The problem isn't the game....

[Amycus]

It is the tactics people now use to play this game.

I think the only way to fix it is to limit the importance of the alliance. Not remove the alliance, but make them less important than the galaxy.

If you make the alliance less important then it should lessen the want to use dirty tactics people use to further the goals of their alliance. This should, in turn, not ruin the game 1000 ticks into it.

Now who cares right? The round is almost over at that point right? The problem lies with the amount of people that don't return the next round due to these end of round tactics.

What are possible fixes?

First an alliance limit of 50.

Second we could maybe make the winning alliance less important, and focus more the winning galaxy. Maybe even focus a little more on best of race. We also have the winning planet of course. Anything to make people think more about their planet and galaxy, and less on doing every little dirty deed they have to to make sure their alliance wins the round.

Third we could bring back alliance tagging like in the early rounds. People are going to know what alliance you are in anyway because they are going to make people do what they have to to find out. This would remove the need to spy on your galaxy, and would make spying on other alliances be more for fleet movements like it was in the old days. Makes it more tactical and less dirty.

Last just remove alliance mergers, and maybe make people wait like 2 weeks to join another alliance after leaving one. Maybe that will stop all this leap frogging we get now days.

[Shyne]

I like the idea of a longer wait than 3 days if you leave your alliance. How about 7 ?

Alliances that disband or collapse should have 3 days or whatever the current system is.

[Cowmando]

I must say that a lot would argue the reverse that a lot of the problems come from people playing for their planet and galaxy instead of their alliance. I also think with the current member base the alliance limit should be reduced some what (although I beleive it was made high this round as they were expecting more players than turned up as this is normally the most popular round of the year). I would be against alliance tagging as working out intel is one of the few aspects of the game with more than a small amount of skill involved, although bringing it back could make an interesing spin to try perhapps next time there is a free round or something. I am not to fond of the alliance mergers thing although it is actually designed to help smaller alliance merge to be come a better fighting force through gaining experiance, officers and players, but it is able to be exploited in it's current form. The problem with increaseing the amount of time between alliances is that it is almost a case by case thing as to why you left/were kicked from your previouse alliance so i think that 3 days is fair as punshing those who do wrong is less important than not hindering those who left for a good reason.

[Monroe]

Alliances have always been the catch-22 of PA. They are the key to making the game fun, as attacking with organized groups is the only way to be consistently successful. At the same time these allies are also the death of PA because if one ally or group of allies collude and thereby dominate the game they can place a strangle hold on the entire game. In addition by their nature Allies are always trying to win, so they are always looking for ways to legally (and sometimes illegally) exploit the game code to their advantage. Without allies frankly this game would be totally boring, with them however the PA community has the constant threat of the ussuage of tactics by allies to damage the community. So then it becomes a question of how to deal with these issues. The PA Team is spending and has spent significant time discussing how to balance the advantages of allies with the disadvantages of allies and are continuing to be open to all reasonable suggestions in this arena.

[Kargool]

As i've almost repeatedly said throughout a couple of rounds now, and I will continue to do it. The game needs more dynamic alliance limits, it needs more dynamic galaxy sizes and it needs dynamic buddypack sizes. With the current system things are not balanced at all.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Kargool

As i've almost repeatedly said throughout a couple of rounds now, and I will continue to do it. The game needs more dynamic alliance limits, it needs more dynamic galaxy sizes and it needs dynamic buddypack sizes. With the current system things are not balanced at all.

What do you mean by dynamic? More variance in size?

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by Monroe

What do you mean by dynamic? More variance in size?

With the current size of the universe, galaxies now are 1,3% of the universe, that is way way to much. The galaxy size havent changed in the last couple of rounds and i think its about time to look the truth in the face and downscale the galaxy size.

With an 80 member limit and aprox 2000 planets (the actual number is probably more like 1800) an alliance can now look at an influence over 5% of the universe.

Also, waging war has begun to be grosly ineffective in the current galaxysized universe, explicit targetpicking of planets is more or less hugely difficult due to this. (some big alliances manage to do this, but not many) The alliancesize needs a downscale based on that.

A quick statistics look at Alliance Members: 1,170 <-- That is the current number of members in an alliance whatever the alliance is etc. With all due respect to the non allied planets, i know there is a few out there being active. But 1170 is the number you should look at more or less if u want to see how many active players there are out there.

1170 is also probably to big, because in that number there is alot of inactive players that doesnt play anymore. But then you can start to imagine how big 80 members in one alliance is. Almost 10% of the active coremass of PA can be in -one- alliance.


Reduce galaxy size by maybe as far as 10, reduce alliance size by around 30, and we will get a more balanced universe.

The numbers are out there staring you straight in the face people.

[Shyne]

Originally Posted by Kargool

As i've almost repeatedly said throughout a couple of rounds now, and I will continue to do it. The game needs more dynamic alliance limits, it needs more dynamic galaxy sizes and it needs dynamic buddypack sizes. With the current system things are not balanced at all.

How do you propose dynamic buddypack sizes are implemented ?

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by Shyne

How do you propose dynamic buddypack sizes are implemented ?

There is no way to do this, other than perhaps try and fit 2-3 bp's in same gals, but most likely, and prolly best for the game would be to put bp's down to 2 or 3 in one buddypack. There is sadly not enough players to go around to justify 5 members buddypacks as it is now.

[The_Tyrant]

I know why they were removed but the cluster eta bonus' gave the game a whole extra layer of loyalties.

could this not be re-intruduced now we have the disband galaxy option?

[RaVNick]

A thought. Feedback?

Prior to the suffle alliances must have at least 10 members. All alliances without 10 members will be disbanded. Alliance may not be greated during game play.

After the shuffle, 10 random members from each alliance are placed into the same Galaxy. Thus creating an alliance home galaxy. The idea being is alliances are huge in this game but ingal play is just as fun at times and essential to a good game not only for vets but for new players. The alliance galaxy will be taged and knowen to all. The incentive for gal play becomes tough which is why I am thinking a reward for galaxys who reach certain levels (ie. size, value, and score). The reward would be 1hr less travel time to home ally galaxy. So ingal you would have to help in order to get the reduced travel time. Another element that I though could be also roids that only benefit is to create a bonus if in home ally galaxy. If it is in any other galaxy it is a galaxy bonus for end of round. With the reduced travel time to ally as a bonus now it only takes 5hrs to defend a home world. Creating an end of round riot to try and take down a home galaxy (being the point to ally play). Maybe a capture the flag style and only so much damage to the gal in a 24 tick time period takes the flag. I think this would also benefit new players who don't have an ally and have a hard time playing and learning the game cause the rest of the gal is only concerned about ally. This way eveyone whould have to work together and strategy to get flags and special roids back to home gal whould add a whole seperate aspect. Attacking your own ally member from ally home galaxy to get the captured flag/roid back to home galaxy.

Thoughts?

RaV

[DarkHeart]

a good idea RaVNick, was wondering would that mean all noobs without an ally would get clumped in a gals with fellow allianceless noobs? and also

current alliance limit is 80, with a 10 man gal all made up of one alliance, with 2 fleets out attacking and 1 fleet out defending, you would have 1/8 of an alliance, or in better perspective, one whole gal with 3 fleet out.

Im pondering if your suggestion in it's current form might limit the 'home galaxy's' attacking and defending potential due to having a maximum of 3 fleets each

[RaVNick]

After the shuffle ya all new players (I hate the word noob) whould be shuffled up into the universe same as it is now. And, also let me clarify too only the home galaxy would be knowen as alliance members the rest of the ally's would be spread out same as now. This is also why I suggested the roid bonus to aid small alliance that capture more of the special roids. And I am not talkin like 5 special roids I am talking like 2 per gal in game. at a .075% bonus to score at the end of the game.

Recruiting new players by smaller alliances through-out the game would be essential so the would have to reach out to the newer players hopefully the most convienient as the players from there own galaxy. Thus creating more ingal play and a stronger alliance. If of course they can grow in the shadows. Take over whole galaxy's and such assimilate if you will >:O)

The more I think about this the more I wanna try it, I think seriously it will add something to the game and maybe better, The battles at the end of game would be huge no battle calc help cause there would be so many def and attacking you couldn't scan them all and calc it.

Keep it commin.. Maybe we got something here

RaV