Specific replies:

MC Banhammer Posted:

to balance the game so you can compete no matter what your playing ability is…

That thought will never encourage anyone to retain interest. People lose interest in playing games of luck fairly quickly. Anything that either brings the whole thing down to pure luck or pure math are equally bad.

MC Banhammer Posted:

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

I don’t know about this idea. It seems like everyone from one raiding klan would be together since they all will have roughly the same number of scoops. Klan members in the same bracket are an advantage not, a hindrance. This won’t result in players skipping scoops to stay in a different bracket, each week klannies will just alternate who gets medals. I don’t think it will help Domination as a game, although it would make solo players who are using alts to raid damn near orgasmic. The idea will also really appeal to the e-peen whores who only play Domination because there are e-peens to be won.

MC Banhammer Posted:

Next, allow only one alt per raid.

Less money for CZ and the potential for illegal alt abuse rising? I see the power of alts, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have purchased them. (What, you thought I was getting them because it’s super fun to run these forums for the 200th time?) I just think it’s naive to think the restriction would solve anything. It would simply make legit players like myself see no reason to get an alt, but rather turn back to the large klan raiding style we saw with Sisters and KoLOL. All it does is shift the problem to include a few more players, rather than solve it.

This is just a hard situation. Despite what the CZ team wants, this game doesn’t lend itself to klan interplay. Hell, unless you are already friends with other players, putting together a klan of any size is a trick. (Go check the klan section of Flamebate, go back pages and see which new klans have survived. Now ask yourself why the hell the klan forum is located in the role playing section. Different problem, I know, but it’s related. It’s almost impossible for a new klan to build any momentum unless it is started by an established, thick skinned regular.) Anyway, anyone who has done a vanilla raid knows it’s not terribly exciting. Things are being forced to try to get people to play like they are running an instance on WoW (I don’t play, but I’ve watched and I think I’m making an accurate comparison), and sitting and waiting for a forum to fall is never going to have the “get him!” feel. It is a task that must be completed to reach an end goal, it’s never going to be appealing to the mbumes. This is the crux of the problem.

MC Banhammer Posted:

Finally, disable raids and card-play against others immediately after the forum visits refresh on Wednesday.

We’ll all just set a clock and play it out then. Only then trolls and re-res will never again get a medal, since they won’t be able to use their 12 banked visits as effectively as emos and camwhores.

MC Banhammer Posted:

I can’t always play at end time, and I can’t use all my visits earned, and I don’t gamble — so what chance do I have against those who can? How can I earn 25-40 scoops and still feel competitive? Because I’m not now.

I really think this is a different problem, and shouldn’t be lumped in with the ‘lets fix these problems’ stuff. Can’t play at end time is one thing, and a serious consideration that impacts a lot of players. Now, if a player doesn’t gamble or use all their visits? Ummm, so you want to win without bothering to play at all? I would have sympathy if you had said you were running a carefully speeded pistachio loop and gambling max scoops daily, but christ on a crutch if you aren’t even trying to do what you can, how can you complain when those who do beat you? It’s not going to help narrow down the real problems if players who don’t have the time to play have to be ultimately catered to. I run PrayPal – the longest forum in the game – 4 times a day and gamble all 5 scoops, it never takes more than 20 minutes. If a player isn’t willing to put in 15 to 20 minutes in order to have a chance, well they aren’t actually playing are they? I had an unklanned alt accidentally win a medal a couple of weeks ago just running visits! It is not at all difficult to medal in the unmedaled or low medal brackets. As soon as this season pushes forward by a few more weeks that situation will resume.

Several things. As far as I can tell CZ makes money from ads and BPs. I don’t think that any suggestion that eliminates a source of income is actually going to be in the interest of the game.

I love you Banhammer, but we generally don’t let non-raiders leech scoops unless they are a visiting Mod. Log in to see images! If someone can’t stay for one particular raid, sure, but it’s generally accepted that they will be helping fellow klannies that week rather than pushing to medal. And anyone who doesn’t regularly contribute visits ends up booted.

I agree that a game needs to cater to the mbumes rather than the power players. Nothing has changed about the way Domination is being played, it just wasn’t hugely noticeable until the reset. Flinging the serious players back in with the dabblers was destined to create a certain amount of frustration for those players who had never dealt with that sort of aggressive play.

I know you keep mentioning that this isn’t about vanilla, take the vanilla discussion to the vanilla thread, but no one is complaining that lemon is a problem. People are complaining about klans and alts, and both serve up vanilla. It’s pretty clear that besides the Domination end time, the big issue is in fact klan vanilla. We all knew this was going to be the situation when anti-freeze was nerfed – it is the lesser of the two evils.

Honestly, new Domination cards are the only thing I can really see to alter how things play. Diluting the card pool, so that the min scoop/shield strategy is shaky at best. Coding things to make it impossible for alts to be in bracket together would also be a big help.

EDIT: The other quick fix is to simply raise the cost of The bumhole and The Shield. Leave them in the card pool with the other cards, but add an additional scoop cost – say 2 extra random scoops each when the card is played. This would force players to put scoops on the board and bring the price of these power cards in line with their effect. It would also make the min scoop/shield strategy a hell of a lot less solid, since every time a new shield was activated it would use 2 more scoops.