Zardas said:

The beacon game was killed by Plarium introducing the Beacon Massacre event where you could revive 90% of what you lost during that massacre for free. At the same time two of the major leagues was fighting each other, one of those leagues decided to go and kill all the beacons on the map, since they could not hold any no one should.

That doesn't make sense. Because if you "can't" hold a beacon, then why should you anyway? Beacons, and forts, is pvp grounds. Just its so horrible unbalanced and a swipe of a credit card count for a lot more than the combined effort of many players. There this saying, money talks and bullshit walks. but in our case, its gameplay that took a walk...

If someone just want to watch everything burn and is able to do so, that is their choice. Flaws of game mechanics come into play when there is no effective way to combat it.... Or here is another thought. The game evolved to a degree (artificially bloated by spending). So what it took to defend a beacon reached such a level, so if you was stretching yourself to thin, you ended up not able to hold any. 

tbh brutally honest, if you can't hold it you don't deserve it. Been playing EVE since the start back in 2003... Seen empires rise and fall in a sandbox so waste stormfall seems like a small speck of grain in comparison. Where some fights was not just about gain systems and riches, but to deny others of it. Yeah, Plarium screwed the pouch in how mechanics work i n this game, but when it come to the nature of pvp. All games with a pvp aspect is the same. Players do things because they can, and their motive for do so is no more wrong than your own motives for playing and what drive you. Some players like to build sand castles, others like to knock them over, because for them your salty jelly tears taste delicious. 

Sir Dan Saul Knight said:

So KT refused to fight 1 on 1 "for the rights to be kings of the server" and KoK made good on their promise and joined the war on KoC's side. Probably unexpected as it looked a lost cause,  2 Leagues effectively against the rest of the server.

KoK was smaller than KT / KoC. But it brought with it deep knowledge of the game mechanics (mostly learnt from TD). Strength tests (hitting a beacon with small forces and accurately determining the defence from the battle report) being chief among them. Could it be enough?

KT and KoC beacons went down. In the first week KoC still pressured by over 10 leagues. And the smaller leagues went in and took over the dead beacons, some involved in the war some just taking advantage. 

what you are saying is, coalitions ruined that game.   

Sir Dan Saul Knight said:

So KT refused to fight 1 on 1 "for the rights to be kings of the server" and KoK made good on their promise and joined the war on KoC's side. Probably unexpected as it looked a lost cause,  2 Leagues effectively against the rest of the server.

KoK was smaller than KT / KoC. But it brought with it deep knowledge of the game mechanics (mostly learnt from TD). Strength tests (hitting a beacon with small forces and accurately determining the defence from the battle report) being chief among them. Could it be enough?

KT and KoC beacons went down. In the first week KoC still pressured by over 10 leagues. And the smaller leagues went in and took over the dead beacons, some involved in the war some just taking advantage. 

what you are saying is, coalitions ruined that game.   

so....why did plarium ad them as an official feature?

Sir Dan Saul Knight said:

 Davidicus's league which I forget the name of (initial were similar to KoC, might have been KoC as well actually).

I may be wrong, but are you referring to AOC?  I was too new to the game to know what was going on in the first big war, but I recall hearing that AOC were #1 on the server until they took big losses during one of the earlier server wars.

I find metagame interesting, but it gets way too nasty for me to want to participate.  It goes way past friendly rivalry into pure hatred and malice.  Players talking about destroying other people and forcing them from the game.  This may be a war game, but the idea is to have fun, and to me, that's not fun, just sickening.

IronApex said:

Sir Dan Saul Knight said:

So KT refused to fight 1 on 1 "for the rights to be kings of the server" and KoK made good on their promise and joined the war on KoC's side. Probably unexpected as it looked a lost cause,  2 Leagues effectively against the rest of the server.

KoK was smaller than KT / KoC. But it brought with it deep knowledge of the game mechanics (mostly learnt from TD). Strength tests (hitting a beacon with small forces and accurately determining the defence from the battle report) being chief among them. Could it be enough?

KT and KoC beacons went down. In the first week KoC still pressured by over 10 leagues. And the smaller leagues went in and took over the dead beacons, some involved in the war some just taking advantage. 

what you are saying is, coalitions ruined that game.   

so....why did plarium ad them as an official feature?

Coalitions didn't really ruin the game...at least, not by themselves.  The #1 thing that's killed most meaningful gameplay is simply how much power you can buy and how quickly you can obtain it. That's more of an individual thing rather than a league or coalition thing.  Its true that those who have bought huge amounts of power tend to band together, but with metagame and the hatreds between leagues, I think most power shifts these days will happen due to old players quitting and maybe new players rising.

Its kind of ironic, in a way, that as the game dies out, metagame has gotten even nastier since (based on forums posts) players have resorted to account hijacking to sabotage leagues just so they can downgrade the fort and hose a few people they hate.  But fear not!  Plarium has decisively denied all responsibility in these matters while giving us no new ways to protect our accounts against these tactics!

Zardas said:

The beacon game was killed by Plarium introducing the Beacon Massacre event where you could revive 90% of what you lost during that massacre for free. At the same time two of the major leagues was fighting each other, one of those leagues decided to go and kill all the beacons on the map, since they could not hold any no one should.

That doesn't make sense. Because if you "can't" hold a beacon, then why should you anyway? Beacons, and forts, is pvp grounds. Just its so horrible unbalanced and a swipe of a credit card count for a lot more than the combined effort of many players. There this saying, money talks and bullshit walks. but in our case, its gameplay that took a walk...

If someone just want to watch everything burn and is able to do so, that is their choice. Flaws of game mechanics come into play when there is no effective way to combat it.... Or here is another thought. The game evolved to a degree (artificially bloated by spending). So what it took to defend a beacon reached such a level, so if you was stretching yourself to thin, you ended up not able to hold any. 

tbh brutally honest, if you can't hold it you don't deserve it. Been playing EVE since the start back in 2003... Seen empires rise and fall in a sandbox so waste stormfall seems like a small speck of grain in comparison. Where some fights was not just about gain systems and riches, but to deny others of it. Yeah, Plarium screwed the pouch in how mechanics work i n this game, but when it come to the nature of pvp. All games with a pvp aspect is the same. Players do things because they can, and their motive for do so is no more wrong than your own motives for playing and what drive you. Some players like to build sand castles, others like to knock them over, because for them your salty jelly tears taste delicious. 

The rewards for holding beacons is not just there with the effort needed to do so. Tbh, I would slashed down the numbers of beacons by A LOT. Then rather have beacons give bonus's to the league members more like the champions work. Some could give bonus to food, gold, iron, other to increased stats of spyhing, off, def, whatever.. Why not have some very few limited beacons that could give like a tiny sprinkle of sapphires to the members of the league holding it, now that would be worth fight for. 

IronApex said:

Sir Dan Saul Knight said:

So KT refused to fight 1 on 1 "for the rights to be kings of the server" and KoK made good on their promise and joined the war on KoC's side. Probably unexpected as it looked a lost cause,  2 Leagues effectively against the rest of the server.

KoK was smaller than KT / KoC. But it brought with it deep knowledge of the game mechanics (mostly learnt from TD). Strength tests (hitting a beacon with small forces and accurately determining the defence from the battle report) being chief among them. Could it be enough?

KT and KoC beacons went down. In the first week KoC still pressured by over 10 leagues. And the smaller leagues went in and took over the dead beacons, some involved in the war some just taking advantage. 

what you are saying is, coalitions ruined that game.   

so....why did plarium ad them as an official feature?

Coalitions didn't really ruin the game...at least, not by themselves.  The #1 thing that's killed most meaningful gameplay is simply how much power you can buy and how quickly you can obtain it. That's more of an individual thing rather than a league or coalition thing.  Its true that those who have bought huge amounts of power tend to band together, but with metagame and the hatreds between leagues, I think most power shifts these days will happen due to old players quitting and maybe new players rising.

Its kind of ironic, in a way, that as the game dies out, metagame has gotten even nastier since (based on forums posts) players have resorted to account hijacking to sabotage leagues just so they can downgrade the fort and hose a few people they hate.  But fear not!  Plarium has decisively denied all responsibility in these matters while giving us no new ways to protect our accounts against these tactics!

Gadheras said:

Zardas said:

The beacon game was killed by Plarium introducing the Beacon Massacre event where you could revive 90% of what you lost during that massacre for free. At the same time two of the major leagues was fighting each other, one of those leagues decided to go and kill all the beacons on the map, since they could not hold any no one should.

That doesn't make sense. Because if you "can't" hold a beacon, then why should you anyway? Beacons, and forts, is pvp grounds. Just its so horrible unbalanced and a swipe of a credit card count for a lot more than the combined effort of many players. There this saying, money talks and bullshit walks. but in our case, its gameplay that took a walk...

If someone just want to watch everything burn and is able to do so, that is their choice. Flaws of game mechanics come into play when there is no effective way to combat it.... Or here is another thought. The game evolved to a degree (artificially bloated by spending). So what it took to defend a beacon reached such a level, so if you was stretching yourself to thin, you ended up not able to hold any. 

tbh brutally honest, if you can't hold it you don't deserve it. Been playing EVE since the start back in 2003... Seen empires rise and fall in a sandbox so waste stormfall seems like a small speck of grain in comparison. Where some fights was not just about gain systems and riches, but to deny others of it. Yeah, Plarium screwed the pouch in how mechanics work i n this game, but when it come to the nature of pvp. All games with a pvp aspect is the same. Players do things because they can, and their motive for do so is no more wrong than your own motives for playing and what drive you. Some players like to build sand castles, others like to knock them over, because for them your salty jelly tears taste delicious. 

The rewards for holding beacons is not just there with the effort needed to do so. Tbh, I would slashed down the numbers of beacons by A LOT. Then rather have beacons give bonus's to the league members more like the champions work. Some could give bonus to food, gold, iron, other to increased stats of spyhing, off, def, whatever.. Why not have some very few limited beacons that could give like a tiny sprinkle of sapphires to the members of the league holding it, now that would be worth fight for. 

KT could not have taken all those beacons with out the Beacon Massacre, well they could have done it, but would not bee willing to take all those losses. I am not blaming them, it was the right strategical thing to do because they were losing members to other leagues that could hold beacons. And the beacon massacre was also what kept KT from holding any beacons, because the risk was to high.

The first thing I thought about when the beacon massacre was announced was that you could soften the big stacked corner beacons during the massacre, then hammer it with your big hammer 1 second after the BM ended. And this is what we did to Destiny. We smashed allot of their defense in that last beacon they had they have been a shadow of them self since that day.

So this is why I say it was the beacon massacre game mechanic who ruined the beacon game. Us players we just need to do the best with the tools that are given to us so cant really blame it on one league or a person.

But you are right that the coining is giving way to mush power to a few individuals and is not good for the game, should bee a monthly limt on coining to make it a more interesting game. Would love a game like this that was subscription based, like 20$ a month thats it, everyone play on the same terms.

And BTW I do love reading about all that history but it dont have anything to do with why the beacon game is dead. As the beacon game died like 6 months ago.  

Zardas said:

Gadheras said:

Zardas said:

The beacon game was killed by Plarium introducing the Beacon Massacre event where you could revive 90% of what you lost during that massacre for free. At the same time two of the major leagues was fighting each other, one of those leagues decided to go and kill all the beacons on the map, since they could not hold any no one should.

That doesn't make sense. Because if you "can't" hold a beacon, then why should you anyway? Beacons, and forts, is pvp grounds. Just its so horrible unbalanced and a swipe of a credit card count for a lot more than the combined effort of many players. There this saying, money talks and bullshit walks. but in our case, its gameplay that took a walk...

If someone just want to watch everything burn and is able to do so, that is their choice. Flaws of game mechanics come into play when there is no effective way to combat it.... Or here is another thought. The game evolved to a degree (artificially bloated by spending). So what it took to defend a beacon reached such a level, so if you was stretching yourself to thin, you ended up not able to hold any. 

tbh brutally honest, if you can't hold it you don't deserve it. Been playing EVE since the start back in 2003... Seen empires rise and fall in a sandbox so waste stormfall seems like a small speck of grain in comparison. Where some fights was not just about gain systems and riches, but to deny others of it. Yeah, Plarium screwed the pouch in how mechanics work i n this game, but when it come to the nature of pvp. All games with a pvp aspect is the same. Players do things because they can, and their motive for do so is no more wrong than your own motives for playing and what drive you. Some players like to build sand castles, others like to knock them over, because for them your salty jelly tears taste delicious. 

The rewards for holding beacons is not just there with the effort needed to do so. Tbh, I would slashed down the numbers of beacons by A LOT. Then rather have beacons give bonus's to the league members more like the champions work. Some could give bonus to food, gold, iron, other to increased stats of spyhing, off, def, whatever.. Why not have some very few limited beacons that could give like a tiny sprinkle of sapphires to the members of the league holding it, now that would be worth fight for. 

KT could not have taken all those beacons with out the Beacon Massacre, well they could have done it, but would not bee willing to take all those losses. I am not blaming them, it was the right strategical thing to do because they were losing members to other leagues that could hold beacons. And the beacon massacre was also what kept KT from holding any beacons, because the risk was to high.

The first thing I thought about when the beacon massacre was announced was that you could soften the big stacked corner beacons during the massacre, then hammer it with your big hammer 1 second after the BM ended. And this is what we did to Destiny. We smashed allot of their defense in that last beacon they had they have been a shadow of them self since that day.

So this is why I say it was the beacon massacre game mechanic who ruined the beacon game. Us players we just need to do the best with the tools that are given to us so cant really blame it on one league or a person.

But you are right that the coining is giving way to mush power to a few individuals and is not good for the game, should bee a monthly limt on coining to make it a more interesting game. Would love a game like this that was subscription based, like 20$ a month thats it, everyone play on the same terms.

And BTW I do love reading about all that history but it dont have anything to do with why the beacon game is dead. As the beacon game died like 6 months ago.  

KT was not the only league out there smashing beacons if I recall correctly ....

As for Destiny - when were their beacons smashed??  I don't believe they lost as much defense as you think.   My defense was fully intact (everything I had was on their beacons and fort) when I among many others left Destiny so must have been later :))

I do agree on your point when it comes to a subscription based game it would be much better 

**Edit**  a further note on the Destiny Beacons .... Emps would never have taken them without Ratcoms sacrificing their offense to soften them for Emps 

The game became too cheap, with constant offers, 75% healer and then boost after boost which can make troops 6 or 7 times their original strength. The result, we got a tiny few super coined offenses that were in the billions.

It takes only 3 accounts to make a hammer to unbalance a game. In theory it only has to be on one account, the other 2 can just come along for the ride and add what they add.

And a hammer doesn't have to be greater than all the defence in the game to mess the game up. It only has to be a fraction of the total defence on the server.

The hammers can strike any time they want, anywhere they want. The defence just has to sit there like lemons. The result is that all the defence has to be hammer beating defence at all times. Every beacon in the game has to going on for half the hammer size to be safe, at least a third just to give the hammer decent losses if it attacks. So it takes only 1 mega hammer to give everyone no option but to hunker down in a couple of beacons.

For example, lets say someone buys a 1.5bn hammer and there was 30bn defence on the server. You are going to want 500m-1bn on your beacons. Some element of that defence is going to be spread across leagues that just can't muster that, so they have to give up beacons entirely. For sake of argument that takes 10bn defence out of the equation. The entire rest of the server would then need to hunker down in 20/30 beacons. That is all the players, all the production from thousands of players over years, can literally be held hostage by 1 player.

If you assume there was 30bn offence on the server as well as 30bn defence (although I would argue that there is more offence than defence on all the servers) then a purchased hammer representing only less than 2.5% of the power in the game can effectively shut down the game.

I don't know how much money was spent on the 5-6 accounts that effectively ended the server I play on. It would be an interesting analysis to offset that against losing the entire revenue stream from all the other accounts, given the games have now reached end of life years before they needed to. I very much doubt it.

And BTW I do love reading about all that history but it dont have anything to do with why the beacon game is dead. As the beacon game died like 6 months ago.  

Sir Dan Saul Knight said:

The game became too cheap, with constant offers, 75% healer and then boost after boost which can make troops 6 or 7 times their original strength. The result, we got a tiny few super coined offenses that were in the billions.

It takes only 3 accounts to make a hammer to unbalance a game. In theory it only has to be on one account, the other 2 can just come along for the ride and add what they add.

And a hammer doesn't have to be greater than all the defence in the game to mess the game up. It only has to be a fraction of the total defence on the server.

The hammers can strike any time they want, anywhere they want. The defence just has to sit there like lemons. The result is that all the defence has to be hammer beating defence at all times. Every beacon in the game has to going on for half the hammer size to be safe, at least a third just to give the hammer decent losses if it attacks. So it takes only 1 mega hammer to give everyone no option but to hunker down in a couple of beacons.

For example, lets say someone buys a 1.5bn hammer and there was 30bn defence on the server. You are going to want 500m-1bn on your beacons. Some element of that defence is going to be spread across leagues that just can't muster that, so they have to give up beacons entirely. For sake of argument that takes 10bn defence out of the equation. The entire rest of the server would then need to hunker down in 20/30 beacons. That is all the players, all the production from thousands of players over years, can literally be held hostage by 1 player.

If you assume there was 30bn offence on the server as well as 30bn defence (although I would argue that there is more offence than defence on all the servers) then a purchased hammer representing only less than 2.5% of the power in the game can effectively shut down the game.

I don't know how much money was spent on the 5-6 accounts that effectively ended the server I play on. It would be an interesting analysis to offset that against losing the entire revenue stream from all the other accounts, given the games have now reached end of life years before they needed to. I very much doubt it.

Tbh would be very interesting to hear a honest view from Plarium on this. Or if they even got a hindsight how they screwed over their own game to get it into the state it is today. And if they have any idea of how to fix or remedy it. 

BiohazarD said:

Gadheras said:

Tbh would be very interesting to hear a honest view from Plarium on this. Or if they even got a hindsight how they screwed over their own game to get it into the state it is today. And if they have any idea of how to fix or remedy it. 

Most of the original devs probably aren't around anymore.  I'd guess since the company was bought out by Aristocrat there's been some employee turnover. 

Doesn't change the fact or excuse anything. Someone, somewhere, is sitting with the collective responsibility ... (and ow us a explenation).

"Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds"