Discussion Juber's gbg suggestions

[Juber]

But that leads me to another question: let us say they loose 50 fights every hour from 159/160 but what if they are in front of my HQ and we have also 124/160 so far, will we both loose fights? And assuming they loose 50 fights every hour (and 1 hour is much to long, should be every 15min) will they be able to do 50 fights to bring it 159/160 again ?

Nobody loses fights. That was suggested by others, but I don't like this approach, as it does not help much.
My solution is, that the needed fights will decrease every hour. Lets say it will decrease by 10 every hour. This means after one hour the province will only need 150 progress, after 2 hours 140, ... after 8 hours only 80. The progress guilds made will stay, so if you have 145 progress and don't do anything, after 2 hours you will conquer the province automatically. If 2 guilds would get the sector the one with the highest amount of progress will get it. If both have the same amount, the province could go to the one lowest in the current ranking or simply random.
Also, of course the numbers can be tweaked a lot. They are just my suggestions, but I am of course no Game Designer.

 

[Juber]

good morning
I find this proposal very interesting, I think to test on beta.
I'm like DESSIRE I'm for a mixture of GVG and GBG, which can be played on all media.
In any case, nice work by JUBER, is super happy to see that our criticisms are finally taken into account THANK YOU
**************************
bonjour
Je trouve cette proposition trés intérréssante , je pense a tester sur béta .
je suis comme DESSIRE je suis pour un mélange GVG et GBG ,qui peut être jouer sur tous supports .
En tous cas joli travail de JUBER ,est super content de voir que nos critiques sont enfin pris en compte MERCI

Please don't understand it wrong, these are just my personal suggestions. Nothing of this is currently planned (at least not that I know of).

 

[jovada]

Please don't understand it wrong, these are just my personal suggestions. Nothing of this is currently planned (at least not that I know of).

Yes we know Juber, but at least the developers can see it is a big issue for many players and that for more then a year now we are still demanding some action.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

@Juber, thanks for the effort. I'm sure that a lot of thought went into this proposal. I'm reminded, though, of "A Bridge Too Far" and I have a question. Would not most of the balancing, fairness, (choose your own noun) issue be solved by simply removing the 1000LP cap and making it much more difficult to advance beyond 1000 points? The strongest guilds will certainly advance and a gap will develop between them and the other (currently) Diamond League guilds that probably should not be Diamond.

 

[Yekk]

Some good and some very bad suggestions Juber BUT unless it is tested in a real world situation we will not ever see this happen. Beta server is not in this case a good way to see how the changes play out. Few Beta guilds use the real world flip methods used on Live servers.

Points gained/lossed are still not zero sum. Even if it was few guilds want to play the same guilds every week. Handicapping weaker guilds (poor treasuries) maybe a better way to balance and give every guild a chance to play competitively.

 

[.Chris]

How I understand Jubers proposal regarding sector locking, the hit points would stay the same; the threshold needed to conquer a sector however would decrease over time thus automatically conquering it if hit points = threshold. This would prevent guilds from softlocking a sector at 159/160 and conquering it at their desired time. The decrease should then not be linear, but random (say a 50% Chance of reducing the Sector by 1 point every minute [please do not discuss the chance or the time, I just made that up; it would need to be thoroughly analyzed as to what is apropriate]).

Edit:
Juber clarified his proposal while I was writing my response
My point on the randomness still stands, if you can calculate precisely at which time you need a certain amount of hit points makes it too easy imho.

 

[beelzebob666]

Nobody loses fights. That was suggested by others, but I don't like this approach, as it does not help much.
My solution is, that the needed fights will decrease every hour. Lets say it will decrease by 10 every hour. This means after one hour the province will only need 150 progress, after 2 hours 140, ... after 8 hours only 80. The progress guilds made will stay, so if you have 145 progress and don't do anything, after 2 hours you will conquer the province automatically. If 2 guilds would get the sector the one with the highest amount of progress will get it. If both have the same amount, the province could go to the one lowest in the current ranking or simply random.
Also, of course the numbers can be tweaked a lot. They are just my suggestions, but I am of course no Game Designer.

I think the point was:
- two guilds are e.g. one point appart in the progress - lets say 158 and 159
- now time comes around for the reduction from 160 to 150
- now both have more progress than what is needed - which of the two gets the province?
the guild with the most recent progress, the guild with most progress or something else?

 

[DEADP00L]

Silly question :
we have an agreement with a guild and we mark one of their sectors with a ban.
a member of my guild does not pay attention and makes a single fight on it.
X hours later, the sector belongs to us with only 1 fight made or there would be no discount with the prohibition marking?

 

[Pericles the Lion]

I think the point was:
- two guilds are e.g. one point appart in the progress - lets say 158 and 159
- now time comes around for the reduction from 160 to 150
- now both have more progress than what is needed - which of the two gets the province?
the guild with the most recent progress, the guild with most progress or something else?

IMO, the advances countdown won't matter in the Diamond Leagues where the point is to close tiles as fast as possible in order to maximize the number of flips between resets. Also, the countdown of ring 1 and 2 tiles will be insulated by the ring 3 tiles that are closed (and therefore opened) last.

 

[Juber]

I think the point was:
- two guilds are e.g. one point appart in the progress - lets say 158 and 159
- now time comes around for the reduction from 160 to 150
- now both have more progress than what is needed - which of the two gets the province?
the guild with the most recent progress, the guild with most progress or something else?

In this case I thought the guild with the most current progress on that province gets it.

Silly question :
we have an agreement with a guild and we mark one of their sectors with a ban.
a member of my guild does not pay attention and makes a single fight on it.
X hours later, the sector belongs to us with only 1 fight made or there would be no discount with the prohibition marking?

No, this can not happen, because there is a minimum amount of progress it can go down to (I proposed half). So it will not get further down than this.

IMO, the advances countdown won't matter in the Diamond Leagues where the point is to close tiles as fast as possible in order to maximize the number of flips between resets. Also, the countdown of ring 1 and 2 tiles will be insulated by the ring 3 tiles that are closed (and therefore opened) last.

Yes, I know that it does not touch this problem. My solutions are intended for various problems I see personally with gbg. Each solution is for a different problem.
The problem you describe is covered by the attrition change, change of guild on map per league and even a bit by the soft cap idea.

 

[beelzebob666]

One problem I still have with the proposed change in league points given/taken is that the difference still is quite high - that way guilds with similar strength will still be distributed over quite a large range.

Overall activity (not necessary VP - more like amount of progress accrued) should be taken into account when calculating the LP - when all guilds are close together in the final ranking, credited league point difference between first and last place should similarly be small - when there is a huge difference between first and last place, difference in LP gain/loss may be higher

 

[Juber]

One problem I still have with the proposed change in league points given/taken is that the difference still is quite high - that way guilds with similar strength will still be distributed over quite a large range.

Overall activity (not necessary VP - more like amount of progress accrued) should be taken into account when calculating the LP - when all guilds are close together in the final ranking, credited league point difference between first and last place should similarly be small - when there is a huge difference between first and last place, difference in LP gain/loss may be higher

Hmm, I don't like the idea of removing even more LP, just because you were bad. If there would be an additional mechanic, I would reward guilds for getting more VP. Something like "for every 10000 VP you achieved, you get 1 additional LP (Numbers without any thought on balancing).
Do you think this would be a good idea?

 

[DEADP00L]

What does @InnoGames think?

I'm talking about the friendly bot:

 

[Owl II]

Hmm, I don't like the idea of removing even more LP, just because you were bad. If there would be an additional mechanic, I would reward guilds for getting more VP. Something like "for every 10000 VP you achieved, you get 1 additional LP (Numbers without any thought on balancing).
Do you think this would be a good idea?

We scored a record amount of VP in the dead season, when the provinces stood under us for days. And no one claimed the center. I don't think it's worth the extra reward. On the other hand, all last season we had a difference in VP between us and the opponent was 1000 VP, no more. It was the hardest season

 

[Thunderdome]

Silly question :
we have an agreement with a guild and we mark one of their sectors with a ban.
a member of my guild does not pay attention and makes a single fight on it.
X hours later, the sector belongs to us with only 1 fight made or there would be no discount with the prohibition marking?

Thanks. I was going to ask the same question. I had been in guilds (on my live worlds) where they plan which sectors to take and would tell others to hold at until it was time to take that very sector. We would get that yahoo that will "accidentally" hit a sector with no one else hitting it. If this were to happen, where it takes is 1 fight, fights in guild will happen.

Now, for @Juber's little proposal of reducing the progress at 10 per hour, it should be done with the one that has the most progress before said cut off time. In the case of a tie, it should be the one who made such progress first, which will require a lot of programming to keep a log file as to which guild made what progress at what time at the very minute (no 5, 10, or some minutes delay for an update). Too much time for error in my opinion. Also, to have this going will have guilds telling their members not to put additional effort into a sector and concentrate on another for half the attrition costs, meaning getting hold of 2 sectors (or doubling the amount of sectors obtained) for the price of 1 for playing the waiting game.

So for my little 1-player guild, I can either take up to 20/40 (bronze league) or 30/40 (bronze league) for 10 or 15 attrition (since negotiating gives 2 progress points so half the attrition for every point as opposed to fighting which gives 1 progress point and 1 attrition). With 40 attrition I can muster, I can take up to 3 or 4 sectors in a day for playing this waiting game. Right now, I am in the silver league which progress is xx/70 and I've been taking a sector each day for up to 35 attrition. With this in play, I can take 2 sectors a day just by myself.

Again, I will say that larger guilds than mine (or any 1-player ones for that matter) are going to have the advantage: more active folks, more troops used to fight, more resources used to negotiate. The fighting aspects only have the same era units as the player who is engaging. So if a player is in Iron Age, they will have Iron Age troops to contend with. It depends on how built their attack/defense values for the attacking army are. Each point of attrition would beef those troops to be faced a little more. So if IA player has over 1k attack/800 defense (I am just throwing that in) they can probably go forth with at least 50 attrition (again throwing that in) on just fighting alone without any modifiers.

Those numbers can be easy if more people in a guild are active in participating. You can have an 80-person guild and 2 people would be active in GbG as well as have a 25-person guild where 15 of those members are active. The 25-person guild would have more progress.

 

[jovada]

Now, for @Juber's little proposal of reducing the progress at 10 per hour, it should be done with the one that has the most progress before said cut off time. In the case of a tie, it should be the one who made such progress first, which will require a lot of programming to keep a log file as to which guild made what progress at what time at the very minute (no 5, 10, or some minutes delay for an update). Too much time for error in my opinion. Also, to have this going will have guilds telling their members not to put additional effort into a sector and concentrate on another for half the attrition costs, meaning getting hold of 2 sectors (or doubling the amount of sectors obtained) for the price of 1 for playing the waiting game.

Like Juber said you can put a limit at for example 140/160 or 130/160 the objective is to avoid being blocked for several hours at 159/160

Second how many times you see that 2 guilds will stay in a sector both with 150/160 ? and in the rare case of an exaequo the last active guild can win the sector.

 

[Goldra]

I dont think the problem is GBG, or GVG... the problem is that the best way to get points is making battles. So people is focusing their efforts to make the more battles they can. Thats why the most build in GBG are Siedge of camps. Thats why players are asking in every event building, boosts for attaking troops. Thats why cities are full of winner's plazza, botanical rotunda, carrousel, checkmate square... and event building that boost attack troops. Thats why you didnt eliminate GVG. No matter what Inno does, people will try to make all the battles they can. And if you nerf this, you will make angry a lot of people.
Forge of empires gives us a lot of options, resources and ways to play, but the way to reach the top is only one: Battles. If you focus your efforts in other ways, you wont be competitive in clasification. There are only 2 more ways to be competitive: getting medals with your arc, and got the highest GB. But this two ways are ignored by 99% of players.
Talking about GBG and what you say:
- About league points: Its boring to fight against the same guilds, and much more if they are friendly. That turns GBG into a battle farm.
- About nerfing SoC: This will make battle addicts angry.
- About guilds on map: Make 1vs1 camps of less than a week.
- About diamond league: 2 friendly guilds will domain this. More prices for the same.
- About free battles near your HQ: 2 friendly leagues conkering this provinces with SoC and letting the other make free battles every 8h.
- About losing progress: More free battles.
My ideas:
- Limit the number of provinces you can attack. This wont allow to full the map with bloks.
- Limit the number of buildings you can have or you can build. This will increase the strategy or the use of diamonds.
What Inno must do:
- Avoid that GBG be seen as a farm of battles and resources
- Create more clasifications for players
- Increase the points obtained in other ways

 

[Juber]

I dont think the problem is GBG, or GVG... the problem is that the best way to get points is making battles. So people is focusing their efforts to make the more battles they can. Thats why the most build in GBG are Siedge of camps. Thats why players are asking in every event building, boosts for attaking troops. Thats why cities are full of winner's plazza, botanical rotunda, carrousel, checkmate square... and event building that boost attack troops. Thats why you didnt eliminate GVG. No matter what Inno does, people will try to make all the battles they can. And if you nerf this, you will make angry a lot of people.
Forge of empires gives us a lot of options, resources and ways to play, but the way to reach the top is only one: Battles. If you focus your efforts in other ways, you wont be competitive in clasification. There are only 2 more ways to be competitive: getting medals with your arc, and got the highest GB. But this two ways are ignored by 99% of players.

Problem is finding the right balance. If battles would give no points anymore for example, all players would get as many goods as possible and they would complaint, if there are not enough goods for every event building. So as a result, this would be exactly the same thing, just with a different resource. Yes, it is heavily army based for the highest ages and there should be something done (from my point of view), but it is very difficult to find the right balance.

Talking about GBG and what you say:
- About league points: Its boring to fight against the same guilds, and much more if they are friendly. That turns GBG into a battle farm.
- About nerfing SoC: This will make battle addicts angry.
- About guilds on map: Make 1vs1 camps of less than a week.
- About diamond league: 2 friendly guilds will domain this. More prices for the same.
- About free battles near your HQ: 2 friendly leagues conkering this provinces with SoC and letting the other make free battles every 8h.
- About losing progress: More free battles.

You are right, if you only consider one idea at the time, but if you combine some, for example the soft cap, less guilds in higher leagues and "nerfed" camps, then ideas like battles without attrition next to your hq and shrinking requirements to conquer battles make way more sense.
If the most ground breaking ideas get implemented, there is no farmfest with 5 camps anymore, there should be no more guilds, that are way stronger/weaker than yours in your current battleground, when you don't have these flaws, then you can add things to make players more happy.

My ideas:
- Limit the number of provinces you can attack. This wont allow to full the map with bloks.
- Limit the number of buildings you can have or you can build. This will increase the strategy or the use of diamonds.

To be honest, I don't like these ideas at all. They would be solutions, yes, but blocking players and setting a hard cap is not good. Hard caps in general are not good in my opinion (which is why i suggested the soft cap for LPs). A limit feels like a "quick n dirty" solution. It works, but is not great.
I believe, that a combination of my suggestions would also solve these issues and make it way more enjoyable.

 

[Retired Guy]

GBG on live servers, especially at Diamond level is very different than beta.. massive guilds\guild members.. just look at the number of Atomium's in live now.. and once AI Core comes out, they'll run it to lvl 80 in a couple days. These guys are doing 5-10 minute sector swaps for the entire map every 4 hrs, easily 10,000 battles, Not sure you can ever come up with a David vs Goliath solution.. guilds wanting to specialize in GBG will simply grow to the required size, and monopolize the map.

 

[Thunderdome]

Second how many times you see that 2 guilds will stay in a sector both with 150/160 ? and in the rare case of an exaequo the last active guild can win the sector.

I had seen it happen on a live world (US Yorkton) where two competing guilds (1 of which had agree with another to take a sector, and the other just being a d*ck about it) were trying to take the same sector. The guild that was going to take it looked like they ran out of moves (attrition high maybe) while the other one was getting very close and probably ran out as well. Only chance to break is either someone has to get on either guild with enough in their tank to push through or wait until reset time where the attrition resets so they can take it.

I kind of laughed in asking what's the point in trying if a guild's already going to be there. Guess some people don't like waiting.