Round 10 "The Death of Real Alliances"

[Seth Mace]

http://main.planetarion.com/portal/news.php?id=217

Was nice playing with yers all!

[The_Fish]

i think it looks quite good at first glance

[laputa]

sounds like communism to me

[Seth Mace]

No it does but it basically throws all the work current alliances have done, in the bin - Including the alliance im apart of!

Alliances aint just about defence, how can we possibly coordinate attacks effectively, if the random universe means members have big variances in eta, which we all know is important to successful attacks?

150 limit is fine, most of what is said on that thread is but if alliance member rota's are gonna be dictated by localality, how can alliance communitys continue? Every1 will be alliance hoping each round and when the fresh round starts, will have to say goodbye to close friends/ attack partners ect because its just not efficiant or advisable to work together anymore?

[MrL_JaKiri]

I don't really see that helping

[Zitos]

pa is sheit after r5

[PureviL]

i love it already

[Borg]

soz but Spinner this time you screwed the pooch

I for sure aint gonna be able to sit around waiting to send my ships out on an alliance attack if it means that I have to wait an extra 2-3-4 ticks after the others cuz I am closer to the target, not when most attacks are early hours of the morning and some of us DO need to sleep and be out, so you just destroyed any hope of my joining alliance attacks regular.

What is your problem here, just cant let go off the reins ??

you make it too complex you have no chance of gaining extra players, in fact all you will do is lose a lot of the base that you have atm because ppl just wont play a game with draconian rulings, not when there are so many other games of the same sort ( and quite a lot of them still free )
if you want to screw the game into the ground and nail the lid down yourself, well you just took another BIG step towards doing it

[Flame]

I don't really understand Spinners logic behind this latest move, with so many changes already announced why try and destory the last thing we knew we could rely on?

[AndroX]

oppinion vari , so I can come into all yer thoughts, tho
try to keep in mind round 10 is nothing like the rounds you
seen before, you can actually call it a totaly new game.


I agree that this alliance bounding can make some alliance/communities fall apart if the signup for alliance
within the game is going to be set on a too low number.
This is sad, and I hope PA crew figured out something to
help inhere aswell. Cuz Im sure the gameplay aint the only
thing they are thinking off atm.

But people giving opinions aint a bad thing as PA crew will
read and most certainly use them in some occasions. Tho
making statements about round 10 is a bit too early for
anyone, since no1 knows what it will be yet, no1 played
it yet for the way it will actually go online.

I have an oppinion too , as said above: Think about the
communities that will fall appart when this alliances memberbase
is set too low. It will make people leave the game.


150 is a reasonable ammount for an alliance , heck in the early days people would call that a powerblock!
cheers

[Maddix]

As long as each current alliance will be able to put their name forward for 'official participation', name their own HC and recruit who they want (as opposed to players being able to sign up to any they want) it has potential.

[Morca]

this has to be seen as the answer to blocks and the moanings about it.

[The_Fish]

you lot are (mostly) moaning ****s.

you moan about everything ffs.

give it a chance.

[ComradeRob]

Let's do some sums, shall we?

Assuming 10k planets for r10, with 25-planet gals, there will be 400 galaxies.

This gives a 20x20 universe - 1:1 in the bottom left of the grid, 20:20 in the top right (presumably this will 'wrap around', lessening the effect somewhat).

Now, assuming your alliance has 150 members, there's an average of one alliance member per 2.66 galaxies.

What this means is that most alliance members will have several other alliance members in their 'local' area. An attack on, say, 10:10 might be viable for people as far away as 13:13, 7:7, 7:13 and 13:7 - but perhaps not for a person in 2:6. The trick will be getting all of the alliance members that have a viable ETA to the target together to attack it, but this is by no means rocket science, just a bit more organisational work for the alliances.

As to those people who say "i don't want to attack with a higher ETA", I presume you never attack out-of-para or cluster? It's really no different, just more flexible and potentially a LOT more interesting. The varying ETAs based on geography opens up some new interesting tactics... we'll have to see how it plays out (and also what the lowest possible ETA is).

Also, the function of the 'jumpgate' for defence is explained, but a possible function for attacks is not mentioned - if it could be used like the old planned galaxy jumpgate (reduced ETA on the target galaxy), allowing one galaxy to be targetted per tick, it could allow alliance members to attack together with a fixed ETA regardless of where they are in the universe (also forcing them to attack with their alliance, not a BG ). Whether this kind of feature will appear or not, I don't know, but it sounds feasible enough.

All in all, I think these changes are positive things, and can lead to some very serious improvements in the long term - if they can be built on for r11, PA might really become the tactical and strategic experience it always promised to be

[Kal]

sorry sethy, as much as it pains me i agree completely with Rob.

btw Rob sorry for suiciding lots of fleets on u last round

[Hostile]

Having alliances involved in the game the way spinner is suggesting will make it harder for newplayers not easier.

[laputa]

Originally posted by Hostile
Having alliances involved in the game the way spinner is suggesting will make it harder for newplayers not easier.

Care to say why?

[K03N]

sounds fun to me.
i just don't see how newbies would benefit from all this. but i doubt new players will sign up for R10 anyway, so i think it's all good :P

[laputa]

Originally posted by ComradeRob
Let's do some sums, shall we?

...

I don't see the main problem in the ETA thinggie. For me the most worrying thing is the hardcoding of alliances. Huge alliances like NoS or Pack either have to get rid of many players to fit into the '150-frame' or they have to stay out of the alliance feature at all. Which gives them a huge disadvantage.
Then there is the security issue. With the current intelligence gathering trends by spinner & co (cf. Fruchtquake's conversation with spinner) memberlists and coords are not as save as in private hands.

And I really can't see how this hardcoding will prevent alliances from blocking. If alliances are cooperating will spinner then punish them by taking away roids? And where are the limits? Who and how is it going to be decided if alliances block?

All in all it just means more rules and less liberty.

[Hostile]

Originally posted by laputa
Care to say why?

The most obvious reason is that new players sign up without alliances and so wont have any of the reduced eta defence which everyone else will have.

[laputa]

Originally posted by Hostile
The most obvious reason is that new players sign up without alliances and so wont have any of the reduced eta defence which everyone else will have.

Which will encourage them to join an alliance where they can learn the game mechanics from more experienced players or to set one up on their own. Problem solved.

[Hostile]

Originally posted by laputa
Which will encourage them to join an alliance where they can learn the game mechanics from more experienced players or to set one up on their own. Problem solved.

Do you have any idea at all how difficult it is to join an alliance as a new player?

You have no contacts, no friends, no past game experience, no past alliances, no past scores, nothing decent alliances require in the way of recruits.

Your statement is how i wish PA was but unfortuantly its just not like that.

[SpazMonster]

I really don't see what all the bitching is about. This looks like a good step forward. Those whining about travel times should get a grip. There will be a radius around enemy targets that you'll be able to pool members from for attacks. It's called organization, and it's been required to do well in every other round.

[Seth Mace]

Its a game and evey1 who plays the game wants to succeed. Why would they attack a planet which is the othe side of the universe, when there are nice planets just a few hours away?

No matter what complicated structures current alliances bring in, lots of members will leave (some ofc quicker then others) for an alliance which dominates their surrounding location.

Dont get me wrong, it throws up sh1t loads of possible tactics and nice politics but as im trying to argue, it will kill a lot of the work current alliances have done the past few rounds. I personally dont wanna see fellow members "having" to leave because of their local situation.

But hey, its just an obstacle and all good alliances can work round this right?

Well whatever ground work alliances do for round10 (in regards to recruitment, organisation and adjustments), round11 may again throw an organised memberbase into the air, with a new shuffle. This can take away a big motivation from a command point of view, for making sure things run in a ship shape fashion?

What you say rob about the attack jumpgate is one solution but doesnt it kind of defeat the whole ideal of why spinner wants a universe like r10 currently stands?

[laputa]

Originally posted by Hostile
Do you have any idea at all how difficult it is to join an alliance as a new player?

You have no contacts, no friends, no past game experience, no past alliances, no past scores, nothing decent alliances require in the way of recruits.

Your statement is how i wish PA was but unfortuantly its just not like that.

I am not talking about LDK or Eclipse - they are probably not the first address for new players to go to but Rock, Glx, IPC, Vgn, Reborn () and many more. Haven't you ever gotten those recruit-pa-spam-mails at the beginning of basically every round?
Planetarion is still full of small or medium-sized alliances which do recruit totally new players. And if a newcomer is not satisfied with the existing alliances he is always welcome to form a new one.

[Supernova9]

Originally posted by Seth Mace
Its a game and evey1 who plays the game wants to succeed. Why would they attack a planet which is the othe side of the universe, when there are nice planets just a few hours away?

No matter what complicated structures current alliances bring in, lots of members will leave (some ofc quicker then others) for an alliance which dominates their surrounding location.

You've missed the point it seems, this is exactly what Spinner wants. It creates a more fluid alliance membership situation, as it may not be beneficial anymore for people to just sit in the top alliance and reap the glory, they could join an alliance near them and do well that way. That can only be good for the game, as it moves it (in a way) back to the round 3 scenario where a good many players were discovered in their clusters etc. by more established people. In round 10, those in galaxies would be on the look out for players close to them who showed promise.

[Seth Mace]

You've missed the point it seems, this is exactly what Spinner wants. It creates a more fluid alliance membership situation, as it may not be beneficial anymore for people to just sit in the top alliance and reap the glory, they could join an alliance near them and do well that way.

Thats what i said, they join an alliance near them and reap the glory that way, it still involves "glory weaping" somewhere;P

That can only be good for the game, as it moves it (in a way) back to the round 3 scenario where a good many players were discovered in their clusters etc. by more established people. In round 10, those in galaxies would be on the look out for players close to them who showed promise.

This does happen anyway but i do think the environment would increase with what you describe, for the better ofc. However im not talking about increasing alliances desire to find tomorrows best players, im talking about alliance communitys being ripped apart and PA has always been based around alliance communitys, right?

Ofc new ones will be formed but then come the end of round10, it will just be torn apart again? Wont this be frustrating and take away the rewards of finding and bonding with an established group of friends?

[Alastor]

Well, I wont call this the death of alliances. But maybe the death of WP?

[Backbone]

as spinner said you will have a fixed def eta for people that are in your in-game alliance, so stop whining about not getting def in r10. Also, there will be a maximum eta, although it will be better to attack somewhere near you you will still be able to attack on the other end of the universe.
I see tactics involving an early launch of high-eta fleets on a target to soak up defense for a short-eta strike following later.

it all sounds promising I have to say.

I think this can work if the ships variety is decreased. I can't imagine a fair and balanced universe with about 75 different types of ships with this system.

The whole ships 'schema' need to be re-written...

[Seth Mace]

as spinner said you will have a fixed def eta for people that are in your in-game alliance, so stop whining about not getting def in r10.

Have you read any of the above?

Also, there will be a maximum eta, although it will be better to attack somewhere near you you will still be able to attack on the other end of the universe.

Off the top of your head, which would you prefer and how would this effect your particapation in your usual Alliance Attacks?

I see tactics involving an early launch of high-eta fleets on a target to soak up defense for a short-eta strike following later.

it all sounds promising I have to say.

Yer sounds great, like watch those membes who aint near the ACs flourish with all the roids they cap! (or whatever your supposed to nick in r10)

Im probably coming across more and more negative towards that r10 annoucement but i honestly do think most of what has been suggested, will be benificial to the game. I'm just very worried about attack eta's and how this will effect current alliance communities and their growth through the round.

[Supernova9]

Originally posted by Seth Mace
Thats what i said, they join an alliance near them and reap the glory that way, it still involves "glory weaping" somewhere;P

This does happen anyway but i do think the environment would increase with what you describe, for the better ofc. However im not talking about increasing alliances desire to find tomorrows best players, im talking about alliance communitys being ripped apart and PA has always been based around alliance communitys, right?

Ofc new ones will be formed but then come the end of round10, it will just be torn apart again? Wont this be frustrating and take away the rewards of finding and bonding with an established group of friends?

The stagnation in alliance membership is a largely contributing factor to the alliance relations of today, same members with same grudges etc, and more fluid political situations, particularly from one round to the next, perhaps breaking the current cycle we have.

And how about looking at it from a different viewpoint? Instead of it being frustrating, you get to fight alongside new people all the time, increasing the number of people/friends/potential allies you'll have for later rounds/different times. And it's not like you can't still talk/bond with your old friends, it's not like IRC is going down.

[Seth Mace]

You are totally right in what you say supernova, maybe it's just me not wanting to loose contact with the friends i currently have. I mean you can say you wont loose contact but not having ingame relationships, as we all know, loosens the ties a bit.

I am just one of those who belives its best to have a few great friends rather then a lot of ok ones:/. It's not that i aint willing to be apart of an alliance that changes the way its run ect, from far it but i am dispontant on the notion that an alliance memberbase will become throw away.

Something which usually gives the alliance name/brand whatever, its actual heart & soul, will instead become just a face - a mask which anybody can wear depending on where they are situated in the universe.

Doesn't that knock the shine off what alliances can be about for some players?

[Supernova9]

Originally posted by Seth Mace
I am just one of those who belives its best to have a few great friends rather then a lot of ok ones:/. It's not that i aint willing to be apart of an alliance that changes the way its run ect, from far it but i am dispontant on the notion that an alliance memberbase will become throw away.

Something which usually gives the alliance name/brand whatever, its actual heart & soul, will instead become just a face - a mask which anybody can wear depending on where they are situated in the universe.

Doesn't that knock the shine off what alliances can be about for some players?

I see where you're coming from. Though, you can still be in an alliance with people you like, there'll just be more difficulties planning raids etc. You just have to weigh up whether the extra effort in planning attacks is worth it. And it won't affect that large a number of alliance members, only the ones who are significantly distant from the localised core of an alliance. It would be more in their interest to move than someone located right near his alliance-mates.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by laputa
I don't see the main problem in the ETA thinggie. For me the most worrying thing is the hardcoding of alliances. Huge alliances like NoS or Pack either have to get rid of many players to fit into the '150-frame' or they have to stay out of the alliance feature at all. Which gives them a huge disadvantage.

Which means that all alliances are on an equal footing, numbers wise, and the most skillful will be top?

Makes a change.

[lokken]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
Which means that all alliances are on an equal footing, numbers wise, and the most skillful will be top?

Makes a change.

They could have 'wings' 150 each in number, of course

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by lokken
They could have 'wings' 150 each in number, of course

Yes, I had considered this, but they would have to be run by totally seperate people (only 1 alliance per planet) and they wouldn't get the alliance bonuses...

[MAdnRisKy]

heh

clueless.

your alliance IS just for defence these days sadly, most bigger players use BGs.

now the BG is formed from those close together. Not rocket science.

an alliance will have on average 3 groups under their control pref one in each "section" (since uni won't be big we'll say it splits roughly into 3 sections).

all you do, is force newer players to go back to gal attacks whilst the bigger alliances have more options.

thus widening the gap AGAIN.

Not to mention what all the stat changes will do to newer players without the alliance stat freaks to go over them and work out what is gonna work (oh god that wil be fun for me )

[MAdnRisKy]

might I add, that with a falling player base the LAST thing you should want to do is section it.

but then i;m not on beta anymore, so why anyone would want to listen to me is behond me :/ (not that anyone takes the blindess **** of notice of beta players anyway)

[laputa]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
Which means that all alliances are on an equal footing, numbers wise, and the most skillful will be top?

Makes a change.

Numbers of a single alliance never made a difference. Although LDK was always smaller than eg NoS I would definitely rank them higher.
You are of course right that it will make a change in the way PA is working. But I highly doubt that it will improve it.

[Seth Mace]

heh

clueless.

There's such aggression on these boards;P

your alliance IS just for defence these days sadly, most bigger players use BGs.

You know i could argue the minute differences between BGs & Alliances, implying there aint no real difference but i dont wanna start that discussion here;P

now the BG is formed from those close together. Not rocket science.

an alliance will have on average 3 groups under their control pref one in each "section" (since uni won't be big we'll say it splits roughly into 3 sections).

You are right, what you described aint rocket science but that dont mean it'll work, maybe in a perfectly random universe but chaos aint usually nice and even. However, that wud be one of the most obvious points for current alliances to start from, in round10 prep.

What i think will happen, is you will get small localised groups of players (BGs formed through ingame political communication?), who join with other local Bgs or are eaten up (taken under the wing) of larger alliances/BGs. Making each round a very dynamic affair, which will be great im sure (if anything like that happens that is).

*sigh*

The whole questioning behind this thread is of course very hypothetical. Maybe we've got nothing to worry about and that things will work out fine. Maybe round10 will be the round we all enjoy the most by far, we obviously aint gonna know until starts a'tickin.

What i do know is that i aint alone in being worried about how round10's features may damage the communities we all love!

[ParraCida]

I see a problem with the coordinate based travel times, yes it would be an interesting feature but it presents some new problems as well. Say 100 good and 100 bad players land in the same section of the universe. These 100 good players ally and roid the 100 bad players in a matter of 10 days. After that they either have to turn on themelves or start roiding outside of their area, either way their growth potential decreases. So now 50 good players land in te same section with 150 bad players. The 50 good players take 20 days to roid the 150 bad players. Now, not only will these 50 good players have more planets to roid, but because they do it in a longer period of time the overall roids per planet will be higher because the bad players also acquire roids (from even worse players that initiate them). So at the end of their roiding times the 50 good players will have a lot more roids then the 100 good players. On top of that because the ratio is 1:3 instead of 1:1 the 50 good players will see their supply of potential roids expand more quickly and they have less competition in getting those roids. Overall players in the 'cluster' with the least good players have the best chance of growing.

Now this is ofcourse a simplification, since there are things to take in account such as factions and the quality of the players will scale much finer then 'good' and 'bad' ofcourse. But still the basics are correct.

Basically what will happen to the universe is what happends with galaxies now. I mention galaxies not clusters/parallels because the travel bonus in galaxies is noticably more. Playing planetarion in a random universe directly affects your growth potential. If you land in a good galaxy your chance for hostile incommings is less and therefore you can attack more, loose less roids and get a bigger planet. However, there is one great equalizer for every player that evens the chances: Universe Traveltime is the same for everyone.
In round 8 I landed into one of the most crappiest galaxies and clusters you could think of. Eventually I had 65% of the galaxies score and roids, and that amount was growing by the day. Why was I able to do this? Because the low ETA defense from my galaxy was a bonus, not a prerequisite. I could get defense from anyone at ETA 6 and I could keep up my roid count by attacking anyone with ETA 7.

Now take this equalizer away, and I would have never been able to grow as much as anyone else, severely hampering my growth. Defense would have still gotten there in time if we are speaking round 10 because of the jumpgate, though being surrounded by bad players means any cluster/gal defense will be less significant by default and you cannot ask 'friends' for defense. However, my attacks would have been completely ruined, because I would have to attack people with a high ETA, whereas they can get defense with a set low ETA (alliance) and normal ETA that matches mine because I am high anyway and galdefense etc etc. Anyone remember the impact of overburn defense? This would have a similar impact, but only for planets who are unfortunate enough to land in a bad section of the galaxy.

Thereby directly affecting your endscore by a random factor instead of skill.



Community is a great aspect of this game, even though people could very well argue that this community is not the greatest anymore I believe that is certainly a part of powerblocks. Alliances like Xanadu and Fury have been opposed to eachother for rounds on end, it would be hard for people like germania and scorpio to get along well after such a period of fighting eachother. However, since this is a pure PvP game, community is one of the most important aspects of it considering there is no real 'content'. Now there are 4 types of people in a MMORPG (a cookie to the smart ass that points out this is neither a MMO nor a RPG (its about the principle)). You have explorers, perfectionists, community people and killers.

Explorers obviously do not apply to PA so we'll leave them out of this. I myself would be a 'perfectionist', I strive to have the best planet (character) possible as do many other planetarion players, so they are most definatly a good part of PA.
Next up are community people of which planetarion also has a great deal, people that play planetarion because they feel connected to the people there, they are their friends.
Killers are also not completely applicable to this game, killers are here for pvp only. This is ofcourse what planetarion is all about, but since PA resets every once in a while and 'everyone' is a killer this can be counted out.

So planetarion exists mainly out of perfectionists and community people. If you divide the universe as proposed you will severly hamper these two groups of people. Perfectionists on the one hand because their score potential is now directly affected by a random chance. And community people because even though their main goal is not playing for the game only, it is still a part of it. And by forcing them into new communities, directly making in game contact with their friends a lot harder the game will become a lot less attractive to them.

IMO there should be some new features to control the powerblocks, hardcoding alliance sizes is a good step in the right direction. I think that giving clusters a more important role would also be a good thing, but as a rule you should be able to reach every player in the game in an equal amount of set time.

[Seth Mace]

\o/ ParraCida \o/

[hydridia]

ParraCida

you got alot of time on your hands?

[Ad0]

After all the other good ideas of round 10 i have heard.. please dont go spoiling it by adding this distance based travel time feature. There is ONE thing left supporting this game, the community and the alliances. At this rate you are heading for a repeat of round 4 when alliances almost disolved to be replaced by parallels.

If alliances are destroyed each round (as is liable to happen if their effectivness is reduced) then this game dies....

As fpr pulling alliances into game.. bad idea...this removes the ability for a more professional allaince to have an advantage.. and then "whats the point in trying".

Not as wordy or elequent as parracidas post but i think i get my point across.

[Browolf]

alliances aint gonna just fall apart, they'll adapt. no matter the how the game changes its never gonna be better to not be in an alliance. No need to go crying "doom" cos it aint like it is now. It's gonna be a whole new battlefield and the ones that embrace the changes and think how to make it work best will be the ones that
conquer.

It might even bring back the days of feared cluster alliances like the "17th Legion"

I think the changes look quite interesting, and have been a long time coming, the universe has been the same for so long. i've always thought it needed to be a bit more realistic.

I cant see the membership limit being that much of a problem. Alliances will just split into wings. Or battlegroups with more self control. as spinner says "This means that battlegroups will most likely be focussed in certain areas of the universe, and perhaps alliances will too."

[virogenesis]

Originally posted by Browolf
alliances aint gonna just fall apart, they'll adapt. no matter the how the game changes its never gonna be better to not be in an alliance. No need to go crying "doom" cos it aint like it is now. It's gonna be a whole new battlefield and the ones that embrace the changes and think how to make it work best will be the ones that
conquer.

It might even bring back the days of feared cluster alliances like the "17th Legion"

I think the changes look quite interesting, and have been a long time coming, the universe has been the same for so long. i've always thought it needed to be a bit more realistic.

I cant see the membership limit being that much of a problem. Alliances will just split into wings. Or battlegroups with more self control. as spinner says "This means that battlegroups will most likely be focussed in certain areas of the universe, and perhaps alliances will too."

What about the alliances that got ripped apart when paras were introduced back in r4.
Many small alliances failed because of this..
I myself believe that this will kill off alot of alliances..
This will also increase the chances of blocking...
I am gonna start blaming spinner for the blocks in r10 cos once again spinner is tryin 2 control the alliances but what spinner forgets is that many alliance hcs spend both time & money.
Please remember that before trying to control the alliances cos the alliances at the end of the day won't have any of it.

[Scouse]

If I were playing and really cared, I'd most likely hate it. But since I don't care, it looks pretty good to me. Will stop all this nonsense with BG and alliances.


I think quite a few alliances may just disband before round 10, as all their members choose their BG's over their alliances.

[nickhall]

see this thread for why i dissagree with this idea.

[Teddy_Bear]

large alliances will split in to wings depending on possition in universe, the changed travel time will make it hard for alliances to attack thus blocking and stagnation between larger alliances

i know some thing has to be changed to make PA success full in round 10 but to be honest its like your trying to make this Web based browser game into a 3D space shooter

PA became so success full cos it was simple, ppl cought on to game play quickly and it was not to hard, u change the game to much and people will leave, change it not enough and people will leave, round 10 needs to be tested untill it floorless and just right.

the thing is i feel that PA round 10 is going to be rushed to be finished, loads of new features not properly thought/tested out which will annoy ppl even further into quitting.

anoughter thing.... about ppl might not ever know battle calcs.... isnt that what make better players better than others cos they have to comitment to the game to calc the attack b4 they send???