Alliance Score change

[are]

There are many discussions on alliance score change.
I personally think the new approach is way better than the old scoring, bhowever, I'd like to see it modified a bit as there are many exploits possible with the current new one.
Current new one = Alliance score is the score a planet gained while being in the alliance with a certain grace period when joining/leaving till all ships on/from the payer landed/arrived, this score remains in the alliance when the planet leaves, no negative score can be contributed.
Flaws I see or have been made aware of:
- Players could collect ressources outside the alliance, join the alliance, spend all, wait till all ships arrived, leave to make room for next player of that sort.
- gain score, leave alliance, get roided to zero, join ally again, roid others to gain, leave alliance to loose score (could be farming if done wrong)
- create 2 alliances, one with races good at the start, one with races good in the end, swap round the middle and/or use above 2 tactics in combination
- as a end-of-round stunt the winning alliance could kick all members last tick and nonetheless be #1. Would at least look ridiculous.
- while it most likely stops the usual end-of-round member 'stealing' for score, alliances have no reason to keep a planet that is less actuve for a few days. Even worse, by kicking a planet that will be inactive next week and taking him in again once he wakes up again they even gain more as a variant of possibility #2

As a correction I suggest to keep it almost as planned, but if a planet leaves, the score that planet contributed to the alliance is deducted from the alliance again.
In my eyes this fixes all of the above problems while not introducing new ones.

Regards,
_are_

[Dr_Zaius]

Ok, I'm drunk, so if this is illegible sorry :P

I think that the new method is good, you get the credit for what you helped obtain, also I feel it promotes loyalty to the alliance, which IMO is a good thing as people who play with an alliance for a long period are more likely to continue to play!

I also think that the prevention of "ship jumping" is good, as this means that when alliances put alot of effort into someone it isn't wasted by that effort benefiting another alliance!

HOWEVER, I agree that the method suggested by _are_ is the best (and not just because he is my HC :P), I think this solves the issues of abuse, and also means that if a disatisfied memebr leaves thier alliance the alliance does not retain that score, it is true they would still lose all the effort they put in, but it would not goto another alliance.

I agree that the suggested method would be fairest to all parties.

[Phil^]

i also agree. if the planet leaves or is kicked, the score they contributed comes with them

[Kargool]

Preaching to the choir here, or was it altarboys?

I agree that the score should disapear if they leave.

[Timeline]

ditto

[Kal]

I'm still confused on this - if the score leaves with them how is this any different from how things were in previous rounds? When the alliance had the score when the planet was in the alliance.

Surely one of the big points of this system was that the score stayed in the alliance.

[Aragno]

The difference would be that another alliance could not recruit him and get his score as he would enter that new allie with a base of 0. His earned score so far would essentially be lost for allie purposes.

This will stop the unfair move of big players to top 5 allies at end of round just for the sake of score

[Kal]

yes i worked it out - shouldn't replay while asleep..

Problem is I think that removes an incentive to take a risk with a small planet - alliances would be much better off risking recruiting a big planet becuase there is no negative score contribution if the planet gets bashed etc.

I think the negative score contribution would need to be allowed again AND it would need to stay when a planet left? That way its only worth recruting planets who you think you can cause signficant growth above their baseline score.

[are]

Originally Posted by Kal

yes i worked it out - shouldn't replay while asleep..
Problem is I think that removes an incentive to take a risk with a small planet - alliances would be much better off risking recruiting a big planet becuase there is no negative score contribution if the planet gets bashed etc.

I don't think any negative score contribution is needed. If negative score contribution is possible you make life for big planets in hostile galaxies real hard. Some alliances tend to kick those planets, now they join elsewhere while big and whoops, their new alliance has a big risk of loosing score. Being exciled from a good galaxy for belonging to tho wrong alliance or being kicked from alliance for being in the wrong galaxy is already a quite bad experience, I doubt we need to punish them further.
Furthermore it is probably quite depressing for an alliance to see it has negative score in the end.

Regards,
_are_

[wakey]

We may as well go back to the old score system. With these changes the alliances outside the top10 will still end up being screwed over significantly whenever they get a player to a good enough level to get other alliances attention while potentially getting screwed over by the lack of members they initially have. The fact that the score loss when poaching happens was removed is the only reason that I feel the complaints over on AD werent valid as the gains for such alliances would outweigh the losses but if you do this its a lose-lose situation for them

Imho theres better ways of dealing with the abuse such as

1. Preventing the joining of the same alliance after you have left (although I think then clicking leave alliance should come with a cooling off period before it happens so that rash decisions can be reversed before its too late)
2. Recording the base score that you left an alliance, if when you rejoin and your new base score is lower than your leaving base score your leaving base score is used instead.
3. Base score is potential base score and not actual base score (ie so rather than score of your stockpile as resources its score of stockpile as ships. Or have a percentage of the stockpile counted as if its ships
4. Remove the ability to be kicked or leave in the last 2 weeks thus giving any alliance who tries that stunt a significant chance of being caught

These are all just off the top of my head, theres probally more and better solutions to the problems you have described

[are]

Originally Posted by wakey

We may as well go back to the old score system. With these changes the alliances outside the top10 will still end up being screwed over significantly whenever they get a player to a good enough level to get other alliances attention while potentially getting screwed over by the lack of members they initially have. The fact that the score loss when poaching happens was removed is the only reason that I feel the complaints over on AD werent valid as the gains for such alliances would outweigh the losses but if you do this its a lose-lose situation for them

Wakey, the old score system attached score to a planet. So where this planet went, the score went. The new system (with or without my suggestion) only counts the score the planet gains while being in the alliance. By not getting rid of that score when the planet leaves a lot of possible exploits open.

You loose members at the end of the round for 2 reasons:
a) Some bigger ally wants their score and recruits them away
b) A member is unsatisfied anyway and wants to leave for next round and as they have the opportunity they just do it this round already

No matter if you loose the score as source alliance or not, in case a) the target alliance won't gain it so it won't really happen and in case b) a target alliance has less reason to accept new already established planets just before end of round to recruit for next round.

The big opposition I have seen against the new system of only gained score counting had been about you have to start the round with 65 members in PT0 and I think I have seen you complaining about that as well. Well, my alliance will have about half if at all, yours will very likely havbe the 65 at PT0 or early enough to count as PT0 over the round. So I think I am very well qualified to speak for an alliance that is low ranked.

A big planet in a big alliance usually takes a way bigger amount of roids in one run than a small planet. And even if he gains less XP/roid, the mass makes up for it. A big planet will always grow faster in absolute score than a small one. So taking in a bigger allianceless planet during the round is worth it if the end of the round is far enough away.

An alliance will loose score if they just kick a planet because of whatever minor reason, so they will think about it with the modification. Without the modification planets are just worth score they produce daily and if they don't produce, byebye. This turns alliances in score farms and opens the above mentioned exploits.

A new planet coming in during the round usually gets extra ressources, so it is bigger than a PT0 planet from the start, but not necessarily active. In the good mood of a fresh joined planet, that planet might apply to some low ranked alliance that is there 'for fun only' or 'for training', however they name it. If a planet can loose an alliance more score than they gained from it by allowing negative score contributions these alliances will soon have an even more serious motivation problem that the leaving planet of type b) shows. Furthermore, an alliance bringing new players into the game midround is even rewarded for enhancing the universe if they manage and get that planet in ingame alliance the tick it joined. I think this is a very good thing as alliances are porbably the only ones that really can do or actually do PA marketing atm.

So in terms of loosing score of the source alliance, my suggestion and the old system is very similar, no negative score had been possible there, either. However, your 'poaching' is not benefitial to the target alliance anymore. Every alliance looses members every round because they like it better elsewhere, you, I and all the other alliances have to live with it. However, in future you will rarely loose anyone because another alliance tries and tweak final ranks.

Regards,
_are_

[are]

Originally Posted by wakey

Imho theres better ways of dealing with the abuse such as

1. ...

These are all just off the top of my head, theres probally more and better solutions to the problems you have described

You would give a great taxing politican. Install a bad solution and then try and fix the known loopholes as you recognize them by additional rules. You will loose the race and create a very complex ruleset that way. And complex rulesets are hard to code leaving bigger possibilities for wrong code.

[Dr_Zaius]

Originally Posted by Kal

yes i worked it out - shouldn't replay while asleep..

Problem is I think that removes an incentive to take a risk with a small planet - alliances would be much better off risking recruiting a big planet becuase there is no negative score contribution if the planet gets bashed etc.

I think the negative score contribution would need to be allowed again AND it would need to stay when a planet left? That way its only worth recruting planets who you think you can cause signficant growth above their baseline score.

I disagree, small planets are more likely to gain in overall score as they have less to lose!

Is there a way using the new method, where you can track someones overall score gained? To stop potential join/leave abuse? Like the first time they join thier base score is set, and then it remains like that, so if they leave and join again at a lower score the alliances score woulddrop to that lower score?

[Heartless]

Originally Posted by Dr_Zaius

I disagree, small planets are more likely to gain in overall score as they have less to lose!

Oh the pain, the pain!

[Kargool]

Yeah, I am pretty sure that if you let small planets join your alliance they will outgain their bigger fatter friends nicely. The rule as proposed here still justifies taking on small planets due to their possibility to get bigger and better quickly. And big planets are justified by joining since they have large fleets and can contribute well in attack and defence.

Imho, its a win win situation. You take away the importance of poaching when it comes to score. You also promote tagging up early so that your alliance will get score from all their members quickly...

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by Kargool

You also promote tagging up early so that your alliance will get score from all their members quickly...

I said it in the other thread, the score-gain from PT 1 to PT 72 is far from significant on the end of round score.

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by Nadar

I said it in the other thread, the score-gain from PT 1 to PT 72 is far from significant on the end of round score.

When I mean early I mean before the last 4 weeks of the round

[wakey]

Originally Posted by are

You would give a great taxing politican. Install a bad solution and then try and fix the known loopholes as you recognize them by additional rules. You will loose the race and create a very complex ruleset that way. And complex rulesets are hard to code leaving bigger possibilities for wrong code.

Well the simplest way of sorting everything is for this community as a whole to get a clue and realise that their small sub set in the community isnt the only part of the community. Perhaps then if they did this, realised the problems they impose on others that ultimatly hold the game back we wouldnt have a community that managed itself and didnt just canabalise itself.

But we all know that this isnt ever going to happen as this communities become self centred and blind and would sell their own granny if it meant they could win.


By allowing alliances to lose the score their members have gained while in the alliance either in the r17 setup or the new r18 setup you damage alliances that are less appealing and dont have the draw of your 1up's ND's ect ect. You make these alliances even less appealing so make it hard for them to attract quality or keep hold of quality so that they can build the alliance until the Command in these alliances that are being worked into the ground due to this decide to up and leave.

Now to show the problem with your idea I'll show you the example of HR.

They stated last night that through poaching they lost over 20mill in score from just 9 members. Now the score gained in alliance system doesnt remove poaching, it removes one of the elements that drives it but planets that can grow quick will still be in demand as they will gain more score in a day so poaching will still be happening. Now lets say the new system does half the poaching thats happening and HR lost 10mill, how are they going to ever replace this 10mill. To gain 10mill in a day takes 60 members gaining 170k each so what chance does the 9 replacements for the lost 9 stand of covering the lost score. I think its basically nigh on impossible for them to regain this score.

In F-Crew we also lost 12 members for around 22mill, again regaining that 22mill would be nigh on impossible with teh 12 replacements we could take on.

And with HR and F-Crew we are both pretty lucky, At F-Crew we have our top10 position that greatly reduces poaching and both of us have a committed core that can help us hang onto members more. Alot of others dont have that, they lose alot more members and for a much greater % of their total score and when they are trying to build a solid core for the alliance it just holds them back.

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by Kargool

When I mean early I mean before the last 4 weeks of the round

Then say so, because alliances usually wants their members inside the tag to defend when the attacks starts (except the odd alliance such as Asc/1up).

[wakey]

Id also like to add that if you allow alliances to lose score when their member leaves the only thing you really sort is the not tagging issue, an issue which quite frankly is a complete none issue.

Not tagging initially DOESNT have a major effect on the game, all it does is make those competing for #1 look extreamly stupid when al alliance pulls it off. For two rounds in a row alliances have been caught with their trouser around their ankles, they had the chance to deal with it sooner, they knew what was coming yet they didnt prepare for it.

As such its a none issue that really doesnt need a fix unless the fix actually sorts something else in the process and unless trying to kill off the lower end of the game once again is what we all want then this isnt fixing something else

[are]

Originally Posted by wakey

In F-Crew we also lost 12 members for around 22mill, again regaining that 22mill would be nigh on impossible with teh 12 replacements we could take on.

Wakey, you are a strange person. You complain about PA-team neglecting the needs of the community and just considering those of alliances and one single line later you complain about you as an alliance HC can't take possession of a planet by gaining and keeping it's score.
If your alliance is bad (in whatever way, activity, scoring, intern mood, ...) people will leave it, why should you be rewarded by keeping their score.
Obviously we have different understandings what 'poaching' is. I am no native speaker, so I had to look it up and I did.
Poaching to me is recruiting in a way that looks like stealing a member. To be more specific, recruiting a member that is in an alliance just to gain its score at the end of the round another alliacne helped building. This in my eyes is a lame tactic. And this will be efficiently stopped.
Poaching to you seems to be recruiting any member you like to keep at any time in the round, no matter if it is just for the score or not. Well, you own exactly your own planet, you may not have multiple planets in PA. So in no way the planet that once had been in your alliance belongs to you. So why should it's score stay there? By not giving that score to some other alliance that alliance can't steal 'your' score anymore. You can loose score because you have not provided an adequate home for the player, but you can't loose score anymore because some other alliance wants to gain that. I think this is fair.

Regards,
_are_

[Thefoundation]

Wakey ffs stop crying about poaching. The PA team itself said it was about gaining a lot of score in short time by keeping people out of tag.

Every start of a new round you act like a woman with a period. And you keep crying about poaching. Its been said hundred times by dozens of people.
Stop crying about poaching and do something constructive yourself (with f-crew) to stop it. There are enough ally's who found a way to stop it. Hr probably was unlucky, but you and f-crew do nothing other then cry about poaching for the last 3 rounds. Now.. find out why those people left.

[Phil^]

poaching would be less of a problem with the system as proposed at the start of this thread before the rather foolish attempt to 'show' how it would be bad to certain alliances.
the score would leave the alliance for those kicked or left, but it would not go to the alliance poaching the player. instead - only the score the planet gained while in the new alliance would go to it.

furthermore, alliances do not have a canon right to keep people in them - that right belongs to the individual to decide where they want to be.
attempting to say otherwise is just pure arrogance.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Phil^

poaching would be less of a problem with the system as proposed at the start of this thread before the rather foolish attempt to 'show' how it would be bad to certain alliances.
the score would leave the alliance for those kicked or left, but it would not go to the alliance poaching the player. instead - only the score the planet gained while in the new alliance would go to it.

furthermore, alliances do not have a canon right to keep people in them - that right belongs to the individual to decide where they want to be.
attempting to say otherwise is just pure arrogance.

I agree pretty much

[Assassin]

Originally Posted by Phil^

i also agree. if the planet leaves or is kicked, the score they contributed comes with them

this could also be abused if ofc there closed and deleted. Does this mean the score will go with them? Becuase an alliance could be just full of cheats, knowing full well even if they get caught it wont matter as the score will remain there for example. They just bring another one in.

[Phil^]

it should be deducted upon deletion also, yes.

[Kal]

The real alternative to are's suggestion:

The score that a planet contributes to an alliance is: current score - base score
where this contribution must be > 0

When a planet joins an alliance the base score that is used to calculate that planets contribution to the alliance score is the score the planet had when it was created OR if it has been in an alliance already the score it had when it left its last alliance

If a planet is deleted (but not when closed), the alliance keeps the score he contributed.

If a planet is deleted when closed then the score all alliances gained from him is removed.




This prevent's all but #1 alliances winning with 1 planet abuses.

[are]

Originally Posted by Kal

The real alternative to are's suggestion:
The score that a planet contributes to an alliance is: current score - base score
where this contribution must be > 0

When a planet joins an alliance the base score that is used to calculate that planets contribution to the alliance score is the score the planet had when it was created OR if it has been in an alliance already the score it had when it left its last alliance

There you got your abuse again.
Just use your inofficial 250 planet alliance working in 5 player buddy pack covering themselves, no joining an alliance, in last week, join the benefitting alliance for a tick, leave again so in the end the alliance has not more than 65 members. It gets donated all the score. even bigger abuse that way than with original version.
But fortunately we have the multihunters and the rule about support planets. I trust in them just deleting these 250 planets and saving the game for the rest of us.

If a planet is deleted when closed then the score all alliances gained from him is removed.

This should have happened for ages anyway, but probably so far it had not been possible to track this.

This prevent's all but #1 alliances winning with 1 planet abuses.

Uhm, shall that read 'this prevents all but 1up (and perhaps Ascendancy) from winning the round'? It is just their strategy hardcoded. Ascendancy didn't defend and kept secret, no big step to just drop the tag as well, 1up stayed off tag from the start. If you don't want alliances ingame, why you don't drop them? Then at least even the stupid know what the rules say.

Regards,
_are_

[Kal]

well its a simple enough tweak to prevent the scenario you describe (simply if planet has not been in an alliance before then its base score is its current score).

I just wanted to avoid having to prevent the basic version of the 1up tactic - but yes your extreme version would need to be prevented. But as I said its rather easy to do so.

[are]

Originally Posted by Kal

well its a simple enough tweak to prevent the scenario you describe (simply if planet has not been in an alliance before then its base score is its current score).

I join an alliance in the beginning and leave it after 1 tick (100 ticks, whatever), at the end I join my preferred alliance, whoops, nothing prevented that way.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by are

I join an alliance in the beginning and leave it after 1 tick (100 ticks, whatever), at the end I join my preferred alliance, whoops, nothing prevented that way.

That could be coped with by having a minimum period in the alliance, however then things start to get complex.

This leaves the option is proposed on the alliance forums:




The score that a planet contributes to an alliance is: current score - base score
where this contribution must be > 0

When a planet leaves an alliance the contribution the planet made to the alliance's score is removed.

When a planet is deleted from the game the contribution the planet made to the alliance's score is removed.

When a planet joins an alliance the base score that is used to calculate that planets contribution to the alliance score is the score the planet had when it was created OR if it has been in an alliance already the score it had when it left its last alliance




This means that it is worth recruiting new players who have never been in an alliance at any point in the round.
This prevents the following tactics:
- Players could collect ressources outside the alliance, join the alliance, spend all, wait till all ships arrived, leave to make room for next player of that sort.
- gain score, leave alliance, get roided to zero, join ally again, roid others to gain, leave alliance to loose score (could be farming if done wrong)
- as a end-of-round stunt the winning alliance could kick all members last tick and nonetheless be #1. Would at least look ridiculous.
- while it most likely stops the usual end-of-round member 'stealing' for score, alliances have no reason to keep a planet that is less actuve for a few days. Even worse, by kicking a planet that will be inactive next week and taking him in again once he wakes up again they even gain more as a variant of possibility
- former alliances of planets keeping score when a planet is deleted.

This does still allow for planets to exist out of tag and grow until they are ready to join an alliance i.e. an alliance can attempt to hide its strength

This additionally allows the old alliance of a planet to kill off the planet that it lost meaning that it will not contribute in score to the new alliance until it has recovered above its base level.



Example for illustration.

Planet 1 is recrutied into alliance A - alliance A sees all of Planet 1s score until he leaves or is kicked
Planet 1 leaves with 2 mil score
He then must wait 72 ticks before joining alliance B
Alliance B will get the score of Planet 1's score - 2 mil (but this is capped so it cannot go negative)
This means that if Alliance A wants to annoy Alliance B they can attack Planet 1 and ruin is growth potential to Alliance B
If Alliance A is nice and friendly the Alliance B gets to keep the growth potential, but not the score the planet gained while in Alliance A.

This obvioulsy means that Alliance B activly poaching from Alliance A will only be effectlive if they have the reosurces to defend the planets while they are allianceless i.e. how the game was in previous rounds. But even then the poaching is much less effective than in previous rounds as they will not get the full score growth, only the growth since the planet the acquire left the old alliance.

[are]

Originally Posted by Kal

This leaves the option is proposed on the alliance forums:

The score that a planet contributes to an alliance is: current score - base score
where this contribution must be > 0

When a planet leaves an alliance the contribution the planet made to the alliance's score is removed.

When a planet is deleted from the game the contribution the planet made to the alliance's score is removed.

When a planet joins an alliance the base score that is used to calculate that planets contribution to the alliance score is the score the planet had when it was created OR if it has been in an alliance already the score it had when it left its last alliance

This is just what i suggested with the difference the planet score gained outside the alliance is added to the alliance. This is a pure policy thing I don't actually care about. However, the named exploits I had been concerned about are gone.
I'd be happy with this solution.

Regards,
_are_

[Dr_Zaius]

this is good