Remove Macro Incentive

Suggestions
1

I’m going to start this off by saying I am a big fan of Tower Unite. Loved it ever since GMT. I’m going to be serving up some harsh browns here though so please don’t take this personally, I’m saying it out of my love for the game.

This problem isn’t about players using macros. It’s about some poor design choices that have gone into the achievement system. You’ve defended this practice, “oh it’s not meant to be a grind, it’s a gradual thing”. This argument is counter-productive and the sooner this mindset is dropped the better. If it’s a gradual thing, why are all these rewards listed in an achievement book?

These players see a cool thing and they want to get it. Then they realise that in order to unlock these rewards they have to sit around in lobby for up to 32 (!!!) hours. Now if that doesn’t scream “There’s a problem”, you’re just being obstinate.

Let’s take a look at some problematic milestone rewards;

  • Firework Launcher
  • Text Hat
  • Player Glow (Broken, but it will be if it gets fixed)
  • Falling Money
  • Throwable Units
  • Throwable Wheel of Money
  • Throwable Drink
  • Throwable Popcorn

There’s a pattern here. All of these items affect the lobby, and all can rewarded for doing nothing. Some items are expected by players like the Text Hat.

All of the hats in this game you are able to buy with units, why should this be any different? I’d sure as hell rather spend 1 million units on a text hat than a joke paper crown. It would also allow it to be seen as a decent accomplishment. Same deal with the Falling Money except it’s a particle.

The roller coaster, Ferris wheel and jet pack unlocks are great, offering things for the condo and alternate versions of an item you can already buy. This is where the unlocks should be focused on.

The items that should be removed from the list will need to be replaced though. How about more miniatures? The Tower Unite Fountain would be a good start. Maybe the water slide and the lighthouse would fit too? Sick of miniatures? Make rewards of the size potions that aren’t consumed, never spend a unit on potions again, it may be negligible but it’s a nice little thing to have.

Replace those casino unlocks with condo versions of the machines! Worried that people will leave the casino and gamble in their condo? Make it visual only like the spin to win reward.

The theatre store is… A bit under stocked to say the least. The Theatre rewards belong here. To be honest, I don’t think the theatre needs milestone unlocks. The trophies alone are fine.

Sorry this post was so long, I didn’t want to say “THERE’S A PROBLEM” and not offer any solutions. In the end I’m sure this will be addressed eventually, as I believe you folks at Pixeltail just want to create a fun and complete experience for everyone.

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eh i still dont like the suggestion

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what do you mean by the potions? they aren’t consumable at all, you only buy them once.
there’s hats that you can get without money (bunny ears, lazer tag, soon the fish bowl)
and how are the throwables a problem at all? those are lobby and condo items too, as well as the firework launcher, the text hat, the player glow…

you can’t buy anything like the ferris wheel or coaster either, i’m really not sure what kind of point you’re trying to make with so many things that don’t add up

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6

instead of saying ‘‘read the post’’ can you try explaining it a bit better?
we already have and we’re both confused as you see

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do like a tl:dr version of it

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i have, and i’m saying that you have a lot of inaccuracies in your post
inaccuracies that are contributing to your suggestion, no less

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10

It’s a design problem. Don’t design a game that makes people have to macro. This is skipping a lot that I went over in the main post.

11

i just wish there was another way to earn plaza exp rather than waiting for so long,
currently it feels like im just trying to waste time in plaza to try and get them.

so instead i think there should be more ways to get plaza exp rather than just “not being afk in plaza for an amount of time” which can get boring extremely quick and make someone consider macroing A LOT more,

add more ways to get exp and reduce the amount of EXP for not being afk so it means doing the tasks proactively will be worth more exp than just macroing or not being afk?

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12

Just because you can’t restrain yourself from cheating doesn’t mean there’s an inherent problem.

I don’t understand your point here. They’re listed as rewards because they are rewards.

The solution to this is not “sit around doing nothing for 32 consecutive hours”. The solution is to play the mini-games in the plaza with breaks inbetween. This is likely to change once the Fishing and Arcade systems are in the game, as they will be good activities to sink time into.

This has already been pointed out - potions aren’t consumed in TU.

Attempting to cheat games is a very common part of the human psyche. Whenever there is something to be earned, somebody will try to cheat it. There is not much that can be done about this except discouraging cheating everywhere you can.

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This is another solution too, though not one I quite agree with, make being in the plaza for 32 hours viable. Fishing could be the boost plaza needs but really it can only do so much. Make a variant of the egg hunt that gives plaza xp maybe.

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The goal with these items are to show off and show the players who have played Plaza, Casino, and Theater the most. For example Player Glow was originally a VIP only feature in GMT and once it’s done, it’s designed to be something that players who are playing on Plaza a lot will use.

I wanted to make the milestones something that’s different from just unlocking them with units. I don’t think they should be removed as milestones.

Macroing is quite hard to design around - you can macro anything if you are up to the challenge, doesn’t mean we allow it though. For example if I were to change the items to be in the store, you could just macro games instead and get a ton of units and get them.

Miniatures to me have a way less impact due to workshop. You can just load in anything now, so they don’t seem like good rewards in my opinion, which is why I tried to come up with items that would be worth spending time. Also, potions are never consumed, they are infinite use.

Plaza and Casino exp aren’t meant to be a grind, you get them while spending time in Plaza playing the games that Plaza has to offer. Plaza will continue to have more and more games and you’ll still get EXP regardless of what activity you are doing.

Theater milestones are only small because I didn’t think it would be wise to have a ton of them for that activity as you can get the theater features in your Condo, making the theater less popular.

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15

i think that once a lot of the big things are done and added to the game like fishing and accelerate,

you should add a multiplier thing that will see if you are playing typing derby and such and will increase the exp payout by a lot more (whilst also giving out small amounts of EXP when you play them) then if you dont do anything in the plaza for a while the exp giving will be a lot less meaning macroing jump will give hardly any exp compared to someone who is going around playing stuff in the plaza. that way if you macro it will just be a waste of time.
i think something should be added to incentivise people to play stuff, and to not reward people as much for just having no effort and pressing a button every so often just to get the same as someone who is actually giving effort playing

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16

One possible solution I think would work well would be to reduce the EXP earned by time (current method) and add EXP payouts based on other EXP payouts like Trivia (for example).

The scenario would be: play trivia, earn 400 EXP for trivia, earn 200 EXP for plaza because of your trivia EXP just earned.

That way you earn EXP over time and also earn EXP for playing games. The only issue is that this doesn’t solve Casino or Theater. To be honest, Theater might be a lost cause as every aspect of that activity is nearly impossible to determine if they are watching anything actively.

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A simple afk checker like casino could work, all though somewhat intrusive?

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19

what about giving exp for when you add videos to the theatre video list and also for up-voting and down voting videos (the up voting and down voting will be hardly anything though the adding videos will give more?)

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20

Clearly what we do is at the end of every YouTube video it does a pop quiz asking you in detail what you just saw and our developers sit around all day grading their quizzes.

Anyways, I think an AFK check would be a bit intrusive. This is also why the items in Theater aren’t life changing items. They’re just small fun things. I wanted the popcorn to be an item instead of a milestone, but I also wanted Theater to have stuff you can earn. In the end I went with milestone.

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21

People would just flood add videos for days.

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No no, better idea, you have to log into your youtube account, comment what you saw, and then wait for it to be submitted into review before you can get your EXP.

but yeah, intrusive for sure. doing theater exp for that projector was absolutely worth it, I had fun watching streams in there even if I was alone :blush:

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23

damn i think no matter what you do it will make theatre spammed or people just be afk :confused:

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