Suggestions

It worked well when the community was small due to the closed registration. When registration opened, flights got bigger and less tight knit, thus you might have 50k active clans on a flight, and only about 10k clans exalting and participating in pushes, which causes the flight to plummet on the dominance board. As you can see, Earth is the new dom powerhouse because it's the smallest flight.

It's gotten to the point where the beastclans are taking 3rd place almost regularly. Look at the standings right now and beastclan is in 3rd place. Look at the scoreboard for next week--beastclan is also in 3rd place.

Currently, the value on the scoreboard is calculated by how many dragons are exalted in proportion to how many active users are in a flight, iirc.

I'm not really entirely sure what could be the new way to calculate dom, but that's why I'm posting this here, to see if we can brainstorm on it. I have a few ideas, each with their own pros and cons tho.

1) Make dominance a sign-up thing. As in, there's a toggle on your account settings that determines whether your clan should count for dominance or not. This way, if you're an active non-exalting lair you won't be counted for your flight's dominance standing. Or if you don't exalt as much as you think you'd like to, then your lair won't be counted for dominance. I'm aware that this could be easily abused, so maybe put a cool-down after toggling the switch? That could also bring it's own problems, but hey, brainstorming.

2) Maybe just make the beastclans less competitive? Adapt them to the changes the flights have had on their dominance so they're not constantly hovering between 2nd and 4th places. Pre-open registration they used to hang out more in the 5th to 7th places.

Ok I think those are all the ideas I have for now, y'all are welcomed to add to 'em, debate, etc. I just really want to go back when dominance was engaging, with huge flight battles and a lot of cooperativeness in both the pushing flight and flights that wanted to support them. It's kinda died down because it hasn't adapted to the changes the flights have had during the years, I think.

1 is suggested often, but that brings some problems with it:

The first is that players would be pressured to 'turn off' dominance, so that the flight only has a small amount of 'active exalters' vying for dominance, and players who don't turn off their dominance, but still don't exalt heavily will be 'shamed' for not doing their part for dominance.

it also has the problem, do the players who turn off dominance still get the rewards? If not, then few players would turn off dominance, especially the ones that move to different flights for dominance, if so, then we have the above problem.

I don't want to see a situation on FR like on Neopets during Altador cup season, where 'freeloaders' are vilified for not doing as much as the heavy players of the team.

2. could be workable, but not sure how.

If you must know, open registration really has nothing to do with the problems of dominance. As far as I can tell, two things are the huge 'broken' areas of dominance: flight changes and out of flight support.

The first, when dominance was created, wasn't allowed as far as I know, so that players were forced to stay in a flight and work with that dominance team instead of moving towards flights that become known as heavy dom flights.

The second, again, probably wasn't thought of when dominance was first counted, and it is also something that would be very difficult to take into account. How do you account for out of flight support? Change dominance so only your flight's dragons count towards dominance? Say it isn't allowed? Try to figure out a way to make dragons bought through out of flight support worth less?

The whole problem with dominance is that it is a competition and competitions, by their very nature, aren't fair, and thus you will naturally see one 'team' start to dominate the score boards. Again, the issue is that FR couldn't account for the two biggest things that affect dominance, and without writing dominance from the ground up (which I do support), there really isn't much to do to make it so that other flights are competitive, because the sad issue is that the reason those flights aren't competitive is because the players IN those flights aren't competitive (some are, but in most of them, most of the players aren't). That is why Earth is such a powerhouse, because most of the truly competitive players who don't care about other aspects of a flight have moved there.

[quote name="GroundControl" date="2019-12-23 04:09:23" ] It worked well when the community was small due to the closed registration. When registration opened, flights got bigger and less tight knit, thus you might have 50k active clans on a flight, and only about 10k clans exalting and participating in pushes, which causes the flight to plummet on the dominance board. As you can see, Earth is the new dom powerhouse because it's the smallest flight. It's gotten to the point where the beastclans are taking 3rd place almost regularly. Look at the standings right now and beastclan is in 3rd place. Look at the scoreboard for next week--beastclan is also in 3rd place. Currently, the value on the scoreboard is calculated by how many dragons are exalted in proportion to how many active users are in a flight, iirc. I'm not really entirely sure what could be the new way to calculate dom, but that's why I'm posting this here, to see if we can brainstorm on it. I have a few ideas, each with their own pros and cons tho. 1) Make dominance a sign-up thing. As in, there's a toggle on your account settings that determines whether your clan should count for dominance or not. This way, if you're an active non-exalting lair you won't be counted for your flight's dominance standing. Or if you don't exalt as much as you think you'd like to, then your lair won't be counted for dominance. I'm aware that this could be easily abused, so maybe put a cool-down after toggling the switch? That could also bring it's own problems, but hey, brainstorming. [/quote] [Color=purple]I have to say, the Dominance has been my #1 priority since I joined. I 100% support #1; however, the sign-up thing seems a little. . .useless? I mean, can't exalting no matter what scatter this idea?

[quote]1) Make dominance a sign-up thing. As in, there's a toggle on your account settings that determines whether your clan should count for dominance or not. This way, if you're an active non-exalting lair you won't be counted for your flight's dominance standing. Or if you don't exalt as much as you think you'd like to, then your lair won't be counted for dominance. I'm aware that this could be easily abused, so maybe put a cool-down after toggling the switch? That could also bring it's own problems, but hey, brainstorming.[/quote]The only way this would be fair would be if toggling your account off also means you don't get dominance benefits. And frankly it's doubtful that people would do this. [quote]2) Maybe just make the beastclans less competitive? Adapt them to the changes the flights have had on their dominance so they're not constantly hovering between 2nd and 4th places. Pre-open registration they used to hang out more in the 5th to 7th places.[/quote]I'd rather see better incentives for making flights be competitive personally. I don't think making the beastclans less competitive will make flights more likely to push when other flights are, which means we will still be lacking actual battles. The update that dominance really needs, in my opinion, is better prizes for placing. Right now it's just not worth spending millions to push.

[quote]It's gotten to the point where the beastclans are taking 3rd place almost regularly. Look at the standings right now and beastclan is in 3rd place. Look at the scoreboard for next week--beastclan is also in 3rd place.[/quote] That almost always happens when a clan is actively pushing, though? Especially if it's a battle. Other clans send dragons to the pushing clans via raffles/pb/foddart instead of exalting themselves so naturally beastclans end up higher because of that. Last week we were pushing and this week Light is pushing. [quote]adapt them to the changes the flights have had on their dominance so they're not constantly hovering between 2nd and 4th places. Pre-open registration they used to hang out more in the 5th to 7th places.[/quote] Since August: week 31 - beastclans 8th 32 - 3rd, Ice vs Water battle 33 - 12th 34 - 5th, fest push 35 - 10th 36 - 6th 37 - 8th 38 - 2nd, fest push 39 - 9th 40 - 5th, conquest push 41 - 9th 42 - 7th 43 - 3rd, fest push 44 - 8th 45 - 4th, no oof activity 46 - 4th, no oof activity 47 - 3rd, fest push 48 - 7th 49 - 8th 50 - 8th 51 - 3rd, conquest push. 5 placements in 20 weeks, all during conquest pushes, as I said, otherwise they're usually around 8th place. Where did you get your info about the average beastclans placement? I used Dom Watch stats.

[quote name="Jemadar" date="2019-12-23 06:03:59" ] 1 is suggested often, but that brings some problems with it: The first is that players would be pressured to 'turn off' dominance, so that the flight only has a small amount of 'active exalters' vying for dominance, and players who don't turn off their dominance, but still don't exalt heavily will be 'shamed' for not doing their part for dominance. [/quote] This can be solved by just making the toggle a private one, like how "Forum Subscriptions", "Forum Pings" and "Feed Style" are. If a player (or a player base) is harassed over it, doesn't that fall under rules 6 and 7 of the TOU? [quote name="Jessyta" date="2019-12-23 07:49:59" ] The only way this would be fair would be if toggling your account off also means you don't get dominance benefits. And frankly it's doubtful that people would do this.[/quote] [quote name="Jemadar" date="2019-12-23 06:03:59" ] it also has the problem, do the players who turn off dominance still get the rewards? If not, then few players would turn off dominance, especially the ones that move to different flights for dominance, if so, then we have the above problem. I don't want to see a situation on FR like on Neopets during Altador cup season, where 'freeloaders' are vilified for not doing as much as the heavy players of the team. [/quote] I think that dominance benefits should be flight-wide, regardless of whether a lair is marked as exalting or not. Otherwise, it could create an in-flight division, which is contrary to what a flight is supposed to be: a community. Fairness doesn't really matter when a non-exalting lair isn't being detrimental to the flight's dominance. [s][size=1]basically, i just mean a communist approach[/size][/s] [quote name="WIndyStorm" date="2019-12-23 07:10:52" ] [Color=purple]I have to say, the Dominance has been my #1 priority since I joined. I 100% support #1; however, the sign-up thing seems a little. . .useless? I mean, can't exalting no matter what scatter this idea? [/quote] I'm not entirely sure what you mean. The idea is that if a lair decides to opt-out of dominance, then them exalting shouldn't affect dominance at all. If a lair signs up for dominance, then their exalts will be counted for dominance. [quote name="Bionicdingo" date="2019-12-23 13:31:39" ] #1 would be hugely exploitable, though, for any halfway coordinated dom effort. Simply have everyone on the team except an exalter or two turn it off and funnel the dragons towards them to be punted off. [/quote] Hmm, that's true. That's why I suggested for there to be a cool down on the toggle, or add some other buffer to it like paying for it. But even then, it still would be exploitable by a team organizing the push months beforehand. And if one has to pay for the toggle then very few users would touch it. There has to be some kind of math that can be done to reach a more fair result. Maybe a distribution could be applied to this. I'll try to research further to see if any distribution fits because I have absolutely nothing else to do and this is intriguing. [quote name="Valemora" date="2019-12-23 15:55:28" ] 5 placements in 20 weeks, all during conquest pushes, as I said, otherwise they're usually around 8th place. Where did you get your info about the average beastclans placement? I used Dom Watch stats. [/quote] Alright, I eat my words then on that one lmao. I got the stats from just watching the board this month, I didn't consider looking at the Dom Watch. Thank you! [quote name="Jessyta" date="2019-12-23 07:49:59" ]I'd rather see better incentives for making flights be competitive personally. I don't think making the beastclans less competitive will make flights more likely to push when other flights are, which means we will still be lacking actual battles. The update that dominance really needs, in my opinion, is better prizes for placing. Right now it's just not worth spending millions to push. [/quote] I didn't mean it that making the beastclans less competitive would make flights more likely to push. I meant that making the beastclans less competitive would give those benefits to an actual flight, regardless if that flight is pushing or not. [b]BUT[/b] this is irrelevant anyways with the information that Valemora provided above. I jumped the gun there. But yeah, I didn't even consider better prizes for placing to solve this. That seems a more sensible approach. But what prizes could those be? More gold and higher discounts? Reduced Baldwin time? Something to win from Galore?

I'm not entirely sure how to explain this, but bear with me.

For the better prizes approach, I think that the prizes should be changing each week or month. The reason is that if the prize stays stationary like it is now, we'll first see a boom in dominance because it's new, different, and everyone wants in on it. However, with time, dominance will probably just follow the same trend where all flights get increasingly competitive until we reach the same stagnant point we're at now.

However, if the prizes changed each week then the spirit of it being new and different would be kept alive. And to encourage competition, the prizes could be announced a month beforehand so flights can choose and organize when to push. So, like Roundsey, were the prize is announced and you can bet on it? But instead of betting on it, you're competing for it.

To avoid problems during festivals, no prizes should be given out for them besides the standard prizes (the regular discounts, gold and turns). OR give out elemental currency relevant to the festival. Maybe something like 5 per day?

And by prizes I don't mean limited items, since that would really put upside down the economy, amongst other things. Just little things like reduced baldwin time (and even then, something minor like 10%), or alchemy stuff, or more gold per day, or a full set of a recent (but not latest, keeping the economy in mind) treasure apparel, etc.

I already participate in Dom whenever I see we're pushing but I'd be more inclined to participate (and spend $ rather than just exalting my own leveled fodder) if there was some sort of dom shop - I've seen it around before, and it's interesting and promises a lot of neat new content and gameplay.

This won't fix the dom system overall but might get more people interested in it if their individual participation was directly rewarded, whether their flight won or not. Putting in a lot of effort only to not place feels like a waste, and more and more people drop out from burnout. But a shop that directly related to the amount of levels you exalt could be fun.

The people who yeet dragons off that other people send over would have a major advantage to getting highly 'priced' items however. (could also be an incentive for more people to help with fodder funneling tho?)

The thing is, it doesn't matter whether it is against the Terms of Service or not. Harassment happens, blacklisting happens, and both those are against the ToS. It will just move offsite, and could affect that player's ability to play the site.

there are many ways to make a person's life miserable on site, without the staff being able to do anything about it.

Spread the word offsite to players who care, and that person could find their sales, especially art and such, go down. They could be blocked by people who really care about dominance, etc..


Plus, it also wouldn't actually work. The reason why you see flights not get dominance often is that the players in them aren't interested in dominance. How many players in shadow say, would bother to turn off their dominance in order to help their flight? Those who care about their flight getting dom, sure, but those players are probably already doing what they can to help. The rest would just go on business as usual.

This could also be abused by players making multis in an opposing flight just before a push to try to add 'deadweight' to their dom efforts. Right now, creating multis probably isn't worth it, because all accounts count

As said, I think that Dom is as fair as it can be, without being redone from the ground up.

I also think that it would be worth it to get people interested in exalting, with or without them being interested in dominance, by adding rewards specifically to exalting itself, and not tying it to dominance. it wouldn't fix dom, but it might remove some pressure from dom as an incentive to exalt dragons.