The FA is unwell

[mucksterme]

I did not read all of this thread so I'll just say a couple of things so as not to be too repetitive.
1 ) You will never be able to eliminate all exploits. People will always find a way.
2 ) Extending the eligibility time is a horrible idea. People often join right before an FA for perfectly legitimate reasons.
C ) Play for the fun of it and ignore the people you consider cheaters.

I must add though. People who will switch out accounts just to score high are kind of sad. Who are they trying to impress? A bunch of anonymous people on a free game?
My FS usually does well in the FAs. ( Top ten or better )
And we enjoy doing well. But, we get pleasure from the personal accomplishment.

I happen to be in one of the Starfleet affiliated FSs on Felyndral, and we often swap members for events, Tourney and Spire pushes.

I find this strange. This goes along with my "personal accomplishment" comment above. You are doing a push so you bring in ringers? So what did you just do? Nothing. To me a 'push" is when your FS gets together and says, "Let's do better than our usual. Let's push ourselves and see what we can do."
Your philosophy is like a high school football team deciding to win a game by suiting up some pro players.
The score might end up 53 - 0. But the TEAM did not win.
Maybe I just look at thing differently. You know in my 20 years of school, I never once cheated on a test. Pass or fail, I wanted the test to reflect my ability. Not my ability to hide cheat sheets under a watch band or to write formulas on my eyelids.

 

[ajqtrz]

You should change your overview then.

Done. I actually forgot I'd put that up there a couple years ago. Sorry for any confusion. Thanks for bringing it up.

AJ

 

[ajqtrz]

@ajqtrz What do you mean by a league? Do you mean you form a group of FSs that want to compete against each other, forget about the FA score board and determine who wins within your league group only? So your FS could be 25th in the FA, but 1st within your league?

My vision of leagues is that groups of fellowships band together and compete against each other. Each week would be a "game" and they'd play against one of the teams in their leagues. (Tournament and Spire numbers provide the scoring, but wins and losses are what counts so you would have some strategizing to do from week to week). After so many games there would be a playoff between the top teams in their league, and then, if there were enough teams for several leagues some playoffs between the winners of the leagues. Like in baseball or just about any sport (I would use baseball because it fits better than some other organizations). The thing is the organization of players would sanction the leagues, keep the scores and all that and the leagues would be at levels. Like I said, it's like MLB in that you would have different levels of play and each fellowship could move up or down depending on their play level. It's all the post I did a few days ago.

Advantages are that it's more open than the "top 3" of the current situation. I mean it's great to be number 1, but there's no way my fs can score 150k to be number one. The cost is too high for us. But being the number one of a 30 team league, well, that might be fun.

AJ

 

[Darielle]

@Darielle
Was there ever a time when diamonds were no good in an FA and players couldn't swap? I think winning still requires a lot of dedication.

Yes, diamonds were always good. But there was a time when they were not absolutely crucial to win the FA. That's what I'd like to go back to. Now, you need dedication AND diamonds.

 

[Flashfyre]

I find this strange. This goes along with my "personal accomplishment" comment above. You are doing a push so you bring in ringers? So what did you just do? Nothing. To me a 'push" is when your FS gets together and says, "Let's do better than our usual. Let's push ourselves and see what we can do."
Your philosophy is like a high school football team deciding to win a game by suiting up some pro players.
The score might end up 53 - 0. But the TEAM did not win.
Maybe I just look at thing differently. You know in my 20 years of school, I never once cheated on a test. Pass or fail, I wanted the test to reflect my ability. Not my ability to hide cheat sheets under a watch band or to write formulas on my eyelids.

Then you are misunderstanding the purpose I outlined. We are not bringing in "ringers", we are allowing other players who want to gain the Gold Spire rewards, or more than 10 chests in Tourney, that their own FS is not able to reach, by temporarily replacing members of our FS that are not going to be able to help the FS reach that goal.
The various Fleet FSs all consider themselves to be part of a bigger FS, one that spans multiple worlds. As such, when one Starship FS is taking an easy week in Tourney or Spire (or both), another may be making a hard push for Gold and/or 10+ chest Tourney. If there are members in the "easy" FS who really want to hit the Spire or Tourney that week, they are encouraged to see about an exchange.

 

[Iyapo]

I do not actually think it is wrong to let FAnatics join up in the FA and smack the server record. Some players really want to use every single teleport spell, MM spell, enchantments, CC, timers, rains ....some players have not collected from the MA for 2 months.

Imagine it @Darielle . You in a fellowship with 24 like minded players. Players that are as all in as you are... what would the score be?

 

[Xavar]

Winning the FA takes teamwork and organization. You cannot get good teamwork and organization if your Fellowship does not get along. You can win one FA by being cutthroat and spending diamonds, sure. But you can't sustain that. Sustaining victories means having a positive environment where people want to work together and people want to achieve.

Some Fellowships push for being number 1 in overall (not-FA) rating. Those guys definitely are dumping diamonds into the game to get the absolute most points they can. Is that a bad thing? Is that counter to the spirit of the game? Nah, it's just another playstyle.

Some Fellowships push for getting maximum tournament points and/or just getting to Gold Spire to feed diamonds to their other cities. This is just another playstyle.

I can personally attest that at least one highly competitive FA Fellowship does not dump diamonds into "buying" the FA. Everybody in the fellowship or wanting to join the fellowship knows that the FA is the primary goal and if you don't want to push every other time, then it is probably best for you to find a different place to live. The members don't collect their MAs between FAs. They save their teleports. They time their starting new chapters so they aren't stuck in a bad spot for an FA. They fill out a spreadsheet to show what they are working on. They have commitments to contributing by certain times (very liberal commitments, btw) so they can get the level rewards and not hold up the whole fellowship. That is just a different playstyle.

If you would like some pointers on what we do, feel free to message our Archmage, she would be happy to give you some pointers. She loves the competition and nobody in the fellowship seriously begrudges anyone their success.

 

[Fjfif]

Winning the FA takes teamwork and organization. You cannot get good teamwork and organization if your Fellowship does not get along. You can win one FA by being cutthroat and spending diamonds, sure. But you can't sustain that. Sustaining victories means having a positive environment where people want to work together and people want to achieve.

Some Fellowships push for being number 1 in overall (not-FA) rating. Those guys definitely are dumping diamonds into the game to get the absolute most points they can. Is that a bad thing? Is that counter to the spirit of the game? Nah, it's just another playstyle.

Some Fellowships push for getting maximum tournament points and/or just getting to Gold Spire to feed diamonds to their other cities. This is just another playstyle.

I can personally attest that at least one highly competitive FA Fellowship does not dump diamonds into "buying" the FA. Everybody in the fellowship or wanting to join the fellowship knows that the FA is the primary goal and if you don't want to push every other time, then it is probably best for you to find a different place to live. The members don't collect their MAs between FAs. They save their teleports. They time their starting new chapters so they aren't stuck in a bad spot for an FA. They fill out a spreadsheet to show what they are working on. They have commitments to contributing by certain times (very liberal commitments, btw) so they can get the level rewards and not hold up the whole fellowship. That is just a different playstyle.

If you would like some pointers on what we do, feel free to message our Archmage, she would be happy to give you some pointers. She loves the competition and nobody in the fellowship seriously begrudges anyone their success.

This describes legit ways to win the FA. What are your thoughts on the problem statement that winning with alt accounts and player swapping is contrary to the spirit of the game?

 

[Xavar]

My thoughts are that the problem doesn’t exist.

if an FS wants to make a push but one or two members are on vacation or have finals or have a heavy work load, shouldn’t they be able to switch them out so that everybody else can still have fun?

How is having a city devoted to FA different than having a city devoted to tournament or devoted to AWs or devoted to making sentient goods (and orcs! For that evil chapter 15)?

Before I joined my current FS I didn’t understand how people could do so well on FAs, either. I, too might have ascribed it to something nefarious. But now that I see it I complately understand how it works.
it defies your understanding now because your FS, as good as it is, and I understand it is very good, just doesn’t have the same level of commitment or the same level of organization from 1 to 25. Our Archmage spends time before the FA crunching node values to determine the optimal paths for points. Every member spends hours setting up their shanty towns ahead of time. everybody checks in within the first 4 hours to contribute to Stage 1 and then the next 4 hours for stage 2. On Stage 3 everybody is disciplined about not wasting badges. We have expectations of our members for FAs because that is what we want our goal to be Anybody can do it If they want to and nobody has to spend any money to do it. I haven’t bought diamonds the entire time I have been here and I have plenty to keep my Magic residences and workshops upgraded in 3 worlds.

People play how they want. Let them play. If you want to do what they do, then do it. Nothing is preventing you. Apply to join them if you want. Step up and take a leadership role in your fellowship. Start one of your own and beat them. You can do it.

 

[Darielle]

I do not actually think it is wrong to let FAnatics join up in the FA and smack the server record. Some players really want to use every single teleport spell, MM spell, enchantments, CC, timers, rains ....some players have not collected from the MA for 2 months.

Imagine it @Darielle . You in a fellowship with 24 like minded players. Players that are as all in as you are... what would the score be?

You're right, we'd be in first place without diamonds. Ok I concede. It would be nice to find 24 players as nutzoid as I am. I could go from 1.4 million score to 800K in the course of 30 minutes just teleporting everything for the FA. Not too many people do that; only two others in my fellowship.

 

[bulldurham2]

I was in an alt fellowship of the top fellowship on my server for about a year and a half. Eventually, a spot opened up with my production boosts. However, shortly after I joined, I was told the fellowship did not participate in FA's because everyone had very developed cities. I was disappointed because I like challenges in the game, and I ended up leaving and formed my own fellowship focused around tournaments and FA's. After a break to the game, I returned to the top fellowship with the understanding that we won't do FA's.

I don't agree with all those restrictions you posted. Respectfully, it's a hot mess.

What I would be in favor of is in addition to a fellowship being able to describe itself, that there are categories that Archmages can click that would show if they are hardcore/semi-hardcore/casual/none in each of the categories (and when a player hovers over the category chosen, there is a tooltip that describes what each category means. This would have saved me some headache because that top fellowship would have selected "none."

That sort of category system is used in my favorite MMORPG, and I think it could work here as well. It would allow an Archmage to think about what he/she/they want out of FS members.

If a player gets screwed over by a FS, then that is bad for business for Inno should the player end up leaving the game over it. I find it best to have expectations upfront.

 

[bulldurham2]

I was in an alt fellowship of the top fellowship on my server for about a year and a half. Eventually, a spot opened up with my production boosts. However, shortly after I joined, I was told the fellowship did not participate in FA's because everyone had very developed cities. I was disappointed because I like challenges in the game, and I ended up leaving and formed my own fellowship focused around tournaments and FA's. After a break to the game, I returned to the top fellowship with the understanding that we won't do FA's.

I don't agree with all those restrictions you posted. Respectfully, it's a hot mess.

What I would be in favor of is in addition to a fellowship being able to describe itself, that there are categories that Archmages can click that would show if they are hardcore/semi-hardcore/casual/none in each of the categories (and when a player hovers over the category chosen, there is a tooltip that describes what each category means. This would have saved me some headache because that top fellowship would have selected "none."

That sort of category system is used in my favorite MMORPG, and I think it could work here as well. It would allow an Archmage to think about what he/she/they want out of FS members.

If a player gets screwed over by a FS, then that is bad for business for Inno should the player end up leaving the game over it. I find it best to have expectations upfront.

(with categories of "hardcore" down to "none" being: 1) Tournaments, 2) Spire, 3) FA; 4) maybe more categories like AWKP trading. Example: "Hardcore" for tournaments is 19 chests with 2K point participation; "Semi-hardcore" is 10+ chests with 2k point participation; Casual: Some participation; None: no expected participation.

 

[crackie]

There are gaps in the ruleset for fellowships and the fellowship adventures that incentivize behavior which is contrary to the spirit of the game, IMHO. Inno Product team should review the situation and update the rules for balanced play.

Fellowships have discovered a way to excel at the FA, achieving scores over 100k. However the methods involve player sharing, alt accounts and exiled players. (Edit: this is the “exile-mayhem” scenario.) When players are made to leave a fellowship to make room for a FA alt account or alt player, it is disruptive to the fellowship and breaks the integrity of the game. Only a handful of fellowships engage in this practice to the detriment of all others.

Some updates to the rules for fellowship membership would address this. Consider the following changes:
+ to contribute to an FA, an account must be a fellowship member for two weeks prior the event start (2 weeks based on the beta “heads up”)
+ accounts that depart a fellowship in the two weeks following an FA become ineligible to contribute for that fellowship in the next FA, also:
+ consider alt accounts that only serve to “farm” FA badges as Push Accounts

With such rules in place it will make fellowships stronger, in the community sense, and level the field for the myriad fellowships that do not wish to exile members for FA points. And the game will be more fun and rewarding for all.

-Fjfif of Elcysandir

Recruiting is hard™ enough without needing another deadline and hoop for recruits and AMs to juggle! The window to switch FS without Spire/tourney penalties is already tiny. Plus, officially, they only give you 2 days notice before FA starts so trying to intentionally lock your FA lineup 2 weeks in advance is arbitrary at best and gives advantage to people who follow beta or want to spend the time reading code.

While I agree with the points you've made, I think "fairness" in an open-ended freemium game is somewhat of a lost cause. Anyone is allowed to buy their way into anything if their credit card is willing and there isn’t anything wrong with it. That’s no doubt an advantage. A 7hr old city has to compete with a 7yr old city in the rankings. That’s not exactly “fair”, yet also normal gameplay. So how much do they really care about parity in FA to invest the man hours into re-coding it? I am doubtful. And I am sure they won’t crack down on alts as who wants to explain to the shareholders the total user base gone down because they started enforcing how people should play an open-ended game? Cause yeah, if you say FA cities are not okay, then you have to say Spire cities are not OK, no tourney cities, no pre-settlement only cities, no cater-only cities, and just force everyone to play a certain way. Did I mention recruiting is hard? I don’t care how people choose to play their cities.

What I would be in favor of is in addition to a fellowship being able to describe itself, that there are categories that Archmages can click that would show if they are hardcore/semi-hardcore/casual/none in each of the categories (and when a player hovers over the category chosen, there is a tooltip that describes what each category means. This would have saved me some headache because that top fellowship would have selected "none."

That sort of category system is used in my favorite MMORPG, and I think it could work here as well. It would allow an Archmage to think about what he/she/they want out of FS members.

If a player gets screwed over by a FS, then that is bad for business for Inno should the player end up leaving the game over it. I find it best to have expectations upfront.

The recruiting tools in the game need to burn to the ground and be rebuilt from scratch bc it is currently useless to potentially detrimental to the game (pushing all newbies into newbie fellowships, for example). AMs trying to run a functional group have to rely on a third party site, and that site is still not useful when it comes to filtering for Spire players. So much of the drama in FS and burnout on AMs could be avoided if people could self-filter into FS that meet their playing styles.

 

[Lady Pythany]

I personally think Inno fixed " unfair behavior" by changing up the badges to where they currently are and by putting all badges in the pit. Since this change there has been a LOT more competition in the FAS..not just the top fellowships but a wide range of them. Going over 100k in score may seem unfair to some, but it has been a regular occurrence in some worlds for quite a while. It takes a lot of hard work to achieve that score, regular daily gameplay, doing lots of spire, tourney and crafting to gain the goods needed for that accomplishment. It is a competition. Space for me is the biggest issue. But, if your fellowship needs bigger cities....help them grow. I find nothing wrong with the current system...Except I would like to see them add provinces as an option for ghosts in a bottle. Oh and I would love to see Bracelets taken out of the pit.

 

[bulldurham2]

The recruiting tools in the game need to burn to the ground and be rebuilt from scratch bc it is currently useless to potentially detrimental to the game (pushing all newbies into newbie fellowships, for example). AMs trying to run a functional group have to rely on a third party site, and that site is still not useful when it comes to filtering for Spire players. So much of the drama in FS and burnout on AMs could be avoided if people could self-filter into FS that meet their playing styles.

There is also the suggested FS feature. There could be a filter where people look for "new players welcome." Some experienced players like working with newbies. Some down't. Currently, I'm not seeing a rhyme or reason to the suggested FS's.

 

[BrinDarby]

It would be nice to find 24 players as nutzoid as I am.

a) no comment
b) they'd never all get along.

 

[Myne]

If I'm going whole hog on a fellowship and someone tells me that they are not going to play and not going to add a single workshop, I'll ask them if they may be happier in a fellowship that does not regularly do alternate "big" FAs. If they decide to leave as a result of my question then you bet your life I'm going to try to get a good FA player just before the FA. I won't be kicking them out right after, or have the other player return. They've made their choice and that's that.

Do I want to limit my ability to do that? Heck no. Do I believe that the FA is "unwell" and needs to be fixed? Heck yes. But those are two different issues.

What I want to see is a fourth map with decent prizes, or a pit that is TRULY a pit ... a dump for all badges. (or both) The pit is a mind-numbing torture chamber that I honestly don't know why we even bother with, but every so often, we have this need to prove we can still make the top 3-5.

I hate the fact that the fellowship with either the most cheating or enough diamonds wins the top spot. It wasn't always that way. I was in a fellowship that got number 1 three times and I don't believe they cheated OR used diamonds. I would have noticed new players, big diamond spends, etc. But now, I keep my eyes open on the FAs and I find shenanigans all the time. But Inno doesn't care as long as those shenanigans make them more money. They certainly aren't going to limit how many diamonds players can dump in the FA.

But a lot of people have asked for a fourth map or a true pit over the years and I don't know that Inno will ever do it. So the best thing a fellowship AM can do is decide for themselves, "Is it worth bragging rights?" The higher the scores go ... over 100K now .... I'm finding myself believing it isn't worth it. Losing your entire stash of 100s of ccs, coin rains, other enchantments, spell frags, and aw kp just seems ridiculous. Not to mention the tons of goods and troops to get those spire/tourney badges. It was worth it a few years ago, and I LOVED the FA then. Now, I'm beginning to hate it and I'm the FA mage as well as the AM, so it's just a lot of work for little benefit.

My team saves ccs and all the other enchantments for months before a "whole hog" FA. We had enough coin rains in the last one for two FAs, lol. We work our buns off, but we refuse to spend diamonds on the FA. Therefore, we may wind up becoming a 3 map, 1 path each, fellowship if scores keep soaring simply because other teams are willing to throw away all of their diamonds for simple bragging rights and that fairly unimpressive number 1 building.

What she said...

 

[Myne]

Also, at the risk of dodging rotten food, I propose a league system. Yall know I don't do math, but it seems to me that something could be created by taking past histories of scoring and sorting them into levels/leagues. That would take into account all those FS's that pack their fellowships, dump diamonds and other ways of sweeping the ratings.

 

[Darielle]

Also, at the risk of dodging rotten food, I propose a league system. Yall know I don't do math, but it seems to me that something could be created by taking past histories of scoring and sorting them into levels/leagues. That would take into account all those FS's that pack their fellowships, dump diamonds and other ways of sweeping the ratings.

Ooh ... That's a great thought. I'm not exactly sure what you meant but you have my creative juices flowing.

What if fellowships are assigned a certain league ... they compete in their league for top prize but they also compete in the overall FA as well. In other words, a fellowship might place 1st in their league with like-ranked fellowships (with appropriate prizes) as well as 6th overall, with the regular 6th place prize. So they can win double prizes and also feel good that they can get a first place win even if they aren't insanely high in their world. Fellowships can be assigned to a Pearl league, Diamond league, Ruby league, etc. They will be competing only against fellowships that are pretty much their level as far as ranking goes. (A fellowship that has a 1 million overall score does not have to compete against a fellowship that has a 20 mill overall score.)

Or, what about fellowships that choose their league? They cannot choose a league below their level ... since it wouldn't be fair if they dominated a baby league. But they could choose one above their weight if they really want to. You'd have a lot of 1st place winners that way among fellowships that could not possibly hope to get a first place win the way it is now.

Or what about fellowships that can invite other fellowships to join with them in a particular league?

Hmm ... what about fellowships joining together for leagues for other things too? Events? Member partnerships for when members want to take a break or do more?

Anyway, I may be totally off base with what you thought, but you've inspired me!

 

[Iyapo]

Member partnerships for when members want to take a break or do more?

I am pretty sure most of this thread has been devoted to slamming member partnerships. ?