Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk
The issue of galaxies is pure game theory. The best way to form a good galaxy is to ruthlessly exile newbies and lower tier alliance players alike in the hope of either forming a fortress or a fence. Similarly, the best way to get a good planet is by continuously exiling from bad galaxies until you either hit one that's very good, or tick 313 comes along and you can just late sign up in as good a galaxy as you have access to.
These two principles conspire to divide the universe into a universe that's vaguely shaped like a Matryoshka doll, with a very few galaxies making up the inner core of highly connected players, orbiting the black hole that is eksero & co, then several more galaxies being very active but less connected, then some more galaxies that are merely active casuals, and then a large thin cloud of idlers and new players.
The reason this is an issue is not just that it divides the veterans from the casuals from the new players, but also that it allows the veterans to actually be less active than everyone else, and still come out on top. In a good galaxy, there can be a bunch of people who all stay up late a couple of times a round, and wake up early a couple times a round. Between them, they can cover all incs. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In a bad galaxy, there's maybe one person who wants to do well, and they're stuck staying up all night every time their galaxy gets incs, because there's no one to share the duty with. No wonder they want to late sign in a better galaxy. I would.
The solution I'd propose is two-fold, and as simple as it is undesired (by those same influential players).
1) The reason people can exile 15 or more times is that they know there's a safety net: signing up late. There are very few (if any) drawbacks, because you can just init a bunch of roids, then double that count by farming inactives for a few days, and depend on your galaxy to defend you from the small incomings you can get. I've never heard of it being used for any other purpose than to give people who either already were signed up at tick 0, or could have, a second change of being in a good galaxy, without having to deal with the randomness that everyone else has to suffer through. It doesn't even cost a second credit. Remove late signing. If you want to help people who sign up late (and you should, because the signup period is only 1 week in every 10-11), then give them about as much research and construction as what they would've gotten without population or government, rather than guaranteed immunity from incs for a week or more. You should be able to survive in a random galaxy regardless of whether you sign up at tick 0 or 900, but not handed a top 100 spot on a silver platter.
2) The ability to exile everyone who does not meet your standards is a requirement for getting your buddies in. Remove galaxy exiling, or limit it to 3 or less per round. You could make it more expensive too, the current cost is a joke. That's a different issue altogether, though.
Now this leaves us with one obvious problem. We've had to be ruthless for so long that inertia alone will encourage people to continue to attempt to force people out of galaxies. If that can't be done by simply exiling them, then make life hell for them until they exile out themselves.
Personally, I don't think most galaxies will go to such extremes, and the odds of a planet just going idle and becoming even more useless will dissuade the rest... but that will take a while. A couple of rounds, maybe, until attitudes adjust to the new situation. That would require disabling the auto-delete feature, of course, which serves no purpose anyway. Who cares if there's a couple of dead planets in every galaxy?
3) And if that adjustment does not happen, or you believe it won't happen, you can take a more drastic step: Remove self-exiling too. No more exiling, no more problems. You could even turn it off for a few rounds to let the dust settle, and then experimenting by turning it on again.
|