Free Allegiance Forums

NightRychune wrote:QUOTE (NightRychune @ Jun 8 2011, 12:54 PM) also as for the original idea, replacing a multitude of gameplay facets with mere randomization is a $#@!ing terrible idea

What if all the tech was on the map all the time, just in different sectors? Picking up a piece and returning it just pops it up again somewhere else.

If the treasures don't strike your fancy, how about the team votes on a faction and a tech path before the game starts, and then everyone auto ups in the tech tree after X minutes. Maybe different time lengths for different factions. I don't care much for this idea as you wouldn't be able to adjust to what the other team is doing. Maybe every X minutes a tech path vote can be posted to let the team decide which way to go next.

If the goal is to have games that start faster, and the number one cause of the lack of a game start is no commander then a solution that eliminates the commander role is an option.

If the number one cause of stacking is coming from people looking at the commanders and deciding who's going to win, and we want to eliminate stacking, then removing the commander role is an option.

I'm interested in addressing one of the major pain points in the game currently: It takes too long to start the next game.

A no-commander game mode is an absolutely worthwhile idea. I probably wouldn't play it though When commanders are available, you can always switch back to the usual mode.

But I think resources in general are better spent coding optimizations and assists to make the commander's job easier, so people are not as averse to commanding (or suck as much at it). There are a lot of things that can be done...from a simple mission interface to player-set status descriptors on f3 to better drone AI to rethinking the tech tree so there aren't idiotic investments in a given tech path but "alternative" investments etc. And before "don't dumb down commanding" party chimes in, you can tie a lot of these to a game setting.

That will lead to an increased number of people willing to command. Also needed though is a way to autobalance commanders - and that's not actually too hard. If there are more commanders, then you can enforce that two commanders have to be of similar rank and that rank will converge to something meaningful very very quickly (assuming we go through a rank reset)

Spunkmeyer wrote:QUOTE (Spunkmeyer @ Jun 9 2011, 09:28 AM) A no-commander game mode is an absolutely worthwhile idea.

What does a commander do? Invest, order drones around, yell into chatbox, boot people. 2 and 3 can be done by anyone any time. So all we need this game setting to do is disallow donations to force everyone to invest their own pay checks, and allow a #boot <playername> vote in place of a boot button.

Spunkmeyer wrote:QUOTE (Spunkmeyer @ Jun 9 2011, 09:28 AM) But I think resources in general are better spent coding optimizations and assists to make commander's job easier, so people are not as averse to commanding (or suck as much at it). There are a lot of things that can be done...from a simple mission interface to player-set status descriptors on f3 to better drone AI to rethinking the tech tree so there aren't idiotic investments in a given tech path but "alternative" investments etc. And before "don't dumb down commanding" party chimes in, you can tie a lot of these to a game setting.

A lot of those things won't dumb down commanding at all, merely make it more streamlined and/or intuitive. Definitely worth revisiting when R7 beta rolls around.

I don't like the idea, it's the reason no one plays Capture the flag games, artefacts etc - all people play is Conquest and DM for specific reasons or when not enough players for Conquest.

Therefore it's really not worth the time of devs and others when the focus should be on getting more people to play, training commanders so we get balanced commanders for more even & faster games going. The game is great as it is for a reason, it just needs the ageing player base who leave due to focus on RL to be supplanted by more players.

As long as you allow people to wait AND choose sides they will stack. Ten years of experience says so

Commanding, not at Spidey or Night's level, but at an adequete level (above ryj ) can be done by even yours truly. Why I don't command? It is people, the bitching, the not listening, the fighting, and whining. It requires some with the stomach for the nonsense AND the sense to be competitive against guys who have commanded thousands of games and can pull the clue. Tall mountain indeed. No offense or slight intended against anyone

So this is a how you get newbs to stay fix plus a no will command solution? If I follow, the newbs play Allegiance for dumbies and after achieving xxx something then the newb can play Allegiance for big boys and girls. Its a leveling up feature to keep them playing until hooked and then learning the sweet, sweet details oat the end of gunsight and pod rides

The second one deals with the commander dillemia, if there is one, to launch games faster.


A constructive comment. "stupid", "moron", "stfu" isn't needed unless in true Alien51 fashion they just will NOT stop. It may in fact be true, hell even deserved, but it tends lump everything together until everyone is flexing and fighting while throwing out the baby with the bathwater.


I'm not sure what to think about any of it. This suggestions, other suggestions, the return of the devs, my chronic farting, none of it. Why? Because and it should be obvious but lets quarterback it anyway:

Haven't got even the start of a game plan or organization of changes to this degree

I, for one, appreciate strong leadership after gathering information but it seems to me everyone is getting bent about stuff that we don't even know we can implement, or how to test it.

Get some kind of concensus from the clued so you don't have a complete palace revolt ( the suggestion of a baby step nerf of kb caused wailing and nashing of teeth ffs)
Get someone, anyone, with the trust of the council of elders AND the Coven of Devs to quarterback this @#(!
Get a plan together to test it
Implement

You eat an elephant one bite at a time not by sliciing yourself open from anus to nasal cavity and using a plunger

MrChaos wrote:QUOTE (MrChaos @ Jun 9 2011, 04:25 AM) As long as you allow people to wait AND choose sides they will stack. Ten years of experience says so

I like how WOT is doing it: everyone joins the queue, and the game selects sides based on the ranking system, and LAUNCH. Games start in about 10 seconds.

For us, as people like to play with each other, a X second count down timer + AB based on Alleg skill would be an option that would still let people play with each other which wouldn't be quite as limiting.

MrChaos wrote:QUOTE (MrChaos @ Jun 9 2011, 04:25 AM) So this is a how you get newbs to stay fix plus a no will command solution? If I follow, the newbs play Allegiance for dumbies and after achieving xxx something then the newb can play Allegiance for big boys and girls. Its a leveling up feature to keep them playing until hooked and then learning the sweet, sweet details oat the end of gunsight and pod rides

I am hoping that if new ideas (modulus, Imago's ball game, R6 [with alliances and fog of war]) bring and retain better, we'd get a larger stable of players which would breed up more comms and lead to more full games. But right now, the trend is down and not up. I feel it's time to consider how to keep Allegiance playable with < 20 people of assorted skills on line at any given time.

MrChaos wrote:QUOTE (MrChaos @ Jun 9 2011, 04:25 AM) The second one deals with the commander dillemia, if there is one, to launch games faster.

Unfortunately, we can't directly control the actual player counts (not enough people playing to start a game), but we do have the option of removing as many of the road blocks to a game start as possible. I think all the waiting for the next comms to step up and do the pre-game commander bizness of haggling over players and settings could be eliminated to speed up the process.

MrChaos wrote:QUOTE (MrChaos @ Jun 9 2011, 04:25 AM) Haven't got even the start of a game plan or organization of changes to this degree

That's a whole other thread in and of itself.

* snip * defeatist attitude post removed before even posting *rubs the old war wounds* I mean this with complete sincerity fwiw. I think your the kind of guy who could get a sweeping change to see the light of day.

Best of Luck
MrChaos

raumvogel wrote:QUOTE (raumvogel @ Jun 8 2011, 01:09 PM) I look forward to seeing you command more. YOU can put up with half the team not reading the chat while the other half whines because you didn't buy this, didn't do that...whaaa...whaaa...

I like having commanders precisely because I like having a QB who has a game plan and can organize the team. I cannot do that...I don't know the game well enough...so without a commm, I'm just a guy flying in circles. I understand the comm has to deal with a lot of players not listening, not reading the chat, bitching, but that doesn't happen as much in squad games as in PUGs. In the days of the squad republic, all us mercs had to deal with the PUGs and the nonsense until we were lucky enough to be in a squad. The squad members would train us during weekly games and then the squad games would not be the nonsense we see in a typical PUG. But that was long ago.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi...Obi-Wan? Now thats a name I haven't heard in a long time...a long time."

"I Think my uncle knew him. He said he was dead."

" Oh, he's not dead, not...not yet."

"You know him!"

" Well of course, of course I know him. He's me! I haven't gone by the name Obi-Wan since oh, before you were born."

I like the idea, but scrutiny will have at such thought.

girlyboy wrote:QUOTE (girlyboy @ Jun 6 2011, 10:55 AM) I think this is another idea to "save" Allegiance by completely destroying the aspects of gameplay that make it worth saving.

I personally like Allegiance because of the sort of game it is, not because it's called "Allegiance" or is hosted on this community or because of the players in it. If you change what Allegiance is in such a fundamental way, why bother trying to keep it going at all? Might as well just find another game to play.

Yes, of course changes are good, keep the game fresh, etc. But "eliminate the commander role and replace it with treasures" isn't so much "keeping it fresh" as "making it a totally different game."

Could it be fun as an alternative gameplay mode? Maybe, I don't know, it seems like it'd be kind of boring actually. But even if it would be fun as an alternative, in practice one of two things would happen: Either no-one would play it, sticking to traditional conquest games, or it would replace conquest games as the dominant game type, in which case, see above.

I agree here, the commander role is part of the game, the game was made by Microsoft to test the concept of a group of players all taking orders from one commander. It worked, its note broken, don't try to fix it.