Game Adjustment Discussion

[Terrence]

Sharing some things I've noticed. Comparing the early days when I played SM 14 years ago through today. (Wow, Im getting old). I've played on and off since then but just returned to full speed last game. I have some observations that I think have led the game to a point that I think isn't as attractive as it was previously.

Port Manipulation - This is way to easy now. Upgrading a port is way too cheap and way to easy. At this point the map setup doesn't matter because of how easy it is to build your own routes. This takes the control of the game out of the design and makes it a compounding mess of exp and cash. Back in the day ports were way expensive to upgrade. In my opinion the cost of route manipulation needs to be raised. On a practical side, a port upgrade should require money and activity. Think of any business/trade system. Cash is great, but if a port isn't being used then it shouldn't upgrade. Port upgrades should require a minimum amount of goods traded and a minimum amount of cash on hand. That will make it that much harder to create a route and make those routes that much more critical to defend.

Exp and Cash Multipliers - Cash is out of hand right now. The amount of money rolling around has made ship costs irrelevant and bust/raids more a point of fun then progress for or against either side. The issue really ties into the port issue above. Distance multipliers have allowed traders to pull in enough money to supply an endless fleet, even with hunters that die on a weekly basis. Multipliers on cash should be dwarfed after a certain distance. Or set cash multipliers at a max and eliminate exp multipliers all together. Early SM days created a choice, you could trade for Exp or Cash, you couldn't really find both which created two different paths for traders to choose. An alliance could have a few cash traders and a few exp traders who turned to hunters later on. And then the battles went on.

Take it for what it's worth. I played the original and loved it. Dying took away a ton of experience. Almost too much, cash was harder to come by and busts were more impactful on an alliance and a round. I'd love to see the game move back towards this. My ramblings. I shared some of this in game and was encouraged to post a discussion talking about it.

[Kard]

I agree that it might be too easy to build routes. On the flip side of that coin, it is too easy to bust routes too. Look at the last draft round, we built a route 3 times a week, only to have it busted 3 times a week. It bankrupted us.

Secondly, I disagree about there being too much cash. Look at every alliance except ours. They dont seem to be doing to well with money. If you are relating this theory back to SM, and early SMR, there was way more cash in those days. The cash making ability was nerfed, too much in my opinion. We want teams to not worry about losses and go for those lvl 70s and gutsy fleet battles. But it takes 1 week for an entire alliance to build 300mil, and that gets blown on one lvl 70 bust, or one failed fleet battle.

I think that making routes should probably be a little harder, but it is balanced by how easy they are to bust. If routes are made harder to build, it would be beneficial to make them harder to bust. I think there should be more money in the universe to encourage lots of gal building and lvl 70 busts, and fleet fights.

[jouldax]

I see where you're coming from, Terrence (and Kard as well), but I'd offer a few counter points in the name of discussion. I'm very much in favor of the landscape being easily altered, even if it seemingly favors the more active alliances, because that's what this game should be mostly about - spending your time and resources to build a strategic advantage. The map generation is random and shouldn't be the predominant dictator of gameplay, although I'm certainly not averse to an element of randomness. Once routes are created, they are already difficult enough to defend given the relative ease of PRing these days, so I'd say that there is a reasonable amount of tension within the game as it relates to upgrading and busting.'

On the cash front, while I tend to agree with you, the problem in the game right now is activity. If you reduce income, you will lower people's ability to ship up and engage in combat. I like the idea of forcing people to make more difficult choices, I'm just not sure we have the proper user base at this time to implement those changes. As for exp vs. cash, there is definitely a defined line between the two already with the best cash routes usually offering little exp/turn and the top exp routes offering little cash/turn. I don't see why the current setup needs to be changed. Balanced, maybe, but fundamentally changed, I would disagree.

[JettJackson]

I agree that it might be too easy to build routes. On the flip side of that coin, it is too easy to bust routes too. Look at the last draft round, we built a route 3 times a week, only to have it busted 3 times a week. It bankrupted us.

Secondly, I disagree about there being too much cash. Look at every alliance except ours. They dont seem to be doing to well with money. If you are relating this theory back to SM, and early SMR, there was way more cash in those days. The cash making ability was nerfed, too much in my opinion. We want teams to not worry about losses and go for those lvl 70s and gutsy fleet battles. But it takes 1 week for an entire alliance to build 300mil, and that gets blown on one lvl 70 bust, or one failed fleet battle.

I think that making routes should probably be a little harder, but it is balanced by how easy they are to bust. If routes are made harder to build, it would be beneficial to make them harder to bust. I think there should be more money in the universe to encourage lots of gal building and lvl 70 busts, and fleet fights.

We are doing well with our money in the sense that we haven't died yet. If we did we'd be broke.

[Page]

Port Manipulation - This is way to easy now. Upgrading a port is way too cheap and way to easy.

Interesting, I think you could be right for purposeful upgrades, but I think incidental upgrades are so hard as to essentially never happen (I see that as a bad thing as it removes an element of dynamicity from trading).

Exp and Cash Multipliers - Cash is out of hand right now.
...
Multipliers on cash should be dwarfed after a certain distance.

Oddly enough I've actually reduced money to a tiny fraction of what it used to be (by reducing cash across the board and by reducing the effect of increasing multipliers a lot - to reduce the comparative money advantage of a jump route), I know this round TITS have plenty of money, but that is due to an abnormally good route (made much easier to create than usual due to the layout of the map). Overall I'd say that decreasing the money any further would lead to deaths being incredibly punishing to the point of only allowing a few per game (which gives a massive incentive to safe, cautious play - strategic possibly, but also will reduce number of fights even further which I doubt anyone other than traders would actually want)

[seldum]

Money needs to be more available through more sources. The game doesn't have a problem with too much money, the problem lies in one side having too much money. If all alliances have access to multiple sources of income besides building a giant route, then we could see a more competitive game.

My ideas would be to increase port raiding revenues because right now you may net 5-10 million credits from busting a level 9 port after UNO costs, if a drone ship gets hit your profits are gone. Right now port raids are done solely to build routes and this takes away a reason to OP more often giving newer players an opportunity to learn without the stress accompanied with being in an enemies territory. This may also be an opportunity to increase fleet fights as port raiders have increased bounties so the opponents may attempt a fight when port raids are going down.

Shorten bonding times slightly and base bond percentage on how many ships stay on the planet not the level of the planet.

Increase the limit on blackjack to 1 mil.

[Kard]

Money needs to be more available through more sources. The game doesn't have a problem with too much money, the problem lies in one side having too much money. If all alliances have access to multiple sources of income besides building a giant route, then we could see a more competitive game.

My ideas would be to increase port raiding revenues because right now you may net 5-10 million credits from busting a level 9 port after UNO costs, if a drone ship gets hit your profits are gone. Right now port raids are done solely to build routes and this takes away a reason to OP more often giving newer players an opportunity to learn without the stress accompanied with being in an enemies territory. This may also be an opportunity to increase fleet fights as port raiders have increased bounties so the opponents may attempt a fight when port raids are going down.

Shorten bonding times slightly and base bond percentage on how many ships stay on the planet not the level of the planet.

Increase the limit on blackjack to 1 mil.

Some good ideas. I agree with the bonding idea. Make the interest go up based on ships on planet.

I dont think i agree with the port raiding yielding more money though. Right now it is really low, and often PRing doesnt even pay for itself. However, if PRing did bring in any significant profit, we wouldve raided every port we could earlier on, to get rich. There wouldnt have been very many money routes left in the game, if any. Rather then have 12 or so of us trading those routes we had for ik,human,wq, thev, i wouldve got eveyone into a top racial and raided for money, then when not opping just had way more hunters.

I dont think PRing should be another source of income, but i do agree there needs to be other sources. Because if one side has a route, and the other one doesnt, then after a couple weeks, it gets very one sided. Now, some will argue that the side without the route shouldve tried several times to kill the enemy route while also trying to build their own, and since they didnt do that and/or were unsuccessful at doing that, then they should be losing. I really have no counterpoint to anyone who would say that.

[JettJackson]

I think PRing should be a source of income, not to the level it was before but 5~ per level 9 port right now after uno is piddly. I can never understand why money from ports was weakened so much to make it obsolete.

[jouldax]

I like the PR change (something the admins have discussed before) and I don't mind the bonding change, although the bonding change certainly benefits those alliances with planets (typically larger ones). Solution = more planets? Not sure if it would work given that the leading alliance usually hunts down everything as the game slows. Just throwing my thoughts out there.