Quote:
I've only read Milanos' first posting and i have to say I mostly disagree. I like the new spy system and i think it made Battle Dawn a more interesting game. A more strategic combat system is always more interesting in my opinion. There are tons of other browser games around which are dominated by the most active players, simply because they farm most and build up unbeatable armies. BD is different. It's always been but the new spy system is just another step to improve it. I would love to see even more changes in that direction, making nukes and spies more powerful or even introducing more tactical elements into the game and thereby broadening the possibilities to trap or trick your enemy.
I am not saying all these changes don't make Battledawn more strategic or even more balanced.. It for sure does. They make sure that even if you overpower your enemy massively, you will still not be able to actually attack them. What I am saying is that I find that in spite of all this balancing and strategizing, and despite the fact that I have used the spy system in my favor quite a lot, it makes me like Battledawn less. It's not about how much more strategic or balanced it makes Battledawn, it's about how it actually makes it less fun.
Quote:
I dont see how these examples prove that wars aren't more strategic than before. In fact, they show that the opposite is true. SAGE as well as GML made serious mistakes in all those examples. Your side was coordinating better and played smarter. If you couldn't have locked that OP down, which SAGE was attacking with 500 squads, your only option would have been to run away. How could this be more interesting?
We were coordinating better and played smarter, but it wasn't spies that actually killed them. The reason SAGE made a mistake is that I believe they simply got too bored of sitting on the same OP for 7 days and decided to attack for once. That attack immediately showed why you just CAN'T attack stuff with more than a few squads with the current system. I do however think you are confusing strategic with balanced. Calling this spy system strategic is giving it too much credit, you don't need a lot of strategical insight to realise you need to plant as many agents as possible and that you can lock your enemy on every attack. That is all basic. There is no deep strategy in that.
Simmen: First of all, that pink really does not make it pleasant to read
Quote:
The reason for the stagnant wars is partly new spys, but much due to all the subs that are now common. It was normal to have a sub, maybe two, and not usually filled with top players, it was a chance for newbies to get to know decent players. Now it's a favor for a favor, you play as a sub for someone on one world, and they will do the same for you. This causes there to be a lot of agents in circulation. This is a trend that is hard to turn, and I'm not sure if we will ever be able to, it is said to be impossible to win now without subs, simply because there are so many, and they are usualyl filled with good/great players. But this also drains the amount of top contending teams that can possibly play to win on a world, so to all who complain about competition going down while having subs filled with players who might have been your competition, well, not sure who else to blame. (replace the word sub with brother/sister alliance if it makes you feel more comfortable)
Agreed, there are way too many subs nowadays. Or well, subs and brothers. Of course I am not clean on this one as I am in VND and we have many allies that many consider subs or brothers as well, and we do indeed need them to win the round. However, I actually mentioned in a post of mine what I think is causing this. You need allies because not only does it provide you with more reliable agents, income nowadays is so low that if you don't have allies and you lose a lot of armor in a big battle, you just can't rebuild fast enough. We just had a big battle with WWE, we killed 300 of their squads. We only lost armor, which is a job well done in itself. However it is going to take us serious time to rebuild that armor. At this stage, we desperately need our allies because we can not do any big fights ourselves and we do not have the income to rebuild our armies fast enough. THAT is the reason many now have brothers and subs, you need them because even if you do all your battles perfectly, you will not be able to rebuild fast enough. The mechanics have balanced the game so much that you simply need more teams on your side.
Quote:
This got a bit off track, must admit, but I just needed to get it out of the way as I will refer to it later in many of the problems Milan is trying to point out. Back to spies. I fail to see your point when you first say they are overpowered, and then say that there have been very few spy attacks that have had a huge impact on the world. With +/- 50 000 kills, how many would you atribute to spy attacks. In a world with so many fights, so much action, spys barely gets used. Is this because of strategical thinking? Probably, and I do not see what is wrong with it. In a champions world where it's not yet tick 800, yet one of your team mates say there is only 1 other team left that could win besides you, I don't see why the battle should be rushed. It's so early, so many alliances have died on what feels so long, but is rather a short time, not yet a third of how long a normal 1 tick world will last without 1 alliance getting all the relics, so many kills on your side that I can't take your argument that it's impossible to attack seriously.
They are overpowered and they have had a limited impact on the world. And that is because all alliances that are in any way playing seriously KNOW they are overpowered and therefore everyone is extremely careful and wars are stagnant (aside from spamming, of course). Both sides know the spies can be lethal and will sit still rather than risk losing armies because of spies. You can call it strategical thinking.. Sure, it is strategic to try and not lose your army to spies. Of course that's a good strategy. But is it really strategic when you have no other choice?
As for not being able to take the argument of us not being able to attack seriously, it beats me as well. So many of our enemies' squads have died in dumb ways, it is unbelievable. This might sound disrespectful to our enemies, but.. Suiciding your full army with 70 squads nuked? Flying into a lock? Not managing to get your people online to turn? Simply sitting on an OP with 300 squads while an overpowering force comes to kill you. I do not think ANY of those kills were of an extreme quality by us, I would actually say that our enemies killed themselves. We have just so far been smart enough to not trap ourselves, to not make these dumb mistakes.
Quote:
As for tax. I would like to see the structures giving more resources, so even those who doesn't have huge amount of workers, or who are conquered have some sort of chance to build. But since this will most likely ncrease how annoying a conquer might be, I feel it's only fair to increase the incomme you get from conquers, and I see how it can increase wars, where now it's more about resource outposts.
Glad to hear that at least
Quote:
As for crystals; no. They might also increase the incentive for war, but farming crystals is a case that is much much smaller now than before the change, and 20 power is to early to get a crystal when looking at the crystal holder's side. You have no way to protect it at 20. Not much of a chance at 30, but no possible way at all at 20.Though -i would like a wreck-like idea of garrisons spawning randomly around the map with 1-3 crystals. Not a huge defense, but enough for the person to take it to show that they'll be somehow able to defend it. and this also promotes acitivty without the newb bashing. Feedback on this idea please?
I actually like the idea of those garrisons. That both brings back the tension between alliances and players for the crystals and requires some activity. I however don't agree with being able to protect it better at 30 power, because truth be told you WILL have your crystal taken, even if you did it at 40 power.
Quote:
For a guy who talks about how much he hates being mutli spam attacked, you do seem very eager to remove the restriction that serverely limits it. It was put in place mainly to prevent multies that might hurt players, and it did this on two levels. 1. They needed more time to attack, so they couldn't just join end of tick, build barracks, then launch before you had a chance to notice them. And lowering the amount of units they can make trough forcing them to make the structures. Does this also mean that the normal players also have to make them, using their resources? Yes, but these are basic structures, had we asked you to build level 5 which you'd have to wait days for, I would have seen your complaints, but these are basic, relativly low cost structures for one who properly play the game. Additional good side is that it makes new players get the most basic resource structurees instead of spending al resources on units getting killed by xp hunters.
It was put in place to prevent multies, so why hinder the normal players with it? I can see the reasoning of keepign that restriction for new players, because it both hinders multies and forces newbies to at least get some resource structures before being able to attack guaranteeing them some income. Agree with you, on all those points.
I believe an admin once told me they disliked people continuously making new accounts to get more blues from those, when admins would like them to play on the same account for a longer time. So why not make it so that you both protect newbies, curb multi spamming AND give an incentive for people to use their same account for every world? If you make it so that once you get 5-10 achievements, you no longer need to build all level 3 structures and again only need to build metal mine level 3 to attack, that creates an incentive to keep playing on the same account and it does not harm the serious players.
Quote:
Razing being increased to 24 were an obvius reasons. For admins to more efficiently catch op farmers, delete outposts, and also make op farming much less efficient.
Yeah, there's obvious reasons. But again it's the normal players that see the game changed in a negative way for them because of cheaters.
Quote:
You blame much of the changes of the gameplay because of the updates. I would say the mentality has changed, but with no clear connection to the updates such as you claim. More that it's a simpler way of playing it with scratching each other's backs. So yes, I do also hope for a change, but it has to come from the players, not the admins and developers.
I believe the changes in gameplay and the changes in mentality are highly correlated. When taxation was decreases massively, alliances saw their power to do battles nerfed. When you have less income to build and rebuild, you are going to have to depend on others more. If you are in a top alliance you are going to have to keep boosting if you want to in any way keep up your workers, as most worlds sadly no longer have the conquers or outposts needed to be able to sustain a high worker count. Which is why in top alliances you have always had to depend on income from bonuses and taxation. So let's say in a top alliance you now get 350 metal income per tick. This might seem like a low amount, but I know many in VND, which is the leading alliance on E6, have this amount of income. Then you have an ally/sub that is just building up, with no real conquers, no real taxation. From just having their workers, they get 180-200 metal per tick. Add the income from world boosts (which is massive on this E6) into the mix, and you see that you simply NEED to have many alliances on your side because there are so many that can build up that you just can not possibly fight them all, even if you only lose armor. Not to mention overhead also makes it harder for these top alliances to keep building.
And then I am not even talking about agents yet! If you have one active alliance against you with 2 subs, and the members of these 2 subs all plant some agents in your territory, you will have 200-300 agents in your territory vs 120 of your agents planted, max. You are being outproduced, and your enemy has more agents. You can't attack any outposts because you will get locked, you need to add a lot of spy protection to every OP because your enemy has 2-3 times your amount of agents.
With that scenario, which is really what it is currently like, I can not blame alliances for getting allies and subs. It is simply the way you have to play if you do not want to be frustrated by being outproduced, outgunned, and having less agents.