I will say two things before I begin. First, this will be a very long post. So be prepared for a long read. Second, not all of these ideas and suggestions are mine. As I said before, most of them are from other people. I am simply organizing the ones I believe to be most important and putting them in a single thread that, hopefully, forum will read so some of the major problems at least can be addressed.
Now,
1) In game Guide – This is my first objective. There needs to be an in game guide explaining how everything works, and how to play properly that newbie’s can get access to right away. One of the main reasons i know for why people do not play is they can't understand what to do. There has to be an in game guide made, even if I have to make it myself and deliver it to forum himself in person. This needs to be done as soon as possible. And yes, this means I am volunteering if I’m the only one willing to get the job done.
2) Activity problem – I think the in game guide will go a long way into helping this. However, it won’t be enough on its own. We need to get the knowledge of ascension out there. But, as many of you will agree making this section public won’t do a lot of good. In fact, it will only confuse newbie main players and give the spammers a new play ground to play in. Instead, I propose a group to be formed. Much like the newbie helpers group for the newbie section, only we would be the counselors of the ascended. Basically, a group made up of those of us who has the ability to teach newbie’s how to play properly in every way a traditional guide won’t. This group will be public knowledge via a thread in one of the public section’s listing every member’s name and msn. Thus, newbie’s will have a group that they can contact at any time (almost) via PM or MSN to help them learn to play ascension. Between this and the in game guide people will begin to start playing and get better, making the server more active. Just don’t ask me what will happen when our mentors farms or raids our newbie…lol
3) Rank mods –I would personally love for rank mods to be removed completely. This will allow anybody to attack anybody and will open the server up to wars. Yes, the big guy will pick on the little guy, just like in main. It happens. The little guy gets stronger or he leaves the game, it’s the way things have always worked. Forum, if you don’t want to do this because you think the newbie’s will hate you, you should know that most of the vet’s already hate you for not being able to attack anyone. If you are really skeptical, then put it to a vote. Make a thread in the ascended forum, and put a link to it on the realm page in ascension. That way everyone who actually plays will be able to vote, and you will see for yourself what the majority wants. If rank mods can’t be removed completely, here are a couple of suggestions that will make things better:
- 3A) Leave the stat mod in the rank mods, and remove the limit on attacking. Let the rank one guy attack the newest person on the server, only limiting his power in hitting them. The lower players won’t be invincible anymore and will start playing, and it won’t be a crime anymore to become strong in ascension.
3B) Remove the rank mods completely, and add in something similar to Nox in main. New players will have protection, and those who want to play the game can actually play it. I realize ascension is not suppose to be a main clone, and is suppose to involve strategy. But there can be no strategy when you cannot attack people.
These are the option’s I recommend for a poll on this subject. Along with a “leave as is” option. But honestly, the rank mods are not helping the server. They are making it horribly stale, rewarding people for being weak while hurting people for getting strong, and creating invincible account’s that cannot be touched. If ascension is to become a server worth playing, then this is one of the major thing’s that must change.
4) Rank—should not be based on 100% of any stat, period. I understand you wanting to reward people for being strong, but this is not the way to do it. It creates imbalance and make’s it near impossible for newbie’s to catch up without resorting to extremes. There are many fixes to this, but the one I think is best and most reasonable is this: Make rank based on 50% influence/charisma as it is now, and 50% based on normal totals like it use to be. This way, the bigger players are still rewarded, but smaller players have a chance to catch up rank-wise through their stats. Right now people have to spend everything on fleets and charisma in a constant "mine is bigger than yours" battle. This battle will only work for a few and the majority will end up not play ascension because there is no way for them to catch up to the biggest players. This update wouldn’t create balance, but it would be a step in the right direction.
5) Invincible accounts—this is a major problem. People buy tons of LF, and hide in the lower ranks. Yes, this is a tactic, but not one that should be even optional in this game. This “tactic” combined with the bad rank mods gives them permanent protection from descension. The rank mod fix would go a long way into helping this, but it wouldn’t fix it completely. People would still be invincible and that is wrong, no matter what the one’s doing it say. To this problem I recommend a combination of two different suggestions that was put forth in other threads.
For starters do not cap it. That would just hurt the big players more than needed. Instead, increase the amount of life force per maximum level. Meaning if someone had level 35 and 22k maximum life force, then after the update they would still have level 35 and, if increased by 10x like some desire, then it would be 220k. 10x is not a set number, it can be 2x, 5x, or even more then 10x. But if you increase max LF then these invincible players won’t be invincible anymore. Combined with the rank mods, and they’ll actually be descendible. Assuming that they do not login, and convert dmu to lf. If people are active then they could still go through with this tactic, and survive ages before being descended. People who just ascend for the main bonuses and ignore ascension, however, will be descended much more quickly.
In addition to this, anything over the max begins to degenerate after a 24 hour period by a certain percent of the number over maximum, much like the merc limit in main, but with lower percentages. It will still be possible to overcome this LF plague by increasing growth rate per turn while at max, and of course by buying more LF from dmu. However, the people who buy tons of LF, stay low in the ranks, and go do as they please in main while ignoring ascension won’t be invincible anymore. But as I said, for this to work and create balance the rank mods must be removed or adjusted as well.
Also, forum, if you still want to protect the newbie’s there are some of us have expressed that we are willing to increase their protection against descension from 2 months to 6 months, if it means we can actually attack someone for once. This will give them plenty of time to build an account, and start catching up, while not making them completely invincible. This server is supposed to be for the elite players of main after all, not for people who abuse it just to get stronger in main.
And as a final note on this problem, there is also the fact that people are ascending and never logging into their accounts and thus giving them full bonuses on main while giving them vac in ascension. To this problem, I propose that no main bonuses be given to the main account until the ascended account has been logged into and toyed around in for a bit. If people want to go on vac after that, or want to ignore ascension after that, that is their choice. However, they should not be able to get power from an ascended being that does not officially exist yet.
[EDIT] It has been proposed below that one possible solution to this problem would be to make it where once logged into either account (main or ascension) you are automatically logged into the other (main or ascension) account, with perhaps a tab on the nav bar (or somewhere else clearly visible) linking to the main page of the other account. I happen to agree that this would both solve the problem of accounts not logging into ascension and still getting their main bonuses, as well as the problem of people not being able to access ascension. It will also be convenient for other players to go back and forth, and-probably-increase activity on the server. It's just a suggestion, but I think it would be one update that could solve several problems.
I do think that people should be able to keep seperate names and passwords for each server though. I do not know how you would be able to go about coding this, but if it is at all possible, I believe it would be a wonderful update.[/EDIT]
6) Catch up problems—I think with the biggest accounts being in the 700mill range now it’s fair to say that there are problems in catching up in ascension. To fix this, we suggest that you increase the percentage of APP earned per stat, and if you can set it up to where it increases its self every 6 months or so, then that’s all the better.
Basically, not everyone can do the 10 200kraw UP ascensions that are almost required to get anywhere close to catching up, so instead we need to make the ascensions worth more. I think the elder players in ascension would agree with this especially, since all of you know even better then I how big the gap is. So, if we want the average newbie to be able to play ascension and begin the long road to catching up, we need to increase the APP percentages. Not major though, just enough to let newbie’s begin catching up with the elders.
On a more minor note:
7) Trading—I am in no way suggesting a market or SS be added to ascension, however, it has been made perfectly clear that people can and are going to trade in ascension. Thus, I think we should look into some way of making this official. But as I said, and as many of you will agree, a market or SS will only make things worse. Perhaps if forum includes trading caps like in main, and makes turns incredibly limited like they use to be in main (I’m sure my fellow old timers remember), then some form of market might work. But as I said, I don’t think it would work. Never the less, though, I feel this is an area that must be looked into. And since there are better brains here then mine I thought it might be worth bringing up.
[EDIT]The following link is a suggestion that I think may be worth considering to help the trading problem:
http://www.herebegames.com/StarGateWars ... 32&t=88051
[/EDIT]
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Anyway, I feel that these are the major problems, and most common/reasonable solutions I could find or think of. I would be thankful to anyone who could point out this thread to forum at the next meeting if I can’t make it, and also thanks to everyone who suggestion/argued over things here in the ascension forum for allowing me to see all these problems, and most of these suggestions, and assemble them into this nice neat little list here. Yes, as I said, 90% of these suggestions are not mine, and the problems are everyone’s.
On one final note, yes a lot of the solutions I have proposed will give the stronger players the ability to attack and, if they want, completely destroy them in war time. But, what you must realize guys, is this is supposed to be a war game. Ascension isn't like main right now, it isn't a war game. It is a stat building game where the stronger you get, the more you suffer. This has to change. This server is meant to be where the elite war lords of the main realms battle it out to decide who is the strongest among them. We need to take off the leashes, put on the gloves and see who can stay in the ring. That is what this game is about, and that's how most of us will have fun. And that is what these suggestions are aimed at - increasing the fun of the ascended server.
So…Discuss.
~Zeke~ - Also, if anyone thinks I missed any major problems that need to be addressed in order to make the server more active and run, the feel free to list them and I'll add them to the list.
--by Miko Miko, for KonataChan, of animesuke. *borrows without permission, but with credits* ~_^
There are some already started here on the ascended forum I believe, but still need at the very least some updates..
