To VGN, CT and Jenova

[DrunkenViking]

This thread does it. I've never seen more incompetent mod-work in my entire life. I'm embarrassed and won't use this forums before something changes drasticly.

[Achilles]

Neither JBG nor furball are mods here. The only active mod for PD is Wakey. I don't even want to get started on that though.

But nice example of a totally ignorant flame though. Good job.

[DrunkenViking]

Originally Posted by Achilles

Neither JBG nor furball are mods here. The only active mod for PD is Wakey. I don't even want to get started on that though.

But nice example of a totally ignorant flame though. Good job.

Will reply to this one before i sign off. I looked through the forum and found no info on who is mod on PD. I do however know that both furball and JGB are mods, and that they did post as mods in this thread(instructing other peoples behaviour) therefor i chose to use their nicks.

[Talin]

Sigh.

Originally Posted by Red-

Some alliances has smarter, better and more experienced players then others, but if all played with an equal maximum amount of members then it would be those factors deciding the outcome of the round along with politics and not just who had most out of tag members.

So you are saying that it's perfectly fair to have, for example, 3 alliances (210 members) gang up on a single alliance (70 members)? Because that's politics.

Now how does that fit in your football analogy? Man Utd can't field 15 players, but it's perfectly alright for Newcastle, Tottenham and Liverpool to play against Chelsea in a single match?

Maybe we should just get rid of politics then as well? Oh wait, we can't do that, but we could just turn PA into a tournament where alliances would play against each other in an isolated environment (1 vs 1). Just like football, you see! Perfectly clean, perfectly fair.

That's what I was talking about. Yes, your football analogy does fail, yet you continue to bring it up in every post as if it was some sort of a killer argument, rather than a complete joke.

And everyone wants to play a "fair" game. I just don't think you're able (or willing) to grasp the concept of "fairness" in a game like PA.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by DrunkenViking

This thread does it. I've never seen more incompetent mod-work in my entire life.

You're quite right. Accusations of cheating are in general deemed unacceptable and this entire thread should be deleted and red warned for posting such unproven slander.

Personally however I don't think that would be productive. I feel the general line the thread took in the first page was quite acceptable. The fact that some people use words like "idiot" and "moron" I'm sure seem to offend your, probably rather delicate, sensibilities. To be honest I prefer to let discussions develop and not involve myself in deleting every post which doesn't conform to standards, unless it actively takes the thread off topic. As the thread was in danger of doing that I posted saying that further unhelpful digressions would not be tolerated. You then moved in after I had posted my warning and complained that no action had been taken. Presumably you disagreed with the severity of my response but really it just looks silly and quite obviously I've not ignored this thread but have in fact acted on it as I see fit.

Furthermore it should be noted that furball is not a mod of these forums, he was merely posting in an informative manner as to how best to talk to the mods. Given that I am a supermod myself and do not receive these reports you may also feel free to pm me for an extensive conversation on the ins, outs, whys, wherefores and pecularities of moderating a rather inactive forum (comparatively speaking) and how I go about attempting to stimulate, instead of obstruct, the progression of informative discussion.

Finally to find out who is a mod of a particular forum scroll to the bottom of that forum and have a look.

[Red-]

Originally Posted by Talin

Sigh.



So you are saying that it's perfectly fair to have, for example, 3 alliances (210 members) gang up on a single alliance (70 members)? Because that's politics.

Now how does that fit in your football analogy? Man Utd can't field 15 players, but it's perfectly alright for Newcastle, Tottenham and Liverpool to play against Chelsea in a single match?

Maybe we should just get rid of politics then as well? Oh wait, we can't do that, but we could just turn PA into a tournament where alliances would play against each other in an isolated environment (1 vs 1). Just like football, you see! Perfectly clean, perfectly fair.

That's what I was talking about. Yes, your football analogy does fail, yet you continue to bring it up in every post as if it was some sort of a killer argument, rather than a complete joke.

And everyone wants to play a "fair" game. I just don't think you're able (or willing) to grasp the concept of "fairness" in a game like PA.

Then the alliance beeing targeted by 3 other alliances working together can find thier own allies and fight back.

But still the alliance rankings and the internal goal of each alliance is still to maintain thier own interests and not the interests of other alliances even though they work together.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Red-

Then the alliance beeing badly outnumbered by the other alliance can recruit more members and fight back.

See. It really is the same thing!

[Talin]

Originally Posted by Red-

Then the alliance beeing targeted by 3 other alliances working together can find thier own allies and fight back.

Because finding 3 allies in Planetarion to fight a perfectly fair 3-times bigger opposition is much easier and more fair than recruiting additional 20 or so members (which you might not even need) to fight the awesomely unbalanced alliances with a couple of out of tag planets.

Logic at its best.

Originally Posted by Red-

But still the alliance rankings and the internal goal of each alliance is still to maintain thier own interests.

How do you know?

Even if those alliances believe they're doing things that are in their own interests, it might not be the case.

They might also find finishing 2nd or 3rd ranked as their interest, and then effectively (greatly) help any 1st ranked alliance win in exchange for protection? There are hundreds of possibilities. We've certainly seen it happen in the past.

See, you've a quite long way to go before making PA "fair" to your standards. I personally pray that never happens.

[Red-]

Still 1 alliance with a much larger memberbase is only playing in thier own interest.

There is a big difference.

[Talin]

Originally Posted by Red-

Still 1 alliance with a much larger memberbase is only playing in thier own interest.

Then the alliance beeing badly outnumbered by the other alliance can recruit more members and fight back.

[JonnyBGood]

Not in terms of fairness there isn't. If we're trying to examine fairness we can consider either opportunities (and in both everyone has the same) or effects (and in both they are the same). You seem to think that perhaps one big alliance only has members with the same goals and this somehow makes a difference but that isn't even true. Often in the early rounds of PA alliances would split as people's goals and desires diverged during the round.

[Hude]

All I can say is, Red-, **** off.

[Red-]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Not in terms of fairness there isn't. If we're trying to examine fairness we can consider either opportunities (and in both everyone has the same) or effects (and in both they are the same). You seem to think that perhaps one big alliance only has members with the same goals and this somehow makes a difference but that isn't even true. Often in the early rounds of PA alliances would split as people's goals and desires diverged during the round.

Its basic knowledge that people act differently in groups then they do as individuals.

If the aggregated interests of an alliance has to cooperate with the aggregated interests of one or more other alliances then there is a huge difference then if its merely indididuals interests that are the foundation of cooperation.

Besides there is a lot of difference in serveral entities in the form of alliances, with individual leadership etc. that has to cooperate and just one leadership recruiting to amass thier own interests.

[Talin]

You're ignoring what he said though.

1) Every alliance has equal opportunity to recruit as many players as they want, need, and can manage.
2) Every alliance has equal opportunity to find allies and form political arrangements.

Can you deny either of these points?

On the other note, massive alliances have as many (or more) disadvantages than they have advantages, and experienced leaders are more than aware of this. In fact, it's much easier to manage a co-operation of two entities (alliances), given that both are willing to co-operate, than it is to efficiently manage 140 people in a single one.

[Red-]

My point being that serveral alliances working together improves the political side of PA and makes cooperation and tactics of teamwork etc more important.

Where as massrecruiting as an option with no doubt will produce large noobish alliances that will swarm to win. As its also seen in pretty much all active massive multiplayer online games, if not prohibited in game dynamics.

[Talin]

Originally Posted by Red-

Where as massrecruiting as an option with no doubt will produce large noobish alliances that will swarm to win.

Huge contraditiction in that single line.

Has there been any alliance, ever, in the history of Planetarion (again bar Concordium in Round 1) that was "noobishly swarming", and yet won the round?

No. There hasn't.

Those alliances were full of spies, defense leechers, and were generally farmed on daily basis without being able to do anything efficiently.

You have no evidence whatsoever on the claim that a mass-recruiting alliance could "easily zergswarm to victory".

[furball]

Believe it or not, the pros and cons of removing the alliance limit have been considered before and total carnage will not be the end result. Seriously.


A hypothetical 400-planet alliance of noobs and inactives will not defeat an alliance of 150 experienced players. Never. Going. To. Happen.

[Marv]

Originally Posted by furball

A hypothetical 400-planet alliance of noobs and inactives will not defeat an alliance of 150 experienced players. Never. Going. To. Happen.

Exactly.

Removing the alliance limits & support planet rule = a better experience for all.

[K-W]

noob swarming does indeed not work, however size does matter and the round rankings would be determined in large extent by who could get the biggest team together, at the same time it would reduce the number of alliances we have as the more organized alliances to a greater degree monopolized the active players

Personally I think the solution is to drop alliances from the official rankings entirely. Trying to make that race competitive means an alliance limit which means messy support planet rules. Lets forget about which alliance has the most score in its tag and let alliances be what they are supposed to be, background organizations supporting planet players that should be judged on a lot more criteria than how much net score they can get into their tag.

As for the actual topic of this thread, buy a clue.

[K-W]

Originally Posted by furball

Believe it or not, the pros and cons of removing the alliance limit have been considered before and total carnage will not be the end result. Seriously.


A hypothetical 400-planet alliance of noobs and inactives will not defeat an alliance of 150 experienced players. Never. Going. To. Happen.

It would not defeat it in war, it might defeat it in the alliance rankings. That is the root source of all of this, officially ranking alliances by net score instead of alliances being judged by their behind the scenes work supporting players.

[Mzyxptlk]

Which brings us to the need for a score system that rewards alliance wars.

[Red-]

I agree with that totally.

Lets say you could set an alliance as target, with out them knowing :P then you gain score per planet you land on / roid you cap from them or some other way of gaining score.

[furball]

Originally Posted by K-W

It would not defeat it in war, it might defeat it in the alliance rankings. That is the root source of all of this, officially ranking alliances by net score instead of alliances being judged by their behind the scenes work supporting players.

That depends on the length of the round - just look at the beginning of any round when member count is far more important than average score. The better players will always eventually outscore the weaker players.

[K-W]

Originally Posted by furball

That depends on the length of the round - just look at the beginning of any round when member count is far more important than average score. The better players will always eventually outscore the weaker players.

It depends on the length of the round, the numerical disparity and the quality disparity, but there is no reason quantity cant beat quality in a net-score race under the right conditions, especially in short rounds with xp.

Anyway in a real round, you wouldn't have pure small elite alliances and pure swarm alliances, you would have alliances trying to maximize both their quality and quantity. It wouldn't just be a competition to see who could recruit the most people but that would become a very large part of determining who wins if we kept the net-score based ranking.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by K-W

It would not defeat it in war, it might defeat it in the alliance rankings. That is the root source of all of this, officially ranking alliances by net score instead of alliances being judged by their behind the scenes work supporting players.

Here's an idea. Define the winning alliance as the alliance with most tagged people in the top N ranks. It'd even be possible to weight the ranks so that a better aggregate could be found. For example:

Having the top ranked planet is worth score equal to the total number of planets. So currently the #1 planet would be worth 500 points. For every rank below the top rank, a planet is worth 1 point less, down to 500th and below, which would be worth 0 points.

The problem here is the same as with the alliance limit, that using an arbitrary N would be prone to erroneous judgment on the part of the designers.

A more complete aggregate might also include count of members in top galaxies.

The core of the idea is this: planet ranks much more than value or score judge who the alliance victors are. Because, going back to pre-PAX, it was ranks we fought wars for. Banding together with other players was just the best way to optimize ranks.

(PS. please don't comment on the example formula given, as it's merely a sketch of the idea.)

[Red-]

Interesting concept Jester.

I do then believe only x amount of rankins should count more then 1 point and the rest 1 point each. And then you should accumulate score for the amount of ticks you hold the rank so its more dynamical.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Red-

Interesting concept Jester.

I do then believe only x amount of rankins should count more then 1 point and the rest 1 point each. And then you should accumulate score for the amount of ticks you hold the rank so its more dynamical.

That becomes an issue of definition. Are we rewarding those who dominated the longest or those who ended at the top of the pile? In my opinion it's the latter, but the former has the advantage of encouraging play at full potential throughout the whole round. (I.e. getting rid of the dullness of the slow play.) That said, I dislike rounds being decided that early. Consider an alliance that dominates very strongly for 4-5 weeks, then gets crushed 2-3 weeks before the round ends. Should they still win? I'm asking because I don't know the answer.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Jester

Are we rewarding those who dominated the longest or those who ended at the top of the pile? In my opinion it's the latter, but the former has the advantage of encouraging play at full potential throughout the whole round.

The former also has the advantage of fluid alliance politics during the round. Usually extremes are the best solutions, but maybe try the middle way. After Y ticks to the round (after first attacks, whatever), the ticker starts accumulating X score for a given rank N attained. These could probably be given only to higher ranked planets (t100 or, or, well, defineable), and would add in to the alliance's pile each tick. This would also allow to see (I know how much you all hate this) how each alliance is progressing. Once the ticker shuts down, add in points for final rankings. Given, each rank could now be worth a quarter or a third of the full round's potential accumulation (say, for N rank you could attain X score per tick, during 1200 ticks, the final rank N would be worth X times 400). Edit. For the end rankings, you could expand the scale to reach t500 or something.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

The former also has the advantage of fluid alliance politics during the round.

I don't see that either option is in conflict with fluid alliance politics. I think you need to explain what you mean by this more explicitly. Could you give an example of what you mean?

Edit: I missed this in my last reply. Red- is of course right that all planets should give at least 1 point (or some equivalent, the principle should be that all planets contribute at least something.)

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Jester

I don't see that either option is in conflict with fluid alliance politics. I think you need to explain what you mean by this more explicitly. Could you give an example of what you mean?

I probably jumped into conclusions, but removing alliance rankings at large, and showing "nothing" until the total points at the end are revealed, make it more a game of "let's bash this planet, let's bash that planet, and preserve ours", which, possibly isn't bad either. Ignore that rant. I'm still for a mechanism that adds in points through the round and then adds an increased total for the final rankings.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

I probably jumped into conclusions, but removing alliance rankings at large, and showing "nothing" until the total points at the end are revealed, make it more a game of "let's bash this planet, let's bash that planet, and preserve ours", which, possibly isn't bad either. Ignore that rant. I'm still for a mechanism that adds in points through the round and then adds an increased total for the final rankings.

I never said anything about removing alliance rankings or hiding them until the end of the round

[Virall]

Originally Posted by Red-

How about dropping your out of tag members aeh?

Try to compete on a fair basis and prove your actual able to be top3 without cheating.

Wrong forum.

/me points to AD.

Is Red the new MotoX?

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Jester

I never said anything about removing alliance rankings or hiding them until the end of the round

Yeah. That's why I said I probably jumped into conclusions.

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by Virall

Is Red the new MotoX?

He's just a fan.