Hello everyone,
Travian team is telling us that they are reading every topic and every comment, so here is mine with couple suggestions. Please keep in mind that all these points are from my point of view, many of them might not be totally relevant from the game design perspective.
Release of new servers + specials
This one is a huge one for me right now. The way you keep developing game, updating and changing the core functionality feels truly irritating. We are overflowed with updates and changes. I am playing on server “A” for couple months, we are getting used to everything, it feels like we know all the rules and the most efficient ways of playing, so we are planning our strategies for next server but guess what. Everything is different, so we start to learn all the announced rules so we can adjust our tactics, but guess what again. Next server is going to have Night Truce.. And again rework of everything, nobody wants to play it, but what we can do? Another server is starting in like a month and nobody wants to wait. We are basically “forced” to play it, because we all love travian and we want to keep playing, but these “small things” are really taking away the excitement.
My suggestion: Release more servers in a row with the same functionality, so we are not
getting overflowed and ask each language community before putting some special feature onto the server if they actually want it there. Make polls and communicate with your players!
Release of new updates before testing
It feels like travian team completely forgot to what are the test servers for. Exemplary case is the current situation on com2x3. You decided to push huge game changing feature directly on game servers, without putting it first on a full round of test server. We all know what’s happening right now as a result. This is like a complete no-brainer for me as a dev. I guess you must have been pushed by deadlines otherwise I can't find any other logical explanation for this.
My suggestion: Use your test servers for testing. This should be obvious, but feels like it isn't. Do not change things on live servers and do not put there untested things (by players, not just by your QAs).
Huge kingdoms
We all know that this one is an ongoing issue. Kingdoms have tons of players and they are just snowballing so the gap between “small” and “big” kingdoms is bigger as the game server progresses. More players = more tributes, more robber camps etc.
My ideas:
Rework VP system - remove the thing that you can steal VP only from the higher ranked kingdom. It’s just making the game more passive and easier to “abuse”. Get bonus % of VP if you actually destroy the treasury for each destroyed lvl. Currently if you send solo attack which goes through and destroy the treasury, you will take only 33% of the treasures, because others are redirected to other active treasury. People will again have a reason to actually cata down the treasuries. This whole topic is for a bigger discussion, but definitely there is needed a huge rework.
Amount of players in kingdoms - currently there is no limit, which makes the snowballing effect even easier. Lets add a feature that you will receive slots for new members once you lvl up embassy/treasury and you will be able to collect tributes only from your actual members.
Robber camps - This is a next factor which encourage everyone to invite everyone into their kingdoms. I am not totally sure how it is designed right now, maybe it depends on players or maybe it depends on the actual size of the kingdom, but my suggestion is this:
Completely remove them! What are they for? Guvs and Dukes has robber hideouts, that has to be enough.
Natars during the gameworld - this might be sort of a replacement for robber camps and might bring some actual variety into the gameplay. Let’s make them attack us! Random targets at random times. Do not display the amount of incoming troops. Might even send fake attacks or something They might also send random scout attack and if they goes through, the report will be visible for everyone on the server or something. Bigger kingdoms will receive more attacks or more frequently so it will help with the balancing issues. I believe that natars have really minimal use right now and there are many ways how we can implement them
Sorry for the long post, but hopefully some of these ideas makes sense. Let me know your opinions and I would love to see also reactions from the admin team.
Thank you for your time,
Polenoo