This is not a salt filled rant.

I was only able to come back for a short time, but it is fairly clear that little has changed about the game in the year and some of my absence. Only the names and quantity (less) are different. Adding a new game universe is well and dandy, but without changing some core aspects of the game, it will become just like the other servers given enough time.

Feel free to flame me or call me biased, I really don't care. I am unlikely to return due to RL and I hold no particular allegiance to anyone but myself. I've been in and out of alliances with big fleeters. I am not out to get anyone. I just think the game could use some serious shifts in paradigm, unless you want it to shrink further. I won't be there to see, most likely, so up to you guys to be productive about this.

And yes, I have done coding before, I know there are things us users won't know, so I wont demand any of these changes or suggest specific implementations.

In no particular order:

1. This game is hideously hard for newbies. Face it. Most new players wanting to get their kicks are NOT interested in joining the forums and looking around. If the game doesn't grab them and help them along, they give up and try something else. The learning curve, so to speak, is not at all noob friendly, and neither is the general player atmosphere. It takes too damn long for things to get going at any reasonable rate. Few newbies will want to sit for the better part of an hour to attack someone else and hopefully win. Buildings are too long (give players instant finishes to buildings/research within 5 min of completion). Moons are annoying at worst for established players - and both an absolute necessity and a nightmare for newbies trying to catch up. Make moons easier. Fix it. Ignore all the fleeters who argue otherwise. Unless you like a dead game. Don't argue that its newbie friendly. I've tried to help large very active, organized alliances that would have altered the balance of Zorg in 6 months, but they gave up because its too hard for them. You can't expect one relatively altruistic player to give moonshots to 20-30 odd people. Neither can they when they are new, and are all struggling to raid and grow.

2. This game is too hard core. Ties into the first point, but for everyone. Am I the only one who has noticed declining activity that tends to coincide with people getting smashed? Call me selfish but I think losing defenders need a serious help. Set the attack limit st maybe 3. The attacker will generally profit by a huge margin already, and it makes the rebuild way less tedious for the defender - especially if they don't buy massive amounts of rubies or have huge mines in place. Especially if they were your more active variety of player - which means a bigger emphasis on fleets. Again, I am sure people will complain that they don't get enough resources. Do the math. The last few attacks are trivial in comparison to the attacker, and still very important to the defender. Make it easier to recover from being smashed, if you want the date quite to drop below 90%.

3. FFS encourage activity. Accept that raiding in some form is a fact of life. If you really hate raiding so much then decrease the resource loot from robbing inactives. But not by a lot. Raiders are the most active players and you would be a god damn fool to chase them off and force them to mine every few hours, like their more established brethren that make many millions each hour (many will realize they will struggle to catch up). Be creative here. There are other ideas that have been/can be suggested that would encourage more activity. Obviously they will require noticable work for the most part. Doesn't matter if raiding was not intended to be part of the original game plan. Its clearly popular and ties heavily to activity. Raiding works, either improve it and/or bring other stuff too.

4. You win this game by building the strongest fleet. That's it. Once you hit critical mass you don't need to fleeters, there is literally no cost to having a humongous fleet. The only example I can think of off the top of my head where the clear No.1 fleet was surpassed is DrJ in standard. By Ahilles over more than a year, who was an absolute nut at raiding. While DrJ did nothing most of the time. Yeah. With the previous points in mind, it is entirely realistic for people to think they can catch up, right? (Hint: that was sarcasm.) I don't have anything against the biggest fleeters, but it is virtually impossible to catch up and survive if they don't want you to. Anyone not their friend has to make one little mistake and boom! The big fleeters can chill with literally no cost to themselves, or maybe a small one for fleetsaving the weakest ships. Make everyone pay an upkeep for each ship they own, taken from each planet proportionally to the planets share of a resource's production.

I've been around to many similar kinds of games. My observations and comments are either good features I saw in other (bigger) games, or should be common sense. Yes, my comments will hurt Fleeters, but they already kill the game, frankly. At least make it somewhat reasonable for other people to try to catch up.

Carefully consider why people say their comments, and whether they are self serving.

What happens next is up to you guys.

Adios.

ach wrote:This is not a salt filled rant.

In all seriousness a lot of these points hold validity. I could regurgitate my opinions on the issues and how to solve them but I honestly believe the problems have been pointed out, suggestions have been made and little has been done.
Many that stay have stayed because it is hardcore and they enjoy that element. Of these people the ones that leave usually leave because 3 hardcore players hardly constitutes a game.