Exile and shuffle

[Kal]

What should the aim of the exile (and shuffle) system be?

I believe it should be to give each galaxy an equal chance - to spread activity around the universe equally.

This of course may be impossible...

But if we could find a good and relaible way of doing this is it not the right approach?

[mist]

from who's perspective?

if i'm someone who's using it to get out ofa crap gal, then i want it to put me in the best gal available. if i'm someone who's trying to get the best gal possible i want it tt give me the best people possible. if i'm neither of the above then i probably want it to sort the gals out fairly, although give me a decent one if possible.

ps. it seems you're at least asking the right questions

[Kal]

use a veil of ignorance - what should happen regardless of where u peronally might end up with it.

[mist]

so, in the interests of the game:

imo, the overarching reason for the game is to make jolt as much money as possible. in this case this is probably embodied by increasing the player base, which in turn means keeping as many current players as possible and getting as many new paying player as possible.

this seems to lead to two areas of interest:
1) current (paying) players
2) new players whom may be persuaded to pay, or be payed for.

in order to maximise potention in group (2) i'd suggest that a range of activity within galaxies is important, as it means they've got a chance to get in to the game and to learn from more experienced players. however, there seems to be a bit of an attitude now that if you get a newbie you exile them and hope for something better. obviously this isn't going to get the newbies interested in the game, and as such i would suggest that disinsentives for doing it would be a good thing.

(1) is tricker. most players would like to see a larger player base, however quite a few arn't that happy about being the ones that help bring it about (note, some are also quite proactive in trying to help). as such, some would like it if their galaxy were filled with people of about thier own activity (ie, the fortress gals approach) which quite possibly entails private gals, or at the least an excile system that places poeple with others of like activity. there's also alliances - i'd imagine that people would rather not end up in a gal with a hostile set of players, and spies - always a potential problem.

overall, i think the desire to create galaxies with equally active people is important, and needs further investigation. obviously, there's the wish to avoid spies, but there's also in gal defence, a feeling that it's the only way for your gal to win, people who'll report incommings for you and in the case of private/buddy packs, some gal mates you know you'll at least get along with. as such, if you can find a way to create a gal and exile system that fulfills this and is newbie friendly then you're probably on to a winner.

deleted a bit here that was off topic

[all that said. could i have a look at your justification for the supposition that galaxies at all is a good thing?

[Kal]

with the rise of the alliance and with allainces being hard coded then the galalxy becomes less useful.

Its purpose as I see it is only as a place for players of different activies and experiances to mix. The galaxy structure with defence bonuses etc encourages this mixing.

[furball]

I think the galaxy is vital, because it allows players of different alliances to mix - similar to as Kal said. It's also the only way at present for players in smaller alliances to get into bigger ones - from their galaxy mates' vouches.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Kal

The galaxy structure with defence bonuses etc encourages this mixing.

i'm sure i was reading a thread recently that seemed to take an opposing view

[robban1]

well its a bigger diffrents between doing really bad vs decent than it is doing good vs decent if it make any sence
to make it simple the noobs loose out more than the average player, making them kinda useless in a gal

[mist]

Originally Posted by robban1

well its a bigger diffrents between doing really bad vs decent than it is doing good vs decent if it make any sence
to make it simple the noobs loose out more than the average player, making them kinda useless in a gal

do you have any data to back that up?

[Cannon_Fodder]

Can't really remember the details, but appocs idea about exiling based on activity seemed okay..

[mist]

i dislike appoco's idea, as it seems to increase the barrier to entry

however, that's not really what this thread's about. before youcan evaluate something you need to know what you're evaluating it again.

[Proxi]

i thought this rounds approach to gals worked pretty effectively, and the exile system was costly but not prohibitvely so. If you look at the top 10, (bar #1 and #2) things are pretty tight.

[mist]

while this may be true, the majority of players arn't in the top 10...

[Proxi]

Well this is true and its proabably a poor example. Still things worked out quite well this round on all fronts imo.

[Kal]

I'm inclined to belive that the galaxy system is prgessivly improving round on round with less "dead" galaxies. Theese systems have dbeen developed with the aim of having an equal acitivyt distribution in each galaxy. THe flaw has really been with not being able to do that at shuffle time.

So I think if we had a system that worked better at shuffle time we would have an even better galaxy setup.

[Shyne]

Have a shuffle midround based on some clever formula or something to assess activity and make it impossible to exile.