Fair Play...

[XelNaga]

JBG, no top ally could have stopped Ascendancy, except by XP whoring themselves. However, many people feel it's a less honorable way of playing the game, and simple weren't willing to do it. So in fact, Ascendancy was quite untouchable, whereas this round, value is what counts, and everyone can attack any top player. It's two different things.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by XelNaga

JBG, no top ally could have stopped Ascendancy, except by XP whoring themselves. However, many people feel it's a less honorable way of playing the game, and simple weren't willing to do it. So in fact, Ascendancy was quite untouchable, whereas this round, value is what counts, and everyone can attack any top player. It's two different things.

Just like in round 3, when there was no such thing as XP, anyone could attack Fury and Legion. Really!

Originally Posted by bwtmc

I knew that's what you were getting at and that the original post wasn't fantastic, but i don't see what 'me playing' has to do with anything. Am I less 'qualified' to post therefore. :|

Having a qualified opinion has never been a requirement to post on AD. I'm now posting my unqualified opinion (for in what case would this be qualified?) that your posts, in so far as they complain about the quality of the round, are worthless. You say the round is dull, but you aren't you playing, so how could you know? You say all alliances are fools, but you admit to not knowing what is going on beneath the surface.

I think this entire series of posts (by you) is the simple frustration (or perhaps shock?) of going from influencing the result of rounds on the high level for several rounds in a row, to spectating. All of the sudden you have to rely on completely different senses, and you can no longer take out any frustrations by ingame action.

[lokken]

I don't get it, Banned.

From bwtmc's posting i get the impression of "I've looked at an overview the round and instinctively come to this decision". I think bwtmc is a player of sufficient stature to be able to do this and quite frankly when you stop playing, it's what everyone does. I wrote a whole ****ing logbook without playing one round.

If he is badly wrong, why has no one told him so? I'm not saying that we should respect anyone on this forum, but quite frankly if someone told me the politics that bwtmc was given and I was spectating, I'd think pretty much what he was, as there are some things going on in-game which are pretty moronic. It might be badly worded, but the "general jist" to me is fine.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by lokken

If he is badly wrong, why has no one told him so?

I'm telling him so. From where I'm sitting, this is not a dull round, it is a fun round.

[bwtmc]

I spoke to a 'leaders' of most of the aforementioned alliances for a few days to see what was going on and how they were getting on, particularly in those new alliances. Mostly because there seemed to be 'something missing' when looking at the current situation from a distance and I can only do so much revision :|. I then painted a more conclusive picture of what is really happening.

I don't for a second think that the said picture is a perfect reflection of what's going on, I do think it's pretty close, though. With reference to my 'admission,' I was considering that claiming the round might be dull, as of now, is a poor thing to say when alliances I didn't mention might be doing things of general interest.

I like for the game to stay competitive, interesting and refreshing, particularly around the top. I consider it one of the fundamental reasons why groups of players come together to play the game in the first place. Whether I'm involved myself is irrelevant.

[XelNaga]

Originally Posted by Banned

Just like in round 3, when there was no such thing as XP, anyone could attack Fury and Legion. Really!

There is an alliance limit now.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by XelNaga

There is an alliance limit now.

Yeah. Because that's what made the difference. Fury and legion having so many more members

That sounded pretty arrogant actually so to expand further fury and legion won due to having better organisation, rather than anything to do with numbers. They certainly didn't outnumber STEL (even if you included reborn, well maybe if you included section )

[cura]

It did (the number of members) discourage most alliances to take it up against them and obviously (like you edited) the organisation that brought this result (the number of people unwilling to hit them due to being in vts/fury protected gals etc), I don't recall any "flaw" in the game as being the reason as to why they were so powerfull.
While the ascendancy victory was obviously a flaw in the game.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by El-CuRa

It did discourage most alliances to take it up against them, I don't recall any other "flaw" in the game as being the reason as to why they were so powerfull.
What do you think then made the difference?

Fury and legion didn't have more members. I'm sure in r3 SL had half the ****ing universe, and most of fury/legion in as spies. Certainly in say r2 fury/legion were drastically outnumbered when legion split from WaC. They just had almost all of the good players. By round three the effect was cumulative, all the good/experienced players went and played with all the good players, and everyone else had somewhat less of a chance than a snowball in the lowest level of hell.

I dislike that flaw in the game thinking. It was all out in the open, the closest thing I'd say to a "flaw in the game" we exploited was the resource trick for hiding value. And desse posted that on PD. Nor did I even use it much, I just spent 2 ticks before I landed.

[cura]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I dislike that flaw in the game thinking. It was all out in the open, the closest thing I'd say to a "flaw in the game" we exploited was the resource trick for hiding value. And desse posted that on PD. Nor did I even use it much, I just spent 2 ticks before I landed.

well yeah maybe it was all out in the open, but it wasn't advertised by the PA crew or anything.. and it was "fixed" for this round

with a perhaps stupid comparison:
the bug in windows that enabled people to send advertisement through the msmsgr thingy was out in the open aswell, that doesn't quite make it a feature since it was made obvious by microsoft (just like the XP thing was made obvious by PA crew) that it wasn't meant for that use

[hook]

Originally Posted by El-CuRa

It did (the number of members) discourage most alliances to take it up against them and obviously (like you edited) the organisation that brought this result (the number of people unwilling to hit them due to being in vts/fury protected gals etc), I don't recall any "flaw" in the game as being the reason as to why they were so powerfull.
While the ascendancy victory was obviously a flaw in the game.

I tend to disagree about the numbers issue and agree with JBG here. To me it seems the number of members did not discourage people to take it up against them, but it discouraged people to take it up against them alone, hence quite soon we saw the quantity vs quality alliances (I believe Tuba had like 1k members at a certain point in time (Do correct me if I'm wrong, Lokken), I'm not saying Tuba did not have quality, but in my opinion it's a good example of how being overpowered leads to the obvious creation of quantity-wise big alliances and even powerblocks in a later stage).

So I believe it was down to the superiority in organisation of VtS and Fury in the earlier stages of the game that bigger alliances were created, and that alliances were discouraged to take it up against them on their own (as they couldn't get the quality with the same quantity). The superiority of VtS and Fury was mostly down to snowballing of the 'fear' factor though. When new players joined, they were quite quickly notified by their galaxy that they should not attack VtS/Fury because they were in their gal, or that they should not attack VtS/Fury because they were not in their gal and it'd make them a target.

Like JBG said, it snowballed.

As for Ascendancy, Ascendancy chose a different path in a different game. Comparing R2-R3 with the current rounds is useless, as too much has changed.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by El-CuRa

well yeah maybe it was all out in the open, but it wasn't advertised by the PA crew or anything.. and it was "fixed" for this round

Pateam don't do any advertising in terms of recommending what ships to build or anything though. And just because it was changed doesn't mean it was fixed. We change the formulae and stats all the time, you could theoretically invalidate all previous round wins as "exploiting flaws in the game" with that logic

with a perhaps stupid comparison:
the bug in windows that enabled people to send advertisement through the msmsgr thingy was out in the open aswell, that doesn't quite make it a feature since it was made obvious by microsoft (just like the XP thing was made obvious by PA crew) that it wasn't meant for that use

I have no idea about that bug at all. However it was painfully obvious. There had been so many successful xp planets over the pax rounds.

[lokken]

BlueTuba in round 2 had 1100 members when I "inherited" them.

The point with alliance limits is that they help alliances by giving them manageable amounts of people to coordinate rather than people mass recruiting themselves to oblivion. Fury and Legion were compact, very well organised and capable alliances and thus, were successful. Alliance limits as they are help all levels of the game.

Ascendancy won because of two elements of the game, that were open to everyone and Ascendancy players played it consistently, from tick 1 to the last tick. They were more organised, were excellent tag managers and last round were quite frankly light years ahead of alliances in terms of winning rather than ability, where they were pretty top notch anyway, because they've got players most alliances would kill for. If they were playing seriously, they'd be doing pretty well.

[Kjeldoran]

Originally Posted by lokken

They were more organised, were excellent tag managers and last round were quite frankly light years ahead of alliances in terms of winning rather than ability, where they were pretty top notch anyway, because they've got players most alliances would kill for. If they were playing seriously, they'd be doing pretty well.

I indeed believe Ascendancy would do good if they planned to play seriously that round, though would there be an ascendancy if the setup was to play seriously ... meaning, would you've notched alot of 1up members and others that did not want to trade their sleep for this game?

It's just a question though ...

[lokken]

All I'm saying is that if this bunch decided to play for a win in these conditions, they'd be doing pretty well.

The chance of this is close to zero.

[[N]Ola]

fair play my as*! u guys suck!!

blub

[Squidly]

Originally Posted by [N]Ola

fair play my as*! u guys suck!!

blub

Looks like someone got whacked

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by bwtmc

I spoke to a 'leaders' of most of the aforementioned alliances for a few days to see what was going on and how they were getting on, particularly in those new alliances.

I am particularily fond of this piece of text, as the person responsible of Omen politics at large. Feel free to put partial blame on me over the current situation, but we've been in a deadlock with the constant bickering with NewDawn and Insomnia. So, there's a set scenario where we currently stand in, and we've been aware of your words for before you ever stated them. We do have an arbiter, you know.

Yes, there is a lot of intel - recent ones, regarding yet another "unknown" high ranking cathaar - that tosses a lot of stuff 1up's way, more than their way tag would hold. They deny it, of course, which comes naturally. So towards the end of the round, we'll see, whether the rumors are true or false. And if they tag and merge stronger than the others, then you should contact Insomnia and NewDawn high command on the scenario. Omen is working in frames set to us by outside factions, and certain factors (such as Gate not wanting a new alliance to win and blocking just because he feels bored) do impact our work. Whichever way it goes, someone's making - or made - bad judgements.

Feel free to PM me on NG if you feel like going in-depth with it, I spoke to your mate about this today already.

[lokken]

The fact is that in this situation someone has to be the instigator of proceedings (which no one wants to be) and actually point out bluntly what is needed.

[Thex]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

They certainly didn't outnumber STEL (even if you included reborn, well maybe if you included section )

STEL didn't ever try to take on anyone as a block. The differing politics of the alliances involved meant that they never got the block off the ground nor did they act in unity and therefore essentially Fury+Legion did out number Sedition, TE, Elysium and LOST.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Thex

STEL didn't ever try to take on anyone as a block. The differing politics of the alliances involved meant that they never got the block off the ground nor did they act in unity and therefore essentially Fury+Legion did out number Sedition, TE, Elysium and LOST.

Fair enough but the actual point is that it wasn't the size of the alliances which won it for fury and legion but rather the numbers. Would you disagree there?

[Thex]

Sure - just thought it was a bad example. Particularly as you see a lot of people quoting STEL and saying that block as either badly executed/badly organised/wholly beaten by the dominant 3 of that round, when these people weren't even in STEL or in it's planning.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Thex

Sure - just thought it was a bad example. Particularly as you see a lot of people quoting STEL and saying that block as either badly executed/badly organised/wholly beaten by the dominant 3 of that round, when these people weren't even in STEL or in it's planning.

Fair enough, it's been a long ass time since r3 heh.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by El-CuRa

well yeah maybe it was all out in the open, but it wasn't advertised by the PA crew or anything.. and it was "fixed" for this round

I just did the resource hiding trick, it's not been changed at all from last round.

Last round we had a few players who used it extensively, but it was hardly even a large minority. I used it on handful of attacks myself.

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by Banned

I just did the resource hiding trick, it's not been changed at all from last round.

Last round we had a few players who used it extensively, but it was hardly even a large minority. I used it on handful of attacks myself.

If iirc we mostly/only used it for lowering our value before landing attacks?


Who the hell sat up hiding their resources anyway? Who was the ones being guilty in being too active?

Edit: I don't even know what I understood anymore

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Nadar

If iirc we mostly/only used it for lowering our value before landing attacks?

Err, yes, that's what the point of this discussion is.