some changes

[mysq...@gmail.com]

OK life is stupid busy right now, but I just rolled out some gameplay
tweaks to show I haven't forgotten you guys.

First, you can now change the name of your row for a minimal fee. This
is based on a patch by someone whose nickname I can't find at the
moment and whose real name I don't want to post without permission,
but he should really take credit in this thread because that's
awesome. Shoot me an email if you too would like access to the source.

Second, some gameplay tweaks. Frankly your (wildly divergent :)
opinions about what to do with balance are as good as mine at this
point, but I'm going to try a few things and I'd like to hear what you
think:

1) defense mult has to be no more than 2 higher than attack mult (for
upgrades from now on).
2) booty capacity will increase by 10 every 3 levels, starting at
level 5.
3) attackers will now convert a wholly random number of destroyed
defenders into attackers owned by the attacking row, assuming any
attackers survive ("conscription" if we had, you know, metaphors
instead of queries). The converted defenders will bring back booty.

These last two are obviously aimed at making upgrading and attacking
defended rows more profitable, although they could have side effects.
Let me know.

--Jack

[lolzj]

Ah, I like the last addition. Sounds cool. I'm excited to see how this
changes things.

[mysq...@gmail.com]

Off the top of my head, some non-balance things that seem important
sometime soonish (say within the next week):

-- scoreboard
-- abandoned row deletion
-- merging shards (oh crap I think our quota increase on shard 1 just
went through -- this might have to be sooner rather than later)
-- better developer support -- separate dev list, bug/feature trac,
whatever

--Jack

On Aug 27, 10:31 pm, mysqlg...@gmail.com wrote:

[The Amigo]

I like the extra booty capacity. It makes long range attacks more
feasible.

I've updated the combat simulation spreadsheet to reflect that:
You can view it online here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p-aA6NyV05KTJYEWUsItdTg
and you can download an XLS copy to play with here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p-aA6NyV05KTJYEWUsItdTg&output=xls

I made no change regarding conscription, since there's no way to
predict the random outcome. There's the potential to show a range of
possible outcomes. But I'll leave that up to someone else.

--
The Amigo

[sky...@gmail.com]

One side effect is that range is increased, since you use less
attackers to pull in more fuel as well. However, I think that this
actually helps, as it lets you get to more people on a similar level
to you, instead of being stuck with the same 2 or 3 people of your
level within 20-40 rows at higher levels.

[Blake]

I've already started making profitable attacks beased on the new
rules.

Fantastic.

Also thanks Amigo for the spreadsheet, its fantastic.

[Chong Jiang]

I concur. Very good changes that makes life at levels 7+ interesting
again!

[Fuzzwah]

> 1) defense mult has to be no more than 2 higher than attack mult (for
> upgrades from now on).
> 2) booty capacity will increase by 10 every 3 levels, starting at
> level 5.
> 3) attackers will now convert a wholly random number of destroyed
> defenders into attackers owned by the attacking row, assuming any
> attackers survive ("conscription" if we had, you know, metaphors
> instead of queries). The converted defenders will bring back booty.
>

Excellent changes!

I just pumped one of my rows up to attack multi 9x and made my move on
the other biggies around me. Worked a treat :)

[Fuzzwah]

I think you need to make some kind of announcement of changes like
this pop up to all players.

Evidence A) http://groups.google.com/group/mysqlgame/browse_thread/thread/2c514fac40735d09#

[Mast3rpyr0]

meh, not too happy about the def_mult. cap cause i want a row with
like 9 d_m and 1 att just to hold money for my main and still be able
to attack the noobs around me :P

i payed 80k+ for more rows, why the restriction :(

[rastaban]

"and still be able
to attack the noobs around me :P"

Thats why the restriction :P

anyway great change IMHO. The random recruits on attack is very
interesting dynamic.

Thanks for a great addictive game.

[Mast3rpyr0]

An addictive game indeed :P i play during my IT class

Technically if i were to only have 9 d_m and liek 300 defenders, would
i not be a noob also (well for that row)

i has 3 rows on shard 3 each bringing in a large income :P

[Warll]

And I take it you were just plain asleep during English eh?

[Mambz]

Ah, so that's why/how i was brutally raped overnight with plenty-o-
defenders.

[Crawford]

Great changes.

I can't wait to see what the opinions are in a few days because I
think profitability is limited and short-term, occurring while people
pounce on the unprepared (read as: sleeping/working).

I'm going to write up code to track the total number of attacks in a
day, as well as the number of attacks that were on rows with only 3
defenders. I think being able to see what percentage of daily
activity is farming would be a great statistic and indicator of how
the gameplay gets affected by changes.

As it stands, the number of defenders and attackers can rise too
easily. And with a high number of defenders, comes the issue of rows
not being suitable targets until their cash is way high. A defense of
10000 x9 is a tough one to make any kind of substantial profit on.
Assume that for 10k defenders to be attack-worthy with 0 attackers to
back them up, the amount of money needs to be about 150k, on average
(read as: neutral defense luck), just to break even. A level 10
(typical level among a lot of the higher AMs/DMs I've seen) money
factory will produce that in a little under 2 days. Oh yeah...and you
have to be AM 12 with around 11250 attackers. That's a WHOLE lot of
factors that need to line up, and that's for this pretty arbitrary
case. The only numbers I arbitrarily chose here were 10000 defenders
with DM x9 and 0 attackers. The rest is all best-case scenario, but
without getting any converts to join you; if you got all the converts,
you'd profit 50k max. Chances are, though, that the other guy WILL
have attackers and probably many more defenders (considering the fact
that someone can shore up 10k defenders and still be at DM 1). Also,
you're not going to get all of his converts.

Anyway, my point is that I still don't think the system lends itself
to continuous fun/profits. I think the cost of attackers and
defenders needs to be affected by the multipliers. After all, doesn't
it make sense that if something is better, it should cost more to
produce? And with the cost of multiplier upgrades increasing
exponentially, someone's going to hit a cap real soon, which will just
lead to stagnation. So I think that needs to be changed, too.

Am I making any sense or should I just go to sleep and let others
worry about balance issues?

[LeaChim]

Credit Credit Credit ;)
I contributed the patch for row name changing.

--Mike Bryant
(Pointless hiding what's on my whois contact)

[Chris Rikli]

Great changes. Good work dudes.

[cow]

The attacker conversion is cool but I find a little fault with it.

It has been mentioned here before that we should have some sort of
reward for successful defense. If my defenders kill out a large
attacking force, why can't I turn some of them around to my side or at
least salvage them as defenders. Even if you only got a fuel bonus or
something (since they won't be returning home after you kill
them...why not take their return-trip fuel) it would be a reward for
good defending

On Aug 27, 9:31 pm, mysqlg...@gmail.com wrote:

[Joe]

+1 on the defense bonuses

[Tardyon]

> It has been mentioned here before that we should have some sort of
> reward for successful defense.  If my defenders kill out a large
> attacking force, why can't I turn some of them around to my side or at
> least salvage them as defenders.  Even if you only got a fuel bonus or
> something (since they won't be returning home after you kill
> them...why not take their return-trip fuel) it would be a reward for
> good defending

Do you mean that if someone attacks and you successfully defend, as in
you lose no money and no fuel, you deserve a prize other than the fact
that you didn't lose any money or fuel? If so... well, I've only had a
few failed attacks, and all but one were because I attacked the wrong
row by accident (typo). The last one was because while I was typing
the attack my target spent all his money on defenders - boy was that
annoying! :)

However, if you want some attackers to be converted into defenders
after a successful attack, then we'll have a problem. Since you can't
lose more than 25% of your defenders, and since attackers usually lose
twice as many units as destroyed defenders, and assuming about half
the destroyed attackers get converted, the situation becomes that
attacking someone successfully will likely INCREASE the number of
defenders they have.

If this happens, then the game will be nothing but farming because
attacking your enemies makes them stronger. And the majority opinion
seems to be (and I certainly think) that attacking is already
difficult enough to pull off profitably.

[Joe]

Actually, on second thought, the 25% loss limit kinda makes things
right, but I do like the idea of keeping the 1/2 fuel the dead
attackers would need to return. That gives more reason to up your
attack multiplier so there is less fuel to leave behind. Anything
that makes the higher attack multiplier fights more interesting is
good, since right now they typically sit around and farm around each
other. I'm waiting to see if these changes alter that behavior much.

[Ruke]

First off, a bug with your math. The defenders_captured are added to
the attackers, and then you get loot equal to attackers +
defenders_captured, meaning each defender carries double-loot home.

You never say what self.attack_threshhold is, I'm assuming it is the
number 3 below your current attack power, but even then, it doesn't
double-loot per attacker at higher levels, it actually makes it so you
get 18$ per attacker at 8 attack, and 16.6$ per attacker at 9 attack.

Attacker multiplier being the limiting factor on attacking smaller
players means that someone with attack 9 is unable to hit anyone
except other huge players. And those players tend to have equally huge
numbers of defenders. The actual math works out to, even with a 9
attack is attacking a 6 defense (maximum range above) for each 10$
they spend on defenders, the attacker looses 12$. Maybe having some
system where an overwhelming number of attackers can reduce
casualties? Or making it so that attack AND defense are added together
when determining range.

On Aug 27, 10:31 pm, mysqlg...@gmail.com wrote:

[Dougie]

On Aug 28, 3:31 am, mysqlg...@gmail.com wrote:

> 1) defense mult has to be no more than 2 higher than attack mult (for
> upgrades from now on).

Any plans to run down the database and fix the rows that violate that
new rule?

I'm still being a coward and sitting on att_mult=4.0 and def_mult=6.0

I'm pleased with the name change feature (fixed my #1 row in each
shard with that).
Can we have that for cliques?

[fnord]

Ruke wrote:
> First off, a bug with your math. The defenders_captured are added to
> the attackers, and then you get loot equal to attackers +
> defenders_captured, meaning each defender carries double-loot home.

Don't confuse 'attack_row.attackers' with 'attackers' - the math is
correct

> You never say what self.attack_threshhold is, I'm assuming it is the
> number 3 below your current attack power, but even then, it doesn't
> double-loot per attacker at higher levels, it actually makes it so you
> get 18$ per attacker at 8 attack, and 16.6$ per attacker at 9 attack.

At 8 attack your level_multiplier is three, and each attacker can loot
'10 * level_multiplier' so it's 30 per attacker - I really don't
understand your math, can you explain it?

[Ruke]

Ah, I did the math wrong Fnord. I was doing attack_multiplier (9 in my
case) plus 1, divided by self.attack_threshold of 6. So, just entirely
wrong math.

[shibumi]

Oh, maybe that's why some attacks I was thinking were pretty risky
turned out very well...

UPDATE rows SET attackers=attackers-526+66, money=money+55773,
fuel=fuel+58780 WHERE row_id=?;
UPDATE rows SET attackers=attackers-0, defenders=defenders-201,
money=money-55773, fuel=fuel-58780 WHERE row_id=?+58;
&
UPDATE rows SET attackers=attackers-704+47, money=money+39120,
fuel=fuel+35860 WHERE row_id=?;
UPDATE rows SET attackers=attackers-0, defenders=defenders-247,
money=money-39120, fuel=fuel-35860 WHERE row_id=?+25;

I was quite pleased with those.