2012-02-10 Game change affecting Restarts

Atryn

Member
2149

Mar 12th 2012, 11:54:09

The fact is that the restart stuff has dramatically changed things.

martian: scenarios...

You are essentially correct that an original country is "usually" better off than a restart, primarily because of military / tech. The exception is that the new strategy is to AB/BR/CM someone to near 0 CS. Rebuilding that CS takes forever and restarting does not.

But even moreso, once you have restarted, if that happens to you again, chances are you haven't replenished your tech at all anyway and your military is pretty low. We have a LOT of countries in this stage right now that could be better off restarting. The exception here is if you have been successfully building stock that you don't want to lose.

When you restart, the best play for the enemy is to ASAP AB/BR/CM away all your CS and leave you alive. The response to that is to drop to low land (10 acres or less) and get killed after using up all your turns on hand.

Watch how this is playing out in the later stages of our war. It is very informative. Hanlong will be along to confirm.

Eric171

Member
460

Mar 12th 2012, 17:19:59

ehh... come on people. Tags at war have better things to do than to target restarts. And if you already crushed your enemy, as LAF did with MD, who cares. Just adapt your war strategy to the game changes.

Anyway, martian, seems you people did really low ball the cash of the restarts.

I ran out of cash to build at turn 16 (sure, I could have done a little better if I went all indy or all farmer, but still...).

Like someone already suggested, imo it would be better to base the cash you give restarts on a % of the costs of building up the land you are giving it.

That will allow restarts to be a little more independent of FA than they are right now.

martian

Game Moderator
Mod Boss
7826

Mar 12th 2012, 23:48:05

The fact that this changes war strategies is not necessarily a bad thing. The only concern is if it really breaks the game or somehow makes the game more annoying/tedious/less fun.

@Atryn: but the question is as a war strategy are you better off all restarting? don't forget you are now losing turns you could have been using to hit your enemy/run ops etc (100 to be precise) and that's the other consideration. If in some cases it's strategically advantageous to get people to restart in order to improve war performance than so be it (the game was like this before those changes anyway imo). We are more interested if this keeps people playing through the reset rather than giving up after the 2nd restart and not playing anymore. If this change helps with that then it's a good thing.

@Eric: we deliberately lowballed the cash and it effectively works on a sliding scale. The objective wasn't really to make restarts independent of FA (in alliance). but again, once we see how people do/what peoeple think we would be willing to rejig things a little if it means more strategy/game play/interaction.

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Eric171

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Mar 13th 2012, 13:02:10

I am not saying the objective was to make it independent of FA. Just saying that giving it more cash will also make it more independent of FA. It also touches on mapleson`s (IIRC) concern that the restart will come oop without any military.

It is weird to have this huge amount of CS and land and, in the end, have to build even more CS to get cash to build, is all.

Marshal

Member
32,589

Mar 13th 2012, 17:26:32

farms not cs's but still even with indy farmer hybrid with few rigs country gets oop with ~20k jets+troops and turrets or ~100k troops/jets and few k bushels and ~1m bucks.

Patience: Yep, I'm with ELK and Marshal.

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Atryn

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2149

Mar 13th 2012, 20:24:56

We are more interested if this keeps people playing through the reset rather than giving up after the 2nd restart and not playing anymore. If this change helps with that then it's a good thing.

It might, but it might also require some people's attitudes to change. Currently the successful strategy is to BR/AB your opponent down to low or zero CS but NOT kill them. A lot of players are still "philosophically" opposed to suicide. Being in that situation is incredibly demoralizing and, IMHO, they'd be better off restarting. (this is once you are off your primary country anyway).

If people view the math, this certainly makes death less demoralizing. But if people cling to life even when suicide/restarting would be better, it may be more demoralizing.

*EDIT - I do believe it will take several resets before you have your answers. Maybe I'm sharing perspective a bit prematurely.

chapman951

Member
208

Mar 14th 2012, 3:30:33

interesting.

ZIP

Member
3222

Mar 14th 2012, 14:07:07

Originally posted by Marshal:

farms not cs's but still even with indy farmer hybrid with few rigs country gets oop with ~20k jets+troops and turrets or ~100k troops/jets and few k bushels and ~1m bucks.

depends on when you restart, this late in the set i come oop w/ 200k jet or troop ready to go.

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martian

Game Moderator
Mod Boss
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Mar 16th 2012, 2:03:15

dunno. my advice for ab'd br'd countries was almost always to drop the empty acres to booste tech levels. But I think your right, we probably need to wait 3-4 sets to see how people adapt to the changes first before deciding what to do next given that it doesn't appear to have massively broken the game:P

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Xinhuan

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3728

Mar 16th 2012, 3:32:44

I disagree with the "wait for 3-4 resets". If there are no game breaking things, it probably isn't broken and waiting 6-8 months before making another change is being massively resistant to change.

In game design/development, you always want to have a fast turn-around time in the iterative development cycle, and "waiting" for no reason other than to wait is a very bad idea, giving the impression that the developers just doesn't care, especially since the changes such as to the amount of starting cash is just tweaking a formula and doesn't involve 2 months of coding.

martian

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Mod Boss
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Mar 16th 2012, 20:53:07

I'm only talking about this case. I'm not talking about changes to alliance in general. Other changes are more than likely forthcoming much sooner than 3-4 sets.

Also it's not waiting for the sake of waiting. It's different when one game cycle = 2 months vs something like starcraft where 1 game cycle = 30 minutes = 1 hour and you get lots of sample..

To be clear: not saying we *won't* entertain tweaks sooner than that, but the reasons have to be compelling. As such we will be soliciting more feedback at the end of the set.

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Forgotten

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Mar 16th 2012, 22:25:13

we should do one hour resets!

~LaF's Retired Janitor~

Tertius

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Mar 25th 2012, 17:44:27

How did you decide how much cash restarts should get? I think a bit more would help out with the building costs when you restart with 3k acres.

Marshal

Member
32,589

Mar 25th 2012, 19:44:26

threw dart. :P

martian

Game Moderator
Mod Boss
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Mar 26th 2012, 18:55:36

no. The amount is (sort of) based on what it would cost you to build on all those acres based on the cost/building of monarchy at a 100 acres (or 200 acres) I forget exactly. We wanted something simple and that was something simple:P

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Tertius

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Mar 27th 2012, 0:33:22

As far as computing, wouldn't it be equally simple to do the same thing but based on the land that people are starting with? Unless you don't want them to have enough cash to build immediately? I know the restarts shouldn't be overpowered, but as it is, once an alliance loses all of their top players (and thus FA for restarts), we're back to the same issue that it is practically pointless for players to continue to restart. So this change does help, but maybe not enough? It depends on how one-sided the wars are I guess, but considering how often unprepared alliances war against fully war-prepped alliances this seems like it could still be an issue.

Detmer

Member
4244

Mar 27th 2012, 3:11:04

Originally posted by Tertius:

(land-cs)*(1500+3*land) = starting cash

easy stuff =P

At this point in the set that is like $50M... aka way too little to harm any country that has been playing all round but enough to build your lands...

Tertius

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Mar 27th 2012, 3:39:44

Or .9*turns*(1500+3*turns) = Starting Cash

=P

Detmer

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Mar 27th 2012, 13:23:32

(.9*turns+100)*(1500+3*[turns+100]) = starting cash

=P

Tertius

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Mar 27th 2012, 15:40:16

touche!

chapman951

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Mar 28th 2012, 4:04:05

interesting!

martian

Game Moderator
Mod Boss
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Mar 28th 2012, 14:55:07

Since we know what the formulas for everything are it isn't a question of difficulty to make it so that you can have enough cash to build on all the land (or a percentage thereof) exactly :P

It's more a question of if that was a good idea or not in terms of game balance and getting the desired result. Right now the views on this tend to fall into two camps:

1) more cash (enough to build on land exactly or some decent percentage of)

2) cap the cash/land/cs at some level and make it so you can't have more than some amount (max your prior country had, some fixed number, ect)

For alliance it seems to be largely driven by
if/when you restarted
if your alliance won/lost the war
how close the war was.
how easily you can get fa on restart.

For FFA the concerns are for different reasons (understandably)

I guess those things impacted how you experience/view the changes more than we initially thought they might.

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Marshal

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Mar 28th 2012, 16:15:16

ffa: if big fs's small and manages to kill big portion of small then getting ffa is in situation that not much fa available.

QM Diver

Member
1096

Apr 29th 2012, 10:22:54

I guess those things impacted how you experience/view the changes more than we initially thought they might.

lol.. I see every change as a way to possibly perform better, even to see a possibility to perform better is what we love to see....
Seems there's no change, that isn't VERY relevant, to some.. To most, that play in the FFA! ;o)

I wonder how the netters feel about all this?

Natural Born Killers
PreZ

martian

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May 7th 2012, 17:59:16

I'm not sure how much this affects netters..

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Warster

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May 8th 2012, 2:20:51

Martian when I can catch u on irc ill explain how the restart chane has made it a lot harder for netters in ffa

Its fair to say that if the suiciders in ffa want to destroy netting alliances smaller then 160 (or 10 members) they can with the restart change

There has been about 550 suicder countries killed this reset and we are just past the halfway mark of the round.

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Marshal

Member
32,589

May 16th 2012, 16:20:46

fluffed up, 2 weeks left of set so high bpt (80) with 3k+ acres and no money to build for more than 11 turn, can't explore, bit useless to build cs's so only option to get money is cash turns and those are totally wasted turns.

restart change is good at earlyish set but at late set its totally fluffed up due total lack of cash (my last set restarts got bit over 100 cs's and ~3-4m money etc and this set restarts have nearly 3 times cs's but only bit over twice they money), if it was bad at last set for restarts (lack of money and bushels market sucking) its even worse at this set since all money player gets goes to building and comes oop totally defenseless.

Xinhuan

Member
3728

May 17th 2012, 14:53:08

So Marshal... drop half your initial starting acres?

Marshal

Member
32,589

May 17th 2012, 15:29:15

that would fluff up restart even more.

maybe few farms (1-2 turns) and and rest labs is best restart strat and when gets money indies for spies.

Son Goku

Member
745

Jul 9th 2012, 19:37:25

The CS gain is still too much.

Something is wrong when I have to ask people not to kill a target when it's almost dead.

Xinhuan

Member
3728

Jul 10th 2012, 16:53:27

Originally posted by Son Goku:

Is it intended for countries to be able to drop land and have their alliance kill them so they can restart with a better country?

Allowing yourself to be killed should never be beneficial to your country.

I still think this is a problem. We cripple a country, that country can choose to drop his acreage to 1, and have his alliance landkill him, and result in a much better restart country (Week 5 onwards).

martian

Game Moderator
Mod Boss
7826

Jul 10th 2012, 18:58:23

FFF
(still reading comments)
tossing some other modifications around like maybe a penalty to the restart bonus if you drop too many acres..

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Son Goku

Member
745

Jul 10th 2012, 20:14:26

<~ee> SS DeerLand (#1244) [SOLdier] --> Xhamster Bang Bus Dog Fa (#1011) [MD] -- 10A/10A

This is still happening, two resets after I first brought it up.

qzjul

Administrator
Game Development
10,263

Jul 10th 2012, 20:18:20

It seems like a corner case which doesn't end up helping the alliance in question; I don't think it's really a problem from the looks of it.

Finally did the signature thing.

MauricXe

Member
576

Jul 10th 2012, 20:23:43

Why not give a fixed rate for each week.

Week 1: 20 CS 500 acres (base cash)
Week 2: 30 CS 600 acres (base cashX2)
Week 3: 40 CS 700 acres (base cashX3)
....

or some other amount. It gives out modest bonuses based on the length of the game and it's not overpowered.

Nitro

Member
105

Jul 10th 2012, 20:25:55

So qzjul -- what would have to be done to clarify this as a problem?

Should an entire alliance at war (in the future) do this just to demonstrate to you and your development team the "problem" it can create?

Son Goku

Member
745

Jul 10th 2012, 20:27:43

Originally posted by qzjul:

It seems like a corner case which doesn't end up helping the alliance in question; I don't think it's really a problem from the looks of it.

People dropping acres and asking a friend to kill them isn't an issue? Sure seems like one to me.

This would only happen if someone decided they were better off country wise with a brand new country, which was the case. I'm not sure how a better country doesn't help their alliance. He immediately gets to restart with a better country that will actually help do something beyond rushing a restart when the break is 1k.

Do the admins honestly not see this as a problem?

qzjul

Administrator
Game Development
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Jul 10th 2012, 20:39:29

They're not better off in terms of "being at war" though; maybe in terms of "potential to rebuild their country" but even *THAT* would be slim; they *could* spend 100 turns building CS rather than getting OOP

Finally did the signature thing.

qzjul

Administrator
Game Development
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Jul 10th 2012, 20:40:24

It's not immediate, that's the whole point; he has to get out of protection again; he's forfeited turns on hand.

Finally did the signature thing.

CeyLonTEa

Member
248

Jul 10th 2012, 20:47:12

There should be a *CAP*

-Khalas-

Son Goku

Member
745

Jul 11th 2012, 3:38:31

Originally posted by qzjul:

If they spend 100 turns building cs they're still 170 cs behind a fresh restart with a crippled economy and negative income.

Servant

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Jul 11th 2012, 3:44:49

It's an issue. A few resets ago...

Monsters 22 Members, Tie 28 members.

Monsters won this war, b/c we had superior economies, even though we were smaller....

280 cs's is 100 too many. 3k acres is too many
I guarantee we LOSE that war, if the changes had ben in affect,

180 cs's and 2k acres, is better than this.

restarts are overpowered.

Farming another alliance creates bitterness.....creates anger...creates hate...
And when the game mechanics make it more efficient to farm someone than kill them, you're only creating more hate.

I've talked to admins about ways to change mechanics of the games to make the server a better server for all, and I'm told "we don't want to use game mechanics to force those type of changes it should come from the community."

Well, in this case, game mechanics are breeding hate....

Hell if Monsters were to war, we have an anti farming policy, b/c we don't want the other alliance to go away bitter....

But now, we may have to consider changing that, and risk creating ill will.....

Is this what you want?

Z is #1

qzjul

Administrator
Game Development
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Jul 11th 2012, 4:13:21

Hm but it keeps people in the game longer, rather than just dying and doing nothing; That's the goal here; we don't want it to be 13M countries farming 4717nw countries, because that's just stupid.

Finally did the signature thing.

ZIP

Member
3222

Jul 11th 2012, 13:29:07

hell i want more resources !!

Xinhuan

Member
3728

Jul 11th 2012, 16:25:19

And qz, that's why I think it is better to give restarts a % resources of their original country:

A) It encourages people to build a good country, so their restart is automatically a better country as well.

B) It scales with the reset naturally. If you died at week 2, you restart as a weaker country, if you died at week 6, you restart as a stronger country. If you died with a stockpile, you still have a % of that stockpile, so while its still worthwhile to kill a country with a large stock, all that effort isn't completely wasted.

C) There is never a case where a restart will be better than an original country, and removes the self-genocide problem.

MrTan1

Member
203

Jul 13th 2012, 8:16:12

Originally posted by qzjul:

Hm but it keeps people in the game longer, rather than just dying and doing nothing; That's the goal here; we don't want it to be 13M countries farming 4717nw countries, because that's just stupid.

Humanitarians would block such actions!

iScode> thats ok mrford i know when im not welcome!! :(
* iScode cries

Son Goku

Member
745

Jul 14th 2012, 0:37:03

Self killing has happened twice more since I last posted.

MrTan1

Member
203

Jul 14th 2012, 5:46:49

Which is absolute abuse of the restart rate.

Good job, Admins!

iScode> thats ok mrford i know when im not welcome!! :(
* iScode cries

Crippler ICD

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Aug 16th 2012, 22:16:45

You dont get restart bonus if ya self kill

Crippler
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[14:26] <enshula> i cant believe im going to say this
[14:26] <enshula> crippler is giving us correct netting advice