IMO equal to PS time ( 2 hours ) in earth express.

If i benefit of permanent DR during a Express ReSet i don`t see how i could not get spot 1 or 2. Every player who knows a little about netting is in the same situation - so DR is clear an unwanted advantage for X and Y in disadvantage of the players that play clean.

Discuss ...

agreed, no discussion needed.

i was personally thinking around 4-5 hours. just based on alliance server 20h ps and 24h dr. So the ps time would be slightly less than the dr time.

i'd be fine with 2h though as it would clear up a lot of the dr issue

Agreed. 2-4 hours, tops, for DR. I really dont understand why it's not accelerated, everything else about express is. It's just a horrible oversight of the devs that needs to be fixed.

So what happens when the new DR period expires? People abusing DR will just have their "buddy" GS them 2 hours later instead of 24 hours later...


I think that DR needs to be split up. Like someone said in #earthempires a few days ago, GSs should increase GS DR, BRs increase BR DR, SS/PS increase land DR, etc. And attacks have to be successful to increase DR.

if they have that much time, then let them cheat lol. Plus it's easier to catch them that way.

Well NukEvil, if they repeatedly re-GS every 1.99 hours for even half a day, it would be far more obvious and far easier to catch/delete. If the mods choose to delete that is.

If someone wants to stay up 24 hours a day for 3 days in a row spending 80% of their turns doing GS every 2 hours, first, congrats to them, and second, they need to be deleted.

DR should be 12 hours, and DR should not be counted towards a country retalling another country.

DR every 2 hours is retarded. then you could get hit every 2 hours and lose maximum amounts of land every time. all set with that.

Drs should be based only on the country hitting you. What i mean is that each country you hit- you DR it for your country only. Not for everyone else. After that its dred for 12 hours only- for your country only. That way everyone has equal chance to get land back.

If DR's were country specific, all of the countries not in the top 50 would be bottom fed like crazy and the top 10 would average like 40k land... Think about it

There is no better solution for DR than the way it is, which is why they haven't "improved" it yet.

What most people forget to think about is how badly farmed the bottom 2/3rds of the server is. If you make DR levels lower, you give the more active players and higher netting players an extremely unfair advantage.

No one has come up with a solution that doesn't make the server worse off than it already is, hence there have been no changes.

There's no better DR than the DR that wears off and you get clocked a few times by the retals that were pending, lol, and for A WHOLOTTA acres. Right Seth? hahaha!

Crest... if I cared how I finished last set, i would not have been 15:1 jets:turrets on 33k acres last round.

My goal wasn't to conserve my land, it was to take from others :)
Goal accomplished.

But my point is there is no better solution to the current way DR is setup than the way it already is. All these solutions people are posing don't think about how they effect the rest of the game outside of DR. If you fix DR and cause 5 problems that make the server much worse than DR it is not a solution, and all of the above recommendations do that.

^ you mean, have smlandau83 put you in DR?

Could DR be based on attack type? So SS/PS gives landgrab DR, GS/AB gives a separate DR.

Bob thats a good suggestion also, however likely requires much more coding.

i would say just lower DR to 12 hours, or keep it 24 hours, it doesnt matter as long as when you retal someone that grabs you who is deep in DR your retal is not affected by DR.

someone being in DR is only a problem because the people who get grabbed by those people who are deep in DR cant get their land back. does it matter if some all explore guy is in constant DR? the only people thats affecting is the people who want to try to landgrab that person and since nobody has a divine right to being able to landgrab someone it makes no difference.

im not saying its ok for an all x guy to have someone keep him in DR but the problem here is not DR, its people not having a fair shot at getting their land back that was taken.

Delete Seth and JJ every set, DR problem solved.

Seth.

1. I sincerely hope you didn't care how you finished last set afterall it was a restart from yet another deletion for cheating.

2. When have you ever carried anything but a 15:1 jet:turret ratio? You always hide behind DR every set.

My point still stands though, no better DR than the DR that just wore off and the moron hiding behind it gets clocked majorly because he forgot to log into his other account(s) to keep himself in DR.

Well, I have never had a 15:1 jets to turret ratio before, so get your facts straight. Outside of last set, I have never carried more than a 1:1 ratio, and usually, even if I am in deep DR is still between 1:2 and 1:5, so you're full of it.

Sure, I remember Express Police PSing you 5x a few sets back. He was carrying 20 mill jets on his 5 mill NW country?

Thank you for proving your statement "When have you ever carried anything but a 15:1 jet:turret ratio? You always hide behind DR every set."

You're brilliant.

When you make comments like that which are complete BS, you lose all credibility. Hows becoming a moderator coming along, Mr. unbiased?

SM you should get your facts right,

Only reason the fix isn't in place is because pang has been busy with work and qz was in hospital and on holidays.


Pang will be posting about a temp fix to the problem over the next 2 days

I think you are kidding, but just in case you aren't let me explain it in terms you will understand. When countries half your net can SS multiple times and PS you 3 to 5 times in a row, you are an all jetter.

Well, as much as I appreciate the work Pang and qz do for this game, I think it is nearly impossible to fix the DR issues without creating other problems... But I'd love to see it happen :)

With all the people on these boards that complain about everything, it would probably be best for the game.

P.S. Crest, you're a fluffing idiot. Go play a 25 mil dem tech reseller this set and keep yourself busy.

Really depends how it's already coded Pain, if there's a flag in the DB somewhere that sets how long DR is active for then for sure that'd be simplest.

Though the simplest isn't always the best, really up to the devs to figure out the best fix.

Looks like Seth's glory days will soon be over. He'll be back to playing his crap Theo casher to Dem casher failures again. I thought you were "stubborn" at arguments? Giving up already? fluffing loser.

I like the idea of two hour dr!!! This could be a decent solution

No, Phil, bad idea.

Dr is the only protection for small countries that are bottomfed. The GDI protects large countries from any retaliation from tanks, troops, missiles or spyops and the small countries don't have enough resources to PS.

I agree that the DR time should be reduced, I'd say 6 hours. But in that case Humanitarian protection should be improved for small countries, say 4X smaller.

I think they're not reducing the time of DR, instead just letting people retal without DR counting.

Wrong getafix

The DR problem is all about the big countries using GDI and DR to protect themselves from large losses on midfeeding hits,

Look at the untagged that is hitting monsters and others in alliance getafix as an example

That is an interesting example. He can absorb dozens of SS strikes with no defense and take lots of land with a few hits. I've used a similar strategy in Express by making myself a tempting target while I'm small and getting hit 10 or 12 times, then going all jetter for 400 or 500 turns. But when DR runs out look out. A shorter DR period should limit what someone like that can do.

But with a shorter DR period small countries will be constantly farmed to nothing. Thats why I suggest the change in the Humanitarian protection.

It is pretty complicated though since one change impacts everything else. I don't know the answer. Just throwing my 2 cents in. I hope something practical that can be tried to improve the game will come out of the discussion

At least I've done my bit helping with blid's suggestion :)

LOL, that's what I'm doing, Getafix, only 12k turrets!!!

FREE LAND!!!!!!!!!!

the fix is simple, make it so that DR doesnt count on retals, period. beyond that tough fluff if a country is in DR, as long as if they grab you, you get the same amount of land you would if they werent in DR.

the amount of time a country is in DR is irrelevant to the current problem. i dont even see why everyone is so focused on that point.

I think this thread offers a list of various solutions to fight ws DR fluffers.

I`ll personally stick to limit period for DR. ( 2-3-4 hours )

If a country is in DR ( most probably war ) there is no time to Land Grab. The ones that Grabs during DR are usually the cheaters.

It is hard to make the game script for DR to count on retals. First of all, there will be members that will scan the news in order to see the wars going on arround - and grab the countries involved. Second - the coding might be difficult to detect all the "conditions".

We need simple solution - and that is to reduce DR period.

The issue is people in DR go on a land hogging spree and cannot be retalled.

The solution should be retals should disregard DR count.

Also, the game should have been based on turns and not time. So that in a PS, your military comes back in X turns regardless of the server. DR would wear off in X turns. Makes for simpler coding.

OK, I agree that DR should not count for retals. Forget the DR time.

Ok, so how long should it be after a landgrab before a "retal" becomes just another landgrab?

agrees with the no DR on retals...cant stand getting hit for 800 acres and only getting back 100.

Retals are not game mechanics and shouldn't be. Taking retals is just what the community decided they would do to "get their land back".

But crest, this whole idea which I think they are implementing, about retals not being affected by DR, IS making retals a game mechanic. And I think it's necessary, otherwise people can top feed from DR and run jet countries giving their targets no recourse.
Putting a time limit on it would over complicate things. If the person refuses to accept the retal because a certain amount of time has passed, that's their call, I might even agree with them, but they don't need to code DR protection to kick back in just for that.

I agree with blid here. Coding in retals to ignore DR means the game will now officially recognize what is, or isn't a retal.

So far, retals have been a player-created game mechanic, and not one specifically made by the game.

they were able to code in the game to recognize when youve made 2 hits on a country and it ignores GDI rules based on that, how much further to code in DR being erased based on which country has hit you?

Depends on how it will be coded.

Suppose the game ignores DR if the player attacked you in the last 24 hours. So if A attacks B, when B attacks A, the game would check if A had made any PS or SS attack on B in the last 24 hours. If it was 0 attacks, use normal DR, else set DR to 0.

Now that's the naive version. While it would solve retals ignoring DR, the naive implementation reinforces land trading:

1) A hits B
2) B hits A (0 DR - retal)
3) A hits B (0 DR - retal on retal)
4) B hits A (0 DR - RoRoR)
etc and each RoR would be considered a Retal and ignore DR.

Now if the code is then further tweaked so that it has to check if a pair of attacks was already completed as a attack-retal pair and ignore that pair of news, then it would look like this:

1) A hits B
2) B hits A (0 DR - retal)
3) A hits B (1 DR)
4) B hits A (0 DR - retal)
5) A hits B (2 DR)
6) B hits A (0 DR - retal)
7) A hits B (3 DR)
8) B hits A (0 DR - retal)
Better, but abusable by B to get free land if he has a friend A that wants to hit him like that. This new code now also has a new problem:

1) A hits B
2) A hits B (1 DR)
3) B hits A (0 DR, retal for (2))
4) B hits A

In this above situation, if the game recognized (2 and 3) as an attack-retal pair, then would attack (4 and 1) be recognized as a second retal pair? That is, would (4) ignore DR and use 0 DR for the hit as well? Or what if (3) used (1) as its retal pair, would (4) and (2) be paired up since the DR rules check is ignoring news that are already paired?

This seems unintended, only the first retal is meant to get 0 DR (or should it?). This will depend on the view of a topfeeder vs bottomfeeder. A large country might hit a bottom country 3x, and get retalled 3x, losing 3x acres majorly in 0 DR. But it works the other way too, a small country can topfeed a large one twice and the large one can try to get back as much of his land in his 2 retals that are 0-DR, even though it would likely take 10 attacks to grab it back if it were L:L.

Coding in 2-hits-ignore-GDI is easy, you simply added a check to see if you hit more than twice before, there's no news-pairing involved or anything complicated. But if you don't do news-pairing, then overretals would ignore DR too and we don't want that.

Implementation-wise for ignoring DR, there are a number of pitfalls.

I have ADHD, can't read all of ^ without a big fat *YAWWWWWN* half way thru it....

Xinhuan, do you see any errors in setting it up so that when one country goes to attack another, it checks the number of previous attacks between two countries, and only if the numbers are >= 1 hit suffered for the current attacker and *0* for the defender does the DR-free retal flag get turned on?

Not that complex and it seems to work to me. Then any hits after one initial retal, normal DR rules apply.

A hits B, status of previous attacks suffered: A-0, B-0, normal DR rules apply.

B hits back, status of previous attacks suffered: A-0, B-1, this is our DR-free retal scenario.

Any further actions, status is A-1, B-1, that 0 is gone, so nothing from here on will have special retal rules apply.

^ makes perfect sence, blid :)

I keep editing it to try and make it clearer and am probably doing the opposite, but I did notice one possible flaw in my idea going back and checking Xinhuan's post.

From his last example mostly... If A hits B three times, how many DR-free retals should B get? That would still be a tricky one. I would say just one DR-free retal, once the status is not A-0 anymore, the DR-free retal flag goes down. This may seem exploitable. Country in heavy DR can hit a guy multiple times for lots of land, and the victim can only get his land back once, true. But doing more than one hit opens up GDI, so even if the victim can't get his land back, they have a few other avenues of recourse they can pursue to see that justice is served. :)

So, I still think the way I described would be a solution...