Thanks for the response.
I don't sincerely like how so many people have this strange idea of weakening everyone to make the things easier. That is definitely unfair towards the efforts that players have done, and very unwise towards the mechanisms of the game. If I have 40k strength as a basis on one terrain, I will have the same chances to make the difference as any other player who didn't access the game 7-8 years like I did, but in 1 year and a bit gained the same level. Whocares fighting on more terrains: does fighting on more terrains grant an easier BH or does it really help my country in all situations? Ofc no. Not at all. Why then should I spend my money? No glory = no buyers = no money for Plato. No glory = no competition = no fun for players. You have to accept that some players have been playing or spending more to get a better account. That doesn't mean that the other players shouldn't have their chances too. Everyone should have their chances, but once you level players who threw money in the game to others who didn't, you just spit upon your own customers. And who would need again to access the game everyday? Once 40k skill is gained, not much changes if you access your account or not. And who would buy candies to rank up and be stronger? With 40k skill you get 1/5 of the rank you used to... not so fair, is it?
Plato has harmed the game sometimes, but I don't think he would be so naive to put a total end to his earnings all at once.
First off, as I noted in the earlier post, the change in no means completely erase the gap between older, money-buffed accounts and younger, F2P accounts. This is for a few reasons:
Rank advantage
Those who have bigger strength, usually a result of longer playing time, in average also have a bigger rank. This results in larger damage. Let's do a math excercise: The influence formula is as follows: I = 10 × (1 + S/400) × (1 + R/5) × (1 + FP/100), where S is strength, R is rank and FP is firepower. Let us assume that me and you both use Q7 weapons, so our firepower is 200. Further, our strengths are capped to 40k. Now the difference is rank. You are in Legends, I battalion, so your rank value is 70 per this table. Mine is Titan*, so 67. Pretty modest difference. Now, with 10 wellness, you make 45 450 worth of influence. I do 43 632. Multiply that with, say, 100 , as that would be the standard 500 wellness + 500 wellness. This would be 10 hours (or 5 hours towards the end of week) for me who doesn't have packs (so you have much more wellness, more of that below). The result is that you would make 4 545 000 influence. I would do 4 363 200 influence. The difference between those would be 181 800 influence, which translates to roughly 40w, or 4% of the total wellness spent.
We have a bit over one year difference how much we have spent in this game.
Wellness difference
I assume you use the combination of Power Pack and Blitzkrieg pack, as AFAIK those are the most prevalent ones among tanks. Let's even go with an assumption that Maverick pack gets killed, which I am still uncertain of. From the EB's on these two packs you already gain 6 000w. So you got 2.5 x my daily wellness (if I am awake to use them all) with your spending. That translates to a bit over 27 million influence, so 2.5x my theoretical damage output of a day. I cannot comprehend how this is not an advantage for you. Further, with BP you also get bigger energy cap, so you can stack up to bigger limits than I can. To, say, 2000 wellness, easily. No advantage?
Further, as you hit more, you also gain more regen during the week than I do. That means more wellness, more influence, and hence, more BH's.
Terrain advantage
As I previously mentioned, you have the advantage of hitting in more terrains with full strength than others. This is perhaps your biggest thing percentage-wise. If we work with the assumption that the nations in the world will condescend into using, let's say, 7 terrain types mostly, and they use it rather equally (more of that below), you can fill roughly 70% of the terrains used with your 200k strength (so 5 terrains) and therefore fight with full strength in 70% of battles. I can, with my 160k, fill only four terrains, resulting in roughly 55% of the terrains in use. So you can fight in 7 battles out of 10. I can in 5 out of 10. And you do that with bigger wellness potential. That's a huge difference.
Let's anyway see that from a less subjective point of view. Let's take it from the point of view of any player. I login, do my work and train and wanna help in some important battle. Unlikely to happen. Everyday you only have 3-4 important battles at best, and not more of 8-10 fought rounds. Noone will be so lucky to find everytime a battle that has sense, and even more difficult will be to do it without travelling. So most of the players will focus on air battles. Tanks will be worth nothing (even because they won't help you to rank so much) and so will the Q7 weapons companies, because the demand will be much less.
I disagree with this almost completely. The prevalence of important battles is not dependent on this event or mechanic, it has literally nothing to do with this. If anything, the mechanic will increase the amount of meaningful battles, at least in the start before the stabilization. For air battles we need to apply your same criterias: meaningful and not to travel. Which you didn't do. So whereas the fighting in air battles will probably increase a bit (a result of the above applied terrain advantage), it is not because difference in meaningful battles as you said, which, again, has nothing to do with this.
Your rank gain will be similar under the mechanic as it was before it. The gain is calculated from your total strength, so 200k, not the 40k cap you use in battlefield.
No, the Q7 weapon companies won't be "worth nothing" with lower tank price, even if we assume that happens, which I doubt. The only place WRM goes is to tanks. If less tanks are produced with smaller prices, it also means they buy less WRM for the tank production. This causes the WRM price to decay to a point where the Q7 tanks are again profitable. Econ 101, my friend.
Let's check Military Units. They will be the most harmed, since a commander will have to choose DO according to prios, while the players would love to have DO where they have skill. Imagine the liver of a player who has to shoot in a battle where he has no skill or a very little one, and has to make 25 kills without any rank benefit, spending tanks to avoid losing all his energy, just to... earn one candy, and no rank, no help in any battle, no true patriot, no BH. MUs would probably divide by skill and nationality (disrupting one of the few things that works: fighting together in the same MU despite of different nations) and many players would be spread between MUs. For some it could be a good way to make new friends. For the most it would mean the final blow to leave the game.
The new mechanic, if it is to stay, which is unsure, gives incentive for citizens of nations to communicate together and decide which terrains to concentrate on. Therefore, a bit depending on how leniently the reset tokens are distributed, there is a regression to mean, citizens are better off with maxing same terrains as country leadership uses, so they will do it. So let's check Military Units indeed. They are controlled by citizens, sometimes government, it doesn't really matter. Why? Because whatever terrains the government chooses to use, citizens will redistribute their strength accordingly. Basic game theory. Citizens are better off if they change their distribution, so they will do it. A side-result of this is that, at the start, you will face less competition in BH races than now, because not everyone of your current contenders choose the same terrains as you will. This will decay with reset tokens used.
Then you have countries. Dividing one player's strength among all the skills would be catastrophic both for the player himself (who won't rank anymore in his eLife) and for the country, since the country influence itself would be 2 or 3 / 14 of the actual one. Countries who accept the risk and get specialized in some terrains, would win all direct battles and lose all RWs. In any case the platform of wars would be totally BORING. I understand that many players are doing their best to make the game already as much boring as they can, but please... We're not the same Not all of us, luckily, enjoy neverending train direct wars with regular freedom fighter RWs. Some of us still enjoy fighting, struggling, chasing, because we like to put our effort more for our country that for our own account in the election days. ;-)
You, seem to underestimate the larger power of self-interest in this game. Bear in mind that the rank gain is not computed with the strength cap of your division, but with your overall strength. So 200k in your case. Equilibrium is going to be achieved naturally with the new mechanic, as with previous mechanisms before. As putting all eggs on three terrain basket is not good for a country as they can't defend, they won't do it. Again, classic game theory: if a country is better off with changing their course of action, they will do so, and encourage its citizens to do so.
The mechanic would incentivize trying to find a decent breakdown of strength distributions among terrains. It brings an element of strategy to the game, something which erep is sorely been lacking.
Training wars are a pretty straight consequence of the TP medal mechanic. It incentivizes every nation to have their own meaningless war for people to participate in and whore money by hitting in useless battles. This is a mechanic which should be deleted permanently, and the swifter the better. It has, again, nothing to do with the new mechanic.
I enjoy fighting, struggling, chasing, debating, discussing, politicking, writing, planning, interacting and calculating stuff in this game. I put more effort in countries and alliances in this game than I do to my account itself. I detest TW's. There won't be erepublik with status quo, which you are adamant on preserving.
eRepublik needs a new rising, not a fast death...
So step back from your self-centered nonsense, and look from the viewpoint of the developers. What would you do to preserve the game and its revenue, even increase it?
edit. Rounded edges and erased some mudslinging. Sorry.
Edited by TheJuliusCaesar, 10 October 2017 - 07:17 AM.