Saturday, June 09, 2012

I think Bucky was right

I think we started playing this dynasty too fast when the ruleset wasn’t ready yet; I’m afraid this will turn into “Just go to a random dynasty, quickwin it because you’re the only Time Monk actually playing that dynasty, then jump to another dynasty, and so on” which would be kind of boring.

And, as Bucky pointed out, now that we all have Chronotohms and can spend them to change dynasties, it is likely that everyone will just try to win dynasties as fast as they can and not bother with creating good, interesting, fun rules any longer.

Can we slow down for a while and try to do something to have actual interaction between players? The way I see things, the whole “unitemporal” thing, which I thought would in practice give something like “I’m Driving an Airport Route, which gives me enough Cash to Influence the Pygmalion, so that I can use the Galatea to Smuggle Armaments, and all those Firearms will help me defend against the Spider when I go to the Surface”... has currently no effect at all, because it’s way easier to just go in a dynasty and stay alone in it until you have won it. And I fail to see how everyone playing his own dynasty alone can be any fun.

I think we need some mechanics to 1) encourage people to change dynasties a lot, so that we can actually use the unitemporal thing, and 2) encourage people to go in already occupied dynasties, so that we can play together.
I don’t know, maybe replacing the “if you pay less you’re more scattered at random” to “if you pay less you’re more attracted to others”.

Oh, and also, the dynasty is quite hard to follow because it goes so fast (seriously, ten new posts a day??)

Comments

scshunt:

10-06-2012 00:25:13 UTC

I figure it will calm down a lot once the low-hanging fruit (scams inherent in the historical constructions of various rules) get eliminated. Eventually, people will have to move to the same dynasties in order to work together to accomplish things, or simply because there are few remaining dynasties.

scshunt:

10-06-2012 00:32:37 UTC

Oh, but, for what it’s worth, I agree. Some things were not thought out properly (and there’s /no/ obviously good solution to the issue I discovered with Dynasty 45).

scshunt:

10-06-2012 00:34:00 UTC

Another point to make, since I double-postd why not triple-post, eh? It would have been good to, you know, clear up all the scams that ended dynasties.  Since now they’re all repeatable.

Clucky: he/him

10-06-2012 01:41:11 UTC

I’m not so sure the waiting for the ‘low hanging fruit” is enough. Seems like at least 50% of dynasties are instant win for the guy entering it.

scshunt:

10-06-2012 01:52:32 UTC

Crazy idea: block off dynasties from entering until they can be swept to ensure they aren’t instawins or anything. Ideally accompanied by a gamestate reset (people in #nomic will notice I suggested this before discovering that my move actually /was/ invalid).

Josh: Observer he/they

10-06-2012 09:36:59 UTC

I agree that it would be nice to have more interaction. I also agree with scshunt that the low-hanging fruit won’t amount to more than one or two dynasties per player. I think that’s pretty much alright; seven chakras is quite a lot, and getting a leg up isn’t something I’m very worried about.

I would quite like there to be more dynasty 100 stuff, more ways to get Chronotohms, and less emphasis on dynastic victories in unlocking chakras. I would be very interested in any proposals to that effect. Will try to squeeze one out this evening.

I am happy with activity levels. It used to be the case that it was received wisdom that the first few weeks of a dynasty would be hectic, before trailing off. That stopped a bit over the last few dynasties as activity never really managed to get started. The complaint that the game was too busy also used to be common and I’m glad to see it back. It suggests that this dynasty may be on the right track.

I understand why people took against daily actions but the game needs to have enough to do that every player has something to do if they visit every day. If that happens then proposals will become more frequent organically.

Bucky:

10-06-2012 18:24:12 UTC

Hmm, when did I say that?