Feedback for the Guild Battlegrounds Update 2023

[Sharmon the Impaler]

The third thing that makes it impossible for a small guild to go up against a larger guild it the removal of holds in GBG. If a competing guild has you cornered the way out is to set up a series of holds to give you some timer breathing room. Now the larger guild drops the buildings in their sector and they can take up to 3 hours to hatch. You try for a hold to get you out of your homebase and all the competing guild does is delete one of their buildings dropping the advances needed and instantly flipping that sector. As soon as the timer runs out you will be back to square one.

 

[xivarmy]

The third thing that makes it impossible for a small guild to go up against a larger guild it the removal of holds in GBG. If a competing guild has you cornered the way out is to set up a series of holds to give you some timer breathing room. Now the larger guild drops the buildings in their sector and they can take up to 3 hours to hatch. You try for a hold to get you out of your homebase and all the competing guild does is delete one of their buildings dropping the advances needed and instantly flipping that sector. As soon as the timer runs out you will be back to square one.

If you're holding you hold at the line just before the baseline without buildings to not allow that to happen til you're ready to start the timer.

Personally I find great humor though in watching big guilds set up a multilayer hold You still get to fight in that situation though and make them work to contain you. Which constant lockout does not allow.

The improvement with being back to square one is you still have your HQ building, so square 1 is not so painful. And they have to spend attrition to redo the setup as well - which might be easy for the stronger partner, but not so easy for the weaker one

 

[Sharmon the Impaler]

I am in one of the top guilds , I am looking at it from the other side of the coin and would like to see GBG as challenging but fair for everyone that plays in it. Platinum and Diamond are advanced levels and should be virtually impossible for a younger guild to stay in so cut them some slack and start making it tougher for them in Gold instead of starting it at max toughness in Copper.

 

[xivarmy]

I am in one of the top guilds , I am looking at it from the other side of the coin and would like to see GBG as challenging but fair for everyone that plays in it. Platinum and Diamond are advanced levels and should be virtually impossible for a younger guild to stay in so cut them some slack and start making it tougher for them in Gold instead of starting it at max toughness in Copper.

The thing is that the distribution of how many diamond/platinum/etc guilds there are is fixed by how the system works - if you see a guild you don't think belongs you have to imagine an already existing guild that would better take their place. Or fix matchmaking.

I agree that there should be less diamond guilds most likely - new worlds where they haven't saturated to their stable count of diamond guilds are often the place where the matchmaking works best. The main idea here would be to force people to place higher to maintain their place the higher they are. It wouldn't take much to make a big difference either. i.e. if everyone lost 2.5% of their MMR before their round result got tacked on that would make a significant impact in thinning out the higher leagues over the long haul. As well as avoid the guild that was in 8th from jumping right back up to 1000 with a 1st in their next platinum round.

But no matter if they do fix matchmaking, there's always going to be some outmatched guilds in the top leagues - there just isn't enough parity that high to create fully-competitive groups (even if it was only one group, guild #8 is fish food most likely). So it's also important that in a position where you deserve to lose it doesn't change the desire to be there and do your best. And that's what the tourney grounds is supposed to help - you can't win that in platinum, so even if you're losing in diamond if you want that building, you want to be in diamond. As well as what the base building is supposed to help - even if you get pinned, you can still have attrition reduction.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

I'm not convinced that the smaller Guilds in Copper/Silver/Gold need to get some slack. I just look a quick look at the current league standings in S. The #1 in Copper has 277K VP and is a 1-player guild. #2 has 203K VP and is also single player. There are much larger guilds with far fewer, or zero, VP. Likewise in Silver. #1 has 177K VP and has only 6 players. #2 has 53K VP, also 6 players. In Gold, #1 has 668K VP with 16 players. #2 has 258K with 8 players. #3 has 237K with only 5 players. There are a lot of 50+ player guilds in Gold. Apparently, the number of players in the C/S/G does not correlate well with the ability to gain VP jn those leagues. The smaller guilds have found a way to win, despite the apparent handicap.

 

[xivarmy]

I'm not convinced that the smaller Guilds in Copper/Silver/Gold need to get some slack. I just look a quick look at the current league standings in S. The #1 in Copper has 277K VP and is a 1-player guild. #2 has 203K VP and is also single player. There are much larger guilds with far fewer, or zero, VP. Likewise in Silver. #1 has 177K VP and has only 6 players. #2 has 53K VP, also 6 players. In Gold, #1 has 668K VP with 16 players. #2 has 258K with 8 players. #3 has 237K with only 5 players. There are a lot of 50+ player guilds in Gold. Apparently, the number of players in the C/S/G does not correlate well with the ability to gain VP jn those leagues. The smaller guilds have found a way to win, despite the apparent handicap.

The 50 player guilds in gold are largely inactive guilds that are still < 5 player guilds - just with 45 inactive players tacked on. There's no way you'd be stuck down in gold if even half of a 50 player guild was active - even without buildings, you'd just steamroll the whole map. (Which incidentally is probably why the actually-5-man guilds win - they can afford to build while the 5 man with 45 inactives are being asked for inconvenient goods they can't mass easily).

 

[Pericles the Lion]

The 50 player guilds in gold are largely inactive guilds that are still < 5 player guilds - just with 45 inactive players tacked on. There's no way you'd be stuck down in gold if even half of a 50 player guild was active - even without buildings, you'd just steamroll the whole map. (Which incidentally is probably why the actually-5-man guilds win - they can afford to build while the 5 man with 45 inactives are being asked for inconvenient goods they can't mass easily).

I learned something new today. Thanks.

I just looked at about 20 of the Gold League guilds with more than 50 players on W. Every one of them had more than 50% inactive players. Some a lot more than 50%. Go figure. This suggests to me that none of these guilds has a real leader and none of them are serious about either GE or GBG (otherwise the knuckleheads would cull the herd to save on goods in GE and better their chances to have goods in GBG). Outside of D1000, I'm not sure that discussions comparing small with large make much sense.

 

[Sharmon the Impaler]

I learned something new today. Thanks.

I just looked at about 20 of the Gold League guilds with more than 50 players on W. Every one of them had more than 50% inactive players. Some a lot more than 50%. Go figure. This suggests to me that none of these guilds has a real leader and none of them are serious about either GE or GBG (otherwise the knuckleheads would cull the herd to save on goods in GE and better their chances to have goods in GBG). Outside of D1000, I'm not sure that discussions comparing small with large make much sense.

Platinum and Diamond will be where most active guilds reside. The lower leagues are either feeding into these or inactive and will remain lower anyway.

 

[Angry.Blanket]

Instead of your childish passive aggressive response , how about offering up a better idea ?

I thought I did offer a good Idea? The vast majority of the players in this game are casual F2P Inno has to keep them happy because of their #s , I say just rip the bandaid off all at once and get it over with. They want what the big active Guilds/Players have, So give it to them

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

Maybe Inno could takes some goods from the big guilds and give it to the small inactive guilds so things would be more fair and the small guilds wouldn't have to work so hard. Make is so a portion say 45% of a big guilds income automatically gets spread out amongst the small guilds treasurys. This would allow the Ifyou really believe taht drivel ?small guilds to stay small and still be able to have the same rewards as the bigger guilds/players

Do you really believe that drivel ? Or just saying something to annoy? LoL
This desire you have to take from the strong and hand it freely to the weak just makes the weak weaker, and even less interested in taking care of themselves. What incentive would they ever have to do anything to build up? All they would do is say they should get even more for free.

 

[Angry.Blanket]

Do you really believe that drivel ? Or just saying something to annoy? LoL
This desire you have to take from the strong and hand it freely to the weak just makes the weak weaker, and even less interested in taking care of themselves. What incentive would they ever have to do anything to build up? All they would do is say they should get even more for free.

Believe it or Believe in it ? I don't condone nor support anything that takes away from the active players to appease the inactive players, but all the arguments here are about leveling the playing field for smaller/inactive guilds and players, this will have to come at the expense of the active players.

 

[planetofthehumans2]

Consider every #1 in every league (copper to diamond) will get a victory point though and there is no way to tell which league they got it from. You can argue you can see their LP/VP, but after a season or two it will literally be impossible.

 

[Just An Observer]

Today I finished GBG with 10K Fights/10K points and hit 215 Attrition. This was possible due to a 5 era jump from Prog to Future that I prepared for over a year. Odds are no one else ever does this and if someone did, I would love to meet them!

Our guild members got in more Fights than they did in the old GBG. Just as in the old GBG, we found a weaker but adequate swap partner and made hay as usual.

What was supposed to be impossible was a 5-figure score and Farming. So much for that prognostication!

 

[Coach Zuck]

Consider every #1 in every league (copper to diamond) will get a victory point though and there is no way to tell which league they got it from. You can argue you can see their LP/VP, but after a season or two it will literally be impossible.

I would be shocked if anyone gets a win recorded unless they were in diamond when it happened?

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

but all the arguments here are about leveling the playing field for smaller/inactive guilds and players, this will have to come at the expense of the active players.

Not all the arguments. Plus your supposition that "this will have to come at the expense of the active players" is complete fantasy on your part.
The way players who are weak and not doing well in GbG can improve, never weakens strong players! The weak grow. They improve themselves by working at the game getting to know how to play, getting bigger stronger Cities. They become good players equals.

 

[Amitola1]

If I understand the building fragments available in Diamond correctly. The ToC fragments are only available to spots 1-3. The TG fragments are available to all Dimond players by fighting or negotiating with no fragments at the end of the season.

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

If I understand the building fragments available in Diamond correctly. The ToC fragments are only available to spots 1-3. The TG fragments are available to all Diamond players by fighting or negotiating with no fragments at the end of the season.

correct.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

The first GBG season is in the can and I have a question. Looking at the league standings on Tuulech after GBG ended there are 49 Diamond League guilds and the standings show that 13 guilds got a "Victory". I get it that some number of guilds may have dropped from Diamond into Platinum and some would have moved up from Platinum to Diamond but 13 victories implies that there were 13 Diamond battleground maps last season. Something like 49 Diamond guilds populating 13 maps doesn't make sense. What am I missing?

Edit: I think what may have happened is that there were some number of guilds that started the season in Mid- to high Platinum and won their battleground. They earned a "victory" but got bumped into D1000. If this is what happened, should victories in Platinum count towards Diamond league championship standings?

 

[xivarmy]

The first GBG season is in the can and I have a question. Looking at the league standings on Tuulech after GBG ended there are 49 Diamond League guilds and the standings show that 13 guilds got a "Victory". I get it that some number of guilds may have dropped from Diamond into Platinum and some would have moved up from Platinum to Diamond but 13 victories implies that there were 13 Diamond battleground maps last season. Something like 49 Diamond guilds populating 13 maps doesn't make sense. What am I missing?

Edit: I think what may have happened is that there were some number of guilds that started the season in Mid- to high Platinum and won their battleground. They earned a "victory" but got bumped into D1000. If this is what happened, should victories in Platinum count towards Diamond league championship standings?

That is what happened. And is something that got questioned on beta too. I think they're hoping that ultimately it won't matter. That guilds that get victories in lower groups will eventually move up to diamond and have to win there to stay near the top.

It is an interesting thought experiment though:

- just before the first week of a season, start a new guild with the strong core of an existing one.
- win 5 straight rounds while taking the entire map leaving you at 925-963 LP (depending on if rd 1 was a group of 7 or 8), 5 wins, and top VP.
- either hold on for no guild getting 6 wins or get the 6th win yourself from a single round in diamond - and not even 1000.
- you are the champion! Ending in 1000 LP, 6 wins, and with minimal competition for 5 seasons, top VP.

 

[Orius Maximus]

We had a very good season in Platinum and finished second.

This is how things were on the map on the second day. Here's what things looked like last night when I was wrapping things up:



Early in the season, purple offered us an alliance to swap provinces and we accepted. I didn't bother mentioning this during the season in case anyone on the map was reading this topic. Red took an early lead, you can see that in the earlier topic, but we worked with purple to push him m back, and we had him bottled up for the last few days. Orange took a good chunk of the bottom of the map at one point but couldn't hold on to it.

Here's the thing: purple came in first and had only 2 players.
Red came in third and had only one player.
Orange came in fourth and had three players.
Teal came in sixth and blue was dead last, and both guilds are maxed at 80.

So numbers in a guild don't matter as much as actual activity. Those two full guilds probably only had a tiny number of players participating. Now in Diamond things are probably different, but tiny guilds don't have a chance against big active guilds in the highest ranks anyway.

We did do better than normal with more people actually participating. While attrition free fights were gone, it was easier to get a decent amount of reduction rather than seizing as many provinces as possible and spamming Siege Camps everywhere.

For the record, we have 65 members and we had a total of 16 players participate. We don't have any requirements to do GbG and I'm not planning to add one. One of the problems here is that I play on mobile and I have no good way of determining who's active. I can check the logs for GE and GbG on a Monday like this where they both end, see who did neither and then see if they did anything else to contribute like participating in GB swap threads or the guild 1.9, check my event logs from the town hall to see who aided, etc. That takes a lot of tedious work though. I could send a message to the whole guild and tell them to respond to the message or leave and anyone who doesn't after a certain time is considered inactive and purged, but that's clumsy too. The bottom line is that guild leaders on mobile need a fast way to determine which guild members are active like how browser players have an indicator on the guild administration screen. Or Inno could have markers on the guild tab on the social bar like they already do with the friend list. This is more than a GbG issue, but it does make it harder for mobile players to manage a guild and it's been a problem for a good while. If this needs to be discussed in another topic that's fine by me, but it is something that does need to be addressed because I think it may contribute to guild stagnation.

The 80% attrition in the lower leagues is also killing GBG off for the smaller guilds too. Up to silver it should be zero attrition cap to allow them to play. Gold make it a 90% cap and Platinum and Diamond keep it at 80%. Problem would be solved , you go up higher then the cap starts hitting you. The current way they discourage even getting into GBG for the smaller

I am in one of the top guilds , I am looking at it from the other side of the coin and would like to see GBG as challenging but fair for everyone that plays in it. Platinum and Diamond are advanced levels and should be virtually impossible for a younger guild to stay in so cut them some slack and start making it tougher for them in Gold instead of starting it at max toughness

I'm not convinced that the smaller Guilds in Copper/Silver/Gold need to get some slack. I just look a quick look at the current league standings in S. The #1 in Copper has 277K VP and is a 1-player guild. #2 has 203K VP and is also single player. There are much larger guilds with far fewer, or zero, VP. Likewise in Silver. #1 has 177K VP and has only 6 players. #2 has 53K VP, also 6 players. In Gold, #1 has 668K VP with 16 players. #2 has 258K with 8 players. #3 has 237K with only 5 players. There are a lot of 50+ player guilds in Gold. Apparently, the number of players in the C/S/G does not correlate well with the ability to gain VP jn those leagues. The smaller guilds have found a way to win, despite the apparent handicap.

I have to agree with Pericles here.

The real problem here is that GbG matchmaking is on a stupid bell curve that crams all the active guilds up into Platinum and Diamond while rewarding far too many LP to the top guilds each season. Guilds in Copper aren't even doing it at all, and it doesn't take much to make it out of Silver it seems. Gold is a big bulge in the middle that has a lot of underperforming guilds. Meanwhile Platinum has a range of 250 LP from 651-900 and Diamond a mere 100 more points to 1000 LP. And a first place victory against 7 other guilds awards 175 LP. One good victory and a guild that actively participates can easily be bumped up to complete against guilds that are realistically much more powerful. So we ended this season with 850 LP. If we finish better than fourth next season we get bumped into Diamond. We got bumped up to Diamond three seasons back, and we could barely hold on to a province or two. If we finish first, we'll be at 1000 LP where we will spend the following season being constantly eaten alive by the top guilds on the server. I don't feel like deliberately throwing a season either. Another thing that's unfun is being in Platinum and being matched up against a guild or two that really belongs in Diamond and which spends a season chewing up Platinum guilds before being sent to were they belong.

I think that either the ranges for the guilds need to have the LP requirements boosted so Diamond is more than just a narrow band of 100 LP, the LP awards adjusted so that even first place gets less than 100 LP for a victory, or replace the bell curve with a different system.