PlanetsCentral

Hi there, I was wondering if this topic has been raised in the past or not. After quite some time of not playing planets i decided to restart my intergalactically career and have some fun.

Unfortunately, my skills have suffered a lot (and i was never a super experienced player) and now i found myself in a situation where in all new games 80% of the players are highly skilled.

For a noob like me it's therefore pretty hard to play good games and to get more experience.

Rookies have basically two choices, ally with one of the big guys and do what they tell you or get crushed in the first quarter of the game.

Therefore my question.

What do you think about a 'Max rank to join' for new games similar to what planets.nu has.

Looking at the number of players i could think of cutting a line at Lieutenant Commander level for lower experienced players (rank ~<10K).

The big guys still have enough other games where they can dominate.

Hi there,
I was wondering if this topic has been raised in the past or not. After quite some time of not playing planets i decided to restart my intergalactically career and have some fun.

Unfortunately, my skills have suffered a lot (and i was never a super experienced player) and now i found myself in a situation where in all new games 80% of the players are highly skilled.

For a noob like me it's therefore pretty hard to play good games and to get more experience.

Rookies have basically two choices, ally with one of the big guys and do what they tell you or get crushed in the first quarter of the game.

Therefore my question.

What do you think about a 'Max rank to join' for new games similar to what planets.nu has.

Looking at the number of players i could think of cutting a line at Lieutenant Commander level for lower experienced players (rank ~<10K).

The big guys still have enough other games where they can dominate.

Hi,

I would appreciate that as well!

And if there not enough players joining I would suggest to keep time for registration limited. If let’s say after 4 weeks not all races are filled then though luck but game will start without them.
Killrace would be good here also to wipe out open slots.

Yes, I would support that. Good point. I guess, unfortunately, such a game will fill only slowly without the high-ranked active players.

Hello, Very nice idea. You have my support (since I’m below the suggested skill rate).

I wonder what Stefan streu thinks about it?

Cheers!

I wonder what Stefan streu thinks about it?

I support this idea. So far, I had approached the subject of rank limitation from the other direction: have a minimum rank to join, to avoid "no-shows". On the other hand, maximum rank to join makes sense, for the exact reasons you describe.

Let's brainstorm about how such a game should look like.

Standard ship list, standard map probably? I would not disable extended missions, though, because they fill some awkward gaps in the mission repertoire (like: "lay 15 torps as mines").

How about alliances? Being at the receiving end of a Lizard/Klingon/Pirate alliance makes me say "no", but then I'm probably biased. But then, there's a difference between enabling all alliance features (as in Titan/Pleiades/Phoenix), and disabling all such features completely (as in North Star/Lupus).

No wormholes, no ion storms.

Any more thoughts?

--Stefan

Hey there

a long time ago in a galaxy far far away there was a host site where training games were offered.

There were 5 teams of 2 players each, a master and a padawan. This way all the noobs were able to gain experience based on the knowledge of their mentor. The teams have been formed as balanced as possible in order to allow the players to have fun also.

If enough players are interested in this and Stefan would set up this kind of game (should not be different from any standard game) I'd volunteer as one of the mentors as soon as one of my current games is over.

Cheers,
Mike

mondoshiva in Re: Ranking system for joini...:

I wonder what Stefan streu thinks about it?

I support this idea. So far, I had approached the subject of rank limitation from the other direction: have a minimum rank to join, to avoid "no-shows". On the other hand, maximum rank to join makes sense, for the exact reasons you describe.

Let's brainstorm about how such a game should look like.

Standard ship list, standard map probably? I would not disable extended missions, though, because they fill some awkward gaps in the mission repertoire (like: "lay 15 torps as mines").

How about alliances? Being at the receiving end of a Lizard/Klingon/Pirate alliance makes me say "no", but then I'm probably biased. But then, there's a difference between enabling all alliance features (as in Titan/Pleiades/Phoenix), and disabling all such features completely (as in North Star/Lupus).

No wormholes, no ion storms.

Any more thoughts?

--Stefan

Hi,

I would go with
- standard ship list
- standard map
- wrapped map, so nobody can hide in the corner
- Ion storms (yes, as it requires cloaker to think twice their moves)
- A Lupus style could be also pretty cool. Although you can never prevent any kind of cooperation.
- extended mission? not sure (not too much experience with it)

Regarding the mentor/padawan thingy i'm not in favour.
Reason, the mentor could end up in 'controlling' the padawans next moves. That in return could be missused!!!
I say COULD on purpose, but the danger is there to use the padawan for ones own success.

If we want to ramp-up players i say it's best to 'learning by doing'. Making mistakes and learn from them.

I dont mind playing with an unexperienced or new player, and I also dont mind just tagging along without telling others what to do. I just enjoy discussing ideas and strategies, so my only request would be to have some kind of regular contact with my ally. Thats it. So, if anyone is up for it or you meet me ingame: give it a try

Hi Stefan,

is there any plans ongoing?
Still I think the idea is good 😊
Greetings,
Mondoshiva

is there any plans ongoing?

It's on the top of the "things to implement for the host" list, which means, it's the thing I think about on my commute

The last question that came up is how do we determine rank limits after all.

The "natural" check would be to check the actual rank, i.e. "below Spaceman" (rank 3) or "below Petty Officer" (rank 4). However, you can also be demoted to Spaceman by having a lot of skill and then dropping out of a game, thus, losing reliability.

We could also just check skill points, e.g. "< 500 points" or "< 250 points" (those are the skill thresholds for Spaceman or Petty Officer, respectively).

To put these numbers into perspective, finishing a game in the lower third gets you around 100-200 skill points (checked some of those who are in that range, and how they got their points).

Personally, I prefer the first option, because it is easier to explain, but I cannot judge its "abuse potential" (i.e. who will intentionally lose points to beat up noobs?).

--Stefan