Pongo - Equalized Numbers Discussion

[MrRiplEy[H]]

If you look closely, the only thing that doesn't change on all of the screenshots is that the bish have the largest numbers. Constantly.

[Turbot]

Instead of getting a freaking ulcer over a stupid online game just change sides and forget about it already.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

The situation on my prime time has changed a lot, during the last few months this would have been impossible. Ok, it does change but it lasted months - and that is beyond my patience. When I took my MA account, Artlaws convinced me to join rooks because they were always low in numbers. That has not changed much during these months I've played here.

However now it really looks like tide might be changing. Still my incentive would prevent the build up of a hole for some other country, at least to the extent of fighting 3:1 for a long period of time.

Turbot: I wish you'd realise that side switching under pressure is exactly the reason for the huge mismatch. Every person that switches to larger side dips the scale further to the other direction. Therefore if you think about it logically there has to be some incentive for the players to remain fighting against the odds, because if enough people leave the smaller side it's finally unplayable for the last few.

[Toad]

Why, by golly........ you're right!

Maybe. In your timezone possibly. Today, anyway. Well right this instant then.

But only HTC has the true numbers 24/7. Everyone else is like the blind man grabbing (or screenshooting) one small part of the elephant and learnedly pronouncing just exactly what he "sees">

In any event the Bish have an overwhelming advantage of 14 players on the Rooks in Iron's shot.

Where is the PERFECT BALANCE, eh? Ah-OOoooooGAH!  Ah-OOOooooGAAH! 3 Bish must immediately switch  to ROOKS! STAT!  8 Bish must immediately switch to Knights! Standby for further orders after the next guy logs in to play! Oops! Wait a minute! Some Bish just logged off! Standby! Standby!

[MrRiplEy[H]]

LOL Toad now you're making an bellybutton of yourself.

Didn't I just say a difference of about 30-40% is still acceptable? Doesn't your own logic tell you that?

The main principle would be to prevent the crazy 3-4:1 situations from building up - and far worse, lasting for a long time.
Another thing you should also realise is that the players never see a 24 hour persistent arena, nobody plays around the clock. So for a player nothing else matters except the situation that remains during his play hours.

If the situation won't change during those hours, it might not change at all. It simply makes no difference to anyone.

It's a bit like working a 2-shift job. Your shift gets the toejamtyest jobs, cleaning the toilets etc. constantly..

The shift after you gets to lay around watching tv and they also get a pay rise. You go to complain to your boss that the situation is not fair..

Your boss (Toad) responds that it's a 24-hour persistent job and that the other shift is getting all the perks needed, covering the whole day's average. You should be happy that the system works by the numbers.

Come on Toad, I'm sure you're a reasonable man. What ticks you so much in this?

[Tumor]

Originally posted by Toad
Why, by golly........ you're right!

Maybe. In your timezone possibly. Today, anyway. Well right this instant then.

But only HTC has the true numbers 24/7. Everyone else is like the blind man grabbing (or screenshooting) one small part of the elephant and learnedly pronouncing just exactly what he "sees">

In any event the Bish have an overwhelming advantage of 14 players on the Rooks in Iron's shot.

Where is the PERFECT BALANCE, eh? Ah-OOoooooGAH!  Ah-OOOooooGAAH! 3 Bish must immediately switch  to ROOKS! STAT!  8 Bish must immediately switch to Knights! Standby for further orders after the next guy logs in to play! Oops! Wait a minute! Some Bish just logged off! Standby! Standby!

No offense Toad but your the one refusing to see the light.  Like I said before, I'll continue to post what I've seen over the last few weeks.  And again... I'll either fly or log off..thats up to me.  The fact remains, the Bish have the numbers more often than not, and much more frequently more than a whole 14 plus during these hours.  You can continue to make lite of it, but the fact is (call me a liar if you want)... it's been happening all to frequently at far too "unbalancing" numbers for our overseas friends.  For me it's not about who wins or who loses, it's about setting the record straight.  I'll continue to post screens, like it or not.  I shouldn't have to, but it seems around here you have to show up armed with facts.  Facts I will give you.  Too bad a person's word is worthless here.

[lazs2]

burn all the damn dildo worshipers!   They fight like girls too.
lazs

[Tumor]

Monday, 7:15pm EST

[Toad]

Hey, Tumor! Run it on the half-hour for 24 hours for 7 days in a row. Then lets see what you've got. The macro view instead of the micro view.


Ripley, you've identified what you see as a problem.Where's the solution that's fair to EVERY player and doesn't FORCE them to do something they don't want to do?

Provide that... and we'll have a basis for agreeing.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Toad as I said before my opinnion is that if you give a carrot (incentive) for players to balance the sides, they will most likely do that. Meaning, if players join a country that is in the hole they get rewarded more points.

That would (maybe) produce an automatic balancing tool when anyone who wants to boost their score would logically go and fight to the side of the smallest country. The score multiplier would change with the difference in numbers so the higher the difference, the higher the temptation for change would be.

How does that sound to you? No forcing anyone, just something extra rewarded for helping out the small side. If it could stop the 3:1 situations from continuing in the micro view in a sense that if it could balance the situation even half way, it would already be a big help.

46 vs 8 is not fun anymore, not for the bigger side nor the smaller IMO. If you think of it, who on earth would be foolish enough to join the side of the 8 if they want to gain actual benefit? Nobody. They make sure they stay on the larger side because all the benefits are there in current design.

If joining the smallest side would have special benefit to people it would make sense to do the move, right now it simply doesn't.

[Minotaur]

Basically there are almost always more Bish on.  I certainly don't know the reason why this occurs.

Today, for awhile, there were almost more Bish on than Rooks and Knights combined.  Somthing like 175 105 80.  Then later the numbers pretty much evened out.

Rooks!  
You always put up a tremendous fight when you are cornered.

[MANDOBLE]

The problem as rook is not fighting 1 vs 5, that is ok, the problem is having all your bases porked, all your fields vulched and your HQ nuked.

Two very different outnumbered situations, two very different fun levels:
1 - You and your wingman detect the typical bish horde coming towards you. You engange the horde, kill several orcs and RTB, outnumbered but big fun.

2 - You and your mates are being vulched over and over while taking off from field A, HQ is out, field B has no fuel, field C is closed, field X is whatever dissaster you want to place here and so on, fun = NULL, and the enemy is unskilled (or cruel) enough to be unable to take these fields in time and force a quick reset.

The second situation is what hurts the fun of this game.

[straffo]

hu ?

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[Toad]

Ripley are you talking about giving out "bonus" perk points after a sortie or boosting "score", the overall rank in the game that appears on the website score pages?

Boosting the score/ranking stuff would have no effect on gameplay. So that's fine with me if you can convince HTC to set up something like that.

Can't hurt, might help. Of course, there's lots of folks that don't play for score or even know where the score pages are.

Like I said though, can't hurt.

Bonus perk points idea is similar but with one potential difference. Excess perks can affect gameplay. I have no idea of the "details" of your plan but in the extreme it could be questionable if one is a big fan of the purpose of the entire perk system. For example, if the "bonus" is enough to get  a 262 after one sortie some players might not consider that to be a good thing because it essentially makes the "perk system" meaningless.

What if the hordes of F4U-1C's returned!

Just an example there. You know some guys would get upset.  

With a reasonable bonus, though, it's like the score thing. Might help can't hurt. Again, I believe there are lots of folks that don't play for perks or even want to fly perk planes for that matter.

But, within reason it can't hurt.

And indeed, you aren't forcing anyone. So I wouldn't oppose giving those ideas a try at all.

Additionally, perhaps HTC could categorize the current player base by basic world timezones. Rough breaks, like "Europe", "US" "Asia".. 4-6 breaks based upon when "primetime" occurs as the sun makes its journey around the globe.

Then, as discussed before "new accounts" in each timezone break would be routed to the lowest side in that timezone.

Hopefully the new guys would stick with the guys that mentor them and thus side numbers would gradually equalize.

Another "no force" option.

[Toad]

Mandoble,

"Condition 2" is pretty much what happens to every single country at some time or other right before they experience being reset.

And every country gets reset sooner or later. Perhaps some more than others. Perhaps more often at particular times of day. Perhaps.

But it is NOT solely a "rook" cross to bear.