First off, I wish to say that I'm entirely new to posting on these kinds of forums, so if I have made a mistake such as posting on the wrong board I am sorry ahead of time.

I've been playing Zorg on and off for a few years, I've never gotten too far before I leave for reasons I would rather not get into entirely but since A reason ties into this suggestion it's best I talk about it from a newer player's point of view. My writing style is probably not appropriate for forums but I'll try to make it readable and/or understandable.

Protection.

New players aren't usually well informed, probably haven't gone rooting around for any tutorials either. I know my self, I do well for my self until I'm out of protection and into the lion's den though it's from being mauled that I pick up on things. That's me though, new players don't enjoy being savagely ripped to shreds by Sir 100 Million points when they're just out of 10k. I understand this game is made to be difficult, though I personally believe that the difficulty isn't lowered by what I will suggest.

Now, the topic is ranking so let me get to it.

Ranking.

I'm probably suggesting an approved or disapproved idea, feature or other sorts of things but I'll give my two cents.

0 - 100
100 - 500
500 - 1,000
1,000 - 2,500
2,500 - 5,000
5,000 - 7,500
7,500 - 10,000
10,000 - 25,000
25,000 - 50,000
50,000 - 75,000
75,000 - 100,000
100,000 - 250,000
250,000 - 500,000
500,000 - 750,000
750,000 - 1,000,000
1,000,000 - 5,000,000
5,000,000 - 10,000,000
10,000,000 - 50,000,000

After 50,000,000 that is it, you are in the final tier and are able to attack and be attacked by anyone above you, or anyone at 50,000,000.

Phew, that's a lot of numbers and tiers! Perhaps too many, but that's just what I could think of to make it more balanced and keep a certain level of challenge to the game. This allows players of all sorts to only really be able to fight among each other, allowing the better player to obviously advance and still keep to their own tier, not being attacked or being able to attack people in other tiers. Obviously, this excludes inactive as usual.

Some people reading this might wonder why this is necessary, or how this could possibly change anything. While obviously there are flaws with anything I suggest, I just believe that something similar to this could really help out new players and not have them completely overwhelmed after leaving the current level of protection. How can a child be expected to play on the same level as an adult?

As I said, I probably did, said, or posted something or somewhere wrong. For that, I am sorry. This is just my thoughts.

[Edit 1] It has come to my attention, that, in fact, at least for reloaded, the protection period is to 200k. Or at the very least that is what I have so far been informed of.

I can see your points and they're all valid. And, a lot of numbers!!

However, I feel that restricting targets based on overall score values is too severe. I don't know which server you play in, I presume it's Reloaded from what you've written. Indeed, I really don't know much about the different protection levels in all the servers expect my server of choice, Standard and now the one you've mentioned, Reloaded at 200k points. In the server I play in, the points protection for "new" players is 1 million points. I feel that this is quite considerable, especially when you remember that this server, the protection was set originally at 10k points. That's quite an increase. This was also back in the day when everybody was out for what you had. I suffered many times, losing all I had on various occasions. The point being is that now it's at that higher level, then if you can learn how to play before you reach that score, regardless of the differences in overall ranking, then you should be able to look after your stuff better by this stage.

I have played other games, similar in style to Zorg. Some of them have had this proportionate scoring levels. You tip over one score level, others below you become out of bounds to you. These games are all but dead. Perhaps Zorg is unique in that the same hardcore players stay with it because of this? Others come and go, but nearly always there's an influx of new players. As a percentage, quite a few do stay in the game.

But thanks for your post, good to see players, regardless of how long they've been in the game, posting here.

First I want to say I really sympathize with the general point here. Solving the problem of how to get newcomers to successfully learn the game, and the intricacies of what the best protection schema might be has proven to be no small matter.

However, the schema you suggest is too restrictive, given the realities of player base size. This is a PvP game, and large players need more than a few targets. I have also crashed players that would be outside of the upper band of protection you suggest (meaning players that were much larger than me). Likewise, I have ninjaed such players. These have been among the most satisfying experiences I have had in this game.

Ideally, the function I believe protection should serve is to help players until they have a) Learned the game and b) Built up enough of an account that they aren’t at risk of being picked bone dry by large players with no effort. 200k protection, I would argue, is probably not enough. I would advocate that 1M points should be the end of protection on all servers. I would also like to see better tutorials, and I believe all new players should start with a moon on their home world. Probably there is more that needs to be done than just this, but these changes would be a start.

Also: Don’t worry so much! Your post is perfectly fine and I’m glad you are engaging in the forums and thinking about these things!

Please feel free to ask any questions you might have about the intricacies of the game in the help forums. In my opinion, they are under utilized, and I am generally quite happy to share what knowledge I have, as I’m sure are others.

Pulsar wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 10, 2019 9:56 pm

First I want to say I really sympathize with the general point here. Solving the problem of how to get newcomers to successfully learn the game, and the intricacies of what the best protection schema might be has proven to be no small matter.

However, the schema you suggest is too restrictive, given the realities of player base size. This is a PvP game, and large players need more than a few targets. I have also crashed players that would be outside of the upper band of protection you suggest (meaning players that were much larger than me). Likewise, I have ninjaed such players. These have been among the most satisfying experiences I have had in this game.

Ideally, the function I believe protection should serve is to help players until they have a) Learned the game and b) Built up enough of an account that they aren’t at risk of being picked bone dry by large players with no effort. 200k protection, I would argue, is probably not enough. I would advocate that 1M points should be the end of protection on all servers. I would also like to see better tutorials, and I believe all new players should start with a moon on their home world. Probably there is more that needs to be done than just this, but these changes would be a start.

Also: Don’t worry so much! Your post is perfectly fine and I’m glad you are engaging in the forums and thinking about these things!

Please feel free to ask any questions you might have about the intricacies of the game in the help forums. In my opinion, they are under utilized, and I am generally quite happy to share what knowledge I have, as I’m sure are others.

Yes, perhaps now that I think about it, it really is pretty restrictive. However the general gist of it seems rather fine, perhaps it would, in fact, be better to instead of removing protection entirely, to simply increase the scope of who can attack who. On reloaded, during protection is Multiplied by or Divided by 5, perhaps out of that initial protection period it would be more.. effective to increase it to M/D by 20 or perhaps even higher. In that regard, it wouldn't be as restrictive but keep a certain level of protection, even to all players.

Although, thinking about it, a lot of folks have been here for a very, VERY long time and show it on their points count. So regardless of what happens, all that can be done is to give the player more time to prepare and get used to the game before being introduced to the long-term players and their... Prowess. Perhaps it wouldn't be as bad of an issue if the tutorials were a tad more clear, maybe someone could make a series of video tutorials? Either way, I hope this game keeps on long into the future.