A necessary evil?
I've made this thread to discuss a problem that has been seeping into PA for a while. I know that the entire community has made moaning and whinging a pastime since the dawn of PA, but I am going to try to provide a slightly more structured argument than the standard "PA SUCKS NOW!!!111 BRIN BAK ROUND £!".
The point I wish to discuss is galaxies (yes, the old private/random debate). I was one of those people who argued strongly for the current system, and suggested it repeatedly for several rounds before it was introduced, but I feel that, with the small playerbase we now have, the galaxy setup is detrimental as it is. I remember when galaxies were a major part of the game, it was a last refuge if your alliance couldn't help you, it was a source of friendship and entertainment. I spent many a late night sat in galaxy channels just talking with my gal mates, and I made many friends that I still know today. Most people put their alliance first, this has always been the case and always will be as alliances are the most constant part of PA, but people still valued their galaxies highly, and would want their galaxy to do well. The trouble now is that you can pretty much guarantee that if you are in a big alliance, you will land in a galaxy with someone hostile, or who you can guarantee will be hostile at some point in the round. As a result, big alliance players are on their guard from the instance that their galaxy is created. They are weary of forming ties in case they have to be broken, they are suspiscious of their gal mates loyalty, and are constantly on the guard for their galmates giving information on their activity patterns to hostile alliances and not reporting incomming. This suspiscion is a two way thing, and likely creates problems that weren't there before, a classic case of people being so paranoid about something happening that they actually create it. Now I know there are people on these boards who are going to jump on this and say it is a problem with the big alliances themselves and the way they are, but the way they are is not going to change, it is how people choose to play the game, which is (as much as people may hate it) their perrogative. The result (whatever you believe the root cause to be) is that galaxies now lack cohesion. The comradeship, morale and friendship that used to be there is gone. People sit in galaxy channels because they have more to lose by not sitting in them. They no longer sit in there because they want to. I know this is something that people have been complaining about for ages, and there will always be galaxies like this, but it appears to me to be becoming increasingly widespread. The problem I feel is that the current galaxy setup is not suited to the player base. The near guarantee that you will end up in a galaxy with hostiles removes the inclination to put effort into a galaxy. The horror stories of galaxies from recent rounds get peoples guard up. The large galaxy size compounds this by forcing alliances to hit their own galaxies due to a lack of other targets, which creates a serious dilema for anybody who has a decent galaxy, and the knowledge this will happen makes people reluctant to form any attatchments. The dreaded and much maligned private galaxies are a better option than buddypacks now. Private galaxies allowed people to play with a decent sized group of friends, and almost guarantee that there would be little in-galaxy conflict. I do of course see the problems with private galaxies, and I don't feel they are an adequate solution to the problem. What I instead feel is a sensible solution is to return to the round 6 galaxy system where you have a half random half private galaxy system. You could have for example 5 private's per galaxy and then fill up with randoms after that, or maybe even only 4 privates and the rest randoms. Ultimately, I feel that the number of galaxies needs to increase and the divisions that are ripping galaxies apart before they have a chance to develop proper friendships need to be avoided. I know that lots of people hate private galaxies, but I think that the current buddypack system is doing more harm to the game. Even a full random round is better than the current situation, as at least that forces people to make friendship ties. With a much larger playerbase, the buddypack system would probably be brilliant as landing in a hostile galaxy would be unlikely, but in an age where most people who go in a buddypack are in an alliance that's challenging for top spot, buddypacks are not sensible. It's an idea that was suggested to fix problems that were developing, but was introduced too late, once those problems had got their grip and the suggestion was no longer relevant. These are my thoughts on the galaxy setup, and I would be interested to know what other people feel. |
Re: A necessary evil?
I totally agree!
And I'm Bashars GC :P |
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yeh i agree too... Last round i was in a great gal.. (not rankwise) but otherwise, we were enemies, but we were chatting and having fun.. this round, the setup is the same, some have enemies in there, some dont, but we aint talking shit, its like a graveyard.. when we get incomings, there is _MAYBE_ a line of "reported" the incs.. elsewise theres allmost no talking..
I disagree with Bashars system tho.. I would rather like 6 privates and rest random, (10 man gals), cause that makes you feel that you have allmost a 100% priv gal.. even tho its just 60%, and it wont let the randoms out of the "community" ingal, as likely when knowing the other 6, you are obviously more secure, and will include them.. I feel the system today is a waste.. why play theese big gals when there are "no" players? Just my thoughts |
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The problem with having larger numbers of privates is that it encourages blocking, as no alliance wants to have 10 gals with all their members in, it's a lot of eggs and not a lot of baskets. Targetting becomes very easy, an alliance could get twatted VERY easily. A compromise is needed between the need to avoid having hostiles in gal and the need to avoid forcing alliances into blocks. 4-5 privates would possibly do this, although I think lots of alliance HC would disagree on this point (they'd want it more in the 3-4 region I think), however I don't think it would be too bad as everyone would be in the same situation.
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Re: A necessary evil?
You might want to check out this other thread in Suggestions (esp. last page).
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I agree with Bashar. The current system leaves much to be desired.
We tried to go back to semi-private galaxies in round 12, but for some reason it didnt work. Can't remember why. But it did work in round 6, which I think had the best galaxy system yet seen in PA. |
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I think one of the main problems with the galaxy setup that also lead to treachery, secrecy and whatnot is the fact that galaxies can have an unlimited number of players. This leads to much more exiling than before (because as more new players sign up, there is another spot in a top galaxy available for someone to move into) which can only harm galaxies. You have new players coming and going so often, that sometimes you don't even know who everyone in your galaxy is.
So thats my view on the current setup. As for my solution, personally I think any setup whereby there is a fixed limit to the number of players in any galaxy is a step in the right direction. In a smaller galaxy there is less chance of defence (sure, noobs might get roided, but I thought roid-swapping was good for both the game and the noobs since XP is rather invaluable.) In a fixed-limit setup the top galaxy will be limited to 10 (for arguments sake) 'elite' players, while the bottom galaxy has 10 noobs. Looking at the current round, the top galaxies (can) have nearly twice as many 'elite' players. Fixing the limit would produce: A smaller gap between the top and bottom galaxies, and more 'elite' galaxies than before (19 'elites' from one galaxy into 2 galaxies of 10.) which *should* also lead to more even competition in the middle. The points that Bashar has already outlined - the closer bonds between galmates, for example - are all fixed(ish) with a fixed limit. Lastly, as I said earlier, fixed limit galaxies lead to harder defence and therefore easier attacking. What sort of players do we want to develop the new guys into? People who just sit in a nice big galaxy waiting for defence from some random guy? Or people who go out and roid others and organise their ingal defence as a team? That was a bit of a badly written post so my apologies for that, but I expect you can decrypt it... |
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I think I agree with Arfy but I'm not entirely sure why, it just feels right to have smaller galaxies with the smaller player base. This would also lead to smaller clusters which might encourage more cluster cooperation, which can't be a bad thing for the newer players.
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Secondly, not only would we see smaller clusters (although I don't know if this is good/bad/different at all) we would see more galaxies and more clusters. Again, this agrees with the original post that less galaxies will be caught in the middle of things. The alliance wars are what have unsettled alot of galaxies this round. |
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I agree, I've been thinking along these lines as well.
I can't see how the rampant paranoia, fake nicking and secret gal chans is doing much good. These are all by-products of the current random system. It's really hard to be friendly with some of your gal mates, or even call them gal mates, when you're at war with them. People have to run to their hc's to ask permission to defend others ingal. Sometimes it's your own alliance hitting your gal mates. So you're right, creating gal unity, which is the key to making new PA buddies and basically having more fun (especially for new players), is extremely hard and most people don't really bother that much. Quote:
With what you propose, the system becomes less luck based and more skill based. Which is good. As it stands, gals with two intial "pro" buddy packs and a bunch of great exiles form active supergals and pull away for the win. Race ratios is very luck based -- you might have to get rid of small players who show potential simply because you want a better race mix. A lucky mixture of diffrent alliances, particularly if HC's are involved helps prevent significant incominng. Gals willing to defend eachother despite being enemies have another incredible advantage.. Personally, I'd lean twords fixed 15 man gals with 4-6 privates for reasons Arfy and others have already described. |
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My solution for Bashars problem:
1) Make alliance memberships visible to everyone. 2) 10 or 12 planets per galaxy, 1 buddypack of 4 people per gal. |
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Including any randoms at all means you have no real chance of avoiding any of the problems listed above. 5 man priv gal or 5 man random gal is the way to go.
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How about:
1 buddy pack of 4 people per gal base exile/self exile formulae on number of paid planets not number of planets - this will stop people going into the #1 gal (most likely it will anyway) when they exile either make exile/self exiel more expensive OR limit exile frequency no artifical limit on galaxy size BUT I expect this change would bring galaxy size down to 10-12 members of buddy packs cannot self exile OR be exile from a galaxy - it is their galaxy - they should decide who can be in it or not |
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Has anybody stopped to think what would happen if we had private galaxies?
All the best players would be concentrated in the top galaxies and the quality would deteriorate as we go down the chain. The best players would be in an impregnable fortress and the not so good players would be living in a sea of incoming . What this game needs is for the quality of players to be spread as equally as possible between all galaxies. The current system that we have between tick 0 and tick 36 promotes this to the best of its ability and does not need improving in the slightest. The problem we are currently facing with galaxies is the exile system. This is what needs improving. |
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On a side note, smaller galaxies help smaller alliances. Currently to make an impact on a galaxy I'd expect ~30 fleets to be sent towards it which small alliances can often find hard to do. |
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EDIT: I no longer agree with this. |
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Yes, an "impregnable fortress" of 10-12 planets, where only 4 of them are from a buddypack :rolleyes: The exiling thing obviously needs to be looked over, but kal seems to be heading in the right direction. There is less incentive to self-exile to try and find the best gal in this system because of the outlined restrictions. Though I think some way of exiling completely inactive buddy pack members wouldn't be out of line. |
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The purpose of buddy packs is to create a core for every galaxy so that they all have a chance to do well. Allowing up to 6 people to be in buddy packs (where the buddy pack members only choose up to 2 other buddy packers) is the perfect number. This way no group of people that choose to play together can completely dominate a galaxy because they can be overwhelmed by the randoms and the other people in the galaxy who also came from a buddy pack. Making galaxies have only 1 buddy pack with 4 people in it makes the core far less capable of helping the galaxy as a whole. These 4 people, while at least semi organised since they managed to get a buddy pack together, could well be totally incompetent at making the galaxy work well. At least with two buddy packs you have a chance to offset a bad buddy pack by the fact that there is 1 other buddy pack there. |
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Seriously, look around you, see how things are. Private galaxies would HELP smaller planets. OK, smaller players would have no shot at #1, but do they anyway? Being in a galaxy with a 1up member means you get incomming from big alliances, same if you're in a galaxy with LCH etc. It's how it is. The reason this happens is that alliances target their enemies, but in gal defence screws things up, so you have to hit whole galaxies. This puts smaller players in big galaxies in the firing line. If they were in other galaxies, they would not attract the attention of larger alliances (back in Fury when I was not even an officer, Sid objected to newbie bashing - it is a term used badly, most 'newbies' getting bashed are being bashed by other 'newbies' when they are in a non-big-alliance galaxy). there has always been a deteriorating quality as you go down the rankings, it's one of those things. This is an appropriate place to say "shit happens". Unless you want to live in a liberal world where everyone is equal no matter of their circumstances, then you are in the wrong game. Full private is better for smaller players than the current system (and notice I am not arguing for full private). |
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Reading some of the posts here, I am actually close to despairing. People seem to be thinking of this as a coding problem. They are thinking along the lines of "how can we code the exile system to not let these problems show". This is COMPLETELY the wrong approach. It is more a social problem. Force people to stay in the galaxies they exile to and fine, they will stay, they have no choice, but they won't be happy there. The way to approach it is quite simply to make people happy to stay in their galaxies. As soon as you try to force a choice on someone, you are doomed to failure, you have to make it so that a certain choice is more beneficial to them. Make them WANT that choice. You try and make someone do something and they'll resist, I guarantee it. Make it so they want to do something and you'll have no problem.
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I'd choose to take away the emphasis on luck of exile and initial sorting on the round - 3, 4 or 5 man private galaxies is what i'd like. This would get rid of the problem of in gal politics etc. It would take away a social aspect of the game that has been getting more and more poisoned as the rounds have gone on, mainly due to the decreasing playerbase. I'm aware of the fact that given the vilification of private galaxies as the root of all that is evil this will never happen, but I don't like seeing mixed gals - it leads to the hiding, the conflict, the suspicion. As a new player, the most fun I had was when I joined my first private galaxy with a guy who invited me over in-game mail. Sorry for my rather unhelpful initial post. |
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OK, that is better put. I think r6 was a better example though, private galaxies with randoms attatched on the end. It let smaller players get a taste of the big scene, but it didn't restrict them to is. But the sum of your post is that mostly, we agree.
:D |
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The playerbase has changed significantly since Round 6, where there were still a fairly large number of new and unaligned players in the game. When it was tried in Round 12 (11?) there weren't sufficient people who were prepared to go random to fill up the galaxies to a decent size. This was then exacarbated by the fact that each galaxy was formed from a private one, yet some people hadn't got themselves sufficiently organised, and were in a private galaxy of 1 or 2, instead of the maximum allowed, which of course lead to them being skewed right from the start. When you add on the fact that the majority of the random planets that were about were either freebies, or multiple accounts created to get into a "good" galaxy, the entire system went to pot. The current system may not be perfect, but it does have the advantage of each galaxy having a similar number of players in it. I'm not saying that its the best, but there have been some significantly worse ones. |
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remember r6 A2? We were in the same galaxy, it was never even a considered issue. Buddypacks at the moment create conflict within the galaxies, it doesn't matter a bit how many people are in the galaxy, or how good they are, as soon as you have galaxy conflict, the galaxy is useless. There may be other undesirable effects, but as I see it, buddypacks in the current game context are the worst case scenario for galaxies. Galaxy civil wars are the worst thing that you can have in PA.
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(Oh, and yes, I did survive Noddy's driving, didn't even have any nail biting moments!)
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Buddypacks were created in response to Round 11 (I'm pretty sure that it was R11 now) as a way to avoid the problems created by trying to implement the R6 system again. (incidentally I do remember Round 6, it was the galaxy where you were GC and appointed Morden as MoW who then proceeded to attack with Fury, rather than create attacks for the galaxy. Since the player numbers continued to go down after that point I think that that was the beginning of the situation we're in now, where in galaxies alliance membership is prized above all else. People playing alliance>galaxy is whats killing it, which I suppose is a good case to be arguing for smaller galaxies overall, ie, not lumping groups of players together. On the other hand the smaller, and more close-knit a galaxy gets, the less chance there is of a new player being welcome, and the greater the paranoia connected with every new arrival) |
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Sorry A2 but you're wrong about round 11, at least. I remember it all quite clearly. Round 10.5 was full private. Round 11 was the trial for buddypacks. It didnt work out so they went to semi-private for round 12. That didn't work either, so they went back to the round 11 system of buddypacks for round 13 the difference being that galaxy size could theoretically now be infinite.
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Also, you'll never have a situation where galaxies are right for everyone. there are always discontents. You have to accept that. As it stands, current galaxies suit the odd individual who gets lucky, but do not benefit any group, on the whole, galaxy setup as is is bad for all concerned, |
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One of the incentives to self-exile is to land with "pros" and try to form a super gal. Some sort of restriction on our current lax exiling system* to prevent that from happeing would be desirable, don't you think? Quote:
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If there wasn't enough randoms to fill in the private players, you could always increase the amount of privates in each gal equally ya know. *new planets can self-exile countless times in their first tick since it's free, that definately has to be fixed.. |
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lets say i'm in a random and I land in middle of the range private galaxy - I might quite possibly then self exile to try and get into a better galaxy. This is the problem, people allways want a better galaxy - this was the point about buddy packs, the idea was that each galaxy in essence has two chances rather than one of getting an active core - the downside is of course the conflict that having two good cores would create. I believe we need to in essence force attitudes to change by forcing people to stay with their post shuffle galaxies. Now I believe that exile and self exile do have real uses, however the use should not be to find a better galaxy, it should be to remove someone who does not fit into a galaxy or who is spying etc, or in the case of self exile to leave a galaxy that contains people you can't get on with. In the case of self exile this could be controlled by only allowing two self exiles OR by only allowing one self exile every 7 days. I'd also suggest not allowing self exile for free accounts as this means free multi accounts cannot be used to hop around between galaxies to spy on people - which means it should be safer to have no limit on galaxy size. I am a strong advocate of having no limit on galaxy size for a number of reasons: New legitimate signups get a chance to play in a decent galaxy Same planet assignment code for new signups can be used pre and post shuffle and also for self exile and return from c200 The problems with this are: large galaxies free spy planets (this can be addressed thorugh self exile restrictions) I believe that moving to a single pack of four, if thats what people want will reduce galaxy size. An additional option may be to allow people to form "random buddy packs" which are in essence another group of 4 people that would be used as a galaxy building block - the downside of this is that normal randoms wouldn;t know whether they are going to a galaxy with a strong core or a galaxy with no core. I'm also unconvinced that a single pack of 4 as opposed to two packs totalling six planets will create a more balenced universe |
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I think if we keep the current buddypack system but goes back to having a 10 man limit on galaxies we could prolly have a more balanced galaxy.
We could also have a 4 fleetslot for galaxy. I do agree that the current galaxysystem isnt much to be desired.. Infact i dont like it at all. Because when you get such a large number of players in each galaxy and smaller universes you are bound to keep galaxyfarms where the new players expirience wave after wave of shipstealers.. |
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i think u will get the farming regardless of the galaxy system - in nfact surely its easier to farm a ne wplayer if he/her is in a galaxy by themselves?
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Thing is that with todays stealers you will get the a much higher grade of farming newbies than before. Since you can steal his ships, it is even more attractive to play. Imho, stealers should be removed from the game. That is one of the more negative things inflicting damage on the new players. You go to sleep for 8 hours, just to wake up to see your fleet gone.
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Edit: and less roids to rebuild with. |
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To: Kargool - but that's the same as an Xan killing all your fleet. And there's no salvage for stolen ships? Well....:mad: didn't even know. Screw realism, your ships are 'dead' either way.
As for removing stealing, I think the problem is the incentive to hit smaller players to steal their ships. Negative XP would appear to help solve this. |
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if you want to build back galaxy spirit, as I see it you need to do several things.
1. you need to remove the cloak and dagger. part of the problem is this fake nicking business. when you don't know or don't trust who you're talking to it creates unrest and people do not readily co-operate. My own gal this round didn't fake nick past about tick 5 (except for some of the guys from one particular new alliance) as a result, our gal actually gets on. i've found new respect for some players, and would happily, send ships to die at their place if it helped them out. And that's not common for me. How to stop fake nicking? well the answer lies in chika's thread just across the way there. Visable planet alliance tags. if you're going to have a private gal plus randoms, and trying to make a cohesive unit a lot of those random allianceless folks are going to land in gals which will want them to improve and will assist them to become active. and so you'll get less bashing of people with no tag, more in gal defending because people have to get on (see second point). 2. Remove the easy option to trade up (or out) sort out exile. it needs to be periodic. kal's suggestion about only so often is a good one. For gal mates to want to help in new players they need to be forced to try and help them, eventually they'll find some that stick. So gal exile every 4 days or so? self exile 2 options to do so, again every 4 days. 2 max limit. This gives gals an incentive to try and make a situation work, rather than just ruthlessley exiling, because frankly with the current option that makes the most sense for achieveing high end results. 3. extra gal defence People join alliances mostly for the -1 eta on def. take that away, and alliances would basically become battle groups. So it's defence, not attack that creates unity the most. (yeah sue me for discussing cause and effect on a correlation, you know i'm right anyway). Give players a 4th slot to be used for in gal defence only. you now have an incentive to make your galaxy work, coupled with point 2 this is a carrot and stick approach. now none of this is new, these are ideas that have been around for a while now, but implimenting them, will remove the source of the problem which is "why should galaxies co-operate when they stand to lose more than they gain". its all very well saying gals provide defence, but more times than not, you've got 2 fleets out attacking and 1 deffing your alliance, or 1 and 2, and nothing left for your gal, and you do this or your alliance doesn't send you def. I'm totally behind the 4 or 5 bp and only 1 bp per gal btw (rnd 6 gals but with reduced numbers since the player base dropped) and yes you could still have fixed gal numbers, i think that's practical with the number of planets we have. |
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I agree with just about everything madnrisky has said apart from the alliance eta advantage - that is needed in order make alliances use the in game system - otherwise they won;t and any public tags would not work.
I'm all for the extra fleet for in gal defence, however i'm informed that becuase of the way Spinner coded fleets its a bit of a pain, but i'll get it looked into. |
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no no I wasn't saying remove the eta advantage for alliances at all hehe :) it wasn't about "drop this for alliances to make people rely on gals more", i like alliances. What i was saying was pretty much what you just did, that it's the defence bonus that makes people use alliances, so in order to make people use gals, they need a defence bonus. And eta won't cut it because eta isn't the bottle neck, fleet slots are, hence the suggestion. :) and cheers btw, it's nice being agreed with :) |
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I dont think that having Open alliance tags is important about this, because if we do have open tags, the smaller alliances will get hit by alliances with more active better planets, instead of galaxybashing we would start to see Alliancebashing.
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