Intro:
You know what is the biggest problem of erepublik? Probably how to keep new players in game. If one wants to do something in lower divisions one must play game for few years "without playing" (without fighting). I think erep is the only game where new players should not "play the game", but wait for years before fighting. Current division system is flawed, and we should think how to change it. Idea that I am offering is probably good solution, since it would not affect stronger players very much, and new players will have reason to fight, to spend food and wep, to increase demand for these goods. This idea of mine probably occured to many people, but I took some time to think about division system, and I concluded that it is probably best solution.
Idea:
Divisions by influence! I have seen that lot of players want divisions by strenght, I think divisions by influence is better.
Why? Well if strenght threshold are set, many players would reach certain strenght, and simply not train any more. These players could fight daily and remain in one division till the end of time (or end of erepublik at least).
Influence is function of strenght and rank!
For people with low rank influence can grow significantly in short period of time, due to increase in rank. We know that rank do not increase linearly, and strenght does (if you gain same amount of strenght every day). Once you reach high rank, you will need to do a lot of fighting to increase your rank!
Strong players who have great strenght and rank will stay in 4. division, and they would not be affected much by this change.
Lets say, for example that when you reach 70000 damage per hit with with q7 wep, you enter division 4. So new player (who is about 110k strenght behind the strongest player in terms of strenght), would have to train and fight a lot to reach that threshold, he could spend a lot of time in every lower division, but most important of all, he/she would fight in battles from day one. In certain points of his/her elife, our "new player" would be among the strongest in his/her division, but since fighting increases rank, that player colud not stay in top of certain lower division forever. Ranks could also be altered a bit, to ensure better progress, but that is not main problem here.
How to set thresholds?
Well I guess erep team could set them so every division is about equally populated. These tresholds could be changed a bit from time to time, but it would probably be wise not to do that too often.
Impact on the game:
This new division system would stimulate new players to fight every day, it would increase demand for food and weapons. Production of weapons and food would probably increase too since lower division players would invest into companies (no more fear of xp growth). Since new players are poor, they will not be able to invest too much in production, yet they would need food and wep daily. For d4 megatanks things would be pretty much the same. New players could become influential in lower divisions in not too long period of time, but they would also not be able to stay in each division forever.
Conclusion:
Divisions by influence > divisions by strenght > divisions by xp
Im quite sure I am not first to whom this idea occured, but we should all think more about possible divisions changes, since most of new players are not willing to train for a year or two before they "start to play". I am lvl 24 and I have about 36k strenght, yet I would gladly accept new division system by influence (or in worse case, by strenght).
Divisions by influence is not flaweless, but I am sure it is much better system than divisions by xp.
My English is rusty, I am sorry for possible mistakes.
I hope people from erepublik team would at least see this, and think a bit about this idea. I have feeling they dont care too much about these suggestions, but still I am optimist .
Edited by TomislavRexCroatorum, 14 January 2015 - 12:25 AM.