AW society vs NetZero vs X...which is best for someone with no experience?

[Smooper]

To tell you the truth in most fellowships you couldn't even bother with any system as the players are just loosely attached as a fellowship. Then the next level up, you are lucky to get 4 or 5 who will respond in a thread about swapping KP. They may also announce they are almost complete on an AW and X number of chests remain and they usually get claimed. After that there would be a few who are very organized in the game itself and most players respond to these systems of KP swapping. Finally you get the few fellowships that have outside sites that they respond to and organize that way. Obviously much more efficient but as you move up you note that each level requires more participation. Some fellowships are just happy to get players to compete in events let alone organize a system for trading KP most efficiently. The people in this forum have to understand that they are the top percentage of engaged players. There are a huge number of players who just don't care.

 

[Darielle]

Our method may not be the best, but it's the simplest. We have kp threads in 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 50 denominations. When someone wants to participate, then just go on one of the threads and say "Golden Abyss please" or whichever. Then they look at the message directly below theirs in the thread. This is the person they owe kp to. If that message says, "MM, please," then you simply pay their martial monastery whatever the amount of kP that the thread states. You have to pay them within 5 minutes of taking the thread. If you don't, it can be pretty easily seen. (And our people do watch. There's rarely an issue.)

By doing it this way, we avoid any mistakes with 2 people giving at the same time. Even if someone managed to get their message in as you were typing, it doesn't matter. You only look who is below you AFTER your message is placed. That way, the person directly below you is always the one you pay.

We have had people look at who was on the message thread, and then type their message, only to find that someone else had managed to get a message in while they were typing. If that happens, it's their tough luck if they paid the person two slots below their message. They still have to pay the one below their message. I always tell them to check after their message is posted, not before.

Can't get simpler than that. No spreadsheets, no waiting, no worries. I like it. And our AW swap threads are always active. It's rare to find something hasn't been taken within 24 hours; usually much less.

 

[Kadhrin]

Systems I've been in: single and multiple KP swap threads, self-fill with "chests available" shout-outs via chat, NetZero with tracking spreadsheet and announcement thread, "Favorite AW" KP dumps, combos of KP threads and shout-outs, round robin donations (alphabetical and ranking=>day of month), and probably a couple others.

These are not all mutually exclusive.

My preferred system, by far, is a NetZero variant; a Google Sheets spreadsheet tracks stuff, and a single message thread is used for initial "fill 'er up" requests. But that's not the only system in use. Sometimes there are "chests available" shout-outs via chat, usually for someone else's AW. A few folks' systems have difficulty with Google Sheets, and they use a self-fill with chat requests. "I've got a too many of these shards, here, have a bunch of KP" surprise gifts happen. Shard swaps are fairly common. Important note: This mix works only because the folks in the group are highly-engaged players.

In a group with less engagement, the KP swap threads seem to work best. Those who are more involved in the game dominate the threads, while others can participate as much or as little as desired. The gotcha is efficiency; there's often more time or typing involved. One way to minimize that is with a couple of threads for -lots- of KP, where the definition of "lots" depends on your players' city sizes. One group I'm in has a thread for 150 KP, while another group's max thread is 50 KP.

 

[crackie]

The introduction of runes for KPs has made a mess of our wonder society, but in a good way. It's not so much wonder society itself that is the problem, but the anti-pushing mechanism that KP locks people. A small group within our FS is not enrolled in wonder society for various reasons. One of them has been parked in chap 16 for awhile and has no more wonders for us to build. He does 20k in tourney though so his rune cache is obscene, as is his tourney KP haul. Their donations are all "free" in that they are not logged in the official ledger, BUT now they count towards the anti-pushing inflow/outflow. Players with big wonders end up KP locked because we fill them quickly so they are flooded with a lot at once. They have to dump more out to receive more, but a lot of those KPs are outside wonder society, which means they are accruing really high positive KPs to overcome the KP lock. We've asked the free range chickens outside the system to go help others instead to try to keep these late chapter players out of KP lock. Now we only have one person KP locked and the free rangers have built up the lower chapter players' wonders to lvl 30. Now we have 3 more lower chapter players that have no wonders for us to donate to either, until they build next chapter's wonders. Their KP credits are all very high since they're only donating out in the time being. Everyone else is in the negative because we cycle back to them really quickly. That means they're getting free wonders and then paying it off. But, nobody is complaining.

I think it's been an interesting social experiment. The concept of fairness is often brought up in regards to NetZero and Swap Threads, but that is based on the premise of scarcity from a limited supply of available KPs. You want to make sure you get yours. Our KP faucet is turned on full for everyone who wants their wonders built. There is an overflowing abundance of KPs so nobody feels the need to hoard. If you have KPs to give, you just give and it can be in any denomination. Bumping people in reward chests is inconsequential because it nets nothing as they are accounted for in the ledger. So yeah, our system got really broken and it's not fair, but nobody cares and nobody wants to switch to NetZero or Swaps. Overall, there's also been an slow, steady uptick in tourney ability. First they slowly get their feet wet into the 3000s, then 4000s and 5000s. Last week, someone broke 7k for the first time. More tourney also means more reward chests and more perks unlocked. Helping your teammates benefits everyone so they're willing to keep doing it even though it got a bit messed up by the runes. Even the mute members of the FS participate in wonder society. They don't have to say anything besides confirm their enrollment.

Maybe they need to submit their ticket in Limerick form?

Are you insinuating they have a sense of humo(u)r and appreciation for poetry over there? Wow, must have been some raging, chandelier-swinging holiday office party to have seen that side of them. It feels more like boot camp over there. It's hard to write a limerick when everything has to end with "Sir, yes, sir!" Plus, stirring up shenanigans over there feels like it's going to cost me 50 pushups, on top of cleaning smallest rooms with nothing but a toothbrush. I have feeble arms only in shape for typing!

 

[Mykan]

I always thought in Elvenar that it was wasteful to put your KP in your own AWs, because it takes away possible rewards from others who are giving & you get nothing for it, other than upgrading to the next level. Has this changed & I didn't notice? {very much possible}

Self-levelling has always been a very good option for levelling wonders, net-zero is a variant of self levelling. The idea of getting something is flipped with self levelling, the KP given to you is the gain, so any donation including interlopers is a gain. All it costs you is letting people know there are chests, whatever form that takes.

Our method may not be the best, but it's the simplest.

Can't get simpler than that. No spreadsheets, no waiting, no worries. I like it. And our AW swap threads are always active. It's rare to find something hasn't been taken within 24 hours; usually much less.

KP swaps aren't the simplest, by a mile. Self-level will always have that honour, drop kp in your own wonder with no consultation, work or anything else. KP swaps have certain benefits but if you give a lot of kp, ugh, that's a serious amount of work involved.

Levelling wonders is no different to tourny, spire or FA when it comes to fellowships. You find a group with similar thinking. As people use a system they get more familiar with it and it gets easier for them until it is second nature. All systems have a level of learning to a new player (to wonders) that takes time to learn and room to make mistakes (some handle those better than others).

 

[Killy-]

@crackie It is strange to see my favorite ressource kps changing into something useless that one just have. Quick question here, can I just donate my runes, kps etc. or at which point would that be considered pushing? I am not thrilled to get in trouble because the rules are wishy-washy.

 

[Wudana]

With net 0 you need to pay attention to who donates to your wonders. I am not that person so I choose the KP swap threads. Our fellowship uses both systems and they both have merit. Net zero is probably the most fair. Swap threads are the easiest to maintain UNLESS you have too many people trying to use them at once. That was our problem, 2-3 people posting at the same time, sorting it out got messy is they forgot to log out and check before donating. But with half the group now using net zero we have very few collisions.

 

[crackie]

It is strange to see my favorite ressource kps changing into something useless that one just have.

That’s why I said it’s been an interesting social experiment. KPs are fiat currency and its value is in the eye of the beholder. It’s your favorite resource KP based on your set of values and beliefs, but to someone else, it may hold little value to them, but has more value when given away. When Runes became KPs and FS Perks were introduced, we got ourselves a case of quantitative easing by the Inno central banks printing more KPs out of thin air, making KPs even more freely available.

Quick question here, can I just donate my runes, kps etc. or at which point would that be considered pushing? I am not thrilled to get in trouble because the rules are wishy-washy.

@helya can you confirm we are not operating push accounts under these situations:

You donate as much or as little as you want in whatever form you have them in and in whatever denomination, one of the benefits of wonder society.

You can’t sit and just collect KPs without donating out since you have to maintain your inflow/outflow to not get KP locked and whose wonder gets targeted is determined by the highest net balance in the ledger. However, the game has no limits as to how much KPs a player can give. Some people just have no wonders left to upgrade but they still have daily Perk KPs, hourly KPs if they are parked, AWPs from tourney rewards, and KPs/runes from doing tourney. It doesn’t make sense for them to just sit on them so they donate it out to the rest of the team. They aren’t feeding it to any one specific player only. They aren’t someone’s alt accounts. They are played by different people, often in different countries. They aren’t accounts for the purpose of giving out KPs. They are being played, climbing Spire, participating in tourney, and FAs. The game allows you to park your city. Some are parked in chap 16 bc that is a sweet spot if tourney is your thing. Some are parked at chap 3 because that is the sweet spot if Spire is your thing. The game encourages you to be selective about what wonders you build. Therefore, it’s not that unusual then for people to have no wonders left to build if they have been playing for years. Like I said, we now have lower chapter players with wonders maxed out to lvl 30 already too. They are still playing the game normally. We are just outpacing their wonders by how fast we are able to build them together as a group.

Wonder society lives and dies by the ledger. It's simultaneously both a blessing and a curse. You can bank an infinite amount of KPs to be spent later if you want. However, wonder societies are not insured by any sort of Elvenar Deposit Insurance Company so if the ledger goes kaput for some reason, it's a big uh oh! Most FS store it on the cloud via google sheets, a 3rd party entity and therefore not supported by the game. Clearly what we all need is decentralized Elvenar blockchains!

 

[Katwick]

With net 0 you need to pay attention to who donates to your wonders. I am not that person so I choose the KP swap threads.

One of the Really Nice Features of NetZero is the suggested price for each Award Chest. When the Owner has accumulated enough AW Instants to cover 80% of the level, and solicits SHORT TERM LOANS for the other 20% (plus a few Runes) it's really easy to tell if somebody got bumped because they will have paid more than the value of their chests.

• If it's benign, the Owner should simply drop the difference(s) into their favorite AW(s), plus 10 KPs if they lost a Rune.
• If it's malicious, the Owner can distribute say 50 KPs to EACH of the fair contributers, to be immediately added to their contribution. The sniper is now suddenly looking at a dead loss, and everybody else is all smiles.

A more subtle NetZero advantage is that the smaller cities (that need the Runes) aren't swamped by the larger cities (that don't).

Finally, Swap Schemes are clumsy, and your Contributions can ROT for days if not weeks, as compared to a NetZero LOAN for mere hours.

 

[helya]

can you confirm we are not operating push accounts under these situations:

By definition a push account is an account used to make unequal contributions ( Goods, knowledge, points, etc) to another account. If we see the fellowship is donating a lot of knowledge points to one player like a beginning player, we're not going to consider that pushing that needs to be punished. But, if we see that one player is using two, three, four, twenty five, different accounts specifically to put knowledge points into their own wonders or the ancient wonders of players in their fellowship, well, that's pushing. The same goes for goods. If you are harvesting goods with one account and then only taking zero star trades from it using with another account that's also pushing.

In order for an account to be considered being used for pushing, It needs to be a pattern of behavior, not a one-time thing or what obviously looks like helping out fellowship member.

I'm the person who is investigating all of the reports of pushing and I can say that I do know if you have several accounts that you're logging in with, even if you're trying very hard to be sneaky about it and I can see exactly what you're doing with those accounts and whether or not it's balanced.

I'm also a player so I know the scenarios where you might be giving somebody a little extra knowledge points or a little extra goods in your fellowship and that would not be punished.

 

[Killy-]

@helya Do you have an idea if the ruling is the same on all servers by chance? Including runes I have like 200k kps I don't need and I wouldn't be suprised if it would be considered pushing, if I gift them all to the same person (or however much that person can take). Well to be honest I myself would consider it as pushing, but other players do stuff that would be pushing in my eyes too, so I am trying to say, I don't understand Inno like always.^^

 

[helya]

@helya Do you have an idea if the ruling is the same on all servers by chance? Including runes I have like 200k kps I don't need and I wouldn't be suprised if it would be considered pushing, if I gift them all to the same person (or however much that person can take). Well to be honest I myself would consider it as pushing, but other players do stuff that would be pushing in my eyes too, so I am trying to say, I don't understand Inno like always.^^

It's unlikely another server would consider it pushing either unless it's also an account that belongs to you.

 

[Killy-]

@helya Thanks for the info, you are the best.

 

[Smooper]

My fellowship besides swap threads also pushes a different player each week. I am not so concerned with making everything fair as quickly as possible. As a fellowship we help each other out even if it may not benefit us directly. Having stronger fellows and a fun gaming environment will benefit the fellowship in the long run. Besides everybody gets a week getting pushed by the fellowship and I remind them in chat to be helpful.

Does anyone see a negative to this?

 

[Mykan]

One of the Really Nice Features of NetZero is the suggested price for each Award Chest. When the Owner has accumulated enough AW Instants to cover 80% of the level, and solicits SHORT TERM LOANS for the other 20% (plus a few Runes) it's really easy to tell if somebody got bumped because they will have paid more than the value of their chests.

• If it's benign, the Owner should simply drop the difference(s) into their favorite AW(s), plus 10 KPs if they lost a Rune.
• If it's malicious, the Owner can distribute say 50 KPs to EACH of the fair contributers, to be immediately added to their contribution. The sniper is now suddenly looking at a dead loss, and everybody else is all smiles.

A more subtle NetZero advantage is that the smaller cities (that need the Runes) aren't swamped by the larger cities (that don't).

Finally, Swap Schemes are clumsy, and your Contributions can ROT for days if not weeks, as compared to a NetZero LOAN for mere hours.

The downside of that very thing is the administration is moved from a small group to 25 players (same with swap threads). If all 25 people are doing the administering and understand then great, but considering the issues with FA and difficulty to "follow the blue path", I seriously doubt the system is as flawless as it is in theory. Granted one will never know though unless the over payments are reported, under payments are inherently more likely to be reported

I am in a net zero fs with a small town and I struggle to get runes, I just focus on them from tournament. Interestingly I have better luck getting runes in other self-levelling fs's that don't use net zero (unsure why that is, perhaps time will even it out more).

It's unlikely another server would consider it pushing either unless it's also an account that belongs to you.

There was an instance on Beta (I think) where they did have an issue with something like this. Person was tech locked and giving KP away to other people and got in trouble for it. They were just told to stop donating until they could research again. Was some time ago (years), as with some support matters it may just depend on your server and who you get. We are lucky we have Helya

 

[Katwick]

The downside of that very thing is the administration is moved from a small group to 25 players (same with swap threads). If all 25 people are doing the administering and understand then great ...

Crystal Lighthouse:
More NetZero loans for x 5 x x x, with 0 Runes.
540-341-5=194 out of pocket.

Watch Tower Ruins:
More NetZero loans for xx xx xx 5 5 5 5, with 0 Runes.
760-190-20=550 out of pocket.

Blooming Traders:
More NetZero loans for 7 5 10 7 5 5, with 0 Runes.
450-287-39=124 out of pocket.

You can have it both ways. Our Sparkplug sends private messages to grease the skids, which the Owners can simply copy into a Fellowship Message once they have enough out of pocket Instants to complete the level.

The Suggested Price, for each NetZero LOAN, is Major Magic, and it only gets easier as people clean up their act.

 

[Mykan]

The Suggested Price, for each NetZero LOAN, is Major Magic, and it only gets easier as people clean up their act.

Your still assuming people can "follow the blue path only". or do you have someone checking the donations as well as the owner?

 

[Katwick]

Folks don't have to be interested in Ancient Wonders but, if they are, a 20% discount is their's for the asking.

No matter how you camouflage it behind Swaps and Cooperation, the other 80% comes out of your pocket.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I am in a net zero fs with a small town and I struggle to get runes, I just focus on them from tournament. Interestingly I have better luck getting runes in other self-levelling fs's that don't use net zero (unsure why that is, perhaps time will even it out more).

Have you tried being proactive for runes you need?
A simple FS message of
"Hey guys, I need some runes for my Needles"
should get you a few players who are all willing to upgrade their needles next and will let you grab the top spot before listing it.
In a 10-chest FS you're getting well over 100 KP instants every week which means you should have enough bank to grab those top chests no problem.
Note that runes have a potential value of 15 KP each, so in most FS you would be expected to pay for those as well as the KP rewards when grabbing the top chest.

 

[crackie]

There was an instance on Beta (I think) where they did have an issue with something like this. Person was tech locked and giving KP away to other people and got in trouble for it. They were just told to stop donating until they could research again. Was some time ago (years), as with some support matters it may just depend on your server and who you get. We are lucky we have Helya

Absurd! What if the next tech doesn't even exist because you're in the last chapter? How is that the players' fault they have nothing else to use their KPs on? And yes, amen for helya!!!