Battle calendar

[vimzzz]

I dont know how everyone elses army in PA are built up, but my commanders are awesome.

So awesome infact, that they actually hold enough IQ points to plan attacks in the future. My captains are also filled up with some much coffein, that they dont need a tick to rest.

What Im trying to say is, if I have a fleet returning at eta 5, why cant i Just say that it should fly off to another planet when it gets home. A battle / launch calendar. Schedule launches for attacks/defence.
If we can build starships, im pretty sure we are able to make plans..

[RLGambit]

They need to attend the mandatory debriefing sessions. duh.

[eksero]

"Why can't there be something that enables me to play the game at the same level as those who are much more active than me?"

[RLGambit]

Tbh he does have a good point tho Eskero. Waking up in the middle of the night just to send out an attack that I've already planned out pisses me off.

I don't see how a battle planner really benefits me that much either, because if I get incs and don't log on to check then it could really screw me over.

If you did have a battle planner, then as soon as the ships are returning from their previous mission they should come up on scans as PL'd. That way they don't gain an unnecessary advantage, or show up as PL'd for a ridiculous period of time.

I think it is a good idea, because the main reason it seems people are leaving the game is the amount of time it takes to play. This should be added to help people play the game while actually being able to live their busy lives too. People need a PA/life balance. More active players will still have the advantage after all.

- Gam

(p.s. I'm up at 5am writing this post waiting for the stupid tick to send out an attack. The battle planner could have given me a good night's rest.)

[Motti]

Originally Posted by RLGambit

Tbh he does have a good point tho Eskero. Waking up in the middle of the night just to send out an attack that I've already planned out pisses me off.

I don't see how a battle planner really benefits me that much either, because if I get incs and don't log on to check then it could really screw me over.

If you did have a battle planner, then as soon as the ships are returning from their previous mission they should come up on scans as PL'd. That way they don't gain an unnecessary advantage, or show up as PL'd for a ridiculous period of time.

I think it is a good idea, because the main reason it seems people are leaving the game is the amount of time it takes to play. This should be added to help people play the game while actually being able to live their busy lives too. People need a PA/life balance. More active players will still have the advantage after all.

- Gam

(p.s. I'm up at 5am writing this post waiting for the stupid tick to send out an attack. The battle planner could have given me a good night's rest.)

Maybe we could make this idea bigger. Maybe a planet calender where we can tick off when cons/research etc all can be planned ahead. So we don't have to log in more often then maybe once a day - and still maintain the same activity as everyone else.

Maybe also make a user/pass log in galaxy so other in gal or alliance can quickly get in to our planet and sort it incase of emergency?

[Mzyxptlk]

Why not? That's a serous question, by the way. Personally, I feel that the obsession we have with requiring people to wake up at godawful o'clock for weeks on end in order to play the game does more harm than good.

[Paisley]

What an outstanding Idea Vimzzz just need an R&D team to try and impliment this.

[M0RPH3US]

what did he say?

[Clouds]

Paisley, if you want a R&D team, why don't you ask to set one up, seeing as you're always going on about it?

[RLGambit]

Originally Posted by Motti

Maybe we could make this idea bigger. Maybe a planet calender where we can tick off when cons/research etc all can be planned ahead. So we don't have to log in more often then maybe once a day - and still maintain the same activity as everyone else.

Maybe also make a user/pass log in galaxy so other in gal or alliance can quickly get in to our planet and sort it incase of emergency?

I appreciate the good-humored sarcasm, but you do realize that you can queue research and constructions? What he's asking for should be no different, a simple way to queue an order to your fleet. If you opted to use this, it has a benefit that you don't need to be up at 5am, but the downside would be that you wouldn't be able to adapt quickly to a changing situation. Overall I think it would even out and allow the more dedicated player such as yourself to still have the advantage. Some people have kids, some people have jobs. This shouldn't be a game based solely upon the amount of free time you have.

Also, in regards to the gal or alliance user/pass log in - there is auto-reporting for paid accounts, lol :P

[Kaiba]

Adapt??? Quickly???

You do know this is PA yeah?


I like this idea btw, maybe a 12 tick battle calender. Leading on from mz maybe making the game more 'lazy' friendly would open it up to more players.

As a concession any battle calender attack shows up on j scan 2 ticks before launch with correct eta (ie. 8+2 for fi/co)

[Forest]

I am not sure if I like this idea.

I think I would go as far as to say it would benefit more active players more than it would not so active ones.

I can imagine, seeing PL on me from a target that is returning, and immedietly setting up 5 waves on it knowing the target isn't online.

Of course, you could fake pl but again, that benefits the active players too.

I think it will have the opposite effect as to what is proposed

[Blue_Esper]

everything that benefits inactives will benefit actives

[TheoDD]

Welcome to planetarion where you can have fleets flying constantly without delay or need for activity...

Can we get an auto sign up feature while at it?
Oh and ofcourse some AI that produces the ships i want, moves them to fleet when done. I would prefer that the AI also knew how to find optimal targets based on my fleet composition, and just auto adjust this "calender" accordingly.

Personal view on idea if unclear: Shitty!

[BloodyButcher]

Ive been fighting for a change in the prelaunch for rounds.
Why the hell would you want a change that will require more time spent online for the target you have PLed on a day earlier?
Whats wrong with people logic :/

[Kaiba]

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

Ive been fighting for a change in the prelaunch for rounds.
Why the hell would you want a change that will require more time spent online for the target you have PLed on a day earlier?
Whats wrong with people logic :/

I think you are taking this to an extreme.

I think the general consensus is that for this game to grow something needs to be done to counter the massive activity requirements needed to play. The playerbase has continued to dwindle because of this and really is one the major areas the PA team need to look at to halt the decline of the game.

If the game was to grow we would probably need to branch out at some point and become an app or a fb game, that is where the players are and would be a great source of growth and income for the game.

Now games that my missus and son (not me!) like to play have the ability to queue up multiple attacks, constructions, other tasks which enable the player to not have to come on at a specific time to do something, not everyones lives allow them to be at the beckon call of a game and is why a lot of people have dropped out of playing. I would actually hazard that most stopped playing because they couldnt get the fleet activity to make the game worthwhile playing.

This idea, although be it rough, it a possible remedy to the solution. If it could be engineered so that it allowed us lazy people to play game yet still gave the advantage to the more active people then maybe it could be an upshoot to a rising playerbase. I for one would come back if i could queue up multiple attacks and not have to log in every 3 hrs in a panic or let people down because i overslept and didnt send the defence they asked for. My life doesnt allow me to play PA to anywhere near the requirement i expect of myself and i have had to stop playing for that BUT if i could attack every night and setup more attacks on the back of that then i could get on with my life and check in every 10 hrs or so and keep my planet growing.

There would be more planets in the game, regardless of activity and that makes for more targets and overall more fun.

How about rather than all being cynical and sarcastic in this thread we actually take the idea for what it is, the start of a possible idea that could help the game. Embrace these ideas and dont mock them, even if they dont work. People who are ridiculed will stop thinking of ideas altogether, people who are just proven wrong will try again and eventually have a brilliant idea.

[Motti]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

I think you are taking this to an extreme.

I think the general consensus is that for this game to grow something needs to be done to counter the massive activity requirements needed to play. The playerbase has continued to dwindle because of this and really is one the major areas the PA team need to look at to halt the decline of the game.

If the game was to grow we would probably need to branch out at some point and become an app or a fb game, that is where the players are and would be a great source of growth and income for the game.

Now games that my missus and son (not me!) like to play have the ability to queue up multiple attacks, constructions, other tasks which enable the player to not have to come on at a specific time to do something, not everyones lives allow them to be at the beckon call of a game and is why a lot of people have dropped out of playing. I would actually hazard that most stopped playing because they couldnt get the fleet activity to make the game worthwhile playing.

This idea, although be it rough, it a possible remedy to the solution. If it could be engineered so that it allowed us lazy people to play game yet still gave the advantage to the more active people then maybe it could be an upshoot to a rising playerbase. I for one would come back if i could queue up multiple attacks and not have to log in every 3 hrs in a panic or let people down because i overslept and didnt send the defence they asked for. My life doesnt allow me to play PA to anywhere near the requirement i expect of myself and i have had to stop playing for that BUT if i could attack every night and setup more attacks on the back of that then i could get on with my life and check in every 10 hrs or so and keep my planet growing.

There would be more planets in the game, regardless of activity and that makes for more targets and overall more fun.

How about rather than all being cynical and sarcastic in this thread we actually take the idea for what it is, the start of a possible idea that could help the game. Embrace these ideas and dont mock them, even if they dont work. People who are ridiculed will stop thinking of ideas altogether, people who are just proven wrong will try again and eventually have a brilliant idea.

I do not see your point. How will this help?

Given this silly idea was implemented, it means any given player can relax, pre plan attack etc.

And this will now help keep players and so forth.

But, is this not just making it worse? I sincerely doubt that people stop playing because attacking and queuing cons/research demand so much activity. Seriously, you can log in 1-2 times a day for a few minutes to sort theese activities.

What require activity, is the thing called getting defence. The more you make it possible to attack in a lazy way - the harde it becomes getting defence.

It is the ability to get defence that require activity at a given level, not attacking... A BC can have his job sorted within 5-10 minutes, a DC need to maybe be at it for many hours, each tick with new challenges.

So tell me, how will a battle calender help to reduce the need for activity?

[BloodyButcher]

Most people got time to be around to send out attacks, que con/res, but very few has the time to stay awake until 06:00 in the morning DCing incs wich some lazy sons of bitches PLed 24 hours ago.
Why on earth do we need PL? Cant these people attack during the evening or before going to bed? do they have to PL so the incs show up in the middle of graveyard hours?

[TheoDD]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

I think you are taking this to an extreme.

I think the general consensus is that for this game to grow something needs to be done to counter the massive activity requirements needed to play. The playerbase has continued to dwindle because of this and really is one the major areas the PA team need to look at to halt the decline of the game.

If the game was to grow we would probably need to branch out at some point and become an app or a fb game, that is where the players are and would be a great source of growth and income for the game.

Now games that my missus and son (not me!) like to play have the ability to queue up multiple attacks, constructions, other tasks which enable the player to not have to come on at a specific time to do something, not everyones lives allow them to be at the beckon call of a game and is why a lot of people have dropped out of playing. I would actually hazard that most stopped playing because they couldnt get the fleet activity to make the game worthwhile playing.

This idea, although be it rough, it a possible remedy to the solution. If it could be engineered so that it allowed us lazy people to play game yet still gave the advantage to the more active people then maybe it could be an upshoot to a rising playerbase. I for one would come back if i could queue up multiple attacks and not have to log in every 3 hrs in a panic or let people down because i overslept and didnt send the defence they asked for. My life doesnt allow me to play PA to anywhere near the requirement i expect of myself and i have had to stop playing for that BUT if i could attack every night and setup more attacks on the back of that then i could get on with my life and check in every 10 hrs or so and keep my planet growing.

There would be more planets in the game, regardless of activity and that makes for more targets and overall more fun.

How about rather than all being cynical and sarcastic in this thread we actually take the idea for what it is, the start of a possible idea that could help the game. Embrace these ideas and dont mock them, even if they dont work. People who are ridiculed will stop thinking of ideas altogether, people who are just proven wrong will try again and eventually have a brilliant idea.

oh please.... So how does a game like Travian keep so many players?
That game requires a shitload more activity than this... And in that game there is no salvage for loosing your entire army, or being "SK'd" to bits.

[Kaiba]

Originally Posted by TheoDD

oh please.... So how does a game like Travian keep so many players?
That game requires a shitload more activity than this... And in that game there is no salvage for loosing your entire army, or being "SK'd" to bits.

Now ill admit i dont know much about Travian. I looked at it once like 5 years ago and thought it was crap and didnt go back. So i thought when i saw your reply i would do a quick google search for 'Travian playerbase'. First bunch of results were all posts on the decline of the Travian playerbase in the past 5 years, how it is now at a quarter of that and that even half of the remaining accounts are inactive/dead. Supposedly they had 80k players in their heyday and now its is just bobbing around the 20k and only 10k play 'actively'. Reasons sighted were the pressures of 24/7 gameplay, elitism and reluctance to interact with n00bs, bad gameplay changes by the makers and the playerbase growing up and having RL commitments that didnt mix with the game. Basically all symptoms of Planeterionitis. Now what was funny was that a whole clutch of replies were about ways to make the game more n00b friendly and easier to play, with ideas like being able to queue up longer lists of things which cut down the need for constant activity and monitoring.

It would seem also that a lot of the 'active' playerbase of Travian play the game as sim players and not in the style it was originally intending, those playing it in the intended way is possible down to about 3k.

Now Bitcher has been quite vocal about removing PL and i think in an active enviroment that would be a great idea. But PA isnt an active environment and just because he is an active player that doesnt mean the whole game should conform to his way of wanting to play. He asks why cant people attack at 3 in the afternoon and why do they have to attack at 3am. Basically this is the answer in my eyes. In such a small playerbase you have to attack with 'the pack'. At 3am-6am about 400-600 attack fleets are launched. This is because at this time all of Europe is asleep and half of America is asleep and the rest is getting ready for bed. This makes it a great time to attack because 60% of the playerbase is not logged in or monitoring their planet. Now as a player i may want to attack at 3pm, but i know that if i land at 10pm then my fleet wont be home until 5am and then i will have to get up out of a normal sleep pattern to attack with 'the pack'. So i dont bother with the 3pm attack and wait instead for the higher chance of landing with 'the pack'.

Now if this idea was implemented in some form then i could attack at 3pm and set my fleet to attack again at 5am when it gets home. Everybody could do this, it could actually create a second 'pack attack' within the game. Currently PA is pretty dead gamewise between 2pm and 1am as no one can attack with a high chance of landing and guarantee being able to launch with 'the pack' between 3am-6am.

You will not remove the 3am-6am attacks from the game, common sense on how the mechanics of the game work says this is the best time to attack. You will not change that. Proper 'activity' in the game is defence, attacking is point/click/check j scan/land or recall. Defence means you have to use other people and interact and coordinate to stop attackers. Its far more time consuming and more 'activity' is required to do it properly. But in this smaller pool of players it is becoming harder to do, people dont bother, people arent trained how to DC, people arent as irc active, people arent as sms/call responsive. From my time playing in Vikings (i am using this as an example as i played multiple rounds there) there is maybe 20 players who play 'actively', who care for their planets and then there is 40 drones. These drones are the ones that only really say anything when its about sending defence, they have number in the bots and just send defence all round and attack as part of BG run by 1-2 of the active players. I would imagine this is the same for the other competitive alliances within the game with the number of active players fluxing slightly which ends up ranking the alliances (Ult/FanG/App probably are near 30 'actives' and HR/ROCK are nearer 10 'actives').

Anyway for this game to improve and grow attacking needs to be made easier. People who are hardcore like Bitcher will say no it doesnt and some people like Motti will make a sarcastic comment but for those of us that want to see the game flourish again and not die in its little eltist hole but making the game of 'attacking people for roids' actually easier to attack for roids??????

[Motti]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

Anyway for this game to improve and grow attacking needs to be made easier. People who are hardcore like Bitcher will say no it doesnt and some people like Motti will make a sarcastic comment but for those of us that want to see the game flourish again and not die in its little eltist hole but making the game of 'attacking people for roids' actually easier to attack for roids??????

I am reading, seing you vote yay for battle calendar.
I am still curious as to how this helps out with the need of activity and gameplay?

You are making it even easier to lazy attack. While the challenge to get defence remains the same, and is it not mainly not being able to get a "decent" planet because of uncovered incs that is the main reason for not bothering? And in the end stop playing ?

As I understand it, you reduce the effort to attack even further with this battle calendar. We already have the ability to PL attack fleets with +11, so you can instantly after raid set PL'd attack to land anytime during the night/morning. Do we really need the ability to set attack fleet only every other day? It is still as time consuming to get defence, and that is what really matters for most planets.

[Kaiba]

Originally Posted by Motti

It is still as time consuming to get defence, and that is what really matters for most planets.

No that is what matters for players going for rank. So about 150 guys and girls. For the other 650 odd planets the thought of dcing or getting up to dc is horrifying, they learned many rounds ago that they didnt care enough to worry about defence, they werent good enough/active enough for proper ranks so they enjoy the attacking part of the game. Lots of roid swapping/ lots of XP and lots lots more fun.

I will once again say if this was a game FULL of active players then yes i would be up for all the changes that reward activity BUT IT IS NOT. You need to play to the majority, if we have 800 players and now we made these changes you may worst case lose 50 HARDCORE players and we would have 750 players. If you went the other way with this playerbase and made lots of changes that only rewarded activity ie. No PL then you would just see a rise in the amount of casuals dropping out as they couldnt attack anymore. This would lead to a more steep drop off and we would be down to 500 quicker that way then if we tried to help the less active play more.

Before Bitcher chimes in with 'they can attack in the afternoon' they wont. One round a few back PL was chopped down to 4 ticks and alliances such as ND which is a staple alliance for the average PA player and HR saw big drop offs in attack activity. People just werent prepared to get up and send attacks yet they wouldnt attack in the daytime because there was still little to no chance of landing when the whole playerbase was awake.

[BloodyButcher]

Originally Posted by Kaiba

Before Bitcher chimes in with 'they can attack in the afternoon' they wont. One round a few back PL was chopped down to 4 ticks and alliances such as ND which is a staple alliance for the average PA player and HR saw big drop offs in attack activity. People just werent prepared to get up and send attacks yet they wouldnt attack in the daytime because there was still little to no chance of landing when the whole playerbase was awake.

R48 ND had 2,180 attacking fleets, 57 members.
The most attacking alliance, guess one that wernt "average", 2,388 attacking fleets with 60 members.
HR with respectively 2,069 fleets.
Last round, luckily for ND they had got their PL back, same with HR, so the numbers were:
ND: 2,432
HR: 1,899
R53 how ever, the numbers were lower, guess the reason being ND/HR and all average alliances hadnt learnt to PL yet.

[Kaiba]

Originally Posted by BloodyButcher

R48 ND had 2,180 attacking fleets, 57 members.
The most attacking alliance, guess one that wernt "average", 2,388 attacking fleets with 60 members.
HR with respectively 2,069 fleets.
Last round, luckily for ND they had got their PL back, same with HR, so the numbers were:
ND: 2,432
HR: 1,899
R53 how ever, the numbers were lower, guess the reason being ND/HR and all average alliances hadnt learnt to PL yet.

I like how you used numbers from a round with only nearly 200 ticks less than a normal round to try and prove a point.

So in a round with less ticks ND managed almost 300 more attacks and i would summarise that with a week more they probably would have added nearly 300 more attacks to that number showing PL to be a significant advantage to ND.

Why dont you talk about Rd 52 where ND managed 2.6k attacks. Looking at the wiki thing no alliance managed significant attacks in Rd 53, i think it was a very poor round if memory serves.

All i was saying is that i spoke to officers within both alliances during that reduced PL round and both said that uptake on attacks took a severe knock because people werent active enough to PL within 4 hrs of the 'goldilocks zone' of 3-6am gametime. I remember that as BC in Dead Soldiers that round even with a large group of Xan players it was hard to fill raids and most people would rather just int and value build than specifically wait up/wake up to launch an attack. What will distort the stats that you are so fond of sharing will be all the people taht didnt partake in these and other alliances main attacks and instead tried a couple of random attacks every day when they woke and most likely had to recall. What is glaringly missing from the stats page that is the main resource of your arguement is an 'attacks landed' column. That would give a true definition of how alliances attacking went.

What i will try and bang home again is that you will not ever stop people/alliances wanting to attack at 3-6am as the main raid. You cannot stand there and go 'this is the time when it is the best to attack someone and when the least amount of defence monitoring and reactivity is present but we will attack 4 hrs later when everyone has woken up' it just wont happen and isnt logically sound. What you need to therefore make is a way for a second full scale raid to be possible within 24 hrs. Unless you have the most dedicated memberbase in the game you will not achieve this without some kind of auto launching/battle calender idea. When 2/3rd of the playerbase do not actively DC their own incommings you need to stop worrying about the defence aspect of the game, because it is for a smaller group within the game. You need to promote attacking, you need to find ways to help people attack more.

Once you can sort this then you can look at ways and concessions to aid the more dedicated player, wether its planetary defence or reduced roid caps or whatever. First and foremost though making the ingame more active and more action based will increase interest in the game, currently it is interactively dead for 20 out of 24 hrs a day, get then down to 12 and then discuss defence and helping the elite. If you dont all get off your high horses and out of your ivory towers then you will be the only ones left playing and **** me that will be boring.

[Kaiba]

What i would also like to add is that current ETAs dont allow for 2 raids in a day. Even as a Fi/Co player is a 32 turn around for 2 attacks. Yet we have a attacking system with 5 dead ticks currently (eta 6 and eta 4-1). Would the game not be more dynamic if we had eta's at 5 for fi/co/ 6 for de/fr and 7 for cr/bs. Ingal defence could be eta 2 or 3 then you are reducing the dead ticks down to 3 or 2 yet still allowing the target a small grace to move/hide his fleet from combat.

Why can a galaxy defence fleet only go at eta 5? Why does it have to be so far out?

If you reduced these etas down to this then fi/co would have a 22 tick turnaround for 2 attacks, de/fr 26 and cr/bs 30 (please correct if im wrong). Which is much more viable for a more active game.

[Blue_Esper]

you can land 2 attacks in 1 day

[BloodyButcher]

Do you have to be able land two attack each day?

[RLGambit]

Interesting idea to make travel times shorter. Perhaps something worth trying out in a speed round variant. Only worry is that it requires ppl to be even more active, which may be asking a lot.

[Kaiba]

Originally Posted by RLGambit

Interesting idea to make travel times shorter. Perhaps something worth trying out in a speed round variant. Only worry is that it requires ppl to be even more active, which may be asking a lot.

Not really it just gives people more chance to interact with more aspects of the game. Currently a lot of people dont experience proper DCing because they are asleep, some dont live launch or take part in calcing of attacks because they are asleep or busy.

IF with this idea you could introduce a second alliance raid into the day (one that is actually filled not like alliances current day raids that have like 5 attackers) then you are bringing DCing/live launching/calcing more into the mainstream online time. You are giving the 'silent partners' from BG's to possible chance take an active role within the group by having attacks when they are around.

I feel that if you dont change the travel times to allow a fleet to get out and back twice in a day then what you will end up with is a game where all aspects continue to dwindle. Already each alliance has mainly 10-15 active members and 30+ drones. Even if an alliance wanted to try and pull attacks away from the 'goldilocks zone' you would still get the active members that will attack solo in this time because they care more for the rank of their planet and this is the time that you get the best shot at constant roids, what you would end up with then is 2 attacks that have 50% turnout and are disorganised because no one can get their fleets turned around to attack at both times.