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FP Refund Upon GB Deletion

Do you think that the improvement detailed below should be implemented?


  • Total voters
    21

L84Dnr

Private
Proposal

That FP contributed to unfinished levels of GBs that are deleted be refunded to the donor's inventory.

Reason

It is good manners when deleting a GB or a Game World to complete any unfinished levels of GBs so that your contributors do no lose their FP. Yet, for reasons ranging from the absent-minded and accidental to the thoughtless and spiteful, GBs are not always levelled prior to deletion. This is made worse if a player is closing out a world and several GBs may be deleted simultaneously.

What happens next is particularly annoying. It is Inno's policy that donated FP are no longer your property, which is fine for normal operation, but upon deletion of the GB the FP you have donated are deleted too. We all know that we typically donate FP to GBs in the expectation of a return. None of us would engage in swaps or 1.9 threads otherwise. Under the current system, when a GB is deleted all donated FP on unfinished levels are lost.

The existing system provides Inno with no benefit whatsoever and is a detriment to the players. Worst of all, it produces an adversarial situation where Inno has negated the player's expected returns in a manner that can make their Pay-to-Win business model look like it's actually Pay-to-Lose in this instance.

Details

All I'm suggesting is a little code that would automatically check any GB that is being deleted for unfinished levels and refund the FP of any donors to the unfinished level. FP to be refunded on a 1 to 1 basis as FP packs delivered direct to inventory so as to prevent any problems with the FP bar. 1 FP and 3 FP contributions would still suffer single FP losses unless Inno wants to implement a "Very Wee 1 FP Pack" but I view those as acceptable.

I am not suggesting:
  • Any additional rewards such as BPs or medals. This is FP only.
  • Any Arc bonus or other increase. 100 FP donated gets 100 FP refunded.
  • Any refund for completed levels. Those are done and rewards have been paid out as expected.
  • Any refund for the owner. If you accidentally delete your Arc you have my sympathies and hopes that Support will be kind to you.
The coding needed would be relatively trivial and the computational power negligible compared to everything else that goes on in the game. The benefits would be that players would not lose FP needlessly, Support would field fewer tickets regarding the issue, and Inno would no longer be placed in a situation where it removes a player's expected rewards.

Balance/Abuse Prevention

Little to none. Very occasionally a player might find a few more FP in inventory than they had expected.

For instances where accounts are suspended for rules violations such as GB scams Support might need to suspend this mechanism and give manual refunds for non-violating players. This is easily accommodated by a check box to halt all GB FP activity on the account.

In principle it would be possible to exploit low value, low age GBs to transfer FP from your bar to your inventory by having two or more players serially build, contribute, and delete their GBs before levelling. In practice, the resources and BPs necessary would make this rapidly self-limiting and there are already so many better ways to legitimately get FP in your inventory. This would amount to a remarkably stupid system to exploit and anybody dumb enough to do it should be encouraged to waste their time and efforts.

Summary

Nobody
enjoys or benefits from the existing system. At best, players are ambivalent but more frequently annoyed. The fix is simple and easily implemented.
 

Knight of ICE

This has been discussed numerous times. Bottom line, you donated those fp's. They are no longer yours, so there is nothing to return.
 

GADfan

Warrant Officer
This has been discussed numerous times. Bottom line, you donated those fp's. They are no longer yours, so there is nothing to return.
The point I would query here is that "...you donated those fp's." should really be followed by "in expectation of the quoted reward."
In my opinion, most fp contributions are NOT a donation (which is something purely given out of charity), they are given in good faith ONLY because the donor is expecting to receive something back.

However, this scenario must be quite rare so I can't decide whether a game change would be enough of a benefit.
 

Knight of ICE

The point I would query here is that "...you donated those fp's." should really be followed by "in expectation of the quoted reward."

You are not guaranteed a reward. There are many ways people donate that do not give them a reward at all.
 

GADfan

Warrant Officer
You are not guaranteed a reward. There are many ways people donate that do not give them a reward at all.

I didn't say it was guaranteed.
I said I thought that the vast majority of players donate because they expect to get the reward stated.
They may get sniped, for example, and receive less but they were originally after the reward(s) for the slot they contributed for.
If they get less because of bad maths, or simultaneous contributing, then that's their fault or part of the game.
If they don't get anything back at all, even on a secured slot, (because of something like the GB owner deleting it) then that doesn't seem right and contributing basically becomes a gamble, albeit a rare one.
 

Knight of ICE

I said I thought that the vast majority of players donate because they expect to get the reward stated.

No, you said most players and if you look at the many ways players can arrange to donate in eachothers GB's that is just guessing.

They may get sniped, for example, and receive less but they were originally after the reward(s) for the slot they contributed for.
If they get less because of bad maths, or simultaneous contributing, then that's their fault or part of the game.

And if they get less or lose their donated fp's cause the GB isn't leveled it isn't part of the game?

If they don't get anything back at all, even on a secured slot, (because of something like the GB owner deleting it) then that doesn't seem right and contributing basically becomes a gamble, albeit a rare one.

You try to snipe my GB and make a heavy profit. I don't like that, so I delete the GB. How does that not seem right? Contributing is a gamble. I did not ask you to contribute.
 

L84Dnr

Private
GADfan has the essence of it. What we are calling "donation" is no such thing. Not a single one of us would take P1 on a level 80 Arc if we didn't expect a return. That return is clearly advertised on each slot. We'll truly donate to GBs in the mud but that's a very different exercise and a much smaller amount.

Knight is correct that no return is guaranteed. Spots get sniped, buildings get left to moulder half-levelled. The difference is that all of that is player activity. You snipe my Arc today, I snipe your Himeji tomorrow. You leave your Traz unfinished for a month and I level it while you sleep. The difference is that when a building is deleted it is not PvP, but player vs Inno. No player benefits and there is no redress or revenge. And that is a very poor dynamic for the company to create, especially when it cannot benefit the company in any way.

What I find particularly curious is the number of votes against this proposal. I can't imagine that anybody likes the current system so I'd be interested to hear the reasoning involved.
 

L84Dnr

Private
You try to snipe my GB and make a heavy profit. I don't like that, so I delete the GB. How does that not seem right? Contributing is a gamble. I did not ask you to contribute.

I find this contradiction fascinating. On the one hand you find it "right" to spite another player because they have tried to profit by diminishing rewards that you have already argued were never guaranteed to you in the first place. On the other hand, you don't agree that Inno should not erase these very same rewards entirely merely because they haven't changed a policy that benefits nobody at all. How do you reconcile this? :?
 

Knight of ICE

I find this contradiction fascinating. On the one hand you find it "right" to spite another player because they have tried to profit by diminishing rewards that you have already argued were never guaranteed to you in the first place. On the other hand, you don't agree that Inno should not erase these very same rewards entirely merely because they haven't changed a policy that benefits nobody at all. How do you reconcile this? :?

I don't. I just repeat player reactions that were given on the many other times this was discussed.

You really should have done some research, before putting so much effort in this proposal. For one, this is a perfect way to start banking your fp's.
 

L84Dnr

Private
Start putting fp's from y0ur bar in the GB of an inacive player and receive them back as packets in your inventory.

FoE gives inactives a long time before deleting them. It isn't in Inno's interest to evict players rather than tempt them back. A full year of zero activity. And since there's no indicator on how long a city has been abandoned you'll get an average lag on your FP return of 6 months. Assuming the user doesn't pop back on and ruin your plan. That's an awfully long time to have your FP "invested". I'd almost encourage anybody dumb enough to try it to waste their time. You could further discourage this by locking GBs of any player inactive for more than 4 months to anybody who hasn't already contributed. That keeps out new "investors" while still allowing already invested players to level the GB if they want their FP back sooner.

Similarly, you could build and delete Oracles 1 FP short of leaving the mud. That strategy becomes very self-limiting due to the need for an entire set of BPs for every 19 FP banked and is another exploit for the criminally hard of thinking. Similar exploits are theoretically possible on low-value low age GBs but cost goods as well as BPs. If the Devs ever got really bored they could implement an "OraclesBurntThisWeek" counter. I'd chucke if after it hits 3 Pythia pops up and and curses the player for defiling her temple, all resources drop to zero, the population riots, and Support gets a popcorn notice to watch the ensuing panic until everything resets to normal after a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I suspect that more players would delete Oracles just to get cursed than ever would to bank FP.
 
This change would only benefit snipers, players who, knowingly, seek to advance themselves at the expense of others.
If this were implemented it would most certainly have a detrimental effect on the community as a whole, because suddenly sniping has become a 'zero risk practice'. If your victim deletes the GB, you get your FP back. If they level the GB, you make a profit.

Meanwhile, I've been playing for 4 years and across all of my 3 worlds, I have a grand total of 62 FP "invested" in the GB of players who have gone inactive, 12 of which were donated with absolutely no expectation of a return and 50 were donated through a swap over 3 years ago.
As I see it, players already have every option to virtually ensure their investments are returned, simply by dealing with known and active players, e.g. members of their guild or communicative, trusted parties in a social swap/boost group.
If they choose to go beyond the safe boundaries of dealing (selflessly) with the people they know and actively play together with, then I really see no reason why the developer should give them their "investment" back if their (selfish) schemes do not work out.

You're not "too big to fail" and losing your FP does not cause harm to other players or the community at large, so why exactly should 'the government' bail you out when you extend a loan that doesn't get repaid?
 
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