It's pretty quiet now...

[Hawkei]

Hi there,

We've all had the chance to get used to the new mechanics of GW. With the recent changes and the larger galactic map. So I thought I might take the time to create a thread addressing some of the issues that such a large map creates.

Conquest
Basically, it takes too long to conquer sectors. Especially when there is no resistance. Evenings of late have simply consisted of my team logging on for the day and charging planets. Usually with only minor or non-existent resistance. I could take three planets in a day and not have a single game. With the sheer number of planets which must be conquered and the time taken to capture them, achieving the mission objective of conquering the galaxy is going to take an incredibly long period of time.

Overcharging Planets
Another big drain on a persons time and computer running is the need for AFK charges on safe planets. These attacks are done when after we have finished active gameplay while we sleep at night. In this fashion it is possible to get planets within our borders to 100%. Obviously this is time consuming and requires our computers to be running all day (consuming power). It would be nice if planets could gain positive influence. Or if that planet is non-attackable that we be able to place some sort of "proxy attack" which would function as though a player were attacking it. But it would not require the player to be online or available for battle. Should any of the surrounding planets become able to launch an attack, the "proxy attack" would stop and it's cost forfeit. A player could initiate as many simultaneous proxy attacks as his credits might allow.

Long Periods of Inactivity
When we assemble teams to attack planets, and there are no defenders, it would be nice if we could actually be doing something. If it were possible to introduce some AI driven nominal threat - to fill in those periods of inactivity - that could work well. If charging planets consisted of defeating AI defenders - or some other task not requiring a PvP mission, that would be good. GW needs to have an AI driven overwatch to help defend.

[Dragonfire]

Most of the problem is caused by one problem:

Not enough people play GW

+1 for the positive influence on inner planets

[Rogueleader89]

Yes, not enough people play Galactic War. Some of this is organization based; we badly need tutorials for new players, and people need to coordinate more within factions. Picking a faction and being dumped in head first is undoubtedly scaring people off, especially if they go trying to figure stuff out on their own and wind up getting 3v1ed or facing reinforcements.

Outside of that though, Hawkei is right, when you aren't getting battles the gameplay is fairly boring, you sit and you charge, and you have to dedicate a fairly large amount of time to doing this instead of playing forged alliance. If you log on and you don't see planets that need defending and you don't want to sit on a planet for an hour or more you aren't likely to start an attack, even if the enemy may have active defenders you can't see.

I think we need to have some sort of alert when we aren't looking at Galactic War that one or more of our faction's planets are under attack, much like how we currently see alerts that people in our skill range are automatching, this would likely increase the number of active players significantly when defensive action is needed because they wouldn't have to sit there watching galactic war, and by the same token attackers would increase because more people would be on to defend.

[IceDreamer]

Many of these problems will be fixed with higher player counts and more organisation. Things which would be good:

Positive influence - If, and ONLY if, a planet is connected only to friendly planets of >80% loyalty, the planet will charge itself at a rate of 1% per hour.

Attack restrictions and Attacker Numbers - Even the best players would be foolish to engage a planet under attack by three players by themselves, and I know for a fact that a considerably number of would-be-players have been driven away from GW by ending up in this situation in the first two or three games. At Rank 1, a player should be able to see how many people a planet is being attacked by. It should also be impossible to attack a planet when you are outnumbered. This also limits the ability of trolls to feed the Enemy, which has happened several times in this GW.

Rank 8 Authority - Rank 8s need real power. They need to be able to designate certain planets of off limits until further notice. They need to be able to initiate some way of removing traitors and/or trolls from the team permanently. They need to be able to see who on their team is on which planet, and what their status is. It would be very nice if they were able to see the FAF Username of enemy ACUs attacking a planet.

[Dragonfire]

Rank 8 Authority - Rank 8s need real power. They need to be able to designate certain planets of off limits until further notice. They need to be able to initiate some way of removing traitors and/or trolls from the team permanently. They need to be able to see who on their team is on which planet, and what their status is. It would be very nice if they were able to see the FAF Username of enemy ACUs attacking a planet.

With rank 4 and organization you can see it ...
I saw it (cybran force)

[Gerfand]

Rank 8 Authority - Rank 8s need real power. They need to be able to designate certain planets of off limits until further notice. They need to be able to initiate some way of removing traitors and/or trolls from the team permanently. They need to be able to see who on their team is on which planet, and what their status is

I make a suggestion, about command:
http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=6489
1*- Command- The "Supreme Commander"...

ok that is not the best way, but is a Start...

would be cool if we could ban Trolls and Traitors, and would be cool if he act like a General, making a Battle Plan and put it in pratice, and like a president giving some planet to make an aliance for example.

Overcharging Planets

if this is what Im thinking, i make a suggestion, based on this:
http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=6417
5*- Commander Housing- the commander get on a planet instead...

this way the Com that is on an Border planet would give auto influence, and if the planet is lost (by every way) he is recalled to the next planet.

[Dragonfire]

My suggestion

Make only two factions:

1. Sera + Aeon
2. Cybran + UEF

You must choose a faction and then the race ...

[Rogueleader89]

My suggestion

Make only two factions:

1. Sera + Aeon
2. Cybran + UEF

You must choose a faction and then the race ...

I would leave this as a last resort, but if you were going to do this, team factions up based on player activity numbers (not just members but actual attacks made by the faction) from the previous galactic war; So if the most activity is UEF > sera > cybran > Aeon then team uef with aeon and sera with cybran; redo this teaming each new galaxy map.

[Iszh]

My proposal to help this topic is to show the number of players in each faction while joining the faction. Of course it does not represent the number of active players but at least can provide more or less equal chosing of faction. Still it is a player decision. But when i see 100 players uef and 10 players cybran i will not join uef even when i like them

[Dragonfire]

My proposal to help this topic is to show the number of players in each faction while joining the faction. Of course it does not represent the number of active players but at least can provide more or less equal chosing of faction. Still it is a player decision. But when i see 100 players uef and 10 players cybran i will not join uef even when i like them

Also a good indicator is the number of user logged into race irc channel