Politician Archive
Thread: This 3 week voting cycle is broken (the numbers just don't add up)
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Malitevv
Sun Nov 28, 2004 5:15 pm
#1
I'm a new mayor. I am managing a new city from the ground up. As I mentioned in another thread, I'm having problems because I don't know when this 3 week voting cycle is going to happen.
But there is a more fundamental problem with this new 3 week voting cycle. That problem, as the title of this thread mentions, is that the numbers just do not add up. There is no way to make it work. The problem is this: my city is growing. I've got the 20+ residents to hit size 2. I've already past the city update and have reached size 2. And I am fast on my way to reaching size 3 if things continue on their current trends. All of my citizens are voting. I should be getting a lot of XP that I can then use to reward my citizens for their loyalty be giving them things like banks, vehicle garages, etc. But I cannot. The problem is that this new "enhancement" to the politician profession has put the voting cycle completely out of sync with the update cycle!
Giving me 3X the XPonce every 3 weeksaverages out to the same thing as getting regular XP every week in theory, but in practice it does not. For anovice politician the numbers do not work out correctly. Thenovice politician with a city that grows at a reasonable rate is going to end up loosing mass amounst of xp to thispoorly thought out and poorly designed 3 week voting cycle.
Take my example: I should be getting 2000 XP a week at a bare minimum with my current residency status. This would give me enough to learn 2/x/x/x politician and place a bank because I amless than 2000 XPshort of training a second level box. But no. Instead I have to wait 3 weeks. At that point I will be given 6000XP minimum (more than likely a lot more than that because by then I will have a lot more residents). The problem is that this will exceed my XP cap, and as a result a large chunk of my hard earned XP is going to be flushed down the toilet. There is nothing I can do do avoid this. The problem isn't going to happen because I am "hoarding" XP. The problem is going to happen because the server is hoarding my XP without my consent and refusing to give it to me in a timely fashion. This new system is designed in such a way that it is impossible for a politician to get his city to size 2 without loosing XP unless he trains his way all the way to level 2 or higher on multiple branches before he reaches size 2. That will not happen unless the city grows very, very slowly.
That sort of design is asinine and absurd. It makes no sense. Has anyone else noticed this? Is there any plans to make it more fair? As it stands the system is expressly designed to penalize new cities unfairly because it rewards XP in chunks so large that they exceed the inexperienced politician's XP caps.
To put it another way: it is just stupid to have an XP reward cycle that has a different frequency than the city update cycle. WIth the two cycles out of sync the number just don't add up.
In my opinion this needs to be changed ASAP. If it stays as is, it is theoretically impossible for my civic structure placement to keep pace with city growth.
Spaceballs: The Guild
Karal
Mon Nov 29, 2004 6:57 am
#3
Oh no, I didn't think about how it would cap out xp. This is so depressing.
Garllore
Mon Nov 29, 2004 7:29 am
#4
the xp cap on politician is around 10k, from what i remember a few months ago i sat on around 7200 at one point in time. but i may be wrong. but i am about 95% sure that the xp cap for politician is higher than 6k
Malitevv
Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:58 am
#5
If the xp cap is 20X as others have said it is in other threads, then that is a lot better. I searched around for info about a cap and couldn't find it before writing this thread, so assumed it would be similar to the others. That means I am a lot less likely to loss xp because of the delayed reward.
But I still think it is poor design to reward my city with advancement and then give me only 750XP to work with as an XP reward. 750 isn't enough to do anything. Forcing me to wait another 2 weeks after my city has advanced before I have enough XP to build a single city structure is still ridiculous.
I understand what the politician changes were for. I haven't been a politician for very long, but I've been aware of the issues for at least a year. Extending the voting cycle was never needed and delaying the XP reward for 2 extra weeks was certainly never needed. Even if they want to extend the voting cycle, there really is no need to delay all the XP for the end of the voting cycle. The XP from voting should still be granted weekly to whomever the incumbent is the way it always has. But personally, I think the vote should just occur weekly like it always has too.
StumanKadir
Mon Nov 29, 2004 6:02 pm
#6
The xp you receive under the new system is actually more than you would get over the same period under the old system, but the big rider on this is that this is only true if you have 100% participation rate in citizens casting votes.
The 750xp you get per week is designed to cover people going away, not logging in, forgetting to vote, etc. And to a degree this does work to your advantage for smaller cities (over time at least), but the benefits tend to scale off as cities get larger and the participation rate drops.
It's like most things in the game though, the concept is great, you can understand and agree with the reasoning for it, but its chances of actually working across the board are minimal and the changes are often detrimental to players who are just starting off in the profession.
The funny thing I have found though, is that now it is possible to easily changes Mayors, not that many people actually want to become a mayor owing to the other changes that came in (restrictive xp gains, the fact that it would be months before a new mayor could actually start to have an impact on the city like change trainers, change decorations, etc).
The devs gave us the swings and roundabouts we have been asking for for so long, but then decided to remove the seats from the swings and put sand in the bearings on the roundabout. We still have the play equipment but it just doesn't seem as much fun as what we thought it would.
The 750xp you get per week is designed to cover people going away, not logging in, forgetting to vote, etc. And to a degree this does work to your advantage for smaller cities (over time at least), but the benefits tend to scale off as cities get larger and the participation rate drops.
It's like most things in the game though, the concept is great, you can understand and agree with the reasoning for it, but its chances of actually working across the board are minimal and the changes are often detrimental to players who are just starting off in the profession.
The funny thing I have found though, is that now it is possible to easily changes Mayors, not that many people actually want to become a mayor owing to the other changes that came in (restrictive xp gains, the fact that it would be months before a new mayor could actually start to have an impact on the city like change trainers, change decorations, etc).
The devs gave us the swings and roundabouts we have been asking for for so long, but then decided to remove the seats from the swings and put sand in the bearings on the roundabout. We still have the play equipment but it just doesn't seem as much fun as what we thought it would.
Scoooter
Tue Nov 30, 2004 1:38 am
#7
Malitevv wrote:
If the xp cap is 20X as others have said it is in other threads, then that is a lot better. I searched around for info about a cap and couldn't find it before writing this thread, so assumed it would be similar to the others. That means I am a lot less likely to loss xp because of the delayed reward.
But I still think it is poor design to reward my city with advancement and then give me only 750XP to work with as an XP reward. 750 isn't enough to do anything. Forcing me to wait another 2 weeks after my city has advanced before I have enough XP to build a single city structure is still ridiculous.
I understand what the politician changes were for. I haven't been a politician for very long, but I've been aware of the issues for at least a year. Extending the voting cycle was never needed and delaying the XP reward for 2 extra weeks was certainly never needed. Even if they want to extend the voting cycle, there really is no need to delay all the XP for the end of the voting cycle. The XP from voting should still be granted weekly to whomever the incumbent is the way it always has. But personally, I think the vote should just occur weekly like it always has too.
It is more than you were getting before the patch unless you have 800 residents in your city
Malitevv
Tue Nov 30, 2004 1:44 am
#8
It is more than you were getting before the patch unless you have 800 residents in your city
No. It is not. On the very first week of having my city with the old systemI got enough xp to trainmy first skill box.
How much do you think I was getting before? It was 100 XPper resident before. 10 is the minimum number of people that can be in a city. 10*100 = 1000. 1000 is greater than 750. What sort of math are you using??
snash0902
Tue Nov 30, 2004 5:36 am
#9
The xp is capped?! OMG!! Okay, well I suppose that is good news in some respects as at least I wont have to worry about badgering any more of my citizens to vote! 
As for weekly updating, that is abit of a nightmare though isnt it? I mean you pay weekly for the maintenance and only get the xp every3 weeks. hmm, would have better to change the votes=xp on a weekly basis rather than tri-weekly!
Im sure the Dev's are hearing our crys and will make alterations to make us happy again 
*fingures crossed*
*fingures crossed*
bdwsrkob
Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:12 am
#10
Malitevv wrote:
If the xp cap is 20X as others have said it is in other threads, then that is a lot better.
I have nearly 30k xp banked...saving up to get master in one shot, i'm currently 2224, i think it'll cap before i get enough to get all7 skill boxes.
Mayor JoseCuervo - Kashyyykur, Rori - Corbantis
-AoWL - Army of Wookie Liberation
Malitevv
Tue Nov 30, 2004 1:54 pm
#11
StumanKadir wrote:
The xp you receive under the new system is actually more than you would get over the same period under the old system, but the big rider on this is that this is only true if you have 100% participation rate in citizens casting votes.
The 750xp you get per week is designed to cover people going away, not logging in, forgetting to vote, etc. And to a degree this does work to your advantage for smaller cities (over time at least), but the benefits tend to scale off as cities get larger and the participation rate drops.
It's like most things in the game though, the concept is great, you can understand and agree with the reasoning for it, but its chances of actually working across the board are minimal and the changes are often detrimental to players who are just starting off in the profession.
The funny thing I have found though, is that now it is possible to easily changes Mayors, not that many people actually want to become a mayor owing to the other changes that came in (restrictive xp gains, the fact that it would be months before a new mayor could actually start to have an impact on the city like change trainers, change decorations, etc).
The devs gave us the swings and roundabouts we have been asking for for so long, but then decided to remove the seats from the swings and put sand in the bearings on the roundabout. We still have the play equipment but it just doesn't seem as much fun as what we thought it would.
I know it is more xp in the long term if every one votes. But that is not really relevant. The problem is that all the XP from citizens voting is delayed for three weeks and then all three weeks worth of voting XP are delivered in one large chunk. That large chunk of XPcan easilyexceed the XP cap of a low level politician if his city is growing quickly! So even if everyone votes, it's going to be a lot less XP because it's going to give me more XP than is allowed under the XP cap.
Telling me it's actually more is like telling me you are going to give me 32 ounces of soda for the cost of only 20 ounces of soda. But then giving me a 16 ounce cup and pouring all 32 ounces in at once. Do I really get 32 ounces of soda? No. I don't. I get 16 ounces of soda in my cup. The other 16 ounces overflows the brim of the cup and ends up on the floor where I cannot drink it.
I don't want my XP dumped on the floor. I want to actually use it.
Any way. It is great that the system lets us change mayors more easily. But the 3 week voting cycle plays no role at all in the ease with which we are able to change mayors now.
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