#New Player Feedback

290 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

bitter fractal
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Hello! You've survived the first 24 hours of the server! From the game side - we have awhile to go with the starvation, but we're working on addressing the food crisis as quickly as possible. I'm trying to take a look at the welcome mat, so to speak.

I'd like to address the newer players to White Tiger or Eco - What your initial thoughts are and how we could make your experience better?

What had you most confused?
Where did you get stuck?
What did you like most?
Where do you think we can improve?
Where do you think there's gaps in information?

Thanks!

bitter fractal
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Just noting a few common threads:

  • Questions regarding Credit (Tracking) Currency - what it is used for and how to use it
  • Questions regarding window/door holes and room status
wide solar
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Multiple people left early due to food as a good reminder to take a look at how to make the first three days easier to play calories wise

bitter fractal
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Subtotal v. Regular Nutrition score (for professions)

timid kite
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Lots of dried fish would help. That or more food in starting tents. Could it spawn a few seeds for a renewal food in the biome you start in?

heavy mountain
wide solar
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I actually think so yeah

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we do keep backups of prepared cycles

loud ridge
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My suggestion is doing this sort of "feedback" but directly communicating with people in game via messages/dms/having a open presence. This is an reocurring issue that comes with a game design and in a closed society that is forced to compete in a resource that is scares. People that leave or quit l, won't come to you to give feedback. You'll have to do the hard work or involve people to help the notion

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It places that lack food, the government will step in and offer large amount of opportunities in either a system that rewards the distribution of food or the harvesting. Giving rebate as always been a very poorly choice. There should large motion to support the act of Hunting, fishing and replanting

bitter fractal
loud ridge
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Good then you are already doing more then most I have seen :>

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There is also nothing wrong with giving a collective stat to those that partake in the distribution and pay them over time when government as the funds for it

sharp geode
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Where do you think we can improve? Stop or lower UBI. There is nothing to buy because people are not willing to work. Everyone has lots of free money.

Where do you think there's gaps in information? Show how ridiculous free money is. A company of 10 people gets 300 UBI per hour. That's 7200 per day. That's 100,800 in 2 weeks. That's equivalent to 67200 hewn logs FOR FREE for doing absolutely 0 work. That's why things do not work here and that's why there is no food. Because nobody is willing to farm or hunt for it. The server economy is broken. Why would I ever put a minute of work into anything if I can just wait a day and buy whatever I want with the UBI I receive?

loud ridge
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Money, as irl, as no meaning regarless of the amount. People will do what they are willing to do. The suggestions come with creating systems that allow people to "work" with and feel they are part of a community or solution. I would like to believe the talks about money isn't going to get the subject anywhere more forwars

sharp geode
# loud ridge Money, as irl, as no meaning regarless of the amount. People will do what they a...

Agreed, but it should be clear from the beginning when you join the server in the notification 'UBI is X per hour' and additional information/text regarding how money means nothing here. Groups are even more advantaged in this regard because it's per person regardless of playtime or added value. That's my feedback anyway, I played in a few other servers and have found that White Tiger experience is not for me

outer steppe
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Im not sure if you are aware but on White Tiger theres a group game play rule where if you play to play as a group in a collaborative way, you have to be in a company. Once in a company, you can have special taxes applied on your company based on the amount of skills that group has in comparison to a normal player. This reduces their overall income and helps keeps them a bit more in line with solo players. This doesnt fully remove their advantage but it does mitigate it. In your example, if they had any amount of the tax applied on them, they would have much less income.

sharp geode
# outer steppe Im not sure if you are aware but on White Tiger theres a group game play rule wh...

When I found out, I studied this to make sure I understand. Yes, there is a company tax. Look at Tunnel Vision Ltd. They are all miners. They barely sell anything, they get taxed 0 euros. Solo players have beaten them in sales even though they are 10 players. Take player Nykon for example who sold loads of goods to push the game forward and participate in the economy. He will pay a tax of 4.1k BECAUSE he put in the work. Yet the 10ppl company receives a disproportionate amount of UBI every hour. They dump this money away to not appear too rich. In 3 days they have already accumulated 22k+ for doing nothing. This is a clear example that money means nothing because they do not add value other than to be a consumer and buy out everything and anything that is possible to buy.

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To summarize, there is no argument here - the economy is rigged and this is a communist paradise where working is actually working against you rather than being benefitial

loud ridge
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That is more of a game design as the cost of living is base on your goal. If, for example, mining is your goal, there is no much expenses to what you do

sharp geode
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I agree that perfectly balancing the economy is impossible, but this system has been shifted way too much in favor of the players who want to sit around and wait for stuff to become available so they can use their free money to buy it. And that's fine, if the server makes that decision I can't argue against it, I just have a feeling it's not that much fun for a lot of people

loud ridge
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Capitalism, communism or socialism all have the same goal. Get things moving forward. They all tackle it in their own way. There might be to much fixation on others gameplay. How do you think we can solve this without penalizing or going after other styles?

sharp geode
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Cancel UBI for companies. Lower the UBI to a much smaller amount. Make people work for their money. It's okay to not have money. It's not okay to not have food on the market. There will be food on the market when the money is not given away for free.

bitter fractal
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There may be unseen disadvantages to large groups. For instance, the group of 10 are also new to the server - they have a housing penalty and only 3 of the 10 have reliable housing at any given time at the start. They didn’t realize they would all be forced onto the same plot and a single residence can only support so many people.

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I don’t think UBI and food is entirely connected. Food scarcity is due to the carrying capacity and growth times. It resolves not because UBI goes away - it resolves after 2-3 harvests of crops. It’s an availability problem.

Now I could be missing an element that you are seeing and I am open to the discussion- why do you think they are related?

loud ridge
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Don't you think that reducing ubi will just reduce the value of things. In context of that, is what happen in the past. People in groups or company are still people. Not slaves or lack of individuality. There isn't much difference between 20 people doing the same thing as individuals or as a group. The value of their work should be represented. There is actually way more negative as a group then if those people played together as individuals instead

timid kite
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how do you propose getting money into the economy?

sharp geode
# bitter fractal I don’t think UBI and food is entirely connected. Food scarcity is due to the ca...

There were over 1000+ salads (+meats) available at the beginning. It is my assumption that the food ran out faster than usual because anyone can buy it - it is distributed relatively equally whether a player adds value back to the economy or not. If UBI wasn't so free, access to food would go to those who add value to the economy first, not to people who accumulate the most UBI.

An example of this would be that hunters could buy food in return for their carcasses. Therefore the economy in the long run would have a much smoother food situation in the long run. This applies to every profession and every aspect. In the long run, those people who work harder will have first access to goods that are already on the market (instead of waiting for them to become available)

loud ridge
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It isn't a money issue, it is a supply issue. Also people sitting on it. When I play I usually also part the problem where I harvest enough for a whole weeks worth of food and I see many doing that at the start. Is why I stated is a game design problem unless you want to create day 0 laws to tackle that

bitter fractal
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Over 10,800,000 calories have been consumed on the server as of last night - let’s just say all food is 500 calories in average - that’s 21,600 food items for the server roughly.

Everyone starts with 40 food items - there’s about 265 people that logged in and played somewhat -> about 10,600 food items spawned in so 11,000 come from the servers resources

sharp geode
loud ridge
sharp geode
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I doubt this conversation will reach any results, but my point is this: the market is rigged and money here means nothing. This is a huge turn-off for a lot of new players like me, because it's frustrating that the stuff I sell is free and that the money I have I can't buy anything useful because everything is sold out

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And the argument that this would just raise prices is wrong, you will then be bullied into submission by the community that your 'insert thing to sell' costs too much and you will be shunned for even thinking of charging 2x-5x more than the market average.

loud ridge
bitter fractal
loud ridge
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It also doesn't help that you can see everyone's wallet

sharp geode
bitter fractal
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You mentioned the stuff you sell is free - what are you selling?

And what were you desiring to buy that is sold out? Other than food - got that one

bitter fractal
timid kite
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what are people that 'do no work' buying?

loud ridge
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To note on what was said. I can relate to them, as I felt like that before when I first started. The game poorly rewards individual effort and personal goals. In a capitalist idealogy it tends to reflect on where you place your value in. The concept of euro, and the short term economy of eco/whitetiger fail to grasp that well. Often seen as mentioned before. As observed by Geeky, that groups have it better. As that value is at full display and also misrepresented. Unless we are going to revamp the wallet and distribution system. There isn't much to tackle in terms of euro/currency

timid kite
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closest you could get is an initial cash for each person (an inheritance), then use goivernment payouts and loans to add to it

loud ridge
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Might as well call ubi inheritance, it all mean the same thing. Problem with loaning, and contracting is 1. admistration that comes from creating them. 2. Responsibility of having it 3. Negative quotation that loans and bonds have. A distribution of equal wealth tackles the most out of all systems in the past and make sure that everyone is rewarded equality. The problem with such a system it washes everything in gray

shell steppe
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Just give companies 1 UBI. Fixes the insane amounts they get, fixes the problem of afk members receiving UBI, fixes the insane purchasing power they have especially the first few days.

loud ridge
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Going back to the topic of food. You could always heavily regulate it via laws on day 0 for the harvesting part. As it is beyond a crisis level each cycle I don't see it as an infringements of people's rights

timid kite
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i dont think people will go for banning non gatherers/farmers harvesting wilds crops for the first day

loud ridge
outer steppe
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That was attempted 2 times now and shot down twice

lapis cipher
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who would vote yes for that? advantages a few gatherers and disadvantages almost everyone else

timid kite
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make hunters great 🙂

loud ridge
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Can work like currency that you get each hour of game play with. If you join late you get the missing currency. You use that currency to harvest or can sell it off for others to harvest

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Only really need it for the first 12 hours

timid kite
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what we need is a lot of seeds day 0, skip a couple of days of expansion for farmers

outer steppe
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Science victory, if victory rewards are still a thing, give extra starting seeds 🙂

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Just something you have to work for.

timid kite
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can the starting tent stuff be based on starting biome?

lapis cipher
loud ridge
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Unfun goal from experience

outer steppe
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Goal and reward was reworked.

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But i rather not clog this up, mb.

bitter fractal
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Psst hey veterans - this is supposed to be a thread for newbies :p

not that I don’t love the feedback and ideas in general

loud ridge
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And the food crisis only really influence the people that are new. I don't see veterans complaining about it

loud ridge
wide solar
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[New Player Feedback] if you would like to create [Veteran Player Feedback] please do so.

loud ridge
bitter fractal
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No one is asking the new players to fix the servers problems - I am looking for information and understanding from their perspective. What are their challenges and frustrations.

violet lodge
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All I notice here is that a thread that is directly directed towards new players has a large majority of veteran players rallying in to write despite they are everything but new players. Posts by anyone that we do not consider a newbie anymore will be removed without comment going forward.

high quartz
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As a member of tunnel vision Ltd i just wanted to say I agree that the UBI is a tad op for large groups, so it could be toned down for example if part of a company you receive a lesser amount based on how many are in the company.

But to defend ourselves we have not exactly been sat on our hands living off of it. We've sold a ton of building materials and also contributed a ton to town & road projects, we have even done dig projects for a few people in the world. If you saw how much we've dug out under our claim and the amount of clay we have stored you would understand 🤣

I think in part the early game will always be dominated by certain professions, there is a logger/carpenter duo in our town that is even richer than we are because early game they pumped out so much furniture.

We goofed early on with the housing bonus and we also didn't save any stars so we were without tax until now. Now that we've expanded our skills were paying tax so it should balance out.

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But in general we are having a bunch of fun and very much enjoying all the interactions we've had on the server ❤️

thorny ibex
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I wrote a longer message with feedback for this channel, but no matter what I try it keeps getting blocked as spam. Can someone with access to the auto-mod spam rules please reach out to me and help?

outer steppe
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Any gm can likely pull it back here.

thorny ibex
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I reached out to Stal and he tried to mark it as "checked", but didn't see the post come up here.

outer steppe
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Stal? You would need to as a SLG Volunteer

thorny ibex
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StalEF is such, no?

outer steppe
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Ah yea sorry, didn’t notice without the full name.

thorny ibex
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No worries, it's me being too lazy to type another two capital letters. 😂

bitter fractal
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I DM'd you the message that got yeeted by the bot - but I am unable to tell exactly why it got yeeted. I can post it here myself (which should bypass whatever the bot thinks is wrong), or maybe just split it into smaller messages. It is too long to directly post with my baby-nitro

thorny ibex
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General economy

I'm a veteran Eco player and modder, having hosted multiple seasons of my own server with up to 50 active players throughout a season, but this is my first WT cycle, so I hope my feedback fits into this thread here.

Let me start by saying that the people here are AMAZING. I absolutely adore the pope, his personality, the dinner parties, the infection scenario, the newspaper posts, the government setup, the prime minister being interviewed and the people RP'ing it out. It's AMAZING content and I wish it was possible for me to follow more of this directly on Discord or Twitch and just appreciate the good content everyone is producing here.

The economy is absolutely brutal to get into as someone that's used to running a server and building an economy for 50 active players throughout a month's cycle, rather than 500. I'm used to designing my economy to reward players for gathering raw materials, because that's what is always lacking.
But BOY, it is different here. The economy seems to reward processors entirely, who, in my opinion, are not "valuable" to the economy because all they do is eat food and right click a work table. They only exist to consume. Especially those that are the first to reach a milestone, like the first carpenter or smelter.

I actually have to admit that I can relate to what Geeky says a bit. I, too, feel punished for actively working to gather and build infrastructure for my own materials, rather than just putting up a store in the busiest town and sitting around waiting for my store to pop with cheap raw materials that I then turn around and sell at 40-60% margin. (Note that I often see the word margin here used as a synonym for markup, which is very different. Margin can never exceed 100%, which is equivalent to infinite markup. 50% margin on a 1 euro sale means 0.5 is pure profits and 0.5 is the worth of raw materials)

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I chose to go mining as it is the base of everything that isn't wood-based and damn, has it been an absolute struggle! I play with my partner and she had to spend most of her time fishing for calories which I then had to spend on digging rock, at an economic loss. It felt extremely bad seeing the cook selling salad at 60% margin (that's 250% markup on the raw food, meaning for every 0.4 paid for raw food, they earned 0.6 in profit) and racking up the profits, while I was losing money for every strike with my pickaxe to setup the farm supplying their raw food.

I thought, maybe that's just how it is in the beginning where rock is plenty but food is scarce. Yet here we are on Day 4, BU3 is out and most raw food is still 1 while salads are still selling at 50% margin. My rock is still worth 0.05, crushed rock is, at max, 0.3 and Basic Engineering is now making 50% margin with stone road instead.

I feel discouraged from actually doing my mining specialty since the income is so little from rock, and I have no where to sell my concentrates at a price that values the time spent prospecting for ore. I might as well just go cut wood in the jungle as a non-logging player to get my money instead.

Is it really acceptable and fun for the majority of the veteran players here that most income comes from waiting with their star, pop it at right time and sit around right clicking a workbench (or be the absolute first in getting their second star)?

I don't find it very fun at least, but maybe the White Tiger economy is just designed differently than I would. I hear from other new players that they've found it a little discouraging as well.

thorny ibex
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simple is better I guess

bitter fractal
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It is a simple bot xD

thorny ibex
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I should have tried that, but thank you!

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VI

Vertical integration in general just feels like it needs to be banned. It feels extremely bad preparing a ton of iron/copper concentrate for when smelting came out, and then only a single store was actually buying concentrates when they came out, despite having 4 smelters already at level 2 when I looked. Where did they get their concentrates from?

And why are they not interested in having the entire population of miners help them, help us, help everyone?

VI stifles cooperation more than anything and encourages monopolies, but can be hard to not feel stifling if implemented and there is no cooperation also.
I've heard WT has tried it before and I'd love to hear some veteran players thoughts on how it played out and why it's not implemented at the moment.

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Transporter feedback

The government MUST somehow enforce transportation profits. I usually play starless runs on my own server because I just spend time sailing around and making sure people have what they need to do their thing. Here on WT, that is an absolute no-go, at least so far.

There are barely any opportunities to buy in one place and make money transporting it elsewhere, because people appear to set their buy order prices to the lowest sell order price and leave it at that.
I have not seen any natural supply lines develop yet around my area and it does get really tiring having to explain the benefits of proper buy orders to every single person around me. I often hear the sentence "I just set my prices to the average of the others because I don't understand pricing" which is fair, but also feels damaging to fun.

Looks like there's an unfulfilled opportunity here to educate people in how to work together and the benefits it can create?

bitter fractal
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The implementation we had did not block progressiong growth within a profession tree. In otherwords mining -> smelting was not prohibited. It was not put back in this cycle because major changes to the laser recipe came in and we wanted to evaluate them with an unrestricted market. That isn't to say they don't come back in the future, but feedback on them was mixed.

thorny ibex
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How did it work then, some kind of tax consequence to VI?

bitter fractal
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No, the forbidden relationships stopped common crossovers - like milling and butchery (ingredient suppliers) couldn't take baking, cooking, adv baking, or adv cooking for example.

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#law-gazette message

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This was the post that explains it

thorny ibex
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I guess I would definitely consider mining -> smelting an ingredient supplier too? 😅

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But yeah, I see it mentions base skills are unrestricted.

bitter fractal
timid kite
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As a quick reply to the above great feedback, if you ain't doing 10 hour days every day, you will fall very far behind fighting on primary skills(resource collectors). Unfortunately miners and loggers are so plentiful that demand struggles to keep up. In theory, if you don't need 24 food, you should be getting dried fish from a hunter. Also, I don't know if you noticed, but miners were given mortered stone on this server, as something to sell. Raw stone might never change in price, due to geo papers at the uni. Do agree that a lot of us just put in whatever others price at. Would be cool to try a stronger VI block cycle, encourage more moving of resources.

bitter fractal
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aye - I really appreciate the detailed feedback ❤️

thorny ibex
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And yeah, mortared stone has been something we've been selling for long. Most of the profits are in the mortar though, not the rock themself. So it still makes it awkward as mining.

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The geo papers are the only thing that brings any profit really

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It's 50% margin there with the rock prices at 0.05, which is also why they get filled instantly.

bitter fractal
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Does this affect all base items or just rocks and wood?

timid kite
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Sadly no one really needs raw logs, except basic engineers. Loggers just convert it all to hewn or boards and go from there. Other people, like miners, need 2 or 3 trees worth for the basics.
Basic rocks have the issue of everyone collects them themself regardless.

bitter fractal
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I would love to be able to buy logs rather than chop down trees myself xD I chuck them into the fireplace or make torches for torch stands before other sources of fuel aren't really available

timid kite
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Issue is why would loggers sell them if they can make bigger margins converting to hewn/boards?

thorny ibex
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That's not the question you should be asking. The real question is: why is anyone else but loggers not cutting wood?

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The game is built around exchanging goods, for maximum efficiency. If loggers don't sell wood, that means the rest of us don't get to make use of their more efficient cutting.

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The more exchanges made between people, the more efficient we all become.

timid kite
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That will be very to get to happen, banning people other then loggers/carpenters chopping. Guessing you also want to ban non mining professions mining? That would slow down the first few hours hard

thorny ibex
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No, that's literally the opposite of what I want to happen. I want everyone to help with base materials.

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The fact that we only see loggers logging points towards the rest not needing to, for money.

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Which goes back to the earlier feedback that UBI might be too strong and the raw material prices too low.

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Why spend time cutting logs if I can sell the processed materials, just like you said. That's where the profits are! Not in gathering them, atm.

loud ridge
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I feel it's cause there is more payment from turning the logs into hew logs. If a logger starts to sell logs, they will technically make a little less for the work done. Since everyone can chop down a tree most people won't think of buying logs. If so, would be pay low margins with the thought of they can have it for free if done themselves. Most people actually have to much time I think? UBI or not, it's still farely easy to gather gather stuff. I would like to see feedback how how new player feel after the act of gathering resources and the such, would love to read on that

timid kite
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So you want loggers to buy logs from others? Despite the fact they get a massive boost to chopping trees?

thorny ibex
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Yes of course. If they don't, how can I ever make my own hewn logs with my own wood? That breaks the async feature of stores.

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I don't want to wait for the shipwright to make hull planks.

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I want to cut my own wood, sell it to the logger, pay him for processing, then buy it and sell to the shipwright to make hull planks on my own.

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But if I pay him 50% margin for right clicking his work table, then I need to cut DOUBLE the amount of trees just for that privilege?

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He still makes the same profit when he gathers his own wood. But it opens up the opportunity for everybody else to also help out with making hewn logs.

timid kite
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I agree, I would rather pay for some basic logs for fireplace and basic storage making. And that requires everyone being online at all times to handle stuff. That is a supply and demand thing, not enough hewn logs for everyone early on, spiking markup because they can still sell

thorny ibex
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Yep, you're right. Which is why I, personally, design my economies around the majority of profits being in gathering the raw materials. Not right clicking work tables with a star.

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That means everyone can contribute to everything, get paid well for it and the people with gathering professions then make extra margins by gathering themself, not just running queues and sitting around waiting...

timid kite
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Forests already disappear in a night

bitter fractal
timid kite
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I feel like you want loggers to lose hewn and miners to lose mortered stone, to force selling raw mats at the start of the processing?

thorny ibex
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That's my bad if you feel like that. That is definitely not my intention.

timid kite
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I have experience with logging and masonry (when it had mortered stone) I always put up buy orders to supplicant my own time. Rarely get any come in unless someone mined a basement for a stockpile. And ones with more time tend to have enough by themself. How would you encourage that to change? And what kind of markup do you normally see on T2 mats?

thorny ibex
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I guess I'm making it confusing because there's two different aspects at work here:

  • I feel the raw price per hour between mining and logging is grossly too different to the point where mining is pointless
  • Most profits are currently in processing raw materials, not generating them, which leads to the need to always gathering your own, especially for mining as it's generally just considered trash
thorny ibex
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An hour of mining should be worth the same as an hour of logging, if you wanted it to be fair. But logging is harder than mining and as such, logging pays more for the physical act of harvesting, because there is no payment for seeding and waiting, which is also required.
The initial set of trees at launch is only a bonus because it requires no seeding and waiting, so those are moot.

Here's two quick experiments I did:

  • In two minutes of mining with no star and stone pickaxe, I can mine 168 sandstone and put them into a cart. I spend 2400 calories. 168 * 0.05 - (2400/450*0.85) = 3.86 profit in 2 minutes, or 115.8 euro per hour.
  • In two minutes of logging with no star and stone axe, I can cut 180 ceiba logs and put them into a cart. I spend 1000 calories. 180 * 0,5 - (2400/450*0.85) = 85.4 profit in 2 minutes, or 2564 euro per hour.

Note, here I am eating dried fish and ignoring the forestry part of logging, but that is unpaid time of course. Ceiba grows like weeds IMHO, so that makes up for it a little.

bitter fractal
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Yes, and that feeling is not wrong. Rocks do seem to carry way less value. A lot of people treat them as something to get rid of rather than something of value

Edit: I mean it's a shared concern, not that you're wrong or offbase here. xD

timid kite
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I also agree that logging pays better early game. Sadly just about everything needs it, from fish traps to beds. Normal rocks are saved for later, limestone and sandstone has some value once quicklime becomes wanted, and morter needs to scale up. Not sure what you could do to counter it, other then make a bunch of basic furniture to balance hewn and stone

thorny ibex
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Now consider the fact that for every hour of UBI, you basically subsidize 15 minutes of a miner's time.

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And we are doing that 200 times an hour..?

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So at the moment, our economy needs to have 50 miners that work around the clock, 24 hours a day, to create enough rock to offset the "value" of the UBI pumped out per hour.

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Which is why Geeky said what he did: money feels pointless. So why work for them?

timid kite
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May I ask how your server handles money, and makes gathering more valuable?

thorny ibex
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Low margins, high raw resource prices.

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The more stuff that goes through your store, the more profit you make.

bitter fractal
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So it could be described as just the pricing culture?

thorny ibex
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Hmm, I don't think so. It's multiple aspects like mentioned above:

  • Low raw resource price = no desire to grind.
  • High margins = players are encouraged to primarily process and no desire to use their money.
  • High UBI = no desire to produce but rather consume only.
  • No transport profits = no goods moved around.
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I have a feeling the amount of money pumped into the economy is to avoid the issue of money actually moving around?

timid kite
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The raw price is set by the market, in theory

bitter fractal
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Nothing really forces low raw prices and high margins more than just player behavior. But that is an interesting perspective of how UBI interacts and changes the equation

thorny ibex
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You are both right, definitely. I guess it's a matter of saving players from themself? The end result can be summed up, for me, as: it doesn't feel fun.

bitter fractal
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I have little personal experience in mining and mining based professions. Pre-smelting, what are the demand signals for rocks and mining?

thorny ibex
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crushed rock for stone road

timid kite
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In fairness, I spent the weekend just prepping for milling as it came out. Why spend money on food to mine if my local miner is mining enough for his needs

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Not much. Mostly stone roads and mortered stone for T2 housing

thorny ibex
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I do want to mention that this isn't a mining only thing. I'm just speaking from that perspective because that's all I've tried so far on WT in my 5 days of playing. 🙂

thorny ibex
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I'm struggling to get anyone around me to help me mine.

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Yet they want me to mine out the areas for their farms and roads.

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But I didn't even make enough money to buy their food. I had to fish myself too.

bitter fractal
#

Right, I understand. But rocks are in a unique position where they carry very little value until way later. which indicates there's not much early-demand. Crop price spikes because of super high demand. Animals are well a touchy subject. Logs see various degrees of value depending on cycle and local availability

timid kite
#

As far as I know. Don't think he was trying to buy rocks?

bitter fractal
timid kite
#

Hewn is needed a lot more, from all the tables, and furniture. Maybe we need more stone stuff to use stones?

thorny ibex
#

I've sailed my canoe many a-times empty, because there is nothing I can pick up for OTHER people along the way.

timid kite
#

Sadly most people don't consider a buy price that encourages someone to actually sell

thorny ibex
#

In essence: we're all sitting around waiting for somebody else to do something.

timid kite
#

So less UBI, more government buying and loans early game to encourage market trades?

#

Something like 'welcome to WT, here's 500 euros. You want more, sell stuff or take out a loan'

thorny ibex
#

Here's some ideas off the top of my head:

  • A minister of trade whose sole focus is to use the federation's infrastructure to move goods around. We have the demand, but it's not very visible or, necessarily, local.
  • A list of desired base material prices. These are not enforced, but gives everyone an idea of what their material would be worth if we had an efficient market. Any deviation indicates an inefficiency that could be exploited by willing individuals and thus fixed.
  • Stone needs higher demand in the beginning, rather than filling up stockpiles which makes mining worthless, because suddenly it is actively given away.
  • Look at how the UBI rate is set in comparison to the raw resource prices. For every euro given away, we reduce the value of work by essentially "subsidizing" people's time.
  • Transport prices must be enforced by law. A 10% reverse sales tax could be implemented.
  • More government buying in the local communities. From here, the resources can be paid to be moved to the capital to be used for government projects.
  • Teach people the value of auto shops and how it enables everyone to make their own goods, asynchronously. This helps people to wait less for that one guy to come online.
  • Re-think our approach to VI. It destroys cooperation and encourages monopolies.
bitter fractal
#

well I guess no longer last point Hehe

thorny ibex
#

sorry, my bad 😂

bitter fractal
#

No worries

thorny ibex
#

I had a single exchange on day 1 where I did actually get the opportunity to buy up about 150 geology basic and sell in one go. I bought from many people along the way, which was a positive experience.

#

I don't think the solution is to create more artificial demand. Rather, it's to figure out how we can make people themself feel the need to consume.

bitter fractal
#

I think it's a lot of different things and you pointed out some very important aspects / feedback

#

so greatly appreciate it

thorny ibex
#

yeah, you're definitely right

#

It's hard to keep them seperated at all times lol

#

It's a super complex problem

thorny ibex
#

I don't want to come across as entirely negative. Because I have had a positive experience so far with my first WT cycle. I guess I just care a lot about the economy aspect, in particular.

timid kite
#

On the VI front, that sounds like you want a dad speed style. 2 stars, no VI of any kind

thorny ibex
#

Pretty much. 😂

#

I was personally a big fan of many parts of their setup.

#

Although I was driven away from DadSpeed eventually by the complete focus on economy.

timid kite
#

It would encourage trading. Not sure if that would pass the general public through. Also would love to try by money suggestion as well, but UBI is far too encoded into WT

thorny ibex
#

It does create other problems like I mentioned. When we tried this on my server, people were quick to become frustrated by the fact that they needed to rely on others to progress.

#

But after a lot of handholding, teaching them auto shops, helping them understand pricing and so on, we actually ended up with some super nice feedback.

bitter fractal
#

It's not that - it's a balance. UBI Supports people that have less time do basic things on the server that would be cut out by the "work for it" crowd. So as long as we come to the right balance - we can find a happy middle ground. But, that's my job and the other GMs 😛

thorny ibex
#

I personally think auto-shops are the solution to that problem. Not more UBI.

#

You set it up once and you don't ever need to do anything but keep your queues full. And it lets everyone do everything, with their own raw materials, and everyone gets paid for each step of the process.

#

It also encourages people to invest their money into buying raw materials, because they need them to profit and get what they actually want: STUFF.
The people that run good shops and build proper supply lines then prosper the most. That isn't necessarily the person that plays the most.

shut void
#

Got feedback from another player new to WT who also was pretty disappointed to not find any crops on the server right after start, getting off to a bad start and getting frustrated. Thrid person I've heard from complaining about it this cycle

heavy mountain
timid kite
#

Ok, so early game raw mats needs tweaking in some fashion. Do we ban none gatherers/farmers from harvesting day 0? Would that fix anything?

#

I will add that I have had no interest in trying cooking on WT because of those issues as well

#

Can we give starting provisions to people when they put a star in, like some basic crops for a campfire cook, seeds for a farmer etc?

shut void
# timid kite Ok, so early game raw mats needs tweaking in some fashion. Do we ban none gather...

I have been thinking if the "gaia" state of WT ia a problem. Most crops are ready to harvest when the server starts and then slowly regrow.
What if only 20% were ready to harvest and the rest would become ready in the next 8 hours? Could at least help with the Gathering-Situation..
But what about players just wanting food? There should to be some kind of baseline. Let us eat Plant Fiber and Wood Pulp before we starve 😅

timid kite
#

Fishing rods use no calories and hunters should be rushing to dried fish

#

And that would make most crops not fully grown, meaning less gathered from the first batch

#

Think more starting crops would be a better idea

bitter fractal
#

From a GM-note: the GMs are heavily looking at the first weekend experience and how food impacts play. Some changes will be coming to help address the food crisis

timid kite
#

Actually, maybe put a fishing rod in the tent might help give new players that idea?

shut void
thorny ibex
#

Something that frustrated my first day too was being forced to place down my campsite before I could move around the world. I chose a spawn location but was actually put somewhere else than where I really wanted to go, forcing me to spend a day elsewhere to make a canoe.

Can we consider giving players a small canoe immediately on spawn?

thorny ibex
#

If anything there should be like 10 boiled grains immediately in the inventory on spawning. It felt stressful walking around without plobbing down my campsite immediately because I had access to zero calories.

loud ridge
#

Boat and a few wheel barrel to secure stuff. Helps out early gam I think, and hope new player don't feel stuck at their homestead. You can have little outposts

timid kite
shut void
thorny ibex
#

I don't think it has to be one or the either, so yeah, you're right.

#

I was mostly advocating for having some food in the starting loadout.

sharp geode
sharp geode
earnest iron
#

A bit late here but only found this tread today. This is my first cycle on white tiger and only played a few weeks on other servers before.

a few things we found confusing one thing is how companies work(still dont get it) Dont matter how often i read that company guide and feel like you have to be mathematician to understand how taxes work.🤣

I went with camp cook and a friend with gather. honestly wish we never set up that company because both of us scared to even take skills due to taxes. had no idea you got free money until i saw the post above here, but id rather be able to play and work for my profit then sit idle and get cash.

Chef was rough mainly because so many active players got it and competition is brutal. not sure if food usage is less on this server? Not selling a lot of it and taxes eat up most the profits. also impossible to know what to sell things for since we have no idea how much we are taxed, dont even know if we sell some things at a loss or not.

Overall really like the server but not sure what we do next and if this company thing is setup for 2 players taking different skills or if we have to take the same skills to reduce taxes. 😫

Would be nice to see a screen with what you pay in tax % instead of just the raw amount. also is it applied on things you sell/buy, work parties or cash you hold? Someone in chat said its about 20% extra tax per different skill we have so that makes it about 60%? One player having 2 skills and me 1.

I found the start fun, lack of food and gathering materials just was a new challenge at start, if you spent the time running around and buying materials and collecting it you could sell for good profit at the start. But then after 2+3 days everyone had food and sales died out and taxes started becoming a problem.

#

Overall we are both happy here though, just regret a few choices as always with professions etc. and cost of materials now to build shops and skills seem nearly impossible to pick something new up combined with being to afraid due to taxes

high quartz
#

The way the taxes on companies work is that every additional skill that is different from the company owner incurs a 10% tax. That is the way we understood it anyhows

outer steppe
#

Not 10%.

earnest iron
#

yea so if we wanted to have different skills its impossible to play

#

at some stage you forced to take skills that are same to reduce taxes so at that stage would be no point to continue

#

at least for a newer player that never done most professions part of the fun is trying new skills etc and progressing(most servers die before end game so never even seen past mechanic)

#

if I understand this right we already paying 36% taxes with the new star each it would be 59% and at that stage unplayable

outer steppe
#

You can still operate at 59%. There have been companies who played at 80%. You can also not play in a company and just play in the same area as each other. Nothing stops you from just selling goods back and forth between your fiends. You would need to offer the goods to others as well but thats not hard to do.

#

Not trying to bash you, just letting you know the options.

loud ridge
#

The only source of wealth on white tiger is ubi, you would still get the same amount as everyone. What is more difficult as a group is exporting stuff, as you need to work more then others. Though thankfully usually you have the efficency of being in a group

violet lodge
# earnest iron yea so if we wanted to have different skills its impossible to play

The opposite, actually - the tax system exists so that playing together doesn't need to be simply banned or forced to be same stars (as it was before).
The system allows you to play here like you want, but push you off the market the more economic advantage over solos you achieve, so you don't bring your advantages to the pricing as much.
Unfortunately the third option of just letting you bring the advantages to the table in full would get people up in pitchforks 🙂

Note that you can play with friends without forming a company if you don't share anything and trade with them like with anyone else.

#

Also, another reminder if my last one wasn't clear enough: This thread is solely for newbies to post their view and our staff.
We specifically do not want veterans to dilute with five hundred other suggestions or telling newbies how things actually aren't as they are.
You got your veteran chillout thread. Starting now, I am holding the bat and will bonk infringing people over to the sun.

violet lodge
earnest iron
# violet lodge The opposite, actually - the tax system exists so that playing together doesn't ...

Yea I understand the reason and like the system in general. Just when you talk of applying 60-100% taxes without any explanation when, what and how taxes are applied it feels impossible later on. But could be me not understanding the system. Right now as a chef things are hard enough trippling our tax would kill any business. I think anything above 50% sounds very excessive but you guys played longer and understand it better. If we have to start selling at a loss though eventually it won't work

Let's see how it goes, mainly wanted to drop feedback that it's near impossible to understand how it works when new here and extremely daunting to continue and not really understanding how on earth we are supposed to manage to sell things with over 60% taxes.
Flip side I left servers that had a group of 3-6 guys doing everything as mechanics and not selling anything outside group

violet lodge
# earnest iron Yea I understand the reason and like the system in general. Just when you talk o...

I see the problem now - what you describe is the actual intent, so effectively you did understand the system.

The more things you can do yourself in the company without needing others and hence do not need to source from the market, the higher the tax gets to make it harder for you to participate in the market. That is the actual point of the system. As I understand "participating in the market" IS the whole Eco game for you, the main reason you want to play - that is fine. The problem is, when you have so many different skills in your company, competing with you by solo players that can only have 5 stars and for everything else must go through the market becomes more and more impossible, even for solos that use all cooperative means available (that have expanded since companies exist) - it is relevant to note here that company tax was implemented at a time where the most common tax on federal level was a sales tax, e.g. in the past companies skipped notable parts of the taxation chain, as they could produce internally and hence there was no sales tax involved. Federal Income Tax is a rather new system that only exists for about three cycles and is still in testing - once it gets out there, there is plans to further refine systems in regard to VI with a potential VI tax applying to solos and companies alike or our VI limitations that would then ultimately also lead to a change in company tax to account for changed systems. While Federal Income Tax has a large potential to shuffle things majorly around, it also has issues with complexity as it simply is not as easy to understand as a sales tax and we hence need to make sure that the vast majority gets used to it, people are around that can help with it and that people can understand it as best as possible.

But currently, the purpose of the company tax is a compromise: You can always play here in some form with any playstyle - including a company that does most of the stuff themselves. (Compared to: No sorry, you cannot play as group / You cannot take so many different skills at all) But, the more advantage your group composition has, the more taxes you need to pay to ensure you cannot realistically offer things for prices you could otherwise only do due to producing everything yourself but where solos cannot compete. This does indeed become "excessive" at some point, where there is only very little potential income for you remaining, so that market participation makes no sense for most groups at some point anymore (though that is a individual thing, for some it starts earlier, others find the way to optimize the hell out of it). However, market participation is not everything for everyone - groups may also just want to play together and do most things themselves and find interest in other things. There is groups that like building large projects, that invest a lot of time into their town composition. You could say they play "next to us" instead of "with us", but that wouldn't be correct as the large amount of taxes they do pay when they sell are a notable income source and any projects they do internally have the possibility to be relevant to our victory conditions. The major point here however is: You are given choice, you are not actually forced to play one specific way and either you take that or leave. We give you the choice to also be a self-sufficient company to varying degrees if you are so inclined, just while protecting solos ability to compete - you can however nontheless in different forms participate in the relevant goals for the server and realize your own group projects. UBI ensures that you can always get basic stuff and the whole rest you largely have in your company.

#

Of course, when your play goal is to both have as many skills internally as possible and participate in the market largely, that is the exact thing that is a major problem and must be prevented.
Back when there was only sales tax that allowed you to undercut the prices of any solo notable, taking away their ability to compete and making playing for them not worthwhile (in opposite to you, they also cannot share stuff with friends and focus on communal goals beyond their own ones which are naturally on a much smaller scale with only one person; any cooperation with others would need to go through normal market means) - but they are the vast majority on this server.

Now you could of course be a nice company (they do exist) and self-limit yourself (or in the meanwhile rather just follow our laws on pricing needing to be in range that solos can compete with no matter the VI, which is hard to actually enforce) in a way where you never drop your prices so low that other cannot compete, maybe even keep them artificially high to even make it less likely that everyone runs to you for other reasons (much more stock, nearer). You still for every trade have a majorly higher profit span than a solo could ever achieve - that changes a bit now with Federal Income Tax, but as noted, that is still in testing.

#

So yes, I guess some surprise also comes from the experience of groups that limit their goods to themselves on vanilla servers being a major problem, while here the whole purpose becomes for heavily integrated companies to be increasingly taken off the market purposefully. But that is just a result from the concept and size of this server. While companies could totally drive some matters (and sometimes are the rescue, but that is something we try to increasingly change by adjusting our victory conditions), they are not technically necessary to do so, we could exist without them existing and be fine. It does matter much more when they sell with their advantages to solos compared to when their force is missing completely. We limit the impact of groups on the server and most of its players to begin with.

#

In the end this simply boils down to a somewhat typical philosophy of this server: We try to support as many playstyles as possible on a single server and only act where playstyles inproportionately affect other playstyles. The much easier solution that would work just as well, if not better, would be banning groups as is not uncommon on other servers. Or limit them to the same skills. We decided to give companies the choice to play whatever they want, under conditions. Only the actual matter that does infringe solo rights too much is not possible. Of course in approximation, as there is no easy way to measure and perfectly react to advantages, but our solution is much more fine-grained than any other.

However such freedom also always comes with self-responsibility: It is up to the company to understand the rules and use them to get the most out of what they desire to do - which we cannot know. When someone forms a company we have no idea how many they are, what their internal group dynamics are, who typically likes to play what and what the different interests in playing the game are or if and what group goal they have. Friend groups are very different and only the invidividual friend group knows what everyone in it would like to do and what gives people most fun. It can naturally hence only be up to that very friend group to see how much of that they can achieve with our rules and plan accordingly to do so. But the fact that they can do that and optimize to get the most out of it, is only possible because we use a flexible system. The other options would always result in a "It's this or nothing", which obviously leads to "Nothing" much more often than this system. That doesn't "hurt" this server if they do - but we actively prefer to play with as many different people as possible, when they are willing to accept that there is a few things we need to limit so others also have fun. We're in the end balancing rights of different people and their playstyles and everyone that sees themselves within the mostly large corridor of acceptable things is actively welcome, in the end resulting only in cutting extreme playstyles that cannot be made compatible with the goal of everyone having as much fun and possibilities as possible as they directly infringe others rights (and with regular solos in relation to market stuff, the vast majority) notably. That way the vast majority of people can play here typically just fine and the amount of undesired gameplay options is surgically removed and rather low.

violet lodge
#

So the only thing I wonder is, why that wasn't clear or if you just by chance actually want to do specifically the one thing we can't really offer - the company documentation does mention why it exists and should provide all math grounds to give you what you need to determine internally what the sweet spot in skills for you is depending on your personal play goals that we cannot know, but you do. With the understanding that this is a protective measure to limit your market impact when it comes to competition with solos, you should be able to do an informed decision if you want to be a company at all and what is the best route to go so that your group specifically can get the most out of your desired gameplay within the system. You might not be able to get everything you want, but hopefully enough that it is fun for you - and everyone else. So if you are a group focused about economical success, you should be able to figure up to which point you feel you can still achieve that and see how many skills that would be and who in your company could take what so that everyone gets the maximum of what they personally desire and is possible.

You mentioned you have no idea when, what and how taxes are applied. However, that is in the document? The tax applies to all money that enters your accounts at any point in time, pretty quickly and is based on your unique skill count compares to the skills the employee with most skills has as in the diagram. There is a way to check how much tax is currently applied to your company as well in the same document - ingame you should directly be able to hover it. If every government does its job correctly, the normal taxes apply after the company tax applied, not before.

bitter fractal
# earnest iron A bit late here but only found this tread today. This is my first cycle on white...

There is more than one type of tax - there is the company income scaling which you are primarily referring to based on companies and differing skills. But there is also a federal income tax - it’s a progressive tax based on how high your profits are - the more you make, the more you pay.

You can get more information from the tooltip of your companies personal currency (or your personal currency if solo), you can also type !tax or !rate in game and get a bunch of stats reflecting your tax information. If it would help, I could add company income scaling to that info command.

static gyro
#

I’d like to share some feedback regarding the government’s approach to addressing high product prices.

Recently, the government opened the Ministry of Prosperity - a factory in Unica that produces and sells previously overpriced products (currently Glass, Lumber, and Wooden Hull Planks) at lower prices. While I appreciate the intention to stabilize the market, I believe this approach may unintentionally harm player-driven interactions and the sense of economic cooperation.

For example, I had already reduced the price of Wooden Hull Planks in Unica to 5.99, while the Ministry now sells them for 5. I immediately matched that price, but outside of Unica, the same product still sells for 10–16. This means that the Ministry’s production primarily affects me - the only Wooden Hull Plank producer in Unica, even though I was already offering the product significantly cheaper than others.

For me, this isn’t about the money, it’s about the gameplay. I was producing 200–400 Wooden Hull Planks daily when others had just a handful in stock, and I felt that my work made a real difference for the community. I also consistently lowered prices for example: Small Wooden Boat reduced from 300 to 150, Engineering Research Papers Advanced reduced from 200 to 150, Stone Road kept at 0.99 while the market price is 2, to help non-engineers earn from paving and so we have roads.

These actions made me feel involved and impactful both economically and socially.

#

However, with the Ministry producing and selling goods directly, much of that community-driven interaction has become obsolete. Instead of replacing private producers, the government could have taken a more collaborative approach. For example, it could have reached out to existing producers to make bulk purchases, say, 1,000 Wooden Hull Planks at 5 each and then sold them at the same price. This would still achieve the goal of reducing prices while keeping players engaged and rewarded.

Of course, there may be even better solutions, but I wanted to share this perspective so that future government actions can continue to strengthen, rather than replace the player economy.

#

I’d love to see players more involved in creating market and social impact for example, through government collaboration with existing producers.

earnest iron
# violet lodge So the only thing I wonder is, why that wasn't clear or if you just by chance ac...

Its new player feedback section

We joined day 2 and had to figure out how to setup the company and try to understand how it works in a few minutes. once setup not much else to do about it.

Im not here to complain just explain one way you drive new players out of your server.

We are 2 fairly new players that joined and signed up for company, both wanted to play and do different skills. then found out its impossible to play like that because you get insane taxes. at 5 skills we would be around 74% taxes.

HAs nothing to do wanting to create everything ourselves or not be part of economy or trade. the system you got is just not made for 2 man teams.

After reading this i see the different options as:
A) Sit and do nothing just get loads of people to join company and earn money(no thanks)
B) pick same skills not to progress game just lower taxes(not interested)
C) Do a big group all with same skills for projects etc.

Once we figured out its not possible to play the game normally in a company with some taxes that are reasonable to be able to play for 2 players, we realised we cant leave company either and will need to leave server

Again not a complain, just responding to what tread was opened to do.(very much doubt we are alone on this)

bitter fractal
earnest iron
#

yea 100%

#

but we are stuck with it

#

documentation is clear on it we cant end or leave it

bitter fractal
#

Can I ask what made you join together in a company? Could we make it clearer that company is if you intend to share property/funds? And it's possible to play cooperatively in the open market without one?

earnest iron
#

we saw it was an option, figured it sounded fun and we wanted to try it. honestly not much you can do in the documentation to prevent it.

Like i said we joined day 2 and rushed through it to just setup and get started

#

was not until much later we noticed the problems

bitter fractal
#

I just realized I probably re-asked what Dennis did - sorry, I didn't read the book PI_hide

earnest iron
violet lodge
#

Unfortunately I'm not sure what we could do to make people read the full documentation carefully instead of rushing through. Any idea for that?

The documentation does note what effects the intent to take different skills will have in a company and why that is and also stresses right at the beginning that there is no need to form one if you don't intend to share anything and how important it is to read about the tax and make an informed decision. So all the information necessary to prevent this outcome was technically available. I honestly wouldn't call that "drive new player out of the server" at all, this is a sophisticated server that says so on the label - we need to expect the basic investment that provided information is read; we have no other way to communicate it directly to you.

Appreciate the feedback, though and hope you find a server that fits your goals better. The one main thing I take from this is the already existant goal for a rework to make companies more flexible in regard to entering / leaving them. But even with that possibility I'm not sure that would be an realistic option for everyone, as that will need to come with measures that ensure game balance is kept and players cant take with them their advantages when they had a company.

#

@lofty surge Maybe a grace time of ~30 minutes online time to be able to actually form a company could help.

earnest iron
#

I mean that is what you are doing, there's no way for us to play on server with 70+% of every single income in game, no way to end the company either. only option is quit producing stuff and stop playing or not progress in the game.

And if you think new players joining day 1 is going to spend a full hour trying to understand that document before starting to play and progress i dont think you see the issue at all. When you join server everything is a mad rush to setup a location and get started. specially when need to gather food etc and 100 people draining server.

I read it nearly 10 times now and still dont understand all of it. only suggestion i would have is allow people to end it or write in Capital letters at start this is not made for group play with separate skills.

And nothing wrong with my goals etc, would have enjoyed playing on this server if it was an option. Im just locked into something thats impossible to play with and cant

violet lodge
#

We do note in the very first paragraph what you want:

image.png
lofty surge
violet lodge
#

You only get the income reduction in one specific playstyle: Sharing property between players AND wanting to take a notable amount of different skills - the thing we want to disincentivize players from doing and need to limit to ensure game balance for other players is preserved. So I unfortunately wouldn't agree with there not being "a way to play".

earnest iron
#

you made document for long time players, not new players

violet lodge
#

That would need a bit more details - the document goes through the process step by step and is absolutely intended for new players.

bitter fractal
#

Inter - can I ask where you read it? Through F1 or on the google docs?

earnest iron
#

anyways not intrestested in arguing, wish you the best

#

f1

bitter fractal
#

Thank you for your feedback

earnest iron
#

thanks for all the help, and just to show everyone here since i know a lot dont understand how this system works

pic bellow is explanation on how taxes work and i read it like 6 times and barely understand it still.

Maybe a better way to explain it would be around 20% extra tax for every separate skill so you dont need to have a degree in math to understand it

image.png
violet lodge
#

But the image shows the taxed and remained percentage for up to 10 skills on a single glance?

#

The text is a description of how the formula works exactly for those that want to calculate (like many do) - the image provides an immediate overview that should be relatively easy to understand?

earnest iron
#

the 1-9 im not sure what it is you need the equation for it

violet lodge
#

Ah, so it wasn't clear to you what is meant with those skills? Okay!

#

@bitter fractal Maybe you have an easier to way to describe that.

bitter fractal
violet lodge
#

I guess an image with an example could help there as well.

earnest iron
#

and maybe let companies fire active players lol

bitter fractal
violet lodge
#

As mentioned, we'd like to make it more flexible, but that isn't very simple when intending to keep its purpose. If you fire someone, that one will immediately no longer count towards your taxation (which so far is fine, at least if all work orders started by that person vanish in that moment) - but that player will then have nothing, all of its UBI so far was given to the company.

Determining if / what they can take with them is a lot of manual work - and anything they could take with them was created by a company under different circumstances and hence shouldn't get out of the company, otherwise that player has an advantage over solo players that couldn't get anything by those means. But then the player needs to somehow be able to get on own feet again - otherwise for them the game is over just as well.

earnest iron
#

could just let the ceo decide

#

to reduce work on admins

#

or let them leave with nothing, id rather have that then leave server

high quartz
#

In my eyes best way would be having some GM intervention, as mentioned before some grace period where GM can remove the company essentially and all funds are split between the members. Don't know if that's possible tho admin wise

violet lodge
#

The problem with that is that the purpose of a company is to offset advantages of group play and contain things achieved by group play in the company to ensure balance mechanisms apply continuously. The moment players can take things from their company with them into solo play, they gain things created with group advantage in solo play and hence are ahead of other solo players - that cannot be allowed to happen, as it affects the game balance negatively. That alone however wouldn't stop people being able to flexibly join and leave companies, but it would still mean that what has once been in a company, stays there forever. We're working on making companies more flexible in that regard, but their purpose will need to stay the same - otherwise they'd not be needed to begin with.

earnest iron
#

Thats why you have taxes, to offset it

To remove everything a player earned, take their house, xp as punishment for starting a company is crazy. Put house under gm control to maybe let us buy it back one day.

Anyways you successfully made us want to have nothing to do with your server.

We were given two options

A) loose all money, properties deeds, xp and be completely wiped
B) have one of us quit server and taxes removed and other keep all funds

If this is a simulated government its a dystopia i want no part in.

violet lodge
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As mentioned, you being allowed to take goods created under company circumstances with you into solo play is an advantage compared to solo players that have never been in a company and for keeping up game balance cannot be allowed. The taxation does solely address your advantage through vertical integration, not through having players cooperate in a way solo players are not allowed to (15 people with the same skills = no tax). The taxation for vertical integration also doesn't offset advantages perfectly or even closely - it is an abstraction to create a sufficient penalty with the smallest level of complexity that can achieve it to make solos and groups be able to coexist peacefully, but not more than that. (Also, for notes, you were actually allowed to keep your skills, but you could have reset them as an offer if you so wanted - something we usually do not offer. And you were offered it as you literally stated you'd rather start "fresh".)

I nonetheless fully understand your feelings - but this is a matter we unfortunately cannot address nor make an exception on, as the inherent goal of our system is fairness. Ensuring that advantages can't be carried over between two purposefully separated systems in a way that disadvantages other players is a core principle we cannot and will not give up. Playing on WT insofar requires at least a bit of reading to get a basic understanding of mechanics and server values that cannot be replaced by anything we could do, but is inherently dependent on something the player needs to do - reading. We try to make that as easy as possible with putting summaries of core principles to the start, by offering easily readable online versions that also can be read before joining. And we're happy to refine that however much we can. But there is currently no alternative to it, as UI modding in Eco is not possible - if that is ever the case, you can be sure that all our mechanics will be integrated into the UI flow of the game and users be prevented from making potentially bad choices due to missing knowledge as best as we can.

If that for the time being isn't for you or if the limitations we put on specific playstyles in the attempt to ensure the best possible fairness level are not providing the gameplay you seek, that is absolutely okay - it does unfortunately happen that the server simply isn't for everyone, but Eco offers a ton of great servers and WT doesn't need to be yours. I know this always sounds sad and somehow wrong, but it is just the truth - it is impossible for any server out there to make their experience fitting for everyone. But we can try to make it fit for as many people as possible, fix rough edges and make changes to many conceptual matters that do not directly impact fairness (or which would outright improve fairness) to improve problems that new players have - which this thread is about.

But we can't give up our basic values, by doing that we might have won you - but might as well have lost a notable amount of players that play here in the trust that these systems are honored and enforced, especially given this system has a long history of debating in the community until an acceptable compromise was finally found - the effects of it not being present were massive and vastly detrimental to the gameplay of everyone. Your issue could also have easily been prevented by just reading the documentation and / or asking questions, which we do have dedicated channels and even a ticket system for that we also do hint to. I get that not every player wants to do this but rather jumps right in - but unless someone invents means to convey all necessary knowledge immediately on joining, that is not really something we can address. A server with deep gameplay, some roleplay and intricate systems to ensure fairness necessarily has some complexity that needs to be conveyed. Getting both the positive benefits and not having complexity that needs to be understood is unfortunately not possible.

fluid violet
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Hi guys! New player here.
I thought you might like a bit of raw feedback from someone who just got the game this week and had the pleasure of playing with you lovely people!
On the subject of lovely people, i indeed met some very friendly people out here on this server who were kind enough to give me a leg up responding to my questions and showing me the roaps on basic tasks/requirements

As for me, from my point of view, the hard time was picking and sticking to my profesions from the start. I chose (poorly in retrospect) the Gathering (on a pretty barren island though) and Fertilisers
Fertilisers just sounded pretty interesting to do and i thought that immediately after building the required tier room and table will be enough to get me started
Alas, i was hit with 2 restrictions which i was unaware at that time... the nutrition and housing stats

i must say it was brutal and almost impossible to figure out what i need, what to do, where to get it from
and before slapping me with another 5-page documentation which i usually read it diagonally , would be nice to make a "recommending this and that profession so you can get XP out of something"
hope i dont sound too bitter, as i do enjoy the game, i just wanted to give me honest opinion/feedback on the game and rules

Cheers!

violet lodge
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See here:

image.png
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It is not a uncommon problem for completely new players to have issues with their profession picks on any server, this server unfortunately indeed makes it even more difficult when being completely new and needing to digest a ton of information and new impressions. It unfortunately takes most people some attempts to get the gist of the basics even on vanilla servers - we do allow respeccing as well on WT for new players after a ticket; however some stuff for game balance reasons might need to be removed.

This should get better after just diving in a few times and getting a hang of it. Also note you can always ask questions in the chat, on discord, or via ticket if you need a definitive answer or just a more guided response. Asking questions is the best way to figure things out as a completely new player to the game. Also make heavy use of looking at tooltips, a lot of Eco explains itself through tooltip usage, similar to Paradox games.

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I always wanted to do a tutoring program for people like you that are actively communicative and have difficulties figuring their way when being presented with something and not knowing anything yet, I believe such program could benefit quite a few people. Thanks for asking questions, instead of giving up 🙂

fluid violet
pearl hatch
unkempt granite
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Wouldn't having a warning before choosing a skill be useful, like : Beware this Skill requires having X and Y in order to be able to use workstation?

lapis cipher
bitter fractal
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Possibly. I know the forbidden relationship law has warnings when buying and taking skills

thorny ibex
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We really really really need to create some kind of learning material that explains people that if they keep pushing down their buy price to the lowest sell order price, they:

  • push out anyone in the market that can't make materials at that price
  • stop anyone from delivering to them, because who would spend their time delivering for free?
  • breaks a lot of "trade chains" which just brings less economic activity to everyone, including themselves
  • just makes it seem greedy because we usually don't see the sell prices

Add on to that material that if your buy order is below any sell orders, that means no one has any interest in delivering to you as they pass by.

I've noticed today after spending a lot of time sailing my new industrial barge around buying/selling along the way, that people have now updated their buy or sell orders, so there is no longer any profit in me doing so. So now I just sail empty again, which feels super bad. They either lowered buy prices or increased sell prices.

  • I've even had it happen in the middle of a trade where the person noticed the route I was going for and while I was standing there, updated their price +50% to remove any profit for me. I had to leave empty-handed and literally drive past the delivery target, empty. LUL

Are people really so focused on profit that they are willing to shoot themselves in the foot for it? It just means less traffic to your store and forces you to do everything yourself, which hurts us all.