Quote from Fodsey

Jammer and Knazaa (and anyone else), what do you think of this idea?

Sounds good. Great ideas!

I vote "Yes" to implement the changes. I would rather see different changes, but doing something and seeing how it goes it better than doing nothing and seeing it die.

Quote from Knazaa

"Just go on Sirus" ,That's your argument?

Agreed. There's a reason i play on Retro. My understanding is that these rules are potentially being applied to the Retro universe. Not interested in the others, so if this is going to be the solution, then I will just left it slowly die.

Quote from Dschibait

So i don't understand why you dont understand that this brings nothing.

We know about escape flight. We know about it from the very beginning. That's not the question.

The question is why it isn't more scaled. A 10x increase in point levels is a HUGE increase in available resources that can be brought to bear in an attack.

Now, I know people will say "but you should learn to escape flight." Yes, you should. And I'm sure you do. But these days, spending hours in front of the browser to play the game is not really an option for most people, and so they tend to make tactical moves that last a short period of time. As a result, it's VERY hard to find planets to attack when combined with the decrease in active players (99 online out of 720 registered in Retro right now). I remember when there were hundreds of players online at once and communications, trades, and attacks were happening all the time.

Now, all there is is a VERY large player attacking a not-so-large player when they find them and the not-so-large player getting discouraged and quitting the game after time. You can argue that they should have learned to escape flight, but if you stick to the "learn to escape flight" as the only way to convince people to stay in the game, then they will leave. And you will be left with a core of high level players that will eventually die off and the game will die.

Quote from Knazaa

If you want help the new players , just add some AZ .

I've been an advocate of this from day one back in 2008 when I started playing. Never understood why it was so hard to make more AZs.

Quote from Fodsey

This is NOT a game design issue, it is your and my personal life constraints

This is 100% correct. But they asked for opinions and comments, and you, me, and everyone else who does so will be doing so through the lens of their personal experience. Mine is as someone who believes the key to the long term success of this game is the attraction - and more importantly, the retention - of new players.

Specifically, they asked for

Quote

feedback to make this feature interesting for all players! Get involved in questions of balancing, possible exploits or general suggestions for improvement.

I mainly choose to address what I considered balance issues and factors that contribute to the "interesting" factor.

ANY rule changes or technology changes must make it easier and more enticing for them to go to their browser and play this game for months rather than switch to their mobile phone and play whatever the latest popular game is on mobile platforms (I don't play mobile games so any game I use as an example will surely cause me ridicule ).

If the game is going to force us to chose between three playing styles (and it does: "as long as at least one specialization point has not yet been assigned, only escape flights can be launched") then I'd like to see an option where there essentially is a net gain or loss of zero compared to the other options. In other words, don't force me to be miner, fleeter, researcher or hybrid; I'm making that choice already with my builds, defenses, attacks, and strategies.

The keys to doing what they're trying to accomplish are already part of the game. MY MATHS MAY BE BAD EXAMPLES, but the idea is simple: Miners get a 5% increase in mining per point assigned. Fleeters get a 5% increase in attack score per point assigned. Researchers get a 5% reduction in research time per point assigned. Feel free to mix and match. Maybe even let people purchase points with Urplasma.

All this business with the galaxy scanner needs to STOP NOW. It has no bearing on combat/mining/research style. A miner wants to know what's going on in their sectors to time a recycle run just as much as a fleeter wants to do a ninja. Ditch the capacity perks for fuel and cargo because the miner is escape flighting and the cost of a new transmitter is trivial compared to the "bonus" of not having to send as many, but the fuel savings for a fleeter (especially with merchant perks) is substantial. Etc.

Keep it simple.

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I am, however, expressing my OPINION that the new rules, as written now, will not make the game sufficiently BETTER.

I did offer some suggestions that I BELIEVE would make things better.

My current game style of farmville is based on the fact that there is nothing else to do in the game for me at this time, given the amount of time (and other resources) I have to devote to it. Therefore, yes, to some degree I want to protect my ability to play this game in that fashion should I choose to.

However, if there are players that choose to be primarily attackers or defenders or researchers, then I believe that these new rules are imbalanced and could have tweaks made that will improve the game play.

Still, regardless of game play for AZ17 players (of which I am one), if the AZ5 players don't stick around, then the AZ17 players will continue to be what they are today and the game will slowly die.

This game is essentially a giant economics simulator. It is a closed system with no way to introduce goods and services from the outside other than the transdimensional thingy. Given that framework, the economics of this game (meaning, studied from economics theories, not literally the trading or stealing of the game) predicts that it will stagnate as resources dwindle, without ways to replenish them from outside the system.

I am happy to start building nixxies and stealth bombers again. I'm happy to blow up my neighbors and spew forth with level 10 galaxy scanners my wrath upon the universe. But it takes so much TIME to do that right now that I fear that unless you already have a large commitment in the game, new players will not stick around long enough to become AZ17.

After all, games, in general, have evolved in the past 13 years and most people don't play strategic browser-based games anymore.

Quote from Fodsey

Now you can talk about imbalance

You're welcome to disagree. My point is to bring in new players that WILL STICK AROUND. Not kowtow to existing, mainly high point players.

If I lose 95% of my resources as a new player on a regular basis, I will claim that the game is unfair and I will stop playing. Then we'll be right back to where we are. That doesn't count the players that spend money on the game to buy Urplasma to get additional benefits such as the trader or build bonuses.

And yes, my maths may be off for true game balance, but I believe that the ideas behind them represent a fairer balance than the existing proposal does.

Please forgive my turtle/miner conflation; Again, I am talking about new players coming to the game and staying with the game. Existing players won't care. Well, maybe I will but I'm an old woman with crazy ideas.

Here's my bottom line: I do not like the current proposals as they stand. I've offered some examples of why I think they do not work, and some examples of how I think they could be improved. The real change that should be made to the game is, I still believe (other than bringing in hundreds of new active playegrs), AI opponents that work around the clock. That would give everyone something new to play with and nothing else needs be changed.

(Oh, and I don't mind logging in every day, that wasn't my point. My point is again from the perspective of the AZ5 player, not the AZ15 player).

It sounds like like we're all basically saying the same thing:

The good old days were good; the current days are not.

I like that the devs are trying to do something, and I'll be the first player to shift from urplasma production to battleship production if I thought building attack fleets would get me anywhere, but I just don't like the list of benefits/penalties as listed now.

Here's my thoughts on that, as opposed to overall game economics and zero-sum game theory:

Limiting access to the scanner simply punishes people who've lost fleet to create an asteroid)

If you're going to call turtles miners, then give them defense production bonuses as is, but remove that from fleeter. Fleeter should get production bonus only on attack ships. In other words, make it cheaper/faster to build defenses for miners and cheaper/faster to build attack ships for fleeters. Do not make it cheaper/faster for fleeters to build defenses.

I do not like the "steals more resources" attribute of fleeter, because there's' no balance. If I'm a level 3 miner, I get 120% total production. Let's just say that my base production per hour is hour 100,000 uinits. Normally, the 100,000 units would have 1.0 x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.125 remaining after three attacks (!2.5%). A level three miner defending against a level 3 fleeter, however, starts with 110% units, but only keeps 35% each time. So that's 1.1 x 0.35 x 0.35 x 0.35 = 4.72%, which is almost 1/3 of what they would have had without the specialization. That means I lose 87.5% of my stuff after three attacks normally, but even if I'm a level 3 miner, a level 3 fleeter will take more than 95% of my stuff in the new rules! I do not like this at all. Make it balance out better. The poor researcher loses out even more with 1.0 x 0.35 x 0.35 x 0.35 = 4.29% left

Given that the combat is so lopsided under the new rules, it hurts even more that the fleeter paid less for the attack ships and it cost them less to make the attack in spice usage, so they could send fewer ships in the first place. This just makes the current situation of lopsided combat even more lopsided.

While I like that shield domes are more effective for miners, Seriously, they're pretty much useless beyond AZ10 or so. Someone pumping more than 100 or so nixxes at you will pop a shield dome easily. New rules would make that 150 nixxies, which is no deal breaker for someone with tens of thousands of ships to send.

Instead, give miners a 10%/20%/30% increase on defense research bonus, and give fleeters a 10/20/30% increase on weapons research bonus. Then give them both a 10/20/30% increase on shield research, since they both use it. This scales and it's much more even.

Another option is to allow people to build more than one shield dome, or to build multiple levels of shield domes. That would be more useful than a 50% bonus to their point value.

Now, to return to combat and the research specialization, yes, the AZ 16 research can save 16,000,000 units of resources per attack, but it's not clear if that's total, or per type. In other words, is that 16,000,000 pig and 16,000,000 metal and 16,000,000 krypt and 16,000,000 spice or 4,000,000 of each?

Also, back to the research person, 6 hours of research reduction per day is nothing when it takes 100 days (or more!) to research something. That means if I log in each day, I can shave off 25 of the total and only have it be 75 days instead of 100. That's me logging in EVERY DAY. Unless it's made automatic, I don't see this as being beneficial. Also, I'd rather see research times go down substantially. Since researchers won't get any other real perks, the best thing would be to allow them to build multiple research stations and have the SUM TOTAL of their levels (or maybe a diminishing returns formula) be used to determine the total research time:

1 point = 1 extra research station (one from main planet plus one more planet)
2 points = 2 extra research stations (one from main planet and two more planets)
3 points = 3 extra research stations (one from main planet and three more planets)

Then if you had level 20/12/6 on those three stations, you could do math like this:

total research level = 20 + 16/2 + 6/3 = level 30

Fill in the denominators for each fraction as you will to make the math work out better, but you get the idea.

THIS would be something I could get behind.

In fact, I would love to see the researcher go crazy with this (plus the 1,000,000 per AZ PER RESOURCE TYPE). Combined with some urplasma and the merchant, they could seriously do well, even without ships.

Those are my thoughts and my maths. The economics of combat under the new system seems very biased towards fleeters, very anti-miner, and the whole thing with the galaxy scanner should be left out. It's hard enough to get an asteroid and build a decent scanner for lower-level players; don't punish them for choosing to be a miner instead.

Quote from Fodsey

I want more complexity!!! :))))

If we go back to the days of hundreds of online players simultaneously, then I agree. But they're not there, now. What we have is the ultra-rich with tens of millions of points (or hundreds of millions!) versus people with substantially less. Most of the really high point active players are in Europe. The rest are in the United States. Because this is a real-time game, if you only have the ability to play for 30-60 minutes before you go to work in the morning (as I do) then you can't compete in real time with someone who is 4-8 hours different in real-time. They'll be launching 30-60 minute attack runs and you'll be at work.

So you have to save flight. Which means they won't bother attacking you in the first place because you have nothing useful to steal.

So you create a perpetual downward spiral of 99% return every round. One player out of 100 will not return because they find the game not to their liking (either too aggressive or not aggressive enough). Eventually, you get to the leftover stellar core of material no longer capable of producing fusion and the star slowly cools to a pile of dense carbon. Wait - I'm mixing my astrophysics with my spaceinvasion, but you get the idea.

The real answer is, indeed, substantially more players. But since there is no magic (or advertising, as far as I can see) to bring in new players, one alternative would be AI computer generated adversaries. Even if it's just fake players running a script (build when they can, research when they can, scout planets in some fashion, and attack when they find an attackable planet) then we could pretend that there are more players.

Don't get me wrong - I miss the days of excitement just like you, Fodsey. But since those aren't here, and I don't have that kind of time anymore, I sort of like the "farmarama" method these days.

-Jammer (formerly Irron, Poostid, and others I've forgotten)

TL;DR: If these changes go through, and I do NOT use my specialization points, then I cannot launch attacks. I would like to propose that if I do not use my points, then no one can attack me, either.

I think that the game is slowly dying and it is dying because things take too long. They take to long to build, research, or buy. Plus, once you get to a few hundred thousand points, suddenly everyone with millions of points can start attacking you. This turns off new players due to the unbalanced nature of the game.

I have been playing since 2008. I am not a newbie and I am not an idiot. I know how to play, and I've been in the top 100 before. Once I get to a certain point in the game, it no longer becomes fun for me and I reset and start over. Now, the game is no longer fun even when I start over.

These modifications do not increase my enjoyment of the game and are more likely to cause me to stop playing it entirely. Already, all I do is build a mine, wait for the 5x speed bonus to come in, use the trader to convert everything to/from spice to be able to build the next mine, and start over. I do not build attack fleet. I do not build defense. I do not send spy probes. I do not recycle. If you attack me, you will take my resources. You may even destroy my transmitters. Most of them came from the interdimensional transporter anyway, so it's no big deal; I will rebuild them. I do not research - I only mine Urplasma.

The game is very boring. I like it that way. If I could flip a switch and have permanent attack protection, but also that means that I had no ability to attack, I would do it. I just want to build, launch my save flights, and do it again the next morning.

So I vote no to these changes, because I do not think this is how most people play the game at higher levels - EVERYONE becomes a fleeter if they want to grow because the universe is a fixed economy with limited resources. They get converted to goods (ships, defenses) that can be recycled and services (mines, research) that cannot. You can not trade with someone outside the system so you cannot apply principles of economics to affect the overall economy, thus things stagnate. To truly increase your economic status, you have to steal it from someone else.