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Upon examining the effects of the various strike modifiers (planets, mothership, AB..) at the request of a substantial cross-section of the player base, drew up the following chart, included below. This chart shows the 'total' percentages of an account set up with full planetary support, accompanying Mothership and a chance of AB.

By what seems to be the people's standard, the percentages (final column) are 'too high'. So here are 3 different cases, each representing part of what was offered as a 'solution'.

Case 1:
Relatively small gains in balancing can be made by simply changing the AB calculation to include only the raw strike, not the complete post-modifier strike. (Excesses in this regard can be seen in examples D and J in the chart, as well as the amended (post-calculation change) values in E and K.)

Case 2.
Planets provide up to 500% bonus to strike/defence.
Planets of the same type should make each other less effective. Lore-wise, if you have only a single division of elite defenders, they will fight to their last breath to defend you; however, if they know they have a million others standing backup, they will not fight as hard (after all, why keep fighting when you are injured if you know someone can take your place at a moment's notice).
This would work out to (for example..(!)..) 1 attack planet being able to provide 50% support, 2 attack planets each being able to provide 45% support, 3 40%, 4 35%, 5 30% and 6 through 10 providing 25%. (At optimal strength, that would equate to 1:50%, 2:90%, 3:120%, 4:140%, 5:150%, 6:175%, 7:200%, 8:225%, 9:250%, 10:275%; a max strike of 375% having just raw strike and planetary contribution, as opposed to current 600% total.)
Any effectiveness reduction will be applied equivalently to covert/income/UP attributes.

Case 3.
Mothership provides up to 100% bonus to strike or defence.
Given the previous two cases, it makes sense to restrict the max contribution of any one factor to 50% of raw strike/defence, including MS.
You can think of the possible balance, pros and cons of this one for yourself.



So here we are, the game allows for an unbalanced situation to exist. Having included in several conversations most of the people who are quite successfully using the game as it is currently to maintain a substantial 'lead' on the rest, we conclude that there is need for change.

I present you with 3 options:
1. Only AB is revised (from doubling 'post-modifier strike' to doubling 'raw strike' during attack, not affecting planet/MS contribution)
2. AB (see option 1) and the planets are revised (percentages up for some discussion).
3. AB (see 1), planets (see 2) and MS are revised.

Vote, discuss, and call me when you reach consensus.
Poll will be open for 14 days, changing your vote is allowed.


Referencing threads:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=201981
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=201641
.. and several unlisted.

Im confused. Use examples? Before and after?

re: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=201981&start=15#p2589505

Well what good is a house that after 5 days gives you a bonus to eliminate ABs? What good is a house to for all practical purposes eliminate MS's? So add house deletion to the list I guess. All of the Houses should be removed and their bonuses because players just don't like the variety made available to them. Easier to make one shoe fit all lol

And Inc/UP planets those need a nerf ASAP to balance the combat changes. If I blow through 15k AT and all my free time to grind out 100t naq to smash you with and then you just replace that in a day or two passively with inc/up planets then we have imbalance issues here.

Nerf income planets to 1t a day and UP to 400k. KK thanks.

Edit: Oh I voted no changes by the way these 3 suggestions themselves are not terrible but they do not work with other balance issues.

Good ideas, and will even the playing field while still giving the planets a small advantage. % can be worked on but other than that, i vote for all three and see how it goes.

~Dä Vinci~ wrote:Good ideas, and will even the playing field while still giving the planets a small advantage. % can be worked on but other than that, i vote for all three and see how it goes.

So, basically we are playing quantum now? We are spending A LOT of money and using alot of time farming and raiding to build this and now its getting nerfed! This has to end at a certain point. I don't have a good account at ALL but I don't wan't to see THIS game get away with more scams. Black market triples for a few years, then nerf them so you have to buy more....(or they may eventually become useless with the progressive nerf idea!) ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!

Stewie Griffin wrote:

~Dä Vinci~ wrote:Good ideas, and will even the playing field while still giving the planets a small advantage. % can be worked on but other than that, i vote for all three and see how it goes.

So, basically we are playing quantum now? We are spending A LOT of money and using alot of time farming and raiding to build this and now its getting nerfed! This has to end at a certain point. I don't have a good account at ALL but I don't wan't to see THIS game get away with more scams. Black market triples for a few years, then nerf them so you have to buy more....(or they may eventually become useless with the progressive nerf idea!) ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!

do you even play ingame?

Stewie Griffin wrote:

~Dä Vinci~ wrote:Good ideas, and will even the playing field while still giving the planets a small advantage. % can be worked on but other than that, i vote for all three and see how it goes.

So, basically we are playing quantum now? We are spending A LOT of money and using alot of time farming and raiding to build this and now its getting nerfed! This has to end at a certain point. I don't have a good account at ALL but I don't wan't to see THIS game get away with more scams. Black market triples for a few years, then nerf them so you have to buy more....(or they may eventually become useless with the progressive nerf idea!) ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!

Not useless Stewie only useful as INC/UP. So when you farm up/generate a quad of naq now in two weeks or two months or however long it takes you just sell it. DO NOT put it into your MS or combat planets. That will improve your kill ratio and the income people will point down to you from their top ranks and proclaim "Not cool bro!". Work hard at this Stewie and maybe they'll let you into Heset one day.

I like the calculations chart by the way it is pretty.

Sniperwax wrote:

Stewie Griffin wrote:

~Dä Vinci~ wrote:Good ideas, and will even the playing field while still giving the planets a small advantage. % can be worked on but other than that, i vote for all three and see how it goes.

So, basically we are playing quantum now? We are spending A LOT of money and using alot of time farming and raiding to build this and now its getting nerfed! This has to end at a certain point. I don't have a good account at ALL but I don't wan't to see THIS game get away with more scams. Black market triples for a few years, then nerf them so you have to buy more....(or they may eventually become useless with the progressive nerf idea!) ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!

Not useless Stewie only useful as INC/UP. So when you farm up/generate a quad of naq now in two weeks or two months or however long it takes you just sell it. DO NOT put it into your MS or combat planets. That will improve your kill ratio and the income people will point down to you from their top ranks and proclaim "Not cool bro!". Work hard at this Stewie and maybe they'll let you into Heset one day.

I like the calculations chart by the way it is pretty.

Ya so basically like the investigation, this is another way to help or hurt who they want. Got it. Triples that you bought are now useless. MS you built up to bring down 150 tril defs, are now nerfed. AB is screwed with. What's next, if you have a bigger strike by twice theirs it doesn't count? That would make it fair for the smaller defenders right? Come on. This is another way to piss off people who've invested time and money into this game...Just like the 4 level covert nerf...(and im level 36/33) so ya this is dumb as hell

maybe its not related to this topic, but what about this idea:

That planets adds their bonus only if they are in normal dimension and not merlined. This means that u only get the bonus if u can defend your planets, cause its kinda just stupid, how the planets can give u bonus if they arent in the same dimension like u or your army?

Stewie Griffin wrote:

Sniperwax wrote:

Stewie Griffin wrote:

~Dä Vinci~ wrote:Good ideas, and will even the playing field while still giving the planets a small advantage. % can be worked on but other than that, i vote for all three and see how it goes.

So, basically we are playing quantum now? We are spending A LOT of money and using alot of time farming and raiding to build this and now its getting nerfed! This has to end at a certain point. I don't have a good account at ALL but I don't wan't to see THIS game get away with more scams. Black market triples for a few years, then nerf them so you have to buy more....(or they may eventually become useless with the progressive nerf idea!) ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!

Not useless Stewie only useful as INC/UP. So when you farm up/generate a quad of naq now in two weeks or two months or however long it takes you just sell it. DO NOT put it into your MS or combat planets. That will improve your kill ratio and the income people will point down to you from their top ranks and proclaim "Not cool bro!". Work hard at this Stewie and maybe they'll let you into Heset one day.

I like the calculations chart by the way it is pretty.

Ya so basically like the investigation, this is another way to help or hurt who they want. Got it. Triples that you bought are now useless. MS you built up to bring down 150 tril defs, are now nerfed. AB is screwed with. What's next, if you have a bigger strike by twice theirs it doesn't count? That would make it fair for the smaller defenders right? Come on. This is another way to piss off people who've invested time and money into this game...Just like the 4 level covert nerf...(and im level 36/33) so ya this is dumb as hell

Perhaps not useless. In any of these three proposals it would still be fun as an attacker or a defender with a modest size MS and a house blessing to get nice kill ratios on inc/up slackers. The ratio won't be nearly as shock provoking anymore but they will still end up with 0 def eventually. It will just cost the attacker (or the odd defender or two with this setup) more units. The weaker party can replace their losses in a day or two passively. The stronger party replaces theirs in a week or two hunched over the keyboard for dozens of hours farming or with a credit card.

So Strike/Def planets aren't being nerfed per say INC/UP planets are getting buffed. At this rate Heset will be rank 1 before summer hits!

D3ath wrote:maybe its not related to this topic, but what about this idea:

That planets adds their bonus only if they are in normal dimension and not merlined. This means that u only get the bonus if u can defend your planets, cause its kinda just stupid, how the planets can give u bonus if they arent in the same dimension like u or your army?

While I dislike that suggestion I have to admit the logic of it makes sense. Makes me think of the Sg1 episodes where they dimension shifted. When they would switch dimensions in the show there should not have been a nice smooth concrete floor to stand upon in the other dimension.

I will meet ya half way. 3 planets merlined at once. simple fix.....

I think the problem now is there is such a divide between those that can build big att/def duals and keep them merlined and the average joe schmoe player.

Remember, the power of planets and those that can afford the merlins on them is that it's a stat that can never be removed. You are paying for an advantage. Obviously this is a cash-based game and it lives off of merlin buying and people investing money into the game. We all know I spend quite a bit on here. That said, cash should never be a requirement for a player to compete. There have always been checks and balances put in place in the game to ensure, at least to some extent, that noone becomes untouchable.

As I said in the other thread, this will always be a problem to some extent while merlins are a thing. It is a bit crazy that there is something that can be such a huge advantage in this game that cannot be attacked. That is an unbalanced advantage. Now obviously merlins aren't going anywhere and people buying merlins isn't going anywhere, so since we can't deal with the root of the problem, we have to do our best to treat the symptoms. In this case, when that advantage allows people to completely overpower other players based on their planets.

Two people in an online battle...one has maybe a couple merlined planets (like you can do from the market) versus someone with 10 merlined att/def duals...that person can have 10-13 tril stats from a tiny number of troops. It means that in an online battle, the person with fewer planets will no matter what lose at least 5:1, though more likely 10:1 or more.

ETL was massing a 20 tril defense of mine a couple weeks back. He had an 8 tril strike (almost all from planets), his mothership wasn't really breaking through mine much yet (to add to his advantage). On an attack where neither of us got an ascended blessing, he lost 100k troops, I lost 1.8 million. Even High Empty has said that the ratios are too crazy and should be toned down.

What we are going to see, as you have rightly pointed out Stewie, is that more and more people that can afford it are switching to permamerlined att/def duals. As this becomes the norm for warfare and farming, people won't build defenses.

A 10 merlined att/def dual account can farm profitably big defenses for next to no naq. People will stop being able to afford to keep defenses, in war or out of war. I know why people like High Empty don't want NAPs...because he can "profitably" turn farm most accounts in a major alliance and make a profit whether they have a 2 tril defense or a 20 tril defense. Same goes for defenses...you won't see people doing like what Rodwolf did building a 300 tril defense or gandy's 150 tril. If you think double strike is not balanced, that is a tiny problem compared to this. Look at the server war going on right now. Most of us are building in the 1-10 tril defense range...on occasion higher but unless it's for a specific battle or for a specific purpose, there really isn't much point to building big when it dies so easily.

The game will be reduced to those with the wallet to protect their planets if we don't do something to balance it. People will go statless and resort to sniping and will need double strikes to do any real damage to the big accounts if it's not changed.

As for the updates considered, I think all of those changes are reasonable. We won't really know until we see them in battle how these changes affect things, but it's a start.

I voted cases 1 & 2

Personally I feel that the cumulative combination of the three cases are the problem in terms of balance and tweaking of one or 2 of the mentioned cases will balance the game more evenly.

Case 1) Agree wholly with this. AB should only allow for raw strike.

Case 2) IMO planets are majority weight behind the imbalance of this game atm. They can be built to provide big attributes without ever being susceptible (merlin). This is compounded by the fact you can have 10 of them (11 if you're lucky).

Option 3) When you consider motherships in the same light, they can readily be massed, and have to go through the oppositions mothership to provide any additional support on the ground. It is also dependent on you building a strike of the same value. If you take into consideration case 1 & 2 you would have to build a bigger strike (naturally) to take full effect of the mothership strike. Thus I don't see a reason to touch this.

P.S. Nice to see some updates being considered!