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    • As a fairly new player I see a couple of issues with the game. First each map should have it's own personal chat, the number of people I see talking to each other and then find out oh we are not on the same map. I want to talk to people on my map not others unless I select "global chat." Next I see several new players get burned out because of gold players. Not everybody can afford to buy gold and when they get on a map with a big spender it is not a lot of fun, I know I was wiped out in about 4 days by one of these players. They should have some gold free maps where you cannot accidentally use gold. That brings me to an issue with the app, the accidental use of gold, I have done this on more than one occasion and it sucks, i made achievements earned gold and oops just clicked the button. There should be a confirmation to use gold.

      Each of these things should be fairly simple coding changes as most of the coding is already present. I do understand that the chat feature could take more resources and need more mods, but it is feasible to do.
    • Captain Hurricane wrote:

      which is why half of them quite their first few games? why do games have such high numbers of inactive new players?

      lol. seriously dude, I give up you win. you know more than anyone in any subject.
      Hah! I thank you for your deference. :D

      Hm....a problem exists where people join the game but don't stick it out. Ah! it must be that they don't have enough army. Let's analyze this train of thought before it rolls off the tracks.

      Captain Hurricane wrote:

      I wonder why someone creates a game called STAY ACTIVE!

      Oh and what a surprise, more 3/5ths of the players have gone inactive because they got bored of building a bigger army


      I could dig up more examples like this, even worse cases but hey we know what your response will be.

      Well, here we have two pieces of anecdotal "evidence"...well, the first piece is anecdotal. The second piece is merely "conjecture". While I have no problem with anecdotal evidence, the fact that someone named a single match as "STAY ACTIVE!" shows that it is a complaint in this game by those who DO play it. But this doesn't offer an explanation of why people quit...it merely points out the aggravation of those of US who don't quit.

      The quitters aren't angry that others quit.

      Captain Hurricane wrote:

      I think if there was a chat tab for team play, or a discussion area in diplomacy for the team (like we have for coalitions), it would just about solve the issue of inactivity
      Well, now. Perhaps this will solve everything. Having a team chat or a discussion area in diplomacy will fix it. Here's some facts about this point. The team chat feature was implemented but it was later removed by the devs due to a total lack of use by most players. Nice idea....epic fail. And that "discussion area in diplomacy"....sure sounds an awful lot like the coalition thread of the private messaging system. And, to use anecdotal evidence, many of my matches (which do allow coalitions) see heavy usage of the coalition thread by my coalition...and not just by me.

      Captain Hurricane wrote:

      The above is from the Senior Mod, evidently he hasn't got the memo that they should feel an urge to build armies and remain in the game. What's the matter with these new players? Don't they want to build bigger armies? What's wrong with them? Well let's wait for the next game, oh look, more new players!! Oh wait, they are also immune to the urge? What is going wrong?

      Diabolical, the evidence is stacked up against you. It is a problem, they get bored, they get inactive, it irritates those who get left behind, even you.

      I await with bated breath your next explanation.
      Thus far, your logpile of evidence hasn't stacked up at all. I will keep knocking it down as I refute your every point. When you bring up real evidence, then I will accept it. That said, Vorlon isn't on the wrong side, here. Like me, he sees that some players might not like the pace of the game nor the amount of armies, per your pov. But, your problem is that you seem to think that a lack of starting armies is the sole and gigantic reason why as many people quit as they do. I would postulate that only a tiny fraction of players quit because of the size of their starting armies.

      I'll have more on that, further down.

      Stormbringer50 wrote:

      yes, i believe having a chat tab for teams would encourage players to build stuff, and play the game, as the chat would help alleviate the initial slow start of the game. Instead of everyone on the map feeling alone, even though they are part of a huge team, there would be planning and coordination of forces happening (sounds great for a strategy game, dont ya think?)
      Unfortunately, as I mentioned further up, the in-game team chat was a bust. Nobody used it. And, the few people who actually tried to use it faced the same problem that a live-time game would have....not everyone is online at the same time. At least with Discord or Skype, for example, you can get notifications when someone does say something, which might alert you to get online and see what's going on.

      And you know what? The devs know this. They know that people are going to use outside chat sources. So why would they bother trying to over-develop this part of the game? It's nice enough that they put in the chats that we do have. But, in case you haven't noticed, even the "Global" chat is sorely underused. If even only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of players on any given day would chime in on the global chat, it would fly by with dozens, if not hundreds, of messages every minute. Instead, oftentimes, there is little to no activity for long blocks of time. And when there is any activity, it's usually between only a handful of people having one or two overlapping conversations.

      Stormbringer50 wrote:

      And, as the developers pointed out on this thread, this was the first time they tried a team game of this size. They wanted our input to better the game, which is something that they are continually doing. We need to be patient, because Bytro is good at listening to their users and making improvements to the game.
      It's funny how, in the past, I've read many people's complaints how the devs don't listen to the people. I've of an opinion that, in fact, they do, as I've had many comments by more than one of the devs and I've seen several of my proposed ideas wind up being added to the game at one point or another.

      Like the chats, the forums are underused by the average CoW player. But, for those of us who do participate, the devs are paying attention. The volunteer staff help to glean some of it, but the devs have a vested interest in how this game improves and they are open to our input. The fact that they -- and their representatives -- have to point that fact out to the rest of us just shows how easily ignorance can creep into this. But they are listening. And if everyone shouts from the rooftops that they don't like people abandoning matches, that's not going to fix the problem. And the problem isn't with small starting armies. As much as you -- and the few other people agreeing with you -- want to believe that this is the sole reason for the quitters, I must tell you there are many reasons. As I mentioned further above, I will get into this below.

      VorlonFCW wrote:

      Personally I have gone inactive in any 25 player historical nap that I have ever joined. Yes I said NAP instead of map, and that is what I meant. I can' t stand the slow speed of that one.
      I gotta admit, this map is kinda slow. Yet I've won as India, which is a smaller nation. And it wasn't the slowest map when I did so. I might have to play it again, sometime soon, just to prove to myself that it can be more fun.

      VorlonFCW wrote:

      I think a lot of players join and create an account when they get enticed by an ad to try it out. Most of them are expecting something more like a shoot-em-up game where they drive a tank around like Need for Speed and win a game in 15 minutes and then can go play a different game. Such is the attention span of this Instant Gratification Generation. This is strategy and planning more than anything else. So people who don't have the desire to plan ahead don't even last through the tutorial.
      Thank you for this input. THIS is one of two primary reasons why people quit playing new matches. It isn't that there aren't enough armies, it's that it's live time real-world-style playing with an emphasis on strategy, not action. For the shoot-em-up people out there, this game is just one big bore. A few of them might spend a bunch of money on Gold to try to alleviate the slower pace of the game, but then their bigger armies STILL can't go and wipe everything out all at once because they are STILL so slow!

      The second primary reason why so many people drop out at the beginning is because they are either using the random nations or forced to use random nations (or make "bad" choices on a nation-choosing match) when joining a match. They are unhappy about their starting position and aren't willing to try to make the best of it. In a way, I don't really blame them because having an ideal start sounds like a key to winning. But it's really more about how you play than the initial starting conditions.

      ...continued in next post...
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3
    • ...continued from last post...

      OK, so let's suppose you join a new match, but you want the best starting conditions for an extra boost. Even I can realize that an early boost will help, despite my espousement of the idea of a long term master plan of action. So, if a person were to join a match with nation-choosing, and they see that the nation(s) they want are already taken, they might grab another "less-ideal" choice, but then regret it because they see they are surrounded by other players are either already making a play at their lands, or perhaps they've already joined together in a coalition and you know you're going to get squeezed out.

      Maybe instead, you join a new match, and you even get a nation you want to play, or maybe you don't even care which nation you start with. But after a couple days, you are already overwhelmed by a gold-spamming neighbor, or even just a neighbor who -- like me -- is highly aggressive and you are already facing certain doom. Of course, some players are just going to quit rather than playing out that nightmarish scenario. Some few will spend a bunch of their own gold to try to counter this. And some will stick it out, maybe trying to gather allies and/or use diplomacy to save themselves.

      My point is that the size of your starting armies is not going to be a main reason to quit. The size of someone else's starting army (after they've buffed themselves up with copious amounts of gold) might make them quit, though, but that's the inverse of the problem that is being discussed here. "It's not you, it's me."

      So, to sum up, there are many reasons why people quit and the reason being discussed, though it is a reason, it's not the reason. Some new players want action, not strategy. Some players want only the nations they want. Some players don't have much of an army (the point at hand). Some players are surrounded by pre-existent allies. Some players are surrounded by aggressive uber players like me. Some players have gold-spamming neighbors.

      And, finally, some players have another factor that hasn't been discussed yet. Life. Often times -- and this affects even me -- life gets in the way. Perhaps you started a match. It's not particularly fantastic for you, but it's not bad either. Maybe you started in a reasonably-good situation. Maybe you have a couple allies. Maybe even there's no spamming golders next to you. Maybe even you used a little gold to give yourself a starting boost to tech or a couple extra factories.

      Yet, despite all that, something happens, or you get busy, things change, or maybe even just another match "heats up". Life gets in the way and you wind up ignoring or even abandoning a match....or many matches.

      On the list of reasons why people abandon matches....prematurely....I'd have to say that a lack of starting forces is far down that list.
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3
    • Diabolical wrote:

      On the list of reasons why people abandon matches....prematurely....I'd have to say that a lack of starting forces is far down that list.
      I tend to agree with this point. At least for me the number of forces I start with has no implication on the game. I have one map that I am literally down to one troop, yet I am not quitting. Then there is another map that I am in first another in second. Even when I am down but not out, I do my best to fight back, for me it is more fun to fight back from obscurity than to totally dominate from the beginning.
    • Kebija wrote:

      for me it is more fun to fight back from obscurity than to totally dominate from the beginning.
      Some days it is more about the fight than about the win, of course the win is nice :)



      In this team event, which is really what we are discussing here, we had a member of my alliance get overrun by day 10, and was eliminated. On day 22 the Blue team broke the back of the Red forces in Asia, and we got my alliance member back in the game with a province and a couple armies. Let him take back his own core with our air support, and he finished in 6th place. We enjoyed in this team up event being able to play cooperatively with more than just 5 players in a coalition.

      We are eagerly awaiting the next time this event comes up, and we are going to plan ahead better about getting as many people as we know all together on one team, which I think is really what this is all about. We even had three people on our blue team go on a one week vacation and hardly play in the middle of one of these games. It was nice that points gathered by our allies still counted towards victory even if they were inactive, and we didn't have to re-capture land that our allies already captured, only to defend it.
      War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin keep out of the way til you can. - Winston Churchill



      VorlonFCW
      Retired from Bytro staff as of November 30, 2020.

      >>> Click Here to submit a bug report or support ticket <<<
    • Kebija wrote:

      for me it is more fun to fight back from obscurity than to totally dominate from the beginning.
      So true....so true.
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3
    • Diabolical wrote:

      Well, here we have two pieces of anecdotal "evidence"...well, the first piece is anecdotal. The second piece is merely "conjecture". While I have no problem with anecdotal evidence, the fact that someone named a single match as "STAY ACTIVE!" shows that it is a complaint in this game by those who DO play it. But this doesn't offer an explanation of why people quit...it merely points out the aggravation of those of US who don't quit.

      The quitters aren't angry that others quit
      you simply can't gather up some facts together to reach a logical conclusion can you? You forget to mention other bits of evidence, there is much more but this is what came up first.

      The important bit is that 3/5th of the players went inactive. There not being a shortage of new players does not make these players become active again. The game is therefore spoilt.


      Diabolical wrote:

      Thank you for this input. THIS is one of two primary reasons why people quit playing new matches. It isn't that there aren't enough armies, it's that it's live time real-world-style playing with an emphasis on strategy, not action.
      There is no evidence for this, Most people can work out that the game is not a first person shooter from the images of troop icons moving across huge maps. Please provide evidence of people asking how to switch to vehicle control or from MP40 to Sten Gun.

      Diabolical wrote:

      Here's some facts about this point. The team chat feature was implemented but it was later removed by the devs due to a total lack of use by most players. Nice idea....epic fail. And that "discussion area in diplomacy"....sure sounds an awful lot like the coalition thread of the private messaging system. And, to use anecdotal evidence, many of my matches (which do allow coalitions) see heavy usage of the coalition thread by my coalition...and not just by me.
      You miss the point (yet again) this is a RED versus BLUE game. 50 players have a shared need to communicate WHEREAS in a normal game or even in ALLL PRECEDING GAMES there was no mass need for communications. Then you quote Stormbringer, the Senior Mod. Obviously he doesn't get it either in your opinion. I can see a pattern developing here.

      Diabolical wrote:

      I would postulate that only a tiny fraction of players quit because of the size of their starting armies.
      Where is the evidence for this? Your evidence doesn't stack up and I'll knock it down time after time lol/

      It's not the lack of starting armies, it's not the lack of chat, it's not the lack of a cross hair, it's not the lack of vehicle controls /
      it's the lack of ANYTHING to do for a good part of the first week of a game

      Diabolical wrote:

      K, so let's suppose you join a new match, but you want the best starting conditions for an extra boost. Even I can realize that an early boost will help, despite my espousement of the idea of a long term master plan of action. So, if a person were to join a match with nation-choosing, and they see that the nation(s) they want are already taken, they might grab another "less-ideal" choice, but then regret it because they see they are surrounded by other players are either already making a play at their lands, or perhaps they've already joined together in a coalition and you know you're going to get squeezed out.

      Maybe instead, you join a new match, and you even get a nation you want to play, or maybe you don't even care which nation you start with. But after a couple days, you are already overwhelmed by a gold-spamming neighbor, or even just a neighbor who -- like me -- is highly aggressive and you are already facing certain doom. Of course, some players are just going to quit rather than playing out that nightmarish scenario. Some few will spend a bunch of their own gold to try to counter this. And some will stick it out, maybe trying to gather allies and/or use diplomacy to save themselves.
      Irrelevant, this does not apply to a new player who has only joined 1 or 2 games. He does not know what nations are best, he does not even know there are games u can chose your starting nation even. Stop drawing irrelevant waffle into your arguments. They can be seen as simple smoke and mirrors to conflate your position.
    • Captain Hurricane wrote:

      You miss the point (yet again) this is a RED versus BLUE game. 50 players have a shared need to communicate WHEREAS in a normal game or even in ALLL PRECEDING GAMES there was no mass need for communications. Then you quote Stormbringer, the Senior Mod. Obviously he doesn't get it either in your opinion. I can see a pattern developing here.
      Well, actually, there are coalition chats, and alliance chats already, and people use them very frequently. Diabolical was only half right about the old chat tabs. we had an ingame chat, specifically for each and every game, but that was indeed eliminated. We have never had a specific team chat for team games.
    • Diabolical wrote:

      . Because I care about this game, the company that puts it out, and the community that plays it,

      Diabolical wrote:

      However, until they do, I will boycott this map type...as well as ALL team games...and I will encourage all other players with whom I'm associated -- and anyone else who'll listen -- to boycott it, as well.
      This contradiction speaks volumes about your attitude, it would appear petulant to put it politely.

      Diabolical wrote:

      If the staff even only fixes one of those two critical faults (unable to eliminate inactive team mates, all opponents start at war), then I'd consider participating in future events of this type.
      You have a very aggrandised view of your importance in the COW community methinks.
    • Captain Hurricane wrote:

      Diabolical wrote:

      . Because I care about this game, the company that puts it out, and the community that plays it,

      Diabolical wrote:

      However, until they do, I will boycott this map type...as well as ALL team games...and I will encourage all other players with whom I'm associated -- and anyone else who'll listen -- to boycott it, as well.
      This contradiction speaks volumes about your attitude, it would appear petulant to put it politely.

      Diabolical wrote:

      If the staff even only fixes one of those two critical faults (unable to eliminate inactive team mates, all opponents start at war), then I'd consider participating in future events of this type.
      You have a very aggrandised view of your importance in the COW community methinks.
      Yes, I do. And not without good cause. Many of my ideas and suggestions have been adopted into this game, over the years. I am a software engineer, a gamer, and a genius strategist. My ideas have merit and the staff realizes this. I have a natural insight to this game on many levels and, though not all my ideas are popular to the community, the developers can weed out the less-popular ones but view my ideas in a fairly-unbiased way and are able to pick apart which of my ideas can be good to implement.

      Captain Hurricane wrote:

      Looks like Bytro agrees with me following the adjustments to the tutorial map.
      See? Even you can get some of your ideas accepted by staff...assuming you had any. (Really, I have no idea if you did or didn't, I'm just "supposing" that you probably did, based on your statement, lol. But I'm not going to reread your old posts to find out! Still, I'll bet you're scratching your head trying to figure out why I replied to your quote, here....and -- actually -- I'm kinda wondering that too, now.)
      It seemed like such a waste to destroy an entire battle station just to eliminate one man. But Charlie knew that it was the only way to ensure the absolute and total destruction of Quasi-duck, once and for all.

      The saying, "beating them into submission until payday", is just golden...pun intended.

      R.I.P. Snickers <3
    • Diabolical wrote:

      Yes, I do. And not without good cause. Many of my ideas and suggestions have been adopted into this game, over the years. I am a software engineer, a gamer, and a genius strategist. My ideas have merit and the staff realizes this. I have a natural insight to this game on many levels and, though not all my ideas are popular to the community, the developers can weed out the less-popular ones but view my ideas in a fairly-unbiased way and are able to pick apart which of my ideas can be good to implement.
      lol, ok. if u say so :)
    • Diabolical wrote:

      ...continued from last post...

      OK, so let's suppose you join a new match, but you want the best starting conditions for an extra boost. Even I can realize that an early boost will help, despite my espousement of the idea of a long term master plan of action. So, if a person were to join a match with nation-choosing, and they see that the nation(s) they want are already taken, they might grab another "less-ideal" choice, but then regret it because they see they are surrounded by other players are either already making a play at their lands, or perhaps they've already joined together in a coalition and you know you're going to get squeezed out.

      Maybe instead, you join a new match, and you even get a nation you want to play, or maybe you don't even care which nation you start with. But after a couple days, you are already overwhelmed by a gold-spamming neighbor, or even just a neighbor who -- like me -- is highly aggressive and you are already facing certain doom. Of course, some players are just going to quit rather than playing out that nightmarish scenario. Some few will spend a bunch of their own gold to try to counter this. And some will stick it out, maybe trying to gather allies and/or use diplomacy to save themselves.

      My point is that the size of your starting armies is not going to be a main reason to quit. The size of someone else's starting army (after they've buffed themselves up with copious amounts of gold) might make them quit, though, but that's the inverse of the problem that is being discussed here. "It's not you, it's me."

      So, to sum up, there are many reasons why people quit and the reason being discussed, though it is a reason, it's not the reason. Some new players want action, not strategy. Some players want only the nations they want. Some players don't have much of an army (the point at hand). Some players are surrounded by pre-existent allies. Some players are surrounded by aggressive uber players like me. Some players have gold-spamming neighbors.

      And, finally, some players have another factor that hasn't been discussed yet. Life. Often times -- and this affects even me -- life gets in the way. Perhaps you started a match. It's not particularly fantastic for you, but it's not bad either. Maybe you started in a reasonably-good situation. Maybe you have a couple allies. Maybe even there's no spamming golders next to you. Maybe even you used a little gold to give yourself a starting boost to tech or a couple extra factories.

      Yet, despite all that, something happens, or you get busy, things change, or maybe even just another match "heats up". Life gets in the way and you wind up ignoring or even abandoning a match....or many matches.

      On the list of reasons why people abandon matches....prematurely....I'd have to say that a lack of starting forces is far down that list.
      Why not make a seperate map for newbies, it could be a map with no gold usage so newbies don't quit and then once they start playing the game they like it. I understand this is like Europe Clash of Nations but some uber players join to get juice and gold out of the newbies. Why not make it a min.rank lv.6 map so begginers could join but only those who have completed the tutorial and know a thing or two also make a maximum rank of lv.12. I understand than you don't finish your first game by lv.6 and have to have 2 games running. Sorry for grammar, I am nit native english.