Is XP unbalanced?

[MasterAir]

I have come to the conclusion that XP makes the game too attack orientated.

There is little value, it seems to me, in trying to hang on to the roids you have already got. Add to this that score is a combination of value and xp, and having a lower value means increasing the possibility of getting more xp it seems that intentional fleet crashes are a viable tactic this round.

In my opinion this is quite silly.

The question this brings up is, "Is there a way of encouraging attacks, but not to the point where having a low value is a good thing" In order to balance the game, and give the leading players a handicap could the "bravery factor" not just be related to score and not value. Or perhaps some combination of the 2.

Others opinions on this would be greatly appreciated.

[Kargool]

Heh.. I have been saying this for along time. I do think that the game has lost its charm and fun with it only being about attacks and that defending isnt very important anymore.

Sure hope things will change, but if it doesnt things might go quite quickly down to a point where Jolt doesnt bother running PA anymore.

[JonnyBGood]

Seeing as a full round has not been played it would be a bit early to draw conclusions in my opinion. The amount of xp high value planets are going to start getting from roiding each other will start to kick into effect soon and pure xp planets will find it a) more difficult to land and b) more difficult to get the gains from their attacks to keep them at the top. Personally I think having an extra workable tactic in the game makes it far more interesting and enjoyable.

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Seeing as a full round has not been played it would be a bit early to draw conclusions in my opinion. The amount of xp high value planets are going to start getting from roiding each other will start to kick into effect soon and pure xp planets will find it a) more difficult to land and b) more difficult to get the gains from their attacks to keep them at the top. Personally I think having an extra workable tactic in the game makes it far more interesting and enjoyable.

I support that, but the question here is also wether or not PA is made up so that you should be able to defend against the incoming. With stats being put forward as more and more attackfriendly and defence unfriendly, you gotta start think about what we want out of the game. Do we want a game where you can click in two-three times a day, send off an attack, or do we want a community based game that relies on other means to get new players to play.

Its a conflict of intrest that both the PA players and the people running the game need to start considering as a more serious and indepth reason why the nr of new players are fading.

[Nadar]

Kargool, you're a big fan of protecting the new players in this game and not make them run off after the first day. XP is noob-friendly. A noob usually don't wanna spend all his day looking after his planet, so by going for XP, nooby-Joe can still enjoy the game because it makes it easier for him to catch up and being "bashed" doesn't have to be a bad thing for him.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Kargool

I support that, but the question here is also wether or not PA is made up so that you should be able to defend against the incoming. With stats being put forward as more and more attackfriendly and defence unfriendly, you gotta start think about what we want out of the game. Do we want a game where you can click in two-three times a day, send off an attack, or do we want a community based game that relies on other means to get new players to play.

Its a conflict of intrest that both the PA players and the people running the game need to start considering as a more serious and indepth reason why the nr of new players are fading.

You are able to defend against the incoming. It's just that more people build offensive ships than defensive ships, especially towards the start of the round. In general new players enter the game with either a poor impression or their old memories from pre-r10. It's an attacking game but it's not like xp whores are completely absent from the community or something here. Most of them are deeply involved in it. You need to be for such things as scans and organising attacks with other people. People get involved in the community before they start "xp whoring".

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by Nadar

Kargool, you're a big fan of protecting the new players in this game and not make them run off after the first day. XP is noob-friendly. A noob usually don't wanna spend all his day looking after his planet, so by going for XP, nooby-Joe can still enjoy the game because it makes it easier for him to catch up and being "bashed" doesn't have to be a bad thing for him.

I dont agree. XP is not noob-friendly as in that alot of the player's ive seen be new players have been hitting well below their value because of bad fleet composition. XP is good for people with expirience.. Not for the new players that doesnt comprehend the concept.

Losing roids is still one of the biggest reasons why new players quit the game.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Kargool

I dont agree. XP is not noob-friendly as in that alot of the player's ive seen be new players have been hitting well below their value because of bad fleet composition. XP is good for people with expirience.. Not for the new players that doesnt comprehend the concept.

Losing roids is still one of the biggest reasons why new players quit the game.

This is why the manual should come with a big **** off sign that reads "LOSING ROIDS IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD."

[jerome]

this thread happens every round and i repeat the same thing:
xp is not unbalanced.

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by jerome

this thread happens every round and i repeat the same thing:
xp is not unbalanced.

Yes, it happens every round.

I dont get why it happens.

/irony

[jerome]

because you morons don't wait out the whole round to give the game time to balance it out.


but wait! that requres logic/common sense, something which apparently the same people lack every round.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Kargool

Yes, it happens every round.

I dont get why it happens.

/irony

If you want I can start a thread every round about how the problem with PA is that the game is inherently racist. My evidence is the lack of racial diversity in the playerbase. My reasoning is that racism leads to problems on a wider social level. My conclusion is inevitable.

[MasterAir]

Originally Posted by jerome

this thread happens every round and i repeat the same thing:
xp is not unbalanced.

Can you argue your point.

I don't think we should remove xp I just think it could be made more useful in making the game more interesting by changing how it is awarded.

Just saying xp is not unbalanced is not very useful.

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by Kargool

I dont agree. XP is not noob-friendly as in that alot of the player's ive seen be new players have been hitting well below their value because of bad fleet composition. XP is good for people with expirience.. Not for the new players that doesnt comprehend the concept.

Losing roids is still one of the biggest reasons why new players quit the game.

The reason why they quit is because they don't realise that losing roids isn't game over. We can't help noobs understand the aspect of playing the game if they don't care enough to seek help. I certainly wouldn't dream about telling a noob to go for "valuewh0ring" as they'd lose roids and score at an insane speed and thus quit. By making them understand that XP-wh0ring don't affect their score when roided, they most likely ain't gonna quit either.

You say XP-wh0ring is for experienced players. Wrong, wrong and more wrong. You only need to know two things: What ships to build and that you need to target people with more value than yourself, preferably 2x. It's hardly rocket science.

If a noob starts building ships so he has a bit of FI, some CO, some FR etc, then he can't do fkall. On the other hand, if nooby-Joe specialize his fleet to e.g. CR, then he'll have much more firepower to actualy gain the needed roids for XP. Explaining them that shouldn't be hard, nor should it be to understand it.

XP-wh0ring is a good thing for new players since they won't be able to join a good alliance at once. The lack of defence will make his value-planet shit, thus XP-wh0ring will be the best solution.

Edit: XP will even out during the round. Value-wh0res WILL catch up on XP-wh0res. Just give it time.

[jerome]

Originally Posted by MasterAir

Can you argue your point.

I don't think we should remove xp I just think it could be made more useful in making the game more interesting by changing how it is awarded.

Just saying xp is not unbalanced is not very useful.

i apologise
xp is fine, this is because to truly pull it off, a player STILL needs to play active and attack ignoring roid counts actively day in day out every day, he still most likely won't have a chance to win anyway because others can grow bigger easier with bigger amount of roids to gain with bigger fleets etc. as all the other rounds have proven most "xpwhores" are weeded out through the course of the round.

the only issue with xpwhoring is, it's very selfish.

[Seed of Chaos]

Actually I think xp is a bit unbalanced. It's a good concept yes, as it makes n00b bashing less rewarding and and gives the small guys a chance to do well. But it's deminishing the value of defending a bit too much. I'd tweak the contribution of xp to score down just a little else it's just too easy to do well once you understand the concept.

[Nadar]

How would you do that Kretin? Give XP for defending? For every roid you avoided being stolen you get rewarded so and so much XP? :P Could and probably would be abused though.

[jerome]

Originally Posted by Seed of Chaos

Actually I think xp is a bit unbalanced. It's a good concept yes, as it makes n00b bashing less rewarding and and gives the small guys a chance to do well. But it's deminishing the value of defending a bit too much. I'd tweak the contribution of xp to score down just a little else it's just too easy to do well once you understand the concept.

just like it's easy to do well by the "normal" way of playing? what's so skilled/amazing about that? the only thing you need is a good source of defence, other than that it's piss easy.

[Seed of Chaos]

but that puts a bit more emphasis on defence, which is good, right? To get good source of defence you need more organisation etc.

[Banned]

The main problem with XP is the bashlimit.

[Seed of Chaos]

what do you mean?

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Seed of Chaos

what do you mean?

It prevents value players from attacking xp players. There's something wrong about not being able to attack planets that are higher ranked than one's own. That said, I don't think the solution is to remove/lower the bashlimit or have it apply to score instead of value (it should be fairly obvious why both of these ideas are bad). I've tried to think up a simple solution, but have so far failed.

[Seed of Chaos]

hmmm but there's so little to gain from attacking smaller players whose score mainly comes from xp. Why would you want to do something like that?

[jerome]

thats the problem, there's no gain.

[Zeke]

No Xp is balanced, it just looks like as if XP would give you so much score and the players wanting to play the old-fashioned way have no chance.. But thats only in the start of the game. Later when it goes towards the end of the round, the valuehunters will overrun the xp whores, and they wont have a much a chance to catch up. Its because if you are xp whore and land one or two good attacks a day then you get like say 700k score, but if you are a value planet with much roids, you get 500k score just because of buidling ships, and you get more roids in attacks, because you can hit with more ships, so you get around 500k xp score, too. And thats why later the bigsized, bigvalued planets will win.. Dont know if it's still this round, but it has been this way the last rounds...

and to the attack organized game:

What is more fun? Landing an attack, loosing barely nothing, getting 500 roids and 700k score boost, or defend against another planet, forcing him to recall? Come on that isnt too hard. I know its cool to get defence and to kill attacker's fleets, but how often does it happen that one actually lands if there is defence and he cannot get the roids? -> rarely, because nearly everyone got a scanwhore in ally with jgps and doenst want to loose his fleet...

[Alki]

well, i do miss the defence part of the game. but xp is fine, only problem is what jester said

[jerome]

(10:33:55) <@JBG> you know considering the fact that pd has a thread about how people don't deserve the xp points they get and the other one about how the bash limit should be higher i'm thinking the only way to satisfy everyone is to create a game where you're only allowed to attack planets bigger than you and doing this loses you score

[lokken]

XP saved planetarion.

Improved it massively as a game.

And that's a fact.

[taxicabriolet]

I just looked it up in the Random House Webster Dictionary:

ex·pe·ri·ence ( P ) Pronunciation Key (k-spîr-ns)
n.
The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.

Active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill: a lesson taught by experience; a carpenter with experience in roof repair.
The knowledge or skill so derived.

An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.
The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.

The cleveryly thought of device which helped the online game Planetarion.
Has allowed many new strategies to erupt in a once failing game.

tr.v. ex·per·i·enced, ex·per·i·enc·ing, ex·per·i·enc·es
To participate in personally; undergo: experience a great adventure; experienced loneliness.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by idimmu

i think you should get xp for successful defence too maybe perhaps i havent actually thought that idea over it just came to me just now and it seems like a good idea what do you think?

This has been discussed extensively on the planetarion suggestions forum if you want to read more.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by idimmu

i think you should get xp for successful defence too maybe perhaps i havent actually thought that idea over it just came to me just now and it seems like a good idea what do you think?

It has been discussed at length - generally, the points raised were that by providing XP for defence it would detract from the offensive style of play and thus encourage people to play in a "less fun" way, it would reduce the amount and viability of attacking and thus have stagnatory effects. Further, there have been a dozen ways of trying to attribute XP for a "successful" defence, but it raises what is the definition of success? When an attacking fleet recalls? (abusable as people could attack/defend recall all day for massive XP) When losses of defenders exceeds attackers? (in number of ships, value of ships?) when roids are stopped from being lost? (fleets designed to steal often dont take many/any roids thus massive boon for defenders, or even if 1 roid is lost then there is no gain in XP from defending which encourages overkill etc), or so on and so forth.

The problem isnt in concept, the problem is in implentation. So untill a creative way of implementing XP for defence is announced, its a good idea but impractical.

[Bromcrysal]

Ok, Speaking as a noob (well, mostly) I love XP. The fact that I can dodge my fleet out of the way of some great-big alliance's attack, and loose roids, but not too much score, is really comforting. But I don't think XP devalues defence, 'cause you still loose score for getting 'roided. Not only is score based on value (score is a function of value and xp, remember) but loosing roids slows mining, delaying production of ships and slowing growth. your immediate score deduction is minimal, but over the next few ticks you will drop further behind, 'cause you don't have the income to support your progression. but since the xp system spreads the loss out over time, it's easier to tell joe noob something along the lines of, "yeah, you lost 65% of your 'roids, but look... you only lost 5% of your score... you're still in it..." and so-on.

Of course, it's entirely possible that I don't know what I'm talking about

[noah02]

Its balanced because late joiners can reach a higher score quicker gain some ground on what time is lost.

Like if i Joined week 4 out of 8 week round I could possibly score rush my way up the rankings with xp and roids etc... but otherwise I would be stuck in position 2000+ bored out my skin waiting for a new round.
If there is something that is going to give an active late entry chance to move up the ranks because they couldnt make a go of it earlier then I like it.

I would like to point out that this round although i have not tried to go xp whoring i have actually unintionally ended up like that, and it has in a weird way ruined my round already. I started off well, landing several good attacks, good XP and good roids, however because i could not hold onto the roids for more than a few ticks my income was still pretty low. This continued with me attacking 2 fleets per night, but having on average 5 waves incoming to take the roids back. My alliance did there best but obviously this round everyone is attacking more so it was difficult to cover. The result of all that is that my value is very low (due to lack of ships) my score is or rather was pretty high (due to good XP) but now the problem is a struggle to find good targets and find that now i have to chase the smaller inactive planets in order just to get roids. The fact that my value is low just does not detere incomings from larger planets. I'll end by saying that the XP factor is set too high imho 60 is just too high, and that it make this game too attack orientated, and i for one miss the olden days when your score was how much fleet you + your roids (or something like that) that to me was a proper score.

[Shyne]

If XP translated into much smaller score, ie the 60 number was reduced, wouldn't the game still reward attacking?

Holding onto roids increases your score, ability to hold onto further roids, and bigger fleet further advances your ability to attack and defend. This value translates to score.

It'd make fleetcatching much more useful to reduce scores, and I cant believe that noone would attack if xp was low - we all want more roids dont we ?

[taxicabriolet]

Originally Posted by Apu

The fact that my value is low just does not detere incomings from larger planets. I'll end by saying that the XP factor is set too high imho 60 is just too high, and that it make this game too attack orientated, and i for one miss the olden days when your score was how much fleet you + your roids (or something like that) that to me was a proper score.

Although I agree with you on general terms, I would like to point out that value should not be so heavily based on ships and roids. Of course it should incorporate these aspects into value, I dont believe having a massive fleet makes a planet completely valuable.

Constructions should have more of a say in score, and research should be added, because even though no resources have been spent on them, research is an important aspect to how well a planet functions which would add to its forsaid 'value'

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Apu

I would like to point out that this round although i have not tried to go xp whoring i have actually unintionally ended up like that, and it has in a weird way ruined my round already. I started off well, landing several good attacks, good XP and good roids, however because i could not hold onto the roids for more than a few ticks my income was still pretty low. This continued with me attacking 2 fleets per night, but having on average 5 waves incoming to take the roids back. My alliance did there best but obviously this round everyone is attacking more so it was difficult to cover. The result of all that is that my value is very low (due to lack of ships) my score is or rather was pretty high (due to good XP) but now the problem is a struggle to find good targets and find that now i have to chase the smaller inactive planets in order just to get roids. The fact that my value is low just does not detere incomings from larger planets. I'll end by saying that the XP factor is set too high imho 60 is just too high, and that it make this game too attack orientated, and i for one miss the olden days when your score was how much fleet you + your roids (or something like that) that to me was a proper score.

How is this an argument against xp? My score was high for a while but I lost ships due to constant incoming and now I find it difficult to get good targets. The only bit of this that is related to xp is "I had a high score". Are you complaining that you had a high score and now you don't because your alliance/galaxy couldn't defend your roids? This might come as a bit of a shock but this happened pre-xp as well.