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When can we stop pretending GBG is balanced?

Not like Inno is asking for anyone's feedback on this issue anyway.

We’ve noticed. But they should be paying attention.
I have seen top player after top player from many guilds leave the game over the GbG issue. Diamond spending money making players. So many more getting really fed up. It’s all I can do to keep my own ultra competitive daily playing crew of 80 engaged enough to stay in the game. But they are bored. They have these cities built to kick a$$ and are stuck watching paint dry while we wait for yet another unqualified guild take a single tile over a period of two hours. Like come on, already!

And guilds like mine spend a ton of diamonds just to boost sieges and play GbG. At least 25 a day and our budget is constantly growing. If we aren’t in a competitive round and we wipe the map, then we aren’t spending diamonds, cause the map just sits there or takes forever and a half to flip. There are so many reasons why this is wrong.
 

Sheriff Of Rottingham

Active Member
IMO, steps that could be taken to make GBG more competitive across the board:

  1. Anonymous Play - no guild names, no messaging, no chat. if inno could make it appear like every guild is in the 12 o'clock position on their map, that would be even better, but i'm not sure if that would work without completely uniform map appearance.
  2. Factor in guild size in rankings/matchups somehow - for example, like High School sports. small schools with like 500 students have a AAA league or something like that. Whereas schools with 2k students are in a 5A league.
  3. Fog of war - someone else's idea, but I like it. Makes it so you don't know what is going on across the map
  4. Home base proximity power (call it whatever you like) - give your troops % bonus attack and defense based on how close they are to your home province. adjust cost of province buildings and time to build based on proximity to home province. The closer to your home province, the better the benefit. As you move away from your province it lessens, across the map it eventually becomes a big penalty. for example, 300% atk/def next to base, -300% attk/def across the map. 70% cheaper builds, 50% faster next to base. 300% more expensive/longer to build across the map.
  5. Supply line tactics - factor in somehow province connectivity to home province. Like in real war, if a supply line is attacked and/or cut there was a dramatic impact on the cut off armies. Plus supply trains could be looted. Factor both of these into the game. I don't know how to do this, maybe make it so that if you aren't connected to your home province you lose your personal atk/def bonuses. That would be a huge deal and force players into protecting their flanks and not over extending to stick it to a particular guild far away while ignoring neighbors
  6. Prevent lock in - Put 1-2 siege towers as default in all home provinces that can't be modified.
Just a few ideas. No example numbers are set in stone, just trying to give an idea what i'm describing.
 

Tony 85 the Generous

Well-Known Member
1. Anonymous Play - no guild names, no messaging, no chat. if inno could make it appear like every guild is in the 12 o'clock position on their map, that would be even better, but i'm not sure if that would work without completely uniform map appearance.
No guild names would have a large effect. Captured sectors by other guilds need to be in one color. Ie., only three colors on the map: white-your guild, gray-unclaimed, yellow-conquered by another guild (I'm not set on yellow, just randomly picked a color)
I don't think they could cut off messaging or chat unless GBG was cross world, but even then there would be a rush on building cities in every world. If the guild names are given, then messaging will happen.
2. Factor in guild size in rankings/matchups somehow - for example, like High School sports. small schools with like 500 students have a AAA league or something like that. Whereas schools with 2k students are in a 5A league.
That doesn't work out. We have seen guilds with lower member count roll over guilds with a full membership. It is not member count, it is member participation, and their collective strength to fight or negotiate.
3. Fog of war - someone else's idea, but I like it. Makes it so you don't know what is going on across the map
Thanks.
4. Home base proximity power (call it whatever you like) - give your troops % bonus attack and defense based on how close they are to your home province. adjust cost of province buildings and time to build based on proximity to home province. The closer to your home province, the better the benefit. As you move away from your province it lessens, across the map it eventually becomes a big penalty. for example, 300% atk/def next to base, -300% attk/def across the map. 70% cheaper builds, 50% faster next to base. 300% more expensive/longer to build across the map.
I can see this one. based on a scale of 1-6 (being the number of sectors away from your HQ) things get harder or take longer (not sure I like increasing the building costs)
5. Supply line tactics - factor in somehow province connectivity to home province. Like in real war, if a supply line is attacked and/or cut there was a dramatic impact on the cut off armies. Plus supply trains could be looted. Factor both of these into the game. I don't know how to do this, maybe make it so that if you aren't connected to your home province you lose your personal atk/def bonuses. That would be a huge deal and force players into protecting their flanks and not over extending to stick it to a particular guild far away while ignoring neighbors
This is interesting. Not sure about all the items you listed, but one boost that may be possible would be to tie the supply line to the home base distance. Your base is in tier 4. To get across the board, you would need tier 3-2-1-1-2-3 sectors, six sectors in total. If you have a line (opposed to an isolated sector), there is a boost which counteracts part of the distance from home effect.
6. Prevent lock in - Put 1-2 siege towers as default in all home provinces that can't be modified.
I'm not seeing this as preventing lock-in. Guilds are pinned into their HQ by softlocks. Softlocks are based on two opposing guilds holding sectors next to your HQ and requires communication between the guilds. The latter can be removed by making the guild names anonymous on the map and leaderboard. So far the only idea that could have an effect on guilds holding enough sectors to pin a guild, is to limit the number of conquered sectors per guild. In this way, the guild that would be likely to pin another guild down will have to choose, pin the guild in to their HQ or hold sectors to make VPH to finish on top of the leader board.
 

Sheriff Of Rottingham

Active Member
I don't agree with your reasoning on point 2. While yes, guild participation is what truly matters, you can only participate up to the number of people in your guild. If a 5 person guild is in there with a 60 person guild, Even with 100% participation, the smaller guild is at a disadvantage against 50% participation of the 60 person guild. They can't "participate" beyond 5 people. Individuals can chose to participate or not, it's an unknown variable. What IS known is total number of guild members. At least if you use that known information you establish a situation where people can be competitive if they chose to be. Regarding the other point-by-point response, there are a few other things I don't 100% agree with, i'm gonna try to keep it to just the one issue.

Edit - I should also add, thanks for the reply. :)
 

Tony 85 the Generous

Well-Known Member
I don't agree with your reasoning on point 2. While yes, guild participation is what truly matters, you can only participate up to the number of people in your guild. If a 5 person guild is in there with a 60 person guild, Even with 100% participation, the smaller guild is at a disadvantage against 50% participation of the 60 person guild. They can't "participate" beyond 5 people. Individuals can chose to participate or not, it's an unknown variable. What IS known is total number of guild members. At least if you use that known information you establish a situation where people can be competitive if they chose to be. Regarding the other point-by-point response, there are a few other things I don't 100% agree with, i'm gonna try to keep it to just the one issue.

Edit - I should also add, thanks for the reply. :)
The reasoning behind item #2 goes beyond just the number of members participating. The attack boost and production of the 5 members participating in the 5 member guild may out weigh the 10 participating members of the 60 member guild. To apply normalization, the 5 members may be the equivalent of 15 members (5 that don't actually exist/participate) of the 60 member guild. Some sort of guild member, member partipcation, member strength factor need to be included, but it cannot be based solely on member count. That won't work.
 
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BpTexas

New Member
Here is a screenshot of our current GBG map in diamond league 1 hour after GBG opened. Before giving my thoughts, I'm going to start a hashtag called #InnoBalance:

When your 2nd grader reaches the final round in the school spelling bee and has to beat an English professor #InnoBalance

When the state championship football game is a local varsity team vs the KC Chiefs #InnoBalance

When you're in the final round of an interview and your last task is to defend a PhD Thesis #InnoBalance

When your niece/nephew asks you to help them study their multiplication tables so you hit 'em with a little calculus instead #InnoBalance

Come on now, let's either make an apex league or make diamond the apex league and only allow the top 7-8 guilds in. If you're one of the bottom 2 GBG guilds for a season, you're out for the next season and the top 2 Plat guilds move in. This isn't hard, there are a ton of games with apex ranking systems that you can copy.
I agree. GbG has become one of the most unbalanced features of the game., Guild matchups need to be handled better. GE matchups are handled much better

I'll admit, it's interesting to hear complaints about imbalance from a player who's seemingly on the favorable side of the situation (the sectors are white, which means they belong to the one taking the screenshot).
Yes, but I'm sure it's boring to be a heavyweight, and walk to the center of the ring, and punch out your feather weight opponent every time without a boxing match. We need matches.

You mean,,,,, exactly what happens currently?
It would be interesting if a league higher than Diamond was introduced, but to my thinking to be a real challenge, for this league, increase the cost of Siege Camps to 10-15 thousand or more. Make it so the number 1 guilds are really #1

The biggest flaw in GBG balancing is that they don't strictly factor in guild size, not the league you are in. The biggest flaw in GBG mechanics is that it isn't 100% anonymous.
Perhaps like GE, they should match against guilds from other worlds

When Inno calculated initial guild ranking for the very first BG season, it was accurate and we were paired with a much more competitive group. Perhaps factoring in some of the measures used for that initial ranking would better match guilds in BG and could be used along with BG results to calc LP. The cap on points (MMR/LP) of 1000 should also perhaps be changed or removed. Another idea would be to make the guild rewards (for coming in 1st, 2nd, etc) a bigger spread... as it is now, coming in 2nd or 3rd (versus 1st) is almost negligible. Just some ideas. We used to have a minimum requirement for BG encounters, now we can barely build camps for fear that there won't be fights for some in the guild while we wait for the other guilds to retake sectors.
Good point about building camps and waiting for other guilds. We've been on both ends of that situation, being both the big guy waiting for other guilds to flip sectors, and in other cases, being the Featherweight, and not moving fast enough for the big guys. In either case, it slows the map down, and too often most map participation is between only 2 of the guilds on the map.
 

Tony 85 the Generous

Well-Known Member
It would be interesting if a league higher than Diamond was introduced, but to my thinking to be a real challenge, for this league, increase the cost of Siege Camps to 10-15 thousand or more. Make it so the number 1 guilds are really #1
Massive increase in siege camp cost would be intersting, though it would like not daunt the top leagues so it would be irrelevent. Another thought would be to vary (increase) the cost for the second and third SC on the sector. Again would be irrelevent to the top guilds. As for a league higher than diamond, there is already "two" diamond leagues. This change would only result in the guilds with 1000LP having a league with its own name (might as well call it the 1000LP league).
The best point is
GbG has become one of the most unbalanced features of the game., Guild matchups need to be handled better.
 

Lando6

Member
Ok...something weird is going on. There was a completely different thread started about how the ranking for GBG is completely messed up and now its gone. Completely removed. I commented on the thread and my comment isn't even showing up in my content. I guess Inno doesn't want people talking about how messed up GBG really is or how there is a major flaw.
 

Agent327

Well-Known Member
Ok...something weird is going on. There was a completely different thread started about how the ranking for GBG is completely messed up and now its gone. Completely removed. I commented on the thread and my comment isn't even showing up in my content. I guess Inno doesn't want people talking about how messed up GBG really is or how there is a major flaw.

Nothing weird is going on. That thread was deleted cause it was a duplicate thread. Same thread was also posted in the ideas section. Besides that, there is also this thread. You are free to to give your opinion as long as you follow forum rules. Forum rules also tell you not to start duplicate threads.Thread starter obviously didn't follow those rules and in that case, your comment sadly suffers the consequences as well.

Next time, just message a mod to ask about it. We do not bite and will always explain why we do things.
 

icarusethan

Active Member
I know its not what players want so no matter if its intended to be this way, it should be fixed. am I the only one thinking this way?
 

wolfhoundtoo

Well-Known Member
Happening on F as well. Last I heard it was supposedly a bug but that's kind of a strange bug to occur if they didn't rework any code related to the matchups.
 
The hypothesis I have heard is that they are using Guild ID as the second criteria for matchups. So take all guilds with 1000 LP, then rank them by Guild ID (basically age of the guild) and group them. There's a video out there on the youtube that talks about it (I'm pretty sure that's all I can say about that). Apparently it also determines position on the map, with lowest ID at 12:00 and moving clockwise around the map. We've been seeing the pattern (and the same guilds) on Z for some time. So I guess now if you're one of those "little" guilds getting stuck with a couple of big dogs, you're really hating life (or at least GBG anyway). Also going to test the old 'familiarity breeds contempt' proverb.
 

Ironrooster

Well-Known Member
Question: How many of the same guilds are you seeing from one season to the next?

Presumably half the diamond league guilds lose points from finishing in the lower half, so the common opponents should be less than half for those still at 1000LP.
 

Lord Pest

Well-Known Member
Question: How many of the same guilds are you seeing from one season to the next?

Presumably half the diamond league guilds lose points from finishing in the lower half, so the common opponents should be less than half for those still at 1000LP.

in an 8 guild contest they all start with 1000 LP. The guilds that finish 7 and 8 get demoted to platinum. The guilds that finish 5 and 6 lose 25 and 75 LP off their score. They stay in diamond but will be in a group with less than 1000 LP.
 

Johnny B. Goode

Well-Known Member
How do you know when the guilds formed?
It's probably an assumption that the guild IDs are based on guild age. Presumably they would have started with #1 for the first guild ID just for simplicity's sake. Only Inno knows when a guild was formed, as far as I know. Unless the original founder/members remember or noted it in their guild profile. (Admittedly, I've never looked for that info, so it may be out there somewhere.)
 

Agent327

Well-Known Member
Open a support ticket.

Support will not be able to answer you.

First Guild created on a new world will be #1. Next #2 and so on. If for some reason Guild #1 gets dissolved and the founder starts a new Guild with all the same members, it will get a new Guild ID like #394 for instance, depending on the total number of Guilds on that world.
 

67Sage101

Active Member
Just found out the VP payouts for sectors is random. And the # of buidings you can build is randome. So from the get go, some guilds make out better than others for the same # of battles. I read back up from the top and HOOPER was right on target. They did this to stop farming so now one guild takes the whole map and all the other guilds fight over scraps.
 
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