Community Brainstorming Session

#1

I’m going to be going through the #roadmap:features backlog, and I’d like to also hear your opinions on a few things going forward:

  • What does Imperial Conflict most need in the short term?
  • What does Imperial Conflict most need in the long term?
  • Do you have any specific criticism about anything I am doing?
  • Do you have any specific criticism about anything I am not doing?
  • Anything else?

Some guidelines to keep things productive:

Don’t worry about how much effort something is or isn’t. :slight_smile:

Shoot for the stars! :star: We will prioritize the list separately afterward. Every idea is welcome in this thread; nothing is too big or too small.

Please do not criticize other players’ posts or debate them here.

This is a brainstorming session; a starting point where everybody should feel welcome to contribute. Please save your feedback on specific ideas for the individual threads that will follow.

Please keep each idea to a few sentences.

We can sort out the details later on. There’s no need for any idea here to be perfectly fleshed out, a short description is fine. :slight_smile:

Thank you!

3 Likes
Feedback Summary and Roadmap
Prioritize old players
#2
#3

Shorter rounds.

The hard farming happens after explo is over (mostly).
Been back three years now, I have managed to set up only 4 good fights - all eor.
Late explo leads are nigh impossible to mitigate.

Would cut down a ton on your suggestion there is an “overabundence” of shit in the game.

Again, for the “nth” time:

You raised the morale P-count on a whim - but never raised the morale gainback cap per tick, or set ops to cost a flat 5 (non status change of other players) to 10 of (change status of other players) to reflect it.

2 Likes
#4

*** What does Imperial Conflict most need in the short term?**

Game fixes so the game is playable as intended… (atm “as intended” is kinda vage couse i dont know anymore what is intended so i just go by how it used to be when it was fun)

  • Battle formula - (FIxed or new)
  • Review of anon and UA play
  • Review of Forum. Sutch a big part of the game, we shouldnt alow it to be this bad.

*** What does Imperial Conflict most need in the long term?**
A clear layout of what the goal for IC in the next x years, but NOT a vage goal like “make IC great again” . but some numbers or a fixed place to be in X amount of years.

F.eks: 250 active players in MW in 1 year and a strategic plan on how to get there.
(What changes is most likely to get 1 new player or and 1 old player to return…)

*** Do you have any specific criticism about anything I am doing?**

YES!! :stuck_out_tongue: i dont know what you think or why you do things, but for us looking from outside it seems like alot of implements and changes is, and Darrk said it very well…based on a whim. Its impossible to make everyone happy, and if your gone listen to everyone for advice your gone make things hard for yourself :slight_smile:

*** Anything else?**

i think making a great game for everyone without drama and any form toxic behaviour is impossible. Exitment, battle, drama in my opinion go hand in hand. Drama Is pure fuel for a battle game like this.

3 Likes
#5

Thank you @Darrk and @Airwing for your responses!

I’ve finished cleaning up the #roadmap:features and #support:bugs backlog. Some stuff was going back to 2017! This was long, long overdue.

This thread will close in about a week.

We’re going to keep this thread open until Dec 07, at which point all feedback here will be taken into account alongside the existing backlog to create a rough roadmap.

Posts here will be weighted heavier as they are most recent, so if you have feedback, this is the best opportunity to have it heard. :slight_smile:

#6

From a new player’s point of view what the game needs is a much better interface.

For a new player trying this game, it’s annoyingly difficult to even see how to go about doing basic stuuff like building things.

Yes you can click around and if you are persistent you might click on planets, Then if you put a tick in the right box you can build. Tick the wrong box and you get a cryptic message about construction science.

Building units is just as un-intuitive. These things should be immediately obvious.

Also the joining process in the first place is rubbish, it’s completely unclear what you’re supposed to do. I’m guessing 90% of player’s who try this game give up after 5 mins thinking it’s crap.

It’s pity because once you get beyond that looks like a decent game.

6 Likes
#7

Biggest issue for me is UA, for me it seems pointless to play with UA.
Options:

  • get mods or another admin to enforce.
  • ban ua but dont enforce
  • enforce via in game code

Make game less time intensive.

Simple change:
Change decay into interest, so being less active is less punishing.

Other potential options.
Auto trigger on attack. So you to have to be online to trigger in wars
Auto aid so you dont have to be constantly online to aid out.
Even an auto build set building % per planet that will be auto built each tick.

Might need to add some additional complexity to make up for the automated features.

Could randomise various galaxy settings to mix up the strats.

Examples.
income per building +/- 50% randomised for each building type per round.
Could make other things random.
Building/unit costs +/- 25%
Random planet bonus multiplier, say 25% chance of planets have double normal bonus, 5% of a triple bonus setting for the round.

4 Likes
#8

For me, I think the big question relates to those who will never respond to this sort of question, @I_like_pie: new players.

Why do people play strategy games nowadays? I know this is often referred to as a PBBG nowadays, but really it is (as I think it used to be described?!) a MMPOG. It’s many people playing together, or against each other and using all the tools at their disposal to become the best.

Whilst I appreciate the need to have a backlog of new features based on the current players’ desires, for me, the most important thing is to understand what we can do to get new players playing this game.

I’ve spend the last year or so working hard on our SaaS product. Initially, we wanted to work on making sure that the current customers were happy. We invested millions in that… but some still kept on leaving.

As it turns out… that’s what happens.

So, rather than solely focusing on retention, let’s look at how we minimise churn ( players acquired versus players leaving as a net figure).

I rejoined the game about 2 years ago… and it was easy for me, as I’d spent an inordinate amount of my youth playing… so I had muscle memory. But I’d like to investigate (as mentioned above) how easy is it to start playing, and when people might find themselves “stuck” to the game.

Yes… we need to make sure the game is suitable for this century, which I know you’re making great efforts on. However, I’d rather a terrible back-end that was intuitive and growing on the front end… rather than a great backend and no players.

4 Likes
#9

SO i have made a few big idea threads before, one is still here in the forum, the other is lost somewhere in the old mod forum.

Short term:

  1. make specific goals, 6 month, 1 year, 3 year 5 year, make them attainable and real, but give everyone, even yourself a true outline of what the future looks like.
  2. quick easy UI updates( few examples below)
    A. triggering attacking fleets should not open a new window, should jsut be a pop down like recalling
    a fleet does
    B. Information ops should have a link to post them in family forums, or to messages, copy pasting
    constantly is a pain
    C. change war dynamics , make it so wars only last a predetemined time, or plane amount taken,
    and the fams involved cant be attacked by others. There is a few others you can add, but this
    would be a start.
    D. Buff ops, make them a true suitable replacement from fleet and attacks, including an op research
  3. You have done this one, but make one galaxy and thats it (excluding virgo) focus everything on it,
    make it the place to be, then look at adding others.

Long Term

  1. Mobile app, or more mobile friendly version of the website
  2. overhaul of buildings, fleet, attack code, pop code, redefine the game and how it is payed, make it your own and make it improved to what it is.
  3. Develop a larger community with true leaders that have power to do things in the game. I know this is the way it used to be, and i truly think eventually you will need to go back. this would also include coders, moderators,andmanagers
  4. Develop a true detailed business plan, and use other outlets to make money, specifically kickstarter,
  5. more detailed informatuion at round end, who made the most total money, attacks,research, the more info the better
  6. set a definitve criteria for winning, even something crazy like a certain planet count

Criticism for what you are doing:
Honestly no, you have a life outside of IC, and this is your side project. But it could grow to more, you just need to define 100% what it is, what it will be and what you want it to be. Taking advice from the player base is great, but its your game, we should have a voice, but a small one.

I would also suggest rolling out larger “patches” than 1-3 changes at a time, make big sweeping changes across everything all at once.

Criticism for not doing
Same as above, I would like more transparency maybe. Such as a bi weekly or monthly newsletter of whats going on. More transparency with numbers, from player base, to daily activity.

Thats all off the top of my head, and jsut a start, hope it helps some.

2 Likes
#10
#11

I think what What2 said about more intuitive joining process and better interface (to gain more players) and what TIF says to lessen the activity reward are the key things to improve IC. If you are online every tick to build (or attack) it’s almost impossible to lose.

I have one more to add to that: make it so that a player has more automomy in a family. Now a family acts as one unit and it usually comes down to one guy calling the shots and everybody else just taking orders. This takes away the fun for the other players and this was exactly why the SS galaxies were introduced and they were great great fun. Not sure why they’re not being opened anymore cause most people I spoke to where enthusiastic about them.

2 Likes
#12

** What does Imperial Conflict most need in the short term?**

  • More players
  • a working ally system
  • some way to balance the rounds in a better way. shortening them may be an option.
  • some long term “goal”. even if it is only a counter about how many planets you conquered in your ic career… how much cash you made…lifetime NW… whatever… just something that does not make MW 72 100% irrelevant once MW 73 started.
  • More players
  • some way to make activity a little less important than it is atm. It still has to be rewarded though

I can not really say anything about the interface since i am used to it since over a decade. For me it´s perfectly fine and i would probably moan if there would be big changes.
But i guess i´ll have to be fair and admit that it may be not too inviting to new players.

2 Likes
#13

I’ve translated everything here to a Feedback Summary and Roadmap, along with some other priorities.

Thanks for the feedback everybody!

#14