MW64 Mid-Round Thoughts, Feedback, and New Ideas

[I_like_pie]

Greetings, all!

We’re about to wrap up week #3 in Milky Way 64, which would normally be our half way point on a 6 week round, though this round is 8 weeks.

Let’s assess the round so far, given that it’s been unusual for other reasons as well (early fam merging, and the mid-round influx of returning players).

Reduced Growth Disparity

To start, here’s a visualization of the rank data.

(click above for updated graph)

There’s a clear split between the top 5 and everybody else.

This backs up some of the complaints we’ve started to hear about the round feeling futile already for the bottom 3 families.

On the other hand, the race between the top 5 is very close, far more than usual.

Compare this to Milky Way 62

This is the inverse: in the end, the top 2 fams left everybody behind, while the bottom 5 stayed relatively competitive with each other.

What does this data reflect?

So far, the fams in the bottom group have less competition, but there are also fewer fams effected. More players overall have an opportunity to compete. Instead of having a minority dominate and a majority left behind, it’s the other way around.

This is change for the better generally, but obviously it’s still not perfect and this doesn’t mean much if you’re in one of those bottom fams.

Let’s Brainstorm

We have to be careful about what we do, because we don’t want to punish families for doing well. There has to be losers in any competition; we’re not here to present participation trophies and pat each other on the back for trying.

That said, the game is imbalanced. Here are some ideas that we can do right now.

Introduce a mid-round secession event

• ~85% of all explorable planets (8522 of 9972) have been claimed.
• ~37% of all empires have more than 100 planets.
• ~10% of all empires have more than 200 planets.
  • Of these, all are in the top 5 families.

We can introduce a secession event which would “release” planets from empires that are over a specific size cap. This would not only give the bottom fams a new chance to grow, but it would also give new opportunity to smaller family members within the top fams.

The big questions is: does this unfairly punish top empires and families for doing well? Or does this simply make it more difficult to maintain a lead?

Opinions will differ on this, but mine is that IC has long been a game of “first to get big wins” and not “most skilled wins”. Acquiring a bunch of planets is one thing; but staying on top while others around you match your size is another.

Assimilation

The common feedback from empires in smaller families is that they feel like there is no point in playing.

We could solve this by setting an “assimilation threshold”.

• Isn’t enabled until a certain % into the round. This would be a galaxy setting.
• Threshold is a % of owned planets between the bottom and top ranked families.
  • For example, a 50% threshold would catch a bottom ranked family with 500 planets if the top ranked family has 1000 planets
• When a family falls below this threshold, they are broken up and redistributed amongst the other families in the galaxy.
• There would be a galaxy setting for how may final families we want.
  • A winning condition could then end the round early once the “remaining families” number is hit
  • Alternatively, the round can continue as normal, but with a final set of remaining teams
• In the most extreme scenario, a single family eventually “consumes” everybody, becoming the winner.
  • Everybody would have a reason to play until a one of the top 2 fams consumes the other.
  • If EoR date remains (no early winning condition) this then becomes a giant intra-fam competition, where anybody can aid and/or fight anybody

I like this idea a lot, because even right now falling beneath a threshold indicates a low chance of staying competitive, which is effectively a “loss”. At best, low families can scrap with each other, which does have its merits, but more often than not, players realize they won’t win and just stop playing because there’s nothing to do.

This idea would create a spark and renewed purpose any time a smaller family is assimilated. It would also make for very interesting wars. Not only would you possibly find yourself on a team that you were previously fighting, but you may also end up fighting a former family member.

How do you feel about these ideas?

Between these 2 ideas, we have the means to breathe some life into the round for our bottom fams, while keeping things interested for the top fams too. Obviously these ideas also have wider implications for the entire game, but for now let’s decide if we want to try them for MW64.

Which of these ideas would you like to see happen in the middle of this round?

• Planet Secession Event Only!
• Assimilation Only!
• Both!
• Neither!
• I don’t care!

Much thanks to @daydreamer, @zerohedge, and @MTG_Dad for the recent feedback and brainstorming.

Feel free to add your own thoughts below.

[zerohedge]

nono, thats the wrong way!!! it will bring more chaos if u force assimilation and also why should the competitive families be punished???

i just asked why this round has to be so long when there were high start ressources, i would immediately agree to a shorter round, bec NOV 1st wow… i am not sure my returnees will stay with me and activ bec the round was no fun for them (in my family), bec they got blown up from all sides and likely being farmed for the rest of the round…

[I_like_pie]

I understand your preference for a shorter round, but the issue here is rooted in a deeper imbalance within the game itself.

Round lengths are arbitrary. We need a long term fix.

[Mitchie]

Secession is in my opinion a punishment for good coordination and planning. People put time and effort into a round which gives them the lead. You cannot punish people for putting time and effort in.

Assimilation i need to think about but imo secession is not the option.

[zerohedge]

forced assimilation maybe, but only if the empires in question agree? bec i wont agree for my family.

[I_like_pie]

That’s a reasonable request, but I can see value both ways.

Right now, we actively avoid splitting families apart during pre-round merges, and I’d imagine some players would rather play together with their friends in a small family than against each other in larger families.

On the other hand, forcing randomness into the game can be a good thing for the galaxy as a whole, even if specific empires don’t want it, and allowing players to object to this prevents the “consumption” aspect of the feature from working at all.

There’s not likely any solution that will be fair to everybody that 100% of the players like, but to do nothing is even worse.

[I_like_pie]

Thanks for the feedback so far everybody! As a quick reminder:

• Secession and Assimilation are already functional and require no further work to implement. We just need to decide whether or not we want it.
• General feedback regarding this issue and/or multiple ideas are welcome in #support:feedback
• Specific individual ideas are welcome in #support:ideas

Thanks!

[TIF]

Secession would be a a bad mechanic for mw, since fighting over control of systems and area of he map is one of the major parts of the game, what would be the point if you are going to randomly lose planets?

Assimilation is fine if the players want to move/be split up.
However if they keep planets and they go to different fams then they could be left in a pretty bad position.

Ie if a banker goes to one family, attacker with shares goes to another… banker will lose alot when there protection turns into an enemy.

So one family could gain a lot more than another if there is a split, so would have to be done carefully.

Merge the bottom fams maybe, give them a few days protection or something so they can swap into postions without being able to be attacked and grow abit

[MTG_Dad]

So, this topic came up in the MW discord chat, and we started a little brainstorming in there. My original idea was the assimilation, as it provided the best outcome for everyone. Upon further thought and discussion I have a new idea. Not sure what to call it, but you can see the details below.

1. Each MW round, at certain points ( probably at week 2,3, and 4) the bottom fam will be deleted. The planets will be able to be explored by remaining families after a short period.
2. Any player in the deleted family can rejoin MW as the spots for that family will be redistributed to the remaining families.

So my idea here is that this covers a lot of the issues that we are having.

1. Players in the lower families have an option to rejoin MW, if that is where they want to be, and can have a chance to actually play.
2. This takes away the issue of having shares with your attacker that got moved to another family
3. this adds a few new elements to strategy as now you have an expo phase that can last most of the round, and the race to not be in that bottom fam can make for some interesting last second attacks and builds.
4. this will also help with farming, if that bottom family just isn’t there anymore then you dont have an easy person to farm.
5. helps clear out the inactives,
6. and the biggest one for me, it helps keep players involved in the current round. I will be honest as a new player, if I had landed in one of the lower MW family’s I might not have stuck around, I assume the same can be said for many of the returning players.

I believe this will add parity to the game, add a new form of strategy, and help keep new and returning players.

[Cells]

I strongly feel pies thoughts about mergers and round start delays should apply to this as well.
It will affect other players outside of bottom fams that have planned or done something that involves them. Tbh I could care less just don’t think pie should change the round now if he was so unwilling before lol but just an opinion.

Milky Way 64 Family Merges

It isn’t the full fams’ fault that the other fams didn’t fill up. They shouldn’t necessarily be inconvenienced because others didn’t draft or random in at the same pace. Keep in mind also that merging the families is already itself a compromise.

We have to keep things moving. Taking your suggestion to the extreme, we would only start the round once all families fill up, which will cause some of those that have joined already to go inactive.

Everybody’s vote here is useful. We’ll make a final decision 6 hours before current SoR.

[Zanharim]

3. this adds a few new elements to strategy as now you have an expo phase that can last most of the round, and the race to not be in that bottom fam can make for some interesting last second attacks and builds.

Could this feature be called playoff?

I think bottom fams would most likely start to compete for the last spot, not to stay out of it, so they would get a new chance to play in more functional family after their original fam would be dismantled. Possibly all smaller fams would kill all units, infra and opp their own pop in order to “win the last spot”.

When only one fam would be destroyed, there would perhaps be few empty fams just waiting to be destroyed too, one way or another. If the wait is long, those players could be quite inactive when they finally move into new families. Just my prediction.

If you have a way to prevent that, please share it.

If we would implement this, I would suggest that there would be more families (smaller too, perhaps 4-5 spots per family) in the SOR. After few playoff events, families would be bigger again.

[Apoc]

I like the idea of taxing fams as suggested be pickle. It will go some way to reducing the disparity.

Secession I think is unfair on those families that have put a lot of effort in to get to their current position.

Assimilation could cause issues such as giving attackers shares with bankers who were originally in the fam but are now in opposing families. So effectively that attacker could take the bankers planets using units that the banker in question funded to build. Which is unfair. Also i can see the issue of enemies ending up on the same team (eg a player who a week earlier farmed them) and causing intra family issues.

If all of the bottom family’s planets were made unexplored, the planets would just end up with the big families and the guys who are rejoining a larger fam would never get the planets as they would be sending expos from their home planets.

[Zanharim]

Big families would be in disadvantage if they would not give planets (and things to do) to rejoining fam members. Especially if that player was active in the fam that got destroyed in the playoff event.

[TheOldSchool]

We can introduce a secession event which would “release” planets from empires that are over a specific size cap. This would not only give the bottom fams a new chance to grow, but it would also give new opportunity to smaller family members within the top fams.

Q: And when these planets, in systems controlled by such family that lost them, still control the system? Planet take-back would be very quickly, specially considering portalling takes very long.

Suggestion: how about a SHUFFLE of planets, in a whole different galaxy, within the round?

[I_like_pie]

Planet take-back would be very quickly, specially considering portalling takes very long.

That’d be by design. It’s pretty disruptive to lose random planets, but being able tor reclaim them quickly would soften the blow.

As for a mid-round shuffle, do you mean the entire galaxy gets re-arranged mid-round? That sounds very intense.

---

Everybody, thanks for the feedback here. I’m going to make a decision soon, and if we go for assimilation it will happen this coming Friday at the round half-way mark.

[I_like_pie]

Alright everybody, we’re going to move forward with assimilation.

It will happen ~24 hours from this post, which will be Aug 31 @ 21:00 UTC.

We will start with the bottom family and assess the impact before going any further.

[zerohedge]

well, i am crying right now. why everything u do with families mergers etc gives me headache? we, 6145 have a war with 6151 (which they began) we invested alot, didnt grow economy just spent on fleets, finally we brought down their bankers and killed most of their attackers portals. finally, from tomorrow we could take over their systems giving us the prize for our hard work and now u wanna split them? maybe give us some of the players whichs eco i just killed today? this round seems so unfair!!!

check the last 5 days universal news, its mostly me (and family) working 24h on this