Ghost Strategy

[nocturnalbamf]

To counter the shield, you just need to sit on your ass and retrace/connect to the target's network for 3 hours at most and you'll get to hack them. Ez.

Someone shouldn't have to spend 3 hours sitting there spamming retrace while the other person can just go AFK.

Exactly, Why should I have to actually sit on my phone when the other player is not. If this were a console game and you sat your controller down and walk away, you would be an easy target. In this case you become an invisible target and its absurd. Lurk for you to suggest spamming retrace for 3 hours straight is easy says a lot about what you do in life. Me personally, I have 2 jobs, Go to school and have a 2 year daughter. I don't have the time to sit and spam retrace for a max of 3 hours, and I don't think it makes the game fun. Thats what this exploit takes advantage of, that people don't have the time to retrace.

You know what is ez though, making a new account and leveling up to 28.

[nocturnalbamf]

After much discussion with other players in chat, I still think the best solutions to fix all the issues and to make this game interesting and challenging again is as follows:

1. If you are on the leaderboard then everyone can find you on world map, no matter your level.
------This would prevent smurfing and easy rep riding
------This would also make leveling up necessary and mean something again.

2. If you are "online" but not actually chatting or hacking the game times you out.
------This would prevent ghosting a little but not entirely.
------This will require actual activity to be protected for being active

3. If you are constantly active for 14-16 hours straight, which is a normal day as people need at least 6-8 hours of sleep, you lose your active shield for at least 8-10 hours straight instead of a small window that can be defused by someone (even an alt account) viewing you. I even think short term ban might still be necessary to prevent temptation on abusing this, somewhere between 3-6 hours seems fair (go to sleep!).
------This would help #2 in preventing ghosting entirely.
------This would also reduce temptation to abuse in game mechanics and make 9sec more necessary thus bringing profit to devs again.

4. Retracing should always be able to hijack networks, unless they are in the middle of a hack (must fix that bug first!).
------This will also help #2 and #3 in preventing ghosting.
------This will also help #1 preventing Easy Rep Riding and reduce farming a little (suck it up gentleman and ladies).

*I already know some (TLR) will be upset at the thought of this and I can already look forward to ignoring his 4 paragraph complaint but as it stands, this game is turning into Ghost Smurfs riding easy rep to win. The leveling means nothing, 9sec is second best and lower levels are having a hard time advancing. Personally, I have found myself starting to do all 3. It's my philosphy to adapt to survive and "the only way to survive a mad world is to embrace the madness" so while I'm not exactly proud of how I did it, I'm still proud I have a philosphy that keeps me alive and thriving. I do however, feel the game has lost its purpose were I once worked hard to max my core, a sentry and was close to my first maxed code gate. Now, that goal seems meaningless if it means being someone's farm. Someone who cheats and prevents me from being able to defend myself.

I don't care if you disagree with me to be honest, as an engineer and a problem solver. This seems to be the best solution to the problem, to "Everyones" problem, including yours TLR.

[BIGJO]

Hi

I agree that ghost, ERRs and smurfs must be stop.
From my point of view the only thing that need to be fixed is the rep system. Making the rep gain or lost equal, 3 rep per triangle gain or lost.
This will stop ERRs and smurfs, no more 32rep to gain. You will need to put in the work to get to leaderbord and level up.
No need to use ghost strategy just to keep your rep, easier to make your rep back. No gaining 3 rep and losing 32rep.I understand that people use ghost to protect resources for the big upgrades that need high resources which is impossible to get in 3hours
Will need a system that saves like 5% of your loot from hacks thats protected.

If rep system gets fixed then players will start upgrading the nodes to compete with higher level players thus more players on each level not just the same 30 people you get to hack .

Also agree to make the retrace possible after player is for 3hours online and not hacking to stop ghost strategy. Getting hit 10 times by same player and only get one retrace in two days if lucky is not fun for anyone.

[nocturnalbamf]

Hi

I agree that ghost, ERRs and smurfs must be stop.
From my point of view the only thing that need to be fixed is the rep system. Making the rep gain or lost equal, 3 rep per triangle gain or lost.
This will stop ERRs and smurfs, no more 32rep to gain. You will need to put in the work to get to leaderbord and level up.
No need to use ghost strategy just to keep your rep, easier to make your rep back. No gaining 3 rep and losing 32rep.I understand that people use ghost to protect resources for the big upgrades that need high resources which is impossible to get in 3hours
Will need a system that saves like 5% of your loot from hacks thats protected.

If rep system gets fixed then players will start upgrading the nodes to compete with higher level players thus more players on each level not just the same 30 people you get to hack .

Also agree to make the retrace possible after player is for 3hours online and not hacking to stop ghost strategy. Getting hit 10 times by same player and only get one retrace in two days if lucky is not fun for anyone.

Much more reasonable response than the in game chat people.

While I see your point, I don't believe that will stop any of those. I would still want to stay online to protect my rep (a loss of 9 if I understanding you), while its less than 32, its still a loss. Plus, if I'm gaining 9 rep per attack, then I'm more incline to attack weaker easier targets to gain more rep easier. As for smurfing, I'm still incline to do this as it will keep me away from the higher level players some of which I know can hack me and I want to prevent that.

There was a misconception with potential solution #1. I don't know how it got misunderstood but it did. If you are top 250, or lets even say top 150, thats when you're opened to high level players being able to find you. If you are below 150, then it remains a normal search. So people can remain at lower levels, but it will be harder to climb the leaderboard, past rank 151. Its kind of strange to see low levels, above high level people. If I can beat a lv74 on the leaderboard without actually competing against them, then how is that fair (to the higher level players)? Why am I motivated to level, if all leveling does is increase my compile time, and expose me to those players. I can easily best them on the leaderboard without leveling. Now if, I am a low level and being ranked 150 exposes me to those high level players, then I am motivated to level so I can compete amoungst them. Why is that hard to understand? If you think that is messed up, then you are not understanding what smurfing is and need to stop complaining about it.

I believe people thought, that no matter the rank, you were available to these high level players. This is most certainly not the case, and I can't emphasize this enough.

[Darkness]

I am now also playing CoC too. Their system is like...You will be kicked out if you're inactive for doing nothing for 5 mins.

You will be given a 12 hours protection if your base have been destroyed over 50% or more. And 16 hour protection for 100% protection. You can attack people under protection but the protection timer will be reduced significantly if you done so but the protection won't be cancel.

I think Hackers can have a system work like this.

[nocturnalbamf]

That sounds reasonable in my opinion. The constant activity will reduce the active protection and make it easier for the victums of ERR to counter reducing the motivation to hack the defenceless.

Plus I like the AFK timeout of 5 minutes.

if gambling was allowed on here, I would wager The Lunatic Rage would still have a problem with this as it makes his "Skilled Strategy" useless and he would have to face the fact that his skills only go as deep as his wallet.

[Stricks]

Wow nice to see you again lurking lurk.

I played this game for some time and stopped months ago because of these kind of thing + defense vs offense beeing totally unbalanced.

First of all there are 2 kinds of players (of course a mix of the 2 too), the ones who just want rep and dont care about lvl and upgrade nodes (minmaxers are here), and the ones who like to upgrade, get more leveled nodes(ghost and high lvl players), me included.

For the pure reputation players, this game is good, you do a minmaxer, stop leveling and face noobs all along and just get rep, but then you have nothing else to do since you cant spend your resources (so you climb leaderboard but nothing else to do with it, game will become boring soon i assume). You can brag as beeing on top leaderboard, but you actually know you are far from the best networks as you couldnt survive against the high lvl ones, its like never losing a fight in a thousand, but you are an adult fighting only babies...

You can upgrade nodes and you will face the problem of unbalance defense vs offense, upgrading nodes dont improve your network defense that much, actually defense in this game is just there to make attackers spend more programs and time, but fight any experience player and you will not defend ever (and never fail a hack too) so upgrading nodes actually make you more vulnerable as when lvl increases the difference of def vs off increases even faster.

My experience:
The game was fun at lower lvls, but then problems arise. Crack was the first one i saw using this strategy (ghosting) while ago, i hated him so much doig this abuse of shield! Then i realized i needed to do the same to survive on this game and i did (almost like the thread creator) but after a while doing this i realized the game became just a shitty game with no more fun and objectives.

I didnt care much about rep and liked the idea of upgrading nodes to make a better upgraded network (minmax is not an option to me because i wanted upgrade nodes) but on more high lvls you face problems as lurking reported above making impossible to normal people gather enought resourced to upgrade nodes even more.

There are a lot of possible solutions for the problems, but doesnt look like devs will do nothing anytime soon, since i left for months and the problems are the same, devs i assume already stop caring for this game.

Top ranks on everyones search would stop minmaxers because they could no longer brag about rep, but this will only f**k the only players that are still having some fun in this game, making now all players face the big and real problem on this game, def vs off unbalanced. Without fixing this i see no future on this game...

P.S.: why i am back? To see how the game are going, a lot less active players on my range - lvl 59- these days, making easier to upgrade nodes and will take some days once i face lurking problems again, but probably will leave the game soon, since as i see no improvements were done!

[Alfatrion]

Minmaxing is not about not leveling up your nodes, but simply doing so in away that provides the maximum advantage for the minimum amount of reputation. There was a player here who tried to not level anything up. He claimed that this was the solution. He found out that as his reputation rose, he came against other players who did level there stuff and found that this approach did not work.

Being on top leaderboard can not be accomplished by only leveling up your nodes to a certain degree. At the top you will find other players who are successful too and you have a challenge.

[Stricks]

Sorry to tell you but if upgrade nodes (getting lvl) you end up on the same pool with everyone and will not have sucess, i tought i was clear about what kind of minmax i was referring (the ones stop at some lvl point so it hides from most players), you can minmax and keep leveling, but you will then end up on the same pool and actually this is the usual way of lvling up anyway (not the minmaxer i refer above)

Also with higher lvls you are vulnerable since offense exponentially get better than defense to a point your only defense is not beeing found on the network or hoping you are in a pool that you are not a target because of better targets around

[Darkness]

Sorry to tell you but if upgrade nodes (getting lvl) you end up on the same pool with everyone and will not have sucess, i tought i was clear about what kind of minmax i was referring (the ones stop at some lvl point so it hides from most players), you can minmax and keep leveling, but you will then end up on the same pool and actually this is the usual way of lvling up anyway (not the minmaxer i refer above)

Also with higher lvls you are vulnerable since offense exponentially get better than defense to a point your only defense is not beeing found on the network or hoping you are in a pool that you are not a target because of better targets around

And at around 1.7k Rep, you will face more challenging bases too even you have slightly OP programs. You also need to defend higher lv minmaxer who will hunt you down too (if they have good enough Protectors).

Minmaxing is a strategy to highly boost the programs lv you have. But you also need to know what you did best on every lvling up decision. You also need to face the problem having to face other minmaxers. If you just skip all minmaxers, then you will know you're the bottom of those minmaxers too lol.

It's complicated but usually fun to challenge 10 lv+ players too.

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And everything will fall after people started to spam shockers everywhere. (and that's why I am so afraid to go beyond 30 lv either you will face 18 l v beam+ guy or shocker spammer)