Hi All,

As promised in the other change, there's going to be a logout bonus change, going into effect as of rounds starting in June (including Alliance/FFA).


Currently, as you probably know, you get 3 turns for 12h out, and 6 turns for 18h out; they are queued on turns being given, and you *don't* get them if you login before.


The *new* system, you *will* still get them if you login before. You will even get them if you never logout.

The new system will ALSO use 12h and 18h as the bonuses, ***EXCEPT FOR EXPRESS*** which will now get them at 4h and 6h, in the same manner.

The way it works is thus (in pseudocode first, examples after):

IF(country gains a turn)
{
       bonus_to_give = 0
        IF(logout_timer_12 WAS SET more than 12 hours ago)
        {
                bonus_to_give = bonus_to_give + 3
                SET logout_timer_12
        }
        if(logout_timer_18 WAS SET more than 18 hours ago){
                bonus_to_give = bonus_to_give + 3
                SET logout_timer_12
                SET logout_timer_18
        }
}

Example:

Play turns at midnight. (no bonus)
Country play 18 hours later (gets 6 turns from 12h & 18h bonus)
Country plays 4 hours after that (gets no turns)
Country plays 8 hours after that (gets 3 turns from 12h bonus)
Country plays 6 hours after that (gets 3 turns from 18h bonus)
Country plays 8 hours after that (gets no turns)
Country plays 10 hours after that (gets 6 turns from 12h & 18h bonus)
Country plays 72 hours after that (gets 6 turns from 12h & 18h bonus)
Country plays every 2 hours for 24 hours, gets 3 turns at 12h and 3 turns at 18h.


Thus, if you play every day, you should get 6 turns bonus per day, on average; you don't have to wait for the 18h mark, you can play at 16h and then 2h later at 18h to get your bonuses.

Technically, if you play every 6 hours all set, you end up with an average of 8 turns per day, over a 72h cycle. However you'll have a smaller PM &etc; if there ends up being any sorts of abuse with this we can always tweak stuff, but I don't anticipate anything too extreme.

This may be a bit confusing at first, but I encourage you to read the example above, and the pseudocode, and it should all make sense ;)


The intent of this is mainly to stop punishing people for logging in. We would rather people be more active than less. I have personally found myself not playing in a day because I wanted to wait for the 18h bonus, but then got busy and forgot to play for the day. This, I think, is not the best user experience, so hopefully these changes will allow people to play whenever they want, AND encourage them to login later *additionally* =D

It also may give a slight bonus to market driven strats, as you can login to sell without fear of losing your bonuses.


Regards,

- qzjul & the EE Dev Team

idk if this matters - but I dont recall the last time ffa got logout bonus ... so now you're saying we get the free turns back?

Uhh... yes.... I think.... you should now probably get them? :)

There was an issue with how the login stuff worked before, but now that should be fixed as of the big interface overhaul, so no reason NOT to give them to you now, i think?

Is there any scenario in which you do not get the bonus?

If not, why do they exist?

So if you never logout at all, and access your country every turn, for every 18 hour block of time, you will get 3 turns at the 12h mark, and another 3 turns at the 18h mark, followed by the start of the next 18 hour block.

Basically, you start losing bonus turns for not logging on the 18 hour mark. Eg, if you login on the 19th hour of a 18 hour block, you lose 1 hour permanently. (The next 18 hour block is shifted down 1 hour).

I guess this is no different from the old system, but now you can just stay logged in forever, and have a browser script (eg Greasemonkey) to insert a meta tag or javascript function that refreshes the page every 20 minutes to ensure you get maximum bonus turns over the whole reset.

100% scriptable now.

So I'm not sure I approve of this change.

I kinda liked the old system. To stay logged out means you lose out on market opportunities, but you get guaranteed bonus turns. There is a trade-off here, where a meaningful decision must be made. Now there is no decision to be made, you simply try to refresh your country as often as you can (if going the no-script approach).

Yes, technically. Though you'll end up with a lower PM on average. If there starts to be abuse, we can always tweak something :) PM me a suggestion? :)

Yes, I liked that too; *however*, I think the downside of preventing people from playing more often was more negative than the gain of login time strategy.

Nobody will care about the PM size though, until the last 5 days of a reset, so I do not consider this as a downside at all.

And the only time the PM size will matter is when you are likely to be no longer actually spending turns too, so logout bonuses become irrelevant. Note this is not true on solo servers, countries have enough income to spend every single turn (positive income) even while jumping from PM, because finishing NWs do not go above 160m on solo servers.

True

i don't think i got any login bonuses in ffa today nor before (outside 20 acres which is bugged in ffa since that starts from day 2 not day 1).

if i understand correctly we can't do 126 turns batchexplores anymore w/o using bonuspoints since turns in hand stay (before any bonuses) at 120 and we get 3 bonusturns if we log in to country and we can't login at 12hr mark and 18hr mark since that wouldn't change anything.

This is a boost for strats that benefit from more frequent market sales as you can log in as soon as your stuff sells with no bonus lost. As a frequent CI, it would help there. Techer too?

no, you can still do 126; you still get the same amounts of turns, you'll just have to login at 18h rather than at 12h and 18h

How about just giving the 6 turn bonus every time you get the 20a bonus?

:p

I did get my 126 in FFA today, so that was a surprise

well i was away 11.4 hrs and didn't get 3 turns so that's 3 turns loss and according to 1st post i should have gotten those 3 turns.

Why not just give a maximum of 6 points over 24 hours with the min being 18? So you get 3 points per 12 hours and the next block is a min 6 but max 12?

Because this is the closest thing to the original!`

You will. Just logon .6 hours later.

I want people to be punished for always logging in. I want there to be a detriment to being logged in all the time to keep more casual players from suffering too much in comparison. And, what's more, you've replaced a simple system with some overly complex weird crap. So for me, this change is a big failure from both the idea and the design standpoint. Bad change.

just to note, I'm probably on here more often than most people, right? I still don't like this... I don't want someone sitting there camping the market all day without losing turns

Why should someone who is keeping active in game or on forums be punished? Shouldnt the person who.invests the time to market play and or DR camp be rewarded in someway by the game for their lack of RL?

What about people warring? I doubt most of them stay logged out to long. Why should they not capture the six turn? The game should reward them for being active to keep themselves alive

No, they shouldn't be. This should be a game that people can be competitive in without sacrificing extensive real life time. You don't want a system where it's not a level playing field between people with whole days to kill sitting online and people playing in some of their daily free time.

If people warring want to log in, they shouldn't care about the turns. They have a war to deal with, and if that requires them to be online, the turns are truly irrelevant.

This removes the risk/reward analysis of "should I log in now to deal with this attack/check the market/etc" or "should I wait let things go and wait for my turns bonus?" and "Should I wait for 12 hours or wait for 18?"

And that's exactly what this change is trying to address; some players can't won't have time to play in 2 or 4 hours for bonus turns. This levels the playing field as they can make a super-quick login to get their turns, while playing when they have time.,

You know qzjul, you should just award 6 free turns at the same time as the daily 20a.

What's the point of the daily 20a anyway? I mean sure, I can use it to track people's login hours when I see a +20A.

Why not just remove both of these bonuses?

I don't know what this means. 2 or 4 hours? Hm? If people log in once a day, they get 6 turns everyday under the old system. It's very flexible what time each day you log in because it's an 18hr bonus and not a 24hr one.

If your change was to somehow help casual players then I really don't understand it, because the new system is just confusing, and because it was not hard to log in once/day before. What you've actually done is helped out Demos who want to camp the market all day, help out people who want to sit in game and monitor their country 24/7 during wars, etc.

And yes, like Xinhuan said, if you want everyone to get the six turns regardless of log-in habit, then why do any of this? Just give the 6 turns at 00:00 or don't give anyone any turns. I don't understand this at all. I don't think it actually makes sense.

+1

The 12 and 18 hrs system is damn old.. was used to reduce server load back then when it was introduced by mehul. I don't think that is a problem now.

Qzul's intent is to promote activity, how they play the game is entirely up to the,.. rather than wait for 12 or 18 hrs. I have lost loads of turns due to 18hrs login just because I couldn't wait. Also odd hours login which is troublesome.

However, giving the bonus during the 20a is an idea. Leveling playing field rather than wait for hrs based on last login.

this is a welcome change from me.

10a + 3 bonus turns @ 0000, 1200 gt....given excatly the same as the 20a bonus now. Might encourage ppl to log in at least 2x a day with no penalty for logging in more.

People are not on the same timezone so I'm ok with this

Was the impact to Standing Orders considered when this change was implemented?

I just logged into tourney and my last log-in was 1 hour ago and I got 3 turns. This new system is still confusing, and I don't think it makes sense to have anyway. Either restore it to how it was, or just give 6 turns per day. Preferably return it to how it used to be so people can't sit online and log in constantly without a trade-off. It offers more decisions to the player.

I have to say, I haven't always agreed with a lot of the changes but this is the first one to just literally make no sense.

The system is pretty easy, when you recieve your second 3 turns(the 18) your timer start again for the 6 total turns. From my understanding anyways

Time your logins.still to aquire the max amount of bonus turns. Might be why he doesnt just do it at the 00:00 mark.

It doesn't work as described. In the example:

Reality:
I waited 18 hours - got 3 turns.
Logged in 1 hour later - got 3 more turns.

Anyway, there's no point to any of this. This is absolutely bizarre, making a simple thing complicated and removing the whole point of it to begin with

i have got 6 after waiting 18rs.

I can see blid's point here, but personally I love this change as well as the ghost acre cap.. Man.. I should come to this board more often.

While this does help people who want to market camp, it also is a huge benefit to the casual player too, IMO. Using myself as an example, I often have very long days of work and commuting (12 hour drives at times).. I like the idea of not having to worry about logging in at exactly the 12 or 18 hour mark. What can be more casual-player-friendly than not having to schedule your life around logins?

I logged in about 26h ago, then i logged in about 13h ago, got +3 turns. And i logged in now and got only +3 turns, while my 18h timer was set more than 18h ago and 12h timer was set more than 12h ago. Obviously something wrong with the system.

Just do as someone told - give +6 bonus turns with +20 bonus acres. It will solve all problems.

Im gettin my turns at around the right time intervals..

I'll put a timer on the main page of your country at some point soon i think

How about a quick DR counter instead?

As long as ppl log in once a day they get 6 turns..

That's a different thing!

You do realize that the bonus logins means that this change is worthless. CHANGE THE BONUS SYSTEM OR REMOVE IT! Having to log into those sites one a day sucks and will be the main reason when I do finally stop playing. Having to time my life around logins is getting really old.

Can we get rid of this change? I have no idea when to log in any more, or whether it matters at all, and still don't understand how this helps busier players.

It lets demos camp the market as much as they want to, it lets people babysit their countries all day and buy up def when they get spied on (hey, there's a new idea for a bot!), it removes the risk/reward of staying logged out for a longer time, and it helps people who want to spend all day in the game.

I still don't understand how an 18 hour bonus was a hardship for people with less time. If I logged in at 6pm yesterday I can log in anytime from 12pm until the end of the day today to pick up those 6 bonus turns.

This change continues to make a simple system more difficult and help people playing 24/7 and hurt, comparatively, people who just play casually.

i agree with blid.

although we can login before 12/18 hrs is up and not to lose those turns but to get those turns we need to login once more when that 12/18hrs bonus would have been given if had waited.

The game itself isnt casual. Real time=anytime

ee as realtime game? well........ that'd be different and would benefit those who "play game 24/7".

My biggest concern is the bounced attacks due to scripts when getting spied on (as blid first said).

Why not just remove login bonuses altogether and increase turn rate...
For example, 18hr = 6 turns is equivalent to 1 turn every 3 hours or an extra 8 turns per day, on average.
In primary, you would have to increase the turn rate to (7/3) turns per hour instead of (6/3) turns per hour. The reason why login bonuses shouldn't be eliminated all-together is because less turns = no more records beaten.

To prevent scripting it would be better to have like a 2hr/ 24hr cycle max login time before you get booted off the server.

Or would people totally hate that idea?

I agree that I don't want there to suddenly be 360 fewer turns in the reset. I think it's great to have turns come on half hour marks though in Primary and wouldn't want to mess with the turn rate.

Well then, turns every half hour with the bonus being granted to you every 18hrs on the dot? lol
Same # of turns, same pattern then.