New Suggestions for Gal size / gal stuff

[Spritfire]

Some suggestions for gal size.

Now we have a set amount of gals each round, if there sign up new planets they just get added to the existing gals. So we start with like 12 planets and end up with around 17++ in the gals.

Wich again means that there is to few gals around, alliance's are struggling to find targets, 75% of the attacks get piggyed by another alliance.

If we limit the gals to say max 10-12 planets.

We get more gals, more targets, and more active gals.

With 19 planet gals, you have 5 ppl buddypacket. They are active. But maybe 4 randoms aren't, then you still have 10 ppl left. more easy for they to go inactive when there aren't so many active's around.

With a 10-12 planet gal, you have 5 ppl buddypacket, thats 40-50% of the gal, if someone starts to go inactive, it will be harder for the rest to go sine there still is a great % of the gal playing.
Also make's it more easy to care, since it counts more on you on how well the gal does.

But if the gals starts to get inactive, there should be some system around to delet the gal and spread the active ppl around, randomly, rest goes to c200.

What does you all think of that ?

Probably loads of spelling and gramar errors in there , but english aint my first language anyways.!

[Kargool]

I agree to this. The alliance size has gone down, and galaxies needs to be reduced to balance this cut in alliance size

[Linoge]

very good post spritfire, i actually agree with it

[SpookyVince]

Yes I do too. Plus, it gives more chance to actually have a good galaxy, given the fact that indeed a 5 BP is 40-50% of the gal, from the start of the game until the end of it.

Am I wrong, or do I remember that in round 16 there were still some 17 clusters (instead of an annoying 13 now), plus the c200?

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by SpookyVince

Yes I do too. Plus, it gives more chance to actually have a good galaxy, given the fact that indeed a 5 BP is 40-50% of the gal, from the start of the game until the end of it.

Am I wrong, or do I remember that in round 16 there were still some 17 clusters (instead of an annoying 13 now), plus the c200?

Have to remember that r16 was a free round but yeah, i think there was some more clusters then.

I think maybe reducing the buddypacks to 3 again would be prudent if we lower the galaxy limit since not all buddypacks will have 5 members in them at tick 36.

[Timeline]

very good idea. as said the attacking options were very limited last round, and with a smaller galaxy it gives buddy packs more incentive to make them work from word go

[Timeline]

Originally Posted by Kargool

Have to remember that r16 was a free round but yeah, i think there was some more clusters then.

I think maybe reducing the buddypacks to 3 again would be prudent if we lower the galaxy limit since not all buddypacks will have 5 members in them at tick 36.

i'd suggest a cut to 4...dropping 2 would, in my eyes, be a bit severe. Plus smaller buddy packs would make it more difficult to get a core group working together to make the galaxy successful

[Ultimate Newbie]

More galaxies doesnt really mean more targets; it just means that there are more galaxies filled with nearly inactive players which fall below the bash limit of virtually everyone in an alliance really soon. Thus, there are less people in 'targetable' galaxies, and thus potentially segregating the actives and inactives to a larger extent.

I'm not saying that the idea isnt bad, just highlighting that i have some serious concerns that warrant some discussion before you convince me .

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

More galaxies doesnt really mean more targets; it just means that there are more galaxies filled with nearly inactive players which fall below the bash limit of virtually everyone in an alliance really soon. Thus, there are less people in 'targetable' galaxies, and thus potentially segregating the actives and inactives to a larger extent.

I'm not saying that the idea isnt bad, just highlighting that i have some serious concerns that warrant some discussion before you convince me .

Let me try to explain why i think smaller galaxies are better. The pressure on the top 30 galaxies was very huge last round. I played in a medium sized galaxy after exiling into it. We was attacked almost everynight and it wasnt just the random attacker hitting someone for fun, it was alliance based galaxyraids. I think that the pressure you put on players being "unlucky" with landing in galaxies from rank 10-30 is underestimated (maybe even 5-30), maybe ecause of the share size of the bigger galaxies top 5 galaxies and them being more like small alliances upon themselves. Smaller galaxies with less inactive people gets the random incoming now and then and some times a galraid from a small alliance or a medium alliance with bad BC's. I dont know but I think that the pressure on thoose rank 10-30 planets is more severe than the pressure on the galaxies lower ranked and this causes burn outs from the players, players lose intrests and quits the game.

How would smaller galaxies intervene against this? Well, I think first of all that smaller galaxies makes the race for the ranking alot closer at the rank 10-30 planets, I also think that with more targets to hit (and the reducing of players in alliances) you will get less of the double/triple/quadrouple booking. With that said, there is no assurances for it, but we know how the current system works and that is imho reason enough to change it. I'd also suggest a disband galaxy vote. The planets could vote on a disband galaxy so that everyone gets exiled from the galaxy and the galaxy ceases to exists. With that option people could get out of inactive galaxies alot easier.

[SpookyVince]

Disband galaxy vote would have to be well thought too, because (and especially in the case of inactive galaxies) it should not require everybody's vote, and at the same time, it should not require too few votes...

Why not leave that to admins? A GC in such a gal can always send a mail to an admin (or meet one in IRC) and ask for such a thing.

[Monroe]

This seems like a reasonable idea, the reason for going to a static number of galaxies had to do with limiting the number of inactive galaxies, especially as the round goes on you have players who enter the game late generally end up in crappy new galaxies and either quit or exile out. So unless you can offer a reasonable explaination for how to deal fairly with later starters I'm not sure this is such a good idea.

[wakey]

When you say limit to 10-12 do you mean all round or only initially?

Its just that if you mean the whole round I'm not sure it actually improves anything. Your average galaxy last round didn't start with 19 members in, it grew to this size as obviously the game ends up with more players at the end of the round than at the start. Now the genius part of the current galaxy placement system is it doesn't automatically throw planets into a galaxy with just players like themselves for company because the galaxies grow with the people signing up.

Now if we were going to go back to static limits then it would have to almost certainly go back to static galaxy size with new galaxies being created when needed. This means anyone signing up late unless they are lucky and there's a spare spot open gets placed into a galaxy with other 'late' signups. These galaxies were always traditionally pretty weak and were easy pickings and either never became good targets or quickly stopped being good targets. Would we hence really stand much of a chance of seeing any of the galaxies who werent there at tick 72 being 'decent' targets? Probably not and we probably wouldn't see that many more of the initial galaxies being that much better than now either.

I personally think the current placement methods better for attracting people to the game and as far as I can see the only way to increase galaxies is for us to all to get more people to play

[Timeline]

hmm to incorporate wakeys worries..how about lowering the starting number in a gal to 7 or 8. That way it can grow to 12 as the round progresses

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Timeline

hmm to incorporate wakeys worries..how about lowering the starting number in a gal to 7 or 8. That way it can grow to 12 as the round progresses

It might work but at the same time it might not. Unless someone on PATeam happens to have a cat who brings them a piece of paper with the end of round player numbers for the each upcoming round then how can you predict what the start and max limits are to prevent a problem.

[Timeline]

didnt you know ... apparently appoco is a fortune reader in his spare, spare-time...his fayre name is madame retsamoccopa

[Makhil]

Originally Posted by Timeline

hmm to incorporate wakeys worries..how about lowering the starting number in a gal to 7 or 8. That way it can grow to 12 as the round progresses

That sounds good, i would have gone as low as 5. Making buddypacks look like private gals for a while.

[Timeline]

yeah the problem is a full buddy pack isnt always a given fact. So if we take kargools initial suggestion of lowering the bp to 3 (as he suggested) or 4 (my thought) but keep the galaxy member limit at 12. A suitable option for a decent core start, which still leaves room for growth as round progresses and late signups occur therefore is approx 7 or 8. Also keeping it to that level also prevents galaxies of randoms and inactives being formed straight from the shuffle and keeps a balance that is needed for the exile system

[Appocomaster]

So when the shuffle occurs, at the moment we take the buddy packs, form them up so they're 5 big (but 3/4 in this new idea), and then add the randoms and free randoms "on top" to make the galaxies.

If we set an initial size, what would happen if the galaxies went over that limit? we'd have extra paid/ free randoms with no galaxy to go into that would be placed, I guess, into random galaxies? Would this be fair?

[Also, currently those in the bottom 10% of the active universe (excluding c200 and 1:1, which is obviously inactive ) can vote to disband their galaxy - if it reaches 60%, they're placed in c200 and the galaxy is deleted. Everyone is mailed what happened and they can start again]

[Kargool]

I think we need some statistics here. Lets say from last round if anyone has it. How many buddypacks were there, and how many paid planets where there. Out of the paid planets, how many of them were not in an alliance?

[Timeline]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

So when the shuffle occurs, at the moment we take the buddy packs, form them up so they're 5 big (but 3/4 in this new idea), and then add the randoms and free randoms "on top" to make the galaxies.

If we set an initial size, what would happen if the galaxies went over that limit? we'd have extra paid/ free randoms with no galaxy to go into that would be placed, I guess, into random galaxies? Would this be fair?

[Also, currently those in the bottom 10% of the active universe (excluding c200 and 1:1, which is obviously inactive ) can vote to disband their galaxy - if it reaches 60%, they're placed in c200 and the galaxy is deleted. Everyone is mailed what happened and they can start again]

An initial size is already placed on a gal of 10 people. What is being suggested is to lower this limit to give more galaxies.
As for the randoms, to not buddy up is a choice which they are given. Everyone who pays has the option whether to do this or not, and as such the decision of whether to take a gamble on their galaxy location by going random or having the safer ground option of having a bp is solely down to them.

[Appocomaster]

There is no initial size in the shuffler.
The initial size is sometimes guessed and reported by myself/Kloopy/etc depending on how many buddy packs there are and how many accounts there are (divide one by the other, etc).

The only real things we change between rounds are the size of the buddypacks.

[Timeline]

right my mistake...thought start size was limited as its always the same amount
sorry

[Spritfire]

Appocomaster : Any chance of getting some stats on late buddypack signup?

Like the buddypacks created after tick100, are there anyone?
and how well their gal is doing to if possible.

[Appocomaster]

You can't create a buddy pack after the shuffle at tick 36, as by definition they're pretty much useless beyond that point - they're only used at the shuffle.