Pathfinders - Swap Plus

[Katwick]

Cause the hardest thing in the game isn’t settlements, events, tourney, Spire, or FA. It’s bloody recruiting

Over the next several weeks you'll begin to see more and more promotional information about my current development project: Pathfinders - Swap Plus.

To stay on topic, Discord will be a dandy venue for Neighborhood Swap Plus threads.

Stated briefly:

1. If somebody in your neighborhood (Fellowship or Not) has some stalled AWs
2. And they're shotgunning small AW contributions throughout the neighborhood
3. And your Fellowship is doing a dandy job of leveling Fellowship AWs
4. Would they like to be included in your (mostly) Fellowship Swap Plus Threads for a while?
5. And if they're impressed by the Fellowship's effectiveness with leveling AWs, and vice versa,
6. Maybe they'd like to join the party and get involved in the Fellowship Adventure, Spire, and Tournament activities as well?

Can you spell PostgreSQL?

If you're curious about Swap Plus, take a glance at the Fellowship General Descriptions for the Pathfinders Fellowships in
us4-Khelonaar or zz0-Beta.

 

[Dhurrin]

Over the next several weeks you'll begin to see more and more promotional information about my current development project: Pathfinders - Swap Plus.

To stay on topic, Discord will be a dandy venue for Neighborhood Swap Plus threads.

Stated briefly:

1. If somebody in your neighborhood (Fellowship or Not) has some stalled AWs
2. And they're shotgunning small AW contributions throughout the neighborhood
3. And your Fellowship is doing a dandy job of leveling Fellowship AWs
4. Would they like to be included in your (mostly) Fellowship Swap Plus Threads for a while?
5. And if they're impressed by the Fellowship's effectiveness with leveling AWs, and vice versa,
6. Maybe they'd like to join the party and get involved in the Fellowship Adventure, Spire, and Tournament activities as well?

Can you spell PostgreSQL?

If you're curious about Swap Plus, take a glance at the Fellowship General Descriptions for the Pathfinders Fellowships in
us4-Khelonaar or zz0-Beta.

1 - not an issue
2 - happens a lot in my area on the map, but definitely no reason for me to get onto Discord. In fact, since I can send ingame messages to any player if needed, it is no reason at all.
3 - We do that just fine without Discord.
4 - We already kinda do that. Our KP threads at the moment have 38 names on them, out of the 50 one can max in an in-game message. And for some of us apart from that we keep in contact with some neighbours or otherwise known players through PMs anyway for swaps, so again, no need for Discord
5 - Basically the same argument as #4
6 - again more or less the same argument.

Btw, what the heck is an "AW-token"? Apparently it's not a Rune, so I assume you mean the KP-instants?
Just read the description. It all sounds nice, but needlessly complicated again.

And of course Inno can promote it all it wants. I'm not going to go on Discord. You could offer me 10K free diamonds and I still will not go on Discord. And most of my FS seems to feel the same way. There are a few members who are already on Discord and they may try to pass on relevant info.
As AM I feel kinda sad about this, as I usually made sure any important upcoming changes were passed on, but I guess those days are over.

 

[Katwick]

1 - not an issue

Stalled AWs, or for that matter AWs that tie up resources for more than a few days, are a HUGE lost opportunity. The more OFTEN your group gains 25%-40% of the value when an AW levels, the greater the benefit. Swap Threads are clunky at best, but they're awful if only a half dozen folks are participating.

Swap threads just drift along. The essential notion is that rowing will get you there much quicker than drifting, but rowing is more work of course, so there has to be a gratifying benefit/effort ratio.

At the moment there's a nice opportunity to take a close look at improving our tools and techniques.

4 - We already kinda do that. Our KP threads at the moment have 38 names on them, out of the 50 one can max in an in-game message. And for some of us apart from that we keep in contact with some neighbours or otherwise known players through PMs anyway for swaps, so again, no need for Discord
......

Restarting a message thread, EVERY time you want to add someone, is so much fun. ... Not!

38 people seems like too many people for a swap thread. The popular AWs may get immediate attention but, as you mentioned a few days ago, who's going to contribute to an AW when you'll just be awarded AW Instants plus some more Runes that you don't want?

Btw, what the heck is an "AW-token"? Apparently it's not a Rune, so I assume you mean the KP-instants?

I'd agree that the AW non-Rune awards are listed with the other Instants, so henceforth I'll refer to them as AW Instants. They're not usable in the Tech Tree, as an example, so calling them KP Instants would be too general.

Just read the description. It all sounds nice, but needlessly complicated again.

The act of naming something doesn't make it more complicated, but I would quite agree that "improvements" often aren't. So the real challenge is to develop and provide tools, and yes I regard Discord as a tool, that simply work better for more players.

And of course Inno can promote it all it wants. I'm not going to go on Discord. You could offer me 10K free diamonds and I still will not go on Discord. And most of my FS seems to feel the same way. There are a few members who are already on Discord ...

This is sort of Flavor Of The Month. There have been a number of forum threads complaining about the lack of World Chat, and about the clunkiness of the in-game messaging system.

I'm by no means a Discord expert, but I'm certainly no fan of BBCODE.

 

[Dhurrin]

Stalled AWs, or for that matter Aws that tie up resources for more than a few days, are a HUGE lost opportunity. The more OFTEN your group gains 25%-40% of the value when an AW levels, the greater the benefit. Swap Threads are clunky at best, but they're awful if only a half dozen folks are participating.

Swap threads just drift along. The essential notion is that rowing will get you there much quicker than drifting, but rowing is more work of course, so there has to be a gratifying benefit/effort ratio.

At the moment there's a nice opportunity to take a close look at improving our tools and techniques.


Restarting a message thread, EVERY time you want to add someone, is so much fun. ... Not!


I'd agree that the AW non-Rune awards are listed with the other Instants, so henceforth I'll refer to them as AW Instants. They're not usable in the Tech Tree, as an example, so calling them KP Instants would be too general.

The act of naming something doesn't make it more complicated, but I would quite agree that "improvements" often aren't. So the real challenge is to develop and provide tools, and yes I regard Discord as a tool, that simply work better for more players.

This is sort of Flavor Of The Month. There have been a number of forum threads complaining about the lack of World Chat, and the clunkiness of the in-game messaging system.

I'm by no means a Discord expert, but I'm certainly no fan of BBCODE.

Stalled AWs are just not an issue for us. The threads work fast, so the only time something gets stalled is if the ring needs to be filled. And whether someone feels it is a problem is up to that player himself. The threads do not get stalled.
And as I said, we have 38 people working them (well, 39, as I am sending them to 38 people) and we hardly ever have any issues with it being clunky.

Swapthreads move pretty bloody fast for us, they do not 'drift along'. We have 10 and I refresh them about once every 10 days. A bit less now that chap 21 is out and people are using KPs on the techtree.

Restarting the threads is not a big issue. It takes some time, sure, but it is nowhere near such a chore as some people seem to make it out to be. And everytime I want to add someone? We have a pretty good, stable group, even if it is spread out over several FSs, so once again, not something to happen that often.

But all this has less than nothing to do with Discord. [MOD EDIT] Split post and moved

 

[Katwick]

Why Are We Even Doing This

I'm still several weeks away from a Beta release for Swap Plus, but I've already written most of the "Why Are We Even Doing This" material. You're more than welcome to review the Google Docs Swap Plus write up.

It's very important to understand that Swap Plus isn't anything new, rather it's a formal structure for what folks have been doing all along, as they muddle through leveling their Ancient Wonders.

Swap Plus needs a couple of threads to call out AWs that are ready to level, and thereby solicit Round Robin contributions to release the Award Chests, which lowers the Average Cost of Leveling AWs by around 30%.

The "scary" database thing is something that's After The Fact, every week or so. It's best thought of as a Diagnostic Tool that's used as needed, and it's not at all a replacement for the Swap Plus threads.

As discussed earlier in this thread, chasing down the Outside Contributers should be an effective means of recruiting, and we'll also be able to provide some metrics regarding how well your group is "actually" doing, rather than depending on folklore.

I was well into the development of a Google Sheet for the (discretionary) collection of recent AW activity, but there was so much redundant information that I junked the spreadsheet approach in favor of a relational database, specifically Google Spanner using the PostgreSQL dialect.

Right now I'm busy catching up with the current State of The Art, but that won't take more than a couple of weeks.

 

[Katwick]

If you're curious about Pathfinders - Swap Plus, and the associated diagnostic database that will hopefully allow us to more easily Find and Rescue folks who are struggling with leveling their Ancient Wonders, you're encouraged to plow through the Project Concept Documentation that's available at https://tinyurl.com/SwapPlus, which includes the General Description for the Pathfinders - Swap Plus Fellowship.

We've now defined the Database Schema, which is a pretty decent means of defining our Scope. We're even including stuff like World Map Location, Goldmines, and Ignored Trades, Fundamentally we're after a better understanding of what DOESN'T work very well, and we intend to develop some metrices, rather than depending on Squeaky Wheels and Folklore.

As an example, we want to offer a standardized Trading Bundle of 2 Star Traded and then, as a Trading Metric, see how many of the offered Trades DID NOT clear within 24 hours. Here's a excerpt from the Schema:

3,12 Unclaimed Trades 24 hours after a standard bundle is offered​

The standard bundle has 54 mixed trades, with the default 2 star amounts.​

4*(1:1.5:2.25) = (4:6:9), but it’s easier to think in Quantities rather than Values​

(Just knock off a zero and click 6 icons, the computer does the two star math)​

​

Tx.1 Offer Boosted	And Then Demand Unboosted​	T1.2	T1.3	T2,2	T2.3	T3,2	T3.3
T1	9000 900 90	9000 900 90	9000 900 90	6000 600 60	6000 600 60	4000 400 40	4000 400 40
T2	6000 600 60	9000 900 90	9000 900 90	6000 600 60	6000 600 60	4000 400 40	4000 400 40
T3	4000 400 40	9000 900 90	9000 900 90	6000 600 60	6000 600 60	4000 400 40	4000 400 40

3.12.1 Combinations that DID NOT clear​

3.12.2 Owners who bought the trades that did clear (a link to 3.)​

• The Swap part is a pretty much a standard Round Robin arrangement; the only unusual aspect it that THE OWNER is required to bring the AW up to 50% before they post it in the Swap Thread. The reduced headroom largely eliminates problems with Pirates and Chest Bumping.
• The Plus part is simply a FORMAL way of dealing with additional contributions, and treating them as Loans, over and above the Swap Amount. The Loans are not even mentioned in the Swap Threads, and will be reimbursed if and only if a Award Chest is still owned when the AW levels.

The after-the-fact database stuff isn't really about the Swaps, per se. Rather, the database is about developing effective tools for following up on all of the Pirates, Shotgunners, and "Well-Intentioned" Neighbors who are jogging your elbow, and convincing them that Swap Plus is a more effective approach.

We've already established a Pathfinders Fellowship in all of the English speaking worlds, and we're pushing to get each of the cities to the end of Chapter IV and the AW technologies.

 

[Katwick]

Pathfinders

Enar's Embassy


09.24.2023

Draft

katwick@MarvLConsulting.com

Pathfinders - Compensation

us4 - Khelonaar

Elvenar


This document is available at

https://tinyurl.com/PathfindersCompensation​

 

[Katwick]

Overview​

The Pathfinders Fellowship is currently focused on the Development and Advocacy of a
Swap Plus

methodology for the cooperative leveling of Ancient Wonders,
Fellowship Cohesion,
and the Rescue of players who have resorted to Shotgunning and Piracy.​

The Knowledge Points that are required to level an Ancient Wonder may be regarded as the sum of three types of contribution:

1. 50% in Sunk Costs that are provided by the OWNER, at the outset.
2. 10%-25% in Secured Donations that are “paid back” when an Owner posts in a Round Robin Swap thread, and then immediately “pays back” the previous poster.
3. 40%-25% in Unsecured Loans that are a bit of a gamble, as they are only “paid back” if you haven’t been Chest Bumped.
   1. Note that, lacking Unsecured Loans, the most frequent posters in the Round Robin Swap Threads will win the Award Chests.

The Swap Plus methodology has three elements:

1. The OWNER must flag the candidate AW as their favorite, and then drop in 50% of the KPs that will be required for their next Ancient Wonder level, using mostly AW Instants that were accumulated while helping other Owners
2. Secured Donations are provided through the use of Round Robin Swap Chains, wherein you list your OWN favorite AW, and immediately “pay back” the previous poster.
3. Unsecured Loans may be contributed by anyone at any time, with the intention of claiming one of the Award Chests. It’s a bit of a gamble as you could lose the Chest Bumping game.

 

[Katwick]

The Owner​

While helping other Owners level their AWs, you will slowly accumulate Runes and AW Instants that can, and here’s the magic, can be used OVER AND OVER again while you are accumulating the points that you’ll need to cover 50% of the leveling costs for the next AW that you intend to post in the Swap Threads.

Jumping in at 50% dramatically reduces the opportunities for Piracy and Chest Bumping, declutters the Swap Threads, reduces cycle times to well under 48 hours and, most important of all, allows you to use the SAME AW Instants OVER AND OVER AGAIN while you’re accumulating your stash.

There are several ways to Move The Bar when leveling an Ancient Wonder.

• Runes are only worth 10 KPs in your own AWs, but are worth half again as much (15 KPs) when contributed to help somebody else.
  • While your first Rune Wheel only adds AW Instants to the Award Chests, the Rune Wheels for levels 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, & 31 add an additional Award Chest is added, with additional Runes and AW Instants. So when an AW reaches level 31, 28 more Runes will be added to the world when the Award Chests are distributed.
  • The gotcha is that there is a LOT of competition for the popular runes, while very few players will be trying to level the unpopular AWs.
  • When you are filling your Rune Wheels, it can be frustrating when half of your Rune Shards break BUT the Broken Shard Bar is GLOBAL, and when it’s full it’s a guaranteed hit in ANY of your Rune Wheels.
  • Let’s look at the odds of GETTING Broken Shards by using a JUNK AW. The odds of getting a Broken Shard are 0/9+1/9+2/9+3/9+4/9+5/9+6/9+7/9+8/9+9/9=45/9 so, on average, if you empty your Broken Shard Bar elsewhere, you’ll have more than four guaranteed slots. When the Rune Wheel on yourJunk AW is full, it’s a teardown. Rinse and Repeat.
• AW Instants from the Awards chests are only denominated 5&20 KPs, but 3s,10s,&15s are available from other sources. AW Instants may be used in any AW, and they can be stored indefinitely, which is decidedly not the case with raw Knowledge Points unless you’re willing to let your knowledge bar overfill, and forego the free 10 KPs per day.
• The free Fellowship AW Perks range from 0-10 KPs per day, but they are only valid when contributed to AWs owned by other members of your own Fellowship, use them or lose them, daily.
• And, especially when you’re Tech Locked. AWs of all sorts are a wonderful way to retain value.

 

[Katwick]

SWAP THREADS​

Several Swap threads will be available, for 5,10,15,20,&30 points. You may list the SAME AW is all of the threads, so long as you had enough headroom to accept all of the paybacks, AT THE TIME that you posted. You merely post your own (50% or higher) AW as the next message in the thread, and then “pay back” the previous poster by donating the swap amount to their Favorite AW.

If the AW is ALREADY leveled when you try to “Pay Back,” or if your contribution will finish off the Level for LESS than the thread amount, you just LUCKED OUT! The subsequent poster will “Pay Back” the full amount of the Swap thread. You’re happy, the Owner’s happy, and nobody else cares.

The in-game message threads will only accommodate 50 people, which is typically 20ish Fellowship Members (one click) plus a Cut and Paste list that you refresh whenever you want to add an associate.

• 30 KPs allows for 2 Runes
• 20 KPs allows a 20 point AW Instant
• 15 KPs supports AW Instants from events and other sources
• 10 KPs covers the daily Fellowship AW Instant, plus a few KPs if the Perk is not maxed out
• 5 KPs may be the best that you can do on a given day, if you need the KPs for your tech tree, and your AW Instants cupboard is bare.

It’s entirely acceptable, and safe, to simply drop in the thread amount every day, and ignore all the fuss and feathers about award chests. You may get a small chest here and there, for a bit of profit, but you’ll at least come out even with very little effort.

It’s also entirely acceptable to sponsor a surrogate who makes an initial post so that our associates on mobiles can then find the original post and button click the actual city, when the benefactor contributes on the surrogate’s behalf.

​

 

[Katwick]

Unsecured Loans aka Pirates, Shotgunning, and Chest Bumping​

Now it gets interesting.​

When everything works smoothly, the Owner gets a 25% to 40% discount on leveling their AW, immediately, and everybody else breaks even. The benefit is to the Owner, and you’ll get your discount when you post your own AW.

In addition to routine Swaps, you can use the Swap Threads as a shopping list, even if you don’t have an AW in play at the moment. Anybody, be they Pirate, Shotgunner, Chest Bumper, a “well intentioned” neighbor, or fumble fingers, can make an Unsecured Loan to any chest at any time.

You can make a routine Swap Contribution, AND add a goodly dollop of KPs to the AW if you’re so inclined. There is no need to note the extra contribution in the Swap Thread, nor does anyone incur an obligation. It’s strictly between you and the gnome that awards the chests. {We’ll drop the other shoe later.)

Let’s take a close look at the Award Chests. (This is an educated approximation, which we’ll fine tune as we accumulate more data.)

• Levels 1-5, 6-10 add 2 points of AW Instant, rounded up to a multiple of 5.
• Levels 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, 26-30,31-35 each add another Rune, with a value of 15 KPs, for the Rune Wheel, followed by 15/4 = 3.75 points per level for 4 levels, rounded up to a multiple of 5.
• The chests are awarded strictly on the basis of points that are donated by OTHER than the Owner.
• If you want to lock down a Chest, simply contribute enough points so that your lead is at least HALF of the points that your nearest competition can contribute without leveling the AW.
• This is why the 50% preload is so important.
  • The folks who have access to the Swap Threads can immediately jump on the Runes that they want.
  • There’s not enough headroom for a Pirate to do much damage, if they even realize that the AW has gone active.
  • You can pay a premium and nail down the top chest, but a better strategy is simply try for the 3rd chest.
    • It may well be that nobody else shows up and, if you continue to contribute in the Swap Threads, you may well float up to 1st place.
    • But it’s more than likely that somebody else will want the chest more than you do, to the benefit of the Owner.

 

[Katwick]

But what about the other 10,000 AWs that aren’t in your Fellowship?​

The Pathfinders Fellowship is developing diagnostic tools that support our Advocacy for the Swap Plus methodology. In particular, we’re developing a Google Spanner database that uses the PostgreSQL dialect, and runs in the cloud. Members and Alumni of the Pathfinders Fellowship will be have editorial privileges in their areas of responsibility.Some of the obvious assignments would be:

• Their Home Fellowship, and the Donors thereto.
• Their Neighbors, and the Donor’s thereto.
• Pathfinder Rescue missions, when a Fellowship needs Remedial Support or an Orphaned City is hurting for lack of AW leveling support, and the Donor’s thereto

For Free​

A Pathfinders Fellowship has been established in all 12 English Speaking worlds and, wherever native language support is available, it will be easy to add more worlds.

For each world, the Pathfinders Fellowship will sponsor a free world-wide report that lists ALL of the active (Swap Thread) AWs that the Pathfinders Fellowship is tracking at the moment. The report will be automatically updated every five minutes, and will be available to anyone who knows the URL.

Fellowships and Individual Owners may opt out, whereupon they will not be mentioned except when they are Donors to AWs that are happy to be included.

 

[Astram]

Due to the Specific nature of this thread I am moving it to the Khelonaar forum and will monitor it there.

 

[Elovios]

Hello @Katwick ,

This operation is legal, until the "not for free" part

Not For Free​

The Pathfinders Fellowship will develop and customize any report that lendsitself to Fellowship Cohesion or that benefits our Rescue, Recruiting, and Advocacy efforts.

Google Cloud Services are charged out at around $1.00 per hour for Processing, Storage, and Network Access. Pathfinder Diamonds may be purchased, and used for access to these resources. To the extent feasible, the consumer price will be TWICE the Google Rate for your portion of the resources. The 200% will be allocated as follows:

• 50% directly to Google, to pay the bills
• 20% directly to the Pathfinder Members and Alumni who are gathering data for their areas of responsibility. In effect this is will be a deep discount for the Fellowships who are able to pull their own wagon.
• 15% for Research and the Development of new capabilities
• 10% for Swap Plus Advocacy and Handholding
• 05% for Stakeholder discretion

Do let us know if you would like to get involved.

Please read parts of the game rules and the InnoGames contract you signed when signing in:

It is not allowed to exchange in-game items for Diamonds or outside benefits (such as money, vouchers etc.).

Specifically for Elvenar:

§4 Account trading
It is forbidden for accounts to be involved in any commercial activity.
It is not allowed to sell, buy or offer accounts or parts of accounts (resources, Diamonds, Knowledge Points etc.) in exchange for Diamonds, real money or any other outside benefit.

It is not permitted to use your account for profiting. This includes not only selling parts of accounts, but also "services". We hope you understand.

Have a nice rest of your day/night.

 

[Katwick]

I just reworked the tactics for Swap Threads, and it looks like I'll be out of pocket for the database expenses. Advertisement are apparently OK, but I don't want to go there.

It's likely that the fancy reports will only be available to the folks who are doing the heavy lifting.

<Revision>

• You may Cover and "Pay Back" on any ONE of the Swap Threads. When you click on their (prior) post their Favorite will be leftmost. Contribute your mite and move on. The preferred format is very simple, just the current bar with an abbreviated name: 135/250 GA
• If any of the Swap Threads are more than 24 hours old, you may Cover & Contribute your same Favorite to them as well.
• If any of your OWN posts are more than 48 hours old, switch Favorites and Cover your previous post. There's no need to repay yourself, but neither should you repost that same AW. Finish it off yourself.
• If you don't have a backup favorite simply post that it has aged out. Your replacement gets a free pass.

If you cover a Swap Thread but then discover that it (has already leveled or) is too full, Lucky You! Contribute just the remaining amount and finish off the level.

 

[Katwick]

Not a surprise at all. I'll rework the verbiage to indicate that the coin of the realm is blood, sweat and tears, and that somebody in each Fellowship has to be involved in gathering the data if they want the benefits.

 

[Katwick]

Pathfinders - Reading List

If you occasionally wish to see where we are with our Swap Plus project, our Reading List will help you find things.
It’s also accessible by using … TinyURL.com/SwapPlusReadingList

Here's a teaser

Turnover and Velocity​

These Hero’s Forge level 6 0/500 Award Chest claims are EQUIVALENTS!!
The Owner’s contribution is underlined.

• 500 = 494 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 +1 Fast Shout Out
• 500 = 330 + 60 + 40+ 30 + 25 + 10 + 5 NetZero
• 500 = 250 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 6*25ish Swap Plus
• 500 = 020 + 80 + 80 + 80 + 80 + 80 + 80 Simple Swap
• 500 = 020 + 80 + 80 + 80 + 80 + 80 + 80 Wonder Society
  Like Simple Swap, except that everybody PILES ON a designated AW
• 500 = 000 + 143 + 119 + 95 + 71 + 48 +24 Math Freak
  500 = 500 * ( 6+5+4+3+2+1 +0 )/21
  
  
• WHY are you hanging on to more than 16 Runes of any AW type??
• WHY are you letting Knowledge Points stack up at the top of your screen,
  and foregoing 20 KPs per day?