So Simple

[renegadze]

How about making a server identical to main in everyway, but with a revamped market making it impossible to do $$ trades?

So massing again would require skill and in many cases a group working together to bring down a defence.

[Sarevok]

You don't need cash to mass.

If you have spare AT, spare time, and no goal to achieve, why not pull someone else down?

By farming inactive i make about 300B profit/1kAT. If i farm 2kAT, i can buy 1k for free, and use it to mass someone randomly. It won't stop it happening.

[renegadze]

You don't need cash to mass.

If you have spare AT, spare time, and no goal to achieve, why not pull someone else down?

By farming inactive i make about 300B profit/1kAT. If i farm 2kAT, i can buy 1k for free, and use it to mass someone randomly. It won't stop it happening.

and why you think AT's are now so cheap to come by? because of all the $$. As a result more people become inactive.

Ergo, without the cash - possible less AT's - possible less inactives - costlier to farm - even more so to mass

[Sarevok]

You don't need cash to mass.

If you have spare AT, spare time, and no goal to achieve, why not pull someone else down?

By farming inactive i make about 300B profit/1kAT. If i farm 2kAT, i can buy 1k for free, and use it to mass someone randomly. It won't stop it happening.

and why you think AT's are now so cheap to come by? because of all the $$. As a result more people become inactive.

Ergo, without the cash - possible less AT's - possible less inactives - costlier to farm - even more so to mass

So, the game says "of 71,840 total". Assume 20% activity. 14,386 accounts generating AT. At 4AT/turn, that's 192/day. about 2.7M AT/day.

So, 19.3M AT generated/week by actives alone. Along with 22.4M possible from the market alone, for a total of 41.7M.

For simplicity, we'll make this to monthly, being 181.69M AT/month.
Assume 200 people spend 200$ on AT alone. Which is 52M AT.

So, if possible, < 1/3 of the available AT are from cash bought sources

[GeneralChaos]

Or admin could just remove AT's from the ingame $$ market - problem solved.

Alas i dont think the $$ AT market is the issue, the issue is you can mass anyone with little to no losses to yourself, so you can inflict mass damage while taking very little in return, then if you have nothing ot mass the person you hit cannot hit back or has nothing to hit back on, so they get bored and leave the game.

THAT IS WHAT ADMIN NEEDS TO ADDRESS, and he has been given several suggestions on how to do this, the biggest pain in the ass this game has is that stupid 1 AT massing, remove that, and only the most skilled players will be massing again, as everyone else will be to scared to lose stats.

[Sarevok]

Or admin could just remove AT's from the ingame $$ market - problem solved.

Alas i dont think the $$ AT market is the issue, the issue is you can mass anyone with little to no losses to yourself, so you can inflict mass damage while taking very little in return, then if you have nothing ot mass the person you hit cannot hit back or has nothing to hit back on, so they get bored and leave the game.

THAT IS WHAT ADMIN NEEDS TO ADDRESS, and he has been given several suggestions on how to do this, the biggest pain in the ass this game has is that stupid 1 AT massing, remove that, and only the most skilled players will be massing again, as everyone else will be to scared to lose stats.

Agreed.

I think the game would be more enjoyable, if fights took skill, more then just available resources/time.

[SlimD]

How about making a server identical to main in everyway, but with a revamped market making it impossible to do $$ trades?

So massing again would require skill and in many cases a group working together to bring down a defence.

I thought Origins was supposed to be something like that.. too bad it wasn't (not that I ever played origins, so i am just commentins)

Or admin could just remove AT's from the ingame $$ market - problem solved.

Would Admin go broke

Alas i dont think the $$ AT market is the issue

It's one of the issues - and alas, just like changing the 1AT damage ratios, I don't see it changing

[CABAL]

No, this a free game. He probably earns *just* enough from the IGA to cover the cost of bandwidth (methinks).

And yes, AT generation should be stooped, and massing made... 'more retaliable'?

[renegadze]

You don't need cash to mass.

If you have spare AT, spare time, and no goal to achieve, why not pull someone else down?

By farming inactive i make about 300B profit/1kAT. If i farm 2kAT, i can buy 1k for free, and use it to mass someone randomly. It won't stop it happening.

and why you think AT's are now so cheap to come by? because of all the $$. As a result more people become inactive.

Ergo, without the cash - possible less AT's - possible less inactives - costlier to farm - even more so to mass

So, the game says "of 71,840 total". Assume 20% activity. 14,386 accounts generating AT. At 4AT/turn, that's 192/day. about 2.7M AT/day.

So, 19.3M AT generated/week by actives alone. Along with 22.4M possible from the market alone, for a total of 41.7M.

For simplicity, we'll make this to monthly, being 181.69M AT/month.
Assume 200 people spend 200$ on AT alone. Which is 52M AT.

So, if possible, < 1/3 of the available AT are from cash bought sources

well I think your 20% is way off, possibly more like 7-8%

Lots of things make the AT's cheap

As commented the 1AT massing rubbish
buying seemingly unlimited amounts from the cash market

But think of it this way...how many people are now that bored of the game they just sell their AT's for naq\uu\$$? the amount of AT's in the game isn't so much of an issue if you can encourage people to use their own.

If $$ trades were removed. People would be a lot more tactical about how they used their AT's, reducing the availability on the market somewhat

[Lore]

question, are you refering to stopping $$ trades from the game itself? or all $$ trades?

As long as MSN, private trade brokers, and direct send exist then you can not stop $$ trades between players.

[Sarevok]

well I think your 20% is way off, possibly more like 7-8%

Assuming your right, there's still about 30M AT being generated/week.

If $$ trades were removed. People would be a lot more tactical about how they used their AT's, reducing the availability on the market somewhat

Doubt it. As Lore said. If someone is willing to buy, and someone willing to sell for $$, then the market will exist. Even removing ALL trade options completely, what's to stop a Ascended type buying/selling going on.
And saying NO AT $$ buying won't work. They'll just buy Naq, and offer like 1T/1k AT. All removing the $$ option would do, is force prices up for those whom DON'T spend on the game. And those that do, would simply buy the naq, to buy the AT, to mass

[renegadze]

Hence why I said re-vamp the market. There are ways to make use of a peer to peer market and prevent $$ trades

[Richard B Riddick]

um, most of the at's i get are not from $$ spenders, but players that don't use at's and sell them for naq to add to up, ascending, more units, or mothership, there are lots of players out there that don't use their attack turns but just sell them, if u find some it's very easy to get lots of at's with $$, most at's out there are not from $$ spenders but from semi active players that grow but don't use at's themselves but just sell them.

[renegadze]

um, most of the at's i get are not from $$ spenders, but players that don't use at's and sell them for naq to add to up, ascending, more units, or mothership, there are lots of players out there that don't use their attack turns but just sell them, if u find some it's very easy to get lots of at's with $$, most at's out there are not from $$ spenders but from semi active players that grow but don't use at's themselves but just sell them.

I fully agree, but....why are these players semi active?

[MEZZANINE]

question, are you refering to stopping $$ trades from the game itself? or all $$ trades?

As long as MSN, private trade brokers, and direct send exist then you can not stop $$ trades between players.

Agreed, what I and others have said many times

The $$$ problem will only be solved with a shake up of the broker system, either by limiting it to a fair price range ( ie 1 Trill naq for 1 UU cant be done, trades must be for with price ranges like 1 Trill naq for between 800K and 1.2 Mill UU ) or if private trade brokers are abolished and replaced with a anonymous game broker system where all ingame bids and offers are listed like in another game Im am not allowed to 'advertise' by naming. The give resource option would also have to be removed or limited to very small amounts.

As for making the game more tactical and requiring greater teamwork, I refer to another of my previous suggestions

viewtopic.php?f=160&t=135419&p=1642158&hilit=fatigue#p1642158

As we all know, battle odds and loss rations are very much in favor of the attackers when massing someone who is off-line and unable to defend themselves, and this is why and when most massings happen. Also many players build a strike, use it, then either sell it or run to PPT to preserve it for re-use making massing far to cheap compared to the cost of building a def. The person that got massed often has nothing to hit back at and thats very frustrating, also 1 person with 1 strike can take down the defs of an entire alliance before they even realise they are under attack, rendering defs pointless. When an MS takes a planet you must wait for it to return and re-arm before sending it on another mission, when spying and sabbing you have a limited covert capacity, I think this should apply to strike troops as well.

What I propose is this,

1) Limit on ATs you can use in a set period of time ( reverse nox counter ), everytime you make an attack, the new meter recording ammunition and fatigue builds up and like the nox meter it goes back down incrementally on the turn tick over. When the Ammo&Fatigue meter is at 100%, strike actions can not be made.

2) If you sell weapons the sale value is reduced by a % linked to the Ammo&Fatigue meter and if you go on PPT you lose a % of strike weapons and troops linked to the Ammo&Fatigue meter. If your A&F meter is at 100% from massing someone and you PPT, you take total strike loss, stay off PPT unable to sell and at least the person massed has something to hit back at.


I think this would be a big improvement and make defs worth building even in war time. It may even encourage the use of sabbing defs over the unskilled click click click of the attack button and would definitely require better teamwork to take down a whole alliance.

All comments and thoughts welcome