Ladder Mode : The further you go, the less money you gain.

[[IN-S] Neurochoc]

Update post 1.2.3 patch :

Unlocking countries one by one in the ladder mode is still impossible since your economy will end up stalling and finish in the negative ratio since income still doesn't match the cost of new lines, nor the random events that needs you to pay fines etc.

If you want to unlock more than 20 countrie, you sadly need to continue using the small headstart strategy with a few countries so you can buy everything all at once. Too bad.


Update post 1.1.9 patch :

Despite several fixes done by the developpers, the main problem of the ladder mode is still there : there is no fun in unlocking each countries one by one because you inevitably end up being stuck money wise if you play the game normally.

Here is a the result of a test I ran on an european scenario, waiting 60 sec and counting the income during a minute :

MAIN CONDITIONS :
Ladder 41
130% aircraft speed
118% for ticket prices

RESULTS
For 7 countries unlocked : 2419€ per minute
For 28 countries unlocked : 45€ per minute

Somehow, it look like being an isolationist gets you much more money than if the whole continent is using your airlines.
Let's imagine that you reach a negative balance in your credit and your ladder is over.

This problem absolutely need to be fixed, it's not even a QOL problem, it's a CORE GAMEPLAY one.

__________________________________________________________

Kind of self explaining but let me develop : There is a problem with the balance of the game right now.

If you unlock only 3 european countries (Italy, France, Germany) and then wait, you'll be able to get 100k in less than 15/20 minutes.

On the other hand, the more you unlock countries, the more you'll need time to reach this money because... because why exactly ? More countries = more flight route = more people = less money per route somehow ?

It make no sense.

Right now, if you wanna unlock a lot of countries in the ladder mode, it's better so stick to a few countries for a long time until you get ALL THE MONEY YOU NEED to unlock every countries at once, instead of unlocking them one by one because the more places you unlock, the more you'll need time to unlock the rest.

I'm more than willing to discuss this but I can guarantee you than before this 3 countries strategy, I needed 3h to unlock the previous ladder because I made the mistake of wanting to have fun by unlocking several central america and caribbean countries one by one.

That's the end of my topic, I still wanna thank the dev for creating this great game, I had so much hours of fun already. You're amazing !
I can't wait until a fix the gameplay to allow continent flight (like Europe to America or Africa to South America) to be viable and I'll be completely satisfied !

Have a nice day !

[Steero]

Have you tried 'restart' in that scenario? I had one level 'lock' on me after completing - but it sorted itself out when I reset the level..

[robsonfz]

sunbear1967 の投稿を引用：

I had the same problem, not only in Ladder Mode, also in Daily Game and in normal Games.
But at the Moment the Ladder Mode is not working anymore. It stucks at the Level you last reach and if you want going to next Level, you come back to the last Level you play. I stuck since days now in Level 20. (Playing on PC).

That is weird, as long as I unlock at most 5 countries, I can pass the step and the game let's me through the next one, as supposed.

[robsonfz]

And after the Monument Stamps update, it is still the same: "The further you go, the less money you gain." 🙄

[DragonIV]

The issue appears to be this. Passengers pay a single rate for a trip of any length to any destination. If you have a single country, with a hub and spoke setup, you'll make a lot of money (Ukraine is near perfect for this approach) as each passenger has no more than one hop and trips take little time.

Now consider the case when you have six countries. Routes can now be much longer, so passengers stay in the air longer and thus take more capacity from you, but they still pay the same per trip. Local trips dry up, and nearly every customer is going for longer and longer trips. This effectively dries up your rate of return as you add additional countries (and longer and longer paths for customers to take).

That's a design flaw, but one that could be solved a number of ways.

[robsonfz]

Oh, I get it, there is loads of pax moving, but few arriving at their final destinations.

[mykael]

Sounds like passengers need to be paying based on the number of countries they have travelled through rather than a flat fee. Should make income sort of proportional to travel time, without causing problems on long flights in the same country.

[Shau]

How are you making this little money? I have to admit that money isn't really going up as fast as it should. But 45 per minute? I tried freeplay yesterday and I didn't see significant decrease after adding a few countries.

It might be ticket price * 0.95^number_of_unlocked_countries. So you are required to unlock countries with many people living in and wealthy countries first. I can't say that I'm fan of ladder mode. It gets boring fast. I'd rather decide for myself how far I push before resetting instead of doing that incremental thing with minor bonuses.

[robsonfz]

By the way, have anyone noticed the initial money upgrade does not work at all? Or is it only happening with me?

[Alrecenk]

Noticed this myself, and recorded some numbers to make sure. I will add them to the evidence.

I got enough money to complete a level 22 ladder run, and then purchased and connected different numbers of territories and recorded my income and change in passengers for about 2 minutes at each level (or as long as I could get before hitting an event that would mess up the numbers).

# Territories $/second $/passenger
2________110_____0.636
3________92______0.504
4________88.7_____0.39
7 ________35.5____0.204
14________14.58___0.061
20________7.76____0.03


At 7 countries you get less than 1/3 of the $/passenger as you do at 2 countries. At 20 countries it's less than 1/20 . It has nothing to do with strategy or the length of the routes getting longer etc. There appears to be a built in multiplier function based on # of countries currently unlocked, and it's absurdly brutal.

[Steero]

If those numbers are correct, that is absolutely insane. Ladder mode is a genuine slog as it is, especially once you are beyond 50 cities - and this just kills the enjoyment of actually unlocking more of the map as you progress!

[Gunners ︻デ ー]

My experiences have shown that starting in large countries such as China, Russia, or Canada can significantly shorten the path to success compared to smaller nations. Although I began my player journey with Germany and it took some time to reach Level 80, my main concern was the "Europe Achievement".

A key aspect of my strategy is always to focus on increasing flight speed, the price of flight tickets, and starting capital. These factors play a crucial role. It's noteworthy that in Canada, I was able to achieve my goals within 10-15 minutes at Level 75.

Furthermore, I found it advantageous to refrain from building hubs and instead develop snake-line routes to maximize efficiency. An example of this is planning shuttle routes in the USA, flying from east to west and back. This allowed me to successfully establish routes: Washington-Los Angeles-Atlanta-Seattle-xxx-xxx.

[jessemueller2010]

Having the same problem and have been flabbergasted on why income dropped to... literally nothing. As such, the only way i found to finish the mode is start in a high volume country, wait for money to build up, and then buy all countries at once.

It's..... not ideal or what i thought this mode would be. Also i note that most of my routes, even if they are full, are not making money at all.

[Kuraki-kun]

Tried it again today, still the same. Although the weekly event expenses decreased considerably, the income rate, which is the life blood of this game, STILL DECREASES AS YOU UNLOCK MORE COUNTRIES.

[Resident007]

Hello. The update with rebalance for Ladder Mode is being tested and will be released soon.

[Hecate]

DragonIV の投稿を引用：

The issue appears to be this. Passengers pay a single rate for a trip of any length to any destination. If you have a single country, with a hub and spoke setup, you'll make a lot of money (Ukraine is near perfect for this approach) as each passenger has no more than one hop and trips take little time.

No, that's not how it works. The fee for a trip is dependant of the last leg of the trip, it's not a fixed amount. That's odd, but that means it's better to avoid short local routes, even if (or especially as) a lot of traffic is local. That way, passengers will pay long haul fees rather than short ones for their local trips.

i.e. It's better to do a Kyiv-London-Kharkiv route than a direct Kyiv-Kharkiv for your incomes, using those distant hubs is the way players use to reach top of the leaderboards.