An Open Letter to the SMR Community

[Kard]

The most fun I had, and I believe most of my alliance mates agree, was when we played Azool's map. Which makes me think that a decent map design would counter what we've seen the last two rounds. This round started strong in activity, but I think everyone can see that activity is already waning, and I lost two players today because they decided they don't want to play in the same game as Sergei because they feel they can't accomplish anything. One was pretty much a newbie that showed promise, too

Jesters map is like azools map but easier to navigate. Vote for it

[Holti]

The tide changes though from time to time, I mean right now this isn't a game of long lasting dominant forces, gone are the DC and Crusaders of the world. Btw to offer up a tidbit, before this round started I was in talks with GIA to join them with serg/bouncer and a couple others but we were turned away by GIA's leaders so to say we aren't trying to balance the playing field it a bit shortsighted.

Actually, the offer was you, Orca and Sergei. The reason why we turned it down was because of the great potential of personality conflicts. Seriously, you three and Holy in the same alliance? I can see the blood streaming from my computer monitor now. Also, you guys are hard core players, while we're casual players focused on showing the newbies the fun of the game in a low pressure environment. Honestly, it seemed a recipe for disaster.

[JettJackson]

The tide changes though from time to time, I mean right now this isn't a game of long lasting dominant forces, gone are the DC and Crusaders of the world. Btw to offer up a tidbit, before this round started I was in talks with GIA to join them with serg/bouncer and a couple others but we were turned away by GIA's leaders so to say we aren't trying to balance the playing field it a bit shortsighted.

Actually, the offer was you, Orca and Sergei. The reason why we turned it down was because of the great potential of personality conflicts. Seriously, you three and Holy in the same alliance? I can see the blood streaming from my computer monitor now. Also, you guys are hard core players, while we're casual players focused on showing the newbies the fun of the game in a low pressure environment. Honestly, it seemed a recipe for disaster.

Well this is where we differ in opinion, because to me the newbies I have trained that stick around do so in high pressure atmospheres. Action brings people back imo. Though there is no right answer there. As for conflicts between us and others, I have played with everyone so as long as you are on my team I have no reason to fight with you.

[Holti]

Well this is where we differ in opinion, because to me the newbies I have trained that stick around do so in high pressure atmospheres. Action brings people back imo.

We do differ here, because I've seen players leave alliances because the alliances were too hard core. In every war game I played, there's always been several types of players, hard core, casual, and I don't know what the hell i'm doing I've always played casually, and always will. My alliance offers that to others, and we haven't done too badly despite my extreme inexperience. I can say that most of them have had fun, and our chat is very friendly and active.

As for GIA decision, Kerius and I placed the idea before all our members, and weighed the pros and cons of their arguments. Half a dozen players stated firmly that if you joined, they would leave. That, along with our differing views on how the game is played, and a lot of mistrust (a staple of any war game), is why Kerius made his decision on not having you join.

[JettJackson]

Well this is where we differ in opinion, because to me the newbies I have trained that stick around do so in high pressure atmospheres. Action brings people back imo.

We do differ here, because I've seen players leave alliances because the alliances were too hard core. In every war game I played, there's always been several types of players, hard core, casual, and I don't know what the hell i'm doing I've always played casually, and always will. My alliance offers that to others, and we haven't done too badly despite my extreme inexperience. I can say that most of them have had fun, and our chat is very friendly and active.

As for GIA decision, Kerius and I placed the idea before all our members, and weighed the pros and cons of their arguments. Half a dozen players stated firmly that if you joined, they would leave. That, along with our differing views on how the game is played, and a lot of mistrust (a staple of any war game), is why Kerius made his decision on not having you join.

Yeah that's fine as it caused us to pick up other newbs anyways.

[Page]

the newbies I have trained that stick around do so in high pressure atmospheres.

This is a flawed argument, the only newbies that could have stuck around are those who did so in high pressure atmospheres, perhaps more would have stuck around if it was a more casual atmosphere? You cannot say either way which would have happened.

Hobbs what is the problem though, I mean Sergei is an exceptional hunter so we bought him a DC. If he was in Jester's alliance the same thing would have happened

Yes, and that is part of the problem, why is it necessary to pummel others into the ground, why is it necessary to deride people? Do you think it makes them want to play, does it make your victory feel more of an achievement? In a sports match if you went over to the other team and started telling them they sucked and it's their own fault and generally being a sore winner then do you think that would be allowed? It's the sort of attitude that's enough to make vets quit, why would newbies be any different? Sure, there are changes to gameplay that can be made, but the core problem is really that a lot of the players in this game are pretty much actively hostile towards new players (and vets too for that matter) and there is not much I can do about that really.
In TF2 when I've played pub servers with my clan mates we would always random teams, but if we were ever placed on the same team by that we tended to crush the other team and guess what, proceed to see them all quit. Sure we could pat ourselves on the back for a few minutes and say "we're awesome, we owned them", but the simple fact is that they did not stand a chance and we did not improve (heck we probably got worse because of it), hence why we always randomly assigned teams.

People don't like being crushed into the ground and people are here of their own choice, to have fun, if you remove the ability for them to have any fun then they will leave, particularly so if they are new.

[RCK]

Page that who post can be summed up in a word....

SPORTSMANSHIP

[JettJackson]

Since when was this game about sportsmanship, I hate to break it to you guys but hunters have been a-holes for a long long long time. There was never a problem about a hunter hunting great before until Sergei started doing it last game. Why is all of a sudden a problem? To use what kiky had posted elsewhere "Ever since Orca and Sergei are back, very few people have actually been using the old tactics for trading. You just want it served on your plate... if so, go trade in beta.", this emphasizes my point exactly. People have gotten lazy and a good hunter is exploiting their laziness. Maybe its a reservation on the fact that we haven't had any great hunters hunting for a little bit, I can attest to the fact that I know I'm not a great hunter but I at least try. However that might be the point to this entire argument is that people have gotten lazy at trading, although a sidebar is that people are using freighters a lot more and those are forceless ships, this trade off of forces for trading efficiency has allowed for more kills by hunters. Just something to also take into consideration.

[Jester-]

JJ stop adopting your viewpoint on who you hang around with. Hunters are way over powered, especially a ship that doesn't have arm up all the time, who can hide wherever he wants and has turns and forces like nuts. You put that with these stupidly easy to access maps and you have no fun for anyone else but the over powered hunter. Do we want free trading? No, but we do not want a guaranteed death every time we trade. You can't sit there and say "well you suck and are lazy" when a hunter gets off 3 shots in a second.

When page decided to make all beefier ships useless compared to the small forceless ships this is what happens. The major veteran hunter alliances that can protect their traders and kill everyone else gets an even bigger advantage. So what, we can use IST, but it sucks now and so does the PSF. So not only does the major hunter alliance get the benefit of the better trade ships, they also either pull away in experience because they take no real risk or the other traders die in the same ships.

Think for a minute on what you say and maybe you'll realize this game isn't about only the hunter having fun. What happened to utility players who enjoyed mining and building, or traders helping get the bank roll up. Why no massive changes in favor of them? Where did all this false interaction bull crap come from I'm so sick and tired of hearing about interaction. There's plenty so stop stuffing hunters getting tons of kills as interaction down our throats.

[Hobbs]

JJ, all games are about sportsmanship. Games are no fun to play with sore winners/losers. That's a fact of life.

Again, I'm trying to draw this away from game mechanics, but everyone seems to be rolling back around to it. For the moment, JJ, I'll roll with you on this one: Let's assume traders are lazy now. That in the end, you and kiky are right about that. The fact of the matter is that Sergei and hunters like him are abusing more than just the fact that traders are lazy. They're using the HoF stats and CPL to find the traders with very little sacrificed turns. They're using the DC's superior speed and other capabilities to be able to take traders down whenever they're online. They're using the small maps with lots of turns to be able to hunt many, many galaxies at once. They're using the Nijarin race to get superior weapons in their cloaked DCs so that they can park in open space fully armed with the best weapons. There's more than just lazy trading going on here. Each of these things individually may not be so bad, but together, they're amounting to what feels like a serious problem; a problem that you've for the most part been able to ignore because you've been on the right side of the fence, so to speak.

Honestly, the same "you just want it served on your plate" can be said in return about hunting. You don't want to have to use forces to find traders. You don't want to have to be restricted to a smaller area, instead you want to be able to hunt anywhere in the entire game at any point. You don't want to have to arm up in order to hunt. You just want to be able to sit there, constantly I might add, and be instantly gratified in your hunting. There's no actual hunting going on anymore, there's just killing. You just want a bunch of fish in a barrel so that you can fire your rifle into it, and when you kill something show everyone how big it is and how great you are.

You see, this sort of deriding argument is getting us nowhere. It's rather useless input, and it's an ad hominem attack anyways. "It's not a problem with whatever you just said, you're just lazy and spoiled!"

But enough of all that. I applaud your attempts to balance the game in the way that you found it possible. I think that's actually surprisingly uncharacteristic and noble of many of the players in BG at the moment. I'm still curious to hear from more people. We haven't heard from anyone other than a handful of us on the topic. Maybe I'm dreaming, but I don't think it should be difficult for the majority of any of our alliance mates to roll over here and throw a few words into the mix (assuming they're polite words, of course).

At the moment, it seems to me that JJ is implying that this game is being played in the most optimal way possible. I'm implying it isn't, as are a few others I think. Kard seems to imply that it is, but needs to get fixed in order for it to be the most optimal way to play. Is this a careful enough summation of all of your points?