Draft game Retrospective: My thoughts

[silverx2]

If trying to win is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

in all seriousness though we really need another option to end the game other then a set date and time for this reason. some games may end sooner then expected but it should force teams to be more proactive and less passive aggressive.

[Grey Death]

If trying to win is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

in all seriousness though we really need another option to end the game other then a set date and time for this reason. some games may end sooner then expected but it should force teams to be more proactive and less passive aggressive.

As a player these are my thoughts:
Trying to win is not wrong. However, I tend to agree with Pickles in that if I had been the Contra leader I would have held off attacking for 24-48 hours to verify with the opposing leader directly that the issue was no longer there. I do think that it would probably be a 50/50 split off the alliances in the past choosing to hold off vs attacking and it would solely depend on the leadership roles of each alliance. In any case, lets look for ways to try to avoid such a situation in the future instead of dwelling on what has happened in the past so we can rebuild this game.

I would love to hear options on set win conditions that can be come up with to generate a situation where if the opposing team does not counter in say 4 days the game ends and the alliance triggering the conditions wins.

[silverx2]

how i should work imho

the two(three?) alliances all start even ground, trading and building up planets. The game has a set date to end regardless of what happens. Once alliance(alliance Alpha) builds a level 70 planet the first timer starts, If Alliance Beta does not complete a level 70 by the end of the initial countdown Alliance alpha wins. This should be a relatively long timer to allow the second alliance a chance to catch up if its farther behind. If both alliances reach a level 70 planet the next phase starts. Domination: If at any point one alliance owns every planet for 48 hours, the game ends, the countdown starts as soon as one alliance claims the last planet. and restarts anytime they lose a planet.

[the570z]

Id be interested in having a couple short rounds(3-5x) with two teams(or racial), free ships, weapons, and each team possessing one pre built lander. Then have a life limit(I.E. 3 pods and your out). First team to eliminate the other wins or team that is ahead in kills if there are no pods for 48 hours.

[Edgecrusher]

As one of the two leaders I may have a bit of a different perspective on things.

First of all, the picking process. The smart strategy here would be to pick people you trust and know. Kiky did this, and in terms of activity later on in the game, that strategy worked. My goal was to play with new people and I chose accordingly. My strategy also worked: I think especially at the start of the game we worked well as a team despite the fact that most of us never played together. That also meant I picked some people I knew up front would be trouble, but contrary to the cases that were mentioned, I must emphasize that several of those choices worked out great. I must especially mention Holy: everyone declared me crazy for picking him and he was the perfect alliance member. I don't regret the picking choices, but I think it would be better if people were assigned to a leader at random.

Second of all: activity. The one BIG problem of the draft round is that a leader can't regulate activity, although activity is the one decisive factor in who wins. In a normal round I can tell someone "grow active or I am going to kick you and replace you with an active person". In the draft round you can't. People go inactive and there is nothing you can do. Worse, people can steal and spy, but without proof you can't do a thing. The draft leaders have been chosen. Then let them lead. I know there are issues with kicking people, expecially related to only being able to pick new people if you're the smaller alliance, but there must be a way to solve them. People may cry when they can't play the game anymore, but that's why we always have another game running parallel.

Finally: planet busting. It's just too damn easy with this many actives, and it's just too damn hard when the enemy has got this many actives to restock the planets under attack. Contraction only managed to bust level 70s because they were not (properly) defended. If there is someone on there that sacrifices all xp by dying again and again refilling the planet, level 70s can not be busted. The same holds true for ports: even the biggest ports can be easily bustedwith this many actives. We busted a port that gave us over 200M in cash. Such a port should be as deadly as a level 70 planet. Some tweaking is needed here.

Then, to respond to other posts in this thread: in the incident some people mentioned, I decided to not attack planets in our own galaxy cause there was a bug with unidentified effects that I did not want to risk abusing. Of course I want to win, but I want to win in a fair way. I completely agree with Pickles and others that Contraction's actions were wrong and that they should have handled this situation differently. However, I filed a complaint with the admins and they made the decision that Contraction did nothing wrong. I disagree and I am very curious about their arguments, but they are the admins, they have made a decision, and we have to abide by it. That's what admins are for and we, as players, have to respect their decision.

Finally, some people in this round, from both sides but mostly from within Contraction, felt like they had to tell me that I sucked as a leader, that I was a loser and other, a lot less friendly comments. At the end of the game I had at least 15 people blacklisted as a result. You know who you are, and I hope you realize because of those comments this was the most aweful round I ever played, no matter how many people in FE did their best to cheer me up. I am glad to hear that most people in FE had fun, but this game was no fun for me at all.

[Infinity]

I am sick and tired of being accused of killing this game by playing it properly.

The planet incident was handled with care on my part, I did all the necessary to make sure the bug is gone. It is Edgecrushers fault that he had me on ignore and never got informed about bug being fixed. It is admins fault for not announcing anything when they new the bug existed. 30 hours passed from the confirmation from Page that the bug has been fixed till our OP.

I am a fair and honest player and if you claim opposite it is only cause you have never been in an alliance with me or under my leadership, or because you're a sore loser.


Draft round left a lot of bitterness and absolutely killed the desire to ever lead anything but a few inactive traders.

Yes, I picked people I wanted to, but you could have done the same Edge. The most active people from Dark Aurora and Loty's house actually went inactive, even some of my most regular members went inactive. On the other hand, quite a few of newer and returning players I have never played with have been rather active in all aspects of the game.

Im happy if morale in your alliance grew when you were busting our ports, but as Hugh and Bouncer said - you were either helping us build our experience route inside our galaxy, or we would simply upgrade another port. God knows that takes only money and some turns.

We ABSOLUTELY won this round, we have more xp, more kills, more money, more active players, more planets and better routes. There is absolutely no aspect of the game that we haven't won at. Including having immense fun while podding you repeatedly.

[Pickles]

The planet incident was handled with care on my part, I did all the necessary to make sure the bug is gone. It is Edgecrushers fault that he had me on ignore and never got informed about bug being fixed. It is admins fault for not announcing anything when they new the bug existed. 30 hours passed from the confirmation from Page that the bug has been fixed till our OP.

I got told about this messaging issue about 5 minutes after I posted on this thread so I can certainly see your side of the whole PB argument. It would have been more than a little useful to know about it some 2 weeks ago, would have helped to defuse the situation a great deal.

I am sick and tired of being accused of killing this game by playing it properly.

The draft game got killed 16/05/2011 6:40.57 and should really have been ended right there. It's not an accusation, it's what happened and it's your actions that did it. I don't see why you should feel bad about it at all if your only interest is winning at all costs.

[Siege]

I am sick and tired of being accused of killing this game by playing it properly.

Funny because I remember being accused of the same thing by someone when I lead Mob Mentality for attacking their planets after they attempted to attack ours first..

It's the nature of the beast. If you are the best you are ruining the game, and it has been this way since the player base sharply declined after (sorry for bringing it up) SMR 1.5

[Edgecrusher]

The purpose of this thread is to discuss and evaluate the draft round, not to bicker about cheating accusations. Nevertheless, you brought this up, so I have to respond, but this will be my final say on the matter.

I am sick and tired of being accused of killing this game by playing it properly.

I did not make any accusation. I said that I disagreed with an admin decision, but that I accepted it. That is an opinion, not an accusation. The admin decision by definition means that you haven't cheated, cause it's the admins that decide whether something is cheating or not.

The planet incident was handled with care on my part, I did all the necessary to make sure the bug is gone. It is Edgecrushers fault that he had me on ignore and never got informed about bug being fixed. It is admins fault for not announcing anything when they new the bug existed. 30 hours passed from the confirmation from Page that the bug has been fixed till our OP.

First of all, I logged off before the bug was fixed, so even if I would not have you on ignore, I would not have read the message before you attacked. The final effects of the bug (there being no shields and cds on our planets) was fixed in the same night as the planet busts, about 8 hours *before* your planet busts and 3 hours *after* our op, so there being 30 hours between it is utter bs and any admin can testify to that fact.

Second of all, notification of a bug fix should be done by an admin, not by a player, and whether or not I have that player on ignore should not matter. The admins have acknowledged this fact and it was the main reason for us getting 300M.

I am a fair and honest player and if you claim opposite it is only cause you have never been in an alliance with me or under my leadership, or because you're a sore loser.

I have never said that you are not a fair player. Again, the admins have cleared you of any accusation of cheating and that's it. That you do think I am a sore loser is a bit sour after I have congratulated all of Contraction on winning the game.

Yes, I picked people I wanted to, but you could have done the same Edge.

I have done the same. As I explained: I had a different strategy and both worked.

We ABSOLUTELY won this round.

I have acknowledged this multiple times, and in a message that I asked you to forward to Contraction, I congratulated all of Contraction with winning the game, just like a good sportsman should. That you feel the need to emphasize it again is a bit childish in my opinion.

[the570z]

Ok, im just gonna ring with the fact that I had not played a round since before 1.5 and came back because I was interested in the draft game. Its this kind of bickering that I didnt miss and drove me away in the first place. Some of what Im reading here is probably lost in translation errors as lots of fights are being picked by folks agreeing with each other. Everybody needs to just calm the FFF down and realize that nobody here is trying to deliver backhanded compliments(dont care if they are, dont look at it that way). Its a PvP game, there will be rivalries and bickering, that is part of the deal but for the love of the game if nothing else, can we please focus on sportsmanship more and gloating less.

Draft rounds are a good idea but I think perhaps on shorter game lengths(so being grouped with people you dont normally play with isnt a 3 month commitment) The idea is awesome and if we use this round as a basis and adapt the problems discovered out of it could be a great addition to the game. Id be all for having a draft round and a classic round playing side by side all the time. Id love to see something like that as it would kinda highlight players who can bring teammates up to their level of play and reward them with wins.