This update has in fact killed GbG.
As far as I'm concerned, it has saved it. It's more like the relay it was in the beginning, one team does what it can for the next team who logs on later, leaves notes and is done for the day. It will take some time to be bedded in, and also for guilds to figure out how they want to play.
it encourages competitive guilds to defend their sectors as much as possible
Absolutely. Which is fantastic and a huge improvement, but also not so very different from how most big guilds have played for the past year-18 months in my world.
significantly reducing the amount of battles available
I have not done the calculation, but when you are faced with 418 battles to take one sector, because of what has been built on it, it absolutely does not feel like fewer. A normal day for me used to be 400-500 so depending on what is open, I can do those over a couple of sectors, be done with Gbg for the day and cheer on the team from the sidelines.
Inno should remove the newly added buildings and return the whole attrition system and prices to their original values.
I agree the diamond costs are big and should be divided, either so you can pay a portion to speed up some, if you can't afford all, or so that different people can pitch in what they happen to have available. Many say they would like to, but 125 dimes a pop is too much for many players. But I like the new buildings, and the option to choose different properties and goods costs for the building you place.
Adding a few new leagues, introducing the need to win x seasons in a row to advance to the next, etc.
This is interesting also.
Just 24 hour in, it is way too early to predict how it will be over several seasons or a full championship or several. But so far on my map, we have a free flowing fight, 7 out of 8 guilds have taken sectors, 3 are doing more than the others but nobody is confined to base unless they have chosen to be. There have been races, planning and strategic choices. For me, this is positive both for the feature and interest in it, and also for the guilds who thought they maybe couldn't get anything done. At least 5 guilds have been building something on the sectors they have taken.
What I would like to see is building times reduced to the original 2 hours for siege camps, and a split in the diamonds required to speed that up. Alternatively, sectors should stay closed for the equivalent time difference we had in the original Gbg, e.g. 6 hours since the longest build time is 3 hours, as compared to 4 hours with best building ready in 2.
It would also be helpful to see quite how many fights will be required to take a sector, because of the buildings on it, before you start hitting it. As it is, it’s not possible to say until it opens, but it would be potentially helpful when plotting priorities and races.
I also completely agree with Ariana's post above, move the trophy icon somewhere else from the right hand side of the battle map, it gets in the way of checking sectors also in the middle of racing.
