All the players who still klan raid to any degree are largely concentrated in one klan. The effort to match that is no doubt daunting, and has been a large barrier (obviously enough) for many to make a commitment to do so. As such, the top bracket is pretty dull right now. Our effort is compensated with fabulous amounts of e-peen, but it isn’t particularly rewarding in many other ways that I see. The camaraderie and teamwork towards a goal are good, but the mechanic of klan raiding itself is not really fun. I had a riot this week solo raiding, though perhaps alot of that was down to being in a competitive bracket, many fun opponents, and with noone at an obvious overall advantage.

Next season, it might not be so easy for klan raiders to all end up in the top bracket together. Yes we’ll have more scoops, but will also be a bigger, exposed targets, in possibly hostile brackets. Which means, we’ll have to start playing a little smarter. Raiding (as it is right now) is a good tool, but in a varied game, it shouldn’t be the only tool that wins the round.

I agree; it doesn’t make sense that people jump from the bottom of the pods all the way to the top when they win a few medals or that they get stuck there when they seem to hit a medal threshold or something.

Goth_Jesus Posted:

Perhaps if brackets were sorted by # of rounds won, as well? (i.e. someone who wins one medal per round for four rounds is placed higher than someone who got a lucky/inactive bracket and won 4 medals all at once?)

But that person that got all 4 could well have been using strategy to get them. I don’t mind if a person jumps into the top brackets like that (although maybe not the TOP bracket for just 4), so long as they can drop back down within a reasonable time frame if they’re getting spanked left and right.

meeeeeeeeee Posted:

So what’s needed is something like;

No medals 3(?) weeks in a row => drop to a lower bracket

But with fewer medals on offer, that’s going to make the top bracket a pretty lonely place after a short while. I’d urge you to be patient Spacekdt – alot of the skewing we see this season is I think going to be fixed when next season starts (or at least we’ll see how well everything works together when starting from a blank slate)

Patience is great and fine – and I’ve had patience for 7 weeks already. But this was the one aspect of the game that I was really enjoying. We’re 9 weeks into a season that lasts approximately 16 weeks (Season 1 was 18, I’ll admit I’m taking a shot in the dark here). I got three trophies in week one, swept in week two. Since then, I’ve been overpowered and outnumbered to a degree that people *doing* the overpowering and outnumbering have said it’s not exactly fair.

It’s VERY hard to continue to have interest in a game when there’s zero ability to move forward in the aspect that keeps you playing – ESPECIALLY when you and your klan *are* taking part in raiding. (Or were… or are… or something) I’m not terribly likely to *leave* the game, at least for now… but my desire to play is decreasing damn near daily.

Pickled male reproductive organbum Posted:

a note, with 8 scoops for solo raiding, if everyone in the top bracket decided to solo raid, and buy bumholes, they would have been able to really make a difference against those raiders. It wouldn’t have been locked down.

again one of the problems is that among the people “not playing” in the top bracket are a handfull of betas, who generally (with exception of maybe scully) won’t blast their klanmates down.

Yes, but 50% of any given bracket should not need to play exclusively to destroy for the benefit of others. Most players have little interest in griefing for the sake of griefing without potential reward.

Who me blow up klannie scoops? I don’t know what you mean. Log in to see images! Wasn’t it just a little more interesting to have someone, anyone, doing some damage and shaking things up a bit?

plk Posted:

Raids really should give a much greater reward than solo playing. Finding the right players who are able to coordinate and commit to working together is not easy or quick and I’m not sure why solo players should be able to compete with that.

One solo player should not be able to compete with any ease with one klan player. If a group is getting together 2 or 3 times a week and devoting the time, there should be a reward. The reward should not be so excessive as to eliminate all competition, with zero added effort. Currently E2B in the top bracket can decide before the week starts who will get which medal. That is so ****ing boring it makes my eyes bleed. Any E2B who raids will also be able to decide any other bracket they are in even if it is just one of them against the entire bracket. If you don’t actually think that reward is skewed and radically contributing to players jumping out of Domination, you are wacky.

Don’t get me wrong, I think raiders should have benefits. Anyone who reads the forums knows that I’ve encouraged people to raid for a long time. It’s just that the raiders have done pretty much everything possible to encourage more people to raid and the community has given a resounding “No!” It’s clear that the vast majority of the Domination player base would like to play, and don’t have either the time or inclination to organize a raiding situation. As things stand, if nothing is changed the few players willing to raid will continue masturbating and rotating weekly wins. Why not find some new option that makes raiding an edge – much like playing Forumbuildr or gambling or doing pistachio loops – instead of having it mean “game over”? Everyone involved will have more playing action, and the week will not be over for someone if they miss a raid. Any competitive game without some element of chance, some margin of error – RNG – failed strategy, whatever, just isn’t as interesting.

spacekadt Posted:

Ok, I’m totally confused. How do you know if raiding is still overpowered if you have klans and solo players *completely* separated? There’s a totally different dynamic there that will equal totally different strategies and lead to comparing apples to oranges.

I could be mistaken, but the way I read Pluvius is that he would like to see solo vanilla turned off completely for players who participate in a raid, not that he wants them in separate brackets.

If raiding only gave you a slight competitive edge, even fewer people would do it. It’s just too exhausting and takes too much time. There is a definite point at which the opportunity cost is going to outweigh the reward. The real problem is that the userbase does not appear to be growing right now and people aren’t forming klans to raid. Everyone here already knows what they like to play and what they don’t. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I thought there was a point where there were a few competitive klans and the medals were anything but decided.

Raiding is the only truly cooperative, multiplayer aspect of the game. It makes your klan more of social unit and prevents the klan from just being a forum that a bunch of disconnected players check in to once in a great while. If all these solo players would form klans, they would get the same rewards as well. And no, I am not saying that there should be players or klans that are able to dominate week after week. But I don’t think the answer is to basically make the game single-player.

Raiding doesn’t sound like a world of fun.

I’m going to guess that it’s a lot more fun than grinding for cred or flezz, which people seem to be able to cowboy up and do what they have to do if they want to be competitive there. I don’t think it would be much fun, so I don’t do it, but neither do I expect to somehow find my way to the top of those leaderboards just playing the way I want to.

plk Posted:

If all these solo players would form klans, they would get the same rewards as well.

No, if all these solo players would form raiding klans, they would get the same rewards as well. Most solo players I’ve seen are in klans, they just don’t raid.

I’m doing klan hops, and I’m finding that most klans form around an idea. While one or two of those klans have “raiding” as their idea, the vast majority don’t. Some try to raid, but they’re just not as successful as the klans which are dedicated to raiding. So, you’re working under the same falacy that I see in most everyone from Ep2Beta — that the purpose of klans is to raid and if people would just form more raiding klans, Domination would be fixed. When in reality, the majority of players are solo players, and to fix Domination, it has to give those solo players a fighting chance.

Because the majority of players are not raiders, and don’t want to be. But they want to play the endgame.

plk Posted:

I was under the impression that people could leave and join different klans. Be in a domination-focused klan to raid and then if you want, socialize in some other klan. What’s stopping you?

Which domination focused klan do you suggest? The one that’s not accepting apps for the most part or the one that has pretty much stopped raiding? Cuz the way I see it, there’s not much choice there.

Amasius Posted:

I can see no reason why solo players should be in the same bracket as raiders if they don’t have a chance at all to compete with them.

I still can’t.