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aponic Game profile

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Sep 5th 2010, 16:26:59

Over time, a major problem has arisen within the game that has not to this point been addressed by the new admins. This is because the admins are from the netgaining realm of the game.

We need a major change in the way war is conducted on the server. Not politically, but instead the time requirements. Making warchats is difficult. You need to be online at specific times of the day, everyday. This is unavoidable but amplified in the way that kill runs occur within the game structure.

Severely diminished returns; 5k GS, 10k BR, 10a SS, enable more active players, or those by the computer all day to have a substantial advantage in defending their countries. Unfortunately, it also means that less active players, like those we are trying to attract, are at a substantial disadvantage as well.

Severe DR also means that finishing kill runs is much more critical and that warchats can not start until enough players are online, that warchat leaders must wait until every person in a chat room is ready, holding off a warchat start time for 30 minutes or longer. Of course, these aspects will remain. However, by reducing severe DR, or simply eliminating it, we can lessen the time burden presented to players.

This game originated as one designed around players competing to have the best country. That is still the main aspect of the game, building a good country and testing it against others. This should be the main focus of any player whether they are in a netgaining alliance or they are in a warring alliance.

Making these changes in alliance in advance of next reset will allow alliances to prepare for the changes and reduce the burden on incoming players; be it returning vets who lost interest in a time demanding game, or new players only lackadaisically interested in earthempires.
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Ivan Game profile

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Sep 5th 2010, 16:32:13


Good post, over time things like newsbots, automatic text messages etc the list is long has definately affected the warring aspect of the game making it take up a lot more time then netgaining in most cases

SMz Game profile

Member
313

Sep 5th 2010, 16:43:52

very bad idea imo.

players who spend more time online SHOULD have advantge over players who play 5 min a day , in both netting and warring , thats why i also think that "placing order" is a bad bad change in the game , it defuses the advantge for ppl who spent alot of time camping the market.

ppl who spend more time online should do better , thats how the game has always worked and thats how it should work.

Sir Balin Game profile

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652

Sep 5th 2010, 16:58:20

good post

Jelly

Member
277

Sep 5th 2010, 16:58:20

Basically, you look at World of Warcraft.

Pre-MC? People farmed the hell out of UBRS for 'the best loot in the game'. Hours upon hours every day, and no one complained, because that was it.

Onyxia? People died repeatly trying to take her down, rarely did people complain about dying 50 times.

MC? People spent freaking months learning that place, a well ran raid took 3~4 hours to complete it and people that weren't hardcore? Took 16 hours over few days to do it. It was, fun.

BWL came along, Razorgore was 'hard' and people complained about that, but when they beat him, they saw the freaking Red Dragon of Death. And that is when people had to start farming materials for potions and elixirs. People were MORE then happy to do it, because some of the bosses in there, were very entertaining.

Then when AQ came out, it really was the epic farming, thousands and thousands of each material, and some weird ones, was needed, people were freaking happy to go and farm, to open a gate, for an instance, that probably 5% of the server would be able to see.

Skip TBC because everyone farmed, but some got tired of it.


Then WOTLK comes out, and BAM, EVERYTHING IS CASUAL FRIENDLY. Tired of long raids? BAM bosses die if you look at them funny. Tired of hours of Heroics? BAM! 15 minute Heroics!

And that's when the hardcore players all quit the game.

World of Casualcraft was born and it ruined the freaking game for a lot of people.

===================

Orders, yes, hurt the campers, but it does add another element of the game that the guys who used to camp, can play with and try and manipulate the market or steal low tech of sorts.

I personally love it, because I've gotten the cheapest Arg tech all set, when people were buying at $6k, I was buying at $5k, when it was $5k, I was eating the $4k orders.

It's not exact, because I don't want to leak out my secret =p



So yes, if you take out the advantages of playing more, then it would really ruin the experience of a lot of players.

Look at the grabbers, many left because there simply isn't anything to grab.

enshula Game profile

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Sep 5th 2010, 16:59:42

well it might not be the worst thing in the world to change pop regrowth from 40/turn or pop killed from 5/10 per hit

id suggest a way to reduce pop regained per turns during a kill run could be easier to tune than increasing min per hit killed

perhaps make bioterrorism have an effect which lasts for 1 hour and cuts pop regrowth by 75% would make stonewalling much less effective

some way that running 1 turn at ~400 pop wouldnt equate to 8 gs's and effectively 18.66 turns of readiness

the exact method im not sure on but in alliance i like the idea of killing becoming somewhat easier (while at the same time making fs's have less of an impact)

on the other hand in team server id like to see killing become even less practical

as the player base has decreased the ease of rushing targets has decreased making one effective waller have much more impact on a war than it used to

iZarcon Game profile

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Game Development
2150

Sep 5th 2010, 17:07:45

not sure if this deserves a response =/
-iZarcon
EE Developer


http://www.letskillstuff.org

enshula Game profile

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Sep 5th 2010, 17:14:52

think of it as a casual/hardcore thing

the concept that you have to login at one of two or three times in a 24 hour period to play properly and if you dont you are nowhere near as effective is maybe not the best

for a smaller alliance that may be 20-30 members youd need to get about 7 members to show up at a chat to get a kill

that means you need a high proportion of people to show up in a short amount of time and potentially wait till the others get there

then once people start dying you may have people in protection or outside humanitarian range potentially dropping you below the critical mass needed for a kill run

with the biggest alliance now being about 70 members its a completely differant dynamic to being two or three times more, and nothing like the coalition style chats with a couple of hundred people hitting at once that happened at one point

ffa each person can easily kill by themselves, and every other server including team i dont think kill runs are very desirable

alliance is probably what we should be basing kill runs around

qzjul Game profile

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Sep 5th 2010, 17:43:22

Wait, so you want to make it *easier* to make a kill?

Why not try crippling your opponent if you don't have enough turns online to make a kill? We still have AB's....
Finally did the signature thing.

iZarcon Game profile

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Sep 5th 2010, 17:50:11

this isn't just "easier" kills, qzjul.. this is pretty much a guaranteed kill. ... stupidity. would be no fun in war at all.
-iZarcon
EE Developer


http://www.letskillstuff.org

Ivan Game profile

Member
2362

Sep 5th 2010, 18:23:00


im both for and against things tbh one way i definately understand aponics comments and the other i agree with SMz that spending a lot of time should pay off more

and i was against SO's as well just for that reason, same with recalling goods anyway

I dont know sometimes it feels like things goes to the extreme

SMz Game profile

Member
313

Sep 5th 2010, 18:47:07

In my opnion "place orders" is something that ruined the fair market rules , in real life u might be able to "order" stocks for next day (buy/sell) BUT beeing on the market all day long (like brokers) does give you an advantge , since we have alot less "stocks" to play with place orders should not be there , if its there then 1 order per good , not 3.

qzjul Game profile

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Sep 5th 2010, 18:48:45

mmm I don't like the idea of market camping though (despite the fact that i did it) because you're not *really* putting more time into the game, you're usually just waiting for a market channel to beep

plus it's soooo easily exploitable without that by writing a script to hammer away.... or even using your browser to auto-refresh...

(attacking would be tricky with auto-refresh though, so that's not the sort of behaviour i'd want to automate)

but yes, more time that requires your brain should pay off.... time that doesn't require your brain mmm dunno
Finally did the signature thing.

SMz Game profile

Member
313

Sep 5th 2010, 18:55:14

oh and btw on real life market you can order stocks , but you can also sell in advance , so if you do both in earth then it might be nice and ppl who play the market more get an advantge.

I come from stock trading backround
just my 2 cents on how earth's market should look like.

SMz Game profile

Member
313

Sep 5th 2010, 19:00:26

If thats the case qz then add a "sell if" thingy , goods you have on hand are put on market automaticly if the market reach a X price , the sell if will be for 24 hours , and only 1 per good is allowed.

thats more using your brain and it balances the place order stuff , and make the earth market alot cooler and improved.

aponic Game profile

Member
1879

Sep 6th 2010, 14:54:03

Rather than participate in a discussion on how the game could be improved by enabling smaller alliances to successfully war, you have all read my post literally word for word and disapproved it rather than contributing to the conversation topic.

What I am suggesting is changing the concepts of hitting.

That may be by reducing the severe diminished returns, but it could be in conjunction with lower population loss in the initial hits. My point is that it takes too many hits to FINISH a kill.

To respond to SMz's comment: Yes, players who put more time into the game should do better, however, this has not worked well for the longevity of earth2025. The intense nature of, and this thread is a discussion of warring aspects rather than the netting ones you have discussed, warring has driven off the HUGE veteran player base in which this game has to draw from. Instead of simply looking to a long off FaceBook application, perhaps we could make the game more desirable for returning veterans of which earth2025 likely has 100,000 of.

Qzjul: I am not suggesting that kill runs be shorter, but instead, that they be more manageable. Decrease population loss on initial special attack hits, increase the rates at the end, increase the maximum population recovered per turn. You already have bio-terrorism setup as an effective counter for players who log on. Stonewalling is part of the game, but it shouldn't be the "whole" game. It is ridiculous that one player can, if doing it well, stonewall 20 attackers for multiple days.

To be blunt, I think, regarding the admins, you are keeping your heads up your butts about making changes to the warring aspects of the game. This is a rude thing to say, however, you have made no changes outside the effectiveness of bio-terrorism. Please, I invite you to participate in a discussion and to make other suggestions that might modify the war side of the game. At least make an attempt to suggest something else if you disagree with what I have said. Doing nothing at all is not improving anything.
SOF
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enshula Game profile

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Sep 6th 2010, 15:05:17

Originally posted by aponic:
Rather than participate in a discussion on how the game could be improved by enabling smaller alliances to successfully war, you have all read my post literally word for word and disapproved it rather than contributing to the conversation topic.


i thought i was discussing exactly that

enshula Game profile

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Sep 6th 2010, 15:09:36

Originally posted by aponic:
Decrease population loss on initial special attack hits, increase the rates at the end, increase the maximum population recovered per turn.


Sounds like if max pop recovered per turn was increased at higher pop and reduced at lower pop the effective multiplier of stonewalling at low pop would be reduced.

And it would become more efficient to play turns all at once.

Right now pop growth is 40/turn under 2k and 2% over 2k that rises slightly i think.

Could easily be changed to less pop growth/turn under 2k if attacks on a country were large in past 24 hours. And perhaps make pop regrowth a bit higher than 2% at say 10k pop or whatever, 3% maybe, which would make it much better to run turns earlier.

Requiem Game profile

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Sep 6th 2010, 15:14:45

I think most of us are casual and I am sure as hell not going to spend a lot of time with this game! A text based game needs to be casual, however, people who invest more 'Time' should still have better results. But that all depends.

Look at the average land, alliances who are primarily all explore are on top of the Average land. Why is that? Because they hit explore... Also when people LG them they retal as any half-rate Alliance in this game can retal any hit. So this game is very casual for us net gainers ;) I spend about 5 min a day on my country and will prob finish with over 100 million NW.

If I spent 10 or 20 times more time I wouldn't finish much better (the land grabbing situation) and quite frankly its not worth the time investment.

Bottom line is that the great majority of players here are casual with a few exceptions and they usually do have better results (looks at the top 10).

SMz Game profile

Member
313

Sep 6th 2010, 15:56:17

thats not true Requiem , ppl who grab and grab good get their land alot before the explorers do.

explorers and grabbers now have the same land only the grabber got it 7-10 days before and started stocking , theres a big diffrence.

qzjul Game profile

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Sep 6th 2010, 21:19:38

mmm aponic, part of the "we've done nothing" includes stuff like removing the 1/10th & 1/8th hits etc from special attacks, which was a big change that should make KR's 10-15% faster or something like that....

but part of the reason we haven't done much other than that is because every time we suggest anything it's argued against this way or that way by the war side -- the problem with war is the balance is a *much* trickier problem than balancing netgaining strats against each other.
Finally did the signature thing.

aponic Game profile

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1879

Sep 6th 2010, 22:00:56

if a player could log on for 5 minutes a day and make some sort of contribution to a war effort, that would be nice. As opposed to the near negligible contribution such a hypothetical player can currently make. Yes, I do realize that you could AB, but I do not consider that to be very effective.
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BobbyATA Game profile

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2367

Sep 6th 2010, 22:51:30

this is a suggestion. Wrong forum.

ponderer Game profile

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678

Sep 6th 2010, 22:59:12

Originally posted by BobbyATA:
this is a suggestion. Wrong forum.

this is for the alliance server. Right forum. and umm fluff
m0m0rific

BobbyATA Game profile

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2367

Sep 6th 2010, 23:20:58

a suggestion for alliance server belongs in suggestions along with suggestions for any other server=)...

Vic Rattlehead Game profile

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810

Sep 6th 2010, 23:42:07

Wait, Slag and martian are netters?
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Requiem Game profile

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Sep 6th 2010, 23:42:41

Originally posted by SMz:
thats not true Requiem , ppl who grab and grab good get their land alot before the explorers do.

explorers and grabbers now have the same land only the grabber got it 7-10 days before and started stocking , theres a big diffrence.


I'd still disagree and point to the part of my post which says that they do marginally better however it wasn't worth the time investment. What I said still holds true.

Fooglmog Game profile

Member
1149

Sep 7th 2010, 1:01:35

No.

When you learn the difference between Diminishing Returns and Proportional Reduction of Returns, I'll explain why.

Hint: see the other thread about DRs which you posted about this in, the explanation is there.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

qzjul Game profile

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Sep 7th 2010, 1:46:32

oh also aponic... oddly enough "Decrease population loss on initial special attack hits, increase the rates at the end" was something i was bouncing off Makinso a few days ago... mentioned it to pang, definitely something there for sure
Finally did the signature thing.

enshula Game profile

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Sep 7th 2010, 3:45:12

yeah the whole 40 pop to 5 civs killed on gs is 8:1 then 18.666:1 when readiness is factored in

so assuming some weird bot that runs turns as you get them no fails and no cm's/br's/sr's it would take 19 countries to kill 1

im sure theres a way to easily get that under 10, and perhaps 5 for br

changing attack returns formulas to kill pop based on pop/targetsmaxpop should be an easy one

changing pop regained based on attacks received in last time period may be an easy one

and changing pop regained to be a higher % of current pop in relation to currentpop/max pop could also make walling with high pop a much better option

all 3 of those can be done with little impact on non war aspects of the game, the last would have an effect on cash starts but perhaps not a huge one and devs want to boost cash start anyway, take a little of each mix them together and its probably a good result

the option which would change other stuff is to change the pop growth formula so that regrowth is very slow at the 5/10 civs/hit point, you could make it ok at half and double that point and you would still hurt walling a bit but that would hurt cash starts a lot

on a related note perhaps PCI should have a min regrowth in line with the 40 pop thing

Killa Game profile

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269

Sep 7th 2010, 3:46:29

I agree. With most alliances hovering around..what? 30 members getting enough online for killruns is a pain.

Most of us started this game when we were young and had time, Now thats not the case.

+Killa

aponic Game profile

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1879

Sep 7th 2010, 14:13:48

qzjul: very cool.

I like the idea of stonewalling with high pop as opposed to low pop also
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Pang Game profile

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Sep 7th 2010, 14:40:15

you should all just net!!!

but more seriously, this is a good idea for sure... it would be good as part of a basket of changes which could be designed to make wars more interesting and fun for everyone.
-=Pang=-
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martian Game profile

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Sep 7th 2010, 14:53:03

yes, I net:P
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