Suggestions for Game improvements from an 8 year player

[Farcus]

1) Make Buildings Stackable/Combinable. Example: 5 Stack Stands could be combined into ONE with the output of FIVE.
2) Make Explorers, Generals, Geologists tradable
3) Ability to make buffs for building not now buffable. Example: Harbor
4) Make explorers combinable. Example: Two Scared Explorers could be combined into one with twice the abilities.
5) Make Generals more powerful by experience points per battle. Generals could gain power by leveling up based on experience.
6) The ability to send out many explorers at one time.
7) Guild vs guild competitions/events.

Anyone of these could be Blue Gem cost which would increase Blue Gem sales.

[Forrell]

When thinking of ideas for the game, I try to keep the coding aspect in mind. It may be easier to make to footprint of the snack stand smaller than it would be to code it to stack.
Trading explorers and generals would likely reduce the value of those items.
I don't know all the buffs, but I don't recall seeing a buff specifically for Tools.
Combining explorers may be possible as it would really only need a loot table coded and an additional search option button.
I think the system is coded for all the generals to have certain attributes and then each individual player can use the values books set as modifiers. What you are suggesting would require a lot of new code, every general would need to be recoded. Experience point caps would have to be established, plenty of other things.
I'm completely against #6, it would make that aspect of the game too easy.
I think the easiest way to implement some type of Guild event is to coordinate a Guild Quest with a Community Manager hosting the event.
A question is how shall the Guilds compete, what types of quests are a good measure of a guild's performance and how do we create an event that is reasonably fair for a guild of 30 vs a guild of 80?

[Snaketeeth01]

12 year player.

Only feature that adds any value is the ability to send mass explorer.
This is not an enhancement to your game, this is something that would remove frustration and streamline your game.
Why is it fair that when I own more than 100 explorers I have to manage their every move around my adventures?
And I have to manage geos?
And swap buffs?
What's it take to send an exp on medium search?
Click the exp, click medium, click accept. 3 clicks and moving your mouse Per explorer per 1.5 hours on medium searches in event.
Per day. For 21+ days.
This is literally hundreds of clicks and time consumption that only gets to be more a drain as you "advance".
How is it an advancement to gain more explorers when you are losing play time per exp owned?

In our current method. Owning 100 exps will net your more profit than owning 50.
Yet owning 50 allows less wrist pain and half the time management.
How do you feel true reward in being punished for advancing?
If we could mass send.
Then owning 5 explorers or 500 explorers would require the same level of focus.
Roughly.

Everything else doesn't really fit.

You mention stacking buildings to double their affect.
Right. We have that.
A level 2 building is equivalent to 2 level 1 while being "stacked" within the same footprint.
We have the resources to apply up to Tier 7.
And then we "stack" output value by applying buffs. Then you stack buff value with PFB. Memoir. Zone affects.
If you paid attention to how this game works.
We have this.
You just need to understand buffs and how to assess land value. You have to compromise which buildings you allow footprint to. Which buildings prio under love tree for *22 output do not require many copies. This output value is high stacked already to *22.
I do not own 44 Excelsior tributes.
But I can activate 2 of them under LT and get the output as if I did within the footprint of 2 tribs.
Is this skill, or just playing the game properly?

Making rare units tradeable would be an exploit that would break economy, can't have this.
In short you are not supposed to own 2 accounts. This is to prevent you from trading with yourself to exceed purchase limits.
One example of this would be Birthday event when 10 misty cake where available per player and this map IS tradeable.
So to exceed my personal 10 limit. I could in theory have a few alt accounts of my own, and co ordinate with other alt accounts of other players to exceed purchase limit and sell to myself for free.
Let's look at a general released via event. YGG. You can buy 1 from the event. Hard limit.
But you want to own 6+ YGG so you can 1r tap through all maps with ease.
This should take multiple years, or gem purchases in black market.
However.
If you have access to alt accounts, or low levels who cannot obtain YGG for themselves. You break limit and have access to infinity. uh oh. That's a problem.
Now within 1 to 2 years of this new method, hardcore players or players who simply wish to exploit. Can easily obtain more generals than they "should" have.
now how do you balance a map?
How do you make a new map designed with balance in mind for players that have too many generals as well as players who do not have enough?
There would be no reason for anything. Every adventure would be reduced to sending single unit taps until the map is eventually clear.
0 challenge.
0 reason to tech.
0 reason to understand battle.

Guild V Guild, can be done. Should be done. Just not exactly the way you would think.
Not Guild V guild directly.
But we need a global raid boss which has an HP value reduced by adventure completion.
I give you a map. say "The end of the world". And you have 2 hours to complete the map before expiration.
This makes it difficult to rely on multiple taps per general without field hospital.
Get in there, clear the map. Deal daamge to the global boss. Exact same counter used in birthday event.
Count down. When boss HP <=0 change to reward page.
Pay ALL participants of the boss.
If you dealt 1 HP or top HP. You get a share of the base reward.
But then the guild reward is cut and divided to rank order of guild contribution.
Whichever guild as a whole deals the most damage to the boss gets the most reward.
This ties into another feature which would require pooling guild coins to guild bank.
If we owned a guild bank, all members could donate tribute to the pile. But only the guild leader or assigned members may spend from this pool.
Once a boss spawns, spawn boss merchant and allow buffs which would enhance your battle.
This would allow your guild leader to spend your teams coins on buffs to give you more dmg from generals, more dmg per map completion, halved general recovery time, there can be a variety of enhancements available.
This means if you want to actually take out the boss, you have to be online and playing.
If you notice that the same guild (which would be mine) is winning #1 damage in every boss event. Then you have incentive to jump over to that guild and reap the benefit of that shared reward and being in close proximity to serious and skilled players.
This would encourage guild activity.
So even in the downtime. Just being on to partake in guild quest and donating your coins to the pile. Will help your team take out the boss, so you can benefit the reward while you yourself are unable to deal as much damage as top players.
This also gives reason to have 60k army. Something I can actually spend my units on.
What this does is give PVE challenge with global guild rankings so that guild V guild competition can be introduced in a friendly way. Where all members are trying to form strong guilds to actually work toward a team goal. And do it better than other guilds.

Explorers being combined would have a negative.
Look at PFB.
If search time is 6 hours per a search.
Say, reduced to 5 via PFB.
I realize 2 hours of savings when looking at 2 generals.
If I were to "combine" this general" what would the output be?
Would I be taking a 6 hour search and reduce it to 3? That would be the intuitive way to at least match 1:1 output whilst halving the management cost.
But then you apply PFB reduction by a % to a single unit, not multiple units.
0.8*1 vs 0.8*2. See how with 2 units you are "saving" 0.4. This would be lost by reducing unit count.
Is search time supposed to be the same and what, search success doubled?
How does that math work because you cannot exceed 100%.
If scaredy has a 1% chance to find his top reward. You cannot make that 2% without losing 1% find on another item.
Which item? The lowest value? Or do we divide the loss by N and then subtract additively from each?

Much of your suggestions actually devalue the game. devalue gems. Decrease the need for gems.
Not sure you understand the actual complexities that go on around here.

Give us raid bosses.
The simple need to be in a guild will whip the members into shape.
You will no longer see 30 guilds with 5 members, but players actually seeking a truly active guild.
Now you will get 8 guilds with 50 members each. That's what you want.
A natural variety of leadership styles and group vibes for players to fit into.
While everyone has a place in their own guild. Every guild has the overreaching task of taking out the raid boss within the 1 week it is up.
Be online. You can't miss it. You can't damage it if you are not here. Be here.
That's my thing. They need to give you a reason to be here so you actually come here.
Your guild would give you tasks and tips to take out the boss.
That'd be a reason to be in a guild.

I pay attention to the subtle details. The itty bitty minor things.
That's what really makes it anyway.
What is a painting but a collection of brush strokes. Every little line matters.
One addition we have had since Halloween in that a mini event will launch within deactivation period of a major event.
You either see the massive benefit to this or you don't.
But you should. It's a pretty big deal. That affects your timing and pacing in the larger game.

My biggest gripe with this game is that players do not know how to utilize down time.
I feel as if players do not know exactly what to do when there is no event. So you just do whatever, or nothing. Instead of specific things which would help you toward the next major event.
I keep busy in my personal mailbox nearly daily answering questions or providing guidance. But truly it is a game problem.
It's not my job to give you an idea of what you need to accomplish. That goal should be self evident.
That's a development problem. Not a me problem.
As far as game design goes. You have a nice open sandbox. but just a little bit too open and lacking guidance.
This is again where Raid boss would matter.

You should be busy. You should always be catching up.
You should be in an event, or prepping for an event.
Or dealing with ab boss.
Or researching a unit.
Or recovering resources.
Or learning advanced trade tactics.
You should be online doing something. It just happens that most players come on for events and skip the rest.
There is a lack or prep, and a lack in TO activity.
Raid boss would fix this.
Either be online to get the top rewards, or somebody else will.

Would I be proud to be the leader of the guild who holds the largest GC pile?
Maybe. Maybe that'd be something I would be interested in. And to accomplish that I would have to be a better leader and train my members.
If another guild leader wants that top spot.
They too are encourage to train their members and disseminate information.
This competition with each other benefits new and growing players to having actual active leadership.
What guild are you in right now? How would your guild be different if you had another leader?
Is your current leader even leading? What do leaders do in this game? Because it isn't like any other guild I have been in.
Other guilds do actual guild activity.
I have a discord channel made. Who else as a leader has done that? Why not?
Where are your guides? Why don't you make them?
Is that "somebody else's job"? That's a problem. Not many want to dive deep into gritty details and figure out whodunit.
Get your hands dirty and build something for this community. YOU have to be more involved.
How? Yeah that's a tough one.
Hangout in a global chat room and wait for devs to give us something we can do.
That's all we have.

They put it on us to create guides and spread them. Yet give us no reason to form strong guilds.
We are missing a step.

[FlatShoeLance]

1) Make Buildings Stackable/Combinable. Example: 5 Stack Stands could be combined into ONE with the output of FIVE.
2) Make Explorers, Generals, Geologists tradable
3) Ability to make buffs for building not now buffable. Example: Harbor
4) Make explorers combinable. Example: Two Scared Explorers could be combined into one with twice the abilities.
5) Make Generals more powerful by experience points per battle. Generals could gain power by leveling up based on experience.
6) The ability to send out many explorers at one time.
7) Guild vs guild competitions/events.

Anyone of these could be Blue Gem cost which would increase Blue Gem sales.

all very good suggestions esp #6