Attack/Defense planets, a bug or a "feature"?

[RepliMagni]

Fair enough mate - I definitely agree that all updates should be thoroughly tested in beta beforehand.....heck, the amount of times an update came through that was either ridiculously buggy or else poorly thought out is unbelievable going back a few years.

There needs to be a way of tying planets to the more core stats of supers/weps. As for suggestions, how about these:

- Making it so that (in the case of strike planets for example), a planet can only add 25% of the raw strike, and all planets can only add up to 100% of the raw strike.
- A planet can only add its face value (if the above conditions are met): ie: no redistribution of power from bigger plants to scrap ones.
- Get rid of MS techs altogether (and perhaps even half the power of MSs [there is precedent, given how powerful covert used to be]).
- And perhaps tie your def to your strike when at war - you have to maintain 25% of your strike in def (bit of a sidenote, but would make for more punishing wars)


Just a few ideas.....feel free to rip them apart.....I probably haven't thought them through fully. Just please, give valid gameplay reasons why or why not - don't just say "cos it'll screw me over" or "admin wants more money".....

[MaxSterling]

The way I see it, there are five types of players in this game... 6 if you include cheaters/multis.
1.) Those that spend a lot of time actually farming and raiding to develop their accounts.
2.) Those that sit back, rarely attack or raid and let their turn income/UP build their accounts.
3.) Those that look at this game as a business and profit financially from it whether it be by farming/raiding or being like player type 2.
4.) Those that want to play a certain style but don't have the time, so they use $ to buy from player type 3.
5.) Inactives

Seems to me that the people that bring up past updates the most, are the players in type 2... the ones that do little to no attacking
and basically think they should have one of the best accounts without doing anything in the game... and that's why the AT update
appeals to you. The less work you do, the less you fall behind.

I can understand people **Filtered** if this were a handful of people that only knew about this "feature", but it's been posted in these
forums numerous times and is widely used across the server in both realms. It's like **Filtered** because you chose to be goa'uld because
you wanted more naq, but are constantly being massed by the tauri who get what... 25% strike bonus? You made a choice in how you
invest your resources and how you play...and you chose poorly, so live with your choice.

Now my question is why are people building defenses in which they take on huge losses in the first place? Probably because they don't
want to have to login more than 1-2 times a day...

[Legendary Apophis]

Fair enough mate - I definitely agree that all updates should be thoroughly tested in beta beforehand.....heck, the amount of times an update came through that was either ridiculously buggy or else poorly thought out is unbelievable going back a few years.

There needs to be a way of tying planets to the more core stats of supers/weps. As for suggestions, how about these:

- Making it so that (in the case of strike planets for example), a planet can only add 25% of the raw strike, and all planets can only add up to 100% of the raw strike.
- A planet can only add its face value (if the above conditions are met): ie: no redistribution of power from bigger plants to scrap ones.
- Get rid of MS techs altogether (and perhaps even half the power of MSs [there is precedent, given how powerful covert used to be]).
- And perhaps tie your def to your strike when at war - you have to maintain 25% of your strike in def (bit of a sidenote, but would make for more punishing wars)


Just a few ideas.....feel free to rip them apart.....I probably haven't thought them through fully. Just please, give valid gameplay reasons why or why not - don't just say "cos it'll screw me over" or "admin wants more money".....

I like them, last one not sure about it...if you get massed let's say 9 times a day, it could be a problem if you need to rebuild 400bil def or more.

[RepliMagni]

Seems to me that the people that bring up past updates the most, are the players in type 2... the ones that do little to no attacking
and basically think they should have one of the best accounts without doing anything in the game... and that's why the AT update
appeals to you. The less work you do, the less you fall behind.

In that case, then you've missed the entire point of this thread. TO once fought FUALL for a good few months; we only had about 5 regularly active accounts against probably 200.....and yet we were able to mass about 75% of FUALL (their bigger defs, I'll admit, were a stretch too far at the time). I myself killed c.150mil def supers (this was in 08), and lost hardly any attack supers....because I used attack planets to the full. Just recently I was massed by someone in FE, and so return massed everyone off ppt in the alliance - they lost 10mil def supers, I lost around 500k attack supers.

The question I'm asking is: does anyone think this is good for the game? Where a couple of people can mass entire empires? A single person can mass entire alliances?

Planets and Motherships have become too powerful. If they were tied to the core stats of supers and weapons more strongly, then massing would become expensive again. There would be less of this "EPA 1 hit massing policy", there would be less random massing because people would lose more.....and perhaps alliance wars might actually become more winnable if losses get higher.....

Its not a matter of inactive people vs. active people. Its a matter of what you think is the best game mechanics.....

[MaxSterling]

In that case, then you've missed the entire point of this thread. TO once fought FUALL for a good few months; we only had about 5 regularly active accounts against probably 200.....and yet we were able to mass about 75% of FUALL (their bigger defs, I'll admit, were a stretch too far at the time). I myself killed c.150mil def supers (this was in 08), and lost hardly any attack supers....because I used attack planets to the full. Just recently I was massed by someone in FE, and so return massed everyone off ppt in the alliance - they lost 10mil def supers, I lost around 500k attack supers.

... and yet look at FUALL now. They took that lesson and restructured their accounts accordingly.

I think things are fine as they are... minus the recent AT update.

Planets and Motherships have become too powerful. If they were tied to the core stats of supers and weapons more strongly, then massing would become expensive again. There would be less of this "EPA 1 hit massing policy", there would be less random massing because people would lose more.....and perhaps alliance wars might actually become more winnable if losses get higher.....

Planets and Motherships are a byproduct of how long the game has been running... just like army sizes reaching the plague cap. Massing is still expensive, even for those with decent motherships. The cost is more in naq than in UU though. Removing planets and motherships will not eliminate 1 hit massing policies. People are gonna mass others for being in their logs whether they take on big losses or not. Random massings occur because people need to pick on someone as a way to vent real life frustrations. Losses do not matter.

As for alliance wars becoming winnable... that only happens when people stop becoming stubborn. It's stubbornness, pride, or $ that make wars last long these days.

Its not a matter of inactive people vs. active people. Its a matter of what you think is the best game mechanics.....

When I started playing again, just last Aug/Sept, I realized that my MS was decent at the time when I stopped playing, but would suffer in today's game.
Therefore I made calculations to figure out the best method for me to compete in the game. I knew there was no way that I could catch up to
a 1T mothership that would give attack bonuses and reduce their losses, so I made a cheaper investment into a defense planet. That way even if
my MS went down, I'd suffer fewer losses.

GW is a complex game of chess. Your MS is the queen. Attack planets are your rooks. Defense planets are your bishops, and Knights are your spies. How you
allocate your resources is what determines your success and reduces your failures.

The question I'm asking is: does anyone think this is good for the game? Where a couple of people can mass entire empires? A single person can mass entire alliances?

I think you're missing the point of this thread RepliMagni. This thread is about the amount of losses one incurs during a massing due to planets.
The fact that someone can take down an entire alliance by themself is a separate issue that can only be remedied by taking away a player's ability to
attack more than one player from the same alliance without an alliance war being declared. If people wanted to restrict one player from massing an
entire alliance, that's what should have been implemented... not reducing/eliminating ATs.

[Legendary Apophis]

I think things are fine as they are... minus the recent AT update.

How so? Losing one or two k ATs is far from managing to x6 your strike.

Planets and Motherships have become too powerful. If they were tied to the core stats of supers and weapons more strongly, then massing would become expensive again. There would be less of this "EPA 1 hit massing policy", there would be less random massing because people would lose more.....and perhaps alliance wars might actually become more winnable if losses get higher.....

Planets and Motherships are a byproduct of how long the game has been running... just like army sizes reaching the plague cap. Massing is still expensive, even for those with decent motherships. The cost is more in naq than in UU though. Removing planets and motherships will not eliminate 1 hit massing policies. People are gonna mass others for being in their logs whether they take on big losses or not. Random massings occur because people need to pick on someone as a way to vent real life frustrations. Losses do not matter.

Losses do matter for the targets . If those planets were fixed, the random massers would have more losses compared to target.
And targets, if they abuse the def planets thing they would also have more losses.

The question I'm asking is: does anyone think this is good for the game? Where a couple of people can mass entire empires? A single person can mass entire alliances?

I think you're missing the point of this thread RepliMagni. This thread is about the amount of losses one incurs during a massing due to planets.
The fact that someone can take down an entire alliance by themself is a separate issue that can only be remedied by taking away a player's ability to
attack more than one player from the same alliance without an alliance war being declared. If people wanted to restrict one player from massing an
entire alliance, that's what should have been implemented... not reducing/eliminating ATs.

[/quote]
It's not a seperate issue because planets enable it to happen at tiny costs.
Reducing ATs brings back another kind of strategy that isn't about hiding your lovely massive planet to have no cost at massing alliances you plan to mass. Strategy meant by ATs reducing is to organize who and how you mass, not to destroy everything around like a superplanet implies.

[deni]

Claiming that the higher prices of AT would reduce random massing is ridiculous.

After all, 20$ get you still 20k AT ... and you can mass pretty well with them.

The only ones who will get hurt by the AT update are small players without SS.

[Legendary Apophis]

Well it's being discussed in the ATs thread, I just replied directly to MaxSterling's involving of ATs in the thread compared to planets.

20k instead of 26K I might add.

[RepliMagni]

... and yet look at FUALL now. They took that lesson and restructured their accounts accordingly.

I think things are fine as they are... minus the recent AT update.

You honestly feel one person should be able to mass 50 people with virtually no losses?

Planets and Motherships are a byproduct of how long the game has been running... just like army sizes reaching the plague cap. Massing is still expensive, even for those with decent motherships. The cost is more in naq than in UU though. Removing planets and motherships will not eliminate 1 hit massing policies. People are gonna mass others for being in their logs whether they take on big losses or not. Random massings occur because people need to pick on someone as a way to vent real life frustrations. Losses do not matter.

As for alliance wars becoming winnable... that only happens when people stop becoming stubborn. It's stubbornness, pride, or $ that make wars last long these days.

Massing a 1tril def is not expensive. With a decent account, prepared along the lines mentioned in this thread, you should lose perhaps 50bil naq, 200k supers, 500 ATs.....virtually nothing in other words.

You think that, if people lost 1tril naq, 5mil supers and 1k ATs to mass that same def, they would be so eager? Most players would not be as trigger happy as they currently are....

GW is a complex game of chess. Your MS is the queen. Attack planets are your rooks. Defense planets are your bishops, and Knights are your spies. How you
allocate your resources is what determines your success and reduces your failures.

This game hasn't been a game of chess in years. The whole point of this thread is that, if you build a couple of good planets on merlins, and a good MS, you can mass most mid-size defs with no losses. How is that strategy? If you downsize planets and motherships, then people might actually plan before they mass.

I think you're missing the point of this thread RepliMagni. This thread is about the amount of losses one incurs during a massing due to planets.
The fact that someone can take down an entire alliance by themself is a separate issue that can only be remedied by taking away a player's ability to
attack more than one player from the same alliance without an alliance war being declared. If people wanted to restrict one player from massing an
entire alliance, that's what should have been implemented... not reducing/eliminating ATs.

Exactly, its about the amount of losses one incurs during a massing due to planets. That is obviously tied into the issue of one player being able to mass an entire alliance. Do you really think a sniper account could mass 50 1tril defs if he were losing 5mil attack supers per massing? At the moment he can because he only loses less than 500k supers.

The whole point is that these attack planets and big motherships make massing too easy - they remove strategy, planning, coordinated attacks. They mean one player can mass many with few losses. And as long as he can merlin them, and send his MS out when not massing, there is absolutely nothing that alliance can do about it.

[Empy]

There would be less of this "EPA 1 hit massing policy"

Sorry to interrupt, but EPA does not have a 1 hit mass policy so I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to.

[Jack]

There would be less of this "EPA 1 hit massing policy"

Sorry to interrupt, but EPA does not have a 1 hit mass policy so I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to.

I keep telling them to grow a pair and just mass people that farm them, but they wont listen to me.

[RepliMagni]

There would be less of this "EPA 1 hit massing policy"

Sorry to interrupt, but EPA does not have a 1 hit mass policy so I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to.

My apologies if I have mis-represented the EPA in particular....but the point remains

[MaxSterling]

And targets, if they abuse the def planets thing they would also have more losses.

You either just don't get it, or you're plain unknowledgeable on how to play. Based on your replies, I'm guessing you really haven't figured out how to
play or have been stuck in "turn resource mode" for so long, you have no clue about any other aspect of the game. Let's say I'm a LG+1 and want a 200b defense.
Without planets, I'd need ~2m armed supers. With one 100b def planet and a crap planet, I'd only need ~1m armed supers. How would I have more losses?
If you wanna statbuild a 2T defense, then you deserve to take on a lot of losses. You should never be building a defense that you can't raid back within
minutes anyways...

It's not a seperate issue because planets enable it to happen at tiny costs.
Reducing ATs brings back another kind of strategy that isn't about hiding your lovely massive planet to have no cost at massing alliances you plan to mass. Strategy meant by ATs reducing is to organize who and how you mass, not to destroy everything around like a superplanet implies.

Like I said before, people will mass entire alliances no matter what the losses are. They do it because that's how they play the game... and like I pointed out,
you can reduce your costs as well.

Reducing ATs does not encourage strategy. It encourages less activity by the community, which in turn reduces the number in the community. There's already
a slight influx in number of accounts available on the market... made available just this week alone. The game is dying and the last thing this game needs is less
activity.

You're like the old factory owner that still makes his employees make stuff by hand that's criticizing the others that bought machines to do the same thing. You're
stuck in your old ways, while the others getting more production out of the smaller staff.

[MaxSterling]

Massing a 1tril def is not expensive. With a decent account, prepared along the lines mentioned in this thread, you should lose perhaps 50bil naq, 200k supers, 500 ATs.....virtually nothing in other words.

If it only costs someone 50b naq for repairs, then I envy them. Whenever I come face to face with someone with a MS build, it costs me 15b in shield repairs per 1AT hit alone. R8, Thamuz, Massey, and I went back and forth massing each other all day long last week. Then I had a battle with Odji later on. Those battles alone cost me trillions in naq repairs on my MS. I must've rebuilt my MS at least 5 times that day... each full repair costing me 2T naq.

You think that, if people lost 1tril naq, 5mil supers and 1k ATs to mass that same def, they would be so eager? Most players would not be as trigger happy as they currently are....

Nowadays...
1T naq... farmed within an hour
5m UU... raided in less than 30 minutes

or... $ traded for new resources

This game hasn't been a game of chess in years. The whole point of this thread is that, if you build a couple of good planets on merlins, and a good MS, you can mass most mid-size defs with no losses. How is that strategy? If you downsize planets and motherships, then people might actually plan before they mass.

The strategy comes in figuring out the best way to develop your account to minimize losses and maximize gains. Continuing this discussion is pointless
because it's a matter on how you perceive playing the game.

You guys keep addressing only one side of the issue... and that's the offensive side of it.

Here's an attack made on me last week. The first attack in a massing...

Mar 03, 2010 -attacker- 8,869,057 Naquadah stolen 1 9,064 2,772 1,048,776,093,000 1,964,244,806,970 details

This player has 4 more ascensions than me, 33% more planet attributes than me, and a MS that broke my shields.
He lost over 3k supers.
I lost under 1k.

It was an online battle and he ended up losing just under 200k attack supers, while I lost under 100k def supers. It works both ways.

First attack in the massing :
-attacker- sent:
28 Anti-Intelligence Drone and 5,254,342 Super Questers and 4,648,926 Questers
MaxSterling resisted the aggressors with:
987,500 Super Guards and 1,170,000 Guards

Last attack in the massing :
-attacker- sent:
28 Anti-Intelligence Drone and 5,071,878 Super Questers and 4,331,330 Questers
MaxSterling resisted the aggressors with:
906,178 Super Guards and 984,904 Guards

Just to prove a point, here's an attack in which he got a blessing and I didn't...
Mar 03, 2010 -attacker- 7,345,446 Naquadah stolen 1 2,154 2,768 535,613,176,853 4,215,563,417,858 details

Negligible difference considering the difference in power.

[R8]

sorry i read bits and pieces of this and i think i got the jist of it.

planets are a liability and a great asset. consider the naq it takes to built an attack planet up to 200 bill, you have to build defences on it, you have to possibly keep it merlined and if not you loose it and all your effort gone. if you spent all that time to build something on the account and you use it then why is that unfair? there are players sitting with 10 trill + defences and just enjoying their income and high up planets and making a fortune selling naq? whos complaining about them, hell if they get massed and loose half their army size cos they had it trained is it my fault cos i spent the saem time ascending and having good att planets? build only what you are prepared to loose.

also when you spent all that time ascending, resources building your planets and when you are going to mass someone or in a war really a few extra uu or mercs lost rteally is that last thing anyone at that time cares about. there are alot bigger issues in this game then att/def planets.