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Thread: Just some thoughts.

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hehe View Post
    Some very good points. If everyone thought like you, this game would be much better. +rep, though I only give 2 points lol
    I think so too. I repped him the other day, and I give a few more rep than you... neener neener

    Quote Originally Posted by Hehe View Post
    Tiny thing though. I wish people would, but thinking we can all sit down and make a code of conduct for ingame is naive. Jp tried to make a set of rules for na4 and got ridiculed for it, but that's cause the rules weren't great, and were mainly based on his problems, and not others.
    True that, particularly since not nearly as many people go on the forums as play. And judging by all the in-fighting we have here already, very little agreement will come of trying to make one.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hehe View Post
    If we could set up a system by which, for instance, no player can attack a player +1m or -1m pres difference, the game would have a lot more movement to it. New players can grow without risk of colonisation, while larger players are forced to fight with people their own size. Small players grow and provide more enemies. It would slow down the process a server freezing significantly. I just think it's naive to think people would comply.
    Bad. Players are already having issues with finding people to fight, due to space being taken by zombie accounts (the ever-living inactive accounts ). Imposing a very restrictive + or - 1 mil prestige fighting rule is just bad. For one thing, prestige level is easily manipulated. Even if prestige was locked to only going up or some such, it will not help keep people fighting their own size because it is hard cap...near the beginning of a server, there is a HUGE difference between a 25000 prestige player and a 1 mil prestige player. A more dynamic prestige rule would be like the current reinforcing/transporting thing where a person can send only as high at 2.99 times their prestige. There's probably lots of reasons while your idea wouldn't work, but it's still too early in the morning for me to think of them.
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  2. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by Felwynn View Post
    I mostly agreed with everything you said till this point, then you lost credibility. I was even considering giving you rep until this point (I think something I've only done for Rota and maybe Acer since they are two of the few people I can think of with brains on these forums). I've been a gamer a long time and been one some highly ranked teams as far as competitive gaming goes, and this is definitely not true. Perhaps you are comparing them to free browser game, and if so, I can't really comment since almost all free browser games are crap, but this game is not administered even close to well if you want to compare it to real games in existence.
    ***WARNING THICK TEXT BELOW***


    If i put a number next to something, it means there is further references or explaining later on.

    Although a lot of people won't agree with me. Most if it not all online communities have bots wherever feasible. Furthermore, bots are difficult to detect especially with Evony's nature (1). Any complaint about botting has been disregarded from this argument as far as I am concerned.

    Essentially, the changes that evony has made recently have caused quite a ruckus. A lot of complaints and furthermore a LOT of angry people; however, few people fail to realize that what evony is doing is promoting balance.

    Its true, bots will have an obvious advantage over normal players; however, that is exactly what bots are intended to do. Give players an unfair advantage against others. Now I've spent quite a bit of time for something that I said I was going to disregard. The reason I've done this is because overall from my perspective, evony is balancing the game.

    If anyone recalls when this game first came out, there was a server released once a week. Anyone remember W1 W2... W26? I swear these servers came out once a week. The nature of this game, especially age 1 is first come first serve and nothing was wrong with this in itself considering that all you had to do was wait a week and another server would magically appear. Now evony doesn't do this anymore, now evony releases a server maybe once a month.

    No matter what change evony may make, we all are subject to the same rules and the same problems. In this sense the game is fair but in the sense that its first come first serve its not. If you start on day 1 of a server and cash shop, you can make prin in 1 day. On day 2, you can effectively have all your barracks at level 4 and 9 cities with enough resources to support them all. Sounds crazy doesn't it, but I've done it. A good player can easily manage this and continue to pump troops at at an exponential rate. I'm not going to sit through the calculations with you, but you know what I mean. If it takes you 50 seconds to make 1 archer, you can have reasonably 18 barracks in a city. Doing the math off the top of my head :

    3600/50 = 72 (number of barracks archers 1 barrack can make in an hour)
    72 * 18 = 1296 (number of barracks in a city multiplied by the amount one can make in 1hour)
    1296 * 9 = 11664 (number of archers an account can make in an hour)
    11664 * 24 = 279936 (number of archers an account can make in 24 hours)

    multiply that by 2 weeks, what do you get? 3'919'104

    It means that players who start after 2 weeks on a server are in a particularly difficult situation especially when beside these guys. So how do we feed our armies? http://ww.evonyurl.com/0j9rt2


    Without the achievement buff it costs (because this is age two but we're making it comparable to age 1) it costs 300 food to make one archer. we lose 100k archers a day farming the barbs which puts us at a net gain of about 180k archers a day.

    It takes 83'980'800 food to make those archers. Each day which we make from farming barbs. That means we can maintain :
    280k/10k = 28
    28 * 19 000 000 = 532 000 000

    532 000 000 - 83 980 800 = 448 019 200 upkeep a day. In age 2 thats about 4m archers and some odd troops and on age 1 thats about 2m archers. Of course, I doubled my losses, just to argue my point more effectively.

    As we can all agree, farming 30 barbs a day is easy. Many people do over 200 barbs a day. As long as you are systematic about your approach then it is feasible.

    What I'm trying to get at is, it prevents people from having overly sized huge armies preventing new players from ever growing or amounting to anything because they get crushed. Now they can achieve the same strength with a good guide and some money spending.

    Now I kind of went off on a little rant not understanding why a lot of people are complaining; however, I'm sure without a doubt that my point is understood. What they did was cap the overpowered people waving big armies. What a lot of people don't get is that botters have 2 advantages over normal players.

    1) They can build buildings with maximum efficiency
    2) They can farm more frequently.

    Regardless of all things that a bot can do, a real player can match a bot in all regards except the top two. However, there is a limit to how much a bot can farm. For example, a bot can only farm so many level 5s, ballista are slow limiting bots to a reasonable radius of 20 miles. Mind you, thats an Age 2 calculation (which has a 100% speed boost)

    i.e. an hour to arrive and an hour to return.

    Now, there are a few people who are going to hit me with the, you haven't reached endgame line (2). I have in age 1, I know the problems.

    So now that we've thoroughly gone into an issue that I have said I was going to disregard (but have stated nevertheless because it is a reality that cannot be avoided).

    Now I will say:
    equality is a state where all people are subject to the same rules and same limitations
    All players are subject to the same rules and limitations
    Therefore Evony is balanced.

    Whether you sink/fail/suck its completely in your hands. You do not need bots in order to succeed. From the perspective of game-play, evony has not given an unfair advantage to any particular group of players outside of the boundaries of in game items (how they make their money). We spend money for benefits and because of this fact the more money we spend the more benefits we will get. Hence we can not argue that the game is in fair or in favor to those who spend more money. To do so is not reasonable.

    In my experience, although there are instances of evony being poor communicators. Evony communications are generally polite. They respond to tickets promptly and I know that I can be a hell of a customer. With the exception of weekends, I am pretty sure they have responded to all my tickets within 24 hours which is a timely response.

    Evony has created a feedback forum, well quite frankly that alone says that they are making the effort. It may not be perfect, but it is a lot more than what a lot of companies are willing to do. The only thing that evony is yet to whip out are questionnaires. Though personally if you complain enough then you will get one (I have).

    Do players get what they pay for? Yes.
    Is Evony Accountable for what they do (3)? Yes
    Does Evony tell us about what has been changed (as opposed to being accountable for it)? Yes
    Do we know the consequences, rules and are they enforced? Yes
    (Take into consideration that although rules may be broken, Evony may not be able to punish people and that evony does have the right to not punish people though honestly I have noticed that they do a pretty good job).


    (1) A player cannot see when another player is online (with good reason) and they cannot see how they are building their buildings in age 1, due to this problem its difficult to separate players who are extremely good from players who are botting. A person can time all their buildings and stay on top of their kingdom. Some people can be without jobs and have a lot of time to waste online. Not all people talk often and thus it is extremely difficult to identify a bot unless they say they're one. So I say to anyone who says Evony should get rid of all bots : Tell me how evony should identify botters from very talented players.

    (2) At around 750 attack you get instant archers and then the bots have stronger politics heroes than you because they farmed with their politics heroes constantly to level them up. So although it takes the same time to make archers the resources you have are different. Yes, this is a major problem I can imagine, I don't know the degree to which this can be considered an example since without farming 10s there is only so high politics heroes reasonably go. Although, there are ways around this problem I will count this as a valid issue against my argument. 7

    (3) This refers to reasonable means. It is not reasonable for a company to tell its community every thing that it will implement, especially in terms of fixes for glitches. The game wants several things one of which is to keep its attack formula relatively hidden, if they were to say... modify it. They don't want to give it away so that it could be copied by someone else. If they wanted that they'd make the game open source, and if they made the source code open then smart people would exploit it. Then people would be complaining about bots and other things a whole lot more.



    Anyway, I know this is pretty heavy, but thats how I feel about it. You're welcome to say otherwise but from my experience, Evony is a step up from a lot of the administration that I've dealt with regarding gaming companies.
    Last edited by Aelphaeis; 02-16-2011 at 11:27 PM.

    Whether To fight until there is no one left
    Or
    To die fighting by someone stronger
    That is not for me to decide
    However I will fight you until one of us ceases to exist.

  3. #13

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    The "do not attack a player much smaller than you" will never work and is not even fair. Also, how do you evaluate a player strength? Number of cities? Prestige? Hero level? Well, none of the above works, for different reasons. I think Evony should rank players by army strenght, therefore a player rank can be variable, and that will also give the game a new feature. One can hardly argue on a player "size" when the rank is a function of his army. To not add new layer to the game, prestige can be linked to army size in a direct way by some easy programming.
    Just my 2c
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    Last edited by Aetius; 02-17-2011 at 12:32 PM.
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  4. #14
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    Aelphaeis, thank you.

    I was wondering if I was the only one to notice this. People take this game much too seriously, beyond normal limits. Its even so bad that I have seen vendettas stretch across many servers and years. I also have suspicions a physical fight or too has broken out over evony. People, GROW UP! I'm a high school student and I see this all the time, with teenagers. Seriously, most of you mock and disapprove of things like Facebook fights and conflict, but to squabble over something like a game is pathetic. Some of you may be teenagers too, but this dosen't mean you have an excuse either. EVERYONE has to be mature enough to accept that this a game and not something to destroy ourselves or others over. In the end, it's just a game, so have fun!

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  5. #15
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    @OP: While I do not agree with everything you have said 100%, it is still very refreshing to see well stated, well thought out posts. So +Rep for that.

    In regards to your last post about the army based ranking. I feel this would be a bad idea, especially if this ranking was an openly visible stat. As we all know, in general, people will prey on the weak before taking on the equal opponent. Now imagine your average war-monger. Just bought up a stock of ports and other items, filled up his/her war-city, and is no looking for where he wants to go. He comes across an area of players his own pres level, but a quarter (or less) of the "rank".. So now, rather than pre-scout an area before moving in, he already knows what he can reasonably expect his city to do against these players. There are other variables as well to take into account. Is this "rank" variable by city? or based on account as a whole? does it take into account troops that are not currently in the city?

    In the end, the same idea can be held true among most, if not all, online games. Provide a set of rules, and the players will find a way to bend and manipulate those rule to their advantage. Bugs will always be found and exploited. "Player's Codes" will only be held by the naive and those looking for a reason to hold themselves as better than others on a personal level.

    But again, thankyou for this thread. It is a much needed break from the ever-present complaints of the last week.

    Sig by Morgan le Fay
    "War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over."
    --William Tecumseh Sherman--

  6. #16
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    This is a great thread, lots of intelligent, well thought out posts.

    Here's my personal opinion - this is a war game, you sign up, you reach day 8, you're in it. I wouldn't think a prestige limiter is the most fair, for a new player or established player.

    My reasoning is from a smaller player's point of view. I've fought off two colonization attempts. The first one was from someone 2.5mil prestige higher than me, I got to learn a great deal of organizing reinforcements and then making sure to be able to afford them, along with shuffling troops to reduce damages. Second time, a person 1.5 mil attacked - I had to either take it or stuff it couldn't get rein. I moved troops around and hid them in several valleys, throughout the area then timed it so my own troops would get there in time to successfully defend the attack that was smaller than it should have been because they thought I had only a few thousand archers left.

    As for a player conduct policy? We have Rules and T&Cs, anything beyond that has a pvp solution.

  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aelphaeis View Post
    Another consideration : Don't pick on people weaker
    I think here, I did not properly express my thoughts. I am not saying to do not attack someone weaker, I am not saying do not attack someone with 10% of your prestige or less.

    I am referring to a situation somewhere along the lines of this:

    I am a player with 3m prestige, 8 million troops 8 or 9 cities. 50 million honor, two HC and the list goes on.

    Then there is a player in a weaker alliance, and instead of farming them I do something to the effect of attacking them 50 times a day, they mail you and ask you for mercy. You copy their mail and send a group mail to your alliance about what they said, and then mock them.

    Then your attacks get more relentless.

    Instead, just colonize them.

    My statement isn't do not attack them my statement is do not pick as them and by this I mean abusively. Countless times I've seen this, and we're not even talking about red flags. Now, I'm not going to say I'm not angel, I've had my share of being a complete total and utter ****** bag.
    In fact, just this week someone stole 5 valleys, I capped an HC, drafted 100k archers, they (and their alliance) had 190 reports reach me in under 3 hours, when their attacks were done, two members had 1 city left and had no doubt quit the server; however, often times its unnecessary. If they are stealing your valleys, your barbs are getting farmed etc well, I'm not referring to these guys. If its a red flag also completely different.

    In addition, I do not expect, nor am I asking, that Evony puts a rule in place to prevent this from happening. I wrote this in the hopes that someone who read it who maybe gets put into a similar situation might think about this, and be a bit more understanding.

    Now, in all fairness, I gave an over exaggeration of what usually the gap between the strong and the weak are. However, I think most of us have been in a situation where there was an active player who just sucked at the game and you had a choice, be merciful or turn up the heat. Did you turn up the heat and make someone quit. These (although a lot less rare than directed offenses with people who have done something to you in which you respond very aggressively) are the situations that I am referring to.

    Whether To fight until there is no one left
    Or
    To die fighting by someone stronger
    That is not for me to decide
    However I will fight you until one of us ceases to exist.

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aelphaeis View Post
    I think here, I did not properly express my thoughts. I am not saying to do not attack someone weaker, I am not saying do not attack someone with 10% of your prestige or less.

    I am referring to a situation somewhere along the lines of this:

    I am a player with 3m prestige, 8 million troops 8 or 9 cities. 50 million honor, two HC and the list goes on.

    Then there is a player in a weaker alliance, and instead of farming them I do something to the effect of attacking them 50 times a day, they mail you and ask you for mercy. You copy their mail and send a group mail to your alliance about what they said, and then mock them.

    Then your attacks get more relentless.

    Instead, just colonize them.

    My statement isn't do not attack them my statement is do not pick as them and by this I mean abusively. Countless times I've seen this, and we're not even talking about red flags. Now, I'm not going to say I'm not angel, I've had my share of being a complete total and utter ****** bag.
    In fact, just this week someone stole 5 valleys, I capped an HC, drafted 100k archers, they (and their alliance) had 190 reports reach me in under 3 hours, when their attacks were done, two members had 1 city left and had no doubt quit the server; however, often times its unnecessary. If they are stealing your valleys, your barbs are getting farmed etc well, I'm not referring to these guys. If its a red flag also completely different.

    In addition, I do not expect, nor am I asking, that Evony puts a rule in place to prevent this from happening. I wrote this in the hopes that someone who read it who maybe gets put into a similar situation might think about this, and be a bit more understanding.

    Now, in all fairness, I gave an over exaggeration of what usually the gap between the strong and the weak are. However, I think most of us have been in a situation where there was an active player who just sucked at the game and you had a choice, be merciful or turn up the heat. Did you turn up the heat and make someone quit. These (although a lot less rare than directed offenses with people who have done something to you in which you respond very aggressively) are the situations that I am referring to.
    Problem with this is assessing who is actually weaker. One of my buddies shaves prestige and usually hovers around a couple hundred thousand....yet his hero is 1071 attack, he has 9 cities, a great understanding of mechanics, and decent troop count....is he a weak player? I don't think so lol.

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  9. #19
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    In most cases, and I imagine this to be true among most players, if there is a player, not flying a blue/green flag, nearby that you perceive as a possible, future threat you take that player out. Hopefully, they port away instead of quitting and leaving an inactive city in your way, but better to have one dead city in your field than an active player farming half your NPCs. And by threat I'm not referring solely to battle concerns. A threat to me is anyone that impedes my progress in the game. I have played on servers where within 2 weeks I had 5-6 green/blue flags port in nearby, effectively capping my radius for expansion in that area. Only other option at that point was to populate another area, which was a rare occurance on s92 before they merged.

    Sig by Morgan le Fay
    "War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over."
    --William Tecumseh Sherman--

  10. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by BigNorr View Post
    One of my buddies shaves prestige and usually hovers around a couple hundred thousand.....
    Notice that I did not specify how you determine that your opponent is weaker than you. I simply have stated that they are weaker than you.

    Quote Originally Posted by davemata View Post
    This is a great thread, lots of intelligent, well thought out posts.
    I have a suggestion for you, but you can't see it yet because I need to make it foolproof. When its here, I'll link you to it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Fragsrus View Post
    better to have one dead city in your field than an active player farming half your NPCs.
    I really can't relate to this as no one has ever farmed my barbs.

    Whether To fight until there is no one left
    Or
    To die fighting by someone stronger
    That is not for me to decide
    However I will fight you until one of us ceases to exist.

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