Suggestion Re evening out galaxies

[Synthetic_Sid]

The following is part of a conversation held in the alliance reps channel. I've removed all but my own suggestion, so hope it doesn't break forum rules regarding posting logs.

<Synthetic_Sid> An alternative solution could be
<Synthetic_Sid> to allow smaller private galaxies to opt to be redistributed
<Synthetic_Sid> whereby their members get free-exiled individually into galaxies with open spots
<Synthetic_Sid> they lose the advantage of being with friends
<Synthetic_Sid> but gain the chance of having a sporting chance for a decent-ranked galaxy
<Synthetic_Sid> that would need to be done in 2 stages to avoid new chances of abuse
<Synthetic_Sid> 1. Galaxies indicate if they want to be redistributed - or want to stay as they are
<Synthetic_Sid> 2. All the ones who want to get distributed have it done in one hit
<Synthetic_Sid> so in effect some of the 5-person or less private galaxies would get shared out across the others
<Synthetic_Sid> and you'd prioritise based on number of paid planets
<Synthetic_Sid> so galaxies with 5 paid would get a new person before ones with 6 did etc
<Synthetic_Sid> even if only a relatively small % of galaxies opted to be redistributed, it would balance things up a bit
<Synthetic_Sid> oh - and you wouldn't add planets to galaxies with less than, say, 4 paid ppl already
<Synthetic_Sid> as those ones have already chosen, of their own accord, to be a sub-standard galaxy

[jerome]

how would the actual redistribution work? planets get placed randomly into galaxies with 5 paid accounts or more? or are there more "specific requirements" to ensure they end in "better" gals?

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Synthetic_Sid

so hope it doesn't break forum rules regarding posting logs.

I wish people would read that rule. Small, relevant logs are not against the rules. The long log rule exists to primarily to avoid 'lol, read 4 pages of me owning this guy by pretending to be a gurl' type posts. On AD the rule also serves the purpose of keeping fake-logs and drama down. If you feel a log is too long to post, you can provide a link to a remotely hosted version.

[Cochese]

Something needs to be done, bottom line.

My cluster has like 7 galaxies with 10 planets, but two (including mine) only have 6?!?

Smells fishy.

[A2]

When the shuffle finished no galaxies had fewer than 8 planets. If your gal currently has less, then you've either exiled them, or they've been deleted by the ticker because they're "inactive" as defined by the game.

[Jester]

Some statistics:

There is currently one galaxy with fewer than 5 planets.
There is currently one galaxy with exactly 9* planets.
There are currently 271 galaxies with fewer than 9** planets.

These are distributed as follows:
8 planets - 93
7 planets - 132
6 planets - 40
5 planets - 5

That means there need to be about*** 180 signups before the gals with 7 have a chance to get new signups and about 600 before galaxise with 6 planets have a chance. Anyone know Killmark's phone number?

Originally Posted by A2

When the shuffle finished no galaxies had fewer than 8 planets. If your gal currently has less, then you've either exiled them, or they've been deleted by the ticker because they're "inactive" as defined by the game.

Yes. Good thing everyone was informed of the dangers of exiling too many shit planets, right?

* Thus, next signup will land here, unless another gal with 10 people exiles someone.

** And thus ineligable for new signups.

*** The new exile placement improves slightly upon this. Not much though, as they're most likely to end up in a gal with 7 or 8 members, and therefore not bump smaller galaxies up in priority.

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by A2

When the shuffle finished no galaxies had fewer than 8 planets. If your gal currently has less, then you've either exiled them, or they've been deleted by the ticker because they're "inactive" as defined by the game.

The problem is, what the shuffle did was share out (mainly) inactive planets. It made no attempt to address the real issue - that some galaxies (in some cases by manipulation of the non-random exile/signup location selection and/or the naivety of some PA team members) had twice as many paid, active, accounts as others.

Noone much cared where the 0-roid, never logged-in planets went - redistributing those wasn't viewed as a solution by people looking up at the essentially totally private galaxies in the top reaches of the galaxy top 100. The "active" free planets that would be shared out turned out, for most people, to be a myth.

[Nology]

I like Sid's idea. My gal would still be one of the latter ones to recieve any active planets but I like it. It evens out the galaxies and makes it a whole lot more balanced. It gives those galaxies that aren't up there with the 10 man 'private' galaxies of the top 10-20 a chance.

[Synthetic_Sid]

Whether my idea would work or not depends very much on how many of the smaller galaxies would actually opt to be split up. If all of them decided that THEY wouldn't split up - but would hope lots of others did - then obviously nothing would be achieved. But if that happened it would at least greatly reduce complaints on the matter - as all the galaxies left with only 5 paid members would have made a choice that ultimately being with their friends was more important than having a fighting chance of being a top galaxy.

[The_Fish]

I dont think it will work, I certainly wouldnt be prepared to lose my gal mates.

Would you lose your private gal Sid? If you were all looking for good ranks, and to have a good round together?

My gal is the only reason I'm playing this round, no way I'd change it, and I guess its the same for most people.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by A2

When the shuffle finished no galaxies had fewer than 8 planets. If your gal currently has less, then you've either exiled them, or they've been deleted by the ticker because they're "inactive" as defined by the game.

I think it would have been better to (more aggressively) weed out the inactives before shuffling.

[A2]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

I think it would have been better to (more aggressively) weed out the inactives before shuffling.

As the planets were placed on the basis of activity, you'd oly end up with all galaxies having 6-7 instead of 8-9. In the short term it makes no difference.
However the auto-delete for not ever logging in has been reduced to 48 hours from 72 for the time being as featured in the MOTD.

[TheRat]

Originally Posted by The_Fish

I dont think it will work, I certainly wouldnt be prepared to lose my gal mates.

Would you lose your private gal Sid? If you were all looking for good ranks, and to have a good round together?

My gal is the only reason I'm playing this round, no way I'd change it, and I guess its the same for most people.

Most top players play for alliance, and dont HAVE to be with their gal. I would ofcourse not want to leave my gal, but if it was the best option Id do it.

[Inca]

Realistically though a lot of the complaints are coming on the basis that the top 10 gals have 8-10 paid accounts. While of course this improves their chances of a great round it is by no means definite. Once attacks really kick in the unpaid (which can easily have as many roids as paid at the minute) will start to drop, with the eta restrictions they won't be able to keep up, i think this will weed out a few. Also once the stronger alliances start attacking more i think we will see that even galaxies with 10 seemingly active players will start to fall behind to gals that only have 5 or 6.

I know this isn't exactly the point of the thread but a lot of people are only complaining because their galaxy has less paid members than say one in the top 10. I think before debating the exile/galaxy setup issue you should look at your own motives, are you really looking out for the game? or do you just want the easiest route to top 10 galaxy. I do think that any 5 man priv gal has as much chance as any other, if you get lucky and get paid players in that are of similar alliances to you and act for all intents and purposes like a drafted player then great, but i don't think it is the crux of your round.

Another point is that a lot of people are mixing two issues here. I am very pleased with the high clusters to send exiled players, i think its a fantastic way of weeding out actives and means that any player that lands in a regular galaxy must at least be active. I doubt there is much more that can be done on the exile issue, so really we're back to galaxy set up.

My problem with Sids idea is that wouldn't it just reverse the issue. Example, a galaxy that got 4-5 paid accounts landing in it after its 5 priv members joined does look quite good, but those players 6-10 are often far from ideal. However you keep them in your galaxy because there better than 0 roid exiled nub. Quite a lot of the 6-10 players log in twice, once maybe even less times per day but right now score/roids wise look acceptable because the starts are so easy now, any1 could have 250 roids. If you shuffle the small priv gals and join them together there is a very real chance of galaxies ending up with 8-10 drafted players, all very active, all very keen, and i could see why a galaxy that currently has 10 members, but with relatively poor 6-10 players, well they have been kinda shafted for trying to work through with what they got.

I try not to post un construtively, i hate people that just see an idea and flame it with no better or even alternate suggestion of their own. I would like to feel that while i am not posting any other possibilites that at least my post is constructive. Personally i think that at some point there will have to be a line drawn where it is said, "ok the galaxy formation was a mistake, and this is about the best we can do to resolve it". At the end of the day, almost every option open will benefit some, hinder others and really between exiles/shuffles, and of course time, there isn't that much more that can be done. I still stand by that as time goes on people will worry less and less about the "randoms" they got in their galaxy. In my view so long as inactive/multi's etc are exiled and aren't bouncing around and lessons have been learnt on the admin side, then we should get on and play the round. Alliance wise, this hasn't effected any one in particular its a shared problem so i think that making the best of a bad situation is the best solution. Even if an idea was implemented it would only mean more downtime and change, in protection that was annoying, in main game, well i think it would have to be something that was absolutely nessecary to warrant a stop.

Lastly while everyone from players, alliance reps right thru to admin is discussing this the one thing not mentioned is this. If more players signed up they would fill the galaxies. I know its a rather easy notion, but perhaps somestrong spamming of that voting site, game of the month thing, and whatever other marketting options are available would also resolve this, not to mention improve the game long term. I repeat that i am being rather simplistic in approach here but as i understand it there aren't a huge number of spaces in the galaxies and maybe an effort could certainly help breech that hole.

[Helix]

Well, PA has been trying long and hard to increase its members base, and in the long run that just isn't going to happen, being P2P you just dont have a chance of competing with the mass of free games on the market.

Onto the topic of discussion. I like Sids proposal, I think it gives people an option and a choice, while at the same time helping other galaxies. As he said, even if only a few take this option, it does at least help even if by a small amount to even out the universe. In the long run however, there isn't much that can be done apart from a full reset that could fix the problem. The galaxy setup was fundamentally flawed in more ways than one. First of all was the obvious point of some galaxies simply not having time to fill up with randoms. And the second problem is the fact that at least 75% of the free randoms that have signed up would probably be considered inactive by any sane persons terms. I understand this is a game and a business and is therefore limited to using VERY lenient and not quite sane standards for inactivity.

The second problem was that the shuffle was fundamentally flawed. While PATeam was discussing how to resolve the galaxy problem, I suggested nearly this same solution to them, except the key point of mine was to "delete all the inactives" which in my mind would have meant people that have been sitting there for 72 ticks and dont have more than 10 roids are quite inactive no matter what....at the very minimum. They failed to do this, and the shuffle ended up moving around mostly inactive players, and putting the more active ones in the inactive galaxies. In their effort to even out the galaxies, they ended up just dividing them more. It seems like they tried to make the galaxies, all of them, as equal as possible in roids and score. This however meant that the most active randoms went to the most inactive galaxies, and the most inactive randoms to the most active galaxies. Thereby having the effect of making all galaxies largely effected by the shuffle (those with only 4-6 paid planets) equally poor, and the other galaxies relatively richer.

As was stated by Inca, a large portion of galaxy success hinges on the performance of the alliances, and this is very true. If a few alliances break away from the pack, then no amount of activity will save your galaxy if you are a hostile target. All your activity will mean is more roids for the winning alliance. If this round turns out to be close and well contested, then the large galaxies do have a decided advantage.

Bottom line, we are trying to repair the titanic with only 2 rolls of duct tape and half a bottle of super glue....there is no way to keep the ship from sinking. The best thing we all can do is hope we can get a spot on one of the lifeboats and ride this thing out. (I know I know, really bad metaphor) What PATeam should be spending their time on instead of worrying how to repair this colossal blunder, is to think long and hard about how to avoid this kind of mishap next round. I know that I am going to head on over to the suggestion forums and post up a few of my ideas.

[Kileman]

5 man private + 5 man private = problem solved

At the least its just as equal to the 5 private + 5 paid randoms that some gals have.....
________
ESSEX V6 ENGINE

[Helix]

Oh yeah....and how come sid gets to post his suggestions in the general discussion instead of the suggestion forum....I think sid wants all of his posts to get many readers!

[Veil05]

I think its a brilliant idea, also fish, sid didnt say you MUST leave your private galaxy, there was an option, u either stay 5 priv + 5 dieing randoms or u can leave your friends and have a fun round. if ur friends are good friends as u say, surely u can still co-ordinate attacks together etc.

i think this is a good solution.

[The_Fish]

I see what you're saying Veil, but my point was I don't think many people would leave their private gal.

[CrazyConrad]

Originally Posted by A2

When the shuffle finished no galaxies had fewer than 8 planets. If your gal currently has less, then you've either exiled them, or they've been deleted by the ticker because they're "inactive" as defined by the game.

I was told you had a plan to shuffle the randoms after activity spreading them around properly so how come my gal got 3 inactives and m8s gal got 3 175+ roid planets?

Besides I like you your idea Sid, my gal had a discussion on doing this but then 1 planet would have to stay behind. Maybe there aint many gals that would do this but even a few gals splitting up would help alot to many others.

[Lord_Thunderball]

Well, some gals got inactive people after the shuffle. Those where auto deleted couple of ticks after the shuffle, and now have to wait till the 9,8,7 planet gals are filled to get new randoms.. Normally you would only exile one at the time. Old situation would have been better for those gals.... Basic thing is... The first shuffle suggestion sucked, the 2nd one was only a bit better... But there was no time waiting for a 3th one, which is just an example how it always goes

[Little Timmy]

Another logical suggestion from a player.


However, likely hood is it wont happen because unfortunately, it is too logical.


Why dont you just switch back on self exile for paid planets and see what happens ? It cant be that much of a change and for active planets at this early stage of the game it will be well worth them saving the resource to do it.

[CamelToe]

Planetarion Essay Contest

[Judge]

Our Galaxy discussed a similar idea,

Basically we would exile all the planets, they would be sent out to the boon docks (C200) and then have the option to return to the game.

Unfortunately one player would have to be left behind alone with the unpaid planet we got lumbered with

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Jester

I wish people would read that rule. Small, relevant logs are not against the rules. The long log rule exists to primarily to avoid 'lol, read 4 pages of me owning this guy by pretending to be a gurl' type posts. On AD the rule also serves the purpose of keeping fake-logs and drama down. If you feel a log is too long to post, you can provide a link to a remotely hosted version.

he meant the channel rules - its a no qoute channel, but we will let him off

[Conall]

This topic seems to have died, but I believe it is a good idea. I really hope the PATeam is considering it. Either that or allowing self exile to return. I understand that self exile can be abused but I think it is a better solution than nothing. As I look around at galaxies with 5 slots open it seems to be needed. And yes, I know that they must have exiled some more players to be down to 5 planets, but with all the inactive accounts out there who can blame them.

I read the post here two different ways. Some seem to be saying that a galaxy decides as a whole to all go into exile, others that individuals decide to exile. I don’t believe that if it is set up for galaxies as a whole it will work, I can’t imagine 7, 8 or 9 players all agreeing to exile. However, if it were set up as individuals or at least majority rules then it might do some good. It might even be a good idea to do it once a week (or more often) throughout the round. A player can check him/herself for exile and then all exiles are done at once. This should eliminate the abuses.

Regardless, the concept has merit and I think it should be discussed further. The round is ticking on and there are many galaxies in dire need of fresh blood. We need to kick this idea around, shoot holes in, come up with solutions to the problems and see if we can’t get PATeam to implement it. If we truly want a voice in how this game is run this is a perfect case study in how to do it. And with an issue that really needs to be addressed.

Additionally, I noticed that there are over 250 planets in exile land. Some appear to be playing out there, i.e. attacking and growing. ON the one hand that seems reasonable, it gives them the chance to grow and learn a bit before they unexile themselves. But on the other, should there be some limit to how long they can be out there, I can see a handful of planets dominating in a universe that small and players that may want to grow before they unexile won’t have a chance. Just food for thought.

[Jester]

Originally Posted by Synthetic_Sid

I've removed all but my own suggestion, so hope it doesn't break forum rules regarding posting logs.

Originally Posted by Kal

he meant the channel rules - its a no qoute channel, but we will let him off

Excuse me, you need to go back to grad school.

[Veil05]

Originally Posted by Jester

Excuse me, you need to go back to grad school.

Do u even play anymore? Sid made a minor error, there is no need to treble your post count in order to prove your point. you noticed a mistake in Sids post, pld u.

[Ferretus]

I would do this option. We had 9 active players and one freebie before shuffle, now we have 6. Because of this our cluster won't allow us in the cluster nap (That I set up) as we are too small and have been kick banned from the IRC channel while they try to farm within cluster. Aside from my friends whom we share a gal there is little even keeping me in this game atm.

Quote "When the shuffle finished no galaxies had fewer than 8 planets. If your gal currently has less, then you've either exiled them, or they've been deleted by the ticker because they're "inactive" as defined by the game. "

Thats crap. We ended up with 7, maybe our 8th was wise enough to delete himself somehow. The one guy we did get had 0 roids so we booted.

Essentially bring back self exile, it helps us all.

[jerome]

You are whining based on personal experience, that is no basis to conduct a reset. The universe bar the galaxies with paid randoms from the go, are more or less even. My private galaxy had to work it`s ass off to do mediocre, if yours isn`t good enough to get a top30 even galrank, then that is your and yours only fault. The shuffle only made sure it was ****ing hard to be top10 gal.

[Bashar]

My solution on the issue would be strop trying to force a square universe into a circular hole. Simple fact, you don't know how many free signups there will be, especially not active ones. So, I would have specified a maximum number of privates, and then shoved all random signups up in cluster 500 or something at the start, and then just before tickstart, I'd have merged the randoms into the private galaxies in a similar way to the way it was (eventually) done in the reshuffle, and then I'd probably have shuffled, simply because experience has told us that a shuffle is always beneficial, and never detrimental.

This way, at least the universe can form into a shape that it fits, instead of trying to force it into a shape it simply won't ever be able to make.

[Ferretus]

A good suggestion. Can we promote him to the PA team please, aka voice of reason or something.

[Bashar]

Originally Posted by Ferretus

A good suggestion. Can we promote him to the PA team please, aka voice of reason or something.

HAHAHAHAAA!!!

Sorry, lost control for a minute there.