Simple Request: Next Tribute Collection Timer

As the title states, it would just be a minor quality of life feature. It’s nothing crazy, but it would be nice to see a timer on the PS4 version that indicates when my next collection of tribute(s) will be.

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+1 to this. Again.

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People have said that this would require many extra calls to the server, but I’m not sure why. All you would need is to store a single time locally: one hour from whenever the player collects tribute. Count down to that time locally, and when the timer finishes the player knows to start refreshing the mail screen—which is still, sadly, the only way I know of to force tributes to appear.

The actual tribute timer is stored server-side, so it’s not like a player could mess with tribute collections by modifying a completely separate variable stored locally.

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Maybe it’d get more traction if it were a VIP 15 perk? It’s hard to imagine why it’s so hard to get this, or a phone notification when the timer’s up.

The obvious answer is that unless it were a VIP perk, it’s not generating any cash flow, so they don’t want to waste… I mean use … precious time on it that could be used to try to make us spend another 100$ a week…

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They are ok that you have to wait 2 minutes for the game to open on xbox (and sometimes can’t even download the server file), but don’t want to implement a timer client-side.

Short answer: Not going to say never, but I’d say that’s very unlikely to ever occur.

Longer answer: Why would the devs encourage and remind players to collect free premium resources (gems), when the developers want players to pay for these same with real money? It also runs highly contrary to the devs’ recent stance to significantly clamp down on the amount of free gems entering the game. At top end, passive gem income is increasing with an increasing number of kingdoms reaching 9-stars, which takes a very considerable amount of effort to achieve for each and every kingdom. There’s next to no way that the devs are actively going to call attention to players about that, when their objective is to induce players to pay for those gems instead.

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Rebuttal to the long answer:

There’s a reason every F2P game periodically gives you free resources. It causes players to build their routines around the game, which increases psychological engagement. As that engagement increases, the player spends more time in-game. In general this leads to more involved players and thus more impulsive purchases. Players who spend less time in game are less susceptible to other effects of F2P design such as sunken costs.

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For me entering anything on the guild menu (guild, GW, invasion or raid) forces the tribute to show on IOS.

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To be honest, having a timer saying ‘you will be able to collect tribute in x minutes’ is a pretty strong activity hook.

If you’ve just collected tribute, either you’re gonna stick around and play or you aren’t. The next tribute in 60mins isn’t going to persuade you to stick around. If you feel like playing, then you will.

If you didn’t just collect tribute, having this tell you that you can do it in five minutes will make you hang tight for five minutes. And what are you gonna do if you want to wait for the thing? Probably play some. And if you get sucked in, then you play a lot more. If you count out five minutes while you play, collect the tribute and go, then that’s still five more minutes’ play time than if you didn’t see the timer.

If it says its a 10 or 15 minute wait, eh, your mileage may vary. But the previous example is sufficient.

I seriously don’t know why this hasn’t been implemented, especially for a mobile-accessible game - I see timers all the time in other mobile games. And it should be easy, just start a countdown when the player collects tribute just like has been said in this thread already.

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I’ve suggested that the other way to keep the server calls to a minimum is to bury the timer inside your home kingdom’s menu (that is, have a ‘request time to next tribute’ button on the home kingdom’s menu). That way, the timer can be accessed with a few clicks but isn’t out on the main map screen and doesn’t have to be continuously synced with the server.

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If they add this I would expect tributes to get hit by the nerf bat at the same time. I would rather have to set a timer on my phone or PC than take yet another nerf. I’m not saying I wouldn’t love this feature, but I’d rather deal with how things are now than pay a “convenience tax” for an automatic reminder.

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The other thing they could do with my suggestion is add a “Pay 1 gem to check your timer” fee. The sad thing is, as long as it wasn’t 50, I probably would sometimes.

they literally already have a similar timer for hero class change

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I have to remember to keep setting (and re-setting) a countdown timer on my phone which is just a nuisance.

The game doesn’t necessarily even need a timer (although it would be useful), just a message “Next Tribute available at xx:xx”.

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Revival Time! :smiley:
@Jeto Is it possible to add a timer for tribute ? (Like the PQ3 followers)
image

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Playing on PS5, if you press the share button and hold it, it brings up a menu that tells you how long you’ve been playing the current game, up to one hour (it also lets you save replay from that time period), which I use to check how close I am to the next tribute. The only problem is I need to quit and re-enter the game to do this a second time. It’d be easier if the game just included this countdown, as others have suggested, rather than having to rely on other means. There’s no real reason the game can’t do this locally.

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