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Guild Battlegrounds Arrival Feedback

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RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
@Visionelle, @MikeJ916, and @athena9, good feedback.

One of the major reasons given for negotiations being 2x vs. battles being 1x, in a negotiation, you always, always, lose the goods. Even when you bail. In a battle, it's possible not to lose any units and retain units when you surrender. I also think the negotiations are well balanced among the 4, 5, and 6 choices, none demand diamonds to complete, unlike GE you have unlimited turns.

As far as the rest of your points, to me, they're all just growing pains. For the players, for the player's cities, for the guild and for the guild leaders. For the first time in a long time, players will have to reevaluate how they've built their cities in light of GBG competitions and adjust accordingly. Leaders will have to reevaluate how they've built their guilds and adjust accordingly as well.

I agree with you that resource costs, players in units and goods, buildings in guild goods is expensive and the current rate that established players and guilds are burning them is unsustainable. I think that's a good thing.

My guild got assigned to Gold league and placed on a Platinum battlefield with 4 other guilds. Within 30 minutes of opening, every sector was locked for the next 4 hours. From then on, it's been almost non stop turn over with building after building speed build and demolished over and over. Completely unsustainable on every level. Again, I think that's a good thing.

Once the toll becomes clear, instead of the entire map locking out in 30 minutes, it might take the first 2-3 days to advance into the #1 ring. Instead of virtually every sector changing hands every 4 hours, maybe after a sector unlocks, a guild will hold it for a few more hours, at least long enough for a premium building to be built without diamonds. Maybe instead of multiple Palaces being insta-built on the #1 ring then demolished right before losing it 4 hours later, Palaces won't get built on sectors with high turnover.

Both players and guilds having to judiciously use their resources to excel in GBG is a VERY good thing. That's when GBG becomes more of a game about strategy, as opposed to the brute force, full frontal, slug fest of attack excess this first round was. Then it might become an 11 day chess match instead of an 11 day checkers game. King me.;)
 

Emberguard

Well-Known Member
One of my Guild members noted that GBG is intended as a drain on resources to solicit more diamond purchases.
Another suggested that the One-up-kit be modified into a selective One-up or One-down kit to allow players to use goods from a previous age. But the Moderators were too paranoid to allow proposals to make it to the developers, and are deleting such proposals en masse. Shame on them.
Not because of diamonds, but because that was a player requested feature for years ever since the Arc and CF made goods so easy to stockpile.
 

DeletedUser40197

Personally, I love GBG. I have completely overhauled my game strategy for this feature. Left a guild I had been with for about 2 years to join a guild I felt would be more competitive. Completely made the best decision. Through great leadership decisions and guild member participation we have stayed in 1st place in a gold league. I find the fighting and negotiating to be more of a strategic aspect as opposed to considering it a drain on resources. I find myself thinking of the best ways to increase both goods production and attack boosts and troops. I started plundering hoodies for prior era goods or current era if prior era aren't available, I never would have considered this otherwise. Overall GBG has been a great addition. Great for morale, unity and the competitive spirit.
 

Algona

Well-Known Member
Seems I've been preparing without knowing it for GBG for five years. I'm a natural hoarder with hundreds of thousands of Goods, tens of thousands of Troops.

But i'm seeing folk I know don't have those sorts of Resources doing unsustainable amounts of negotiations and fights.

Sustainability is the key for long term success in GBG.

Imagine that? Planning needed to succeed long term in a strategy game.

You cannot get anywhere near that with HoFs.

While (of course) the rest of wildelk's post is just plain wrong ,wildelk has a point about HoF,

Imagine an 80 Player Guild with 20 players in a variety of Eras ME and above. If each of those 20 has 2 HoFs the Guild will net around 40-80K Power a week. Seems like not bad production for 21 tiles? I guess a player could have another Barracks and/or Goods Building?

My 26 CE HoFs produce 40K Guild Power per week. I thought i'd miss the space in my city, but another 60 SoK or a dozen+ TFs don't make that big a difference to the Daily FP bottom line compared to what I get from farming neighbors GBs.

H'ain't afflicting my GE, GvG. and GBG none neither. Time (ahhh, sweet sweet prioritizing) is my limit there.

Of course it's silly for players to devote 25% of their city to HoFs. Just remember, I do these silly things so you don't have to. After all I had to fill the space with something after pulling the plug on The Great Diamond Experiment.
 
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DeletedUser29289

Since all players in a guild can participate in battlegrounds, GBG should get weight in guild ranking in addition to Guild Versus Guild and guild level. I also agree that attrition seemed to go up too quickly. I was hoping that GBGs would be something to participate in all day long, a part of the game to keep me coming back and checking in throughout the day. In most cases i would be locked out shortly after reset and forced to wait another 24 hours before being able to play again for a reasonable cost.
 
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DeletedUser

Just a reminder that I will edit out/delete any discussion of guild controls or logs to avoid this thread getting bogged down in those two topics as it did earlier.
 

DeletedUser40197

Since all players in a guild can participate in battlegrounds, GBG should get weight in guild ranking in addition to Guild Versus Guild and guild level. I also agree that attrition seemed to go up too quickly. I was hoping that GBGs would be something to participate in all day long, a part of the game to keep me coming back and checking in throughout the day. In most cases i would be locked out shortly after reset and forced to wait another 24 hours before being able to play again for a reasonable cost.
Attrition going up"quickly" is part of the strategy involved. Many times were given directives, move if attrition low, but if you can hold out we have higher targets later on in the day. Save attrition if possible... given by our guild leaders. You have to consider how your moves now will impact your game play later.
 

DeletedUser40996

Attrition going up"quickly" is part of the strategy involved. Many times were given directives, move if attrition low, but if you can hold out we have higher targets later on in the day. Save attrition if possible... given by our guild leaders. You have to consider how your moves now will impact your game play later.
It's going to take a while but players are going to have to learn their limits and not exceed them . Obviously longer time players are going to have advantages over a newer player like myself
 

Sheriff Of Rottingham

Active Member
"Too difficult if your goal is to win"

Then don't win. 8 competitors, one winner. Ergo, there will be SEVEN LOSERS. Failure is an option people. Not everyone is a winner all the time. If someone else has more troops and more resources, they might get the best of you. Instead of complaining about it being unfair, consider saving up for 4-5 rounds and go all out on the next one to see if you can be the 1 out of 8 that wins.
 

DeletedUser33052

Just a reminder that I will edit out/delete any discussion of guild controls or logs to avoid this thread getting bogged down in those two topics as it did earlier.

+ matchmaking is unbalanced and small very active guilds have disadvantage
+ crossworld leagues are what make match up more balanced
 

RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
"Too difficult if your goal is to win"

Then don't win. 8 competitors, one winner. Ergo, there will be SEVEN LOSERS. Failure is an option people. Not everyone is a winner all the time. If someone else has more troops and more resources, they might get the best of you. Instead of complaining about it being unfair, consider saving up for 4-5 rounds and go all out on the next one to see if you can be the 1 out of 8 that wins.
Actually, there are not seven losers, there are seven who did not place first. The top couple of spots increase MMR, the middle ones keep it about the same, the last spots will subtract from it. So really, there are only 2-3 losers, those at the bottom of the rankings.

Beyond that, I agree that it doesn't always make sense to shoot for 1st. Grab 1st when you can, but be content with a 2nd or 3rd place finish when 1st is out of reach. To me, its about consistent forward progress looking to place in the top half every single time. 1, 2 or 3, good enough for me.
 

Sheriff Of Rottingham

Active Member
Actually, there are not seven losers, there are seven who did not place first. The top couple of spots increase MMR, the middle ones keep it about the same, the last spots will subtract from it. So really, there are only 2-3 losers, those at the bottom of the rankings.

Beyond that, I agree that it doesn't always make sense to shoot for 1st. Grab 1st when you can, but be content with a 2nd or 3rd place finish when 1st is out of reach. To me, its about consistent forward progress looking to place in the top half every single time. 1, 2 or 3, good enough for me.
Well it's about perspective. The specific post to which I was responding, (as well as other similar posts) at least when I read them seemed like they were upset that they couldn't get 1ST PLACE without inordinate expense, and that was the issue. To many, if you're not first, you're last. What I was trying to communicate was, you don't have to get first place. 88% of us aren't finishing 1st. AND THAT'S OK. Enjoy the challenge and enjoy the 2nd-8th rewards.
 
So I logged into the forums for the first time (Created account even) since I started playing this game just to post my feedback on Guild Battlegrounds (GBg).

Overall it was fun at first and a great idea, but the risk is just not worth the rewards (IMHO). Having to think out things strategically was pretty cool once folks got into the swing of things, BUT it cost Diamonds to implement good strategy and that really pushed towards "Pay to Win" like model. It's clearly made to drain the resources and give something to do for those with deep pockets of troops, goods and diamonds. Me: I got ~120 frags so can't even buy the building at the end of this event after sinking tons of time and goods into, but limiting my burn after several attrition levels. Early on I was annoyed at myself when I spent some of my few diamonds thinking the rewards would be 100% each fight and not RNG (I got something every other time mostly).

For me: Gold League, Postmodern with most GB's Level 10 and I was more in the negotiation mode to play at higher attrition levels. Had to stay under 6x mostly to keep from going broke daily as the first couple of days burned most of my surplus of goods at that point I just stopped trying to keep up.

Suggestions for improvement (based strictly on my level player perspective):
  • Rewards RNG removed and rewarded 100% of time - especially for higher attrition (Spending 100+ goods to get nothing is horrible)
  • Building cost should be dropped to 100 frags (I'm sure your stat's will show many didn't participate and even less that did got no building this cycle). Not saying had out participation trophies here, but if someone did hard work they should walk away with something. Coupled with the fact it would take two cycles to get a building (At my burn rate) plus 4 upgrades (We are talking 5+ months of playing to level up if moderately playing).
  • Personal reward of Frags at the end seems low, and additional reward should be given to those by # of Neg/Att they have completed. This would encourage more participation during entire event. So person that did 400+ gets additional reward compared to someone who only did 20. Maybe every 100 events completed they get +20 frags?
  • Negotiation Turn Bonus from Tavern - Can't be used in Feudal Japan merchant or GBg and just for GE? Why have bonus in game then?
  • Leaders of Guild need to have ability to assign "Who" can attack a tile, but after that then everyone can attack that tile.
  • Balance - well that's been hashed to death already, but it will happen over time it sounds like (Help nudge it along if you can please)
Again - this is just my viewpoint and I think it's fun in concept, but not likely going to participate next time. I depleted most of my goods, troops and some diamonds to play and it came across as more "WORK" than being fun to play for not so great of rewards. We get better rewards doing other events in game than GBg and that is what should be looked at for a reality check on suggested rewards improvements.

Happy Forging Everyone! Fun activity, but it needs some minor improvements (IMHO)
 

DeletedUser40996

Overall it was fun at first and a great idea, but the risk is just not worth the rewards (IMHO). Having to think out things strategically was pretty cool once folks got into the swing of things, BUT it cost Diamonds to implement good strategy and that really pushed towards "Pay to Win" like model. It's clearly made to drain the resources and give something to do for those with deep pockets of troops, goods and diamonds. Me: I got ~120 frags so can't even buy the building at the end of this event after sinking tons of time and goods into, but limiting my burn after several attrition levels. Early on I was annoyed at myself when I spent some of my few diamonds thinking the rewards would be 100% each fight and not RNG (I got something every other time mostly).



If you spent Diamonds it was your choice . Yes It is a resource drain if you're reckless . Find a sustainable level and work on improving your city to increase that level



For me: Gold League, Postmodern with most GB's Level 10 and I was more in the negotiation mode to play at higher attrition levels. Had to stay under 6x mostly to keep from going broke daily as the first couple of days burned most of my surplus of goods at that point I just stopped trying to keep up.



Again find a level you can sustain daily.



Rewards RNG removed and rewarded 100% of time - especially for higher attrition (Spending 100+ goods to get nothing is horrible)



This I agree with . Guarenteed rewards like in GE gives more incentive to participate



Building cost should be dropped to 100 frags (I'm sure your stat's will show many didn't participate and even less that did got no building this cycle). Not saying had out participation trophies here, but if someone did hard work they should walk away with something. Coupled with the fact it would take two cycles to get a building (At my burn rate) plus 4 upgrades (We are talking 5+ months of playing to level up if moderately playing).



I'm sure that's for balance as the building gives 6 FP's at max level plus the amount of guild goods . Also you can build multiples of the building so they can't make it too easy to acquire



Personal reward of Frags at the end seems low, and additional reward should be given to those by # of Neg/Att they have completed. This would encourage more participation during entire event. So person that did 400+ gets additional reward compared to someone who only did 20. Maybe every 100 events completed they get +20 frags?



If it was implemented it needs to be based off of advancements a player earns instead of events completed



Negotiation Turn Bonus from Tavern - Can't be used in Feudal Japan merchant or GBg and just for GE? Why have bonus in game then?



This I can agree with . It should be available for GbG as well as Japan merchant



Leaders of Guild need to have ability to assign "Who" can attack a tile, but after that then everyone can attack that tile.



Already been discussed ad-naueum and very contentiously in this thread



Balance - well that's been hashed to death already, but it will happen over time it sounds like (Help nudge it along if you can please)



Give it time . Since this was just the first cycle there wasn't much that INNO could use for "Placement/Matchmaking" it'll certainly get better over time as guilds learn the limits they have.




Again- this is just my viewpoint and I think it's fun in concept, but not likely going to participate next time. I depleted most of my goods, troops and some diamonds to play and it came across as more "WORK" than being fun to play for not so great of rewards. We get better rewards doing other events in game than GBg and that is what should be looked at for a reality check on suggested rewards improvements


As individuals yes GE yields better rewards than GbG but for levelling a guild you get much more Guild Power from GbG than you will GE
 

DeletedUser28125

This may be the wrong forum in which to place this post, and if so, I apologize in advance.

It would be a nice addition to be able to see the leaderboards for all players on the same server. That way we'd be able to see who is playing against whom, and how everyone placed, within their battleground, after each GBG is closed.
 

DeletedUser25874

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this post...

Is there any thought to changing the reset time from 12 midnight ET to an hour or 2 earlier? There's a lot of activity at reset and it's very hard for members especially in the ET to participate then.
 

DeletedUser30312

I am launching an internal survey tomorrow in MSG's guilds that have participated in Battlegrounds for round one. I will share some of what we get here later. For now, the following are some of the things we've heard most from regular players in our guilds:

1. They like the fact it allows mobile players to contribute to guild leveling
2. They like the fact it works much like Exepditions -- negotiate or fight
3. They feel the algorithm used for negotiating is too difficult -- to begin with "it forces you to pay diamonds most of the time". Many have also said that they think Innogames has this backwards -- fighting for one point (as opposed to negotating for two) seems wrong.
4. They do NOT like the fact you cannot withdraw a siege, nor defend when attacked. Several have commented that this reminds them of kids'"King of the Hill" games or Tic Tac Toe .. .in other words a pointless venture since it is impossible to keep what you gain for more than 4 hours.
5. In general, comments are equally positive/negative save one thing we have heard from almost every player we ask for feedback .. "IT IS WAY, WAY TOO EXPENSIVE FOR THE AVERAGE PLAYER"

Again these are just general reactions -- a loose accounting only. I'll post more detail once we do the surveys.

I editied this also to add a few things pointed out to me by some of our leaders -- including one big item I forgot. Innogames I know was counting on this having a major impact on GvG, reducing participation there. That does appear to be true for now as GvG is noticably quieter in some places -- however there has been a side effect as well. GUILD EXPEDITIONS has taken a major participation hit in many of our guilds. I personally suspect this was in the plan, as the GbG requirements almost mandate a reduction in Expeditions activity by their design. If not -- Law of Unintended Consequences applies here.

Yes, I had fun chewing on one of those guilds in the opening season: :p

leaderboard.png

Here's how things played out on our map: Warriors started in the upper center, and quickly went for the center and grabbed as many of the provinces in rings 1 and 2 as they could, planting VP boosts all over them. We started in the lower left and went for the neighboring provinces at first, but then after the first day or so, focused on the center. Postmen started in the upper left, and grabbed much of the upper part of the map, while making plays for the center. After the first day or so, Postmen had Warriors mostly surrounded in rings 3 and 4, and made plays for the center. Warriors didn't bother to reclaim any of those provinces and spent most of the time trying to control as much of ring 1 and 2 as possible. We seized control of most of the lower left, and made plays for the center as well. Early, Warriors were earning a little over 1600 VP/hr, but after Postmen ate up their lower ranked provinces and we kept going for the center, their earning rate fell. Postmen's control of those lower ranked provinces gave them a steady income of VP, and there was a constant shift between us and them in 2nd and 3rd place as the center provinces changed hands. We managed a decent balance by holding onto lower ranked provinces while constantly grabbing the valuable center provinces. These top three guilds have around 20 players, so in terms of numbers the matchup was pretty even.

Nephilim was in the lower right, and while they never really managed to hold anything in the center, they controlled the lower right side of the map because their immediate neighbors weren't very active. UFOP was right above us in the center left, it's a level 20 guild with one guy in it that has 12M points, so I'm guessing it's a ghost. He had some low value provinces near his start and he occasionally sniped at us and Postmen, but there wasn't much he could do on his own. The other guilds were mostly small low ranked guilds that didn't really accomplish anything, but one of them (Knight I think) had something like 50 or so members.

We and Warriors got promoted to Gold, and the bottom three guild got a demotion to Bronze.

Negotiating isn't terribly difficult, but it's a bit too luck reliant when there are 6 choices. You can't directly stop a siege, but you can end one if you can capture all the provinces the besieger has bordering the province their sieging. I stopped two of Warriors' attacks on our provinces by leading a counter capture one of their provinces. So there's some definite strategy involved in taking a lower valued province for defensive reasons. We did lag a bit in GE early in the week, but yesterday we pulled ahead into first place while securing second on GBG, so it can be done. I can't speak for GvG since we really only have 3 players who dabble in it on occasion.

Another thing that kind of bugs me is that the difficulty is uniform across the whole map. It makes rings 3 and 4 less strategically valuable since the attrition and advancement costs are the same as rings 1 and 2, but the rewards are far less. On this map, the center provinces were worth around 200 each, but some of the provinces in ring 4 were less than 20. Yes, those more worthless provinces can generate a steady amount of VP income, but it's worth quite a bit less so you don't want to rely on it either. I think it might be worth increasing the difficulty and/or attrition costs in the center to better reflect the value.

#1 HOF's take up valuable real estate and IIRC can get plundered . That very same real estate can be used for goods producing GB's .

A HoF can be plundered if it's not motivated. This is a case where players need to improve their social contacts. I'm not a big fan of the HoF since it does take up valuable production space. It does help the guild over the long run, but the Statue of Honor is a huge improvement since it provides both guild power and guild goods while giving the player a nice amount of FP.

Ok we have played this and are coming up on the end of it. Our guild will more than likely be a close 2nd. It was competitive and lots of back and forth of being #1 and #2. My observations and feedback speaking as a founder of one of the higher ranked guilds with most member points and battles on our server and holding #1 overall every winter. So yes we have long time players, we have diamond players, we have fighters who know what they are doing, and we have lots of resources like goods, and we have leaders who know how to manage and teach. That said.....

*GBG is not going to be sustainable for many guilds season after season especially if the goal is to win. Even those with the advantages and resources will see a depletion. The goods costs for buildings are so random and skewed it makes no sense. I think the worse one I saw was 11,700 of a PME good for one building and that was just one of the goods.
*The attrition rates: fighting for many doesn't last long, not like it does for those of us with insane attack bonuses. Then when one has to turn to negotiating the goods costs are going to break people's banks sooner than later. These are goods people need for tech unless you are lucky enough to be at the end. Just in my SAM hood the trades up looking for Virtual Future Goods multiplied astronomically overnight.

Remember, the Statue of Honor produces a decent amount of guild goods when motivated, 50 at the maximum level, and the fragments for it are pretty plentiful. So the costs to the buildings might not seem so steep after a while. Then factor in Observatories, high-level Arcs and whatever players dump in from DC and event quest requirements. I think guilds with a lot of active mobile players are going to be at an advantage here since they're not spending the goods on GvG. There's also the guilds with a lot of AF+ players who do a lot of fighting on the AA map and have tens or hundreds of thousands of high age guild goods they weren't using too.

I do agree the attrition goes up too fast. One of the downsides to GvG is that it's not very accessible to newer players, you need to build up the combat GBs and Traz to be competitive at it. I think the fast attrition growth in fighting poses a similar problem; a newer players will probably be able to do only 5-10 advanced a day before hitting the wall, while the power fighters probably aren't getting slowed down until at least 40 or 50. I think having a shallow growth a bit longer, then a spike would be better here.

I don't really find the goods cost to be a big problem for me. I produce a decent amount of goods every day, but it might be a little harder for a lower player to keep up.

But there's also a long-term view to consider here, and the rewards for even a moderate success here are very good. The potential awards after a fight are really better than what GE offers, FP, units, goods, Statue fragments, and even diamonds. While most of that can be won from GE, there's a lot of coins and supplies, and it's hard for me to feel excited by that:

loaded.png

Getting tens of thousands of coins and supplies is a big meh for me when I'm in the hundreds of millions and the amount is little more than a rounding error. My city makes at least a million or so coins every day from normal collections and at least half that in supplies.

It's possible Inno will tweak the feature here and there too after some initial feedback.

Is there any thought to changing the reset time from 12 midnight ET to an hour or 2 earlier? There's a lot of activity at reset and it's very hard for members especially in the ET to participate then.

I think it's fine the way it is and I'm in EST. First, it kind of balances out the advantage EST players have with GvG recalc timing. Second, attrition lasts 24 hours, so having everyone burn out on attrition right after midnight isn't necessarily the best approach. You might want to have a team of players that can respond to things later in the day.
 
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