Is world conquest fun?

[Corporal Ravioli]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm completely and utterly disappointed in the whole "World" aspect of the game. Turning colored blobs into other colored blobs does not engage me, especially when it has no (no, right?) impact on the game proper. If I'm gonna get bux from playing the game, it should at least go into something impactful and that encourages you to do well.

As-is I have absolutely no reason to spend my winnings. I can't be assed if it doesn't affect me.

And while my complaint is about the complete feature, if I'm to look deeper inside of it:

Even if I do partake in the conquest "minigame," I still feel like I'm doing jack about nothing. My contribution of points means practically nothing. There's no feedback to spending points, or funding a location. My bux just go into a pot that's way too large for me to feel useful contributing to, thus I abstain.

Is there any way to rejigger this facet of the game to - for lack of a better term - mean something? I'd like to discuss how you find this fun, or what you would change in order to make it so.

[HamsterIV]

I don't know how I would "Fix" the current system to make it fun. Looking at the faction leadership, there are some people who find this sort of meta game fun, but I just don't have the time for it. Guns of Icarus is mostly a social game and reducing your fellow players to a steadily climbing number on a map's completion bar lacks the personal touch. It seems like the minimum amount of effort for Muse to have successfully implemented a "Persistent World" they promised in the kick starter.

If I had complete creative control over the project back when the Alliance kickstarter was a gleam in Howard's eye, I would have proposed the project differently. Instead of a Coop PVE I would have proposed a single player campaign that would have acted like an extended tutorial for PvP. Just like Call of Duty uses single player to introduce the player to all the game mechanics, Guns of Icarus should have done the same.

I don't know if it would be in the budget but I would have liked to see a single player campaign lead the player from being an engineer, gunner, and eventually pilot on all AI ships complete with talking crew. Crew that would tell the player to get to their station or to use a specific ammo with certain guns. By the time the player completed the single player game they should know what ammos work best with which guns, how the air ship throttle works, and the difference between armor an perma hull.
There should also be dramatic set piece sequences like ancient mountain sized artillery shooting, troop landings, merchant escort missions to build upon the lore and break up the monotony of game play.

Ultimately my analysis comes with the hindsight of watching PVE split the community and lower lobby count. PvE coop sounded like a great idea when it was proposed, and Muse probably did the best they could with the resources they had.

[Corporal Ravioli]

I've been thinking more about this. Without upending the current system completely:

I think it's important to introduce a sense of agency to this game. The faction leaders have a certain say in decision-making, but it's largely a landslide process. The way the multipliers work, there's absolutely no point in endorsing any other location than the dog-piled one. For the normal player, there's no point in endorsing a location that isn't leader-sponsored, because then your bux are going towards what amounts to /literally nothing/. The driving theme here is that the pot is too big. There's no feedback - cause and effect - and there's no decision making - dogpile or be worthless.

So how do we introduce a sense of agency and purpose? How about a system where each sub-territory has a number of "ship slots" that pilots can commit to when they join an Alliance lobby? Crew gets to decide where their points go as well, but coordinated ships and lobbies are rewarded with a tasty multiplier. Once the crew is disbanded the "slot" they occupied to assail/defend a territory is up for grabs. This way, ships and lobbies can be coordinated so that players can work towards a unified goal and receive visible and social feedback for their effort.

In the "World" view, the players working towards specific goals are displayed like a large team of active ships. This pulls the Alliance GAMEPLAY to the foreground of the world view, showing important details like "oh, that likeminded ship needs help" or "this area is saturated, I better deploy somewhere else." This also creates a social /narrative/ beyond "oh, those guys in discord all chose to go here so I guess I should too..."

A system that only accounts for active players of Alliance also gives a bit of wiggle room to shrink the pot, making a good session with faction-mates feel worth something. At the same time, you'll know that some other group will be working to serve up a cold world for you while you're gone.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Another small issue is how you measure "active" faction players. As far as I know (or knew several months ago) active = logged in during last week, which seems like too much. If I play only on 1-2 days a week I do my faction a disfavour by logging in. I think changing that time to at least 2-3 days or (imo best option) 24 hours would benefit the dynamic and feeling of adding up to common goal.
The thing is - which playerbase do you set your game for? The guys who play every day (and then you design system that has province changes every day) or the guys who play once in a while (and you design a system with longer fights, allowing those people to still find themselves when they only visit 1-2 times a week).