[quote name="@Treespeak7" date="2021-01-26 12:47:57" ]
I often wonder about how dead accounts might affect dom. Like, if one flight has a high number of registered users, but a very small active player base. Would they still qualify as a "larger" flight and be at a disadvantage for dominance, even though a large chunk of their users aren't really around to contribute anything? I would hope not, but it might explain some things about the current situation.
[/quote]
Probably going to be ninja'd, but dead accounts don't affect dom.
Once an account has been inactive for I think 2 weeks, they arne't counted towards the dominance formula.
I often wonder about how dead accounts might affect dom. Like, if one flight has a high number of registered users, but a very small active player base. Would they still qualify as a "larger" flight and be at a disadvantage for dominance, even though a large chunk of their users aren't really around to contribute anything? I would hope not, but it might explain some things about the current situation.
Probably going to be ninja'd, but dead accounts don't affect dom.
Once an account has been inactive for I think 2 weeks, they arne't counted towards the dominance formula.
I don’t disagree that dom needs to be reworked. Let that preface and frame everything else I say. I personally think change in a game is good and necessary.
I do think it’s unfair to suggest that Earth gets dom “without trying.” From my perspective, earth’s dom prowess has attracted a lot of players who are primarily interested in dragon capitalism, which naturally means a lot of players who train and exalt for profit even when not participating in dom. I have personally never participated in earth dom, but I feel like I probably exalt a fairly high number of dragons/levels every week, more than average I suspect, because I enjoy making money. My observation is that this is typical for earth culture: our dom prowess just attracts a higher concentration of people like me who take particular pleasure in making imaginary money.
Again, I don’t say this to argue against dom reform, but rather to speculate on the change that older players observe in earth’s dominance now versus in the past.
I don’t disagree that dom needs to be reworked. Let that preface and frame everything else I say. I personally think change in a game is good and necessary.
I do think it’s unfair to suggest that Earth gets dom “without trying.” From my perspective, earth’s dom prowess has attracted a lot of players who are primarily interested in dragon capitalism, which naturally means a lot of players who train and exalt for profit even when not participating in dom. I have personally never participated in earth dom, but I feel like I probably exalt a fairly high number of dragons/levels every week, more than average I suspect, because I enjoy making money. My observation is that this is typical for earth culture: our dom prowess just attracts a higher concentration of people like me who take particular pleasure in making imaginary money.
Again, I don’t say this to argue against dom reform, but rather to speculate on the change that older players observe in earth’s dominance now versus in the past.
[quote name="After" date="2021-01-26 12:33:02" ]
on some level i agree, but it's important to consider community culture as well. a good chunk of the big Dom players and active folks that like to exalt for profit? they're in Earth. it's become The Place To Be for things like Dom discounts and such, which means there's less competition in other flights over casual (non-push) board placement.
even if staff pushes some systematic fixes, it may not help as much as non-Earth players might like, simply due to the community spread of those who Dom vs those who don't. fixing the system is much more easily said than done, i think.
[/quote]
This. The dom system is weighed so that smaller flights aren't crushed by the sheer population of larger flights. The intention is to make it EQUAL not to give Earth an advantage. Long ago, Earth was no more or less competitive than any other flight.
Then flight change and OOF support happened.
Suddenly you have people who are interested in dom moving to like-minded flights (Plague, then Light, now Earth) because they enjoy that playstyle and want to participate in a community that is more enthusiastic about it.
Earth isn't powerful because of the small size, it's powerful because a large number of it's active userbase exalts for dom and profit.
When a player asks "What flight should I join for dom?" there's a large chance Earth is going to be one of those flights listed. Those people move to Earth and participate in the culture, making Earth more powerful as a result.
The break in the system has nothing to do with the way the system functions, It's a community created issue. If for example, a large number of people in Shadow suddenly became very interested in dom and the people in Earth who enjoyed that activity decided to move there, Shadow would be the new powerhouse.
Easier said than done obviously but fixing the problem isn't as simple as "change the ratio", you need to change the flight culture or make more flights interested in dom (or exalting in general).
After wrote on 2021-01-26 12:33:02:
on some level i agree, but it's important to consider community culture as well. a good chunk of the big Dom players and active folks that like to exalt for profit? they're in Earth. it's become The Place To Be for things like Dom discounts and such, which means there's less competition in other flights over casual (non-push) board placement.
even if staff pushes some systematic fixes, it may not help as much as non-Earth players might like, simply due to the community spread of those who Dom vs those who don't. fixing the system is much more easily said than done, i think.
This. The dom system is weighed so that smaller flights aren't crushed by the sheer population of larger flights. The intention is to make it EQUAL not to give Earth an advantage. Long ago, Earth was no more or less competitive than any other flight.
Then flight change and OOF support happened.
Suddenly you have people who are interested in dom moving to like-minded flights (Plague, then Light, now Earth) because they enjoy that playstyle and want to participate in a community that is more enthusiastic about it.
Earth isn't powerful because of the small size, it's powerful because a large number of it's active userbase exalts for dom and profit.
When a player asks "What flight should I join for dom?" there's a large chance Earth is going to be one of those flights listed. Those people move to Earth and participate in the culture, making Earth more powerful as a result.
The break in the system has nothing to do with the way the system functions, It's a community created issue. If for example, a large number of people in Shadow suddenly became very interested in dom and the people in Earth who enjoyed that activity decided to move there, Shadow would be the new powerhouse.
Easier said than done obviously but fixing the problem isn't as simple as "change the ratio", you need to change the flight culture or make more flights interested in dom (or exalting in general).
I think the largest issues with Dominance are two things that can't be 'fixed' by the staff.
Players have flocked to Earth, because earth became known for dominance, and players who were more interested in that than other issues just went there.
The second is out of flight support.
Neither of those are things that are easily 'fixed', without either completely changing how dominance works, or pretty much preventing those from happening
I think the largest issues with Dominance are two things that can't be 'fixed' by the staff.
Players have flocked to Earth, because earth became known for dominance, and players who were more interested in that than other issues just went there.
The second is out of flight support.
Neither of those are things that are easily 'fixed', without either completely changing how dominance works, or pretty much preventing those from happening
[quote name="EclipseDragon" date="2021-01-26 12:51:18" ]
Easier said than done obviously but fixing the problem isn't as simple as "change the ratio", flight culture is the problem, not the math.
[/quote]
Exactly. And while people LOVE to complain about the dom system, they are rarely able to actually give any type of suggestion that is implementable and fair to all flights.
EclipseDragon wrote on 2021-01-26 12:51:18:
Easier said than done obviously but fixing the problem isn't as simple as "change the ratio", flight culture is the problem, not the math.
Exactly. And while people LOVE to complain about the dom system, they are rarely able to actually give any type of suggestion that is implementable and fair to all flights.
As others have said, a huge factor is that a lot of dom-oriented people have moved to Earth, and some in Light. Also, another thing to take into account are OOF Raffles and Public Buys. One would assume that larger flight=more people=more chances for rare stuff=better OOF Raffles, and tbh that is sometimes the case, but not always.
But more dom-oriented flights are also a lot richer, so everything is stuck in a snowballing feed back loop. Richer dom flights get richer and more dom players, while other flights lose their dom players and shrink.
I think something that we as players can do is to do in-flight only pushes. No outside support. The it would really be Flight X v. Flight Y instead of Flight X + everyone going after the KS item v. Flight Y + everyone going after the limited time UMA prints. Of course you will always have players who source out to other flights, but I think in-flight only might make things more fair.
The staff have a hard job here. I can't think of a good way to fix dom atm. How else are they supposed to do it?
Maybe dom rewards/payouts should be scaled with the total amount of dragons/levels exalted that week to make pushes more viable. I think that could be easily abused tho :/
Imo if people are serious about making dom more fair, then some people from dom-oriented flights are going to have to move to other flights to even out the playing field.
As others have said, a huge factor is that a lot of dom-oriented people have moved to Earth, and some in Light. Also, another thing to take into account are OOF Raffles and Public Buys. One would assume that larger flight=more people=more chances for rare stuff=better OOF Raffles, and tbh that is sometimes the case, but not always.
But more dom-oriented flights are also a lot richer, so everything is stuck in a snowballing feed back loop. Richer dom flights get richer and more dom players, while other flights lose their dom players and shrink.
I think something that we as players can do is to do in-flight only pushes. No outside support. The it would really be Flight X v. Flight Y instead of Flight X + everyone going after the KS item v. Flight Y + everyone going after the limited time UMA prints. Of course you will always have players who source out to other flights, but I think in-flight only might make things more fair.
The staff have a hard job here. I can't think of a good way to fix dom atm. How else are they supposed to do it?
Maybe dom rewards/payouts should be scaled with the total amount of dragons/levels exalted that week to make pushes more viable. I think that could be easily abused tho :/
Imo if people are serious about making dom more fair, then some people from dom-oriented flights are going to have to move to other flights to even out the playing field.
Earth started getting dom often, then people that care about having dom jumped to earth and have helped keep them at the top near constantly. I dont think its that big of an issue- its just cause and effect (heck i almost also switched to earth for dom as well before i became less active in dom and exalting in general).
I do, however, agree that we desperately need a dominance system update. I know its theoretically in the works (i think it was listed in their preview of stuff they are working on or have in their backlog). Mainly I think the issue is the rewards need to be overhauled to make it more worth the effort, and make people feel more inclined to participate. I'd love to see personal rewards being offered for exalting and the like. We get discounts as a flight, sure- but imagine if you could get, say, tokens or something when exalting and could turn those in at the trading post for apparel or familiar rewards?? Or take it a few steps farther and have rewards include scenes and genes. And if your flight gets on the leader board you could obtain a bulk number of these tokens? I think that would be major incentive to get more active participation within all flights.
Earth started getting dom often, then people that care about having dom jumped to earth and have helped keep them at the top near constantly. I dont think its that big of an issue- its just cause and effect (heck i almost also switched to earth for dom as well before i became less active in dom and exalting in general).
I do, however, agree that we desperately need a dominance system update. I know its theoretically in the works (i think it was listed in their preview of stuff they are working on or have in their backlog). Mainly I think the issue is the rewards need to be overhauled to make it more worth the effort, and make people feel more inclined to participate. I'd love to see personal rewards being offered for exalting and the like. We get discounts as a flight, sure- but imagine if you could get, say, tokens or something when exalting and could turn those in at the trading post for apparel or familiar rewards?? Or take it a few steps farther and have rewards include scenes and genes. And if your flight gets on the leader board you could obtain a bulk number of these tokens? I think that would be major incentive to get more active participation within all flights.
When I joined Earth in 2014, we were not considered a powerhouse, like, at all, and very rarely appeared in top 3. At some point, despite the size difference, we lost a battle to Shadow, flipped a lot in a battle with Wind... And then lots of exalters came here and created a current dom powerhouse as it is.
I still feel it's unfair to blame Earth for others not trying for Dom. Earth hasn't had a battle since April 2018. That was nearly 3 years ago. No one stops other filghts from conquesting and battling between themselves, it's just that no one wants to spend money on battles anymore as they're too expensive ¯\_(?)_/¯ Earth has never surpassed a full-on conquesting flight either.
And as for the size... in the recent Light vs Fire battle Light won, despite being way larger. There were lots of flips, true, but still - a much bigger flight won. Size matters, but it doesn't guarantee a win.
When I joined Earth in 2014, we were not considered a powerhouse, like, at all, and very rarely appeared in top 3. At some point, despite the size difference, we lost a battle to Shadow, flipped a lot in a battle with Wind... And then lots of exalters came here and created a current dom powerhouse as it is.
I still feel it's unfair to blame Earth for others not trying for Dom. Earth hasn't had a battle since April 2018. That was nearly 3 years ago. No one stops other filghts from conquesting and battling between themselves, it's just that no one wants to spend money on battles anymore as they're too expensive ¯\_(?)_/¯ Earth has never surpassed a full-on conquesting flight either.
And as for the size... in the recent Light vs Fire battle Light won, despite being way larger. There were lots of flips, true, but still - a much bigger flight won. Size matters, but it doesn't guarantee a win.
dom was a bad idea to begin with tbh, encourages toxic tribalism culture and economic disadvantages. i feel like there could have been better ways to encourage mass-exalting. and if there's really not a better way, then, well, reality once again disappoints me.
also people have tried, battling against earth, nobody even manages to flip the board.
dom was a bad idea to begin with tbh, encourages toxic tribalism culture and economic disadvantages. i feel like there could have been better ways to encourage mass-exalting. and if there's really not a better way, then, well, reality once again disappoints me.
also people have tried, battling against earth, nobody even manages to flip the board.
I think that instead of reworking the whole system/ratio thing, it'd be more beneficial to have a sort of handicap system, where flights that have gotten on the board/gotten first many weeks in a row are heavily weighted towards not getting it like,,,forever in a row like what happens in Earth now.
If you completely changed the weighting, it wouldn't exactly be fair to Earth since, at least from what I've seen, they do pour hours into dom like other flights do, just there are more "professional" exalters in earth than other flights, and that could lead to the opposite problem, where small flights are in a disadvantage because they have less funds, etc. It's balanced the way it is right now for a reason.
However, even though they do spend a lot of time doing it, it's really not fair for them to basically constantly have dom, and other flights need a chance. I believe that a handicap is already slightly in affect, but it doesn't seem to be deterring things like this happening too much, probably because Earth just has a lot of firepower for their size (mad respect for that flight, it's insane how much of a powerhouse they are when it comes to dom)
It might not help the bigger flights too much, and having more handicap could lead to the smaller flights just trading it between each other, but it'd be a step in the right direction in my opinion.
(also, I am in no way informed about this topic lol, so if I said something completely wrong or dumb, just correct me- most of this is my opinion)
I think that instead of reworking the whole system/ratio thing, it'd be more beneficial to have a sort of handicap system, where flights that have gotten on the board/gotten first many weeks in a row are heavily weighted towards not getting it like,,,forever in a row like what happens in Earth now.
If you completely changed the weighting, it wouldn't exactly be fair to Earth since, at least from what I've seen, they do pour hours into dom like other flights do, just there are more "professional" exalters in earth than other flights, and that could lead to the opposite problem, where small flights are in a disadvantage because they have less funds, etc. It's balanced the way it is right now for a reason.
However, even though they do spend a lot of time doing it, it's really not fair for them to basically constantly have dom, and other flights need a chance. I believe that a handicap is already slightly in affect, but it doesn't seem to be deterring things like this happening too much, probably because Earth just has a lot of firepower for their size (mad respect for that flight, it's insane how much of a powerhouse they are when it comes to dom)
It might not help the bigger flights too much, and having more handicap could lead to the smaller flights just trading it between each other, but it'd be a step in the right direction in my opinion.
(also, I am in no way informed about this topic lol, so if I said something completely wrong or dumb, just correct me- most of this is my opinion)
