Prelaunch discussion...again

[Spinner]

Originally Posted by Forest

I know these thoughts are way out there and I haven't put any thought into it and just heading out, but maybe some more intelligent types can come up with some ideas that make it useful to be online during an attack more than currently happens

When PaX brought in Covert Operations, the intention was to provide something to do outside of the launching etc.
What is the status of the CovOps these days? Used much at all, or not so much? Does it impact the game? Are everyone vulnerable to it?

[Shev]

Generally it's only used by people who play their round as a covops/scan planet or very occasionally a startup variation that makes use of the galaxy fund to slingshot a planet around tick 300. There may also be some players who use it on a "regular" planet but it's not a large number. Most top planets will be close to immune or able to become so at fairly short notice through population.

Other than that startup, ship sabotage is probably the only one that has an impact beyond annoyance on any individual planet.

[Paisley]

Do we need a reminder to why folk attack at 12-5am game time
It when there is the least scope for defense.

This will not change without excessive amounts of yanks or aussies signing up.

In my opinion Suggestions for making the game more attack oriented are needed.
The vast reduction of Prelaunch has made the game more defensive.
(please argue the case if you disagree with this)

It would be best to have the old +6-8 prelaunch again after trying out a reduced Prelaunch of +2
(personally I am in favour of the +2 pl but overall it would be better for PA to go back to a +6 to +8 pl again.)

Consider more attack orientated game options. 1 example of this is bring in ship shields that would soak up damage before losses are taken (It means that a 0 loss def ship doesn't get a free hit unless it gets over minium damage first) as xp hasn't had any major impact since r16 and that most top players are value / ship whores. (In my opinion.)

[Shev]

Prelaunch was only +2 for one round before being reverted back, despite data showing that it was having what I see as a beneficial effect of moving launch times away from overnight to a certain extent.

[Paisley]

Originally Posted by Shev

Prelaunch was only +2 for one round before being reverted back, despite data showing that it was having what I see as a beneficial effect of moving launch times away from overnight to a certain extent.

I didn't play this round or last so would explain why my info is out of date

[ArcChas]

Any prelaunching of attacks is bad for the social and defensive aspects of the game. I've explained why this is the case on many previous occasions.

Please read these two posts (and the threads they form part of) and you'll start to get a feeling for just how much discussion there has been on this topic:
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showpo...&postcount=134
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showpo...9&postcount=13

[Zaejii]

Originally Posted by Shev

Prelaunch was only +2 for one round before being reverted back, despite data showing that it was having what I see as a beneficial effect of moving launch times away from overnight to a certain extent.

Exactly this.

There is a significant difference between REMOVING prelaunch and LIMITING it.

Personally, I thought that the LIMITING that was done in said round (46 i believe?) was a GOOD THING.

Some people cried because it was more difficult to land, but the committee is still out on whether or not that was a side effect of defensive stats or the prelaunch change (or the combination of the two).

[ArcChas]

You're right, limited PL (partially) addresses half of the problem by reducing the numbers of PLed fleets attacking at 04:00 GMT. However, it doesn't address the issue of people being offline when (most of) the action takes place.

[Kaiba]

Originally Posted by neroon

Kai, please tell me one good reason why ppl cant play nemore when pl is removed. lets keep it simple.

I dont know or personally care why they cant Ivar... im just saying that in the round when pl was rollbacked to +2 then ND died on its arse and CT similar fell apart and both had mass inactivity. Both alliances openly said that they had members who didnt want to play a game where they had to get up in the night and attack.

Now i know what Shev is saying about no PL forcing the launching switch to daytime and in a ideal world it would happen and be awesome but realistically the top alliances will still demand night launching as it is the most effective time to attack and US based alliances like DLR would be an absolutely shit to defend against!!!

[Shev]

The top players don't limit themselves to one launchtime per day anyway, that's why they win. They launch whenever they have an idle fleet. That wont change by removing prelaunch, you're right, but it certainly isn't the case that the top alliances wouldn't adapt and run more daytime raids. Ultores did in the limited round recently, as an example.

[Kaiba]

Those raids had very little takers though.... as you say top players will still get up and launch at 3am, top alliances have 90% of the top players, why would top alliances not demand that their members continue on with night time raids??? Why would they change to a more defensively active period for launching???

Regardless of whatever you beleive is best the best time to launch a fleet in this game is between 4-6am, that wont change regardless of how many PL ticks we allow people. If you reckon that no PL would push people to attack in the day then you are severly deluded!!


It would maybe push crap people to launch in the day but crap people dont land attacks, thats why thjey are crap, its a moot point!

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Paisley

In my opinion Suggestions for making the game more attack oriented are needed.
The vast reduction of Prelaunch has made the game more defensive.

Originally Posted by Zaejii

Personally, I thought that the LIMITING that was done in said round (46 i believe?) was a GOOD THING.

Some people cried because it was more difficult to land, but the committee is still out on whether or not that was a side effect of defensive stats or the prelaunch change (or the combination of the two).

Removing prelaunch should not be seen as an isolated change that we can simply introduce and expect to work. A feature like this is a single wall in the castle that is the game design of PA. If you add something here or there, you will almost certainly need to make other changes to your castle as well, or it may just collapse on itself. You must take into account how your addition fits in with the existing layout.

Coincidentally, that's one of PA's main weak points, and has been ever since Spinner sold it: there is no overarching vision of what the castle should look like. If you don't have a floor plan for your castle, then you can never respond to a suggestion by saying: "ok, this is a good wall, and I see what you're trying to achieve with it, but it doesn't fit in with where we're going, sorry", because you don't know where you're going.

The only thing you can ever say is "this wall sucks" or "this wall rocks". But even the most beautiful wall can make half your castle completely inaccessible, if placed in the wrong spot. And even the ugliest wall can the main support that prevents it from collapsing altogether.

Until someone comes along with the authority, motivation and skill to guide the process of fixing PA, our castle will continue being the piece of crap it is now.

[Shev]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

Those raids had very little takers though.... as you say top players will still get up and launch at 3am, top alliances have 90% of the top players, why would top alliances not demand that their members continue on with night time raids??? Why would they change to a more defensively active period for launching???

Regardless of whatever you beleive is best the best time to launch a fleet in this game is between 4-6am, that wont change regardless of how many PL ticks we allow people. If you reckon that no PL would push people to attack in the day then you are severly deluded!!


It would maybe push crap people to launch in the day but crap people dont land attacks, thats why thjey are crap, its a moot point!

You still seem to be holding to this misconception that top players launch once per day - it's simply not the case. And the best alliances would offer other attack times, simply because it would be something beneficial for their members - If you've never been in an alliance like this then I feel for you but I can assure you day raids are not as ineffective as you seem to claim.

As for being deluded, the stats we've seen from the round it was limited did indicate that launchtimes shifted. Do you have any evidence to disprove this?

[Kaiba]

Sorry but they didnt shift... they just spread out more - rather than a huge ocncentration of attacks between 3-6am we had a more even launching period between 1am and 8am - still the time when everyone is asleep.

In fact i would as far as to say it was more of a pain defensively than normal +6 PL. Atleast with that you knew that when the heavy concentration of incs came in you could unload all you defence in one go and then go back to bed - with +2 PL and the more spread out attacks you would be woken for ships 2-3 times a night to cover 1 call at a time....

The fact still remain tho that with +6 PL most attacks came when the bulk of the playerbase was asleep, with +2 PL most attacks came when the bulk of the playerbase was asleep. Why would it magically change with 0 PL???

And yes i know good players attack in the daytimes but realistically those attacks are oppurtunistic and are done because they are active, they are not planned alliance raids, and if on the odd occasion they are claimed from an 'alliance day raid' then they are one of 5-6 claims total....

[Shev]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

Sorry but they didnt shift... they just spread out more - rather than a huge ocncentration of attacks between 3-6am we had a more even launching period between 1am and 8am - still the time when everyone is asleep.

In fact i would as far as to say it was more of a pain defensively than normal +6 PL. Atleast with that you knew that when the heavy concentration of incs came in you could unload all you defence in one go and then go back to bed - with +2 PL and the more spread out attacks you would be woken for ships 2-3 times a night to cover 1 call at a time....

The fact still remain tho that with +6 PL most attacks came when the bulk of the playerbase was asleep, with +2 PL most attacks came when the bulk of the playerbase was asleep. Why would it magically change with 0 PL???

And yes i know good players attack in the daytimes but realistically those attacks are oppurtunistic and are done because they are active, they are not planned alliance raids, and if on the odd occasion they are claimed from an 'alliance day raid' then they are one of 5-6 claims total....

Again you clearly speak from your own bad experiences regarding day raids. I've experienced different, but then since round 30 I've spent my time in Ascendancy, Apprime and Ultores, so I accept my views on that aspect may be a little skewed.

That aside though, it's not a silver bullet. As mz and Spinner have both said there is a lot more than just this element that need to change if Planetarion is ever to become a game that is compatible with the times.

[Kaiba]

I have been in xVx and Ultores, both had woeful organised day raids. Although in Ultores i people are allowed to do their own thing more which would probably account for decent players landing in the day, off their own backs.. as i said oppurtunistic....

Completely agree with MZ and Spinner too. It is but a ripple in the ocean of problems that PA has.

I personally dont think keeping it or taking it away will have a major effect on PA overall, just a few (about 50) whingy players, emoquitters but people will still play and big alliances would still attack in the middle of the night. You would probably just encounter more defence with NO PL as a chunk of people wouldnt bother attacking and would permantly have 3x mydef

[Reincarnate]

remove PL and limit alliances to 20 planets. lets get this steaming pile of dung killed of asap.

[neroon]

i shall not post on this matter nemore, its just not worth it nemore :P

[Spinner]

Fs....I am tempted to hack something together quick and dirty to try a few things...

[neroon]

more than welcoming

[BloodyButcher]

So what we might end up with is a pre PaX planetarion with multible combat ticks, ship boosting, and alliance limits?
Back in the days a normal launch time for a big part of the univers was around 23-03, now days u might see a 6 waved attack swarm starting at 04, and continueing untill 10, and i hate it. What i think is the worse with PL is the single combat tick shit, wich enables u to do mass waveing.

[tokath]

I liked the ability to attack for multiple ticks as it made for some interesting strategies for attack and defense.

[Illusion]

why was it removed?

[Korsan]

Originally Posted by Shev

As for being deluded, the stats we've seen from the round it was limited did indicate that launchtimes shifted. Do you have any evidence to disprove this?

You REALLY dont get it Shev, do you? 2 (TWO) 80 men tags said their members are going to quit. PA had massive activity problems and I wish there was some stats showing the overall activity from players compared to previous rounds. Maybe attacks shifted to morning hours, but for what price? PA can't effort any player loss, keeping players is priority #1 unless your changes will attract more new players than you lose (which isnt the case at pa and its non existant advertising).
Other than that saying top players launch multiple times a day is utter bs. They do this at the beginning to hit idle planets and they do this at end game for fleetcatching and so on. Most of the game is "Catch your enemy while he is asleep to gain maximum profit of your attack". After all it was the HARDCORE players who brought this bad habbit of launching at night times to us.
It'S really not hard to understand. I understand though that you dislike being roided by someone who is asleep and has nothing to do while you have to work your a** off finding def. Losing roids always is a bad thing but that's part of this game.

[neroon]

might as well just c/p previous posts.. same shiz all over and over and over again.. or u guys are c/p`ing already?

[Shev]

You obviously don't know what top players do if you think they only launch once per day. I'd stop talking about it if I were you. You're just making yourself look (more) stupid.

As for alliances saying their members will quit, I doubt very much that was based on any sort of survey of their entire memberbase, or even a large portion. If it was, I'd love to see their numbers, so you can maybe get one to step forward with that? I would be happy to lose some players if it resulted in a better game, yes, although I'm not saying that one automatically follows the other.

And yes Ivar, pretty much.

[Kaiba]

Originally Posted by Shev

I would be happy to lose some players if it resulted in a better game

PA has been doing this for 30 rounds... is the game any better??? NO!!

[Shev]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

PA has been doing this for 30 rounds... is the game any better??? NO!!

What? Can you even read?

[Remy]

Lol, just discovered this thread and find it funny that again, ppl actually think new opinions and insights will be formed (regarding PL):P

Why don't ppl just continue in older threads?

[Remy]

Originally Posted by Kan3

-Fix the interface. It's inconsistent and full of errors.
-Implement a mobile/tablet interface.
-Ditch the ETD race.
-Consolidate the vast number of scans & bring back Military Scans.
-Ditch the ability to fake launch.
-Ditch pre launching.

That'll make it a better game.

Apart from the last idea, which has been talked about enough, would you care to actually give reasons for your proposed changes? Now, it just looks as if you are just shouting some random things and hope that makes you look important.

Also, if i were you, I would split your suggestions, make a separate thread for each (NOT the pl crap) and post them in SUGGESTIONS, not discussions.

[Illusion]

Originally Posted by Remy

Apart from the last idea, which has been talked about enough, would you care to actually give reasons for your proposed changes? Now, it just looks as if you are just shouting some random things and hope that makes you look important.

Also, if i were you, I would split your suggestions, make a separate thread for each (NOT the pl crap) and post them in SUGGESTIONS, not discussions.

Kan3's first post was originally in the "Jagex obviously silent" thread. It was put into a new thread by a moderator.

[Remy]

Explains a lot. Still, some reasons why the other changes are needed would be welcome