Updated ACS engine: Thoughts, tests and consequences

#1
Just run sims and tests in extreme.....
What i find weird is how rf seems to have been nerfed too much.. and is much lower than regular battles (or it could just be a bug in the sim or I keep on getting terrible sim results). Just an observation (make of it what you wish)

Other observations: ACS attack rips and lunnies no longer work due to some complaints from a very select group of players (the ones who were in most danger from it ironically), the rest of the player base that i talked to actually loved seeing the big guys take some hits for once (i got quite a few kinds pms of encouragement).

While certain players have worked very hard to grow their accounts to such a size (I highly commend these players, they know who they are) the biggest of them all has now seen his greatest threat to date be nerfed out of existence.
This is both good and bad. what I liked about the old ACS engine is that no one was completely invulnerable. With a few hundred rips and a few hours the big guys being off you could do some decent damage to their fleet and turn a good profit (if they were to leave fleet down for 3-4 hours that is).
However im sure many players are glad suicide lunnies are gone (so probably a good thing its gone).

The main point is now if the biggest player left their fleet down for a few months i would bet all my accounts that 99% of it would still be there. Because acs has been nerfed in X the larger players can only be be crashed by equal sized fleets (of which there is none, and wont be for the next few years or even decades i bet)

While large fleets should be monsters to take down the larger players fleets have effectively become invincible at the present time.

This could be good or bad. By no means do i want to see flaming, trolls or EVERYTHING is op posts. This is simply for everyone to draw their own conclusions.
While my opinion is biased, what ive said is fact regarding to the changes.

-----------> Just as a suggestion: My opinion is that suicide rips should have been nerfed AND -either not as much as they have been OR - replaced with a new tactic for bugging large fleets (remember suicide attacks could only damage soft targets such as ecs and recies and 90% of large fleets wouldn't be at all damaged by these)

PLEASE keep it civil!

Re: Updated ACS engine: Thoughts, tests and consequences

#2
I have to agree with you, Dire. There needs to be some way for smaller players to challenge larger players. I know Zorg said that suicide RIPs were destabilizing to the game at the levels of damage they created in ACS Attack. Personally, I don't see how this is the case... As you point out, it's not as if anyone could destroy the entire fleet of the largest player using this tactic or even really very much of it. And, regardless, any player who doesn't leave fleet down while he or she is offline is golden.

To me, this change is clearly a move that further favors the largest players in the game, players who will have absolutely no issue staying on top, even if suicide RIPs were allowed to remain as they were. I agree that either the previous engine should be reinstated, or new tools for targeting large fleets should be introduced.

Just my perspective. Thanks for posting this, Dire. I feel it's an important discussion.

Re: Updated ACS engine: Thoughts, tests and consequences

#3
I will endeavour to explain what why and the wherefores..on the above issue..

1.The acs battle engine is different form the normal single attack engine.. this was updated in Xtreme a few years ago... Because there have been very few acs attacks in Xtreme.. the ACS BE used was taken from Massacre...

2. The main point that needs to be known is that none of these acs attacks were made on a fleet...they were purely random planet attacks... with ship values less than the attacking Rip... So None of the advantages stated above with regards to Recyclers, cargo ships or even Lighfighters would have happened.

3. The main advantage gained was purely on defence bashing...sim (not in acs ) 1 rip against 250,000 LL, 1,000 HL 2,000 ion , 1,000 Gauss and 1500 plasmas.. the rips is destroyed very quickly with a small loss on the defender..
yet in the old acs attack the entire defence except the plasmas are smashed.. this in Xtreme universe is not possible..
( as a point of interest once the smaller defence is bashed out of existence then the damage to the defender drops completely rendering this attack also pointless)

4. Now for you combat table followers..Players who regularly perform well and earn a place on the attackers table/raiders table...Do you feel it correct that a player adding just 1 probe to the acs attack is awarded half the damage obtained..impossible when you see that regardless of the amount sent probes have NO ATTACK points therefore can not inflict any damage on the defender..yet are still awarded half the damage caused by the rip...

If you feel these incorrect issues were right then I can not see any fair play being shown... Lastly if this was allowed to continue... Ask yourself how would you feel, if in a number of years time you are at the top of the tree and these options are done to you when they are so clearly wrong..

All I ask is you look at this constructively not just a here and now option to hurt the top players..because I know one or two of you may be in the same position yourselves one day.
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Re: Updated ACS engine: Thoughts, tests and consequences

#4
Thanks for your input pulsar, its greatly appreciated!
Also thank you Gozar, you raised some good points.

Regarding ACS rip attacks on fleet, I happen to be an expert.
My zorg journey started in the massacre universe which uses the true rf values, where rips are very powerful against most 'soft ships' but very weak against lunnies. Thus ive 'grown up' in zorg with this battle engine and have been able to damage players fleets with these tactics to the point where I can attack with bcs and lunnies (without making huge losses) In mass rip bashing rarely happens anyway so isnt a problem.
Point is me and Sprog made one of the biggest hits in ZE history against an opponent with 20%+ MORE FLEET than me and sprogs combined. Heres the link: viewtopic.php?f=52&t=11726
Big props to Sprog for joining in and making the biggest hit in ze history.

Suffice to say it took many hours of tactically slicing the players 12 million point fleet apart with suicide rips and lunnies before our losses for a direct attack would be low enough.
Basically its called disarming a giant. If you give me some rips and 5-6 hours ill mess up your fleet :D
Bear in mind the rips ONLY EVER damage recies, cargos, lightfighters, ecs, probes and other weak ships. It wont touch rips, lunnies or other combat craft. So this alone wouldnt cause huge damage to a player, it just reduces the opponents 'fodder' thus concentrating fleet damage to the actual combat ship.

By no means am I suggesting nerfing big fleets, thoses players have worked long and hard to get to where they are some deserve some degree of untouchableness.

All im looking for is a less OP alternative to suicide rips in extreme. ... the only reson i actually played mass was due to the awesome and michal-bay explosion worthy battle engine.
However Zorg stated that the're looking to have just ONE BATLLE engine for all unis-I feel this would take away the only real unique ascpect of massacre and it would lose its player base agin :, ( by all means impliment it in the rest but please keep mass different. ... otherwise itll be like a miniture extreme uni and players will lose interest in it.

Just my 2 cents worth on that matter 8-)

Re: Updated ACS engine: Thoughts, tests and consequences

#6
The main difference between the battle engines is that massacre uses the TRUE listed rf values for the ships,
While the rest use very, very, nerfed rf values.
The nerfed values favour the player with the bigger fleet and mean that ninjas of ships with good rf against the attacking fleet wont be very effective.

The great thing about the mass engine is that all ships now have definate strengths and weaknesses and varried fleets become and option.
In mass- large lightfighter fleets are very effective against lunnies while in x they're worse than solar sats in combat. ...

Thanks for your opinion mickylove!

Re: Updated ACS engine: Thoughts, tests and consequences

#8
MASSACRE engine works good in large numbers. It works better than 1.1 engine. So ACS attacks in large scale were okay.

The problem started with unrealistic results. I think we can all agree that 1 RIP and 1 probe against a huge fleet ended up in a .... massacre, is an unrealistic result.

As promised, we are working on "An engine to rule them all" which we hope everything will like.

On the points raised, simple meaningful answers:
-Indeed RF deadliness has been affected. We are open to suggestion to tweak RF values where you think we should.
-RF values will be increased by default by us to MASSACRE once the new engine is installed there, because MASSACRE is our "lab". For the rest universes, discussions in the forums are required.
-After all MASSACRE will need the RF increase in the new engine to be close to what their players expect.
-WE ARE POSITIVE TO ADD STRATEGIES for players to increase the strategic options (such as being a danger to a big guy). We have even proposed some. Please continue this discussion here: https://www.zorgempire.net/forums/viewt ... =8&t=11909

We deem this very important for X-TREME universe.


Try to cooperate with us. We are trying to cooperate with you. We need constructive feedback by everyone in order to improve the game for everyone.
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