Gameplay Changes
 

I was reading the zPeti thread and the main thing that kept being pointed out to me, was that there was more important changes the PA Team should be implementing other than the passport system.

So, I'm going to ask the question and hopefully someone can provide an answer. Is there any major gameplay changes which have been suggested that both the PA Team and the PA community agree should be implemented?

or is it as i suspect, that everyone wants 'change' but the community cant agree on any specific changes which should be implemented?

Note: im not talking about minor tweaks but proper gameplay changes with the aim of making PA more fun or getting more players.

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

The whole problem is that no one really knows where PA Team want to take the game. Personally, I don't think they know it, either. This in turn leads to a complete fragmentation of the development process, in which each suggestion is looked at through a microscope, with a total disregard for the larger picture. There is no area in which this is more easily visible than the user interface, though I'll leave an analysis thereof as an exercise to the reader.

So, realising that I have no idea what PA Team wants, here's the top 3 of what I think should be done:
1. The scoring system should be fixed (rewarding war)
2. It should be made easier for new players to integrate into the community (durable newbie protection)
3. A long term decision should be taken regarding the tag limit (and stuck to for at least 5 rounds)

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

How would you go about rewarding war though? I do dislike that fencesitting is more profitable than going to war and with that 'noob bashing' is more profitable than hitting other major alliances. Ive been trying to think of ways to do this but ive struggled to find any idea's which would help the situation (without causing other major problems).
To expand your first point, the solution isnt just rewarding war but in my view, its all about rewarding people who are attacking the top planets. If hitting a top planet is more profitable on average than hitting an inactive/casual/noobie/someone in a small alliance, then by extension.. war between the bigger alliances would be more rewarding than those alliances which decided to fencesit.
The problem with that is that there is no real way to do it via value only through XP. Highering the cap rate, would make the game alot less fun.. its already pretty bad that you can lose 58% (ish) in the space of 3 ticks. Simply highering the cap rate for hitting top planets would be too harsh on the top planets, so the only way i can see of doing it.. is through giving huge XP gains for landing successful attacks on the top planets. It would or could also be linked into galaxy score (i really dont understand why the XP system isnt based on planet+galaxy value, as hitting someone in a top galaxy is so much harder than hitting the same person but if they was in a nub galaxy).

Ive also got absolutly no idea on how to protect the new players. Protection at the moment doesnt serve this purpose, especially as its only 24hours now. My way of thinking of helping the new player, was through extensive and well thought out quests, going through every area of the game and guiding them through it. I actually devised a quest system to do this, which went through every area of the game including scanning, defence/attack but then again, my system also required an overhaul of the current scan system :p

I certainly think that alliances should get told in advance about tag sizes. At least 2 rounds in advance, its pretty bad that alliances dont know where they stand or weither they should be recruiting or kicking members.


but anyway, what i was trying to ask in this thread.. was if anyone had actually made any major gameplay suggestions which the community actually agree'd on would be good? or is it a case, that every suggestion has ALOT of people resisting/dont want it. Just saw in the zPeti thread that afew people were saying that the PA Team should be working on other area's which need fixing instead of the passport system, then i couldnt actually find any change that people actually wanted. Just people screaming they want change but when it comes to people suggesting actual changes, they argue that they dont want those changes.

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

I don't have the time to write a long post, but basically, making score non-removable encourages taking out your opponents before they grow too big. The whole XP thing has been proven ineffective, so I'd remove it altogether.

I'll do you one better. I don't think PA has seen any major gameplay changes since round 17. Sure, cov ops were nerfed after round 22, as was distwhoring (linked to cov ops), which was further destroyed for round 36, but neither has had significant impact on the game because they were both underused specialist strategies. No, the last real gameplay change was the nerfing of XP following round 16. (Notice how all changes worth mentioning are nerfs.)

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

PA without XP was just about amassing ships and bashing noobs, so on the contrary I would keep XP and develop the system with :
- negative XP for bashing small planets
- little xp for out of war battles
- bigger XP for battles between parties officially at war

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

What we need is something to do in-between ticks.

And a proper tutorial for new players IN-GAME which tells them what to do step by step

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

I agree with Wishmaster on this, every game you play has a tutorial that takes you through the basics and gives you a little insight into what you need to do, currently we do not have such a thing, the quests are far from a tutorial.

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

Perhaps implement some WAR system that allows you only to attack other planets/galaxies belonging to an alliance or group of alliances (block) you are officially at war with. That'd also make NAP's more official as they'll need to be discussed ingame rather then be an oral agreement on IRC.

Ofcourse this is very simplistic and some serious balancing and finetuning needs to be done for this suggestion to even be viable. Also you'll lose the element of surprise, should you wish to take that to your advantage.

rgds Kj

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

Both of these have been suggested by myself and others several times over the years, but yeah.

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

what to do in between ticks? I tend to DC or calc or talk with my alliance mates. I mean, thats whats PA all about, the game itself wouldnt be played as a single player game ever without IRC and the community and playerbase that regard eachother as friends

Thinking about this, and having watched the horrific introduction video (http://www.planetarion.com/misc/pages/intro-video) made me want to point out which i think many ppl dont realise when trying to think of ways to improve the game.

KSPs, or Key Selling Points, are things that make a business (or in this case a game) stand out against the rest. Its what makes us all play this particular game over other games.

1. The very easy accessible community is one of the major KSPs (key selling points) of PA. The community shares a long history, know eachother for quite a long time and feel connected to eachother due to that other ksp: alliances. IRC is the glue that holds it all together, and is pretty easy comprehensible chat medium , very easy to step in as customer

2. The simple gameplay. We can talk and post and chat for hours, weeks, years about indepth formulae, but if you try to look at it as objective as possible you have to agree with me that the basics are very basic. Its not a bad thing though, it means new players wont need books and can start playing fairly easy. We have ticks, research , constructions, income gathering, ship building, missions to undertake (attack with ships or run covops) and tools to help you succeed in these tasks (bcalcs, scans, intel, defence tools for alliances etc). Does that need 12 minutes of introduction? I feel it doesnt.

3. Alliances. Its somewhat connected to KSP 1, but it deserves special note. The game wasnt designed to be an alliance game at start, but it quickly became obvious that this game, while played by humans, in a way it started to reflect how we act as people in our world. Planetarion reflects our real world, but then smaller, with less laws of physics, and much bigger ability to win and stand out and get reward than in real life. People tend to find minds they have a connection with, and group together as its in our instinct to feel that together we stand strong. This feeling is what has kept me hooked ever since i returned to PA in r22, and is what keeps driving old returning players back.

4. History. PA was big back in the days, and thats a key selling point that needs to be explored as well. If only there could be some sort of advertisement and a way to send more than just a simple text-only reminder about a new round by mail, it should be able to attract a lot of old players for AT LEAST 1 round. They just need more than just 'hey theres another round going on, its r37 and its another 7 weeks of same old'. Only those ppl who want to meet their old buddies will be interested, but if they see same layout like 5 years ago theyll think: this is the game i once quit playing. Why start again if i decided to quit.


In essense, what i mean to say is, i think most ppl here dont think ' out of the box' . If we really explore what makes PA so interesting, it will be much easier to come up with ideas that could really make a change.

At least we need a marketing guy who can write motivational text and ppl with good visual skills to enhance the marketing text with current day standard-visuals. Also the game would need visual upgrade, passport system without a doubt but (and i wanna emphasise this:)without affecting the very basics of the game mechanics itself ofc! The game itself is good enough, there is really no need to explore things like how to protect new players. Its how you get them hooked what should be the approach!

Past changes like making it easier for alliances to play PA with integrated tools has been one of the better changes over the last 2 years. The Comunit is there to use, and serves as a trampoline towards mIRC, but can be improved too, startup should all point to interaction with the community etc. Getting those new players in touch with all of us is of most importance. Making it easier for noobs? why? They wouldnt want to be noobs, they will want to be in a proper alliance where they dont need to have proper noob-protection. For there they are part of a group!

If the focus remains on game mechanics or small changes in gameplay it will only matter for the few active hardcore ppl or at most, the current playerbase. Standing still means falling behind. Change is a good thing, and in future we could start thinking of smartphone applications or facebook integration or software based (instead of only webbased) PA (only naming possibilities without affecting the game or community, i dont say we should do any of those per se), but thats only possible if PA can manage to , lets say, at first double its playerbase and generate a steady flow of new players and generate some extra money.

It ofc needs ppl who are dedicated to make something out of it, and that needs leadership and balls as you will get full rejection by ur most loyal members with every change you enforce. But, im honestly convinced that if you think about the aforementioned KSP's and act with a clear goal and a long term plan (planning ahead for about a year , hows that?) those changes will have its positive effect.

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

Just add some arcade games ingame that we have battle to have the highscores at! However, Pelennor would have to be banned from the high score table!

Re: Gameplay Changes
 

To be honest my major issue with the current gameplay changes is that they make the game almost too easy and therefore becomes less fun to play for me personally and it rewards casual playing. I'd love to see it a bit more detailed with changes to the tech tree and attacking/defence options.

Saying that the community is the best thing in this game and I would love to see it grow with new/returning players over what i wrote above.

Iin turn requires the game to be more casual and I have no problem with that, the issue I have is that if you make these changes I want to see the new players appearing which they are not. You either do two things:

1) Make the gameplay more fun for the existing crowd here so they stick around for as long as possible (short term view with no long term prospects)

2) Make the game more casual so that you attract new players (long term view with long term prospects) However, if you are going this route then actually get the new players joining with marketing etc.

For those saying the game is not ready yet and marketing it wasted then get the stuff making the game more casual together but implement all at once whilst running it alongside a marketing campagin to get the people in once you are ready, don't alienate the people still playing whilst at the same time achieving nothing.

Like mz said earlier in this thread I believe there seems to be no idea of where the game is going long term and at the moment its all half house. Lack of communication doesn't help us see the bigger picture (if there is one)