Round 20 Changes
 

From Round 20 Announcement

Do you guys think this will affect the behaviour of the Top Alliances and see the return and "importance" of Cluster Alliances, and the Cluster Strongholds?

This should eliminate the "fleet crashing" for Score strategy, but now as their is no mention of how the top planet will be awarded (I am assuming it will continue to be by score) will this eliminate, certain alliances members from going for top planet as they will have to be very careful not to lose score for XP gains so that their alliance can win?

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Who was the bright fellow that determined Alliance rankings would be determined by value?

It's eliminating yet another method of playing the game of Planetarion.

brilliant.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Alliance size is totally ridiculus and will probably prevent alot of alliances from starting the round.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Alliance size isn't ridiculous. There's been a lot of discussion about this and a lot opportunity for community input.

Removing XP from the game though...that's out of left field.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Who was consulted on this?

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

In wich most of the people said that a 50 members limit was the right way to go.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Determining alliances by value is daft.

Basically, you pick the most active alliance, that'll be the winner, as there's no alternative to compensate for others being more active than you. At least on the old system we can rely on people being politically (in)ept to help determine who wins on top of them being shit at the game.

If you don't like being in the 'most active' alliance, what's the point of alliance play, there's not even a prospect of you winning. Activity rewards itself, in greater value. XP is a bit of a leveller and as Barrow states, offers alternative ways of playing if you want to play for an alliance. Basically this means if you want to contribute, you need to play for value, which requires more activity.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Well, the planet rankings and galaxy rankings will still be by score. Alliance rankings will be by value, of course.

But I do agree. The alliance rankings should remain score-based, since alliances will be otherwise forced to promote value anyway - and I like XP and the benefits it's brought to the game. As lokken said, it's been an important leveller time and time again.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

I predict a lot of ziks in alliances next round. And as a consequense of this a lot of unallied / xpwhore planets in the top 100.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Alliances ranked by value? Ridiculous. Change it back at once!

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Realistically it depends on what you want from PA. If it is to be a wargame then value should be the determining factor. The strongest alliance should be the one that wins.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

/me looks as PA is brought another step towards Mount Doom

Thank you for not listening to the community.

Plain silly...

Great way not to get paying customers.
As long as you're not going scanner or cov opper, no need to pay as I see it.
Somehow, I don't think "OMG! I need to pay so I can change skin and fleetnames!" is the general grounds for upgrading...

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

The alliance with the most value doesn't have to be the strongest. Much like Alexander the Great (some 45,000 troops) with his victory over Persia (allegedly 1,000,000 troops) in the Battle of Gaugamela, a smaller force can beat a bigger one. Experience comes to show there. Although i'm personally not a huge fan of XP, there is something to say for both sides to be the determining factor in the end ranking.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

The relationship between experience and xp is tenuous at best.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

The point is that there is no near zero incentive for less active alliances to play if they know they've lost from the off. And determining by value is a pretty sure fire way of putting them off, I think.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Disagree. With the new system it gets better to be an xpwhore and play for yourself. You wouldnt need an alliance for anything.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Thats what he said dude.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

I agree fully with this point, it seems rather stupid to judge alliance score just by value, when value isnt the determining factor for the entire game. One very tiny plus would be the fact that if it was organised properly roiding the Top alliance dry would actually drop their value, where as now when roiding the top alliance you have to hope for XP gain as well. A few thousand rocks lost everynight will surely tilt the "Value" of the alliance(s) lower, unless of course people deside to fleetcrash for XP gain and stop thinking about their alliances.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Taking score out of the alliance ranking is rediculous. the alliance competition will be over much faster than it is now. You have very few alliances that can sustain an effective campaign without XP score boost. Anyone forgeting how close last round was as opposed to most because of the xp score boost possability? Not to mention you don't plan to track Cluster alliances. A completely pointless move.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

personally i like everything the game has inputted apart from the paid account situation, seems no point in paying now as some1 said earlier, i like the bring back of clusters, adds a new dimension to the game. as for value based alliances, i personally think its a good idea, i personally hate XP as it shows nothing apart from the fact ur willing to crash fleet, maybe ND are annoyed at this, but hey, shoot me down

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Being a valueplayer im fkin happy :p

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

you have to remember, only a few alliances, maybe not even 5 can hang value wise in a 7 week fight, only way this is going to give them a way to compete is if they have the ability to catch up, or keep up xp wise....

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

I really like the incluster changes and the 'smaller' buddypack one :)

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Mostly good ideas. Not sure about the alliance value ranking though; it's the only idea which has a non-obvious justification.

Can anyone from PAteam explain the rationale behind the decision?

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

To count Alliance rankings based on Value is in my opinion a failing method, because:

1: Loads of people play for their alliance. It includes a social aspect into the game. Making it easier for people to go for XP and play individually will lessen that social aspect.

2: Making value a bigger aspect will make races unbalanced. Zikonian will have a great advantage, being able to steal value. IF, and only IF, you are going through with the change, this balance should be restored. That, in my opinion, is impossible as long as single planets and galaxies are still rated by Score.

3: Value mostly represents your ability to stock, build and stay as safe as possible. It represents NOT your ability to arrange attacks and defense. It will simply mean the ally that racks up the most resources in the round stays on top.

4: Value on a planet represents the danger you risk attacking said planet. I will explain that below, where I propose alternative change. Value + XP represents an alliance's achievement. I do not believe alliances should be ranked on risk factor, I believe in ranking on achievement.

Furthermore, I believe that a change in the gamesystem, namely ADDING xp to gameplay some rounds before, made ALL players attack and defend a whole lot more, bringing more and better actual warfare to the game.

Alliance gameplay revolves around warfare, and not being rewarded for waging war demotes alliances to social clubs at most. I think alliance gameplay is a big part of PA and is to be taken, and kept, seriously.
Combining both effort and quality into score gives a good representation of how *good* an alliance is. Removing effort will only keep the elite players on top.
-----------------------
Now, I DO want to propose something in alternative to said round change:

In my opinion, XP is a very easy way to rack up score right now. Land on a big planet and you are halfway there. There are two thing I propose to make XP a bit more balanced:

1: XP points should be worth less score, say 40-50 instead of the current 60. This because only 1 land can already boost you very high up, which does not make it 100% resemblant to the effort needed.

2: XP formula should be based on value/roids ONLY. This because of the following:

- It is very easy to land on a big score planet when he has no ships. Landing on a planet which has no defense of its own should hardly be rewarded. You can already be happy with the free roids in my opinion.

- If said does have a lot of resources stacked up, that will also count towards value. Value is thusly the most representative factor of the danger you risk when attacking such a planet.

----
Now, I know this rant will probably be read and dismissed by the team. I will just add to this that I have enjoyed gameplay like it was r19, even with XP to be worth a bit too much imho. Demoting XP would mean a lot less pleasant gameplay, at least for me.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

My query is..

Will it be -3eta Defend.. if you are in tag, in cluster?

if so.. it will make it cluster alliance based.. and cluster alliances will rock

back to round 1

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

oh and stop your whinging about the pay accounts..
as there isnt a larger incentive to pay.. thats not (our) problem.. thats (their) problem

think of it like this..
more targets..

bring on the newbies

.. also the way i see it.. $10 AUD isnt much to pay to support a habbit.. think of it as buying a beer that lasts 7 weeks or so.
support pa.. pay for your account.. dont 'NOT' pay because you dont recieve any greater benifits.. is this pa community really
full of a bunch of tight asses ?

im sure you all make more then that per hour at work..
even if it is workin as a kitchen hand in a greasy food joint like maccas..

and the xp issue on alliances.. pfft.. may aswell remove xp altogether.. as i see it the ONLY benifit it gives you is score..
which i think is a cheap rip off..
if anything.. restructure the XP to give you other benifits.. like better ship agility n crap.. to imporve worth in an attack..
as for the bloke who quoted the alexander the great thing earlier.. about expierenced soldiers compared to number of soilders..
yes thats true.. im sure they didnt benifit from "score" rather then learning how to be quicker and better.. see my point?
either way in pa.. more ships.. better.. it doesnt give you any attack benifits.. so its pointless.
so bring on the value only

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Cluster alliances last about 1 week. There is no reason to indulge this aspect of the game.

The game is fine as is for the most part, it just needs downsized. No more than 50 with 10 added later in alliance. No more than 10 in a galaxy, etc. Also some upgrades here and there. Nothing else is needed.

Trash this crap, it's obviously not wanted.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

lets remember also that nonpayed planets opens up the chance for more support planets/multi's to, like there already isn't enough for the mh's to do without increasing their already heavy workload, that they do for free. So let's go and make it easier for these planets to have an effect on the non cheatng players...good plan

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Fine, no problem with it.
No, this will mean that there are some attacks the alliance cant defend. Unfair to the alliances. For example, u can with this do fleetcatches in cluster without the alliance being able to defend. So basically free fleetcatches.

This basically means that the higher score/value a planet is, the harder it is for a smaller alliance to accept him. Eventually you might have to send the applicant to a BIGGER alliance because you cant accept him...

No problems with that one.

Big problem.This opens for xpfarming. If an alliance plays to win,the alliance player will have a high value planet This basically means that cluster planets can be attacked and roided spot free in own cluster and only cluster/gal def can defend it. XP players should probably go for fi/co fleets in order to be able to roid theese type of planets for free. Question is ofc, is this a good thing? I think not.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Well another issue that I thought of while in bed was that in theory, it should encourage more defensive play from alliance players, simply because while you might gain XP, your alliance won't, if you're landing for a marginal value loss.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

U thought about it in bed? :( I thought about it the shower :-p

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

PA team should keep the option of 5 per bp as i believe 3 and below per bp is too few for a good coverage ingal. Or give us 3 options : 5 per bp / 3 per bp / 2 per bp. Gal setup could be 5 per bp with 2 per bp or 3 per bp with 2*2 per bp.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

I agree with Sleepless. 3 in a BP is to little to be certain of decent gal (2*2 is even more unsecure), look at how many gals that disbanded last round when most had 5 ppl in a BP and at least could def eachother to a point. With only 3 in a BP this will become much harder and at least with cluster attacks -1. With only 3 in a BP it will also be harder to have enough time to make a and run a cluster alliance, which will be strongly needed in the upcoming round. If you have 5 then you can have some from the BP that runs the cluster alliance while some run the gal.

Ì think we'll see alot more of galaxies disbanding if the bp size is change as proposed:(

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

I must admit that I don't see what was wrong with the 4-5 person BP size.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

It should also discourage stupid crashes of fleets as well.

Personally, i like the value being used as alliance score as it represents their direct strength in the game.
It is a war game after all, not a "Oh lets see how 'l33t' we can be with our tiny fleets and planets which cant be retaliated against" game

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

if score is value based please make roids more value worth

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

as I agree with your take on why it would reflect an alliances direct strenght, the point is, it means 2-3 alliances, top 5 maybe will compete, the rest are just farting in the wind, and it will decide the outcome of the round on the alliance level far too early.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Uhm. No it doesnt
Making alliance *Scores* dependant on their value has nothing to do with XP or its farming.
If anything it means xp farming by alliances is utterly useless now as it wont affect the alliance scores.

Planet xp farming is another matter however, and is something which existed before this change as well.
I would welcome all ranks being changed back to value based, personally - but thats just me

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

the rest are farting in the wind usually anyway the way things are. They are never a real contender for the win even with the previous system and this change in how alliances are ranked will not change that.
They have always, and seemingly will always be collaborators, never in with a direct title shot but left to fiddle behind the scenes to help another alliance win.
If the other alliances want to win they need to overhaul their command, their members and their playing style

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Bear in mind that a) all alliances will know value is the route they need to pursue so previous value gaps are unlikely to reoccur b) the round is now shorter by two weeks. Also I have very little idea what round had more than two or three alliances competing for the win. Let us not forget than the roll call of PA since r11 has gone 1up/1up/exi/1up/exi/asc/1up/exi/exi. Not exactly the height of variation which this change will destroy.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

sorry dudes i think most of it sucks mostly cot is solves the syntomes but not the problems that the game have atm this changes kills off allies all together from the game and we can guess what happens then.

r19 big gals was hard as hell to roid now we have big gals+ clusters means fence raidings pays off even more

/me dont sign up r20 :/

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Only shit alliances will quit.

Have alliances lost all sense of creativity or ability to respond or adapt to changing circumstances? Personally, I can think of some very interesting new possibilities :)

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

No, we won't have big galaxies anymore. This is part of the bp size changes.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

random lotery ftw

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

No, you now have a reasonably large cluster which you can attempt to organise.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

I do see your point, however I'm just pointing out, that alliances will piss off much earlier, soon as they see the bigger/more organised alliances move into the lead, expand on that lead. Also, the rounds may have not had more than 2-3 alliances going for the win in the end, but ofcourse earlier in th round before the shit flies some may have seen themselves more competitive than they will under this scenario

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

This is a problem due to the way the game previously developed though. People saw themselves as more competitive due to the fact they went after xp so their scores were "artifically" elevated and the blunt statement of alliance values, which more accurately reflects alliance strength was not apparent.

Re: Round 20 Changes
 

Im not at all convinced by the idea of alliances being judged solely on value I mean this gives all Ziks a serious advantage in an ally so if your ally if 50% zik and someone who just beat you this round is 30% zik then under the new judging system i think the ally that is 50% zik will now win is this really fair?