Something Needs to Change
 

I've been an on again off again player throughout the age of PA and this is my first round back in a couple of years. I only joined R53 for the last 2 weeks to re-orient myself to the game and to get ready for R54, but the differences between now and the last time I played are significant. There are 2 big changes in this game I've noticed: 1) The inability to be at all successful by yourself and 2) The negative attitude of the community. Now I know the idea in the game is to make some friends and try to succeed together, but if you are not part of one of the top 3 or 4 alliances it seems there is no chance to do well. I hope to get discussion on new players and how to increase the player base of the game in this thread. First a bit of my history.

I started the game playing solo back in round 3 or so. After a break for a few rounds I again played solo for a while but then joined a small alliance. I was able to find success simply attacking on my own and then I found even more success in the alliance. Over the next several rounds and I managed to place in the top 200 consistently whether it was a small or large alliance. Even though I didn't make top 100 it was still a lot of fun. I'm not sure what changed since round 30 or so up until now, but finding targets to land on playing solo is all but impossible unless the goal is to get roids off of an inactive planet that is just above the bash limit.

Being part of a large alliance typically means that you need to be available 24/7 to respond to def calls and be quite active in selecting your targets, etc. Most new players aren't ready to dive in to such a committment and the information and politics can be overwhelming. I would think most would rather test the waters first, as I'm did this round, and not commit to any alliance for a little while.

Not being able to succeed in attacks without an alliance, the threat of exiling, and negative attitude, are a huge turn-offs for new players. Even to land an attack every other day would be an encouragement, but there is too much defensive coverage on any planet at or above my value/score. I've only landed a handful of attacks but mostly I have just been building a few more ships to almost land somewhere, which isn't all that fun.

Now I do enjoy being able to get defense and also to defend. I'm not saying defense should be discouraged. What I am thinking is that there may be too much of an emphasis placed on fleet size that a planet has since there is very little incentive to land with losses. If there was an actual battle, both sides would have losses, but there would be a victor. Here is where I was hoping to open discussion on the combat side of the game to shake up the xp and salvage to somehow make attacks more interesting. I remember reading on another thread to be able to spend xp on bonuses for your fleets which I thought may be worth pursuing.

I have also read on the other threads how most are annoyed with the 1-6am waves and how no one attacks during the day. I completely agree that that needs to be looked into, but personally I think the incentives for attacks/defense need to change versus, say, removing pre launch. If people were more inclined to have fleets out all the time, the pre launch issue would dissolve.

I also agree that attitude is a serious problem. I received several mails on my attacks in the short time I played like "seriously?" or "why don't you recall and save us the time?" plus others that were fairly hostile. I played Xan, My targets could not inc scan me, and I would land with no loss if they didn't receive significant defense. Is there something really wrong with such an attack? These weren't the top 100 planets either. They were simply above me a bit in score and value. Any player gets turned off from wanting to play if they are constantly ridiculed, especially if what they are doing isn't illogical and they are sincerely trying to get ahead in the game.

Other than the changing of the combat results with xp and salvage, I do have a radical idea for a change which will probably not be liked: what if alliances were scrapped and the galaxies were your team? Private galaxies could be formed but be limited in size to 15-20. I realize that eta and the associated research would have to change with that, but thought I would throw that out there for discussion too. My thought is that many smaller alliances/teams would encourage more competition, but I'm also afraid that if alliance size was reduced, many would still team up and we'd have virtually no change on the game.

I am entirely open to debate on this and trying not to attack anyone in particular so I hope I didn't give that impression here. I liked this game too much in the past to give up on it entirely. Thoughts?

Jibajav

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

That depends on which alliance you choose to join. Not every alliance requires 24/7 availability. The best ones do, though.

The ratio of inactives to actives has gone down drastically over time. Even back in round 14, far past PA's best days, for every planet in a good alliance (40 or more planets) there used to be 1.5 planets in a small alliance, or in none at all. This has gone down to barely half an unallied planet for every alliance player. It is no surprise that you're unable to find targets to land solo on.

The victors would be everyone who didn't fight in the battle. This is why combat is not common in PA. The potential gains are just too small to be worth losing almost anything at all.

I used to dislike this idea, but I've been coming around on the notion that combat should yield better returns. This goes both for defense and offense. Making XP spendable could be a good approach.

I disagree. People could launch attacks at 8 o'clock in the evening, but the odds of getting through when the enemies are all online are just very low. And when you do recall, your fleet returns home when you're asleep, so you can't relaunch immediately. This costs the same 4-8 hours that you would otherwise lose in the evening, and worse, these are the most effective hours to launch attacks.

It's not illegal or frowned upon, no. But launching afternoon or evening attacks into reasonable active galaxies is pretty much a waste of time, theirs as well as yours, as you discovered this round.

Private galaxies are just small alliances under another name. Scrapping the ability of people to choose at least one of the groups of people they play with is a bad idea. Alliances are the only reason this game is still around at all, with the few players that are left.

Even making exiling less effective (which would nerff just 1 of the 2 ways people currently choose their co-players) is a controversial suggestion.



Unfortunately, your post is probably is probably what every newbie would say when they first start playing the game. Or rather, right around the time they quit in disgust.

The game is and always has been very unfriendly to new players. The only reason we didn't notice that in ye olde days is that the influx of new players was so high that it didn't matter if 95% of them got scared away.

It's not that something needs to change. (Almost) everything needs to be changed. We're burdened under almost a decade of almost no development, and what little there was, was undirected. Various owners at various times have failed to live up to their promises to improve the game, for various reasons, and often for no reason at all. We've recently gotten yet another new owner, so we'll see if this is just the status quo again or not.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Trading xp for "bonuses" sounds pretty cool yo.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

First of all thanks for posting Jibajav and welcome to the PA forums (I'm glad there hasn't been any trolling in this thread... so far)

I have played this round to get perspective from being a new player being Rock this around and a low to mid tier galaxy and being semi inactive.
I do think that the current gal set up is staggered in favour of player who can fence (have at least 1 player in an alliance that can keep incoming off their galaxy via influence / tip off gal they are getting incoming) when they don't get inc they can roid away and their value growth can be pretty much left to grow unhindered. Once a threshold in growth is reached then they become hard to roid then unroidable.

To achieve his the resulting exiling culture and the use of the !exile function on most alliances IRC bots to create a pseudo private galaxy.
See http://pirate.planetarion.com/showpo...2&postcount=10 on my thoughts to counter this exiling culture.

I'm annoyed at Kinimod, Saynt (2 new players at Vikings this round who left tag last in the last few days) because they have effectively Killed off Vikings apprenticeship scheme (as I call it) and now wont recruit new names and be invitation only.

I see how this can hinder ways to progress. I've suggested opening c200 to low tier galaxies to roid and even bot galaxies. Some aspects I can say is it might be your technique in roiding in tactics like not using faking xan fighters as frigate or if you didnt go fi/co (non xan) send a fake first then 3-4 ticks later send the real wave instead of just sending pure fleets.
I might put up a newplayers guide to PA before r54 starts.

I still had an ok round in rock... I would like to see alliances like rock actually try and get new players to fill tag up. I'm not sure how proactive the likes of have been. (Maybe a Rock HC could comment on this?)

one aspect of PA is I get a good bit of intel with folk having their fleets out and found this to be a good source of easy targets. Something that a new player wouldnt have access to. I'm a member of a couple of social club channels on IRC that help in getting me this intel.

I'm one of those folk who don't like the 1-6am game times routine and seldom sees any fierce ally wars these days where it was 24/7 I've suggested an alliance off line mode http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=200149 saying that it wouldn't aid the solo player.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

We have to remember that core things in the game are 'broken'. I say it that because yes they technically work but they are in no way good for the game.

Exiling is a feature that allows top players to move into a galaxy that they want to. It isnt really an option for a new player as they dont know how to make the most of it and any 'good gal' that they move into has a high chance of moving them on if these better players are trying to exile in.

Quests dont work. The fact they are automatically OFF is bad enough but the fact they just tell you do something rather than showing you making them pointless for new players.

Prelaunch encourages the 1-6am game play. Removing it would possibly solve it but then it might also hamper attacking. From experience if you are in a decent gal then initing your roids can be as good as attacking for them. I think alongside removal of PL something else needs to happen. Maybe raising ingal eta to 6 could help. I think that is one of the main issues with daytime attacking, galaxies cover a lot of those incommings because their failed attacks are returning and can make the eta ingal. If you want a game where people can attack AND land 24/7 then you need to nerf the defensive reponse time i think, that is the best way. As a side effect it could kill the power of some of these 'super galaxies' and make them roidable, which everyone wants (except them ofc ;) )

Covops are pointless, they are a galaxy value building tool now and really bankhack is the only 'useful' covop. Yes people use the ship exploder one too and anarchy was popular this round but the Anarchy one made people by sec guards (which not everyone did before, risk was worth it if you were active) which then hampered basic covoping even more.

Scans can only be used by people who dedicate themselves to getting them and then share with their alliances or via #scans. For a new player it is possible that neither of these are viable places to get a scan so that player is screwed, i think we NEED to make it so only J and AU scans are blocked by dists, both these scans are upgraded versions of L and U scan which arent blocked so it would make more sense and less reliant on a dedicated scanner.

That is just a few core issues the game has currently. I could add attitude and apathy of the playerbase and many more smaller ones but if all these were 'fixed' im sure we would have a better product to sell to new players and a more fun one to play ourselves

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Damn!

I agree with everything that Kaiba just said.

We just need to add the fact that limited tag sizes means that new/small/returning players can't find a place in a "decent" alliance. (Cue B-Butcher). ;)

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Vikings have closed their "apprenticeship scheme" due the actions of 2 new players this round and is now invitation only.

I am against this as I still think Inc scan should be blockable via dist for faking / def draining fakes. I.E. faking a lower class like FI/CO as FR/DE or 1 BS + fi/co = BS fleet then 3-5 ticks later send real BS + 1fi/co etc.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Yes, I saw that in one of your earlier posts. People who do that sort of thing deliberately represent the lowest of the low and don't give a damn about the (adverse) effects they have on the game. Having said that, their actions only had that great an impact because they were taking up two of the limited spaces available in your tag.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

It was 5 places for new players and all 5 were t100 when I was made aware of the scheme mid round

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

I was going to just pm you paisley after reading your first post but you have carried it on so I will reply here...

The two guys were not some random new players. One of them was an active and decent player in a small alliance.
He was bullied into joining vikings, by vikings, in order to protect his gal from vikings.
And then vikings raped his gal. Repeatedly. Over and over. For days on end.

He was stolen from another ally, then his gal raped.

So let's not make vikings out to be some super alliance doing their bit for newbies.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

And the vikings you are referring to is the same vikings that napped the #2 alliance to come rape the #8 alliance (that is well known to have a lot of newly returned players)

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

I'm confused with the mechanics to why would vikings bully him into joining vikings unless it was a HC in his gal trying to get a fort avoidance agreement with the major allies.

I would like to hear both sides of the story... I've heard your side of the story via pm forest now for clouds.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

I completely agree. These are just a way to click a few buttons and get some res/xp or whatever. They may as well be a part of the startup bonuses instead.

I noticed that the unit scan was unblockable this round, which makes a big difference since it opens up planets with many dists to attack by planets with 1 amp as long as the attacker is ok with the limited info from landing scan. I'm not sure changing all scans to unblockable except J and AU would be the way to go; it would make dists almost useless or at least not as near worth building. Having L scan and News scan is pretty much the same as J if you can wait til eta 1, but with dist currently blocking the news scan it is easier to fake defense if it's known the attacker can't scan the target. Also if Inc scan would always work that would make attacks much harder to fake, especially zik and xan, and I would think less attacks would land. Very interesting idea though.

I'm starting to come around to the idea of removing pre launch to see how that changes the game. But to see it, it would need to be implemented. How do we go about pushing these ideas into the game or at least know that they are being tested?

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

If more scans are made unblockable, can we just take incoming scan out of the game?

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Might as well take dists out of the game too then, as well as amps and indeed the scanning research. Let's all build FCs and mines. Yay.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Rather than "unblockable", why not go down the old PA route of using multiple scans at once and the more you use, the more chance of getting through, the more dists, the less chance of getting through? That way, people who are desperate for scans can still get them, but those with dists can make it so expensive that only alliances that really want to hit them will do so.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Now how is x ammount P scans gonna stack vs 50 dists?

And do you pre order these P scans with production time, or do we follow the insta pay/get feature that is now, but you choose x ammount of attempts?

Will it then just take paid for all the attempts up to the y'th scan that actually will get through or do you pay for all x?

This sounds well too randomized

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

edit - I would prefer the option of either spamming refineries and Fiance centres or go for less refineries and build some amps and distorters as a gaming choice.

also when my target tries to inc scan me its one way of letting me know hes awake live on the tick.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Just for clarification - I'm not sure what you mean here.

I think using more scans doesn't increase the chance of getting scans per se, but if you'd have a 10% chance with one scan, if you scan 10 times you're pretty likely to get it.

I think your point is more "add in an element of randomness to blocking scans".

I'm of two minds on this - I'm slowly trying to make dists a second viable option for the game, and if this is done wrongly, then it could ruin them.

I'd prefer to see a sort of "absolutely blocks scans" and "blocks scans x%" sliding scale, which is dependant on scan difficulty.

e.g. someone with 1 amp can't make any scans on someone with 100 dists, but someone with 50 amps could get a planet scan 50% of the time, landing scan 40% of the time, dev/cons scan 30% of the time, unit scan 20% of the time, news scan 10% of the time and not be able to get scans for jumpgate probes, incoming scans and AUs.

?

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

This seems topical:

The numbers are not set in stone, obviously. I dislike the notion of introducing probability into scanning. That just makes people spend more on scans, without changing the game in any significant way.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

If the numbers are fixed it would hamper scans in the early part of the game.
However I do think that the amps/dists connection could use tweaking

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

why not remove the need for scanners almost completely and make scans buyable, eg planet with no dist scans cost current price and then the more dist that a targrt planet has the more the scans cost.
It would make scans available to everyone but still make disting a viable option.
Obviously having au available at start of round would be a bad idea so i would suggest that 1 ally member must have scans researched before it can be requested and for non alliance players scans can be bought on a universe market as they become available as if researched without bonuses so planet scans are available to everyone but there is a time lapse for the other scans until their researched as such

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

I won a round by being in an alliance outside top 5. Think we were around top10? It is easier to do well in a more relaxed alliance these days than it used to be, mainly because the universe is alot more relaxed.
I would also guess it is alot easier to get into a proper alliance now, as there are not enough active people playing anymore. Back in the days t took ALOT more to get into a good alliance as a new player.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

I think if you can get yourself a good gal and are in a small alliance that doesnt get involved in wars, it is a lot easier that it used to be.

look at this round...

spore, 2nd place, bashed early but then few wars but a good gal to protect when it kicked off
vikings, war all round, dont even know what there top planet was, they got bashed down quite a lot

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Raven was 11th for Vikings.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

I am willing to bet that if its true that vikings play small tag, that they have someone higher this round

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Well ofc, as Wishmaster was saying if you have a smaller tag then you dont have to care about alliance rank so you can concentrate on planets and galaxies

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Being in a TOP alliance != getting a good planetrank.

Its alot easier joining allianceraids when said alliance hits shit gals where u can pick up 100-200 roids every night, compared to being forced to hit enemy targets who are likely to get defence.

In the end planetranks are decided by how fenced your gal are.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

I like the idea of this tbh.

I dislike the entire concept of needing "scan" planets. It's not very fun for the people that do them and I think the game would be much better if the need for scan planets was removed.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Planetarion needs to be a game which is fun when solo, but gets better when you play with friends or an alliance, otherwise the population will just keep on declining.

New players need to be self sufficient, and shouldn't need to depend on other players to provide them with scans. A brand new player who has no idea about the game should be lead through the entire process of building up their planet, to the final step of landing a successful attack - anything which forces the player to contact someone else or use a 3rd party site should be considered a failure.

Do whatever it takes to get a solo player to be able to contribute something to the game.

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Having played a scan planet countless times, I disagree with you on this. To me, being a scanner is a good way to contribute to your galaxy/alliance/friends and keep in touch without the need of watching a stupid high roid/value planet 24/7 and lacking a life over it ;)

Re: Something Needs to Change
 

Just bring back scanning for roids and PDS and we will all be happy....