The new way to balance things

[Little Timmy]

At the current time there are approximatley 1400 free planets in the universe. What we are going to do is stop the ticks at tick 72 (18:00 GMT Saturday). At this point we are going to shuffle ALL the free planets in the universe into the free slots to make the universe as level as possible. Upgraded planets will NOT be moved. The free planets will be ranked on the basis of roidcount and general activity and placed within the universe in order to prevent some galaxies ending up with complete sets of 0 'roids 0 activity planets. Once this is done the game will be accessible again and ticks will resume.

In brief:
- The plan to allow 1-off self-exiles has been ABANDONED.
- At tick 72 (18:00 GMT, 19:00 UK, 20:00 Europe) the ticker will be STOPPED.
- FREE planets will then be shuffled and placed in the universe with activity levels spread as evenly as possible
- PAID planets will NOT be moved.
- Ticks will resume once this process has been completed.
- We apologise for the disruption this has caused to the start of the round.




Well thats the bits that effect the players. Ive said all i can really say to the PA Team on this. So rather than all the other threads getting confused i thought I would create thios one concerning the announcement .

So you can post away.

All its done for me is made me realise Ive now played this game for too long.

[Jaime]

It's a good idea to a messed up sitituation.

I'm for it

[DunkelGraf]

Does this really help ?

By removing/shuffeling the unpaids only now, will remove/replace the inactives for the big gals, which does absolute no harm to those gals and is in some way welcomed.
For the small gals, especially those 5 planet priv ones it only places some inactives into their gal, which are surely not wanted or needed. This does not help them in any way. And i dont think that those inactives will upgrade then if they havent done it before while being in a bigger gal .
But i think its worst for the totally random gals. Imagine a gal of 10 ppl. Lets say 4 of em upgraded right at the beginning and stranded in such a gal. The rest consists of 6 unpaid/inactive ones. After the shuffle their randoms will be removed/replaced and then those 4 paid will stay in that gal but having maybe only 4 unpaid/inactives left. So the situation is even worse....

Thats just the way i see it..... maybe im wrong..... although i have never been wrong in anything before :-)

[LordBrem]

Originally Posted by DunkelGraf

Does this really help ?


But i think its worst for the totally random gals. Imagine a gal of 10 ppl. Lets say 4 of em upgraded right at the beginning and stranded in such a gal. The rest consists of 6 unpaid/inactive ones. After the shuffle their randoms will be removed/replaced and then those 4 paid will stay in that gal but having maybe only 4 unpaid/inactives left. So the situation is even worse....

Thats just the way i see it..... maybe im wrong..... although i have never been wrong in anything before :-)

If you go random, you deserve a bad gal.

[Veil05]

Originally Posted by LordBrem

If you go random, you deserve a bad gal.

twat.

[Nology]

The bigger gals already abused the randomization system. Just look at the top galaxies and tell me they didn't exile till they got ten fully active and paid accounts. The damage has already been done, now it won't make much of a difference save making it harder or easier for those galaxies.

[Shaithess]

Originally Posted by Veil05

twat.

I agree. I generally love going random. I went random for 2 rounds, and had a private gal for 1. The private gal I found to be the most boring round I've ever played. Perhaps it was because PaX.5 sucked, but even in the boring bits at the end of PaX I ended up having plenty of fun due to getting a fantastic and diverse random gal together. PaXI was a fun gal too with plenty of people who were great to chat and mess around with, but I wouldn't have met anyway.

As long as there are decent people to do this with, then I don't overly care about their skill, as community matters more to me

This is a reasonable way of doing things IMO, hopefully next round will improve slightly though.

[Veil05]

indeed, in theory this is a great idea, but unfortunatly for us, its fell flat on its face.

Originally Posted by Nology

The bigger gals already abused the randomization system. Just look at the top galaxies and tell me they didn't exile till they got ten fully active and paid accounts. The damage has already been done, now it won't make much of a difference save making it harder or easier for those galaxies.

and they havnt abused anything, they paid resources from there own pocket to make there galaxy better, its called being a team player.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Nology

The bigger gals already abused the randomization system. Just look at the top galaxies and tell me they didn't exile till they got ten fully active and paid accounts. The damage has already been done, now it won't make much of a difference save making it harder or easier for those galaxies.

its actually quite unlikelt that unless the spent all of their resoruces they would have top gals. ANd if they spent all of their resoruces they wouldn;t be top gals. Though I might go around investigating this.

[Gio2k]

This is just an idea, but how about assigning each random (free) planet a rank, according to their activity. Then assign galaxies a rank according to the number of paid planets in them and the avg activity of the gal. Galaxies with less paid planets get a higher rank/priority, so that they get higher ranked free accounts before those gals with more paid planets. I can imagine a solution like this would make galaxies a bit more even.

Just my 2 cents. Comment away.

[mist]

gio, if you read the announcement you'll notice that the shuffle is going to include some sorting by activity - pretty much exactly like you suggested, i believe

-mist

[barney]

Originally Posted by Kal

Though I might go around investigating this.

sorry i don't understand what is there to investigate, there is no cheating going on there is nothing wrong with this practice as far as i can see isn't that the whole point of the exile function to get rid of ppl who arn't compatable with your gal, and im fairly sure inactives are incompatable with most peoples galaxies???

[Kal]

Originally Posted by barney

sorry i don't understand what is there to investigate, there is no cheating going on there is nothing wrong with this practice as far as i can see isn't that the whole point of the exile function to get rid of ppl who arn't compatable with your gal, and im fairly sure inactives are incompatable with most peoples galaxies???

i meant investigate how succesful the tactic is

[CrazyConrad]

Originally Posted by mist

gio, if you read the announcement you'll notice that the shuffle is going to include some sorting by activity - pretty much exactly like you suggested, i believe

-mist

Yes mist, thats also exactly what Kal told me on irc.

The only problem now is that IF most of the active random ones have already payed this shuffle wont do shit and we will still have an unfair universe where some gals got 8-9-10 active players and some got only 5. If this is the case they should limit the gals to 8 players max and fill up most gals to make it fair, otherwise the round is basically screwed already for those of us in a 5 man gal.

[Gerbie]

Originally Posted by CrazyConrad

Yes mist, thats also exactly what Kal told me on irc.

The only problem now is that IF most of the active random ones have already payed this shuffle wont do shit and we will still have an unfair universe where some gals got 8-9-10 active players and some got only 5. If this is the case they should limit the gals to 8 players max and fill up most gals to make it fair, otherwise the round is basically screwed already for those of us in a 5 man gal.

So what do you do then with galaxies with 9 or 10 paid planets?

[Desse]

Either shuffle all randoms, or reimburse the people in 5 man galaxies, who got screwed by jolt/pa-team's faulty code.

If reimbursement is not possible, then give them free credits for next round.

[mist]

Originally Posted by CrazyConrad

If this is the case they should limit the gals to 8 players max and fill up most gals to make it fair, otherwise the round is basically screwed already for those of us in a 5 man gal.

exactly how would this make a difference?

-mist

[Little Timmy]

In the mean time ; still dont think its fixed; any new created randoms or planets that exile out automatically go to a free spot in a high scoring galaxy.

so you could create a new planet or exile out and you'll get in a high ranking galaxy.

which is great, but wont leave very many active randoms for the merge.

I no someone who did this today and ended up in a gal in the top 40.

[Little Timmy]

Originally Posted by Desse

Either shuffle all randoms, or reimburse the people in 5 man galaxies, who got screwed by jolt/pa-team's faulty code.

If reimbursement is not possible, then give them free credits for next round.

What would they do with a free credit ?

[CrazyConrad]

To Gerbie and mist:

They reduce the 9-10 planets gal to 8 by moving moving 1-2 randoms into a smaller gal.
I basically dont give a shit if thats not "fair" to those gals or players. Only thing I wanna see is a fair as possible round for the majority.

If most of the randoms have payed now (or before the shuffle) the shuffle will be totally useless and round is ****ed for most of the 5 planet gals.

[mist]

unless there's a *huge* rush of paying, that will not be the case

-mist

[barney]

Originally Posted by Kal

i meant investigate how succesful the tactic is

sorry m8 i must have misunderstood the post i for one can tell you it is VERY successful and was the cornerstone to a top 25 finish last round.

[Shev]

Originally Posted by Little Timmy

What would they do with a free credit ?

So true. I hope that the whole 'Galaxy Rank' garbage is removed for this round, since PA Team have decided to start us on such different levels. It used to be an acievement.

Ok, I'm being very negative here - I appreciate that at least some effort is being made to make a mistake have as little influence as possible.

[Kileman]

I believe the fairest option is to keep all the buddy packs together and randomise the rest of the universe - paid or not. Sure if gals paid for people that is there own problem, it honestly cant be that many. And quite a few galaxys paid for randoms who then went and joined their own private gals anyway.

But for the gals that had a pack of 5, then got 5 unpaid randoms, swapping them with another lot of 5 unpaid randoms is honestly just a waste of time, as I dont honestly believe that any random that has plans to pay wouldnt of paid by now (unless they made multiple accounts to find a good gal).

So please randomise the randomness.... its the only way to have a fair round.
________
Bmw Welt History

[Conall]

Originally Posted by Kileman

I believe the fairest option is to keep all the buddy packs together and randomise the rest of the universe - paid or not. ........

So please randomise the randomness.... its the only way to have a fair round.

Kileman is right. Jolt/PATeam need to shuffle all planets from 6-10. The problem is that some galaxies got filled with randoms, active or not, and other galaxies did not. This gives those galaxies that did get filled a huge advantage. The have the option of paying for their randoms accounts to hold on to the most active players. I know I would have galdly done so, but did not have that option as our galaxy never came close to getting filled. So the most active randoms will be held onto and the lesat actives let go. Those that were full now have the additional advantage of potentially getting randoms that were more active than the ones they decided not to hold on to. Those galaxies that never got above 5 or 6 are drastically hurt. This puts way to much of the game into random luck rather than skill or hard work.

I have been bemused by the rants of many about Jolts poor performance. I have always taken the stance that this is a business and needs to run as such, so many of Jolts choices made sense based on business even if unpopular. However, this time I can not see the business logic. This round began screwed up due to a failure on Jolts programming, not a business decision. The solution seems bare out many of the peost I have scoffed at, that Jolt really doesnt care about this community.

[Veil05]

Originally Posted by Kileman

I believe the fairest option is to keep all the buddy packs together and randomise the rest of the universe - paid or not. Sure if gals paid for people that is there own problem, it honestly cant be that many. And quite a few galaxys paid for randoms who then went and joined their own private gals anyway.

But for the gals that had a pack of 5, then got 5 unpaid randoms, swapping them with another lot of 5 unpaid randoms is honestly just a waste of time, as I dont honestly believe that any random that has plans to pay wouldnt of paid by now (unless they made multiple accounts to find a good gal).

So please randomise the randomness.... its the only way to have a fair round.

[Nology]

Even with the really good randoms we got I have to agree. It makes it fair for everyone and levels the field given some people already have 9 paid actives (see top 10 gals) and then exile the one they don't have and get the active randoms. Now I'll admit my gal will get an advantage from this sortment because of our set up so I'm not excluded from losing a lot from what I'm agreeing too but I do think its a better idea.

[CrazyConrad]

Originally Posted by Kileman

I believe the fairest option is to keep all the buddy packs together and randomise the rest of the universe - paid or not. Sure if gals paid for people that is there own problem, it honestly cant be that many. And quite a few galaxys paid for randoms who then went and joined their own private gals anyway.

But for the gals that had a pack of 5, then got 5 unpaid randoms, swapping them with another lot of 5 unpaid randoms is honestly just a waste of time, as I dont honestly believe that any random that has plans to pay wouldnt of paid by now (unless they made multiple accounts to find a good gal).

So please randomise the randomness.... its the only way to have a fair round.

[jerome]

Originally Posted by Kileman

I believe the fairest option is to keep all the buddy packs together and randomise the rest of the universe - paid or not. Sure if gals paid for people that is there own problem, it honestly cant be that many. And quite a few galaxys paid for randoms who then went and joined their own private gals anyway.

But for the gals that had a pack of 5, then got 5 unpaid randoms, swapping them with another lot of 5 unpaid randoms is honestly just a waste of time, as I dont honestly believe that any random that has plans to pay wouldnt of paid by now (unless they made multiple accounts to find a good gal).

So please randomise the randomness.... its the only way to have a fair round.

Logic!
omg wtf, you used logic! if only the people making the decision used their`s better. (heh)

[x-dANGEr]

I have one comment, it seems taht there is a saying in this place says that only paid(upgraded)planets are active, i can't see why, i see taht a lot of planets aren't active, but i am and myplanet is free.

[Gerbie]

Originally Posted by Conall

Kileman is right. Jolt/PATeam need to shuffle all planets from 6-10. The problem is that some galaxies got filled with randoms, active or not, and other galaxies did not. This gives those galaxies that did get filled a huge advantage. The have the option of paying for their randoms accounts to hold on to the most active players. I know I would have galdly done so, but did not have that option as our galaxy never came close to getting filled. So the most active randoms will be held onto and the lesat actives let go. Those that were full now have the additional advantage of potentially getting randoms that were more active than the ones they decided not to hold on to. Those galaxies that never got above 5 or 6 are drastically hurt. This puts way to much of the game into random luck rather than skill or hard work.

I have been bemused by the rants of many about Jolts poor performance. I have always taken the stance that this is a business and needs to run as such, so many of Jolts choices made sense based on business even if unpopular. However, this time I can not see the business logic. This round began screwed up due to a failure on Jolts programming, not a business decision. The solution seems bare out many of the peost I have scoffed at, that Jolt really doesnt care about this community.

This is a business alright. Although I agree with most of what is said. I do not think you can just overlook the planets that paid for their galmates. I didn't do it this time as I never got random galmates. But I wouldn't do it as long as I wasn't sure my galmate would stay. It therefor makes sense from a business point of view on the long term.
Removing the galaxy codes gives additional security that a galmate you paid for will not disappear.

[Conall]

Originally Posted by Gerbie

This is a business alright. Although I agree with most of what is said. I do not think you can just overlook the planets that paid for their galmates. I didn't do it this time as I never got random galmates. But I wouldn't do it as long as I wasn't sure my galmate would stay. It therefor makes sense from a business point of view on the long term.
Removing the galaxy codes gives additional security that a galmate you paid for will not disappear.

I dont disagree with you Gerbie, you can't just overlook those that paid for gal mates. However, that was an option they had, to choose to pay for them or not. Those that never got full or even close to full galaxies never had that option. The major advantage comes from they fact that full galaxies DO have that option while others do not. It leads to as close to fully private galaxies as one can get without cheating. It seems a bit unfair that some galaxies have had the choice while others have not.

It is also not fair that I have paid for 2 accounts (1 for me and 1 for my wife) and we both have no randoms in our galaxies, active or otherwise. Statistically we will both end up with 3-4 inactive playes and 1-2 active, while galaxies that were "lucky" have 9 or even 10 actives. That takes the competitiveness out of the game right away.

BTW - as an aside, since we may have new coords after the shuffle I assume we need to go through the process of emailing phil our information again as well.

[Conall]

Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

I have one comment, it seems taht there is a saying in this place says that only paid(upgraded)planets are active, i can't see why, i see taht a lot of planets aren't active, but i am and myplanet is free.

It is simple logic that most of the inactive planets are unpaid. If you have paid you are playing, maybe not at a high level but you are playing. It was stated that there were 1400 unpaid accounts but I imagine that number is smaller now, because people are trying to hang onto active players. But even with 1400 nearly half of those have 18 or fewer roids (almwost 300 with 0 roids), meaning they are not active. I think it is a safe bet that at least 90-95% of those are unpaid. There are close to 1400 planets with 100 or less roids, and at this stage of the round 100 or least roids hardly qualifies as uber active. That said I would certainly like to have some of those with closer to 100 than those with 18.

[Gerbie]

Originally Posted by Conall

I dont disagree with you Gerbie, you can't just overlook those that paid for gal mates. However, that was an option they had, to choose to pay for them or not. Those that never got full or even close to full galaxies never had that option. The major advantage comes from they fact that full galaxies DO have that option while others do not. It leads to as close to fully private galaxies as one can get without cheating. It seems a bit unfair that some galaxies have had the choice while others have not.

It is also not fair that I have paid for 2 accounts (1 for me and 1 for my wife) and we both have no randoms in our galaxies, active or otherwise. Statistically we will both end up with 3-4 inactive playes and 1-2 active, while galaxies that were "lucky" have 9 or even 10 actives. That takes the competitiveness out of the game right away.

I agree with your motivation. The problem is what weighs more: people that upgraded a random galmate or people that like to have the chance of having a paid random player in their galaxies. I can understand it if PA team would weigh the arguments different than you do. It just makes more sense from a commercial point of view. They want to have galmates pay for random galmates again next round.

BTW - as an aside, since we may have new coords after the shuffle I assume we need to go through the process of emailing phil our information again as well.

I'd just do that to be on the safe side.

[Stifler]

Originally Posted by Kileman

I believe the fairest option is to keep all the buddy packs together and randomise the rest of the universe - paid or not. Sure if gals paid for people that is there own problem, it honestly cant be that many. And quite a few galaxys paid for randoms who then went and joined their own private gals anyway.

But for the gals that had a pack of 5, then got 5 unpaid randoms, swapping them with another lot of 5 unpaid randoms is honestly just a waste of time, as I dont honestly believe that any random that has plans to pay wouldnt of paid by now (unless they made multiple accounts to find a good gal).

So please randomise the randomness.... its the only way to have a fair round.

[Stifler]

Originally Posted by Gerbie

I can understand it if PA team would weigh the arguments different than you do. It just makes more sense from a commercial point of view. They want to have galmates pay for random galmates again next round.

and if they don't do something fair they will probably lose more players then just a couple of people not paying for RANDOM gal mates. If they don't get shuffled as well its like saying soome of you can have a 7,8,9,10 player "private" gal and some of you just 5 and you lot have to try convince your randoms to pay or get killed.

I say "private" because although they didnt chose to start together, shuffles are normally there to mix the universe up including all randoms to different places not just those who didnt pay, therefore these gals have got to know each while those with not enough paid planets will be starting off on a "lower" footing after shuffle

(some bits may need reading twice but I need to rush out, so cant proof read)

[Gerbie]

Originally Posted by Stifler

and if they don't do something fair they will probably lose more players then just a couple of people not paying for RANDOM gal mates. If they don't get shuffled as well its like saying soome of you can have a 7,8,9,10 player "private" gal and some of you just 5 and you lot have to try convince your randoms to pay or get killed.

I say "private" because although they didnt chose to start together, shuffles are normally there to mix the universe up including all randoms to different places not just those who didnt pay, therefore these gals have got to know each while those with not enough paid planets will be starting off on a "lower" footing after shuffle

(some bits may need reading twice but I need to rush out, so cant proof read)

It's always hard to do a good guess on these things. They might lose some players in the future, because of this choice. But I don't think that will be many. It will not weigh up against the amount of randoms that usually gets upgraded by galmates.

People might upgrade their galmates to get this unfair advantage this round. Pay or get killed indd. Well this is a business. I don't like it, but that's how things work.

[Conall]

Originally Posted by Gerbie

I agree with your motivation. The problem is what weighs more: people that upgraded a random galmate or people that like to have the chance of having a paid random player in their galaxies. I can understand it if PA team would weigh the arguments different than you do. It just makes more sense from a commercial point of view. They want to have galmates pay for random galmates again next round.



I'd just do that to be on the safe side.

Hey Gerbie - I disagree with you somewhat. What weighs more isn't people that paid for randoms vs people who want active randoms. The issue is that people who ar paying equally need to have the same random opportunity as each other. For example, if you purchsaed into a competition, lets say an auto race, and everyone purchsaed in at the same amount. When you purchsaed in everyone knew there was a bit of random luck involved, but it was defined, an it was statistically likely to be evenly spread. Regardless of the luck factor, skills still would be most of the factor in winning. Now as everyone is purchasing in to get their auto there is a glitch on the system, some racers are able to get fully outfitted while others are not. Additionally, if they choose to pay a bit more, those that were fully outfitted have the opportunity to choose which of the best auto features they wish to hold onto and jetison the remaining in hopes of getting even better features. While the others still waiting on the sideline to get what was jetisioned by the others, with zero option of buyin up the better options.

I bought into this competition like others, with a simple expectation of basically the same randomness as the rest of the players. Win or loose it was up to my skills because everything was basicaslly level. Now that is not the case.

From a business stand point you have a few options.
1. Wipe the slate clean and start over - either with fully private gals or by just doing a reset and allowing everyone to join again.
2. Shuffe all planets 6 through 10 - since they were never members of the private galaxy.
3. Do what they are doing
4. I am sure there are a few more options if stopped to think of them.

The point is Jolt has has choosen to create a pay to win system by following this course. Pay to win has been highly discouraged (ie no multis etc) yet this is exactly what Jolt has created here.

As fo rJolts decisions not causing players to leave. I can only say that based on the numbers PA has about 20-25% less players at this stage of the game than last round. I can only beleive that these types of mistakes will continue to drive those numbers down. After all who wants to pay for a game that is not equally fair to all its players.

[Synthetic_Sid]

The sad thing is, all of this was predictable. PA team asked for feedback from alliance reps over a month ago. The following is a post I made on September 19th (after which the thread pretty much died):

-----

Maybe there is a decent compromise solution.

I assume everyone accepts the necessity of a shuffle after ticks have started in anything other than a fully private universe: not just to prevent cheating but also to prevent accusations of cheating due to lucky coincidences. That then allows for the following situation:

Private galaxies of up to X members are created. Those who choose to go random are placed into different galaxies.

At some stage during protection, the shuffle/merge occurs.

1. Partial paid private galaxies are merged, to take them to (or as near as possible to) size X.
2. Paid planets that went random are then added to private galaxies that are still below size X to take them to size X.
3. Remaining paid planets that went random are used to create new galaxies of size X.
4. If private free galaxies are allowed then these are also merged as in stages 1/2. Private galaxies with mixed paid/free would be treated as paid.
4. Free planets are distributed evenly across the galaxies to take them to full size.
5. Any remaining free planets are made into free-only galaxies.

This would ensure that all paid planets had a fairly fair start relative to one another. If the shuffle were done farily late in protection, and free planets who hadn't logged in for 24 hours were deleted first, it should also give free planets a fair start. The shuffle HAS to be done after ticks have started - as there are some opportunities to get a better than average galaxy if it isn't.

The numbers involved (how big is X) is something I can't advise on: to work out the best number (to give all free planets a fair start) you need to predict how many paid and free planets there will be and I lack the data to do that.

My suggestion would at least reduce the pressure to block - as alliances could make smaller private groupings and know that they wouldn't be penalised by ending up with a bunch of inactive free planets filling up their galaxies.

It is important to treat paid randoms and free randoms differently. Inactive galaxy members is what most players dread - and free planets are far more likely to be inactive than paid ones.

[Ferretus]

The simple solution to all this is shuffle members 6-10. More importantly announce this and also stop the ticker for 24hrs, better still knock is back to 1 and start over. This gives people the opportunity to fix the problems of reorganising the cluster naps, exile the inactives and plan galaxy member strategy.

Currently we will go live with no protection and no opportunity to fix the problem. Also, when do we go live? We are currently overdue.

[Desse]

Originally Posted by Kileman

I believe the fairest option is to keep all the buddy packs together and randomise the rest of the universe - paid or not. Sure if gals paid for people that is there own problem, it honestly cant be that many. And quite a few galaxys paid for randoms who then went and joined their own private gals anyway.

But for the gals that had a pack of 5, then got 5 unpaid randoms, swapping them with another lot of 5 unpaid randoms is honestly just a waste of time, as I dont honestly believe that any random that has plans to pay wouldnt of paid by now (unless they made multiple accounts to find a good gal).

So please randomise the randomness.... its the only way to have a fair round.

This solution was offered to PA-team by several Alliance HC but rejected.

[Ferretus]

LOL. OMG how dim!