Inequality in Guild Battlegrounds

[Basileus Dahlia]

Shared this in beta forum, but care to get the comments/suggestion here regarding the same to bring equality in GBG.

GBG map modifications
If any guild member open the GBG map, only the guild member's guild name and icon should be visible. Other guild names should be given name like Guild 1, Guild 2...etc and and common guild battle (new) logo for all other guilds. Even guild logs also represents the same pattern. And in guild ranking window also same modification. Once the season gets over, if our guild gains any one of top 3 position just mention which position we achieved. If no position achieved, just say "better luck next time".

Also for revealing the guild names, guild admin or guild leader should spend diamonds where the diamonds value get doubled after each guild name revealing. Here, the guild name reveal is purely on random order. So, no specific choice for the user to reveal which they want. Each season it needs to be done to reveal if the guild leaders decides so. If Dev's interested to bring guild members to reveal guild names then treasury will also include diamond donation too. It's doable, since GBG rewards diamonds too.

Hey, sorry, I don't check the forum very much.
This first thing, I don't really get what it would accomplish. Seeing what your ranking is, who has what ranking, the score and how close you are ect is a major part of the feeling of competition which is more than half of the fun of GBG. I spend enough diamonds on rushing buildings I don't want to have to sink more into it just to reveal guild names. Not revealing guild names would also help toxic guilds. It won't let you be prepared to deal with guilds who are known to build traps, delete SC before losing a province and ect. Not being able to see the player count and relative power of a guild will make it impossible to strategize who to prioritize until it's too late. Overall this would only help to coddle people who can't take seeing themselves get 8th but otherwise would do nothing at best, help toxic guilds at worst.

GBG matchups
Now the most important one, called the guild GBG matchups, which can be addressed by including the guilds from all cross servers with additional algorithm steps like,

- calculate the average attacking army attack strength of each guild present in every cross servers. ( It can be done by collecting each member attacking army attack strength, summing up and divide it with total members in the guild gives the average attack strength of a guild). After collecting average of all guilds, arrange them in a list. (When to collect and calculate this average depends on the Dev's choice from any one of the day from 3 day cooldown period available before starting next GbG season)

- now with the list arranged, apply descending order on it, it will becomes like highest to lower on the average value. Then make a partition of 8 guilds from the top order and initiate the GBG matchup for each partition set of 8 guilds. Only the last partition set gets a chance of not having 8 guilds depending on the total guild count from all servers.

Including other servers might not be a bad thing so you don't see the same guilds over and over and you get more variety but I think it would need an inclusion of a "GBG Diplomacy" menu. Add "Diplomat" as a role like General. Allow you to communicate with other guilds in GBG that you otherwise couldn't because they're on a different server.
The reason it would need this, is if a guild gets matched with someone on their world and they can communicate and nobody else can that's an Extremely unfair advantage, and I don't think taking ability to arrange alliances should be dropped completely, just the stoppage of mega guilds coordinating to completely exterminate everyone else every season on repeat. As for the rest of it, I can't comment. The devs would know better than me on how to calculate the matchmaking. But I will say having it go down a list as others have pointed out can be rather bad. Guilds that don't do GBG but have incredible attack stats focusing on GVG would still end up as dead weight in top games, not fixing much of the problem there, and would only help the smaller aggro guilds (small guilds with extreme superiority complexes, sorry but I've dealt with one in recent memory and I'm still mentally and emotionally scarred) rack on other guilds because less players = less stats to calculate = being matched with weaker guilds.

For the last thing, your idea on sharing attack strength, that's an interesting concept that I'm not sure would work out in practice. Some way for the generals to share their strength with newer members? Sounds great as wishful thinking at the very least. Average generals stats, 15% of that as a base floor, everyone under that can fight at 15% of their generals strengths? Could be an activate bonus by gems (paid by the generals) or tavern coins. (giving GBG it's own unique tavern boost like GE. Though it already has attack increase boosts.)

 

[nice2haveu]

Hey, sorry, I don't check the forum very much.
This first thing, I don't really get what it would accomplish. Seeing what your ranking is, who has what ranking, the score and how close you are ect is a major part of the feeling of competition which is more than half of the fun of GBG. I spend enough diamonds on rushing buildings I don't want to have to sink more into it just to reveal guild names. Not revealing guild names would also help toxic guilds. It won't let you be prepared to deal with guilds who are known to build traps, delete SC before losing a province and ect. Not being able to see the player count and relative power of a guild will make it impossible to strategize who to prioritize until it's too late. Overall this would only help to coddle people who can't take seeing themselves get 8th but otherwise would do nothing at best, help toxic guilds at worst.


Including other servers might not be a bad thing so you don't see the same guilds over and over and you get more variety but I think it would need an inclusion of a "GBG Diplomacy" menu. Add "Diplomat" as a role like General. Allow you to communicate with other guilds in GBG that you otherwise couldn't because they're on a different server.
The reason it would need this, is if a guild gets matched with someone on their world and they can communicate and nobody else can that's an Extremely unfair advantage, and I don't think taking ability to arrange alliances should be dropped completely, just the stoppage of mega guilds coordinating to completely exterminate everyone else every season on repeat. As for the rest of it, I can't comment. The devs would know better than me on how to calculate the matchmaking. But I will say having it go down a list as others have pointed out can be rather bad. Guilds that don't do GBG but have incredible attack stats focusing on GVG would still end up as dead weight in top games, not fixing much of the problem there, and would only help the smaller aggro guilds (small guilds with extreme superiority complexes, sorry but I've dealt with one in recent memory and I'm still mentally and emotionally scarred) rack on other guilds because less players = less stats to calculate = being matched with weaker guilds.

For the last thing, your idea on sharing attack strength, that's an interesting concept that I'm not sure would work out in practice. Some way for the generals to share their strength with newer members? Sounds great as wishful thinking at the very least. Average generals stats, 15% of that as a base floor, everyone under that can fight at 15% of their generals strengths? Could be an activate bonus by gems (paid by the generals) or tavern coins. (giving GBG it's own unique tavern boost like GE. Though it already has attack increase boosts.)

Let me give you clarity for both the things.

Guild name hidden and guild leader(s) should revealing it won't take the fun part or alliance, just spend diamonds to get the same benefit. Also why only leader should spend diamonds for GBG. Have suggested diamonds also to get shared in the treasury, where leaders should use diamonds stored in the treasury for GBG. And your guild position or rank can be viewed, but to know other guild name and position, spend diamonds to know whom you are competing against. You are telling like, you will participate any competition only if you know all the participants details like name and where they are located. It's no need to be, is what myself suggesting. You came to slaughter and stick to it. Random rewards are bonus for your battle efforts, if you want to get alliance benefit, pay the price. That's all.

Next, for GBG matchups with different server, no need of separate diplomat general category. GBG chats can handle it very well and only scenario is, all guilds can read your chats. Just simply do your alliance by using GBG chats, why to play poker with other guilds. If you want to discuss outside of GBG, you spend diamonds to reveal the opposition guild name and do your homework to catch the guild in their respective server and communicate.

You can say like, discord invite code can be shared in GBG chats, that's Dev's need to prevent and chat message should be monitored for any outside game content and if gets added means penaulty flags should assigned to guilds and 3 penaulty flags to any guilds will result into two GBG season suspension. These things are later can be introduced with my suggestion.

Also for attack strength, if you consider your guild strong then battle should be happened with similar (or closer to same) strength guild. Lightweight and heavyweight doesn't need to get matchup anytime. The question for when they make this average attack details is upto Dev's choice, because one season over means 3 days cooldown period before next season. It's upto Dev's when they do this calculation. Anyhow, within three days, as per my assumption it won't be much of a difference from the average attack strength guild list based on my suggestion.

 

[Gingercroft]

I really dislike GBG!! as we very rarely get grouped with equally matched opponents. We are regular fixture in diamond league. The are roughly 14 or so guilds in O world that we can never beat, and if we get one of these in our group and we are playing on the map that offers a SoH as a reward I just can’t get motivated to do anything that round. There are some guilds we never seem to cross swords with, and others we get all the time which seems weird. We are also grouped guilds which are so inactive they finish the round with say 4k, It’ supposed to be the diamond league, wtf are they doing in there. Lots of people I speak to are unhappy with the current state of things.

We went through a phase where we would rig it so we finish on 925 LP at the end of the original map guaranteeing us an easy draw for the new map, that in turn gave us an easy win which is also a unsatisfying. It meant having to tell the whole guild they weren’t allowed to play GBG for a full season, which wasn’t nice to have to do.

My suggestion to the devs would be to create a battle group involving multiple worlds. Try and make it so that super elite guilds don’t end up in a group with super rubbish guilds. As a player in a middle of the road diamond league guild, I want to be in with different guilds each week that aren’t too far away from our capability level.

 

[Knight of ICE]

My suggestion to the devs would be to create a battle group involving multiple worlds. Try and make it so that super elite guilds don’t end up in a group with super rubbish guilds. As a player in a middle of the road diamond league guild, I want to be in with different guilds each week that aren’t too far away from our capability level.

Things we rejected

Add cross-world leagues

Definitely an interesting thing to consider for the future... Unfortunately this would be a huge technical challenge; Guild Expedition leagues only communicate points across servers which is not a lot of data. Having real-time PvP data sent across multiple servers, trying to keep everything in sync would increase the scope of the feature incredibly.

https://forum.en.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/guild-battlegrounds.37671/

 

[Gingercroft]

Things we rejected

Add cross-world leagues

Definitely an interesting thing to consider for the future... Unfortunately this would be a huge technical challenge; Guild Expedition leagues only communicate points across servers which is not a lot of data. Having real-time PvP data sent across multiple servers, trying to keep everything in sync would increase the scope of the feature incredibly.

https://forum.en.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/guild-battlegrounds.37671/

Don't leave it too long and don't take people too much for granted! I'm seeing good officer / organiser type people leaving this game on a regular basis due to frustration of this. Then what are you left with, less good guilds, so a lack of choice and lots of shabby guilds run by idiots. How does a game eventually die? ... When BIG, IMPORTANT, OBVIOUS things that alot of people moan about for along time get ignored!!

 

[Gingercroft]

Just got another god awful draw in BG. We have been thrown in with two guilds that are way better than us (one of which we had last round). They have taken over the who map and aren't allowing anyone else to do anything. This game is a frustrating boring pile of crap!! I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and will definitely not be spending another penny of my cash on it.

 

[Travex]

Things we rejected

Add cross-world leagues

Definitely an interesting thing to consider for the future... Unfortunately this would be a huge technical challenge; Guild Expedition leagues only communicate points across servers which is not a lot of data. Having real-time PvP data sent across multiple servers, trying to keep everything in sync would increase the scope of the feature incredibly.

https://forum.en.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/guild-battlegrounds.37671/

I am not sure if my suggestion has been offered before and/or not workable but I would like to know if it is a feasible technical change that balances the playing field.

Naturally, most people would want to be in the top league for the most rewards and that is a given. Therefore, moving between leagues based on MMR scores is probably still relevant.

With regards to grouping guilds within each league, that's where a lot of dissatisfaction for players who "still" want to continue playing FoE feel could be mitigated with a more balanced grouping where those "more active" players (in a guild with a lot of inactive ones) still get to play on GBG without getting "locked" out by excessively stronger guilds that also allied between each other on the GBG map.

Suggestion:
Group guilds on an aggregated previous 3 or more GBG periods (or whatever number that gives a good indication of guild member participation) based on the following:

1. Total number of battles and/or negotiations completed by each guild at the end of each GBG period.
2. Total number of "active" players on GBG (eg. ones who completed at least 100 battles/negotiations). These numbers don't matter which players contribute to. The data is just needed on the total number of players contributing at least such numbers.

I would like to know what other players on this forum think as well as from the forum moderators and other Inno staff.

 

[Knight of ICE]

Naturally, most people would want to be in the top league for the most rewards and that is a given. Therefore, moving between leagues based on MMR scores is probably still relevant.

You move between leagues based on league points. MMR was only used at the start.

As far as your suggestion goes, isn't it up to the Guilds to make sure their players are active?

 

[Travex]

You move between leagues based on league points. MMR was only used at the start.

As far as your suggestion goes, isn't it up to the Guilds to make sure their players are active?

Yes, I meant LP to move between leagues and that is fine.

As much as wanting guildies to be active, there are always guilds that let players play at their paces and allow them to choose how they play and how often. My suggestion allows for very active guilds as well as those that are less active but still have a few very active players within. It also allows for changing circumstances within guilds because the aggregates are based on current and recent GBG periods.

When grouped according to active players, then the number of players in a guild doesn't matter anymore. I have seen many guilds with only a fraction of active GBG players and also seen guilds with only a handful of players who are mostly active. In this way, the algorithm only group active player numbers and the total number of battles each guild averages. I think we can get a more balanced grouping and could work.

 

[Knight of ICE]

The number of players in a Guild always matters, cause they influence the cost of Province Buildings.

I see what you are trying to achieve, but what about players that do not participate in GBG, but are very active in donating to the Guild treasury? Shouldn't that be taken into consideration as well? Even when you group Guilds based on active players there will be unbalance. An 8 person Guild with only active players is not equal to a 70 player Guild with 8 active players. Costs for the last Guild are a lot higher, so the 8 player Guild still has an advantage. Also I see a possibility for abuse. A lot of Guilds have a sister Guild for the less active players. Bring two active players to those Guilds and they will dominate the map. They could even make a rotation system, so players can get extra rewards. Another problem that I see is the period it takes to group those Guilds. You mention 3 or more GBG periods. A Guild can easily go inactive for one or more periods to influence that. They already do so now.

 

[Travex]

The number of players in a Guild always matters, cause they influence the cost of Province Buildings.

I see what you are trying to achieve, but what about players that do not participate in GBG, but are very active in donating to the Guild treasury? Shouldn't that be taken into consideration as well? Even when you group Guilds based on active players there will be unbalance. An 8 person Guild with only active players is not equal to a 70 player Guild with 8 active players. Costs for the last Guild are a lot higher, so the 8 player Guild still has an advantage. Also I see a possibility for abuse. A lot of Guilds have a sister Guild for the less active players. Bring two active players to those Guilds and they will dominate the map. They could even make a rotation system, so players can get extra rewards. Another problem that I see is the period it takes to group those Guilds. You mention 3 or more GBG periods. A Guild can easily go inactive for one or more periods to influence that. They already do so now.

I see your point. You must have seen so much more than I have in your capacity as a moderator because of your overview of all players doing all kinds of tricks to get ahead, lol.

I see value in players who do not battle much or at all but still contribute in other ways. Those who do battle in GE, GvG or GBG add a little more by raising prestige levels for the guild in general and all members of the guild benefit from the efforts of the latter. Such is the understand in the guild that I run, which tends towards being more understanding and easy-going rather than hard push on guildies.

Perhaps make the number of periods higher, like 10 or more if deemed more effective as guilds would have little to gain from abstaining from any GBG for too long. They would lose players who would rather just play straight forward based on effective strength rather than through sleazy manipulations.

If players want to dominate that way, then they would still have to break up their guild and then the guild situation may look very different again. I still think this sort of change makes it more difficult for players to gain too much advantage.

In the end, if they want to compete with the strongest guilds, some would find that challenging and actually enjoying it. Let the smaller number of active player guilds find their own groups to compete with. Worth considering with perhaps some modifications to my suggestions since the current design sees a lot of unhappy players more than not. Would you agree?

The game has changed so much from just 3 years ago. Now, the value of FPs and goods have very little meaning as rich players and rich guilds throw them freely to attract players into their guilds. In the past, people had to work very hard for FPs and goods in general.

 

[I Am The Cat]

What's wrong with making guilds pay? Did someone suggest this before. I can't recall. So any guild that wants to take over the entire map let them. However once they have occupied say 25% of the map, any advance into an already occupied area would require a payment of 1000 diamonds from the guild (or even guild leader) to each member of the defending guild. This payment requirement would only kick in when 25% of the map had been conquered by one guild and only when advancing into an already occupied area. If they don't pay then they can't advance into that area.

There you go. Now they can take over the entire map and I'm very happy

 

[shadowblackff]

The number of players in a Guild always matters, cause they influence the cost of Province Buildings.

An 8 person Guild with only active players is not equal to a 70 player Guild with 8 active players. Costs for the last Guild are a lot higher, so the 8 player Guild still has an advantage.

What? What are you talking about? The total cost of each building in the Battlegrounds is fixed. For example an Outpost costs 500 total goods while a Siege Camp costs 3000 total goods, doesn't matter if the guild has 13 or 25 members (or any other number).

The number of players in a guild does not affect the price of buildings in the battlegrounds, so a guild with 50 members has an advantage over a guild with 10 members, simply due to more people contributing to the Guild treasury.

The age (IA/PE/CE/SAM/etc.) of players, on the other hand, matters. For example, if there are no SAM players in a guild, that guild won't be asked for SAM goods in GBG even if they have some in treasury. But that has nothing to do with the number of guild members.

So, one more time, what are you talking about? Please clarify.

 

[Knight of ICE]

What? What are you talking about? The total cost of each building in the Battlegrounds is fixed. For example an Outpost costs 500 total goods while a Siege Camp costs 3000 total goods, doesn't matter if the guild has 13 or 25 members (or any other number).

The number of players in a guild does not affect the price of buildings in the battlegrounds, so a guild with 50 members has an advantage over a guild with 10 members, simply due to more people contributing to the Guild treasury.

The age (IA/PE/CE/SAM/etc.) of players, on the other hand, matters. For example, if there are no SAM players in a guild, that guild won't be asked for SAM goods in GBG even if they have some in treasury. But that has nothing to do with the number of guild members.

So, one more time, what are you talking about? Please clarify.

I am talking about the era the goods have to come from. The number of players in a guild can effect those costs, cause if you have a large amount of players in say, Industrial, it is more likely you have to pay with Industrial goods. Now if those are your inactive players you might run into a problem. Something much more likely to happen to a Guild of 70 with 8 active players, than to a Guild of 8 with 8 active players. Those 8 will have it covered. The 8 in the 70 Guild will have a much harder job to keep the treasury up to date for the goods needed.

 

[PhantomMarius]

Posting on behalf of the many - using the words of the few.... interested in viewpoints and feedback
The new GBG does not make any allowance for the size of the guilds drawn together in the different leagues. Being promoted to diamond league is actually a punishment for the smaller guilds whereby they cannot use their full potential because they are penned in by a big guild, therefore LOSING ONE WEEKS WORTH OF GROWTH for every week they are in that league, so the stronger get stronger and gap gets bigger and there is no way for newer players to catch them!
If Inno look at the stats ALL the big guilds (high level players and a large number of members) are always in the top league, everyone else falls in and out of it, which proves the system is floored.
The only way to get through this is to increase the number of players and higher level of players in ones guild, but this too is floored because there is only a certain number of players within each world. If all guilds effectively merge, then no one will be able to move on the campaign map and no one will be able to earn points, but in the meantime the big boys are getting bigger and the up and comings are having their future limited and DICTATED to by the larger guilds, and not the designers of this game! This is in effect ripping the heart out of the fun of the game for anyone who is mid table or lower, and suffocating the newcomers, which in turn will kill the game for everyone, since its designed to evolve and grow!

Have they looked at using the points of the guild to measure who they should be competing against?
If the points of each player in a guild are added together and THEN put in to the appropriate league it would mean "like v like" giving the newer players a real chance to grow in and amongst like-levelled guilds.
Currently the chatter is to merge guilds just so they have a chance to compete, that will rip out the heart and sole of this game, if the calculation is based on points within a guild then it would encourage smaller guilds and more battles, near equal or more level playing field for all, isn't that what Inno is about?

I agree fully

 

[Dirty South Ryda]

Here is my take, we have 2 newly created guilds, they have worked hard, recruited hard, sought out advice, and are now competing AND WINNING against “ Top” guilds in diamond league. Top guilds are where they are because they have worked hard, have a plan and most importantly have guild mates that are like minded and share the same goals, there are SOME EXCEPTIONS but most people complaining are in guilds that give little to no effort, dont do the little things, dont have everyone invested and then complain. Remember everyone stsrted at the same spot. Those that became” top guilds” is because they earned it by working hard as a TEAM… Again , there are exceptions, but TIME , effort and having good guild mates will get more competitive… its a choice

 

[Nidwin]

What's wrong with making guilds pay? Did someone suggest this before. I can't recall. So any guild that wants to take over the entire map let them. However once they have occupied say 25% of the map, any advance into an already occupied area would require a payment of 1000 diamonds from the guild (or even guild leader) to each member of the defending guild. This payment requirement would only kick in when 25% of the map had been conquered by one guild and only when advancing into an already occupied area. If they don't pay then they can't advance into that area.

There you go. Now they can take over the entire map and I'm very happy

I'm not at all fond of this suggestion neither what's still being tested on the BETA server with the 66% max attrition reduction. Both are having an impact in lower leagues (Gold and Platinum) on small(2->5) or one-man's GbG very dedicated guilds.

In my opinion Inno should do the same they did with RQ's to limit "farming" that's happening in Diamond Leagues.
Limit the amount of possible "free" fights e.g. 4x required to lock a zone (in gold this would mean 100x4=400 fights a day per player and reset at 24:00). The only difference compared to RQ's is the option to buy another 1 set of fights ( e.g. 100 extra fights in Gold League) for e.g. 150 diamonds. A second set for 300 diamonds, third set for 600 diamonds, forth set for 1 200 diamonds and so on.

Nidwin

 

[Rob The Gr8]

I've been thinking about how annoying a slow GbG is when you are part of a quality guild who are looking for loads of fights but end up stuck with guilds who have no desire to fight so the map becomes stagnant. Well this is my idea..... add the ability to 'surrender' a sector owned by your guild. When you surrender it, it becomes locked for 4 hours and after that opens with NO owner so you can recapture it. Because it is locked for 4 hours before it can be attacked again, it prevents guilds from teaming up to swap sectors for farming them but allows the active guilds who are looking for the fights to get them every 4 hours.

 

[Rob The Gr8]

I'm not at all fond of this suggestion neither what's still being tested on the BETA server with the 66% max attrition reduction. Both are having an impact in lower leagues (Gold and Platinum) on small(2->5) or one-man's GbG very dedicated guilds.

In my opinion Inno should do the same they did with RQ's to limit "farming" that's happening in Diamond Leagues.
Limit the amount of possible "free" fights e.g. 4x required to lock a zone (in gold this would mean 100x4=400 fights a day per player and reset at 24:00). The only difference compared to RQ's is the option to buy another 1 set of fights ( e.g. 100 extra fights in Gold League) for e.g. 150 diamonds. A second set for 300 diamonds, third set for 600 diamonds, forth set for 1 200 diamonds and so on.

Nidwin

I think this can be even more simple. Just reduce the amount of time a sector is locked for from 4 hours to 2 hours. Everyone can/will do more fight which in turn will increase how fast people use attrition and at the same time would slow people/guilds down as more goods would be needed for building SC’s. Job done

 

[Knight of ICE]

I've been thinking about how annoying a slow GbG is when you are part of a quality guild who are looking for loads of fights but end up stuck with guilds who have no desire to fight so the map becomes stagnant. Well this is my idea..... add the ability to 'surrender' a sector owned by your guild. When you surrender it, it becomes locked for 4 hours and after that opens with NO owner so you can recapture it. Because it is locked for 4 hours before it can be attacked again, it prevents guilds from teaming up to swap sectors for farming them but allows the active guilds who are looking for the fights to get them every 4 hours.

You are right. It will prevent guilds from teaming up to swap sectors for farming, cause there will be no need for that anymore. You just conquer a sector and immediately release it so you can do the same again and again every 4 hours.