As a mobile-only player, I appreciate the fixes there.
Re: GBG, my guild will I believe stay on the fence. There’s no GvG for us as we are mostly mobile only, and the experience in 2 GBG seasons so far was confusing.
First GBG we started in Silver, and due to very low participation (2 guilds active only), finished easily 1st with having conquered the whole map (facepalm) and 90% of the VP scored, even not doing anything the last few days.
The second GBG was another story, still in silver after being ‘promoted’, we faced 7 guilds with more than twice the level, many high players (10M+ RP), and simply more players than us (we are about 17 to 19, all opposing guilds had at least 35). We didn’t do much, except score few advancements Iwe took 2 provinces, and lost them recently as they are 3/4th ring) just to see. We are still 7th since the 8th is even doing less than us.
There’s no real incentive to spend so much goods/troops for the difference in rewards on ranking, as we are not high level players (no long history with tons of goods, or high level GB), or high level guild (with a deep treasury). We struggle to actually be able to build much of the better GBG buildings as their high costs (3k+ goods) is sometimes not available for us (again we’re a young -one-year-old, growing) guild. We only started acquiring Arcs ‘recently’ (about 6 months ago) and mine’s the highest, and not even L20 yet. So treasury isn’t overflowing like I’d expect from older guilds with (many) Arc80.
So we sure can’t rank higher (gold...) and even the high-end of silver seems too much, even tho we’re active and a few of our players manage up to 30-40 attritions... not dreaming to get to the max.
We don’t want to be a bigger guild (more players) to enable still good GE performance (we are always on top2 spots), and have fair activity on our GBs.
Am I missing anything in the ‘profit calculation‘ of GBG for a young guild (without deep ‘pockets’)?
(I mean also: what does this rebalancing do to us? help or hinder?)
I can see why it's confusing, hopefully an explanation will help.
In the first round, all guilds were assigned an initial MMR based on previous activity in GE, GvG, etc. The MMR was then used to determine your initial league, and the guilds in the first match ups. The 7 guilds with the closest MMR got assigned to the same battleground. In the first round, every guild with active members got assigned to a battleground map. As you saw in your first round, many guilds chose not to participate and you coasted to an easy win.
At the end of the round, your MMR was adjusted based on your performance, as was every other guild who participated the first round.This new MMR was again used to determine your league, and 2nd round match ups. Again, the guilds with the closest MMR assigned to the same battleground. Those guilds who didn't participate, didn't get assigned to a battleground map for round 2, to participate in the future they'll have to opt in.
So why the apparent mismatch now?
Again, all those guilds who didn't play in the first round were dropped from the Battlefields. They can sign up to participate in a future round, but until they do, they won't appear in future match ups. From now on, every guild you meet will have been active in the previous round. Over the next few rounds, you may see a few more guilds go inactive, any who don't participate, will be dropped from future battleground until they sign up again.
So now, all the guilds you're meeting share a similar MMR, m,ost likely because they share a similar demographic, mostly mobile players, do well in GE, don't GvG. As a result, you all received a similar MMR for the first round. They started with a similar MMR, were assigned to a battleground, did what they did, had their MMR updated accordingly, and ended up with an MMR very close to yours. So now you all meet on the battleground for round 2.
At the end of this round, those at the top will get their MMR adjusted upward, those at the bottom will get their MMR adjusted downward. The new MMR will again determine both your league, and your next round match ups. You'll always be matched up with the 4-7 guilds with the closest MMR to your own. In theory, after a half dozen rounds, the leagues and battlegrounds will sort enough that you'll then be facing guilds you're pretty evenly matched with.
With MMR, guild size, guild age, member age, city size, are all irrelevant. The only thing that matters in GBG leagues and match ups is MMR and MMR is determined by actual performance in GBG.
Say that six rounds from now, your 17 person guild meets a 30 person guild. What does that mean? It means those 30 members are putting up about the same number of advancements as your guild is. Could be that all 30 are doing a minimal amount each day, no sweat. More than likely, you've got 10 people working like crazy to win, another 20 doing enough to make a show on the rank board, and the rest doing nothing, Regardless of how they're getting there, they've earned a similar MMR based on their actual performance, and you're now meeting them on the battleground. May the best guild win.
So yes, right now match ups are all over the place because there's literally 2 data points to base them on. Only one of those data points comes from actual GBG performance. Once there's 20 data points, 19 based on actual GBG performance, the match ups will be fair. You'll always be meeting guilds at your same level of performance, no matter what the make up of the guild.
Now that you've got a couple rounds under your belt, you can see what it will take to consistently perform, not always win, but perform. I'm sure you can already see how you can retool and grow your city, work with your members to do the same thing. Work as a team to collectively improve your cities to improve your performance as a team.
Work on growing your city, your members, and your guild. Do your best to get stronger each round. Watch what the winners do and learn from them. Then let the rest sort itself out knowing you're exactly where you should be each and every round, no matter who you're up against.
the only open question being how much to expect from GBG for the guild. Indeed the gains are quite impactful, even in silver for us. The question remains the costs to us, and the additional ‘effort’ or ‘stress’ on ‘average’ players.