84 replies to this topic

[Kjudoon]

Quote

Kudoon: you're a fool. No one does it deliberately, go try to impress somone else with your higher moral ground.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion. I can't force wisdom upon you but can point out you have no moral high ground either.

And yes. Teams do this. I know from personal experience in doing it, and contacts in other factions who have done it and players on the forums who admit it as well. I can at least be intellectually honest about it being done deliberately.

Why do teams do this? Because this broken mechanic is how you win at CW. Davion taught this to us all and now whines it's being used against them. Steiner complained bitterly about only getting these while they tried to pick a fight with Marik, when easy fights were to be had with the Clans.

My answer is this...

FIX IT NOW! END ALL GHOST DROPPING!

Until they do and cease insisting on this as a necessity to prevent "Apathy Defense" where you can just defend a world by not showing up, I see no reason to stop this, win back worlds stolen through the same method, and play the game as intended: as a campaign where winning a planet is important, and unopposed victories are the best victories to that goal.

"The best way to get a bad law removed is to enforce it strictly." Attributed to Abraham Lincoln.

Edited by Kjudoon, 24 January 2015 - 06:13 AM.

[Monkey Lover]

Roadbeer, on 23 January 2015 - 11:51 PM, said:

Ok, I'm getting pretty tired of the whole turret drop conversation.

Yes, Davion does it. Guess what, so does Marik, Steiner and pretty much every house.

At Marik, we have our orders of the day. If those orders are to take a Davion planet, then we queue up, if Davion doesn't show up to defend, then we took a planet with turret drops.

Tonight, we took 3 planets that were barely contested.

Why didn't we go up to fight the Clans? Because there is nothing in it for us. No purple planet, no count on the board, no unit tag... nothing.

For the glory that is Marik, sometimes, you need to smash some turrets.

Who is doing it really isn't the question (my view). Winning the planet anyway a team can do it, even down to lame spawn camping should be a standard way to fight. I see this more as a balance issue until we see a larger player base.



How many times have we seen the planet being out numbered 3 to 1 and we said" well we're not going to win this lets attack another". Let's say they increased the timer to 25 minutes in the last two hours . At this point we might go ahead and take on this planet.
This is a issue because they started with 10minutes. If they started with 60 seconds I could see the point about it being part of.the game but they already tried to balance this.


That's not just ghost drops. We still have the issue of 1time zone with 12 players being worth the same as another with 100+. If we get lot more cw players it might not be a big problem but I don't sees that happening any time soon.

Side note, I started This topic more towards Marik and what was going to happen to us. Wasn't trying to get into this side of it.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 24 January 2015 - 09:38 AM.

[Joe Decker]

Turook, on 24 January 2015 - 05:53 AM, said:

The reason you don't see us at American Ceasefire is the same reason you don't really see us the rest of the time during that slot. Davion HC has commanded us to a different border. Most of us do as we are told.

...

I'll give you a deal. We'll support anything you like as far as ceasefires go, if you petition PGI to support the idea of Ping equalisation. If I have to fire 100meters in front of a Mech to hit it, why shouldn't everyone else

I know that Davion HQ told you Guys to do these Sneak Attacks on Marik and fight elsewhere when playing at NA Times, because you Guys do both.

Never thought that you made that Decision on your own. Because I saw your Unit at NA Timezone, when we played against you. And I bet you also got something better to do with your Time than shooting Turrets. btw I checked the Numbers during 3 Days this Week at Oceanic Times, 2 Times there was absolutely no Opposition from us, third Day we got 2 Times a PUG Team together as we expected this Stuff to happen. You owe me 8 Hours of Sleep this Week btw, but nevermind

We should start recruiting Australians and I bet we would if they would not be all with you already If you know some without a Unit send them our Way, we gladly accept them in Marik Space !

---

Becoming serious again : I am not complaining about you Guys, I am complaining about this broken System that allows Actions like these and I am complaining about Davions in general, because they claimed to be ultrafair Sportsmen and then do Stuff like this/tell their Units to do Stuff like this. Davies act different than they talk

There might be also Mariks doing Stuff like this, yet I wouldn't do.

Now I also understand you Guys don't have that many Units at the Moment and I know it is annoying to play against overwhelming Numbers. Also a Flaw of our current CW where Quantity is by far more important than Quality. Yet I would also be against such Sneak Attacks if the Situation would be otherwise and Marik would be doing this.

Yet this does not mean that I would stop attacking when Davions stop playing 1 Hour before Ceasefire ends at NA Timezone. Because Davion still could fight - they just decided to quit as they knew about the Possibility to regain Space easily.

And i mean - we don't have to debate about who aggressed whom first, do we really ?

But okey that is Part of the Game. We slept the first Days and you Davies were all well prepared. That's what this Game makes Fun, even it was annoying at first for us as we all expected CW to start one Week later.

---

About the Peace Treaty with Davion - I don't know what others in Marik think about it, but I would support a Peace with Davions, if Davions also offer a Peace to Liao. Can't say what our Colonel thinks about it at this Time but I'll ask him when we talk again. Just because I also want to fight Clans as I dislike them even more than Davies and they eat up the IS too quickly for my Taste.

About your Ping : I bet PGI is working on it already ^^ That sure must be annoying. Even more problematic is the Ping in other Parts of Oceanic/Southeastasian Timezone as I've been told. And that is also the Reason for the low Player Numbers from that Area.

So if we ever meet on the Battlefield again, we can duel in Assaults if you want. I am all for a fair Fight

Well, hopefully we meet again someday in a fair CW !

Edited by Joe Decker, 24 January 2015 - 10:05 AM.

[Joe Decker]

Monkey Lover, on 24 January 2015 - 09:07 AM, said:

Side note, I started This topic more towards Marik and what was going to happen to us. Wasn't trying to get into this side of it.

Yeah we derailed a bit here. Happens.

Well i guess you know my Opinion about the 3 Ceasefires - just to get back to Topic. The Community had better Ideas how to do this.

At the Moment CW is pretty much dead in Oceanic AND European Timezone. Reason was the old Ceasefire System. The new Ceasefire is better than the old, but still a Ceasefire System in general is much worse than a 24 Hours System as it can be exploited so easily.

I could imagine a System where it is kept a Secret what the Situation on the Planet is. At least no Details, just if there are enemy Forces or not. No Numbers, nothing. You just know it would be a good Idea to fight there.

After 24 Hours the Results of all the Battles on the Planet will be posted in public or will be made available via download so there cannot be any Accusations of Ghost Drop or whatever. Somewhat like in EVE online.

A last Thing we would need immediately : Factions should decide about which Planets they want to attack. There should be no Algorithm picking for them.

Traveling Times for Jump Ships would also add to the Realism. Depending on where your nearest Planet is located you need something from 1 Minute to 30 Minutes to get to the Planet you want to attack. Will make it quicker to attack enemy Planets close to one of your owned Systems.

So many Things could be so much better.

I hope to see the Day when we got a much better CW because it will be awesome !

Edited by Joe Decker, 24 January 2015 - 10:44 AM.

[Monkey Lover]

I can see keeping everything secret being a good system but I have really loved those end of the night last match games winner takes all. I have only had two of them and they were an adrenalin rush haha.

On the other side I have really liked running to another planet because we were out numbered and they needed backup.


We have a good start to a system. Worst thing we could ever do in my view is to make cw feel like 4 mech long pug games. Where there is no value in a win.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 24 January 2015 - 11:38 AM.

[Davers]

Molossian Dog, on 24 January 2015 - 05:05 AM, said:

What I really don´t get is:

PGI wants populated CW.
People can play when they can play.
PGI introduces mechanic that makes CW games meaningless 50% of the day.

Dafuq?

It is not likem this offers some advantage. To PGI to the players to anyone. It is just plain annoying.

Not meaningless to people in those time zones. This is a Marik recruitment issue, not a flaw of the game. If we were all Australians we would think this was a great move on PGI's part.

Now let's pressure PGI to get some Oceanic servers to increase population in that time zone.

[Molossian Dog]

I must have expressed myself misleadingly.

I speak about the times when the ceasefire is just over, Davers. That happens in each cycle. NA, EU, Oceanic.
It is always towards the end of each cycle that people queue for it. Start of cycle and middle of cycle suffer.

This phenomenon has nothing to do with timezones. Actually Australians (as many others) would profit from not having to wait for that 2 hour window just before each cycle ends.
As I said. People play when they can play. And if they have to wait for ages to get a CW game because it is 5 hours until the next ceasefire and noone is queueing for it, they do something else. Public queue or other games. That applies to all timezones.

And I wonder why PGI sticks to that mechanic. There is no reason for it. And no advantage. For players or for PGI.

Edited by Molossian Dog, 24 January 2015 - 04:43 PM.

[Davers]

Molossian Dog, on 24 January 2015 - 04:21 PM, said:

I must have expressed myself misleadingly.

I speak about the times when the ceasefire is just over, Davers. That happens in each cycle. NA, EU, Oceanic.
It is always towards the end of each cycle that people queue for it. Start of cycle and middle of cycle suffer.

Has nothing to do with timezones. Actually Australians (as many others) would profit from not having to wait for that 2 hour window just before the cycle end.

It's just a real shame how war inconveniences everybody.

[Turook]

MD: "I speak about the times when the ceasefire is just over, Davers. That happens in each cycle. NA, EU, Oceanic.
It is always towards the end of each cycle that people queue for it. Start of cycle and middle of cycle suffer.

This phenomenon has nothing to do with timezones. Actually Australians (as many others) would profit from not having to wait for that 2 hour window just before each cycle ends."

As an Aussie I can confirm that we wouldn't have chosen 11pm at night as our Ceasefire.
We don't deliberately get on for the last 2 hours of attack phase. Most of Australia is on DLS atm, so they are even more indisposed than some of the rest of us.
Dinner (what we call Teatime) is around 6-7pm by the time we get home from work.
People start trickling on by around 8pm.
By the time we have 12 people it is about 9pm, which gives us 2 hours to get 8 drops in to flip a planet.

Now seeing as how we get nothing but Turret drops , it takes 1-2 minutes to get people to ready up to drop, 10 minutes to wait till drop, 2-3 minutes to shoot the Turrets.
This means it takes 15 minutes to do one drop.
That's 4 drops per hour, 8 for the two hours we get to play.
I'd prefer not to be doing Turret runs as that 10 minute wait makes it even harder for us.

(in best Dragnet voice) Just the facts mam.

[Mycrus]

Turook, on 24 January 2015 - 06:45 PM, said:

MD: "I speak about the times when the ceasefire is just over, Davers. That happens in each cycle. NA, EU, Oceanic.
It is always towards the end of each cycle that people queue for it. Start of cycle and middle of cycle suffer.

This phenomenon has nothing to do with timezones. Actually Australians (as many others) would profit from not having to wait for that 2 hour window just before each cycle ends."

As an Aussie I can confirm that we wouldn't have chosen 11pm at night as our Ceasefire.
We don't deliberately get on for the last 2 hours of attack phase. Most of Australia is on DLS atm, so they are even more indisposed than some of the rest of us.
Dinner (what we call Teatime) is around 6-7pm by the time we get home from work.
People start trickling on by around 8pm.
By the time we have 12 people it is about 9pm, which gives us 2 hours to get 8 drops in to flip a planet.

Now seeing as how we get nothing but Turret drops , it takes 1-2 minutes to get people to ready up to drop, 10 minutes to wait till drop, 2-3 minutes to shoot the Turrets.
This means it takes 15 minutes to do one drop.
That's 4 drops per hour, 8 for the two hours we get to play.
I'd prefer not to be doing Turret runs as that 10 minute wait makes it even harder for us.

(in best Dragnet voice) Just the facts mam.

They prioritized aest again and left the gmt+8 flapping in the wind...

By the we are done with dinner and playing with the kid we have 25 minutes on the clock

[Molossian Dog]

What both of you describe is what actually made me wonder.

Wouldn´t a simple adding up of victories be more convenient, easier to implement, more fair and easier to explain to players?

If there would be no victory maximum on any given planet and the side with most wins gets the planet...
the question of how long it is to the next ceasefire is becoming academic.

Maybe I am overthinking it, but wouldn´t that actually make people play more? You could drop whenever you have the spare time and know it would count just as much as any other win.

I apologize if I am getting repetetive, but I am just struggling with the question what PGI is thinking. Have I overlooked any big monetization mechanics, technical restriction or anything else? Do they fear of spreading active population over too many hours? I mean it can´t be that hard to implement. As I layman I would judge it actually more simple as the current, unneccessary convulted system.

Edited by Molossian Dog, 25 January 2015 - 07:11 AM.

[Kjudoon]

Molossian Dog, on 25 January 2015 - 07:10 AM, said:

What both of you describe is what actually made me wonder.

Wouldn´t a simple adding up of victories be more convenient, easier to implement, more fair and easier to explain to players?

If there would be no victory maximum on any given planet and the side with most wins gets the planet...
the question of how long it is to the next ceasefire is becoming academic.

Maybe I am overthinking it, but wouldn´t that actually make people play more? You could drop whenever you have the spare time and know it would count just as much as any other win.

I apologize if I am getting repetetive, but I am just struggling with the question what PGI is thinking. Have I overlooked any big monetization mechanics, technical restriction or anything else? Do they fear of spreading active population over too many hours? I mean it can´t be that hard to implement. As I layman I would judge it actually more simple as the current, unneccessary convulted system.

A single day cease fire is fine as long as victory is based on something that deals with the entirity of the daily activity.

I get what PGI is doing with their attack windows, but this isn't working for victory. I go back to my "Boxing Round" proposal. I think it should be spread out over multiple days, but whatever, let's take it for what it's worth.

Here is a modified version for day long play.

- Every hour of planetary control = 1 Victory Point (VP) for that side.
- An hourly VP is assigned by the side that holds the most sectors for 31 minutes of each hour.
- Sectors are won by most winning drops COMPLETED in the hour period regardless of when the search started.
- Ghost drops count 25% of a regular drop (to simulate the value of lost equipment versus winning unopposed)
- The side that has 12 VP at the cease fire wins control of the planet. (23 contestable / 1 ceasefire)
- Planets enter a 1-3 day cooldown (no counterattack) when go over 80% control by one side. This moves the front.
- Planets controlled between 51-80% will switch control/defender, but resume fighting after ceasefire.
- Territories are NOT reset after ceasefire. They remain in same status till 80%+ is controlled at the next cease fire, then reset.

What this means is every hour is individually important, and the more VP you take early after ceasefire, the planet can be won in the first 12 hours after ceasefire, but won't be taken off the table if during the remaining 11 hours, attackers win at least half the matches.

This is one way to keep things fairly simple, front load the importance of non-NA timezones, encouraging growth overseas, but leaving the last hours important in either keeping opportunity to keep attacking in the hands of the populated NA time zones. It also gives a standing advantage to defenders because they have great opportunity to keep earning victory points early on without effort being pushed by the attacker.

I'm sure there are flaws, but this is my effort to provide with a more equitable, and fair way to contend for planets without alienating anyone too badly.

Edited by Kjudoon, 25 January 2015 - 11:00 AM.

[Davers]

But if NA is still the most largest time zone, then the work players put in from other time zones will still be inconsequential.

[Kjudoon]

Davers, on 25 January 2015 - 12:25 PM, said:

But if NA is still the most largest time zone, then the work players put in from other time zones will still be inconsequential.

Not quite inconsequential. If you can load a planet up and hold it for 8 hours right out of the gate when NA is mostly sleeping, the importance for getting a good start with EU and Oceanic becomes much more significant. NA just decides if the planet remains contested or is controlled totally. This doesn't happen unless the other two time zones turn out.

[Turook]

Kjudoon: "Not quite inconsequential. If you can load a planet up and hold it for 8 hours right out of the gate when NA is mostly sleeping, the importance for getting a good start with EU and Oceanic becomes much more significant."
Again I mention the whole "we can't get on straight away" as that is 3 in the afternoon an most of us are at work till a least 5 or 6 in the afternoon. We are just as happy about that two hour window as you are.
Also as Mycrus states this has been prioritised for AEST, the Kiwi's and our Western coastline are completely screwed.

As Davers replies to MD, as we have so little time to do anything, what we can do would be inconsequential if we swapped to the "length of time held" as suggested.
I do agree that what PGI has put in doesn't seem to work very well, but so far no one has come up with anything better.
What we currently have advantages the people (if there is enough of them) that get on 2 hrs before Ceasefire.
Length of time held advantages the American players.

The main contention is about Turret drops tho, which PGI is addressing with various ideas.
We'll just have to see what they come up with

I am more curious to see how faction populations are going to be handled.
Incentives have been given to try and get people to join those Factions that have a lower pop.
This has succeeded all too well, with many of the larger units leaving Davion already, with two more that are leaving in the next week.
Now that Kurita has gotten tired of being stomped by the Clans everyday and has joined in with hitting Davion, Davion HC has decided to leave Marik and Laio to it.
Any fights that you get from now on will be only against pugs as we are all heading north to defend against Kurita.

Sounds like the only turret drops happening will be on your side from now on.

[Kjudoon]

Quote

Kjudoon: "Not quite inconsequential. If you can load a planet up and hold it for 8 hours right out of the gate when NA is mostly sleeping, the importance for getting a good start with EU and Oceanic becomes much more significant."
Again I mention the whole "we can't get on straight away" as that is 3 in the afternoon an most of us are at work till a least 5 or 6 in the afternoon. We are just as happy about that two hour window as you are.
Also as Mycrus states this has been prioritised for AEST, the Kiwi's and our Western coastline are completely screwed.

Well, bollocks, let's just quit and go fire up our copies of Call of Doody and play with our friends on our own schedule...

well our... shoot, is anyone ever available at the same time...?

...okay, in theory the optimum schedule for us and hopefully a friend or two because no online game is really going to do what I want when I want it perfectly if it's a globally configured schedule where nobody has an optimum time frame.

No, not even Eastern Standard Time in the US.

Quote

Sounds like the only turret drops happening will be on your side from now on.

You wish to surrender to us? Very well, we accept. But didn't you just claim they didn't deliberately happen? Hmmmmmm.



Vive la Revolusion dans Asuncion!

[Turook]

Kjudoon: "You wish to surrender to us? Very well, we accept. But didn't you just claim they didn't deliberately happen? Hmmmmmm."

Not surrendering to you, just going elsewhere. I have never claimed that they didn't deliberately happen. If you are gong t try and construct an argument you may as well use the person's actual words. All I have ever stated is that we (the Aussies) have not dropped deliberately 2 hrs before ceasefire to flip planets. We don't give a rats arse if there are opponents there or not. It's not like we have much choice in when else we do get drops.

Feel free to Turret drop the planets down on the Marik border, we won't be caring, we won't be fighting and you certainly won't hear us whinging about it.

[Kjudoon]

Quote

Not surrendering to you, just going elsewhere.

A distinction without a difference. But that's okay. We'll take what you vacate.

Edited by Kjudoon, 25 January 2015 - 10:01 PM.

[Karl Marlow]

Kjudoon, on 25 January 2015 - 10:57 AM, said:

A single day cease fire is fine as long as victory is based on something that deals with the entirity of the daily activity.

I get what PGI is doing with their attack windows, but this isn't working for victory. I go back to my "Boxing Round" proposal. I think it should be spread out over multiple days, but whatever, let's take it for what it's worth.

Here is a modified version for day long play.

- Every hour of planetary control = 1 Victory Point (VP) for that side.
- An hourly VP is assigned by the side that holds the most sectors for 31 minutes of each hour.
- Sectors are won by most winning drops COMPLETED in the hour period regardless of when the search started.
- Ghost drops count 25% of a regular drop (to simulate the value of lost equipment versus winning unopposed)
- The side that has 12 VP at the cease fire wins control of the planet. (23 contestable / 1 ceasefire)
- Planets enter a 1-3 day cooldown (no counterattack) when go over 80% control by one side. This moves the front.
- Planets controlled between 51-80% will switch control/defender, but resume fighting after ceasefire.
- Territories are NOT reset after ceasefire. They remain in same status till 80%+ is controlled at the next cease fire, then reset.

What this means is every hour is individually important, and the more VP you take early after ceasefire, the planet can be won in the first 12 hours after ceasefire, but won't be taken off the table if during the remaining 11 hours, attackers win at least half the matches.

This is one way to keep things fairly simple, front load the importance of non-NA timezones, encouraging growth overseas, but leaving the last hours important in either keeping opportunity to keep attacking in the hands of the populated NA time zones. It also gives a standing advantage to defenders because they have great opportunity to keep earning victory points early on without effort being pushed by the attacker.

I'm sure there are flaws, but this is my effort to provide with a more equitable, and fair way to contend for planets without alienating anyone too badly.

Why not just have 100 zones. It would be an all day ordeal to flip a planet. You also couldn't do a last minute ghost drop with 100 zones in play as it would take over 8 hours of cosntant ghost dropping in order to get a planet to 51%. You could then have your idea of zones not reseting after a ceasefire. With 100 zones It would take hard work all day long to flip a planet. Odds are it will take 2-3 days to flip a single planet.

If done right they could open up the entire front and let the players chose where they want to concentrate their forces. You would have plenty of warning before hand if someone tried ghost dropping on a planet. You could also do the rotating ceasefire thing without having certain groups feel left out for the day.

[Mycrus]

in celebration of the re-opening of the steiner all-night buffet...

if the wait between drops weren't so bad, we would have progressed more...

o7 to 256 and Marik Militia!