I like the concept that they are doing something new for those who enjoy the fighting portion of the game, especially for longer playing folks like myself who joined the game when PvPing started even as you were going through your second story quest in the game or were in hoods with 2-3 eras all in the same hoods and had to learn the art of fighting and protecting your city just to get by in the game.
I had been looking forward to this feature since the first hints came out on the beta server but I have a lot of concerns just based on what little the video showed and the way it has been described thus far.
1) The information for the regular server is not as detailed as the information that was given out on the beta server. This description of the concept is less informative! How can players make any sort of detailed opinion on something when not given all of the current facts as they currently stand or are being tested?
https://forum.beta.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/pvp-arena.13381/#post-105860
1.5) The use of non-manual fighting. The game already has enough areas where players are forced to use the auto button because of live interactions with other players/guilds: GvG and GbG. Part of what I really enjoy about GE is it is a chance to not only assist the guild in bring in guild points but because I get to “manually” move my own units. There is strategy involved and it is fun to pair up lower era units against the higher age ones on it to see if you can still win. The AI is atrocious! Lets take fast units for example even using auto for some eras. If you hit auto right away they go straight across the field and are quickly killed off a majority of the time, vs even using auto if you go into the battle, hold them back on the first turn and then hit auto you’re looking at 0 losses even with those first two units most of the time. I would HATE this feature if it were to be released with auto fighting only as it isn’t a case of strategy and just comes down to the highest attack power vs defensive power and how the AI decides to move the units and lets be honest the AI makes some...poor choices.
2) It shows different eras from the player. Is this going to be another case where players can use whatever units they want or will the player have to use the same era units as what they are up against? Again I think it would be a bad idea and a fantastic way of people gaming the system if they can just use their eras units vs one that is 2+ lower than their current era. NO player no matter how good the city defense would be able to win against that. If players are penalized for players attacking them and winning there would be no point in players taking part because they’d always lose. Sticking to only players in the same era would be the only way I could see around this. This way if they want to put in a poor defending army then they already know the consequences of doing so.
The following is more of a suggestion…
* Please do NOT have medals as a reward! Medals are so easy to come by now. Part of the reason I know some who do enjoy fighting stopped playing the towers is because you don’t need the medals. It would be nice to see better rewards for taking part in a part of the game where players are spending coins and supplies or FPs to make troops (or to level their Traz so that they don’t have to).
* It would be more interesting if it were a cross server competition instead of just the world players are on. Otherwise it’ll be very much like GvG and GBG where it’s pretty much the same group of players/guilds going after each other all of the time, again making it dull and boring quickly.
* Though it needs a cap on fighting (otherwise this feature would be too easy for those who can spend most of the day on the game) it would be nice to see the number of fights at 10 to give players a bit more incentive to play because you can take part more, or perhaps run it like the FP bar where it gets capped out at 10 but is refilled every 1 hour vs 4 and do away with premium attempts as this way it’s a more accurate reflection of those who actually have worked on their city defense and attack power.
* I hope the feature isn’t rushed and that they take the beta players comments to heart and don’t release it with any known bugs out. It’s really annoying watching features get changed once they are released live.
I always enjoyed the “strategy” part of fighting. A player with a lower attack power when using the terrain can still win against a more powerful foe. It would be nice to see a part of the game where players could go back to using those sort of strategies and enjoy the fighting part of the game vs just power levelling GBs and hitting auto.