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farming established alliances, since a few can outjump the retals, apparently isn't boring...I think that's his point.

If it's boring and you just want to cling to the past, then you could just leave the forums as your input has no more validity in an evolving game.

Grats on doing that a year ago :) Why not continue to dominate like you did then? The best have to stay the best, no?

Sakit, SS and Xin just want to call it cheating or easy or whatever because people have embraced being able to have a more level playing field. People are taking advantage of something that pretty much the whole server can, so now they can't pummel us all into oblivion while they claim the top spots.

If you two want to prove how good you *actually* are (and that's honestly great about that NW record, xin), lower yourselves to the noob standard and show us all up. Then you'll be able to prove that you're the best under any circumstance, not just one crafted and exploited by yourselves.

Challenge accepted? Or do you need the extra crutch of internal trading? There's plenty of fish out there, just use your expertise to calculate the best grabs..

Sorry, Xin, times are changing beyond the "bully everyone else around so you can claim you're the best". Every other "noob" that actually isn't one is now getting their chance to prove how well they can net with as much land as hogs like the ones you're wanting to defend..they'll have to suck it up, or leave alliance as it seems that was the only choice for you since things were no longer going your way and you don't feel like adapting. I'm kinda sad for you..

You don't have to take my advice about not sounding like an idiot, but enjoy the lost credibility while you're off denouncing everything just because you think you're right :)

Yet another baseless accusation. You have no proof that anyone in the top 10 were FAed, and you have no basis for calling me retarded, and since you're doing both, I have enough to properly assume you're just some ignorant fluffhead...go look for some facts then present them. Til then, don't be an idiot troll.

Top 10 baseless accusers:

1. metalheadspecv
2. Pride
3. Arsenal
4. Twiz
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

I'm missing some, anyone have the others?

Missed that little gem...how nice and encouraging it would be to hear your leaders telling you that you can't do something with your own country and that you're going to take the fall and can't contribute as much to the alliance because this guy's going to do it all. Trading allows for more people to contribute more to the avg net, allowing people to feel it's worth playing the game personally as well as being part of the clan. It's not an avg net based on a couple people at 200M net balancing out everyone else who's at 30-40M, it's everyone contributing 70-100M together.

So to break it all down, you want bullying...not only bullying other alliances, but one's own alliance-mates who take the fall when another tag is hit and can't retal. That makes things even less competitive, and discourages more people to join the EE ranks.

Try outgaining someone when you're at the same acreage, it only proves your technical prowess even more. It's one of the most obvious things that someone who's farming without recompense will end up a lot higher than someone going all-x or got a few hits in and is half of the other's acreage. Hell, at that point you don't even have to worry too much about maximizing your country's potential because the land will naturally produce more in the end. You end up top 5, piece of cake.
Where's the skill in that?

Can't really tell what nationality they are... :P

Remember when TTR was the only way to win? People were so greedy and had to outjump their retals, then their alliance-mates suffered because the defending alliance wanted their land back, so someone else would take a hit because the TTR was out of range. Not a very good way to play unless you were incredibly selfish..I remember SMz in particular, jeez he was pushy and selfish, but always ended up in top 10...not sure that's the behavior and play style that I'd want to promote.



It actually is still competitive...people are trying to trade better and faster than others, much like people would try to bottomfeed faster and better than others.

If things went back to how they were, hanging on to the same old principles and netting strats, with this much lower amount of countries, you'd only be able to have 2-3 people who will get a high acreage, making the top 10 look completely skewed with 10s of millions of net difference between #3 and #4..that won't prove who's a pro, it just shows who was lucky enough to get to the neutrals first and keep camping their DR, or who was jerk enough to outjump retals and punish their alliance instead. The average player doesn't have time to camp the exact second a country comes out of DR, but that doesn't mean they don't know the game and the formulas or how best to utilize their acres.

From the wiki on DotA:

As in role-playing games, players level up their heroes and use gold to buy equipment during the mission.

So you don't use the gold in-game to buy stuff? Do the items not make a big difference in your damage output?

In LoL, items are pretty essential...there are ones to boost the power of mages' abilities, attack damage/speed for melees, armor/magic resist for tanks..

I'll never pay for LoL, can promise you that, and I've gotten far enough to be level 30 and own a dozen champs and a nice collection of runes, so I'm nice and happy and just slowly working toward the next champ :)

Jeez, MH....why do you simplify it so easily? Almost takes the discussion out of it :P

They've also made some upgrades to the game engine that are really helpful for newer players..you could always see every champs skills, but they added videos for each of them, so you can see what a skill does, if it's targeted or skillshot, if it's ranged or melee, and CC effects they have...definitely helps to see what other champs you're up against can do also.

That's pretty much it...you earn IP points through playing matches, but you can also buy Riot points (RP), both are used to buy enhancements or different champions, you need more IP than you do RP for each thing you buy.

There are currently 118 champions to choose from, with a rotation of 10 you can play for free each week, gives you a chance to try out champs instead of committing to buy. There're so many different skills each one has, you just find one that's in your niche and go with them.

For free players (I'm one of them), there are champs you can buy for 450 IP all the way up to 6300 IP, so it's not too hard to get a couple to start with, and you can work up to others that you like.

In game, the champs level up to 18, gaining another level of one of their abilities. They also passively generate gold, with more of course from kills, with which you buy items to enhance your champ in the game. TOONS of items to choose from based on what you need/like.

Outside of the game, you level up to 30, and each level you unlock another mastery point and a rune slot. Masteries are free enhancements, you can make an infinite amount of mastery pages based on a specific champ, or you can have a few separated into melees, mages, tanks, etc. Runes on the other hand are purchased with IP or RP gated by levels, i.e. tier 1 runes from level 1-10, tier 2 11-20, tier 3 21-30.

There's lots of versatility with pretty much everything, I'd encourage you to at least explore the options, even if you don't plan on playing. It's a unique game, and always fun being pvp..

To your 1st point, candy, wouldn't lowering ghosts and making it more expensive also hurt those who are bottomfeeding or engaged in grabbing pacts with other alliances? It's a double-edged sword.

To your 4th point, the smaller can still catch up based on the formulas...he will always have a larger land pool to grab from, and could potentially even things out given enough trades. Also, he would be able to get to 95% NW to optimize the grab, and the bigger country would have to shrink, perhaps only by a small amount, to achieve the same optimization, which would always give the smaller country the advantage.

I can honestly say that I don't have the most knowledge of what to do with every acre, when to stop trading, what to do with this or that, and until I do, I won't be able to compete with the top 10ers, just as actual crappy netgainers won't be able to compete with people who have some knowledge of the game.

You can argue of any game that at some point, its ingenuity fades and things that were once new are now boring and 2nd nature, giving no challenge to anyone playing, so there will be a number of disillusioned people that will leave (unfortunately).

Same premise, Req...plus it's standalone and free, you wouldn't need to buy a game to get the scenario..

My handle's DJBeif, surprise surprise..

How is the game remedied then, Candy? Criticism absent advice isn't very helpful, and I'm sure he'd be interested in keeping people interested in EE..

hsi, I'll sign a pact with you that lets you SS me and I can't SS back.....

I can see how it's troubling, as if you're not in, it's substantially harder..how would you differentiate trading pacts from land-trading? If every alliance (and it's most) had people that wanted to trade, it would basically form an open list with everyone in every alliance, unlike the current trading that individual countries opt in to. This doesn't force people to trade who don't want to, whereas an alliance-wide trading pact would open everyone up to be hit.

There could be a rule set in place where you can't hit a country more than once or twice in a set, and if you do you get retaled twice or something...that's certainly different from the current land-trading standards, but what happens when one alliance doesn't follow that and doesn't accept being retaled? Things have happened in the past with numerous alliances and pact violations, so it's kind of hard to set a rule on some things..

Sam, I think being able to do something well is what everyone strove to do throughout the years. There've been new developments people started to work at, and still newer...this is just one of the new-ish things that people have gotten used to doing. Unfortunately for a select few that used to always excel at the new, better ways to netgain, trading drastically evens out the playing field. Rather than clinging to something that is unsure to change, everyone can adapt to utilizing ghost acres the best way possible. Is this an argument against ghosts?

It's pretty easy to get, it's basically what land-trading already is. I was grabbed at least 7-8 times out of the blue, and with no message about what their break or allies were, I only knew that I was on their "open list" and they were on mine. The difference was that those who chose to trade were placed on the list, it wasn't a whole alliance on another's list and vice versa.

Only some people (myself included) talk to their targets about arranging hits just to speed things up and keep communication with someone that you know will work with you and ensure it benefits both. Sure it's going to happen, but sometimes you get frustrated when you only gained a few hundred compared to your partner's 1k..

Oh, and Sam..you'll have to expand on what you said, cause you lost me somewhere...

If there are such things that exist anymore like grabbing pacts, I completely agree that they are better for the game...however, I haven't seen one of those for a looong time, everyone wants L:L or more. Let me know which clan you're in, and I'll look for a grabbing pact from them for this upcoming set. I'd be happy to get back to the days of "will retal" status instead of being pacted up the ass.

Anyone can talk to anyone in IRC about doing this...hell, it could be from MD, PDM, Omega, LaF...it's a simple arrangement set at a certain point in the destock. Does that automatically make it "internal"? Sure, vincey and Osso are friends, who wouldn't rather do the trades with a friend so their friend benefits rather than some random dude? I can understand your point, but I wouldn't push it to the point of hypocrisy if *any*one can arrange it with *any*one.

Ok, great! The ability to trade hits with another consenting country is an aspect of the game...need we go further? Ok, fine...




Make it viable...i.e., make bots, artificially create something that can be taken advantage of? That's actually the exact same as ghost acres, but easier since you don't have to worry about getting retaled. So....what's this huge difference between the 2 that irks you so? If there were enough bots, everyone would be able to have all the land they want, right? Or is it so a few people can farm them all as fast as possible, thus denying anyone without the "skill" of having a program/code telling them when a target comes out of DR?



Again, this promotes bullying, not the sportsmanship you talk of...it promotes hostility, not respect of "top-tier" netters. Basically you're saying "get big and stay big so noone else can touch you, regardless of how it makes you and your alliance look to others" if I'm reading that right. Should someone be able to retal you, pretty much every pact is L:L or more, so it's an exercise in futility to LG anyone unless you have "skill" in using all your money to buy up tons of defense...how is that considered skill when it's a no-brainer that any noob can do?



"decides he's not being retalled"...dat arrogance. Great sportsmanship there.



Everyone has the ability to land-trade = level playing field. Zorp nailed it earlier about sucking...not every land-trader can get only one #1 spot, and considering that the range of NW for people who have land-traded go from 100M - 300M, I don't think everyone can suck equally and end up with that much of a difference.



Meaning that skill is necessary as there are a number of people who understand these formulas..



Simple, then...come join us. Noone's telling you what to do with your country, so feel free not to, but if you want to compete, then you'll have to conform first if you feel it's pretty much impossible.

I will say this, though...with all your talk about level playing fields, your idea of "sportsmanship", and using *all* aspects of the game to get the best country you can, I don't know how well it would go over to complain about one aspect of it that potentially benefits all while promoting another that only benefits those who aren't interested in a fair game (out-gaining retals and bottomfeeding the very few targets in the game).

I think that's pretty clear about being totally against land-trading...begging qz to get rid of ghost acres entirely? That would essentially end it.

SS, please define "being good at the game".

If you're talking about bottomfeeding, there are no longer hundreds of neutrals like in 2025 where every good netter could make a few safe hits and get some good land.

If you're talking about taking some well-calculated hits so you can come out ahead a little after you get retaled, that simply doesn't happen anymore...there are no more "will retal" designations for alliances, it's all 150-200% L:L pacts, basically, "if you mess with us you get raped, no way you're coming out ahead"

If you're talking about topfeeding, read the above and think of it being much worse since that'd be a nice big FA fluff sandwich for all involved to digest.

If you're talking about farming a smaller alliance and getting out of retal range, or farming all of them to keep them beaten down, that's just bullying (read: being a douche)...haven't you seen all those Today shows about bullying?

If you're able to provide a sensible solution to be able to gain more than 40k acres from all exploring til you die of boredom, I'll be the first to hop on board. Until then, land-trading is fun and promotes sportsmanship among competitors instead of rampant hatred due to farming. If anyone else is opposed to land-trading too, I would in all honestly love to hear some ideas I can start to integrate into my country's growth.

.

It seems to me that if we don't have land-trading, which I agree is a great way to start up conversation with others as I got to know a couple people in MD and TPA, things will go back to a few alliances beating everyone else out because they can bottomfed faster, or pacting people with 200% L:L rules instead of the old "will retal" statuses so when someone screws up, they're serverely punished. It goes back to alliances LGing the crap out other smaller ones who are kept so low that they don't have a chance to retal, and are left to suicide. That of course angers people on the server since their set got screwed, then they punish the suiciding alliance even more and extort every last bit of essence from them, or just FS them, farm them after they've been obliterated, and farm them the set after. One nice, big, disgusting mess.

Perhaps the country:country DR can be raised so ghost acres are harder to come by, but land-trading is in my view the friendliest, most peaceful way to gain land short of all-x. With so few neutrals (who don't suicide on you), pretty much the whole server would go all-x just so they don't piss anyone off. Not to mention that some of the neutrals who are getting hit constantly are newbies who would get extremely discouraged that they can't get anywhere and leave the game.

Let's face it, pretty much every advantage there is to be taken has been taken in this game over the many years; some alliances excel at exploiting them more so than other alliances. This land-trading is just another of the exploits, and until it's fixed, it will continue to be taken advantage of. Calling on the whole server to cease it just because a few people think it's wrong isn't really going to work out as well as one would hope...noone or no alliance here controls the server.

...

I remember that one, rasp...that was The Executing Large Lame Alliances So U Can Killa Suckas, right?

You have to join The Extremely Laidback Leadership Alliance! They're awesome at netting..

http://www.tella.com/application

Didn't know about that annual feast day...on another note, Happy St Patrick's Day!

OM NOM NOM be COOOOKIE MONSTER, not oscars teh grouches!!

turd ferguson

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yay bonus!

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turd ferguson