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New Recruit |
| As you probably know, Sasha has installed a new recruitment system. A finite soldier pool and fluctuating prices that on a good day are double the old ones. Post opinions/compliments/concerns/complaints here: | |||
| Sense now i am inside the message boards i can post an opinion on this, i think that the system, if it is to balance the game, should only activate when the current player is within a certan amount of soldiers (persent wise) as the leader. Otherwise, it makes the game less balanced by preventing the people with few soldiers from catching up. Or another idea would be to scrap the whole new system and go back to the old one, as many of my comrads in arms have suggested. I do, however aplaud the increceing of the link value to 2 per click. ---- I never lost, I just ran out of time. | |||
| I think that the changes made are excellent for parity and allow someone the opportunity to climb the ladder beyond 30th position. First, the finite soldier pool is good because it keeps the top couple of people from simply buying massive soldiers and exponentially increasing their money intake. Second, it forces players to focus on resource management versus simply attacking wiley niley and having no penalty for squandering their soldiers. The attack modification is a good thing for two reasons. Combat cannot be defined by simply saying that the force with superior firepower always wins. Second, in close contests, variables shift the momentum between the combatants and affect the ultimate outcome. This new attack arrangement simmulates that. Even though the one with the higher score will USUALLY win, as they should. ---- To know what you know, and know what you do not know is a characteristic of one who knows | |||
| Let me clarify the secon statement by saying that yes, in cases of overwhelming superiority of firepower, then there should be no chance of an upset. Sasha did say that the farther from equal you get, the lower percentage and when it's not close, there is no chance. ---- To know what you know, and know what you do not know is a characteristic of one who knows | |||
| This new system is idiotic and does not increase parity in the game, it only slightly increases parity on the first few pages. New people on pages 7 and below don't have 100,000+ galos to spend on soldiers. Other than sending out hundreds of links, how can they increase their soldier count and be competitive in the game? The system should revert back to the original. 40,000 for 10, 70,000 for 20. It is good however, that there is a cap on how many soldiers people can buy, or the top few could just buy all of them. Someone suggested a few weeks back that the amount of soldiers you get per click should differ depending on how many soldiers you have. I think this is a good idea, and can lead to some true parity in the game, while encouraging people to recruit friends at the same time. Change the system, paying 120,000 galos for ten soldiers doesn't make any sense ---- don't hate the game, hate the player | |||
| Now, as harsh as it may seem, heres my opinion. IT SUCKS ASS! This opinion sponsored by Rpgod. The only person in debt 300$ to his dad for someone STEALING HIS STINKIN 500$ DIGITAL CAMERA, wHEN HE LEFT IT ALONE FOR 5 FRICKIN MINUTES! ---- Thomas S. Wootton High School Class of 2006 | |||
| What about setting up a system where soldiers are priced based on an S-shaped curve? When you have very few soldiers, recruiting new ones should be very cheap. As you get closer to having around 50 - 100, the price should level off. Once you get above a certain number, say 500?, the price should begin to climb again. This would tend to balance the game to where most players would be competitive, but the ones who could capture better would have a distinct advantage. For those of you concerned with how the rules correspond to reality, attribute the rising costs to the demands of a supply chain and infrastructure for supporting and managing all of those troops. When armies get too big, the bureacracy becomes less efficient. ---- L337 my $h0r7$ | |||
| I like that idea. The more soldiers you get the higher the price should be. I mean it will keep someone from having a super high amount of soldiers and the superpowers soldiers will go down and it will allow smaller players to spend 30,000 to get 10 soldiers and try and even out with everyone else. You can also still be able to capture and give out your recruit link. That will bring traffic and popularity to the site. See it all falls into place. ---- "We try to discuss the problem, but when all else fails we go in by force." - UN tour guide | |||
| It's still a stop-gap measure ... Granted, it'll work semi-well (until some other way to get tons of soldiers is discovered) once everyone is wiped and set back to square one. Of course, when that happens, I don't know if I'll come back to play the same open ended game all over again. ---- telnet://twmud.com:2000 | |||
| Yes... this new system still favors the higher monied people... and you shouldn't listen to rgent... an S curve would be where the prices increase slowly, then rapidly, then come to a plateau. You should implement some sort of high power equation-ed curve where it is still relatively cheap at low soldier numbers (1000G per soldier for those below 100 *example*), but it should become almost impossible for you to buy soldiers past 1000, it should start to cost about... ALOT, here's a refernce table: <=1 soldiers : 1,000G/per soldier gets you up to 20 soldiers 20 - 100 : 5,000G/per soldier 100 - 500 : 100,000G/per soldier 500 - 1000 : 500,000G/per soldier >=1000 : 1,000,000/per soldier to me this would seem like a fair implementation that would keep most people at or below 100 soldiers, oh and take out recruitment, no one like you... i mean it. | |||
| Seit, what are u thinking! if u keep that attitude, theres gona b some problems :-p ---- Max Burns Thomas S. Wootton High School Class of 2006 | |||
| Er, well...it's an S laying on its side... ---- L337 my $h0r7$ | |||
| I vote for rgent or seit's suggestions. Make it cheaper to buy soldiers when you have less than 100, make it more expensive to buy them from 100-300, even more expensive to buy from 300-500, and impossible to buy over 1000. The way it is right now, NONE of the lower ranked people can buy ANY soldiers because the price is way to high ($148K for 10? That's NUTS!) | |||
| To actually really test our theories Sasha would have to reset every account to see if everyone would grow at an equel pace and no one would become a super power. So these are just theories and not really can't be tested untill they are put into a real life test. I will post a suggestion on the other board about something that Sasha could do. ---- "We try to discuss the problem, but when all else fails we go in by force." - UN tour guide | |||
| Yes, makeing soldiers price based on your total amount is a good idea. But why an "S" curve. Why not go with a simpeler formuna: Price of Soldiers = (YourSoldiers/Soldiers of person who has most)*Sasha's Random number For example: Right now i have 204 soldiers fn-kain has the most soldiers at 292,914 the current price of soldiers is 147,183 Galos So according to my formula: PS=(204/294,914)*147,183 PS=101.81046678014607648331377961033 So i would pay 102 gallos for 10 soldiers. Lets use someone else for an example KRONOS has 48 soldiers PS=(48/294,914)*147,183 PS=23.955403948269665054897359908312 So KRONOS would pay 24 gallos Next Example Rpgod has 29,894 sioldiers PS=(29,894/294,914)*147,183 PS=14919.225950616111815647951606231 So Rpgod would pay 14,919 or 14,920 depending on the rounding system Final Example Onyx has 294,267 soldiers PS=(294,267/294,914)*147,183 PS=146860.1011176139484731141960029 so Onyx would pay 146860 or 146861 gallos for soldiers This system would quickly balance the game as it is and (even better) prevent the game from becomeing un-balanced in Age 1. People who have only a tiny fraction of the soldiers of the top ones pay only a tiny fraction of the price! Parity at its best! Who is with me! | |||
| I like it but it would have to be for one soldier not ten. ---- "We try to discuss the problem, but when all else fails we go in by force." - UN tour guide | |||
| I like that formula too. But there should be some advantage to being on top. Just not an insurmountable one. ---- L337 my $h0r7$ | |||
| Soldiers cost MORE for certain people? Meh! Ah, i bet you all are also for lower salary caps and more revunue sharing in the NFL too? I mean look at the mostly mediocre crap we get from them year after year. I mean sure, it's nice that the Bengals can compete, but damned if we all won't miss the dynasties that embodied sports in yesteryears and gave rise to a million and one dreams in children. Come on! The 49ers and Steelers and Packers...never again because someone wants everything to be equal so the fans of the Arizona Cardinals don't get laughed at for being dipshits! Noone dreams to just get ONE super bowl ring. People dream about being Joe Montana and getting THREE! Get a fucking clue! I'm certain Everquest doesn't have a system where the greatest equipment costs less because you're a loser newbie. You don't learn by someone handing you a system where everyone can be a lameo slacker and still compete. BOOOO to this sort of crap. It's not intuitive and it is not how life or games work. YOU MUST LEARN TO PLAY BETTER. Vyce-X ---- Kooey Kablooey | |||
| And to reiterate, it's retarded. ---- Kooey Kablooey | |||
| Do you learn by buying your EverQuest characters on Ebay? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4596&item=8105312594&rd=1 For real, though ... revenue sharing rocks! GO CARDINALS ---- telnet://twmud.com:2000 | |||
| Feh. Share some with Mars, then. ---- L337 my $h0r7$ | |||
| Hey Vyce, I think you need to get the clue. When a franchise is created in the NFL they get an extra draft, AND have the right to draft non-frnchise players from existing teams in there expansion draft. If you are looking for a system similar to the NFL, maybe we should have one in which all new players automatically get save X number of your soldiers. By the way, expansion teams also have a waiver extra cap room for the first three years. So jump down off your high horse. Just because you got in the game early and have a huge advantage doesn't mean that you play any better than anybody else. Sasha is attempting to make a game that will allow players to enter it at any point and not feel like they have no chanece and then leave the game. Oh and by the way, you can't even compare this to Everquest. In that game you are not stuck in with a small group of people all trying to achieve the same thing. And if you do get stuck there, you can move to another area, it's a HUGE game world, this is a very small one. ---- To know what you know, and know what you do not know is a characteristic of one who knows | |||
| Way to go Mr. JoJo for not understanding nor addressing the point in yet another worthless addition to this idiotic conversation. ---- Kooey Kablooey | |||
| I don't think it's his problem. I think we can blame public schools these days for not teaching reading comprehension. ---- telnet://twmud.com:2000 | |||
| I understood perfectly. What you failed to realize is that I was addressing your flawed argument about creating a game that is watered-down due to parity. The point is, Sasha is trying to build a game that will allow all people to be competitive and WANT to paly it. Pepole who sign up and see in the first couple of days that they can't be competitive because of they got in late won't stick around to keep playing. That kind of thing hampers growth. If he intends to develop this game for sale or revenue through ads, he needs it to grow. So yes, I understood, but it is people like you guys with elitist attitudes that need to remember that this is a BETA version. The idea is to try multiple ways of running the game to create an environment conducive to game growth, nothing more. ---- To know what you know, and know what you do not know is a characteristic of one who knows | |||
| And yes, you can blame the public schools in your counrty for failing to teach reading comprehension. ---- To know what you know, and know what you do not know is a characteristic of one who knows | |||
| The idea is to try multiple ways of running the game to create an environment conducive to game growth, nothing more. So on to dumbing down the game through subjective pricing: Please explain to me then why you think this will help anyone? How does it reduce the power of the top players? How does it address un-fettered growth for players? How does it promote keeping good players playing? How does it keep new players from quitting after they realize these flaws? How does it promote teamwork? How does it solve anything other than an immediate issue of uncontrolled soldier growth caused by a flawed system that doesn't allow for atrophy and destruction? What you'll get is instead of 2-3 top players, you'll have more like 10-20 top players. Which is about the same thing. You'll always have people who are better. Dumbing down the system to solve for sub-par players isn't a solution. I'm anti-"subjective pricing" because it doesn't set a valid baseline for gameplay and only serves to eliminate the need for cohesive action between teammates. Now i'm sorry that newbs can't join the game, but I could point you to TradeWars, Solar/Barren Realms Elite and a few other old BBS games similar to this one that do not rely on forumlaic punishment as a method to control players. If a player is good, and on an opposing team, and he pisses you off, then you should be fairly certain that you can at least prick him when you attack -- regardless of level. You should be able to join your meager power with those on your team that are higher than you. Unfortunately, this game has such granularity as not to allow that to exist and what we see now is just a symptom of THAT problem and no other. Honestly, if you have Weapon 4 vs Defense 4, it's a dice roll to see which wins. It's not supposed to be 8*Weapon 4 vs 4*Weapon 4. Bottom line: Players should be REWARDED for doing well, lest there be no point in doing well. Capice? Vyce-X, the anti-parity activist. ---- Kooey Kablooey | |||
| I live in Phoenix. The Cardinals suck. They deserve to lose. I am not about to screw other teams so that they suck less. It doesn't matter if it's football or SC. If you suck, you deserve to lose. Do the damn work and do better, or stay the losers that you are. Try teamwork. It works. | |||
| How does it reduce the power of the top players? It doesn't. It just makes it harder to widen the gap between you and everyone behind you. It gives other players a chance of catching up. How does it address un-fettered growth for players? By introducing diminishing returns, it slows them down. How does it promote keeping good players playing? Because the game won't get boring just because you've made it to the top of the pyramid. It will be cheaper for other players to catch up and knock you off of the top. So you'll have to keep working hard to stay there. How does it keep new players from quitting after they realize these flaws? I guess it depends on what you view as the goal of the game. Is this game going to be one where one player can 'win', and then we reset and start over? Or is it going to be one where you measure your success by how many weeks you manage to stay on top in an ongoing race? How does it promote teamwork? If your planet wants to stay ahead in the rankings, they can contribute cash to whoever their best champions are to help them. How does it solve anything other than an immediate issue of uncontrolled soldier growth caused by a flawed system that doesn't allow for atrophy and destruction? It's an attempt to replace a part of that system that doesn't work well. Does this address your questions? ---- L337 my $h0r7$ ---- L337 my $h0r7$ | |||
| It doesn't. It just makes it harder to widen the gap between you and everyone behind you. It gives other players a chance of catching up. Just more time comsuming, but not really. I'll still have more attack and defense and I will take your soldiers from you anyway because you cannot take my attack or defense away from me in order to catch up. At the very least i will always stay in front of you by an ever slimmer margin. At some point it will become so that I cannot play anymore and neither can you, because we are too "large". How does it address un-fettered growth for players? By introducing diminishing returns, it slows them down. See above. Because the game won't get boring just because you've made it to the top of the pyramid. It will be cheaper for other players to catch up and knock you off of the top. So you'll have to keep working hard to stay there. Right....but the law of diminishing returns is against everyone. Meaning you still can't knock me off the top because the closer you come to doing so you will be slowed down as well. I guess it depends on what you view as the goal of the game. That's an interesting thought. What's the goal of the game? Noone can "die" or truely help anyone else...so the goal of the game is to stay on top...which is FUCKING BORING i might add and with an addition like this will be completely inconsequential because everyone will eventually achieve sameness creating an homogenized boredom for all. Is this game going to be one where one player can 'win', and then we reset and start over? Or is it going to be one where you measure your success by how many weeks you manage to stay on top in an ongoing race? The goals need definition, unquestionably. I would suggest tournament style play where people play for 2 weeks while others sign up, then stars on a given day and allows no more signups. Whomever is on top after 4 weeks wins. You can have multiple games running at a time if necessary. If your planet wants to stay ahead in the rankings, they can contribute cash to whoever their best champions are to help them. Why would a newb want to contribute when they see no return? Or why would they want to donate to a player who gets even less gain than they would? Huh? Does this make any sense? It's an attempt to replace a part of that system that doesn't work well. It worked fine before because it was even for everyone at least. Now it's exposed for what it truely is, a half-step that will hinder future fixes. Does this address your questions? No, it really doesn't answer anything. Try again. I joined after the game was already running for a couple weeks. Notice how fast i got up in rank? It's because i actually played and got clicks. The point is that when everyone starts from ZERO again, everyone will be equal. At that point you won't need systems like these. ---- Kooey Kablooey | |||
| Bravo rgent, it's nice to see another person that gets the idea behind the changes. well said ---- To know what you know, and know what you do not know is a characteristic of one who knows | |||
| These are all just theories. Theories have been wrong in the past I mean really 500 years ago everyone thought the earth was flat. Right now we think this could be a quick fix, but could this really be the solution. I think we should see where this goes if this is not the solution Sasha could scrap it. One last thing how will we know that it works for the smaller people. I mean really we never know and that is why I also urge Sasha to make the test game where he could test these variables out in a controlled enviroment. ---- "We try to discuss the problem, but when all else fails we go in by force." - UN tour guide | |||
| It doesn't. It just makes it harder to widen the gap between you and everyone behind you. It gives other players a chance of catching up. Just more time comsuming, but not really. I'll still have more attack and defense and I will take your soldiers from you anyway because you cannot take my attack or defense away from me in order to catch up. At the very least i will always stay in front of you by an ever slimmer margin. At some point it will become so that I cannot play anymore and neither can you, because we are too "large". Well, we won't be too large because there should be plenty of people behind us. Because the game won't get boring just because you've made it to the top of the pyramid. It will be cheaper for other players to catch up and knock you off of the top. So you'll have to keep working hard to stay there. Right....but the law of diminishing returns is against everyone. Meaning you still can't knock me off the top because the closer you come to doing so you will be slowed down as well. And that's where teamwork comes in. Then, it's who can get the most people to attack the other person and knock some soldiers off them. ---- Aleksandr(Sasha) Ovcharenko | |||
| Let's do a little thought experiment. Imagine how many turns Vyce, Onyx, Fn, Void, RPG and Myself have accumulated, since we don't get to hit anyone EVER anymore. It's a lot, believe me. More than you imagine. Now imagine that the entire population of say, Venus decides to beat the crap out of say...Onyx. Everyone hits him for single turns, spam attacking him and losing millions of gallos worth of weapons in the process and eroding his soldier base to something near normal in the process. Option 1) Let's pretend it goes to 8000 soldiers. He can still make good money with that, so he swears a little, and asks our lower-ranked players to retaliate, because we owe a crapload to him, and anyone around 200 soldiers or less kicks the shit out of the top venus players with spam attacks in retaliation. The entire top end of Venus' cash base goes to hell. Wheeee! Option 2) Now let's pretend that you actually bring him down to nothing. 120 troops. He takes a breath, and spam attacks the entire top 20 Venus players HIMSELF. He can. They all join him at the bottom of the listings. Wheeee! They all spend months rebuilding. How is this better than the old system? Frankly, given the turn/money/weapons/soldier system currently in place, the situation is MORE intractable than before. I climbed to where I am without any assistance whatsoever. Only after I was mid top ten did I see assistance. AND I was funding others. That could never happen now, It simply would take forever. Sasha put a bad bandaid on this. I just can't see a better fix short of a place to spend excess troops. | |||
| This lets more people have a chance of being at the top before being brought back down. ---- Aleksandr(Sasha) Ovcharenko | |||
| Sorry for jumping ship in spite of my teammates, but it is obious sasha wont change it to square 1 so at least this is better for the newbies ---- I never lost, I just ran out of time. | |||