[Discussion] Spam

DeletedUser15522

Guest
...........though he still never reached the levels of spam like AD. Weeks worth, and coordinating VM with others to get some sleep. So still kind of a failure.
 

DeletedUser13931

Guest
Before your SPAM exploded across Dyme, I have had experience with you on several servers in different lives. It's sorta funny how so many people all come out & present the EXACT same situation with certain named players & those named players go to great lengths to assure themselves that it is the community & not them that are in the wrong. This is not an issue of requiring you to admit fault - you have already been caught & well documented. We are just providing proven & factual accounts as examples requested by the thread.

AS for Dyme, I was previously upon the server with the 14th founded city in the crossroads of 44/54/45/55, weeks prior to your arrival there. At one point I was a top 20 world attacker & defender along with several other known strong community players. Life was good as 44 developed & alliances fell. Sadly, the now well documented incident also soured my desire to continue in the environment.

In direct response to your inquiry on "Who sends 1000's of small attacks" You are known as "The Golden Boy" by many because you drop gold so heavily, even Mauler is intimidated with the volume. However, you are also known by another Nickname "He who launches no CS". There is of course a way to confirm this built into the game - the award system does capture a date. But, I'm sure you already know this.

Funny that you do not know me, whenever I needed slots all I needed was poke you once & you happily provided. Someone sends 1 attack as a harbor check & you retaliate with 36-72 hours of nonstop reprisals of 1000's of attacks large & small, across all the player's cities, no matter the ocean. You were much more generous than Mauler, TheCelt, --attackme-- or the other departed namechanger heavyweights. You could gold up dozens of full pop nukes from the same city in a matter of minutes, but never send a CS (Fireships loved your ls btw - best ratio's ever!)

I have witnessed the live siege feeds & command cues - unless there is a phantom JCOO (same exact name) playing on Dyme, in BOB, with cities in 54, that is one of the known biggest community whales, you are the same Jcoo that hid behind morale on Nicea. Enjoy the community you built.
------------------------------------------------------

This said - you can easily program a change into the game to compensate for those that "shoot more blanks than bullets" by implementing a diminishing return. If you can already offer analysis in events or battle camps for a failure of an attack before you launch it, then the programming does already exist. It is more a matter of will power in changing how the game is played & how the remaining community would react to the change. With so many driven out, would meaningful numbers return? That is for the foreign owners of this game to determine.


You seem to have quite the imagination. I honestly do not recall who you are, and if "poking" caused you to get BP, then good for you. Regarding all the other "1000's" of attacks and such, that is hilarious. Whomever would send 1000's of attacks would either be a robot or spend 24 hours a day sending them, but I guess in your fantasy world, that would be me right?

A whale? I like that. Hate to break it to you....but RL is the ultimate pay2play. Work hard, play hard.

In summary, life is tough, be tough. Or complain and whine like you excel at. Oh, and make up tons of stuff, which you also excel at.
 

DeletedUser13931

Guest
...........though he still never reached the levels of spam like AD. Weeks worth, and coordinating VM with others to get some sleep. So still kind of a failure.

In your mind, failure must be a forgone conclusion. Imagine you can excel, then do it.
 

DeletedUser15919

Guest
You seem to have quite the imagination. I honestly do not recall who you are, and if "poking" caused you to get BP, then good for you. Regarding all the other "1000's" of attacks and such, that is hilarious. Whomever would send 1000's of attacks would either be a robot or spend 24 hours a day sending them, but I guess in your fantasy world, that would be me right?

A whale? I like that. Hate to break it to you....but RL is the ultimate pay2play. Work hard, play hard.

In summary, life is tough, be tough. Or complain and whine like you excel at. Oh, and make up tons of stuff, which you also excel at.

The first step in Addiction is admitting you have a problem. Let us see if you can progress to the next step now that we know you admit to spending more money on a game than Mauler - who as provided documentation to spending +$1400 a month before....

Those that deny there is a problem won't ever be a constructive player in trying to craft a solution....
 

DeletedUser15919

Guest
Can you take the rehashing of past discretions to a different thread, and focus on agreeing on what a definition of spam is, and what, if anything can/should be done about it?

I'm mostly done - however, understand that it also applies to the theme of the thread. I'm still awaiting opinions on my prior suggestion that already pre-exists within the games coding:

This said - you can easily program a change into the game to compensate for those that "shoot more blanks than bullets" by implementing a diminishing return. If you can already offer analysis in events or battle camps for a failure of an attack before you launch it, then the programming does already exist. It is more a matter of will power in changing how the game is played & how the remaining community would react to the change. With so many driven out, would meaningful numbers return? That is for the foreign owners of this game to determine.
 

DeletedUser4460

Guest
As I mentioned before German market has an intense debate about spam & flash attacks and they have a few suggestions:
  • attack alarm on app would have sliders and you could set a delay for warnings to prevent notifications after flash attacks
    (concern: travel time is often shorter than the 10 minute cancellation time)
  • introduce a daily spam limit based on city numbers: attacks below 20% of the available population would count as spam (the exact limit is still under discussion)
    after reaching the daily spam limit the player could only attack with 20% or more available population until the counter reset
  • it would be forbidden to attack from almost empty cities to bypass these changes, such actions would fall under fair-play rule and could be punished
    (concern: flexible limits based on available population create loopholes)
upload_2018-8-10_14-42-55.png
illustration for the calculation of daily allowed 'spam'
(for example a player with 60 cities would have daily 80 spam attack limit)

Please post here any feedback, concerns, suggestions as usual!
 

DeletedUser16157

Guest
  • attack alarm on app would have sliders and you could set a delay for warnings to prevent notifications after flash attacks
    (concern: travel time is often shorter than the 10 minute cancellation time)
This definitely needs to happen.

Other than that though, I don't really see a problem with spam. Maybe I am in the minority here, but I find it a part of the game, a strategy that I don't often deploy but one I like to have at my disposal. I like that there are "no rules in love and war," so to speak.
 

DeletedUser15919

Guest
As I mentioned before German market has an intense debate about spam & flash attacks and they have a few suggestions:
  • attack alarm on app would have sliders and you could set a delay for warnings to prevent notifications after flash attacks
    (concern: travel time is often shorter than the 10 minute cancellation time)
  • introduce a daily spam limit based on city numbers: attacks below 20% of the available population would count as spam (the exact limit is still under discussion)
    after reaching the daily spam limit the player could only attack with 20% or more available population until the counter reset
  • it would be forbidden to attack from almost empty cities to bypass these changes, such actions would fall under fair-play rule and could be punished
    (concern: flexible limits based on available population create loopholes)
View attachment 2970
illustration for the calculation of daily allowed 'spam'
(for example a player with 60 cities would have daily 80 spam attack limit)

Please post here any feedback, concerns, suggestions as usual!

Morg - just an idea on this for future consideration - Did I hear correctly that the German Market tends to almost always get what it wants based upon it's size/importance to the pocketbook? Cause if yes, all discussion of future community problems should likely be united into that German forum so anyone with an opinion, advice, etc. could actually participate. JS.

As to the information, the concepts above are good steps forward. The numbers, as always, are up to debate & subject to interpretation by Inno.

Question: The population they propose used as the check for #2&3, are they referring to open (unused) or closed (spent) population? I ask because there be many a player that enjoy tormenting their fellow players with single slinger attacks immediately following a city takeover completion (several are previously well known here). That city would just so happen to have a very large & open population, so the min attack population check currently made programatically is quite tiny.

Question: has there ever been discussion on implementing universally, a programmatic solution (based upon what's developing above) with an opt-in switch, that allows players that wish to keep playing in the highly contested SPAM environment, to do so? With all issues, always more than 1 side is involved & the demonized players that have pressed this situation forward from their actions on others, still preach from their soapbox that "It's a war game & its a credible & acceptable behavior." Let them play with themselves, in any way they wish, while the rest "opt out" of that environment, upon the same server, as a gameplay method as opposed to banning more players.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DeletedUser9133

Guest
I honestly feel we are in a "too little, too late" situation here. I have left the game, and I am happy for having done so. I get to sleep peacefully every night and use the bathroom in peace without a panic when I realize I have left my phone on my desk. For those whose primary argument is "It's a war game", I believe we are putting the emphasis on different words. For you Greoplis is "A WAR game" for me it was "A war GAME" .

Perhaps my opinion does not matter anymore as I have opted out, but for those who wish to continue in Grepolis, something must be done. New worlds are not filling up, and new people who try out the game are quickly disillusioned about the amount of time this game will require and just as quickly exit the game. A game is supposed to be fun and between the spam and the horrible in-game mods, and the increasing demands for gold to survive, Grepolis has ceased to be fun.

Your game has contracted a serious illness; it may already be too late, but without immediate and drastic measures the patient will soon be dead.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

DeletedUser15522

Guest
I too, have left. I'm much happier enjoying games with those very same people I played grep with; and spending my money elsewhere.

Spam was part of the reason I left. Though the lack of real customer service from Inno is the number 1 reason. It was not just my last server which was dyme, but part of several servers I've played that here lately in the past year or two, spam has been the strategy of many. When the intent to direct hundreds, even thousands of attacks at someone for days, even at times weeks 24/7 to drive them away, that's not war; it's also not really strategy either. It's simply winning by attrition. There's also no point in continuing a miserable experience. Gaming is fun, it's entertainment; but driving your customer base away means no profit for inno, no fun for those players left, and empty servers. At some point, there will be no one left to attack. It ruins the game, especially as long time players such as myself, or donnacus walk out the door and don't look back.
 

DeletedUser4460

Guest
@Tusc2010
as for the sliders
GPC members suggested to decrease cancellation time of attacks to 2 min if the attacker and defender are not team mates or pacted - in every other case (attacking yourself, team and pact mate or ghost) the normal 10 min cancellation time would apply, therefore it would not affect backsnipe travel time (you can spell your attack) or would allow friendly pings by the right settings
this is needed on most worlds, as long as a flash attack can run 10 min long players who want to abuse them will only cancel last minute
if the defender delays all attacks 10 min they can easily miss real attacks, even short travel time Colony Ships
if the defender delays all attacks 3 min only the flash attack can still alert them

2 min cancellation
  • alerts could be delayed 2min + 5sec (won't miss the real attacks)
  • friendly pings could be still efficient (cancel ping after 3min)
  • players who don't want friendly pings could delay attacks longer ~4 min (still won't miss enemy attacks)
  • players who use LTS and are only concerned about long travel time attacks could delay alert longer
@Char Aznable
German community isn't supposed to have advantages over another market.
Community suggestions have 2 important ways to reach developers:
- CMs of any market can share their community's request with other CMs and Devs on their meetings
- GPC members can share players' suggestions on GPC forum which is followed by Devs and LeadCM
CMs collect community feedback from the Changelog/Event or forum comments and support tickets, while GPC collects player feedback from discussions and through active participation in the game.
Both cases more markets are represented and rate suggestions.
This system is not perfect, we experienced inequalities between markets and that's a topic currently on GPC (I will post about this in Council News)

proposed spam limit: the proposal is based on available population just like the current 3% limit for minimum attack population - if you have less units built the number is lower - still under discussion, maybe a fixed number would be better?
players who reached their daily spam limit but keep sending small attacks (for example have 10 units built and attack with 3 units > 20%) could be banned (fair play rule)

opt-out switch, that allows players that wish to keep playing in the highly contested SPAM environment:
no such option discussed, the solution will most likely affect all players, therefore it is very important to choose any limits carefully and don't punish activity, don't tag every attack as spam - your feedback helps a lot
spam is not only a problem between 2 or more players it leads to performance issues
the goal of most suggestions is to limit spam without limiting normal game

@donnacus & @icedragon1
Thank you for sharing that spam played a huge role in your quitting! There are number of players who quit worlds or the game for the same - your post is essential proof of that. I always wondered whether spam is a major cause for the dropping player numbers and markets with nightbonus and less spam lose less players or not.
 

DeletedUser15919

Guest


[USER=15919]@Char Aznable


opt-out switch, that allows players that wish to keep playing in the highly contested SPAM environment:
no such option discussed, the solution will most likely affect all players, therefore it is very important to choose any limits carefully and don't punish activity, don't tag every attack as spam - your feedback helps a lot
spam is not only a problem between 2 or more players it leads to performance issues
the goal of most suggestions is to limit spam without limiting normal game

@donnacus & @icedragon1
Thank you for sharing that spam played a huge role in your quitting! There are number of players who quit worlds or the game for the same - your post is essential proof of that. I always wondered whether spam is a major cause for the dropping player numbers and markets with nightbonus and less spam lose less players or not.[/USER]


Morg

Just to make sure you did understand what I meant by the switch, the opt-out switch name I should have referred to as an opt-in switch & I have updated my post. In essence, instead of working to change the minorities behavior for the majorities unrest, globally change all players behavior by having a hard programmatic change. Then, a flag that allows players that feel the previously defined SPAM behavior truly is their play style & WANT to use it unrestricted or experience it as "an acceptable war tactic", can opt-in where the restrictions are dropped only for players that choose to opt-in to that environment change. Just as we have had players complain about it, there are those who defend it. This makes an allowance for those that want to use it & those who don't want to suffer it, in the same environment equally.

I am also one of those players who ceased playing Grepolis. The activity several months ago on US Dyme resulted in the server breaking for those there as, there were in essence 2 large alliances that could compete to complete the world. Enough of us were so disenchanted with both the Inno incident & the behavior of the other large alliance dropping endless attacks upon players at all hours to break their alarm checks, 35 players of 74 quit/vm'd representing over 1400 cities. A couple of days ago, those in VM mass ghosted (ocean 44 if ur curious looks like a Hellenic Graveyard from the Persian Wars). On top of that, many more who remained ghosted as well due to the behavior continuing. One member being a EN continent player, was subject to endless attacks for 5 weeks just because of this time difference for his sleep cycle & just walked away. He put up with it for 2 years on US Nicea with us & will miss him. He was a beast of a player.

AS you know how the WW clock works, you recognize that when 3 large alliances (due to limits) disband, they drop out of the ww progression. On top of that, the volume of cities & the fact that only the two groups existed for entire oceans together, means the nearly 2000 cities also are out of that ww calculation until they somehow manage to get bp for slots & take them - likely several months.

Let us hope whatever solution can be finalized can come into effect & save future worlds because allowing new players to just keep joining existing worlds is not a true playing experience where anyone walking into Dyme & likely other older existing worlds has no realistic chance of enjoyable gameplay.
 

DeletedUser4460

Guest


Morg

Just to make sure you did understand what I meant by the switch, the opt-out switch name I should have referred to as an opt-in switch & I have updated my post. In essence, instead of working to change the minorities behavior for the majorities unrest, globally change all players behavior by having a hard programmatic change. Then, a flag that allows players that feel the previously defined SPAM behavior truly is their play style & WANT to use it unrestricted or experience it as "an acceptable war tactic", can opt-in where the restrictions are dropped only for players that choose to opt-in to that environment change. Just as we have had players complain about it, there are those who defend it. This makes an allowance for those that want to use it & those who don't want to suffer it, in the same environment equally.

I am also one of those players who ceased playing Grepolis. The activity several months ago on US Dyme resulted in the server breaking for those there as, there were in essence 2 large alliances that could compete to complete the world. Enough of us were so disenchanted with both the Inno incident & the behavior of the other large alliance dropping endless attacks upon players at all hours to break their alarm checks, 35 players of 74 quit/vm'd representing over 1400 cities. A couple of days ago, those in VM mass ghosted (ocean 44 if ur curious looks like a Hellenic Graveyard from the Persian Wars). On top of that, many more who remained ghosted as well due to the behavior continuing. One member being a EN continent player, was subject to endless attacks for 5 weeks just because of this time difference for his sleep cycle & just walked away. He put up with it for 2 years on US Nicea with us & will miss him. He was a beast of a player.

AS you know how the WW clock works, you recognize that when 3 large alliances (due to limits) disband, they drop out of the ww progression. On top of that, the volume of cities & the fact that only the two groups existed for entire oceans together, means the nearly 2000 cities also are out of that ww calculation until they somehow manage to get bp for slots & take them - likely several months.

Let us hope whatever solution can be finalized can come into effect & save future worlds because allowing new players to just keep joining existing worlds is not a true playing experience where anyone walking into Dyme & likely other older existing worlds has no realistic chance of enjoyable gameplay.

I can’t give you a different answer, most proposals limit the attacker’s behaviour and not give a spam protection shield that you could just turn on/off thus some could continue the game unchanged. It can hardly be a new functionality, but if you have an idea how a spam protection shield would not or less intervene with normal game please share.

Limiting incoming attacks doesn’t work for many reasons.
An incoming attack limit per player or per city would result in unbreakable sieges, turtles and wonders. Friendly players could exploit a limit like that, if someone has incoming CS friendly attacks could prevent enemy from adding more attacks.

Any type of commands can cause lagging or eventually lock out a player from the game becuase there are almost zero limits.

So most likely you as attacker would be more limited than now that cannot be optional.

Attackers have limit (minimum attack = 3% of available population), but it’s outdated and allow players to send fake attacks only without ever investing time in recruiting units - they are encouraged to do so because alarm turns their close to zero investment into a weapon.

This game is a war game, not only attack game, we need real battles, real nukes too. Players are chased away who spend time, money by players who only click a button daily 20x without thinking much about it. All suggestions goal is to find a balance: minimize strategies built on spam and minimal effort alone and don’t let Grepolis to be demoted to a solely clicking game. Fake attacks in the right ratio with full attacks can make the game exciting, that’s the ratio what we are looking for in my opinion.

Any kind of change requires programming let Developers worry about that. We aren’t in the position to make the call whether something is too complicated. All we need is an optimal solution that doesn’t affect normal game but prevents abnormal spams and would be easy to understand or follow for players.
 

DeletedUser9133

Guest
I want to be very clear here, while spam was certainly a factor in my leaving Grepolis, I am even more disappointed in their lack of customer service and their greed. Regarding customer service, we all remember the banning incident a few months back. Yes they did catch some cheaters but they caught a great many who were not using bots. THEN they not only did not act promptly to address the issue, but the mods CLOSED tickets without responding and deleted posts in the external forums (this will probably be deleted) rather than address their mistake. When they did finally address the issue, they downplayed the severity and gave token compensation, and isolated the issue to one forum thread in an attempt to sweep it under the rug.

Additionally, Grepolis has become all about how much gold they can convince people to spend, instead of insuring that their customer base has an enjoyable experience. Spam is made possible in part buy the insta-buy features. Whales like Jcoo could not send out 100 10 LS attacks from the same city if they could not gold up 1000 LS in under an hour. Insta-buy has made it nearly impossible to hold a siege on island with one of these whales since they gold up 1k sling nukes as fast as their alliance can funnel them the required resources. I get that INNO wants to make money, but the fact that this has become a pay to win game is costing them their customer base. My friends and I who have left Grepolis for other games will never be giving INNO another dime so I hope they are happy with their whales, because all the little fish are leaving.
 
Top