Restructure galaxy setup to allow more, smaller galaxies

[Gate]

This is based on suggetions made by Kenny earlier in the round, and some comments are in this thread.

I believe that PA is primarily an alliance game, and with the current small playerbase the galaxy setup (fewer, larger galaxies) isn't optimal. It discourages alliance combat as planet-targetting leads to huge ingal def. It also leads to less targets for alliances and may be encouraging multi-booking of galaxies full of newer players.

A larger number of galaxies will lead to far more targets for each alliance and a lower probability of multibooking. For example, ND are a 60 member alliances split into 15 buddypacks and 15 random players. In a 50 galaxy universe, ND may spread across 25 galaxies and only have 25 targets.

In a 150 galaxy universe, ND would spready across about 28 galaxies and have 122 possible targets. The same would be true for all other 60 member alliances and lead to far more targets and therefore proportionally fewer planets getting multibooked.

For these reasons I believe more, smaller galaxies would be better.


Other good suggestions have been made; such as changing buddypack sizes, restricting buddypacks etc. However, I don't think they're great. Firstly, we're struggling to make enough buddypacks as it is. Any solution that doesn't generate galaxies without relying on extra bps isn't going to increase the number of galaxies. Secondly, restrictions on alliance membership are needlessly limiting the game, community and what players can do, and are difficult to enforce because alliances will get around it by playing with tags.

I believe the current best course of action is to have a sliding scale of galaxy dependant on buddypack size. Eg, # in bp:# randoms going:
5:3
4:5
3:7
2:9
0:12
Starting off at 8 person gals (5 bp, 3 random), going to 12 person gals (0 bp, 11 random). Once the round starts, randoms can be shuffled in evenly across all galaxies.

The shuffler would form the bp based galaxies first, then the random ones. After trialing the solution for 'fairness' (based on score at that point), it would swap randoms around until each galaxy appears to have a sufficient number of actives. This would be the shuffle.

[neroon]

ehm.. kinda like what u wrote .. just saying that it should b done for the upcoming round already.. really wouldnt like to play another round with 20 player gals :/:/.. keep it nice and compact.. gals around 10 members would b just perfect

While I'm sure it was a simple typo to suggest that you could fill a 12-man gal with 11 randoms and nobody else, this to me seems like almost the perfect solution.

This does however only address the issue of what's to be done with the planets who sign up at tickstart. What about the planets that don't sign up until after the shuffle? What about the players who's galaxies disband?

Dynamic shuffling.

I think I've mentioned this before, whereby new players come in and join cluster 200. They're then kept in cluster 200 until a space becomes available in an existing galaxy, (i.e. wait for a space to open up, not create a new one), OR wait until enough planets are in cluster 200 and shuffle them every few ticks into NEW galaxies. There could be a cluster 200 shuffle every 48 ticks or so to put players from c200 into either existing or BRAND NEW galaxies.

This would also be usefull for taking an onus off of galaxy disbanding. When a galaxy disbands, they should all be put into cluster 200 for at least 48 ticks. Like when you leave an alliance tag, you can't join a new one for 48 ticks, right? This should be the same for galaxies. When trying to disband your galaxy, it could show you how long there is to the next shuffle, so you'd have to wait 48 ticks PLUS however many ticks there were left until the shuffler ran again.

To keep things consistent new galaxies should only be created with players who are of similar score. Like you have to all be within 100% (for example) of each other's score, thus filtering out the planets who aren't actually being played.

The numbers/percentages mentioned above are just there to illustrate a point, but the mechanism should be there.

Oh, and as long as PA implement a way of reducing galsizes to 10~ for R26, I really don't care, the important thing is it's done sooner rather than later.

[JonnyBGood]

The shuffler would form the bp based galaxies first, then the random ones. After trialing the solution for 'fairness' (based on score at that point), it would swap randoms around until each galaxy appears to have a sufficient number of actives.

While I have no real objections to what you wrote I'd worry that this can be exploited. However more generally I'd prefer to see an approach aimed at stabilising the size of galaxies at around 12/13 members.

PS You don't seem to address the primary issue of galaxies disbanding here?


Edit: Directed at kenny's proposed solution I think the absolute last resort we take is keeping planets effectively "out of the game" in c200 for anything longer than an hour or two.

[Kargool]

While I was one of the people that advocated FOR galaxy disband, I now see that its not viable and was a bad idea in the first place. This option should most likely be removed.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

While I have no real objections to what you wrote I'd worry that this can be exploited. However more generally I'd prefer to see an approach aimed at stabilising the size of galaxies at around 12/13 members.

PS You don't seem to address the primary issue of galaxies disbanding here?


Edit: Directed at kenny's proposed solution I think the absolute last resort we take is keeping planets effectively "out of the game" in c200 for anything longer than an hour or two.

New players can't intereact with the rest of the universe for 72 ticks anyway, so a 48-hour shuffle period wouldn't affect them. And I did say that numbers were purely examplary, and shouldn't detract from the mechanics. But there should definately be some kind of 'penalty' for disbanding your galaxy, not just redistributed throughout the universe, as THATs what leads to overloading galaxies.

How's about this: when a galaxy 'disbands', planets stay where they are but enter a 'queue', if you like, to be included in the next shuffle? This shuffle would also include other disbanding galaxies, exiled players and ofc new players as the shuffler is creating brand new galaxies.

[JonnyBGood]

But there should definately be some kind of 'penalty' for disbanding your galaxy, not just redistributed throughout the universe, as THATs what leads to overloading galaxies.

No there shouldn't be. Getting punished because you're already in a situation where you're getting punished for being in a shit galaxy is a terrible idea and would only polarise the game further.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

While I have no real objections to what you wrote I'd worry that this can be exploited. However more generally I'd prefer to see an approach aimed at stabilising the size of galaxies at around 12/13 members.

That would be ideal, but do we have enough buddypacks? I didn't pay enough attention at galsize etc at the beginning to know this.

An alternative would be to set all galaxies at size 10-12 and start the shuffle by making fake buddypacks out of players who'd been active up until that point and have all galaxies of the same size.

My initial suggestion tries to take account of the discrepancy between bp/non-bp quality and the lack of bps.

PS You don't seem to address the primary issue of galaxies disbanding here?

No I don't; because I'm not sure I've got a good idea of how to. If we start off with enough galaxies then it wouldn't be such a large issue. With 1400 planets signed up at an avg size of 10 planets, we'd have 140 galaxies and a little leeway for a few to collapse.

Kenny's post is one way around this, however.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Gate

That would be ideal, but do we have enough buddypacks? I didn't pay enough attention at galsize etc at the beginning to know this.

You'd have to ask someone on pateam but I'd assume there were at least 100 bps this round.

An alternative would be to set all galaxies at size 10-12 and start the shuffle by making fake buddypacks out of players who'd been active up until that point and have all galaxies of the same size.

Galaxies don't end up shit because they start out relatively low on score. The real problem is players in smaller galaxies who just get hit more because they have a smaller galaxy. Personally I really like the alliance only buddypack idea. It is fairly limiting which is but it'd be great in terms of levelling the playing field. Less fence-sitting, more quality players going random I'd suspect and you could remove the ability for bped players to exile unless their gal was in the bottom 10% let's say, which would mean responsibility for building a good galaxy would lie with both the bped players and the alliance(s) behind them.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Galaxies don't end up shit because they start out relatively low on score. The real problem is players in smaller galaxies who just get hit more because they have a smaller galaxy.

Ofc, but I don't think that's something that can be fixed by the game. My suggestion tries to minimise that though.

Personally I really like the alliance only buddypack idea. It is fairly limiting which is but it'd be great in terms of levelling the playing field. Less fence-sitting, more quality players going random I'd suspect and you could remove the ability for bped players to exile unless their gal was in the bottom 10% let's say, which would mean responsibility for building a good galaxy would lie with both the bped players and the alliance(s) behind them.

A quite nice concept (although I'd miss being able to bp with mates in other allies. <3'd my time with Mek and Tearz), but you've not suggested a way to stop it being abused (do planets have to sign up to their ally at the beginning? What if their ally collapses mid round or they have to leave and change?).

And I'm still not sure it's the best way; like you said. Limitations

[Makhil]

2 thumbs up (maybe even 3) for the 1 Alliance per BP suggestion.

[Gate]

Having thought of it a little more, the 1 ally per bp setup may improve things by providing a load more bps. But it may be counterproductive if allies decide to random it instead.


My initial suggestion retains the benefit of working if allies don't provide these bps. A shuffle based fix may be required even if the one-alliance choice is used. Though I still hate the limitation of it.

What if someone wants to change alliance for whatever reason? If this is allowed, it will be abused. If it is not allowed, it increases the risk of forming bps and may lead to fewer being provided.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Gate

A quite nice concept (although I'd miss being able to bp with mates in other allies. <3'd my time with Mek and Tearz), but you've not suggested a way to stop it being abused (do planets have to sign up to their ally at the beginning?

This is actually another advantage, as it'll motivate people to start their own alliance. However...

Originally Posted by Gate

What if their ally collapses mid round or they have to leave and change?).

..this is a problem.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Gate

A quite nice concept (although I'd miss being able to bp with mates in other allies. <3'd my time with Mek and Tearz), but you've not suggested a way to stop it being abused (do planets have to sign up to their ally at the beginning? What if their ally collapses mid round or they have to leave and change?).

Planets have to signup for their alliance pre-round. If a planet leaves the alliance they are automatically exiled from the bp and the bp can invite a player from their alliance to join them. If the alliance collapses/is collapsing the bp can apply as one to join another alliance. If not they are all automatically exiled. I imagine there'd be some sort of grace period involved in this (72 ticks maybe?)

It's rather harsh but I can't see it being easy to abuse and the whole point of the suggestion is to structure the game more around alliances so while it most certainly does that in the extreme the entire suggestion is pointed in that direction.

Having thought of it a little more, the 1 ally per bp setup may improve things by providing a load more bps. But it may be counterproductive if allies decide to random it instead.

I don't think it'd be that terrible if people went random. It'd certainly even out galaxy quality.

[Gerbie2]

@Gate
Not sure how you are going to do exiles in your setup. Exiling randomly doesn't work as some galaxies could get lucky while others don't get new exiles. It would make exiling inactives useless.

Putting exiled planets in the smallest galaxies doesn't work as then people could go random and exile after the shuffle to a 5-person buddypack galaxy.
Random galaxy that exiles anyone won't get replacements till other galaxies also reach a size of 12 members.


@Kenny
Putting all the new planets in a noob galaxy would be a bad idea.
Create new planets in c200 and make it so that it is assigned a galaxy only after leaving protection (or 36 ticks after creation) and the owner actually being logged in. That would keep a lot of the unused new planets out.

Originally Posted by Gerbie2

@Kenny
Putting all the new planets in a noob galaxy would be a bad idea.
Create new planets in c200 and make it so that it is assigned a galaxy only after leaving protection (or 36 ticks after creation) and the owner actually being logged in. That would keep a lot of the unused new planets out.

The only alternative to noobgals is adding noobs to existing gals which is the entirity of what we're trying to avoid here. Creating new gals is the only solution for new players. Unless you want to go down the 'dynamic gals' route whereby the shuffle happens to the entire universe once a week. But that'd remove galrankings.

Unless you can come up with something, I can't think of a way of keeping galaxies small AND avoid nubgals being created. We can't keep focusing on new players if it means the ones we've got will get fed up and leave. I'd rather have 1 active existing member of the community (unless it's Kargool) over 2 half-arsed inactive noobs with no invested interest in the game.

[Zaejii]

@ Kenny
i like your suggestion about putting people into c200 then shuffling them around, but with active players inside a disbanded galaxy it could be used to hide in c200 for 48 ticks mining roids while not worrying about being attacked and not being able to attack etc. i'd think that you'd really need a way to look at roid count, value, or score and then immediately place them into a galaxy or place them in c200 and prevent them from being able to freely gain resources whilst basically being in "protection" for another 48 ticks.

touché

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Planets have to signup for their alliance pre-round. If a planet leaves the alliance they are automatically exiled from the bp and the bp can invite a player from their alliance to join them. If the alliance collapses/is collapsing the bp can apply as one to join another alliance. If not they are all automatically exiled. I imagine there'd be some sort of grace period involved in this (72 ticks maybe?)

It's rather harsh but I can't see it being easy to abuse and the whole point of the suggestion is to structure the game more around alliances so while it most certainly does that in the extreme the entire suggestion is pointed in that direction.

I don't think it'd be that terrible if people went random. It'd certainly even out galaxy quality.

Originally Posted by Kenny

Hmm. Slight variation and this is prefect - if you APPLY to an alliance on tickstart, it would mean that you wouldn't automatically join, but it would also open up the option of "apply to random alliance", whereby when an HC creates a tag, they can select whether the tag is open to randoms or not. You'd still have to review each application so you'd still haff room for all your current players as you'd just 'accept' their applications first.

[JonnyBGood]

Hmm. Slight variation and this is prefect - if you APPLY to an alliance on tickstart, it would mean that you wouldn't automatically join, but it would also open up the option of "apply to random alliance", whereby when an HC creates a tag, they can select whether the tag is open to randoms or not. You'd still have to review each application so you'd still haff room for all your current players as you'd just 'accept' their applications first.

I have no idea what you're talking about. In my proposal the relevant HC would have to accept their alliance members before ticks start if they wish to avail of the bp system. What exactly are you proposing?

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I have no idea what you're talking about. In my proposal the relevant HC would have to accept their alliance members before ticks start if they wish to avail of the bp system. What exactly are you proposing?

Something completely irrellevent to your point actually. But I did point out that whereby you'd suggested to apply to an alliance on tickstart, there could also be an option of 'apply to random alliance', whereby an application would be submitted to an alliance that had set itself up to receive random applications. This would increase the amount of randoms that get to join alliances.

[rasputini]

2 things I like:

Smaller gals. R24 had more gals than R25. Post shuffle gals had 8 planets or so, and by the end of the round people were in the 12-15 range. I think that is FAR preferred over the meat market R25 gals with 20 people.

New planets in c200. Some people say that new players need to "be shown the ropes" etc. I think that if they start in c200 and spend 48-72 ticks there before popping out into a real gal, it serves several purposes.
1.) the planets that never login after sign-up or play around for a few ticks then decide to bail out, never waste space in a competitive gal. Particularly if you have smaller gals, having to wait 72 ticks to rid yourself of a guy who signed up then bolted is really unfair.
2.) when they finally do pop out into a real gal, the gal will know right off the bat the quality of that player or the effort they are putting in.
3.) I don't know about you guys/gals, but i do not feel any more attached to a random because I got to stare at him for 3-days while he was in protection. We could make more of an effort to route new players to #planetarion or #support for assitance that they may previously have received in-gal.

Indeed, I thought the purpose of the quests were to teach noobs to play. Or are we just being rewarded for doing things we'd normally do anyway?

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Kenny

Something completely irrellevent to your point actually. But I did point out that whereby you'd suggested to apply to an alliance on tickstart, there could also be an option of 'apply to random alliance', whereby an application would be submitted to an alliance that had set itself up to receive random applications. This would increase the amount of randoms that get to join alliances.

You would accept a random guy you never even heard of into your alliance, without assurances for activity, skill or even if they'll still be playing in a week?

[Sun_Tzu]

Originally Posted by Kargool

While I was one of the people that advocated FOR galaxy disband, I now see that its not viable and was a bad idea in the first place. This option should most likely be removed.

I assume the intention of this was to enable people to remove themselves from weak galaxies easily. I'm not quite sure as I've spent practically no time at all galaxy-hopping myself, but I assume the current self-exile formula takes into account the relative score of the galaxy the player is currently in? Assuming this it should be easy to set a given point at which self-exile becomes merely a token amount. This though does not fix the issue of weak galaxies being retained, but then nothing can if we do not allow for the current 20man gals to form.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Sun_Tzu

I assume the intention of this was to enable people to remove themselves from weak galaxies easily. I'm not quite sure as I've spent practically no time at all galaxy-hopping myself, but I assume the current self-exile formula takes into account the relative score of the galaxy the player is currently in? Assuming this it should be easy to set a given point at which self-exile becomes merely a token amount. This though does not fix the issue of weak galaxies being retained, but then nothing can if we do not allow for the current 20man gals to form.

Self-exile does not cause major changes in gal size, as only small gals (number of planets) can get new planets this way. The problem lies with galaxy disbands, which redistributes the planets in one galaxy amongst 10-20 other galaxies.

Galaxy disbands have been made much easier this round, as it now needs a certain number of "no" votes to block it, rather than a certain number of "yes" votes to make it succeed. This is basically a good idea, as inactive galaxies will have trouble collecting enough votes to disband, but it does have an unwanted side effect, which is a steady growth in galaxy size as the round progresses.

[Sun_Tzu]

Mz, I think you need to re-read what I wrote :/ Since you're clearly not replying to it, but to something completely different.

[Mzyxptlk]

Kargool posted about galaxy disband. You replied saying things about self-exile. I then pointed out self-exile was not the problem, galaxy disbanding was. Point out which bit I got wrong?