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

[Killy-]

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

Well I play in hell, or how we call it, the german server.

 

[SoulsSilhouette]

call me old fashioned, but I like the swap threads. The other thing is, when someone is really needing runes, I choose to upgrade that AW so they can get them. If someone says they want to push one of their AW's , then we push it. I barely have time to come here and complain, how on earth would I manage a spreadsheet? LOLOL

 

[SoggyShorts]

The other thing is, when someone is really needing runes, I choose to upgrade that AW so they can get them.

Yeah, this is great in Nwt0 because you can guarantee that they will get the top spot and it costs them nothing.

I barely have time to come here and complain, how on earth would I manage a spreadsheet? LOLOL

Some things are worth spending the time on- I mean complaints, not spreadsheets!
The whole reason why I brought net0 into our FS is that I'd helped record over 10,000 wonder levels in WS spreadsheets and that was enough for a lifetime. Swaps are ok, but they're almost the same work as net0 (often more) and the reward distribution is... let's say "not even."

 

[Smooper]

We only get about 4 people participating in swaps. Everyone else just goes around random. Sometimes their is a shoutout and that will get results. No way Net0 would have a chance in my fellowship. Its a quiet fellowship, people just play their style and luckily we get blueprints but that is not really that hard with a dozen engaged players.
Edit: If there is a style of AW KP sharing that has no responsibilities for the donator then my fellowship would probably do that one.

 

[SoggyShorts]

We only get about 4 people participating in swaps...... No way Net0 would have a chance in my fellowship.

You don't actually need a FS to do Net0, nothing stops you from joining the Net0 swap of another FS, just message and ask- they have no reason not to add you.

Edit: If there is a style of AW KP sharing that has no responsibilities for the donator then my fellowship would probably do that one

To my knowledge, there is no system that requires "nothing" from the donators. A wonder society comes close by putting almost all of the (rather substantial) administration duties to the AM (and helpers if any) but even then the donators do need to at least open the messages and pick the right wonder, and be careful not to fill it completely if chests are still available.

 

[crackie]

To my knowledge, there is no system that requires "nothing" from the donators. A wonder society comes close by putting almost all of the (rather substantial) administration duties to the AM (and helpers if any) but even then the donators do need to at least open the messages and pick the right wonder, and be careful not to fill it completely if chests are still available.

Yup. But the main responsibility of participants is to NOT upgrade your wonders until it is logged. At least the US market support will assist with snafus, but my US FS does swaps. We've had a few oopsies, usually with newcomers not used to waiting to upgrade and get over-eager that their wonders are already done, so at least we all expect it to happen with new players. If they do it too often, then I have to threaten to boot them from the system because we can't be losing people's KP credits. Then they will shape up real quick because nobody wants to go back to swaps. It is the highest participation though out of all the FS I've ever been in. Even the mute ones that do not chat and do not reply to messages participate because they don't actually have to reply to msgs. Our wonder society is 20 strong and rest are free range chickens. But again, the Runes for KP really made a mess of things. We're going so fast now that it feels like a Ponzi scheme. lol. We throw up like 6 targets for Saturdays alone because of the post-tourney reward AWP rush. I can't imagine what happens if we ever reach 19th chest.

 

[SoggyShorts]

But again, the Runes for KP really made a mess of things. ....... We throw up like 6 targets for Saturdays alone because of the post-tourney reward AWP rush.

Oof I'm so glad we switched away from WS before the rune change- we were doing 6 a day before the change, I would have lost my mind recording everything. There were so many actual times when we wanted to go to bed or out or whatever and instead we had to check all 3 cities to make sure there were open wonders or at least a couple of backups posted so people could dump KP.
Losing sleep to fill in a spreadsheet...shoot me in the face.

Note: there is apparently a way to automate at least some of teh WS stuff now

 

[BrinDarby]

I'm a convert to Net-0, and I have never built any AWs....
between personal or event tasks that ask to spend KP, which
pretty much means donate AWKP, or FAs where you dump
chunks for badges, there's always times donating is need'd.

Pay for the chests ya want, and if you donate less... know you'll
prolly get knocked down to what you already spent.....

Shoutouts are usually bargain times, and 1st come - 1st serve.
If you've already paid for the top chest and wanna donate more
I see no reason not to, you're not hurting anyone else.

 

[SoulsSilhouette]

@SoggyShorts But...... there is always a but..... how does the new rules about donations impact that way of donating to a wonder? I'm often locked out of my old neighborhood friends AW's. We have a chat going on, and we always shout out to one another when we are pushing a wonder for upgrade, and sometimes we can't help one another. It's annoying. So I'm wondering if joining another fellowship's group like that would even work now?

 

[crackie]

Oof I'm so glad we switched away from WS before the rune change- we were doing 6 a day before the change, I would have lost my mind recording everything. There were so many actual times when we wanted to go to bed or out or whatever and instead we had to check all 3 cities to make sure there were open wonders or at least a couple of backups posted so people could dump KP.
Losing sleep to fill in a spreadsheet...shoot me in the face.

Note: there is apparently a way to automate at least some of teh WS stuff now

We officially only do 2 updates per day, though what counts officially as a "day" is fuzzy math. We span 4 continents and there are 2 official book keepers on the far ends of the time zone spectrum, with a 3rd for emergencies only. If I'm swinging through and see someone's wonder done, I will log it quickly if I know they'll be on soon. Sometimes, they might flag me down to tell me their wonder is done. It prob gets updated more than the official 2, but expectations are at 2. For the most part, this wonder that's done and sitting around waiting to be logged would have otherwise taken them maybe 1-3 weeks to build on their own, but now only takes 1 day or less. Hence, I'm not staying up or missing dinner so they can upgrade their wonders. They can wait a day for it to be logged and they'll still come out way ahead.

Wonder Society probably has the highest upfront cost in that someone has to figure out how to run the ledger, which in most cases is enough to turn most people away, esp if people in their FS can't even figure out swap threads. My mage that helps track is an AM in another world. Once she tasted how it worked, she converted her FS to wonder society. And that's the fun part of fellowships. I taught her about wonder society and the effective use of the broadside of a fish. She taught me how you can build a ridiculously efficient catering city with only 9-plots. There's always something new to learn!

 

[Katwick]

If you've already paid for the top chest and wanna donate more
I see no reason not to, you're not hurting anyone else.

It's a very minor quibble, but you'll be slower off the mark if folks want claim some chests that they want from your next level.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

@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.^^

These days there is a system for KP anti push (and indirectly an anti wondersearch) system is in the game itself.

When you see a warning in a players wonder that you cannot give KP because he/she already recieved to many KP that player has either pushed, or has searched to many wonders

Since I am a wonder searcher on the dutch server and I earn too many KP because of that I am also locked out from recieving KP in my wonders from other players.

 

[Killy-]

These days there is a system for KP anti push (and indirectly an anti wondersearch) system is in the game itself.

Sure, but just because the system says stop at some point doesn't mean it can't be pushing before that.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Sure, but just because the system says stop at some point doesn't mean it can't be pushing before that.

It puts a hard stop at how much you can push,

It's not easy to decide when something is too much or not, the system is in essence already working as a referee.
There are so many ways you can obfuscate a push so that it's near impossible to track.

If I want I can push as much as I like without you seeing any proof of it ever, a plain old example I have seen pushers do is removing the road connection from a wonder unless they are pushing. this means you have seconds to detect a push making it pretty much invisible. expecially since you need to see something many times over. an incident can't be called a push.

This system doesnt care, it just tells that you cannot gain more KP from wonders / players than your wonders/players give away.
You can use many different accounts (most extreme example I have seen was more than 150 accounts), use multiple IP adresses and computers, keep the wonder off connection, play with wonder rewards ect.

Once you get past a certain treshold you are locked out of recieving KP, since there is some leeway in the system some push to a certain degree is "tolerated", at the same time there is the "shame effect" of the warning. unless people know you are a wonder searcher they will call you out for pushing as there is a big fat red mark on all your wonders saying this person pushes!

Fun part of the system is that wonder searches are able to get you into negative numbers. I probebely never ever will get out of the warning ever again since each wonder I have gotten where I got more than I invested gets my allowed KP limit down and down and down. past 2 months I havent searched any wonder and spend hundreds of KP at others and I am still miles away from being able to recieve KP again.

 

[Killy-]

@CrazyWizard Well, nothing of all that has anything to do with my situation. I just want to donate my kps and my fs members are able to get thousands kp each before the system will do anything. That still doesn't says anything about it. I can see this beeing ruled pushing or not, the rules aren't clear at all imo.

 

[Mykan]

When you see a warning in a players wonder that you cannot give KP because he/she already recieved to many KP that player has either pushed, or has searched to many wonders

To assume that message means pushing or searcher only is not accurate. While these are the 2 likely cases it is also possible the person has just received more help than given and not due to pushing. I have seen this several times in the past and there was another thread recently talking about this and Helya said (at least for US) that it would not generally be called pushing.

Because the game has encouraged people to park towns or limit AW builds it is common now for people to have "maxed" out AW's. Those same people often wish to still help others and provide the extra kp they receive hourly and from tournaments. This can easily put people over the limits. There are other non-push scenarios as well but these tend to be smaller amounts and over time are less likely to cause the message but I would not auto-assume a pusher with that message.

 

[SoggyShorts]

But...... there is always a but..... how does the new rules about donations impact that way of donating to a wonder? I'm often locked out of my old neighborhood friends AW's.

Not a problem with net0. Chest rewards are deducted from the anti-push balance mechanic so as long as players are finishing off wonders after all chests are claimed and not leaving multiple wonders at 80%-99% full there is no issue.

 

[Yavimaya]

Well, for someone with no experience, my personal opinion is a kp swap thread. You make seperate threads, in the subjects of them you can pick the numbers like 5kp thread, 10kp thread, 15, 20, 30, 50 kp threads and so on. Whatever you want. The first person starts out by donating to someone just to start by saying let's say in a 20kp subject thread, "20kp to (insert name of player donating to), (then name of aw they want next person to add to their kp). Then whoever wants to goes in same thread of how many kp they would like to donate and say the number "20kp to (insert the name of the player that commented above them), (name of aw they want next kp in their own donated to)"
So for example I have 20kp I want to donate. I go in and look at the last person that commented. I type in "20kp to(above player name), GA pls." Next person to comment would donate 20 to my GA. This is easy for me to understand but maybe only bc its the only way I've ever done with the fs ive been in. I try to slowly read the other threads on here and really have a hard time understanding how the other methods work. But don't have to as of now thankfully as my fs doesn't use those ones right now. About every month we have to delete them and start new ones as they get too full, so you type delete! as a comment so they know to delete then in the newly made thread type how many kp and who it is to go to next. Tell everybody in group chat to avoid the kp threads until they are updated and ready to go

 

[crackie]

If I want I can push as much as I like without you seeing any proof of it ever, a plain old example I have seen pushers do is removing the road connection from a wonder unless they are pushing. this means you have seconds to detect a push making it pretty much invisible. expecially since you need to see something many times over. an incident can't be called a push.

Ultimately, the only judgement of pushing that matters comes from Support and they can see everything from the backend logs regardless of road connection hacks or not. So if you suspect someone is pushing and it's really bothering you, then you can prob just report them for pushing and have Support sort it out.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Well, for someone with no experience, my personal opinion is a kp swap thread........This is easy for me to understand but maybe only bc its the only way I've ever done

Swap threads aren't terrible, they're just not as good as other methods in most categories. For example, when compared with Net0 they don't really hold up IMO:

Ease of understanding

• In Net0 it's going to be a mixed bag, for sure. Some people grasp it immediately, others require some coaching. For the hesitant, one of the simplest ways to teach is to have them pick one of their own wonders and immediately add it to the target thread. Let them watch as the chests get taken and when all chests are all reserved for "face value" the owner can top it off. If they are still uncomfortable they can keep watching others' wonders in the system for a while (and dump excess KP into their own wonders up to about 50%) until they "get it".*
• In swaps, I assume people grasp it right away. It's more of a danger that they'll grasp it too well and question(or even abuse) the flaws listed below.

Spoiler: *Another explanation I had great success with was using shout-outs:

"You know how Dave doesn't want to do wonder systems so he just posts "5 free chests on my Needles" in chat?"
- Yeah...
"Well, how nice would it be for Dave if we all bought those 5 chests for the same amount as the KP rewards?"
-Okay...
"And then what if we ALL did that for each other? That's Net0.

We actually ended up converting 2 "Daves" to Net0 because when they did their shout-outs in chat we naturally did just that and told them that we really don't mind if the only thing they do in Net0 is posting their wonders in the thread instead of chat-- it costs us nothing.

Amount of typing needed:

• In Net0 there are 2 total messages per wonder (or fewer)
• In a swap thread, a wonder that is filled 5 KP at a time could require more than 200 posts. Even the 20KP threads require 50+ posts per wonder.

Total messages:

• In Net0 there is 1 admin thread, and 1 target thread for a total average of around 2 posts between them per wonder level.
• In swaps, there are either hundreds of posts per wonder or several wonder threads each with dozens of posts each.

Distribution of rewards:

• In Net0 the wonder owner gets a ~36% discount and everyone else breaks even.
• In swaps, the top contributors make a massive profit on their contributions, but anyone not in the top 7 gets absolutely zero rewards. This greatly skews things in favor of advanced members who have more KP to contribute. It even creates a cycle where they get more rewards which give them KP to get more rewards.... etc

Speed of use (quick dump):
(If you don't have much time and just want to log in, collect/reset and dump KP, or if you just cranked out a bunch of tournament provinces)

• In Net0 you open any wonder in your city and dump getting a ~36% discount on it later.
• In a swap, you open messages, pick a thread, type, open FS, open wonder, donate, and repeat until the KP bar is empty. If no one is online you might fill all KP threads and have to resort to self-donating for zero gain or lose hourly KP.

Sniping (outsiders getting rewards):

• In Net0 interlopers can't make a profit so they very rarely happen and if they do you can either bump them down to nothing for free KP or payout your FS members appropriately if they got bumped.
• In swaps, snipers have no chance if you have 3+ big contributors and 3-4 medium ones with zero self-donations. If there are fewer active members in the swap then the bottom chests are easy pickings for snipers or could simply be lost to the void. If you have too many small contributors then the top chests could become very profitable targets.

Math:

• In Net0 you need to know how to multiply by 5, 20, and sometimes 15. (calculators, spreadsheets, ouija boards, taking off your socks, and dusting off the old abacus are allowed)
• In swaps, you might need to count to 5.