Ingame formula changes to get rid of bashing and salvage-farming

[are]

As you all know I really dislike the MH rules. They are very fuzzy and I personally feel they are interpreted in favour of certain players and alliances. Not necessarily because these alliances are favoured by MH team, but because they are represented by people that are very good with words and politics and can talk themselves out of the situation just because the rules are fuzzy.
This is why I like less fuzzy rules by taking away the base for the fuzzy rules and in that way making that rule irrelevant and obsolete.
My main complaint is about
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=195254

3) Farming

Ship "suiciding" will cause the beneficiary planet to be adjusted to the state it was in before the suicidal attack. An attack will be deemed a suicide if there is no realistic chance at the time of launch to gain anything, whether ships, score or experience, from landing the attack. These will be judged on a case by case basis, and human error will be taken into account, but unless sufficient reason is given, the suiciding planet will be closed. Failure of the suiciding planet to respond to a multihunter warning within twenty-four hours will be considered an indication of guilt. The suiciding planet will not regain lost ships under any circumstances. If a link can be proven between the attacking and defending planet, or sufficient evidence presented to show that there was some measure of agreement, then the beneficiary will be closed as well.

This corresponds well with the problem of big Ziks attacking small planets for stealing their ships, bashing small planets in value or score for their roids on one side and not really being able to stop a big planet in score but low value from being #1 by attacking them, you can only outgrow them.
The suggestion is changing ingame formulas for all killing/stealing/roiding/salvage things in a similar way to the XP formulas. This means they should take into account score and value differences. Probably not with exactly the same relations as XP gaining and probably the XP formula needs to be adjusted as well to avoid feedback problems, but basically real life could be a guideline here:

1. small, less established armies (aka small planets) have some use in just collecting the stuff that gets lost on the battlefield (aka salvage), big armies have little use for collecting the smaller armies pieces, way to much hassle maintaining the diversity of goods

   -> Big value/score planets should get less, in extreme down to 'no' salvage when defending against small attackers, on the other hand smaller planets can use the garbage on the battlefield way better.

2. A big group firing at a small group has a big chance to hit the same target twice while some other targets are not aimed for at all. Vice versa a small group firing at a big group has a way better chance to hit individual targets on the other hand

   -> Big value/score planets should kill/steal less small value/score planets ships than vice versa

3. Big companies need a certain customer size to start working effectively, small companies can start with way smaller customers but run into trouble with really big deals.

   -> A big value/score planet should gain less roids from smaller planets as collecting the outside circling roids is way to hard to be effective.

With these changes there should be less bashing, less ways to do salvage-farming and that way make the game more competitive throughout the round while the same time taking tasks to watch from MH team enabling them looking after real multies.

Regards,
_are_

[GReaper]

Any chance of formatting your post with paragraphs and not manually adding line breaks? It's awful to read.

[Mzyxptlk]

The problem you're trying to solve is very small, and the solution is both unrealistic and hopelessly complicated.

[are]

Originally Posted by GReaper

Any chance of formatting your post with paragraphs and not manually adding line breaks? It's awful to read.

Done

[are]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

The problem you're trying to solve is very small, and the solution is both unrealistic and hopelessly complicated.

The problem is big enough to have yielded a ton of MH rules, accusations, complaints and frustration, not only for players<->MH team but as well between players.
How complicated it is to actually code it is not part of the suggestion. I coded myself enough to have an idea how the current code must look like. I think it is doable within reasonable time and obviously not for the now starting round.
It is a mid-term suggestion and I would really apreciate if you commented on the suggestion (best would be an "I am all for it") instead of the coding side, which is some effort for every suggestion and might have a big share in the decision *when* a good suggestion gets implemented.

[MikeB]

i think its an interesting new way of looking at things.

also.. regardless of its impact towards farming, i think it will be good for small players, and therefore good for the game as a whole. plus it has the potential make things more interesting in the t10.

[Gerbie2]

Hi _are_,

xp already makes it less attractive for large planets to attack smaller planets. There is also a formula in place that provides additional salvage to small planets defending. I'm not opposed to this, but it's not a change you can implement overnight. It will have to be thoroughly tested, preferably in a decent beta (like a free round, but with the possibility of mid-round tweaks, much like the early rounds of PaX, although that wasn't a free test :/). If you get more roids when attacking a larger planet, then that would encourage xp whoring:
xp=roids_capped(value)*bravery_factor(value)

The formula's would have to be changed signifficantly, to avoid having tiny valued planets at the #1 spot.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by are

The problem is big enough to have yielded a ton of MH rules, accusations, complaints and frustration, not only for players<->MH team but as well between players.

I qualify this as petty whining for the most part.

Originally Posted by are

How complicated it is to actually code it is not part of the suggestion. I coded myself enough to have an idea how the current code must look like. I think it is doable within reasonable time and obviously not for the now starting round.

It is a mid-term suggestion and I would really apreciate if you commented on the suggestion (best would be an "I am all for it") instead of the coding side, which is some effort for every suggestion and might have a big share in the decision *when* a good suggestion gets implemented.

I'm not concerned with coding effort; I am only concerned with how easily new people can learn to play the game. I am against this suggestion because it complicates the game beyond what I'm willing to accept, taking into account that in my opinion the problem is small; it almost only concerns the top players and their alliances, and for the overwhelmingly large part of the player base it is a non-issue.


P.S. Thanks for the formatting changes in the original post, they make it much easier to read.

[Spritfire]

Originally Posted by Gerbie2

Hi _are_,

xp already makes it less attractive for large planets to attack smaller planets.

Yes for planets going for XP it is.

But the value planets allways attacks targets smaller than themself. So small as possible usually.

[are]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

I qualify this as petty whining for the most part.
I'm not concerned with coding effort; I am only concerned with how easily new people can learn to play the game.

Towards the MHs it might be whining, but if you see some frsh inxiled small planet in your galaxy comes with a ton of Zik attackers already, the same planet even visits the galaxy channel, but you can't help because there are just to many big big attackers and to few active players in the galaxy it is frustrating. For one part frsutrating for me as galaxy member seeing galaxy members going undefended, for the other part these planets quickly go inactive after a few landings. If you check the history of the planet you will mostly notice it is new players trying the game and getting a serious beating leading to them leaving. And leaving != whining.
When I started playing PA in r3 there had been 180k planets in the universe, a ton of multi planets and 2 leading alliances that just raped anyone they liked. However, as latecomer in c123 you ofc faced some incs, but you had targets you could roid yourself.
The playerbase decreased a tad since then. as a small planet you can still only roid small planets, but you tend and be unlucky with this as you do solo attacks and run into galaxy defense.
Alliances are encouraged by PA to help new players fix this, but reading into how alliances work is indeed way more complicated than what a new player accepts and therefore often fails. you grow into that structure via your galaxy, perhaps cluster. But till then you need some protection.
These suggestions sort of make you play against planets your own value/score level with room up to the top.
For how much you really gain in terms of score: For a new player this is irrelevant and the rest uses a bcalc anyway and pays attention to the 'score gained' section. The new player will just land on other new players and gain roids, when the planet grows, the amount of roids/ships/score they get by still hitting new players decreases and they look for the reasons, unles sthey noticed the bottom fileds of the bcals anyway by now.

For concerning only the top players: Bashing for roids/ships happens from the top to the bottom, so the problem afects the bottom, but the solution affects the top. Being an alliance HC and mostly getting my view of the game from my alliance members as well as the PA alliance reps channel I might miss out some inactive alliance HC views and ofc the unallied-new-planets views from direct source, but the actives speakers in the alliance rep channel are actually not the leaders of the top alliances.
Without new players the game as well as the alliances will die sooner or later. Well, ok, the alliances might move on. However, I have an intrest in getting new players here and keeping them here.

[Mzyxptlk]

So have I. Inventing elaborate formulas and obscuring the inner workings of the game is not the way, because they prevent people from even reaching the level where bashing becomes an issue (think "under the radar").

[are]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

So have I. Inventing elaborate formulas and obscuring the inner workings of the game is not the way, because they prevent people from even reaching the level where bashing becomes an issue (think "under the radar").

Bashing is an issue from the very first tick you can get incomings and it gets the more an issue the later you start in the round as you are obviously the fresh roid supplying planet with new hand-init roids. There is no 'under the radar' anymore. It is a long time since only alliances had tools to pick targets on certain criteria and used them for coordinated strikes. Everyone has access to these tools and can enter preferred roid counts / relations.
Atm the way is 'keep formulas simple and send MH team to fix the flaws the formulas have'. And MH team has a ton of work to do, the backlogs seem to be huge. If you are accused of cheating and hear about it, the event is gone for 2 weeks. I have seen 4 cases of that in the past 2 rounds, 2 people that had been unable to proof they didn't cheat as their own logs had been gone, two people who cheated indeed. For all 4 of them the frustration had been huge seeing the time difference between the event and the notice.
Better ingame formulas -> less ways to cheat -> less workload on MH team -> faster response times to incidents -> less frustration. And no MH can fix a bashed planet, so the current solution is not even close to complete.
For the ingame mechanics being easy to understand or not: it modifies the current formulas, as long as you attack your own value/score it is just the same, if you attack bigger targets you gain a benefit, if you are able to attack smaller targets you are there long enough to use a bcalc anyway. Have not seen anyone hand-calcing and attack in a long time, especially not those that bash for roids/ships.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by are

from the very first tick you can get incomings

Yeah. Think about this for a minute. Or 72.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Spritfire

Yes for planets going for XP it is.

But the value planets allways attacks targets smaller than themself. So small as possible usually.

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Hello war game!

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

So have I. Inventing elaborate formulas and obscuring the inner workings of the game is not the way, because they prevent people from even reaching the level where bashing becomes an issue (think "under the radar").

Well, yes and no. I think with the first two of _are_'s suggestions at least (not a major fan of the roid one), are quite viable. Why? Because to a new player, they dont need to understand why they got the salvage that they did; rather, its much simpler for them if it just appears and is then used. Thus, i'm generally in favour of high salvage rates for the smallest players as ships are so critical.

As for stealing and so on, I think if the game can discourage larger or established players from attacking new or struggling planets, then this is good for the game's community. Sure, the current XP formula does this; if you're after XP. That isnt really a huge dis-incentive for value players and/or for Ziks looking to steal certain types of ships. They will continue to attack players smaller than they "should" in order to gain that advantage. If they were faced with some "soft" limit to what they can steal, then there wont be such strong pressue on the smallest of players.

As for the roids, Suggestion 3, its a good idea in principle, however i feel that this is where Myz has a point: if it becomes overly complicated to owrk out how many roids you're expecting to capture at a maximum, then people will attack less or chose inferior targets. Having a 25% max cap rule, everyone knows easily without the aid of a battlecalc what is available for a successful raid. And i think that is important.

But for the increased salvage//limited stealing, I find myself approving.

To those who think i'm talking total bollocks, then spend a round being a mediochre planet, and witness for yourself the stupidly large amount of incoming and crazy things that people do to you for no apparent reason.

[are]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

As for the roids, Suggestion 3, its a good idea in principle, however i feel that this is where Myz has a point: if it becomes overly complicated to owrk out how many roids you're expecting to capture at a maximum, then people will attack less or chose inferior targets. Having a 25% max cap rule, everyone knows easily without the aid of a battlecalc what is available for a successful raid. And i think that is important.

I don't regard the 'roid' part of the formulas the critical one, mainly used it to have all types of killing/stealing. For reducing bashing and salvage farming the first 2 are enough, the last one was meant mainly for motivation to hit larger planets.

[Remy]

Originally Posted by are

.
.

My main complaint is about
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=195254

3) Farming

Ship "suiciding" will cause the beneficiary planet to be adjusted to the state it was in before the suicidal attack. An attack will be deemed a suicide if there is no realistic chance at the time of launch to gain anything, whether ships, score or experience, from landing the attack. These will be judged on a case by case basis, and human error will be taken into account, but unless sufficient reason is given, the suiciding planet will be closed. Failure of the suiciding planet to respond to a multihunter warning within twenty-four hours will be considered an indication of guilt. The suiciding planet will not regain lost ships under any circumstances. If a link can be proven between the attacking and defending planet, or sufficient evidence presented to show that there was some measure of agreement, then the beneficiary will be closed as well.

This corresponds well with the problem of big Ziks attacking small planets for stealing their ships, bashing small planets in value or score for their roids on one side and not really being able to stop a big planet in score but low value from being #1 by attacking them, you can only outgrow them.

With these changes there should be less bashing, less ways to do salvage-farming and that way make the game more competitive throughout the round while the same time taking tasks to watch from MH team enabling them looking after real multies.

I fail to see the connection to MHs here. Ziks stealing from smallers planets isn't against the rules. Bashing noobs/small planets isn't against the rules. Salvage gathering isn't against the rules.

If you look closely, you are only suggesting changes to prevent these ways of gameplay, which are in your view, unsportive in some way. Please try to seperate the things a bit more.

P.S.: Not flaming you, im serious, please separate cheating from wyas of gameplay that are judged as being 'unfair', 'unsportive', etc.

[are]

Originally Posted by Remy

I fail to see the connection to MHs here. Ziks stealing from smallers planets isn't against the rules. Bashing noobs/small planets isn't against the rules. Salvage gathering isn't against the rules.

If you look closely, you are only suggesting changes to prevent these ways of gameplay, which are in your view, unsportive in some way. Please try to seperate the things a bit more.

The connections is not to MHs but to MH rules. There are some MH rules that just have to be there, e.g. the account sharing and that playing from the same IP is an evidence there. But other rules are just there as the ingame formulas have flaws that lead to undesired effects. The one that is the most obvious here is salvage and salvage farming.
Supporters of a planet can donate score to this planet by suiciding their fleets on an attack on that planet. We had this before and people had been annoyed enough by it so now this mentioned rule exists that threatens a planet that suicides his fleet to get closed. This is all very fuzzy as human error is taken into account and some evidence might be used to close the target planet or not. You just never know if it is an accidental launching (Cath hitting wrong coords without noticing will for almost sure suizide its fleet, tried it quite a few times myself) or intended for salvage or just a BT lemming run.
On the other hand salvage as such is a good thing for the game in my opinion for smaller planets that loose their fleets and I'd say somewhere in the t100 it doesn't really matter if someone gains a rank from salvage. So this rule threatens every sleepy player with closing because someone in t10 abused salvage a few rounds ago.
This is a bad thing in my opinion as long as it can be fixed by adjusting the formulas and in this case it can be fixed.

The stealing part indeed is not primarily about MH rules, it is about bashing for ships. Though the MH rules interfere here as there is not much difference in bashing a small foreign planet and farming an own multi planet. I can only guess how MH team detects multis, but I guess running multiple small planets from different networks, initiating roids, building some ships and then 'loosing interest in the game' is possible with only low danger of detection. If the planet has to be significantly bigger to enable it being used as a farm the risk of being caught is quite a bit bigger as well.

Yes, getting salvage and attacking small planets is not against the rules, but at least to the salvage part is referred to as cheating/farming in the MH rule explanation already in a very fuzzy way. By coding this denial/increase of salvage into the game, the fuzzy rule gets replaced by a clear formula that still enables excessive salvage gaining (if you are a worthy target for bigger planets by e.g. your roid count or intresting fleet and manage to kill a good share of the attacker), but stops/restricts salvage donation to bigger planets

[Wandows]

Originally Posted by Remy

P.S.: Not flaming you, im serious, please separate cheating from wyas of gameplay that are judged as being 'unfair', 'unsportive', etc.

Isn't stopping "unfair" and "unsportive" gameplay the whole purpose of MH?

Farming is allowed ingame (there is no limit on who you can attack apart from the bash limit and being in the same gal/alliance), yet because it's deemed a unfair advantage (apparantly) it is not allowed by MH rule.

Support planets in a dozen forms, are all perfectly allowed ingame. Again its not allowed by MH rule, because its deemed unfair to whoever is shouting hard enough about the unfairness of it all

So please explain how we should see MH as different from being judges of fair* gameplay?


*isn't it extremely unfair to have all these extra limitations

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Wandows

Isn't stopping "unfair" and "unsportive" gameplay the whole purpose of MH?

No, not at all. The whole purpose of the MHs is to enforce the rules that you agreed to under the EULA during signup. These rules are, ideally, designed to promote balanced play resulting in planets achieving the rank that they deserve given their activity, organisation and skill - however, if you have a "shit" rule, the MHs still must enforce that rule whether it is "fair" or not.

The problem with fairness is that it depends on who you ask. Its like justice.

Farming is allowed ingame (there is no limit on who you can attack apart from the bash limit and being in the same gal/alliance), yet because it's deemed a unfair advantage (apparantly) it is not allowed by MH rule.

This suggestion minimises the effectiveness of (salvage and ship at least) farming, unless the two planets are roughly comparable (either through score, size or value - whatever). Generally, the idea of farming is to have a large pyramid scheme whereby many smaller planets init roids which are eventually funneled up to the top planets for the win. However, suggestions like this one increase the complexity (you need more levels of farm to get to the top) and thus reduce the efficiency and increase the chances of being discovered. I dont have a problem with this at all.

*isn't it extremely unfair to have all these extra limitations

My understanding of the suggestion is that these changes result in a "soft" limitation. You can still attack all of these planets (unlike the bash limit, which is a "hard" limit) - however in that attack you gain proportionally less given how small the target planet is compared to you, thus reducing the viability of attacking for it as the rewards are diminished.

Plus, if it allows greater relaxation of the rules (and the workload for MHs), then isnt that more freedom?

[are]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

My understanding of the suggestion is that these changes result in a "soft" limitation. You can still attack all of these planets (unlike the bash limit, which is a "hard" limit) - however in that attack you gain proportionally less given how small the target planet is compared to you, thus reducing the viability of attacking for it as the rewards are diminished.

Plus, if it allows greater relaxation of the rules (and the workload for MHs), then isnt that more freedom?

Exactly this is the intention.

[Ave]

Originally Posted by Spritfire

Yes for planets going for XP it is.

But the value planets allways attacks targets smaller than themself. So small as possible usually.

why people shouldnt mock down xp whores, as u call them. They are simply playing the game as it should be played. (Sorry for the repeat )

[Wishmaster]

lets do what we can to remove any advantage you can get from knowing the stats, knowing the game and be active.

Lets give 100% salvage back, and a given amount all players recive each tick.
Lets all be winners!

[Wishmaster]

Originally Posted by Ave

why people shouldnt mock down xp whores, as u call them. They are simply playing the game as it should be played. (Sorry for the repeat )

explain how they are playing it how it SHOULD be played?

Am I playing it wrong then when playing for value, as I have since r1?

[Ave]

to the topic:
It all seems ok to me. Tho u can launch on bigger planets if they have fleets out for example and mean not to suicide and still end like it but I believe the Mhs just have to judge that.

[Ave]

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

explain how they are playing it how it SHOULD be played?

Am I playing it wrong then when playing for value, as I have since r1?

Yes, you should attack targets on your range, who can actually give an entertaining fight back... instead of seeing from night to night a fleet to run and land on safe roids. You should cover as big target as possible each night, so your minor friends can catch up and claim targets aswell. So all fleets gets used and your alliance gains higher offensive power.

Ofc you can just defend yourself and attack noobs and gain a decent rank to yourself and feel very proud of yourself.

[Wishmaster]

on topic.

I dont see the use of implementing any of them.

Its not charity, its war

Subidies to the smal / poor is not the way to make them better / richer.
They have to be teached. They have to learn it the hard way.

I dont believe people quit because they get bashed by someone bigger, I think they quit because no one bother to teach them how to play. Or they simply quit because pa is shit....

[Wishmaster]

Originally Posted by Ave

Yes, you should attack targets on your range, who can actually give an entertaining fight back... instead of seeing from night to night a fleet to run and land on safe roids. You should cover as big target as possible each night, so your minor friends can catch up and claim targets aswell. So all fleets gets used and your alliance gains higher offensive power.

Ofc you can just defend yourself and attack noobs and gain a decent rank to yourself and feel very proud of yourself.

With the stats that have been lately u had to attack smaller targets to even have a remote chance of getting through. Atleast if u had a defencive / self coverable fleet and went for value.

Xp hoes whine that they should be allowed to play as they like, so let the value hoes play as they like. With current game mechanics its best to attack "nubs", and with the high xp its better for the smal ones to attack the bigger targets.. so ur point is flawed.
If u feel proud of urself for playing planetarion in the first place, ur a retard.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

lets do what we can to remove any advantage you can get from knowing the stats, knowing the game and be active.

Lets give 100% salvage back, and a given amount all players recive each tick.
Lets all be winners!

This is not the purpose of the original suggestion. Further, you know this.

[Wishmaster]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

This is not the purpose of the original suggestion. Further, you know this.

What the point is, and what it leads to might not be the same.

agreed

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

Lets give 100% salvage back

This is actually a fairly interesting idea, worthy of more consideration than the mockery you make of it.

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

With the stats that have been lately u had to attack smaller targets to even have a remote chance of getting through. Atleast if u had a defencive / self coverable fleet and went for value.

Xp hoes whine that they should be allowed to play as they like, so let the value hoes play as they like. With current game mechanics its best to attack "nubs", and with the high xp its better for the smal ones to attack the bigger targets.. so ur point is flawed.
If u feel proud of urself for playing planetarion in the first place, ur a retard.

There indeed is a strong correlation between the return of multitargetting and the near-necessity of bashing. Of course this doesn't apply to teamups, but then I don't feel it should be neccesary to team up in order to attack someone of your own value.

[Wishmaster]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

This is actually a fairly interesting idea, worthy of more consideration than the mockery you make of it.



There indeed is a strong correlation between the return of multitargetting and the near-necessity of bashing. Of course this doesn't apply to teamups, but then I don't feel it should be neccesary to team up in order to attack someone of your own value.

How would u implement it, and still make people attack, or in the first play bother playing?

And yes, teamups were needed last round. Only attacks I landed on my own was clippers on ziks...
I dont see a problem with "bashing" or teaming though. I like the fact that I can protect my roids and not be roided by a complete nub who masses 1 class.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

And yes, teamups were needed last round. Only attacks I landed on my own was clippers on ziks...
I dont see a problem with "bashing" or teaming though. I like the fact that I can protect my roids and not be roided by a complete nub who masses 1 class.

In all fairness, this suggestion is not meant to prevent XP whoring, but to prevent bashing.

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

How would u implement it, and still make people attack, or in the first play bother playing?

No attacking equals no roid gain. No defending equals roid loss. No roids equals no fleet growth. Losing all your ships in either attack or defence equals short term roid loss. These are the basic ingredients of the 100% salvage game. The only things that really change are that fleet loss doesn't have any long term effects, and that absolute score loss becomes impossible (as opposed to relative, when compared to people who keep growing). In this respect it's an alternative to some of the score systems people have suggested in the recent past, although it may be possible to combine the two.

Far be it from me to say that this idea hasn't got its downsides (fleetcatches are made much less effective, XP whoring becomes much much more prevalent). Keep in mind that <100% salvage is not a perfect system either, that it also has downsides (people get demotivated due to fleet and score loss, for example). I'm just saying 100% salvage might not be as rediculous as it may seem at first glance.

However, we're veering wildly offtopic, so I'll leave it at this, unless there's interest in a proper discussion of the pros and cons of 100% salvage, in which case I'll open a new topic.

[Ave]

Originally Posted by Wishmaster

With the stats that have been lately u had to attack smaller targets to even have a remote chance of getting through. Atleast if u had a defencive / self coverable fleet and went for value.

Xp hoes whine that they should be allowed to play as they like, so let the value hoes play as they like. With current game mechanics its best to attack "nubs", and with the high xp its better for the smal ones to attack the bigger targets.. so ur point is flawed.
If u feel proud of urself for playing planetarion in the first place, ur a retard.

fair enough, but u may allways teamup and still claim the higher target