On EXP and most of the game...

[Mel'Kaven]

The game is, in my eyes, unbalanced. One person can simply build an empire fairly quickly and gain tons of exp. So much in fact that it is nearly impossible to surpass someone once they reach the impossibly high amounts in the hundreds of millions. It is easy to achieve this much exp colonies generate exp by themselves and every hour you can gain 100 from every, military giant of a colony that you own.

This problem originates from a source, that source is that the game has a threshold.

Given a rebang, the 2 week period is an accurate measurement of how skilled one is in achieving high exp and thus is a good measurement of skill. The problem is that this same system boomed into the perma ages and was modified only slightly, now once people reach the threshold of about 3 colonies that they can tax they build an empire extremely quickly, exponentially even, because all that is required for them to build is to set down resources and press a button. In my opinion, that is a good way to build, dont get me wrong, but there is something missing. Throughout the time people are gaining money and, slowly, followers (until they hit the threshold) they are gaining exp. But it is not through the means of colonies, it is towards the goal of actually getting a colony. This is the accurate measurement of true skill, because once you can tax a colony all you do is gather resources from 1 col, place on another and click a button.

So the problem is:

EXP is gained from colonies to much and money is gained to easily once you have an empire. And empires are easy to obtain because of the abundance of colonies. This current system renders exp to be not important, and is a false measurement of how much skill you have.


My Solution:

**THIS ALL APPLIES TO THE SERVER SUGGESTED IN THE IDEA, NOT THE ENTIRE GAME**

• -We Create a 40-50 system Perma-server to test idea on.
  • WHY:
    This is so we dont piss off everyone else in SGE if it actually is a failure(which I doubt) and we need a small server so there is more attention to micro aspects of SGE as the macro aspects of the game are less active and ultimately boring most of the time as there is no conflict.

• -Maximum amount of money on person is set to 10million, 5 million in bank, 5 million on hand. Colonies can only hold 500k credits and taxation yield is reduced by 50%
  • WHY:
    Less money in the system will reduce inflation and force players to find other means, such as trading and player to player missions(like barging) to obtain money. This also makes Tri-Quan a viable source of income.

• -EXP is BUILT on colonies. Base amount of EXP colonies give is reduced by 100%.EX: Each 100 people give 1 exp.
  • WHY:
    If EXP is built on colonies it requires players to specify the purpose of a colony instead of every colony providing exp and producing weapons. I.E: In a war, the person will change colonies from building to produce weapons to give them a better edge. The less amount of EXP each colony gives provides motive to gain exp by other means.

• -Decrease maximum amount of EXP allowed to 15million, implement the exp curve as well.
  • WHY:
    This will make exp a more balanced system. The lower the amount of exp each person has, the more competition there is to gain it and the more drastic changes means that the person is better at gaining it and thus it is a proper measurement of skill.

• -Increase the industrial power of Volcanics by making their special building produce 100% instead of 50%, also reduce all weapons production output of all colonies (Except Volcs) by 20%.
  • WHY:
    This will provide incentive for people to dome horrible planets such as Volcanics.

• -Maximum of Reputation set to 1m/-1m
  • WHY:
    EXP and rep go hand and hand, so max reputation needs to be decreased as well.

• -Increase the speed at which Fussion Blasters are fired. (Also increase their damage that they do to planetary defenses to about 160 per shot.)
  • WHY:
    Fussion Blasters are never used, they are merely a point defense distraction. This will provide incentive to buy them, I would say less damage but they are only fired in a straight line from the player so its sort of hard to aim efficiently with.

• -Increase the amount of money received by taxi missions by 200%.
  • WHY:
    This will make them a more viable source of income.

• -Shields start at 1 dollar and cost only up to 50 - viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20548
  • WHY:
    Shields prices change to better supply accommodate for the loss in money over all and at a low cost, this promotes invasion, while building still remains easy.

• -Increase cost of cargo holds so they are always about 5k per hold.
  • WHY:
    This provides the need to trade micro, makes earning mass amounts of money a tad harder.

• -Make Greenhouse's Ion Towers increase the amount of EXP gained to normal + 50%.
  • WHY:
    Provides some incentive to make greenhouses.

• -Every month, the top 10 players receive 2k tokens, the top 5 receive 4k, and the top 1 receives 5k
  • WHY:
    This creates incentive for players to score high, EXP will reward you.

• - Decrease the amount of energy required to fire an Anti-Grav Bomb to 250
  • WHY:
    Repel outclasses this weapon merely because of its cost, and the fact that you have to actually shoot it and hit, also have it move turrets, like they slide (in space)

• - Increase the amount of shields received if you jettison resources by 200% in the falcon, also increase falcon's shields to 10k
  • WHY:
    This will make the falcon just above the limit of an 8 neg kill. At 10k, this ship will be much more usable for most invasion scenarios, also you can re-shield at a low cost of resources to you.

• - Decrease the amount of resources it costs to build each building, but do not lower the cost to rush/time to build.
  • WHY:
    Promotes expansion in terms of resources in buildings but still forces the player to obtain mass money or workforce construct.

• - Increase the speed of a vulture to 7000 kps and shields to 8k.
  • WHY:
    Since surfaces missiles were introduced as a weapon, this ship completely lost its purpose. Perhaps if it were faster and took more damage, it would be more useful.

There are the few that I can think of off the top of my head. Perhaps some comments?

[Jedi]

You put alot of work into this i can see mel, good job u covered alot of grounds and i think it would be good so long as not every server was turned into this, keep up the good work!

[JuliusCaesar]

Wow, this post mirrors a lot of my own points (but takes them in an interesting micro direction...) that I just made.

This is actually very very interesting, a main issue why I don't play sge much anymore (if at all, logged in for the first time in like 4/5 weeks yesterday) is the fact that skill matters little compared with the time you are willing to put into this game. A focus on micro, with little upkeep, just a hell of a lot of feverish fighting in a short time, could change this. This is actually the most innovative idea I have seen in a while (with a chance of success). Toonces, bang this thing.

[Mathius]

Sounds pretty good. I would like to play a test server and get a feel for how it rolls.

[Drifter101]

You might have a point about xp being too easy to generate from colonies, the old style 'build xp' you want to bring back is good as you have to make a choice between producing xp or weaps or credits etc that makes it interesting. Ive always found 'building xp' a weird concept though, setting your colonists to 'build' something that is intangible, what exactly does 'building xp' represent happening on the colony.?

Other ideas I dont really like such as reducing cash to 10mill, I think this might just stagnate the economy. For example you said people would have to do more jobs like barging...but who is going to pay much for barging when they dont have much cash themselves. Also Tri-quan is definately not a way to make money, playing a few rounds you may get lucky, but really the odds are against you so the more you play the more the luck will ballance out so youll make a loss.

People question the Fusion blaster, one of its uses that is overlooked is that it works well in conjunction with the Rail gun for a powerful double shot. You are def right about the Gravity bomb needing improving though, that is easily the worst 'special' weapon.

[LordSturm]

i voted yes on the condition that it is tried on ONE server and not a blanket change. tbh this is not the time for sweeping game mechanic reform. its time for polishing and fixing


the problem i have with most of the ideas is, the solution posited is all about limit,reduce, and more limits.

the fact the matter is people do not like limitations and i think these will be a hard sell even if they are the...correct?... solutions.

there is not an inherent problem with rapid expansion the problem is the lack of predation to counteract this rapid growth, all the while balencing the fine line of making it too easy to do any one thing so the activity becomes undervalued.

[Mel'Kaven]

You might have a point about xp being too easy to generate from colonies, the old style 'build xp' you want to bring back is good as you have to make a choice between producing xp or weaps or credits etc that makes it interesting. Ive always found 'building xp' a weird concept though, setting your colonists to 'build' something that is intangible, what exactly does 'building xp' represent happening on the colony.?

hahaha, I dont know much behind the concept either.

Other ideas I dont really like such as reducing cash to 10mill, I think this might just stagnate the economy. For example you said people would have to do more jobs like barging...but who is going to pay much for barging when they dont have much cash themselves. Also Tri-quan is definately not a way to make money, playing a few rounds you may get lucky, but really the odds are against you so the more you play the more the luck will ballance out so youll make a loss.

Perhaps we reduce the cost to play Tri-Quan by 50% and increase chances of winning by 20%?

The idea behind lower amounts of money is, quite simply, inflation. The more money you have in the economy the less value it has. SGE has a problem with rewarding players with TONS of money for simple things. Taxes, overnight, outclasses a trader that trades for 20 minutes straight. Taxes should be small and not the primary source of income for everything. That means less variety in the ways at which people actually earn cash. It is to easy to build a col and collect massive amounts of money. But, it is definitely more rewarding when you have to actually micro build yourself up. Killing NPC's, a bit of trade here and there, sell artifacts, pillage colonies. People would still barge, Im not saying they will get paid nearly as much but it can easily be made a viable source of income. Dont make the mistake in thinking there wont be rich people if its hard to make money. There are always the ones that shine.

People question the Fusion blaster, one of its uses that is overlooked is that it works well in conjunction with the Rail gun for a powerful double shot. You are def right about the Gravity bomb needing improving though, that is easily the worst 'special' weapon.

Regardless, the fusion blaster is a relatively weak weapon. I cant even imagine the last time I bought it. Perhaps this damage increase should only be for Rail guns? The whole idea is that most of the weapons of the game are not used. Its pretty much torps/negs/nukes/sm/cloak/ab, and there is a point in which all of the weapons become useless because every other weapon I mentioned outclasses them because they are primarily used for invasion. If we sometime fit other weapons into the equation it can have more diversity, like, having the death ray kill solar shots on contact. That'd be interesting. Meh, maybe a range increase too xD

[LordSturm]

i could understand the money arguement IF there was really anything to do with your money beyond buy buildings and reshield. the problem is that there really just isnt much to buy, in other games like .... gasp... runescape money is controlled like you mentioned because it has so much "value" (it can be used to aquire TONS of stuff) but in sge its only real purpose is a means to aquire more exp in the end.

because of this, there really is no reason to make it harder to get, that would simply drive the game into the ground further. if there was a more fun way to aquire it maybe, but i suspect any idea that tries to force anyone to have to be more dependent on hauling resource A to port B is a game killer.

the entire game is basically built on a 3 tier money making system. you start out taxing untill you can get enough cash to begin trading untill you get enough cash to begin building a planet for taxing. it is designed so that once you leave a tier you never have to return.