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Tina Toothpick

"Top companies" are NOT "Top companies"

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9 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

I can appreciate where you are coming from however...while your post criticizes the present system, it offers no useful or meaningful alternative. You complain about a system which is a pretty standard and commonly used sort of metric in games like these, provide reasonably useful subjective arguments for why evaluating things in a different way *might* be a better idea, although it tends to be predicated on the subtext that you think your company should be recognized  for being superior, yet you offer no suggestion yourself for how superior might be defined or measured. 

Measuring who controls the greatest amount of territory might not be your preferred method, but it is not "totally ridiculous" to most people. Totally ridiculous would be rating top companies by which company owns the most tamed rabbits, or has collectively slaughtered the most fish. To me, the system is less unreasonable than say, someone coming onto the forums, complaining about a straightforward system that measures things in an objective way, then rather than offer an alternative, putting it on the developers to come up with something better (because they clearly don't have anything more important to do right now than rethink metric systems so they don't bruise certain players egos just by not recognizing them for being awesome) or calling for said system to be scrapped. To me this amounts to whinging.

If you have a realistic suggestion for a system which you think would be better and solid arguments for why, then I am all ears. Until then, your post sounds a lot like Jamaica complaining that no one takes their bobsledding team seriously just because they don't actually win any races.

It doesn't need replacing? I said it's implications are false, and so it should be removed, or changed to say "land owned", or something along those lines.

You don't need to replace a system which isn't necessary in the first place.

Edited by Tina Toothpick

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1 minute ago, Tina Toothpick said:

It doesn't need replacing? I said it's implications are false, and so it should be removed, or changed to say "land owned", or something along those lines.

You don't need to alter a system when the systems itself is the problem. 

You haven't convinced me that the system is a problem, only that you don't like it. I would be perfectly fine with changing the title of the system to "land owned" because that would be a more accurate description of what it measures, but I have seen no compelling argument that the present system is somehow inherently flawed as a metric. It's implications are false only if you subjectively don't believe that land controlled is a useful way to measure who is on top, and in a game world with finite land, controlling land might not be your preferred way to measure such things, but I would bet dollars to donuts it's perfectly fine for plenty of people.

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4 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

You haven't convinced me that the system is a problem, only that you don't like it. I would be perfectly fine with changing the title of the system to "land owned" because that would be a more accurate description of what it measures, but I have seen no compelling argument that the present system is somehow inherently flawed as a metric. It's implications are false only if you subjectively don't believe that land controlled is a useful way to measure who is on top, and in a game world with finite land, controlling land might not be your preferred way to measure such things, but I would bet dollars to donuts it's perfectly fine for plenty of people.

The system isn't a "problem" as much as it is simply incorrect. 

What it actually is, is land owned. What it is not, is the "top companies".

I'm cutting subjectivity from the equation basically. The only thing they're "top" in, are claims. Everything else? Who knows. I'd like it specified so people don't make any false assumptions.

Even the word "top" has implications that i think are misleading.. The word "most" would be more apt.

"Top companies" should be swapped for "most claims"

Edited by Tina Toothpick

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Just now, Tina Toothpick said:

The system isn't a "problem" as much as it is simply incorrect. 

What it actually is, is land owned. What it is not, is the "top companies".

If GrapeCard™ chooses to define Top Companies in their game by who controls the most land, that is their perogative. Top companies is inherently subjective, not objective, therefore ANY definition of who is a top company will also be subjective. Convince me that a different metric would be better and you've got my vote, but right now I'm not seeing strong arguments for any other metric, just arguments that this metric isn't good.  Since those arguments are subjective, you've got to make a case for something better if you want to convince other players, to say nothing of Wildshot™. Game developers as a rule tend to be disinclined to take seriously complaints about systems which aren't game breaking that don't offer an alternative and a compelling argument for the alternative.

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5 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

If GrapeCard™ chooses to define Top Companies in their game by who controls the most land, that is their perogative. Top companies is inherently subjective, not objective, therefore ANY definition of who is a top company will also be subjective. Convince me that a different metric would be better and you've got my vote, but right now I'm not seeing strong arguments for any other metric, just arguments that this metric isn't good.  Since those arguments are subjective, you've got to make a case for something better if you want to convince other players, to say nothing of Wildshot™. Game developers as a rule tend to be disinclined to take seriously complaints about systems which aren't game breaking that don't offer an alternative and a compelling argument for the alternative.

Right, but just because they are the devs, doesn't make their opinion any more or less than anyone else's

If that were the case, my company is the top; and i'd be just as right as grapeshot for saying that.

It is fluff; it means nothing. It is opinions. I want people not to be proclaimed as "top", just some person's opinion, but just the sheer fact of the situation.

I'm asking for objectivity.

Also, it impacts the game more than you realize; particularly the psyche of the people playing it. They'll read that, and make assumptions that are baseless. It'll make them think to be top, they need to claim land. That is stupid, because it isn't really what makes someone top.. It is just a devs opinion on what is top..Which is as meaningful as you think it is, but in no way factual.

Edited by Tina Toothpick

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One advantage of a gold metric is that companies will be raiding territory more than trying to steal territory. it also provide a reason to send diver down to wrecks to get the booty. not just for salvage.

also more mutiny because of the gold that is no longer available to pay the crews. maybe they could provide a way for a raider to bribe the crews over tho their side.

Edited by Skyroguen

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1 minute ago, Skyroguen said:

One advantage of a gold metric is that companies will be raiding territory more than trying to steal territory. it also provide a reason to send diver down to wrecks to get the booty. not just for salvage.

And lets be honest. What should any real pirate's goal be in life, if not treasure?

I don't remember pirates wanting to claim land. Not even sure why it is in the game honestly.

Edited by Tina Toothpick
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i also imagine it will change the way fortresses are made as they will need to protect their booty. might even be player treasure ships traveling to carry the much earned booty to other locations.

Armies of the damn serve a purpose in providing gold into the system. and NPC merchants provide a way to bleed gold out of the system. but players hold the booty. ARRR

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9 minutes ago, Tina Toothpick said:

Right, but just because they are the devs, doesn't make their opinion any more or less than anyone else's

If that were the case, my company is the top; and i'd be just as right as grapeshot for saying that.

It is fluff; it means nothing. It is opinions. I want people not to be proclaimed as "top", just some person's opinion, but just the sheer fact of the situation.

I'm asking for objectivity.

Also, it impacts the game more than you realize; particularly the psyche of the people playing it. They'll read that, and make assumptions that are baseless. It'll make them think to be top, they need to claim land. That is stupid, because it isn't really what makes someone top.. It is just a devs opinion on what is top..Which is as meaningful as you think it is, but in no way factual.

Au contraire, in this situation, their opinion is absolutely the one that counts because they decide what metric will be used and what it will be called. That is an objective fact, not a subjective opinion. 

Saying your company is the top is fine, feel free to go ahead and do so. If it is fluff and means nothing, then why are you here arguing about it? More importantly, why would you say it means nothing, then in your very next statement argue why it is more impactful than I realize? Which is it? meaningless fluff or impactful psyche damaging misdirection?

Let me suggest two things:

1. If a player's psyche is so fragile that is impacted by things like a Top Company leaderboard, then competitive online pvp is probably not a good environment for them.

2. If you think that the leaderboard materially moves the needle compared to other factors in why players do or don't claim land, then you might want to talk to more players about their motivations for doing so, because I seriously doubt it is much on their minds.

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maybe they need more leader-boards. like most ships sunk, most gold plundered. most gold held, most members, etc. then a truly top company will dominate a majority of the boards.

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Just now, Skyroguen said:

maybe they need more leader-boards. like most ships sunk, most gold plundered. most gold held, most members, etc. then a truly top company will dominate a majority of the boards.

Sounds like an eminently reasonable suggestion.

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1 hour ago, LaiTash said:

Well you're taking away from someone else's fun (esp. when it's an offline raid with no fun for the defender) and i honestly don't see why it should be encouraged even more. You have your fun, a company with most gold have their place in top 10, everyone's happy. If getting gold via treasure hunts hopefully gets a much needed nerf one day, it would also incentivize trade via gold.

Not necessarily. We raid large companies but we also raid small companies, we try to do as little damage as possible to the little companies, getting some pvp going, then take what we need (sometimes its only a bit of ammo and cannon balls) and we leave after chatting with the people we raided. Not every raid is a bad raid. If you’re gonna make it depend on gold, it needs to be about gold earned, not owned. 

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47 minutes ago, Percieval said:

Not necessarily. We raid large companies but we also raid small companies, we try to do as little damage as possible to the little companies, getting some pvp going, then take what we need (sometimes its only a bit of ammo and cannon balls) and we leave after chatting with the people we raided. Not every raid is a bad raid. If you’re gonna make it depend on gold, it needs to be about gold earned, not owned. 

i like that, thus gold spent won't detract from the ranking. might make for a fun top company that spends all it's gold on cosmetics but it has still earned a lot of gold. 😉

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5 hours ago, Tina Toothpick said:

Could i just ask.. How does having more claimed land make one company better than another?.. By what real metric are they "superior" ?

This is their attempt to duplicate an EVE Online fan site known as Dotlan as well as EVE's in-game map.

http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map/Insmother

Both of those maps track system ownership via color coding.

In EVE, system ownership gives lots of advantages like being able to build pve structures and bases.  Plus, there are entry and exit choke points that make defending that system much easier than defending a grid in Atlas. The dev's apparently want us to think that because a particular company has a vast number of claims in Atlas that they too inherently own that grid and therefore must be superior in all ways to other companies.  In EVE, ownership of systems, particularly multiple systems, is directly comparable to relative corporation/alliance size and strength.  There, it does work.  The huge difference is, in EVE, entire systems can be taken in one action by an attacking force.  In Atlas, flag spamming of a grid could be done with a handful of people and would potentially take weeks or months to undo.

For example, we had one 'large' company in Atlas come and claim useless, resourceless mountains on our island simply to put themselves into the top 10. Everyone on the island took them back as a matter of principle but, it did get them into that top 10.

Flag spam != Superiority.

Flag spam = Flag spam.

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Add an upkeep cost to claimed territory... That'll scale claimed area to clan size pretty quickly if balanced.

 

Once more pve mmo stuff is added, they should use that as a scoring metric.

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Is it really necessary to have a Top 10? I mean this is touted as a sandbox MMO and Top 10 rank could be a bit to theme parky, at least for me. In a sandbox the top companies will make a name for themselves, in PvP, in building, in trade, in logistics, in bounty hunting and loads of other niches. A company could be the Top company introducing newbies to PvP - Goonfleet in EvE comes to mind. Or it could be a top company training players in advanced PvP techniques. It's true that a lot of the infrastructure and systems are missing but they would eventually flesh out this sandbox or one would hope so.

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10 minutes ago, Fefu said:

company could be the Top company introducing newbies to PvP - Goonfleet in EvE comes to mind.

Offtopic but i wonder if atlas will ever have something like Eve University for example.

No, probably not. Why would anyone want to help others?

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Just now, LaiTash said:

Offtopic but i wonder if atlas will ever have something like Eve University for example.

No, probably not. Why would anyone want to help others?

Can't see it happening for now because the community is still too fragmented and too busy thumping chests for now. There is also the fact that the University is protected from a wipe out by basing out of hisec something that is not available in Atlas. Still, afaik it took 2 years for the University to open in EvE so it's still on schedule. 

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2 hours ago, Skyroguen said:

i like that, thus gold spent won't detract from the ranking. might make for a fun top company that spends all it's gold on cosmetics but it has still earned a lot of gold. 😉

*spends all his gold on makeup and party clothes then bats his eyelashes at Skyroguen while flashing a bit of leg.*

”Hey sailor!”

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"Top Companies" are measured by the amount of cheaters that are getting away with blatant hacking and exploits.  The fact that Black Butterflies and CSTG are on there is an absolute disgrace to the playerbase

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18 minutes ago, LaiTash said:

Offtopic but i wonder if atlas will ever have something like Eve University for example.

No, probably not. Why would anyone want to help others?

I don't think it has to do with helping others.  I has to do with learning curves.  In the chart below, Atlas would be well under the WoW curve.  Which is also why nothing like EU existed in any of those MMO's either.

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2 minutes ago, Ripper said:

"Top Companies" are measured by the amount of cheaters that are getting away with blatant hacking and exploits.  The fact that Black Butterflies and CSTG are on there is an absolute disgrace to the playerbase

I both agree and disagree with your statement. If any mega is succeeding through cheating, then their presence on any leaderboard should be embarrassing to Wildshot. On the other hand, your statement seems to imply that all of the largest land owners are cheating and I think this likely unfairly slanders at least several who worked hard to organize and be successful within the rules.

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11 hours ago, boomervoncannon said:

*spends all his gold on makeup and party clothes then bats his eyelashes at Skyroguen while flashing a bit of leg.*

”Hey sailor!”

8|

"Unfurl Sail!, Cast off the bow line! Hard to Starboard!. Steady as she goes boys!..."

Edited by Skyroguen

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