Forum - Space Odyssey MMORPG - a massive free online space game

- Working on some special encryption missions, they are enhanced encrypt missions to give out more at once while using more turns. The rep gain on them will probably be somewhat halved, but tstill good, e.g. something like a 100 x lvl 1 Encrypt for SO Wars to give out more segments, and a rep gain like doing 25 solo lvl 1 encrypts...

The multiplier will prbably depend on the encryption level, with higher levels having more advanced multiplier options,and probably a limit to how many multiplier missions can be done / day.

Dats great!  :wow: :wow: :wow:

thanks this will be great  :12:

Could I firstly say - thank you Emi for listening, giving your time and starting a process to make what I think may be one huge improvement for your game.

I am 1000% for increases to mission turns/seg rewards, because theres issues that it creates for players, and for the game - and I thought long and hard about what I would say here - I do NOT want to try  throw up any uneccessary roadblock on what I see as such an important step forward.

However - that said - Im not sure implementing the solution as presented will actually address the core issues.

A major issue is that if people click, click and so on for hours - then they get a powerful edge over others who cant spend that time.  If you leave in normal missions and they raise encrypt level faster than these new missions then you havent really changed anything - the competitive edge is still with the grinders due to better items.

This is exacerbated further if you put a limit on the number that people can do - what options are left when you hit your cap?  Er .. hello grinding ..

I think everyone should be able to spend all thier turns in say 2 to 4 hrs or so.  That way its the decisions and strategies on spending turns that becomes important - not the endless clicking.  As I said - Im sure the stated solution wont solve these issues.

And - for people who enjoy spending time on this game - well - its not like the actual clicking time is all that you spend - I can say theres endless hours in ship design, budgeting and planning - or maybe theyd just rather do something else entirely.

So;

A simple solution would be to remove the old style missions entirely.  Give the new missions the same encryption rate increase - otherwise Derflinger and Co. (thats you Broken, Overmind, Chrys and Skull ) would never be caught for encrypt levels.

Also no limit to the number a player can do - and plenty enough for everyone to spend their turns on missions if thats how they want to spend them.

However - if you cant see it in your heart to just toss aside the old missions;

Then;

- the encrypt multiplyer for the new missions really needs to be EXACTLY the same - so no-one can raise encryption faster than someone else (or we are all grinding again .. )

- enough new missions so people can spend their turns as they wish (or we're grinding the old ones again ..)

- and no limit to the number they can do in a day ( or .. yeah .. guess you got the picture now eh .. )

The only advantage then of normal missions would be more items - which most people have more than they can use anyhow - so if you ran out you might do normal missions for a bit to restock. 

But the ginding would stop.

********************************************

Emi - please have a look through and consider the issues Ive tried to raise.  Hopefully the facts speak for themselves.

I hope you can see what I am trying to bring to your attention.  Once again - thankyou for listening to us.

I'll shorten my response after having more time to think about it.

There is a problem with the current missions, so a solution needs to address that directly, either by removing them - or changing them.

I dont believe adding something new will fix it - even though what your proposing is good in itself, it doest alter the fact that theres a problem with the current missions that still needs to be addressed.

woo!! thanks

this will be an interesting new twist.  but E what about that competition we had a while back were we created new encouter types and they were suposed to be implemented into the game?

The new encounters where somehow lost by Snipe who was desinging them, I think his pc was hit by a lightning strike and cought fire so I never got them.  :slap:

Back on topic, I'm thinking the only difference between making one encrypt mission at a time or making a 10 x the one encrypt would be the turns needed to warp around to find them...

I'm suggesting this:

When accessing the encrypt mission in the War room, a multiplier box allows to multiply the mission up to 10 x times.

If you set the multiplier to 10 x you should get:

- 10 items of the listed type (good if you find a nice item to multiply :) )
- Instead of 1 turn, you use a max of 91 turns, about 10 turns per mission (same if you jump around to find something else). So if you leave it to 1 it uses 1 turns, set it to 2 uses 11 turns etc, 10 uses 91 turns.
- Slightly increased difficulty, have to kill 10% (1% for each multiplier point) more enemies to succeed...
- Same rep gain as if you do 10 x of the same type

This should reduce the time you have to use the 1440 turns you gain in one day to about 15.82 missions in a day if you use the 10 x  :21:

Slider multiplier can be set between 1 - 10. Default is 1...

Feel free to comment, maybe suggest changes if you have a good point I will take into account.

Thank you

I can do 20 missions on the same planet without moving that would take me 20 turns, now with the multiplier I would waste 81 turns extra because I have to click once and not 10 times? Yeah obvious this would burn turns like hell.

Yes FTP I'm not saying it's better to always use the multiplier, however look at it closely and you will find many benefits:

- Designed for those that do not want to waste too much time with grinding or waiting for missions to respawn at his sys
- Good way to get your rep up, imagine if you have lvl 100 encrypt and do 10 x lvl 100 your rep gain will be greater because otherwise you have to hunt for the max encrypt level much more time and use more turns. Basically you should increase 1 encrypt lvl or so with every 10 x max level you do...
- You found a good item you need, you can get more in one shot (+turns items anyone?)

So the best benefit I think is that if you manage to find a max encrypt you can do, you get the best items / best rep in one shot

and some others I prob missed...

atm Time grinding single mission + items ( wich increase in power way to much in the wars server if you ask me )

i geuss we will have to see the changes and try them out but if you find items that give 25 turns do the mission 10 times you spend 91 turns but gain 250 turns form items.
so basicly the number of blackhole encounters just went up by a factor of a 1000.

ofc this isnt a problem for normal So but it could Destroy the Wars server in a matter of weeks.

o and while your tweaking the missions you might want to think about reducing the benifit from items by like 100% since when the multi missions go life we wars will be hitting +75% if not 100 items with in a few months.

OK!  This is perfect Emi - drop down box and select.

The increase to turns cost might be a bit over the top though - maybe 50 turns is more reasonable?

However - I love this solution - this really should make the game competitive.

One reservation though Emi - I think the issue raised about turns + items is a valid one.  It might become an issue at high encrypts where the turn reward is enough to allow you to find the next highest turns reward mission and so on, and just cap out your turns.  Might be an idea to remove turns rewards maybe?

Personally I think all turns rewards should be removed - including Black Holes - turns are the leveler of the playing field, the resource that restricts everything - shouldnt be able to buy them, beg them or win them in my opinion. 

All other resources act on a slider of diminishing returns, but 1 turn is as valuable today as it will be in 6 months time, probably more valuable - turns rewards really should be reconsidered ...

getting turns as a reward is the unconstant variable that makes it possible to catch the top ten or any player. With the new setup youll use Turns even faster so i say keep them as they are, but limit the item ones because that may end up being a problem to maybe... 10x 45=450 as much as a BH and keep BH's as they are. also you guys are forgetting that you might now be able to accomplish a x10 mission, so you might not get 10X that item just lose 91 turns and what ever turns you spent to go to that mission.

Sliding Scale .. awesome. :-)

There are no negatives to this suggestion. Those who want to spend less time grinding segments can use the Multiplier.

Cost is based on an average of 10 movement points to get to the next system ...

When is this going live ?

Im still very concerned about the turns reward - I think maybe its something that needs to be viewed differently on WARS than from the normal server. 

If the turns results arent removed or SERIOUSLY adjusted, the playing field wont be leveled - it will be horribly skewed - in favour of those having both high encrypt ratings and lots of playing time available - so one of the reasons I was advocating this would get dumped on its head.  Namely that the amount of playing time available shouldnt differentiate players - but rather their skills and capability for descision making.

Overmind - you cant make a case for the turns issue by saying lower players can use extra turns to catch the top players.  Its the top players that will have the higher encrypts and access to the huge turns results - they will be the ones to benefit from it immediately - your logic is - er - illogical. 

Once your encrypt level is high enough - if the mission spawn rate is good you could easily find the turns missions and just keep increasing turns to cap - and never run out - I think that would be a disaster - no, Im sure that would be a disaster.

I had always assumed the multiplyer would not apply to items - maybe that is a good solution- just have the mission yield one item - not 10 - really, I think it would be a cluster of ducks to have 10 times turn rewards as they are now. 

Also, the amount of missions that people are going to do is going to drop - not sure by how much - but I would suggest after this goes live - the rate of mission respawns will need to be reviewed and reduced.

Reduce to one item reward - or remove turns + items please!  Also, mission spawn rate may need to be reduced.

I for one am ONLY going to use the 10X multiplyer.  I love this idea EMI :D  The turns problem is an issue that will kill it though.

suggestion- maybe we should have a test before lounching this?

Hmmm .... How to say this. The segment multiplier is a great idea, we certainly need it.

However, if you put the multiplier at 10, and get 10 items as well ... There's nothing stopping you wandering around the Galaxy and cherry picking the item rewards. ie Only take a single multiplier on the combat items and taking a * 10 multiplier on Workers, Credits and turns.

At around 500 Encrypt level you are talking +50 Turn Items, + 500 Million Credits.

So it wouldn't be hard to imagine you capable of doing a *10 Multiplier on a +50 Turns item and pocketing 500 turns. Costs you 91 turns to gain 500 turns ... anyone else see the issue here ?

This wouldn't help the lower end of the game, in fact once you got to a certain encryption level, you would effectively have INFINITE, credits, and turns. The game would be devoid of skill and whoever clicks the most would win.

Having the segment reward multiplier is a good idea. Multiplying the item rewards is a bad idea.

I misread the original post, in that I thought the multiplier was only going to apply to segments gained from Encryptions. Please do not also apply the multiplier to the Items reward aspect of it. As I said previously, if people want to micro manage explore and gain items then let them do it the old fashion way, that rewards more time spent playing. But for those who just want to burn turns quickly to gain SEGMENTS, then have the multiplier function.

Increasing Segments reward = Good.

Increasing Item Rewards = BAD.

hmmm how about 1 listed item plus X many random equivalent items for your multiplier? this will essentially replicate finding the missions naturally and should solve the turn problem.

The simplest sollution to the turn items is to make the turn items rare, 10 x or more harder to find then the other items... better then limiting or removing them I think  :21:

i think limit them, that way if people are dedicated and have spare time out of their day to play more than the average player, they gain an advantage over people. limit them to the max of a BH when you use the multiplier. its only fair, if you try harder/ work off harder, you gain a lil more.

Well I think that making them 10 x harder to find would limit them because there would be 10 x less items ingame but using the multiplier you get 10 x items for the mission => 10 x less turn items + 10 x more items from multiplier = same amount of turn items ingame...

I will probably ballance them further when the update is ready, maybe a little reduction in the turns given.

The problem will still remain to some extent Emi. If the Commander only chooses to use the *10 multiplier on +Turns items then you could still have infinite Turns, but obviously making them rarer would make this outcome harder, but still doable in theory. I'd suggest making +Turn items even rarer ... by a factor of 100 if you still wish to have them in the game at all.

I myself feel that the multiplier is good for the segs but bad for the items just leave items as they are and give 1 item no matter what multiplier you use, if segs are more important to you you will do the multi if items are more important you won't, but I do think the turns used on it are a little to high because you can stay in one place a good while as you build up cap at 50 seems reasonable to me.

by making them 10times or even 100 times rarer you make people have to use the multiplyer...  one way to pass a player is to play efficiently while they waste 9 xtra turns per mission. i say limit turn item to a max of 45 turns x 10=as much as a BH or dont do any thing to items at all, meaning you did one mission but 10 times so you get 1 item. that way while you get segs faster you miss out on items giving people another way to (legally) gain power a little faster than others.

Hey emi real respeckta to you dude  :19:

My favoured solutions are (in order);

1. Remove all +turn items.
2. Give a random selection of items.
3. Give only one item per mission.
4. Make plus turns items extremely uncommon - like 1,000 times less in my opinion - to the point of non existance.

SOWARS in particular should be a game of skill - not, "who can spend longest at the keyboard".

ahh, i think SO Wars should be a game of skill where spending the longest time at the keyboard helps


also will the fleet cost calculator be able to reduce the x10 segment reward? or will you automatically get 500segs

How we doing with this ?

Going to be implemented anytime soon ?

I would rather wait for a very good update than get a half baked one full of holes/

So asking how its coming along is tantamount to requesting a half assed update?

Anyhow - moving along - how is this update going? 

Recently there was a very good suggestion about selecting ships for missions and attacks - the suggestion was - IF you selected a ship, by putting a check mark in the box - then the tick stays there until you uncheck it.

This means once you select ships for something - you dont have to redo it all the time - which is a pain in the ass. 

Im no web designer - but that sounds really simple - any chance we could see it as part of this update?  Im sure it would be VERY welcome to all players.

me too, how this update comming along? and i wouldnt mind having that tick thing added too while your messing with the mission setup too.

lol ... I'd love to see the Battlegroup idea implemented.

I'd also love to see this mission multiplier added real soon.

tell me about it, i need segs and dont have time to get them. my growth is close to topping out, and i liked 5.7% of a good amount...

The battlegroup idea, I am working on it now and then the multiplier. Should be a few more days. The battlegroup update will be implemented on SO Wars / Main, while the multiplier on SO Wars and on SO after some time or in the new round.

I know its a dumb question, but I've probably missed it, so : whats the battlegroup idea about? Is it the one that allows you to merge with other players?

http://forum.spaceo.net/index.php/topic,3298.0.html

Battlegroup check clickie thing is live - man, awesome - so much pain just went away :P

Well done Emi, good work on the Battlegroups and good news on the Multiplier.