Time to kill the huge maps

[The Fugitive]

You can't "fix" people

No, but you can guide people using game mechanics.  Make it harder for a large group to capture a base, but easier if you have a small group. Make the strats worth something in the battle to win the war.

By using game mechanics you can spread the fights out over a wider area, with smaller groups.

[Lusche]

No, but you can guide people using game mechanics. 

That was actually my point 

[Daddkev]

 

[--)SF----]

Trinity can be easily improved by randomly assigning bases to chess pieces.

Thats we todd did.

[TheRapier]

I'm sorry, I'm trying to understand.

Big maps are good BECAUSE they spread out the action to the point of non-being? If game play is based on the interaction between human players, it would be anti intuitive to attempt to reduce those interactions.

The only way that makes sense is if the object of the game is to make an infinite number of undefended fields that can be rolled by smaller groups. If that is the case, you don't need a multiplayer arena at all. You could do that offline. Unless the whole point is to only allow a token defense?

If that is the case, I think we have much bigger problems .

[ImADot]

Big maps are good because they allow all kinds of types of action. If players decide their type of "action" is to have one huge horde fly against another huge horde, then they'll concentrate the numbers in certain places. If, on the other hand, players decide their type of "action" is to spread out all over the map into smaller groups, in an effort to avoid fights, then that's what they'll do.

Forcing everyone onto a smaller map, just because you might think bigger swarms is more fun, potentially ruins what others think is fun. As was already said, it's not the maps, it's how players use them.

[TDeacon]

Big maps are good because they allow all kinds of types of action. If players decide their type of "action" is to have one huge horde fly against another huge horde, then they'll concentrate the numbers in certain places. If, on the other hand, players decide their type of "action" is to spread out all over the map into smaller groups, in an effort to avoid fights, then that's what they'll do.

Forcing everyone onto a smaller map, just because you might think bigger swarms is more fun, potentially ruins what others think is fun. As was already said, it's not the maps, it's how players use them.

I like big maps; well put.  

MH

[Lusche]

I'm not for or against the OP (yet), I just want to make a more general remark:

The personal experience of MA gameplay can very much differ depending on the time you are on. While a pure prime time US player doesn't see a problem and may go "WTF? They want to cram us oll into a small map now",
an offpeak player (and I'm thinking especially of our JAP and AUS/NZ friends) is facing an arena where he can chase single dot across the sector just because the action is so much spread out. In the end, it's all about population density.

To illustrate this, here is a typical distribution of player activity (simply measured in kills) over time.



(Time is given in CEST, EDT would be -6 hours)

As was already said, it's not the maps, it's how players use them.

But players are what they are. And as said before if game mechanics and player behaviour do not match well anymore (still speaking in general terms!), it would be a reason to think about adjustments to game mechanics. More than 10 years ago ENY limit was introduced due to the problem of almost everybody flying the F4U-C only. Players had been "the problem" even  back them, and game mechanics were adjusted

[TheRapier]

Hey Lusche!

That is a great graph! To make sure I understand it, its a 24 hour clock so that say 4 = 4 am on a 12 hour clock. So 4 would equal 8 pm PDT?

If that is the case, it pretty graphically (no pun intended ) shows exactly the problem. The difference between the peak and the bottom is greater than 700%. This means that the difference in gameplay between peak and base is night and day. My observation is that there are significant issues at hour 22, which looks great compared to 7-18.

The idea here is not to totally eliminate huge maps though I would argue they are only marginal even at peak hours. They are hopeless in hours 7-18 and in essence are the same as solo play or very near it. The idea is to make the maps elastic and able to adjust to player volume. I think this ensures a much more even player experience, but I would be open to other ideas that accomplish the same thing.

I think its pretty easy to hit a sweet spot that works much better for a majority of players, without cramming everyone into a virtual closet or letting them wander a wasteland.

[Chalenge]

Easy fix. Just adjust things so that only fighters are available in the wee hours. No troops.

[Lusche]

That is a great graph! To make sure I understand it, its a 24 hour clock so that say 4 = 4 am on a 12 hour clock. So 4 would equal 8 pm PDT?.

yes, that's a 24 hour period. 4 o'clock CEDT on the chart = 10 PM EDT (should be 7 PM PDT, if I calculated correctly)

This means that the difference in gameplay between peak and base is night and day.

Literally 

[Volron]

No, but you can guide people using game mechanics.  Make it harder for a large group to capture a base, but easier if you have a small group. Make the strats worth something in the battle to win the war.

By using game mechanics you can spread the fights out over a wider area, with smaller groups.

The strats are worth little at the moment, as we know.   That is why I suggested making them part of the win the war requirements in other threads (even asked HiTech, which of course I didn't get a response on  ).


Reduce the industrial capacity of the enemy nations to below 20% (Industrial Center AND Factories) and have 20% capture to win the war.  A heavy handed approach to this is to have it set to where the industrial capacity stays below 20% for one hour, a light handed approach is to just knock everything down to 20%.  For gameplay, just getting everything down to 20% is a more feasible option.

[TheRapier]

Hey Volron!

Not really understanding your post and how it relates?

It did occur to me that actually to make this idea work, its not necessary that all the fields be grouped together. You just need fields from opposing sides together. That might make the code simpler by just looking adjacent numbered fields being held by more than one country . . .

[The Fugitive]

Hey Volron!

Not really understanding your post and how it relates?

It did occur to me that actually to make this idea work, its not necessary that all the fields be grouped together. You just need fields from opposing sides together. That might make the code simpler by just looking adjacent numbered fields being held by more than one country . . .

Personally I would think it would be a nightmare to code bases to turn off and on. All bases are part of the map, as well as all objects on the base. To turn off or on a plane I think takes an arena reset as it is.

While I'm sure HTC staff is well able to do the coad work necessary, would it really be worth the time and effort to do it? Forcing players to follow a path has already been tried and failed miserably. By you having the bases turned off while the numbers are low your doing the same thing by concentrating the players to a smaller and smaller area. And as posted, a lot of players these days DON'T WANT to fight others, but avoid them.

[vafiii]

Why not switch from 3 sides (Knights, Bishops and Rooks) to two? We went from 2 MA's to 1 and it helped tremendously so the logical next step would be to eliminate one side, no?