Discussion Guild Battlegrounds Watchtower and Siege Camp Ability Re-balance

[King Flush]

I'm not surprised. We won't be seeing any when this change goes live. Traps are kryptonite to the farming model and, despite what a few players here have claimed, GBG has been about farming for over 2 years.

why do you always say 'when it goes live' there's no inevitability that it will, don't get me wrong my understanding is that the devs don't really listen to what the community has to say in recent times but just maybe they will do on this one.

 

[King Flush]

Aw come on. Any player averaging 25K battles monthly is fully aware that GBG ain't about competition between guilds. It's about competition between guildmates (i.e. as long as I get mine I'm fine) and farming.

current model has allowed many campaigns of great competition I'd say a good 75% of the time we have other strong guilds or mid level guilds to keep in check there's plenty of races for sectors and such and tactics are in play to achieve the upperhand.

 

[shad2389]

On en server there is a thread about this and most are unhappy with this change if implemented lots of players will be unhappy

 

[Yekk]

This already happens all the time with or without changes? Big guilds not wanting to have to raise their own instead go to the small-medium guilds to recruit. Anyone hanging out in such a guild is surely familiar with the regular recruitment messages.

Wrong... there is a limit to how many fighters a guild could have in diamond. If to many they stepped on each other and saw less fights. If the nerf happens that changes just as Owl put up

 

[Pericles the Lion]

why do you always say 'when it goes live' there's no inevitability that it will, don't get me wrong my understanding is that the devs don't really listen to what the community has to say in recent times but just maybe they will do on this one.

Re-read the announcement.

"We always envisioned attrition to be an important factor. Previously, these province buildings could be stacked to the extent — that when an adjacent province is conquered — guilds could effectively completely nullify the chance of receiving attrition. Stacking Siege Camps and Watchtowers, therefore, became too powerful and caused significant balancing issues between different guilds and players."

They aren't going to walk this back.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

current model has allowed many campaigns of great competition I'd say a good 75% of the time we have other strong guilds or mid level guilds to keep in check there's plenty of races for sectors and such and tactics are in play to achieve the upperhand.

You underestimate the experience of your audience. The only race that you run is on the opening round of each season. Race to the center, hope to capture 7-9 sectors, then parlay with the other top guilds for a swap treaty. Afterwards, for the next 10+ days, it's swapping. The SC change will throw a monkey wrench into this "current model" as you well know.

 

[King Flush]

Re-read the announcement.

"We always envisioned attrition to be an important factor. Previously, these province buildings could be stacked to the extent — that when an adjacent province is conquered — guilds could effectively completely nullify the chance of receiving attrition. Stacking Siege Camps and Watchtowers, therefore, became too powerful and caused significant balancing issues between different guilds and players."

They aren't going to walk this back.

so they always envisaged attrition to be an important factor, in my mind it already is an important factor, I don't know anyone in our guild who doesn't get attritioned out, I've said before when there's important high attrition races sometimes I can be attritioned out within first hour after reset, the statement makes no sense when it was designed they must have known that stacking SC's would at times provide zero attrition gains it's like saying we didn't know that 2 + 2 would = 4 so it all sounds like BS to me, but still it is being tested on Beta the majority think it's a terrible idea both sides have suggested they ought to work on how the league system works so hopefully they will listen.

 

[xivarmy]

Wrong... there is a limit to how many fighters a guild could have in diamond. If to many they stepped on each other and saw less fights. If the nerf happens that changes just as Owl put up

Ok, the recruitment messages I get regularly from top guilds are completely in my imagination.

There's always *some* guild looking for more players and spamming anyone they think might plausibly be available. The people who don't go either aren't up to standards, and still won't be - or aren't interested (and that may or may not change depending on whether the changes increase their interest)

 

[King Flush]

You underestimate the experience of your audience. The only race that you run is on the opening round of each season. Race to the center, hope to capture 7-9 sectors, then parlay with the other top guilds for a swap treaty. Afterwards, for the next 10+ days, it's swapping. The SC change will throw a monkey wrench into this "current model" as you well know.

well silly me, being a GBG leader who is on the map a stupid amount each day I don't know what I've been seeing in all this time I must have been imagining all the races etc then, further more it's these races that bring everyone together if you were to look at our target thread we have races and people get involved from the regular hitters to the part time players and at the end of the race you either get 'that was fun!' kind of comments or 'oh bugger. that was annoying' either way it provides an emotional response from an aspect of the game really the only part of the game that provides this. Answer me this would there even be races post nerf? and if so please be real with me and agree that there will be far far less.

 

[Yekk]

Ok, the recruitment messages I get regularly from top guilds are completely in my imagination.

There's always *some* guild looking for more players and spamming anyone they think might plausibly be available. The people who don't go either aren't up to standards, and still won't be - or aren't interested (and that may or may not change depending on whether the changes increase their interest)

People come and go so you will see such messages but there was a perfect number of fighters for GBG. Where all could fight pretty much as they liked. Once that point is passed players left for other guilds. Sometimes more than was needed. As I put earlier 60 guilds in diamond on my world most of which excepting the poor platinum's forced unfairly to have to move to diamond getting fights. Again once the nerf happens weaker guilds may find they can not compete. Their fighters may go to the best who will use traps to stop small rogue guilds and again unfairly moved up platinum's to work a checkboard. More flips can be done then. Flips against a weak guild may take days as they do not have the fighters...

 

[TheSovereign]

The explanation of the the attrition calculation with sc and castles in the announcement made no sense to me. I can't tell how much attrition reduction to expect from a mixture of camps and castles. Either Inno purposely explains things poorly or they don't have anyone that knows how to write. Has anyone figured out how the calculation works?
I've lost interest in this world due to the effort spent building my city to fight in gbg, it was only about 2 seasons ago that I became strong enough to do hundreds of fights if we could get enough camps for near zero attrition. Now it is just about 25 to 50 fights I can do daily and gbg is done for the day. It is disappointing that after 2.5 years of working on a strategy both here and in my home server it might be all for naught. If the rules can change so drastically at any point in time there is a huge risk in building a city towards a strategy. All I can do is make a general purpose city that is good at nothing in particular. There is zero incentive to do events for specialty buildings to increase attack bonus. And if I don't need goods for gbg then I also don't need the specialty goods buildings. Goods will go back to before gbg and become just about worthless. It seems pointless to me to build more than 3 sc as the fourth one doesn't provide much of anything. Next they will throttle back the Arc bonus because it is too big of an advantage. In order to rebalance the game we are making ARC 80 becomes 1.8x and there is a .05 gain for each level above 80. You need ARC 100 for 1.9x. We are also applying a multiplier factor to any cities that make more than 300 forge points per day Gains above 300 are reduced by 20 % , gains above 500 are reduced by 47% and any above 700 are reduced by 86%. If your city collects more than 500 forge points in any single day you must pay a tax of 19% of your gains. Additionally, we have determined that it is unfair for large and strong guilds to help their members level buildings with 1.9x and 1.92x threads, effective next Monday you will no longer be allowed to contribute forge points to any one in your guild. We've determined this change is necessary for fairness. Finally, to maintain momentum in the game and for rebalancing purposes you are no longer allowed to have any great buildings from an era that is above the one you are currently in. Any city with a GB above its era on Sept 1 will have those GB removed from the city. Owners will be compensated with the goods cost for the GB. The time between now and Sept 1 will provide you a grace period to get your city to the era of your GB.

This cave-in to woke thinking and 'equality for everyone' and it's "No Child Left Behind" effect has broken my interest in the whole game. I've said it before, if this abomination appears on my two production worlds, I'll just disconnect my roads and walk away. Two and 1/2 years and I will have arrived at "GAME OVER!"

 

[TheSovereign]

well silly me, being a GBG leader who is on the map a stupid amount each day I don't know what I've been seeing in all this time I must have been imagining all the races etc then, further more it's these races that bring everyone together if you were to look at our target thread we have races and people get involved from the regular hitters to the part time players and at the end of the race you either get 'that was fun!' kind of comments or 'oh bugger. that was annoying' either way it provides an emotional response from an aspect of the game really the only part of the game that provides this. Answer me this would there even be races post nerf? and if so please be real with me and agree that there will be far far less.

When none of the racers could even finish the contested target tile by themselves, How many times a day would they even be able to participate in ANY races??? So much for your 'guildly' rapport and comraderie!!! PFFFFffffTTT. GAME OVER!!!!

 

[shad2389]

Went to check fr server forum they also have a thread about this and they also don't seem to like the change

 

[Thunderdome]

Why would it impact your motivation? You'd still want the reward.

You and I are both mid-level players where it has affected us somewhat. The high-level players would not be severely affected than your small player (like the one who had posted of their experience since this change started). This was what I was talking about when this change will undeniably deprive the smaller player of the motivation to participate. Had Inno capped the fights instead, everyone would be happy (because no one gives a rat's posterior end on how a free-farmer/botter would feel for having their fights reduced).

And if this keeps the large guilds from dominating the map because they max out earlier, then it gives the smaller guilds the opportunity to take more tiles.

It just depends, mate.

A sector in Diamond is 160 progress points. Below are a few examples of a team of 4 (throwing this about):

4x High Level Players (aka Big)
• Without the SC/WT in place, each with 40 attrition can take a single sector.
• With the cap in place, they may take two or more sectors before reaching 40 attrition each.
• Without the SC/WT in place, they can take 3 sectors (and some) before reaching 100 attrition.
• With the cap in place, they can take 2-3 more sectors; even if they push towards 120 attrition. 150, you can figure how many more.

4x Average/Mid Level Players (aka Medium)
• Without the SC/WT in place, each can fill a sector up to 40 attrition. The final member will take the sector.
• With the cap in place, they will take a full sector, and work on the next one, if they are lucky.
• Without the SC/WT in place, a team of four might take two if they are going towards 60 attrition.
• With the cap in place, they will take up to 3 sectors by 60 attrition. Can be a 4th if circumstances brings them luck.

4x Low Level Players (aka Small)
• Without the SC/WT in place, they won't be able to take a sector. I've seen where they have their max attrition set to 10 or 15. Based on that number, the progress meter will be 40, up to 60 for a team of four on a 160 progress sector.
• With the cap in place, they still won't be able to take a full sector. 120 progress at best.
• Since they only can go up to 10 or 15 attrition by starting out, they will have to wait until reset to resume.
• To take 1 sector, they will have to do fights about 30 minutes prior to reset, and then at reset, try again.

If attrition is the same as rewards obtaining (after each battle) per day
• High Level Players will get 120 to 150 reward instances.
• Mid Level Players will get 40 to 60 reward instances.
• Low Level Players will get 10 to 15 reward instances.

These examples are with a sample of 4 members. Numbers can vary along with the motivation of said players involved. A low level player will lose all motivation for obtaining a small amount of rewards, but they will feel useless because they won't feel that they contribute very much in terms of fighting than their fellow guildies. In guilds that would institute quotas (number of fights/negos or minimum scores) per season, this change puts a damper on those small players who found a place to try and grow but won't be able to.

 

[CrashBoom]

post nerf it will be more important to hold sectors rather than flip them traps are a way to achieve that, we'll see or hopefully we won't and whether traps are used or not it's still a terrible idea.

then one goal would be accomplished

finally guilds will battle for better final place

because with the old SC no top guild really cared if they made 1st or 2nd.



PS
I would like to see traps in every sector

 

[blueskydwg]

Players getting over 1K fights per day are not going to like the change.
I know I personally won't like the change in my main city.
But there actually are lots and lots of players who don't get 1K or more fights per day. That's the majority of players.
This change may provide opportunities to some players who fit in that niche. If it provides more opportunity and more incentive for my guild member who only meet our required minimum, then that helps the guild experience.
The purpose of this forum in Beta is to provide feedback on actual observations - not just opinions on things you can only guess at if you have no actual experience.

If you haven't actually experienced a battlegrounds season in Beta then your comments in this thread are meaningless.

 

[Emberguard]

Bases should have a default attrition additive of 50%

That would definitely go a long way for preventing a unwinnable position

 

[Owl II]

Am I the "you" you reference? If so, yes I do think this will allow some amount of opportunity for the smaller guilds if they want it. (And that's a major if - some will, some won't). Just take a look at our current map. One week into this season and there are three tiles that have never been acquired. In seasons past we would have sucked up everything available and swapped with anyone (except KYP of course LOL) that could keep up with us. This season we don't bother with the small stuff. And is that because our heavy hitters are maxing out attrition? Can't think of another reason.

Maybe because it's boring and everyone is tired of it? the map is gray without locks since the beginning of the season, only the center changes color from time to time. We don't even put up buildings already, because it's pointless. But you still want to see it as a positive

 

[Owl II]

then I'm at a loss at how you are getting more fights maybe your guild is competitive but it's just simply you who doesn't try?

no desire to set a city up on Beta, don't have the time for that.

But my fights in general soared to the sky! I had 0 fights in previous seasons because I wasn't there. There's something wrong with causality

 

[King Flush]

If you haven't actually experienced a battlegrounds season in Beta then your comments in this thread are meaningless.

what a very strange thing to say, this is not the case in any other situation in RL, people have views and input on all sorts of things based on information given rather than experience, you can make informed input. It's like saying there's no point having elections, peoples votes are irrelevant because they haven't witnessed the current parties in charge, people shouldn't campaign about climate change because they haven't experienced another few degrees of global warming, it might actually be a good thing for a reduction in the ice caps increase in forest fires etc etc.