Reward Risk-taking/Penalise Bullying, and Improve Star Rating System

Great game so far, mates! Keep up the fantastic work. Some of what I'm about to say has already been talked about in one thread or another but I don't think anyone has hit on it exactly as I'm thinking about.

tl;dr: make it unappealing to attack players of a lower PH level; change the star rating system to account for attacking and defending what actually matters

The Problem: the current system incentivises bullying, or attacking players with a lower PH level (and defences, obviously). Rankings are great and all but let's face it: we plunder for resources. Why raid a person of equal or higher level and the defences to match when, for a very low fee, it's possible to cycle through a conveyor belt of potential targets and steamroll the one sucker who's a level below you but has filled their coffers with the resources to upgrade? I'm guilty of this, too. As much as I'd like to stay up on my high horse, I've been attacked enough times by opportunists one or two PH levels above me to stop bothering to go for the challenge of breaking through a strong opponent's defences, especially when I need to upgrade. I get that we're pirates and prey on the weak, etc. but as a social game, the system makes it too easy.

The Solution: in cases of a player attacking a lower-level player, drastically decrease the resources they can plunder. It's up to you to pick the decrease but I don't think decreasing it to 25% or 50% of what's actually available for opponents -1 PH level and to 10% of what's actually available for opponents -2 or more PH level is unreasonable at all. Set ranking gain to zero, and drastically penalise a loss. Also, pile the offenders at the top of the list of matchmaking until they suffer a defeat. Finally, make cycling through opponents prohibitively expensive, at least if matchmaking is able to pair the attacker with an equivalent defender.

At the same time, incentivise attacking a powerful opponent; give resource bonuses to players taking on an opponent with +1 or more PH levels. That way, we think more strategically, and have more fun because it doesn't always feel like someone's just going to waltz in and easily smash and grab whenever we stockpile.

The Problem: this is related to the first point in that plundering opponents is mostly about loot. I couldn't care less about whether or not my builder's huts, guild hall, academy, tavern, voodoo hut, etc. survive and I've suffered two-star defeats where opponents have gotten away with a few hundred of each resource. On the flip side, I've gotten two consecutive victories where they have plundered all possible resources but only damaged 20-30% of my island, leaving me open and vulnerable to even more attacks, which cut pretty deep. I think the current star rating system, while designed to force us to think about defending all of our buildings, is too simplistic and leaves big gaping problems, such as what I described above. He who tries to defend all, defends nothing, amirite?

The Solution: Change it from a simple percentage to something more resource and key building dependent. It's not even a matter of changing all the stars: I think changing the star awarded from 50% buildings destroyed to 50% resources plundered is all you need. Leave the rest as is.

 

Yes, i agree. Some measures should be introduced so as to protect lower PH people from much higher PH people. People should fight within plus or minus 1 or 2 PH levels of their own. For other fights the rewards should be reduced by a significant margin so that fights will be fought on a level playing field.

It has become difficult to gather the gold/grog required for major upgrades. We can't even have a half an hour window without getting attacked. And frankenbrutenstein has made matters worse for people like me.

 

Agreed something must be done about the bullying, but in my opinion are your concequenses a bit too harsh

 

You could be right and they may be too harsh but I'm not necessarily demanding that the devs implement them to the letter. They're more like examples of measures that IMHO would effectively discourage bullying. Whatever works, works. I'm just glad I'm not alone on this one. =]

 

In our guild we encourage people to not drop in rank to loot weaker players, infact we have a rule that states that someone may not lower his rank by more then 100. This rule works two ways, we think there is pretty good loot and weak bases higher up the ranks, and.. Well and it makes our guild become even better

 

Remember, increasing the cost to raid also works against those who have a higher pirate rank and constantly face tougher opponents. When a PH6 is above pirate rank 500 and faces mostly PH7's, cycling through is necessary. Increasing cost to cycle through opponents might discourage people from increasing their rank, even if you do increase the rewards. The cost to cycle through raids would far outweigh any increase in percentage gain obtained. But the other suggestions might have some merit.

 

Clash of clans has a system of giving fewer resources if your town hall is higher than the defending town hall. It works good. But I disagree with putting violators at the top of some questions till they are defeated. This is a pirate game. Pirates are ruthless. If you are weak then that's just east picking for loot. So minimize loot gained from lower pirate hall levels to make them less desirable, but don't penalize pirates for acting like pirates.

I'd like a bonus for attacking stronger opponents. But it would have to be substantial for me to potentially waste all my troops for nothing.

I think a better solution would be to adjust the percentage each building gives. I think 20% is too much for the pirate hall. A lot of times if someone gets the pirate hall they automatically get 2 Stars because they jump from 30% to 50%. Make the pirate hall like 8%. Make the ship like 5%. Divide the extra percentage amongst resource collectors and storages.

 

IMO, the main problem is in the matching algorithm; it is easily fooled by someone losing battles. I think a different calculation based on "combat capability" is required. I think Combat Capability (CC) should be calculated from a player's defensive and offensive strengths (example below). Then, the system finds other players within nearby CCs. Since a player cannot get rid of buildings nor of pirate types, a player cannot manipulate their CC. PH is too coarse a measure of CC for our purposes.

With a CC calculation, the system could adjust the attack rewards by the ratio of enemy CC to attacker CC. E.g.,
BP<final> = BP<earned> * CC<enemy>/cc<attacker>
Basically, one earns more BP by successfully attacking more combat capable islands. The same adjustment could be applied to resources, but I think that unnecessary.

Example CC calculation:
A simple CC calculation sums the defensive strengths and offensive strengths. Let HP = building Hit Points, D = pirate Damage, T = pirate Toughness, STS= availible Tavern Slots, and PTS = pirate Tavern slots. Then,
CC = Sum(building[j].T) + ATL * Sum(pirate.T/PTS + pirate.D/PTS).

The idea is to prevent the player from manipulating the datum used in matching players, but to calculate the ranking datum so that rough parity is obtained. The system can then find players near the datum using some epsilon TBD.

 

If I am limited to attacking people of my same ph level that is severely limiting the amount of resources I will gain. When I need 3.4mil gold for a single upgrade and 2.8 mil grog to train stats on a crew and I get maybe 250k of each per battle, how do you suppose I hold onto those resources? I would rather drop the ranks and gather the loot much faster so I can continue building up my base, than trade resources with other higher levels.

 

Clash of clans uses a similar method for determining the opponents for clan wars. Opponents in clan wars are not based on trophies but based on how strong the bases are. But this method is not used to determine the opponents in pvp battles. I think because it will become too complex. This is a competitive dod-eat-dog world where 'might is right' and only the toughest survive. So, they don't give so much thought in pvp battles.

Also, we don't know if this game is an attacker's game or a defender's game. At any PH level, will a fully upgraded base be able to defend a fully upgraded attack? I don't think so. This means, this is an attackers' game. The game encourages players to play more and more.

 

lol. I understand; I do the same thing, but this post and many other posts complain "the current system incentivizes bullying". A system that doesn't incentivize bullying would require different strategies; we'd have to adapt to survive. My post is simply an observation as to the root cause of the bullying and a modest proposal to "fix it". But I understand, you and many others are foursquare behind the bullying. Okay by me; I'll adapt and play the game either way.

 

Your points:
1. Similarity to CoC: I've stated in other posts, CoC should not constrain PP positively or negatively. I'm not interested in a CoC on water, nor should we avoid CoC's good ideas and adopt its bad ideas.
2. Complexity of a solution: Some calculation is required and the processors are remarkably fast; a few loops and simple arithmetic with the result cached may not be problematic. We don't know the complexity of the current calculations nor how frequently they're done; who knows, maybe it's a wash.
3. Defender vs Attacker game: your post is the first post I've seen asserting PP is an attackers' game. I've seen more posts asserting the opposite. IME, PP is a defenders' game; hence the strategy of dropping rank to obtain an advantage on the attack. I certainly could not beat my defense with my crew of pirates.

In the end, I'd prefer a matching algorithm that provides a wide range of targets but one which is not manipulated by players. IMO, PH is too coarse while PR is an illusion (we might as well just ask the player what PR she'd like to be for this round of attacks).

 

Well. Adding league bonuses like clash of clans would be a positive encouragement to stay high ranked. I know on my CoC account I rely on those bonuses to cover the cost of my army. Without them it would be too expensive to build an army strong enough to defeat people of similar level.

#EDIT

It wouldn't have to be leagues. It could be something else. But the general principle of getting loot bonuses for staying higher in rank. The loot being created by the game and not extra loot stolen from the base

 

Admins already on this returned email fast on subject...guess many having bully probs. lol

 

Another "solution" would directly penalize intentionally losing battles. For example, the rule could be: If the attacking player attacks with less than his maximum Tavern Slots and doesn't achieve 50% damage, then subtract actual damage from 50% and consider the attacker's ship damaged by that amount. When a player's ship is 100% damaged in this fashion, a negative consequence occurs. (50% is for discussion; could be 30% to encourage raiding for resources.)

Hmm, what consequence? We need something really nasty: how about take away a ship level or a PH level. Then the player has to rebuild the item before attacking or exploring again - that would be nasty.

A player could avoid the consequence by attacking full strength or by attacking partial strength and getting 50% destruction.

 

There are two philosophical presuppositions to take into consideration. And that I see in play in this thread. What motivates man most? Potential benefit or potential harm? I'd like to think that at a micro level the threat of harm might win out, but people are by nature self preserving. So as the potential harm or benefit grows I believe that the benefit will motivate more

 

IMO, risk tolerance and risk aversion are not philosophical issues but subjects of cognitive research. Daniel Kahneman describes the current (surprising) research in his book "Thinking Fast and Slow". The book is accessible to the layperson. Spend a few gems for the book, read it, and become a better pirate.

At any rate, we are different in our tolerance and aversion to risk.

 

Plunder Pirates favors the attacker because getting resources is key to advancing. Defenders lose resources. Successful attackers gain resources. You need a awful lot of resources to build at PH 5 and a ridiculous amount of resources to build at PH 6 and beyond.

I agree with Doble about needing a better matching system to avoid bullying. That's essential to avoid frustrating and driving away newer players.

Equally important is lowering the cost of higher level upgrades, because more players will get bored and leave if they hit a point where they can no longer advance at a reasonable rate.

Finally, new worlds are needed so that veteran players can start fresh and compete in new ways. At PH 6 I'm finding I'm spending more time waiting than playing, so I'm actively seeking new games to play on the app store while waiting for that next batch pirates to recruit.

 

Attack or defense is really a players style. I play defensively. By farming, making my pirate hall accessible and allowing shields to yup out before attacking.

I could just as easily play offensively by defending my pirate hall better and attacking as much as possible.

 

As always in discussions such as this, we arrive at the need to define terms to make progress. I'll stipulate that an attacker can almost always recover the cost of an attack with a reasonable profit and, IME, a defender can almost always avoid 100% damage if matched against an attacker of a roughly equivalent level. That said, I'll define "defeat" as >50% damage and stolen resources >10x the investment in making the attack. Anything less is a "raid".

Given this definition, the attacker can almost always successfully raid but can rarely defeat a defense of an evenly matched opponent, e.g., her own island.