Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

So, not so much private, as the ability to keep people in galaxy. My galaxy is the perfect example of why. This round, of our buddy pack, only 3 stayed active throughout the round. We got 1 or 2 experienced players as exiles, but we also got quite a few "noobs" and "recent players" that were just getting exiled from one place to another. I just want to pick a few examples from my galaxy:

Demonicus - Had played before, wasnt even going to upgrade, but we convinced him to stay, and since has been as active as anyone. Had no alliance, now in XvX.

Raybone - Father of two, new player, not a ton of time to play, was exiled a billion (tm) times before landing in our galaxy. I spent a bunch of time going over fleets etc with him and he also upgraded. Due to his lack of time to play he needed something to do so I gave him a purpose: BS defense for the galaxy. He now has around 500 dragons and is obviously invaluable for defense (can be contacted in case of emergency). He also attacks here and there when he has time.

Randal - those that have been around a while recognize him, he was a big legion player back in the early rounds. He plays semi active, but plays 100% for the galaxy and is one of the most constant defenders we have.

zokka - started as a nub, now a pretty good size member of subh

thu - another person to bounce around a lot before landing with us; now one of our top defenders and is very helpful etc.

These are just some examples where some of them I think, should they be able to stay with us, whereas having to start over new...I wonder if they will even play. I know that even though some have relatively low scores, Id love to keep them ingal.

Just my 2 cents anyway.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

i agree with Ska
I would also keep rember as ingal scanner :D everusefull

oh, and u forgot qerr ! ! ! Hwo can u forget qerr !

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

I love them little tacos.

Ahem I mean how did privet gal r3 work again?

And I also love Raybones Dragons :)

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

What?! When did round 3 end?!

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Im the sexiest tho...

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Maybe the sexiest, but most useless out of all of us fo shure. At least u should have dropped some EO into fund now and then :p

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Round 3's was the worst example of galaxy setup we have had in this game. Fury and Legions HC's activily encouraged their members to account swap at the end of r2 to give them as close to full galaxies as you can get without fully private galaxies. It basically hands private galaxies to those alliances whom are willing to promote low level 'cheating'

You have buddypacks and if a handful of you want to play together you can using which is alot less abusable then having the ability for plauets to opt to stay or quit this rounds galaxy

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

I almost didnt reply just due to the complete lack of logic/reason on your part. First how is that any different than the later private galaxies, and secondly that was BEFORE THEY DID IP TRACKING.

Im starting to think more and more than your whole charade as being a champion of the "nubs" is really just you being a champion of mediocrity.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Go ska :)

I'm a noob eh :), guess thats why i'm in subh

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Its different to later private galaxies because full private galaxies give everyone the chance to pick their galaxy mates and doesnt just give the chance to those whom would sell their grandmother if it meant their alliance will be dominate. And yes the account swapping could still happen in the later private galaxies but you arent given months to arrange the swaps like you were for r3 which made arranging the swaps and doing it smartly.

As for the BEFORE THEY DID IP TRACKING. IP tracking has always been done and your mistaking the claims that they didnt use just IP records to close a planet as being claims they didnt do IP tracking.

And if i'm being the champion of mediocrity then I know I'd rather be that than being the Champion of Elitism that you being here as its the elistist that these idea serves best. Its galaxies like the #1 galaxy who have exiled anyone who isnt highly active whom end up being the winners are these 'super' galaxies dont get broken up while its those lower down whom are in galaxies that are interspurced with the usual low/no activity people whom just keep getting moved around the universe in the same pool of players as theres no opertunity to really break into the top groups. If you want something that encourages people to join the game and then to keep playing we need a galaxy system that weeds out the really poor planets while penilsing elitism and rewards openess to give players a chance, not a system that ensures the well off planets remain well off and the planets struggling can never get above their current rank

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Shouldnt the goal be to train players to keep them around vs the goal being making all gals have some shit planets that never get on irc etc?

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Elvis's gal would win everytime.
Please respond with an arguement to counter that one line.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Isn't elviz retireing after this round? problem solved :D

And imho the gal I'm now if a good example on how we can train new or old veterans returning, to get back in the game.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

I dont see why it would be so hard to get all the good active players in your gal into two buddypacks - that way you'll be playing with at least some of your old mates, and somewhere out there in the universe you have a sister galaxy that can still be very useful for scans, retal, some forms of defence, etc etc.

Why is this not sufficient?

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

I'm not sure if I remember it right, but wasn't r3 the round where you could choose to stay with r2 galaxy or not.
And r4 being the first round for fully private galaxies.

I'd be happy to stay with some of my this rounds galaxy. :)

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Yes training players is important but the most important factor is getting an environment where the majority of players get a chance to be trained and better themselves. Using a galaxy system that pretty much locks out the top galaxies from the rest of the universe unless your willing to partake in account swapping between rounds isn’t indicative of a good training system.

As Sovereign mentioned the BP allows even the most active galaxies to split into multiple Buddypacks which can allow you to start a good base for 2 or more galaxies and gives the game more galaxies with a good base for other players to land in and get a chance to better themselves in. And hey there’s no rules saying galaxies can’t help each other out in anyway they can so again as Sovereign said you give yourself a network of sister galaxies which may not be able to send quick eta 5 but can send some defence, can send counter attacks and can run joint galaxy attacks with.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

I'm an old veteran, and I miss the times when the galaxies were the ones to look after, not the alliances. That's why I love my current galaxy, because our teamwork is top notch and we look after each other.

I'd actually want more galaxy-oriented gaming. I mean, look at this current system.. what's the point in the MoD, MoC and MoW?

Some of the alliances doesn't allow flying solo, so galaxy-attacks are long gone, along with MoW.

How about the MoD? What's the point in donating to galaxy fund when we have the tax system in alliance and alliances has their own funds? Useless.

And MoC? Heh.. I guess I never really understood why they are even needed. To delete galaxy forum-posts and send galaxy wide mails? lol?

So what is left for GC then? Choose the ministers?
Right....

Alliances FTL!
Galaxies FTW!

Just my 2 cents.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

OOGOOA

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Bless you.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Also failing to see any decent argument against the current system.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

no argument rly. Its just friends ingal want to stay together. Ihave had so many awesome sexy people from just past few rounds that i could build half a cluster worth of galaxies of peoples who i want to makea gal with

would be cool if, at least, the limit on BP was to be raised !

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

simply saying that people who would normally be exiled and quit could be kept in the game.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

I think this is highly debatably and as ussual I agree with UN, if you get active new players find a buddy pack to get them in where they will continue to grow and be nurtured. My BP is a great example of this, we lost two BP members early in the round, but have already found new players in our galaxy who we will take with us into the next round, and any of the other new players in my galaxy who want buddy packs I will help them find ones. I don't see how going back to private galaxies improves this situation in any significant way.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

I'd say make buddypacks quite a bit bigger, and keep those quite big galaxies of this round.

And most of all, make exiling a hell lot more difficult and less available (at least if it's not completely idle planets who go to vacation mode while in protection).

There was times completely without exiles, today that's hard to believe i guess. People almost seem like higher powers are forcing them to exile everyone on sight, else they might miss some über great guy who might just exile himself at this moment.

This way those buddypack hotshots should be forced to at least invest a bit of time in the smallies, instead of just exiling them, as it happens now (as discussed in the quite revealing PD thread).

That's part the stuff I think those fine young talented genius masterminds of this game maybe should think about, not if those ****ing alliances get another 3 members or more or less, or maybe 9/11 possible scanners, or if they should get 500% interest on their crappy funds.. or whatever the issues are you seem to spend months on thinking about. At least regarding the long term future (if there is any) of the game.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Personally I agree with you randal on the exile point, and it has been argued in many other threads so lets not start it again here. I however disagree on singificantly increasing the size of buddypacks. Every good game of any type has a good balance between luck and skill. If a game is all skill then it becomes pure math and rather boring for all but the very best. If a game is all luck then it becomes very frustating for the skilled player. Significantly increasing the size of BPs or going to a pure private galaxy format eliminates a lot of the luck associated with who ends up in galaxies. This pushes the game too far into the 'skill only' arena imo and causes a few hyperactive good players to have to great of an advantage in the game, leading to stagnation and general discontent in the majority player base. On the other side going to a pure random galaxy structure seems to lean too far the other way and leads to a lot of discontent with the core player base who wants to play with active players. The current compromise while not optimal (if indeed an optimal solution exists) does a decent job of balancing luck and skill. With the elimination of constant exiles the current BP system has a lot of strengths and should be retained mostly in tact in my opinion.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

You guys ruined our galaxy thread :( Thx for mentioning me btw Ska, clearly I'm not leet enough to be mentioned by name :crymeariver:

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

what happens to the new people that start playing next round?? they dont get in your private gal. they just go in another crap gal play for a week and goodbye.

Im with wakey, its to elitist. Yes i would love private gals id do better a lot better but to high of a proportion of players would do worse a lot worse.

and i dont want to be responisoble for killing the game

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Probably the biggest problem with making BP’s larger is the fact that bigger BP’s will mean fewer BP’s and as the base for galaxies is BP + others (or multiple smaller BP’s + others) that means we get fewer galaxies in the game.

Now one of the main negative differences in modern PA over old PA is that the galaxy has been devalued by the whole “alliances willing to make their members screw their galaxy over”. With fewer galaxies this is going to become increasingly common as you will find it hard to find a galaxy that doesn’t contain one of your members so it would probably end up weakening the galaxy unit rather than make it stronger. Until the community as a whole (and by that I mean Jolt, PATeam, Support, mods, GCs, Ministers, HCs and players) takes real steps forward in making this game more inviting and appealing to the masses I cant see a way that BP’s sizes could be increased unless we are going back to static sized galaxies which imho would be a step backwards.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

That is trouble with the exile system and people who use it.

The galaxy set up is fine, less actives for the most part will get into a galaxy with a solid core, and more active players can be in galaxies with their friends and guarantee a solid core.

Full private helps top players and kills new people, full random helps no-one.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Full random makes galaxies worthless.

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Couldn't you just introduce a second factor in how often a galaxy can exile making it say once a week however many ticks that is as well as having the cost of doing it. This would surely help to keep GC's just automatically exiling people.

Just my thoughts

Re: Why we need private galaxies, r3 style
 

Ska's example is a good testament to why r3 galaxies won't work.

There aren't enough active players to make many really active galaxies.