Alliances, the game engine and proactivity

[lokken]

I write this as a general comment of how I feel this round is panning out and mainly because I feel it will encourage debate and opinion.

I see (rightly or wrongly) this round as a slow build up of value, with the two top alliances (exi and 1up) being the greater of the two and the one with the larger block will probably win quite swiftly, then take out anyone who thinks about arguing with them afterwards on sheer activity. Let me make it plain - I do not believe this is stagnation in any sense because people are attacking how they please. It is however leading to the conclusion that alliances have almost certainly ceased to fight for ranking and this is not (in my eyes at least) good for entertainment.

As Sid has commented, Planetarion has ceased to be a 'war game' and this I believe is a contributing factor. I agree with him in some sense, but I also think that the lack of effect of XP has made it so that alliances (if they chose) could fight and make it profitable if they were more flexible. In the recent world cup speed game, the UK galaxy run by jerome (who's epenis just got larger) won simply by being active and tenacious and taking their game to their enemies and were successful despite at several times, being outnumbered. While the stats in that game were superior and slightly different, I'd say they weren't miles away from what could be possible in the current game. Although I'd have to say, a move toward what we saw in the world cup would most definitely be a positive one.

Currently we see 1up and Exilition happily raiding and building value. Other alliances, content not to be in the thick of are also doing this, although probably at a slower rate, given that they probably possess less quality and thus ability to defend and hold these roids. While we know action will come, you feel that some number crunching will go on and someone will get heavily owned quite briefly. To me it appears that the 2 main contenders of this round are happy to wait, get the big opposition out of the way first, then play with what they are most comfortable with - an end of round mopping up operation as they've got players who can go the distance.

While we can talk about profitability and score accumulation all day, I can't help think that other alliances are giving someone a rather large helping hand by going along with this, as guess what - they are raiding too and not really exerting too much pressure on any ally. If they want to be contenders, the best time to go for these big alliances is early as this is when they are most vulnerable before their roid advantage really pays off. Of course success is not guaranteed, because success requires a certain level of competence.

Where I'm shocked is that we see an utter lack of proactivity from these smaller alliances, because they are happy to let 1up and exilition call the shots on what is profitable on their terms for when/how war will happen. I'm not even sure the alliance on the losing side of this anticipated big conflict is particularly wise in waiting, as from what I can see it would be better to throw the round wide open and have some lesser alliances take the lead rather than just sitting there waiting to be killed off. It's better to have an open round and make life incredibly awkward for so called "sure-fire winners" than simply let big alliances dictate things on their terms, as that's exactly what they would want.

People might say "well aren't you advocating some giant game of chicken?" and I'd agree with that. But then again playing roulette might be the best chance of winning if you aren't a 1up or an exilition. ND for one reason or another (which I think might be offtopic, but I'm not too sure I can say this just to dictate the discussion which I can't really do, I don't know) were very conservative in the way they played either out of lack of capability to fight, confidence (in that their members never seriously believed they could win) or judgement and got burned. They did gamble, but still let other alliances play their own game and this has been what been missing in the past few rounds. Because if you don't try to dictate and play like winners, you certainly can't be winners unless you are relying on fortune to drag you through.

I'm not sure whether many (especially 1up/exi people) are going to agree and I think they would be right to strongly disagree. However, I am someone who sees this round as quite bland and inoffensive. I think the stats/game engine is too caught in up "roiding combinations" and the like when really, the game is more fun when killing ships and getting stuck in. r16 kind of had this, but Asc pissed on everyone's parade because they unleashed the power of XP - this is now gone. The last really enjoyable round was r12, simply because the focus of combat was simple - killing ships. We are not in round 3 anymore and with prelaunch and the like it is easier to save ships, even for newbies, so I don't see newbie bashing as much of an issue.

What we have at the minute is a game catering for the individual planet and this can never be a war game. If it caters for the alliance, then we need to move away from this. I am unsure (but I'm not going to rule it out) whether we can create a balance for both. Really (as Sid has commented again) it is about finding out what PA team really want from us as alliance players and for the game in the future. I am someone who thinks planetarion has been at its best when alliances go hammer and tongs at each other, because there are battles worth remembering, thus more camaraderie and thus more healthy communities in our galaxies with people sticking together a lot more. What Alliances and Planetarion really need to recapture is the idea of creating a spectacle and a challenge that appeals to people driven to take it on. As I think it's also just as enjoyable playing planetarion and not caring, so long as you keep your fleet alive.

I may have appeared to disagree with this kind of logic previously. If I have, my opinion has changed. There may be holes in my thinking. I just thought I'd post this anyway.

[lokken]

first poster in with tl; dr HA!

[Ace]

Here go my 2 cents


I agree on a lot of the stuff you post.
But don't forget, a lot of the "waiting around, making it look your nose bleeds" is generated by fear for the "big boys"
A lot of the alliances are so scared of 1up and/or exil (not all ofc)
All part of the alliance tactics ofc but it makes the game less attractive then in the past.
You see a lot of "I can't def in gal today" remarks in gal channels and THAT is wrong.
And once the real war breaks loose you will see that even more.

[Kargool]

The main problem as I see it this round is that the alliance defence is more or less reduced dramatically due to the shite stats.

Players are less loyal to their alliances, and there is definitly a shifting nudging towards making galaxies more important than alliances. This I think is very unfortunate and have a negative effect on all alliances.

Also a very important fact is the lack of able and loyal officers. Almost every alliance is having HUGE problems getting officers to fill the roles of DC and also BC and that is to great concern for the future of the game.

As for politics: Politics are bad, mkay?

[lokken]

Originally Posted by Kargool

The main problem as I see it this round is that the alliance defence is more or less reduced dramatically due to the shite stats.

I pretty much agree that any set of stats where frigates are a waste of time can't be good. I am coming to the slight conclusion that roiding should at least be made more difficult.

Players are less loyal to their alliances, and there is definitly a shifting nudging towards making galaxies more important than alliances. This I think is very unfortunate and have a negative effect on all alliances.

Really? I ony see 2 serious competitors for the galaxy title. I am all for galaxies being important, as if they are positions of strength, it's in alliance's interests to protect them and help fight for their ranking.

Also a very important fact is the lack of able and loyal officers. Almost every alliance is having HUGE problems getting officers to fill the roles of DC and also BC and that is to great concern for the future of the game.

As I'm not an HC, I can't comment

As for politics: Politics are bad, mkay?

[Ace]

Originally Posted by Kargool

Also a very important fact is the lack of able and loyal officers. Almost every alliance is having HUGE problems getting officers to fill the roles of DC and also BC and that is to great concern for the future of the game.

This is the main reason why we quit playing as a active alliance before last round.

[jerome]

galaxies should be abolished. instead have huge clusters with eta -1 defence and possibly, attacks (these 'clusters' would actually replace galaxies).

alliances should be able to be put themselves into a 'war' mode against 3 other alliances (max), and have allies upto 4 (yes, 4), these allies should be able to defend each other but with +1 eta (as opposed to in alliance) and noone else bar allies+own alliance. xp should only be given for defending another planet (and not your own planet like it is now, heh), and also for roiding planets that are in one of the opposition 'war' mode target alliances. (with some associated formulae of course).

there should be only 1 race but with strands possible cutting off/opening up various options and so on.

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by jerome

galaxies should be abolished. instead have huge clusters with eta -1 defence and possibly, attacks (these 'clusters' would actually replace galaxies).

alliances should be able to be put themselves into a 'war' mode against 3 other alliances (max), and have allies upto 4 (yes, 4), these allies should be able to defend each other but with +1 eta (as opposed to in alliance) and noone else bar allies+own alliance. xp should only be given for defending another planet (and not your own planet like it is now, heh), and also for roiding planets that are in one of the opposition 'war' mode target alliances. (with some associated formulae of course).

there should be only 1 race but with strands possible cutting off/opening up various options and so on.

oh..my..god.. I like all your suggestions.

Im abit worried about the waroptions as this may lead to warblocking but in general all this should be implemented

[jerome]

everything i suggested there was just to accommodate for the 1 race which i would want to have upto an option of say 36 odd ships (though a player will eventually only be able to access about 12 of them) and so defence would actually be easily excessively difficult. but in order to outweigh just overkilling via excessive blocks, the 1 extra ally(which also opens up for one fag type alliance to fencesit heh) as opposed to enemy as well as the more or less 'huge' galaxy/cluster things should provide various sources of defence.

maybe also think about increasing the income of roids, and also the xp received from the activities i suggested in the post before so that the real active alliance-helping planet gets something out of it. whereas some of the GREAT people who try to just grow safely and as easily as possible of course would have to re-think their playing style.

[InvictusVitae]

Bring back round 3 stats with a little variation! And we'll see that alliances and people have MUCH more fun again.

[jerome]

what you really mean is bring back the 98k planets or so of that round, if not you're just wrong.

[robban1]

r3 stats are seen in a glare of old memories if you take a closer look at them today you see they are kinda crap

jerome comes up with a nice set of ideas but they dont cure the cancer of pa that is that it isnt players playing pa anymore its allies playing.

[jerome]

Originally Posted by robban1

r3 stats are seen in a glare of old memories if you take a closer look at them today you see they are kinda crap

jerome comes up with a nice set of ideas but they dont cure the cancer of pa that is that it isnt players playing pa anymore its allies playing.

i think it will go some way into more or less forcing the alliances to think about a more war-like style of playing what with the xp given only for roiding targets who are in war with you etc..

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by lokken

I write this as a general comment of how I feel this round is panning out and mainly because I feel it will encourage debate and opinion.

I see (rightly or wrongly) this round as a slow build up of value, with the two top alliances (exi and 1up) being the greater of the two and the one with the larger block will probably win quite swiftly, then take out anyone who thinks about arguing with them afterwards on sheer activity. Let me make it plain - I do not believe this is stagnation in any sense because people are attacking how they please. It is however leading to the conclusion that alliances have almost certainly ceased to fight for ranking and this is not (in my eyes at least) good for entertainment.

As Sid has commented, Planetarion has ceased to be a 'war game' and this I believe is a contributing factor. I agree with him in some sense, but I also think that the lack of effect of XP has made it so that alliances (if they chose) could fight and make it profitable if they were more flexible. In the recent world cup speed game, the UK galaxy run by jerome (who's epenis just got larger) won simply by being active and tenacious and taking their game to their enemies and were successful despite at several times, being outnumbered. While the stats in that game were superior and slightly different, I'd say they weren't miles away from what could be possible in the current game. Although I'd have to say, a move toward what we saw in the world cup would most definitely be a positive one.

Currently we see 1up and Exilition happily raiding and building value. Other alliances, content not to be in the thick of are also doing this, although probably at a slower rate, given that they probably possess less quality and thus ability to defend and hold these roids. While we know action will come, you feel that some number crunching will go on and someone will get heavily owned quite briefly. To me it appears that the 2 main contenders of this round are happy to wait, get the big opposition out of the way first, then play with what they are most comfortable with - an end of round mopping up operation as they've got players who can go the distance.

While we can talk about profitability and score accumulation all day, I can't help think that other alliances are giving someone a rather large helping hand by going along with this, as guess what - they are raiding too and not really exerting too much pressure on any ally. If they want to be contenders, the best time to go for these big alliances is early as this is when they are most vulnerable before their roid advantage really pays off. Of course success is not guaranteed, because success requires a certain level of competence.

Where I'm shocked is that we see an utter lack of proactivity from these smaller alliances, because they are happy to let 1up and exilition call the shots on what is profitable on their terms for when/how war will happen. I'm not even sure the alliance on the losing side of this anticipated big conflict is particularly wise in waiting, as from what I can see it would be better to throw the round wide open and have some lesser alliances take the lead rather than just sitting there waiting to be killed off. It's better to have an open round and make life incredibly awkward for so called "sure-fire winners" than simply let big alliances dictate things on their terms, as that's exactly what they would want.

People might say "well aren't you advocating some giant game of chicken?" and I'd agree with that. But then again playing roulette might be the best chance of winning if you aren't a 1up or an exilition. ND for one reason or another (which I think might be offtopic, but I'm not too sure I can say this just to dictate the discussion which I can't really do, I don't know) were very conservative in the way they played either out of lack of capability to fight, confidence (in that their members never seriously believed they could win) or judgement and got burned. They did gamble, but still let other alliances play their own game and this has been what been missing in the past few rounds. Because if you don't try to dictate and play like winners, you certainly can't be winners unless you are relying on fortune to drag you through.

I'm not sure whether many (especially 1up/exi people) are going to agree and I think they would be right to strongly disagree. However, I am someone who sees this round as quite bland and inoffensive. I think the stats/game engine is too caught in up "roiding combinations" and the like when really, the game is more fun when killing ships and getting stuck in. r16 kind of had this, but Asc pissed on everyone's parade because they unleashed the power of XP - this is now gone. The last really enjoyable round was r12, simply because the focus of combat was simple - killing ships. We are not in round 3 anymore and with prelaunch and the like it is easier to save ships, even for newbies, so I don't see newbie bashing as much of an issue.

What we have at the minute is a game catering for the individual planet and this can never be a war game. If it caters for the alliance, then we need to move away from this. I am unsure (but I'm not going to rule it out) whether we can create a balance for both. Really (as Sid has commented again) it is about finding out what PA team really want from us as alliance players and for the game in the future. I am someone who thinks planetarion has been at its best when alliances go hammer and tongs at each other, because there are battles worth remembering, thus more camaraderie and thus more healthy communities in our galaxies with people sticking together a lot more. What Alliances and Planetarion really need to recapture is the idea of creating a spectacle and a challenge that appeals to people driven to take it on. As I think it's also just as enjoyable playing planetarion and not caring, so long as you keep your fleet alive.

I may have appeared to disagree with this kind of logic previously. If I have, my opinion has changed. There may be holes in my thinking. I just thought I'd post this anyway.

I think the hole in your argument is simply this:

The most profitable place to be in a PA war is on the sidelines.

The alliiances NOT in a war gain far more than those involved - even the victors. This naturally tends towards a situation where noone wants to be involved in a war - but everyone wants to spread rumours encouraging others to start one. If there's more than 2 alliances who harbour hopes of being #1 then all of them want the other contenders to fight one another - but none want to do the fighting themselves.

This is a direct result of PA team being unable to decide whether XP or value should be the driving force in PA scoring. Until they decide what type of game they want to design we'll be stuck with one where you need to maintain value (the XP system + stats this round prevents playing purely for XP) but where there's no ability to increase substantively in value from waging war. This means that avoiding war and going for easy targets is ALWAYS the best option unless the circumstances FORCE you to engage in war.

With the current setup, outgrowing the enemy is far more profitable than engaging them in war.

I guess your post was aimed more at other alliances than at 1up (or exilition) - but the situation is even worse for them. Smaller alliances can't afford to start a war - they need to wait for others to start a war then join in when there's a much smaller chance of them getting targetted back in return. We (the players) can only play the game by the rules/stats we're given - and the current set are about the worst set yet for encouraging conflict. On the face of it, reducing XP gains from hitting smaller opponents may have seemed smart - but all it means in practice is that you can't afford to engage in war with someone you can beat. As if they won't stop fighting when they've lost then you can't gain any score at all by fighting back - and the alternative is to allow them to gain xp and roids for free off you.

The stats and (particularly) the scoring system of PA are such that engaging in head-on war is detrimental even if you win - the last thing you want as an alliance is a beaten, roidless but still active enemy who keep targetting you.

And the stats this round are about the worst ever for wars - they're very much class A shoots class B which shoots class A. This means all battles are painful for both sides (hence battles - and by extension wars are bad news). It also means the bigger party in a fight wins - meaning any battles/wars which do occur can't be protracted by skill. Then the XP system kicks in meaning if you win you're STILL screwed. And all reason for war - other than desperation - has been driven out of the game.

There's only three reasons why I'd engage 1up in a war this round:

1. Someone else started it - so we have to respond anyway.
2. Desperation - we KNOW we'll lose if we don't start a war, so WTF.
3. We have sufficently large forces to guarantee a fast win - i.e. we've outblocked or outgrown the other side substantially. In this case I'd take the pain after winning IF there was also a stategic reason to do so.

The game is NOT designed to encourage war - EVERY element of the mechanics makes war pointless. So, ultimately, complaining that players aren't fighting wars is directing your ciriticism at the wrong party.

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by jerome

galaxies should be abolished. instead have huge clusters with eta -1 defence and possibly, attacks (these 'clusters' would actually replace galaxies).

alliances should be able to be put themselves into a 'war' mode against 3 other alliances (max), and have allies upto 4 (yes, 4), these allies should be able to defend each other but with +1 eta (as opposed to in alliance) and noone else bar allies+own alliance. xp should only be given for defending another planet (and not your own planet like it is now, heh), and also for roiding planets that are in one of the opposition 'war' mode target alliances. (with some associated formulae of course).

there should be only 1 race but with strands possible cutting off/opening up various options and so on.

Whereas I like a lot of yoru individual suggestions, the net result would be to make PA a game which was unplayable by new players who didn't already have contacts in an alliance. If the objective was to design something "playable" by the few hundred "hard-core" players left then I'd support your proposal. But PA is dead in a few rounds unless they find ways to attract more new blood - and your suggestions aren't the way to go.

I think, at root, the problem lies in PA's inability to realise that they need to calculate alliance score in a different fashion to just adding up the total scores of that alliance's members. Planet score should be gained by actions which benefit your planet - alliance score by actions which benefit your alliance. Some elements of scoring would be the same - but others would be greatly different.

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by robban1

r3 stats are seen in a glare of old memories if you take a closer look at them today you see they are kinda crap

jerome comes up with a nice set of ideas but they dont cure the cancer of pa that is that it isnt players playing pa anymore its allies playing.

Wow, a robban post I agree with. PA's remaining player base is largely alliance-driven rather than planet-driven: that is to say people play from loyalty to their alliances not because they actually like the game. The sooner PA team accept that the game is pretty shite and they only have a product because their customers are loyal to one another (NOT to the game) then the sooner they can start designing a decent, enjoyable game - and have some chance of attracting new players.

Catering to what current alliances "want" is a recipe for disaster. The sooner PA team can forget about the current player base and design to target the players the game needs to survive the better.

Just to be clear, in case any PA team read this: The game SUCKS. We play because of loyalty to one another. New players don't have that loyalty - hence you aren't getting new players.

[jerome]

i'm not really convinced that there is an actual audience that exists that would be even vaguely interested in spending ridiculous amounts of time for what is just a text-based web browser game. and even if there was, i doubt it will ever be tapped into, advertising is one suggestion to go about it and there hasn't been any real attempts by the PA-Team in doing so ever i believe.

a spark of hope i was foolishly holding to be able to be used as some sort of tool to 'attract' some sort of new blood would have been PA:N, which i was told by a pa team member earlier today that no work has even started on it yet, heh.

[aNgRyDuCk]

and that's really the bottom line isn't it, no game enhancements, no attempt to advertise = this player base will dwindle down and /or lose interest.

[Travler]

Originally Posted by Synthetic_Sid

Just to be clear, in case any PA team read this: The game SUCKS. We play because of loyalty to one another. New players don't have that loyalty - hence you aren't getting new players.

Personally I disagree. I like this game. I like reading a battle report where I have come out ahead and all is good. This is an excellent online strategy game and most of us are loyal to each other but loyalty is not why I play.

The problem is that there are too many graphic games available online and without this game being advertised in some fashion the people that like to play strategy games will never find it. People leaving the game just causes more to leave. But this is a summer round so the number of players is always less.

War may be good for entertainment but it won't make alliances or their players very happy.

[BWE533]

Personally, I don't believe there is one undisputable factor that is causing this game to lose its playerbase (the assumption we are going with here). It might be a combination of factors that attribute to this dwindling playerbase. Here's my take on the major ones:

Pay-to-Play:
First of all, any game that is made into a pay-to-play comes with drastically higher expectations than those of a free game. The fact that Planetarion is a paid game, people believe that this game should be far superior to most other Massively Multiplayer Online Browser Strategy Games out there. And the fact is that there are many differing opinions out there on what would be "best" for Planetarion. Any decision the PA crew makes will divide some segment of the community to those who like the change and those who hate it. We should give the PA crew some credit here because it is a hard job to have. No matter what decision you make, someone's bound to hate it. There are always various interest groups (alliances, veterans, elites, newbies) lobbying for their ideas to be implemented and let's be honest here, some groups are heard louder than others. But the main dilemma is not what the PA Crew does, but the players themselves. I'll delve deeper into this issue in the next paragraph.

The Community
No matter what ideas are implemented into the game through code, there is always one variable that cannot be controlled. That is the individual player, the community, and the alliances. No matter what implementation takes place physically in the form of computer code to achieve the desired results, what it boils down to is its implementation by the players and alliances.

Let's assume that in order to be able to truely enjoy what this game has to offer (coordinated attacks, politics, strategies), one has to be a member of a top alliance which for purposes here will locate them in the rankings of the top 5. The question we have to ask now is how many of these top tier alliances are usually willing to take a chance with a newbie? The requirements for these alliances are usually so stringent that most newbies have little chance to be accepted. There's little they can say regarding member vouchers or playing experience so that's out of the questions. Any newbie that does seemingly write up an eloquent resume in which they describe their personal attributes, such as IRC activity, willingness to learn, and loyalty is regarding with high skepticism. Most top alliances are unwilling to give them a chance due to one fear . . . SPIES. "This person sounds too good to be true" is probably what goes in through their minds. We could call this a case of healthy paranoia or being just plain paranoid. Let's go over some of the possible Pro's and Cons of accepting a newbie.

Pros:
Loyalty (Mentor/Apprentice relationship)
Willingness to Learn
Unpolished Potential (Possible Top 100 Planet in the Future?)
Fresh Face for the Alliance (New Personal Dynamic)
Ability to replenish member base.

Cons:
Possible Spy (Worst Fear)
Makes Mistakes
Training Required
Inactive

My assumption is that the fear of spies is the main reason why top alliances are unwilling to take a chance.

Catch-22
With that being said let's move on to the Catch-22 aspect. If we are to assume that the member base for PA is dying why is it so? Some argue that it is due to the inability to attract new players to the base. Well if these new players were to be added to the base, what type of experience are they likely to have? Are they more likely to have a positive or negative experience of the game? My belief is that the experience that a newbie will take with them from the game of PA will be mostly from the the current existing playerbase themselves, which begins at the individual PA player, upwards to the community, galaxy, and then all the way up to the existing alliances. Whether they have a positive and enjoyable experience in this game probably more has to do with the vibrant PA community as a whole, rather than the inanimate code that the PA Crew implements.

I guess the question we should address now is what aspects of the community can be improved to make sure that if new players are to be brought in that they could be retained? Meaning, what encouragement are these "new bloods" to stay for future rounds and pay for them? In essence, the mentality of the community has to change, not the code. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

Well thought-out comments and constructive criticisms welcome... As are witty or humorous flames

[Cannon_Fodder]

I'm only still playing because BF2 wont run on my system anymore

[HK]

lokken, your post was correct about many things, but wrong about some others. Unfortunately I can't comment about quite a few of those matters.

I would like to say, though, that this game is too much about alliances and too less about individual planets and their galaxies. We had a very nice feature called clusters once (even parallels in round4). Unfortunately those have gone now and the -1 ETA for incluster defence seems just as an old relict which nobody uses. In my humble opinion alliances hardcoded ingame is killing the memberbase of PA.

Another kind of retarded feature is XP which is pointless. It removes a lot of hard work and skill. Value should be what wins the game not unconventional tactics involving XP.

The third thing which is kind of wrong are the stats. Alliances can't properly defend their members and thus tactics like being out of tag, attacking with 3 fleets, farming n00b ships while being zik, having low XP because of that, building value and stockpiling resources, relying on ingal defence might win the game. This round's stats make those tactics even more profitabls.

Always changing stuff doesn't always help. If it works then don't mess with it! PA is losing a lot of players every round. The current galaxy system doesn't support smaller (freebie) planets at all, they just get exiled into nowhere. New players won't pay for PA as it's rather difficult to get into alliances as alliances (and PA as a whole) demand a lot of time and dedication.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by HK

The third thing which is kind of wrong are the stats. Alliances can't properly defend their members and thus tactics like being out of tag, attacking with 3 fleets, farming n00b ships while being zik, having low XP because of that, building value and stockpiling resources, relying on ingal defence might win the game. This round's stats make those tactics even more profitabls.

Yeah. The PA-Team generally, in my opinion, undermines the importance of statistics in game play. It's just a roll of numbers seen as a "necessity", and then you have some semi-random person who feels like doing a set of cool stats do them. What next? A public beta opens, the stats this person made are found rather half-assed, are beaten down the meat grinder in five minutes (or less), and are more or less completely revamped in a reduced schedule granted with less time for actual testing. Well, I suppose the length which the stats effect the game through depends on opinion.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Yeah. The PA-Team generally, in my opinion, undermines the importance of statistics in game play. It's just a roll of numbers seen as a "necessity", and then you have some semi-random person who feels like doing a set of cool stats do them. What next? A public beta opens, the stats this person made are found rather half-assed, are beaten down the meat grinder in five minutes (or less), and are more or less completely revamped in a reduced schedule granted with less time for actual testing. Well, I suppose the length which the stats effect the game through depends on opinion.

On the note of stats, one way I thought of having it would be each race has three different sets of stats, A, B, C, and each round they get rotated in at random. So xan A, cath C, terran B, zik C one round and xan B, cath A, terran C, zik A the next. This means that time put into development of stats won't be wasted after one round when we throw it all out and do it over again but there's still a huge number of potential combinations each round.

It's difficult to know how to make war-fighting more attractive. One solution would be some sort of war mode where alliance X declares war on alliance Y and gains more score for roids capped off them. I think this is avoiding the crux of the matter though.

[Chika]

yeah, the game really is not that fun anymore, but hopefully one day it will be again. This round witnessed 700 less signups than last round prior to tick start. That SUCKS. The thing that keeps new players away is that the game is based on secrecy, and you do not know what the hell is going on without knowing people. But they all fake nick so all you know is Bob, Bill, and James.
The thing that makes old players dwindle is the fact that they have already proven themselves against the current playerbase. Kinda boring playing against the same people you beat already.
My man eliviz has won 2 times and is leading now. Exil has won 2 rounds already and is leading now.
This is why people get divorced. MONOTONY.

[K-W]

Originally Posted by HK

lokken, your post was correct about many things, but wrong about some others. Unfortunately I can't comment about quite a few of those matters.

I would like to say, though, that this game is too much about alliances and too less about individual planets and their galaxies. We had a very nice feature called clusters once (even parallels in round4). Unfortunately those have gone now and the -1 ETA for incluster defence seems just as an old relict which nobody uses. In my humble opinion alliances hardcoded ingame is killing the memberbase of PA.

Another kind of retarded feature is XP which is pointless. It removes a lot of hard work and skill. Value should be what wins the game not unconventional tactics involving XP.

The third thing which is kind of wrong are the stats. Alliances can't properly defend their members and thus tactics like being out of tag, attacking with 3 fleets, farming n00b ships while being zik, having low XP because of that, building value and stockpiling resources, relying on ingal defence might win the game. This round's stats make those tactics even more profitabls.

Always changing stuff doesn't always help. If it works then don't mess with it! PA is losing a lot of players every round. The current galaxy system doesn't support smaller (freebie) planets at all, they just get exiled into nowhere. New players won't pay for PA as it's rather difficult to get into alliances as alliances (and PA as a whole) demand a lot of time and dedication.

Pretty much dead on.

Regarding alliances, alliances arent a problem per se, alliances are a neccessary part of the game and even hardcoding them shouldnt on its own cause these problems. The problem is the lack of any kind of shuffling up of players forcing them to form new bonds and adapt to new political situations. Instead of essentially removing clusters, PA needed to make clusters/gals etc more important. They should have tried to create a round 1 atmosphere every round, where you have to get to know people and form all new alliances etc. in this context alliances should function more productively. But there was no juice for that in the community, there was juice for pandering to existing alliances.

[lokken]

Germania: i worry about clusters in a small universe as the best galaxies would just rip through their cluster and the game might be over quite quickly. A determined alliance with a core galaxy (which is possible with the exile system) can wipe out a cluster early on in a matter of days.

The only way to do this without possible catastrophe is via random play. However, would players want to do that? A lot would say "I want to play with my friends". Fakenicking (which is the worst thing in today's game, imho) would wreck a lot of the community aspect of galaxies. I have my doubts over whether a "r1 atmosphere" can be created. There would have to be very careful thought as to how big a 'cluster' should be. ETA's in a cluster situation would probably have to return to the old system where it was ETA -1 for defence mission across the board and alliance tags would simply become means of measuring score. We'd probably have to get rid of exiling (or at least limit it heavily) so if you get a bum deal, tough luck. I'm sure there are plenty of existing players who wouldn't stand for this, although it probably would make the game more attractive for those who don't particularly care.

Something like clusters is easier said than done.