@ Hala - I don't think anyone here is being aggressive towards Pie. I think everyone would agree he's doing a good job and it's exciting to see things moving forward with the game.

Agree there is a balance to be struck with number of drafts vs. stay in fam options. There are many ways to skin a cat, so to speak.

The way to limit the impact of families of pro players dominating would be to limit the number of drafts to 1 or 2 per family per round and then reshuffle families after 1 or 2 rounds also.

The chances of getting 8 pro players in one family using that arrangement would be pretty slim.

One per family

looks like everyone thats left in game has voted lol

Hi guys,

I decided against doing this, partially because there isn't a clear consensus amongst the players but also because the stay-in-fam code needs some additional testing.  I have left the option open for the new round, however.  That means at the end of SB27 any players should have the option to stay together without needing to redraft.

Thanks for the input everybody, this conversation has been insightful.

well in all honestly what u did this round is even worst.. it feels more like a gimmick to make a quick buck.. how to u openly allow IA's to be formed instead of just simply fixing the ally buttons.. (premature decision in my opinion) then to make the family size smaller.. as weve mentions in several forums and discussions in the past their are not enough leaders nor attackers to cover that many families.. so u will have lil fams that will be dominated the first week due to the fact of ur IAs who will only ally other top fams who will pwn the smaller fams their is no such things as equal yet u need to find a way fix but i can tell u now what this round is gonna be is nothing but a mess. wait and see how the fams pan out..

im not trying to be negative but i can see nothing positive coming outta this round for players..

Every decision I make is always the wrong decision to somebody.

Time will tell whether or not this round's changes were worth the shift in settings.  In the meantime:

Even if every player in the game donated for a VIP account I'd still be losing money on running the game.  Trust me, money has nothing to do with the SB-27 setup.  It's more about trying something different.

I will say however that there's a larger issue that I haven't had time to figure out, let alone talk about.  That is, galaxy ending/starting/settings are in dire need of rewriting so that players can more easily dictate their own options.  The galaxy code itself is next in line for fixing.  This isn't something you'll be able to see, but rather is more "under the hood" stuff that will eventually give players more control.

But, it takes time.  That's reality, and in the meantime I'd rather we try something new as opposed to just more of the same.  Some will love that approach, some will hate it.  Nothing new there.

That's not how things work unfortunately.  There is no "simply fix the ally buttons" option in the game code.  It is broken beneath the surface due to problematic changes over the course of the years, which is why it was disabled in the first place.

What "Just fix the ally button" actually entails is me digging through thousands of lines of 16-year old code, some of which is written in Swedish, which I don't understand.  This will literally take me 100s of hours.  I've spent about 20 hours last week in prep work and haven't even scratched the surface.

It's not a complaint; I understood this when I took over the game.  It is however, reality.  You made a similar comment in Discord (yes, I do read the logs to hear what people have to say) with regard to Morale, which is a common criticism.

You're making a pretty silly assumption that I haven't already been "taking a peek at it".  I've spent a fair amount of time looking at Morale and it just isn't a quick fix.  It's as simple as that.

Changing galaxy settings however is already built into the game.  There is literally 0 work involved for me to introduce the SB-27 changes outside of configuring the reset.

So given that Morale can not be fixed in time for the next SB round, and changing the other options are already supported, yes that makes perfect sense.

Again, you're making assumptions that because it isn't done yet that means nobody is working on it.  I'm actively working on fixing alliances.  In the meantime you guys will have IA enabled instead.

Your opinion is valid, but we get this every round.  People threaten to quit.  Some do, some don't.  People threaten that if this or that doesn't change, they won't rejoin.  Some do, some don't.

The only way to actually see how things pan out it is to try them.  IC needs to grow, and regardless of how this round plays out, we'll be able to look at what worked and what didn't, and adjust the game accordingly as a result.

I had a hard time with this exact problem.  I personally think a fully-draftable *free* galaxy should be in place at some point, because if you and LG want to play directly with each other, you should be able to.  I actually do not like VIP-drafts because I think without realizing it, IC has introduced a pseudo pay-to-win element insofar as people with more money can secure a more tightly coordinated team.

However, I also do not like that we have a history of outright discouraging people from working together at all.  The new SB-27 round is an attempt at compromise.  I doubt that it is perfect, but my goal is to see how it works and learn from it while I work on other things behind the scenes.

I completely agree.  The lack of this ability is more of an issue with the game's code than any intention on my part.  I am moving more towards this direction than away from it, it just won't be obvious in the near term due to the nature of planning and introducing large code changes.

It's the opposite.  VIP money right now, although appreciated, is trivial.  The goals I have for the game will improve it independently of VIP accounts.  In fact, the VIP feature will be completely discarded/redesigned at some point once I can finally get to it.  But again, everything takes time.

In the short term I'd rather not pass up opportunities to experiment, even if it means that some players don't like certain changes.  There's a bigger goal here in play than just making sure players like a specific galaxy setup.

Your guys' criticisms are completely valid and your concerns are noted.  I'm listening, but things just take time.

Can you make another "normal" galaxy without any drafts/IA's? That shouldn't be hard to do.  IA's is not a solution to having no ally button. If an ally button was implemented into the game, everyone would have the same maximum amount of allies.  The number of allies in an allowed IA round is ridiculously skewed.

Definitely.  I'm figuring out the timing for this right now.  Releasing them both at the same time isn't necessarily the best move.

I believe it.  It's being addressed on a larger scale, will have another galaxy up in some form in the short term.