Discussion Guild Battlegrounds Watchtower and Siege Camp Ability Re-balance

[Emberguard]

You do realize that no one counts the percentage before each tile? If the first tile after the reset is surrounded by 2 slots, but this is the road to 10 tiles further, you still have to take it before you get your zero attrition. Will it then be considered zero?

For the actual tile that gets zero attrition, yes. The zero attrition tile is zero, that's what people usually refer to when saying zero regardless of what came before it. As in zero additional attrition gained from the attack

In any case, once you have it set up you're not always having to go straight for attrition giving sectors. You're in a much better position to do the zero attrition first once you have the swaps set up. Not every swap, but a significant portion of it sure will be

 

[Owl II]

For the actual tile that gets zero attrition, yes. The zero attrition tile is zero, that's what people usually refer to when saying zero regardless of what came before it.

That's why we say it's a myth. Or nonsense, if you like. There is no joy in beating tiles with 0 attrition when you have already received 100. Any swaps will contain tiles with 3 camps, or even less. And you have to take care that no one breaks your chess

 

[Emberguard]

If zero attrition is nonsense, then the nerf really wouldn't effect much.

 

[Owl II]

If zero attrition is nonsense, then the nerf really wouldn't effect much.

In the "average temperature in the hospital"? I think not. Players will rebuild, adapt and farm further. But it will kill the gameplay in its current form. It will kill the taste. That's exactly because nothing radically changes in this unfinished gameplay

 

[Emberguard]

I don't see how something could possibly be downplayed as something that doesn't exist or next to non-existent and somehow kill gameplay if removed.

 

[Owl II]

I don't see how something could possibly be downplayed as something that doesn't exist or next to non-existent and somehow kill gameplay if removed.

Wow.. Remove the spices from the dish. It will still be nutritious. And you have changed almost nothing in it
You can read accounting reports or a shopping list. There are all the same letters. People prefer belletristic, however. Well, at least some of them

 

[Owl II]

In this case, where does this big difference in result come from in Dunarsund and a live world:
View attachment 8268 - View attachment 8269

Maybe because GBG season is in full swing on live servers, and beta is resting?

 

[Emberguard]

Remove the spices from the dish. It will still be nutritious. And you have changed almost nothing in it

If you can't tell the difference with a ingredient removal, then it didn't make any difference to have it in the first place. If you can tell the difference then it's not "almost nothing", it's a different recipe (good or bad)

 

[drakenridder]

How can GbG be less "spicy" if the 0 attrition fights are a myth and the 3 SC support drop effectively only with a few %? @Emberguard and @Owl II both of you really got me thinking now that this rebalance is over estimated in it's impact and implication. Assuming that the claims of 0 attrition being a myth is true and assuming that most SC supported fights where up most with 3 SC most of the time, making the rebalance only removing a few % of the grand total.

I've been fake-checking the 0 attrition claims at the live server. Kinda myth busting and the results where situationally true and confirmed the claims of 0 attrition. However it only holds ground for the central and adjacent rings. Depending on building slots.
The SC pre-rebalance are very significantly overpowered. I've never seen or played around in any game that was this OP. Even the RG and hovers where not as OP when they where introduced. With sufficient treasure it's possible to fund enough SC to rampage the GbG map and under the cover of 4h protection you're foes are powerlessly watching you're guild sweeping through the map.
Traps and decoys are completely bypassed with sufficient SC, among with attrition. The only thing slowing you down a bit are outposts, fortresses and palaces. The only real hope of defending against an SC powered rampage is exploiting the 4h slots and setting up a chess board with reliable allies. Eating attrition at times to keep other guilds locked in their HQ, preventing a SC rampage.
Even while locking down actively guilds that are eagerly looking for a fight, it's almost practically impossible to gain full SC support. Effectively this rebalance will hardly impact such defensive behaviour because of that. The only thing this rebalance might slow down and forcing guilds to eat more attrition for dominance is the first race for dominance. As yes this rebalance prevents 0 attrition fights, where pre-rebalance you got practically a free pass on further attrition with you're guild once you've managed to secure full SC support. Practically it'll be more difficult for smaller teams to dominate the GbG map. Relying on guild members that only show up whenever suits them, it'll be really hard for guilds with such players to fight effectively post-rebalance. However I think being part of a true top-guild such mentality shouldn't be practical to manage long term.
We probably see GbG diamond be more dominated by really dedicated top-fighting teams who are well organised and able to work together in a smart way to manage the attrition gains. Out fighting their competitors more easily, at least those that have been more reliant on the 0 attrition fights.
The real thing that will be impacted with this rebalance, are the 0 to low-attrition (4% risk) attrition fights. Though I suspect that practically farming will shift more towards 20.00h up to 23.59h. When the competition is safely locked out and still some attrition can be burnt for farming in the most SC supported provinces. Thus not stamping out farming at all, which is fine but just reducing the potential farming has.

In conclusion I think that 3 groups will be hit hardest by this rebalance:
> pseudo top guilds (supposedly top guilds that relay on their few strongest members only and a lot on the 0 attrition to low attrition fights to secure victory)
> smaller teams (same situation as the pseudo top-guilds)
> farmers (side-effect as 0 to low attrition will become a thing of the past, thus greatly reducing their opportunities)

Least affected:
> True big top guilds (well organised guilds, with enough dedicated strong and fanatic GbG players to dominate the map)

In conclusion I'm pretty sure that this rebalance doesn't effectively prevent other guilds from being locked out. At least not all the time. Farmers and smaller guilds and pseudo top guilds will be hurt hardest and probably be pushed out of diamond league towards a league more suitable for them.
If they really where aiming to prevent guilds from being locked out, they could (greatly) reduce the 4h protection on the provinces adjacent to the HQ's or letting the protection times drop by a lot each time it'll be taken from any guild that don't have their HQ adjacent to those provinces.
Based off this, I'm suspecting some fear this rebalance as their guilds ain't a real top guild, thus their guild might be pushed out of diamond and their members losing rewards, they themselves are not really a top GbG player and fear their guild will purge to stay in diamond and kicking them out because of that, or they running a small specialised GbG guild that could only exist in diamond because of the 0 to low attrition fights, or they just fear of losing tons of potential GbG rewards from farming. GbG diamond league will probably be purged naturally post-rebalance and the real top guilds will likely merge victorious. Either suspicion I have are reasonable fears imo but those groups should've known better. That they're relaying on a uncertain gamble that absolutely nothing would change ever in GbG. Which is in my eyes naive to think.
It's like gambling blind irl on a team in some type of sport that has been unbeaten for a while. Just assuming it'll stay the way it is and assuming nothing bad could ever happen to them or any competitive team could beat them by adapting to their strategy or just training themselves up to beat them at some time. Then, when they get beaten, being angry and accusing the organisation of corruption or something else to blame that their winning team lost. Instead of just accepting that is was naive to believe times won't change, ever.

 

[Yekk]

I suggest you first learn to read , i wrote that in theory a player with small att/def can do more fights then a player with big att/def it all depends wich sectors there are to take with camps.
In fact you just said now that small players from your guild are countered by your greedy topplayers.
I have done flips in the past , you still want to do flips and the only reason for flips is farming.

The words you should never talk about something you have no clue on, i guess they came to you while looking in the mirror

As I said you have no clue how guilds play in GBG...You push that your 14 player guild can play in the 1K but at the end of the last match you were working hard to tank and move to the D-lite grouping.

 

[DEADP00L]

I think only players who benefited from hundreds of fights per day with a minimum of 4 SC will be the only losers.

The guilds that dominated will continue to dominate, but without farming.
Weak guilds that rose to diamond through the accumulation of SCs will now remain in Platinum or even Gold.

But the main change is that everyone will now be able to type without being a spectator for days, even for ridiculous gains because that was not the goal. And yes, some play for fun, not to earn maximum FP to invest in their own GBs and earn even more FP.

No offense to detractors, having to manage your attrition from now on is a strategic contribution that no longer existed in GbG.

 

[Owl II]

How can GbG be less "spicy" if the 0 attrition fights are a myth and the 3 SC support drop effectively only with a few %? @Emberguard and @Owl II both of you really got me thinking now that this rebalance is over estimated in it's impact and implication. Assuming that the claims of 0 attrition being a myth is true and assuming that most SC supported fights where up most with 3 SC most of the time, making the rebalance only removing a few % of the grand total.

I've been fake-checking the 0 attrition claims at the live server. Kinda myth busting and the results where situationally true and confirmed the claims of 0 attrition. However it only holds ground for the central and adjacent rings. Depending on building slots.
The SC pre-rebalance are very significantly overpowered. I've never seen or played around in any game that was this OP. Even the RG and hovers where not as OP when they where introduced. With sufficient treasure it's possible to fund enough SC to rampage the GbG map and under the cover of 4h protection you're foes are powerlessly watching you're guild sweeping through the map.
Traps and decoys are completely bypassed with sufficient SC, among with attrition. The only thing slowing you down a bit are outposts, fortresses and palaces. The only real hope of defending against an SC powered rampage is exploiting the 4h slots and setting up a chess board with reliable allies. Eating attrition at times to keep other guilds locked in their HQ, preventing a SC rampage.
Even while locking down actively guilds that are eagerly looking for a fight, it's almost practically impossible to gain full SC support. Effectively this rebalance will hardly impact such defensive behaviour because of that. The only thing this rebalance might slow down and forcing guilds to eat more attrition for dominance is the first race for dominance. As yes this rebalance prevents 0 attrition fights, where pre-rebalance you got practically a free pass on further attrition with you're guild once you've managed to secure full SC support. Practically it'll be more difficult for smaller teams to dominate the GbG map. Relying on guild members that only show up whenever suits them, it'll be really hard for guilds with such players to fight effectively post-rebalance. However I think being part of a true top-guild such mentality shouldn't be practical to manage long term.
We probably see GbG diamond be more dominated by really dedicated top-fighting teams who are well organised and able to work together in a smart way to manage the attrition gains. Out fighting their competitors more easily, at least those that have been more reliant on the 0 attrition fights.
The real thing that will be impacted with this rebalance, are the 0 to low-attrition (4% risk) attrition fights. Though I suspect that practically farming will shift more towards 20.00h up to 23.59h. When the competition is safely locked out and still some attrition can be burnt for farming in the most SC supported provinces. Thus not stamping out farming at all, which is fine but just reducing the potential farming has.

In conclusion I think that 3 groups will be hit hardest by this rebalance:
> pseudo top guilds (supposedly top guilds that relay on their few strongest members only and a lot on the 0 attrition to low attrition fights to secure victory)
> smaller teams (same situation as the pseudo top-guilds)
> farmers (side-effect as 0 to low attrition will become a thing of the past, thus greatly reducing their opportunities)

Least affected:
> True big top guilds (well organised guilds, with enough dedicated strong and fanatic GbG players to dominate the map)

In conclusion I'm pretty sure that this rebalance doesn't effectively prevent other guilds from being locked out. At least not all the time. Farmers and smaller guilds and pseudo top guilds will be hurt hardest and probably be pushed out of diamond league towards a league more suitable for them.
If they really where aiming to prevent guilds from being locked out, they could (greatly) reduce the 4h protection on the provinces adjacent to the HQ's or letting the protection times drop by a lot each time it'll be taken from any guild that don't have their HQ adjacent to those provinces.
Based off this, I'm suspecting some fear this rebalance as their guilds ain't a real top guild, thus their guild might be pushed out of diamond and their members losing rewards, they themselves are not really a top GbG player and fear their guild will purge to stay in diamond and kicking them out because of that, or they running a small specialised GbG guild that could only exist in diamond because of the 0 to low attrition fights, or they just fear of losing tons of potential GbG rewards from farming. GbG diamond league will probably be purged naturally post-rebalance and the real top guilds will likely merge victorious. Either suspicion I have are reasonable fears imo but those groups should've known better. That they're relaying on a uncertain gamble that absolutely nothing would change ever in GbG. Which is in my eyes naive to think.
It's like gambling blind irl on a team in some type of sport that has been unbeaten for a while. Just assuming it'll stay the way it is and assuming nothing bad could ever happen to them or any competitive team could beat them by adapting to their strategy or just training themselves up to beat them at some time. Then, when they get beaten, being angry and accusing the organisation of corruption or something else to blame that their winning team lost. Instead of just accepting that is was naive to believe times won't change, ever.

I agree with everything you have written, basically, except for one thing: no one will displace anyone anywhere: the number of guilds has remained the same. The mechanism of distribution of LP depending on the occupied place remained the same. LP scale remained the same. So everything will remain the same here, I'm sure. Of course, some "pseudo-top guilds" will leave the race. But if they are not dissolved altogether they will sink lower and push new "pseudo-top guilds" to the surface, which may not want to be there The only thing that upsets me about this: is that we have been waiting for changes for two years. And we got this.

 

[jovada]

As I said you have no clue how guilds play in GBG...You push that your 14 player guild can play in the 1K but at the end of the last match you were working hard to tank and move to the D-lite grouping.

This is beta and you don't know how we play in our world.

And your argument is complete nonsens, we working hard to go to D-lite ?

One question if you are able to understand it , guild A takes 4 or 5 sectors and they loose them 4h later , guild B has 2 sectors but they can keep it all day long 24h , who will be 4th and 5th at the end of the day ???

Again: you should never talk about something you have no clue on

 

[Kev-]

it’s been a month since we started going circles in this discussion with no feedback from Inno
It would be great to hear some considerations from the devs, but now even forum staff does not post anything in this thread.

how does Inno want to find an optimal solution with no dialogue with the players especially if it’s obvious that both sides have quite valid pros and cons?

@Juber @Leones helleeeew? Anybody there?

No point waiting for any input they've already said they'll ignore our input and everyone who doesn't comment (always the majority) is going to be regarded as siding with there idea bad as it is anyway.
With this in mind our Guild on the live server are starting to put measures in place for when the inevitable drops on us so well done Inno.
Junior fighters are now being told there is no more free ride they will now have a required minimum number of fights to complete on a daily basis and we're also now imposing high minimum requirements for new recruits.
We will cease with our policy of searching out new junior fighters helping them nurture there fledgling cities and instead go on the hunt for established players poaching them if need be to ensure as a collective we've more than enough firepower to overcome this incoming nerf. In discussion with several other Guilds it would appear we're not the only ones implementing this or similar policies so as I said well done Inno you were warned.

Juniors are going to be hit hard by this, tighter Guild restriction, less fights and therefore less forge points to accelerate there growth.
Low effort guilds will still be stuck around the outside but with even less chance now without the option of getting a crew online from time to time for a surprise raid into the centre using support.
You wanted a Nerf thats exactly what you'll get 1.9 will be Nerfed, swaps will be Nerfed and General Guild activity will be Nerfed due to the drop in disposable FP income within the game and no requirement for players to be online for more than a hour a day. Diamond purchases will be Nerfed and way down the slow game GBG will become doesn't require the reduced number of SC to be rushed.
About the only thing that won't alter is the weak guilds will still be camped around the outside of the map though without there brief forays into the centre off the back of support. Further they're likely to be even weaker as we and others will be on a mission to cherry-pick there better fighters thereby making the weak Guilds weaker and the strong even stronger.

The root cause of your issue you have been told time and time again sort out your abysmal match up process and team up like with like, while your at it stop the BOTS and fighters using overage troops that negate any attrition anyway.

 

[DEADP00L]

With this in mind our Guild on the live server are starting to put measures in place for when the inevitable drops on us so well done Inno.
Junior fighters are now being told there is no more free ride they will now have a required minimum number of fights to complete on a daily basis and we're also now imposing high minimum requirements for new recruits.

Unless you have 80 members who are all great fighters, every player that can bring 1 or 2 fights a day will always bring more than no players at all.

Low effort guilds will ....

But not all guilds are alike, nor are players. It's not all about a few top Guilds and weak Guilds.
I would even say that the majority of guilds do not fall into these two categories.

 

[drakenridder]

I agree with everything you have written, basically, except for one thing: no one will displace anyone anywhere: the number of guilds has remained the same. The mechanism of distribution of LP depending on the occupied place remained the same. LP scale remained the same. So everything will remain the same here, I'm sure. Of course, some "pseudo-top guilds" will leave the race. But if they are not dissolved altogether they will sink lower and push new "pseudo-top guilds" to the surface, which may not want to be there The only thing that upsets me about this: is that we have been waiting for changes for two years. And we got this.

Glad we can agreed. The guild I am in at live is small, lay back guild with some activities from time to time in GbG for fun. From my experience we can handle ourselves in most Gold league seasons. Platinum is just a league too high for us. We can survive in that league for some time before being pushed back down to gold, where we belong. I'm sure that's the faith of any similar guild. Like you've described but then with platinum and diamond.
Personally I'm lacking the knowledge and experience with making a functional ranking system to solve that issue. I've however seen a promising suggestion to rank guilds by their capabilities, rather their level succes in past seasons what we have now and can observe what's it leading up to.
I strongly agreed that it's disappointing to say the least that Inno only fixing SC's as part of a rebalance. As it most likely won't have a very significant impact beyond farming GbG and guilds/players heavily relaying on 0 to low attrition battles. Personally I would've also liked a bigger pack of changes for GbG but who knows. Perhaps they're behind the scenes working on it and just decided that as GbG is as important as is, must be fixed in steps. As it could've been otherwise been changing too radically and fast for the players to adapt and accept the changes. Perhaps a rebalance act is in the making for the ranking system too, I don't know. Since the last time they've done that is a long time ago due to complains about facing the same guilds over and over.

But the main change is that everyone will now be able to type without being a spectator for days, even for ridiculous gains because that was not the goal. And yes, some play for fun, not to earn maximum FP to invest in their own GBs and earn even more FP.

I really don't believe no guilds at all will be locked out at all post-rebalance. I think assuming this is equally naive to think as those who thought GbG would never ever change at all and thus farming GbG was a stable and good way of grinding additional rewards in a highly efficient way with minimal resources. Just wishful way of thinking. It's imo highly probable that guilds will still at least attempt to locking down others. As the SC-rebalance will not hit as hard on the HQ borders. Locking out other guilds might be taking a bit more time to setup though. Maybe some will just decide to setup traps to slow down or demotivate other guilds to conquer.
Perhaps as proven there will be matchups in which it's deemed a waste of resources and time to locking out others or for another reason just not been done. I'm still sure that if the dominant guilds see a use for it, they'll locking out enemy guilds anyways.

 

[CrashBoom]

Junior fighters are now being told there is no more free ride they will now have a required minimum number of fights to complete on a daily basis and we're also now imposing high minimum requirements for new recruits.

so you are saying players who join diamond guilds and get benefits from being there have to do something for it ?

that is the point I don't get for years:
why do every beginner or average player think he must be in a diamond guild ?

where according to his skill and city a gold guild would be the correct place

 

[Kev-]

so you are saying players who join diamond guilds and get benefits from being there have to do something for it ?

that is the point I don't get for years:
why do every beginner or average player think he must be in a diamond guild ?

where according to his skill and city a gold guild would be the correct place

We've always had a decent percentage of juniors within our group who we've tutored and helped advance there gameplay. Not all big Guilds are greedy and the majority of founders GBG returns are re-invested into these juniors cities to speed there advancement. Alas with this Nerf the academy program will be no more as we won't be able to carry the juniors.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

We've always had a decent percentage of juniors within our group who we've tutored and helped advance there gameplay. Not all big Guilds are greedy and the majority of founders GBG returns are re-invested into these juniors cities to speed there advancement. Alas with this Nerf the academy program will be no more as we won't be able to carry the juniors.

Good on ya mate. The thing is, now, Guilds such as yours will need to rethink their priorities. Do you want to continue being an incubator or do you want to dominate GBG? You may not be able to continue being a switch-hitter.

 

[jovada]

We've always had a decent percentage of juniors within our group who we've tutored and helped advance there gameplay. Not all big Guilds are greedy and the majority of founders GBG returns are re-invested into these juniors cities to speed there advancement. Alas with this Nerf the academy program will be no more as we won't be able to carry the juniors.

These are poor excuses, most of the big players have a couple of hundred thousands fp in inventory so if they want to help juniors i see no reason why they have to let it depend from GbG, the truth is their help is more convert fp from the scorebar above to their inventory.