Changes to the power levels

[Mojo Rising]

I have discussed a number of options with a number of players of varying power levels on how to effectively reduce/eliminate the "sniper" accounts from the game. Here is what we have come up with.

1.) Make power up levels count for MORE than they currently do. Right now, it is ridiculously easy for anyone to take down someone else's defense with significantly fewer levels and planets because power levels really don't make an effective increase in effectiveness anymore. We suggest making the multiplier equal to (1+Level/100)^4 or even (1+Level/100)^5. With the latter, someone who has say a 600 level in a relevant ability score would need 2.7x the amount of planets to exceed someone with an 800 level in the same relevant ability score (this has already figured the 130% rank mod for attacking upwards in). Obviously, the more the rank mod is reduced, the greater the effectiveness of the higher levels but then at that point, your opponent probably has higher levels so it will be more of an even up fight.

2.) Make training planets a 24 hour commitment (ie. they cannot be untrained for 24 hours after you train them in the relevant ability, and yes, this includes resource planets). The same with weapons. If you buy weapons, you cannot sell them for 24 hours after you purchase them. This will actually make it a "tactical" game once again, with folks having to actually be able to sustain a fight rather than just hit and run. This way, it gives the defender an adequate time to respond to the threat. If he cannot respond in 24 hours, well then, the attacker is free to do what he may with his planets/weapons.

3.) Obviously with 1 and 2 in play, the effectiveness of the CS needs to be improved DRAMATICALLY. We think that there should be another powerup for the CS, similar to attack/defense/covert/assassin powerups. I would make it the same or similar cost to those powerups.

4.) Reduce and/or eliminate damage caps and rank mods. They are no longer necessary (as has been shown repeatedly very recently in ascension). Also, no more Ascended Council interference. Anyone can attack anyone else (except when phased, a bug which still needs to be addressed and those who abused the bug punished). If they get a bonus in main for their ascension account and can attack us in main, then we can attack them in ascension.

I think that similar changes in main will also make the "sniper" accounts a thing of the past.

[Lore]

Just to throw an idea out there,,,,,Can we make it so ALL stats have to be raised???? not just 1 or 2??

Make it so there is a 250 to 300 MAX level difference?

if your lowest stat is 250 then your highest stat cant go past 500?????

This will force people who refuse to get a LF (To be undeascendable) to actually raise all there stats therefore either becoming easier to deascend or fall behind.

Just an idea

[Mojo Rising]

Just to throw an idea out there,,,,,Can we make it so ALL stats have to be raised???? not just 1 or 2??

Make it so there is a 250 to 300 MAX level difference?

if your lowest stat is 250 then your highest stat cant go past 500?????

This will force people who refuse to get a LF (To be undeascendable) to actually raise all there stats therefore either becoming easier to deascend or fall behind.

Just an idea

I like that idea a lot! Kudos Lore! I would say that people who already have levels that exceed that would still be able to keep them, but they would only get credit for the max level that they could achieve in the stat.

[High Empty]

figure something out.

don't really like having the untraining for 24 hours, and the if you buy weapons for 24 hours. come to think of it I REALLY don't like it.

however making all stats equal within 10% of the stat ( stat/ powerup) whichever.

[12agnar0k]

agree with 24hr planets, but not with weapons. weapons are relatively small amounts anyway.

agree with Level Difference Cap. Altho Charisma/Income shouldnt be affected. Or have a larger difference.

300 Max LvL Diff.
400 Max LvL Diff for Char.
600 (maybe more) Max LvL Diff for Prod.

This being because they are more important to accounts. Thus more levels in them are required.

[Mato]

I second this

although charisma should be (1+lvl/100)^E and not to the power of 3 lke it is atm.

E=2.7182818284590452354...

[Mojo Rising]

OK so let's get a recap:

We like being unable to untrain planets for 24 hours but weapons can be bought and resold without delay.

We like the idea of levels being relatively equal to each other, the amounts have not been agreed upon yet. Since I haven't weighed in to the issue yet, let me make my suggestions here: attack, defense, covert, and assassin need to be within 100 of each other. LF stats (channeling/flow) and personal ascended stats can be equal to LF+50. Charisma and production need to be within 500 of each other. And there should be no more than a 600 difference between your lowest stat and your highest stat. (Yes this will negatively impact me as I will have to buy my energy flow up to a ridiculous amount even though it doesn't do squat for me). Making levels like this will prevent sniper accounts from becoming ultra-efficient and it will require a decent LF to get a decent channeling and flow, thus making descension of active accounts possible without the use of 2000 ATs or more


Any other tweaks we should consider?

[RobinInDaHood]

Interesting how the idea of 24 hour repurchase time for weapons was quickly shot down after everyone realized that would significantly hamper the sale of DMU on ascended. Wouldn't do much good to sell off tens of trillions in defense weapon power only to sit defenseless for 24 hours waiting to repurchase them. Make the same 24 hour requirement for both planets and weapons or have no requirement. It's ill conceived.

Update suggestions have and will always be self-serving. I guess I can't blame anyone for that.

I'd be okay with Lore's idea generally as I don't like the one-trick-ponies in ascended anymore than the rest of you. Setting up a simple formula of 300-400 max difference in stats sounds good to me. However, I think the notion of making accounts easier to descend by forcing life force upgrades is generally pointless. Why pointless?

As it is, I have level 100 in Max Life Force but I always have tens of millions of life force in cache to ward against descension attacks. As long as you have the ability to move an infinite amount of cache over to reserves or LF, descension can be made nearly impossible regardless of the changes you make to the levels. The only change required by players to continue to be "un-descendable" will be to bank more life force.

I suspect that banking strategy will be at the center of the next round of ascension update requests.

[Mojo Rising]

Just so we are clear, my consensus of the fact that weapons should be able to be bought and resold immediately is in no way indicative that I personally agree with it. I was going with the majority of the responses. I still believe that there should be a moratorium of 24 hours after you buy weapons before you can sell them. It's still not going to affect DMU sales for me or for anyone else with half a brain. I am not going to tell you exactly how to get around it (as I don't want to give a leg up to those of you who DON'T have half a brain). And just so you know, I have never seriously suggested an update that was totally self-serving. My suggestions usually involve a benefit for EVERYONE in the server though, rather than just a select few.

And Robin, thank you for pointing out the flaw in the three hour delay between descension attacks, making it impossible to descend an active account. If descension attacks were allowed to be done once per turn, it would be infinitely fairer to everyone involved AND it would definitely increase activity on the server (and that seems to be Jason's overriding concern at this point). The more people on the server, the better. Making descension attacks possible every turn will do that.

[12agnar0k]

Interesting how the idea of 24 hour repurchase time for weapons was quickly shot down after everyone realized that would significantly hamper the sale of DMU on ascended. Wouldn't do much good to sell off tens of trillions in defense weapon power only to sit defenseless for 24 hours waiting to repurchase them. Make the same 24 hour requirement for both planets and weapons or have no requirement. It's ill conceived.

Weapons are already limited havign to spend lots of time buying up/ selling tiny amounts of weapons at a time, these limitations have been removed elsewhere but remain here. The reason for further limitations here is unfounded but it is needed elsewhere.
I have no problem with not being able to sell/untrain weapons/planets for 24 hours after being brought/trained. But in both cases the Vise versa in pointless. Limiting someone on the ability to protect themselves after becoming unprotected, thats sort of like, someone is rolling around on the floor in pain and you go and stab them.... Cant see that going down very well with the power base.
But limiting the ability for people to sell off what they build so soon after building it should be made, will stop "sniper accounts" aswell as make things more realistic,

you dont send 10,000 soldiers into IRAQ to then bring them back the next day. But if you start to bring troops back and see on radar they just launched an attack against you, you will turn those troops around.

So i see your point, but half the idea is un-needed. And the limit-ing of selling weapons although it could be put in, it isnt as important as limiting the untraining of planets, because 1. It takes a long time to build the weapons up and to sell them off at the very low amounts each page refresh, any further limiting is just harsh. 2. Players loose 20% using Weapons like a bank, 3. Sniper Accounts will tend to have far more put into planets then Weapons, 20 mil weps are worth far less than the 20 Mil Planets that arm them. As such we do not care if they sell there 20 mil weps and put it into 20 extra fleets. It just means we have to spend that little bit less time destroying them.
All these 3 Factors put together make Limiting Weapons a pointless waste of admins time, time which could be spent fixing the Sniper Account Problem . Limiting Planets is all that needs doing, IF admin finally puts in a Digit Increase to the Planetary Fleets to decrease the herendous time limitations id be all for a limit on how quickly you can sell weapons, nothing wrong with it then, but as it stands , its just stabbing a dying man.

[High Empty]

U seem to have forgot that Weapons ARE CHEAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so forget about the weapons
Robin is correct that anyone who's being descended needs to log in, in order not to be descended.
I'm really not for the untrain of planets i like training up 1.5 bil intel planets just to see who's where.

Now limiting powerups to within 50 of eachother. or, i perfer this one.

Limiting powers ups so that they are within 10-50% of the cost.
meaning you can't upgrade your stats, unless everything else is upgrade. Ofcourse this is really going to come back and hurt me, as then everyone will finally get too much max lifeforce so i won't beable to get a max hit, at which point i'll want the removal of the rank mods, and of not being able to attack anyone!

[Gandalf the White]

You're not the only one who will be hurt by limiting powerups HE. The only way I continue to overtake people is to upgrade charisma daily. Why should i be stopped from bettering my account in the fastest way possible? I want to upgrade charisma, production, 3 of the physical stats and maybe on occasions max LF and chanelling.

The rest i don't really care for and could probably do without. Why should I be compelled to upgrade something I don't want? Having been the victim of it I know there is a sniper problem that needs to be stopped but is it right to "force" a particular style of play on people?

I agree in principle with points 3 and 4 of the first post in this thread. The CS needs updating, the rank mods need to go. Weapons should be more expensive too.

I also hope you all see the irony in that making descention easier, with the ideal of creating a more "active" environment, it will result in more accounts not being able to access the server for 2 weeks each, thus decreasing activity. And 2 weeks nowadays is a hell of a long time for most of us middle of the road people. My account will grow by at least 68% in that time...you can't recover to where you were after missing out on that sort of growth.

[Lore]

Well my whole point is, anyone who actually plays is for the most part undeascendable. My suggestion is not to make deascention easier, its to limit the 1 trick ponies that are becoming more and more popular. I dont care for charisma and production being open ended,,, but all attack and defense strengths should be tied to LF levels. Since admin has made it so you can no longer defend yourself, at least allow us the chance to deascend someone to stop the attacks.

[PSICOLIX]

OK, i didn't posted here before because i was waiting to see where it goes, and i have to say, A BUNCH OF CRAP.

make LEVELS more powerfull, thats sound sweet to me, but take a look on mpl acount, 700 Strike, lol, i don't have that i have 575 in defence myself, so that woude MAY protect the top 5-10 but woude give every1 else as food to those scum, and if you not realized, they take a huge amount of naq from top 100, not top 10, SO DO THAT WOUDE MAKE EVEN EASIER TO THEY, STOP BEIN SELFISH AND START THINK ON THE REST OF THE 2K PLAYERS ON THE SERVER.

a litle math, with my status
mpl strike 700 = 64X Raw
PSICOLIX(rank15) defence 575 = 45,5X raw
give he a advantage of 1,4. plus 1,3 rank modifier
With Proposed changes
mpl strike 700 = 4096X Raw
PSICOLIX(rank15) defence 575 = 2075X raw
give he a advantage of 1,97. plus 1,3 rank modifier (not better AT all)

and i woude have to update, strike, defence, assassins, covert, AND charisma and production...

Also, today the heart of they strike is the units, that woude make it the levels, whats undestroyble, that means, more safe strike to they, less recover time, more likely to hit everyday...

So you wanna STOP they? or help? thats helping to me...

After Really think about and do some math, i've come to realize that ITs imposible to stop SNIPER hits without make imposible to Farm. and thats not gona hapen. so, deascend they. so i request a cheaper ascended hits (25-50 ats)

[Mojo Rising]

Well, I agree with you Psicolix that we need to make descension easier. First of all 99 attack turns is WAY too much to do at maximum, a third of their LF and reserves. How about if we do this? Make it 50 ATs to do a third, 100 ATs to do half, 250 ATs to do maximum damage (no rank mods or reductions). It's limiting, in that you can't do a lot of maximum damage hits. But it gives you the option to sacrifice your turns to be able to. That way, it will make people think twice about smacking other people around with veritable impunity. I think that this would be a viable option in ascension.