Combat Rebalance Design Spotlight (Stage 2)

[pckrn]

@tinsoldier

do you even understand what you are saying?

While it may seem like some tactics are in need of a nerf, buffing other tactics will pull them in line (power-wise) and the comparison between the two isn't as great anymore.

thats the exact opposite of whats happening. people wanted buffing of other tactics, what you came up with is nerfing the good one

 

[Festivus]

I've spent a lot of time in the past defending Nexon, as many here know. When the MS came out, I defended it. When people attacked the game as a dying game, I defended it. Not any more. I just can't defend this.

This is not what's needed, and if you think that this is going to make you more money, you're wrong. Making the game harder for everyone isn't what we want. We want actual balance, not nerfing the things that we like. And buffing all defense buildings effectively means nerfing every army troop.

I've been spending less and less the past few months because I don't like the direction the game is heading. I'm at the point where I'm only really spending on the occasional EA sale, and even then I'm spending less than I used to. I'd rather just lose a war, even if it means losing tons of glory that will take months to get back. I used to freak out about war losses - they were rare and traumatic events in our alliance. But now I just don't care as much as I used to, and I think the rest of my alliance is feeling pretty much the same.

THAT should have you worried, Nexon. When people like me stop caring, that's when you're done. You're getting close.

You don't have to do this. But I know you will.

 

[skychan]

All these changes are currently doing is making ages lower than CWA meaningless as far as bases and defense is concerned. It is actually pushing the opposite of improving defense.

Let me explain.

If no war depends on time, then it doesn't matter if they destroy my IA/GA/AA base in 1 minute or 3 minutes. Either way they get 5*

The only bases that matter as far as defense is concerned are the ones at the very top the CWA bases that go 3D and are hard to 5*.

Therefore everyone will be pushing attack as hard as possible until they reach CWA. Because they want to have a chance of getting a 5* attack in against a CWA base with 3O AA bases, and know that their own base defense doesn't really matter in the war. They aren't a base that will determine if the enemy can get 5* on them or not and knowing that the war is unlikely to go to time it doesn't help to push their defense up and cause harder matches when all improved defense does is add time which will be less relevant if no wars are going to perfect scores. This is the thinking and reason why bags are so very very common now.

 

[SiuYin]

3O AA get no chance vs 3D CWA, even before the defense buff

 

[SirViper]

I personally like the job posting for Balance Tester. Sounds like an important one to fill prior to these changes? Just a thought!

 

[Ankara]

I’m a gamer. I play these things too much. Not gonna pretend to speak for anyone but myself, and whatever meager percentage of the player base one single voice may have been found to represent.

We players tend to respond to change poorly. Just seems to be a given. No surprise that this balance update has been likened to the titanic sinking. It’s kind of like when the silo came out, yet here we all still are.

Not gonna lie. I like the silo in war but hate it in multiplayer. And I kinda don’t like all these balance changes either. I’m a player, it’s my job. Probably too soon for this player to freak out about all this - seems likely I’ll adapt like when the silo came out.

But i would like to say this. Don’t enjoy the game as much as I used to. And it’s not because I’ve been playing forever and am just getting bored. It’s a very dynamic game, and the community component adds a lot of value. What’s killing my interest following the silo is what I’m projecting in these changes here....the ramped up difficulty level - I appreciate that’s the goal here but you know, I’m not the best player in the world. Higher troop losses or just plain failing more haven’t really made me want to throw on a party hat and throw streamers. It makes me less inclined to play the game. If these changes make the game more exciting for more talented attackers, and those players should be the primary concern of development, then, in all sincerity, this really is the best avenue to steer the game. No quarrel from me. If, however, the development team would like to keep the interest level up of more middling players, then this avenue isn’t the most successful. Reduce train and build times of tactics or something, and I’d be fine with embarrassing myself against high level CW bases. But could be a middle ground not be found where players of my ilk are able to retain an excitement for an update rather than cringe, and the more talented players are able to do what they do best - adapt and overcome?

My response to this update announcement is just feeling tired. Tired of the silo in multiplayer, tired of build times over two weeks, tired of making an effort in war to lose to cheating, tired of the sandbag debate itself now more than the bags it’s bern so long, and tired of waiting longer and longer to have the fun of attacking again - yet this update seems to suggest I will likely be waiting a bit longer still...and it just kind of takes the air out of it all, you know?

 

[Bootney Lee Fonsworth]

Yup. I used to raid with a mixed army of apc's, tanks, howies, shooters and healers until silos became ubiquitous. Not that I can't manage a silo base, more like why should I? It takes dozens of raids to gather NTG's for war or diamonds for everything else. So why slow down because a cart or howie blundered into a landmine, or got caught in the silo splash?

So now my NTG raiding is basically 6 maxed out heavy tanks, 5 maxed out ''supersonic'' fighters (which inexplicably fly no faster than industrial biplanes) and 7 first aid for emergencies. Not really the most fun, but nowhere near as time-consuming either.

Or if I'm merely raiding for loot and normal trade goods it's 155 heavy infantry all the way. Cheap, quickly built, numerous and utterly disposable.

I guess the point is that it's probably not the best of ideas to make 5 star raiding so ludicrously difficult, painfully slow and costly when we're required to do so much of it to be able to war effectively.

 

[Mountainking]

One thing is certain for me at this point. I will not invest ONE MORE CENT IN THIS GAME. Who the F cares about tactics COST you D F idiots?? Reduce the timers. Why the F would you make people waste worker time and/or crowns to buff the decoy in university which was already GOOD ENOUGH (which I said before in multiple threads) and now you make us lose that worker time invested.
i) Not boosting it in the first place would have been a good start.
ii) Nerfing EAs would have been another one.
iii) Limiting SH to max 2 troops would have been also interesting.
iv) Reducing troops and tactics retrain SIGNIFICANTLY to encourage people going FULL OUT IN MP would have worked.

I will give you this. You are in fact not the idiots I said you are above. All those changes are geared towards changing the balance to more P2W and more troops invested in battles.
No more money from me. I'll play until I get bored but for one last time, NO MORE MONEY invested. Cheers.

 

[Manifesto]

tired of waiting longer and longer to have the fun of attacking again

About says it all.
Where's the fun in making AN ATTACKING GAME all the more difficult when you attack?
''Hey, Ford just brought out a new Mustang, but you have to drive with the handbrake on''.

 

[Manifesto]

Yes, interesting that mostly event troops were affected.
Maybe regular troops will be buffed in stage 3 or 4. Not likely but maybe.

 

[Bootney Lee Fonsworth]

Hey, remember when you nerfed sabo, protect and betrayal and decided that stronghold troops would be deployed (undamaged no less) no matter what? Remember the hundreds if not thousands of responses from a very large cast of respondents that got? Remember when you introduced the silo and the still hundreds of responses, though significantly fewer, that got? Notice how yet another unpopular change is being foisted upon us and the relatively few responses it's getting?

Now I'm not saying active forum engagement is in anyway representative of actual player engagement or money spent, but it seems like it should be a barometer of sorts, even for a three year old mobile game. Is it because people stopped playing, or just realized that you folks don't listen, so why bother? Is there any ''data'' on that?

 

[Sabinixe]

@Nexon,

Listen to this one post, if nothing else. If your goal is to get players to play more and become more actuve instead of less active, decrease the troop and tactic build time.

Here is the logic: Faster troops can build => more you can attack (including full-scale battles) => more time spent battling => more activity and enjoyment => more money for you

Contrarily: Longer troop build time => more time shutting off the app and waiting => less time playing => players quit

Astoundingly simple. It’s a win-win.

 

[Viceofdeath]

As someone who has no issue with stage 1. My 2 cents. This patch without knowing values seems way overboard.

I'm currently number 2 in an alliance with 351 wins from 365 wars and im dreading this. We used to use sabotages and protect before the change to using 2 tactic spaces, before that decoys were useless.

Now you've made it so decoys are the only good solid tactic choice and you want to "drastically decrease" their hp and time in the SAME patch you're "greatly increasing" most defence buildings hp?

I'd strongly urge you to not destroy decoys in the same patch and instead review the change just adjusting everything else has first.

 

[Imaera]

You people, this topic is useless. Our feedback doesn't matter. It never did, never will. Nexon will always do what they think it's best for their wallet, no matter what the players want. You are wasting your time and nerves fighting againt windmills like Don Quixote.
Just accept that this game is dead and move on.

 

[Cryos]

You people, this topic is useless. Our feedback doesn't matter. It never did, never will. Nexon will always do what they think it's best for their wallet, no matter what the players want. You are wasting your time and nerves fighting againt windmills like Don Quixote.
Just accept that this game is dead and move on.

You know what you're right, this game is dead I'm just screaming into the wind for no reason now. Goodbye DomiNations, it was fun while it lasted but it won't last any longer. And to think I thought you were a good game once upon a time. I want my money and time back

 

[oddin]

what can I say? I am a 40 year old gamer and I have witnessed the birth of arcades, PCs, online gaming and the last years mobile gaming. It is the first time I am playing a game that I truly love and has all the potential to leave history and the same guys that produce it, want to kill it. I must be dreaming...Is this game only $ numbers for you guys? Don't you want to raise your player base and keep it that way?

I really, don't know where to start...

So many guys/girls before me stated the obvious. Time is the factor that needs you to rebalance, not HP, not cost, not damage.

Tactics: In the past we were using sabotage, betrayal, decoy and protect. Then you raised the slots per tactic to 2 and suddenly, everybody was using decoy which is cost effective and this allowed us to fight a bit harder bases than our level. Now that you made defence crazy stronger than before (add silo, add stronghold, add stage 1 of rebalance), instead of buffing the other tactics, you take away from us the only tactic that was really useful. How do you expect more 5 stars battles when the loses are higher, and the time to retrain everything is 4,5 hours for tactics, 2 hours for planes, 1,5 hours for army? OBVIOUSLY, that is the reason why you see little skirmishes with raiders and simple soldiers because that is the only way to play more and have some fun! Hell, I volunteer to offer you my services as game advisor for FREE, if you just let me guide you back to the right path.

You know, in my alliance, i try really hard on a daily basis to teach other people (from level 60 to 220) how to deal with silo, what troops to choose, what tactics etc. There are a lot of people that still can't 5 star a base at their level. And the past days it is harder for all to farm, to gain VC, to win in general. And I realized that it was harder for me as well. So I dropped medals. And started hitting bases around 180-200 level. And I noticed I had far more casualties than before. Even 1-2 planes would be shot down. This made me have far fewer attacks per day. So, I dropped medals again. And started hitting bases around 140-190. Well, now I can loot with no loses, make more attacks per day and yes, I returned back to normal. So, this is the direction you want for your game? To have new CWA players hitting only low-mid level players in order to be loot efficient? If yes then go on on your rebalance thing. If not, then please reconsider your strategy and listen to what loyal players are telling you. You are heading to your catastrophe and the game will die sooner than you believe. I already feel less and less enthusiastic about playing dominations and this started right after the announcement of rebalance stage 1.

 

[Radzeer]

I have written it a few times before already: You can't play this game in a way that you log in and start defending. Certainly, when you are already at CWA, there will be only some noobs or cheaters trying pancake your base with a 5 star army, including all tactics and some troop cards.
So after the log in you can farm (collect rss and artifacts) hunt and ummm what?
Attack some base...
Now when you are low in medals you can find a base which you can 5 star without losing a troop (for example lvl 250 CWA still can attack a lvl 135 GA base). This defense buffing will not stop that. But the defense buffing (re balancing round 1 and 2) will teach that lvl 250 CWA player to reconsider attacking a lvl 200 AA base. So there will be more attacks from the CWA players on GA bases, and not that the CWA players will go full force against similar lvl bases... So the result will be, that the GA players will find it hard to retain their rss, and will lose interest in the game. So who will play the game in 1 year? Only those who are at CWA or high AA now.

I have written a few ideas, how the attacking (i.e. playing the game) with full force would be more fun:
1) Let us keep the surviving mercenaries - (you may increase their costs), or give us a blessing to allow it to happen
2) Let us keep the surviving gens for the next attack
3) decrease tactic training time (or let us putting tactics into the SH instead of troop cards)
4) give us a blessing for speeding up the air troops training.
5) give us a barrack troop for disarming traps (spies, shermans are precious troop cards)
6) give the generals some extra abilities (healing nearby troops, increasing nearby troops dps)

This would make the players play more, as they will enjoy it more - they will be sitting on more resources, they will tend to crown more, Nexon will earn more...

I will send the paycheck later for this simple, but straightforward idea boosting the revenues...

 

[oddin]

@Nexon,

Listen to this one post, if nothing else. If your goal is to get players to play more and become more active instead of less active, decrease the troop and tactic build time.

Here is the logic: Faster troops can build => more you can attack (including full-scale battles) => more time spent battling => more activity and enjoyment => more money for you

Contrarily: Longer troop build time => more time shutting off the app and waiting => less time playing => players quit

Astoundingly simple. It’s a win-win.

THIS!! So simple and easy to implement. Within 3 lines she said everything! Hire her instead of me!

 

[oddin]

oh and something else....according to Brad

In the next design spotlight, I’m going to cover the changes to defenders, Machine Guns, Bazookas (OMG Not bazookas, another favorite unit of mine), and more!

So, that means there will be a stage 3. Well, I had enough already with the first 2 stages. What would Brad say when the number of active players starts dropping like bird shit I wonder?

 

[Omegaman]

No Title

Just wish Nexon would sort out the important stuff ,rather than piling on this nonsense. This Garuda Sakti team aka Revolution 45 have been reported constantly by half of the Top 100 teams ...and still it goes on...and on...and on