Please Explain the Neighborhood Change

[DeletedUser7671]

Same guy is number one in my 'hood for soon to be four plus weeks, and I am dead LAST in my hood.
So the same old attacking and plundering occurs, daily

His army is much stronger so no chance of really a fair fight.

What gives?

I want to be able to enjoy the game and I really am NOT at this point with not seeing any changes in my neighborhood.

 

[Meat Butcher]

Sorry, but I need a chew toy and you were there.
Hope you continue to stay in my hood.

 

[DeletedUser]

The information that we have is: "All of the neighborhoods are sliced into chunks. (New neighborhoods skip the first merge.) These chunks are then combined to form neighborhoods of approximately 80 players who are relatively close on the technology table." We believed that an equilibrium should have been reached after the first couple of merges. With all the issues/tickets that we receive, I am not sure that the end result is living up to the expectations. This is one of the reasons why we often suggest players provide input into the forums. The change from the old system took over a year. Obtaining another change will probably take the same amount of time and input. Good constructive criticism and suggestions are the best way to get the system to change.

 

[DeletedUser5677]

Neighborhoods

There are really several questions that I have about neighborhoods.
First, how are they determined? In other words how are we put in a certain neighborhood?
Second, if they turn over every two weeks or so I've heard, how come I've been in the same one now for almost three months?
Third, can we request out of our current neighborhood? Can we request to be reassigned?

 

[DeletedUser5677]

My neighborhood has players from Progressive to High Middle Ages. Guess who gets picked on. I personnally am LMA with pretty decent army but can't fight the Progressive Age bullies that attack and then plunder. It's extremely frustating and not fair as they get to compete for the same PVP towers and myself. They need to be put into neighborhoods where there's no one to "pick-on", where they have to fight people of the same strenght. It's not fair and certainly not very entertaining. You need to make it fairer.

- - - Updated - - -

See my post below, you aren't alone.

 

[DeletedUser4844]

I know I've said far more then my share about the merge changes, and would encourage others to provide more input. However, from the perspective of sveral months afterward...

It seems there are still many actual bugs in the system. We frequently get complaints about people in much lower ages being put in with progressive era players. In my neighborhood on B world one of the players was in the industrial age before the merge, and yet others are in the high middle ages, and people haven't been merged out during today's merge. But even far more extreme examples seem to be common. Regardless of how good or bad the actual idea is, if the implementation of the idea in software fails you've got problems.

In addition to that, although I believe the complaints about vast differences in point values between people still have no validity, as point values are not, IMO, a good way to judge people's relative strengths, after tech age, bonuses to offense and defense due (primarily) to great buildings is a very important factor, almost as important as tech age. It would be nice, if and when the bugs are straightened out of the current system, if those bonuses could also be taken into account when determining neighborhood. Perhaps every 30% on offense (that helps attack and defense values) or 70% on defense (that only helps defensive values) could be considered the equivalent of one tech age?

I still think the idea of a merge system that goes off of tech age is better then one that solely goes off of time players or global points. I also think the ability to merge individuals into/out of neighborhoods is better then solely having two small neighborhoods merging. However, those who claim that the new system breaks apart friendships have a good point. Setting people in your neighborhood who you actually do become friendly with as friends in game can help, but sometimes people get to max friends.

 

[DeletedUser]

There are really several questions that I have about neighborhoods.
First, how are they determined? In other words how are we put in a certain neighborhood?
Second, if they turn over every two weeks or so I've heard, how come I've been in the same one now for almost three months?
Third, can we request out of our current neighborhood? Can we request to be reassigned?

The neighborhood merge system is completely automated. There are no tools to move players into or out of a particular neighborhood.

 

[DeletedUser8173]

I am wondering about the neighborhood thing. When I first came into a new world, I was dropped into a Hood of 50 plus players. Most had points of 71 and I soon assumed these were slots for players not yet playing. Yesterday my Hood shrank to 15 and today it's 6. What's going on? I can't battle for points as I already exhausted everyone yesterday. Can I move to another Hood where I can battle more than 5 people a day? BTW, I am not a bully, as I do not plunder, unless plundered first.

 

[DeletedUser4844]

mylar, as previously mentioned in this thread, the neighborhood merge system is totally automated and there is no way for either you, or the moderators here, to be able to move you directly. That said, it is set up to make neighborhoods of around 80 people, and it hits around Monday morning every other week. However, when you first start playing the game it is set up not to do the first merge, so the first merge when you start playing can occur anywhere from a little over two weeks to 4 weeks from when you start. A lot of people try the game out for a couple of minutes or hours and then leave, never to be heard from again, and those become inactive accounts which are later deleted. That's why you are seeing so many people in your neighborhood leave. If you have a little patience you should go into a roughly 80-person neighborhood within 4 weeks of when you started playing.

 

[*Arturis*]

My last hood where I fight everyone daily and got around 7M points per week with 50+ troops died in battle everyday. Now I got set into the hood with mostly CA players ranging from HMA to 1 or 2 PA players and today already Wednesday and I don't even got 1M points yet. I can actually go through the entire hood once without any loss. It puts a dent into my global ranking big time. I am not going to contact support because I knew exactly the answer would be. Just hope for the next merge where thing might be improved.

 

[DeletedUser8182]

I'm about ready to quit B world, and probably E world too. After the summer quests, I got put into a hood on B where the top players were the million plus points players. I was attacked and plundered every day. Finally on the last merge I was put in a hood in B where I was 5th. Now with the new merge this week in B - the top player has more than 3 MILLION points. Already attacked and breached by that neighbor - no surprise there. If the daily plundering starts up again, I'm just going to quit. A game is supposed to be fun...there is no fun left in this one.

According to previous correspondence with support, the generating of neighborhoods is by a computer program. Are you kidding me? How can it possibly be a fair neighborhood where I have 73K points and am at #51 and the top player has more than 3 million?

I've also been dealing with the frustration on E world. I joined it during the summer quests. During that time, most of the hood quit, and we were down to about 12 neighbors. Not much hope of advancement there, even in position #1. At the first merger after the quests, I was 70th in the new one - and attacked and plundered every day by the top neighbors. I stopped advancing in tech there, hoping for a more favorable merge. I am still in that hood after all of this time I am now in position #39, but that's mostly from doing the map.

 

[*Arturis*]

Let me guess, that 3M-er is me lol. You think I want to be in the same hood with you as much as you are in yours? Lucky I don't plunder, but seriously, how could you base your decision to play or quit on whether I plunder you or not?

 

[DeletedUser5677]

There should be a way to help people that get thrown into a bad neighborhood as I have been. You want people to stay and enjoy the game then make it fair for all of us, not just top down.

 

[DeletedUser8182]

No, I actually think you would much rather be in a hood where the wins that you get would actually mean something since you were going against others who can give you competition. There is no honor in beating up on players that are so far under you that there is no challenge at all.

You don't seem to understand that the game is not fun when a player has no chance to win a tower, or advance in the neighborhood very much. The old system was built on merit. If I worked hard at the game, I could get a good neighborhood ranking...in the top ten. There is no chance of that the way it is set up now. Getting constantly attacked and beaten is not enjoyable...especially since I cannot possibly put up a strong enough defense against the ones who are doing it.

If you were in my place, getting beaten up every day, you might feel the same way. I'm thankful that you don't plunder, but if you decided tomorrow to start plundering, there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop you. I am not basing my enjoyment of the game on you alone. You are not the only one in the neighborhood who attacks me every day.

 

[DeletedUser4844]

I'm starting to think they never should have implemented city points at all, or neighborhood rankings. Just display everyone alphabetically. There is clearly no way you will ever get people to understand that points have very little to do with strength, that you can have a 2 million point player who is beaten every single day like a red-headed stepchild by a 75,000 point player, because they 2 million point player got that way from simply playing the game a lot longer and collecting enormous amounts of resources, whereas the 75,000 point player raced up the tech tree very quickly and got the offensive GBs maxed early on. This is fact, but based on my own experiences on these forums you can belabor the point forever and people still see the magic numbers and just assume that higher numbers mean more powerful. Nothing you say will ever change their minds. So, perhaps it's time to do away with the whole system. Just scrap it entirely. It serves no useful purpose.

 

[DeletedUser2145]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to gwalchmai again.

There's that horrid message again, heh. I could not agree more, gwalchmai. Sadly, ranking points give people the impression they've surpassed someone, that they're ahead of someone, so they stir up competition for players who want to be at the top of that list, which undoubtedly brings in a lot of money for Inno. Thus I do not think it would happen, but I would be all for it.

There are cases when one has played for months, has earned a few million ranking points, and they come with the simplest of questions. The top player in any world could have less knowledge of the game than someone who has been playing for a few weeks. There's nothing that makes any player unbeatable or top dog, the only way to make that happen is when players see those silly ranking points and think "oh well they're way too ahead I can't do anything here".

 

[DeletedUser8182]

I'm not sure I understand your message Phantom. I'll give you an example: My top neighbor, the one with 3 million points, has 6 tank production buildings, and all 17 GBs maxed, including Alcatraz. Can you explain to me how that is fair in my neighborhood? I am in Colonial Age. The other top neighbors in my hood also have the ability to squash me like a bug every time they attack. The new computer placement system is ridiculous.

 

[DeletedUser]

I'm starting to think they never should have implemented city points at all, or neighborhood rankings. Just display everyone alphabetically. There is clearly no way you will ever get people to understand that points have very little to do with strength, that you can have a 2 million point player who is beaten every single day like a red-headed stepchild by a 75,000 point player, because they 2 million point player got that way from simply playing the game a lot longer and collecting enormous amounts of resources, whereas the 75,000 point player raced up the tech tree very quickly and got the offensive GBs maxed early on. This is fact, but based on my own experiences on these forums you can belabor the point forever and people still see the magic numbers and just assume that higher numbers mean more powerful. Nothing you say will ever change their minds. So, perhaps it's time to do away with the whole system. Just scrap it entirely. It serves no useful purpose.

You are correct, too many players view points as something that is important in the game. It really is not much more than a gauge of how long you have been playing. Collections, coins and supplies, the longer you play the more you will have. Battle points, while this one has some merit in "aggressiveness" you still play more battles the longer you play. Building points also increase with the technology "age". So we are back to the longer you play, the more squares you have and the more the buildings on them are worth. Add it all together and only battle points are not almost completely dependent on longevity.

PS: I've been saying that for over a year.

 

[DeletedUser]

I have 500.000 points. There is a player in my hood that has over 1 million. I can defeat him without losing a troop. This just goes to show that points do not matter. GB's and their levels matter more than points. There is another player in my hood that has 250.000 points but also has a level 9 Deal castle and a St. Basils(I forget what level) and battling him is not worth the effort or losing of troops. Points mean nothing especially when you have players who collect 300,000 coins and supplies a day.

 

[DeletedUser8182]

So maybe the answer is to set up neighborhoods based on a computer program that calculates in GB strength as a factor. That would certainly fix most of the problem in my hood.