Discussion Juber's gbg suggestions

[Amdira]

ok, my bad - it was early in the morning with not enough coffee - at least I tried

 

[drakenridder]

3) Leading is too time-consuming. 4hr locks are just too short. semi noted already.

Making the slot exploit more powerful/easier would just lead to an increase of maps where other guilds are “locked” out. Rather reducing the 4h protection gradually through the leagues until there is no 4h protection would be more useful.
Compensating by giving a slight number of VP would be unwise as it’ll open up other ping pong exploits. So, just removing the 4h slots entirely would do. It’s removing the stress from serious GbG leaders as when there’s no 4h slot to exploit, there’s no 4h slot to worry or stress about.

the 159/160 issue is hard to fix

It’s actually very easy: remove the 4h protection entirely in higher leagues where the 159/160 exploits are common. If there’s no protection to exploit, there’s no reason to place 159/160.

On yeah. one other idea i forgot - increase cost per building like with GVG. as guilds gather more sectors and build more SC's (or buildings in general), the cost could increase. The amount would need to be cumulative. This would force guilds to be more strategic about when and where they build siege camps. Deleting buildings should not reset/reduce the building counter - only sector changes should reset the cost. So if a guild builds 3sc, then deletes and builds 3 traps, then deletes and builds 3 forts, that would count as 9 buildings added to the cumulative count until another guild takes the sector.

That would surely help too but a gradual nerf on effectiveness on buildings would also bringing in chances. Example given;
1-3 provinces: 0% effectiveness reduction
4-5 provinces: 15% effectiveness reduction
6-7 provinces: 30% effectiveness reduction
8> provinces: 40% effectiveness reduction

EG: 96% from SC with 40% reduced effectiveness penalty:
96% * 0,6 = 57,6%
This way smaller guilds that are using SC to fight back will gain more chance. When the larger guilds deploy traps those will also become less effective. In the example with 40% reduction:
45% * 0,6 = 27% / trap

Also a protection time penalty gradually increasing with more taken provinces would be something. For example:
1-3 provinces: 4h protection
4-5 provinces: 3h protection
6-7 provincies: 2h protection
8> provinces: no protection

All of this combined making larger guilds more vulnerable on the GbG maps. The larger they grow the more vulnerable they become of attacks from smaller guilds. It also solves you’re concern regarding smaller guilds becoming the biggest victims of SC nerfs. As it’s only gradually stacking against larger guilds by provinces sizes. It also makes the more valuable positions more valuable and the less valuable provinces less desirable due to the penalties tight to the number of provinces. Naturally the examples are just examples to giving an idea of this suggestion’s workings.

 

[Yekk]

Making the slot exploit more powerful/easier would just lead to an increase of maps where other guilds are “locked” out. Rather reducing the 4h protection gradually through the leagues until there is no 4h protection would be more useful.
Compensating by giving a slight number of VP would be unwise as it’ll open up other ping pong exploits. So, just removing the 4h slots entirely would do. It’s removing the stress from serious GbG leaders as when there’s no 4h slot to exploit, there’s no 4h slot to worry or stress about.


It’s actually very easy: remove the 4h protection entirely in higher leagues where the 159/160 exploits are common. If there’s no protection to exploit, there’s no reason to place 159/160.

That would surely help too but a gradual nerf on effectiveness on buildings would also bringing in chances. Example given;
1-3 provinces: 0% effectiveness reduction
4-5 provinces: 15% effectiveness reduction
6-7 provinces: 30% effectiveness reduction
8> provinces: 40% effectiveness reduction

EG: 96% from SC with 40% reduced effectiveness penalty:
96% * 0,6 = 57,6%
This way smaller guilds that are using SC to fight back will gain more chance. When the larger guilds deploy traps those will also become less effective. In the example with 40% reduction:
45% * 0,6 = 27% / trap

Also a protection time penalty gradually increasing with more taken provinces would be something. For example:
1-3 provinces: 4h protection
4-5 provinces: 3h protection
6-7 provincies: 2h protection
8> provinces: no protection

All of this combined making larger guilds more vulnerable on the GbG maps. The larger they grow the more vulnerable they become of attacks from smaller guilds. It also solves you’re concern regarding smaller guilds becoming the biggest victims of SC nerfs. As it’s only gradually stacking against larger guilds by provinces sizes. It also makes the more valuable positions more valuable and the less valuable provinces less desirable due to the penalties tight to the number of provinces. Naturally the examples are just examples to giving an idea of this suggestion’s workings.

It would bring team work into the mix but just as in the Winter War of 1939-40 (Finland versus Russia) size matters. Finland won the first part of the war but Russia just sent another army then another. Small guilds have small treasuries, a much smaller fighter base, attritions hits small guilds faster and harder. Finland sued for peace just months into that war. It was out of weapons, its army was exhausted.

 

[drakenridder]

It would bring team work into the mix but just as in the Winter War of 1939-40 (Finland versus Russia) size matters. Finland won the first part of the war but Russia just sent another army then another. Small guilds have small treasuries, a much smaller fighter base, attritions hits small guilds faster and harder. Finland sued for peace just months into that war. It was out of weapons, its army was exhausted.

Attrition doesn't affect anyone what I've suggested before a foothold of 3 provinces is established. Smaller guilds would struggle regardless to gain those foothold, even without the 4h exploit and the SC exploit which my suggestion aims to undermine to give larger control over the map more challenges. Which mimics the GvG balance inspired by @iPenguinPat post. Where costs increase the larger the guild becomes in GvG. For GbG the less effective the buildings become the bigger the guilds become but also the protection deteriorates as to hinder the 4h protection exploit which enabled guilds to locking others out regardless of their size and number of active fighters.

 

[iPenguinPat]

Making the slot exploit more powerful/easier would just lead to an increase of maps where other guilds are “locked” out. Rather reducing the 4h protection gradually through the leagues until there is no 4h protection would be more useful.
Compensating by giving a slight number of VP would be unwise as it’ll open up other ping pong exploits. So, just removing the 4h slots entirely would do. It’s removing the stress from serious GbG leaders as when there’s no 4h slot to exploit, there’s no 4h slot to worry or stress about.


It’s actually very easy: remove the 4h protection entirely in higher leagues where the 159/160 exploits are common. If there’s no protection to exploit, there’s no reason to place 159/160.

That would surely help too but a gradual nerf on effectiveness on buildings would also bringing in chances. Example given;
1-3 provinces: 0% effectiveness reduction
4-5 provinces: 15% effectiveness reduction
6-7 provinces: 30% effectiveness reduction
8> provinces: 40% effectiveness reduction

EG: 96% from SC with 40% reduced effectiveness penalty:
96% * 0,6 = 57,6%
This way smaller guilds that are using SC to fight back will gain more chance. When the larger guilds deploy traps those will also become less effective. In the example with 40% reduction:
45% * 0,6 = 27% / trap

Also a protection time penalty gradually increasing with more taken provinces would be something. For example:
1-3 provinces: 4h protection
4-5 provinces: 3h protection
6-7 provincies: 2h protection
8> provinces: no protection

All of this combined making larger guilds more vulnerable on the GbG maps. The larger they grow the more vulnerable they become of attacks from smaller guilds. It also solves you’re concern regarding smaller guilds becoming the biggest victims of SC nerfs. As it’s only gradually stacking against larger guilds by provinces sizes. It also makes the more valuable positions more valuable and the less valuable provinces less desirable due to the penalties tight to the number of provinces. Naturally the examples are just examples to giving an idea of this suggestion’s workings.

As someone that's lead gbg and gvg, i suspect most leaders prefer to have some way to have a safe time to walk away from the game. There's nothing more sucky than having a beautiful GBG map when you go to bed, then wake up with only your hq staring at a checkerboard and realizing no one lead over night when the sectors re-opened.

And the danger of shorter timers is massive farming at scale.
--- which could be prevented by massively reducing SC effectiveness.
--- which would likely lead to rioting and too much drama for inno to deal with.

Edit: Also shorter timers means leaders would need to allocate MORE time to leading and allow less time away from Forge. IMO anything that makes leaders play forge more isn't sustainable.

The beauty of increasing to cost of SCs as you own more: the pain from the change wouldn't be dealt right away. Most dominate gbg guilds have a very healthy treasury at this point (so much so that AI core and atom are laughed at... both GBs would become must-haves if cost scaled). It would take a few /many season for the cost to REALLY start to take it's toll, so that by the time it was really becoming an issue, players would already be accustom to it.

It's an easier problem for players to stomach.

Reduce SC bonus, and players would notice right away and start rioting.

Edit2: Of course, i like the idea even if it would never fly with the player base. I was always stingy about building SCs and keeping our treasury healthy. It also rewards players/guilds that are willing to manually fight to max out their attrition. Anything that leads to more units dying makes me happy

 

[MJ Artisan of War]

How about this idea.... Any guild that finishes below 4th place is automatically dissolved, those lazy whiners then have to join a stronger guild.... or form another loser guild with no treasury.... Long as we are trying to punish winners, why not punish losers...

 

[Kronan]

Educational piece:


I got a question recently from someone wanting to understand GBG better. It’s worth providing a detailed answer, but explained.

Here’s the question: In GbG, how do Siege Camps (SC’s) work? For example, how many SCs would it take to fight for a sector totally attrition free (ie don’t incur any attrition penalty).

Here’s the answer: In the current GbG design, INNO built the SCs to work in an ADDITIVE probability stacking model. So to answer the question, here’s how to figure it:

1 Siege Camp gives a 24% chance for a zero attrition increase on that battle
2 Siege Camps give a 48% chance for a zero attrition increase on that battle
3 Siege Camps give a 72% chance for a zero attrition increase on that battle
4 Siege Camps give a 96% chance for a zero attrition increase on that battle

5 or more Siege Camps give 100% chance for zero attrition increase on that battle. In other words, NO ATTRITION accumulates.

With a carefully planned and then mapped journey, a guild with enough people power, goods and other financial resources (diamonds), could take over the entire map very very quickly, and with next to no attrition.

A method being proposed by some players to slow this type of rapid attack on the entire map, would change this to a MULTIPLICATIVE probability stacking model.


In this model, a guild cannot get to ZERO attrition no matter how many SCs they build, so would eventually get stopped by the pain of the game.

The multiplicative stacking model’s equation looks like this (vs straight adding of the probability):

1- ((1- First SC %) x (1- 2nd SC %) x (1 - 3rd SC %) x (1 - X SC %))


so if you had 4 SC to support your fight, here’s a comparison of the probability models:



Additive: 24% + 24% + 24% + 24% = 96%

Multiplicative: 1 - (1 - .24)⁴ = 66.6%


As you can see, this very small change will make a big difference in fighting “attrition free”. Let’s see what Inno chooses to do with this proposal.

Right now, many people are really enjoying the additive probabilities. It's funding EVERYTHING they do...

 

[Owl II]

As someone that's lead gbg and gvg, i suspect most leaders prefer to have some way to have a safe time to walk away from the game. There's nothing more sucky than having a beautiful GBG map when you go to bed, then wake up with only your hq staring at a checkerboard and realizing no one lead over night when the sectors re-opened.

And the danger of shorter timers is massive farming at scale.
--- which could be prevented by massively reducing SC effectiveness.
--- which would likely lead to rioting and too much drama for inno to deal with.

Edit: Also shorter timers means leaders would need to allocate MORE time to leading and allow less time away from Forge. IMO anything that makes leaders play forge more isn't sustainable.

The beauty of increasing to cost of SCs as you own more: the pain from the change wouldn't be dealt right away. Most dominate gbg guilds have a very healthy treasury at this point (so much so that AI core and atom are laughed at... both GBs would become must-haves if cost scaled). It would take a few /many season for the cost to REALLY start to take it's toll, so that by the time it was really becoming an issue, players would already be accustom to it.

It's an easier problem for players to stomach.

Reduce SC bonus, and players would notice right away and start rioting.

The game should not require players to spend all their time. When Juber says that you can decide for yourself when to play and when not, he is dissembled. There are things that need to be done to the end, or not at all, in the game, as in the life. You call such players who understand this maximalists, perfectionists, psychos and nerds. But where would FOE be without such players?

I remember a time when the diamond league consisted of 5 guilds, and they were fight on GBG around the clock for 2 or 3 months. How many great guys quit the game then? I can't count it. Strong guilds will be able to survive many changes on GBG. Strong guilds will always get in the way of others and will always be an incentive for the development of others. But they can't only live in the game. Don't make them do it

 

[Pericles the Lion]

The game should not require players to spend all their time. When Juber says that you can decide for yourself when to play and when not, he is dissembled. There are things that need to be done to the end, or not at all, in the game, as in the life. You call such players who understand this maximalists, perfectionists, psychos and nerds. But where would FOE be without such players?

I remember a time when the diamond league consisted of 5 guilds, and they were fight on GBG around the clock for 2 or 3 months. How many great guys quit the game then? I can't count it. Strong guilds will be able to survive many changes on GBG. Strong guilds will always get in the way of others and will always be an incentive for the development of others. But they can't only live in the game. Don't make them do it

You don't have to look very hard to find lots of players that have quit the game. I suspect that there are many different reasons, one of which may be the amount of time required to do GBG as a member of a very competitive guild. I say "may" simply because I don't understand why anyone would quit the game for this reason when they could simply join a more relaxed guild with lesser/no GBG requirements (and there are many of these). While heavy GBG activity could very well be the "straw that broke the camel's back" I doubt that it is the prime reason that a player quits the game. IMO, if there is a prime reason to quit it's from sheer boredom. Vast amounts of the FOE game experience is little more than "rinse and repeat".

 

[xivarmy]

You don't have to look very hard to find lots of players that have quit the game. I suspect that there are many different reasons, one of which may be the amount of time required to do GBG as a member of a very competitive guild. I say "may" simply because I don't understand why anyone would quit the game for this reason when they could simply join a more relaxed guild with lesser/no GBG requirements (and there are many of these). While heavy GBG activity could very well be the "straw that broke the camel's back" I doubt that it is the prime reason that a player quits the game. IMO, if there is a prime reason to quit it's from sheer boredom. Vast amounts of the FOE game experience is little more than "rinse and repeat".

Because these are typically competitive people. And GBG is so overwhelming in terms of payoff these days that there's not really room for them to be competitive without being in at least somewhat strong GBG guild and putting a lot of time into it.

So it can feel like the game is GBG or nothing. So at the point where GBG has become too much for them they quit - or reduce play to being purely social and then eventually quit because there's nothing else to do. Or they take up botting justifying it by "it's only doing what I'd be doing anyways and saving me clicks".

Ultimately it comes down to, the game they joined was a strategy game. The game it's turned into is a clicker - of which GBG while not the only culprit is the worst culprit.

 

[drakenridder]

As someone that's lead gbg and gvg, i suspect most leaders prefer to have some way to have a safe time to walk away from the game. There's nothing more sucky than having a beautiful GBG map when you go to bed, then wake up with only your hq staring at a checkerboard and realizing no one lead over night when the sectors re-opened.

They could solve it like they've done in Grepolis. Where there's a night bonus for the defence when attacks taking place at night (designated times with server time). In Grepolis defending armies gain 100% strength, at least a decade ago when I used to play it often. For GbG a time-out during night time van be set. Through this a gradual reduction an protection to hinder the slot exploit can help.
An anti-farming solution can be very simple: a daily cap for rewards. E.G. 600 rewards hard limit. You can still make advancements no problem and belong you're guild but no more reward will drop after that.
A gradual reducing protection penalty makes it impossible to hide behind the 159/160 wall with a allay or even alone if the guild is powerful enough. As with my suggestion you can retake provinces all day long but eventually you're forced to stop as you're SC's effectiveness is at that point 60% from what guilds with <3 provinces is. Thus making it practically impossible to endlessly farm. On top of that if there's a hard limit there's no way to farm.

--- which could be prevented by massively reducing SC effectiveness.

Which can be done gradually based off the numbers of provinces owned.

Edit: Also shorter timers means leaders would need to allocate MORE time to leading and allow less time away from Forge. IMO anything that makes leaders play forge more isn't sustainable.

It can be internally solved by establishing various protocols and educating every contributing guild member with them. Protocols in the real world have similar reasons of importation. If you follow them their outcomes are reliable. As a leader you're often holding on to adaptive strategy. Translating it down to a simple to follow protocol for guild members will help them to know what to do when a leader isn't there fore advice.
Personally I don't know how it would lead to more time needed. Unless it means it takes more time and effort to maintaining an impenetrable wall then it does exactly what it's supposed to do: cracking down on the exploit.

In conclusion GbG should be a competitive struggle to survive and overcome other guilds. Not a province swapping ground to locking others out. Having reduced protection and reduced effective SC would make full dominance much harder. The opportunities to strike greater but so the risks you're enemies will do the same. Which should lead to more interesting matches.
Sure those who are seeing it as an farmland for themselves and their allies will always be outraged when GbG becomes more balanced and fair.

The beauty of increasing to cost of SCs as you own more: the pain from the change wouldn't be dealt right away. Most dominate gbg guilds have a very healthy treasury at this point (so much so that AI core and atom are laughed at... both GBs would become must-haves if cost scaled). It would take a few /many season for the cost to REALLY start to take it's toll, so that by the time it was really becoming an issue, players would already be accustom to it.

It would hurt the smaller guilds more than the bigger guilds. Though I think it's defiantly easy and subtle enough for Inno to give it at least a shot. As you're right that if there's no guild goods to build SC with, there's no SC that can be used for the exploits. Even while it's a long, very long gradual change.
How much escalating costs would be sufficient to keep up with AI-core in addition?

Educational piece:


I got a question recently from someone wanting to understand GBG better. It’s worth providing a detailed answer, but explained.

Here’s the question: In GbG, how do Siege Camps (SC’s) work? For example, how many SCs would it take to fight for a sector totally attrition free (ie don’t incur any attrition penalty).

Here’s the answer: In the current GbG design, INNO built the SCs to work in an ADDITIVE probability stacking model. So to answer the question, here’s how to figure it:

1 Siege Camp gives a 24% chance for a zero attrition increase on that battle
2 Siege Camps give a 48% chance for a zero attrition increase on that battle
3 Siege Camps give a 72% chance for a zero attrition increase on that battle
4 Siege Camps give a 96% chance for a zero attrition increase on that battle

5 or more Siege Camps give 100% chance for zero attrition increase on that battle. In other words, NO ATTRITION accumulates.

With a carefully planned and then mapped journey, a guild with enough people power, goods and other financial resources (diamonds), could take over the entire map very very quickly, and with next to no attrition.

A method being proposed by some players to slow this type of rapid attack on the entire map, would change this to a MULTIPLICATIVE probability stacking model.


In this model, a guild cannot get to ZERO attrition no matter how many SCs they build, so would eventually get stopped by the pain of the game.

The multiplicative stacking model’s equation looks like this (vs straight adding of the probability):

1- ((1- First SC %) x (1- 2nd SC %) x (1 - 3rd SC %) x (1 - X SC %))


so if you had 4 SC to support your fight, here’s a comparison of the probability models:



Additive: 24% + 24% + 24% + 24% = 96%

Multiplicative: 1 - (1 - .24)⁴ = 66.6%


As you can see, this very small change will make a big difference in fighting “attrition free”. Let’s see what Inno chooses to do with this proposal.

Right now, many people are really enjoying the additive probabilities. It's funding EVERYTHING they do...

It'll become an over complex system that'll be exceptionally difficult to understand for most. A simple reduced effectiveness would effectively lead to the same results while being vastly more easy to understand by most, if not all players.
There's no easier thing then: if you're guild meets this point, that penalty you're guild's building will be dealt. Most can understand what a reduced X% means. Especially when they can witness the withering effectiveness of GbG buildings. Where a multi captive probability stacking system appears vague and exceptionally difficult to understand what exactly it does and mean for guilds. That been said it could be a stealthier approach.

 

[xivarmy]

It'll become an over complex system that'll be exceptionally difficult to understand for most. A simple reduced effectiveness would effectively lead to the same results while being vastly more easy to understand by most, if not all players.
There's no easier thing then: if you're guild meets this point, that penalty you're guild's building will be dealt. Most can understand what a reduced X% means. Especially when they can witness the withering effectiveness of GbG buildings. Where a multi captive probability stacking system appears vague and exceptionally difficult to understand what exactly it does and mean for guilds. That been said it could be a stealthier approach.

It's actually really easy to understand: multiplicative = independent probabilities. i.e. each siege camp is a dice roll - if any of them succeeds, no attrition. If none do, attrition. Many people assumed this is how it worked originally - it wouldn't take long to adapt.

 

[Owl II]

I will remind one more thing to those who hate farming of top guilds so much: the rewards for fights rarely fell and it was only the FP in the beginning. Beta players tried it a couple of times and left it. Then devs increased the chance of getting rewards. The same effect, no one played it. Then they added many other rewards, including fragments of SoH, as well as introduced buildings into the game, including SC. Only then did the players finally begin to show interest in the new feature. You sit and invent now how to roll back everything by two years. Brilliant But how will you roll back the efforts of the guilds to build the treasury and build a team for such a GBG format?

 

[xivarmy]

I will remind one more thing to those who hate farming of top guilds so much: the rewards for fights rarely fell and it was only the FP in the beginning. Beta players tried it a couple of times and left it. Then devs increased the chance of getting rewards. The same effect, no one played it. Then they added many other rewards, including fragments of SoH, as well as introduced buildings into the game, including SC. Only then did the players finally begin to show interest in the new feature. You sit and invent now how to roll back everything by two years. Brilliant But how will you roll back the efforts of the guilds to build the treasury and build a team for such a GBG format?

The rewards haven't changed since it went live. And any changes on beta were fast.

And even if you could no longer get 1k+ fights a day (and some still might depending on the precise changes), that treasury work would still be valid. Building siege camps would still be relevant to max out the fights you could do. And people would still want to do all the fights they can each day for the rewards; they'd just be limited to how many fights that is. As the attrition system was meant to do in the first place. They explicitly stated during the beta phase "this isn't supposed to be a feature where you fight all day", which is why they raised the attrition cap to 150 at 12000% boost instead of 100 at ~2000%.

I suspect they failed to anticipate people switching from battling each other to coop-farming.

 

[Owl II]

The rewards haven't changed since it went live. And any changes on beta were fast.

I scrolled the logs beforehand to refresh my memory. I recommend you to do the same

 

[xivarmy]

I scrolled the logs beforehand to refresh my memory. I recommend you to do the same

Perhaps you could simply point to what you refer for context?

 

[Owl II]

They explicitly stated during the beta phase "this isn't supposed to be a feature where you fight all day", which is why they raised the attrition cap to 150 at 12000% boost instead of 100 at ~2000%.

f they didn't want people to fight all day, they needed to think about the properties of the buildings at the very beginning. But they pulled up attrition. The stupidest thing that could have been done. And now we're sitting here talking about greedy farmers. But who set the stage for the emergence of these players?

 

[Owl II]

Perhaps you could simply point to what you refer for context?

Yeah, it's not hard for me

You can also scroll the changelogs in these 2 weeks between September 26 and October 9

 

[xivarmy]

f they didn't want people to fight all day, they needed to think about the properties of the buildings at the very beginning. But they pulled up attrition. The stupidest thing that could have been done. And now we're sitting here talking about greedy farmers. But who set the stage for the emergence of these players?

I think we can agree that ultimately the framework that leads to the current situation falls squarely on inno. The players just use what's given to them. Hence the wish for Inno to do something about it. They didn't anticipate everything players might do. It's up to them to fix it. Or not.

 

[xivarmy]

Yeah, it's not hard for me

You can also scroll the changelogs in these 2 weeks between September 26 and October 9

So that's "pretty quickly on beta" in my eyes given that september 26th was when it first hit beta and wasn't 100% finished yet by their own statement even before any player feedback hit. October 9th was changes in time for season 2 on beta. And was likely on their own impetus, not ours, as they were still finishing different parts.