National Trade Good (NTG) Solutions/Discussion

[SomeRandomPlayer]

Note: please keep this thread civil; attempt to find realistic solutions rather than rant; I beg of you.

Today, securing NTGs is a grind. Fully doable but a grind. The Digital Age makes this increasingly difficult and frustrating for Space Age / Digital Age players, frustrating to the point to stop playing.

Solutions/changes are needed, especially for later aged players, as the Nation variety decreases with each Age as most begin focusing on Factory troops.

Some possibilities (brain-storming) please comment and/or add more ideas:

• Allow us to choose our bonus NTG
  • This is the bonus NTG we usually get with 5 star attacks thanks to Moctezuma's capstone
  • Alternatively, make the bonus a NTG shipment to inventory
• Give NTGs for all 5 star attacks
  • 100% of the time without question
  • And perhaps change all "increase NTG chance" attributes to a slim chance at another bonus NTG?
• Reduce NTG variety
  • e.g., Japanese and German give the same NTG
  • Granted it might take away from the game's story... but totally worth it
• Stop forcing common Coalition combinations to share NTGs
  • This makes the entire situation worse for many as it compounds the problem
  • e.g., Stop making American/Ethiopian share NTGs each week; same logic applies to other common coalition combinations
• Bring back Marco's NTG trading feature (e.g., trade 4 salt for 3 silk)

Also, why are there National Trade Goods at all? I assume it's to increase multiplayer activity; so simply "Remove NTGs" isn't (imho) a realistic solution by itself unless attached to an alternative plan. I think focusing on improving the current NTG system is most realistic for us (users) to propose.

So while the current NTG model may increase multiplayer activity, it decreases desires for war (player pool), and decreases the desire/ability to remain in high medal counts.

 

[Xabar]

Another option, is made the less used Nations more elegible.

As SomeRandomPlayer shown
Cold War (32009):
* British: 6042
* German: 5336
* Roman: 5009
* French: 4295
* Chinese: 4187
* Greek: 2658
* Korean: 2339
* Japanese: 2142

Space Age (19484):
* German: 7152
* British: 2913
* Roman: 2646
* French: 2277
* Chinese: 1885
* Korean: 988
* Greek: 969
* Japanese: 653
Some Nations as Greeks, Japaneses, and Korean, are 10 times less used than German.

Nations rebalance is needed.

https://forum.nexonm.com/forum/nexo...rebalance-the-advantages-of-different-nations

 

[Theoneandonly]

I never have had issues to get NTG and I will not have with this crappy update. Drop medals to 400 and do 20 attacks in a row. Takes one hour and one TB, pulverize some poor Cold War bases without tactics and a couple of lower space age bases with tactics, done.

How?

destroy air defense first, then all towers and silo, deploy your troops

 

[Corne]

He said it was fully doable but a grind. And thats what it is. It pushes people away from doing war. Doing every day a one hour grind for just 2 war attacks is ridiculous. Nexon will not change this cause they think people will spend crowns to get their coalitions.

 

[Theoneandonly]

It’s not a grind, it’s just boring, not any challenge

 

[kilgore_trout]

Boring and unchallenging is literally how you define grind.

 

[Ramesses the Great]

Looking at the stats above, I agree that the grind will become even more tedious. Needs improving/balancing.

I've personally seen long term players lose interest in war because they couldn't keep up with the b2b NTG grind; next to real life. 60 NTG every 2 days is a lot. This often requires dropping medals (which is very boring), then nexting for rare nations like Japanese, Korean, Greek etc.

Is that fun? Not really.

 

[Rogue Squirrel]

This is why I never upgraded my coalitions above level 4 - I knew it would be too much of a grind for me.

At the moment I'm just active enough to win the NTG's I need to take three coalitions into (consecutive) wars without any problems. If I upgrade my coalitions any more I think it would be a struggle.

Having weaker coalitions doesn't seem to have hindered my success in wars either, but then our alliance is quite casual and we aren't anywhere near the top of the leaderboard - we war for fun!

 

[SomeRandomPlayer]

This is not a viable option for most as (a) we can't undo upgrades and (b) coalitions are the key to war; maxing them is critical. They are a high priority item for war success.

And I'm 100% certain it's hindered your war success as it means either (a) your available target pool is smaller (you otherwise could have attacked tougher targets) and (b) you must rely on troop tactic cards more.

As an example, max American (w/ Moctezuma) at level 8 adds +58% factory troop damage and +58% plane HP whereas level 4 adds 32%. So, a +26% difference to both is a big deal, especially when facing the likes of a strong Filipinos defensive coalition.

To me and many, having stronger troops is fun, as is attacking an age or two higher with (potentially) 0TT... coalitions are critical to doing this.

 

[kilgore_trout]

Talk about being hindered, would you rather 32% every war or 0% every few wars because you failed to make the quota? i am at level 4, regularly attack above me and rarely use troop cards.

In a game where we wait 12 days for a 3% gain, 60% is unreal. There is a built in risk that you probably wont be able to use it every war. If I was in your position id be regretting the decision to upgrade those last few levels because there is very little chance that anything is going to change.

 

[sponge]

Here’s radical idea, why don’t let everyone attack everyone? Even space and digital age attacking Iron Age, but with severe loot penalty, or perhaps even zero loot after 3 or 4 ages down. I’d be ok attacking lower ages for no loot at all as long as I could get ntgs, even 1 from 5*. They would get peace treaty, we would get ntgs for war, win either way. Besides most bases below Industrial Age are abandoned anyway, so not many would complain.

 

[Dvicious]

Here’s radical idea, why don’t let everyone attacking everyone? Even space and digital age attacking Iron Age, but with severe loot penalty, or perhaps even zero loot after 3 or 4 ages down. I’d be ok attacking lower ages for no loot at all as long as I could get ntgs, even 1 from 5*. They would get peace treaty, we would get ntgs for war, win either way. Besides most bases below Industrial Age are abandoned anyway, so not many would complain.

I like this concept. The downside is that if a SA/DA wanted to go for loot there would be a LOT of nexting to find a base within a couple ages of them that also had loot. The huge amount of abandoned low age bases would be annoying if not going for ntg

 

[sponge]

I like this concept. The downside is that if a SA/DA wanted to go for loot there would be a LOT of nexting to find a base within a couple ages of them that also had loot. The huge amount of abandoned low age bases would be annoying if not going for ntg

This can be easily solved, 2 find opponent buttons, current one that searches 3 ages, current, one up and one down, and 2nd that searches all, they could be called find loot and find ntgs.
Or search all ages every 5th opponent for example.

 

[Chadwicke]

Just change the currency to Coalitions goods little tokens that you use same as ntgs this way all can stay the same but it's even

 

[Kev'sEmpire]

The requirements for NTG for those that are maxed ages will drive players to either leave or not war. The current situation is unsustainable. I've been playing this great game since December 2014. I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to this game and I can honestly say, this is the first time I can actually see myself giving the game up. I love the game, the players I meet whilst playing this game however I spent the afternoon raiding or attempting to as my first priority is to NTG for war. I came across 1 Japanese nation in my raiding.

I really hope the developers do something to remedy the current situation. A suggestion could be to do another clean out of cheaters/hackers and make them all a standard base that is either CWA or SA and make their nation Japanese, Korean and the third least used nation.

 

[helix900]

I agree, it is obvious Nexon dont play their own game. I gave up after playing almost as long as you. The game is garbage now. The customer care and customer support is worse than a bad joke not to mention the total lack of communication with their customers. This is a good example of how to not run a business if you wanna make it last. Created a new account with a hacked apk just for educational purposes.

 

[Corne]

Indeed, i hardly do war anymore. Used to do war back to back. But the grinding for ntgs to do only 2 war attacks is not really fun. Nexon will not change this cause they see people using crowns to buy their coalitions. This game is pay2win and now its even pay2play. The policy of nexon is try to make as much money from your most loyal costumers. Instead of making a fun game where i might buy something once in a while for me its an absolute no go to buy anything anymore. Muet is the greedy mastermind behind this. The silence from nexon / muet here in this topic also says a lot. They understand the ntg situation but their only reply could be: We are not going to change it since we see people buying coalitions with crowns. To me the only solution to the ntg problem is to make the coalitions much cheaper. Almost for free. This will keep people doing war instead of singing out from war.

 

[Theoneandonly]

I am Matching Japanese like hell but no Koreans in hours. Sure it is a coincidence that I need only porcelain cause all others NTG are maxed. They have corrupted their algorithms.

 

[Theoneandonly]

And it’s so easy to get this modified APK, that’s the horrible thing.

 

[kilgore_trout]

No offense guys but allowing every age to attack one and other sounds like a really dumb idea. There has to be some aspect of work required to gain huge coal buffs besides hitting the next button.

but as long as we are visiting fantasyland and thinking up things that will never happen, the only real way to even out NTGs is the most obvious; make other nations enticing to choose. The data posted above makes things pretty clear, noone wants to be japan