Reposting my suggestions:

Suggestion 1 – limit Klans to 20 members, and don’t bother changing the mechanics – they are fine, but the numbers of players have risen so rapidly they’ve outgrown the engine. It’s way too easy to pwn all the forums over and over with a little coordination due to the sheer size of some clans, and as long as FW stays on one server and the number of players remains high, it’ll remain that way. Limiting Klan size would at least make that far more difficult, and have the effect of nerfing the number of vanillas winnable. It would also, however, reduce the camaraderie or whatever.

Suggestion 2 – don’t award vanilla scoops to Klan members who haven’t participated in the raid (or make it simple – if they haven’t logged in in the last (say) 24 hours when their klan wins scoops, they get nada).

Suggestion 3 – Raise the limit for using bumhole cards from <4 scoops – it’s the only way for independent players to have any real impact on SotQR etc members, and if they want to use their bumhole cards they have to basically give up any hope of winning themselves. Alternatively, scrap the limit, but make them only cost a player 5 scoops. Alternatively, make bumholing anonymous. That would allow true bumholery (and intra-Klan backstabbing!).

I’ll offer another one which I don’t know if it’s been suggested before or not: limit the number of times vanilla scoops (and probably antifreeze, via gambling, as well) can be earned, to about one time in an 8-hour period.

Not sure if the math there is correct. The basic concept I’m trying to suggest is to limit the number of scoops you can earn in each flavor to roughly match those which can be earned in lemon and pistachio, which are limited by your max forum visits. (In this same vein, I think antifreeze via suicide is too weak.) If that makes sense.

n00b65 Posted:

I’ll offer another one which I don’t know if it’s been suggested before or not: limit the number of times vanilla scoops (and probably antifreeze, via gambling, as well) can be earned, to about one time in an 8-hour period.

Not sure if the math there is correct. The basic concept I’m trying to suggest is to limit the number of scoops you can earn in each flavor to roughly match those which can be earned in lemon and pistachio, which are limited by your max forum visits. (In this same vein, I think antifreeze via suicide is too weak.) If that makes sense.

It certainly does.

Excluding vanilla, right now things are balanced so that people who want to be competitive in Domination have two ways to go about it: hitting different individual forums in a row to focus on Pistachios while picking up a few Lemon Scoops here or there; or focusing on Lemon Scoops and hitting the forums you know you can speed run with Excellent or better, while maybe picking up a Pistachio or 3 if you have 4 or 8 different forums you can do that at.

In my opinion, where Vanilla should be is as another path – where a raid (which, based on experience, will use 8-12 of a person’s runs) would generate 20-50 scoops for raiders: enough to be worth people giving up Pistachios and Lemons, but not so much to make going for one of the other strategies useless; and enough that a well-organized raid – which is way more work than speedrunning – has the possibility to give the most scoops of all.

The two hurdles between where we are right now and that idea are that people who do nothing for the raid still get all the benefit, and that the current raiding payout makes for wayyyyy more than 50 for a strong raid.

I think one of the ideas someone suggested previously – weighting Vanilla Scoops by Klan size – is the best way around that (in addition to tweaking payout total numbers as well). Small Klans of focused raiders could then go for the highest levels (again, 50 or so), while large Klans could organize raids that give everyone 6-12: not nearly as many per person, and certainly not a guaranteed win, but enough to help out, and with more people-visits, they could do 4 or more raids a week as opposed to the small clan’s 1 or 2.

Just some thoughts to chew on, I guess.

Some of these suggestions are in conflict, but I’m trying to think of several options as opposed to a “to do” list.

– My favorite option would simply be to allow players to choose whether they wanted to play Domination solo or in klan. Click a bumon on your profile and poof it is done. Changing your mind could cost a Brownie point and any change would take place at the start of the next round of Domination. Solo players could still be in a klan, but would not need to play Domination with the klan. (I would personally love this, since I’m really not hugely interested in working out how to manage five way ties.)

– Klan vanilla being limited to those logged in at the time of the raid. One of the biggest problems dealing with vanilla is simply so many bodies having it. (The 24 hour thing really isn’t going to make a hell of a difference with some of the mbumive klans.)

– Reduce the vanilla awarded for klan pwnage. The way vanilla is awarded is nuts. I don’t see scaling being a big help, since 30ish people were able to produce 170+ and 350+ scoops. If scaling is used, what is going to stop those same players from splintering off into a 15 to 30 person klan in order to ensure a glut of vanilla?

– The new klan pages are awesome, maybe add a link to each forum name to make things a bit more manageable for klans trying to pull it off without someone playing director.

– Add a current forums pwned counter to the end of the klan identifier when displaying who pwned the forum most recently. So if I pwned Denture Chat and was the only Sister controlling a forum when players looked at the forums list (both the dedicated klan domination page and while scanning the regular forums) they could see “currently pwned by scullyangel of Sister of the Quivering Rose (1).” The (1) would represent total forums controlled by that klan. Now another Sister pwns DeviousArtists. Both our numbers would change to (2). This would be a great dual edged sword. This might make klan domination easier, but it would also make it far easier to disrupt a raid. Any random player checking out forums could notice a (12) and decide to try to sabotage the raid!

– More Domination cards. God I love Domination cards. More heavy damage Domination cards.

***“Catastrophe – Remove 10% of the scoops from every player.”

***“What Plans? – Destroy 2 random Domination Cards from the player of your choice.”

***“Commit Suicide – Using this card will destroy all of your scoops plus 2 of your Domination cards at random (you must be able to pay the cost.) Chose 5 other players, randomly destroy half the number of scoops you sacrificed from each of the selected players.”

***“Switcharoo part Deux – By playing this card, you can swap all of the scoops in two of your chosen opponents flavas.”

***“Chaos Rules – randomly destroy or award 3 scoops to every player. (The random function would be be a coin flip for each player either giving them scoops and taking scoops.)

Have I mentioned that I love Dom cards?

***“Risky Rewards – gain 3 random scoops. 3 random players also receive 3 random scoops.”

***“Are you crazy? – gain 1 scoop of each color. 10 opponents will randomly be awarded with either The Shotgun or The Destroyer.”

***“Show me the money! – Destroy all your scoops and Domination cards. Gain 20 flezz for each scoop or card destroyed.”

EDIT: Btw, I’m aware that this isn’t a Dom card thread, I just think Dom cards are a viable solution to scoop control. Honestly, as players continue grinding forums and earning excess flezz, antifreeze is going to be a bigger problem than vanilla. Ceiling caps on scoops would be a temporary fix. After all how does it fix the problem if everyone is maxed out? When everyone is maxed it’s going to come down to Dom cards, so why not put the power there in the first place. I like the idea of a level 4 player accidentally earning scoops, getting a card, and being able to wipe 10% of the scoops from the board.

I offered a suggestion last week that is a slight variation on the weighted scoop reward. Instead of adjusting the awarded scoops, adjust the number of forums necessary to achieve the raid reward. At rollout, Vanilla rushes required 100% of the forums available to be pwned to earn the scoops. While I would not enjoy 100% at this time, I think the number of forums required should grow as more forums are made available via forumbuildr. Perhaps a base of 75% of available forums, with an adjustment applied based on clan size.

Escher Posted:

Excluding vanilla, right now things are balanced so that people who want to be competitive in Domination have two ways to go about it: hitting different individual forums in a row to focus on Pistachios while picking up a few Lemon Scoops here or there; or focusing on Lemon Scoops and hitting the forums you know you can speed run with Excellent or better, while maybe picking up a Pistachio or 3 if you have 4 or 8 different forums you can do that at.

One other point to consider during the balancing is the affects of enormous amounts of vanilla have on other flavors. I started this last night during our raid without thinking it through, and now that I’ve considered it I realize that I’m about to pwn the entire Min Scoops system.

By utilizing Switcheroo’s during the raid, I’ve secured myself over 100 (now brought down to 100 via card purchases) scoops in Chocolate, Lemon, and Pistachio. If SotQR is able to pull off one more raid of the same proportions as last night, I will be able to earn Min Scoops with 100 of each flavor.

From what I understand, Min Scoops was intended as a medal possibility for people who are not able to compete with players/klans who are earning mbumive amounts of scoops. With just 4 Switcheroos at the right time, I’ve effectively removed this possibility from the casual gamer.

My own suggestion to fix this would be to not allow cards to be played (or possibly even purchased) for a period of time after Klan Vanilla scoops are earned.

pimp doubt Posted:

Reposting my suggestions:

Suggestion 1 – limit Klans to 20 members, and don’t bother changing the mechanics

Sorry, wouldn’t really change the number of scoops the Sisterhood gets that drastically.

pimp doubt Posted:

Suggestion 2 – don’t award vanilla scoops to Klan members who haven’t participated in the raid (or make it simple – if they haven’t logged in in the last (say) 24 hours when their klan wins scoops, they get nada).

I *do* want this to happen, but again, wouldn’t really change the number of scoops the Sisterhood gets, since I boot everyone inactive.

pimp doubt Posted:

Suggestion 3 – Raise the limit for using bumhole cards from <4 scoops – it’s the only way for independent players to have any real impact on SotQR etc members, and if they want to use their bumhole cards they have to basically give up any hope of winning themselves. Alternatively, scrap the limit, but make them only cost a player 5 scoops. Alternatively, make bumholing anonymous. That would allow true bumholery (and intra-Klan backstabbing!).

When you have 6-7 people in a pool at over 300 scoops, bumhole cards don’t really matter Log in to see images!

I don’t really care how it gets fixed, but I’m against the idea that there’s “klan” and “no klan” Domination brackets, insofar as I’m part of a clan, but it’s not a competitive one, more of just “here are some jerks who post on a particular site.” Of course, that adds another wrinkle of “competitive” and “noncompetitive” clans, but I figure the admin are smart enough to figure something out.

Suggestion:

Klans are marked as either “Competitive” or “Non-competitive.” The competitive Klans are treated as normal in concerns to vanilla raids, and are grouped together as such. The non-competitives act as solos, or with a significant nerf, and are grouped together.

Alternatively, individuals can mark themselves as C or NC for the same reasons, or Klan leaders can mark their clan as such members based on their participation in raids.

The biggest problem I’ve seen with the “Klans in one group, solos in another” idea or “Max 20 to a Klan” is that some people aren’t in Klans for Domination, myself included, and are part of the big Klans for some other reason(mine being obvious).

Just a thought.

There should be no limit to the number of people in a clan. It is really the major social aspect of what is a fairly simple single player game. You should even be able to join more than one clan. Make it easy for communities to develop in game.

I think moving to a set of clan vs individual challenges would be best. Make people be forced to choose how they want to allocate their actions- for group benefit or personal? Some people will want to be the best in their bracket, but that will come at a price of hurting clan performance. Competitive vs non competitive clans will evolve out of that, and game mechanics won’t need to be introduced to handle it.

Don’t make people make an explicit choice every week/month/leap year whether or not to participate in aspects of the game. If people notice that their clan’s bracket is especially weak, then they should be able to take advantage of that, without having to wait for the next round (when the weakness may not exist) or for the clan leader to push a bumon or etc.