⚔️ The Wave-builder prototype is almost ready! Discussions and feedback thread ⚔️

ELE wrote:

Common people.... Is there anything that would please you?

A game that's stable and doesn't crash would be nice.

ELE wrote:

TG is commercial organization but they not allowed to charge for new product.

They are allowed. But they also need to take responsibility when they mess up. Somehow "this is not charity" argument seems to apply only to TG and not to paying customers according to our ambassadors. TG is here because of their players . Should we stay silent if we don't approve of something and just keep dumping money in this endless pit? If they are so awesome as some of you keep telling us, how come there are so many unsatisfied customers? The argument was that they are fighting free illegal scripts with this. By adding one feature that's worth half of gold club? You have raid lists for all your villages. Why not have wavebuilder for all of them too? And what was done to prevent the usage of free scripts? Because their "flawless" system of detection showed too many flaws so far. With the current situation, it's a joke to offer it under these conditions.

I don't think our ambassadors understand the community - both forum players and the ones who are not on forums.

So - if you want to think for community, please once or twice play as the majority without gold so that that you understand what they're facing. I don't go into servers taking only 60 elites with me to only think from their persepctive. On com1 restarts, we always have tonnes of noobs, tonnes of recruits that do not buy gold. I have multiple times restarted in servers without any elite on my side - have built alliances with bad players, I have taught tonnes of players, guided tonnes of players. When I first played this game, I stubbornly asked questions from an elite player and he didn't refuse a single question, and so I have never refused anyone either. Basically, I do know the mentality of the average players. There are tonnes of players who rely on auctions - who don't get along with golders to play their style as they have egoes. This 50 gold looks pretty less to you - makes sense to you, but to the majority it makes TG look like beggars. You give one more edge to those who can buy gold and you lose a lot who do not. I'm sure TG has nothing to lose from this - but the veterans want servers with at least a minimum 1k player as future raid targets/chief targets and not just 200 golders getting bored out of their heads. Unfortunately, those bad players are not familiar that they can download this feature for free. But if this feature was available and completely free, can you just imagine how many players that are considering to quit to play this game? how many players will get interested to play off when and not get bored with this game? how many players will get chances to snipe/play def and not play a completely boring end-game server? how many def players will turn off? A year ago I played with one of those random startee alliances, if this feature is available to them for free, their noob OC could teach them easily to send same second wave, make some stupid plans and learn from mistakes and keep servers interesting for all those players who got kicked out/chiefed and forced to delete. Earlier, their off plans included sending single target attacks - so, please look at the bigger picture here.

Of course, if you believe that you have spent tonnes of time and effort on programming this feature, I will program and code this as a gift for you, and in return you implement it for free. Or make the online one legal as this is just your stolen idea about a tool freely available to all.
And sorry - I'm not going to say it should be part of the gold club even, it has to be either with plus or completely free. Attract players please - make the players interested in game and in future they'll pay to play it. Nobody pays initially, but once a rivalry starts, people get interested and they will then pay to play this game for vengeance.

I sympathize with some of your arguments fnx . Can you please tell me what exactly is changing for low gold spenders?

ELE wrote:

I sympathize with some of your arguments fnx . Can you please tell me what exactly is changing for low gold spenders?

Already mentioned above, it's one additional edge for those who spend more gold. However, that is not the main point I'm trying to get at. The argument is that it can get a lot of newbees interested to stay in the game. When a feature could be used to make a server more interesting by boosting the noobs with a tool that can reduce the skill gap of players, you could've got their interest up. Give them a way to fight back - get them interested, develop some rivalries. An unpaying noob today is a golder newbee tomorrow.

Literally - a lot of people are doing this math in here to show that it's reasonable to pay as "that gold being asked is insignificant" compared with what they actually have to pay in the entire server and that only a few players will use it for multiple hammer villages - so here's the real question then. Is TG that broke that they want squeeze out this little gold from some of the few players? Why not make it for free and see its benefits in long terms? It's not like they have come up with an original idea or something - they've taken a free to download illegal script, and turned it to a pay to use, legal script. Just add it to the plus feature - and a lot of newbees will have a chance to try this new feature out.

ELE wrote:

I sympathize with some of your arguments fnx . Can you please tell me what exactly is changing for low gold spenders?

Interesting point. Are you saying low or no gold users don't matter? They will not be affected by wavebuilder?

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LemBot wrote:

make a lot more money by adding it to PLUS

How so?

fnx wrote:

So - if you want to think for community, please once or twice play as the majority without gold so that that you understand what they're facing.

I've tried and I wouldn't touch this game without gold with a 10 foot pole.

fnx wrote:

I don't think our ambassadors understand the community - both forum players and the ones who are not on forums.

Every community is different and the Ambassador's tend to reflect the community they represent. That said the communities represented with Ambassadors in general tend to be from more profitable communities due to their size. So perhaps there is a bias in that regard but again free doesn't pay the bills, Travian MUST make a profit. The more they make, the more likely they will assign more resources to the game. If you'd prefer of course a 2-4% increase in gold cost per year is always an option, the other is to include general optional features/functions that users can pay for. So I don't blame Travian for charging for the feature because that is a heck of a lot better option than increasing gold prices every year.

If they make everything free they don't make money, the game shuts down. If they keep adding features to the two existing premium packages (plus and club), those dilute in value, meanwhile the cost of business increases. Its reasonable to charge something and while perhaps not entirely reasonable at 50 gold/village, its not ludicrous either. There has to be something "premium" or the game doesn't exist. Where does the line get drawn? Its not an easy question but they've done remarkably well relative to other games. Mobile games are atrociously more expensive by comparison.

BlackBlade wrote:

How so?

because plus is weekly?

but lets not give them ideas that would make it even more expensive...

rey wrote:

because plus is weekly?

Anyone who would use the wave builder is already going to use plus. Unless you want them to increase the cost of plus, that is always an option.

BlackBlade wrote:

I've tried and I wouldn't touch this game without gold with a 10 foot pole.

This speaks volumes. About once a very cool and interesting game but also about your knowledge of it. Every one of those big shots should play at least one server with no gold. Especially if you want to act as a representative of all players.

BlackBlade wrote:

If they make everything free they don't make money, the game shuts down.

Are you trying to tell us (from a confidential source, of course ) that the players base is growing with all this features they've introduced lately? Just curious...

rey wrote:

because plus is weekly?

but lets not give them ideas that would make it even more expensive...

Adding it to plus options to activate it for 5 gold, 1 week active account wide is even better then pricing 50 gold for each village and when losing the village the gold is lost as well

could also be added to tasks bonusses to get 1 day free

but yea, just add it to goldclub.. Maybe a lot more will buy that if it gets new options

So this is what I just suggested to HQ based off what I’ve heard here and elsewhere. I’m curious to see what players think.
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Here are my general thoughts:

1. Have a “base” wave builder that is free. Add a “premium” version that is included in gold club. (Or similar package of features)

Base versión = max 4 waves.
Premium version includes max of 8 waves (maybe higher) and additional features. Example of an additional feature would allow you to plan attacks on multiple targets. Then from the plan list you get to click a button to load it. Then have the same send mechanic as the regular list. This would also tie in nicely to a future Alliance tool for operational planning.

Those that can’t afford it will still have something to use, those who like it will likely shell out more for the premium version. The premium version would be more about “saving time” and helping quell any pay to win argument.

2. Just make it 100% accurate. Especially if part or whole of the tool is free. Some will complain but I think it will please more players than it upsets. If you need exact timing you still have to time your click and account for lag. That has always been the real skill, not whether you can use a strange browser or setting to setup the waves and send them at all relatively close together.

3. You absolutely must make it one charge for the entire round even if you do nothing else.

LemBot wrote:

Thing is, sure the new wave builder feature will be cheap, but TG would make a lot more money by adding it to PLUS, instead of charging for it seperately...And you know what the best thing about adding it to PLUS would be? People would get less mad about it.

The wave builder is village specific and plus is on the account. That complicates the choice a bit.

I suppose a bundled wave builder (as BlackBlade suggests) could go on the spawn village to start off then you pay a small amount of gold to move it and a greater amount to get a premium builder, but possibly 8 waves will cause more moans bacause that is enough to trash the fields on a 15c capital. it is clear TG has done all it can to make attacks less effective because too many effective attacks can lose them paying customers from a server (Travian vn5 is not like vn3 was with 100's of single cat fakes and many 8 wave attacks), so maybe 6 waves with some chance of the last one or 2 lagging and definitely lags if there has been a recall in the last (say) 8hours

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BlackBlade wrote:

Anyone who would use the wave builder is already going to use plus. Unless you want them to increase the cost of plus, that is always an option.

not necessarily true, in some game worlds a lot of players play Roman off because of low gold. Most of them don't touch PLUS the entire server, only gold club. So it would make sense to include wave builder feature in gold club for the entire server duration, or as a separate feature alltogether.

So true all that was said about low to no gold users. Before I started buying gold, all I was interested in was to gather enough for gold club and get that raid list. I could live without everything else and I wasn't even raiding that hard

The question is if low/no golders are taken into consideration here. From what I read, I don´t think they are.

fnx wrote:

Attract players please - make the players interested in game and in future they'll pay to play it.

This is how I see it too. I guess there are people who take out their cc before they even start playing, but I doubt they are the majority. If the difference between f2p and golders is too big, I suppose many will quit before they check deeper into the game.

But TG is the one with all the numbers and if they are happy with the current situation, we're just wasting our time here.

LemBot wrote:

Have you ever tried playing without PLUS?

LemBot wrote:

By adding it to PLUS they would get the average and below average players into PLUS,

These two statements contradict each other. If PLUS is so valuable then even the average player would use it. If you are going to pay for anything in this game PLUS should be it. As I said earlier, I've tried playing without gold and it was a terrible experience - that included no plus. I did it for a week and then I caved.

FanatiK wrote:

Most of them don't touch PLUS the entire server, only gold club.

I admit I find this... unexpected. I'd rather have PLUS over gold club I think, though trade routes are kind of my jam.

LemBot wrote:

Gold price increasing would probably end up in less revenue for TG in the end,

Quite possibly yes but the point remains that their expenses go up every year, eventually they need to balance that out with more revenue. As far as I can tell the USD price has never changed - at least since the US domain existed. (I took a look through the forum archive). That is a lot of years to have the same pricing.

There are of course different ways to go about that and I admit that in talking with the community more I can see the current choice was a poor way to go about it. I think they see that, the reaction has been (as far as I'm aware) negative across multiple communities. They've been given different options to address the dissatisfaction and I hope they take that feedback and use it.

Because gold club is for the whole round and if you have limited gold, you can't pay for PLUS all the time. You can gather enough for gold club and get some neat features long term. And wait for daily bonuses. If you are not used to PLUS, you can live without it. Once you get used to it, you're officially sucked into buying gold.

BlackBlade wrote:

if they make everything free they don't make money, the game shuts down. If they keep adding features to the two existing premium packages (plus and club), those dilute in value, meanwhile the cost of business increases.

How exactly does the cost for business increases? Do they require additional servers to support a few bytes of new code added to the game? Or do they have to pay their programmers additional money for doing something that's not part of their job description?

You guys think revenue is generated by charging more from the already paying customers? By giving more features for payment - who again are paid by the already playing customers...? Well, here's a truth for you. Their salaries are not exactly increasing just so that you know, if they pay 50 gold here, they'll save 50 elsewhere. Someone who buys 600 gold per month, will not buy 650 per month to include this cost. Rather he'll just save the 50 from elsewhere such as auctions budget. I'm sure everyone agrees with this. While it actually looks like they're making extra gold - in reality the gold paid here gets cut from auctions/npcs or gold ups.

BlackBlade wrote:

Anyone who would use the wave builder is already going to use plus. Unless you want them to increase the cost of plus, that is always an option.

How dire is TG's situation that you keep wanting everyone pay more gold for them? What have you and Ele seen at their HQ that you don't want them to miss any single opportunity of squeezing some extra gold?

Again I'll repeat what I said earlier, look at the bigger picture which could expand the community. This feature is pretty great but NOT FOR THE GOLDERS AND ELITE PLAYERS - it's great for the NOOBS AND NEWBEES. Elites already know all alternative from free script to using old ff or kmeleon, This feature is meant for the bad players who do not buy gold - give them a taste of this feature through plus. Once players taste what plus has to offer, they cannot play without plus and they'd buy the gold. TG - please hire some psychologists for your organization who can show you how to get gold from people. Literally, I can myself show you 10 ways to make gold without charging anyone. That wouldn't make this game "Pay to win" either. Literally, every single game makes money by adhering to the perverse nature of the nerds and here you're trying to squeeze gold through features that should be part of the game...

LemBot wrote:

Have you ever tried playing without PLUS? Literally impossible to play without once you have used it for a week. By adding it to PLUS they would get the average and below average players into PLUS, as a lot of people would use the wave builder feature, and then realise that they can't play without the other features.

This guy knows exactly what playing without gold feels like. Once you taste how easy the game gets with plus - they'll buy the gold. Gold starts off small - from 100 to support plus and it gets to 600 at least once they're addicted.

BlackBlade wrote:

1. Have a “base” wave builder that is free. Add a “premium” version that is included in gold club.

This is not entirely bad idea - but the elite players will complain by making this game too easy through premium version. The free/plus version could boost the community and smaller players to play off specially those who play from mobile.

fnx wrote:

TG - please hire some psychologists for your organization who can show you how to get gold from people.

I was thinking the same. They are so bad with handling people.

So. Bad.