#Weekly Goals - Laser Recipe Feedback

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

sharp portal
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Hello! I'd love some feedback on the laser recipe. General comments are certainly welcome, but detailed feedback would be most appreciated.

If you find something that's missing or a profession that experiences a lull in the economy or otherwise left out, please let me know. Please keep in mind that there's a lot of indirect contributors due to the recipes chosen and the benefits to that profession may not be as easily recognized.

If you find something that seems wrong, impossible, or just a stretch - please let me know the recipe, the item, and why you think it's not going to work or may be a problem.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FnGXlIMKbdlDnzYNKBY89DifKJNSaHaCjDGTQ5rzPfc/edit?usp=sharing

Feel free to ask questions as well. Some tweaks will be needed to the weekly goals sheet due to some changes in the recipe over the last couple of weeks.

Google Docs
Weekly Goals - Laser Recipe Visual

Balanced Meal Special Alloy Enhanced Meal Premium Meal Laser Body Precision Tools Enhanced Precision Tools Laser Blueprint Final Assembly Instructions Laser Internals Laser Upgrade Laser Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Exquisite Meal 80 60 40 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 40 60 Per Week Total for 20...

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Reserved

sharp portal
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Reserved

acoustic dome
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Some of the skill release dates (on the non accelerated schedule) give like 2 days to produce what is needed, while they are also going to be busy with the upgrade module demand and book demand. Seems like we are creating more demand for those skills at a time when their demand is already the highest

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Smelting is the one that caught my attention. I think Fertilizers is the other one, but its main demand actually comes with the agri modern papers later, so that one is probably okay to have a tight turn around

acoustic dome
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Week 5 is just putting everything together?

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Maybe I dont understand the timeline designations

sharp portal
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So that is a point of clarification. For the purposes of weekly goals - the week ends when the government term ends and new government is seated tentatively midday Saturday (my time zone- evening Saturday for EU). This is different then the published release schedule which lists the end of the week as Thursday. So timing is a little more gracious than initially perceived but is meant to be challenging.

The minimum requirement is to complete 1 of each in the week, but it’s entirely possible and realistic that some slip to later weeks. There’s a bonus for 10 of each in a week and a next-cycle reward for 20 in each week… that is supposed to be challenging

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sharp portal
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The laser upgrade is 1 of each profession upgrade 5 - so a mix of BU5 (12), AU5 (12) and MU5s (7)

acoustic dome
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That 22% in week 5 is just from upgrades?

sharp portal
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Ya

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Pricing is a bit difficult because it’s so different between cycles, but based on my estimates ya

muted sun
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Thank you for the initiative - it really looks like an interesting concept - I do have some big picture comments/concerns/questions:

  • The progression of some crafts into others don't make a lot of sense (e.g. why are enhanced precision tools used for instructions, not for the actual laser components?). I think this could easily be fixed by redirecting some of the arrows, though
  • Are the meal items intended to spoil? I could see reasons for going either way - with spoilage to ensure lower tier professions are needed later on in a cycle and prevent crafting of all meals at the start - without spoilage as it is just too annoying to handle the crafts otherwise, especially in the early weeks
  • The fact that products lead into each other is good - but I'm a bit concerned about "stockpiling" in general. Since the crafts become available early, does it not incentivize governments to complete them early, so early game professions are again not needed in the later weeks? E.g. as soon as all laser bodies are completed (as early as week 3), carpentry is only needed for papers and upgrades - not very interesting crafts and something that already is a frequent bottleneck.
  • I do think the 1-10-20 goal breakpoints are a bit too static and just too binary - especially the 1-10 split. Hitting 1 is very much trivial - then you're either incentivized to go hard for 10, or not "waste" any effort at all - missing with 9 crafts done would be a giant feel-bad moment. How about tying the requirement to the number of settlements? If there is only Unica you need 1, if there are 3 other towns, you need 4 total, etc - and the second breakpoint could be 2x or 3x that number (maybe with a floor and ceiling, to make cheesing the number of towns impractical)...
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  • This would also offer the opportunity to involve towns more: In the weekly goals, you could award an additional point if crafts were finished within a town (supported by the federal government) - rather than organized by the federal government
  • I'm wondering whether the week 1 crafts are even needed - especially since half of those are food related. I don't think any profession is really struggling in week 1 in terms of being useful - maybe it would make more sense to shift those crafts to week 2
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I really appreciate all the work you did on drafting this, and I think it's a great suggestion - I'm just trying to poke holes into it and see if I can find anything that could be a potential concern. So please don't take it as a critique, rather an attempt to help improve as much as possible. In the end we will only see how well it works once we try it out...

mossy stirrup
muted sun
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I would say that is a laudable goal - I was just a bit concerned about the additional requirement for early game food, which often is a bottleneck even without these additions. But maybe I'm not familiar enough with the individual profession economics (haven't done cooking on WT in a while), and the items needed may not be the ones usually in high demand - making it a non-issue.

mossy stirrup
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Oh no, your criticism is perfectly valid and I'm sure Valfreya will look into it - I just wanted to note that I had this as a personal request, as my goal is especially getting people involved right from the get go that often don't know what to actually do. A lot of goal stuff and expenses only ever happens from week two or even three when those people are long lost. That is understandable especially for experienced players - week 1 being setup. But not everyone quits because the economy gets worse for them week 2 or 3, we also lose players simply due to "What's my purpose?" near to the start.

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Obviously that will need to go along with other measures, especially information.

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I would like to add to your feedback in regard to town involvement, that I would also like to see some optional company involvement. We have with good reason removed "private" lasers and there is always an issue with companies buying stuff from market. But I believe there should be some support for "companies that started out with altruistic intentions" (I mean, those exist IRL) and a way for them to use their powers for something positive, without being detrimental to the rest.

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Especially as in other places there were discussions about sell limits (which depending on how well everyone else participates can be good or bad), something dedicated for them might be useful.

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The thing is, that in the end everything needs to be sufficiently easy to handle - a bureaucratic monster players don't understand and GM's can't manage won't do us good.

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Which is another reason for my company suggestion - those are often experienced players or at least such with organization capacities. I could hence imagine that they could organise some things on their own without needing government. Aka "We need XYZ until ZZZ" and they do it all on their own.

muted sun
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Yes, that makes sense - and communicating these goals will be a challenge...
There is quite a lot of information for new players to take in anyways, and one more thing added to the pile probably won't make it easier to get them on board. I'm not sure what the best way to communicate these goals is - I'm sure the GM team has some thoughts already - but I expect that we will always loose people that feel overwhelmed by the server.

mossy stirrup
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Yes, though overwhelmed is a different audience from "What's my purpose?".

muted sun
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true, but there might be some overlap

mossy stirrup
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Absolutely, but all this is also testing for a goal / quest system in Eco as the issue that players don't know what to actually do in the world they entered is a common thing. The whole "This is minecraft, let's do anything" hasn't been a thing for a good while, with people seeking achievements, quests and clear goals.

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Such system in Eco would also include personal goal suggestions, which we unfortunately cannot really do here, given we would need to manage every single player for that.

sharp portal
# muted sun Thank you for the initiative - it really looks like an interesting concept - I d...

I’ll touch on the highlights and look a bit deeper later when I get some more free time.

  • tools into the blueprints and instructions was a bit arbitrary. I was thinking more like compass and square - precision drafting tools, but really maybe a bit too obsessed with Blue Prince Hehe. the relationship between the crafts can be adjusted, but if you have specific suggestions here - let me know.

  • spoilage is under discussion. There are pros and cons of course. More to come on that a bit later.

  • I think the stockpiling concern may end up being a wait and see. Funding is likely going to be the driving factor here. For carpentry specifically - there is the research papers, lumber, and wooden rudders. The dendro papers have been reduced compared to the laser recipe currently

Dendro basic -4%
Dendro advanced -58%
Dendro modern -6%

I tried to balance across multiple professions but carpentry is mostly furniture- feel free to suggest an additional item and which week as appropriate and I’ll sneak it in there :p

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  • goals at 1/10/20 is a bit arbitrary but have to start somewhere. Flexibility is nice for sure but managing it and knowing where to draw the line is difficult. There certainly is room to flex a lot of the goals based on population, but I think that might be future iterative work.

The purpose of the 1 is the bare minimum goal posts, 10 should probably be the target and 20 is for the overachiever :p but again they are arbitrary points. I’ll give this some more thought.

  • agree on town or company or even possibly individual involvement. May be implemented more formally in the goal structure for initial release or more iteratively in the future.

  • probably keeping the week 1 crafts, tho it’s really just week 1 purchases since it’s more than likely the crafting is at the end of week 1 rather than early on. It’s pretty low to start to not conflict with government resources and setup-rush, but still be present. It can also offer some stabilizing income to professions earlier on (maybe)

acoustic dome
# mossy stirrup Only answering to the last point in there, but it was my personal request that g...

This may be a dumb question, but Im gonna play devils advocate here and ask - Are these new laser goals actually going to do a better job of giving new players purpose compared to what the federal government currently does week 1? The laser goals as they currently stand (weeks 3 and 4) don't naturally pull players in. They have no tangible effect on a player's progression or property, and you only see the reward at the very end by seeing the meteor destroyed as the last thing you do on the server before leaving the server. IE - the laser goal doesn't provide any positive feedback in game. Most players also feel as though they can ignore the meteor and more seasoned players will fill the needs. Federal research on the other hand does have tangible positive feedback. By selling papers to the university, you are helping the server progress technologically. Many new players will often ask about new professions, or upgrades, etc, and we are able to tell people about the research system. This gives new players a real incentive to help contribute.
I'm just having a hard time seeing how moving the laser components forward in time is going to change a player's attitude towards filling that need when the overall reward - the meteor exploding at the end - is staying the same. Is it really a good goal for the server to make these things when we don't see the reward for it until nearly 5 weeks later? Peoples attention spans are too short to buy into that.
Im ready to be fully wrong (as I see things differently than many many other players), but I have a feeling that if you have research goals and laser goals during weeks 1 and 2, those research goals are going to be prioritized, and the laser goals are only going to get filled by seasoned players, those in government, or their friends, not new players. And only if gov allocates money to the laser components by sacrificing research budget. Might be worth gating research on laser progress to tie those together?

sharp portal
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Research papers only exist in certain professions and even then - it's limited depending on what skills are on the horizon.

There's different flavors of players. It's not that suddenly new players are going to magically get drawn to participate. However, I made an attempt to stabilize the economy and a stronger economy provides a better environment for more players overall. How big of an effect that is - remains to be seen. It will also depend on the strength of government, type/direction of government policies, and community engagement.

I don't think much needs to be sacrificed from the research budget for this, but pricing is different between cycles - so it's hard to quantify exactly. First week should have minimal effect, second week should also be okay for the most part - research budget only hits potential bankruptcy around adv. cooking/baking - which is the end of week 2.

acoustic dome
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Hmm maybe I didnt express my question well enough or im misunderstanding the goal of these changes. To me it seems like we are doing well at involving players and keeping them busy early on (high player counts) and doing a less good job involving players and keeping them busy later in the cycle (retention problems). I see our current cycles as doing a good job with involvement early with research and tech progression, and a less good job in the later weeks with laser production. Im attributing the higher player counts early to the fact that server goals have more positive feedback early on and less feedback later on.
Then I see an initiative where I think the goal is to increase retention, but the solution is to take the thing that was failing in weeks 3 and 4 and spread that to weeks 1 and 2.
Either Im misunderstanding the goal of this, or I have a vastly different opinion on what the laser crafts are accomplishing in game.

sharp portal
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While I do think it’s retention related… a lot of the feedback I’ve seen circulate over a long period of time is that people tend to leave when they no longer feel useful. I could be wrong, but I attribute this to significant problems in the economy where their profession is either dominated by the few, things are unaffordable and they can no longer progress in a meaningful way, or their profession is just done (gone in the marketplace, gone in the end goals of the server).

Now I realize not every player is economically driven. I do think a good portion is.

However I am pretty data driven.

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This was a bit of data I compiled and did some analysis on for WT49, I think… maybe 48?

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Another issue that Dennis made a point of pointing out is how governments tend to hoard money, removing it from the economy, for later goals - depriving the active players of week 1-2 of those resources

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There are several points in time / days where the economy goes stagnant or dies off…. You can see that in the tax revenue and even the currency trade graph (which corresponds pretty well with the active player drop off) on the eco stats page (which I can’t look up atm xD)

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This tends to be a cycle of economic boon when a new skill gets release and a lull in between skill releases but crucially, the money primarily moves forward towards the later professions. This corresponds fairly well with the abandonment rate of earlier professions.

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So the primary goal of redoing the laser recipe was to more equally distribute the economic gains, fill holes or lulls in the economy, and drive “economic growth”.

I don’t really see it as player will contribute in week 1 to progress the meteor destruction goal, but rather see it as a player will have another outlet to sell their wares to stabilize their income, circulating money and driving the economy. The secondary effect of that is the server wide goal is progressed.

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And I realize that correlation does not equal causation, but a good portion of the feedback is people leave when they no longer feel useful or contribute- and electronics has/had a disproportionate share of the laser recipe currently - and other professions should be more included

acoustic dome
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Hmm... strange as I've also seen cycles where the gov did no wealth hoarding and people camped outside the uni/meteor store to sell directly after the hourly injections and those cycles arguably had worse player engagement as people also dont feel useful when the gov can't pay them

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Makes more sense if the goal is to force gov into not hoarding, but from my experiences on White Tiger that isnt the main issue with retention and I also think thats a government issue more than a server concept issue (although the server concept changes could help force govs to be more in line, so im not too opposed)

sharp portal
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Aye - I agree that government and gov policy play a large part in the equation

heavy eagle
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noticeable retention drops are generally around tech milestones. the few rush and push others out. this might help to counter that a bit. of course the min/max players will always find a way to out compete others. can't prevent it all. especially since one solution requires meddling with the market which would make the trade guild an active guild in price setting. no free market anymore = no go.
retention drops due to time investment in the long run can't be stopped at all since it requires irl intervention.

i expect several improvements with this change including assisting first timers in federal gov/PM role and involvement of first timers on the server. if that would lead to a higher retention is to be seen. a better involvement might lead to a better sense of community. that almost automatically leads to higher retention.

blissful flicker
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wait, you mean end game professions make all the money because they just slowly build on the profit margins of everyone else in a big snowball?

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except composites because they have nothing to add and nobody wants it

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i love how this also confirms what i always knew (granted, one cycle); the moment you choose composites, you are choosing to lose money, its just a side business to sell more oil products

heavy eagle
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it shows that mechanics are really struggling since they don't stump everyone else and are only "part" of the regular rich club.

tawny anchor
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Not sure if related, or on the subject.
The government is free to create/roleplay weekly activities or goals. Spending what ever they want I doing so.

The general population tends to be busy bees working hard on their own company and shops. That makes it hard to come up with stuff for people out of the ordinary, in general. I have seen people talking about earlier meteor store ans the such, before.

One problem is that it competes with research and the open market.

In conclusion, it's more about people leading different stuff that catches the interest of others. Towns/settlements seem to really dominate the early game, when it comes to community goals.

If anything, we should, like mentioned above, do things that help the profession that lacks/get behind.

As we lose players/activity, and our farms grow. For example, a lot of foods starts to get wasted. Hope that the New changes help with that or find a way to burn that excess food production. As cooks, and farmers tend to have their demand slow down and causes people to not feel needed

tawny anchor
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I think these kind of subjects and finding feedback from player be in need of a stronger focus. I haven't been player last two cycles but I notice things are starting to be addressed and changes. Good to see from our gms

toxic sinew
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Personaly i was wondering if i was gonna join this cycle, this whole concept i feel is awesome and makes me want to play. A lot of this is feedback i myself gave multiple time in the past. Now it might not be balanced, maybe a bit overcomplicated and overwhelming so im really hoping someone will be brave enough to carry the torch for it, but if there is, this might be the best cycle i'll ever join.

blissful flicker
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so i got questions about some of these goals, now that ive examined the points pretty closely (at least for diplo/religious)

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week 2, federal goals, and week 3, federal goals: complete a global grid and have 250kw capacity... shouldnt that be impossible by the end of week 2 and week 3, and these goals are actually meant for week 3 and week 4?

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we'd have 3 days of mechanics for week 2 which is, at best, a global grid of combustion generators and not terribly feasible as well as concrete will have only been around for 1 or 2 days so there's barely enough time for bridges; 250kw likely also needs electronics which releases the day of the end of week 3

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i find some of the scoring a little strange too

sharp portal
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(This should probably be in the other feedback thread about the concepts - but it's oki)

Global grid is just the placement of tranmission poles which come with mechanics (global grid hasn't really changed in definition, but I'm not sure it's written anywhere easily decipherable.) This is transmission poles along the federal highway and the laser towers - it has nothing to do with capacity on the grid, just that the grid exists.

The 250k does need electronics, but the week counts on the education release schedule are not accurate to the week counts for this (Sorry for the confusion on that). The weeks follow government terms - election to election. A week starts when the federal government is seated and ends when the next one is seated. So this would be Saturday - Saturday. With electronics on thursday - there should be 48 hours to get IGs - which is doable, but not easy.

blissful flicker
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oh, ill switch threads then

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this was just the only one i had marked, i was busy last cycle >.>

sharp portal
sharp portal
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Week 1 Feedback on the laser recipe and economy

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toxic sinew
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I love it, i think this really help to create demand for some trades that otherwise might struggle, this actually makes Unica a better option to be close to the selling point before the infrastructure eliminate that benefit. Aslo really enjoy the goal thing. Overall very fun first week for me

frank hemlock
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My biggest criticism is that selling things to the university is always a race, upping the numbers of things bought seems like it mainly just exacerbated the problem, and the early on wealth of the people or groups who could make and deliver things the quickest. It's very frustrating to make papers or things and then run there only to see the buy orders are full, it's flat out harmful the first few days where money is scarce and food is expensive. It feels very unnecessary since it shouldn't be a race.

gritty tiger
frank hemlock
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alright replace university with the word government cause the same applies to both lol

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also this was about the laser recipe changes and part of the laser recipes include a ton of university bought papers now (laser blueprint)

sharp portal
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well they would be bought by the meteor store in conjunction with the university buying. The university doesn't typically hand over spare papers until the research is done

frank hemlock
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fair point

dull hinge
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Would like to have a direct tailoring item for w1, perhaps one fo the backpacks to pack the tools in it. Kinda felt i didnt engage at all as tailor week 1. Week 2 can use a larger sink for fabric as well as tailoring slows down significantly around mechanics

verbal lantern
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Loving the changes so far - it seems to add demand for goods at the right places. The only downside I see right now is that a part of the player base is either unaware or adapting very slowly to it. I guess it needs time to sink in. (thinking about stuff such as acorn power)

gritty tiger
sharp portal
simple smelt
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Simple syrup is not so good of a requirement. It can only be used in crimson salad, which is available with adv. cooking. If more than one person crafts the simple syrup that has like a 5 day expiration, all their syrup is going to expire before it can be used for something else. I made the mistake of buying the resources to fill this order and now I'm sitting with like 400 simple syrup that's all going to spoil.

sharp portal
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But yes point taken ❤️

dull hinge
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Fur Pelt prob needs changing to something else as its quite low supply and its rivalling agri papers (feedback from fertilizers)

muted sun
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The demand for acorns via acorn powder is also a bit of an issue: As a cook, I've been struggling to get may hands on any acorns to make phad thai - there just aren't any on the market. This might be partially due to the particularities of this cycle (no active logger/carpenter on the island with the biggest grasslands biome, thus little active oak farming), but in general I'm not a huge fan of using a minor byproduct (tree seeds) as a substantial input...

sharp portal
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Week 1 and 2 laser recipe feedback
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verbal lantern
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  • Love how much thought went into giving more business opportunities to jobs (e.g. Shipwright and Outpost Netting)
  • High batch sizes with perishable food put a real pressure to get there first or have your stuff rot, especially if there are few other recopies for it (e.g. Simple Syrup Week 2)
  • I Feel like the resource set is tuned for a "normal" WT which normally features more miners. If feel with the few we had, buying concentrate put a little too much strain on on the market early. Especially early copper.
sharp portal
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Week 1-3 Feedback on Laser Recipe:
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blissful flicker
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consider swapping the laser body recipe to another table from the power hammer; the power hammer requires mech power just to run, and while not much, it is an annoying extra layer of logistics to manage for a much more complicated meteor store layout

sharp portal
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Week 4-5 feedback
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verbal lantern
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Where is the grind? 😄

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We were in a very good situation this cycle tree-wise (no running 5m from unica to get to a tree), but the remaining grind seems to be 90% dendro. Did we balance it on PJ being around?

sharp portal
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lol - yet comparing the old laser recipe to this laser recipe.
Dendro basics -4%
Dendro advanced -58%
dendro modern -34%

Yet, that's still the primary hold up :C

verbal lantern
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It feels too late to tackle the Upgrades Week 5. I know we gotta come around to it. I really like that this could be a new field for the MoI after he finished crafting books, but it feels a little like an afterthought.
Maybe it would make sense to have Weekly Goals / Milestones like "Craft all Basic Upgrades" Week 3, Advanced Week 4 etc. to incentive to spread it out a little more.
Also 20 at a time heals hefty. I'd much rather like to see 2-at-a-time work parties to spread the WPs a little more, but I don't know it there is a proper way to incentive government to do it. After all, necessity is King

blissful flicker
# verbal lantern It feels too late to tackle the Upgrades Week 5. I know we gotta come around to ...

yes, this is also a potential source of domination points, and task to add to the MoE*; i realized this as soon as i looked at the laser upgrade task with any seriousness that this really shouldnt be attempted all at once, as whoever has to do it has not only a full time job, but really, the job of two people (getting the upgrades, then co-ordinating the WPs/method of upgrading) AND the timing can be very tight, especially without the week 4 bonus reward

gritty tiger
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Some easier way to create the work parties would be desirable

blissful flicker
sharp portal
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Any / overall feedback
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grizzled flicker
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What if crafting some of these things were goals for towns to get done? Smallville at least felt like we wanted to do more for the government, but we had to basically funnel all of that energy into doing builds and roads.

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Could incentivize towns to specialize too

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At times it also felt hard to know what we needed the most - and what was holding us back.

sterile crane
violet quiver
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The information in link at the top of this thread would be well-suited to be findable from the server goals or rules.

sharp portal
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The information at the top of the thread isn't fully updated for this cycle as this was the demo. However, updated information was provided directly in the fed-government channel at the start of week 1 government.

Was there specific information that you found helpful in the above documents that wasn't present in the full spreadsheet provided to government which had significantly more information than this demo version.

violet quiver
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Specifically, the overall breakdown of the production chain, and the numbers required of each and where they go to. That information being part of a large dump of other government stuff didn't help retention, and it feels like the kind of change to the goals that I would have wanted to know about earlier.

For reference, this is the player-facing documentation: "These checkpoints should be made each week" suggests to me that the checkpoints listed are appropriate.

This is intended as feedback about the way that the magnitude of the laser task was communicated, not a blame game about the communication process.

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sharp portal
sharp portal
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Bump if anyone has anything to share about the laser recipe.