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 Freeze Ranking is Insanely Counter Productive! 
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So, I was 233 XP from ranking with 10k energy when we get the Tenebris Discovery, which has a task that gives 0 XP (9000 total energy cost), and requires 10 people to finish a separate task before it can be started.

"Great!" I say, "I can just wait for 10 people to finish Task 1, and then hop on so I don't waste 10k energy/screw up my ranking!"

Seems like a great idea on paper. Who wants to waste all that energy and lose their ability to autorank (or, more accurately, autoRaix)? But looking at the Non-Player Enemy Logs in the brief time I have avoided "doing stuff" to keep from ranking, it looks like I have missed out on:

(2) XRP Warp Station (XRP Warp Fuel, planet toy, or easy ctp)
(8) Fab Plant (cloak!)
(2) Dark Command Nexus (easy ctp or cache)
(4) Telarys Carrier (easy ctp)
(1) Silthion Queen (sac or easy ctp)
(1) Grivv Prime (cloak, super prisoners, or ctp)

And I missed 2 Fabs and a Telarys while compiling this list!

All that potential cloak and ctp just to save a measly 10k energy? Wow, that was sure counter productive.

:?

So I freeze ranked for a couple hours and I can tell everybody that it was the worst experience ever. I'm thinking about that potential 1k passive cloak I missed out on, about that pile of ctp, and throwing up in my mouth a little right now. I honestly can't imagine employing a playstyle where you deliberately miss out on that kinda awesome stuff just so you can be "strong for your rank" or whatever. The horror!

:eek:


Mon Aug 18, 2014 3:04 pm
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So,

Was it warm?

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Mon Aug 18, 2014 3:14 pm
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uh...the number of fab plants alerted is highly dependent on the legion your in. And if that many are alerted, its also highly unlikely youd manage to get on all of them.

And like always, not everyone slow ranks to be strong for your rank. Some goals are jus easier to achieve at lower ranks, or are in preparation for the next stage of the game (ie missions, so autoranking ability and being able to not be a tin can afterward)

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Mon Aug 18, 2014 3:17 pm
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Isn't tin can a pseudo mumbo jumbo term? Everyone is more or less difficult to someone else. I've seen people hundreds of ranks above me that are 'weak' compared to me, and similar the other direction for stronger. I'm with Pongo on this. Also if you arent in a legion where the norm is about what he listed or MORE during high activity points for npc alerts, then you may want to relocate to a bigger and stronger legion- as such is available and accepting of your ship and model of play.

If the ideology is to garner /harvest basically free red and yellows while low ranked to get medals and ship mods, then you are probably right to do it at that point. Rack your stats and achieve goals while the gettin is good and easy. Many people hit a speed rank curve at a point, be that to complete lm chains, or simply to outpace some pesky npc's and unlock others.

If str for rank is your focus, even then Labs and some alerts are worthwhile. You don't want us 1k+ ships stealing your project planets because you cannot cloak them well enough.

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Mon Aug 18, 2014 3:25 pm
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Pongoloid wrote:
So I freeze ranked for a couple hours and I can tell everybody that it was the worst experience ever. I'm thinking about that potential 1k passive cloak I missed out on, about that pile of ctp, and throwing up in my mouth a little right now. I honestly can't imagine employing a playstyle where you deliberately miss out on that kinda awesome stuff just so you can be "strong for your rank" or whatever.

of course, 'freeze ranking' is counter-productive .. WHEN YOU DO IT WRONG !! and your tale of woe is the perfect example of ineptness (sorry, had to be said).

freeze ranking is NOT freezing just before rankup .. though that may be part of it. the best time to 'freeze' is just AFTER a rankup. that way, you still break the freeze to take down fabs and queens and do zero xp legion mission tasks. if you plan this correctly .. that should give you days worth of 'freezing' ... i just did this for 4 days over the weekend myself. then ranked up twice in 10 minutes to do the legion mission task.

obvously my example of 'freezing' itself is not a great example ... but freezing for a few minutes ? inconceivable ! the longest that i froze at a single rank was 3 weeks for canshow's contest in the summer of 2012. my next longest is about 10 days.

your instinct to take advantage of the free energy of rankup to do the legion mission task was spot on ... but your judgement as to the potential opportunity costs was not on the mark. you need to balance the plan with the situation and become tactially resilient and responsive. my 'freeze' over the weekend still included PvP disables ... npc drops ... bases etc.

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Last edited by senatorhung on Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.



Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:23 pm
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senatorhung wrote:
Pongoloid wrote:
So I freeze ranked for a couple hours and I can tell everybody that it was the worst experience ever. I'm thinking about that potential 1k passive cloak I missed out on, about that pile of ctp, and throwing up in my mouth a little right now. I honestly can't imagine employing a playstyle where you deliberately miss out on that kinda awesome stuff just so you can be "strong for your rank" or whatever.

of course, 'freeze ranking' is counter-productive .. WHEN YOU DO IT WRONG !! and your tale of woe is the perfect example of ineptness (sorry, had to be said).

freeze ranking is NOT freezing just before rankup .. though that may be part of it. the best time to 'freeze' is just AFTER a rankup. that way, you still break the freeze to take down fabs and queens and do zero xp legion mission tasks. if you plan this correctly .. that should give you days worth of 'freezing' ... i just did this for 4 days over the weekend myself. then ranked up twice in 10 minutes to do the legion mission task. but freezing for a few minutes ? inconceivable !


shock horror!!!!

apparently, despite numerous people telling everyone different for years and lambasting people over that time too.... apparently you can do things wrong in this game :mrgreen:


Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:30 pm
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omg a sooper nice depopped Gaia just went FFA. Thankfully, invasions don't give any xp!

8-)

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freeze ranking is NOT freezing just before rankup .. though that may be part of it. the best time to 'freeze' is just AFTER a rankup. that way, you still break the freeze to take down fabs and queens and do zero xp legion mission tasks. if you plan this correctly .. that should give you days worth of 'freezing' ... i just did this for 4 days over the weekend myself. then ranked up twice in 10 minutes to do the legion mission task. but freezing for a few minutes ? inconceivable !
Breaking your freeze to hit only Fabs and Queens and only making yourself available for low/no-xp legion missions is an insanely selfish way to play!

:(


Mon Aug 18, 2014 5:43 pm
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Theres more to the game than just bases and LMs...
You can help out in other ways:
-Working towards the base donations
-Alerting planets. Plus you can finally finish out your flagged list as you purge them all after ffas.
-Advice on less known topics. I've met a few high ranks that aren't too well informed of certain game mechanics. Rank =/= wisdom, sometimes us lower ranks have useful stuff to say as well.
-Willing to be a planet courrier (I've done this), and in general organizing trades in place of others
-Organizing contests, keep track of it all (sometimes easy, sometimes hard)
-Recruiting (which is actually easier at lower ranks. Obviously not recruiting just anyone. But people are more willing to leave at lower ranks when opportunities show) and diplomacy with other legions
-Probably the most important of all - having a good chat on the comms and some sense of friendship within the legion. Honestly I dont care how good you are at LMs or bases, if your a pita as a person, most people wouldnt want you.

And besides, its a well known fact that NPCing at very low ranks is highly inefficient due to the damage caps and dilute NPC pool.

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Mon Aug 18, 2014 6:06 pm
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TrinityThree wrote:
Theres more to the game than just bases and LMs...
You can help out in other ways:
-Working towards the base donations
-Alerting planets. Plus you can finally finish out your flagged list as you purge them all after ffas.
-Advice on less known topics. I've met a few high ranks that aren't too well informed of certain game mechanics. Rank =/= wisdom, sometimes us lower ranks have useful stuff to say as well.
-Willing to be a planet courrier (I've done this), and in general organizing trades in place of others
-Organizing contests, keep track of it all (sometimes easy, sometimes hard)
-Recruiting (which is actually easier at lower ranks. Obviously not recruiting just anyone. But people are more willing to leave at lower ranks when opportunities show) and diplomacy with other legions
-Probably the most important of all - having a good chat on the comms and some sense of friendship within the legion. Honestly I dont care how good you are at LMs or bases, if your a pita as a person, most people wouldnt want you.

And besides, its a well known fact that NPCing at very low ranks is highly inefficient due to the damage caps and dilute NPC pool.


Is more efficient than not NPCing at all ... I remember the issues I had were due to being on a very small legion where I was getting no help at all (e.g. I was running out of nanos often), but it was still doable. Nice drops from time to time, made a few nice planets, and eventually I did not need to repair anymore (taking damage, but ranking up before I was disabled).

The things you mention on the list are nice and all, but you can still do it if you are high rank / ranking fast; honestly, freeze ranking has no advantages other than being stronger than the other players around your rank (but I must bring my previous example again; it's like a teenager staying on kindergarten so he can bully the little kids ;P).


Mon Aug 18, 2014 7:56 pm
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kirkeastment wrote:
apparently, despite numerous people telling everyone different for years and lambasting people over that time too.... apparently you can do things wrong in this game :mrgreen:

you can't play THE GAME wrong. but you can play a TACTIC incorrectly. like trying to go SSB right from rank 1 ... or freeze ranking with less than 1000 xp left before rankup ... or going on a scan run with 50 scan and expecting to find something worth taking. does not mean that scanning, freeze ranking, or aiming for a SSB build are bad ways to play.

Sharnhorst wrote:
honestly, freeze ranking has no advantages other than being stronger than the other players around your rank

and again with this. this is YOUR OPINION. stating it as if it were a fact across the board is WRONG. what you should say is that freeze ranking has no advantages for YOU.

freeze / slow ranking has these advantages for ME:
- i get more prisoners per rank compared to others at my rank
- i stay within range of the lowest portion of my PvP battle tab for longer (more xp efficient and energy efficient hacking / raiding / disabling)
- i stay within the range of npc's that i can farm for ctp (no longer as important since i passed rank 650 ... but i can still feed on xiloys for another 120 ranks)
- i can plan my moves far in advance, but if new content gets released, i can switch gears to take advantage
- i do not risk ranking out of the range of available content (which i have done in previous fb games, notably City of Blood, Battle Stations, Dream World, Vinyl City et al.)

Pongoloid wrote:
Breaking your freeze to hit only Fabs and Queens and only making yourself available for low/no-xp legion missions is an insanely selfish way to play!

as if dropping alerted npc's is the only way to help out legion members. Trinity already listed a bunch of things that can be done without any need to speed.rank. for me and my legion, my killing spree has netted me enough red badges to scan glass bases for the next 3 months. i over.hit on any elites that i alert to make it easier for my members. i alert planets every 12 hours. there's a reason that AU has survived so long with such a low average rank ...

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Last edited by senatorhung on Mon Aug 18, 2014 11:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.



Mon Aug 18, 2014 7:57 pm
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Trinity makes some good points. I think the overspanning consideration here is more what works best for you and your legion. We are a very active legion so for us slow ranking people are a no go. Some places, what Trinity suggests is a very valid way to help and at no real detraction to your mates.

To each their own. I tried to slow rank, which for me was only 4 levels a week, didn't work--back to 8/10 a week and loving it.

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Mon Aug 18, 2014 11:11 pm
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senatorhung wrote:
freeze / slow ranking has these advantages for ME:
- i get more prisoners per rank compared to others at my rank
- i stay within range of the lowest portion of my PvP battle tab for longer (more xp efficient and energy efficient hacking / raiding / disabling)
- i stay within the range of npc's that i can farm for ctp (no longer as important since i passed rank 650 ... but i can still feed on xiloys for another 120 ranks)
- i can plan my moves far in advance, but if new content gets released, i can switch gears to take advantage
- i do not risk ranking out of the range of available content (which i have done in previous fb games, notably City of Blood, Battle Stations, Dream World, Vinyl City et al.)


- What I said...
- What I said...
- You farm CTP faster with constant NPCing (not relaying on a few rares... Rogue Tech Collectors are the best source for ctp)
- That makes no sense :p
- What's the point of having content if you are not going to use it?

Sorry but I do not think it's my opinion at all... it's a simple fact = there is nothing a low rank can do that a high rank can't do better... for things that matter.

This is probably the first game I've ever seen when people enourage others to play less, to become better... it'll never make any sense :P


Mon Aug 18, 2014 11:33 pm
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Sharnhorst wrote:
Sorry but I do not think it's my opinion at all... it's a simple fact = there is nothing a low rank can do that a high rank can't do better... for things that matter.

again ... what matters TO YOU. the sooner you figure out that not everyone is you, the more likely that others will give credit to your opinions. but so far i have seen no evidence of that.

Sharnhorst wrote:
This is probably the first game I've ever seen when people enourage others to play less, to become better... it'll never make any sense :P

uh ... #2 on the raids leaderboard .. just got up to #11 on the kills leaderboard this month ... now aiming for the hacks leaderboard. i play this game plenty.

as for rogue tech collectors ... they are NOT the most efficient source of npc BY FAR. until i passed rank 650, 9 hits for a korteth for up to 38 ctp vs 3 hits for a rtc for up to 2 ctp ? not even close. even now, the xavox at 16 hits for up to 16 ctp is stil better than the rtc. of course, i still kill more rogue tech collectors at each rank than you did. i just don't waste my time with all the other crud.

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Last edited by senatorhung on Tue Aug 19, 2014 2:37 am, edited 1 time in total.



Tue Aug 19, 2014 12:16 am
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I am proud to award Pongoloid the much-coveted Golden Troll for the inspired and frankly hilarious grenade he threw in the room.
Bravo good sir, I salute you!

*audience rises to their feet applauding vigorously*
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Tue Aug 19, 2014 1:17 am
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senatorhung wrote:
Sharnhorst wrote:
Sorry but I do not think it's my opinion at all... it's a simple fact = there is nothing a low rank can do that a high rank can't do better... for things that matter.

again ... what matters TO YOU. the sooner you figure out that not everyone is you, the more likely that others will give credit to your opinions. but so far i have seen no evidence of that.

Sharnhorst wrote:
This is probably the first game I've ever seen when people enourage others to play less, to become better... it'll never make any sense :P

uh ... #2 on the raids leaderboard .. just got up to #11 on the kills leaderboard this month ... now aiming for the hacks leaderboard. i play this game plenty.

as for rogue tech collectors ... they are NOT the most efficient source of npc BY FAR. until i passed rank 650, 9 hits for a korteth for up to 38 ctp vs 3 hits for a rtc for up to 2 ctp ? not even close. even now, the xavox at 16 hits for up to 16 ctp is stil better than the rtc. of course, i still kill more rogue tech collectors at each rank than you did. i just don't waste my time with all the other crud.


I never said tech collectors were the most efficient, but the best source :P When you kill thousands a week, 38 ctp from a few rare drops mean nothing... why don't we compare the amount of CTP you get a week vs mine? (from NPCing alone).

And what I meant for "for things that matter" is things that are in-game content, not silly stats (e.g. strenght to rank ratios and such). Not my opinion at all, just simple facts due to the content available on this game and what ranking up does to your ship (just refilling your energy, adding 5 rank points and increasing your planet cap - nothing that makes you weaker at all).

This is not my opinion, just how the game works... please do mention something that you can do in-game at low rank that I cannot do at mine :)

(I did state my opinion too above; slow rankers are comparing themselves with players who started playing recently and getting easy kills, instead of ranking up ... in my opinion that's a cowardly tactic (but hey, it's just a game after all, if you enjoy killing noobs who am I to judge :)). The rest are just excuses ... (another opinion)


Tue Aug 19, 2014 7:21 am
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Hey now, a lot of these slow rankers are approaching 20, 30, and even 40 k attack, I'm sure that it helps them conquer planets just as well as my 100 k attack does.
Im sure they'd be awesome attacking bases too, if they weren't terrified of the xp it gave.

And here's one to all the slow rankers and just poor judgement players who will hold on to terraformers until they can max cloak a planet, instead of using them: what on earth are you thinking, if you're holding more then two planets worth of terraformers, you are doing it wrong. There is no way that anyone who plays cautiously and probes their planets, is going to lose more planets then they gain in production from those terraformers. In four years I've lost less then ten or fifteen maxed ap worlds, and half of those were freshly stolen where someone got off an alert. On the flip side, ive been gaining production from every terraformer and taltherian uplift since I gained the ability. So plus hundreds of thousands worth of ap, minus a few worlds, and yup, still well ahead of anyone who waits to cloak every last planet.


Tue Aug 19, 2014 11:36 am
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I don't necessarily freeze rank, but I do slow rank and I do NOT think it is counter productive. You can get a lot done while sitting at one rank.

When I decide I need to freeze rank at that rank, I'm doing a lot of hacking, finding bases for the legion, alerting planets for other members, etc. I don't think freeze ranking is counter productive if you have a goal. For example, right now my goal is to get my defense up before I go on another PvP blitz. But that doesn't mean I'm leaching the legion.

IF there's a legion mission, I participate, or at least give it my best shot to complete it. I have no problems ranking from LMs, or bases. Yeah I'm not alerting a ton of NPCs, but I also try to limit how many fabs I lock, the people who are working to find them deserve them more so then me. While I'm sitting at one rank, I'm getting a lot of blues done and working towards the Black Hat. I don't think it's counter productive if you are getting goals done. Especially if you are helping your legion mates in the process.

I also don't like to rank until the planet slots I have empty are full. Typically before I decide to freeze, I do a big scan blitz, and then work to colonize the planets I want to colonize while sitting at that rank. I do think it's silly to freeze and do nothing. You can get a lot done while freezing :)


Wed Aug 20, 2014 7:48 pm
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Freeze ranking slows the increase in artifact production. Everything that people list here as positives of freeze ranking can be done better with more production.


Wed Aug 20, 2014 7:58 pm
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We should just let this dead horse lie and be buried rather than doing such an invasive and obviously divisive autopsy. That said, power is power. More arti you have the stronger you are. So if you freeze rank 5 years and don't increase at same rate as someone else not freeze ranking---they are more powerful. That goes for taking planets, hitting bases, etc. etc.

Not faulting you for freeze ranking. If you wanna, do it. Not my bag, but don't really care either if you're not im my legion. But be clear on power 'for level you are at' versus actual power.

A 30 pound two year old who can lift 50% of his body weight is impressive. But the 300 linebacker lifting 50% is still (150-15) stronger by 135 pounds. yeah?

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Wed Aug 20, 2014 8:16 pm
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maxer wrote:
Freeze ranking slows the increase in artifact production. Everything that people list here as positives of freeze ranking can be done better with more production.


While this is true because you aren't actively NPCing, in a way it is false too. If I decide I'm going to freeze or not, 90% of the time it's because I have 4-5 planet slots open that I want to fill. I think that increases artifact production too, no?


Thu Aug 21, 2014 2:03 am
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