Changes For Next Draft Round

[XDemonX]

I want to get the ball rolling on changes people would like to see in next draft game. Earlier we start discussing the better the next draft round can be. Also, please post what made this game fun for you that we shouldn't change. Changes could concern minor coding changes, map changes, ect.

Below I will list things I did not like

[*]layout of the planet galaxies. For me, they were too messy. I personally like the way previous game's planet gal was setup.

[*]the level 9 ports that were placed at the entrance of each planet gal. It made trading too easy for alliances too early in the start. If you got lucky enough, you could of had a real nice route without doing barely any busting at all that is easily defendable.

[*]3v3 combat code.. I still hate this. Mass landing or Mass parking is no longer a tactic at all. To me, this is one of the most fun things in SMR is BIG fleet fights especially when they come from busting a planet. Yes there are less triggers but it is still fun.

[*]Turn cost of cloak. There is no reason there should be 1 turn cost for cloaking. You already lose your cloak when you drop a mine and have to click two buttons to recloak, why the turn cost? It just really nerfs it.

[*]Beef up DC again and possibly FU. I still disagree with the changes. They're expensive as hell ships they should be good. A big reason for the change is people like orca who can get massive exp and rape everything in a DC. If you have ever played with orca the reason he was able to do that was because he could STAY CLOAKED and tear you apart with mines before firing on you. Now that cloak has been changed where you lose your cloak when you drop mines, DC is no longer overpowered. Change back the ships/price.

[*]How was turn speed for everyone? I would almost like the turn speed to increase but that could just be me. Seems like i never have turns.

[Incognito]

I would like to see the mechanics of the draft process tweaked. Currently, people pick a name and race and join the draft game. Instead, I think players should sign into the game without choosing a race so that the draft leaders can have some say in the race selection. Please note that I am not implying that the leaders choose the race for each individual, just that the leader can make a suggesting. Whether or not a player listens is another story.

The downside is that this would require a bit of coding to change the game.

[JettJackson]

I would like to see the mechanics of the draft process tweaked. Currently, people pick a name and race and join the draft game. Instead, I think players should sign into the game without choosing a race so that the draft leaders can have some say in the race selection. Please note that I am not implying that the leaders choose the race for each individual, just that the leader can make a suggesting. Whether or not a player listens is another story.

The downside is that this would require a bit of coding to change the game.

I actually like how it is now, it makes some people more appealing if they go ikky or salv, and less appealing if they go skant. Though realistically a good leader will draft players irregardless to their race and make use of what they get.

[Shady_FA-]

I want to get the ball rolling on changes people would like to see in next draft game? Earlier we start discussing the better the next draft round can be. Also, please post what made this game fun for you that we shouldn't change. Changes could concern minor coding changes, map changes, ect.

Below I will list things I did not like

[*]layout of the planet galaxies. For me, they were too messy. I personally like the way previous game's planet gal was setup.

[*]the level 9 ports that were placed at the entrance of each planet gal. It made trading too easy for alliances too early in the start. If you got lucky enough, you could of had a real nice route without doing barely any busting at all that is easily defendable.

[*]3v3 combat code.. I still hate this. Mass landing or Mass parking is no longer a tactic at all. To me, this is one of the most fun things in SMR is BIG fleet fights especially when they come from busting a planet. Yes there are less triggers but it is still fun.

[*]Turn cost of cloak. There is no reason there should be 1 turn cost for cloaking. You already lose your cloak when you drop a mine and have to click two buttons to recloak, why the turn cost? It just really nerfs it.

[*]Beef up DC again and possibly FU. I still disagree with the changes. They're expensive as hell ships they should be good. A big reason for the change is people like orca who can get massive exp and rape everything in a DC. If you have ever played with orca the reason he was able to do that was because he could STAY CLOAKED and tear you apart with mines before firing on you. Now that cloak has been changed where you lose your cloak when you drop mines, DC is no longer overpowered. Change back the ships/price.

[*]How was turn speed for everyone? I would almost like the turn speed to increase but that could just be me. Seems like i never have turns.

Didnt play last game so dunno about that layout. I don't really care about planet gals anyways.

I dont really agree with this. While I agree it makes it pretty easy to build a route, having the level 9 where it was didn't make it any more or less defensible. It gave us more incentive to keep it, and should've given more incentive to bust.

I'm still incredibly confused by 3v3 combat code. Thought it was to reduce lag or somethin but there was still lots of lag during ops. I dunno how long this change has been going on though so can't really comment.

I'm selfish so I'll agree with this cloak suggestion just because. I dont really mind cloaking for a turn, I do mind popping on the cpl everytime I have to cloak.

I didn't like the changes to FU/DC but don't have better suggestion so whatever

Don't lie XDX you're only outta turns cuz youre always moving around being a badass. I think theyre fine for the majority of the players who arent that active right now.

My own suggestions:

- Find an easier way to change alignment that doesn't involve a random 1/20 chance or whatever the formula is. Before you could PR but they took it away for some reason?
-Keep it at 2 alliances. Until there are 4 30 man alliances I think big alliances are the way to go. We get the most activity that way, and the war is very simplified, it's just one against the other.
- seldum had a significant advantage with the post draft signings. seldum always got to choose first. So theoretically lets say a noob comes in. He could choose not to draft him and wait for a better name. And then draft that person while leaving azn with the noob. If the vet came first seldum would be able to grab. My suggestion would be that no new people can join an alliance until a certain day and time where both leaders draft everyone (and it alternates each week or period). If a week is too long, then maybe twice a week. However therse no way seldum shouldve been able to choose every single time it gives him a big advg.

[seldum]

Azn actually had first pick most of the time. I got lucky a few times with a couple decent pick ups but so did Azn. The problem with waiting is it is unfair to the new players who join. A few newbs prolly joined and without a team to help guide them and get them started probably didn't give the game much of a chance.

[Shady_FA-]

Then draft daily at a certain time. As long as it's a certain time and not whenever the person feels like drafting someone. If a leader doesnt show or make a pick at the time then its skipped.

[jouldax]

I want to get the ball rolling on changes people would like to see in next draft game. Earlier we start discussing the better the next draft round can be. Also, please post what made this game fun for you that we shouldn't change. Changes could concern minor coding changes, map changes, ect.

Below I will list things I did not like

[*]layout of the planet galaxies. For me, they were too messy. I personally like the way previous game's planet gal was setup.

I didn't mind the layout, but I think I'd like to see pgals be 5x5 next game and non-connecting. Each one should have 2 warps, one to each neutral.

[*]the level 9 ports that were placed at the entrance of each planet gal. It made trading too easy for alliances too early in the start. If you got lucky enough, you could of had a real nice route without doing barely any busting at all that is easily defendable.

Agree. I think the port should be placed right in-between the two warps to the neutrals with lots of level 9s around the warp port too, making busting a requirement, based on my above suggestion.

[*]3v3 combat code.. I still hate this. Mass landing or Mass parking is no longer a tactic at all. To me, this is one of the most fun things in SMR is BIG fleet fights especially when they come from busting a planet. Yes there are less triggers but it is still fun.

Couldn't disagree more. We never would have been able to counter op, particularly with our suicide plan to jump off that rock and get kills, under the old combat code. Now we were able to launch, pick targets strategically, and re-land if necessary, without the two fastest players getting a trigger and having the whole battle be over. Mass landing WAS a tactic and required us to be active and online, which is one of the things I HATE about fleet parking - you can put all your noobs who are afk in wbs and just sit them on the planet for extra defense. Sorry if I think you should have to trigger more to win instead of just having larger numbers. We still lost all 7 of us and took 4 of us with them, it was a ton of fun, and was a lot more interactive, imo. I'd still like to see additional incentives for landing, but we're working on that.

[*]Turn cost of cloak. There is no reason there should be 1 turn cost for cloaking. You already lose your cloak when you drop a mine and have to click two buttons to recloak, why the turn cost? It just really nerfs it.

The reason there is 1 turn cost for cloaking is because cloaking is OP. There is no answer to cloak right now, and it scales with level. In fact, there should be a larger turn penalty for using cloak at higher levels until we have a solution in place to counter cloak. If someone of any skill has cloak and reaches a decent level, you're basically waiting for them to mess up as there's nothing you can do to interact them. We have some creative ideas in the works to offset this, but again, I'd be in favor of making cloaking MORE punitive, not less, to balance the game.

[*]Beef up DC again and possibly FU. I still disagree with the changes. They're expensive as hell ships they should be good. A big reason for the change is people like orca who can get massive exp and rape everything in a DC. If you have ever played with orca the reason he was able to do that was because he could STAY CLOAKED and tear you apart with mines before firing on you. Now that cloak has been changed where you lose your cloak when you drop mines, DC is no longer overpowered. Change back the ships/price.

DC was definitely over-nerfed. The question is should the DC and FU be able to compete with WBs? That's a question for the community. But even if the answer is no, the DC at least needs a buff, and the admin community is aware of that. I can't promise it will be next game, but stay tuned.[/quote]

[*]How was turn speed for everyone? I would almost like the turn speed to increase but that could just be me. Seems like i never have turns.

I'd like to see a modest increase in turn speed, but unfortunately, we are somewhat limited by the multipliers we can select. Ideally, I'd actually like to increase the base tph of all WBs by 1 to decrease op downtime, but I think we need a full-blown balancing discussion before making any material changes like that. I'm ok with running the next game at a 1.75x speed if that's what people want.

[Shady_FA-]

If I were to choose any speed I think 2x would be best.

Cloak is fine as is. Ive cloaked all game and in combat itself it actually means really little.

[XDemonX]

I agree with most of what you said Jouldax.

DC was definitely over-nerfed. The question is should the DC and FU be able to compete with WBs? That's a question for the community. But even if the answer is no, the DC at least needs a buff, and the admin community is aware of that. I can't promise it will be next game, but stay tuned.

I believe the answer should be Yes. DC/FU were a lot more expensive (29m for DC and 43m for FU). If someone is willing to pay that much money then they should be able to get a ship that can compete with WBs, WB's are A LOT cheaper. DC/FU are high-end ships. Barely anyone flies them anymore.

[SnakeBite]

As a player coming back this game I must say it has been fairly fun. Activity was fairly good in my opinion although there were only 2 alliances which has its drawbacks.

I think players should sign into the game without choosing a race so that the draft leaders can have some say in the race selection.

I really like the element of random it adds though... it also forces the player to adapt somewhat. If I'm put into chat and "suggested" a race, I doubt I would refuse... I think this is even more true for a new player. I found it nice joining with my own choice of race as it made the round more unique to me.

Hunting was an element I felt is lacking this game. On top of this I know of many players who feel trading is too easy. At the very least trading is certainly far easier than hunting. To amend this I think the size of galaxies needs to be revised as they were too big.

As for game speed I've always wanted it much faster (or based on a turn-less system) but this has many challenges.
For now I would like to see it faster anyway.