PA is unbalanced in itself !

[Raider]

It happens in every Round, after only a few weeks the interesting batlle for the universe is over if Powerblocks dont split up.

Its also the fact that the ones that get the roids in these skirmishes will grow bigger and bigger and the roided planets have in fact no chance to come back to power and thus the game gets boring for all involved.

I think PA would need some rule changes in itself to bring more balance to it.
Here are my thought about that:

1. Implement an upkeep for ships.
For example a player has to pay 1/1000 th part of the resources his ships had cost as an upkeep per tick. Give a certain amount of upkeep thats for free generated by the planet-

-> that would lead to a limited fleetsize and would strengthen the smaller planets with smaller fleets.

What i mean is that for example each planet has like 250k fleetscore free for no upkeep. You could say that are facilities that are installed on the planet already, that can provide this.

Above this a planet would have to pay upkeep for his fleet.

This would not in itself give an Advantage to smaller planets, but , depending on how this would be really implemented, could slow down the big players a bit.



2. Introduce Combat effectiveness.
For example, smaller Fleets can work more effective together than large ones, cause of slack. This could be done that when adding forces they will become more and more ineffective.

-> that would limit the power of large planets and could help to bring balance to the game.

This could easily be implemented in form of fleet score, like for example :

every fleet up to 250k fleetscore can fight at 100% , for every 50k score above you could reduce effectiveness of the fleet by 5%
(these are just number one would have to think about that in more detail).
Or if you dont want that theres a point where a fleet cant fight anymore you would choose a funkction like f(x)= X * (exp -(N))
N beeing number of ships or something like that.

And this would be for each planet, not for defender/attacker. So people can team up together to get that ONE BIG MOTHERPLANET with all the roids


In addition to this new features one could introduce an additional tech tree(s) to affect how these things take effect.

These ideas are not meant to turn the universe top over, but to help the loosing side of the game a little.
Depending on how strong you make the penalties this could have a stonger or weake rimpact on things.
So hopefully it aint that fast decided who has won and to bring a little more fun to the players that are on the RECEIVING side of the attacks.


Please tell me what u think of this ideas.

[glaci3r]

Originally posted by Raider
Its also the fact that the ones that get the roids in these skirmishes will grow bigger and bigger

Just so you know that IS NOT a fact. That increases their chances of growing bigger, but it does not necessitate that they will grow bigger. They too can always get roided, lose their fleet, or lose their score some other way.

1. Implement an upkeep for ships.
For example a player has to pay 1/1000 th part of the resources his ships had cost as an upkeep per tick. Give a certain amount of upkeep thats for free generated by the planet-

-> that would lead to a limited fleetsize and would strengthen the smaller planets with smaller fleets.

Interesting idea, but in NO WAY does that mean smaller planets will have an advantage. They will actually still be disadvantaged since they TOO have to pay the upkeep. A bigger planet will likely be able to generate MORE resources with the upkeep then a smaller planet w/o the upkeep. So it may not hamper the larger planet it all... its the whole debate about "staggering incomine taxes" They can afford to pay more so they should, but it doesn't make them poorer, just less rich.

2. Introduce Combat effectiveness.
For example, smaller Fleets can work more effective together than large ones, cause of slack. This could be done that when adding forces they will become more and more ineffective.

-> that would limit the power of large planets and could help to bring balance to the game.

How would this be computable? A coefficient multiplied by N which lowers the attack value? (N being the number of ships) This can get mighty complicated... but if PA servers can handle this increased computational load, then its a nice idea... not sure, once again, if it would HELP stagnation...

Would it be for each planet? or Attacker/Defender overall

If it was for each planet, then lil' free planets would have a great deal of an advantage. Swarm attacks would be deadly and their might be complaints that the planets cannot attack their attackers back due to the restrictions

If it was attacker/defender then large defenses at planets would be hampered requiring MORE ships then needed. This would benefit attacking fleets... u need more ships defending a planet to stop an attacker usually. So i don't see the direct benefits.

Nice ideas... anyone else have any suggestions?

[Atamur]

Originally posted by Raider

1. Implement an upkeep for ships.
For example a player has to pay 1/1000 th part of the resources his ships had cost as an upkeep per tick. Give a certain amount of upkeep thats for free generated by the planet-

-> that would lead to a limited fleetsize and would strengthen the smaller planets with smaller fleets.

This would hurt planets that have low roids/score ratio. In other words, smaller and recently bashed ones.

[Raider]

hmm i think i didnt make myslef clear what i mean

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Implement an upkeep for ships.
For example a player has to pay 1/1000 th part of the resources his ships had cost as an upkeep per tick. Give a certain amount of upkeep thats for free generated by the planet-

-> that would lead to a limited fleetsize and would strengthen the smaller planets with smaller fleets.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


What i mean is that for example each planet has like 250k fleetscore free for no upkeep. You could say that are facilities that are installed on the planet already, that can provide this.

Above this a planet would have to pay upkeep for his fleet.

This would not in itself give an Advantage to smaller planets, but , depending on how this would be really implemented, could slow down the big players a bit.



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Introduce Combat effectiveness.
For example, smaller Fleets can work more effective together than large ones, cause of slack. This could be done that when adding forces they will become more and more ineffective.

-> that would limit the power of large planets and could help to bring balance to the game.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This could easily be implemented in form of fleet score, like for example :

every fleet up to 250k fleetscore can fight at 100% , for every 50k score above you could reduce effectiveness of the fleet by 5%
(these are just number one would have to think about that in more detail).
Or if you dont want that theres a point where a fleet cant fight anymore you would choose a funkction like f(x)= X * (exp -(N))
N beeing number of ships or something like that.

And this would be for each planet, not for defender/attacker. So people can team up together to get that ONE BIG MOTHERPLANET with all the roids

P.S: i updated my initial posting, so not everyone has to read down here

[MadeMan]

would havebeen nice with alittle somethign for the smaller planets, but im afraid not any off this ideas would be the thing.. that handikap system looked best but...

I think we have to stick with it like this, its a game, and somebody have to lose, maybe u this round are small but next round you might be the nr #1.

[Scouse]

I've always been against, and still am, top players being 'punished' for being dedicated and putting in the effort to get big.

The 20% rule does a lot to stop big players getting too big, since they have to attack good players and good players are generally in alliances and get defence. Smaller players can attack less dedicated, and more likely unallied players and get roids.

[hAl]

You could also introduce a prograssive rate for upkeep or maintenace or whatever.

Top 10% planets in score pays 0.1% per tick
Top 10-50% in score pay 0.05 % per tick
Top 50-90% in score pay 0.01 % per tick
Top 90-100% free of maintance costs.

hAl

[hAl]

Alternativly you can just remove 50% of all fleet and resources every 500 ticks and excempt the lowest 10% of the universe from that.

Also a great anti stagnation measure.

Also something you can even implement this round as it is only one simple sql query.

hAl

[MelAn]

Originally posted by Scouse
I've always been against, and still am, top players being 'punished' for being dedicated and putting in the effort to get big.

The 20% rule does a lot to stop big players getting too big, since they have to attack good players and good players are generally in alliances and get defence. Smaller players can attack less dedicated, and more likely unallied players and get roids.

[zenopus]

Originally posted by Scouse
I've always been against, and still am, top players being 'punished' for being dedicated and putting in the effort to get big.

I totally agree. And I believe the handicap points system I suggested does not suffer from that flaw. It was never designed to punish the dedicated.
Today it will almost always be preferable to attack someone who looks like they are not highly dedicated - the handicap system attemps to make it more attractive for an active player to attack another active player.

[bear]

I agree with zenopus and melan. Big(ger) planets already have a harder time getting new roids, since the targets in their range are usually high(er) profile planets in the first place.

And usually, the biggest planets have worked hard to be where they are. It's not like most go from noob to top10 planet in 1 round time. It takes time and effort to build up the networks that bigger players and alliances have

[Morden]

Originally posted by zenopus
make it more attractive for an active player to attack another active player.

the only way to do that would be to hugely unbalance the ships again, similar to r4 by having a decent roid cap, with high armor ships and low weapon power, thus effectively making it safer to cap from planets your own size simply because it takes enormous amounts of defence to stop you let alone kill you.

a large chunk of the current problem is the cap system, it was put inplace to make farmin less effective but was never removed even when farming was banned.

to put it simply, the way the cap system is now it makes it nessacary to bash someone in order to roid them without large losses, whereas before in previous you could roid people a lot easier without having to kill them first as the gains outweighed the losses, but now with the current roid cap it is always nessacary to have 2 fleets, a kill fleet and a roiding fleet, as you either kill them and take there roids, or they run and you take there roids, spinner says that this is to make people send balanced fleets(biggest bullsh1t ive ever heard as no one sends a balanced{same/less score as target} fleet because it would be easy to defend against)

new players whine about getting there fleet wiped out but tbh its the creators fault for making it nessacary for us to do it, most people would prefer to just roid them with pods+flak and keep there big guns at home incase they needed them, what this means? instead of smaller players keeping there fleet and losing roids(unless they run) they lose there fleet and roids making it harder for them to rebuild.

to make it easier for new players and larger players alike:

unbalance the game again, no one likes it when ships are balanced simply because its very dull.
make the roid cap easier to attain, i.e take the fleet size out of it alltogether and make more flak ships available.
get 100'000 more players........(doubtful that youll get to 15'000 players in r10 even with the advertising i think it'll be about 7-8000) this game isnt designed to be played in small numbers or proffesional or it always ends the same way and that is stagnation very fast.

btw the limitations to who you can attack doesnt help the smaller players, it means they get wiped out as soon as they come into range of a preditor and tbh i think most of them would prefer to get roided before they put weeks/months of work into it and then get wiped out and roided after all the time they put into it.

key to making it more fun (shortened out)
1)decent cap system(current one blows)
2)better ship stats that arent so balanced(the more balanced it is the more it makes people have to send kill fleets)
3)MORE PLAYERS
4)EVEN MORE PLAYERS

oh also for those of you who're stupid enough to think that if the large players are limited that the game will be better for the small people, all that would happen is: the bulk of the community would leave together for a game where there activity and dedication isnt pinalised.

[zenopus]

Originally posted by zenopus
make it more attractive for an active player to attack another active player.

Originally posted by Morden
the only way to do that would be to hugely unbalance the ships again, similar to r4 by having a decent roid cap, with high armor ships and low weapon power, thus effectively making it safer to cap from planets your own size simply because it takes enormous amounts of defence to stop you let alone kill you.

Erm, that is indeed one way to do it, but not the only way.

to put it simply, the way the cap system is now it makes it nessacary to bash someone in order to roid them without large losses, whereas before in previous you could roid people a lot easier without having to kill them first as the gains outweighed the losses

I think you were right earlier - this has more to do with the shipstats than with the capping formula.

but now with the current roid cap it is always nessacary to have 2 fleets, a kill fleet and a roiding fleet, as you either kill them and take there roids, or they run and you take there roids

Which is not a problem early on in the round, but can get quite nasty around about now - which is exactly what the handicap system is supposed to address.

btw the limitations to who you can attack doesnt help the smaller players, it means they get wiped out as soon as they come into range of a preditor and tbh i think most of them would prefer to get roided before they put weeks/months of work into it and then get wiped out and roided after all the time they put into it.

I am fairly sure you are not right there - they would almost certainly prefer not to get roided.

oh also for those of you who're stupid enough to think that if the large players are limited that the game will be better for the small people, all that would happen is: the bulk of the community would leave together for a game where there activity and dedication isnt pinalised. [/b]

Well, there are a lot of limitations in PA already - did you have any specific additional limitation in mind?
The only change so far that made people leave is p2p...

[Morden]

Originally posted by zenopus
there are a lot of limitations in PA already - did you have any specific additional limitation in mind?
The only change so far that made people leave is p2p...

try introducing one where the top players are penalized for being top, i for one wouldnt play if you get penalized for hardwork and dedication to get to the top, i know many others feel the same, simply because it breaks the spirit of the game.

i.e the big get bigger and the small get smaller, to change that would be to change the type of game this is.

after it is a wargame, if people arent happy about getting attacked then many they should try a different type of game,

the only problem with this game is NUMBERS, this game is to many people not worth $10 for 3 months, the only way to make it worth playing would be to increase the numbers drastically, unless r10 has over 50'000 players(tbh i doubt it'll have 12'000) then it will not be much different than r9, that is unless they change the dynamics of the game to such an extent that it vaguely resembles the previous rounds.

with larger numbers the game is less static and worth playing, as there are always wars going on.

with more numbers the smaller alliances live in a world of there own because the large alliances are off fighting each other and dont see much reason to get involved in the others.

[Morden]

Originally posted by zenopus
I am fairly sure you are not right there - they would almost certainly prefer not to get roided.

ive not seen many threads complaining about being roided, but about being bashed.

which would you prefer? if you think they would prefer to be bashed then you should try spending weeks building up then to get your fleet wiped out as if it were butter and someone had just put a hot knife to it.

no where in my thread did i say they want to be roided, i said they would prefer roidage to being bashed- the thing which is making that happen is: (the cap and the ship stats)

[ArcChas]

Originally posted by Morden
if people arent happy about getting attacked then many they should try a different type of game,

the only problem with this game is NUMBERS, this game is to many people not worth $10 for 3 months, the only way to make it worth playing would be to increase the numbers drastically

Can anyone spell irony?

[Morden]

Originally posted by ArcChas
Can anyone spell irony?

indeed, the last part of the post was supposed to be that way, if there were a large quantity of free planets then perhaps more people would pay to get them upgraded. or perhaps start things a little different.


i.e spinner lets 100'000 people sign up so they can test things and see if they want to pay the money to continue, they have 2 weeks before they have to pay to carry on, more people might decide to stay that way but i guess we'll never know as theres more chance of me swimming to the moon than making new players chances higher in this game without destroying the game.

[zenopus]

Originally posted by zenopus
there are a lot of limitations in PA already - did you have any specific additional limitation in mind?
The only change so far that made people leave is p2p...

Originally posted by Morden
try introducing one where the top players are penalized for being top, i for one wouldnt play if you get penalized for hardwork and dedication to get to the top, i know many others feel the same, simply because it breaks the spirit of the game.

Well, I believe it was R7 where the top players were indeed penalized for being too far ahead - there were NAPs in place with all planets in range, so there were no potential targets that would pass the arbiter checks. OFC as Spinner so eloquently put it - if you agree NAPs with just about everyone, that your own problem.

the only problem with this game is NUMBERS, this game is to many people not worth $10 for 3 months, the only way to make it worth playing would be to increase the numbers drastically, unless r10 has over 50'000 players(tbh i doubt it'll have 12'000) then it will not be much different than r9,

Well no, that is not the only problem - stagnation is another one - and although it would happen later in the round with a larger player base, surely it would be a good thing if game mechanics were designed to delay or even prevent stagnation.

Originally posted by zenopus
I am fairly sure you are not right there - they would almost certainly prefer not to get roided.

Originally posted by Morden
no where in my thread did i say they want to be roided, i said they would prefer roidage to being bashed

Indeed, you said they would prefer being roided to being bashed. I just pointed out that there might be more than just these two options...

[Chax]

Originally posted by Morden
new players whine about getting there fleet wiped out but tbh its the creators fault for making it nessacary for us to do it, most people would prefer to just roid them with pods+flak and keep there big guns at home incase they needed them, what this means? instead of smaller players keeping there fleet and losing roids(unless they run) they lose there fleet and roids making it harder for them to rebuild.

r3 had nice pods that had great armor and were hard to stop.
Still many people insisted on sending a bashing fleet.

These type of people will still do it whatever you do with the stats.

[Petru]

All of these ideas have been suggested in a dozen different forms and a dozen different methods of implementation.

All but one or two were met with the traditional "hhhmmm, <insert a vagueish reason> (-:".

The one or two that got past that stage were met with the traditional Planetarion stonewall of "needs coding".

[CrashTester]

The bottom line with planetarion is that it is not a game for individuals, as a result you must find a group to play with. Since groups then stick together and become elite, the rest of the players cannot effectively compete, they will either give up or try and join the elite groups.

The game needs to find a way of making individuals count in the game so it appeals to more people who are not part if a large group and also casual players.

I've been around since early round 1 and in the begining it was fun, I joined this round after being asbsent for 2 rounds and to be honest its boring. I would not pay for this (I was given a credit) as like the thread title suggests, its too unbalanced.

[tyriel]

im actually all for different methods of "Scoring".

i'd take the concept of points and apply them in additional areas:
given oft PA use of the terms things like:

"honour"
(your actions with regards to allies/enemies/cluster/parallel)

"activity"
(points for you effort and dedication)

"results"
(a system to give an indication of success based on relative score - ie: rewards for successful offensive/defensive actions)

in other words - you might not be the #1 planet based on roids and score, but that isnt everything.

you could have a massively high team player ranking - or an activity score that represents amazing dedication.

think of the positive feedback this immediately starts giving new players. we have scores categorising the areas of gameplay - they can see immediate positive feedback relative to themselves when they are doing the right things..


all of this hardly matters tho - handicaps, formulas, alliances, blocks. what's needed is another 20k (minimum) planets

Here's a rather simple thing u can implement, an honour system... i've seen this done in other txt games, e.g. Utopia

It should have very little effect on ur fleets, perhaps a tiny boost for a high honour count, but in Utopia it's more of a social score... Being always visible to anyone, you cannot act all l33t wif a despicable honour. A combination of high scores of both will determine the best and they cannot noob bash to achieve this...

Honour should go up for fighting fairly versus equal sized targets, and down for noob bashing, rather simple... there are a few kinks to work out... any honour in over killing? or fleet tracing jus to kill it?

[MrL_JaKiri]

Aside from penalising the top players, which will kill the game almost immediately instead of having a slow decline, you can't do much.

People won't want to play for a game where having a certain degree of skill in a game will result in their being penalised.

[MrL_JaKiri]

ps. This is not a symptom purely of PA.

Handicaps only really exist in reasonably short games that are played often.

For games which last as long as PA, there is no level playing field.

[zenopus]

Originally posted by Syniteon
Here's a rather simple thing u can implement, an honour system... i've seen this done in other txt games, e.g. Utopia

It should have very little effect on ur fleets, perhaps a tiny boost for a high honour count, but in Utopia it's more of a social score... Being always visible to anyone, you cannot act all l33t wif a despicable honour. A combination of high scores of both will determine the best and they cannot noob bash to achieve this...

Honour should go up for fighting fairly versus equal sized targets, and down for noob bashing, rather simple... there are a few kinks to work out... any honour in over killing? or fleet tracing jus to kill it?

Somehow I think it would not work in PA - not as intended anyway. Can anyone else see a large chunk of the community competing to be "teh nastiest"?...