I'll give you a dyson if you level to 10k by the end of the week

Here at Lords of Infinity we are striving to get our base to level 8 and I was planning a sizable contribution with GP, in excess of $100 worth. Now, however I am reconsidering this and WILL NOT be buying the GP for this until I know what is going to be happening about the energy.

LMAO.. this thread still going on is so funny. I see no argument being made anywhere WHY people think autoranking should be stopped, just falling back on Dan did not intend it, does not like it. Well I'd think it fair to say Dan had never intended bases. Dan had never intended legions, or legion chat. All of those things have made him LOTS of cash.

The fact remains that the autorankers have also paid more real cash in this game than those who do not. They comprise the most GL addicted, rabid fans of this game. So sure.. shut the door on them by doing them wrong. This I say from personal experience, not from some low ranking noob's perspective who wants to recant the same thing over and over in this thread. FB is loaded with advertisements... why?.. to get people to play their games, that is why. To get people just spend time on their games/products. Autorankers play this game loyally, by the very definition of what they are. So Dan.. you want them to play it less? That is what this will do. You want them (like Mento above) to stop spending the cash. That is what this will do.

I say let Dan do what he wishes.. there are lots of MMO (space and everything else) games out there that would LOVE their time, and their money. Battlestar Galactica online only being one.. and guess what.. there are no limits.. you can play as much as you want.. no energy restrictions... why?.. because they understand people spend money in direct proportion to the amount they play.

Carry on.

if this will be in force...
i am gone.. i am sure there will be ppl who will leave it as well...

This thread has been rekindled because Dan himself issued a statement that he will look into it/possibly do something about it a few days ago. Check the previous posts.

I would say auto rankers spend less money on the game because they dont buy so many refills.

You ever put full modules on a base? Or need a single refill x 300 to put in energy to turn the lights on?

Bite my shiny purple butt!

You really should have read Myth's post bettter...
Autorankers are the people that are online for hours and hours every single day. They are the people constantly getting stuff done. They are the most active members of the community and usually support the game by buying all the new modules that are released.

To the original post, I like the thought of more xp as you get more completions on repeatable/daily missions, but with a lower increase per suggested boundary, to a capped maximum.

On the auto-ranking side of the thread, I think that there's a couple of problems in the game that haven't been changed that have more than likely helped to cause the problem -

*GP refills - really cheap cost (10 GP is nothing to a lot of people who spend money on the game) and can pretty much be bought an infinite number of times per day. Either cap the number of times this can be bought daily/weekly, raise the GP cost of it, or have it so it replenishes a set amount of energy per use (5k , 10k etc or even a fixed % refill).

*Crew - Nothing in the game exists to limit how many of each crew we can have, which has led to the high energy bars most high rankers have. Maybe a limit per decks or rank, or even a new research tree based on crew (I'm sure there's been a few suggestions in the past about crew related things).

*Energy Recharge/Reactors - Personally I think that these need changing to increase the amount of energy recharged per hour. 90/120 per hour on its own means having to spend a long time from the game to have sufficient energy for the high rank missions (admittedly this is quite good for those who have a limited amount of time each day to play, but for others it takes too long).

Well you guys all know where I stand, but I will echo you in that Dan needs to either bring out something soon, or allow it to continue to happen. If he wanted to put a stop to it it would have been nice if he did it before everyone started and he brought out more content that was so hard to find that people literally had to auto rank just to find the holiday NPCs. Now we are all sitting on the fence again about what is going to happen...

Limiting energy refill upon ranking will not only hurt autorankers. It will also reduce the amount of energy those that are ranking slower get. Considering the autorankers have a higher energy to rank proportion than the slow rankers, a change like what Dan suggested will hurt slow rankers even more so than the autorankers.

On a personal note, I built my ship around the idea that I have enough energy to do what I wish to do at any particular moment. If this stops being the case, I will not be giving money to a business that is actively undermining my enjoyment of the game. Now while this is a personal sentiment, I am sure others feel the same way and a change to our playstyles of the magnitude suggested here will only succeed in reducing time spent in game and subsequently the money spent on the game.

Look, by far the biggest potential benefit from autoranking was mass purger production, it was overpowered in its previous form. Deal with Stellar Cartography and you stop most of the large-scale autoranking that's been going on.

As has allegedly already been demonstrated, however (from the ranking behaviour of FRAIL and a few others near the start of the game's creation), changing the exp ratio is only a temporary fix, players will eventually get large enough energy bars to autorank purely from Stellar Cartography and will once again place themselves on the acutely-changing aspect of the purger-AP production exponential.

It seems to me that there are two better adjustments that could be made (instead of the current exp adjustment):

1) Change the EM requirement to 500-1,000 per step (ie. 5k-10k EM required per purger). There is only so much EM in the game, this would not only reduce the total number of purgers created but also make EM a once more valuable resource, which would then make the development/acquisition of mining planets again worthwhile (at least, to those who have crunched the numbers on when such planets break even), or

2) Impose a hard limit on the amount of exotic matter the scientists accept per day, e.g. the amount required to make 100 purgers. After this limit is reached, the mission can lock up and become available in 20 hrs, like the current dailies.

Either of these suggestions I feel would both drastically reduce the rate and scale of the autoranking that's been occurring recently, without effectively removing a mission from lower ranked players.

I still fail to see what the problem is supposed to be with people being able to scan and purge more frequently. More frequent scanning means more activity in the game, for *everybody.* The current nerf just makes it harder for lower ranks to scan. The lower energy ratio and higher EM cost is a pain for high ranks, but crippling for low folks. Besides, for high rankers it's not all bad since it slows down your leveling. But in any case, more scanning equals more activity equals more gameplay. You'd think Dan would want this! I recall at lower levels waiting a month between scan runs - honestly, a lot potential players would not have the patience for that.

I'm additionally confused by Dan's comment because he added the GP cost to speed up legion missions - many of which are major energy drains. The energy drain part doesn't bother me at all - you spend energy for a non-xp reward - exactly what makes it sense to add if you want to slow down leveling. But speeding up the missions so they end faster means spending *more* energy quicker. Reducing the energy from a refill means people would no longer want to speed up missions, which would *reduce Dan's revenue!!!*

"The more energy you spend, the more money I make! I hate money! Here, let me take away half your energy."

"Oh wait, there's still planet scanning. The more planets people scan, the more often they'll find something good and want to buy QSE's and Transfusers for it. Let's ruin their ability to scan quickly. I want the game's bank account empty... EMPTY, do you hear me??"

"Well, even if they can't *find* any good planets, they can still *make* them with Terraformers. But to really maximize them, they'll still want to buy Transfusers and fancy artifacts. That still means there's money coming in, and I *HATE* money! Quick, get rid of Troop Carriers! But only for the people who pay me the most money!"

This has nothing to do with the purger mission. That change I completely agree with. Being able to have unlimited scanning capability is beyond broken.
"Damn, I didn't find any maxed arti planets. I guess I'll scan 5000 more times tonight."
That is just BS. Things like that screw the low ranks because soon enough you would have a million plus scans happening every day. Eventually every good planet would be in the hands of a high rank and cloaked beyond anyone's ability to find again.
That mission should give no experience at all.

Changing something this fundamental to the game mechanic would destroy all the time one has put into it to this point.

To fix something this fundamental, you would need to start a new game, a sequel. This is usually what a game company does when they realize that the game is not heading the direction they desire.

If this game had a scaling XP system or did not recharge your energy bar at each rank (or whatever) when you started playing the game, you would have played it differently, you would have spent differently. To pull the rug on three year's worth of building and spending is irresponsible of a game development company.

If Dan wants this to change, he needs to start working on GL2, not make a change to GL...

This 'solution' wouldn't have been suggested if autoranking wasn't occurring as frequently as it was. Making purgers was one of the biggest driving forces behind autoranking. It most definitely is to do with the purger mission.

The purger mission is already nerfed and autoranking from it is almost impossible for every single ship in the game.

Please read posts fully if you're going to respond to them...



That's not even making clear the point that most who start trying to mass generate purgers autorank from a combination of missions, most often the Controlling the Anomaly mission with its exp ratio of 2.92 (Stellar Cartography previously having a 2.53 ratio). Changing the exp is only a temporary solution for purger autorankers and something that affects low rank ships much, much more.

Everyone keeps saying how the purger change hurts low ranks, but I don't see it.
When I was a low rank I hardly ever made purgers.

Only change for them I see is their planets getting stolen less.