So Pie and I recently had a conversation and this came to my mind and it was even something that he said he had thought about in the past.
One of the major concerns when joining a fam is that you are going to get stuck with inactive or bad/non team oriented players. The usual suggestion is to throw everyone in as an SS and then let you work with whoever you wanted as an Ally. The problem with this idea, is that there are a lot of people that simply do not like the SS playstyle and lack of specialization that you get inside of a family based system (bankers, ressies, attackers) and their race setups.
I suggested that a solution could be that when you join a Galaxy that you are given control of 3 empires (1 account) inside of your own family and then you can choose who you would like to align with from there. Maybe even having an ingame setup where you can have a maximum set of allies. This would mean you never get stuck with a bad teammate unless you are that bad teammate or choose one as an Ally
Thought? Whats good? What’s bad? What should be added on?
To clarify, what your saying is, if I join a round with these settings then I’m the only one in the family correct? But I have 3 accounts, for example I can play a banker attacker and a ressor and then I can also ally another few players who i choose to.
If thats what your saying , I really like it. No one to blame but yourself. Rogues inactives and alot of internal issues are gone.If your not any good then it’s your own fault as you have no one else to blame, the lonely ss game of making income ressies and attacking is taken care of, as u can specialize the 3 individually.
I was actually saying this same thing to someone a couple weeks back half jokingly.
Would be good with official alliances as well which would give the op that checks relations a bit more weight.
Overall I would support this idea, would also return the game a bit more to the days with more players as it world essentially triple the number of “accounts” in the galaxy.
I like your last point. Artificial increasing of player base. Wouldn’t hurt! We could get larger maps and maybe see longer rounds with pop becoming a viable strat again.
Unless there were major changes to gameplay, I would argue that it will drive social players away as you are basically just trippling the work load for no real benefit
The changes needed would make normal game play easier as well, such as easier transfer of planets between empires, ease of use of resources and gc across empires, etc… the only thing that this achieves is increasing explo build limit to 24
This achieves the ability to be “SS” while still having specialization. So nobody gets stuck in a fam with inactives and yet they can still maintain proper roles that make families special.
And you can make the assumption it will drive players away, I can make the assumption it will make people stay when they come. Only 1 way to find out the true result of a theory…
I think this is part of the frustration with the social/semi active players. It’s hard to cater to both sides and keep everyone happy. I am all for casual players but even I can get frustrated when you land in a fam and half the players are casual or semi active and you were hoping to be competitive. Perhaps a combination would be better. So st start you pick random or whole fam. If you pick random you go into a set if fams for pure random and if you go the other option you get the other side of the coin and get your 3 separate logins in portal.
This could cater to both sides and still artificially increase the player base.
I would say this actually would not be to hard to do a short term test. Just do 3 or 6 man fams with full draft and enable the ability to have up to 2 multi accounts with the main. Then be super strick with the consequences for abuse with something like removal of all accounts from current galaxy for remainder of round.
Would take a bit of planning and perhaps have a split registration (draft has so many days to register and then all registrations are random)
This could be achieved also by making changes so that having 1 empire that can do all is viable (i.e. more expos/day, lower morale losses so can hold more planets, change on nw limits for keeping buildings/planets to be fam based not empire based) without adding the complication of trying to log into 3 accounts and move resources, gc and planets between them.
I am not saying it isn’t a good idea, but at the same time it has it’s troubles. It might be worth a try (might even throw out a few more ideas that had been missed). But I think that the changes needed to make it work, fix issues with the current system without adding the hassle of managing 3 separate empires (and why should you have to manage 3 just to have a valid SS option?) The changes needed would make multi-player fam based gameplay much better as well.
One thing that is needed either way, is easier communication items. Easier way to connect with out empires/fams/players, sort out diplo with them, share intel if wanted (or fake that intel), share spread on the map, or send co-ords for cores/no-zones/borders. A way to co-ordinate attacks better, see where others are being attacked, flag the map for friends to see where you need help… All of this would make the game easier to play than having 3 empires under one account/player in a fam
Above the yellow line look like the competitive fams (about 20 players) then the social/casual round (about 20 players) then a fam of possibly inactives (5 players)
The issue is that 20 players (less as the round goes on) will need to ruin the fun for about 20 players so that those first 20 have a chance to do what they want to do (win)
I think it’s a fair idea, but as you_fool mentioned previously, you will kind of kill the social / teamplay aspect of the game in my view, which is a huge part of what IC is and imo what makes it unique.
In my humble opinion, there are inevitably going to be gaps between active fams and non-active fams, whatever you introduce to the game.
You can’t have a “level” playing field, otherwise, all fams will win a round?
I agree farming for a round win is a big issue that we often see almost every round by certain people.
Equally, if you are in a higher fam and don’t farm a little bit to gain map control, you can easily fall behind from other fams that do. It kind of encourages it, as you_fool has also previously mentioned in other posts.
The best solution to make everyone happy (although I maintain this is almost impossible) is to introduce a new method of winning a round.
A battle score or a war score.
If you take away the ability to win a round just on size or NW, and instead make it so you can only win a round via winning fair wars against fams of equivalent size / NW to yours, then you completely eliminate farming and NW jump saving.
Smaller fams can also still win a round.
More active and competitive fams can show their skill.
Everyone’s a winner.
The score thing was tried, alot has been tried but these damn Vets always chose size regardless of what else was on the table . I remember when we had the scores but no one really cared about it, everyone reverted back to size for comparison ( I feel like there is a pun there )
Size is artificially raised through farming though…
And the previous score was a running average of nw, so not really a different metric
See clan wars for a different score method that sort of worked… maybe a bit overly complicated and not transparent enough because it was outside the game code
yeah, me too… and the format of clans/guilds/whatever could mean a better interaction between players. Would possibly need 2-3 gals working, so you have 1 as a training/recruitment galaxy and then 1 as the official big time galaxy, where the win means something. The final galaxy is limited in numbers and clans/guilds (1 fam per guild), winner takes all. There should also be a promotion galaxy (could be recruitment gal) where you need to have a family associated with your guild place top to qualify for next champions galaxy. Means the competitive players can be playing against each other in the champions round, whilst others can be more social in the recruitment/promotion round
Yes. To me this game works better as a sport. A “college” Galaxy for training players, a “semi-pro” Galaxy for competitive play for those that are not signed by a fam, and a “pro league” where the major clans are vying for the trophy each round.
. I remember when we had the scores but no one really cared about it, everyone reverted back to size for comparison ( I feel like there is a pun there ) 