Feedback Guild Battlegrounds Update 2021

[jovada]

For the negative feedback in general in the forums: You all have to consider, that mostly the high developed players write in the forum (in the beta forum especially). This of course gives a perspective of the most active users, but not the majority of players. I don't want to say, that your feedback in the forum does not matter, but what I want to tell is, that this is not the only source of feedback.
Of course I try to forward your feedback as accurately as possible!

Have you ever thought that the most feedback comes from guildleaders ?? So i represent about 200 active players as a feedback.
I'm sure that others here also are leaders and representing not only their oppinion but speak for their guild to.
So i think that the feedback given is pretty what the majority of players think.

Other source of feedback is probably the same as with the first attempt pvp-arena, massive negative feedback here, other sources (never told us wich cause that was a big secret again) were very possitive we heard here, they moved as test on the EN-server because we were not representive enough and guess what after 2 days more then 30 negative pages so they quickly removed it again.

 

[drakenridder]

they moved as test on the EN-server because we were not representive enough and guess what after 2 days more then 30 negative pages so they quickly removed it again.

New achievement unlocked: The irony

 

[jovada]

Here a fine example how fair the new map is

the guild above surrounded by 3 provinces, 4 free slots, province in front HQ is 71 points, total for 3 provinces is 109 points (average 33.33)
the guild under surrounded by 4 provinces , 1 free slot, province in front HQ is 46 points, total for 4 provinces is 130 points (average 32.5)

 

[Yekk]

This is definitely not true. The chance the receive a reward stayed the same.

Back in I believe Nov. of 2019(??) the original drop rate of SoH fragments was increased to 50%. The current rate of Elephant fragments is 11-12%.

You asked if whether the new map should be a copy of the old map. No it should not be but some item drops should be the same %. Fragments and Forge Points especially.

With the fact there are two maps now it takes twice as long to build a fully leveled Great Elephant if percentages are the same but they are now at 1/4th the rate which means it will take 8 times the time to build. I can not see this as intended and wonder if the original code was used as a template for drop rates instead of the revised drop rate.

Drop rate percentage 702 fragments in 6282 fights=11%, 4 days in, as per my top fighter on live.

 

[terim]

45 Elephant fragments in 441 fights */- 10%

 

[podkap1970]

12412 fights in 2 GBG's and i got 1475 fragments (deleted the 2x78 fragments from 2x reward chests already)
thats ~11,9%

 

[Yekk]

This is an improvement, that could be done the the waterfall map, yes. But for this I don't know how difficult it would be to change the current 6-8 guild per battleground to something else with max 6 guilds. The Vulcano also has 6-8 guilds on a map. It is also unfair for some, when there are less than 8 guilds for example.

Well, isn't this a change that should be made to every map and not just one new map?

This would lead to problems, especially on smaller leagues. There, it is common, that guilds have the same amount of sectors for around the same amount of time. What do you do in the case 2 guilds have the same amount of LPs and the same amount of sectors? How do you determine, which guild was better? It is better do have a bit of variation, especially, if it encourages guild do place cheap flags or other buildings, that provide more LPs.

Simple... number of total fights done as a first tiebreaker. Again coding is easy. Guilds could change buildings also to gain a higher finish.

I am also for a 6 guild max in diamond league with the 2 HQ spots with 0 in tile slots unused. A small change that would make a big difference well worth a try on a future beta GBG. At 8 guilds is is unfair to at least 2 guilds already...

 

[DEADP00L]

 

[Pericles the Lion]

@Deadpool, are these stats for Beta? The reason I'm asking is that it's not similar to what I'm seeing in my main city on T. There, with 2646 battles, I collected 34.9% FPS, 25.2% Frags, and 15.3% goods/supplies. Compared with over 100K battles on Volcano, the FPs are the same but the frags are fewer because it seems that the good/supplies fraction are coming out of the frags percentage. If your stats are exclusively Beta then the question is will they migrate to the live server?

 

[DEADP00L]

No, it is the data collected on two live servers.
I do not pretend to say that this data is reliable, it will become so by collecting the data with precision.
Give me 2 to 3 GbG waterfalls to refine the %

 

[xivarmy]

@Deadpool, are these stats for Beta? The reason I'm asking is that it's not similar to what I'm seeing in my main city on T. There, with 2646 battles, I collected 34.9% FPS, 25.2% Frags, and 15.3% goods/supplies. Compared with over 100K battles on Volcano, the FPs are the same but the frags are fewer because it seems that the good/supplies fraction are coming out of the frags percentage. If your stats are exclusively Beta then the question is will they migrate to the live server?

His %s are overall, your %s are when you won any prize. so i.e. 15.53/49.04 = 31.6% FP to be comparable to yours. There are of course differences because they're both just samples, but they're about the same

 

[iPenguinPat]

For the negative feedback in general in the forums: You all have to consider, that mostly the high developed players write in the forum (in the beta forum especially). This of course gives a perspective of the most active users, but not the majority of players. I don't want to say, that your feedback in the forum does not matter, but what I want to tell is, that this is not the only source of feedback.
Of course I try to forward your feedback as accurately as possible!

Have you ever thought that the most feedback comes from guildleaders ?? So i represent about 200 active players as a feedback.
I'm sure that others here also are leaders and representing not only their oppinion but speak for their guild to.
So i think that the feedback given is pretty what the majority of players think.

Other source of feedback is probably the same as with the first attempt pvp-arena, massive negative feedback here, other sources (never told us wich cause that was a big secret again) were very possitive we heard here, they moved as test on the EN-server because we were not representive enough and guess what after 2 days more then 30 negative pages so they quickly removed it again.

With respect to the feedback from developed players - that should have more weight and be more important than simply random players that are not experienced with the game. Casual or new players are least affected by these types of changes because they do not utilize most of these features. They might even "like" the changes without even noticing the effects on their gameplay. Simple cosmetic changes are often enough to dazzle casual players thatdo not play the game in a competitive way.

Not to say that their feedback isn't important, useful, valuable, etc. More to say that oftentimes they don't even understand the differences they are giving feedback on in the first place. They have no frame of reference to understand the impact. For example, those types of players might give positive feedback about a new map because it looks nice and yet, they have never played in a gbg league where there's ever been a single race and/or they've never seen every single sector on a map taken. Frankly, who cares what that person thinks about the new gbg map? Their opinion has literally no value with respect to the functionality or playability of said new map. that's just one simple example.

As jovada said, many of the people responding here represent far more than just ourselves. Guild leaders speak with their guildmates, with other guild leaders, and the members of those other guilds. Players like mooingcat or me have large audiences of players that speak with us in channels outside of Forge and give feedback about their experience with the game. That's not to say that our individual opinions matter more than others, they don't, but we have a much wider perspective of general players sentiment than any random casual player.

Furthermore, feedback from "other sources" is a bit dubious. I can only think of 1 time that I've been asked to provide feedback about something ingame. it was a survey about how i liked an event and whether i thought the prizes and quests are good/balanced etc. I've never had any requests for feedback with respect to any other feature of the game, nor has anyone else that i know personally. And i know a lot of players.... So I'm at a total loss as to where this other feedback is coming from.

If the other source is simply collected user data - remember that all data has to be looked and and understood within a context. Making GBG a 24/7 game feature might have triggered players to get on and play more frequently and for longer amounts of time. But it also could lead to burnout and many players quitting. Ramping up playtime doesn't necessarily mean greater game enjoyment. Right before I retired from regular play, I was playing the most i have ever played. Point being that simple usage data doesn't tell the whole story without asking players how the feel about things. #justsayin

 

[MJ Artisan of War]

The "other feedback" is from the accounting dept. LOL

 

[DEADP00L]

For my part, I think that the mystery players are made up of operators and moderators from different countries who play on a very accelerated version and who therefore have a distorted view.

Even if the mystery players exist, why would their feedback have more value than a hundred regular players who themselves represent tens or even hundreds of members?

I would honestly prefer Inno to tell us that our comments are worthless other than bug reports that this type of one-sided dialogue.

 

[Kronan]

I want to ask, and paint some broad-brush strokes here. For the most part, we're down in the valley doing detailed technical work on the feeds and speeds of GbG 2. I want to pop up the stack a bit.

What PROBLEM was GBG 2 created to solve? Are the both visible AND invisible changes addressing the concerns from us, or their own? OR some of both. Do we know what they are?

Has anyone made a "concern list", and if so, is there any agreement as to what the top 5 things wrong with GbG 1 that would make it add more to Inno's bottom line (from their perspective?)


Other impressions. No - I am not spending my RL quantifying these "impressions", but appreciate those members here and their time investment to demonstrate those points. Thank you fellow geeks. Because of what you posted, I keep nodding my head.

YES YES YES that's what I'm seeing too (without generating that impeccable detail myself).

See if you nod your head too on GBG 1 & now GbG 2.

1) GBG 1 is 2 years old. Nov 2019 birthday.
2) We all wanted to treat it initially as players in GvG do - King of the Hill.
3) Fighting slowly gave way to cooperation (Economic Game Theory RULZ!)
4) We got used to feeding at the trough each week, and player life was good. FoE collect a little, FOE FIGHT a lot, get FOE rich, play more golf.
5) But deep in the forest in the big castle, alarm bells were sounding.
6) People wholesale turn their cities in cyborgs boosting machine, TUNED for GbG. Great for GbG, bad for FoE historic game design.
7) Bad software was created, and sad to say, used to circumvent fair playing in FoE.
8) More alarm bells, and counteracting game changes which many have said damage the fabric of the entire game.
9) Inno tries to slow the "heroin" drip of FREE FREE FREE GbG good stuff (FP - the runaway train of the GbG game. Changing reward ratios!
10) Users loved 2 years of cheap/easy/free, but it hurts the bottom line of any corporation, so it gets "modified" and rebalanced.
11) Inno first tries quiet changes in the last 2 months of GbG 1, that become visible through collective sharing and sleuthing.
a) AI changes increasing predatory defense GbG postures and tactics
b) Slowing gameplay by reducing autobattle effectiveness @ speedy fighting. Creating back-to-back orthogonal defense armies.
c) Adding rewards that don't resonate with users that started day 1, with GbG 1.

So here we are. GbG 2 is released.

What are we going to advise Inno to do? Do we understand where we are as users, collectively? How can we help them more understand where we are as players?

Here's were we are now:

Let's start with: Every 4 hours, for 10 days, rest for 3, and repeat to infinity.

Work harder @ it, get much less from it (than GbG 1), and keep doing it. Does that does spell " E N J O Y M E N T"?

Really?

 

[drakenridder]

With respect to the feedback from developed players - that should have more weight and be more important than simply random players that are not experienced with the game. Casual or new players are least affected by these types of changes because they do not utilize most of these features. They might even "like" the changes without even noticing the effects on their gameplay. Simple cosmetic changes are often enough to dazzle casual players thatdo not play the game in a competitive way.

Not to say that their feedback isn't important, useful, valuable, etc. More to say that oftentimes they don't even understand the differences they are giving feedback on in the first place. They have no frame of reference to understand the impact. For example, those types of players might give positive feedback about a new map because it looks nice and yet, they have never played in a gbg league where there's ever been a single race and/or they've never seen every single sector on a map taken. Frankly, who cares what that person thinks about the new gbg map? Their opinion has literally no value with respect to the functionality or playability of said new map. that's just one simple example.

As jovada said, many of the people responding here represent far more than just ourselves. Guild leaders speak with their guildmates, with other guild leaders, and the members of those other guilds. Players like mooingcat or me have large audiences of players that speak with us in channels outside of Forge and give feedback about their experience with the game. That's not to say that our individual opinions matter more than others, they don't, but we have a much wider perspective of general players sentiment than any random casual player.

Furthermore, feedback from "other sources" is a bit dubious. I can only think of 1 time that I've been asked to provide feedback about something ingame. it was a survey about how i liked an event and whether i thought the prizes and quests are good/balanced etc. I've never had any requests for feedback with respect to any other feature of the game, nor has anyone else that i know personally. And i know a lot of players.... So I'm at a total loss as to where this other feedback is coming from.

If the other source is simply collected user data - remember that all data has to be looked and and understood within a context. Making GBG a 24/7 game feature might have triggered players to get on and play more frequently and for longer amounts of time. But it also could lead to burnout and many players quitting. Ramping up playtime doesn't necessarily mean greater game enjoyment. Right before I retired from regular play, I was playing the most i have ever played. Point being that simple usage data doesn't tell the whole story without asking players how the feel about things. #justsayin

It nearly feels like asking an children for advice and feedback on new laws as an government. Then calling them "other" sources and justifying an undesirable new tax system based off the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the "other" sources. It just doesn't feels right as once they reaching the level of understanding to see the implementations and impact they'll change their mind similar to the adults. Who've foreseen its an bad idea yet it's a little too late and then those children who became adults are removed from the "other" sources list.

In any case the new GbG map similarly to Mughal empire can be made as beautiful and appealing all they want. Yet as long it's plagued by flaws undercutting the features fundamentally it remains poorly executed and flawed. metaphorically it like 2 boxes. One is the up most beautiful and appealing box you can imagine. It's content however are broken tools. The other box is an uninteresting looking regular box. It's content however are perfectly functioning tools. Which box would you buy and which box would you be proud of selling? The pretty box with broken tools, or the regular box with great tools?
In both the Mughal empire and GbG Inno chooses to making the boxes as beautiful as they can get. Yet the tools remain broken. In the end of the day it doesn't matter how many "other" sources are falling for the appeal of pretty boxes. As an box with broken tools remains a box with broken tools. While I like the artwork (the box), it's useless as long the execution of the features behind it are broken (the broken tools).
All we players and in particular Beta players are asking from Inno is to fixing the features (the broken tools). Not the looks (the boxes). Yet for just asking, begging and advices to fixing the addressed problems even with providing solutions all we get is neglected, hollow promises, told we are no good representatives (cause we are the "loud" minority, laughing hard in our guild members) and when an cm goes above and beyond asking our questions they don't know how quickly the cm must be silenced. Do the dev really not understand that such is making communities angry, disappointed, feeling neglected and worse of all losing trust while the game catches more and more fire? As more and more broken features are moved forward to live. In particular GbG and Mughal empire stings. Cause they could've been fixed ages ago. The latter easily before going live.

 

[jovada]

@drakenridder

To GbG and Mughal you can also add pvp as an example.
It was a regular box with broken tools , they removed it and replaced with a beautifull box and still the same broken tools

 

[Sibel]

Don't forget the "!" of the Castle System.

 

[Kronan]

View attachment 7640

Just want to ask here (to be perfectly clear to everyone), if some of your line items are PACKS, vs individual amounts.... FOR example:

Is Waterfall, FP 12,600 total FP, or 12,600 FP 10 packs (meaning 126,000 total FP)?

It probably needs a bit of qualification to put the values in the right perspective

Diamonds? Same question, etc. Goods, same question, etc.

 

[DEADP00L]

Whether for diamonds, units, goods, FP, I am not talking about a pack.
12,600 FP = 1,260 pack of 10 FP