Discussion Guild Battlegrounds Watchtower and Siege Camp Ability Re-balance

[Owl II]

Total number of "participating" guilds, yes (participating being loosely defined as remaining signed up A guild that doesn't re-signup to battlegrounds after an inactive season doesn't count). I recall it as over 60 diamond guilds at peak and it's been at 51-52 for the last few months.

I believe participation levels have plummeted overall as noted by platinum rounds that feel like silver used to. And the natural extension of that is some guilds that have slipped further to just not playing it.

Well.. it's strange. I remember that you are playing in the US market. Not some Holland or Thai. I play in Cigard one of the oldest worlds). And our situation is stable: 97-102 guilds in diamond from season to season. About 700-750 guilds that are participated in GBG (have more than 0 LP) The same can be seen on beta.

I am also seeing the number of guilds in Diamond as lowering. The quality also is less with more pure platinum guilds staying longer in D-lite and 1K.

On contrary, I see that weak guilds are gradually mastering the techniques of high-quality processing of this farm. They learn to hit the timer, they learn to choose the right targets. They are building the treasury, after all. Two years have not been in vain. But that doesn't mean that everything is fine. Old players are sick and tired of this fun farm..

 

[xivarmy]

Well.. it's strange. I remember that you are playing in the US market. Not some Holland or Thai. I play in Cigard one of the oldest worlds). And our situation is stable: 97-102 guilds in diamond from season to season. About 700-750 guilds that are participated in GBG (have more than 0 LP) The same can be seen on beta.

US Langendorn is the one I'm referring to. Also very old by now - but not as populated as the first ~4 worlds were I think. It's not the world I even consider my main anymore - but the one I'm most frequently asked to look at something to do with matchmaking or something. Unfortunately I don't seem to have saved any ranking spreadsheets from 2021 or maybe even early 2022 - so the 60+ is going off memory alone. I found some from 2020 but that was way before the peak.

 

[mcbluefire]

There is no use leaving a change on beta that is never going to go to live, at least not in it's current state. It makes testing for bugs useless.

 

[Beta King]

So basically, no changes are happening despite the many pages of this discussion saying otherwise.

Wake me up when we get a change that is beneficial that I can at least have a fancy to try.

I'm sorry but I don't understand.
As much as I appreciate seeing that you are not ignoring us by posting a message about the GbG, but my level of English is insufficient to define whether it is a lack of respect or a refusal to recognize your wrongs.

If you are aware that the nerf alone is not enough, why not integrate now the second phase of testing for a possible balancing?
The whole community is unanimous on matchmaking!

If you know that GBG is important for players, why put off other changes?
I suspect that you are busy with the future age and the anniversary event, but do not forget that it has been 7 months that we undergo this test without any transparency on your part.

Failing to change your test, you could at least inform us about the axes of reflection taken by the team in charge of GbG.

The GBG nerf is clearly bad for business in it's current state otherwise it would be live right now but rather than really upset all those wanting to completely kill GBG as a time sink for many so the select few can get spoon fed their daily fights without any competition they have decided to just set it aside. Smart move really just to let it linger for a while. Gunder nailed it.

 

[Knight Roland]

i got one final idea about nerfing GbG (if Inno cant live without a GbG nerf that is), and this is it.

If a nerf to GbG is really needed (which i even doubt) then this idea is - as i see it - the right way to do it. please forward it to the devs and make sure they scrap their current plans which are crap. Thats what they should do in my opinion (which doesnt count anyways, but so what)

Two quick notes though before i commence with my idea:

a) GbG will always be a farm, and the stronger/richer/larger guilds will always dominate, no matter what changes they apply, because GBG is what it is.


b) A change to GbG should ( if it even needs a change) keep the core aspects of GbG intact (which are: communication, diplomacy, tactics, strategy, struggle, whining, drama, surprise, sneak-attacks etc)

With this out of the way, here‘s my final idea:

- Reduce the effectivity of siege towers from 24% down to 12%, while keeping the costs to build and rush them the same as before (and nerf watchtowers accordingly)

- add one, up to four additional building slots (depending on the province) in all provinces that have building slots

Thats it. P.S: They could add this as a new GbG map which would get added to the map rotation too.

What will be the consequences of this:

- other GBG buildings become more viable / in line with SC‘s

- more diamonds have to be spent in GBG (which will boost Innos revenue)

- Guild LB‘s which produce guild goods will become much more desirable.

- and they got their nerf in, without destroying the core of GbG

But hey, they could also implement this idea as a new rotating GbG map, just to see how it goes

 

[DEADP00L]

What I still don't understand is the blindness of Innogames.
If the purpose of the current test in GbG is balancing, how come the devs don't see that 3 leagues aren't being used properly?
Except when creating a guild, the Copper, Silver and even sometimes Gold leagues see almost no confrontation between the guilds present. Very regularly, at least in Copper and Silver, guilds take unoccupied sectors and will rarely confront a sector held by another guild. It is also common to see unconquered sectors after 2 weeks.
And all the active guilds find themselves propelled into a diamond league, where the main problem of imbalance in the groupings lies.

I know I've said it before, LPs are helpful but not enough.
Why not add an additional criterion for the transition from one league to another?

Example: (figures to be defined according to the statistics held by Inno)
- conquer at least 10 sectors during a GbG to go from Copper to Silver. (i.e. an average of 1 sector per day)
- conquer at least 40 sectors during a GbG to go from Silver to Gold. (i.e. an average of 2 sectors per day)
- conquer at least 60 sectors during a GbG to go from Gold to Platinum. (i.e. an average of 3 sectors per day)
- conquer at least 80 sectors during a GbG to go from Platinum to Diamond. (i.e. an average of 4 sectors per day)

 

[Beta King]

What I still don't understand is the blindness of Innogames.
If the purpose of the current test in GbG is balancing, how come the devs don't see that 3 leagues aren't being used properly?
Except when creating a guild, the Copper, Silver and even sometimes Gold leagues see almost no confrontation between the guilds present. Very regularly, at least in Copper and Silver, guilds take unoccupied sectors and will rarely confront a sector held by another guild. It is also common to see unconquered sectors after 2 weeks.
And all the active guilds find themselves propelled into a diamond league, where the main problem of imbalance in the groupings lies.

I know I've said it before, LPs are helpful but not enough.
Why not add an additional criterion for the transition from one league to another?

Example: (figures to be defined according to the statistics held by Inno)
- conquer at least 10 sectors during a GbG to go from Copper to Silver. (i.e. an average of 1 sector per day)
- conquer at least 40 sectors during a GbG to go from Silver to Gold. (i.e. an average of 2 sectors per day)
- conquer at least 60 sectors during a GbG to go from Gold to Platinum. (i.e. an average of 3 sectors per day)
- conquer at least 80 sectors during a GbG to go from Platinum to Diamond. (i.e. an average of 4 sectors per day)

So if you have 7 lame guilds you can only take all the sectors available at the start and that's it so the diamond would need to be the max available sectors otherwise you can be held back by no fault of you own.

 

[DEADP00L]

So if you have 7 lame guilds you can only take all the sectors available at the start and that's it so the diamond would need to be the max available sectors otherwise you can be held back by no fault of you own.

Yes, the time of the distribution of the guilds in the leagues which correspond to them.
This is what we all experienced when the GbGs were set up and during each test that Inno will do to try to rebalance.

 

[Juan Primero]

To make GBG more exciting, i suggest to let the guild only see their own flags. So you avoid a chessboard between the stronges guilds. And forget the nerf of SC

 

[Beta King]

To make GBG more exciting, i suggest to let the guild only see their own flags. So you avoid a chessboard between the stronges guilds. And forget the nerf of SC

So there would be no races ever just random tiles being flipped here and there?

 

[Pericles the Lion]

To make GBG more exciting, i suggest to let the guild only see their own flags. So you avoid a chessboard between the stronges guilds. And forget the nerf of SC

It would take the top GBG Guilds 15 minutes, max, to identify their competition.

 

[Juan Primero]

It would take the top GBG Guilds 15 minutes, max, to identify their competition.

That's true, but they do not know, when a guild try to occupie a sector. So it makes no sense to keep a flag

 

[Beta King]

To make GBG more exciting, i suggest to let the guild only see their own flags. So you avoid a chessboard between the stronges guilds. And forget the nerf of SC

This would please several of the beta members like Jovada whom expressed dislike specifically for the flags on the field and it would make it harder to coordinate the swaps cause you could not see if your swap partner is loaded, loading or not doing anything at all.

 

[Bonnie McBoobs]

They could possibly make GBG fun and not just for farmers without the nerf.

Introduce a new aspect of the game to call out alliances. Allow allied guilds lower than 3rd place launch from each other's sectors or even share the same color.

Also, make ranking more prestigious. No one cares too much if they get 2-4 when swapping since they'll still end up in top diamond. Create another league or reduce the league points so that only the top 2 (or even 1) remain in the top league. The rest should be booted back to previous league. Since lower leagues are less reward, that would give even farmers incentive to fight for rank.

Make FFA or disruption easier somehow. Lower guilds should be able to bust a block on their doorstep or have a limited number of timer busters per season to help them bust out.

--

Just saying that by introducing new gameplay options, you wouldn't need the nerf.

 

[Emberguard]

Introduce a new aspect of the game to call out alliances. Allow allied guilds lower than 3rd place launch from each other's sectors or even share the same color.

What happens when the rankings change mid season?

I like the concept on paper, but when #3 becomes #2, which sectors belong to them?

 

[Bonnie McBoobs]

What happens when the rankings change mid season?

I like the concept on paper, but when #3 becomes #2, which sectors belong to them?

Maybe their color is a stripe like blue and red but more dominant of color on which guild actually conquered (or if shared conquer functionality is allowed, guild with most hits gets the credit of conquering the sector).

Maybe, if there was a way to ensure that top guilds couldn't exploit it, then might not have to worry about dissolving alliance.

 

[nice2haveu]

GBG balancing ....

Inside GBG Map changes:
If any guild member open the GBG map, only the member's guild name and guild icon should be represented correctly.
Other guild names should be given names like Guild 1, Guild 2...etc and common guild battle (or new) icon for all other guilds in the GBG map.
Even the guild logs also represents the same pattern. And in guild ranking window also same modification.
Once the season gets over, if our guild placed in top 3 position just mention which position we achieved in the resulting window.
If no position achieved, just say "better luck next time". Do not display the other top 3 guild names in the final resulting window.
Flag and sector colors no changes needed.

Live Servers GBG Match-up Logic:
Make the guild GBG match ups by including same server with different worlds like GE with additional algorithm steps like,
- From every world collect all guild details in the given server where we play GBG.

- Next, calculate the average attacking army 'attack' strength of each guild present in every world.
How? by collecting attacking army attack strength of every member in the guild,
find the total attack strength value of all members in the guild
and divide it with total members count and round off the value to the nearest number.
Final number is the average attack strength of entire guild.

- By doing above step to all guilds, we got all guilds average attack strength from the current server.
Now List them in the descending order like highest to lower.
There are chances to see duplicates average value to few of the guilds,
If that happens descending order gets decided based on the following things,
guild creation date or total members count or total members with higher age/era or just by guild name alphabetical order.

- Now we have the highest to lowest guild listing based on the average attacking army attack strength.
From this, make a partition of 8 guilds starting from top to bottom of the list,
and initiate the GBG match-ups for each partition set of 8 guilds.
Only last partition set gets the chance of not having 8 guilds depending on the total guild count from all worlds in the server.

Beta Server Logic:
- Beta server has only one world, so algorithm steps will be limited to guilds available in that world.
- Except multiple world guild mixing concept, remaining live server steps are applicable to the beta server.

Known Facts:
Not picked the attacking army defense strength to get the overall strength. It plays an major role for some guilds in the GBG. If Attack strength zero means, having 1000 attacking army defense percentage strength also end-up losing only. So didn't pick the guilds match-ups with attacking army defense strength value. But it is the only secret weapon in this approach for all the guild players doing GBG battles.

Happy fighting to all and No one knows whom they are fighting !!

 

[Beta King]

GBG balancing ....

Inside GBG Map changes:
If any guild member open the GBG map, only the member's guild name and guild icon should be represented correctly.
Other guild names should be given names like Guild 1, Guild 2...etc and common guild battle (or new) icon for all other guilds in the GBG map.
Even the guild logs also represents the same pattern. And in guild ranking window also same modification.
Once the season gets over, if our guild placed in top 3 position just mention which position we achieved in the resulting window.
If no position achieved, just say "better luck next time". Do not display the other top 3 guild names in the final resulting window.
Flag and sector colors no changes needed.

Live Servers GBG Match-up Logic:
Make the guild GBG match ups by including same server with different worlds like GE with additional algorithm steps like,
- From every world collect all guild details in the given server where we play GBG.

- Next, calculate the average attacking army 'attack' strength of each guild present in every world.
How? by collecting attacking army attack strength of every member in the guild,
find the total attack strength value of all members in the guild
and divide it with total members count and round off the value to the nearest number.
Final number is the average attack strength of entire guild.

- By doing above step to all guilds, we got all guilds average attack strength from the current server.
Now List them in the descending order like highest to lower.
There are chances to see duplicates average value to few of the guilds,
If that happens descending order gets decided based on the following things,
guild creation date or total members count or total members with higher age/era or just by guild name alphabetical order.

- Now we have the highest to lowest guild listing based on the average attacking army attack strength.
From this, make a partition of 8 guilds starting from top to bottom of the list,
and initiate the GBG match-ups for each partition set of 8 guilds.
Only last partition set gets the chance of not having 8 guilds depending on the total guild count from all worlds in the server.

Beta Server Logic:
- Beta server has only one world, so algorithm steps will be limited to guilds available in that world.
- Except multiple world guild mixing concept, remaining live server steps are applicable to the beta server.

Known Facts:
Not picked the attacking army defense strength to get the overall strength. It plays an major role for some guilds in the GBG. If Attack strength zero means, having 1000 attacking army defense percentage strength also end-up losing only. So didn't pick the guilds match-ups with attacking army defense strength value. But it is the only secret weapon in this approach for all the guild players doing GBG battles.

Happy fighting to all and No one knows whom they are fighting !!

If no one knows who they are fighting then why not set it up for every guild to fight the computer, 7 bots and you... Even if it is not it will still be pretty easy to figure out who is who people will discord screenshots and leaders on same maps will coordinate the swaps it will just be annoying and take more time to figure out on the first day.

 

[Bonnie McBoobs]

Hiding flags would prevent races (which are at least fun when fighting) and hiding opponents removes part of the social aspect.

Basically, not only are people farming to grow their cities but many just enjoy playing collaboratively. They use discord to coordinate even more outside of foe, work up alliance, figure out the most efficient checkerboard, etc..

I get bored with swaps and try to encourage disruptors, but many people don't have any interest in learning or using fight tactics.

You don't have to screw up GBG totally so that no one has any fun at all.. Heck, farming is even needed some seasons after a brutal fight in order to restock goods and troops.

Introducing new aspects to the game would be a way of letting the collaborative players play or attempt to play as they have BUT it would be a little more challenging for them to just push the other 5 or 6 to the edge and farm the whole map.

In one of my worlds, every guild gets to participate in swaps. In the other, if you're matched with certain top guilds and can't/won't do 4 hour flips then you're relegated to HQ and sometimes can beg for favors to at least load (not take) onto ring 4, which is ridiculous.

Make fighting and disrupting more possible without totally ruining the game for the "nice" collaborators. I think it would take some thought but should be possible.

 

[nice2haveu]

If no one knows who they are fighting then why not set it up for every guild to fight the computer, 7 bots and you... Even if it is not it will still be pretty easy to figure out who is who people will discord screenshots and leaders on same maps will coordinate the swaps it will just be annoying and take more time to figure out on the first day.

Race is among the guild but fights are happening with bots only. Since we are not fighting with the army set by the opponents guild.

And in discord, you openly share the map. Okay, but how many maps you compare. 100, 300, 500, 1000....list goes on. Without knowing guild names, it won't be easy to find out.

Consider like your guild name xxxx, and you try to find your opposition guild by sharing your province details and battles took in the province. So, in discord, opposition guild will search on the province to see if the same battles count match with the number you shared. If it matches means also it is not having any guarantee like it is from your guild xxxx. They will try in discord, and they will stop this finding allies act soon to continue battles. Also discord will be crowded with maps shared. Guild leader or guild map analyser (new role) should be allotted separately to find the needle in the haystack. If they don't find after comparing 5 or 10 maps, they will stop doing this in discord since they get annoyed or irritated so much. Finding chance is still possible, but 1:N (where N number of maps) ratio choice is okay to consider. Since you mentioned they take time, how long they take time to find also need to be questioned. If any two guilds, able find their opponents, in the first few comparison of maps, they need to still figure out other guilds too before playing checkers/farming with them. Because other guild if they don't find, you can't farming/checkers/allies with the opponents you find, since other guild may disturb your plan if you don't find. So it is okay to go with this suggestion in GBG.

And mainly inside the game, there is no way to figure out which is a clear approval for this.