Suggestions

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The idea behind Dom is solid. Weight exalted dragons by number of active clans. The numbers they use might need a little tweaking, I don't know since I can't see those, but the idea is good.

The problem is with the culture that's developed on FR, and how individual flights approach Dom. Some flights are militant about it, others rarely bother, and that leaves some players feeling frustrated when they find themselves not getting Dom bonuses as frequently as other flights. There's no real way to fix that without serious mod meddling, which is a bad idea. Weighing exalted dragons by a flight's interest in Dom is just going to lead to people switching all over for those, requiring new changes to account for the people who moved, and on and on until it's a huge mess.

I mean, Shadow - one of the largest flights IIRC - is doing good at Dom right now! It's only struggling with beating out Earth, and Earth is broken, so it's not like the Dom system is super unbalanced on the whole. If it was, they'd be getting trampled by Plague and Light and all the other "dom-heavy" flights. But they're able to take first (again, disregarding Earth) when they decide to push for it, so they're really not weighed down that badly by size.

TL;DR in this instance, it's the player culture that needs to change, not the game mechanics.

(Now, Earth is a whole other beast, and I'll take a second to reiterate my big point about that: if Earth were given more aesthetic attention, it wouldn't be such an unbalanced powerhouse. As it is, very few people are drawn to what seems to just be the Dirt Flight, leading to it being small and hence, very powerful when it comes to exalting. If non-exalters were prompted to move there for things other than Dom benefits (and that's a very small portion of the population, the benefits are too small to really outweigh someone's opinion on Flight aesthetics) it would be more balanced.)

While I agree the dom mechanics as-is are pretty solid, I think individual rewards beyond "exalt dragon, get treasure" would be nice. I like the dom shop ideas that others brought up here, a kind of currency that you can only use in the dom shop that gives individual bonuses, items, what have you (nothing that overlaps dom bonuses though) for exalting xyz amounts in a week.

I think it would be nice, not cause much inflation from simply increasing payouts, and lets users in less dom competitive flights to participate in some fashion without requiring a big organization.

I think friendly competition is great and teamwork is solid, I think it's great to continue encouraging that. However, I'm a big single player too and sometimes I just want to earn things by myself. I think it would be a healthy and interesting change to the dom dynamic we have going on right now.

(I also agree with the sentiments about the earth flight though I personally can appreciate its aesthetic. It's true that it needs more going for it though, which would definitely even out dom as a result and make everyone happier)

[quote name="Corviknight" date="2019-12-08 09:08:37" ] I think at this point, we should simply drop dominance altogether. It's impossible to balance - it was possible earlier in the game's life, but now? I think that exalting should remain an individual feature, used for profit. [/quote] To be honest, I wouldn't mind if they did this. Perhaps add a single player dominance competition like Valemora said, and drop flight wide competition altogether. That way there would still be competition but on an individual basis so that users aren't held back by being in flights that aren't oriented towards dominance. It could either be site wide, or on a per flight basis, so that users would be competing against only users in their own flight. There could be other events that would mean that the flight would have to come together and worth together, as well as events that mean that all flights need to work towards a common goal. Edit: I know that this isn't likely to happen, nor be a popular idea, but to me it would be something that I wouldn't mind happening.

[quote name="Mirutanku" date="2019-12-08 08:11:40" ] While I agree the dom mechanics as-is are pretty solid, I think individual rewards beyond "exalt dragon, get treasure" would be nice. I like the dom shop ideas that others brought up here, a kind of currency that you can only use in the dom shop that gives individual bonuses, items, what have you (nothing that overlaps dom bonuses though) for exalting xyz amounts in a week. [/quote] That’s a good point. The current bonuses for getting Dom are... pretty paltry, compared to the effort and expense a big conquest push takes. However, I don’t think the shop should simply give rewards for exalting – that doesn’t do much to reincentivize conquest, just encourages individual players to exalt on their own. I’m also not sold on the idea of introducing a new currency, it seems like it might be more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe a shop that can only be accessed by flights currently dominating? It could even be a tiered thing – third place gets access to a few items, second gets those plus some, and first gets everything. Players in dominating flights could even buy the exclusive items for others at a small markup like in current player-run dom shops. (This shop would also be a good place for natural eye vials. Just saying.) (There may be issues with this idea too, I haven’t thought it through super hard, but I feel like it’s solid.

[quote] Maybe a shop that can only be accessed by flights currently dominating?[/quote] No support because this goes against the very heart of the concept of an Exalt Shop--rewarding individual players regardless of flight Dom environment. Say, Player A is in Arcane and loves both Dom and the Arcane aesthetic. However, us in Arcane Dom not very often. But Player A exalts and exalts and exalts. Even if there is no specific Dom currency, A is only going to get to see that Exalt Shop a few times a year being in Arcane. So now A is right back where it all started--change flights for Dom rewards, or give up Dom rewards for aesthetics. Some people are going to choose the latter, which again negates the second point of the Exalt Shop--to encourage people to exalt more. No support for making it tiered for the same reasons I just listed. Plus the advantage Dom heavy flights would have. Dom heavy flights could totally reap a ton of monetary benefits by buying Exalt Shop items and selling them to players whose flights seldom Dom--especially with tiered one items. If Player A in Arcane and Player B in Earth put forth the same exalting effort, but Earth Doms more, B is going to benefit a whole lot more by being able to buy all those tier one goods that A is only going to see like three times a year. Excluding players from an entire on-site shop is way too unbalanced to be justified as a mechanic. The Exalt Shop should always be a reward for individual efforts regardless of flights' standings. Overall Dom should always be a team effort. That's how it's set up. Now, putting eye vials in an Exalt Shop is something I have supported for a while now. Just no support for barring people from an Exalt Shop. Even without exalt currency, it's too OP. I mean, even if the flights decided "hey, the Exalt Shop is brand new, so we will all take turns so all 11 flights get a chance at it before going back to a Dom free for all" it would take over 3 months for the last few flights to get Dom (factoring in holidays). That's forcing ~ 1/11th of users to wait an entire season before they can even get special eyes, clothing, familiars or whatever else without paying huge mark-ups from other players. Plus the first few flights to get Dom-only Exalt Shop access essentially have a temporary monopoly. (Even moreso when it might be half a year or more for non-Dom flights to get Dom.) If Exalt Currency is a thing as well as Dom-only access, FR would be looking at hundreds, if not thousands, of players who would wind up sitting on piles of currency they could only spend a few times a year because they're being held back by the rest of their flight not being interested in Dom. Again, this discourages the very concept of the Exalt Shop--reward individuals and exalt more dragons. (Sorry if this is rambly, I hope it made sense.)

I agree with Gema

To me the entire point of an 'exalt shop' IS to incentivize individual exalting. It really has nothing to do with incentivizing conquest or dom, but rather get players who might not normally exalt, to do so. This can in turn help dom, because if those players get interested in exalting, they might in turn become interested in dominance, especially if there were some really expensive items and there was a discount to the exalt shop for the dominating team.

it isn't meant to make getting dominance profitable, nor benefit players who move to dom heavy flights and have that flight always get dominance.

I also think that locking tangible rewards behind dominance, such as an exalt shop, would only increase the number of 'dom is broken/FIX DOM/Dom is unfair' type posts we get, because many players, especially those who do exalt already but don't want to move, would never be able to use that currency except once a year.

The point of an exalt shop is basically to encourage exalting, not reward dom heavy flights.

I like the idea of a cooperative competition, and I like how FR has done it, however, at heart, I am a single player type person and prefer to get things on my own. I don't want to be locked out of a shop for X/52 weeks a year because I happen to like the look of blue eyes. As said, dom does need reworking, and I feel that it would be best to rework it from the ground up because two of the things most often mentioned are two things that can't be really accounted for in a mathematical formula.

Valemora's suggestion of individual rewards for the heaviest exalters does have merit, and might help relieve the pressure on dom, if player outside the dom heavy flights could obtain rewards for their own efforts. Same as an Exalt shop. Tying more tangible rewards or some of the most requested rewards to dom will only fan the flames that are already burning due to dominance.

An exalt shop would encourage individual exalting. In doing so it might discourage some players from selling to Dominance Raffles (frequently its more profitable to sell to a raffle than it is to exalt it yourself), which in itself might help with some of the issues with dominance