Can we please have some professional and consistent administration?

[Furyous]

This thread is made in response to the PA crew decision not to rollback the game OR recall fleets due to the ticker fault and downtime over the past day. Whether or not you support this decision for your personal planetary gain, please consider the following.

This is the stated PA crew guidelines for downtime policy:

http://pirate.planetarion.com/showpo...3&postcount=15

According to these guidelines, any unplanned downtime exceeding 80 minutes should result in a full recall of fleets and possibly resource distribution. Whether or not you agree with this, it remains the 'rough' policy outilne (and PA crew like to stress that it is not a set rule).

Now, I don't intend to go into the advantages and disadvantages of all different courses of action. But quite simply what the PA crew have done is give a severe disadvantages to those people AND whole alliances who tactically choose to launch later than usual.

With the game frozen at 11am, an eta 4 or below attack is either through or it is not, as would happen anyway. It had exactly the chance it should have had of getting through on any night. But for an eta 7-9 attack, the target has an extra 24 hours (and defence can be launched at any point) to get both alliance and galaxy defence, and for an eta 5-6 attack the target has an extra 24 hours to find gal defence only. In effect, the chance of an eta 7-9 attack getting through is now pretty close to nil, and the chance of a 5-6 attack getting through is also considerably less than it would otherwise be. So the chance of an eta 5+ getting through is much less than it would be on any other night.. In effect, the decision to continue, and let people login for the full 'ticker-less' period has more or less made useless the night for those whose fleets are still eta 5+ to target, and not affected those with eta 4 or less whatsoever. What would improve things slightly is to take the game completely down for this period such that people can't launch defence until the ticker is back up again.

With a fleet recall situation, or indeed a rollback, time will have been wasted. People who got through will have to take their chance again. People who found defence will have to call for it again. BUT every single player once again has the same chance of getting through on their target. There is no penalising of players based on what time they (or their alliance) chooses to launch. There is no relative unfairness. Just some upset people.

What I am primarily concerned with is why the PA crew decided against the 'considered' (and, in my opinion, eminently justified) course of action in this instance. Having spoken to A2 in #support, (who, unlike Cin, was patient and polite about it), their decision was based solely on the fact that 70% of hostile fleets were eta 4 or below and only 30% eta 5 or above at the time the ticker went down. So their decision not to recall fleets was as not to upset the greater number of players, rather than for any consistent policy or real reasoning. In doing so, they have effectively condemned the attacks of 30% of the memberbase, rather than reverting to a situation where everyone once again has an equal chance.

I'm quite sure this decision will not be reversed, and that is not the point of this thread. This instance simply demonstrates what I find, and have always found, so frustrating about the PA crew: They will enforce rediculous rules (alliance score, support planets etc etc), and they will occasionally when pushed state rough policy (as with the link above) but they are very rarely consistent with contentious decisions and seem to think they are almost completely unaccountable. But this is not a charity, this is a commercial enterprise and we pay for this game (I must have bought over 40 credits in my time = £150 or so?), and I find it completely unacceptable for the crew to unaccountably make decisions on a whim, especially on the very loose basis that 'it will upset more people if we follow our stated policy on the issue so let's do something different'. And downtime is certainly not the only issue about which the PA crew seem to unjustifiably change their policy and actions regularly.

Any comments welcome, and I do thank the PA crew for all the effort they put into the maintenance (note: not development) of the game, especially for the little they get. This is perhaps more an issue for Jolt. But you simply can't run a commercial game without proper 'terms and conditions' of what will happen in every forseeable instance, and without those terms being followed. I'd go so far as saying that it is one of those frustrating aspects of the game that is a contributor to the constant reduction in the player base.

[A2]

Originally Posted by Furyous

This is the stated PA crew guidelines for downtime policy:

http://pirate.planetarion.com/showpo...3&postcount=15

That thread was made on Planetarion Suggestions. It is not something that has been made part of policy and is therefore not in the manual, or on any official announcement.
As Appoco said at the start of the post you reference:

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

This is the rough result of a similar thread on the admin forums from a couple of weeks ago

Every situation of downtime that we have to deal with is different and requires a balanced response. The thread you reference is one starting point for coming up with a consistent policy, but the evidence of the past 21 rounds (including 9.5 and 10.5 here) shows that the response has always varied.

If we tried to make a generic 1-size-fits-all policy then there are times when it could be perfect, times when it could be completley ineffectual, and other times where it would be a disproportionate response.

Please do not take a post made on Planetarion Suggestions as a statement of policy.

[A2]

Originally Posted by Furyous

70% of hostile fleets were eta 5 or below and only 30% eta 6 or above

I actually said:
[01:07:10] <+A2> at the time the ticker went down - out of around 550 hostile fleets moving around the universe over 70% of them were at ETA4 or below

[Furyous]

typo with the eta's, edited the original. but the point amounts to the same thing. Clearly it is not official policy, as contentious issues are never made official by the PA crew for fear of reprieval, but it remains a statement of what Appoco at least thinks is reasonable, and a 'rough' (and my original post did stress this anyway) guideline to procedure. My question of why on this instance this action was not taken (and you are perfectly entitled not to take it, as it is not official) remains a valid one. Your decision will upset less people than the alternatives (or suggested action stated by appoco in the aforementioned thread) but the decision is also far more relatively harmful to those who are affected by it than other courses would have been.

People have been adversely affected by their chosen launch time, their attack class, and their level of TT research. And that i find unacceptable no matter how few it affects. The decision should affect the chances of everyone equally, and disregard the outcome.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Furyous

This is the stated PA crew guidelines for downtime policy:

http://pirate.planetarion.com/showpo...3&postcount=15

As A2 has said, no, they aren't.

In effect, the decision to continue, and let people login for the full 'ticker-less' period has more or less made useless the night for those whose fleets are still eta 5+ to target, and not affected those with eta 4 or less whatsoever. What would improve things slightly is to take the game completely down for this period such that people can't launch defence until the ticker is back up again.

This is a good idea, however there is an immediate problem in that a lot of the time we're not actually sure which scenario we're dealing with, a 40 minute tick stoppage, an 80 minute one or a 24 hour one.

With a fleet recall situation, or indeed a rollback, time will have been wasted. People who got through will have to take their chance again. People who found defence will have to call for it again. BUT every single player once again has the same chance of getting through on their target. There is no penalising of players based on what time they (or their alliance) chooses to launch. There is no relative unfairness. Just some upset people.

Yes, there is. You're assuming that everyone launches attacks at a particular time. I know of at least one person who capped 100k value in ships at 1am. Nor can you start extrapolating to the majority because the majority of people didn't have fleets launched at all. To quote yourself

People have been adversely affected by their chosen launch time, their attack class, and their level of TT research. And that i find unacceptable no matter how few it affects. The decision should affect the chances of everyone equally, and not the outcome.

This situation is inherently unfair. You cannot correct it. There is no point to which you can rollback at which person x cannot claim that the time chosen affects him and ergo from a terms and conditions perspective (ie not what pleases the most people) there's no logically necessary method of proceeding. Personally I favour freezing the game totally from the instant it's known that downtime will be of the 24 hour variety but even that's not wholly fair. I don't think there is a fair way of proceeding, just ways in which more or less people will be pissed off.


PS Kargool, you're proving exceptionally unconstructively critical of everything recently. Please attempt to correct this deficiency of reason.

PPS For the record, and because some slightly more idiotic people seem to think these sorts of things might affect the reasoning of people even more idiotic than they are, I currently have two hostile fleets at eta 6.

[genosse27]

what about those people who just landed. its a big advantage then for the people who landed compared to those who are still eta 1-9.
and what about those who launched a retal on their attacker and are about to get their roids back?
it will never be fair. so just let it go on (or roll back 20 ticks, i lost a bunch of ships then ;-) )

[Furyous]

genosse27 as I said the purpose of this thread is not to change the decision, but criticise the reasons by which it came about. As for those who landed, personally I'm in favour of a rollback to midnight so we can all just play the night again and disregard the mess that came about. But still a fleet recall is better than giving people 25-30 hours to find defence against those who launched late. Also as I mentioned, and clearly JBG agrees, blocking access to the game for the ticker down period would improve matters significantly.

JBG: do you think i'm Kargool?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Furyous

JBG: do you think i'm Kargool?

No, kargool made the funniest and wittiest reply in the history of the internet to the title of your thread and it was so good I became jealous and deleted it. The PS and PPS are separately aimed to the rest of my post, the PS being aimed at kargool and the PPS being aimed at that as yet undefined group of ad homineming simpletons that invariably turn up. Given that I agree with your point concerning blocking access to the game would you agree with my point that there is no equally unprejudicial state to which you can return the game?

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

No, kargool made the funniest and wittiest reply in the history of the internet to the title of your thread and it was good I became jealous and deleted it. The PS and PPS are separately aimed to the rest of my post, the PS being aimed at kargool and the PPS being aimed at that as yet undefined group of ad homineming simpletons that invariably turn up. Given that I agree with your point concerning blocking access to the game would you agree with my point that there is no equally unprejudicial state to which you can return the game?

Bah, I had just made a smart and well thought reply on that Iraqi thread, I had to let some steam out

[Furyous]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

No, kargool made the funniest and wittiest reply in the history of the internet to the title of your thread and it was so good I became jealous and deleted it. The PS and PPS are separately aimed to the rest of my post, the PS being aimed at kargool and the PPS being aimed at that as yet undefined group of ad homineming simpletons that invariably turn up. Given that I agree with your point concerning blocking access to the game would you agree with my point that there is no equally unprejudicial state to which you can return the game?

I do indeed. Unless we restart the round . But of course you'll say that is unfair to those winning. Anyway, you did pick up on an inconsistency in my argument, but while there is no ideal, there are certainly better means, in my opinion, than the one employed in this instance. What I am really calling for is an official policy from the PA team on this and similar issues. I wouldn't care greatly who gains and who loses, or how fair the decided policy would be (it could be argued infinitely what is best, as this thread may testify), but I would like to know what WILL happen under similar circumstances before they come about. As such the PA team can fall back on the premise that we knew what would happen, and might even have taken it into account in our playing decisions. Decision making on matters like this on an instance by instance basis I find irritating and frustrating in the extreme.

[jt25man]

The problem with stating an official policy that sets down a procedure for when and if something happens, inevitably someone is going to get pissed off because they got the short end of the stick. I've never been a fan of the rollback, because in the past I've set up attacks, or made threads, and whatnot, then there's a rollback and all my work is gone and it pisses me off. Yet someone else would be very happy because a rollback allowed them to get defence, or pre-launch there fleet.

I do think that PA Team should at least give out a 1 mil or higher donation to everyone for stopping the ticks for a whole day.

[A2]

Originally Posted by jt25man

I do think that PA Team should at least give out a 1 mil or higher donation to everyone for stopping the ticks for a whole day.

There are arguments for and against giving out a fixed number of resources to every planet, but its late and I'm not going to get into them before I sleep.
Someone somewhere (yes, its 4am and I can't remember where I read it earlier) suggested that giving out roids might be fairer, and would slow down stagnation, but there are also arguments for and against that.

(nn)

[Furyous]

Originally Posted by jt25man

The problem with stating an official policy that sets down a procedure for when and if something happens, inevitably someone is going to get pissed off because they got the short end of the stick. I've never been a fan of the rollback, because in the past I've set up attacks, or made threads, and whatnot, then there's a rollback and all my work is gone and it pisses me off. Yet someone else would be very happy because a rollback allowed them to get defence, or pre-launch there fleet.

I do think that PA Team should at least give out a 1 mil or higher donation to everyone for stopping the ticks for a whole day.

My point is that everyone (or close to) should be pissed off that their efforts went to waste or nobody should. Suppose you have a fleet now eta 9 and one eta 6 maybe, and you spent your time choosing, composing your fleet and planning your attack (maybe a team up), but now your efforts are completely wasted because your targets have a whole 24 hours more to find defence, and that defence can be launched at any point over the 24 hour period. While for those 70% of fleets <eta 5 it makes absolutely naff all difference. And they get a day off!

There is no way to piss nobody off, and it's very unfair to positively select who to piss off, so it's only really fair to piss everybody off. I know I'm less pissed off when everyone is pissed off. It's all relative

(someone count the 'pissed's)

[robban1]

well its totally shit that no admins replies to this tread either a2 doesnt count as its not his job

[Squidly]

Originally Posted by robban1

well its totally shit that no admins replies to this tread either a2 doesnt count as its not his job

May want to let them figure out the problem, what caused it, how to rectify it, was any damage done to any surrounding code, are there any possible new bugs with the fix, is this bug likely to happen again, were any planets modified in this whole mess inadvertently, are all planets/alliances concerned more or less back to normal.

When the ticks go down for this long, I imagine a fair chunk of something went boom =/