I’ve had first-hand experience this past week and a half or so of getting a bunch of scoops just because I clicked “join raid” at the right time (more on that when I finally get around to writing up my latest travelogue entry). And people have complained about those who can gamble (or write bots to do so), raid, etc., when they don’t have the same ability. And from those who can’t play in the last few minutes when winners are really solidified.

I’ve come up with a way to possibly alleviate all that, to balance the game so you can compete no matter what your playing ability is, and possibly also take out the sense of frustration of people who can’t play in the last few minutes. So I’m going to throw it out to you guys who have done more analysis of Domination to see if it makes sense.

The idea is: non-static pods. Or rather, non-static placement in pods.

Redo the structure so the pod placements are based on scoops earned, starting with 4. So the lowest pod is 4-7 scoops, then 8-11, then 12-15, etc. As you earn scoops, you’re moved from pod to pod. Trading in scoops for cards doesn’t change your pod, nor does having scoops destroyed or stolen or created through Modest Improvement or other cards; it’s solely scoops earned that determine your placement. And yes, I split the pods on the number of cards you could potentially buy intentionally.

Then, award medals only when there’s a three-way tie or less, and only in pods which have at least five players. (Not sure of these numbers; those of you with more analysis will probably want to tweak them.) This is to prevent heavy raiders from putting themselves so far out that no one can catch them; they’d need to stay within the playing range to be rewarded. You’d also need to strategize at the lower levels in order to not tie.

Next, allow only one alt per raid. This would be to limit the higher-tiered pods so one couldn’t use their alts (a paid-for service) in a large-raid klan to give themselves huge advantages over those who didn’t spend money.

Also, allow raid members to drop out of raids whenever they like, but once out, they can’t come back in. This is to allow klans who raid to not have to compete only against themselves, but need to strategize who goes into which tiered pod as part of the play if they want to benefit multiple members.

Finally, disable raids and card-play against others immediately after the forum visits refresh on Wednesday. This is an effort to diminish the impact of people who can’t play right when the round ends, by giving a somewhat stable environment, as well as the ability to gain more, but not unlimited, scoops (and still allow movement from pod to pod right near the end, which could inadvertently allow someone else to medal in the pod you’re leaving!).

So — is this idea just full of holes? Or worth further discussion?

Lady Macbeth Posted:

Full of holes, people who don’t try but get 4 scoops by accident will be given free awards. Lots, and lots of free awards.

That’s why I put in a “no awards for three-or-more-way-ties” clause.

Idea: Delay the effect of cards played by, say 15 minutes, or even better: random minutes like 5-30. This ought to prevent at least most of the ‘T minus two minutes’ rush to spend every card you have.

Vuron Posted:

I’m not sure of the feasibility of some of these suggestion at least not without significant modification to the existing domination code.

I think ultimately what people are complaining about is the overwhelming power that klan vanilla has in regards to domination combined with the inclusion of a large number of domination based e-peens and I suspect that domination is going to result in a net exodus of people from the game rather than an influx.

Rather than come up with some arcane ruleset I think the best thing to do would be to create a static limit to the number of vanilla scoops you can earn in a given week. That way there is still an incentive to take part in klan raids (they are far more efficient that solo vanilla raids) but klan vanilla doesn’t completely overwhelm the scoops earned in other aspects of the game.

I would encourage the maximum number of vanilla scoops to be set at a threshhold of 40 or 80 (80 if they increase the amount of antifreeze you can gain in a day to 10). That’s enough for 10-20 cards which is plenty to give you a significant edge on wednesday without making it discouraging for new people to get involved in the endgame.

That’s all vanilla. If that were all I were tyring to discuss, I would’ve done it in the vanilla thread. I’m also looking at timing, antifreeze scoops, and even the exploit which temporarily unrestricted the antifreeze scoop limit — or the limit itself, for that matter.

SG94 Posted:

I like Vuron’s idea but I’d rather see a limit on Vanilla per visit spent. No visits spent would mean no vanilla earned. Can’t really find any reasonable objections to that.

I like this idea, but how would you trigger it? If my prepared forum were to e.g. give the fourth vanilla scoop of the raid and I had not spent any visits in the raid until then would I lose three scoops or be awarded them at the fourth?

MC Banhammer Posted:

Next, allow only one alt per raid. This would be to limit the higher-tiered pods so one couldn’t use their alts (a paid-for service) in a large-raid klan to give themselves huge advantages over those who didn’t spend money.

I’m incredibly opposed to this only because we *use* our alts in our raids. Why can’t my alt get scoops even thought it spent 12 visits earning those scoops. And spacekadt’s 12 visits. An *8* hour raid doesn’t happen without alts and was a ****load of work to pull off. Each and every alt that got the scoops deserved and earned them.

MC Banhammer Posted:

Finally, disable raids and card-play against others immediately after the forum visits refresh on Wednesday. This is an effort to diminish the impact of people who can’t play right when the round ends, by giving a somewhat stable environment, as well as the ability to gain more, but not unlimited, scoops (and still allow movement from pod to pod right near the end, which could inadvertently allow someone else to medal in the pod you’re leaving!)

So those of us who aren’t awake at rollover get screwed by those that are. The simple fact on this one is that without varying times, there’s no way to make everyone happy on this one. I don’t think this solves the problem so much as shifts who gets to play and who doesn’t. The only way I can possibly see to make it close to fair is to move the Dom end time to approx 2100 UTC on a Saturday or Sunday. But I highly doubt CZ wants to be around to do the tallying and everything they want to do when they should be out drinking.

Personally I would like to see the cap on total amount of vanilla AND antifreeze earned together.

IE you are capped at 75 (or any other arbitrary number) combination of vanilla and antifreeze scoops a week. That way non-raiding people not in klans can compete with brainfreeze and good omens without those klans getting as much of a benefit from gambling scoops.

There needs to be some kind of balance between people in raiding klans and people not. Limiting antifreeze alone is only helping raiding klans, which has not increased the amount of interest in raiding but decreased the amount of participation in dom IMO.

FAIL Posted:

Personally I would like to see the cap on total amount of vanilla AND antifreeze earned together.

My anecdotal evidence is that I earned 9 medals last round ambuming probably less than 30 vanilla and antifreeze scoops combined. Personally I have no wish to add a cap to either of them, especially not vanilla because it is already limited by the number of turns your klan can use during a raid.

To me the real problem is that there is one strategy only in Domination: get your cards then spend them in a last minute frenzy.

Westside Wizard Posted:

To me the real problem is that there is one strategy only in Domination: get your cards then spend them in a last minute frenzy.

This is why I moved up the time you could play cards. Sure, it allows a frenzy of card-playing right before you can’t. But then, there’s still time to spend visits and gamble and submit entries to earn scoops. This lowers the impact of the card-playing frenzy.

Pickled male reproductive organbum Posted:

I know a great number of those ideas would make domination much less enjoyable for those who actually compete, to increase the enjoyment of those who don’t.

Near as I can tell, there’s maybe one or two dozen people who actually compete, and thousands who don’t. So yes, my goal is to increase the numbers. If 2000 people suddenly start playing at the cost of 20 who were and no longer do, I’d consider than a win for the site.

As much as I’m tempted to make up new rules so I can get a medal without effort.

These rules are too comfusing. I’m afraid it will ward off new players such as myself