Planetarion Forums - View Single Post - A take on integrating randoms into Buddypacks

berten · 31 Mar 2010, 17:51

For quite some years now the planetarion universe has been set up with galaxies consisting of buddy packs and randoms.

Over the rounds we've seen various strategies around this setup, going from sheer luck (There always seems to be a galaxy that ends up with 10 active planets, while others can keep exiling inactive planets the entire round) to controlled fortressing.

The fortress and lucky gals set aside, this system has lead to quite some frustration within galaxies (and buddypacks who are imo the core of each galaxy) that were seriously weakend because of having only a half-active galaxy. (Example: last round we saw buddypacks not even able to get a galaxy commander elected)

This round 'and yes i'm biased here' our lovely private galaxies are back and this obviously solves all the problems for the die-hard planetarion player.

Looking at the universe rankings tough it appears that the random galaxies are not able to keep up with the private ones, altough they are more then twice as big.

Both randoms and new players end up in those random galaxies and know they'll be the universe's toyballs for 1000 ticks unless they manage to hop into the 1-2 active random galaxies out there.

Now, for the experienced players who choose to go random you could maybe say, tough luck try again next round. For the ocasional noob trying out this game it's a quick route to "I'll go play mafiawars instead'.

I've been thinking about a way to get those randoms more involved into the universe without running into the problems the universe has had over the past years.

In order to achieve this we must in my opinion

Take out the luck-factor
Take inactive planets out of the equation
Encourage randoms/newbies to be active and give them an instant reward for that
Do a better job into teaching newbies what planetarion is all about

The following is just a draft of some plans I came up with while having a smoke.

I suggest a system where we have our buddy-packs form the core of our galaxies. The system here shouldn't change to much, 1 bp / galaxy etc etc.

The new part of my plan is how to deal with the randoms. I want to put a system into place where buddy-packs can 'select' randoms into their galaxies. Now obviously we can't do this based on purely x:y:z information as that would just mean we'll have 40 fortress galaxies playing vs eachother. We need an objective way for galaxies to invite randoms into their midst.

I want to put into place a skill-system. All planets get 'skill' points based on actions they take both in the game as in the meta-game (Next to the basic quest system I would also take into account 'registering yourself for recuitment on irc', ...).

Randoms would gather skill-points overtime (this could go pretty rapidly, basicly your basic skill-set could be completed by tick 1) - and based solely on these skillpoints galaxies can choose to request a random to join their galaxy.

Each galaxy can accept a total of x-skillpoints into their galaxy. If u want 2 very skilled players you can take those in, if you rather take the chance and accept 6 active newbies you can make that choice.
If a buddypack decides to stay fully private they also have this choice, but will they have a chance against a semi-private galaxy twice their size?

Final note i want to make: The skill-points should be the sole base for selecting which random to accept. No nicks, no coords, just points and achievements (eg: has this user been on irc, ...)

As i said, just a draft, please discuss

31 Mar 2010, 17:51	#1
berten respect, unity, order Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 280	A take on integrating randoms into Buddypacks For quite some years now the planetarion universe has been set up with galaxies consisting of buddy packs and randoms. Over the rounds we've seen various strategies around this setup, going from sheer luck (There always seems to be a galaxy that ends up with 10 active planets, while others can keep exiling inactive planets the entire round) to controlled fortressing. The fortress and lucky gals set aside, this system has lead to quite some frustration within galaxies (and buddypacks who are imo the core of each galaxy) that were seriously weakend because of having only a half-active galaxy. (Example: last round we saw buddypacks not even able to get a galaxy commander elected) This round 'and yes i'm biased here' our lovely private galaxies are back and this obviously solves all the problems for the die-hard planetarion player. Looking at the universe rankings tough it appears that the random galaxies are not able to keep up with the private ones, altough they are more then twice as big. Both randoms and new players end up in those random galaxies and know they'll be the universe's toyballs for 1000 ticks unless they manage to hop into the 1-2 active random galaxies out there. Now, for the experienced players who choose to go random you could maybe say, tough luck try again next round. For the ocasional noob trying out this game it's a quick route to "I'll go play mafiawars instead'. I've been thinking about a way to get those randoms more involved into the universe without running into the problems the universe has had over the past years. In order to achieve this we must in my opinion Take out the luck-factor Take inactive planets out of the equation Encourage randoms/newbies to be active and give them an instant reward for that Do a better job into teaching newbies what planetarion is all about The following is just a draft of some plans I came up with while having a smoke. I suggest a system where we have our buddy-packs form the core of our galaxies. The system here shouldn't change to much, 1 bp / galaxy etc etc. The new part of my plan is how to deal with the randoms. I want to put a system into place where buddy-packs can 'select' randoms into their galaxies. Now obviously we can't do this based on purely x:y:z information as that would just mean we'll have 40 fortress galaxies playing vs eachother. We need an objective way for galaxies to invite randoms into their midst. I want to put into place a skill-system. All planets get 'skill' points based on actions they take both in the game as in the meta-game (Next to the basic quest system I would also take into account 'registering yourself for recuitment on irc', ...). Randoms would gather skill-points overtime (this could go pretty rapidly, basicly your basic skill-set could be completed by tick 1) - and based solely on these skillpoints galaxies can choose to request a random to join their galaxy. Each galaxy can accept a total of x-skillpoints into their galaxy. If u want 2 very skilled players you can take those in, if you rather take the chance and accept 6 active newbies you can make that choice. If a buddypack decides to stay fully private they also have this choice, but will they have a chance against a semi-private galaxy twice their size? Final note i want to make: The skill-points should be the sole base for selecting which random to accept. No nicks, no coords, just points and achievements (eg: has this user been on irc, ...) As i said, just a draft, please discuss __________________ Together We Stand Divided We Fall [Ðragons]