Alternate account ideas
Alright, I'm sick of seeing threads about alternate accounts ruining the game. They always turn into a name calling, he did/she did accusation party. Yes, alt accounts are bad and are abused to high heaven but while the advantages are there, they will be exploited.
Instead of making it a blame game, how about we create a thread without any of the nastiness/bickering and instead compile a list of possible, actionable solutions that the developers could potentially implement. And I don't just mean blanket banning multiple accounts through MAC address or IP address blacklists that would prevent legitimate players from enjoying the game.
My three suggestions would be:
Adding an activation timer to POIs.
This would minimise the use of alt accounts to hold important POIs on forgotten attack worlds giving alliances huge bonuses without risking their own bases.
Base resource multiplier
Adding a multiplier to base resources depending on the number of unique attackers that have hit the base. So for example, the first player to hit a base will get 1x resources. When a second player/alt starts hitting the base, they get 1/2x resources. A third, 1/3x and so on.
Currently, a person using alts can get around the resource restriction by having multiple alts clear the base and then use an army of bombers in their main base to kill all the base buildings but not the construction yard. Only when the construction yard is killed is the resource restriction applied.
This shouldn't impact normal players too much since when people collaborate on large bases, it's usually for a POI which is worth significantly more than the base itself. I only see this discouraging alts. Then again, maybe I'm wrong and I'd be interested in feedback.
Have an exponentially increasing delay before re-joining an alliance that doesn't diminish
How many players leave and rejoin the same alliance 3+ times in a single server? In my experience, only alliances that heavily abuse alts will do so. They rotate them into the alliance to abuse the alliance bonuses when they are full of CP/RT to hit stuff before shelving them for fresh alts.
By adding a rejoin timer; say 2/4/8/16/32 days after each successive leave, heavy alt abuse would be discouraged. Would it prevent an alliance from being half full of alts? no. But then those slots wouldn't be taken by other players, diminishing the strength of the alliance.
Of course, I'm happy for feedback and I encourage others to post any possible solutions that they can think of to the problem. This is not an issue that can be solved with fire and brimstone but rather co-operation.
Instead of making it a blame game, how about we create a thread without any of the nastiness/bickering and instead compile a list of possible, actionable solutions that the developers could potentially implement. And I don't just mean blanket banning multiple accounts through MAC address or IP address blacklists that would prevent legitimate players from enjoying the game.
My three suggestions would be:
Adding an activation timer to POIs.
This would minimise the use of alt accounts to hold important POIs on forgotten attack worlds giving alliances huge bonuses without risking their own bases.
Base resource multiplier
Adding a multiplier to base resources depending on the number of unique attackers that have hit the base. So for example, the first player to hit a base will get 1x resources. When a second player/alt starts hitting the base, they get 1/2x resources. A third, 1/3x and so on.
Currently, a person using alts can get around the resource restriction by having multiple alts clear the base and then use an army of bombers in their main base to kill all the base buildings but not the construction yard. Only when the construction yard is killed is the resource restriction applied.
This shouldn't impact normal players too much since when people collaborate on large bases, it's usually for a POI which is worth significantly more than the base itself. I only see this discouraging alts. Then again, maybe I'm wrong and I'd be interested in feedback.
Have an exponentially increasing delay before re-joining an alliance that doesn't diminish
How many players leave and rejoin the same alliance 3+ times in a single server? In my experience, only alliances that heavily abuse alts will do so. They rotate them into the alliance to abuse the alliance bonuses when they are full of CP/RT to hit stuff before shelving them for fresh alts.
By adding a rejoin timer; say 2/4/8/16/32 days after each successive leave, heavy alt abuse would be discouraged. Would it prevent an alliance from being half full of alts? no. But then those slots wouldn't be taken by other players, diminishing the strength of the alliance.
Of course, I'm happy for feedback and I encourage others to post any possible solutions that they can think of to the problem. This is not an issue that can be solved with fire and brimstone but rather co-operation.
0
Howdy, Stranger!
Replies
Again: they are not interested in any changes - since 2 month there is not one detailed answer.
Don’t waste your time here + save your money and find a different game.
Without going into detail but especially Nr. 3 is useless - there is a easy way to ignore a "rejoin timer (you have never seen the project/alt guys playing?)
There will always be a work around. We as a community have to accept this.
Present work around is the use of alt accounts.
The use of a work around is called problem solving / tactics / efficiency etc etc.
Then when the use of that has stabilised there will be new ideas needed.
This present work around is long over due adjustment, but we just have to be careful we don't damage the game with new changes. Example to over come RP farming and account eating PvP suffered badly and has never recovered.
We have to accept change, a war game is a fight to be victorious and therefore we will always look for a way to over come an enemy. We will always look for a work around. So we encourage the next set of game changes but developers be careful don't damage our beloved game ;-) Present set up is losing more that it gains or at least that is how it seems when we all play that is why we keep asking for a change.
I will give no more new ideas, there are lots of ideas that have previously been suggested, what would be nice is to see the ideas listed and then a few words to say why it can or can't be used.
It is accepted that many ideas might just not be financially viable at this stage or indeed ever, if that is the reason then fine. But at least if we have that acknowledgement we can stop asking for them. Things like RP POI or Credit POI or alliance bonuses removal when engaged in PvP, POI random switching (levels or types) etc etc none have been mentioned whether possible or not.
If there is little or no cost then it would even be worth introducing a change in next server and if no good drop that change for future servers. Basically use the server as your test ground.
Clown
I'm fairly sure from the discussions I've had that there is an internal list of suggested changes. I'd expect a rough costing in terms of hours for each change to be on this list. Obviously they're not going to share the costings but as you suggest, some indication of it being too costly or not technically feasible would be good.
But this is nothing new! It's been said many times.
Good post.
I also do not believe taking away players ability to use multi accounting to dig poi early is necessary. In most cases using multis does afford an advantage early on but mid level play mitigates those early advantages as we see the groups with the most players on side always win regardless of how good of a start any given team may have. I can provide many examples where this has been true and though i applaud the dedication of these types of players, far too many of them all play on the same teams which leaves us with this terrible imbalance we have been seeing server after server for the past few years.
To the common player things may seem not too broken and even to the staff that can see servers progressing far after the first few alliances have completed the fort, things may not appear too different than they have always been but i think since the topic of alts and the frustration at mega alliances dominating has gotten the attention of this games developers there must be something going on that is being noticed. I have witnessed the steady decline in participation of players not in medal contention in recent servers, especially from veteran players.
Placing blame isnt the answer and asking for something beyond the abilities of our current hosts is futile, so this discussion is worth it for me to participate in as i have a unique perspective on the past present and possibly the future of this game. My ten year anniversary is almost here and id love to be able to leave something behind for everyone that stays to play so my last suggestion here to you is this: please try to create a speed world that resets itself after the first fort completion and a short hiatus. Try to balance this server so that all participating teams can play with a chance to win for as long as possible because the winners of these most recent servers are being determined by week one and they are very disheartening to say the least.
One solution, not a new offering, that I think may assist is that anyone with a badge on the world can't shoot or inject the virus again. This will discourage top players moving into the 2nd and 3rd (etc) alliances to kill the fortress but doesn't prevent them from assisting other players in getting to the centre.
Alts are a different problem and would only be solved by use of some limiting system. One whereby more than one player can't log in from the same machine (note, not the same IP/location), maybe within a set time period of 12h or 14h may be suitable. Of course, it may not be technically possible within a browser game. EA controls the login process so they're the ones that would need to implement it.
a good solution to alt abuse is to create a new server type where using more than one account is far less beneficial for example all accounts must be maintained proficiently enough in order to participate in fort killing, higher base level shooting, poi holding and where the fort killing alliance members are no longer able to hold or shoot at poi, hubs or the fort again.
You may hit on a novel and new idea!
In order to get within 'holding distance' of POI you must be within +/-5 levels of that POI, using a similar mechanism to the tunnels to activate a POI. Similarly, to hold a hub terminal you need a level +/-5 defence/offence and base. To shoot a Fortress an offence level of +/- 15 (or 20) of the possible minimum level of the fortress, whether or not the virus has been injected. So pre-hitting you need still a level 60 (or 55) for a first fortress.
Sounds good to me - is there a flaw?
the flaw would be the time it takes for the slower players to catch up. in some cases maybe finishing a world faster would be better but having a long drawn out farm fest is not a bad thing either and id love to be able to do both without being instantly bounced out of a server and uninterested in less than a week. i also believe my predictions about the order of completion in fs17 are shaping up to show me as not so full of vegetarian bologne.
While I think this solution may work, I don't see it being a good change. Most people hate morale servers because of how slow they are. The limitation on base shooting and POI capture doesn't seem to be a problem on morale worlds due to malus (I may be wrong, feel free to correct me).
However, this change would affect the speed of forgotten attack worlds significantly where moral doesn't come into play. In fact, the change is almost like implementing psuedo moral.
Also need more frequent NEW servers to give the big guns a reason to move to next server and let the lesser players fight for spoils. Anything in an attempt to make the game competitive instead of get in line for badge. New servers almost serve as a reward to the first badgers too.
Start new servers based on when a server badges not when server is full. If it is found that servers are not filling up enough then make them smaller but then make them harder ;-) If the numbers of players increase then increase the size of future servers etc etc
It is a psuedo morale effect, in fact more like a super morale effect, but remember that the aim is to reduce the effectiveness of alts not to actually prevent them.
the effect is only for alts because a main account would be kept up, an alt account would be left aside until its full and ready to chip away at a large target. ensuring the alts are kept up enough to follow along with the same progression as main would be the only way to effectively use an alt account if there were distance restrictions based on account size or offence level size. anyone willing to maintain an alt to a semi even standard as a main account should be allowed to do so in my opinion.
I get what you're saying and it makes sense for a morale world. But well would this work for a forgotten attacks and no moral world? By design, you have very low offences killing high level bases. The last two times I've been on forgotten attack worlds, you never see an outpost past the first week because everyone's levels are significantly lower than the occupied area.
I'm not necessarily saying the idea is bad, but how would you suggest accommodating for the different world types?
in world types that are not FA we dont see the same alt account abuses such as poi holding, large target softening, territory securing and spy accounts wasting space in other alliances. this topic of suggestions on what to do about alt abuse should not bleed into the specifics of each different world type and focus instead on the actual abuses of alt accounts and ways to deter them and maybe not by eliminating alts but mitigating the effects of accounts that are not played with the full focus that a main account would get, thus separating the lower accounts from the larger ones and creating a more fair play environment for other teams not full of multi abusing veteran players that are all together against all the less skilled and less experienced player base.
First,
"Adding a multiplier to base resources depending on the number of unique attackers that have hit the base. So for example, the first player to hit a base will get 1x resources. When a second player/alt starts hitting the base, they get 1/2x resources. A third, 1/3x and so on."
Any idea of this sort is bound to break the game. First, or course there will never be any cooperation again, which was a big complaint about the patch. But there will also now be a simple hack - i can send a bunch of my own alts into my competitor's dig lane, spawn close to front and hit each front-line forgotten base from each alt just once, and then the enemy that kills the base eventually gets 1/5 - 1/10 of the resources. This will spoil the game for everybody and only encourage alt account usage en masse rather than prevent it.
I think the current patch is as close as it gets to halting most of the pre-hitting already. It does not pay off anywhere close to what it used to pay when you only finish a base off from main account. Right now, apart from maybe a couple of players with infinite time which get ahead only a little bit, alt usage makes basically no difference, gives very little advantage at high time cost. I played both styles and can almost keep up with the best and heaviest alt users - without alt help. It's really not much of a difference any more. Most of the difference between players still comes from skill and knowledge, not from some kind of abuse.
Second, regarding restrictions on ip/mac/multiple users from single computer. There will be workarounds. But that's not the main problem. The real problem is pvp.
If you have ever done serious pvp in this game you know that if everybody operates only one account, then it all gets decided by catching people offline. You don't get to duel, you don't get to organize a cluster war, because you can't get enough people online at the same time, and if you miraculously do, the opponent will never be online at the same time.
So the only way to do proper pvp is to share logins. And that is what every single serious alliance has done. There is always a group of core players that do pvp and have access to all accounts. That's just how this game works. If you restrict multiple accounts from one computer in some way, then pvp is dead forever, and so is the game.