XDemonX's Desert Oasis

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XDemonX
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XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by XDemonX »

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Please discuss and/or leave feedback. Don't just lurk or this post will die!
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Aendar
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Re: XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by Aendar »

I do like your basic galaxy lay-out but due to my lack of experience, i fear i won't be able to give a decent feedback. I do, however, have the feeling doing a succesfull op will be almost impossible to do. I know last round we were able to bust a max planet with only 7 to 8 people but we did die a lot and to me it didn't feel that easy.

I agree it should be a bit harder for the attackers and a bit easier for the defenders. But I feel if we are taking all the tunneling and warps and the locations as you put in, it will be a little to much to handle.
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Re: XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by XDemonX »

Aendar wrote:I do like your basic galaxy lay-out but due to my lack of experience, i fear i won't be able to give a decent feedback. I do, however, have the feeling doing a succesfull op will be almost impossible to do. I know last round we were able to bust a max planet with only 7 to 8 people but we did die a lot and to me it didn't feel that easy.

I agree it should be a bit harder for the attackers and a bit easier for the defenders. But I feel if we are taking all the tunneling and warps and the locations as you put in, it will be a little to much to handle.
Hi Aendar,

Thank you for the feedback. The point of this being, that ops should not be only planet busting ops. In the past, being able to directly just walk to planets with 7-8 people was extremely difficult. Multiple ops will be needed in order to start hitting planets. You might need a few ops of just clearing mines. Maybe an op to mine the enemy galaxy to pin them down. Maybe you do an op to take a smaller planet first to have a planet to uno off or for easier clearing. This gives a lot more options for ops and strategy to play a roll. Making it difficult to op will promote more people to land. I can't even remember a game in the last several years where planet galaxy setups have been literally "unbustable". This map is based a lot off previous games. I don't think this map will be "unbustable".
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jouldax
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Re: XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by jouldax »

A good start, I think, to a possibly interesting map.

Here are some suggestions/feedback I'd offer:

1) Possibly increase the connectivity between racials. This will promote more peace and also foster some early game hunting. Clustering the warps in the desert galaxies would also address this issue.

2) If the desert galaxy is empty, you need to put better routes in the racials, otherwise it's too far to the neutral to justify trading simply for the cash uplift and the early game will take forever.

3) In conjunction with 2), I would strongly recommend putting low density ports in the desert. This will promote risk taking and also push people out of fed for better cash routes. There are always areas of verdant growth in the desert :)

4) I know you don't like unos near pgals, but remember, they're for defenders too. If it takes you 30 turns to "sneak up behind someone" after a skirmish or initial grouping, that doesn't help the defenders either. The better way to enhance defensibility is to leave 2+ unos accessible to the defending team but split them up by galaxy or significant distance so the attacking team really can only cover one side. With all of the tunneling you propose (which I'll get to in a moment) any op will quickly turn into a death trap.

5) I feel this map is way too focused on defending and that a better balance needs to be struck. Several clearing ops just to take one planet doesn't cater to casuals at all and is both time consuming and really not a lot of fun. I agree that planets have been too easy to bust, but that can be fixed by even simply raising the max planet level. Certainly some of your tunneling aspects can be incorporated, but this map is geared towards the way the game used to be about 2+ years ago when we had several active alliances and enough willing oppers to do dirty work like create massive minefields and clear every 2-3 days. You need something with pockets of defensibility that require strategy to defend, not just park a fleet in a tunnel and watch the attacking fleet die to mines.

6) If it's a draft round, planets should be pre-built which would eliminate the PNAP issue. If it's not, I think a PNAP ought to be struck, but there's no reason to allow either team free reign to build a route. The idea here is to blend aspects of hardcore and casual, not strike stark differences between the two in the major aspects of the game.
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Re: XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by XDemonX »

Jouldax,
1) Possibly increase the connectivity between racials. This will promote more peace and also foster some early game hunting. Clustering the warps in the desert galaxies would also address this issue.
I am not anticipating too much early hunting. Unless a racial has a uber route (which none should because of port density) usually peace does not promote traders to move entire galaxies. Racials should mainly just be used for veteran players to get some starting cash and then move on to the neutrals for much bigger gains. Hunters will be focused on protecting their traders and hunting other traders in neutrals. This will make racials fairly empty which will be good for new players coming in as they can move around fairly easy as possibly hunters won't truck all the way to racial galaxies (with low connectivity this could be A LOT of turns) just to pod a poor newbie. As this game showed.. Even with high connectivity early hunting is still extremely scarce.
2) If the desert galaxy is empty, you need to put better routes in the racials, otherwise it's too far to the neutral to justify trading simply for the cash uplift and the early game will take forever.
Early game is usually when activity is the highest. I don't see how expanding it will cause issues. People should have to work for cash. It gives them more sense of accomplishment then just having to pump out cash for the first week then never trade again (as it is this game).
3) In conjunction with 2), I would strongly recommend putting low density ports in the desert. This will promote risk taking and also push people out of fed for better cash routes. There are always areas of verdant growth in the desert :)
The cash and exp routes will be located in Neutral galaxy. But to accomodate your suggestion, it could be possible to make almost "super" routes in the desert. These can be ports that are in HIGH risk areas in the desert that are very easily hunted. This would go with the "Desert OASIS" theme as the super route location would be an oasis. You and I could draft up some ideas for what makes routes dangerous. But.. This will most likely favor the hardcore people quite a bit. My thinking of the map is traders have to cross the desert to get to the oasis (neutral gal/pgals). No one should want to be in the desert.. unless someone wants to risk logging off in open ;)
4) I know you don't like unos near pgals, but remember, they're for defenders too. If it takes you 30 turns to "sneak up behind someone" after a skirmish or initial grouping, that doesn't help the defenders either. The better way to enhance defensibility is to leave 2+ unos accessible to the defending team but split them up by galaxy or significant distance so the attacking team really can only cover one side. With all of the tunneling you propose (which I'll get to in a moment) any op will quickly turn into a death trap.
I agree with this. To fix this, uno's can be placed semi close to outside the tunnel. This can be used to address #5 of your feedback as well.
5) I feel this map is way too focused on defending and that a better balance needs to be struck. Several clearing ops just to take one planet doesn't cater to casuals at all and is both time consuming and really not a lot of fun. I agree that planets have been too easy to bust, but that can be fixed by even simply raising the max planet level. Certainly some of your tunneling aspects can be incorporated, but this map is geared towards the way the game used to be about 2+ years ago when we had several active alliances and enough willing oppers to do dirty work like create massive minefields and clear every 2-3 days. You need something with pockets of defensibility that require strategy to defend, not just park a fleet in a tunnel and watch the attacking fleet die to mines.
Allow the multi idea you came up with and that will solve this problem will quick ;). I agree this map is focused on defending. That is the entire theme of the map. I think it is worth toying with driving maps to highlight an important aspect of SMR as the playerbase has shunk it is too difficult to make a "jack of all trades" map. Last several games have been so repeditive. To me and I can imagine others in my usual crew feel the same, it gets pretty boring doing ops where you're pretty much opping NPCs because stuff is so easy to bust and activity is down. Putting uno's outside the tunnel will make clearing a lot easier I think this fixes that main issue.
6) If it's a draft round, planets should be pre-built which would eliminate the PNAP issue. If it's not, I think a PNAP ought to be struck, but there's no reason to allow either team free reign to build a route. The idea here is to blend aspects of hardcore and casual, not strike stark differences between the two in the major aspects of the game.

I agree with this. I am just trying to come up with different ideas to try to accomodate everyone. Every game alliances are usually lopsided and the lopsides alliance would get so far ahead in a game like this (Yes i am sorry i am usually leading/apart of the lopsided). To address the lopsidedness it is extremely difficult to make things fair when it is not a draft. There are several players in this game that I have built close personal relationships with. I do believe we keep each other active. Several of these players almost text me on a daily basis. It is difficult to convince people to play against me when we have so much fun doing things together.

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Overall, I designed this map with things I enjoy doing in the game. Things that will keep me more active and have more fun. I think others should get a chance to do that too. I think for first pass, it would be best to roll this map in a committee draft game, if it is successful then each game make slight modifications to give a different feel but keep the same concept. I just don't do agree with coming up with a completely different map every game. The idea should be to find something that works then evolve off of that. We haven't had an fun draft game or map since Azn vs. Seldum draft game (IMO).
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Re: XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by JettJackson »

This map style would work as a draft round as you'd have enough players to overcome the early game terrible routes. I don't think this would be a good normal map however because of that reasoning, with how small alliances are if you have horrible early routes added in people will be deterred from playing. I would say though if the arming is very high on turns that would be another knock for a regular game. It would however be a positive for a draft game.

I do agree with Jouldax that this map is focused on defending vs attacking. It is already fairly known that defending yields much more positively than attacking so I don't think defending needs a boost even more.
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Re: XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by Incognito »

As others have stated, I'd prefer to see this map in a draft game (council picking works, but now you have to make the council).

Racials:
If the racial warps are clusted in the neutrals, fine. If not, I'd like to see every race connected to the one 4 below it (1-5, 2-6,3-7,4-8) just for added connectivity. For ports, I think a high density of high-level ports would accomplish your goal, since it is more difficult to knock ports down than it is to upgrade them. With all small ports in the racials, it wouldn't be hard to make a decent route with 2 upgrades. And how small is small? are we talking an 8x8?

For the desert:
What type of mine timer would you expect? I
I like the idea of a trade Oasis in the desert, possibly reached by a tunnel network in the center of the map. As long as a CA is fairly far from the trading area, mass mining in the oasis shouldn't be a concern (initially at least). But I'd also be fine with no ports at all.
If you want to drastically increase the distance from racials to the desert pgal entrance, I'd use warps to enclosed areas within the desert. Or 1-way warps just to screw up route calculators.

Neutral:
Nothing to add at this time.

Planet Gal:
With a CA located to the desert-side warp, those 2 rocks will probably become more useful to an attacking alliance as a staging ground/uno. But I don't think there is anything wrong with that.


General Stuff:
-Regarding newbie players, Admins can't push them into an alliance. That would have to be the leaders of each alliance (for a draft round).
-As for the PNAP, would could make a solid wall in the neutral to separate the 2 gals for a week, with the downside of disrupting routes. This would dissuade someone from just walking to one pgal from the other. But that's something the leaders can decide I think.
-My main concern with the OP idea is player turnout. Unless both teams really get 8+ on at once, it will be hard to take a planet (which is the goal, I know). Still something to be concerned about though. It's unlikely both alliances will get enough to have support roles at ops.
-No comment on leaders, just that if a council is used, input from both leaders is required. No surrogates. Good council size would be 5, I think.
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Re: XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by XDemonX »

Bouncer,

I pretty much agree with everything you said.

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Just to keep driving the point I am trying to make with this game. I feel that people who play in a major alliance should have a MUCH greater advantage than someone who plays alone/small group. For example, in the last year or so I have led/been apart of alliances that are built not to op. Our main goal is to just reap on the bigger alliances for kills/exp. As you have notice for us to do that effectively we had to go high experience. We did not build a route we traded only racials in every game I did this in and we had such an exp advantage on everyone that we won majority of fights by a landslide.

I really think alliances are the strong driving force in SMR that keeps people coming back. Ops are fun. But, recently ops have become boring. Who wants to hit random ports just for money? Who wants to suicide their ship against empty planets? I want to motivate people to join an alliance. We have many players just roaming around doing their own thing not in an alliance and this leads to inactivity since people come and go.

I understand Jouldax/Holti are trying to make a friendly European/Casual player alliance. I feel there is no need for that. I have no turned down anyone to join my alliance in a while. The playerbase is so low that anyone who wants to join and have fun I don't mind. If they show up for ops they show up for ops. As long as they're not draining the AA everyday I don't really care what they do. I play with RedRocket everygame.. he lives in Australia.. So really timezones are not an issue. Same with kiNky I get her sweet ass to come play every once in a while too.

I hope the admin team sees I am putting a lot of effort and thought into all of this. I strongly feel this game is going in the wrong direction. I cannot keep stating enough that games should not be run to cater to casual players. Here is another example of a game that went downhill because of this. Have you guys heard of the game Halo? Well Halo 2/3 was the most popular FPS of it's time. It's online multiplayer following was MASSIVE.. Then came this game called Call of Duty(CoD). Of course because of CoD's design it catered to casual playerbase and it's following matched Halo's almost instantly as anyone could pickup the controller and play. Halo decided to try to mimic that casual play style and the game instantly fell off the map. The point I am trying to make is some games are not made to be casual. Though I think it should be able to be played casually I just don't like seeing there are only 2 alliances in the game and 1 is led trying to promote the casual play style.
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Re: XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by Holti »

I understand Jouldax/Holti are trying to make a friendly European/Casual player alliance. I feel there is no need for that. I have no turned down anyone to join my alliance in a while. The playerbase is so low that anyone who wants to join and have fun I don't mind. If they show up for ops they show up for ops. As long as they're not draining the AA everyday I don't really care what they do.
Then there is no difference between your alliance and mine. I started CIA for the simple reason that Collider was upset about never being to op, and he has been a solid, reliable player for many years. ACD was kicked from his alliance in the Storm/Rain draft round because he acted out due to not being considered for op times. Players have been kicked for not being active enough.
When we started last round, we were the smallest alliance. Storm had 18 players, and I could count all of the ops her alliance did for the entire round on one hand. They built planets and did little else. Meanwhile, we took on new players like Aendar and TJ (both European), involved them in ops that they and the other Europeans/Americans who can't op late at night, and they learned the game. Aendar brought in two more new players from the newbie game, and they stuck for this round. When we were able to finally bring at least 7 players to an op, we opped, and opped once or twice a week depending on whether people could make it. The last week of the round we were supposed to op on Tues and Thurs, but we didn't get enough people on Tues to do anything. Meanwhile, players had fun, built a cohesive, friendly group that we could rely on, and we wanted to keep that momentum going. So I agreed to restart CIA this round. Our alliance is casual only in that I work around people's availability and attempt to include as many of the alliance in an op as possible so few people feel left out as Collider and ACD felt in previous rounds. I also don't yell at players for screwing up or kick them if life gets in the way and they aren't as active. We even kept Kenny in the alliance because he showed up for ops, even though he didn't listen to us (he was capped, however, so he wouldn't drain the AA).

In the last year after I resigned from SMR adminship, I have suggested that Astax be made head coder, because I saw that Page no longer had the time to do so. Page is a friend of mine, we have travelled in Europe together a couple of times (along with our significant others this past year), and that was not an easy decision for me. But I knew that coding was the bottleneck for SMR to progress. I nudged Spock several times to push along making Astax a head coder. I encouraged Astax to develop the game and pushed Spock to give him access to the Beta site so he could develop the "new" SMR. I also suggested to Spock to make Jouldax and Bouncer head admins, which was done after Spock spoke with RCK and Greydeath. For whatever reason, I'm able to nudge Spock to do things better than other admins. I do not know why.
Thus I have done more for the game as a non-admin than some of the admins.
As an admin, I wrote several of the newsletters with Jouldax and made sure that an advertisement for coders was in it. We've had very little response. Yeah, I see people posting about how "they could code it in a weekend", but github has been in place for a few years now (another suggestion made by me when I was an admin) and receives few submissions outside of Astax, Ronsilver and Pickles. I made the Map Submission forum so players could submit maps, and sent most of the alliance messages encouraging people to come here, view the maps, and comment on them. I was the one that set up the voting when we had several map submissions. I listened to player's issues and have spoken privately to Spock when I felt there was a need for his intervention, something that most admins are uncomfortable with. I have done more to encourage player engagement than other admins.

Yet I read that *I* am the reason SMR's playerbase is shrinking.
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Re: XDemonX's Desert Oasis

Post by XDemonX »

Holti,

I am not trying to point fingers saying it is YOU that is shrinking the playerbase. I understand the reasoning. You have a good alliance. You don't need to advertise that your alliance is friendly to casual players/foreign like other alliances are not. But I am sorry if I offended you. I know how much you do for this game so I don't want to take away from that.

This brings me back to this style of map and the point I am trying to make. Ops don't need to be only planet busting ops. There are many forms of ops but since the current maps only limit to planet busting that is all you can do. There are mining ops, clearing ops, port raiding ops, trading ops.. You can have ops to set traps. Just don't like seeing the game so linear with limited to what you can do.
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