Posts by DonutZ

IMO it's a bad idea. Defence is underpowered right now but making it so IPMs are useless because of ABM passive production isn't the way to go because it rewards idle play. I think the IPM/ABM system is quite balanced as it is.

Great hit and nice profit!

I think we need to stop being too fussed about the details and focus on the concept. While the mechanics and numbers require a bit more thought, I definitely agree with what you're trying to achieve.

Of all the features of the game, RIP bashing stands out to me as the only truly broken thing. In the humble server I play in, my 5000 rips is enough to bash pretty much any other player into perma vmode and I can imagine it only gets worse in other servers where the difference in point distribution is much more pronounced and top players have hundreds of thousands or even millions of deathstars.

While I can't say that some altered implementation of the Hamill manoeuvre is the answer, I agree that "something along these lines" needs to be added. If it goes through we can let GF handle the exact mechanics. For that reason you have my vote.

Pretty lucky hit. Def had timers at multiple locations but I only spied one and there it was. I thought it must be fate so I dusted off my ships and flew for the first time in months.

FR defender.

Quote from hedgefundpoe

This deserves no respect and any player doing this should be blasted by everyone playing this game. - NO just no, everyone deserves respect, in certain gaming cultures check alot of tencent games, the p2w model is demanded by players, people spend alot of time working and irl, when they have time to cool n unwind they dont want to wait months for it, they want instant buy-in.

Couldn't agree more that everyone deserves respect and disrespect towards any player should not be tolerated. However this thread isn't about that.

There is a fine line between disrespect and criticism. Rules are in place against disrespect and the mods are already doing a great job taking care of that. OP made the post because he can't stand the criticism of other players towards certain hits because they are "contaminating" his post and "ruining the vibe" and wants new rules to silence those who criticise him and his mates. When others criticise these hits because they were made using fleets created using means unavailable to majority of players, they have a fair point. Regardless of whether voicing it has any impact on the game, if that point is made respectfully I see no reason for it to be removed or be moved elsewhere.

Quote from Krumme

Quote from Supernoob

Quote from Krumme

I really hope this thread can stay clean and constructive. Im only here for a solution - not to start another problem.

A solution to what, exactly? To the "problem" of players expressing their dissatisfaction for extreme DM abuse?

And your proposed "solution" to that grave "problem" would be censorship? New board rules that would force players to NOT comment negatively upon metal pack abusers?

This is beyond ridiculous. Also, i cannot fathom how you can claim to be against PTW and, at the same time, are having a full-blown meltdown in the forums over players who complain against PTW. Doesn't it sound a little contradictory to you?

This thread is nothing more than a temper tantrum thrown for reasons that we, normal humans, cannot possibly imagine.

I have a much simpler "solution" to your "problem": if, for whatever uncanny reason you have, you are bothered that much by negative comments about PTW, then just... do not read these comments.

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Then just not read any comments on the few unis I actually do play in? what kind of suggestion is that.

My suggestion is that those comments do not belong in HOF's, hits and the like. They belong in feedback and discussion, general or I could even accept the uni's Tavern.

Why must we allow every hit to be contaminated by these opinions?
Ive said it before and I'll say it again - what does these opinions change? nothing.
There's no progress. There's no purpose. There's no point.
By this logic we should just accept that the forum is going to be a place of negativity and toxicity till the end of time? that's what you're saying.

It's not about taking away freedom of speech or censoring anyone - its about directing these messages to the appropriate place on the board.
Make hits and HOF's about hits and HOF's. Not about the amount of Dark Matter the account has used or how the game is broken or the uni is dying or whatever negativity you want to throw towards a post that is purely about showing off a hit.
It's not why I or anyone else on the board posts hits.
You're discouraging people from buying dark matter. You're discouraging people from posting hits - and in that sense you're discouraging people from actually making hits - which to my limited knowledge, is what OGame is all about.

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You are right that the opinions probably won't change a single thing. Does that invalidate them? Of course not. They add value by highlighting there is a problem. Now we both know that GF won't do anything about it, but it doesn't justify removing these opinions, moving them to a less visible location or any other form of censorship.

I get that there is a degree of fleeter skill required to make these hits but the game is about more than that. If someone points out that you didn't "do the hard yards" by using DM to speed up your fleet acquisition, it is a perfectly valid opinion and belongs precisely where it's made - in the location you are "showing off" your hit.

I personally have never made such comments on such hits because like yourself, I know it won't lead to any change. The many others who do make these comments may or may not know it too but they still highlight the problem. My advice for you is that if responses to your posts are "contaminated" by opinions which upset you, the problem is not those opinions.

Quote from Krumme

SO my suggestion is to start working on a real rule on the forum to prevent this to happen.
Now Im aware that there needs to be freedom of speach to a certain degree and you can't run around banning people for giving bad vibes - BUT I think these players are removing any motivation for players to consider buying dark matter.

Something Im sure Gameforge wont be very happy about.
I am not the one to formulate these rules as mods have a better understanding of how rules should be formulated and executed so I hope this thread will make you (the mods etc.) start thinking about a potential rulechange / new rule.

Basically what he's saying is:

There needs to be freedom of speech and you can't silence opinions that give bad vibes, but these opinions are giving him bad vibes so they should be silenced.

You know what, let's put it to a vote so we can send it straight to the "suggestions rejected" bin. If you want it to happen, why bother attempting to create a poll for the community to decide. Just pay GF some of your DM money and they'll let you bypass this process.

Is it too similar to a reaper but not as good?

Let's keep freedom of speech - or whatever remnants of it we still have - alive thanks

Opinions on what the noob protection system should look like are quite polarised and you can see why. We don't want to lose new players but decreasing the number of viable targets is also undesirable.

General sentiment of very new players who get crashed is that the game is unfair and there isn't anything they can do to fight larger players.

I think the tutorial system needs a revamp. Presently teaches you how to build but not how to evade. Leave the noob protection as it is, but the moment a player leaves protection, have a scripted event where an alien sends 20million BCs at them (make them not leave a DF obviously), along with the tutorial lady spamming instructions to move their fleet. If their first experience with an overwhelming fleet is against an NPC they will realise that this is an intended part of the game they are meant to overcome rather than saying it's unfair.

Quote from Sazr

Quote from DonutZ

Sorry I worded it wrong, it should be "cannot be targeted by defending units".

You've designed a reusable IPM, that can generate resources, that has an upkeep cost, and that an ABM can't shoot down.

I can't imagine anyone quitting this game, in frustration over colonies repeatedly being attacked by Spectre fleets, without being able to defend against it. /s

I get that you're trying to solve the whale problem. How is this ship not going to lead to a dramatic increase in bashing, since you aren't losing them.

I think one of two things has to happen for this to work. Either make a defense that can shoot the ship, but this removes the whole point of the ship. Or make use of the fleet escape rate, in such a way that even if 200:1 fleet is sent on attack. Only 5:1 will be able to attack. This will limit their colony bash potential, but still let them be used when enough fleet is sitting somewhere.

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Thanks for the criticism. To address the bashing issue I understand a few things need to be considered:

1. These attacks, unlike IPMs can be evaded simply by moving your fleet the same way someone would avoid any other fleet attack.

2. The fuel cost of these ships must be balanced such that a missed attack is sufficiently costly.

3. The risk of a return hit when using these ships is very high - remember that their special ability only activates as the attacker. If the defender is online and has half a brain to be able to calculate your return time then it's bye-bye spectres.

4. One of the caps mentioned is based on the size of the defending fleet and is certainly intended so that for example, if 100 cargos are sitting somewhere and you send a fleet of a million spectres, you'd still only destroy 5% of the defending fleet ie. 5 cargos (and pay a hefty fuel cost).

5. This ship also sucks for defence bashing. At max you'd destroy 5% of the enemy defence, most of which gets rebuilt, with no DF generated and you're limited by the bashing rule because it is a fleet attack. Better to use rips which have no fuel cost and can clear 60 to 90% of a planet's defences in 6 waves (GF please fix rip bashing)

Quote from magiks87

Quote from DonutZ

I considered that one but I think in that case you'd end up similar to the current state of the game where smaller players have no means of attacking larger players and whales just sit their fleet without a care in the world. Completely agree that the game needs better ship balance though.

That is actually a valid point in the current situation. There are some ways to counter this by tying up Spectre's limit to the fleet attacker/defender ration. In essence, the larger defender total fleet in comparison to the attacker, the higher damage cap. In reverse, if the attacker had more points the cap would be set at 5% of the defender's fleet. This way, you can give weaker players even more firepower.

Ramping up the cap in terms of the relative fleet size of the defender is an idea that should indeed be considered. Need to calculate, but I suspect it might be irrelevant by sheer virtue of a smaller player probably doesn't even have enough spectres to even take out 5% of a huge fleet.

Quote from Adeptus Mechanicus

I think this is a wonderful idea that partially solves a real issue.
Also great for players wanting to join already existing uni's to find a way to catch up.

I'd suggest some changes to the ship and how it works though, of course that would require a lot of balancing and I'm not saying I have the answers but this is what I think could help:

The amount of fleet that can be attacked by the spectre ship is either 10% of the total fleet that is attacked, or [insert formula example here] [10k military points * econ speed * days since universe opened].

Essentially the idea would be to only be able to attack a small part of a big fleet.

Ship speed should be lowered imo, around the speed of the bomber. And it's damage should also be lowered.

Maybe it could work like IPMs where you can select a specific ship(s) for the spectre fleet to attack. Another option could be that depending on which ships you select, gives rapidfire to that ship type to your Spectre.


In the end the ship should be terrible in a regular full on engagement, and it shouldn't be allowed to be used as fodder, so other ships should have rapidfire against it.

I love the idea because it partially fixes these issues:
- Massive fleeters now have a reason to fleetsave, as their fleet can be hit overnight by spectre fleets, which could cost them multiple overnight productions worth of ships.

- It allows for some small counterplay by non DM users
- It allows new players in an older uni to have an additional way of playing catch up, whilst still having interaction with players (they don't need to spam expos/farm inactives only).

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Thanks. Yes to the speed, the idea was to make it somewhat equivalent to dessies/hyperspace bombers. Not sure what the rough equivalent that would be for impulse drive ships so I set it a bit slower than SC.

As for targeting specific ships, it's a good idea but opens up a can of worms which gives avenues to free satellite/crawler smashing. Also allows it to bypass defence which might be good but idk.

Now we just need to come up with an idea to address the rip bashing you'd receive if you did try a spectre attack on the no.1 player.

Quote from magiks87

Quote from DonutZ

Total resource points destroyed in any given battle by Spectre ships is capped at 5,000 per Spectre ship or 5% of the defending fleet value (whichever is the lower number). Maybe add an Ion tech or Hyperspace tech multiplier to this cap?

Remove a cap and add a new ship/defence capable of attacking spectre. It is pseudo rock-scissor-paper situation in essence. So instead of mindlessly building bcrs, players must cover their weaknesses by building other ships.

I considered that one but I think in that case you'd end up similar to the current state of the game where smaller players have no means of attacking larger players and whales just sit their fleet without a care in the world. Completely agree that the game needs better ship balance though.

Quote from .KaZe.

Hello DonutZ

Thank you for this interesting suggestion.

I've just included a poll in the first post to find out what players think and whether they'd like this suggestion to be passed on to GameForge.

The poll lasts 30 days and all opinions are welcome.

Thank you in advance for your involvement !

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Would you mind editing my original post to say "As attacker in combat, this ship cannot be targeted by enemy units"?

Quote from Sazr

Quote from DonutZ

As attacker in combat, this ship cannot be targeted by enemy ships targeted (holy – that’s OP, how will you balance it???)

Am I understanding this correctly.

It can only be targeted by ships, that are not targeted by the attacking fleet, and it can always be targeted by defenses?

I may be understanding it wrong, but it doesn't seem far from being an IPM that can attack sitting ships.

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Sorry I worded it wrong, it should be "cannot be targeted by defending units". Pretty much like you said, an IPM that can attack sitting ships, but the difference being it is vulnerable to being attacked itself.

It also targets defence so if the defender has defensive fodder, it limits the spectre's effectiveness.

The topic of how broken pay-to-win is in this game has already been discussed to death, yet pretty much every suggestion I see on the forums has gone along the lines of “remove metal packs” and “create a DM-free universe”. It goes without saying there is zero chance GF will consider anything along those lines - a wise man once said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".

I wrote this up because

1) it was fun

2) I want to show that we can be more creative with our suggestions

It was very enjoyable putting this idea together, so please feel free to discuss, provide some constructive criticism, or even completely roast it.

I present to you the Spectre!

Lore:

With the upsurge of dark matter imbalances across the universe resulting in ever-increasing fleet sizes, traditional direct combat eventually became impractical in too many situations. Innovations in shielding and hyperspace technology resulted in the development of a cloaking mechanism which can render a small ship invisible to hostile sensors for short periods of time.

After further refinements, the Spectre was born. Through precise coordination of the cloaking mechanism and short, powerful bursts of a specialised combat hyperspace drive, these specialised ships weave swiftly in and out of enemy lines completely undetected.

Due to the long time required to prepare the combat hyperspace drive, this ship’s cloaking function may only be utilised as the attacker in combat, and although it is equipped with powerful state-of-the-art ion cannons, the amount of damage it can output is greatly limited by the short bursts of time it spends in battle.

Cost M/C/D: 20,000 / 20,000 / 10,000 (40,000 base structural integrity)

Techtree: Impulse 6, Hyperspace 5, Hyperspace Drive 7, Ion 7, Espionage 6, Shielding 7

Drive: Impulse (hyperspace is only for combat)

Base speed: 9,000 (a bit slower than SC)

Base attack: 1,000 (same as battleship)

Base shield: 200

Base cargo: 750

Base consumption: 300

Rapidfire: no RF against anything, takes RF from battleships

Special abilities:

• As attacker in combat, this ship cannot be targeted by enemy units.
• Total resource points destroyed in any given battle by Spectre ships is capped at 5,000 per Spectre ship or 5% of the defending fleet value (whichever is the lower number). Maybe add an Ion tech or Hyperspace tech multiplier to this cap?
• As defender in combat, can be targeted as normal.

Use cases and balance notes:

Specific numbers and mechanics are open for discussion/review but let’s not miss the forest for the trees here. The intended primary use case for this ship is clear – to allow smaller players to take small “bites” of profit from attacking larger players. Think guerrilla warfare. A secondary use case may be as a leading fleet to thin out the numbers of the defender a bit, but I don’t think this will be too effective due to the caps stated above and the relatively slow speed.

When adding a ship with such a specific use case, it is important to make sure it is balanced in a way to not steal the use case of other ships. The damage caps would be in place to a) make them quite useless in direct combat / fleetcrashing and b) make fleetcrashing remain the superior method if you have a larger fleet

Another consideration is that this ship would be immune to ninjas. To balance this, the travel speed must be sufficiently slow to make return hits possible.

The spirit of fleeting in this game has always been “if it sits, it gets hit”. I believe this principle should still apply even if you are the top player whose military score is larger than the next five fleets combined – pay2win or otherwise. While this by no means fixes the pay2win situation, it stays true to the spirit of the game and would add an element of gameplay which is dynamic and fun despite metal packs being part of the game.

Quote from magiks87

Quote from Stik

but it's still your own fault.

For having an emergency or not looking at a phone during an important meeting or whatever. I don't think we share the same value so there is no point continue this discussions. Your arguments won't sway me and mine won't sway you.

Ok, we will put fault aside. This discussion is about the way DM/metal packs break the game and the fact is that your fleet will get crashed regardless of their existence. This may feel unfair to you but it has nothing to do with p2w. I would even argue the current situation helps you - easier to evade one p2w whale than to evade 20 f2p sharks.

It is more important in this topic to focus on the attacks that are completely unavoidable which may have been kept in check when everyone was f2p but obviously weren't balanced with p2w in mind.

Quote from magiks87

Quote from DonutZ

These two mechanics are core to the game so fundamentally they need to stay.

I could only see them stay (or one of them) under one condition: which is some sort of softcore.

The current system is more akin to hardcore where a loss of fleet is a huge blow to your time you had spent. It make people leave the game. I recently stopped playing on xuange (because of wallet and lack of time to play as a fleeter), but many people from top 100-200 went into vm right after they were crashed and they didn't return. If you lose a fleet you were building for weeks, you lose motivation to play.

I played on Thuban before that and was crashed by top 1 (mega wallet), while I was in top 200. I realised there is nothing for me there. I quit right away.

While these mechanics are core and were novelty, building the entire game about things that make players quite is not healthy game design.

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Hardcore itself isn't the issue. Hardcore without counterplay is a huge issue.

Getting crashed because you idled when you should have been online is fair and is your own fault.

Getting your defences bashed and moons popped, even though you are online, without anything you can do about it is unfair.

Quote from magiks87

It is very difficult to discuss the profitability without knowing gf balance sheet, but there is always market for space game and while ogame can be considered a niche game, it is by its own choice. There are two main flaws in ogame's design that will always make it bleed players.

- losing fleet

- real time action (which disrupts personal life)

Once they fix that and introduce sustainable model, they can think bigger. (Steam, paid expansions, cosmetics).

These two mechanics are core to the game so fundamentally they need to stay. They have been a part of the game since before p2w but I agree there needs to be serious rebalancing for them to continue existing in a p2w environment.

A - Core concepts of the game

The core concept and balance of ogame is reliant on two key principles.

1. Punishment of mistakes

One of the key principles of ogame is that if a player messes up, others can exploit their mistakes to make profit by destroying things that player has worked hard to build. If mistakes are made, losing fleet is a perfectly reasonable outcome. However, I place emphasis on the mistake exploitation aspect because that leads into the second key principle.

2. Counterplay

No attack that leads to significant losses should be completely unavoidable for the defender. Attacking should always require more time investment and skill than evading, and should always come with some cost or risk - risk of ninja or risk of simply wasting fuel. No matter the attacking method, counterplay needs to always be available and any losses a player takes needs to be due to some mistakes they make.

B - What is broken?

With these two principles in mind, here are the things I believe to be the most broken with the current p2w system. Note how I am not pointing at the metal pack / p2w system itself, as I think it can coexist when a game has fair mechanics.

In contrary to the first principle, p2w whales ignore the principles of fleet safety. The fact that nobody can make gains from such a player is simply poor game design / balance. I'm not asking for the ability to completely wipe out a whale's fleet but perhaps a mechanic can be added (maybe a new ship class?) which allows smaller players to perform "skirmish" attacks to take out a small portion of a larger fleet. Such a mechanic would obviously require balancing so that where possible, traditional fleetcrashing will yield more profits.

As for the second principle, behold! the deathstar. RIPs have been part of the game since prior to the existence of metal packs and weren't designed to be balanced around p2w. With tens of thousands of rips in hand, whales have gone on MD sprees, and with a fleet 10x larger than the next largest guy to back up the MD, there is nothing you can do other than to say goodbye to your moon, even if you are online. But wait, that's not all they can do. 6 waves of rips will clear 60 to 90% of all defences, all the sats and all the crawlers on a planet, with near zero cost and again, no counterplay available to the defender.

No, rips should not be removed from the game, but it is important to have counterplay against these kinds of attacks. These attacks need to also be made more costly because no attack should come without cost and risk (consider an update to the fuel cost for rips?)

TLDR: Don't change core game mechanics, give us a way to attack these whales, give us a way to defend or evade the millions of rips that a p2w player has.

I support it too. A change to 8x economy will benefit everyone.

Quote from Arcticwarfare

^ price adjustment on Resource Packs making them all worth the same value is a start.

And a Cool down / Reduction of value for repetitive purchases, ensuring that players who purchase the 1 Pack wont be Penalized compared to a Whale who purchases 100 in a day.

(although only for merchant packs, not the Free Resource packs we get occasionally from rewards)

one way is to Limit Exactly what is included into Resource Packs past the First daily Pack. Such as to only include be 100% of Base mine Production, +25% of all other Boosts.

this is one way, that i can see GF opening up the game to allow Active Players to Benefit from things such as Crawler Cap Being Removed,

only able to purchase DM in the Server Local Currency, and server transfers to have purchased DM Ratio's to match the local currency.

Reduction In resource Production Boosts Price (10%,20%,30%,40%), to encourage Active Players who Rarely Use Vac mode to Invest,

just my 2 Cents, not every Suggestion Will please every player. but resource packs need to be Nerfed for Those who Spam them. and Balanced Because of how Metal Is usually 3x your Duet Production, but 1/3rd the cost instead it should be the same for each resource @ 126,000DM ( or some middle Ground Value)

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You're still suggesting that ress packs or DM need to be changed but the problem lies much deeper than that. In many other "p2w" games - I'll use Genshin Impact as an example - whales don't receive the amount of backlash that they do in ogame and they certainly don't "ruin" the game.

Take a step back and think of the reason for this, and you'll be able to come up with suggestions that actually have a chance of being considered.