When can we stop pretending GBG is balanced?

[Woody*]

If you want to consider fairness, should we consider the fairness between guilds or the fairness between players? This season, we have a 1-person guild in our diamond league, and a couple much larger guilds with much less motivated players. Who should the system favor? The 1-person guild who is on all day, the middle guilds with little to no desire to be on this map, or the 2 BG juggernauts with literally dozens of people in each guild that will get over 1k fights per season and who worked years on their treasuries?

I don't like any method that prevents two guilds from swapping sectors because you could end up having 1-person guilds blossom and we just have a bunch of solo guilds in diamond league populated by players that just want the personal rewards & points. (I don't have anything against solo players...they just don't belong on a map with juggernauts, nor do they deserve the rewards our members get)

 

[Lady Gato]

SNIP (I don't have anything against solo players...they just don't belong on a map with juggernauts, nor do they deserve the rewards our members get)

Why don't they belong on the map? Why don't they deserve the rewards? Obviously they've done something right to be placed on the same map.

I am not a solo player but your statement makes me curious.

 

[Spotmeows]

One suggestion I can make to make GbG more competitive:

Because the outer ring gives you the fewest points per sector, and those increase until you reach the center ring with the most points per sector, how about this:
Instead of random negotiations with a strong bias toward six-item negotiations (because those are the hardest to complete in three tries), I suggest always having 4-item negotiations for the outermost ring; 5-item negotiations for second outermost ring; 6-item negotiations for the second innermost ring; and 7-item negotiations for the four sectors in the center ring. If you choose the attack route, the same thing should happen: the easiest attacks in the outermost ring and the hardest ones in the innermost ring, with the middle two rings having attacks of intermediate difficulty.

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

It is that bully mindset that has you seeing things wrong. There isn't near as much banding together as you believe. There are probably cases of it in Diamond league, but not much in the grand scheme of things. Most alliances end up being unspoken informal things based on more than one guild disliking one of the other guilds for whatever reason, and ganging up on them.

I vehemently disagree. Bullying exists and will show you exactly where and how.

We have worked with and against the top guilds in diamond. The alliances are QUITE well defined with dedicated strategy threads. Of the guilds in a 1000LP matchup you will fall into one of three categories:
1. The Enemy Guild, every guild formally by strategy thread banded against you. You can tell you are the enemy but the massive number of (seemingly but actually corrdinated) softlocks surrunding your base and will spend the season being bullied around by the rest of guilds that are allied, communicating, and strategizing together to back, bully, and keep you in the corner for the season.
2. Top guild, guild with enough strength to plow over almost anyone. With multiple of these guilds, they will ally and setup a thread to coordinate offenseive and defensive strategy and plays.
3. "Weak" Diamond guild, basically the guild that is diamond that is there because of the points system but does not actually have the power to compete for one of the top finish positions. These break into two categories:
3a. Weak Informal Enemy Guild, the top guild alliance is not focusing on blocking with tons of softlocks to block your progress but each night the top guilds take all your sectors and you start from you base each morning.
3b. Weak Ally, you manage to get into the top guild alliance but your guild does not have enough strength to be able to make a stand and put up an arguement as to why you "deserve" a higher finishing position thus you are bullied into doing whatever the alliance says or you get booted into 3a.

The dictionary defines bullied as "To treat in an overbearing or intimidating manner". If you are #1 or #3b you are being bullied.

On any given world there is usually one guild that is flat out better than all the others, and in most cases they will always prevail.

Then there are a couple of more guilds that can almost match them.

Next there are some guilds that can pretty much destroy anyone that isn't in the two above groups, but will consistently lose to those first two groups.

Then there are all the rest. Some better, some worse, and their performance likely varies greatly from week to week. They don't have the power to compete against the top 3 groups, and are going to find themselves locked out and picking up scraps every time they run up against one of the stronger guilds.

Obviously I agree with this, see above.

Two questions for Inno to address:
1. How to stop the alliances from forming in GBG to make it a true open battle ground.
2. How to better define the leagues or the members of the leagues. I suggest first decreasing the points per position so allow the multi-season performance to outweigh the performance of a single season. Further on, it would be good to define a "guild power" number based on their ability to fight, negotiate, and succeed in GBG. Then use this to group the guilds on the map to produce a fair fight, this would also have the effect of remove 3a and 3b type guilds.

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

One suggestion I can make to make GbG more competitive:

Because the outer ring gives you the fewest points per sector, and those increase until you reach the center ring with the most points per sector, how about this:
Instead of random negotiations with a strong bias toward six-item negotiations (because those are the hardest to complete in three tries), I suggest always having 4-item negotiations for the outermost ring; 5-item negotiations for second outermost ring; 6-item negotiations for the second innermost ring; and 7-item negotiations for the four sectors in the center ring. If you choose the attack route, the same thing should happen: the easiest attacks in the outermost ring and the hardest ones in the innermost ring, with the middle two rings having attacks of intermediate difficulty.

Yes, 2-wave 8v8 fights are totally appropriate in a teir 4 sector. NOT!

I see where you are going. I was thinking there should be more building spots in tier 4 sectors and fewer in tier 1. In this way it would help the guilds get out of the base and move up where the bulk of the fighting happens.

 

[Flavius Belisarius]

Here's a thought.
It's a game. Instead of trying to modify the rules so you don't lose, how about ask what can you do to win?
If you end up fighting against the Top Tier and you aren't equal to them, you'll probably lose.
Strategic retreat (Don't play for one or two cycles) while you construct a more competitive Guild is a sound and honorable technique.
Bottom line: What can you do to make yourself better (and are willing to spend)? Requesting the rules to be changed to make everyone equal is a sign of weakness in your ability to improve your competitive level.

 

[Plain Red Justice]

Here's a thought.
It's a game. Instead of trying to modify the rules so you don't lose

There's virtually no rewards for being first place in GBG aside from... inefficient RtVs and AD coins. That is the root of the problem

Why? Because you encourage degenerate sector swaps and locks that way. Guilds won't want to overly dominate and instead look for 1 to 2 guilds to work together in order to get more battles. The more guild that works together, the more resources the guild saves. And because sector locks don't get randomized from 1,2,3,4 hours, any half-decent low effort coord blocks any attempt for breaking softlocks

Providing actually good/infinitely scaling rewards for 1st placers and guilds that refuse to work with others because they're too strong would solve a lot of GBG degeneracies because maintaining that kind of strategy would actually cost them compared to what we have now where the costs is basically non-existent to maintain and alliances is always a no-brainer

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

Here's a thought.
It's a game. Instead of trying to modify the rules so you don't lose, how about ask what can you do to win?
If you end up fighting against the Top Tier and you aren't equal to them, you'll probably lose.
Strategic retreat (Don't play for one or two cycles) while you construct a more competitive Guild is a sound and honorable technique.
Bottom line: What can you do to make yourself better (and are willing to spend)? Requesting the rules to be changed to make everyone equal is a sign of weakness in your ability to improve your competitive level.

It is a game. So what you are saying is don't play GBG until you can be a top tier guild. Gotcha. See you in a few months to a year or so. This season the top five members of the other 6 guilds are 400M plus. How long did it take you to get there?
You show a picture of the military. Not one of them is silly enough to start something they don't think they have a fighting chance.
I'm sorry to say that neither of your suggestions are realistic. It is not realistic to just sit out for months. It is not realistic "to make everyone equal". The fact is that not every guild is equal. Inno has tried to create groupings of equal guilds and failed. The suggestions here are not " how about ask what can you do to win" but what can be done to make the groupings more equal. It is not realistics IRL to put a HS Freshman sports player against a HS Senior player. Sure they are in the same school, but they are not equal and there is NO fighting chance for the Freshman.

 

[Woody*]

Why don't they belong on the map? Why don't they deserve the rewards? Obviously they've done something right to be placed on the same map.

I am not a solo player but your statement makes me curious.

Great question. This solo player absolutely belongs under the current system. But he cannot compete with at least 5 of the 6 other guilds on the map. We literally have at least 30 members who do more encounters than him every season and probably 50-60 of ours would if there wasn't so much competition for hits within our guild. So in the context of fairness, changing the rules to benefit him would be crazy. That said, Inno might do it if they could figure out how to extract more diamonds that way

 

[Lady Gato]

Great question. This solo player absolutely belongs under the current system. But he cannot compete with at least 5 of the 6 other guilds on the map. SNIP

Well that's his problem, correct? As a "guild" he cannot win but as an individual if he earns his place there, he's entitled to any rewards he can get under the current system. And then he falls back to platinum and then earns his way back. I don't see a problem with that -- he's obviously doing something right.

However, I do agree with the poster that said something could be done so that the "BG juggernauts" perhaps only face each other and leave the rest of the guilds on another map where it could actually be a "game" . And perhaps the fairness in that is creating a league between platinum and diamond. I don't know.

But I do know that fighting in gbg and giving it your all does not only happen in the Juggernauts.

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

One suggestion I can make to make GbG more competitive:

Because the outer ring gives you the fewest points per sector, and those increase until you reach the center ring with the most points per sector, how about this:
Instead of random negotiations with a strong bias toward six-item negotiations (because those are the hardest to complete in three tries), I suggest always having 4-item negotiations for the outermost ring; 5-item negotiations for second outermost ring; 6-item negotiations for the second innermost ring; and 7-item negotiations for the four sectors in the center ring. If you choose the attack route, the same thing should happen: the easiest attacks in the outermost ring and the hardest ones in the innermost ring, with the middle two rings having attacks of intermediate difficulty.

What do you mean by easiest attacks?

 

[Woody*]

Well that's his problem, correct? As a "guild" he cannot win but as an individual if he earns his place there, he's entitled to any rewards he can get under the current system. And then he falls back to platinum and then earns his way back. I don't see a problem with that -- he's obviously doing something right.

However, I do agree with the poster that said something could be done so that the "BG juggernauts" perhaps only face each other and leave the rest of the guilds on another map where it could actually be a "game" . And perhaps the fairness in that is creating a league between platinum and diamond. I don't know.

But I do know that fighting in gbg and giving it your all does not only happen in the Juggernauts.

I think we are on the same page. My choice of words probably wasn't the best. One of my points was to illustrate an unintended consequence of changing the rules. You could end up with a bunch of solo guilds in Diamond.

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

What do you think about adding a "fog of war" to GBG? This could be implemented two ways, either both or either.

First, similar to the archeology event, you can only see the adjacent sectors. We know what the whole map looks like and where the sectors are, but only see if the are conquered as you move into the sector next door.

Second, do not list the other guilds. Do not announce at the start or during the season whom the other guilds are. The leaderboard would show the VPH, total, and where you are ranked, but the guild names are fogged out until the season is over and the finish positions are determined. This could (would) prevent alliances.

 

[Emberguard]

What do you think about adding a "fog of war" to GBG?

Those ideas are things I wouldn’t mind having added. The real weak point though is everyone already knows the “dance”. So anything implemented with the goal of breaking up alliances will be working against that knowledge and muscle memory.

 

[DeletedUser]

The guilds are made up of individual people , you make connections with the people in the other guilds over time (you know , friends list , swap groups , forums , etc). These connections build to alliances between the guilds each player is in and voila. Through your hard work your guild is now allied with another and gets a slice of the pie.

The involvement in GbG starts with recruiting , building up your members so you grow as a unit. Ban greedy practices like 1.8, 1.85 , swaps etc. This creates top flowing wealth only and will suppress you as a guild and make you very noncompetitive in GbG.

Guilds were created to form bonds between individual members not as a cash cow for the founder and leaders , work that and you will have the grass roots worked out. Then you compete as a unit and will get knocked down. Guess what ? You build everyone higher and you get into the ring again. Rinse and repeat until you've earned your playing level AS A UNIT.

A large campaign involves many players in a guild and shift work and planning , this is fully engaged game play , this is good. I have been building myself up in Q for over a year and my current guild is a family that helps one another because the weakest link determines the strength of a chain. A weak guild starts with the players that bellyache about guild requirements and not getting everything handed to them , this progresses to the GbG level. Fix the roots and you will fix GbG. Stop asking Inno to spoon feed you and just play it like it was meant to be played . *mic drop*

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

Ban greedy practices like 1.8, 1.85 , swaps etc. This creates top flowing wealth only and will suppress you as a guild and make you very noncompetitive in GbG.

Please explain how you find these greedy practices. The financial math proves that a 1.9 thread is the cheapest and most efficient way to spend forge points to level great buildings. It is a mathematical fact and cannot be disputed.

I see no connection between leveling threads and competitiveness in GE. Please explain your direct correlation.

Stop asking Inno to spoon feed you and just play it like it was meant to be played.

So you are saying that Inno designed GBG to have alliances and groups of guilds to bully other guilds to submitting to their will while dictating finishing positions?

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

Those ideas are things I wouldn’t mind having added. The real weak point though is everyone already knows the “dance”. So anything implemented with the goal of breaking up alliances will be working against that knowledge and muscle memory.

Imagine it is Tuesday at the very minute GBG starts.

The only guild listed by name on the leaderboard is that of your own guild.

The only three sectors you can see on the map are those immediately adjacent (think seige camp adjacent) to your HQ.

How do you figure out what the other guilds are on your map?

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

Please explain how you find these greedy practices. The financial math proves that a 1.9 thread is the cheapest and most efficient way to spend forge points to level great buildings. It is a mathematical fact and cannot be disputed.

I see no connection between leveling threads and competitiveness in GE. Please explain your direct correlation.


So you are saying that Inno designed GBG to have alliances and groups of guilds to bully other guilds to submitting to their will while dictating finishing positions?

Sharmon said 1.8 and 1.85 threads not 1.9 threads. There have been (and presumably still) guilds that will not use lesser threads like that to give a boost to the top end players for whatever reason(s) they have for it.

As for how you figure out who else is on the map it would take a bit more work but once the map fills out you'll have an idea of who's out there more or less. There aren't that many guilds for the top level that you wouldn't be able to figure out who else was on the map once enough sectors were taken. More work yes but not impossible or that hard.

 

[DeletedUser]

Imagine it is Tuesday at the very minute GBG starts.

The only guild listed by name on the leaderboard is that of your own guild.

The only three sectors you can see on the map are those immediately adjacent (think seige camp adjacent) to your HQ.

How do you figure out what the other guilds are on your map?

How would this make a difference in a top tier Diamond battle ? (Diamond has a level 1 Diamond and a level 2 Diamond btw) That is the upper echelon of the top playing level and my guild for instance clears 10-12 sectors on the first wave and another 4-6 on the second wave , 2/3 of map is exposed at that point 8 hours into GbG.

You play in the top tier of the top level then you play against the top players. Perhaps a Stanley Cup Playoff with only 2 players to a side with their skates tied together would make it more fair to those bully teams picking on the lower grade teams too ?

Why should the players that played for years or that invest a thousand or 2 in their cities have to have the top level crippled so that the weekend players can get the same rewards as they do.

Would that incentivize them to play more ? nope it would not. I also think the seat warmer awards given in elementary schools breeds entitled views like the one that the first OP said. You want more then work more for it.

Inno isn't going to trash their long term player and paying base by giving them nothing extra for their efforts no matter how long you hold your breath waiting for it , capiche ?

 

[Emberguard]

Imagine it is Tuesday at the very minute GBG starts.

The only guild listed by name on the leaderboard is that of your own guild.

The only three sectors you can see on the map are those immediately adjacent (think seige camp adjacent) to your HQ.

How do you figure out what the other guilds are on your map?

At the start? You don’t need that info right away. I just need to get to the center. Once we have enough visible territory, we swap. We did so without speaking in the first three GBG seasons before making contact, we’d do it again. I’d be game to try it, don’t expect it to change the game but I’d go for it if it were implemented