Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

That's hardly because of the stats. And don't feed into Butcher's delusions by repeating his catchphase, please :(

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Yeah there isn't a stats mafia there is just people who like making stats.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

The people who make the sets aint the mafia.
The ones who decides to go with sets that hasnt been discussed/worked on in the last second prior to sign up is mafiosos

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

So Appocomsster?

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Was just about to make that same post Kaiba.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

atm, afaik, Jintao is "head of stats".
Again sets that was proposed from the playerbase was ditched, and like last round the set was made up the last day by Jintao himself without having the normal "....`s stats rXX" discussion thread where people could give inputs.
Now if you ask who ever made the set that is being runned this round why he didnt ask for suggestions/inputs he will prolly say he spoke with various people(the mafia), and they gave him input.

Now im not saying set A or set B or whatever would be a better choice to run, im just question the way things works around here wether the approach that has been taken the last two rounds is a good one.
I havnt been paying much attention here lately, but it seems to me people had never seen this set before it was uploaded ingame for signups?

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

It was posed in the OP, but it seems to be different than when it was originally posted in the OP...

Spent several days, or a week, "beta testing" the other set that wasn't used...

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Well surely that is improvements then. As i said i havnt been paying attention.

How it ended up with this set kinda baffles me, i thought we had been over this before when Tia was "forced into" making a ST set, it was a catastrophy from my point of view.

Sure offensive stats could change up a lot of things in this game, but if it ends up with the top 6 alliances averaging 4500 incs something would be wrong eh? Last round, with Ult having 6800 incs the average was under 3000 incs, with a set that the stats maker said was offensive.

Atm the current ratio was like 35% xan, wich kinda says it all about this set, unless there will be 35% ziks its all gonna be about constant roid swapping, wich isnt what i belive this game should be focused all around.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Appoco has been very busy lately and has delegated the responsibility to me for the time being. Although i do still talk to him about stats.

Actually there was nothing wrong with patrikc's set. I would have been proud to select it. He and I worked on his set throughout last round together and i liked where we got it together. To a nice and balanced set. I know alot of people didn't like the 3 ships in a class thing, but i call that creative freedom of the guy comming up with the set.

The only reason i came up with a last minute alternative was because

• Patrikc's set was seen as way to defensive and got alot of moaning from these forums
• The new defence feature which had enraged so many because it would be impossible to land attacks now
• The combination of the above 2 seemed to stur up even more heat on these forums

So the alternative set was actually made as a response to the community which than even got a say on it and which was taken into account. I even talked to appoco about it before a final descission was made.

Actually the reason why i don't post much on the forums is very simple. Every thread always ends up going negative or they start flaming wars between certain people. So if i want constructive feedback i currently don't see the forums as a way to get it.

Talking about feedback in general. I had ALOT of people pm me with there opinion and i can tell you they all said something completely different. If one guy said to x, the other guy would yell don't do x, do y. Than the next guy would say don't do x or y, but go for z. Opinions are a dime a dozen which doesn't make selecting the feedback you listen to easy.

I did listen to all the feedback i got and implemented some of there suggestions, but yes not all. Just the ones i thought were good and doable with the given timeframe.

Do i think the set we are running this round is perfect? No and looking back at it i would have done some things differently. But yes one shouldn't put a set together in the last hour which i've done twice now. And i hope it was the last time aswell. r67 i definately won't be making a last minute set. Patrikc's set is solid and almost ready to go as is. So we got a solid set to put up already for round 67.

I have talked with appoco about the issue too. We were thinking about making it more into a formal process/method with the potential of some experts picking the final set.

But one of the biggest problems is if i were to put the top 10 stat guys in a room, i bet they couldn't all agree on the color of an organge, let alone what a new standard should be.

Once this round get's going i hope to get into this more with appoco and perhaps the community.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Basicly what i read.

Set A/B/C was critized while being on forum.

You dont like critisism so you decided to do it off forums.

As your set was the least critized you went with that.

I didnt look at Pats set, neither did i look at any others, but surely, even you must be regretting the decision to go with the set that was choosed? And im sure you regretted going with last rounds set aswell

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Having a stats committee is a bad idea. People will just argue in circles.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

I hate to agree with butcher but your post does read as though you bowed to pressure from outside forces.

If you believed pats set was good enough you should have stuck with it. If Appoco has given you the final say on stats then I'm worried by the weakness you have shown. It could set a precedent now that you will get hounded each round by certain people who have a different vision or political agenda that is not reflected by the majority of players.

If you take both sets at face value then Pats set is vastly better so that then seems that influence has pushed this other set to the fore, purely to appease those who think stats will improve their chances of hampering others and helping thier less active playstyle.

If you genuinely want a set from me next round then they will be MT stats and they will be fair, but if they will just get discarded because they don't fit a minority opinion of how the game should be played then is it worth me wasting my time?

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Appoco: some kind of announcement of this change would've been nice. People shouldn't have to rely on rumour to learn who to talk to to influence the ship stats.

I think this is a missed opportunity. The forums are the place to have public discussions about issues that affect everyone. Sure, people can PM you, but that's not ideal. It centralizes decision making, giving you far more power than the individual people talking to you, because it isolates people. It's easier to speak out if there's a bunch of people to agree with you. Additionally, there's a barrier to entry, whereby some people might feel discouraged from approaching you. Speaking out in public is easier.

Monroe used to keep a fairly tight ship, but things seem to have gotten somewhat more slack of late. I agree that's a bad thing. SD is not AD. If the only thing you (general you) have to contribute is bickering and claptrap, this is not the place for you. A couple of keephauls might do this place good, to be frank.

You can't make everyone happy, but as long as you're getting very varied criticism, I'd take that as a sign that you're on the right track. It's when you get the same complaints from everyone that you have to start worrying.

It's good to have this known so far in advance.

Please don't feel like you need to set up some kind of democratic process to select the stats, whether only for a select few or universal. As long as the process by which you've selected a set of stats is reasonable and transparent, you'll be fine. This process need not be formal, nor identical every round. It seems to me like that's just creating unnecessary work for yourself.

This is another thing the forums can help with, by the way, by facilitating a public record of the choices made, and the reasons behind them.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Since I'm still new so I'm really confuse about the set.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Welcome to PA. Sign up and pick a race with no idea how any of them play or what their ships do.....

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Welcome Trudy. Traditionally terran is the race best for new players but I am not sure that is the case here. Probably best to go with everyone else and choose xan, that way at least you are likely to land attacks - though you will also be constantly roided.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Why is terran the best race for new players booji? :salute:

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

It's long been considered the best starter race as it has no 'special' abilities to learn like steal, cloak and emp. It also has large starting bonuses and is reasonably solid across the board in terms of attack and defence.

I'm surprised you don't know this, be such a long serving player

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

A poor troll attempt

Spot on

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

So you are advicing new players to go for Terran this round? :salute:

Im sure with these stats, we will end up with around 3-40% xans, so my advice would be go zik

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

How is this spot on? "In terms of attack and defence" is soley stats based.
And how is cloack a difficult ability to learn?
Mind you these advices for what race to pick was made ages ago, before most of the current playerbase even started playing id assume.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

That wasn't the point being made butcher so please dont twist people's words. For this round Terran is a waste of time if you plan to be ranking high and helping in lots of wars, defence. If you are new and learning the game then Terran is more than viable, as a race it still offers the best learning curve. But then you don't know anything about hoe the races work expect for being a sub standard stats analyzer (I have seen your thoughts on fleet builds and you got laughed out the channel) so this is falling on deaf/ignorant ears.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Then tell me how Terran is usualy been played in the recent years?
Often the best terran players are valueheavy. New players rarely go value heavy.
From experince often xan/cat is the easiest races to play, or be usefull with.
The RP/T is horribole with, often when i go terran i do so with a long term goal of being bigger than the rest the last 400 ticks.
From history we have experinced that terran rarely have FI/CO roiding fleets, and often they tend to lean towards capital hulls, like in these stats.

Cath how ever allows you to get your research done fast, and allows you to basicly, roid any planet smaller than your own often.

Xan allows you to fake fleets, and be usefull even with lower value for gal def.


Getting laughed off by you and mikee having a political/stratical discussion in a alliance where one of the HC had 0 amps pt800 basicly, while being a top3 planet, i dont realy mind.
After you explained how one was to win in PA the discussion realy stopped being serious.
Adapting to the situation/round instead of following a "blueprint to sucsess" has always and will always be what its all about

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Kaiba and Paisley are right. First round is learning time, not ranking time. Terran is the simplest race.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

This is completely why you should have no hand in running a training alliance.

For a newer player you want them to learn basic combat, basic defence, value building teamwork.

You can do all of these basic areas effectively with Terran, especially the value building as Terran has resource perks which can offset poor initial construction choices. Terran has normal combat ships, it basically does what it says on the tin m. Kills stuff.

Cathaar has no combat, it essentially a support race for its team mate and for a new player not doing any damage is boring.

Xan does damage but trying to explain all the nuances of cloaked play to a newbie is not worth it until they have experienced seeing Xan incommings, pod fakes, fake def etc, it's maybe a second round race if they are feeling confident.

Zik is the last race a noob should play as stealing is definitely a fine art, when done right, there is way too much to lose from a bad call and it's very easy to lose ground value wise if you don't 100% understand how salvage works.

Etd is kinda like Zik lite, I would recommend a player tries it before going Zik, as it's kind of an introduction to stealing race

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

As a new player, value racing more experince players is a lost cause.
The strengths of Terran as a race therefor does not realy favour the new player every round.
If the goal was to learn basic combat, basic defence, basic whatnot, why wouldnt ETD be the recommended race? they got all the things the other races got? Then you will learn it more quickly than if you were playing something else?
And how is Cat a support race? If you look at past rounds rankings you will find that 3/10 top10 planet is Caths basicly.
That would suggest that they are the planets getting supported.
If you read the race descriptions you would realise how outdated, and not relevant they are:

"Cathaar can only kill half of the ship types, but they can EMP (stun) any ship in the game."
We have had rounds where cat couldnt kill any ships, and rounds that cat could kill every class almost.

"Terran planets have bigger, more expensive ships, with heavier armour and cause greater damage."

"Xandathrii have lots of small, cheap ships which are equipped with cloaking technology which operates whilst they are in transit and as such certain scans do not work against them. They fire quickly with high damage, but to compensate for this their armour is the worst of all races."

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Once again you completely miss the point of what is being said.

It's not about racing anyone. It's about teaching them to play the basics of the game. Terran is the best race to do this with. Its not a debate it's just a commonly used method that works.

Only Caths description is wrong there too, and only wrong depending on who made the stats for that round. The rest is a pretty accurate description imo.

Finally no ETD is not the best choice, although I can understand why you mistakenly believe this giving a new person so much choice only ends up confusing them more.

The core idea with a new player is teaching them to research, construct, attack and defend. If you actually look at Terran they are 'almost' equal in all areas. Every other races has and advantage and disadvantage (cath has quick research and slow cons for example), it's better for them to be able to learn with what is a stable race rather than a disjointed one tailored to a certain area.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Every time you put :salute: to signify sarcasm or "wit", please advise us so that we can respond in kind with a host of Butcher rhetoric that ranges from "I don't even play anymore" to "Bows is high tier and just gets unlucky round after round"

Thanks

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

People who don't play the game any more but still hang around on IRC and the forums are the worst.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Im not missing what people are saying, im just choosing to ignore it.
The race discription is old, and if we intend to try change up the stats every round its not relevant.

What was the basics 30-40-50-60 rounds ago, or whenever PA crew/people adviced people to chose ter is long changed.
The only chance new players got is to be usefull to their gals/alliance, else they will be exiled around/offered to gal mates to roid dry untill they quit the game.

In the end most players in PA arnt given a choice on what ships to build, they follow some sort of blueprint from their alliance, or gal.
Most players dont even look at the stats closely.

Race Characteristics Ter:

Max Stealth: 80
Stealth Growth/Tick: 6
Base Construction Units: 125
Base Research Points: 105
Production bonus: 10%


Race average:

Max Stealth: 82,5
Stealth Growth/Tick: 6,4
Base Construction Units: 108
Base Research Points: 106
Production bonus: 8%

....

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Talking about stats again, the race distribution this round is the consequence of today's approach. Only a few handful people are considered to be capable making stats, they seem to only talk among themselves. The results is this:
Either xan is unbalanced and is the best race by far or people can't read the stats well and are doomed to create an unbalanced round.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=201140

I did post this thread to see what people actualy considered "good" stats, but so far no response.

After Jintao was made head of stats, its gone from bad to worse when it comes to the process of choosing "the best set".

A big part of the community has been insisting on "offensive stats", and im sure this is mainly the reason why we ended up with a ST set once again, even after R59 wich i thought would be the end of the "ST stats discussion".

Id go back to the "5 ETD races discussion", as i think that is one way to go at stats for the future.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

46% xan. This is gonna be an awesome round.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Why do you waste the time whining here when you don't even play anymore?

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Because i dont want to play, but want to troll.
Maybe i would fine some other forums where i could claim to be expert and keep on trolling there, but thats pretty hard.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Not being the expert hasn't stopped you here.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Before we all jump on Jintao, let's not forget that this is what the loudmouth fools on here asked for. They bemoaned Pats set and demanded another. Jintao merely provided a short notice set to appease them. He even set up a poll where you could choose and you all voted it as the chosen one (by voting for or not voting agsinst).

Your reap what you sow, hope you like 1100 ticks of working out which one is a fake

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Much better stats. A lot happier than pat set.

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

Agreed. Though I liked PapaDocs set the best

Re: R66 Stat opinions
 

I am massively in favour of the majority of stats discussion taking place on SD, in plain view.

This is exactly what you, I and others warned about, even before it was put up. I am sad to see we were proven right.