New Changes

I'm sorry, I may be the only one disappointed with one of the new changes, but here goes anyway:

"- Alliance rankings will be structured as in Round 19."

Wtf guys? The best change you make to R20, and you change it back again? I was looking forward to playing based on value, as I'm sure a lot of other people were too.

If I can get the PATeam's comments on why this was changed back, and the community's thoughts as to which'd be best (+why) that'd be great.

[torstein.gran@g]

maybe they will use value but only top60 in alliance count?

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by torstein.gran@g

maybe they will use value but only top60 in alliance count?

If this were the case it would have been announced as such
Its quite simply, a U-turn in the face of a few vocal people crying out about the proposed changes since they cant Xp whore their way to the top anymore.
Its quite apparent who has pateam on their leash now anyway.

[furball]

Originally Posted by Phil^

If this were the case it would have been announced as such
Its quite simply, a U-turn in the face of a few vocal people crying out about the proposed changes since they cant Xp whore their way to the top anymore.
Its quite apparent who has pateam on their leash now anyway.

No, it's because it was a bad change and thankfully PA Team have had the good sense to change it back. You might hate XP with a passion but it's the reason why PA is still alive.

[Kal]

This change was made becuase we admit that we didn't see the full effect of this particualar change when combined with the other announced changes. We feel that now the culmination of all of the changes will result in a more balenced and enjoyable game than if we had left things as they were announced.

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by Kal

This change was made becuase we admit that we didn't see the full effect of this particualar change when combined with the other announced changes. We feel that now the culmination of all of the changes will result in a more balenced and enjoyable game than if we had left things as they were announced.

This change was made because you have always been in favour of XP, and refuse to let your little pet project die.
It was not made because of any particular merit of one system over another since ( i believe ) the xp system HAS no merit.
It is a plague upon this game which will only lead to a decline

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Phil^

This change was made because you have always been in favour of XP, and refuse to let your little pet project die.
It was not made because of any particular merit of one system over another since ( i believe ) the xp system HAS no merit.
It is a plague upon this game which will only lead to a decline

The same can be said for a value system though unless ofc you seriously believe that a game that only 100 players can have any kind of chance to 'survive' in is the way to go.

Also while ive only just read the changes id say the reason it had to be changed was that it causes a conflict in scoring systems which is never good, you cant have some of the scoring systems based on score and others soley on value as that causes conflict in agendas. If you want to maximise your own score after all you have to go for decent targets but your alliance is obviously going to push you to bash as much as you can so as to make gains for little or no value loss.

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by wakey

The same can be said for a value system though unless ofc you seriously believe that a game that only 100 players can have any kind of chance to 'survive' in is the way to go.

Also while ive only just read the changes id say the reason it had to be changed was that it causes a conflict in scoring systems which is never good, you cant have some of the scoring systems based on score and others soley on value as that causes conflict in agendas. If you want to maximise your own score after all you have to go for decent targets but your alliance is obviously going to push you to bash as much as you can so as to make gains for little or no value loss.

Every planet survives, there isnt a deathstar in the game ( and to hell with them if they ever consider introducing one )
The size of them differs yes because some people arent as good as others, or arent as dedicated as others, or simply do not have the same amount of time to spent as others do.
Then there are factors such as luck - even a great player can get unlucky and lose their fleet.
Guess what, its a war game and wars arent always fair.
the top100 may be the largest but they are certainly not the only survivors in the game.

As for bashing, thats something which is not easily fixable in a value system. Tweaking the bash limit either makes it easier to bash, or reduces the targets available so those that remain get more incs as a result.
In an xp system its ofc nonexistant - low value planets are valued, but so is any measure of actual strength or the possibility of actual teamwork in defence.
It all becomes about attacking , and attack groups. You log on, launch a fleet and bugger off until its time to check if it lands. You dont need to care about those you are playing with since they arent going to help you much nor are you going to help them. You become selfish, and a net decrease in activity results since you dont need to be around as much to help your alliance from other attacks - ultimately becoming destructive for the game and the community.

A value system requires teamwork for your alliance to do well, an xp system requires coordination in attacks to maximise your chances of getting through but little of anything else.

I guess it boils down to what you want alliances to be.
Do you want them to be simply attack groups. If so XP is the system and scoring mechanism for you.
Do you want them to be community hubs where people interact and help each other in defence and attack? If so Value is the system and scoring mechanism for you.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Phil^

Every planet survives, there isnt a deathstar in the game ( and to hell with them if they ever consider introducing one )

You will notice I put ' ' around survives as I didn't mean it literally and you know that. So please stop acting dense just so you can ignore issues.

If you had ever taken time to look outside the main two powerblocks pre PAX you would know that after the first month while playing numbers may have seemingly risen from the start the active players had dropped off significantly. When your at the bottom of the foodchain and keep getting someone who your only just in their bash limit roiding you day in day out as they are too scared of doing any real attacks as they might lose a few ships and who massively overkill the target just to make sure they don't lose a single piece of value it quickly gets boring as there's no fun in just having your fleet wiped and your roids lost constantly. Even the most stubborn of people in this situation eventually quit the round and while their planet may still be in the game they aren't being logged into and are pretty much dead planets and hence the planet and the player haven't survived.

So take your head out of the sand and realise this isnt about what's best for those with no life who sit at their PC's all day and are in the top alliances as these are in the minority and the contrary to some peoples belief there isn't that many of these people who are lining up to play and pay for PA even if it was aimed solely at the hardcore players. The GAME doesn't have to be fair, no-ones asking for new players and inactive players to be able to win the round but it has to be fun and offer a chance for people to play at a reasonable time commitment and achieve a good level. Its is after all a GAME and should be fun

A value system requires teamwork for your alliance to do well, an xp system requires coordination in attacks to maximise your chances of getting through but little of anything else.

I guess it boils down to what you want alliances to be.
Do you want them to be simply attack groups. If so XP is the system and scoring mechanism for you.
Do you want them to be community hubs where people interact and help each other in defence and attack? If so Value is the system and scoring mechanism for you.

Again though your acting like the score system is just XP based where it isn't. Yes with XP as part of score/rank you can sacrifice some defence as the score loss can possible be covered attacking but value does play a part in your score/rank still. This means that you can just say sod defence completely as you need both fleets and roids to be able to grow even with xp and the stronger your fleets the more options you have for gaining on attacks. As such it has to be balanced

Ok Kal, so that's the politician's answer.

What were the benefits of changing the system, and what specifically were the reasons for changing back. What did it 'unbalance'?

Because to be honest, this would have made the next round a whole lot more interesting.

I'm not trying to be awkward but if there are some people that are speaking out against the 'undone' change, then I'd like to point out that there is also a growing unrest that you've decided to reverse your decision. I want to find out which way carries most favour, hence the post.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Kenny

Ok Kal, so that's the politician's answer.

What were the benefits of changing the system, and what specifically were the reasons for changing back. What did it 'unbalance'?

Because to be honest, this would have made the next round a whole lot more interesting.

I'm not trying to be awkward but if there are some people that are speaking out against the 'undone' change, then I'd like to point out that there is also a growing unrest that you've decided to reverse your decision. I want to find out which way carries most favour, hence the post.

Basically: adding cluster etas stretches individuals loaylities in multiple directions. Having different rankings done in different ways forces people to play in different ways for different groups. This leads to too much division and is likely to mean that most people end up playing the alliance route and as such remove the benefits of the other changes. If most people play the alliance route they would also be playing for value. If they are playing for value there is no point in XP. XP is by far a better way of encouraging a game play style than say the pre round 10 roid capping system. While the XP system is by no means perfect it is a tool for suggesting game play styles and having some rankings ignore it would send too many mixed messages.

I realise thats not as basic as I intended, but hopefully it shows somehting of what I mean.

I'd also point out that this was a team decision, not just individuals who may like or dislike individual parts of the game dictating how things should be.

[Furyous]

Good work on the merge rules. It puts merges where they belong. Also, thank you for confirming alliance size limits.

Originally Posted by Kal

Basically: adding cluster etas stretches individuals loaylities in multiple directions. Having different rankings done in different ways forces people to play in different ways for different groups. This leads to too much division and is likely to mean that most people end up playing the alliance route and as such remove the benefits of the other changes. If most people play the alliance route they would also be playing for value. If they are playing for value there is no point in XP. XP is by far a better way of encouraging a game play style than say the pre round 10 roid capping system. While the XP system is by no means perfect it is a tool for suggesting game play styles and having some rankings ignore it would send too many mixed messages.

OR you could write it a different way:

Even though a majority of people are likely to play the alliance route, they still have the choice to personally benefit from XP play since it is there. Therefore it is still a key feature of the game. And it is a useful challenge for alliances (of all forms) to satisfy the conflicting nature of some of it's members' interests. This will encourage better alliance organisation.

It's all political speak. You could justify any change in decision in such a vague manner.

However,

I think the consensus agreed on the prior thread that displaying alliance value while ranking alliances on score would be a useful compromise. So would you please add alliance value to the Universe screen? We can find planet and galaxy value, so it would only be consistent (as you are apparently trying to be) to display value too.

[Benneh]

The new Value ranking change, just on its own with no other changes, eg how much value a roid is, was utter ****ing wank anyway.

XP Leads to decline?

How so, im sorry but getting rid of XP imo just takes a massive step back, XP whores arnt winning by anymeans, look at the last few rounds planet ranks. Even ally ranks the value/roid heavy ones seem to win anyway?
Killing off xp in rankings is in my opinion causing decline cause **** it am i going to play for value and god help any cathaar if it goes value. they dont stand a ****ing chance with all the fleet catches.

And if i get fleet caught what can i fall back on?
oh shit all. god dammit.

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by Benneh

The new Value ranking change, just on its own with no other changes, eg how much value a roid is, was utter ****ing wank anyway.
XP Leads to decline?

How so, im sorry but getting rid of XP imo just takes a massive step back, XP whores arnt winning by anymeans, look at the last few rounds planet ranks. Even ally ranks the value/roid heavy ones seem to win anyway?
Killing off xp in rankings is in my opinion causing decline cause **** it am i going to play for value and god help any cathaar if it goes value. they dont stand a ****ing chance with all the fleet catches.

And if i get fleet caught what can i fall back on?
oh shit all. god dammit.

Getting rid of xp in its current form gets rid of a perversion of a feature which was intended to make losing your fleet that bit easier on the planet.
A role which with hindsight should have been augmented better with salvage rather then the introduction of a fictional 'experiance' factor.
When you get fleetcaught, you fall back on defence from your alliance and galaxy :P

incidently you just missed a rather long debate on this very issue in #planetarion

[furball]

Originally Posted by Phil^

incidently you just missed a rather long debate on this very issue in #planetarion

Then go into your logs and put it into pastebin so we can all have a read.

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by furball

Then go into your logs and put it into pastebin so we can all have a read.

http://pastebin.com/848818

[Phil^]

For a 'team decision' ive heard some dissenting views. Clearly it wasnt unanimous
edit : actually i cant remember there ever being a unanimous pateam decision regarding game design, so the point is somewhat moot
( the one time i do remember is that the early nda as proposed by jolt was eeeeeeeeeevil and we would all walk out unless it changed )

[Kargool]

I really had hoped that someone would explain in clear terms to the PA team how crap cluster attack -1 was but clearly that wasnt done. Ah well. Who cares

[isildurx]

It has its good sides and bad sides. I do think it kinda sucks that cluster eta went down, while the cost of exiling goes up. Might mean that some people will be 'screwed' from the word GO.

[Willzzz]

I think the problem at the moment with PA team is communication. For example. Did all PA Team agree to this? Did they all agree to the change in the first place?

Problem at the moment as i see, is the fact PA team anounce somthing, so then all alliances start to plan how they will play the round, then they change there minds again. I keep seeing this. PA Team need to be more consistant here. If you decide to do somthing stick to it. Change it at the end of the round.

As far as the XP go, im also an old fashioned guy. I hate XP. I agreed when it first came in becuase of course it was brought in for the lower ranked players and to keep them playing if they loose their fleet. Now its to abuseable and plays to much of a major part in the game. You dont require skill to abuse XP for example.

Im also a bit concnered about the eta for defence in cluster. Is this included into the support planet rule? Does this mean another rule change? Some other things perhaps the PA team need to think about. Which will again require ANOTHER change.

[SOL]

Things like this really annoy me,i was looking forward to the value ranking system surely the pa team discussed and agreed to the changers in the first place before they were announced,so why change things back saying you all agreed to change it back, makes no sense to me !

[qebab]

What I read into this is that the PA team has NO idea where they want the game to be heading.

There weren't any big changes at all, and now there are less. I'm totally okay with the "small step" thing - but I'm not okay with the team having absolutely no idea what they want the game to become. Clearly they don't, swerving back and forth like this. Get some balls, get some visions and stick to it.

Originally Posted by Pink Floyd

Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again

Forward or backwards, it makes no matter, the key is that you end up where you started, and I'm not sure if that is better than either of the alternatives.

Get some direction, for the love of god.

[pig]

It cracks me up.

You have a thread of 5 pages plus with people slating the pateam for daring to change the way alliance score is calculated.

They rectify the situation (Personally I can only applaud pateam for doing so, you have made the right decision imo and cater for all, as well as listening to the players, well done.) and then another thread pops up.

I think if there was a poll the round 19 scoring would be used, it allows all members of the pa community to play the game not only for themselves but for the alliance. The round 20 alliance scoring just alienates a far few people and alliances (thus potentially losing players, as oppose to gaining them).

Once more nice one pateam, for doing a U turn. It takes a lot of balls to do so, but I believe you have made the right decision.

[Cedlind]

Originally Posted by pig

Once more nice one pateam, for doing a U turn. It takes a lot of balls to do so, but I believe you have made the right decision.

But it's the wrong U-turn I'm afraid. The turn should have been done somewhere around "cluster ETA", but I guess they missed it.
If alliance rankings are calculated from score or value doesn't really matter, but the ability to defend it's members does. This ability have been taken away in R20 with the new cluster ETAs.

Congratulations, you (PA Team) have succeeded in killing off alliances. (and thus also PA)
You might not like them, but they're what keeps the players going.

[qebab]

Originally Posted by pig

It cracks me up.

You have a thread of 5 pages plus with people slating the pateam for daring to change the way alliance score is calculated.

They rectify the situation (Personally I can only applaud pateam for doing so, you have made the right decision imo and cater for all, as well as listening to the players, well done.) and then another thread pops up.

I think if there was a poll the round 19 scoring would be used, it allows all members of the pa community to play the game not only for themselves but for the alliance. The round 20 alliance scoring just alienates a far few people and alliances (thus potentially losing players, as oppose to gaining them).

Once more nice one pateam, for doing a U turn. It takes a lot of balls to do so, but I believe you have made the right decision.

You missed my point pig. PA team tells us about all these nice visions and changes and one get the impression that they know what they want to do with the game. Then, the community complains and you find out that actually they have no idea what they want to do with it.

You have to assume that they have a number of goals but do not know how to achieve them. Now, there aren't many significant changes in this game (I can still use the tickplan you and jer gave me when you dragged me into PAX two YEARS ago), and when these changes seemed a bit larger than others before them, I thought it meant that someone had a plan. Clearly not.

There are a number of reasons why they should be doing these things themselves instead of letting the community decide, for instance the fact that the community can not be represented well enough on these forums, there are next to no one in the community who have game-development experience (They do not know what is best for them), there is no single "voice of the community" only a whole lot of people yelling.

All these things lead to only compromises, and compromises are usually worse than what we would otherwise have.

This change doesn't affect me at all. Seeing that the PA team is actually a bunch of people running back and forth with cloth-pieces over their eyes does. Make plans and stick to them guys! Swerving back and forth like this will not help you at all, you will end up with a game that is not much different from what it already is, and it will appear like a patchwork instead of a well-designed game.

It's fairly straightforward really. XP encourages people to be selfish b*st*rds and go for personal glory. If a player is playing for value he is MUCH more useful to an alliance (as he has more ships, duh) than somebody of equivelent skill playing for xp.

Value scores for an alliance show how hard people are playing for each other. Awarding alliances for teamwork as opposed to individual effort is what an ALLIANCE is all about.

This was THE perfect change in my opinion. If people want to play for them selves and focus on XP then that's cool. That's why individual rankings stayed as the XP score. This takes focus away from alliances and teamworks and I maintain that changing the system back is ultimately pushing the focus of the game away from alliances.

So I have to ask: Why are you discriminating against the one thing that's kept this game alive for so long? It's a BAD decision and I strongly feel that it should be rectified again.

Not that I suspect anyone on the PA Team has the guts to admit they were wrong.

Ok call me lazy (or still drunk) but I only made it half-way through that log. After that both of your points started to circle back on each other as in fairness neither was willing to listen or budge.

Here's my stance: I dont think we should get rid of XP. Like Misty was saying - it's good for the small players. And if people want to play SOLO and just concentrate on their own rank then using the XP system is a a valid enough method.

But to reiterate my point above so it doesn't get forgotten about - Alliances are about teamwork, group efforts and group accomplishments. Having an alliance win based on XP is, literally, saying "The best alliance is the alliance that has the most active players concentrating on themselves". That's not an alliance at all tbh.

I'm not suggesting getting rid of XP. All I'm saying is that making the Alliance Ranking revert to Value based scores is the ONLY thing that is going to keep alliances going. Because if u just reward people for solo efforts (which is what xp-whoring is) then alliances wont matter, people will start playing solo, lose interest and soon everyone will quit.

Changing the alliance rankings to value-based was the best move the PATeam has made since I came back to the game. Changing it back was cowardice, and it presented NO ACTUAL BENEFIT TO ANYONE OR ANYTHING.

[Thex]

The XP system was not brought in to compensate people when losing their fleets.

It was brought in to discourage bashing and rewarding people for attacking larger planets than they would have originally considered. In this instance it has worked - yes bashing still occurs but a lot less than before.

A side effect of XP was that some people have exploited the "suicide fleet for large XP" attack plan, but that was not the original goal of XP.

Claiming that this change back to the original alliance score method is bad for the game is very short sighted. In itself it the change probably seems a good one, but when considered against other changes and play methods it's clear that this was not good for the game overall.

[Wandows]

To me the problem is that PA in its current state isn't easy to fiddle with. The game is to straight forward to allow most of the changes they announced earlier to make a better game. I'd consider it alot better to just stick with the current game for perhaps 1 or 2 rounds, only doing stat changes and minor tweaks of unbalanced existing features (although admittedly, most of what has been done past years was and still is nothing but tweaking of existing features), while in the mean time working on a completely 'new' game where you can make sure the features that are being implemented don't conflict with already existing features.

I think its safe to say that most of the current players do not think pa is a great game (atleast the ones i've spoken to), and i don't see that changing by trying to push in half- worked out/thought through - features. The best thing would be to design the game from the base up, starting with how planets will be placed in the universe and can interact with eachother to win, then build that back up to a completely new game ready for the 'new' internet age. I don't see pa improving much the way it is now since we're stuck with the existing main /corem elements that are in itself not generally exciting.

You guys are really missing the point. Are you chosing to ignore my posts as you cannot argue with them?

Please read what I have to say and respond. I'm not saying 'get rid of xp' I'm saying keep it where it's applicable and remove it where it shouldn't be.

Originally Posted by Kenny

Ok call me lazy (or still drunk) but I only made it half-way through that log. After that both of your points started to circle back on each other as in fairness neither was willing to listen or budge.

Here's my stance: I dont think we should get rid of XP. Like Misty was saying - it's good for the small players. And if people want to play SOLO and just concentrate on their own rank then using the XP system is a a valid enough method.

But to reiterate my point above so it doesn't get forgotten about - Alliances are about teamwork, group efforts and group accomplishments. Having an alliance win based on XP is, literally, saying "The best alliance is the alliance that has the most active players concentrating on themselves". That's not an alliance at all tbh.

I'm not suggesting getting rid of XP. All I'm saying is that making the Alliance Ranking revert to Value based scores is the ONLY thing that is going to keep alliances going. Because if u just reward people for solo efforts (which is what xp-whoring is) then alliances wont matter, people will start playing solo, lose interest and soon everyone will quit.

Changing the alliance rankings to value-based was the best move the PATeam has made since I came back to the game. Changing it back was cowardice, and it presented NO ACTUAL BENEFIT TO ANYONE OR ANYTHING.

Originally Posted by Kenny

It's fairly straightforward really. XP encourages people to be selfish b*st*rds and go for personal glory. If a player is playing for value he is MUCH more useful to an alliance (as he has more ships, duh) than somebody of equivelent skill playing for xp.

Value scores for an alliance show how hard people are playing for each other. Awarding alliances for teamwork as opposed to individual effort is what an ALLIANCE is all about.

This was THE perfect change in my opinion. If people want to play for them selves and focus on XP then that's cool. That's why individual rankings stayed as the XP score. This takes focus away from alliances and teamworks and I maintain that changing the system back is ultimately pushing the focus of the game away from alliances.

So I have to ask: Why are you discriminating against the one thing that's kept this game alive for so long? It's a BAD decision and I strongly feel that it should be rectified again.

Not that I suspect anyone on the PA Team has the guts to admit they were wrong.

[Alki]

Originally Posted by Kenny

You guys are really missing the point. Are you chosing to ignore my posts as you cannot argue with them?

Please read what I have to say and respond. I'm not saying 'get rid of xp' I'm saying keep it where it's applicable and remove it where it shouldn't be.

kinda reminds me of pia forums, except it was only the ignore part over there

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Kenny

You guys are really missing the point. Are you chosing to ignore my posts as you cannot argue with them?

Please read what I have to say and respond. I'm not saying 'get rid of xp' I'm saying keep it where it's applicable and remove it where it shouldn't be.

So why is XP not applicable for alliances? Because alliances should consist of newbie-bashing twats whch only have the balls to hit at their bashlimit and not hit the bigger people? If you think that constantly crashing your fleet to gain more xp is what gets you the top spot you will notice that it is not true. In fact, XP does good in the alliance rankings as XP was the reason why we had quite a few rounds lately where more alliances were able to keep for the #1 spot for a longer time than when we had value based rankings. Rankings purely based upon value - no matter if for planets, galaxies, clusters, alliances or e-penis size - make the game less competitive* because once you crashed your fleet your out of the race, unless you are very very lucky.

*That only counts for the game in its current form. From my point of view there still could be better ways to compensate players for losing their fleet.

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by Heartless

So why is XP not applicable for alliances? Because alliances should consist of newbie-bashing twats whch only have the balls to hit at their bashlimit and not hit the bigger people? If you think that constantly crashing your fleet to gain more xp is what gets you the top spot you will notice that it is not true. In fact, XP does good in the alliance rankings as XP was the reason why we had quite a few rounds lately where more alliances were able to keep for the #1 spot for a longer time than when we had value based rankings. Rankings purely based upon value - no matter if for planets, galaxies, clusters, alliances or e-penis size - make the game less competitive* because once you crashed your fleet your out of the race, unless you are very very lucky.

*That only counts for the game in its current form. From my point of view there still could be better ways to compensate players for losing their fleet.

Are you saying that alliances based mostly in XP are good for the game?
If so, are you defining an alliance simply as a group of people who attack together, since you sure aint gonna be doing much defending of each other playing for XP.

Rankings based purely on value reflect the effective strength of that alliance and their ability to change things in the game for other alliances.
Rankings based on XP do not.

yes you may end up as #1 but that does not mean you are the strongest or worthiest alliance in the game. It is merely a sham

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Phil^

Are you saying that alliances based mostly in XP are good for the game?

To a certain degree, xp based alliances certainly are good for the game. They are unlikely to win it anyway, unless rounds get heavily shortened.

Originally Posted by Phil^

If so, are you defining an alliance simply as a group of people who attack together, since you sure aint gonna be doing much defending of each other playing for XP.

I am defining an alliance the same way the game currently does - and that means a bunch of planets "wearing" the same tag and thus being granted special features like an intergalactic fund and reduced defense traveltime. Currently that is all an alliance is in this game, everything else is part of the community around the game, not the game itself.

Originally Posted by Phil^

Rankings based purely on value reflect the effective strength of that alliance and their ability to change things in the game for other alliances.
Rankings based on XP do not.
yes you may end up as #1 but that does not mean you are the strongest or worthiest alliance in the game. It is merely a sham

This is a wrong assumption because it does not show the strength of an alliance but rather the fleet resources available - but an alliances strength is more than just the ships it has available. It also includes efficiency in terms of covering incomings and fleetslot usage as well as the ability to successfully attack planets / alliances bigger than you.
XP shows strength just as much as value - it shows your ability to attack planets/alliances bigger than you, but leaves out your available fleet resources. Ultimately the combination of both, xp and value, is a far better indicator of an alliances strength - and you will notice that with the exception of Ascendancy no alliance has ever won because of xp alone (and Ascendancy only did it because we abused several glitches in the game like bash limits on counting towards value and the zik weakness against terran de/bs pods).

I would like to add that a pure value based ranking for alliances gives you a lot less reason to directly go to war with some other alliance you are competing with. It favours fencesitting and outblocking the enemy instead, which tends to lead to earlier stagnation.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Phil^

Are you saying that alliances based mostly in XP are good for the game?
If so, are you defining an alliance simply as a group of people who attack together, since you sure aint gonna be doing much defending of each other playing for XP.

Rankings based purely on value reflect the effective strength of that alliance and their ability to change things in the game for other alliances.
Rankings based on XP do not.

yes you may end up as #1 but that does not mean you are the strongest or worthiest alliance in the game. It is merely a sham

Ofc its good for the game, anything which moves the level of planets being hit up a few rungs of the ladder is good for the game as it produces fairer fights and makes the game more competitive.

And you seem to have this strange idea that the most value makes both an alliance and a player better than others. While it can do and can mean that they are the ones that can change the game most it can also mean that they are just the most spineless people in the game who haven't taken chances and have just bashed and farmed their way to success and certainly doesnt mean they are the ones most capable of changing the game.

And ffs Phil^ your supposed to have some intelligence, the rankings haven't been done on XP, they are done on score which is how it should be as that's showing who has balanced the various game priorities the best which hence shows the alliance and person who's played with the best mix of honour (xp) and skill (value).

jesus christ I leave u kids alone for 5 minutes

At the end of the day, who should be rewarded more: the people who've put time and effort into the game, maintaining a large fleet and roidcount, or the people who log in once a week, attack somebody 20x bigger than them in value, get a bucket load of score for it, and then log out til the following week.

XP isn't fair, just, or appropriate. Yes, it makes the game fairer to those who cant log in as often - but people with low activity shouldn't really expect to win a massively multiplayer something something strategy game. Why should they have a greater reward than somebody who's worked his gonads off for a high value-based score when some twat with 20 ships can beat him?

Its just not right.

And ftr you have again ignored my point about the dual systems - if a player wants to go for personal glory then that's fine. They can still do that. If they dont have the time to contribute as part of a team then yes, why not keep planet rankings the way it is just now. But alliances should be about teamwork and contribution.

Heartless how can you say that an XP Alliance Ranking system makes it more competitive? If an alliance is playing for xp then not only are they likely to be largely under the bash limit of the big value players (i.e. untouchable scores) then how is that competition at all? It would mean that they can just keep feeding and feeding off of the value players by suiciding p*ss-poor fleets and getting xp for it, which cant be taken back from them. A value player's score is very much dentable, which presents an unfair disadvantage for them.

Planetarion was never meant to be about cowardly 'tactical' raids, it was about brute force and competition. Does anybody else notice the dramatically low playerbase? I can guarantee if u got rid of xp the playerbase would go up. XP is one of the sole things keeping people away from the game just now, as it's too much of an unfair system.

And all we're asking for here is a compromise! We're not saying get rid of XP (although you should) all we're saying here is set the alliance score to value and return some meaning to planetarion. If you're worried about bashing raise the damned bash limit.

At the end of the day if you cant win based on value, you dont deserve to win. Winning should be about rewarding hard work, not luck.

[ComradeRob]

Complete nonsense from start to finish.

Originally Posted by Kenny

jesus christ I leave u kids alone for 5 minutes

At the end of the day, who should be rewarded more: the people who've put time and effort into the game, maintaining a large fleet and roidcount, or the people who log in once a week, attack somebody 20x bigger than them in value, get a bucket load of score for it, and then log out til the following week.

Yes, when all else fails, resort to hyperbole. The activity patterns necessary to win using XP are probably less stressful than the activity patterns necessary to win by value, but only slightly. Really good players don't need to be all that active even when playing for value (Sid, for example, spent very little time on his planet but always managed to do reasonably well). I can appreciate that some of the less-skilled players might like to be able to win simply by being more 'active' than others, but I don't see why such unskilled play should be rewarded.

To actually play and win with XP is harder than it looks. It requires the dedication to continue attacking every day, and it also requires that the player cares enough to do so. Caring about the game only comes from having a reasonably high level of activity and involvement in the community; do you seriously think that PA is being overrun by swarms of inactive people who never log in, never talk on IRC or contribute to the community, yet manage to win rounds using XP alone?

XP isn't fair, just, or appropriate. Yes, it makes the game fairer to those who cant log in as often - but people with low activity shouldn't really expect to win a massively multiplayer something something strategy game. Why should they have a greater reward than somebody who's worked his gonads off for a high value-based score when some twat with 20 ships can beat him?

Its just not right.

Since when is fairness, justice or 'appropriateness' a measure of fun in a game? This paragraph is simply a jumble of unreferenced statements, topped off with yet more hyperbole. Your example of a high-value player is interesting, simply because high-value players have done pretty well since the XP formula was changed after r16. The only way a value player could lose is by consistently attacking downwards - attacking planets quite a bit smaller than his own. Do we want to encourage or reward this?

And ftr you have again ignored my point about the dual systems - if a player wants to go for personal glory then that's fine. They can still do that. If they dont have the time to contribute as part of a team then yes, why not keep planet rankings the way it is just now. But alliances should be about teamwork and contribution.

Alliances should be about whatever the people in the alliance want them to be.

Heartless how can you say that an XP Alliance Ranking system makes it more competitive? If an alliance is playing for xp then not only are they likely to be largely under the bash limit of the big value players (i.e. untouchable scores) then how is that competition at all? It would mean that they can just keep feeding and feeding off of the value players by suiciding p*ss-poor fleets and getting xp for it, which cant be taken back from them. A value player's score is very much dentable, which presents an unfair disadvantage for them.

RTFM. Score is now counted in the bash formula; anyone you can't hit must be substantially lower in score than you, so why are you worried about them?

Planetarion was never meant to be about cowardly 'tactical' raids, it was about brute force and competition. Does anybody else notice the dramatically low playerbase? I can guarantee if u got rid of xp the playerbase would go up. XP is one of the sole things keeping people away from the game just now, as it's too much of an unfair system.

This is the piece of gibberish which prompted me to bother posting at all. What's more cowardly, attacking someone with 40.1% of your value, or using tactics to attack someone twice your value?

And yes, we notice the low playerbase. It has been declining since round 5, and I don't think the XP formula has made any appreciable difference one way or another.

You offer of a guarantee for the financial future of the game that would result from a game change is interesting: are you really willing to put up the cash difference between the amount paid for credits in r19 and r20, if r20 were to have a different XP/ranking formula? Or was that just hyperbole?

And all we're asking for here is a compromise! We're not saying get rid of XP (although you should) all we're saying here is set the alliance score to value and return some meaning to planetarion. If you're worried about bashing raise the damned bash limit.

At the end of the day if you cant win based on value, you dont deserve to win. Winning should be about rewarding hard work, not luck.

Winning should be about smart work; any moron can grind out a result in a game simply by logging on more often than is healthy. But it's not fun and it's not something we should encourage.

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Kenny

At the end of the day, who should be rewarded more: the people who've put time and effort into the game, maintaining a large fleet and roidcount, or the people who log in once a week, attack somebody 20x bigger than them in value, get a bucket load of score for it, and then log out til the following week.

XP isn't fair, just, or appropriate. Yes, it makes the game fairer to those who cant log in as often - but people with low activity shouldn't really expect to win a massively multiplayer something something strategy game. Why should they have a greater reward than somebody who's worked his gonads off for a high value-based score when some twat with 20 ships can beat him?

Its just not right.

Stop being so utterly stupid, or do you really think someone who constantly hits his head against a wall in order to break through the wall should win instead of someone using a percussion drill - just because invested more time into it? It's just not right to encourage brutforce over brainforce.

Seriously, XP does not allow anyone to log into his account once a week and beat someone who logged in daily. XP, however, gives you an incentive to try to outsmart other people - those people which have more fleet than you. It also prevents you from losing your complete score. And thirdly it allows you to actually catch up on others.

Originally Posted by Kenny

And ftr you have again ignored my point about the dual systems - if a player wants to go for personal glory then that's fine. They can still do that. If they dont have the time to contribute as part of a team then yes, why not keep planet rankings the way it is just now. But alliances should be about teamwork and contribution.

Is coordinating attacks NOT included in teamwork? Is coordinating intel NOT included in teamwork? Is simply discussing what to do next NOT included in teamwork?

If so, then yes I agree, an alliance is only defined by acutally totally commiting itself to defense. Why not just base alliance rankings upon successfull defense missions launched per round then?

Originally Posted by Kenny

Heartless how can you say that an XP Alliance Ranking system makes it more competitive? If an alliance is playing for xp then not only are they likely to be largely under the bash limit of the big value players (i.e. untouchable scores) then how is that competition at all? It would mean that they can just keep feeding and feeding off of the value players by suiciding p*ss-poor fleets and getting xp for it, which cant be taken back from them. A value player's score is very much dentable, which presents an unfair disadvantage for them.

Oh dear god, PLEASE PLEAE PLEASE GO READ THE MANUAL REGARDING THE BASH FORMULA. It seems like nobody ever noticed that you can attack every planet who has more than 40% of your score. Yes that also means a value player can repeatedly go and hit those xp players if they are in front of him.
If they manage to keep on suiciding piss-poor fleets AND succeed with that in their quest for xp, then surely the value player was stupid enough to not build a fleet against that?

XP does allow a more competitive play. It means you can accept some ship losses (not total shiploss!) as it will be compensated by XP. In a pure value based system every fleet resource you lose hurts you, especially if the enemy alliance loses less ships than you. Maybe, just maybe look at the history of round 15, or at the day where ND caught up a few million score on eXilition just by roiding. Value requires you to kill enemy ships which is hard, especially when the enemy has more fleet available than you.

Now that the bash limit and value issue is done for enough, if you need more info read what jester and me replied to phil, I will go on to your point for a dual based system:

The pure-value-system has an universal issue glitch: It is impossible to catch up on your own - no matter if that "on your own" means your planet, your galaxy or your alliance. None of the three entities can really catch up unless they decide to act cowardice and avoid as much incoming as possible and only roid down the chain or get some partners to try to eat up the foodchain.

For alliance rankings on value this would mean that it will just return to mass-blocking/napping because nobody wants to lose roids (and thus fall behind in the growth rates) and everybody wants to have more partners than the others (just in case that someone should actually decide to start a war in a war game).

I am really not sure how to make that point way clearer than just telling you to look at what happened in planetarion before XP was introduced. You will notice that rounds stagnated a lot earlier than they do now.

Originally Posted by Kenny

Planetarion was never meant to be about cowardly 'tactical' raids, it was about brute force and competition.

I remember that you also were 1up. You will notice that eXilition didn't beat 1up by 'tactical' raids as you call them. Exilition brutforced upon 1up to beat them. That still is required. After all, it still is a war game, and making too many enemies cannot be too good, can it? I think Angels / Omen / ND can sing a song about hitting here and there instead of focussing on the real competition for #1 alliance slot.

Originally Posted by Kenny

Does anybody else notice the dramatically low playerbase? I can guarantee if u got rid of xp the playerbase would go up. XP is one of the sole things keeping people away from the game just now, as it's too much of an unfair system.

And all we're asking for here is a compromise! We're not saying get rid of XP (although you should) all we're saying here is set the alliance score to value and return some meaning to planetarion.

Oh, while you are able to foresee the future, when is Duke Nukem Forever going to be released?

Originally Posted by Kenny

If you're worried about bashing raise the damned bash limit.

First you complain about a small universe (which already means few targets) and the inability to hit xp whores (which ain't true). Now you want to decrease the available target pool even more by raising the bash limit?

Originally Posted by Kenny

At the end of the day if you cant win based on value, you dont deserve to win. Winning should be about rewarding hard work, not luck.

Well the wiki is located at http://www.clawofdarkness.com/pawiki/ - I suggest you take a look at the rankings of the last few rounds and you will notice that with the exception of Ascendancy nobody has won by NOT playing for value.

Originally Posted by Heartless

stuff.

Heartless I dont think I'm going to bother replying to you. I'm trying to put across my views in a constructive but opinionated way. Calling me 'stupid' doesn't add weight to your position, nor does it make me inclined to try and have a debate with you.

I think that the people who support xp are going to keep supporting it, and likewise for value. I think both systems have their merit, I'm just in favour of the merit surrounding value scores for alliances for the reasons I've stated. I'm not saying your reasons are wrong, I'm saying I dont think they have merit.

You're right Heartless I did play with you in 1up. You were there when I first joined and had the Sid incident as detailed below. I never imagined you'd be the kind to shoot me down with such arrogance on the forums just because I've said something you disagreed with. GG.

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Kenny

Heartless I dont think I'm going to bother replying to you. I'm trying to put across my views in a constructive but opinionated way. Calling me 'stupid' doesn't add weight to your position, nor does it make me inclined to try and have a debate with you.

I think that the people who support xp are going to keep supporting it, and likewise for value. I think both systems have their merit, I'm just in favour of the merit surrounding value scores for alliances for the reasons I've stated. I'm not saying your reasons are wrong, I'm saying I dont think they have merit.

You're right Heartless I did play with you in 1up. You were there when I first joined and had the Sid incident as detailed below. I never imagined you'd be the kind to shoot me down with such arrogance on the forums just because I've said something you disagreed with. GG.

So far I have not seen ANY argument for a value-based system except "we like it more". Those people favouring pure value should maybe start outlining where and why the value based system is superior to the xp system, and why it would improve the gameplay experience. Just start arguing for your cause.

Neither did I want to be arrogant, but sometimes you simply have to be - just like I could call you arrogant for your "I leave your kids alone for five minutes" statement. Doesn't get us onwards in resolving the issue though. Feel free to keep on trying to convince me, I am open for good arguments. However, so far I have seen no argument that could be countered with an equal or better argument when it comes to gameplay.

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by Heartless

So far I have not seen ANY argument for a value-based system except "we like it more". Those people favouring pure value should maybe start outlining where and why the value based system is superior to the xp system, and why it would improve the gameplay experience. Just start arguing for your cause.

we have, not that any of you have listened mind you - in favour of "you're so stupid etc etc " type comments

Originally Posted by Heartless

I could call you arrogant for your "I leave your kids alone for five minutes" statement.

You could, but you would be wrong. He was referring to the number of posts that appeared since he last posted here - Not any swipe at you or anyone else who is pro-xp

[Thex]

Originally Posted by Kenny

At the end of the day, who should be rewarded more: the people who've put time and effort into the game, maintaining a large fleet and roidcount, or the people who log in once a week, attack somebody 20x bigger than them in value, get a bucket load of score for it, and then log out til the following week.

I think you need to meet some of the biggest XP players and see how they play to understand how active they are.

Our [BIG] XP players were very very active, if anything they are more active than a bunch of ally players who only log on a couple of times a day to send a couple of defence fleets (that have already been put together by a DC) and then once a day to launch on an attack (for which they were provided all the scans and in some cases even told who to attack), just logging on briefly to see if the jpg (that they didn't make) shows that they should recall or not.

Anyone should be able to play the game - just because you don't personally like XP (and have an incorrect view of the way they play) - doesn't mean its a bad thing or that it encourages inactivity.

However the changes (x2) were not about removing XP anyway, they were about changing the scoring system which would not have benefitted certain people in the game (due to knock on effects) and would, most likely, have caused certain bashing activities - bashing is not good for the game. If you don't like XP you should be complaining about that and not the changes to scoring system.

Even if XP had been removed then the scoring changes (to ranks allies by value) may still have caused bashing activites (coupled with the low cluster ETA), so really complaining about XP and the score changes at the same time is wrong because they are not completely linked.

[Phil^]

What is it with certain pro-xp people and insulting those who happen to disagree with them? You seem to think the best way to deal with an argument is to ridicule the person making it.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

Really good players don't need to be all that active even when playing for value (Sid, for example, spent very little time on his planet but always managed to do reasonably well).

Sid had an entire alliance of very active people who were ready to defend him at the drop of a hat.
Defence which would not exist under an XP system since, whats the point in defending if your fleet is next to nonexistant?
Whats the point in sending ships which you would much rather use for attack, since you dont exactly gain anything much by defending them nor are you under any obligation to.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

It requires the dedication to continue attacking every day

Is dedication logging on, launching, logging off until its due to land , logging on again to see if you are through - recalling if not and then logging off once more?

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

do you seriously think that PA is being overrun by swarms of inactive people who never log in, never talk on IRC or contribute to the community

This part is quite debatable, given the large numbers of exiling which occurs during rounds - and the whines about inactives in peoples galaxies.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

Since when is fairness, justice or 'appropriateness' a measure of fun in a game?

Apples and oranges. Fairness is quite obviously not a direct measurement of fun, It does however create a scenario for fun to develop.
Do you think a game which is inherantly unfair is a good place for everyone to find it fun?

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

The only way a value player could lose is by consistently attacking downwards

Not the only way nope. You forget the losing ones fleet method of losing

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

RTFM. Score is now counted in the bash formula; anyone you can't hit must be substantially lower in score than you, so why are you worried about them?

See point made on page 1 indicating that i dont exactly think the formula will remain this way.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

What's more cowardly, attacking someone with 40.1% of your value, or using tactics to attack someone twice your value?

Whats more cowardly - Attacking a planet for something you are always in danger of losing again, or attacking a planet for something which can never be taken away from you no matter how hard they try.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

any moron can grind out a result in a game simply by logging on more often than is healthy. But it's not fun and it's not something we should encourage.

Funny, that sounds precisely like the point i made regarding your 'dedication' point

Originally Posted by Heartless

I remember that you also were 1up. You will notice that eXilition didn't beat 1up by 'tactical' raids as you call them. Exilition brutforced upon 1up to beat them. That still is required. After all, it still is a war game, and making too many enemies cannot be too good, can it? I think Angels / Omen / ND can sing a song about hitting here and there instead of focussing on the real competition for #1 alliance slot.

Didnt exilition also play for value? - Not XP.

I dont think you realise just how useless it is to bruteforce an xp whore.
They have something which will never ever be taken away no matter how many times you attack them.
The only way i can think of to successfully tackle an xp whore is to defend every single place they attack and prevent them from gaining xp in the first place. Something which isnt exactly feasible since by the time you know where they are attacking it is too late to defend against it if it is not against your alliance.
You may suggest outroiding as one means, but just how effective was that for 1up against ascendancy again?

Originally Posted by Heartless

Oh, while you are able to foresee the future, when is Duke Nukem Forever going to be released?

Everyone knows that duke nukem forever will be released the day after tomorrow, recursively.

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Phil^

Didnt exilition also play for value? - Not XP.

You will find a lot of exilition people agreeing that eXilition would never have won round 15 if they couldn't catch up on ND due to XP exi got from raiding value-fat ND people.

Originally Posted by Phil^

I dont think you realise just how useless it is to bruteforce an xp whore.
They have something which will never ever be taken away no matter how many times you attack them.
The only way i can think of to successfully tackle an xp whore is to defend every single place they attack and prevent them from gaining xp in the first place. Something which isnt exactly feasible since by the time you know where they are attacking it is too late to defend against it if it is not against your alliance.
You may suggest outroiding as one means, but just how effective was that for 1up against ascendancy again?

You bruteforce an xp whore by bruteforce defending against and by fleetcatching them. Admittedly it is (or was - should be easier to accomplish with cluster eta) hard to constantly defend every attack an xp whore launches, but surely it is easy to keep on fleetcatching them?

1up had no chance to outroid Ascendancy in round 16 due to a glitch in the game mechanics, i.e. Ascendancy could never lose anything as the pure-value-based bash limit protected us. On the other hand, round 16 was pretty short so that roids couldn't really start paying off enough to make value players compete with xp whores. In short: round 16 has shown how XP should NOT be implemented in the game. The current xp system, however, works ok'ish.

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by Heartless

Admittedly it is (or was - should be easier to accomplish with cluster eta) hard to constantly defend every attack an xp whore launches, but surely it is easy to keep on fleetcatching them?

It gives you a better chance to get there in time, assuming you are told about the incoming the very tick it arrives. After that its pretty much impossible(stats dependant) . News scans cant be used to find out where they are going because of the tick delay on them
Also it might raise a few flags for oogooa defence if you are defending another alliance

Fleetcatches as im sure you are aware are not easy things to set up. If the target planet suspects one ( jgp for prelaunched fleets helps here, as do spies. Fleetcatches require coordination and planning, the stuff spies live for to be on the inside of ) , they will recall and foil the attempt.
You would need to fleetcatch and defend against them for a significant length of time - during which your alliance has less fleets available to it to do attacks of its own or defend against the normal 'background noise' of incoming.

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Phil^

It gives you a better chance to get there in time, assuming you are told about the incoming the very tick it arrives. After that its pretty much impossible(stats dependant) . News scans cant be used to find out where they are going because of the tick delay on them
Also it might raise a few flags for oogooa defence if you are defending another alliance

Fleetcatches as im sure you are aware are not easy things to set up. If the target planet suspects one ( jgp for prelaunched fleets helps here, as do spies. Fleetcatches require coordination and planning, the stuff spies live for to be on the inside of ) , they will recall and foil the attempt.
You would need to fleetcatch and defend against them for a significant length of time - during which your alliance has less fleets available to it to do attacks of its own or defend against the normal 'background noise' of incoming.

Fleetcatches are easy to setup, unless you and your people are unable to have a nicely designed fleet. Fleetcatches are hard if the xp whore is in a top gal or a top alliance (and there it would do good anyway, don't you think?).
Additionally it is really easy to outgrow xp whores (they just cannot keep roids, and if they do they get pretty value dependent, too), and you can easily see what they specialize on so you can counter it one way or another.

In the end a good player will have a good combination of either lots of value + some xp, lots of xp + some value, or equal amounts of both in his score.

[ComradeRob]

Originally Posted by Phil^

What is it with certain pro-xp people and insulting those who happen to disagree with them? You seem to think the best way to deal with an argument is to ridicule the person making it.

I very carefully avoided the ad hominem argument. If Kenny appeared ridiculous, it was because of his argument and not because of anything I said. I might well ask 'What is it with certain anti-xp people and making groundless claims about things which they have no personal experience?'.

Originally Posted by Phil^

Sid had an entire alliance of very active people who were ready to defend him at the drop of a hat.
Defence which would not exist under an XP system since, whats the point in defending if your fleet is next to nonexistant?

So you state that Sid received lots of defence, under a system which incorporated the pre-r17 XP system, then claim that such a system would make defence irrelevant. Somewhat like Kenny, you're exaggerating and undermining your argument by doing so. Aside from that, Sid probably received less defence than many 1up members did. I know this because I was often the person running said defence at the time.

Furthermore, defence actually has nothing to do with my point. It was that an individual player does not need to be exceptionally active to get good value; the fact that a person can get defence without even being logged in actually bolsters my point rather than weakens it.

Whats the point in sending ships which you would much rather use for attack, since you dont exactly gain anything much by defending them nor are you under any obligation to.

And yet, people do it. Do you know better than all of them?

Is dedication logging on, launching, logging off until its due to land , logging on again to see if you are through - recalling if not and then logging off once more?

But almost nobody can do this for a whole round. It gets boring, if nothing else. To sustain interest in the game, you need to interact with the community. And if people are playing the game and interacting with the community, I don't see much of a problem.

This part is quite debatable, given the large numbers of exiling which occurs during rounds - and the whines about inactives in peoples galaxies.

Fair point, but how would value-based alliance rankings help here? There are plenty of less active people, but these are the people who traditionally do worst out of a value system.

Apples and oranges. Fairness is quite obviously not a direct measurement of fun, It does however create a scenario for fun to develop.
Do you think a game which is inherantly unfair is a good place for everyone to find it fun?

It's very hard to prove absolute fairness or unfairness though. You may see some things as fair and I may not; you may see some things as unfair and I may not. Mostly, people's conception of fairness in a game like PA is a result of their pre-existing biases. I have known people to say that attacking late at night is unfair, or that waved attacks are unfair... the list is almost endless. Whose conception of fairness matters? Why should it be yours?

Not the only way nope. You forget the losing ones fleet method of losing

If someone loses their fleet, it is generally their own fault. It's not that hard to keep a fleet alive (after all, value players are meant to be active enough to do this, aren't they?), or to insure yourself against catastrophic losses (by staggering launch/return ETAs so you can't be totally fleet-caught).

See point made on page 1 indicating that i dont exactly think the formula will remain this way.

Fair enough. But it doesn't appear (unless I've missed it) to be in the current raft of changes.

Whats more cowardly - Attacking a planet for something you are always in danger of losing again, or attacking a planet for something which can never be taken away from you no matter how hard they try.

There's no doubt that, at the margins, XP can lead to some odd effects. But the basic principle of XP as an instant-gratification reward for attacking which can't be lost is still sound.

Funny, that sounds precisely like the point i made regarding your 'dedication' point

It is similar and underlines what I said earlier about how subjective this debate is. I regard being up at 4am to run defence as unhealthy and being something that deters people from playing PA. You seem to believe the opposite; that being able to play and win during daylight hours is bad for the game.

We probably disagree less than this debate would make it look. I do think some changes are needed to XP, but if we discard it now we will probably never replace it with anything better.

[Phil^]

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

I very carefully avoided the ad hominem argument.

Yes, you did and for this i applaud you. That point was more aimed at those who were unwilling to do so - not you.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

So you state that Sid received lots of defence

No, thats not what im stating. I said that he had an entire alliance who were ready to defend him at the drop of a hat - not that the entire alliance defended him lots of times.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

Furthermore, defence actually has nothing to do with my point.

It does to do with mine however.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

the fact that a person can get defence without even being logged in actually bolsters my point rather than weakens it.

Does it?
From what xp players would you magic up a fleet that is effective enough to defend a serious attack?
XP players prioritise attack, and low value since this is how they get the most xp from attacks.
they do not do much in the way of defending or building defence fleets - since whats the point? You arent going to be able to hold onto roids so why defend them. Just go out and get more instead - and xp at the same time

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

Do you know better than all of them?

Do you? Did i say that i did? Is this something you imagined all by yourself?

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

But almost nobody can do this for a whole round. It gets boring, if nothing else. To sustain interest in the game, you need to interact with the community. And if people are playing the game and interacting with the community, I don't see much of a problem.

This partly touches on myearlier points regarding community and giving them more reason to *talk* with other players and to hang around.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

Fair point, but how would value-based alliance rankings help here?

This is another point you have imagined myself making. I have not said that it would, nor have i said that a different system would be no better in this regard.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

It's very hard to prove absolute fairness or unfairness though. You may see some things as fair and I may not; you may see some things as unfair and I may not. Mostly, people's conception of fairness in a game like PA is a result of their pre-existing biases. I have known people to say that attacking late at night is unfair, or that waved attacks are unfair... the list is almost endless. Whose conception of fairness matters? Why should it be yours?

Another point you have imagined.
show me precisely where i have said my opinion of fairness matters more then someone elses?

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

If someone loses their fleet, it is generally their own fault. It's not that hard to keep a fleet alive (after all, value players are meant to be active enough to do this, aren't they?), or to insure yourself against catastrophic losses (by staggering launch/return ETAs so you can't be totally fleet-caught).

Sometimes yes, but there are circumstances even the most active, or best of players cant stop. Say for example a fleetcatch on all three fleets - staggered into different waves , returning to base by a fleet whos value far exceeds that of what defence you can get.
The value player in this case has done all they can - and still is likely to lose their fleet
Is it their fault?

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

It is similar and underlines what I said earlier about how subjective this debate is. I regard being up at 4am to run defence as unhealthy and being something that deters people from playing PA. You seem to believe the opposite; that being able to play and win during daylight hours is bad for the game.

Im beginning to think you are making up random points and then attributing them to me. A strawman style of argumentation
Yet again this is another thing you have imagined me saying. Point out where in my posts i have said being able to play and win during daylight hours is bad. I have said that being able to be extremely inactive and lazy, and yet still winning or doing even quite well is bad for the game, Not that playing during the day or not being up at 4am is bad.

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

We probably disagree less than this debate would make it look. I do think some changes are needed to XP, but if we discard it now we will probably never replace it with anything better.

I would think we agree on more things in the game then we disagree on - Just not on this specific issue of xp.
Discarding xp , for me gets rid of something that has been warped far beyond its original intention. A poor mans 'deflector dish' deus ex machina for the game as it were.
It was intended to soften the blow of losing a fleet, it doesnt do this anymore, its replacing a core game mechanic.

A tolerable solution ( though one i would still be quite unhappy about ) would be a split ranking system. One for value, one for xp and one for a combination of both. None of these would have precidence over the other - it would simply be rankings of who won in each category.
Odds are the winner of one would probably also take the combo rank but its by no means certain. it depends how they are combined.
People will ofc argue over who really won, but by not saying that - its a matter of opinion for the players and not a definitive list.
value players will consider their ranking better, xp players will consider theirs better and so on

It would let those who play for value have their effort recognised, it would let those who play for xp have their contribution recognised and it would let those who did a mix of both have theirs recognised.
It also neatly sidesteps the problem of balancing the two systems ingame in terms of attacking, etc.
It still needs to be done for the combo ranking i guess but still

[Jester]

I'm not going to reply specifically to any points raised, but here's my piece on XP. Personally, I don't care either way. I guess I did when the change was originally announced, but right now it doesn't affect my plans to play next round.

I happen to think this thread is amusing, because Phil is carrying such a torch for all the people who were aggrieved in round 16. There is, however, an elephant in the room he seems to be ignoring: stealing. If the game is changed to purely value, won't zikonian be given a huge advantage?

And I'm not saying that since stealing exists, XP must also exist. I'm simply pointing out that rabidly advocating the removal of XP glosses over the fact that XP is in fact an integral part of the game system that would require larger design decisions to remove. I assume you are aware of all these implications, but since you are not covering them in your advocacy you seem to be making the assumption that PAteam will be if they follow your advice. If you think PAteam are as useless and stupid as you present, why do you trust them to balance such a large change? Hell, you don't even trust them to maintain a sane bash limit.

Personally, I don't think PA suffers from a patch-work system. I think it thrives under the current system. PA has been developed in a fairly open model, with features being added and removed as they are tested in real rounds.

The idea that the game system is driving people away is humbug: time is driving people away. Decline is inevitable in all MMOGs. Reinventing the game to increase recruitment beyond the current dropoff rate requires more resources than PAteam have at hand. It'd be nice and all, but let's face it, it's not realistic.

If you have such better ideas about how PA should be designed, go make a clone. Several people have done this before and made fun games. I've seriously considered it, several times, but in the end I'd rather PAteam make the game and I play it. I might not agree with every design decision they make, but they have yet to do anything so bad that I can't have fun playing with my friends. Hell, I can even make fun of PAteam while I'm doing it. And really, I must be a simple man, because that's enough for me.

[Cannon_Fodder]

I wondered where the vehement hate of xp had gone after cypher left, turns out phil took it.