Guild Battlegrounds Feedback

[DeletedUser]

By negotiating, will that be with individual goods or guild goods? Can individuals fight then negotiate when they no longer can fight? It is good that players can decide when to fight. Will guilds be matched by the number of players? A guild with 70 players will have a big advantage over a guild with 50. On the reverse side it would be an advantages for top players to be in guilds with less players. Like all changes to this game it will cause screams of pain.

I am a long time player of the game have played on many worlds, on the US, EN and Beta Servers, active GVG, GE and can even remember the game before either of those features were added.

I would be interested to know the average age of the players of FOE. I currently play several worlds and rarely encounter players who are less than 40 years of age. Those who play and then stick with the game are not your traditional gamers. The game is far too slow moving, far too complex and while a great game doesn't seem to keep the attention of younger players.

I have played literally hundreds of on-line browser games, stand alone computer games, PS4 games and have found very few that are as detailed and well designed as FOE, the only other game that held my attention as long was probably the Age of Empires series. I invest far too many hours of my life in gaming, and have always enjoyed FOE.

They make a good point in the forum post, the game was never intended to go where it is today...most games would never see a 7 year life or beyond. Where FOE is today was just not anticipated when it was developed.

On a recent question and answer session the developers admitted that they don't truly understand GVG, that no one on the current team was around when it was created, and that some of the issues they have with GVG are issues as they can't figure out how things were designed. I know the creative mind behind the game has passed away, and that hurt the overall focus of the game and his knowledge of how things were built has hurt the game. But it still seems like GVG should be able to be fixed.

I think most players who play GVG would leave if they remove the feature (which as has been pointed out they haven't said they are doing). But I don't think most players would object to taking GVG down for a short period to work on fixing the issues...as long as they are guaranteed it would come back. Almost every game I play has periods where they will take down the entire game or sections of the game to work on issues.

Now regarding the Battlegrounds, I would be concerned about two things....
#1 - scaling battle boosts - while most players don't even pay attention to the battle boosts in GVG now (as their attack levels are high enough that it doesn't matter), I would fear that you would lose some of your "diamond" players who have paid huge money to build their city with these huge boost, should you reduce their overall boosts.
#2 - Most servers have lost enough players that there are really only 20-50 big fighters doing most of the fighting on GVG, and what is to stop most of them from joining together in one guild to again dominate the rankings in this new battlegrounds feature?

The bottom line is this game has changed drastically, I don't know how the game is doing in other countries, but on the United States version the game has slowly been dying due to players tiring of playing night after night many for 5-7 years. If you want to be a top guild on most servers, GVG is going to require a huge time commitment and most people can't commit to playing 7 days a week for hours a day.

I realize this game was a huge cash cow for Inno.. "was", the problem is it seems these days almost everything that gets added is more features that will almost force the player to pay to play. I know Inno says "the game is free to play" but I have tried that route and you will not get through GE, you will rarely complete even one special building from an event without paying. I am hoping that this is not another attempt by Inno and the FOE development team to draw more money from the player base...but I remain skeptical. I hope Inno realizes that when the player base diminishes (as it has) that you can't continue to draw the same revenue from a game that has a smaller player base. I personally am tapped out, I set a monthly budget for gaming and it seems INNO is driven to try and get more and more money from the same players.

Talk to any player that has left FOE, and you will hear the same reasons they have left over and over -
#1 - Server lag
#2 - Time (the game takes too much time to play)
#3 - Money - Inno has made it impossible to play and be competitive without spending tons of money.

I have never spent dime and I get through 4 levels of GE in 2 worlds every week. I play GVG when I can in the morning.

 

[DreadfulCadillac]

By negotiating, will that be with individual goods or guild goods? Can individuals fight then negotiate when they no longer can fight? It is good that players can decide when to fight. Will guilds be matched by the number of players? A guild with 70 players will have a big advantage over a guild with 50. On the reverse side it would be an advantages for top players to be in guilds with less players. Like all changes to this game it will cause screams of pain.

I have never spent dime and I get through 4 levels of GE in 2 worlds every week. I play GVG when I can in the morning.

individual goods i belive

 

[DreadfulCadillac]

because of the new attrition thing, this is one thing where traders can have a better advantage..i perrsonnally am a merchant, so will be investing all forge points for ahwile into getting goods........
i know i said this before but peeps, excpect to see crackdowns on interguild tradeing from ehavily involved guilds..
this type of conflict could maybe shift some of the older guilds outa the top 10 finnally?

 

[DeletedUser11323]

As far as being a worthwhile addition to the game: It depends on how many people would use it. You say that about 5% of players are doing GVG. Did your analysis look at why that is? Are only 5% playing GVG because it is too complex? Or, are only 5% playing GVG because the vast majority of your players don't want to make fighting a major part of their game play?

Adding to the samuelvimes comment - initial presentation post of developers mentioned that 5% are playing GvG and 10 times more play GE. It would be interesting to see, what percentage of GE is played by fighting and what percentage by negotiating. This would demonstrate better, what playing style players prefer - fighting or peaceful. And it would give more clues, how to improve GvG, Guild Battlegrounds or even GE.

 

[DeletedUser22107]

Suggestions :

Get rid of AA altogether. It's dominated by very few and not fair to many other players. It's the main reason I no longer play GvG.

Develop a tutorial on GvG in the forum. Currently the only way new players learn is from other guild members that will take the time.

 

[DeletedUser37617]

Well, I for one am excited about this! I do level 4 in GE and my guild has strong areas on most of the different GvG maps, but I am sure we would do well in this new Guild Battleground! I am also very pleased that it mentioned that there is a possibility to get pieces for a building that can give guild points and FP.

I do notice from the comments that not everyone seems to be reading the whole post: #1 They will NOT be getting rid of GVG! #2 They will NOT be changing GVG to this new thing! lol, they will simply be adding this to the already existing things.

 

[Emberguard]

By negotiating, will that be with individual goods or guild goods? Can individuals fight then negotiate when they no longer can fight? It is good that players can decide when to fight. Will guilds be matched by the number of players? A guild with 70 players will have a big advantage over a guild with 50. On the reverse side it would be an advantages for top players to be in guilds with less players. Like all changes to this game it will cause screams of pain.

It would be interesting if players were able to use treasury goods for this. If they were using guild treasury I'd like to see it be implemented with something like this:
- each guild choose between whether everyone uses from the treasury or everyone from their own inventory
- treasury based guilds pitted against other treasury using guilds. Inventory guilds pitted against other inventory using guilds.

Adding to the samuelvimes comment - initial presentation post of developers mentioned that 5% are playing GvG and 10 times more play GE. It would be interesting to see, what percentage of GE is played by fighting and what percentage by negotiating. This would demonstrate better, what playing style players prefer - fighting or peaceful. And it would give more clues, how to improve GvG, Guild Battlegrounds or even GE.

Wonder what initials will become the norm for writing Guild Battlegrounds? GBG? ('cause GB is already taken xD)

 

[DeletedUser27107]

I play FoE because it is a strategy game and pay almost no attention to GvG. GvG in this game involves no strategy other than accumulating enough people at the right time (usually reset), having enough goods, taking or releasing the best sector, and having high enough bonuses to use auto battle as fast as you can. It is really mind numbingly boring and takes slightly above 0 skill to battle non player controlled targets. I would not miss it at all if it were gone. It additionally messes up the points system, we all know the highest ranked players just sit around "batteling" computer controlled fights all day long.

Since this game is not a fighting game and any competition will never be live to show true skill, I think you should focus on something completely different than what you have now because it is just a waste of computing energy and space. I think you may have answered your own question in the 10x the users in GE statement. Drop cross world battle because it does not really do anything and make it same world with more levels and ranking based on direct guild vs guild competition, not who has two or three guys who do nothing else.

 

[DeletedUser11323]

Wonder what initials will become the norm for writing Guild Battlegrounds? GBG? ('cause GB is already taken xD)

My guildie just used initials GBG, so I'm sticking to that

 

[Emberguard]

I play FoE because it is a strategy game and pay almost no attention to GvG. GvG in this game involves no strategy other than accumulating enough people at the right time (usually reset) [...]

I'm assuming there'll be a auto button but if the main issue you have with GvG is lack of skill would you prefer Guild Battlegrounds to not have a auto option? Would anyone else here prefer to have auto absent for this specific feature?

 

[DeletedUser27889]

I am quite impressed to see them bringing ideas to players and asking for opinions on things. Even more so that they are going direct to live players to amass as much feedback as they can. It's a huge win in my opinion to see them caring so much about player relations when they know, despite how few people may play GvG, GvG is a huge part of those peoples game play.

I disagree that bringing GvG to mobile wouldn't work to invigorate it. The coding might be difficult but GvG could be it's own stand alone app it works in the puffin mobile browser so obviously mobile players are capable of running it on their devices.

I'm very glad to see another way of gaining guild rank outside of GvG and if I'm understanding it correctly, finally something to do with all those AF-VF goods in treasury. I have a billion questions that I'm sure we wont know the answers to until we all start playing it but so far I think it's great and a long time coming to see more attention paid to guilds and working as a team.

I'm looking forward to playing this and wondering if they plan on going straight to live with it to get as much feedback as possible. It wasn't mentioned on beta so if I needed to wager a guess thats what it seems like they will do.

 

[DeletedUser37581]

I'm assuming there'll be a auto button but if the main issue you have with GvG is lack of skill would you prefer Guild Battlegrounds to not have a auto option? Would anyone else here prefer to have auto absent for this specific feature?

Because of attrition, battles will keep getting harder and harder to fight. A serious fighter will have to either stop fighting or switch to manual fighting to keep going.

 

[DeletedUser]

One part of the game will be ruined. Players who cannot play at recal can go out on their own and milk AA for points to help keep up. This will be taken away.

 

[Emberguard]

One part of the game will be ruined. Players who cannot play at recal can go out on their own and milk AA for points to help keep up. This will be taken away.

I'm totally missing the connection here as to how that's going to prevent anyone from still using AA to milk for points

Could you clarify for me? Could have sworn the announcement said GvG was staying

Edit:

 

[IngeJones]

One part of the game will be ruined. Players who cannot play at recal can go out on their own and milk AA for points to help keep up. This will be taken away.

They can't though really, unless they want to risk getting into trouble with their guild leaders or have a very laid back guild. In my guild we have to check with the leaders before we do anything, and if they're not online at the same time the opportunity is lost. I am sure my guild can't be the only one with strict operating parameters. If the seiges took a few hours instead of moments - I mean if I log in half an hour after the battle cry goes out, the entire war is over and several sectors won and defended - then I could join in when I log in later. I think the whole thing is ruined for me by just how fast it's over and done with - within minutes of recalc every day.

 

[DreadfulCadillac]

They can't though really, unless they want to risk getting into trouble with their guild leaders or have a very laid back guild. In my guild we have to check with the leaders before we do anything, and if they're not online at the same time the opportunity is lost. I am sure my guild can't be the only one with strict operating parameters. If the seiges took a few hours instead of moments - I mean if I log in half an hour after the battle cry goes out, the entire war is over and several sectors won and defended - then I could join in when I log in later. I think the whole thing is ruined for my by just how fast it's over and done with - within minutes of recalc every day.

unless you are the leader...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
whyd o yuo think alot of the high ranked advanced players have founded guilds that they keepon invite only so no one can join?GvG freedom

 

[DeletedUser27734]

GvG is dominated by a few strong guilds because it is a real contest with winners and losers. There are technical glitches, so adapt and overcome. It is not all in the game; you can negotiate alliances and treaties with other guilds and players. There is some real strategy and tactics to learn; that is what makes it fun. Keep that and enhance it with more kinds of strategy and tactics and negotiation. If things can be divided into smaller pieces so more guilds can participate, that is fine, but keep it a real contest with winners and losers and complexity that makes it challenging for the top players to learn and stay involved.

GE is totally boring. Wash rinse repeat. Every week you are matched with roughly equivalent guilds so you can have a jolly good time doing the same thing every time. I'm sick of it. If this game adds another system like GE I'll finish VF and retire.

 

[DeletedUser22236]

I hope whom ever implements this had nothing to do with the AA design. The removal of goods and using only medals??? The guild has 100s of millions and would have many more except at 99999 at a time to donate to the guild stops many from bothering. The poinr being there is ZERO cost to a seige. Allowing seige with only spearmen? When the original designs for sector strength 0 to 75% and we were starting out the HQ defense was something to consider most people had % boost of under 90%. I'm running 450/230 + and I doubt I'm up to average. No one cares about the sector boost. The ripple effect of that and no goods means the OBS is useless (above FE), Arc value halved, Atomium useless. What were you people thinking? Your comment about number of people playing being low. Is that driven by complexity, crap design or that most of the action is at reset, or requires a very fast connection?

 

[DeletedUser23452]

The PC only GVG part of the game is used by only 5% of the players! Enough said. GVG is broken beyond repair, it requires guilds to have several players on PCs at 8:00PM EST and then they just spend their limitless resources auto fighting battles with their crazy attack bonuses to dominate the maps, while all the new guilds and players can do little or nothing about it. Not fun. Since most new players will be on mobile, creating a new guild fighting feature would be great, make it a turn based feature where a seige takes time to set up. Players have a few minutes to lend their troops for the battle(s) and then the defenders get a message that their sector is being seiged and they have a few minutes to log in to defend. So guilds can only take one sector at a time, it leaves the field open for others to attack and will prevent max guilds from blocking off the maps.

Too many current maps have bottlenecks making it easy to hold and block off large sections. Remove the landing zones and allow all edge sectors to be seiged, which will force max guilds to defend more sectors and change that game style. I could go on, but will wait to get more info on new Battleground feature

 

[DeletedUser17265]

That's the problem alluded to.
calming down about GvG. A siege does not a war make. It's just one battle. As players climb, they become more apt to begin investing in GvG. I think what the GvG guilds, when they report, there are not enough guilds participating must realize is that you can't blame a guild for not investing in war when it clearly wouldn't be profitable. it's not broken. It's just slow moving. It's less manipulatable than the Market.