Discussion Guild Battlegrounds Watchtower and Siege Camp Ability Re-balance

[jovada]

Fighting is part of the game since the beginning because the global ranking is determined by GvG what nothing else than fighting. I wouldn't say FOE is a simple city builder game. It is more complex than that and fighting always has been an important part of it.

I never said something else , just like you i say it's a part of the game, i only answered to a person claiming it's the only interesting thing of the game.
But of course i'm only a limited person who wants a fair game and enjoying every aspect of the game, how should i know that only GbG counts i'm to limited.

 

[Hell gate]

I never said something else , just like you i say it's a part of the game, i only answered to a person claiming it's the only interesting thing of the game.
But of course i'm only a limited person who wants a fair game and enjoying every aspect of the game, how should i know that only GbG counts i'm to limited.

Why are you saying the GbG is unfair?
Every player and guild have the chance to build themselves up, their fighting skills, their activity, their treasury.
If someone take your sector you have the chance to take it back after 4 hours. One guild can't dominate the map but easier to cry unfairness than to organize an active membership.

 

[jovada]

Why are you saying the GbG is unfair?
Every player and guild have the chance to build themselves up, their fighting skills, their activity, their treasury.
If someone take your sector you have the chance to take it back after 4 hours. One guild can't dominate the map but easier to cry unfairness than to organize an active membership.

Nothing wrong with what you say here , that is a normal competition.

Wanting a fair game i proposed 1 slot in each sector everybody equal from the start , not some only 1 slot surrounding hq and others 5, you don't even have to nerf camps that way and some sectors surrounded by 4 or 5 other sectors even could be taken with 0 attrition but not all day long.

But all day long with 0 attrition is not normal, some cited McDonalds or pizzahut and not receiving a hamburger or so.
Let me use the Tour de France, some are clean and others take "epo" to climb higher and higher.

 

[The Babelus]

GBG second season showed interesting thing. Our 30 headed guild now more sucessfull. We have good fighters, however we use to spend minutes rather than hours (all whole days) to play gbg. Now it makes quite a big difference between ability reach attrition 40-50 or 80-100. Bad for starting or moderate players with attack lift 400/300. They won’t be able to farm enough FPs to make faster progress in game and reach level of old high end players
Personally I’m in CE with 1000/800 and able to reach attrition 95, which means up to 250 fights daily. Still enough. I’d vote for Cap to be 75%. But even 66% is ok. Anyway I’d change building slots layout on all maps. Would give more slots to the edge and less to the center, to give smaller guilds more chance to do fights daily. Even the starting sector could work automaticially with power of 2 siege camps. This would give even more balance

 

[Hell gate]

Nothing wrong with what you say here , that is a normal competition.

Wanting a fair game i proposed 1 slot in each sector everybody equal from the start , not some only 1 slot surrounding hq and others 5, you don't even have to nerf camps that way and some sectors surrounded by 4 or 5 other sectors even could be taken with 0 attrition but not all day long.

But all day long with 0 attrition is not normal, some cited McDonalds or pizzahut and not receiving a hamburger or so.
Let me use the Tour de France, some are clean and others take "epo" to climb higher and higher.

Do you mean 1 slot on every sector or 1 slot on the sectors around the HQ?

 

[jovada]

Do you mean 1 slot on every sector or 1 slot on the sectors around the HQ?

1 slot in every sector on the map , of course the big guilds will control the middle and have more chances to fight with 2,3 or even 4 camps and that's normal if they are the best , but smaller guilds when they take a sector will also have at least 1 slot or maybe a second sector so they can use 2 slots, now small guilds if they are unlucky can even take 4 sectors around hq and still only have 1 slot.

 

[Hell gate]

Why do you think you all who voted yes this change will have a positive effect on the game?
As I see it the active players will slowly leave the game, those who buy diamonds, those who active more times a day. There won't be any reason for them to remain active. This will slowly kill not just the GBG but the whole game.
The real solution would be to reform the matchmaking system - put similar guilds in strength and activity in a group.

 

[Hell gate]

1 slot in every sector on the map , of course the big guilds will control the middle and have more chances to fight with 2,3 or even 4 camps and that's normal if they are the best , but smaller guilds when they take a sector will also have at least 1 slot or maybe a second sector so they can use 2 slots, now small guilds if they are unlucky can even take 4 sectors around hq and still only have 1 slot.

This is only true on the waterfall map. On the volcano map there is at least one slot before the HQ. If you put one slot to every sector on the waterfall the swap will continue and the small guilds will be beached. It won't solve your problem. The only solution to match the small guilds with other small guilds and big ones with other big ones.é In this case every guild can fight as much as they want or what their activity and ability let them.

 

[jovada]

Why do you think you all who voted yes this change will have a positive effect on the game?
As I see it the active players will slowly leave the game, those who buy diamonds, those who active more times a day. There won't be any reason for them to remain active. This will slowly kill not just the GBG but the whole game.
The real solution would be to reform the matchmaking system - put similar guilds in strength and activity in a group

Because we think that many players who are now frustrated coming several times a day just to see they can do nothing because the map is controlled by 2 guilds swapping with each other and leaving flags 159/160 don't even want to play GbG anymore.
With attrition limited big guilds will maybe also fight each other again what should be the real competition and not sharing the loot.
We believe smaller guilds will have a little bit more chance to conquer sectors, maybe not much , big guilds will still rule, but even a little improvement is a win.
You can see it in most of the guilds , many active players do an average of 3500 fights a season or even less (often because they are the onces fighting with attrition and the superactive only jump in when there is 0 or close to 0 attrition) Those superactive players are only a small part of the players and i really doubt if many will quit, also who says they are the onces that buy diamonds, maybe they are the onces that pay diamonds but i know a few who have a second and third world full with wishing wells and fountains of youth. and then we are speaking of 500 and more, you have also GE ,recurring quest , and of course the return in GbG who provide diamonds.

Matchmaking we also gave some idea's , and of course that could be better, but maybe inno will correct that in the future to, maybe this is only phase 1 in bringing more balance to the game.

 

[Sir P]

This change will be hard for some to stomach. Especially elimination of the opportunities to battle straight for an extended period racking up rewards. However, this will certainly level the playing field somewhat. Unfortunately, those guilds that already have all the main fighters in them will still have an advantage. As stated earlier, this would have been a great feature from the start, but will not unbalance the game vis a vis guilds, rather slow the progress of individuals - which gives those players who are not on 24x7 a chance. Thank you Inno!

 

[Hell gate]

Because we think that many players who are now frustrated coming several times a day just to see they can do nothing because the map is controlled by 2 guilds swapping with each other and leaving flags 159/160 don't even want to play GbG anymore.
With attrition limited big guilds will maybe also fight each other again what should be the real competition and not sharing the loot.
We believe smaller guilds will have a little bit more chance to conquer sectors, maybe not much , big guilds will still rule, but even a little improvement is a win.
You can see it in most of the guilds , many active players do an average of 3500 fights a season or even less (often because they are the onces fighting with attrition and the superactive only jump in when there is 0 or close to 0 attrition) Those superactive players are only a small part of the players and i really doubt if many will quit, also who says they are the onces that buy diamonds, maybe they are the onces that pay diamonds but i know a few who have a second and third world full with wishing wells and fountains of youth. and then we are speaking of 500 and more, you have also GE ,recurring quest , and of course the return in GbG who provide diamonds.

Matchmaking we also gave some idea's , and of course that could be better, but maybe inno will correct that in the future to, maybe this is only phase 1 in bringing more balance to the game.

I see you didn't participated in too much swaps if any...
I believe if the first place matter than the guilds will defend their sectors with traps and fortresses especially when the third and fourth siege camps doesn't worth their price. If the first place doesn't matter than the members will come do their fight until attritioned out then leave. The activity will reduce. After the cap the diamond league will be the same as platinum now - hours or even days will be necessary for the guilds to take 1-2 sectors.

 

[kawada]

To be honest, I don’t understand why swapping/farming are considered something bad, shameful or even something close to cheating. It’s just a way how players adapted to the current GBG design to ensure maximum profit which is absolutely natural thing to do.

Players could choose fierce fighting at every season to get 1st place Instead. And actually thats how it worked at the very beginning of GBG at least in live servers (I wasn’t an active participant of beta those days). We had to develop strategy to fight, we had Discord chat to call people to help to conquer sectors, we built traps / destroyed camps to make rivals spend more attrition and treasury, smaller guilds teamed up against bigger ones.

but it was like that just for fun, because GbG was something new and super dynamic, especially for app users which don’t have GvG. But soon people understood that those efforts are too much for just “fun”, the efforts do not worth the outcome. and unfortunately GbG doesn’t suggest anything more than just fun and some rewards which lost their value quite fast. That’s why players had to find another way to get as much profit as possible - do swaps. And capping camps is not going to fix it. Sure, people won’t be able to do that many battles as before, but they will still keep doing swaps. probably, eventually the change will affect all the guilds equally And we will come to the same point we’re at now.

Why did they choose swap strategy In the first place? They have nothing to fight for. They don’t have motivation to fight for the 1st place, it’s not a problem to share it with other guilds . they don’t care either they take 1 or 2 or 3 place. Why so?

• Inadequate league system
• lack of significant reward for season win
• no affect on the guild rating

I won’t explain each bullet, it was mentioned in this thread so many times.

So, if Inno wants players to spend more time in the game, increase engagement and make ppl spend more diamonds or even real money, they should give them motivation, they should give them something to fight for. If those are not a goal of Inno, I know nothing about game business

 

[Donna a Macskabolond]

To be honest, I don’t understand why swapping/farming are considered something bad, shameful or even something close to cheating. It’s just a way how players adapted to the current GBG design to ensure maximum profit which is absolutely natural thing to do.

Players could choose fierce fighting at every season to get 1st place Instead. And actually thats how it worked at the very beginning of GBG at least in live servers (I wasn’t an active participant of beta those days). We had to develop strategy to fight, we had Discord chat to call people to help to conquer sectors, we built traps / destroyed camps to make rivals spend more attrition and treasury, smaller guilds teamed up against bigger ones.

but it was like that just for fun, because GbG was something new and super dynamic, especially for app users which don’t have GvG. But soon people understood that those efforts are too much for just “fun”, the efforts do not worth the outcome. and unfortunately GbG doesn’t suggest anything more than just fun and some rewards which lost their value quite fast. That’s why players had to find another way to get as much profit as possible - do swaps. And capping camps is not going to fix it. Sure, people won’t be able to do that many battles as before, but they will still keep doing swaps. probably, eventually the change will affect all the guilds equally And we will come to the same point we’re at now.

Why did they choose swap strategy In the first place? They have nothing to fight for. They don’t have motivation to fight for the 1st place, it’s not a problem to share it with other guilds . they don’t care either they take 1 or 2 or 3 place. Why so?

• Inadequate league system
• lack of significant reward for season win
• no affect on the guild rating

I won’t explain each bullet, it was mentioned in this thread so many times.

So, if Inno wants players to spend more time in the game, increase engagement and make ppl spend more diamonds or even real money, they should give them motivation, they should give them something to fight for. If those are not a goal of Inno, I know nothing about game business

Perfect summary, thanks!

I would add one more thing - at the beginning it meant something to be in the diamond league so the guilds had fought for it. Now, when 60-100 guilds are in diamond and more difficult to get demoted to platinum than stay in diamond, it worth nothing, so we don't care about fighting..

 

[CrashBoom]

in the beginning Inno said the goal is 10% of the guilds in diamond

distribution of the number of guilds in the leagues something like
10 - 20 - 40 - 20 - 10
(not sure about the 20/40 maybe a little be different)

 

[Emberguard]

To be honest, I don’t understand why swapping/farming are considered something bad, shameful or even something close to cheating. It’s just a way how players adapted to the current GBG design to ensure maximum profit which is absolutely natural thing to do.

Farming as a concept isn't inherently good or bad, but it is a symptom of much deeper rooted flaws in Guild Battlegrounds general design.

Farming also runs completely counter to what certain playstyles / groups of players would believe that the game "should" be. If I were to log into Counter Strike, and instead of shooting the enemy decided all I wanted to do was explore the map, that wouldn't be "bad" and there'd be nothing wrong with everyone deciding to do that, but it wouldn't be the game anyone else intended to play. (Ok bit of a extreme example, but hopefully you get the point. Farming changes the game goal when that's the only thing happening while keeping all the assets of the game unchanged)

 

[Emberguard]

So, if Inno wants players to spend more time in the game, increase engagement and make ppl spend more diamonds or even real money, they should give them motivation, they should give them something to fight for. If those are not a goal of Inno, I know nothing about game business

I agree. And a big part of the motivation drive (or lack of) is the fact it's a bi-weekly competition. Any serious competitor could create a gap in the scores Day 1, and then keep making that gap larger each day. The further in the season you go, the harder it becomes to win if you're looking to get a placement. It's also a fairly small map, with a lot of fights needed per sector. A large map with few fights needed would probably feel like it moves faster.

Hypothetically if you wanted to make it still winnable by the end of season, you'd have to either remove or reduce the importance of Victory Point hourly generation from the equation. It'd have to change to amount of provinces currently in possession instead of amount generated.

However, I don't think that would actually solve issues without a major overhaul of the entire feature. If it were the only change made it'd likely only create additional problems

 

[DEADP00L]

distribution of the number of guilds in the leagues something like
10 - 20 - 40 - 20 - 10

On one of my live worlds, there is:
69 Diamonds + 164 Platinum + 274 Gold + 412 Silver + 418 Copper, out of the 1297 ranked guilds.
i.e. 5% Diamonds - 13% Platinum - 21% Gold - 32% Silver - 32% Copper.
I think the silver and copper leagues skew the distribution with inactive guilds remaining on the leaderboards.

While any balanced league system would be represented by 4% league 1 - 7% league 2 - 14% league 3 - 25% league 4 - 50% league 5
i.e. 48 Diamonds + 96 Platinum + 192 Gold + 384 Silver + 577 Copper.

Fewer guilds at the very top will generate ability smoothing consistently.

 

[kawada]

Farming as a concept isn't inherently good or bad, but it is a symptom of much deeper rooted flaws in Guild Battlegrounds general design.

Farming also runs completely counter to what certain playstyles / groups of players would believe that the game "should" be. If I were to log into Counter Strike, and instead of shooting the enemy decided all I wanted to do was explore the map, that wouldn't be "bad" and there'd be nothing wrong with everyone deciding to do that, but it wouldn't be the game anyone else intended to play. (Ok bit of a extreme example, but hopefully you get the point. Farming changes the game goal when that's the only thing happening while keeping all the assets of the game unchanged)

Yes, I totally agree that it’s not an intended behaviour in GBG. But it’s like to expect people to pay full price for something when exactly the same thing is available with significant discount.

 

[Emberguard]

Yes, I totally agree that it’s not an intended behaviour in GBG. But it’s like to expect people to pay full price for something when exactly the same thing is available with significant discount.

Yeah. And part of that significant discount comes from it being a reward for volume of fights instead of reward for first capture (even if first capture were for each Guild or each Player, that would shift the focus. It'd have it's own problems, but it'd shift the focus)

 

[conqueror9]

It is always a war-game between player and game-developer
game developer wants more $$$
player wants advantage while playing

GBG is design by inno to let player spend goods and even use "diamond" to speed up
GBG is counter-act by clever player to do swap instead of "blind-spend", in each spend "diamond", player try to get more back in various form

That is the BASIC and ORIGIN of everything

No matter how strong a GBG-guild ( it do not relate with guild or player strength , it is more reflect guild co-operation ), they just want other guilds to take sector so that they can do more battles (farming)..... It is un-reasonable to declare strong GBG guild are trespass weaker GBG guild. Strong GBG Guilds like to exchange sectors between them formally or informally becos each sides ( or more than 2 guilds ) are showing they have good guild co-operation to continue doing more battles (farming). Weaker GBG guild should never classify themself as equal share as strong GBG guild as they are have similar degree of "amount of guild members" and "guild co-operation".

This is completely incorrect complaint as you are not complaint u have silimar members and similar guild-coperation.

No matter how weak of a weaker GBG guild, you can always have chance in reaching 3 sectors next to your HQ. Those 159/160 around your HQ is not a major issue. You can always force it to close with a lot of farming. After 4 hours, that sector is re-open, you always have chance to capture sector. But as your guild do not have sufficient guild co-operation and do not return in time, u are face another 159/160 with another guild. The world is very right about that, you should not complaint anything due to your insufficient guild-coperation and incompatable guild-size ( amount of guild members )

Persoanlly, I have seen many small guild with around 20 ( or lesser) members can break and jump to the central with a higher degree of guild-cooperation. in many GBG round.

In the current GBG round , we have 8 guild, my guild- 55 member, P-42 member, Go- 4 members, La-3 members, Le-23 members, Po-21 members, wa-13 members and T-14 members. That is 1 of the worst GBG I think we have , our current total is 10442 (406 negotiation and 9630 battles ). The lowest ranking guild has 2 sectors. They all have VP points. This just simple implies our guild does wish other guild to take sectors from us (that is why they all have VP) so we take back later, but our member size are greatly over most of guilds, The Map are completely controlled by us temporarily. I can tell, we do not have sufficient battles, that is why i term it is "1 of the worst GBG".

But it is not any 1 ( strong GBG guild or weak GBG guild )'s fault, it is INNO FAULT.

1st, if we are not in this GBG, the remaining 7 guilds should have a very good GBG. It is a matter of Inno , placing a very good GBG guild (us) among weaker GBG guilds. because of our member-size and good guild co-operation, this lead to the current situation. Because we do not have sufficient battles, so whenever there is sector open, they are always have hungry members go to battles ...on the other side, weaker GBG guild do not have sufficient guild-cooperation, so they stop before reaching central. This end-up , nearly all of them drive back. Nearly....yes, nearly, as the central does occupy by other guild

2nd, becos of the recent change, we do not need to use "diamond" like b4 adjustment. In this GBG, we do not build much sc, only a few . This end up as I comment in previous, it will affect "amount of sc being up, that is lesser use of goods" and "diamond usage". Before adjustment, in order to do more battles, we need to build sc and diamond it (if necessary) to continue to progress, that is total comply with Inno wish that player use goods and diamond. But is is not necessary nowaday. In past, we never delete sc ( "return fire to delete sc" as a bad GBG guild <which build traps, fortress, delete sc >) are going to take that sector. We never afraid you take a sector, what we are afraid is you do not progress to next sector, so sc is leave for you to take next sector easier providing we have sector (anchor sector to come back ) to come back to take sectors back. In current GBG, as there is no need to build sc as we need member to use-up their attri, so the chance for those weaker GBG guild cannot take advantage of our sc to get more battles.

In short, it is Inno fault
If GBG can be arranged with grouping similar GBG guilds <possible by amount of battles and negotiation>, the situation should be improved. There is no need to set a limit to sc to 66.7%. Guild will spend goods and diamond when there is a necessary. Strong GBG guild will face strong GBG guild. Weaker GBG guild, in lower league, learn to do more guild-cooperation with weaker GBG guild and increase their guild co-operation. Weaker GBG guild can also advance to central with the help of goods and diamond as they are no longer corner off by other strong GBG guild.