Game lacks Cognitive Flow: so how to get it back?

[rgb209]

I recall from years ago a psychology for game design called Cognitive Flow, in which players remain in the zone, or 'flow' , which balances players between boredom and anxiety. Think of an XY graph, and flow is the line going up on a 45 degree angle, with boredom (game too easy) on one side, and anxiety (too hard/too long) on the other side. I originally read this during my Civilization days...still one of the best games ever.

Dominations is not on this line...and I don't believe that they're doing this on purpose, to cause frustration or to eventually shut down this game. Let's assume the game is still very profitable, and they're instead struggling to figure out what to do with placing the game back on the 'flow' line. They've clearly moved everyone on the anxiety side of the line, examples being with Marco, non-rewarding wars and years to finish University. Also, the game loses its luster once you get past the Industrial age. Yet if they fix those issues, they could very easily move everyone to the other side of the line (boredom). If wars and Marco become too easy, and everyone finishes University, then what?

It clearly can't stay where it is, and they have dangled the museum and changed the river to an ocean. Instead of another thread that vents (and my alliance and I (I am leader) are as frustrated as everyone, and I am losing players), I want to know what the heck can they do to fix it? I'm ok with University taking years..it is what is it is meant to be. I don't like it and prefer instant gratification, but I'll live with it. Wars need a redesign altogether...although to what I don't know because the algorithm will never be perfect, and adding more perks won't solve the problem. Marco can be better, or perhaps offer something unique that you can't get elsewhere...in real life, that's what made Marco, Marco.

But let's put on our game design hats...think long term. Let's save the game. Think of things that we want to make it fun again, but it also makes Nexom money. I'm ok throwing in a few dollars here and there but not a fortune for one tank. They'll need to step back and fix the bugs, but it they're losing people in droves, their focus is on keeping them by adding something new. What would they do?

 

[MartinK12]

First they need to start playing their own game, but they won't cause they know it's broken and they don't know how to fix all those bugs...

 

[Bootney Lee Fonsworth]

I think giving players freedom to allocate their workers as they see fit would go a long way on the multiplayer side. For instance, my CWA tank depots take 14,000,000 gold and 15 days. But if I wanted to gather up 42,000,000 gold and had 18 workers free I should have the ability to reduce that to 5 days. Lord knows gathering 42,000,000 gold isn't the easiest of feats these days anyway. Ultimately to max everything would still take the same amount of time but this change would certainly give the players much more agency in how they go about things and more importantly, give more reason to log in and play. It may even lead to more crown expenditures in the long run. I'm not paying $5-7 dollars just to rush
one upgrade of many, but if 18 of my workers are on one project and it would only cost 600 or so crowns to finish it I'd be much more inclined.

They also need to rework economic upgrades. Either by drastically reducing the time and worker requirements for upgrading farms and caravans, or offering a genuine benefit for doing so. Say 1% faster upgrades to the related items, and then rounding up to 10% when all of your farms/caravans are upgraded to the current age. So the aforementioned 15 day tank depot upgrade is 360 hours, if all my caravans are maxed it would take 324 instead. Doesn't seem like much on one building, but if done early enough in an age the benefits would certainly pile up.

Wars? They're a mess. A doubling of war loot from global and up is required at minimum. As far as matchmaking goes weighing the top half of a lineup twice as much as the bottom half is not a cure-all, but it's an expedient improvement to the trickle down sandbagging that has plagued the game for years.
An option to do troop tacticless wars even for minimal or no glory would be nice too. Honestly maybe 5% of alliances at most are in a position to even care about glory or the leaderboard, but throwing all the eggs in that basket is wearing out the 95% who aren't.

There should be an alliance bank or trading post too. Something to build up alliance unity beyond troop donations and wars.

Probably the most important thing Nexon can do is improve their communication. Perhaps send out simple yes or no or multiple choice questionaires to our inboxes periodically, especially when springing major changes like the tactics nerf or silo on us. Granted, there's no way of actually knowing what the results are but it would at least get people beyond the few hundred people on here, Discord, Reddit or Facebook talking about things and feeling that maybe their concerns matter.

Despite my grousing, I enjoy this game. The only other games I've ever spent longer playing are Civs 2 and 4. But the myriad long term issues and lack of communication/corrective measures have certainly taken a lot of the shine off things. This game actually becomes less fun the longer I play it and that doesn't seem good for either party involved.

 

[Manifesto]

I remember a post on some suggestions years ago.
For a start they should have upgrade times only slightly longer than it takes to accumulate the resources. Resources are harder to come by in later ages but the upgrade times increase by a higher time factor. There’s no point being able to max your markets/mills in a day if your next upgrade finishes in 5 days and you can’t get workers til then. Ideally your workers should only be unavailable for 2-3 days, THAT would help the flow.
The week long upgrades wouldn’t be so bad if buildings like Uni (as Library) didn’t use workers, then you could spend your resources there while waiting for workers. Having the Uni use workers was the biggest mistake imo.
Another suggestion would be easier accumulation of NTGs, to take away the grind!
Another suggestion is to give more troop cards for league and chest rewards.
But we all know this takes away potential revenue so it’s never going to happen.

 

[rgb209]

Good suggestions...and it made me think of one aspect that made Civilization great, which was that it had many layers. I really like the idea of aligning upgrade times to resource building times, as well as having more flexibility with gold and resources - they made a small move in this direction when they added food for wall upgrades. They could do more of that without too much coding.

Re: economy...they do need to evolve that whole area. They never moved beyond hunting and gathering, and there is a lot of potential here. They could modernize it into an economy that requires maintenance, such as trading within the alliance. This would help remove the dead players and dead alliances because if they don't log on and do something, the town dies. You could also add in new 'alliance' resources, which opens up new possibilities, including a lot of what was mentioned above. Might as well introduce currency, and then eventually bitcoin A town and alliance economy open up new options and shouldn't require more than a few new buildings, as well as some math. Any good game is math and a great graphics team. Great developers make it real, and operations/support/servers make it alive.

Wars...what if there was an alliance army, on top of the regular armies, and everyone had to contribute? You could even make an alliance base, which would be made up of specialized buildings that each town must build. You could add a UN building. The leaders put together the town, both to attack and defend the other town, and they can only use buildings for those who are participating in that specific war. Each player still does their own attacks, but then there is an alliance attack that the leader or co-leaders must do. It may need to be simplified so it isn't as much maintenance, but it would also resolve the tie breaker issues - whoever wins the alliance wars wins the battles in the event of a tie.

Also, I'm really hoping they do something with the water. It would be great to have 2 types of multi-player attack options. One on land, and then also a naval battle on the sea. The backdrop would be water, and you would have to build your naval base, and oil rigs. Planes apply to both battles. You can fight naval battles for currency, food, pearls...there are options. And in wars, having to do both land and water attacks would be awesome. Eventually, you could have an age in which space attacks are possible. Ok, I'm reaching here a bit. But in those areas, use the same engine, copy the templates and design new buildings etc. They have a great graphics team. ​

I understand there is a control aspect...although it would give the co-leaders and council something to actually do. Perhaps co-leaders are accountable for the alliance bases, and council is accountable for the economy....

Communication - it seemed like they tried this a few months ago, but then they stopped. They should have more talk with the developers events. Make them real people again...everyone is human, I think they still care. If they have truly moved on, then come up with a Dominations 2. Start over. And tell us... I would pay something to move to a new game, and if existing, active players get a discount for a new game, I'd keep playing until the new game is ready.

 

[GailWho]

This is a great post. I like the positive vibe to it. A lot of good ideas presented already. I particularly like the economy idea of having to do maintenance on your towns with the help of your alliance. I have a few of my own ideas to add.

Alliance currency can be gained by donating, chat activity, and participation/performance in wars. An alliance trading post would be an ideal new building to accomplish this. Trades of rss can be made. It would be great if you are having trouble finding Germans to be able to pay an alliance mate a few Alliance bucks to get the salt you need or maybe you can barter because you have way too many scrolls. AXP earned from a war can be converted into Alliance bucks and divided amoung the war team if not needed to level up on perks. A % of axp delivered in bucks to the team can be determined by leadership when making the search. Scholarships for Uni can be earned instead of alliance bucks by giving service to the alliance in some way. A lot could be done here.

Worker productivity could also be addressed with alliance currency. Workers productivity could slow the more continuously they work. Send them to another new building called the Spa to correct this by paying with alliance bucks so they can feel refreshed and productive in their next assignment. Get the right balance and a trip to the spa can actually shave time off particular upgrades. On the flip side, workers who are left out of work or school for an extended time due to an inactive player will start looting the town causing damage to buildings to the point that it will reverse any progress made on that building. Simply logging in and having them pay a fine in alliance bucks or clean up their mess by fixing what they broke can be sorted in the new Court Room Building.

 

[Manifesto]

The spa, LOL!
I like the idea of the brazen, lawless citizens looting the town, genius!

 

[GailWho]

Thanks I’m for hire if anyone want something to pay me to think up these things lol