June 2017 Design Spotlight

[TinSoldier]

Hey all, Mike Engle here, a Senior Designer on DomiNations. Today I’m proud to announce Alliance Levels and Perks, a feature I’ve personally been looking forward to for quite a while.


With the next update to DomiNations, your Alliance will be able to earn Alliance Experience (AXP) during World Wars. When you earn enough AXP, your Alliance levels up to the next Alliance Level. Each Alliance Level provides a single Alliance Perk that benefits all players in that Alliance.


All Alliances will begin at Alliance level 1. This grants the perk “Trade Agreements” which provides a 20% increase to road income and storage.


Currently, Alliance XP is only earned in World Wars. The first successful attack (an attack that yields one or more Stars) against each enemy base will earn 1 AXP per Age of the base. An Industrial Age base is worth 9 AXP, Global Age 10 AXP, and so on. Earning 40% of all possible Stars in the war is worth 15 AXP, and an additional 30 AXP is earned at 60% of all possible Stars. Lastly, you gain 50 more AXP if you win the war.


Note that this means larger wars have a higher potential for AXP. The biggest portion of AXP available from a war will come from beating enemy bases, and larger wars will involve more bases for your Alliance to beat. Our intention here is to provide the largest AXP reward from war participation, instead of providing the greatest AXP reward to the winner of the war.


Every level unlocks an Alliance Perk:

Level	Name	Effect
1	Trade Agreements	Your Road network produces an additional 20% gold per hour and stores 20% more gold.
2	Operations Research	Your War Base's buildings and traps have 10% more hitpoints and damage.
3	Soldier Exchange Program	Alliance Gate Capacity increased by 3.
4	Industrial Age Promotion	Donated troops are automatically upgraded to Industrial Age if they're below Industrial Age rank.
5	Allied Plunder	When you earn national trade goods in a 5-star battle, you always earn 2.
6	War Bonds	Receive 25% of the cost back when donating troops.
7	Coordinated Offensive	During War attacks your troops have 10% more hitpoints and damage.
8	Their Finest Hour	Your War Base's defenders have 10% more hitpoints and damage.
9	Lend-Lease Program	Receive an additional 25% of the cost back when donating troops (total: 50%).
10	Global Age Promotion	Donated troops are automatically upgraded to Global Age if they're below Global Age rank.

That wraps up this design spotlight! We’re excited to hear what you all have to say about this system, including any ideas for where you’d like to see the feature head in the future. Do you want more levels with new perks? Do you want other alliance features to also provide Alliance XP? etc.


See you next time,

Mike

 

[LordJestix]

Looks like they cant even do this right.

AT least in its current setup it will be null and void once they add a new age or two into the mix with the auto industrial age/global age troops should be +1 age/+2 age instead.

Global age troops will nearly be trash when they add the next age and will be obsolete when they add a second age.

They had a golden opportunity to improve the war loot everyone complains about with this. in CoC a couple of the levels improve the amount of war loot you gain.

What Are Clan Perks

• They are special boosts that improve various aspects of being in a clan. The six types of perks are:
  • Donation request wait time: This perk reduces the wait time for the members to request troops. This perk is improved twice, at Clan level 2 and Clan level 7, and both decrease the wait time by 5 minutes each.
  • Donation limit: This perk increases the amount of troops that can be donated from one player to another. This perk is improved twice, at Clan level 4 (where the limit increases by 1), and at Clan level 8 (where the limit increases by 2).
  • Donation refund: This perk allows the donator to receive a refund (certain percentage of the cost) when their troops and spells are donated. The percentage is increased three times: at Clan levels 3, 6 and 9.
  • Donated troop/spell upgrade: This perk will automatically upgrade troops and spells that are donated. This perk is improved twice, at Clan levels 5 and 10, and both increase the upgrade amount by 1 level. Note that this perk will not upgrade donated troops and spells past their maximum level.
  • Treasury extra storage: This perk increases the storage capacity of the Treasury of members in the Clan. This perk is improved five times, at Clan levels 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, and each upgrade increases the extra storage by 10%.
  • War bonus extra loot: This perk increases the bonus loot earned from a Clan War. This perk is improved four times, at Clan levels 3, 5, 7 and 9

Im not by any means saying they should have directly copied CoC but overall when you compare the two, CoC wins hands down.

1. troops donated are not just improved for wars but also for multiplayer raiding.
2. war loot increased which means all resources, not just gold from roads.
3. Not increasing the storage capacity of the command post.

Things they got right.

1. Increased troop donation by 3 instead of just 2.
2. adding bonuses for wars
3. at least matching the donation refund of resources, makes donating factory troops a decent option when they are made better than barracks troops.
4. Increasing the chance to obtain national trade goods.

Things they could have added but didnt

1. Decreased ntg/tg cost of mercs/coalitions
2. decreased upgrade time, say add 5% to level 3 and another 5% to level 6.
3. Benefits to generals on war base, hp/attack/levels/etc
4. reduces upgrade cost similar to point 2 above.
5. Faster troop/tactic training time
6. increased blessing effectiveness
7. increased wall health not just in war.
8. increased production rates for all resource buildings, not just the road.
9. increased radius to wonders/garrison/tank depot/bunker
10. increase number of command post defenders
11. increase resources from shipments.
12. increase storehouse capacity
13, and the best improvement of all could have been level 10, increase worker capacity by 2.


While its not horrible i had high hopes they would make this part of the game really good. And i was so sure they would address the war loot issue with this and as usual they disappointed me.


But this tells me one of two things.

1. They dont plan to release any more ages, thus game is nearing end of life
2. The design planning is so poor they didnt consider future expansion of the game to make this not have to be updated when they add new ages.

Overall this update doesnt excite me, i still wont be able to donate in wars without rushing my base, not much of anything is better for the multiplayer portion of the game. So if im not in war, which i cant always be since war sizes are so small, i really dont benefit from this at all.

 

[Quovatis]

I would have picked different perks, but that's a good start. For one, I would change it where instead of capping at Global age, the donated troops are promoted 1 and 2 ages. That way, Atomic and higher alliances can actually use it. When the space age comes out, promoting troops to Global age won't really matter, but if it's on an +age basis, it continues to scale as the game advances.

 

[vincentdang4]

I'm only interested in the defense and offense potential for World War in this patch. Hopefully it comes bug free

Someone in my alliance asked whether the levels would be cumulative? i.e. would a level 5 alliance earn all the benefits of a level 1-5 and not just those for level 5?

 

[S_How]

Looks like they cant even do this right.

AT least in its current setup it will be null and void once they add a new age or two into the mix with the auto industrial age/global age troops should be +1 age/+2 age instead.

Global age troops will nearly be trash when they add the next age and will be obsolete when they add a second age.

They had a golden opportunity to improve the war loot everyone complains about with this. in CoC a couple of the levels improve the amount of war loot you gain.
.

They'll probably add more levels that improve to higher than global age, as they release new ages. So, I personally dont see that as something not done right. Its great for people who request anything in their requests to give lots of people the chance to donate.

I also like the ntg improvements, even if its not huge.

But, I do agree this was a great chance for them to address war loot. Maybe they will do it in other ways.

I think its a decent new team oriented thing to work on, which is nice. But, its just overshadowed by the really bad problems in war right now, that really dwarf anything else good that they put in IMO.

 

[S_How]

Great idea, I like that one a lot more

 

[LordJestix]

They'll probably add more levels that improve to higher than global age, as they release new ages. So, I personally dont see that as something not done right. Its great for people who request anything in their requests to give lots of people the chance to donate.

I also like the ntg improvements, even if its not huge.

But, I do agree this was a great chance for them to address war loot. Maybe they will do it in other ways.

I think its a decent new team oriented thing to work on, which is nice. But, its just overshadowed by the really bad problems in war right now, that really dwarf anything else good that they put in IMO.

This still doesnt allow me to donate in wars as im only IA and gobal is the minimum age troop useful in wars. *edit* At least until level 10 which should take a very long time to obtain and by then ill probably have made it to global and maybe space age has been released.

In my current alliance, FH requests take awhile to fill because we dont have enough AA players. So we as an alliance get little to no benefit from level 10, whereas if it was +1age/+2age like i mentioned everyone under AA would benefit from the level 10 boost.

It also prevents an alliance that is say full of GP players getting to level 4 and having a +2 age benefit from all donated troops. That puts another similar alliance thats say only level 2 at a major disadvantage.

 

[LordJestix]

Looks like they cant even do this right.

AT least in its current setup it will be null and void once they add a new age or two into the mix with the auto industrial age/global age troops should be +1 age/+2 age instead.

Global age troops will nearly be trash when they add the next age and will be obsolete when they add a second age.

..........

We are in agreement here.

 

[Christopher-Outlaws!!]

bahaha, this means that Boot Camp, which is all Gunpowder and lower will be loving it. However I'm confused at the thought process, how does this play for Horses vs tanks? can you donate horses and have them upgraded to tanks that take up 6 spaces each? that would be amazing . And is this applicable for war base fills?

 

[LordJestix]

I'm only interested in the defense and offense potential for World War in this patch. Hopefully it comes bug free

Someone in my alliance asked whether the levels would be cumulative? i.e. would a level 5 alliance earn all the benefits of a level 1-5 and not just those for level 5?

When you earn a level, you get that benefit forever.

 

[Quovatis]

They didn't reveal the XP required for each level, but knowing BHG, it will take 2+ years to get to level 10.

 

[LordJestix]

They didn't reveal the XP required for each level, but knowing BHG, it will take 2+ years to get to level 10.

If its anything like CoC it would follow something like this.

1	N/A	N/A
2	500	500
3	1,200	1,700
4	1,900	3,600
5	3,100	6,700
6	3,800	10,500
7	4,500	15,000
8	5,200	20,200
9	5,900	26,100
10	7,900	34,000

Clan Level Clan XP Required Cumulative XP

 

[BeerMan]

How are these perks activated? Are they permanent boosts once you hit the level, are they only active during active wars, etc?

 

[LordJestix]

How are these perks activated? Are they permanent boosts once you hit the level, are they only active during active wars, etc?

They are permanent except the war specific boosts would only be during war.

 

[SebQuattro]

The first successful attack (an attack that yields one or more Stars) against each enemy base will earn 1 AXP per Age of the base. An Industrial Age base is worth 9 AXP, Global Age 10 AXP, and so on.


Note that this means larger wars have a higher potential for AXP. The biggest portion of AXP available from a war will come from beating enemy bases, and larger wars will involve more bases for your Alliance to beat.

This will be catastrophic for the game, it will provide such a huge incentive for alliances to run up to 50% sandbags. Not only will it let them run a larger war size and gain more AXP, but it allows them to screw the opposing alliance who will be getting 4AXP from hitting all the iron age sandbags.

You have to deal with sandbags before rolling this out.

If you got double AXP for hitting a enemy higher age than yourself, that might compensate the alliances who face sandbag alliances.

 

[JuDomines]

This will be catastrophic for the game, it will provide such a huge incentive for alliances to run up to 50% sandbags. Not only will it let them run a larger war size and gain more AXP, but it allows them to screw the opposing alliance who will be getting 4AXP from hitting all the iron age sandbags.

You have to deal with sandbags before rolling this out.

If you got double AXP for hitting a enemy higher age than yourself, that might compensate the alliances who face sandbag alliances.

You sir are correct. First thing coming to mind when I saw this was "it's a Big Huge Incentive to sandbag"

 

[BeerMan]

I'm happy that the perks are somewhat significant and not throwaways, but it's disappointing that smaller wars are penalized. We barely have enough active players to do 20 v 20.

 

[SebQuattro]

Donated troops are automatically upgraded to Global Age if they're below Global Age rank.

This is what will happen in alliances:

Players will be under orders of their leaders to create their own alt Iron Age account. They will use that Iron Age account to spam donate Global Age units to themselves, they'll also put them in war.

Most alliances currently have some mid/high level players who are active but constantly opt out of war, those players will be kicked to make way for the Iron Age accounts. Currently those opt out accounts are kept around as they donate high level troops, but that won't matter as the Iron Age alts will be able to donate Global Age troops too.

You have to do as others have suggested and increase the age of troops by +1/+2 instead of arbitrarily increasing them to Global Age.

 

[Player Killer]

I assume so, as they unlocks therefore previous perks are available.

 

[Azer Ty]

Sandbags can't acquire stars. So no they won't be useful.