Phase 3 Discussion

[TheBeeze]

It's about that time of the year again. I'm reaching out to all of you for feedback on the game. 

Questions, comments, concerns, ideas? I wanna hear them. 

[TheBeeze]

Nothing? The game cant be perfect.... or is it?

[ParmBrick]

I have a suggestion. Why BoN don't have a major role in the WAR? After all it is the counterpart of the UN, and therefore it should have some action and consequence on the modalities and missions in the conflict in Soalon. Maybe he could play a role in side missions, for example "escort BoN VIP", "help BoN help civilian population", "intervene in a BoN investigation" etc. As a result you get a sort of "respect civil and social commitments" score, which you can assign to PSIC or KLR, the higher this score, the more points the main and conquest missions give. This is just my idea.

[SATSOK]

16 hours ago, TheBeeze said:

Nothing? The game cant be perfect.... or is it?

All good for me ... need more ppl though :/ but its not up to you (the game) 

[TheBeeze]

20 hours ago, ParmBrick said:

I have a suggestion. Why BoN don't have a major role in the WAR? After all it is the counterpart of the UN, and therefore it should have some action and consequence on the modalities and missions in the conflict in Soalon. Maybe he could play a role in side missions, for example "escort BoN VIP", "help BoN help civilian population", "intervene in a BoN investigation" etc. As a result you get a sort of "respect civil and social commitments" score, which you can assign to PSIC or KLR, the higher this score, the more points the main and conquest missions give. This is just my idea.

Interesting point. We had the BON in full force for 3 seasons of the game but it never really amounted to much in terms of the game. We can look at ways to rework this for the future. 

4 hours ago, SATSOK said:

All good for me ... need more ppl though :/ but its not up to you (the game) 

We need everybody's help with this. @paintballman and I have been beating our heads against the wall trying to figure out how to bring more people here. We have tried to make the game as simple and in-depth as possible. The problem we really seem to run into is just too many people wanting to post custom minifigs and not really doing too much building. We are of course open to all of your help in recruiting and other ideas. 

[TheBeeze]

So we have some options for how you guys want to proceed on from here. As you can all see, things are going a little slow in terms of battling each other as the map was designed to cover ground in the event we had a lot more players. Some of you are feeling a little burned out and getting to a winner on the map may take forever. 

My question to all of you is whether or not we should proceed on with the current game and map? If not, what are some things you would like to see instead?

I am asking these questions just based on recent feedback and conversations I've had.

Thanks!

[Brickwolf]

I vote for a restart.

I really like the theme of the game. CITY/Town was always my favorite theme and I see GBW as CITY with more guns.

The Secret Ops are great function to spice up the game.  They should be kept.

I am willing to assist with the setup of GBW Phase 4 if the majority vote goes to a restart.  I am willing to continue as faction head no matter what the final decision will be.

 

Current problems as I see them:

Size of the map: After 1 year PSIC and KLR combined control 25% of the map. It will probably last another year until PSIC and KLR come into contact with a solution of the game in 3-5 years.

Some parts are repetitive, like building on road squares.

Player motivation and recruitment: At the moment most players (there are exceptions!) seem not really motivated for the game. Goading and organisation gets you only so far. The Discord ban, through I accept the decision, ist not helpful for recruitment. Additionally, despite having several really good builders (not me), GBW lacks truly outstanding builders, whose builds draw people into the game.The mercenary function was not utilized until now and keeps the merc players out of the game.

 

I was thinking about creating a new player guide to ease new players into the game.

One aspect of GBW is the use of third party parts: On the one hand it makes GBW appealing, but on the other hand  this might be discouraging for new players. Builds with only a few third party parts (e.g. @Faladrin´s builds) could show new players that a huge amount of third party parts is not needed to participate in GBW.

A size requirement for territorial gains might help to provide clear guidance on what is exspected from the players/builders!

The WAR form system feels cumbersome and bureaucratic, maybe a system where at the end of the month builds are tallied works better.

 

P.S.: Put a railroad on a new map. I also like building trains.

[TheBeeze]

Thank you @Brickwolf for chiming in. I'd really like to get a discussion going with everyone on this. You have some really great points. 

[Feuer Zug]

As the newest guy (5 months since the last, and only on a couple weeks), I don't have much experience, but Brickwolf makes a number of good points. The pacing does seem slow. Territorial expansion is slow and not much happening. It'll be ages before sides come into conflict. Maybe start the next round with closer points, but still leave room for expansion in the middle along a broad front.

I don't have an answer to motivation and recruitment other than keep it fast paced. Maybe put an easy size minimum requirement on builds required to take over unoccupied territory. Let the fights require the big and detailed MOCs. Keep interest up by speeding up the turn times, but allowing options. Small builds faster for little gain, Bigger builds slower for larger acquisitions. Keep a 1 month setup for battles between players. The expectation part Brickwolf mentioned is spot on. Let us know what we need for a minimum. Being aviation related, I will be trading detail for size because aircraft aren't small.

I thought the new player guide was decent. It didn't explain how turns happen, but it was enough to get my started. The WAR seems confusing and bureaucratic. Streamline it. Allow us to say where we want to go and start building immediately. First come, first served on a side. If both sides claim the same square in the same turn, make them build battle scenes for the next month.

Regarding third party parts, I had no plans to use them. I found enough figures in my collection of Star Wars minifigs I could create a decent force. Mind you, my force is an Air Force, so that doesn't require a total tactical look. Offer a gateway option/pictures to get outsiders in. I build aircraft, but had no thoughts about joining. @TheBeeze sent me a private invite and I thought, why not.

Some parts of the BB costs seem high and hard to achieve. I understand later on, the income could be there, but offer options in the middle for pricing. If you do have mercs, they should be at least trying to advertise their services now and then. Will established players get a small warchest to start from based on previous presentation builds and accomplishments? Not much, but something.

I second the request for railroads.

P.S. will my initial presentations be judged so I have a few bucks in my account?

[ParmBrick]

Excellent ideas were expressed. Indeed, the real conflict will not come until another year and a half with this trend. But here's my idea: first of all I think the game needs to have an end at some point, we keep the map and the factions, everyone's presentation creations are preserved, but we transform the game into a mixed Call of Duty Dungeon and Dragons style, that is, a constantly evolving story that it is written according to victories in specific missions and internal campaigns, by PSIC or KLR. For example: campaign 1, 5 missions. 5 different battlefields. The faction that wins 3 missions wins the campaign and the story progresses in a certain sense. The missions are faced each by a different player, unless there are not enough players in one faction or the other, and then one can play several times. There may be "kill-streaks" for each player who wins consecutive missions even in different campaigns: intelligence drops, supplies, special reconnaissance, air strikes, etc. These kill-streaks could be completed for one faction or the other by non-PSIC or KLR players. These kill streaks should affect the various campaigns: for example, revert the result of a campaign's mission. The story evolves over time, but with a finite number of campaigns and an odd number (to avoid ties). The faction that wins the most campaigns obviously wins the conflict. The story is decided by the mods, or together with the other players as the story progresses, the winning of one faction or the other in a mission is decided by the mods, according to a sort of score for each moc divided into categories (eg. originality, complexity, visual impact, etc.), mods obviously should not intervene by building mocs for missions and should not take part in any faction, but they could still play among the non-line up, making mocs for kill-streaks.

The problem of participation: in my opinion the situation could improve by completely changing the register of the game, currently few would like to build repetitive mocs that see their faction fight an enemy, one-way, to control sectors that are always the same and not very diversified from each other most of the time. If everything becomes more dynamic and diverse in my opinion, the game will attract a lot more audience.

[ODA 401]

A lot of these points are very interesting. I will say that it does take a while for any player to gain enough points to unlock a special function. Being in the mercenary faction, I have been contracted only once so far by the admin. I'm not sure if any player is close enough in points to request merc services (If I'm not mistaken @ParmBrick unlocked my faction's services for free because of a random square he conquered). On one hand, it is a little boring for me; but, on the other hand I don't have to worry about putting in a build on time while being a full-time student and having a part-time job (I have a lot of idea for builds but not enough time). 

I have been a part of GBW for a while now and have seen it go through numerous phases, and each time basically having to start all over again. If we don't want to start something entirely new, we could always reduce the size of the grids so it would take less time to gain more area. If a new phase (new map, factions, and teams) is desired, I would suggest allowing all us players to keep our current (up-that-point) score so we don't have to start all over again. Also, responding to the point made by @Feuer Zug, I did notice that a lot of builds for conquering a square were pretty small. I don't really have an issue with that (as long as they depict/mention an area being overtaken) and think that the battle builds should be the only builds that have a higher minimum mandatory size/detail requirements.

I do like the idea of a D&D/CoD style game that @ParmBrick mentioned (maybe even add a fantastical element to it, i.e modern elves/dwarves). The only issue I see with that is, normally, you would need a dedicated group to finish 1+ campaigns to keep the storyline from going awol.

[paintballman]

There are several interesting ideas mentioned which could be adopted as such or with variations.

But first of all I think the game should end. Without any particular changes in the way it is done, my suggestion is to redesign the grid of the map, with the squares becoming bigger and to adapt to them the progress and the successes of the players. This way the moves will be bigger on the map, and the players will come into conflict with each other sooner.

in the second phase I will refer in detail to the proposals that have been recorded. Just to say that our game is one of the simplest and friendliest. Another similar game that runs on other platforms, is too strict in the rules of what army each player will have (you can not use what you have but what is imposed on you) and generally in all moves, alliances, country choices, etc., and nevertheless it has gathered a significant number of players with decent builds

Edited December 16, 2021 by paintballman

[TheBeeze]

On 12/15/2021 at 12:49 PM, Feuer Zug said:

P.S. will my initial presentations be judged so I have a few bucks in my account?

Yes, just a little swamped right now. Apologies.

A lot of interesting points here and they've given us some ideas for sure. I will drop more feedback when I have time but I encourage all of you to continue to the discussion regardless. 

 

[sigpro]

Hi! Something I think that can be improved is the following one:

-I assume I only have time for a build involving capturing a grid, thus I declare in the WAR my intention to take such a grid.

-If there is another adjacent grid that is impossible for the enemy to take (because it is far from him) and I have time to build a MOC to take such a grid, it seems that I couldn´t do it.

Is that right?

Example: in this turn, my intention is to take H15. I am able to build just one MOC. But, at the middle of January, I take an unexpected leave and have 14 days of full time Lego dedication. Providing that I inform the game moderators and my team, would I be able to make a build to take grid I16 or G17, as they are adjacent to me and no enemy is expected?

Best regards.

[TheBeeze]

On 12/15/2021 at 11:30 AM, Brickwolf said:

I vote for a restart. 

I'm going to make a poll for this. 

On 12/15/2021 at 11:30 AM, Brickwolf said:

Player motivation and recruitment.

I was thinking about creating a new player guide to ease new players into the game.

This is the largest problem we have and I feel this problem makes the other problems worse. Like the map issue. The map was designed so that if 20 players signed up the game wouldn't be over in 2 months. With the amount of hits we get on instagram and Flickr, getting people to come here is so difficult. Discord is a great tool, but it discourages people from actually taking part in what is going on here. With other games for example, there is tons and tons of chatter on discord but all they do is post pictures here. It defeats the purpose. Recruiting and getting our name out there is something we all need to work on in some way. 

A player guide might be helpful if we do a reboot. 

On 12/15/2021 at 11:30 AM, Brickwolf said:

One aspect of GBW is the use of third party parts.

A size requirement for territorial gains might help to provide clear guidance on what is exspected from the players/builders!  

Unfortunately, with Lego never fully endorsing military parts options are naturally limited here. Some players have found creative ways around this in the past and continue to do so. We do run the giveaways every now and then and I would like to do more of that if I can get other sponsors involved. Sometimes the problem lies in how we get the parts to the players who need them most. Some of you have extensive collections and some are working on their own, but we obviously can't play favorites. 

Given the situation above with parts and some players' limitations, putting in requirements can push some people away. 

On 12/15/2021 at 11:30 AM, Brickwolf said:

The WAR form system feels cumbersome and bureaucratic, maybe a system where at the end of the month builds are tallied works better.

This is our first time doing this. It is definitely a work in progress. 

 

On 12/15/2021 at 12:49 PM, Feuer Zug said:

I don't have an answer to motivation and recruitment other than keep it fast paced. Maybe put an easy size minimum requirement on builds required to take over unoccupied territory. Let the fights require the big and detailed MOCs. Keep interest up by speeding up the turn times, but allowing options. Small builds faster for little gain, Bigger builds slower for larger acquisitions. Keep a 1 month setup for battles between players. The expectation part Brickwolf mentioned is spot on. Let us know what we need for a minimum. Being aviation related, I will be trading detail for size because aircraft aren't small. 

This I kind of answered above but I also want to note that the timeframe limiting is to keep things balanced to a degree. There are some players that will do 5 builds in a month and some who will do 1 in 2 months. We have to have something in place so that some players don't just run away with the game. 

On 12/15/2021 at 12:49 PM, Feuer Zug said:

Offer a gateway option/pictures to get outsiders in. I build aircraft, but had no thoughts about joining.  

Elaborate a little more on this if you wouldn't mind. 

On 12/15/2021 at 12:49 PM, Feuer Zug said:

 Some parts of the BB costs seem high and hard to achieve. I understand later on, the income could be there, but offer options in the middle for pricing. If you do have mercs, they should be at least trying to advertise their services now and then. Will established players get a small warchest to start from based on previous presentation builds and accomplishments? Not much, but something. 

Costs were put in as they were so players would focus on the smaller parts of the game first and not just jump for the perks. I'd like to add that at this point in the game there are several players who have acquired a massive amount of wealth through various means and can afford a majority of them, but no one has used them. There were several perks and prizes given out through sidebuilds also in an effort to give players a boost. We'll see how things pan out, but we aren't going to start from absolute zero regardless of what we decide; efforts will be recognized. 

On 12/15/2021 at 2:58 PM, ParmBrick said:

we transform the game into a mixed Call of Duty Dungeon and Dragons style, that is, a constantly evolving story that it is written according to victories in specific missions and internal campaigns, by PSIC or KLR.  The missions are faced each by a different player, unless there are not enough players in one faction or the other, and then one can play several times. There may be "kill-streaks" for each player who wins consecutive missions even in different campaigns: intelligence drops, supplies, special reconnaissance, air strikes, etc. These kill-streaks could be completed for one faction or the other by non-PSIC or KLR players. These kill streaks should affect the various campaigns: for example, revert the result of a campaign's mission. The story evolves over time, but with a finite number of campaigns and an odd number (to avoid ties). The faction that wins the most campaigns obviously wins the conflict.

The story is decided by the mods, or together with the other players as the story progresses, the winning of one faction or the other in a mission is decided by the mods, according to a sort of score for each moc divided into categories (eg. originality, complexity, visual impact, etc.), mods obviously should not intervene by building mocs for missions and should not take part in any faction, but they could still play among the non-line up, making mocs for kill-streaks. 

This is a 2 part process. With prior iterations of GBW, players wanted less storyline and for the game to be more self run. We have provided that with this open map environment. There are side missions, intertwined objectives, and other things that are dependent on players unlocking parts of the map. Very little of the outside intel and perks have been used. 

With regard to your part about the mods. We have been pretty hands off as far as builds and influencing the game. This version of the game was designed so that we could build certain parts for 3rd parties and still allow us to play but not be a deciding factor in the game. Our intent is to play more and help move the game along but we are not going to play to win anything. 

On 12/15/2021 at 2:58 PM, ParmBrick said:

The problem of participation: in my opinion the situation could improve by completely changing the register of the game, currently few would like to build repetitive mocs that see their faction fight an enemy, one-way, to control sectors that are always the same and not very diversified from each other most of the time. If everything becomes more dynamic and diverse in my opinion, the game will attract a lot more audience.

You are not wrong. The problem lies in that players will grow tired of having to defend against overly aggressive players because then they will wind up making many more builds every month. This is something we have tried to balance as well but can definitely look into for the future. 

On 12/16/2021 at 12:28 AM, ODA 401 said:

A lot of these points are very interesting. I will say that it does take a while for any player to gain enough points to unlock a special function. Being in the mercenary faction, I have been contracted only once so far by the admin. I'm not sure if any player is close enough in points to request merc services (If I'm not mistaken @ParmBrick unlocked my faction's services for free because of a random square he conquered).  

This is something to consider as well. Quite a few players can afford you and unlock your services for free on the map but none have chosen to utilize you. We lost Captain Genaro basically at game start due to some personal reasons so we lost that aspect of the game too. We obviously want to include you more in the game and find ways to do that too. 

On 12/16/2021 at 1:39 AM, paintballman said:

in the second phase I will refer in detail to the proposals that have been recorded. Just to say that our game is one of the simplest and friendliest. Another similar game that runs on other platforms, is too strict in the rules of what army each player will have (you can not use what you have but what is imposed on you) and generally in all moves, alliances, country choices, etc., and nevertheless it has gathered a significant number of players with decent builds

I continue to be puzzled by how strict other games are but the amount of people they get to join are insane. 

On 12/18/2021 at 5:38 AM, sigpro said:

Hi! Something I think that can be improved is the following one:

-I assume I only have time for a build involving capturing a grid, thus I declare in the WAR my intention to take such a grid.

-If there is another adjacent grid that is impossible for the enemy to take (because it is far from him) and I have time to build a MOC to take such a grid, it seems that I couldn´t do it.

Is that right?

Example: in this turn, my intention is to take H15. I am able to build just one MOC. But, at the middle of January, I take an unexpected leave and have 14 days of full time Lego dedication. Providing that I inform the game moderators and my team, would I be able to make a build to take grid I16 or G17, as they are adjacent to me and no enemy is expected?

Best regards.

The movement on the amount of squares to you can take in one move is limited simply because we did not want overly aggressive players to pump out small or quality lacking builds too often just for the sake of taking control of a ton of real estate. There needs to be a balance in how we do this. 

I will have a poll up soon for everyone. 

[Feuer Zug]

17 hours ago, TheBeeze said:

Elaborate a little more on this if you wouldn't mind. 

For a gateway option to enter in, I'm thinking a way to assist a faction with a build or two, but not be a full time player. As mentioned, I'd never thought about joining this because my focus is real world aircraft as a small scale. Building the landing strip scene took a lot of parts and space for me. If you can get people interested with a small/fun one off build, they might stick around.

[TheBeeze]

So we have a choice. With the poll being completed and the majority voting in favor of doing a reset to get things moving, here are the ideas:

1. Resize the map with larger grid squares and continue on with the same ruleset until this wraps up. We can declare winners based on either points or land value after a certain time frame.

2. Scale down the map to a specific area for a shootout type of finish over a certain period of time. This will consist of battle type builds for an allotted  period of time. The team amassing the highest score wins. 

I'm open to other suggestions to move things forward. Perks are still in play and so are your finances for either option. 

The overall winner when we end the round will get a prize package from our sponsor minifigcat. 

Discuss below. 

[paintballman]

My opinion is to continue with the #1. The #1 and #2 actually is the same, but is better to keep the map the same as we began. And the players will be almost in the same position as before (and probably in a better one)

[Feuer Zug]

I'm for option 1, enlarged map squares.

[SATSOK]

me too for option 1 but...

Why bother with it and why we wont just take 2 squares in a round witch are next eachother ? wouldnt be the same ?

[TheBeeze]

5 hours ago, SATSOK said:

me too for option 1 but...

Why bother with it and why we wont just take 2 squares in a round witch are next eachother ? wouldnt be the same ?

Players are burning out now with the amount of builds they are doing. Encouraging people to build even more will certainly drive people away. Though I appreciate how much you like to build, we have to keep it level for everyone's overall comfort. 

[SATSOK]

31 minutes ago, TheBeeze said:

Players are burning out now with the amount of builds they are doing. Encouraging people to build even more will certainly drive people away. Though I appreciate how much you like to build, we have to keep it level for everyone's overall comfort. 

i might not type it correct ... we move 2 boxes vertical or horizontal and we make ONE build for it. That way we will meet the "FOE" faster without changing anything in the grid.

[TheBeeze]

I intend to spend some time on this over the weekend, it's been busy with getting back to work after the holiday. 

[TheBeeze]

Apologies on the delay guys, I've been under the weather. I will get back to you shortly. 

[TheBeeze]

Here is my proposition, what do you guys think? The blue is what PSIC Owns now and the Orangeyish is KLR.