Massing Updates

[Juliette]

FYI no one would take there attack weapons that low anything under 10% (might be higher can't remember exact) heavly risks auto destruction of all attack weapons on next hit, i do not remember the precise chance but its high.

As covered under "near scrapped". I don't see what that has to do with anything? Every alliance has the OPTION of damaging their weapons until just before breaking point. Risk nothing, gain nothing.. but the cost of the service should be taken with the optimal gains possible; i.e. max damage on all members. THAT is the potential value of the service, and THAT is what should be used as a point of reference for pricing said service. If I could save spending 300 Billion in repair costs on one person, and have 30 people in my alliance, the potential value of the service is 9 Trillion. That 9T should be the point of reference for a price. For example (since we're reasonable people) 10% of the potential value. 900B. Expensive? Not when you make optimal use of the service. Sub-optimal use results in effectively increasing the cost of the service to you. But then, that is no concern of the Game, but of its users.

Also you can not use a function that does not exists as an example to back your argument, you would make your argument irrational.

I fail to see where I did that. Are you saying because 'nobody uses it like that' it doesn't exist? Nobody used to use sabbing as an alternative to massing, until they did. When they did, people started complaining that actual massing had lost its value. "What were you thinking! Couldn't you have foreseen this?!" - "Yes, we could."
One of the most important parts of the procedure of releasing a new update (or tweaking an existing one) is anticipating the use which will be made of the service affected by the update.

Furthermore its not just weapons that are at a price that are out of align in cost, its nearly every function. It would take how long to produce enough income to afford 30/day?? What is the reasoning of giving 30/day if I can't even use that many, your logic is off-base.

Irrelevant, and inaccurate. Irrelevant, because the "given 30/day" is an incorrect way of viewing this service. The service is limited to 30/day. You are not given anything. You purchase it, once or twice a day. If you can pay for more, you do it more often. To CAP that and prevent the alliances with HUGE alliance banks to have a MASSIVE advantage, we said "max 30/day". NO ONE should be able to afford 30/day just yet. The game is nowhere near that stage yet.
I also said your statement was inaccurate. Inaccurate, because you say "the price [of every alliance 'gift'] is out of align in cost". You imply PPT, Repair, AND Bank level upgrades should be given out. "Why else would we have the option?" Sometimes, there are options you simply cannot afford yet, because the world (game) is not at that stage yet. Real world example; full 3d holographic television - if you're rich, you can buy it, otherwise you'll have to wait until the technology becomes widely available on the open market.
If your alliance has the money to pay for ALL potential upgrades/repairs/PPTs, then you are at liberty to use them. That stage is still far, far away though.

What it comes down to is you are misinterpreting the concept of an "alliance gift". It is not a gift from the Game Administration to you, to be used and distributed on a daily/weekly basis. It is a gift from alliance Leadership to its members. If you can afford to give ALL gifts to the gift cap every week, congratulations. You're ahead of your time.

Reason most alliances have been able to do this until now is due to costs being disproportionately low, and yes, this is another "radical change" but quite necessary in order to teach 'proper' use of the bank/gift system as opposed to mimicking the US Fed; spend, spend, spend, make extra money.


Re: Alliance bank not increasing; Rocky, Rene, good point. Even though costs should not be based on the alliance bank's size. You would suggest the alliance bank can be filled 'manually' as well? Donate to alliance bank directly? (Without the ability to withdraw, because that will never happen.) Deposit manually could help alliances who spend more than they can pay for with taxes alone.. it's a cost-benefit analysis, alliance leadership needs to make.



tl;dr: 1. Potential value decides price, not actual use. 2. Alliance gifts (from Leadership to Members) are CAPPED, not 'given'. Time until ANY alliance can spend their banks and reach the Cap is FAR away. 3. Radical change? Yes.

[Iƒrit]

I would prefer you did not attempt to troll/flame me, you are not so stupid that you have to bring yourself to reply in such a manner. It is not that hard to assume certain things I said were not entirely as I meant them.

It not irrelevant its back to the case we continue to spiral in which is going from one extreme to another, no surprise though as that seems to be the only way adminship can deal with anything. There was very little discussion on the increase of cost. Yet it went from one side of the figure to the exact opposite, with no grip on the situation you are creating, you essentially went from 480 repairs a day to 1-2 a day (cause of the extreme increase to cost). So we went from 10/day were people were very upset and then increased that to 50 then back down to 30, but in reality its 1 or 2 a day cause that is all you can afford.

I keep saying that the old days of massing are not what we should be leaning towards, the game will become a sniper fest all over again where players rollover and play dead while sniping at planets cause they are to sissy to build stats. Repairs do not stop a massing they only make it cost more and take longer, as it SHOULD be. Armies should not be obliterated in a short period of time, it should take work and time to break through the forces of your enemies. Otherwise it will become one man masses several in a short period.

There is no reason to continue to make things complicated, leave things simple and the discussion is much easier and the changes don't require a headache to accomplish.

[Lithium]

if repairs are affordable how could that improve massing? all of u here agreed that allie repairs is ruining massing.

[Juliette]

I would prefer you did not attempt to troll/flame me, you are not so stupid that you have to bring yourself to reply in such a manner. It is not that hard to assume certain things I said were not entirely as I meant them.

I find myself flabbergasted. Troll? Flame? I replied in depth and with -admittedly- some flair. If I misinterpreted you when you meant something else than what you said, how is that my fault? But to call that 'trolling' or 'flaming?! I am baffled, Paul. Really. (Besides, if I would ever attempt such a heinous act, I would complete it successfully.)

It not irrelevant its back to the case we continue to spiral in which is going from one extreme to another, no surprise though as that seems to be the only way adminship can deal with anything. There was very little discussion on the increase of cost. Yet it went from one side of the figure to the exact opposite, with no grip on the situation you are creating, you essentially went from 480 repairs a day to 1-2 a day (cause of the extreme increase to cost). So we went from 10/day were people were very upset and then increased that to 50 then back down to 30, but in reality its 1 or 2 a day cause that is all you can afford.

We will agree that the changes made are far too radical and in far too rapid succession for them to be acceptable to the playerbase. Yes?

I keep saying that the old days of massing are not what we should be leaning towards, the game will become a sniper fest all over again where players rollover and play dead while sniping at planets cause they are to sissy to build stats. Repairs do not stop a massing they only make it cost more and take longer, as it SHOULD be. Armies should not be obliterated in a short period of time, it should take work and time to break through the forces of your enemies. Otherwise it will become one man masses several in a short period.

We find ourselves on opposite sides of a fence when it comes to specific cost and the principle of alliance gifts, but on the same side in this particular matter, how cheap massing should remain a thing of the past. Interesting, given the supposedly exact opposite take we had on Ascended and 'descension operations'.

There is no reason to continue to make things complicated, leave things simple and the discussion is much easier and the changes don't require a headache to accomplish.

Complicated? Do you have preference for a game in which you'd click a single button every once in a while? Or would you prefer a game which would inspire you to think about what path you take? I know which one I'd pick. Obviously.

if repairs are affordable how could that improve massing? all of u here agreed that allie repairs is ruining massing.

Ifrit remarked that repairs are meant to make massing more costly; so as to prevent a single person from massing various people in rapid succession. A 'lazy-feature' if you wish. (Comparable to an automated descension defence.)

[Robe]

Good lord this new cost is INSAAAAANE.

Please, I beg of you, put it back to the price it was before. It was perfectly fine the way it was. You reduced how many Alliance Repairs you had so much, and murdered Alliance PPT by making it in chunks of 4 hours, so why increase the price so much too? After the banks are reduced due to usage, then you're gonna get like 1 repair a week or something ridiculous...

Also, the updates were complicated WAYYYYY too much. Just sitting here and reading 2 pages of the same 3 people posting, then making an update, is quite a bad idea.

Alliance Repair effecting phasing, BAD.

Splitting Alliance Repair in to two different categories, probably bad.

Making Alliance Repair in chunks of 4 hours... what is that even supposed to do? Just makes it super annoying to use. It should be 6 uses of 1 hour each, or even 4 uses of 1 hour each. You should reduce the amount as opposed to killing the functionality.

You complicated the issue MUCH too much, and Robe had it right. Simply reduce the amount to like 120/day. You don't need to COMPLETELY get rid of people with big strikes farming low defenses for small amounts of naq or whatever the problem was. You just need to limit it so it can't ALWAYS be used as it could before, and people will stop abusing it.

If Alliance PPT and Alliance Repair is simply reduced, in the state it was before, it won't be a problem it will still be used occasional y, but it won't be used all the time.

tl;dr
Sitting here and making micro-updates constantly made this way too complicated, just find 1 good idea, go with it, and wait a while.

Exactly right

We need incremental improvements not radical changes.

Alliance Repairs should not have been reduced by 93% and then made 20 thousand times more costly.

Alliance PPT should never have been bunched together in 3 hour lots and made 30 thousand times more costly.

The cost of gifts should not have been made exponential.

First the costs of Alliance Repairs and increasing alliance banks went from 2b to 400b (20k % and rising)
and the cost of Alliance PPT went from approx 2b to 600b (30k % and rising).

Just 12 hours later the costs increased again

Alliance Repair went from 400b to 560b.
The Cost of Alliance PPT went from 600b to 840b.

Approx 24 hours later the costs have increased again

Alliance Repair went from 400b to 620b
The Cost of Alliance PPT went from 600b to 930b

Soon no one will be able to buy anything LOL

[Iƒrit]

[spoiler2=]

It not irrelevant its back to the case we continue to spiral in which is going from one extreme to another, no surprise though as that seems to be the only way adminship can deal with anything. There was very little discussion on the increase of cost. Yet it went from one side of the figure to the exact opposite, with no grip on the situation you are creating, you essentially went from 480 repairs a day to 1-2 a day (cause of the extreme increase to cost). So we went from 10/day were people were very upset and then increased that to 50 then back down to 30, but in reality its 1 or 2 a day cause that is all you can afford.

We will agree that the changes made are far too radical and in far too rapid succession for them to be acceptable to the playerbase. Yes?[/spoiler2]

well my point was, What is the point in having gifts of 30/day if that is not what we received, make it simple. if we were to only get 1-2/day as intended then by all means make it 1-2/day.

[spoiler2=]

I keep saying that the old days of massing are not what we should be leaning towards, the game will become a sniper fest all over again where players rollover and play dead while sniping at planets cause they are to sissy to build stats. Repairs do not stop a massing they only make it cost more and take longer, as it SHOULD be. Armies should not be obliterated in a short period of time, it should take work and time to break through the forces of your enemies. Otherwise it will become one man masses several in a short period.

We find ourselves on opposite sides of a fence when it comes to specific cost and the principle of alliance gifts, but on the same side in this particular matter, how cheap massing should remain a thing of the past. Interesting, given the supposedly exact opposite take we had on Ascended and 'descension operations'. [/spoiler2]

If massing one person ever took 9+ hours then you can bank on me coming here to chew admin a new one


at any rate, i have supported my argument for now, and showed an error in math for admin (that is to assume I understand his english translation).

[Juliette]

Sitting here and making micro-updates constantly made this way too complicated, just find 1 good idea, go with it, and wait a while.

Good call.
Once the Alliance Repair and PPT is evaluated, no player voice should have any effect until the time substantial statistical information is available to be used next to player feedback.

We need incremental improvements not radical changes.

Alliance Repairs should not have been reduced by 93% and then made 20 thousand times more costly.

Alliance PPT should never have been bunched together in 3 hour lots and made 30 thousand times more costly.

The cost of gifts should not have been made exponential.

First the costs of Alliance Repairs and increasing alliance banks went from 2b to 400b (20k % and rising)
and the cost of Alliance PPT went from approx 2b to 600b (30k % and rising).

Just 12 hours later the costs increased again

Alliance Repair went from 400b to 560b.
The Cost of Alliance PPT went from 600b to 840b.

Approx 24 hours later the costs have increased again

Alliance Repair went from 400b to 620b
The Cost of Alliance PPT went from 600b to 930b

Soon no one will be able to buy anything LOL

I like how you keep repeating yourself. Really helps me understand the bigger issue here. Thank you, Robe. :D

But seriously, what would have been a good time scale to get to the realistic prices of -in your case- 800 and 900B for Repair and PPT respectively? (Why realistic? See previous post. Potential value vs. actual cost => profitable use of service. High potential value => High cost.) Would you have accepted a gradual increase over a month? (To illustrate, instead of 30k% it would have raised, 1k% from the original 2B / day for a full month.)
What you fail to understand, or seem to disregard, is that you and The Legion are at the top end of the tier. So of course your prices will be high. And of course, when going from "NOTHING" (or 2B per action, same thing really) to a realistic price, you're going to have people who will dislike the change. So what? You want the change not to have happened? You would want to reverse the update, causing yet more chaos?

Alliance repair and PPT have been evaluated, and found to be worth MUCH more than a freebie 2B naq. Pricing has become REALISTIC. Provided correct mathematics, yes, such prices would denote a sharp increase from the freebies they were. Admin had to have statistical information to base his evaluation on, so you all have been allowed a few months to experiment with freebie -near infinite- repairs/PPT. Now you get the reality check all of us knew was coming. Complain all you want. Repeat yourself all you want. Badger admins all you want. Colour your text all you want. Realism is realism, and freebies of ANY kind are unrealistic.


I will still say this should have been tested in Beta before blowing up Main, but admin's choice, admin does.
(Under current pricing, best course of action is small alliances, huge incomes, and you'll have the most chance of ever hitting that daily cap.)


@Ifrit: Very good.

[Robe]

@ Juliette I thought mods were meant to post respectfully...

Will these changes adversely affect large well established alliances - no.
Why? They have the capacity to adapt - I know TL has done so already.

But you are right I did repeat myself in the Gift Inflation figures.

Why? The majority of players do not have access to a command centre.
So I thought they would be interested in viewing real data depicting the rate of inflation in 12 hourly increments.

I also thought that Forum would be interested in measuring the baseline affect on a large alliance.

However, since I have personally offended you by adding the 12 hourly updates, I am happy to stop doing so now.

I am sure the point has been made.

[Lithium]

removing them removes the issue and all efforts can be used where the game really needs help.
heavy stats and features to save them for long stagnate the game.

[Juliette]

@ Juliette I thought mods were meant to post respectfully..

If that is all the reply you can muster.. pity. I had hoped you would liven up the discussion with some insightful comments regarding game mechanics instead of stooping to slur someone whose only fault is that they slightly disagree with your more subjective points, dear. Oh well.

Will these changes adversely affect large well established alliances - no.
Why? They have the capacity to adapt - I know TL has done so already.

But you are right I did repeat myself in the Gift Inflation figures.

Why? The majority of players do not have access to a command centre.
So I thought they would be interested in viewing real data depicting the rate of inflation in 12 hourly increments.

I also thought that Forum would be interested in measuring the baseline affect on a large alliance.

We both know that is not what you did.. but for the sake of quietness, let's pretend it is. Well said? (Or was that 'disrespectful' too? Apparently even the most detached messages can be..)

[Deadliest Wes]

removing them removes the issue and all efforts can be used where the game really needs help.
heavy stats and features to save them for long stagnate the game.

if repairs are affordable how could that improve massing? all of u here agreed that allie repairs is ruining massing.

Why do you care what alliances get and what they have to pay for repairs, your not even in an alliance. Lone Wolf.

Edit 1: Why is admin listening to lone wolfs about alliance perks? IDK

Edit 2: we do not believe that alliance repair is ruining massing, the lack of blance between attack and defense weapons repair and alliance ppt is what is ruining massing.

[Tyber Zann]

Perhaps the suggestions from people who actually play this game should be paid as much attention as to those which are currently been listened to, but only serve self interest rather than the improvement of the game for all.

[Robe]

Perhaps the suggestions from people who actually play this game should be paid as much attention as to those which are currently been listened to, but only serve self interest rather than the improvement of the game for all.

You are 100% correct, but I have to say iv said this once here and it was deleted on page 10. Thanks again bias mod team.

I can see where I went wrong now.
I spent years building an active alliance when all I had to do was complain in forums every time someone over took me in the game.

[Calesta]

Perhaps the suggestions from people who actually play this game should be paid as much attention as to those which are currently been listened to, but only serve self interest rather than the improvement of the game for all.

You are 100% correct, but I have to say iv said this once here and it was deleted on page 10. Thanks again bias mod team.

I can see where I went wrong now.
I spent years building an active alliance when all I had to do was complain in forums every time someone over took me in the game.

chuckle

[Empy]

Edit 2: we do not believe that alliance repair is ruining massing, the lack of blance between attack and defense weapons repair and alliance ppt is what is ruining massing.

That's what you believe, I don't think there is any "imbalance" between attack and defense weapon repair.