Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
So before the round I stated in several threads that public/private galaxies were a bad idea. Many disagreed, but I think now many people have seen how publics tend to dominate by the end of the round. What people may not realize is that the public/private system is highly abusable, and I put together a plan at the beginning of the round to do so, but I have held off posting it for fear that someone would use it. But now that the round is mostly over here is the plan I purposed to the CT HC:
"I had this idea before the round, but it wasn't worth considering until we knew the number of public galaxies in the uni, which is 28. First a little background. The number of public galaxies is fixed at 28. This means as new players join the uni or people exile out of private galaxies rather then new public galaxies being spawned, the size of the existing galaxies increases. Public galaxies started with 12 or 13 planets, now 3 days into the round they have 16, twice the size of private galaxies. Right now public galaxies are by in large newbie galaxies. With a few exceptions they are fairly unorganized, however right now we have 5 of them where CT members are the GC. This means that if we could control these 5 galaxies and start exiling out of them we could exile the entire ally into these 5 galaxies. Coupled with our newbie friends in these galaxies we could easily have the biggest galaxies in the uni making us damn hard to hit. Right now if the entire ally exiled out of private galaxies (45 members) it would take on average 5 exile tries to get into one of our 5 galaxies. With roughly 60 CT members that would mean 10 CTers and 10 non CTers per galaxy RIGHT NOW. As the rounds progress this number will only go up, especially if we invite our friends in our BPs to join us. Because of the size of public galaxies and the general activity level of CT it would almost guarantee us t50 galaxy status for all 6 galaxies, maybe even t10 (assuming no one else tries our stunt). This plan would work on the following assumptions: 1. The 5 gals where our members are the GCs (REMOVED) actually have control of the galaxy and could exile planets as needed. 2. We pick up at least one more gal where we already have members and take over. We would want at least 6 gals to spread ourselves out in. 3. No other ally does this first 4. The member base is willing to leave their private galaxies 5. The member base is active enough to do this in a coordinated manor (roughly all at once) 6. We are able to keep this secret long enough to execute it (no more then a couple of days)" For reasons that are not mine to divulge the CT HC team decided not to implement this plan, even though it had a high probability of success, it also had a very high probability of ruining the round. If every major ally followed this plan the entire uni would have been crammed into 28 galaxies... now wouldn't that have been fun.... None the less I wasn't the only person to figure this out, and several "fortress" public galaxies have appeared (just look at the t10). Some of you may decide to say "well hey this is just because the system of public/privates wasn't balanced, if it was more balanced this wouldn't be possible." My big problem with this is I don't believe that it can be balanced in such a way to make it inherently fair, the player base will always attempt to follow the optimal path, whatever it is. So it is better to make all galaxies equal then to try and balance two different systems. So what should we do? Either go back to buddy packs, which while clearly not perfect at least put everyone on the same footing. Or go to a pure random setup but lower the self exile cost and allow those that wish to, to pay the price of exiling around for a while to end up in a decent galaxy. Anyway in order to limit the length of this post and to not weary the eyes of my readers too much I will end here. Flame away! |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
I would laught at the fortress galaxy thou my ass off.. it would have to rely on ingal defence only.. as we would be able to hit like what 1/2 of enemy players same time. But if someone builds a private fence galaxy like that, I would applaud them... especially if it had 1-2 cov oppers in it.. would be the strongest galaxy what I have ever seen in pa in comparison to player amount.
I though the fortress galaxy fails where already proven this round.. someone still going for it? I can understand with 1 cov opper and 7 players style.. but hell would still spread out the load in the 7. |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
I must say, I'm a little disappointed. Is there anyone out there who didn't think it was still possible?
In my opinion, the public/private setup is based for the most part on a kind of implicit understanding between a couple of alliances and PA Team: if you want to fortress, go with a private galaxy. Yes, if we really wanted to we could easily set up a fortress in a random galaxy, but it would only result in the system getting changed next round, which wouldn't really help anyone. In any case, as always, fortress galaxies are still overrated. People who think we go with them because they're strong really need their head checked out. We play in fortress galaxies because it's fun, and because being able to rely on your gal mates is a Good Thing. Not because it's some magic formula that guarantees a win. |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
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In the past when private galaxies were there, people could defend whom they wanted. They joined cluster alliances, asked friends to help anything ontop of their own alliance if they were in any. Nowerdays, pa added caps on all kind of shit. They added caps on whom you are able to defend and whom is able to defend your roids. Also, the reduced playerbase - with mainly ego players (no offense) compared to earlier rounds - is not helping. People rather play for their own planet, and if they fail they just start to idle or donate their planet's fleets to some Zik friends. Politics, well I don't want to get into that - but I know you know that one yourself too. So based on this, yeah - it wont work. Not even if you go as fortress galaxy. As there's to many people that love to play dirty. So you will get a few nights of all alliances over your galaxy to show how small you really are by doing that. Think I've said enough now, as I hate posting on PA forums. But this was a thread that I liked so had to reply. |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
They aren't actually fortress galaxies. I just gave you the intro to the plan, not the plan details itself. The idea is to have about half the gal as a fortress gal, the rest as players in other allies. So it becomes a fenced galaxy with a single ally as it's base. This idea beats the heck out of an 8 player galaxy, whether fortressed or not. 24 active players beats 8 active players any day... just look at the galaxy rankings right now. The top ten contains mostly public galaxies, at least several of them are fortressed (I don't have intel on all of them). The ones that are fortressed followed the outline in the plan details not included in my first post on in this thread, including the top gal.
Because as AndroX notes you can only defend your ally mates and gal mates, having a strong mix of ally mates and random active players in your galaxy is the best strategy, when the following conditions are met: 1. There are few public galaxies relative to the number of private 2. The stats make the best defense ships only available in galaxy (for example BS that target CO) 3. Exiling out of private galaxies is possible 4. Defense is limited to allies and galaxies Ironically if the PA team made no changes to the system for next round, and we went with public/privates again, if there are a lot of publics relative to the number of private galaxies then private galaxies are way stronger. So basically the system as it stands is a paradox and will always be unbalanced one way or the other. The galaxy seeding system should be fair to all, is not currently, and therefore should be abandoned, this is the bottom line in my thinking. |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
so if one alliance, lets use Asc for example, should be going fully random. They end up in those so called random galaxies. Where they can mass recruit in those galaxies - out of tag/support planets if needed - because out of tag planets, none alliance planets, can defend others iirc - you are saying that private mixed gals are stronger?
This is just one example on how to turn your idea around. Im not saying it is a bad idea, there's just so many holes in planetarion and it's current setup that any change on private, random or mixed galaxy setup does not work. This is because PA adds crap to the game every round and does not have a layed out plan about where to start from and where to go to. They add things on the fly, important things by that because players request it. And then 2 rounds later that player quit the game and the rest of pa is stuck with those addons for many many many rounds. I love the fact you are coming up with idea's, please do not get me wrong. But plan for long term. And make sure the plan is bullet proof. :) Give it a few more thoughts, as imo you are on the right path to solve an issue PA is having right now. :) |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
I think that this is worth pointing out that this is more a flaw of this round; it's unlikely there will be so few random galaxies in future, which would make it much harder to "take them over", and lessen the general effect. It'd also be a quite a time consuming process to get 10 people in a galaxy, and expensive (the constant and ever-increasing exile costs, etc).
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Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
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Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
The suggestion that the public galaxies in the top 10 are "fortresses" or hard to hit or anywhere near competitive is a horrible misconception.
Let's look at 8.9 for example, a galaxy which has been a mainstay in the top 2. Not a single planet in the t100. Of the 25 planets, only 2 make the t200. That's pretty poor. Check out their roid graph on Sandmans, lots and lots of dips. Fact of the matter is, these high ranking public galaxies are getting roided fairly regularly and fairly easily by whatever alliance feels like an a-political gal raid. The galaxy is just made up of a lot of small planets. |
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ellon makes an interesting point |
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Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
Me personally seing as the gamecommunity is so small think that buddypacks and private gals should be removed totally as a gameconcept and that total random would be much better. That way it would be entirely equal for everyone how the galaxy setup will work.
The downside to this is ofc, that alot of the people who are quitters will quit if their gal suck, but I am pretty sure that the amount of quitters every round would not increase dramatically. |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
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Before round start I expected that most skilled players would play in private galaxies, and most newbies in random galaxies. In a setup like that, having public galaxies that are bigger (but not by more than a factor of 2) is a requirement to make sure they don't get utterly overrun. Unfortunately, it turned out that there were many newbies who started private galaxies in the hopelessly mistaken belief that fortressing is a strategy that can be pulled off by just anyone. These galaxies found themselves overwhelmed and consequently disbanded. Additionally, at around the same time, random galaxies got a late sign up (for reasons unknown to me) as well as the usual influx of players between tick 1 and 500. As this change in universe composition occured, the balance shifted in favour of random galaxies. As ellonweb correctly pointed out, it's not because random galaxies are particularly strong, but because they're disproportionally large in comparison with private galaxies. I would still argue that it is actually way harder to roid a highly ranked private galaxy like 8:3 than a highly ranked random galaxy like 8:9. There is, after all, a reason why we spent so much effort setting up the hit on 8:3 while we'd roid 8:9 on a sunday afternoon. On a sidenote, I feel that the politics of this round played a significant part in allowing these galaxies to survive as well as they did. Vision, as much credit as they deserve for their play this round, can hardly be called a dominating military machine, which is why they haven't killed off these galaxies. In a round in which one alliance achieved domination earlier, random galaxies would not have performed nearly as well. Quote:
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Ultimately, whether you fortress or fence, how well you perform during the round almost entirely comes down to just being good at defending. The people who successfully fortress could just as easily do well in a fence galaxy, and vice versa. The difference here is not the strategies, it's the fact that some people are just better at the game and more dedicated to it. As for the fate of the random/private setup, I would be in favour of trying it one more round. I think a lot of people learned a harsh lesson about private galaxies this round and I agree that we'll see more random and fewer private galaxies next round. That would also solve the problem of the strategy you described, according to you, so even if it is a strong strategy (which I still don't believe it is), it would not be feasible next round, anyway. The problem solves itself. |
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Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
I think that Light's suggestion puts to much work into alliances.
With the lack of people willing to dedicate their time to do stuff for the alliances increasing, adding more workload for them would just make the game suck even more for the fair few who offer to do stuff. A total random round would probably be way better, as you would be exposed to a fair few new people hopefully. |
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It also wouldnt effect the smaller alliances, as they wont have the tag to fill it up (obviously 60 private maximum, means any amount of randoms.. just no more than 60 private). If this suggestion was actually used, i'd also clamp down on the amount of exiling allowed.. As you should be pretty confident that there will be quiet alot of active players in the random galaxys and dont want them all to end up in one. Also, if it actually worked.. It would mean that the bigger alliances would end up also helping the game through having members go random into gals with noobies, ensuring noobies get afew good players to play with in there galaxy. The only real drawback i can see, is that alliances would put there crappy players or scanner players in the random galaxys but thats still better than putting no-one. |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
8:9 - Name: GIVING NERDS WOOD SINCE PT1 #1-NewDawn #2-CT #3-CT #4-VisioN #5-VisioN #6-p3nguins #7-CT #8-CT #9-CT #10-Call To Duty #11-CT #12-CT #13-eXcessum #14-Howling Rain #15-CT #16-CT #17-ASS #18-CT #19-ODDR #20-Apprime susp #21-DLR #22-Gross #23- #24- #25-
Its close enough to a fortress gal i spose |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
It's kind of funny we never saw a need to figure out what alliances were in that galaxy. :(
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Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
I knew it had 9-10 ct, just didn't see a need to update intel on it :D
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Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
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As appoco points out the reason my plan works is because of an artifact of this round, namely how BIG public galaxies could get. If this advantage is removed then the plan falls apart and a fenced private galaxy is probably the best solution. My real argument is not that the buddy pack system or pure randoms is the way to go, but that any system that has galaxies with different rules is inherently unbalanced, and in my opinion cannot be balanced in a fair way and so therefore should not be attempted. What the right solution is I don't know, but the current system ain't it. I know I may be in the minority on the forums regarding this, but I think the facts this round, and the facts next round if the current system is not modified will bear that out. One other question for those that disagree with me. Pick the top private galaxy, with 28 publics they could have all easily exiled into a public galaxy together early in the round when the cost is low and then played together just like they have now. They would have totally dominated in my opinion. |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
I think people are forgetting how ridiculously easy to raid these public gals is. Pretty sure I have red on my screen every time I log in, and I'm in a "t10" gal... people literally just farm public gals.
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And, in regards to the idea of creating a "real fortress" of CT members (using the term fortress in relation to Ascendancy style galaxies of the past rounds), as mz and others have said: fortresses are overrated, they're not a good tactic for alliances that don't have a high skill/activity level. No offence to CT, but you'd just be making yourselves an easy target (if any alliance specifically wanted to target you, which wouldn't be the case this round because there's bigger fish to fry). |
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The other big problem with the current system is it really separates the newbies from the top players, and I really think it is an absolute crime to do this. Either newbies need to be completely separated and play in their own little uni (say c200) or they need to be allowed to be integrated with the top players so that they can see how the top players manage it and learn from them. Not that I am a top player, but I have had the privilege this round to work with half a dozen true PA newbies this round and it has been fun. If I had chosen to go into a private galaxy I doubt many of these newbies would have stood any chance at all. Also it is a misnomer that public gals can always be roided at will. My gal (not a t10) does a very good job at stopping random incomming. Unless we are hit with a gal raid we rarely get roided. So it really all depends on the activity level in the public galaxy and their commitment to work as a team, something that is certainly easy to do in private gals, but can also be done in public gals. |
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mz makes a far better point, but this is supplementary. |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
5 man pure alliance gals!
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Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
I actually suggested busting up ND fortress galaxies this round by asking them to exile into random gals. Fortresses are great for drawing large amounts of concentrated incomings, and you really need a strong defensive alliance to support them properly.
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If you want to fly under the radar and become near impossible to kick lumps out of, spreading out is the right strategy, particularly if your active defence pool is limited. You'll lose more from the average galaxy raid but if you're good enough to get defence out to cover those, you end up losing very little. It's a very inefficient tradeoff but one well worth considering if you don't rate yourself in a war for #1 type situation. The only type of attack you really need to worry about is a fleetcatch, but then you are probably set up to avoid getting into that level of conflict in the first place. |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
Just make a maximum of 13 planets for every gal (private and public), 8 man bp's, so 5 people can still exile in.
That way every gal could be as strong as another as long as active people are in it... |
Re: Why Public/Privates don't work (at least this round)
13 planet public gals will suck, tho it would encourage people to do private gals more, i wouldn't want to take my chances in a 13 planet random gal. most likely 7 of those planets will be inactive.
cap at 18 planets would be nice tho |
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I'd prefer a dynamic cap that activates as long as a random galaxy is #1, so random and private galaxies are automaticly balanced. |
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