July 29th 2010 -- look at all updates for balance/benefit

[Clarkey]

I think the updates are crap.

Why do you think they are crap?

This game has gone down hill.

Why has it gone down hill?

This isnt what it once use to be what happened to the stargate stuff and that.

Go cry to MGM considering they hold the copyright for the stargate franchise.

Your just destroying the game completly.

How is he destroying the game?

Also made one of my enemies stronger once the updates came out what which they destroyed my account thanks to you.

And this is why you think the updates are crap, the game has gone down hill, and that Jason's destroying the game?

So yes i think they are a waste of time.

Because your enemy got stronger?

If you are going to make such comments then provide feedback for Jason as to what the problems are exactly that makes you feel that way, otherwise you are just crying for the sake of crying.

[Sarevok]

I think most things have a good balance, so will focus on the one i have the main issue with

Weapon and unit damages/losses. I think that weapons needs to be tweaked back slightly. I was being massed, and taking 50k super losses, vs about 2b weapons damage seems a little out of touch. 50k super losses = 50b (10% of 500b). Defence wasn't totally massed, so i didn't see how they faired later on, just felt a little wrong to start off with.

[Robe]

What seems balanced
Sabatoge and Spying
Fleets and Planets

What seems wobbly
Houses are prone to being dominated by big empires and their allies.
The most popular houses are the ones that provide bonuses you cant get from planets
(Science, Faith and Time).

This update needs at least two more houses and a market adjustment to smooth out
supply and demand to encourage more alliances to join a house.

[Wepwaet]

Maybe the bonuses should be adjustable... say have 10 houses and 100% in total bonuses. If a house has 98% of the collective house populations then that house gets a 2% bonus to that stat. If the house has 3% of the collective house populations then that house gets a 97% bonus to that stat.

This way theres never any one stat that everyone wants because the more popular it becomes the less the bonus will be and eventually people will want to move into a house thats less "popular" but has a bigger bonus.


You could tie Both lonewolf and lonewolf alliance bonuses into this same system too. The lonewolf alliance would get the most popular house bonus %. It could be split as an incentive with half being the most popular bonus stat and half being the 3rd most popular bonus stat. The lonewolf would get the 2nd most popular house bonus %. It would be split with half being the 2nd most popular bonus stat and the other half being the 4th most popular bonus stat.

To deal with the time house issue just make it a % of the daily natural AT acumalation rounded up or down as you like and give it to them at the beginning of the day.

This way the lonewolf bonuses never outshine the house bonuses but their still worthwhile being the most popular stat bonuses. The houses will balance themselves and large groups gain little by "stacking" up inside of any one or two houses. Theres no real downside with making the bonuses dynamic because it self limits any overpowerment issues.

One thing though, with the bonuses being dynamic you'll need to reduce the wait time for bonuses by a couple days or everyone will be spending all their time waiting to get a bonus instead of ever having a bonus.

[odji nsu]

Maybe the bonuses should be adjustable... say have 10 houses and 100% in total bonuses. If a house has 98% of the collective house populations then that house gets a 2% bonus to that stat. If the house has 3% of the collective house populations then that house gets a 97% bonus to that stat.

This way theres never any one stat that everyone wants because the more popular it becomes the less the bonus will be and eventually people will want to move into a house thats less "popular" but has a bigger bonus.


You could tie Both lonewolf and lonewolf alliance bonuses into this same system too. The lonewolf alliance would get the most popular house bonus %. It could be split as an incentive with half being the most popular bonus stat and half being the 3rd most popular bonus stat. The lonewolf would get the 2nd most popular house bonus %. It would be split with half being the 2nd most popular bonus stat and the other half being the 4th most popular bonus stat.

To deal with the time house issue just make it a % of the daily natural AT acumalation rounded up or down as you like and give it to them at the beginning of the day.

This way the lonewolf bonuses never outshine the house bonuses but their still worthwhile being the most popular stat bonuses. The houses will balance themselves and large groups gain little by "stacking" up inside of any one or two houses. Theres no real downside with making the bonuses dynamic because it self limits any overpowerment issues.

One thing though, with the bonuses being dynamic you'll need to reduce the wait time for bonuses by a couple days or everyone will be spending all their time waiting to get a bonus instead of ever having a bonus.

VERY VERY VERY NICE,, Only Hing your missing is Some half way point on massing, or some fix to the nox, so that it is not a all day event to fight.. some of us have other things we need to do in a days time.

[stuff of legends]

Think it would be too hard for a pm to be sent after the auto-war set thing?
Or is there one that i just havent got yet?

Sab NEEDs to be lowered, it did need to be heightened before the updates but now its just too high, no one is massing anymore just sabbing. and its crap.

[Robe]

You could tie Both lonewolf and lonewolf alliance bonuses into this same system too. The lonewolf alliance would get the most popular house bonus %. It could be split as an incentive with half being the most popular bonus stat and half being the 3rd most popular bonus stat. The lonewolf would get the 2nd most popular house bonus %. It would be split with half being the 2nd most popular bonus stat and the other half being the 4th most popular bonus stat.

Nice idea. Although we should favour the Lone Wolf Player (over the Non House Alliance) because they don't benefit from Alliance Gifts.

The houses will balance themselves and large groups gain little by "stacking" up inside of any one or two houses.

Stacking Napped alliances is the absolute ideal for empires because it prevents friendly farming and they have the power to boot non allied alliances to farm them...

Empires will continue to expand and domanate unless other "good" options are provided to spread the risk and attract more alliances.

[BenjaminMS]

Maybe the bonuses should be adjustable... say have 10 houses and 100% in total bonuses. If a house has 98% of the collective house populations then that house gets a 2% bonus to that stat. If the house has 3% of the collective house populations then that house gets a 97% bonus to that stat.

This way theres never any one stat that everyone wants because the more popular it becomes the less the bonus will be and eventually people will want to move into a house thats less "popular" but has a bigger bonus.

Good idea... it would certainly balance it out.

You could tie Both lonewolf and lonewolf alliance bonuses into this same system too. The lonewolf alliance would get the most popular house bonus %. It could be split as an incentive with half being the most popular bonus stat and half being the 3rd most popular bonus stat. The lonewolf would get the 2nd most popular house bonus %. It would be split with half being the 2nd most popular bonus stat and the other half being the 4th most popular bonus stat.

To deal with the time house issue just make it a % of the daily natural AT acumalation rounded up or down as you like and give it to them at the beginning of the day.

This way the lonewolf bonuses never outshine the house bonuses but their still worthwhile being the most popular stat bonuses. The houses will balance themselves and large groups gain little by "stacking" up inside of any one or two houses. Theres no real downside with making the bonuses dynamic because it self limits any overpowerment issues.

One thing though, with the bonuses being dynamic you'll need to reduce the wait time for bonuses by a couple days or everyone will be spending all their time waiting to get a bonus instead of ever having a bonus.

About the lonewolf however, is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen... you do realize you're actually PUNISHING people then who either haven't heard/read about the updates or just aren't interested in an house, and you're punishing the (still massive amount) of newbies and self-chosen lone wolves?
Why? First, the lone wolf alliances, as far as I know, don't have an lone wolf alliance bonus anyway... so that can be ignored for the moment - although you never know when Jason releases an update to 'fix' this.
As for the lone wolf players, there are still over 1k+ (semi-)active lone wolf players. That specific bonus Jason introduced was meant to give lone wolves the chance to compete a bit more with alliances (whether or not they are in an house), since alliances have got the advantages of alliance banks etc who give a nice advantage. Now you want to adjust and punish those lone wolves? Bah.

[Wepwaet]

[spoiler]

Maybe the bonuses should be adjustable... say have 10 houses and 100% in total bonuses. If a house has 98% of the collective house populations then that house gets a 2% bonus to that stat. If the house has 3% of the collective house populations then that house gets a 97% bonus to that stat.

This way theres never any one stat that everyone wants because the more popular it becomes the less the bonus will be and eventually people will want to move into a house thats less "popular" but has a bigger bonus.

Good idea... it would certainly balance it out.

You could tie Both lonewolf and lonewolf alliance bonuses into this same system too. The lonewolf alliance would get the most popular house bonus %. It could be split as an incentive with half being the most popular bonus stat and half being the 3rd most popular bonus stat. The lonewolf would get the 2nd most popular house bonus %. It would be split with half being the 2nd most popular bonus stat and the other half being the 4th most popular bonus stat.

To deal with the time house issue just make it a % of the daily natural AT acumalation rounded up or down as you like and give it to them at the beginning of the day.

This way the lonewolf bonuses never outshine the house bonuses but their still worthwhile being the most popular stat bonuses. The houses will balance themselves and large groups gain little by "stacking" up inside of any one or two houses. Theres no real downside with making the bonuses dynamic because it self limits any overpowerment issues.

One thing though, with the bonuses being dynamic you'll need to reduce the wait time for bonuses by a couple days or everyone will be spending all their time waiting to get a bonus instead of ever having a bonus.

About the lonewolf however, is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen... you do realize you're actually PUNISHING people then who either haven't heard/read about the updates or just aren't interested in an house, and you're punishing the (still massive amount) of newbies and self-chosen lone wolves?
Why? First, the lone wolf alliances, as far as I know, don't have an lone wolf alliance bonus anyway... so that can be ignored for the moment - although you never know when Jason releases an update to 'fix' this.
As for the lone wolf players, there are still over 1k+ (semi-)active lone wolf players. That specific bonus Jason introduced was meant to give lone wolves the chance to compete a bit more with alliances (whether or not they are in an house), since alliances have got the advantages of alliance banks etc who give a nice advantage. Now you want to adjust and punish those lone wolves? Bah.

[/spoiler]


It's always possible to base the % bonus that lone wolf players recieve off of one of the higher bonus percentages. Remember though Forum changed the bonus types that lone wolves get from atk and def to def and cov because it was deemed too strong. This will reduce their over all bonus but will give them the popular bonuses which would be more desirable.


Just to put this into perspective here is the breakdown of how the bonuses would look given the current house populations.

Disciples of Nephthys (Faith) 57,541,757,343
Disciples of Ptah (Time) 52,458,331,262
Disciples of Thoth (Science) 24,681,706,483
Disciples of Osiris (Shadow) 15,945,493,448
Disciples of Ra (Order) 6,532,928,515
Disciples of Heset (Wealth) 2,796,797,998
Disciples of Sekhmet (Chaos) 14,657,425,202
Disciples of Khunsu (Light) 0
Total population of all houses 174,614,440,251

Bonus breakdown if current bonuses were distributed by population.
Disciples of Nephthys (Faith) 52
Disciples of Ptah (Time) 47
Disciples of Thoth (Science) 22
Disciples of Osiris (Shadow) 14
Disciples of Ra (Order) 6
Disciples of Heset (Wealth) 3
Disciples of Sekhmet (Chaos) 13
Disciples of Khunsu (Light) 0
Total amount of bonus %'s 157

Bonus breakdown of bonuses using the modified method proposed.
Disciples of Nephthys (Faith) 0
Disciples of Ptah (Time) 3
Disciples of Thoth (Science) 6
Disciples of Osiris (Shadow) 13
Disciples of Sekhmet (Chaos) 14
Disciples of Ra (Order) 22
Disciples of Heset (Wealth) 47
Disciples of Khunsu (Light) 52
Total amount of bonus %s 157
*note that Faith is 0 because there is no one currently in the Light house and the % would change as soon as someone joined that house

Lonewolf alliance would use Faith bonus % (most popular house at this time), half of the 0 coming from faith stat bonus (most popular house at this time) and the other half of the 0 coming from science stat bonus (third most popular house at this time).
Lonewolf individuals would use Time bonus % (2nd most popular house at this time), half of the 3% would come from Time stat bonus (2nd most popular house at this time) and the other half of the 3% would come from the Shadow stat bonus (4th most popular house at this time).

Please remember the types and sizes of the lonewolf/alliance bonuses will change as houses become more or less popular and the house populations level out.


Im sure there will be numerous kneejerk reactions with people only reading the numbers and going... "faith gets no bonus! and light gets 52%!!!" ... Remember this is a snapshot of how things would be if they switched right at this moment, and doesn't take into account Forum decreasing the total amount of bonuses given out and the initial maneuvering that will take place as people move to houses they believe will give them better advantages. The houses that people perceive to be better will attract more people and end up having lower bonuses and every house will be occupied because of the larger bonuses the less popular houses will recieve.

[BenjaminMS]

*kicks self* I read it wrong. Maybe also because of your wording. Still, I don't agree with it... makes them too much dependable on certain things... and how are you going to get Science into the picture then? Since you can't % the 'no ABs involved'
On another note, for those who are unascended it won't be much help when a part of the bonuses is an % AB.... while the current bonuses at least affect everyone

[stuff of legends]

Will there be a way to stop some alliance booting others out to get a larger bonus? i.e an empire can just move into a house, vote for one side and then they can just boot everyone out, then supporting alliances of the empire can just go somewhere else, and move back in when needed again.

Or did i miss something?

[BenjaminMS]

No, you did not... which is another point in it that's vulnerable to exploiting.

[Wepwaet]

*kicks self* I read it wrong. Maybe also because of your wording. Still, I don't agree with it... makes them too much dependable on certain things... and how are you going to get Science into the picture then? Since you can't % the 'no ABs involved'
On another note, for those who are unascended it won't be much help when a part of the bonuses is an % AB.... while the current bonuses at least affect everyone

Science is easy, instead of the reduce everyones AB by 100% it would be reduce everyones AB by X% where X is the amount that house gets in bonus. Science as it is isn't balanced against its opposite house like the others are. This would address that issue at the same time.

Whats to say that someone unascended can't benefit from the AB bonus? If thats the bonus they get at that time, then let them have the X% chance of AB. It's not like everyone will suddenly revert their accounts to unascended for that and it'd be a nice "boost" for unascended people. Really theres all kinds of ideas out there to help out the new people.

Will there be a way to stop some alliance booting others out to get a larger bonus? i.e an empire can just move into a house, vote for one side and then they can just boot everyone out, then supporting alliances of the empire can just go somewhere else, and move back in when needed again.

Or did i miss something?

It is no more exploitable than the current system. It has been sucessfully demonstrated that you can do a hostile takeover of a house. Remember that alliances even in large empires are not going to want to have to constantly move as that means they have NO bonus. It's only exploitable if your willing to risk having the house taken right out from under you because you tried to keep your house population small.

[stuff of legends]

Im sure it will be exploited, and houses right now as soon as it settles will most likely happen, eventually it will just come to a point where the alliances with a high concentration of large army sized players will probably do that, maybe not as i said, but will find another way. Other than that having a bonus as large as you system could hold would give a reason for people to exploit it/find an easy way. Even for a crappy house, i mean having a 80% (or large increase) in almost any stat would be worth the effort planning and war etc.

[MaxSterling]

I'm against bonuses for lone wolves and lone alliances and I'll tell you why...
There needs to be incentive to get people to join alliances or Houses ( even though I despise Houses ).

The whole purpose of being lone wolf is to prove you can tough it out on your own. You're not tough if you're crying for bonuses. The incentive to join an alliance, is the Alliance Gifts.

Alliances need an incentive to join Houses, hence the House bonus.

You give them both some sort of bonus, they have no reason to join either alliances or Houses and pretty much negates Admin's desire to even have Houses in the first place.

If admin still insists on doing these House bonuses, I still believe that they should be more along the lines of what I suggested in another thread...
viewtopic.php?f=43&p=2109083#p2109083
... and remove the natural enemy thing. As we have proved, it's pointless because a large empire can remove all enemies from it's natural enemy's House.