Ships video - promoting elitist payout arrangements

Roopehun
344 posts Member
edited April 2018
The part that bothers me the most with the new fleet is that CG keep repeating how many new, strategic decisions will be needed. It may sound like a positive thing at first, but of you think about it, this goal has 2 major drawbacks.

The AI for sure will not be able to make good strategic decisions. This means that Offense battles will be easier, but at the same time, it also means Defense will be harder.
This might result droppong from top 5 to potentially the 50-100 ranges, from which, you wouldnt be able to come back to even top20 with the 5 free attempts. Who on Earth thinks thats a good thing?

So what will happen? People will organise the payouts and do non-attack treaties.
CG has already stated that they are aware of people organising elitist payout groups, but theyre not fixing this. Well, theres quite a bit difference between not fixing, and deliberately creating such framework that promotes this behavior!

How can you set a goal (more strategic=>more elitist, arranged payouts), that is clearly agaist the health and long term enjoyment of players?
There are already a long list of threads, where people are complaining about this, and yet CG just promotes this behavior further.
Post edited by Kyno on

Replies

  • Without something like actual mods for ships, o feel like the meta will be the same (meaning people will figure out which are best and only run them) and we'll be in the same situation, and it's not being elitist, it's coordinating so people can get the most out of arena
  • What steps do you suggest CG taking to stop players from sanitizing their Arena payouts?

    Being part of a Shard Chat does not mean you won't drop in the ranks overnight. All it typically means is that others in the chat will not attack you within 2-3 hrs of your payout.

    I joined an arena chat a little over a year ago. And very little changed in my battles, I already had figured out who was active near my payout, and avoided them. And if anyone attacked me near my payout, I made them regret it. So little changed for me. Those on the chat already avoided me, and I already avoided them. That said, being able to talk to those I was fighting did add to the game.

    If your constantly just attacking the highest rank player you can, your going to make enemies. And if there is a shard chat, you might end up on the "please hit this guy" list. I suggest modifying your play if you think this is happening.

    For Ships and Battle arena a Shard Chat would be very useful, and might avoid the creation of these third party chats as a communication line.


    As per how 3v3 will changed the Meta... The first time your Capital ship moves it will call a reinforcement. So its really 4v4... I hope the reinforcements will not be hidden as they are now. My intuition tells me the new meta will be Biggs + TF + FOTF. With max gear upgrades on your fleet commander so you get reinforced first. With Reaper as first reinforcement.

    If you can call reaper to reinforce, then finish off something with it, you should have a nice edge in the battle.
  • On defense Biggs will still be a must, otherwise anyone attacking you will just target all attacks on one ship and kill it quick.

    On Offense you can get away without Biggs, as the AI does not concentrate attacks. Which is a real flaw IMO.
  • Kyno
    32087 posts Moderator
    It's the same as it is now, as stated above without something like mods to customize turn order and strategy there will be a meta and everyone will beat everyone. 3 ships, 5 ships, AI, or not, does not matter, there is little chance you will see a balanced rock, paper, scissor going on in ships. There will always be a better situation that plays to the advantage of the AI, when we cant customize to "help the AI make better choices" also turn order in my mind is one of the biggest adjustments we get to make regarding mods and without it, things are just RNG and less strategic.
  • Vice_torn wrote: »
    What steps do you suggest CG taking to stop players from sanitizing their Arena payouts?

    Being part of a Shard Chat does not mean you won't drop in the ranks overnight. All it typically means is that others in the chat will not attack you within 2-3 hrs of your payout.

    I joined an arena chat a little over a year ago. And very little changed in my battles, I already had figured out who was active near my payout, and avoided them. And if anyone attacked me near my payout, I made them regret it. So little changed for me. Those on the chat already avoided me, and I already avoided them. That said, being able to talk to those I was fighting did add to the game.

    If your constantly just attacking the highest rank player you can, your going to make enemies. And if there is a shard chat, you might end up on the "please hit this guy" list. I suggest modifying your play if you think this is happening.

    For Ships and Battle arena a Shard Chat would be very useful, and might avoid the creation of these third party chats as a communication line.


    I really don't like the shard chat. it's like organized crime, where you have a gang of players that target those not in their gang of elite players. In this case its 20 or so players that would be in a shard chat because the top 20 places give crystals. The only way i can think of to combat this trend is instead of being forced to try and get into this one elite gang, how about players constantly getting targeted by these people create their own gang and target only those in that gang. While this isn't ideal, at least its competition. This would lead to the shard chats getting broken up and it'd be better for the game as a whole since it'd eventually revert to true pvp, not this monopoly of resources that the shard chats promote. People who organize to keep a select group in the top really are hurting the game. If you can give me one good reason why shard chats are actually good for people outside of the top 10 for squad arena or top 20 in ship arena, then I'll shut up. but I doubt there is any good reason why because it vastly alienates a large amount of players and creates an unfair advantage. If this is how its going to be, then the gangs need competition from other gangs, otherwise nothing ever will change. when gangs get tired of having their payouts messed with then they will disband and go back to fighting individually which is the point of PVP....ya know...player vs player. Not GVP (gang vs player)
  • I think its too early to tell if the AI will become better, worse or the same; or If people will drop more or less. I am actually excited about the rework. I hope that compared to the current meta where like the capital ship and most of the time the same 6-7 ships are used we some more variance at all.
  • Vice_torn wrote: »
    What steps do you suggest CG taking to stop players from sanitizing their Arena payouts?

    Easy, the opposite of what CG is planning to do.
    Instead of giving the need for more strategic options, scrap that. Allow us to get good at defense, by controlling the RNG better. (the difference between TF dodging an attack and not dodging one, can decide the whole outcome of the match - screw that).
    Allow us to build strong fleets (obviously using a lot of our resources to achieve it), decrease RNG outcome range. This allow us to hold well on defense if you sacrifice your resources. This will make a strategic gamr that you can actually make calculations, decisions, and get your appripriate rewards. No need for cheating this way.

    Dropping 50-100s and full RNG battles will NOT be fun.
  • Acrofales
    1363 posts Member
    obikenobi1 wrote: »
    Vice_torn wrote: »
    What steps do you suggest CG taking to stop players from sanitizing their Arena payouts?

    Being part of a Shard Chat does not mean you won't drop in the ranks overnight. All it typically means is that others in the chat will not attack you within 2-3 hrs of your payout.

    I joined an arena chat a little over a year ago. And very little changed in my battles, I already had figured out who was active near my payout, and avoided them. And if anyone attacked me near my payout, I made them regret it. So little changed for me. Those on the chat already avoided me, and I already avoided them. That said, being able to talk to those I was fighting did add to the game.

    If your constantly just attacking the highest rank player you can, your going to make enemies. And if there is a shard chat, you might end up on the "please hit this guy" list. I suggest modifying your play if you think this is happening.

    For Ships and Battle arena a Shard Chat would be very useful, and might avoid the creation of these third party chats as a communication line.


    I really don't like the shard chat. it's like organized crime, where you have a gang of players that target those not in their gang of elite players. In this case its 20 or so players that would be in a shard chat because the top 20 places give crystals. The only way i can think of to combat this trend is instead of being forced to try and get into this one elite gang, how about players constantly getting targeted by these people create their own gang and target only those in that gang. While this isn't ideal, at least its competition. This would lead to the shard chats getting broken up and it'd be better for the game as a whole since it'd eventually revert to true pvp, not this monopoly of resources that the shard chats promote. People who organize to keep a select group in the top really are hurting the game. If you can give me one good reason why shard chats are actually good for people outside of the top 10 for squad arena or top 20 in ship arena, then I'll shut up. but I doubt there is any good reason why because it vastly alienates a large amount of players and creates an unfair advantage. If this is how its going to be, then the gangs need competition from other gangs, otherwise nothing ever will change. when gangs get tired of having their payouts messed with then they will disband and go back to fighting individually which is the point of PVP....ya know...player vs player. Not GVP (gang vs player)

    You've never been in a shard chat, have you? Because that's not how it works at all.

    Rule 1 of arena: minimize crystals spent on refreshes while maximizing payout.

    I'd write more rules, but there really aren't any. That one governs behaviour. After that it's game theory. If smackymcnasty constantly hits me at my payout, I know he is either sharing my payout, or is just a ****. So to test that, I hit him a couple of times outside of payout. Turns out he doesn't hit back. So now I know smackymcnasty shares my payout, and that there is no point in hitting him when climbing to the top, because he'll just hit back, then I'll hit back, and we'll both end up spending a ton of crystals (we might have some fun tho, hence why people *do* hit back) and get nowhere near the top spots. Instead, I ignore smackymcnasty, and hit the person 1 place below max jump, and just follow smackymcnasty up. Presto. Smacky and I are now "colluding". No communication needed. And as our collusion evolves, we can even reach a point where we might snipe one another, but only from 1 to 2.

    And that is why your equation to gangs is misplaced, and rival gangs doesn't make any sense: unless your shard is overfull of people in a specific payout who can all reach the top 10 every day, there is little reason to ever "exclude" anybody from the shard chat, as it will mean there's more competition and chance of being sniped, or more refreshes needed. Ego, a violation of rule #1.

    And yes, I'm sure every shard has some #sshat that will never be invited to shard chat, but that is because he fights all the time with everybody, and it is worth a minor drop in crystals to completely wreck that one guy (who always has unlimited crystals, so refreshes his way back to the top all the time anyway). But unless you are *that guy* (in which case you should probably not have decided to brawl with everybody all the time and then QQ about it), or your shard is excessively skewed towards lots of people at one particular payout time, you can also join the chat, and save yourself crystals.
  • Rapid
    421 posts Member
    edited April 2018
    2 points here.

    first, I think the OP is making a big jump between this new game mode and it encouraging shard chats. What you're saying about dropping defensive ranks is very much speculation at this point, and questionable at that.

    Second, I'd wager those complaining about shard chats aren't in them. They're not all aggressive. Imagine payout where nobody hits you during your hour. That's the point of good shard chats, not to pick on people not in them but to just have everyone more efficient in when they attack.

    It's picking and choosing. I'd bet you weren't complaining when they added crystals to rewards? That's been the biggest encouragement of shard chats for obvious reasons.
  • I think its too early to tell if the AI will become better, worse or the same; or If people will drop more or less.

    This simply isnt true. Its not too early, given that CG has clearly confirmed they want to reward players who manually fight the battles instead of autoplaying. The only way to do that is to make sure the AI is dumb.

    And if the AI is dumb, your defense will be weaker, so you will drop more, since weaker ships can also defeat you, and everyone wants to get as high as possible.
    Its simple logic and Math.
  • Nauros
    5429 posts Member
    Roopehun wrote: »
    I think its too early to tell if the AI will become better, worse or the same; or If people will drop more or less.

    This simply isnt true. Its not too early, given that CG has clearly confirmed they want to reward players who manually fight the battles instead of autoplaying. The only way to do that is to make sure the AI is dumb.

    And if the AI is dumb, your defense will be weaker, so you will drop more, since weaker ships can also defeat you, and everyone wants to get as high as possible.
    Its simple logic and Math.

    They said that the AI will be improved to reflect the increased importance of reinforcements. Of course, it will never be as good as a human player, so playing manually will always lead to better results. That's just technological limitation, though, and not bad intent.
  • Nauros wrote: »
    They said that the AI will be improved to reflect the increased importance of reinforcements.

    I stand corrected then - i didnt catch this sentence. Thank you.
    Nauros wrote: »
    That's just technological limitation, though, and not bad intent.

    I never said theyre doing it with bad intention. I think theyre simply shortsighted and make bad decisions, which hurt the gameplay much more than they (and most of the naive players) think will do.
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