KAHUNA is now open!

[korexus]

Dameon, think twice about this.....I have not so far said anything at all about having joined Valn Ohtar and its claims. Think on.

~ Han

Get the flame retardent suits boys. It looks like things are about to get interesting!


korexus

[Donut]

No rules broken... just a disagreement over a decision I made.

Now the flamer consists of AF trying to goad Korexus into fighting

GM Josh

[ThinKing]

Thats the way, Allister!

Go FF!

[Underdog]

But look at it from MY point of view. When I arrived in your square, I sent you four messages of the "Shall we eat?/ Shall we share?/ Sorry to have to start without you." variety. [see above post].

No response from you at all by Species message, and the first response from you I see is this one, many posts above on this thread:

Ask Hanibal, He probably hunted them all down just so nobody would be able to eat them later.

You can see how I might possibly take that as putting me in an undeserved bad light?? You'd be happy if someone said that about you? Re-reading the above posts, you think it was a fair implication? I did bad in a way you wouldn't have? Was I trying to screw you or agree a plan with you? Steal from you or share with you? Tarring me with hunting them all down just so nobody would be able to eat them later, was fair,then, was it?

Take a moment. Imagine you had just seen your only reply as "He takes them all down just so nobody would be able to eat them later", and honestly tell me how you would feel....No, don't do it on automatic, really imagine yourself receiving that post.......How would you feel? What kind of reply would YOU write?? Think about it.

Han

Han I guess I should appologize for the implication. My problem was that when I awoke and saw my plants disappearing I put in some hunt orders I don't know how many I can't remember but I do know that when I got home from work there was no plants left and I was starving. I started looking around and found I think it was 5 or 6 squares with BS1 plants and all of them were also basically empty. now I know you were eating plants but I didn't even know who my neighbors were Hard to give names for people who weren't even playing in 1 case. Temujin never seemed to do anything that I can tell and he was one of those neighboring "?". The first one I moved to.

The comment was actually made in a kidding mode, but it didn't come off that way(at least not to all of us obviously). I doubt you were the player who hunted those BS4 plants but you were in the area since I had seen Allister(?) I think it was. So I knew he was near me and so were you.

Sorry for making you look like the bad guy here.

Yes I saw all those messages and I understood your problem. I just was frustrated by trying to let my plants grow and then having them disappear so quickly. I figure you were in the same position I was. So the big question becomes....... Who moved in and ate all the plants in your starting square? that would be the player I am actually upset with and I don't even want to know really because that would just start more flamers. Lets call this off right here and now. At least between you and I. I know from past experience Dameon won't retreat.

[Dameon]

Hey, it might work on the little kids you can lord it over, but it won't work on adults.

Hannibal, do your realize you know absolutely nothing about my job or my life? I don't make any assumptions about what you do for a living, or what kind of person you are, I am sticking to arguing the points of contention relevent to the game. For the record, I don't work with little kids, and I would appreciate it if the personal attacks stopped. Unless, of course, they are related to the game or something you KNOW about, and my life outside of Kaomaris certainly doesn't fall into that category now does it?

As for the rest, I am "pissing on" the strategy in which you marched into UD's square, found some plants, and then ate every last one of them, leaving UD to starve. Yes, you TRIED to send him messages, but he wasn't there and frankly that's not unexpected considering the time difference between you two and the fact that Species runs 24 hours a day. Instead of just eating your fill and moving on, you completely depleted his square, not only screwing him but also farming it into the ground. I told you EXACTLY what I would have done differentely, if you open your eyes and actually read what I wrote! I would have hunted 2-3 times in the square, enough to feed my herd for the next 6 or 7 steps, and then moved on in search of another BS 1 square. I wouldn't expect UD to respond "yes, I want to share!" What did you think, he would say "no, eat it all!" That is apparentely what you assumed when you didn't get a direct confirmation from him!

Now, IF there was less than say 300 food in the square you entered, then I RETREAT. Then you basically did what I would have done, and I can admit when I am wrong. From UDs message though, I got the impression there was plenty of food for him to survive on there, but you came in and devoured every last bit.

And, like UD I am interested to know who moved into your starting square and ate all your plants, causing you to move. Whomever it was is no doubt the source of this problem to begin with. You compounded it by doing the same thing to somebody else, but perhaps another player caused you to evacuate your starting spot. Unless, of course, you ate all your own plants, which puts you right back into the "problem source" category again, as UD notes.

In regards to your playtesting question, the obvious answer is to balance a game and find the bugs. And, as I have said, your actions and that of others have helped illuminate a flaw in the game. I am not saying your actions are bad playtesting, because they are not, I am saying they are bad (and unjustified) strategy.

Dameon, think twice about this.....I have not so far said anything at all about having joined Valn Ohtar and its claims. Think on.

~ Han

Now, what is that supposed to mean? I honestly have no idea at all what you are talking about here. I do have a feeling, though, when you find yourself losing our argument, you will try and divert attention from that by throwing about some spurious claims about Valn Ohtar, or possibly my life outside of Kaomaris again. You do seem to be the master of deflecting the attention away from the matter at hand, I'll give you that!

[GoatHerder]

I don't see the point of this argument (apart from the watching the fun from the two of them baiting each other and the resultant overreactions).
SO WHAT if someone decides to eat all the plants in someone else's province. It's a valid thing to do. As civilised people in the WOK community, we expect people to be nice to each other to leave some for the other players, or tell the person you're doing it, but nobody says that's compulsory. People play the game differently, and by different rules. I say--go for it; whatever you can get away with, do it!

When the games goes public, we are likely to see a lot more people playing the game who don't know the other players as intimitaly as we do now, and they would be far less likely to contact other players. A lot of online game players seem extremely aggressive and will go out of their way to annoy other players. I suppose the fact that they are usually anonymous has a lot to do with it. Expect that to happen here. I think we've just got to live with heaps of different strategies that don't coincide with our own, including strategies as simple as "I don't know what to do, so I'll eat something".

Now - onto real things. Do we need any fixes in the game? My thoughts at this stage:

1. The idea to make hunting bigger plants more difficult is good (ie. higher PDEF for bigger BS plants). That will make a difference in the future.

2. I like the idea of having a maximum saturation, but we should extend it to 3-4 days stockpile.

3. I also like the idea that someone suggested about having a plant threshold (ie. a limit below which plants could not be eaten). Someone suggested 1000. An alternate approach could be that players find it harder to hunt plants when the popluation falls below a certain level (could be done by way of higher PDEF or a hunt limit if population falls below the threshold). In such a province where planst are a lot sparser, you'd have to hunt more often to get the same saturation, but you could still do it if absolutely necessary.

4. Sadly, I'm not sure if FLY will be a good fix for the hibernation problem. I had hoped it would, but given the food problems it seems unlikely --- so we may have to visit the hibernation idea again sometime. I thought of another approach to this hibernation idea. IT goes like this: once a species reaches maximum skill points it can automatically go into hibernation --- saturation consumption halved as well as double Max PDEF (just like a bear in a cave, hard to find (high PDEF) and little energy use (low saturation loss) ). From a player point of view, it would mean that the turns would no longer be wasted once skill points reach the maximum. I wouldn't protect you totally from attack, but would help. The player could still leave hibernation to hunt or move or do other orders, but as soon as you start "buying skill points" again you re-enter hibernation again (as long as you are still at maximum). Not sure if such an idea is worth considering, or if players could maniplualte it, but it's something to think about.

[gm_al]

Anyone notice flamers are always Dameon vs someone-else ?

To the game, and to GHs comments:

1. higher PDEF for bigger plants is already in the game. Now of course most of the damage is done already, but its there now.
2. "stomach" is coming asap. It will be (specimen x BS x 30) and thats the limit of saturation a player can gain. It means two things:
- whenever you try to hunt but have already reached your stomach limit the second default order will be taken instead of hunt
- early on players will only be able to gain 1000 additional saturation, thats 2 full squares of plants at max. With 40% players in game (probably) it will allow more squares to keep prospering plants
3. hibernation: again, Im am heavily opposing anything that would allow a Player to hide for weeks - too many exploits. Lets first see how flying can help and judge later on what we need to fix.

There might be some more changes regarding plant growth etc. Ill keep you posted.

[Hamster]

2. I like the idea of having a maximum saturation, but we should extend it to 3-4 days stockpile.

Far too much - which anulates the idea of stomach. If implemented - should be less.

3. I also like the idea that someone suggested about having a plant threshold (ie. a limit below which plants could not be eaten). Someone suggested 1000. An alternate approach could be that players find it harder to hunt plants when the popluation falls below a certain level (could be done by way of higher PDEF or a hunt limit if population falls below the threshold). In such a province where planst are a lot sparser, you'd have to hunt more often to get the same saturation, but you could still do it if absolutely necessary.

I'm just starting to wonder even more on the food growth paradox.
Example for the white plants with the most growth % (40), aprox:
- it takes about 15 cycles to grow from 1 to 250 food
- it takes 5 more to become 1000
- it takes only 4 more to become max of 5000

So clearing the field to 0 is a disaster. Imagine this scenario: the few players that get BS2 as 1st mutation decide to hunt only BS1 food by clearing the sectors (even the stomach limit) - which is simplier on smaller maps. The rest of the people will die of starvation if they don't reach BS2. And the "respawned" players could stay longer in the game only if they get BS2 as fast as possible.

Btw - how does 0 plants become 1 with percentage principle? Any percentage growth from 0 gives 0 again. Also any % less then 100 on 1 plant gives 0 when rounded.

1 more sideefect: food could be totaly irelevant for the game if you get fertility to max to anulate the death by starvation during steps. Just analyzing this aproach in Excel and my 1st calculations say its possible, but need exact percentages to calc it more precise.
So - who needs food anyway

[korexus]

Stomach: That's one vote for higher, one for lower. As Al said, even pitched where it is, players can eat out two entire squares at the start if they so wish. So we don't really want to make it any bigger for them.
The way that we've liked it to body size means that your stomach size goes up faster than your saturation requirement. - Meaning that a higher BS species can last longer. Hopefully this will go further towards making Body a useful mutation.

Fly/Hibernate: Flying is mainly there to answer the problem of someone hunting you while you're away. This is something that we haven't seen anything of so far, making it hard to judge whether it's any good. I agree that it won't solve the saturation problem though. Goatherder's skill points idea sounds good in theory, but it means a species would have to collect 200 skill points to go into hibernation, which is rather expensive...

Hamster: We're way, waay ahead of you
I started talking to Al last night about plant growth and it will probably see some reform once we've played with the numbers.
There used to be a minimum growth of 1, which is how 0 went to 1. However now there isn't, it's purely percentage.
Not eating and pushing fertility was a strategy I used at the start of Amazonas, to demonstrate exactly the loop hole you're talking about. Then we fixed it. (If you starve, you lose 2(?)% of specimens and 1 fertility making it very difficult to keep your species growing. It is possible (just) but only if you abandon everything else, including instinct. Making you a very easy target for any predator who happens to come along...


korexus.

[Mullog]

I don't really see why eating all the food in the map is such a horrible strategy. It may result in a shorter game where all species end up starving, but we will still end up with a winner of the game. It may not be the nicest way to play, but it may be a smart one!
I agree we should make it harder to hunt all food, and it is necessary to stop it from being the default strategy, but I also like the strategy. It makes it possible to play agressively while being a herbivore! You can't eat your enemies, but you can starve them!

[korexus]

The only problem is that you need to make sure that they die after turn 1000. Otherwise they can restart and quite possibly be at an advantage (due to the starting saturation/instinct/fertility/etc) at that point it's not a great strategy.


korexus.

[Hamster]

YAY! Was it just the 1st RIP?

Poor Hannibal - everyone is against him

[Dameon]

It's funny that Kor just posted what he did and then proceeded to RIP Hannibal before turn 1000. I personally am not going to hunt any other animals into extinction unless they make me by trying to farm a square into the ground until after turn 1000, when I know they won't come back and haunt me. Of course, that's assuming I get BS 2 someday, and I am 0-for-4 on that so far. Try 5 is coming up next cycle, and if that doesn't do it I can at least guarentee it try 6, over 300 SPs in!

Seriously though it's all good- it is somewhat frustrating that I've had to switch to a static lifestyle where all I do is sit in one square and accumulate SPs, but frankly until I get omnivore I don't really want to risk moving around too much. We've reached a point in the game where there's enough food for the remaining species (after 10 went extinct through indifference or bad luck) so I can afford to be sedentary until it's safe to move again.

As for flying- it's really too early to tell anything. Most players are going to gun for BS 2 and Omnivore early on to help protect themselves (and their food source), so expecting a player to get two arms and then invest in flying isn't all that realistic at this point. It may prove useful further down the line, but I am still more in favor of a "hibernation" feature. I know Al is dead set against it, but frankly, what is playtesting for? If we TRY to insert one in a BETA, and find out it can be abused, then we can either eliminate it or tinker with it so it cannot be. I fail to see why Al is so dead set against even trying something like this; if it doesn't work out there's nothing saying we have to keep it. Right now, flying doesn't really fix the problem, because you need to get two arms to use it (a process that could take up to a week, if not longer, out of a three week game) and then decide it's more valuable than either BS 2, Omnivore, or Swim. If you really don't like hibernation, you should at the very least make flying easier to get if you are seeking to address the issue at hand.

Also as for the stomach- if my stomach cap is 3000 early on, that's really no help. The initial cap should be right at 2000- the calculation could be what Al suggested, but use a multiplier of 20 instead of 30. At the beginning of the game, 2000 saturation is enough to keep a player going for at least 24 hours (potentially more, but I'd have to do the calculations to be sure), which I think is more than big enough stomach-wise. Given, of course, that we make either hibernation or flying available earlier in the game in case a player has to be away for more than a day.

[korexus]

Actually, Dameon. Hannibal asked me to kill him. I owe him a favour from a previous life (read species test) so I did...

As for the rest of your post, I can't find anything specific to argue with. I think Al is against Hibernation because "just inserting it and seeing if it works" still translates into a lot of work on our side. Your suggestion for stomach is duely noted, but as some people want the value higher and some lower I expect it'll stay about where it is. If people actively *want* to eat all the food we shouldn't outright stop them I guess...


korexus.

[Hamster]

I have a little problem with the Players page after auto-login (http://www.kaomaris.com/kaobase2/kaobase2.php) - there is no link to Kahuna. It's gone since yesterday afternoon - but I thought it's not only me and it would be fixed soon.

In the right bottom part ot the table there is:
Your games
You are currently in no active game

I can enter because having the links in my cache.

[Hamster]

Now I have a restarted species - but dunno why and how? Is it only me? Is it related to the previous post?

[Hamster]

Seems I founf out what happened.

You can manually reastart your species at any time by posting http://www.kaomaris.com/woksp/restart.p ... SpeciesID=*. After doing this - the map stays from the previous life - so you can exploit the whole map by 50 restarts (if you're lucky .

P.S. May I get my species before 1st restart 4 a reward of finding this exploit?