Suggestions

[quote name="LordJeanliness" date="2020-05-29 11:43:56" ] [quote]I remember talking with some people a while back on potential updates to Dominance, and we brought up the idea of changing battle weariness and/or what counts as an "active" account — for this latter idea, accounts that never exalted a dragon wouldn't count as "active" in terms of Dominance, or if they haven't played for X hours in the last X amount of time, they wouldn't count, etc. It's a small change, but maybe it's a start somewhere?[/quote] This will discourage players from joining in dom activities if they haven't frequently, and will incentivize ALL dragons being sold to one or two players in-flight rather than being exalted by more members of the flight. [/quote] Not quite. The "never exalted a dragon" idea is quite literally "have you exalted at least 1 dragon? If no, your account doesn't count towards Dominance, if yes, it does." Though I'm not totally a fan of this idea only because newbies can be curious about what exalting does, hit exalt, say "huh, neat," and then never log in again. As for the general activity idea, I'm not sure why that would affect what you're saying. Maybe I'm missing something, so could you explain?

[quote name="Naegiri" date="2020-05-29 12:09:49" ] [quote name="LordJeanliness" date="2020-05-29 11:43:56" ] [quote]I remember talking with some people a while back on potential updates to Dominance, and we brought up the idea of changing battle weariness and/or what counts as an "active" account — for this latter idea, accounts that never exalted a dragon wouldn't count as "active" in terms of Dominance, or if they haven't played for X hours in the last X amount of time, they wouldn't count, etc. It's a small change, but maybe it's a start somewhere?[/quote] This will discourage players from joining in dom activities if they haven't frequently, and will incentivize ALL dragons being sold to one or two players in-flight rather than being exalted by more members of the flight. [/quote] Not quite. The "never exalted a dragon" idea is quite literally "have you exalted at least 1 dragon? If no, your account doesn't count towards Dominance, if yes, it does." Though I'm not totally a fan of this idea only because newbies can be curious about what exalting does, hit exalt, say "huh, neat," and then never log in again. As for the general activity idea, I'm not sure why that would affect what you're saying. Maybe I'm missing something, so could you explain? [/quote] [color=indigo] The argument I've seen people make against this idea (which honestly I agree with) is that it disincentivizes casual exalters. There are plenty of people who during a push, only exalt or supply 10 dragons. Maybe they're busy IRL, don't like dom, or can't coli much for accessibility reasons. This would be unfairly punishing to them, and might lead to a kind of strategy where only a few players actively exalt dragons while everyone else who wants to participate funnels their dragons to them, so it will look like only 100 people are participating in dom with massive numbers exalted for each.

[quote name="Kitava" date="2020-05-29 12:53:00" ] [quote name="Naegiri" date="2020-05-29 12:09:49" ] [quote name="LordJeanliness" date="2020-05-29 11:43:56" ] [quote]I remember talking with some people a while back on potential updates to Dominance, and we brought up the idea of changing battle weariness and/or what counts as an "active" account — for this latter idea, accounts that never exalted a dragon wouldn't count as "active" in terms of Dominance, or if they haven't played for X hours in the last X amount of time, they wouldn't count, etc. It's a small change, but maybe it's a start somewhere?[/quote] This will discourage players from joining in dom activities if they haven't frequently, and will incentivize ALL dragons being sold to one or two players in-flight rather than being exalted by more members of the flight. [/quote] Not quite. The "never exalted a dragon" idea is quite literally "have you exalted at least 1 dragon? If no, your account doesn't count towards Dominance, if yes, it does." Though I'm not totally a fan of this idea only because newbies can be curious about what exalting does, hit exalt, say "huh, neat," and then never log in again. As for the general activity idea, I'm not sure why that would affect what you're saying. Maybe I'm missing something, so could you explain? [/quote] [color=indigo] The argument I've seen people make against this idea (which honestly I agree with) is that it disincentivizes casual exalters. There are plenty of people who during a push, only exalt or supply 10 dragons. Maybe they're busy IRL, don't like dom, or can't coli much for accessibility reasons. This would be unfairly punishing to them, and might lead to a kind of strategy where only a few players actively exalt dragons while everyone else who wants to participate funnels their dragons to them, so it will look like only 100 people are participating in dom with massive numbers exalted for each. [/quote] I agree, isn't dominance about virtually everyone in the one specific flight coming together and exalting dragons, working together as a flight to try to get on top. If we punish any of those who are putting in less than others, it defeats the whole purpose in my eyes. Everyone in the flight should feel inspired or want to pitch in whether it be one dragon or 50+. If dominance punishes the flight members away/ up against each other, it could either scare off new players or get people who were pitching in little amounts to not want to do it at all, because they are pitching in and should get credit, even if they haven't done *as* much. They still are helping in a way.

[quote name="Kitava" date="2020-05-29 12:53:00" ] [quote name="Naegiri" date="2020-05-29 12:09:49" ] [quote name="LordJeanliness" date="2020-05-29 11:43:56" ] [quote]I remember talking with some people a while back on potential updates to Dominance, and we brought up the idea of changing battle weariness and/or what counts as an "active" account — for this latter idea, accounts that never exalted a dragon wouldn't count as "active" in terms of Dominance, or if they haven't played for X hours in the last X amount of time, they wouldn't count, etc. It's a small change, but maybe it's a start somewhere?[/quote] This will discourage players from joining in dom activities if they haven't frequently, and will incentivize ALL dragons being sold to one or two players in-flight rather than being exalted by more members of the flight. [/quote] Not quite. The "never exalted a dragon" idea is quite literally "have you exalted at least 1 dragon? If no, your account doesn't count towards Dominance, if yes, it does." Though I'm not totally a fan of this idea only because newbies can be curious about what exalting does, hit exalt, say "huh, neat," and then never log in again. As for the general activity idea, I'm not sure why that would affect what you're saying. Maybe I'm missing something, so could you explain? [/quote] [color=indigo] The argument I've seen people make against this idea (which honestly I agree with) is that it disincentivizes casual exalters. There are plenty of people who during a push, only exalt or supply 10 dragons. Maybe they're busy IRL, don't like dom, or can't coli much for accessibility reasons. This would be unfairly punishing to them, and might lead to a kind of strategy where only a few players actively exalt dragons while everyone else who wants to participate funnels their dragons to them, so it will look like only 100 people are participating in dom with massive numbers exalted for each. [/quote] Pretty much this. Imagine if you will, a dom heavy flight. They have managed to get the non-casual exalters to stop exalting and instead send all their dragons to a hand ful of exalters. Great, right? That would be a way to 'game' the dominance system, but perfectly all right. Except it won't. This would lead those dom focused players (some of them) to start actively discouraging others from exalting. you ony exalt one dragon? Well, you just screwed up the dom team's efforts, especially when we are talking about taking the team from (theoretically, these numbers would be much higher) from 5 active heavy exalters to 5 active heavy exalters and 20 'okay I exalted 2 dragons this week' exalters. This means that suddenly, those dragons the heavy exalters sent off aren't worth as much because they have had their 'size ratio' shifted from 5 to 25 exalters that week. Not everyone cares about dom, and thus wouldn't pay attention to any 'Hey! Dom Week, stop exalting!' threads (shoot, I rarely go into my own flight forums, so I would never see that thread either), or, as said, never go onto the forums, or just don't feel comfortable sending/messaging/interacting with other players. This could then lead to a situation where we have even more imbalance, because dom oriented people will go to flights where other dom oriented players are, OR they will make their current flights uncomfortable for non-dom oriented players, so those players will leave the site or go to other flights not known for dominance. I have seen things like this happen: the Altador Cup on Neopets. Every year there would be complaints about 'free loaders': those players who signed up and never played, or only played a handful of games. Many of them did so for the rewards of signing up and potential if the team won, but others just couldn't play as much, but wanted to participate. This is why Ialso don't think changing dominance to 'participate and get the rewards' type deal, because you would have people participate because they like the rewards. One thing to remember when thinking about changes is that Dominance is a competition, and people can get REALLY competitive and bitter if their team loses. Especially if they feel that someone is to blame for that team losing. I honestly like how lowkey dominance is now, because, except for some posts every now and then about how it isn't fair that one flight dominates, most players are generally chill with who wins or loses dom. Again, I really don't want to see a situation where we have people made to feel uncomfortable because they aren't into team sports/competition, or they forget and exalt that lore dragon during a huge push effort, simply because the hugely competitive ones dislike the idea that other players are bringing their efforts down. I mean, yeah, it can seem like that now, but it is hard to blame individual players when players have to choose a flight, and don't have the choice to opt out of participating in dom, whether they are exalters or not.

just to help give a bit of perspective to newer players, before dom updates happened,

Shadow would dominate just like earth does, by sheer numbers, and smaller flights barely stood a chance

it was really rough, (as a shadowling it was pretty sweet,) but other flights were discouraged against shadow just like people feel discouraged against Earth right now.

Shadow now is very reserved, and neutral, laid back, and a lot of lurkers who aren't interested in dom or exalting.


I personally think, Earth does work hard for their positions and clearly a lot of earth players plan out their doms each week.

It just happened to create this effect where a lot of the dom focused players drained out of the other flights into the earth flight.

It make sense that dom focused players would want to join the same flight as others as well. That's just human nature. we seek out similar interests and places that will give our interests an advantage.

being an dom or even just an exalt lair is actually a lot of work, and a lot of players don't want to do that kind of gameplay,
the payout on exalts gets weaker every year, because treasure is worth less every year.
so the players who do, want to dom and exalt, will have the best resources and guides for that gameplay, probably in Earth, where other players who are interested in Dom and exalting reside. (an earth player can correct me if im wrong)

Edit: im slightly curious about if the devs have more plans for coli and dom, after the PVP rework is complete.

I'm much more a fan of positive reinforcement; if you chose to exalt, you have the option of also getting bonus content. I don't like the idea of, if you don't participate enough you actively hurt everyone else's chances. The way to balance out Dom is to get MORE people from every flight involved.

[quote name="Kitava" date="2020-05-29 12:53:00" ] [color=indigo] The argument I've seen people make against this idea (which honestly I agree with) is that it disincentivizes casual exalters. There are plenty of people who during a push, only exalt or supply 10 dragons. Maybe they're busy IRL, don't like dom, or can't coli much for accessibility reasons. This would be unfairly punishing to them, and might lead to a kind of strategy where only a few players actively exalt dragons while everyone else who wants to participate funnels their dragons to them, so it will look like only 100 people are participating in dom with massive numbers exalted for each. [/quote] Let me put it this way: Regarding Single Dragon Exalting: Open your account settings. Is your "Total Dragons Exalted" anything besides the number 0? If yes, your account counts towards the dominance formula. Regarding Activity: Instead of doing "X hours" it can simply be "Has this account logged in/viewed a page/opened FR in the past X days." For the first suggestion, casual exalters will not get penalized. People who sign up, join a flight, make their progens, maybe put them on a nest and gather a few times, no longer bring down their flight. For the second suggestion, the above, plus people who straight up stopped playing the game, also no longer bring down their flight. Activity is in no way attached to exalting in these suggestions of mine. Apologies for not being clear on my earlier posts!

[quote name="Naegiri" date="2020-05-29 15:37:19" ]Regarding Single Dragon Exalting: Open your account settings. Is your "Total Dragons Exalted" anything besides the number 0? If yes, your account counts towards the dominance formula. Regarding Activity: Instead of doing "X hours" it can simply be "Has this account logged in/viewed a page/opened FR in the past X days." For the first suggestion, casual exalters will not get penalized. People who sign up, join a flight, make their progens, maybe put them on a nest and gather a few times, no longer bring down their flight. For the second suggestion, the above, plus people who straight up stopped playing the game, also no longer bring down their flight. Activity is in no way attached to exalting in these suggestions of mine. Apologies for not being clear on my earlier posts! [/quote] Inactive accounts do not hurt a flight—dominance already only counts active accounts (a clan is considered active if there has been active in the last couple of weeks if I recall correctly)

[quote name="DragonSage" date="2020-05-29 16:12:54" ] [quote name="Naegiri" date="2020-05-29 15:37:19" ]Regarding Single Dragon Exalting: Open your account settings. Is your "Total Dragons Exalted" anything besides the number 0? If yes, your account counts towards the dominance formula. Regarding Activity: Instead of doing "X hours" it can simply be "Has this account logged in/viewed a page/opened FR in the past X days." For the first suggestion, casual exalters will not get penalized. People who sign up, join a flight, make their progens, maybe put them on a nest and gather a few times, no longer bring down their flight. For the second suggestion, the above, plus people who straight up stopped playing the game, also no longer bring down their flight. Activity is in no way attached to exalting in these suggestions of mine. Apologies for not being clear on my earlier posts! [/quote] Inactive accounts do not hurt a flight—dominance already only counts active accounts (a clan is considered active if there has been active in the last couple of weeks if I recall correctly) [/quote] I see! Would assume that'd have come up in my prior conversation as it was with a few dominance fans, and the fact that a ton of flightless/inactive accounts were automatically moved to Earth to help balance Dominance (I believe? I remember hearing about that). I'll assume World Map doesn't exclude inactive accounts, then (wish it would, just for the sake of Dominance). Thanks for letting me know. <3