Filter Online Players and Alternative Solution

[Silken]

Personally, I would like it to work a bit differently.

I think you should be able to be hacked at any time. On-Line or Off-Line. However, once you do get hacked you get a shield for three hours. But you can still play and hack other people and do not appear in the search.

This would have a number of positive affects on the game.

1. Stops people from being hacked multiple times in a short space of time. You could only be hacked up to 8 times a day.
2. Stops people from effectively locking their account by being on-line all the time.
3. Only people who you are able to hack would appear in the search.
4. Less people will would have appear in a search, probably only 2 or 3 not 5. This is very very important, because more people in the game would be under a shield, than there currently is at the moment, and there is a danger of a high number of people not being available to hack. However, this is countered by the fact that people who are available should have more resources.

So basically people would be more vulnerable to be hacked and losing a lot of resources, whilst grinding out a new node upgrade. But that is countered by hacks being more profitable.

It would probably need a major rewrite and the dev's would have to review a lot of data to see just how many people would be under a shield at any one time. But hey we have a million downloads, so shouldn't be problem....

[Luminaar]

As mentioned previously, the general idea of people being online preventing others from attacking is in other threads, so I dont want to rehash things here.

Removing 9sec protected players from search was a great move.

Regarding the 3 hour timer, it seems a good middle of the road option. Make it 15 minutes and a player would never make any progess being attacked so often. Also, getting kicked off your network 4 times an hour while someone attacks you would make it a terrible user experience. Make it 6 hours or "shield" users after you log in and the game becomes about targetting "players" who aren't actually playing any more.

Regarding online players appearing in search, I honestly dont think that's the crux of the matter. The thing that I think bothers people the most is that it's costing them resources to refresh a list that sometimes results in nothing useful, thereby making players take a step *back* in progress. As mentioned in one of the earlier discussions about this: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=168&hilit=search#p926 , maybe repeat search results could be compensated somehow? There's a fine balance to be maintained however: Set search costs too high and people are penalised for playing the game. Set them too low and it enables bullying and being penalised for *not* playing the game (As well as messes up the Wiki table ) Also, as mentioned in that thread, people have previously commented about being targetted too often, so a change was made to the search algorithm already to compensate.

Being able to hack people while they're online isn't feasible structure wise, but also doesn't make sense gameplay wise. If I spotted someone hacking my network, I'd be pulling the internet/power plug and stopping them for sure!

There's plenty of good discussion happening though. It's clear that it's a frustration to people wishing to play the game and it's also clear that voices are being heard. Keep it up!

[Armitek]

I want to write about user TOPoCAT Since I play this game he is 24/7 online and I tried to hack him about 100 times is this legal ?

[CerberusArc]

1. Players with 9sec shield are filtered out after the new server update. (If not, please report)
2. Players online for more than 3 hours can be attacked even though they are online (the game will disconnect them)
3. We hear voices saying "online players should not appear in search", but for now we do not have a solution. If we remove these active accounts from search it would favour these all-the-time-online players. If they are online constantly and nobody can search them, there is no way they can be searched and hacked.
4. Suggested solution with being able to hack even online players whenever other hacker decides to is not optimal user experience and would require complete rework of the game's internal structure.
5. I am not saying that the search will remain as is, we just need to find a functional solution.

Very good with the 9sec shield filter, if I see anymore shielded targets I will contact devs.

I only somewhat understand what you are saying about the active accounts, I mean, they can't be attacked anyway, so saying the filter stops them from being attacked doesn't really make sense....

...unless you are breaking the 3 hour window. I would prefer something much short, like 30 minutes, but I guess I'll take 3 hours. IMO anything longer than 30 minutes is someone cheating, but 3 hours helps.

I understand about my solution not being viable, it was a long shot.

Still think the algorithm needs tweaking overall, but this is a good step here.

[CerberusArc]

Being able to hack people while they're online isn't feasible structure wise, but also doesn't make sense gameplay wise. If I spotted someone hacking my network, I'd be pulling the internet/power plug and stopping them for sure!

The point in my solution is that you wouldn't know someone IS hacking you. By the time you got report, the hack would be over, but yeah, like I said I knew it was a long shot but figured I would throw the idea out there. I'm glad some progress was made anyhow.

[Silken]

There is very little I expect done about the already rampant problem of players being "permanently" online using some kind of third party software to keep the app forced open (I believe this should be a bannable offense btw).

I'm not really sure that's the case tbh. I actually stayed up all night yesterday to watch the Presidential debate (I'm UK based) and a number of other UK based people who are always on-line, were off-line during the night. So I pretty sure that, like me, an IPad/Phone just gets left on all day, with the occasional refresh. But anyway, how clever are these third party software's. Would, after 2 hours, a pop up message of 'Are you still on-line? whereby you have to click OK, stop that sort of thing?

On a different point, one thing I've noticed. If I skip a search, due to on-line people or low resources, they keep appearing in subsequent searches again and again and again. However, if I attack them, they seem to be removed from a search. Either for a set amount of time or set amount of searches.

I'm not a programmer, I've no idea how these things work, but it seems like if you attack someone it lowers the chance you get of seeing them again in a search. But if you just skip people it doesn't.

This doesn't make sense to me. If I skip, it means I don't want to hack them. Reduce the chance and stop showing them.

[Luminaar]

However, if I attack them, they seem to be removed from a search. Either for a set amount of time or set amount of searches.

I believe this was a knock on effect from stopping people getting bullied or hacked multiple times in a row. The pool of remaining players it chooses from is most likely small enough (due to being on the higher Reputation side at a guess) that it ends up repeating refreshed targets while removing the previously attacked ones.

[Silken]

However, if I attack them, they seem to be removed from a search. Either for a set amount of time or set amount of searches.

I believe this was a knock on effect from stopping people getting bullied or hacked multiple times in a row. The pool of remaining players it chooses from is most likely small enough (due to being on the higher Reputation side at a guess) that it ends up repeating refreshed targets while removing the previously attacked ones.

Yes I understand, but it isn't exactly my point. What I basically mean is, lets say I search and see you. I don't want to attack you so I search again. You come up, I pay for another search and you come up again. I pay again and you come up again.

Now if I attack you, you come up 20 searches later. That's fine.

But if attacking people drops them back 20 searches, why can't skipping you make you come back in 10 searches. or even 5. It's insane watching the same person appear 5 times in a row.

My level range, of people I see in searches, is between 19 - 41. There has to be enough people in the game, at those levels, not to see the same person all the time.

[Luminaar]

Yes I understand, but it isn't exactly my point. What I basically mean is, lets say I search and see you. I don't want to attack you so I search again. You come up, I pay for another search and you come up again. I pay again and you come up again.

However, if I attack them, they seem to be removed from a search. [...] I've no idea how these things work.

Aye, sorry my reply was short. I understood your meaning, I was just giving an explanation to the query above. Of course, the point you're making (and one that I agree with too) is that if you're paying to skip someone, you don't want them showing up on every search afterwards.

[CerberusArc]

However, if I attack them, they seem to be removed from a search. Either for a set amount of time or set amount of searches.

I believe this was a knock on effect from stopping people getting bullied or hacked multiple times in a row. The pool of remaining players it chooses from is most likely small enough (due to being on the higher Reputation side at a guess) that it ends up repeating refreshed targets while removing the previously attacked ones.

Yes I understand, but it isn't exactly my point. What I basically mean is, lets say I search and see you. I don't want to attack you so I search again. You come up, I pay for another search and you come up again. I pay again and you come up again.

Now if I attack you, you come up 20 searches later. That's fine.

But if attacking people drops them back 20 searches, why can't skipping you make you come back in 10 searches. or even 5. It's insane watching the same person appear 5 times in a row.

My level range, of people I see in searches, is between 19 - 41. There has to be enough people in the game, at those levels, not to see the same person all the time.

Totally agree. This happens to me all the time. Will probably get better with "more people playing the game" I am, however, somewhat tired of hearing that excuse from both devs and other posters. The algorithm should do things intelligently regardless of how many people are playing the game. There seriously can't be only 5 flipping people to hack, no matter where you are at level or rep. If that is actually the case, then I would argue that the search parameters need to be expanded to include a broader range of players. Of course, there needs to be enough limitation to prevent abuse of lower players, but perhaps it is too tight atm.