I come to you now as a prophet and a friend, as an eloquent voice of reason reaching out to your intelligence. Lend me thine eyes audience! Hand me your minds! I hear dissent amongst the hordes of the fading ghouls who haunt the ranking system, wails of boredom echo through my keyboard cracking at my screen...the game is rotting like a freshly picked apple left in the coveted light of the summer sun...it's a system of do or die, pointless efforts and strained enjoyment on a template that could be so much more!
If you're looking for the guilty, you need only to look into a mirror. I know why you did it, I know you were afraid...who wouldn't be?
War, terror, disease... There were a myriad of problems displayed to corrupt your reason...and rob you of your common sense, but fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned...
turned to every new update that was suggested, every escape from the difficult ways that once were.
They promised you order...promised you a reprieve from your accounts doom and all these things demanded in return was your silent obedient consent. I once sought to undo these wrongs. The protected planets treaty, the over powering role of ascension and the ingame market...but my attempts were cast down nearly four years ago by some of the very members who stand here now and complain.
Only the players can change the game. Admins should be bowing to their players, not players bowing to admins. A choir of voices now wait to rise up seek and point out the faults... and they are right....
There is something very wrong with this game...
The utter stagnation which we are all inevitably going to face is encroaching fast upon us. Wars can no longer be fought, a war here is a test of ones stubbornness and lack of abstract activity. The accounts are fast becoming standardised to the point where single features are so obtuse that it creates horrific imbalances, that hard workers are no longer rewarded to the point of a ultimate victory and no war is costly with a little effort.
The higher planes are wrecked with an anti scale weighing, but instead of facing the needed sacrifice to give us back our game, you cower and you fear loss of nothing itself! Only the SGW community could fall so far, time after time and despite your faults to date.. your greatest yet is falling so far, and learning nothing...
This is the last chance to do whatever it takes, to turn this around. You all know what's at stake...the choices will be difficult, and they will cost...but enjoyment and entertainment do not come free in this world any more.[/spoiler]
Right, over the top cheesy speech out of the way....here goes...
Suggested updates:
- New alert roles.. (cost ~100 at's to switch)
Critical now = max attack's per turn = 3 full at's. (farming mode = small surgical strikes to get large naq, income is now at FULL on critical). (45at's).
none = unlimited number of attacks, cannot be on Nox (income is at all time LOW)
Can only be changedonce a day. Also reduces uu lost with no defence, inactive account for over 1 week = auto nox and critical (see later for more details!!!)
The problem with army sizes...
- army size dies with no defence, uu and miners/workers leave unprotected lands. (logical?)
Only lifers are 'safe', however uu -> lifer ratio needs to be reduced. Same update to ascension. Planets are lost in unprotected realms (RIP snipers..). = more effort in wars, but now can be very costly for someone who is being 'sat upon'.
There would need to be a defence to loss ration dependent on army size. Smaller players should have to have a bigger defence to prevent loss, but bigger players will logically lose more if defenceless. For example, for every 10mill army size = 15bill defence needed, drop to 5bill defence after 100mill (meaning someone with 200mill army size will need to have 100bill defence to stop uu/miner loss, whilst a player on 100mill army size would need the same.) Perhaps have a size limit for the uu/miner loss with defence needed to take effect, but keep it very small.
- The high your alert level = less loss. Nox further reduces loss, and PPT halts loss all together.
- introduce new feature = realm activity scale. This is increased by the number of hits on an account per turn up to a number out of 100 (like old nox system). The higher the %, the higher the uu/miners lost for unprotected realms (rewards activity). So lets say, literally it would take 33 full, successful attacks in the space of a turn to get it to the maximum potential loss level. These attacks only raise the % lost if the opponent has below the required defence (so you're not going to start successfully killing a 1T defence, get it to 500bill and see your opponent loosing army size a lot more than they should do).
- Up to a maximum of say.. 1% of available miners/uu PER TURN (meaning a person with 100mill army size, and a defence below 100bill would lose up to 1mill army size a turn). However, if you have say, max alertness and nox reduce this to 0.1% per turn, they would only lose 200k per turn, BUT would be unable to mass and attack back. That's just an example army size. I don't reckon the loss of UU feature should take effect until a player is in excess of 10mill army size.
-The maximum uu allowed to be lost in a day is 20% of your total army size (again, as an example..).
A few other things...
- alliance wars must be agreed to by both alliances, when done so there is a 12 hour period before the 5 day (to be increased to 7 days) period start's. Only equal numbers can participate (and can be chosen). Alliance war's can now be won, apply UU loss feature to ALL scenario's.
- Motherships. TWO possible suggestions...
1. now have % chance of being around for defence if you're attacking/being attacked at the same time. Similar to ascended blessing. More attacks you make = lower % chance of mothership being around to defend for a certain time period/number of attacks. (At the moment, somehow a single MS can be in two or more places at once...)
2. However, you could be able to indicate whether your MS is solely to be defending or attacking. At the same time, you should be able to assign your MS, and it's fleet to protect a planet as a third option, however, if this is the case it cannot be used as defence or attack at the same time.
-MS's desperately need to be capped at 2.5T for some time. To back it up with some blatant info, technology can only go so far.. MS's do have a limit in ANY universe.
Expanding the future...
- army size cap expanded to 600mill. Make buying stop at 300mill. Raiding at 400mill. Plague kicks in at 480mill or so. Means the larger players will really have to watch their ass in war times. (These are just example figures and it would need debate..).
- increase starting units for people, to around the 500k army size mark.
-increase number of planets by 3 per 100mill army size. Starting at 5 if smaller than 100mill, 101mill - 200mill = 8, +2 per 100mill after that up to a maximum of 12. To represent domain.
- all accounts below 300k army size, that have been inactive for 2+months = removed. Logically, if they;re that small and have been inactive for that long.. they're no longer playing!
ME = no longer ranked (speed up game) - let's be honest.. you CAN easily enough compare it by posting on the forum, and it's not even properly ranked..so it's pretty much irrelevant rank wise.
AT capacity = REDUCED significantly, to about 6k limit.
-Reduce the effectiveness of the 1at hit. It should have a potential power less than a compliment of 15at's, but not as low as 1/15th - obviously the losses whilst attacking should be reduced. The 'inflicted unimaginable damage' rule should be applied to attack, as it is already applied to defence. (IE. a 1T strike attacking a defence less than 100bill SHOULD take no damage in return, the same as a 60bill strike trying to mass a 1T defence).
- Limit the number of transferable at's per account in a week to 10k. Meaning you can only refill your at's 1.6 or so times.
Forums
- Admins have to be, and rightly should be directly appointed by Jason, through an application and 'interview' process. One should also be voted into the position, as a voice for the players on the admin seats, however the voted admin, cannot be an alliance mate, or affiliate of one of the appointed ones (add a bit more of a political twist to the forum running, no?)
- mods, should, by right, be re-structured and re-taught to work as a team, and a code of conduct (detailed one) should be given. Too many times I have seen mods undermining other mods and the likes, not to mention the troubles I have heard of in the mod area. better control needs to be taken of the mods, certain GM's, and spam section users in particular near enough do what they want, which, as mods, is not how it should be.
- The Ombudsman's ACTUAL role needs to be realised more. They are not judge and jury, they are a medium of communication and basically the work horse of the admins for forum issues with regards to community complaints. (glorified PA anyone?)
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Second Set of Suggested Updates!
Purgatory!
- return to first system. Extend size of entry (if it is not already there) to 50mill max. I think Purgatory should literally be a safe haven for the smaller players should they want to go there, without the current restrictions it has on it now. The first incarnation had it spot on, the price to get in and out of purg is great!
- it should also have a system similar to vacation mode in it. You cannot enter purgatory if you have attacked another account within 24hours. That way, the smaller players cannot run and hide so quickly after nailing someone.
Ascending!
- reduce the % range of G&R a bit further. Too many smaller players are breaking their back's just to nudge into G&R range, they should grow first before struggling up that hill, and ascension needs to be sorted out more before its allowed to continue exponentially expanding.
Ascension
- presuming the no defence = army size death update is taken, then you could feasibly reduce the army size attack range limits.
Attacking in main
- This is a suggestion/example (work with me, not against me!!!)..., if you're attacking a defence higher than your strike the potential strike losses should be increased to 6% total, rather than 3% potential losses. If a strike, larger than a defence attacks it and masses it down for pittens of the losses, then I don't see that as a major problem. HOWEVER, perhaps Jason should factor a similar ration in to compensate for just how high over the defence the strike is to more accurately calculate the losses the strike would take, I mean... a 1.1T strike, massing a 1T defence, would only, logically, take just a little less casualties than the defence... perhaps keep the %loo potential at 6%, and reduce it by 0.5% for every 10% the strike is higher than the defence? To a minimum of 3% (what it is now..). So to mass a 1T defence you would have to have 1.6T strike to reduce your potential losses to the 3% of the current system.
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So there are a few idea's. If anyone can give me some counter examples that are relevant beyond the "I don't want to loose some uu".. then please. I would very much like to hear them.
It's out there now.. they're my suggestions, and idea's to help the game and the community gain a lot more from this game.