Implement some form of geography
I think planetarion is way cooler with some kind of geography, it was a great part of the early rounds of pa and at that stage it did actually help with integrating new players into the game. It's almost always interesting and worst case scenario it's normally just mildly irrelevant. Now really small clusters sort of suck so what I'd propose would be the division of the universe into 4-6 clusters (so 20-25 gals) and reducing the travel-time for in-cluster attacking by 1 tick. This would, obviously, make in-cluster attacking pretty ****ing good. However I can see this being good for the game as well to be honest, a bit of variation and something different to try and deal with would be cool.
I'd be interested if anyone else had any alternative suggestions on ways to bring back geography into the game. |
Re: Implement some form of geography
I would agree with this, when I first started playing my gal was inactive, but the when I found the cluster alliance channel I got to meet alot of people and received alot of help to learn how to play. People are more patient with newbies this way I think, since there not in there gal hurting there gal score.
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While I am not necessarily against more interesting geography one of the major reasons this type of geography was removed was because invariably the top 3 or 4 galaxies made roid farms out of all of the rest. I would think that anything that is done with geography should try and limit this problem.
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I think this is a great suggestion, geography should indeed play a bigger role in PA.
JBG, what do you think of going even further; to actually create a 3D map and to use various (geometric) mathematical formulaes to calculate a eta bonus/penalty from between (per say) -2 to +2, depending on distance. I guess the greatest challenge will be to teach Cin how to calc a distance between two points within a sphere. Also it would be possible to add other awesome stuff, such as drift. This will allow for tactical conditions, dis/advantages, to change continuously. I suppose a start could be to create single point galaxies inside a sphere that drifts around in a spinning motion. 1 round = 1 or 2 rotations, so that over a good 7 weeks, everyone will have the same position. |
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I think the biggest problem overall is the travel-times involved in cluster warfare. Planetarion has, almost since the beginning, been a rather harsh game. You need your fleet to play and without it you've virtually useless. It's relatively easy to lose and almost in order to compensate for it takes 7 hours before a fleet which launched at you after you went online can land. This is such a deeply embedded principle that the last time cluster geography got an attacking bonus added we had to raise universal travel times to compensate. A change which would shorten travel-times down to 5 ticks would be massive (and deeply unpopular with the hyper-conservative retard brigade in #alliances). It'd just be a very different game. Although the difference wouldn't be massive at first (and I definitely don't think a one tick drop would be even vaguely significant given the nature of the game right now) it would signify a rather large change in game direction, and one which I feel pateam are massively unlikely to take. The alternative approach, of raising the "normal" travel-times again is, I feel, gay. Longer travel-times are a) boring b) make fleet activity less important and c) are more likely to lead to stagnation for obvious reasons. |
Re: Implement some form of geography
So in the end, PA is simply not ready for a change like this. That is, I guess, everyone except Ascendancy. No point in even suggesting a change like this then.
In that case, i'll strongly support your suggestion to lower the amount of clusters and reimplement the cluster tt bonus. Seems like a more realistic change. An idea might also be to reimplement parallell bonuses, and make the cumulative (i believe they were back in the days). |
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As Monroe pointed out - lower eta for attacking in cluster simply means that the strong galaxies will (not might) farm the weaker galaxies in their cluster. Fun for the few - not so much for the farms.
(That's the reason that cluster eta bonuses were restricted to defence only in later rounds). |
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This could kill weaker galaxies earlier on. This also could mean that 'medium' galaxies last longer as the attention is more spread out. I am not sure if I am in favour or not, I'd just like to point out that it is not such a one sided coin as some of the posters above me imply it to be. |
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I am pro-geography.
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I suggest a hexagonal based geography. Think bee hives. Just because i think it would be cool :P
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I am pro implementing clusters again in some form, not really sure a complex hexagonal or "3D map" is the way to do it though.
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2) I like your incontrovertible statement with absolutely no supporting evidence whatsoever. Good stuff. I'll claim the opposite and offer just as much evidence. In general this would be very different due to the fact that in-cluster defence has been coded out though. And if 20 odd galaxies can't team up to whack the top gals in their cluster with reduced eta if they're just farming them around the clock they're not going to be active enough to do anything anyways. The key to the game isn't molly coddling low-ranked players, it's encouraging them to become involved in whatever way you can and offering them the opportunity to do so. |
Re: Implement some form of geography
I played in all of the rounds which had reduced in cluster eta - and I've been on both sides of the farming. So I speak from experience. If you can think of any reason that I'd lie about it please share it with me.
Having said that, the experience was better when we had massive clusters (by current standards) - the cluster wars back then were bigger (and more fun) than the whole game is now. As for R21/22 - I remember arguing against the reintroduction of in-cluster attack ETA bonuses back then too. :) |
Re: Implement some form of geography
yes for incluster wars !
they were fun, even though i remember beeing farmed constantly :banana: it adds a game in the game, as it is not all about your alliance or gal, but for domination of a whole cluster but ofc incluster def eta needs to be lowered aswell then hail the cluster alliances !!!! |
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I accept that your experience may have been different to mine - but you must admit that cluster alliances which included every galaxy were pretty rare - in rounds where there was an eta bonus for attacks.
I did notice your suggestion of up to 25 galaxies per cluster - that would help but not (in my view) enough. As you'll remember, we had 100s of clusters in R4 (ahhhhh..... those were the days). Anyway, I still feel that having private (presumably well organised) galaxies able to attack in cluster at an eta that precludes out-of-cluster alliance defence isn't a viable option - even though it would (in your own words) "make in-cluster attacking pretty ****ing good". |
Re: Implement some form of geography
The problem here I think is that hardcore players will always be significantly better (I'd estimate by a factor 10 or more) at finding defence at 3am against eta 6 incomings than more casual players, even if those casual players are on as high an end of the activity spectrum as can be reasonably expected spectrum, say, checking just before sleep and right after waking up, and then every 2 ticks throughout the day.
What I would be interested in is hearing what sort of reasoning hardcore players would use to decide against farming in-cluster, because I can't think of any (which means most people can't either), except perhaps moral reservations against bashing, which are quite frankly useless. |
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You've put your finger on it there. I've always had a problem with bashing (regardless of which end of it I've been on) and so I'm against anything that makes this more profitable.
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What it would bring back is some sort of genuine diplomacy, which is all this game has ever really been about.
With significantly more to be gained and lost in cluster the incentive to get out there and make friends becomes much greater. |
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You're right (of course) about the parallels. :) That's the point I was trying (and failing) to make - that with a large number of galaxies per cluster in-cluster wars can be a viable part of the game. I still don't think that 20/25 galaxies per cluster is enough. I wish that I had the answer to the problem of how to get "newbies" involved in a positive way - but I do know that being farmed to death isn't a great incentive to stick around and progress. :( |
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That doesn't mean that I want an entirely different game though - and I certainly don't want it to be less interesting. I think that the enjoyment and interest that we used to get from this game was primarily from the community (IRC) aspect. Much of this has been removed by the implementation of features such as pre-launch and queuing of res/cons. When there's no need to be online there's less interaction between members of galaxies, clusters and alliances. Still, we're not likely to see those changes reversed now. |
Re: Implement some form of geography
It is already less profitable for the attacker: the XP formula reduces the score benefit while (more importantly) value based capping reduces roid cap.
That said, I've always thought the value based capping formula as it's implemented now is fairly ineffective. Cap doesn't halve until you're close to your bashlimit. |
Re: Implement some form of geography
think cluster reduced tt in attack and def and thus wars a brilliant idea to bring back ..it would throw an extra curveball into the same alliances winning every round and what with the private gals coming back. it could b only chance some of the smaller allis have of giving it some to the big alliances and their private gals- yes i know the smaller allis r in private gals too.
or even why not do something totally different and divide clusters down the middle..odd galaxies r alligned n even r alligned- so odd can attack even and odd can defend odd with the reduced tt for both attack and defend within a cluster. so u get a game in a game for those wanting to take part and forge cluster alliances albeit a bit forced.. reason im suggesting a forced bringing together which galaxies do not have to be involved in is this 2nd idea...read on. at start of round, a date is announced ,lets say midway through the round or even 2/3 named 'the great purge' which is when kind of like a shuffle will take place within clusters where a snapshot of gals ranking within cluster is taken and then shuffled so 1st,,3rd,5th,etc are hardwired allied and 2nd,4th,6th etc ..this would mean enemies would have to become friends with enemies and should help stop the farming. i know this would mean a massive rewrite of game but i think it would be fun...even if u view what i say as total hogwash, im all for just bringing back reduced cluster tt in both attack and def and let a natural equalisation occur where some r farmed n some succeed. cant remember which round it was but i remember being in cluster alliance p10dn and we went up against p10a and kicked their butts -it was bloody good fun and added an extra dimension to the game |
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