Please point out what post someone called someone a name.
Maybe you should refrain from making worthless comments.


I disagree that base payouts are helping people stay in this game and play.
I will stand here and argue that they in fact hurt the game and its new players.
It's not about what the mechanic does, its about how people feel and treat that mechanic.

Lets look at it, really look at it.
You are brand new to the game and join a legion with a level 7 base. You are getting 60k arti points a day from the base, holy crap this is amazing and its the best time of the day for me. Oh wow I got 3 prisoners from today's pull!!
This looks great but where is the real incentive for a ship to get a decent production? You get people alerting garbage planets like large rich arti and people just gobble them up bc that is what is being alerted in their crappy legion. Doesn't really matter, every little bit helps and besides, I have that daily base payout making up for it. This is backwards thinking.

When I was a low rank and there was no magic free base payout I had to make my own production to make my ship nice. I had to actually play the game for a couple hours here and there to get what I needed to grow. People alerted crappy planets and we didn't take them because we knew we had to take better planets if we wanted a good production. We had no crutch base payout covering our slack. You didn't sit in a legion with people alerting crappy planets and people not really doing much. You moved on and thats where you got top legions. Remember when it actually meant something to be a top 50 legion? Thats because top 50 legions had a bunch of people who wanted to work to better themselves instead of sitting back and lazily collecting a base payout to get better. Maybe if there were no base payouts you would have active people who want to get stronger actually seek out other like minded people and they could create a good legion.

These days you have people sitting at under rank 10 collecting base payouts for months without playing the game. You have new players join the game and just get baffled that there are people hundreds of times stronger at the same rank. You ever have someone tell you they hate this game bc it feels like they have to sit and collect base payouts for months just to avoid getting decimated daily by people who have already done that? I have and its absurd. This is the legacy that base payouts has given us.

I would like to throw a rather radical idea out, What if besides as being a trainee, you can not belong to a legion you do not have enough logistics to contribute to? Trainees who graduate and do not have high enough research to stay are kicked out of the legion. thoughts? this will prevent lobbies from suckeling base payouts for months on end, (since it takes ALOT of reserch to get to level 6+ bass). It makes research choices slightly more relevant to new players as well.

Now this I could get behind. Give base tech a good reason to be researched.

I wonder how many legions still have their 110 production modules pumping production when no one in their legion is able to make 110 modules.

Interesting, but I don't really like this idea either.
Basically, I don't want to punish new players and trainee graduates who are making good progress in a good legion with people they like just because some people somewhere might be sitting at low level collecting base payouts.

As for the OP, I think that if people complain their base is disabled too much and they lose their defender bonus, make a point to lock them as often as you can.
Then simply direct them to any of the many threads outlining how to make your base not worth locking.
If they can't be bothered to put in the effort to make it harder for attackers, why should anyone care?

a less extreem option of this would be you can only benefit from the base rank you have access too, so example you have base rank level 5 access, it treats your legion base as level 5 instead of level 8, you can still stay in the legion and be part of it, just not get the full value from it.

hey tree..

"I don't need help scanning or killing bases or even trashing every ship I can find in legions like TU. I don't need any of the bonuses from race/profession. I'm stronger than you. Cut my productions in half and I still make more than you. I made my ship strong bc I played well, not from any magical strength from base payouts. "

To me that sounds like name calling. Maybe using an actual legions' name in derogatory commentary doesn't mean the same thing to you and I..thus your obvious confusion at the statement. Also, if you feel my comments are worthless, ignore them. Ignore being the main construct of ignorance.

Cheers.

Also, I was referring more holistically to this thread and the slant it's starting to take, the fact that any person elects to view it as a personal slam may mean they are guilty. Lot of rage, finish the semester, enjoy the summer, enjoy the game... ease it down a notch.

Yeah mate, that would certainly be more palatable to me.
Would need to tweak current advice re: important research trees to focus on though and fear such a change might actually result in young players becoming less self-sufficient in the long run.
Suspect no matter how much we told them that planetary structures were vital, the urge to finish the longest tree to open up "maximum" base payout would be too much to resist.

You want to know what really hurt the game---BASES and legions in general

1) legions- people giving people planets,, artis, funding. Base shares are just the tip of the iceberg. When you had to find your own planets or build or steal them, that was one thing. Now that people can reset or 'pay' ignorant noobs for irreplaceable artis, or be gifted planets by quitting players skews play heavily. The fact that whole legions of high arti ships can scan more often will tend to coalesce planets into tighter groups of haves versus have nots. Sure you can npc and talth up and build, but for NEWER players this is a LOT harder without handouts or bases (legion marquee). Not sure many high ranks have any touch with the low rank dilemma. Their choice has become suckle at the teet or get slapped like a red headed stepchild.

2) damage cap- You wanted it, you got it. Let's make a big chunk of all research trees and most modules worthless. Let's further reward NOT be creative, different, or actually adding 'hard' tech to your ship. In a ship building fantasy game, let's make having no ship better than building one. Since low ranks don't want to be 'tasty' they will slow rank collecting from the legion bases aforementioned, trying to make sure the war of escalated hull and to's doesn't mark them for death too often. Without a base payout its grow and play or quit.

3) poor advice- Look at all the top legions coaching themselves and a few newbies. Preaching to the choir in many cases. Ships that suck will end up mostly in sucky legions. "apply to legion 'xyz' come back when youre rank ...." Those legions don't base well, don't do many npc's and God forbid you need to try to conquer a defended planet. Due to this, bases make up for SOME of their shortcomings. IF base gets disabled, another week on the down slow. Their legions preach slow rank to survive and they linger or die and drift to the next crappy legion. I have heard many people in several legions sadly bemoan that alerts go unhit on their elites...not even 3-4 people in a full legion hitting them, despite 20-30 people having visibility. Why? Indifference, advice that the modules suck so why waste e, hitting gains exp--and ranks you (dont do that!) or just the opposite...no one else hits, so if i want rewards i have to waaay overhit and do all the work --for a terrible exp ratio to rank my ship. In my travels I have heard high ranks literally tell lowbies not to rank. The opposite advice- do it all yourself....going to guess that don't work so well either. You try starting out again low level with no e, no good planets, and crap odds on a scan and see where it gets you...

4) joke let' be pc theme- Everything seems to be personal in this game. Comments here, deaths in game, planet thefts, petty legion comms, base kills. So called unwritten themes, only followed by the choiceless. People with the power cannot and will never care that much (in majority) for what happens to the underclasses. That is totally fair for them to do and have that viewpoint. It's a machiavellian prototype at its finest. Take away legions and bases and each man/woman has to become their own castle. Bases serve as a safety net...added cloak, added defense, added support (in theory). When someone in a top legions preaches how current benefits don't help lower ranks and smaller legions, they frankly don'thave those legions' interests at heart--i wont say it politely--its just plainly untrue.


I like the concept of bases and legions, but they are both the devil of this game and the messiah at the same time. The same reasons some people grow and flourish are the self same which strangle others. IMHO asking a low rank to make their own way by their bootstraps is akin in real life to asking a homeless man to clean up his act and work hard and he can be a millionaire. I smirk heavily and heartily.

I'd rather say that Tree's words are more due to the constant slander EotS has faced since the first day of its creation, and the so called rarely apparent "unfairness" that they abuse. Oh, and the usual amount of whining that we're all used to hearing at this point.

It's just a case of being fed up of people complaining about the base payout like it's a right, when it's actually only a privilege that needs earning. I'm all for draxiss second idea of needing the base tech. Planetary Construction typically will get you more than that 4k AP/h, along with other research you spend instead of using it all on base legion research. Most new players I know aren't excited to do base research when they see the quasi-exponential cost anyways, so this might actually solve the problem. But there is always that breaking point where tolerance grows thin.

Tree isn't trying to ruin the game, he's just expressing his opinion that the complainers have gone free for way too long and some kind of punishment should come around to shut them up, despite it not necessarily being the most effective method of solving the issue at hand. Removing base payout does indeed solve the problem, but the respite is only temporary in that it creates different "problems" and just leads to a string of new complaints from the same group of complainers.

edit: I fully agree with juiceman's thoughts on bases being the first step to richess, yet also the first step to poverty at the same time. It's all due to human nature wanting to get the most benefit out of the least effort. The newbies don't understand how much more they can reap by building their productions themselves, because "why bother if the base can already give me "amazing" shipments"? In this case though, is where I'd say leadership responsibility needs to guide their hand, and is a particular skill I have found particularly lacking in some legions I have passed by in my travels.

Side note, like I said, my ship is 2 years old, including reset. However, my game experience is nearing 4 years. Take what you will, I speak from experience as well.

Trinity,

I don't really disagree on many levels. However, to change it now midstream would seem somewhat unfair. While it would again put additional value on self reliance and power for level, it would further increase the expanse between those who have previously benefitted and those still coming up through ranks. I can only believe also, that slowing the power valve will further slow the already inertial ships. You rank slowly but with purpose, and skill, and will rank more when it makes since, howevrer.. cutting the food for starving slow ranks ain't going to entice many of them to get more active.

I myself do not have all 3 of the final base chain finalized. While I certainly could do this in short order, I make 141k res an hour and have been reaping big res#'s for a long time. People wanting a bigger slice would just sit, collect (as they do now) and dump research into base tab rather than energy , hull, planet. I think we should view all the needless whining as just that. So they whine, meh. High ranks whine about other stuff. Everyone whines about something.

Oh for the days when we discounted every suggestion from a Dysonian because THEY were on top.

While I don't see the sense in removing payouts to stop whining (or providing the benefit to every doubt... keep players from mooching), I am trying not to discount the suggestion offhand just because of the author.

This forum is full of whining about a great many things. This thread is whining about whining, which may be a first. Add that to the list of EotS accomplishments, I guess. I'm sure someone has a list of such things.

Every legion complains about their dead weight, but bonuses are determined only by the number of people in the legion. Shedding moochers tends to hurt more than it helps, which is why it rarely gets done.

Simple fact is that ships need those payouts. Maybe not in EotS, or in some other legions, but by and large in a game where AP is all that matters, more AP is always a good thing.

It's also a fact that most players in the game just don't have the passion or time or strategy or whatever to NOT need a little AP boost. There are awful ships in awful legions. There are also awful ships in good legions. Removing a base payout hurts everyone without helping anything. The players that didn't get a boost will likely quit faster as the have/have not gap widens. Leave it how it is.

The final fact is that Bill Gates doesn't roll through the drive-thru telling the workers to get their $#!t together. That would be ridiculous.

Point 1 is why I'm divided on just exactly how draxiss idea should be implemented, but it is somewhat plausible compared to the original idea of just "not good enough tech? 0 base shipment for you." On the other hand, this falls very heavily on the community coming to a consensus (which I never really understood why everything is so clouded. I understand that variation exists where population exists, but man the divided opinions on here can get so tense it's like a battlefield sometimes). It also requires Dan to put some shoes on and get work done, but I feel like even he doesn't know whether or not the game is saveable with such a small playerbase left. So I can't blame him for the activity now, At the same time he definitely would have benefited acting earlier and I cannot excuse him for that.

So I'd say this is a two-fold problem. Dev for what I am strongly convinced was a lack of interest in advancing the game at a certain point, and the community as a whole for not taking the issue serious enough previously, and now the kind of opinions that genuinely make me think "wtf" representative of backwards thinking that doesn't help us get anywhere. We got the whole zoo here, the geniuses who have contributed significantly to how to succeed at the game, crafting the original wiki, actually getting ideas passed and developped. But we also have those who literally do nothing except troll and make other people's lives miserable (that makes up a much larger % of the GL population than it should).


And now for point 2, I'll make it brief. That issue you listed is exactly the type of thing that leadership should be able to teach players, excluding those newbies that don't care. The proportion of people in this game that care to those that do not care is clearly not reflected in the ship stats as we would not have as nearly as many whiners if 1) Leadership was competent when they were a newbie, 2) They were interested and engaged (fault of both themselves and the leadership).

Sad to say its far from a first.
If you look back in these forums you can actually find threads whining about threads whining about whiners.

You're right, of course.

I won't whine about threads whining about threads whining about whiners.

BUT, I still believe that removing payouts is not an effective solution. I do understand where Tree's coming from though.

We all grouse about slackers in our legion, but a lack of payout isn't going to snap them to attention.

I'm with you on this one. However I do like the concepts presented so perhaps there can be a way to integrate them (perhaps with modifications) without nixing the current production of bases.

From what I hear from several on this thread is that they've now all benefited from the current system for years. Now that you don't need/don't benefit from it as much, you want to get rid of it, so others joining can't receive the same benefit you've already had. Talk about kicking players while they are down. Really?.......Really??

Did you even read my posts?
All I hear from people like you is gimme gimme gimme. You don't like the part where I suggest removing one bonus but you do like the part where I talk about a different kind of bonus. Brilliant plan, let's just add more bonuses to everything...

Sure, so long as their focused at eots rather than giving new players a leg up!

The issue is it gives new players a leg up that they feel belongs to them when it doesn't, then complain when they lose the bonus instead of understanding that they have to defend (read: earn) it to get it (which falls on leadership, like Ive said many times).

That's exactly it. It's not the game's fault, it's the leadership'a fault.

Seems like a catch 22. If you don;t know if your leaders suck or not, how would you know better on what to do? Plus in a way it's like hoping having a good governor for your state can manage each household to be smarter, plan better and succeed. Leaders can only do so much, and advice is only as valuable in as much that it's accepted and applied. Sometimes even knowing what to do won't help someone enough.

We could never police leaders to make sure they have a clue...well you could, but no one has real interest in the time and game development it would tak to achieve this. Each legion's leaders speak from the experience they personally have, which is widely varied. People are on different times as well, so chatting and dialogues don't happen all the time--or apparently oft enough.

I try to follow the KISS principle. If you can dumb things down for the majority of the people you have essentially done them a favor by keeping them from hurting themselves through ignorance. Ironically in some aspects collecting and slow ranking achieves this. If you aren;t emotionally or game wise mentally invested in getting the most from GL, then slow building will at least keep the car on the rails..albeit at a rikshaw pace.

The people with good production are pulling away from the low ranks like galaxies are post big bang. The gap is so wide already, the mid section shrinks and halcs (toned by tons of threads complaining about not having enough targets). The low section preys on those who try to rank up and get a lot more of the game aspects , and the high ranks ponder how to get more banf for their buck.

Also, the level of entitlement displayed by low and high ranks alike is staggering. There's a lot of free lunch handed out, people just want free dessert to go with it.