Really Wanted to Play But Failed - even though he used 1.2 weeks of sitting for the slot allotment.

Really, do I need to keep going? :\

Better to put a cooldown period between new prov owner and First Sit? Perhaps? Seems less complicated to me...

I agree fully with Panthira here. When talk of tying sitting to a province rather than player came up, the first thing that came to my mind was that sometimes when people have to give up their province due to RL reasons, they don't make the decision in a heartbeat. It is often preceded by setting sitter for a week or two while they attempt to work things out or come up with another solution. When sitting time runs out, a player will then have to decide whether or not to continue. That sometimes (often?) leads to players abandoning prov to the KD and taking a complete break from Utopia for a round or two. At that point, the KD would have to find someone who can say absolutely that they will not need to set sitter for any RL reason, including those beyond his/her control.

I struggled to find a reasonable solution. It seems expensive to pay $15 (for invite and 3 weeks sitting) to play a second prov for 3 weeks and I don't know how prevalent that practice is. In addition, I don't think it grants as much a bonus as some people might think. In any case, I think adding a cooldown is the perfect solution. Upon accepting an invite (or reservation from previous age?) a province is not able to set sitter for 5 days (3 seems too few, a week seems too long, exact number is up to one of the overlords).

Another idea (to be taken separately or in conjunction with Panthira's idea) is to put a 1 month (30 days in normal time) cooldown on invitations into a single province.

Back to topic, this is purely a quality of life improvement on current sitting. If I have a meeting or a day where I have to be in the lab nonstop for several hours and this conflicts with important Utopia dates (wave, war, explore, etc.), I will set sitter. When I get home I'll load utopia and stare at the screen, then ask people on slack annoying questions about what's going on. I know if I set Binar sitter, he's not gonna sleep, so taking province back early doesn't have a bonus except that someone else can set Binar sitter for a few hours while they take care of real-life stuff.

For those saying that setting sitter benefits "the top" rather than casuals. I would beg to differ. With the advent of the smartphone, most players can access Utopia while at work, even if just for a short burst while using the restroom. In my experience, those players in the top are much more likely to set sitter for longer periods than shorter because they are more likely to make a small IRL sacrifice (sleep, productivity at work, what have you) in order to log in. While sleeping, they can always be called to wake up and log in if something immediate arises. With the drought of wars in the top, there is less reason to need to be available at specific times.

I think the ones who will benefit most from this change are the mid-tier war KDs who could potentially compete, activity-wise, with the top war KDs. As BoH said, it gives these players a chance to play in more hardcore environments (not because they will magically transform into hardcore players, but their KD can push the limits of their abilities and keep in loyal players who are mostly dependable, but won't log in overnight/at work/whatever situation).

[Thunder TA]

If BInars sitting you then your probably in the range of kds that benefit more from this . Every other thread people have complained that smart phones don't help people because they can't log in at work . Strangely in this thread everyone can as I've mentioned in all the other threads. Average casual players don't spend money on the game . The only way they will use this is if monarchs such as myself buy the credits and basically talk them into it and even that reaches a end point sooner or later

[Universe]

Yes, I have played in Emeriti for a while now, but before that I spent 6 IRL years in the same warring KD. We routinely kicked players out who were unable to conform to the expectations of the KD, including purchasing sitting when they would be unable to log their account (or if they were unwilling to let another person take control of their province because they had it set up in an unconventional way and were afraid it would be changed). We used sitting the first age it was offered and that is the environment where a shortened maximum on sitting hours would have benefited me exponentially more than now in Emeriti.

Logging from mobile:
I have mostly been employed in Northeastern USA, barring a year in Europe and 6 months in Louisiana. Every employer I have had was required by law (with the exception of my job in LA) to give employees working longer than 6 (or 6.5, depending on state) hours a 30 minute lunch break approximately halfway through a shift. In addition, 2 optional 5 minute breaks are often offered without clocking out (used to be called smoking breaks, but that term is no longer used).

In addition, it is illegal (in America at least, I would wager the rest of the developed world as well) for an employer to deny employees restroom breaks. Obviously, most employees don't want to be known as the one that takes many 5 minute bathroom breaks during their shift, but its not impossible to take one. With an organized KD (one that might set sitter in the first place), it should be fairly simple to have orders ready for those who are at work (being at work is an expectation, not a sudden occurrence) when they show up for a break.

My point with this is that players in top KDs will make a space during one of their breaks or even take a bathroom break in order to complete a utopia task.
Some people may not be willing to make that space by sacrificing their precious break times, or maybe they live in a place where their employer is not required by law to give them a full lunch break and they don't feel comfortable taking a bathroom break for Utopia (nothing wrong with that). These are the players that would benefit the most from the sitting change. These are the ones who aren't willing to make the sacrifice to normally be a part of that "hardcore" environment, but could potentially be in that environment with this simple quality-of-life improvement to sitting.

[Korp]

Back to topic, this is purely a quality of life improvement on current sitting. If I have a meeting or a day where I have to be in the lab nonstop for several hours and this conflicts with important Utopia dates (wave, war, explore, etc.), I will set sitter.

My point with this is that players in top KDs will make a space during one of their breaks or even take a bathroom break in order to complete a utopia task.

Thihi

But arguing that this will benefit casual players that probably dont care enough cause if they cared enough they would already find a way to do it.

[Goodwitch]

a lot of the now casual players aren't in that category because they lack the skill or experience, they are there because their schedules don't allow them to play anywhere else.

[Korp]

a lot of the now casual players aren't in that category because they lack the skill or experience, they are there because their schedules don't allow them to play anywhere else.

Thats just bull****, you can easily play competitively without sacrificing anything.