Author Topic: Future Game reset - new ideas and game mechanics. Airline-club V2 woot woot  (Read 1951 times)

alex

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Also I just noticed my Patreon subscription lapsed and - sorry about that! I didn't intend to do that because I was going inactive, I just had a billing error I forgot to fix.

patson

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Heya Alex! Good to see u again ;)

For the legacy bonus it should be minor and temporary - for example a bit more negotiation point at the beginning. it will not be something lasting throughout the game

Though I might add something cosmetic for top 20 players like a badge or something :) ?

Bolingbroke

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Very interesting concepts, I agree that a complete reset is necessary.  My friends and I started a little over 2 months ago, and I kind of feel we have hit our limit with how crowded things are, almost everyone in my alliance is in second rate hub cities, and it does really make a difference how many people we can move. That, and making reputation is like just finding small countries and losing money on the routes, as there is no way to fight for the big countries really.  More dynamics will help, but also just getting rid of dead airlines will be nice.

Can't say I see a use in a rental system as someone suggested, someone else made the point it was the same as taking out a loan pretty much, which already exists.

I think... the best addition would be route planning, that way larger capacity planes can be spread out more, and less slots utilized. 
 The cool thing about this game is that it is simple management, compared to other airline games.  Negotiation may negate this, if you are buying slots the whole way through, then that is another chore than simply getting PAX to an airport, loyalty, and upgrading base levels.

I am all for the reputation between countries and airlines, and making it more interesting how to get a hub.  One thing that might hurt though is down the road when there are as many big airlines as there are now, it may be too hard for newer people to get into larger more desired countries (and smaller countries with less airports)

Overall reputation is the thing that really gets me though, I think the system needs  to allow for growing stronger even if you cannot get on the board with other countries.   Maybe it is based off of reputation with individual countries, not just being in top 10 or top 5. Even if it measures it in micro-steps for the poorest countries.

IFE is interesting, but I think a lot of people, especially early on, are just trying to fill planes, a lot of us still have not got into major competition to woo first class, so making things to increase flight quality are interesting, but might be over-complicating.  I mean in the end, how many of you are not flying 5 star service quality? Are you really going to not put TVs on your planes if given the choice?

Just some thoughts... Excited to see where it all goes in the future.

patson

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Very interesting concepts, I agree that a complete reset is necessary.  My friends and I started a little over 2 months ago, and I kind of feel we have hit our limit with how crowded things are, almost everyone in my alliance is in second rate hub cities, and it does really make a difference how many people we can move. That, and making reputation is like just finding small countries and losing money on the routes, as there is no way to fight for the big countries really.  More dynamics will help, but also just getting rid of dead airlines will be nice.

Can't say I see a use in a rental system as someone suggested, someone else made the point it was the same as taking out a loan pretty much, which already exists.

I think... the best addition would be route planning, that way larger capacity planes can be spread out more, and less slots utilized. 
 The cool thing about this game is that it is simple management, compared to other airline games.  Negotiation may negate this, if you are buying slots the whole way through, then that is another chore than simply getting PAX to an airport, loyalty, and upgrading base levels.

I am all for the reputation between countries and airlines, and making it more interesting how to get a hub.  One thing that might hurt though is down the road when there are as many big airlines as there are now, it may be too hard for newer people to get into larger more desired countries (and smaller countries with less airports)

Overall reputation is the thing that really gets me though, I think the system needs  to allow for growing stronger even if you cannot get on the board with other countries.   Maybe it is based off of reputation with individual countries, not just being in top 10 or top 5. Even if it measures it in micro-steps for the poorest countries.

IFE is interesting, but I think a lot of people, especially early on, are just trying to fill planes, a lot of us still have not got into major competition to woo first class, so making things to increase flight quality are interesting, but might be over-complicating.  I mean in the end, how many of you are not flying 5 star service quality? Are you really going to not put TVs on your planes if given the choice?

Just some thoughts... Excited to see where it all goes in the future.

Thank you for all the ideas!

I don't have plans to get rid of the reputation system - at least not for now. But again V2 is still in very early brainstorm stage so anything could happen :P

One thing for sure is we want to make inactive airlines to go away quicker - I don't want to remove airlines if they have not logged in for the last N days, but the plan is to make it easier to kick inactive airlines out of the market - It's kinda detailed in the other post about route rework

a TLDR version is that for routes that are constantly under certain LF will be forced to terminate its route by the airport authority. Therefore inactive airlines are very susceptible to attacks like price cut if they don't adapt accordingly (negotiate to reduce volume, or drop price to up the LF etc etc)

And perhaps if a hub has been inactive for too long the airport authority will force closure of it too :)


bluesky

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I'm going to suggest something weird and will probably get some flak, but f it.

What if you randomized a bit the countries income lvl and even the cities populations?

ATM there are some obviously better countries that you can't really ignore if you want to be #1. I fear that all the most experienced players will all create HQ's in JFK, LHR, HND and FRA. I'm sure as hell will.
I think the game would be hell of a lot more fun if the pop and income were a bit more spread out and not so concentrated on europe. Imagine if South Africa end up with an income lvl of 49 while Germany gets 28, imagine if Las Vegas had 12mi pop and Tokyo only 600k. There could be a lot of different strategies and would be way more fun trying to find good routes in a new world.
I know that this would throw any kind of IRL resemblance to the bin, but tbh, all planes are ridiculously far from IRL performance and the income lvl system is a little broken, anyone trying some real roleplay can't do it anyway, so you might as well go nuts.
I would love that way more than any new feature.

I've always liked the Space and Beyond thingy because of this, you don't need to be restricted by IRL numbers, you can create what's more fun to play.
My dream would be a random world with random countries and ****, but I know that would take a ridiculous amount of work.
Randomizing the cities pop and countries income level is crazy easy tho. So easy actually, that I did it myself with the cities pop. (crude tho, just multiplied the city pop by a random number between 0.01 and 4)
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388Crazy

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I actually like that idea Bluesky, I think it would make it more interesting.

patson

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Hey bluesky o/

crap....my cat whacked his tail on the keyboard and deleted my whole reply...i squeezed his tail hard grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Anyway, short version :
If we have multiple running servers then we can for sure have an "imaginary" world with unrealistic data.

I think the core of the problem right now as u pointed out is that some countries are heavily favored (mostly higher income ones). That's probably something we can work with in V2. I don't have any solid plans on that yet :) still working on the pieces one by one!


zuoyi

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Heya Alex! Good to see u again ;)

For the legacy bonus it should be minor and temporary - for example a bit more negotiation point at the beginning. it will not be something lasting throughout the game

Though I might add something cosmetic for top 20 players like a badge or something :) ?

Cash is the best bonus for me :D At least the bonus is proportional to cash balance/reputation points.

Air China

vani56

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The biggest problem in this game is that it has too much unrealistic elements - unrealistic planes(787 seats 250 pax in the game), unrealistic fuel consumption, unrealistic limitations on routes. Most people playing those type of airline simulation games are avgeeks wanting realistic experience(especially when it comes to plane database) even if it means unbalanced game. Neither airlinesim or airline-empires implement such unrealistic elements and for a reason. If they do, they will probably lose half their player base.
It's kind of strange as this game has the most realistic pax system out there, yet it can't seem to get it right in other areas.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2019, 02:19:30 am by vani56 »

Andrew

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Hey bluesky o/

crap....my cat whacked his tail on the keyboard and deleted my whole reply...i squeezed his tail hard grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Anyway, short version :
If we have multiple running servers then we can for sure have an "imaginary" world with unrealistic data.

I think the core of the problem right now as u pointed out is that some countries are heavily favored (mostly higher income ones). That's probably something we can work with in V2. I don't have any solid plans on that yet :) still working on the pieces one by one!

But isn't it realistic that some countries are more favoured? Not all countries are created equal in the real world...Though I agree there's some issues with the passenger model and countries being favoured. For example, I'm trying to fly from Lagos to Accra and Abidjan, which are pretty much the biggest cities in West Africa with multiple flights between them IRL, but I can't even fill a 44-seater Embraer at below average price.

My big idea for the game is to scrap the reputation system and rank airlines on profit and passenger numbers. Also, something needs to be done about the connecting flights system, which is the bane of any airline game's existence. While you have the most realistic connecting system in any game, the fact remains that taking a connecting flight is simply adding the prices of two flights, when IRL connecting flights are usually cheaper than direct flights. But I know this is hard, and as far as I know no airline game has been able to do it.

yellowcandle

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Please consider implementing The Five Freedoms of Air (so that we can set up technical stops and routes with stops)
Also, Please provide more metrics in the route report, like profit per passenger-km flown etc. (At the very least, make the table easier to be pasted into excel!)

patson

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Hey bluesky o/

crap....my cat whacked his tail on the keyboard and deleted my whole reply...i squeezed his tail hard grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Anyway, short version :
If we have multiple running servers then we can for sure have an "imaginary" world with unrealistic data.

I think the core of the problem right now as u pointed out is that some countries are heavily favored (mostly higher income ones). That's probably something we can work with in V2. I don't have any solid plans on that yet :) still working on the pieces one by one!

But isn't it realistic that some countries are more favoured? Not all countries are created equal in the real world...Though I agree there's some issues with the passenger model and countries being favoured. For example, I'm trying to fly from Lagos to Accra and Abidjan, which are pretty much the biggest cities in West Africa with multiple flights between them IRL, but I can't even fill a 44-seater Embraer at below average price.

My big idea for the game is to scrap the reputation system and rank airlines on profit and passenger numbers. Also, something needs to be done about the connecting flights system, which is the bane of any airline game's existence. While you have the most realistic connecting system in any game, the fact remains that taking a connecting flight is simply adding the prices of two flights, when IRL connecting flights are usually cheaper than direct flights. But I know this is hard, and as far as I know no airline game has been able to do it.

In terms of coding and UI design wise, it's not super hard (i did think a bit on the algorithm and UI would just be an extra settings to give discount if it's transit flight etc).

The harder part however, is to maintain the gameplay balance of route profitability ...usually the game balances itself out until all players's profit is razor thin. There are several issues tho that could be hard to address, for one, bigger airlines have better network hence already has a uphand in getting transit passenger, allowing discount on transit flight will probably give big airlines even more advantage and new airlines will be harder to compete - that might not be too bad but it's just a balance issue that sometimes is hard to tackle

Besides, it might be a bit complicated to present the profit data as it's a combination of things

I agree that this will make the game more realistic but the extra "fun factor" it brings might be rather limited, i will keep that on my list but probably need to check more stuff off the list before i would have time to tackle this one ;)

Fuddnir Johansson

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I think the right model is something like a bankruptcy bonus: that is, if you get really big, and then voluntarily hit the bankruptcy button, you lose everything but now get some kind of bonus (that is otherwise impossible to get) as you rebuild from scratch. This could even be cumulative through multiple resets.
As long as the effect has diminishing returns. Like if each added bonus only has 50% of the effect of the previous. This way, a bankruptcy would normally pay $50M, with one bonus, it would be $75M (50+(50*.5)), with two it would be $87.5M (50+(50*.5*.5)) etc. This would give people an edge, but not so big an edge that they have a personal iWin-button. ;)

patson

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I think the right model is something like a bankruptcy bonus: that is, if you get really big, and then voluntarily hit the bankruptcy button, you lose everything but now get some kind of bonus (that is otherwise impossible to get) as you rebuild from scratch. This could even be cumulative through multiple resets.
As long as the effect has diminishing returns. Like if each added bonus only has 50% of the effect of the previous. This way, a bankruptcy would normally pay $50M, with one bonus, it would be $75M (50+(50*.5)), with two it would be $87.5M (50+(50*.5*.5)) etc. This would give people an edge, but not so big an edge that they have a personal iWin-button. ;)

Ah cool. Ya i still haven't really worked out the details yet so any thoughts/ideas would help ;)

Brad

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Therefore, I am thinking to add various new game mechanics and overhaul. And there will be a world reset that comes with it, cause with all these new proposed changes (non confirm yet...just new ideas) some established airline is going to be badly hurt. Might as well start over and reset the game world :P


Would there have to be a world restart, or could you implement a button that would allow users that would like to restart the opportunity to?