Change to CP Bonus - Population Control Algorithm

The Restless Posts : 445 Join date : 2013-11-24

wogrf wrote:: I used to log in 3-7 times per day. See what's going on, join a chat, do a battle, and then once a day try and get a good battle session done. Now with the new CP boost I have realised I am actually doing more harm than good with my 3-4k CP/week.
Let's look at the current war report. 227 dark vs 314 light log ins. Dark 1.4 CP bonus. Dark 168037 CP vs light 106339 CP. With the bonus that's 86377 more CP's generated by the dark than the light. I have now realised that by not playing and telling everyone else not to play we can actually win faster. HOW IS THIS RIGHT!
Someone please tell me why not playing a game helps me win.

It is already well-documented that people are...less than satisfied...with the current bonus (Bonus 2). It is equally well-established that the previous bonus (Bonus 1) has it's own group of detractors. So, everyone is waiting for a solution...if you have an idea please share it here. We've got nothing but time to vet different bonus ideas to see if their is a viable, better bonus that could be implemented...someday.

Posts : 86 Join date : 2013-12-30

ysosad wrote:

wogrf wrote:: I used to log in 3-7 times per day. See what's going on, join a chat, do a battle, and then once a day try and get a good battle session done. Now with the new CP boost I have realised I am actually doing more harm than good with my 3-4k CP/week.
Let's look at the current war report. 227 dark vs 314 light log ins. Dark 1.4 CP bonus. Dark 168037 CP vs light 106339 CP. With the bonus that's 86377 more CP's generated by the dark than the light. I have now realised that by not playing and telling everyone else not to play we can actually win faster. HOW IS THIS RIGHT!
Someone please tell me why not playing a game helps me win.

It is already well-documented that people are...less than satisfied...with the current bonus (Bonus 2). It is equally well-established that the previous bonus (Bonus 1) has it's own group of detractors. So, everyone is waiting for a solution...if you have an idea please share it here. We've got nothing but time to vet different bonus ideas to see if their is a viable, better bonus that could be implemented...someday.

one idea - count only fighter and it'll be ok
now it looks like dark side has more fighters and cp bonus, that's not fair

Posts : 103 Join date : 2013-10-28

wogrf wrote:: I used to log in 3-7 times per day. See what's going on, join a chat, do a battle, and then once a day try and get a good battle session done. Now with the new CP boost I have realised I am actually doing more harm than good with my 3-4k CP/week.
Let's look at the current war report. 227 dark vs 314 light log ins. Dark 1.4 CP bonus. Dark 168037 CP vs light 106339 CP. With the bonus that's 86377 more CP's generated by the dark than the light. I have now realised that by not playing and telling everyone else not to play we can actually win faster. HOW IS THIS RIGHT!
Someone please tell me why not playing a game helps me win.

The bonus is based on player disparity as well as fighting activity (I believe average victories per player?) So if you are logging on everyday and winning just a few battles per day, you'd be helping your faction out. If you were just logging on to collect resources, you'd be diluting your factions average victories per player, which would be detrimental.
Some previous numbers:
Dark actives Light actives Dark Ave/Victories Light Ave/Victories Bonus
243 282 4.08 4.72 1.14
229 285 4.24 4.05 1.26
229 261 4.31 3.93 1.15
245 301 4.73 3.43 1.32
227 314 5.84 2.74 1.40

While you guys are having more actives, the average victories per player has been dropping.. cause the significant increase in bonus. I am thinking the original cap of 1.25-ish maybe shouldn't have been lifted.

ok.. now it's lined up! yay!

Posts : 86 Join date : 2013-12-30

Dahk wrote:

wogrf wrote:: I used to log in 3-7 times per day. See what's going on, join a chat, do a battle, and then once a day try and get a good battle session done. Now with the new CP boost I have realised I am actually doing more harm than good with my 3-4k CP/week.
Let's look at the current war report. 227 dark vs 314 light log ins. Dark 1.4 CP bonus. Dark 168037 CP vs light 106339 CP. With the bonus that's 86377 more CP's generated by the dark than the light. I have now realised that by not playing and telling everyone else not to play we can actually win faster. HOW IS THIS RIGHT!
Someone please tell me why not playing a game helps me win.

The bonus is based on player disparity as well as fighting activity (I believe average victories per player?) So if you are logging on everyday and winning just a few battles per day, you'd be helping your faction out. If you were just logging on to collect resources, you'd be diluting your factions average victories per player, which would be detrimental.
Some previous numbers:
Dark actives Light actives Dark Ave/Victories Light Ave/Victories Bonus
243 282 4.08 4.72 1.14
229 285 4.24 4.05 1.26
229 261 4.31 3.93 1.15
245 301 4.73 3.43 1.32
227 314 5.84 2.74 1.40

While you guys are having more actives, the average victories per player has been dropping.. cause the significant increase in bonus. I am thinking the original cap of 1.25-ish maybe shouldn't have been lifted.

ok.. now it's lined up! yay!

1. do you have the numbers from beginning?
2. what about faction imbalance darks side get cp bonus even when the imbalance was less than 20%,
3. what that says to you? for me its not enough, it could be 50 fighters on dark side against 10 on light side,

if you look at the numbers from beginning and current then you will see how much light faction lost

The Restless Posts : 445 Join date : 2013-11-24

Strachu wrote:

Dahk wrote:: The bonus is based on player disparity as well as fighting activity (I believe average victories per player?) So if you are logging on everyday and winning just a few battles per day, you'd be helping your faction out. If you were just logging on to collect resources, you'd be diluting your factions average victories per player, which would be detrimental.
Some previous numbers:
Dark actives Light actives Dark Ave/Victories Light Ave/Victories Bonus
243 282 4.08 4.72 1.14
229 285 4.24 4.05 1.26
229 261 4.31 3.93 1.15
245 301 4.73 3.43 1.32
227 314 5.84 2.74 1.40

While you guys are having more actives, the average victories per player has been dropping.. cause the significant increase in bonus. I am thinking the original cap of 1.25-ish maybe shouldn't have been lifted.

ok.. now it's lined up! yay!

1. do you have the numbers from beginning?
2. what about faction imbalance darks side get cp bonus even when the imbalance was less than 20%,
3. what that says to you? for me its not enough, it could be 50 fighters on dark side against 10 on light side,

if you look at the numbers from beginning and current then you will see how much light faction lost

1: You can find some of the early data here:
http://www.battleconforum.com/t2548p75-light-vs-darkness-the-eternal-conflict

The bonus began on 7/11/14, but needed 2-3 days to work in actuality.

You will note that the numbers in both Factions have gone down. The disparity in players in terms of percentage has gone above 33% several times, on at least 2 occasions it has exceeded 40%. Previous to the bonus, Rune stated the disparity ranged from 15%-33%, if I recall correctly.

2: Several things in Rune's original post did not happen or were...misleading. Most notably, there was to be a 20% floor...but no mention of a ceiling. The former seems to have been removed, the latter added at 40%. Actives were thought to be combatants, that is not the case currently. The max bonus was to be 1.25x the population difference...that does not seem to be the case. (I would advocate that the floor be lowered to 10%, the ceiling kept where it is, actives to be combatants only, the max bonus (1.25x) to work properly and a min. bonus (0.80x) to be instated)

3: There are usually more Light fighters based on looking at names on frontline regions. It is more difficult to judge the proportion of each Faction's members that are fighting.

Posts : 86 Join date : 2013-12-30

ysosad wrote:: 1: You can find some of the early data here:
http://www.battleconforum.com/t2548p75-light-vs-darkness-the-eternal-conflict

The bonus began on 7/11/14, but needed 2-3 days to work in actuality.

You will note that the numbers in both Factions have gone down. The disparity in players in terms of percentage has gone above 33% several times, on at least 2 occasions it has exceeded 40%. Previous to the bonus, Rune stated the disparity ranged from 15%-33%, if I recall correctly.

2: Several things in Rune's original post did not happen or were...misleading. Most notably, there was to be a 20% floor...but no mention of a ceiling. The former seems to have been removed, the latter added at 40%. Actives were thought to be combatants, that is not the case currently. The max bonus was to be 1.25x the population difference...that does not seem to be the case. (I would advocate that the floor be lowered to 10%, the ceiling kept where it is, actives to be combatants only, the max bonus (1.25x) to work properly and a min. bonus (0.80x) to be instated)

3: There are usually more Light fighters based on looking at names on frontline regions. It is more difficult to judge the proportion of each Faction's members that are fighting.

1. I remember the numbers, we were able to put more than 200 k cp a day, now its problem with 100 k cp. As i remember you were very discounted when the activity was over 400 for said. Yso lots of our fighters quit because capital armies were to strong. I think now we have less fighters then on dark side and more not fighting players but dark side get cp bonus.

3. It is hard but how can you explain that in few days we lost half of our cp output?

The Restless Posts : 445 Join date : 2013-11-24

Strachu wrote:

ysosad wrote:: 1: You can find some of the early data here:
http://www.battleconforum.com/t2548p75-light-vs-darkness-the-eternal-conflict

The bonus began on 7/11/14, but needed 2-3 days to work in actuality.

You will note that the numbers in both Factions have gone down. The disparity in players in terms of percentage has gone above 33% several times, on at least 2 occasions it has exceeded 40%. Previous to the bonus, Rune stated the disparity ranged from 15%-33%, if I recall correctly.

2: Several things in Rune's original post did not happen or were...misleading. Most notably, there was to be a 20% floor...but no mention of a ceiling. The former seems to have been removed, the latter added at 40%. Actives were thought to be combatants, that is not the case currently. The max bonus was to be 1.25x the population difference...that does not seem to be the case. (I would advocate that the floor be lowered to 10%, the ceiling kept where it is, actives to be combatants only, the max bonus (1.25x) to work properly and a min. bonus (0.80x) to be instated)

3: There are usually more Light fighters based on looking at names on frontline regions. It is more difficult to judge the proportion of each Faction's members that are fighting.

1. I remember the numbers, we were able to put more than 200 k cp a day, now its problem with 100 k cp. As i remember you were very discounted when the activity was over 400 for said. Yso lots of our fighters quit because capital armies were to strong. I think now we have less fighters then on dark side and more not fighting players but dark side get cp bonus.

3. It is hard but how can you explain that in few days we lost half of our cp output?

1: I was suspicious of the 400 player mark on 2 occasions. The first was when Rune combined data/before I knew that it included non-combatants. The second time was when there was a wave of players that shot the Dark player numbers up by over 100% and Light by ~50% from one day to the next.

I'm not contending that players didn't leave...or that high-quality players didn't leave. I empathize with you, I recall other incidents when an exodus of sorts has occurred for other reasons (Light- Hades' AI armies, Dark and Light-Olympus end-game, Dark-Hades, old CP bonus, etc) and I almost never like to see people leave.some people are d-bags though

I whole-heartedly agree with you that the AI armies are too strong...even before their current strength I advocated for them to be removed entirely, I don't get what they add to the game.

I don't know the number of fighters, only Rune can definitively provide that information. I had asked for that information shortly after the CP bonus changed and we found out that everyone counted, but I never got the information. I did do an amateur accounting of combatants v. noncombatants over a month ago, but that would hardly apply today.

3. It is a variety of things, but if I were to sum it up in one word: morale

Posts : 375 Join date : 2014-02-09 Location : Denmark

I haven't noticed an increase in active players when it comes to Dark faction or even within my guild, though it would appear that the usual crowd of players here are fighting more solos and doing more coop battles.(We are no longer punished for being active, guess that is the reason why?)

There are several reasons why I think you Lighties got pushed back.

1) You guys apparently gave up?(Or got fed up?)
2) The Dark capital army's strength and the numbers off attacks it did.
3) You didn't put enough effort into our northern regions, that would have resulted in the dark capital army having to attack there as well.(I think you should have put more effort into widening the front before giving up)
4) The big lightie guilds seem more interested in region bonuses than cutting off the bottlenecks with walls. Illyrians tried I think, but didn't get around to building strong walls?
5)There hasn't been a follow-up on the CP bonus system and the strength of the capital armies which has led to you guys being dissatisfied with the game.

I do understand why you guys are dissatisfied with the game but that shouldn't prevent you from being able to stop us at least halfway on the map, right?(Sounds like another stalemate, but at least you guys have a fighting chance against us?)

Posts : 86 Join date : 2013-12-30

Boboknack wrote:: 1) You guys apparently gave up?(Or got fed up?)
2) The Dark capital army's strength and the numbers off attacks it did.

you right Bobo, light big players gave up, it happened when we were on hex 45, the reason was simple OP capital armies, DCA cp output was over 50 k cp a day

Boboknack wrote:: 3) You didn't put enough effort into our northern regions, that would have resulted in the dark capital army having to attack there as well.(I think you should have put more effort into widening the front before giving up)

it rather means stalemate, impasse, i see no reason to conquer all map if you want to win, we don’t want to play against AI army but real players otherwise we will chose the settlers

Boboknack wrote:: 4) The big lightie guilds seem more interested in region bonuses than cutting off the bottlenecks with walls. Illyrians tried I think, but didn't get around to building strong walls?

maybe but for big guild like RG it is easier to fight when you have temple and forge that help to rise cp output

Boboknack wrote:: 5)There hasn't been a follow-up on the CP bonus system and the strength of the capital armies which has led to you guys being dissatisfied with the game.

What do you mean?

Ysosad wrote:: 3. It is a variety of things, but if I were to sum it up in one word: morale

Boboknack wrote:: I do understand why you guys are dissatisfied with the game but that shouldn't prevent you from being able to stop us at least halfway on the map, right?(Sounds like another stalemate, but at least you guys have a fighting chance against us?)

You still don’t see that we lost few big players when we were on 45, they didn’t like to fight against CA and they quit, we were stronger then you, we were doing much more battles per player, is it fair that stronger side is punish, we've never got cp bonus (in this war and in previous).

Top plyers, you can think about it like that
Light side/ Dark side
Mearc / Ysosad (does half his battles)
Tonio/ Fyrr (does half his battles)
Johntheright / Dahknese (stop playing)
Strachu / Klaas (no changes)
Kql / Paddyk – (no changes)
Gandalf / Damastas- no changes
Ulfriden / Lslarry (didn’t saw Ulf in coop for few days so only solos)
Narmis / Opfl (im not sure but rather half battles)
Siranthony / Foobstin (stop playing for few days)
Rakiman / 9999 (stop playing)

And now you can tell what will happened to your faction. You can also tell devs to rise CA strange to 50 k cp per hit, will you still enjoy this game?
The other thing is that we don’t know how many players fight and if they change the system each side can start working on it, if player do less than 5 or 10 battles than he should stop fighting, something must be done. I agree that underpopulated side should get cp bonus to make the war fair but not in this way, that shouldn’t affect less active and not fighting players, all players should play like they want to.
For now go and fight, we will try I hard as we can. But I’m afraid that if nothing change then in few days the only player on light side will be capital army. Sad but truth.

Posts : 375 Join date : 2014-02-09 Location : Denmark

Strachu wrote:

Boboknack wrote:: 1) You guys apparently gave up?(Or got fed up?)
2) The Dark capital army's strength and the numbers off attacks it did.

you right Bobo, light big players gave up, it happened when we were on hex 45, the reason was simple OP capital armies, DCA cp output was over 50 k cp a day

Boboknack wrote:: 3) You didn't put enough effort into our northern regions, that would have resulted in the dark capital army having to attack there as well.(I think you should have put more effort into widening the front before giving up)

it rather means stalemate, impasse, i see no reason to conquer all map if you want to win, we don’t want to play against AI army but real players otherwise we will chose the settlers

Boboknack wrote:: 4) The big lightie guilds seem more interested in region bonuses than cutting off the bottlenecks with walls. Illyrians tried I think, but didn't get around to building strong walls?

maybe but for big guild like RG it is easier to fight when you have temple and forge that help to rise cp output

Boboknack wrote:: 5)There hasn't been a follow-up on the CP bonus system and the strength of the capital armies which has led to you guys being dissatisfied with the game.

What do you mean?

Ysosad wrote:: 3. It is a variety of things, but if I were to sum it up in one word: morale

Boboknack wrote:: I do understand why you guys are dissatisfied with the game but that shouldn't prevent you from being able to stop us at least halfway on the map, right?(Sounds like another stalemate, but at least you guys have a fighting chance against us?)

You still don’t see that we lost few big players when we were on 45, they didn’t like to fight against CA and they quit, we were stronger then you, we were doing much more battles per player, is it fair that stronger side is punish, we've never got cp bonus (in this war and in previous).

Top plyers, you can think about it like that
Light side/ Dark side
Mearc / Ysosad (does half his battles)
Tonio/ Fyrr (does half his battles)
Johntheright / Dahknese (stop playing)
Strachu / Klaas (no changes)
Kql / Paddyk – (no changes)
Gandalf / Damastas- no changes
Ulfriden / Lslarry (didn’t saw Ulf in coop for few days so only solos)
Narmis / Opfl (im not sure but rather half battles)
Siranthony / Foobstin (stop playing for few days)
Rakiman / 9999 (stop playing)

And now you can tell what will happened to your faction. You can also tell devs to rise CA strange to 50 k cp per hit, will you still enjoy this game?
The other thing is that we don’t know how many players fight and if they change the system each side can start working on it, if player do less than 5 or 10 battles than he should stop fighting, something must be done. I agree that underpopulated side should get cp bonus to make the war fair but not in this way, that shouldn’t affect less active and not fighting players, all players should play like they want to.
For now go and fight, we will try I hard as we can. But I’m afraid that if nothing change then in few days the only player on light side will be capital army. Sad but truth.

I get your point, we were saved by the dark capital army a couple of times, and it shouldn't be like that.

I honestly don't have any suggestions on how we can solve the issues this game is suffering from at the moment. Without the devs and agincourt gaming stepping up, I guess we will lose even more players?

Its such a damn shame that we can't somehow get more people to play BC and control the intake of people joining each faction(distribute new players equally). If we reached similar numbers in people all these patches would not be needed.

The Restless Posts : 445 Join date : 2013-11-24

Strachu wrote:: You still don’t see that we lost few big players when we were on 45, they didn’t like to fight against CA and they quit, we were stronger then you, we were doing much more battles per player, is it fair that stronger side is punish, we've never got cp bonus (in this war and in previous).

Top plyers, you can think about it like that
Light side/ Dark side
Mearc / Ysosad (does half his battles)
Tonio/ Fyrr (does half his battles)
Johntheright / Dahknese (stop playing)
Strachu / Klaas (no changes)
Kql / Paddyk – (no changes)
Gandalf / Damastas- no changes
Ulfriden / Lslarry (didn’t saw Ulf in coop for few days so only solos)
Narmis / Opfl (im not sure but rather half battles)
Siranthony / Foobstin (stop playing for few days)
Rakiman / 9999 (stop playing)

And now you can tell what will happened to your faction. You can also tell devs to rise CA strange to 50 k cp per hit, will you still enjoy this game?
The other thing is that we don’t know how many players fight and if they change the system each side can start working on it, if player do less than 5 or 10 battles than he should stop fighting, something must be done. I agree that underpopulated side should get cp bonus to make the war fair but not in this way, that shouldn’t affect less active and not fighting players, all players should play like they want to.
For now go and fight, we will try I hard as we can. But I’m afraid that if nothing change then in few days the only player on light side will be capital army. Sad but truth.

I don't understand what you are after. Players have already acknowledged that there is a problem, we've cleared the problem identification phase some time ago, it is time to move on to the solutions stage.

So far, here are the solutions offered:

1) Weaken or remove Capital Armies - Generally accepted
2) Remove non-combatants from 'active' player count - Generally accepted
3) Go back to the previous CP bonus or an approximate - Strong objections
4) Remove the CP bonus - Very strong objections

Do you (the Light Faction) believe that 1 & 2 are sufficient? If not, then start thinking of other ideas...because there is no reason to believe that when the devs can make changes that they will have the answers for you.

I've given my thoughts and suggestions, some on the forums, others in PMs in forums and in-game...I think I've done my part.

The onus largely falls on the LF to come up with alternatives/changes...just as it did on the DF the last time such a situation occurred.

(There is no indication that the devs will have a solution readily available when they are able to make changes. If I were in the LF, I'd be doing everything I could now to give them options when they return.)

Posts : 279 Join date : 2014-01-20

Light faction has the power to solve this problem themselves. Fight more. I know morale is low, and this is a problem I have seen over and over on both sides. The solution to low morale, is fatalism and fighting more! Since Yso (very rightly) promotes the idea of finding our own solutions, here:

1) We're in the middle of the map now, capital armies are equally (unfairly lol) powerful.

2) Start telling your new players that it doesn't REALLY matter if you lose regions, all that REALLY matters is ATTACKING the CP BONUS. Get them to fight more, and drag up the average victories. Losing regions, since capital armies are so OP, actually makes you guys tougher. Stress to EVERYONE that it is more important to fight hard than to win the fights, and that the plan is to slowly claw us back.

3) Do more co-ops. The game is more fun with a lot of people co-oping. A co-op counts the same as a suicide or a normal in victory count. Shelter and guide new players so they WANT to co-op more, try bringing different armies with a veteran partner to add variety and interest.

I can't believe I'm actually saying this stuff, consider it a measure of how frustrated I am personally to see people leaving... Sad

Posts : 142 Join date : 2013-12-23

ummm, Larry, i can tell you for a fact that we are doing everything you have suggested and i appreciate your sense of fair play btw. we do these things every day. what i won't do is tell people to stop playing the game the way they want to play it. if that means we lose then so be it.

actual faction numbers are only off by 42 players...dark has 494 (up 2 from yesterday) light has 536...so what is the explanation for radical difference in log ons? is the system being exploited or that is just the way things are?

The Restless Posts : 445 Join date : 2013-11-24

kqlkql wrote:: actual faction numbers are only off by 42 players...dark has 494 (up 2 from yesterday) light has 536...so what is the explanation for radical difference in log ons? is the system being exploited or that is just the way things are?

I don't know if it is being exploited OR if the new legitimate registrants leave/switch side more quickly OR both.

However, there is legitimate precedence for it occurring:

Prior to the current CP bonus, when Rune gave the new registrant numbers for a period of a few weeks (or maybe over a month) it showed that there were more players that had signed up for the DF. Despite that the CP rankings were somehow still diverging, with the Light side getting more players to reach the 20 CP mark than the Dark side over that period of time.

Since it pre-dated the CP bonus as it is right now the possibility exists that there is not extensive exploitation...though we'd need the devs to look into it to know what is really happening.

(there have been a couple players that we've seen in Faction chat that have made alt-Dark accounts...idk if their mains were also Dark or if they were Light...but that shouldn't harm the Light Faction and I don't think that it was intended to impact the CP bonus, they seemed to be new players that didn't even know they were breaking a rule.)

Posts : 134 Join date : 2013-10-31

Once again, my 2-cents :

1. We need the AI-armies removed (best option if you ask me) or they have got to be limited to 15% max. damage output per fight. The target should be made less random, if the horses would just attack the lowest numbered enemy region (with 15% randomness or something).

2. The bonus needs to be maxed at 25 %.

It could be, this would resolve things greatly, together with a responsive dev team to balance things further out. Else :

(Optional) 3. In my opinion the Light side now suffers from the devs' changes to correct the impopulation balance. In the end I think that all that matters is the CP-output. THAT is what should determine who gets the bonus (normally the dark side). And THAT is what is "unacceptable" IF I get things right.

Now, I've done my part in symptom-fighting (just keep on fighting to try and let the dark bonus as small as possible), but I'm through with it and I'm not the only one. Either the game mechanics change or the game may well die. We saw the darks leave before. From both factions there were people who wanted to change that. To fix that, the devs implemented changes, which should have been followed up. Now, with the Light faction getting hammered, there are still people from both factions who want it fixed, yet I read : " It's the Light's problem... fix it on your own." Really ? It is always both factions' concern. No one likes fighting against AI alone. But, everything has already been mentioned, so, maybe no real new solutions may be found.

I think that few people really care where the bonus is coming from (from log-ins or CP-production), as long as the impact on the map is the same. I think also : what we may be seeing, is : Light side is done with fighting without changes... So, don't talk yet of "unacceptable", please. It may be that the entire game will die over it...

Maybe there is no solution, I don't know... Either way, people may quit over it. Maybe it's time then to let the game go...dunno...

The Unyielding Posts : 802 Join date : 2013-05-31

Johntheright wrote:: 2. The bonus needs to be maxed at 25 %.

Elaborate why 25% and not 30% or 20% or none?

Johntheright wrote:: I think that few people really care where the bonus is coming from, as long as the impact on the map is the same.

If people don't know where the bonus is coming from, they can't influence it. Now we can.

Posts : 27 Join date : 2014-03-24

Fyrr wrote:: Johntheright wrote:
2. The bonus needs to be maxed at 25 %.

Elaborate why 25% and not 30% or 20% or none?

Remind me again why a faction that is earning more CPs than the other faction needs a 40% bonus on top of that?

There is constant talk of a population imbalance, but what about a time imbalance? There is no possible scenario in the world in which I could ever complete 140 battles in one 24-hour period. When lighties said "fight more" to the darkies complaining about a population imbalance, we were met with derision and disdain and cries of "its not fair". Now darkies are killing lighties without the bonus...seriously destroying us WITH the bonus, and we're crying "not fair", and darkies are saying "fight more". Sounds hypocritical to me.

Also, with the whole "time imbalance" thing....with the limited time I have to play, I often only get a chance to run my solos now before I have to log off. Before the uncapped suicide change, however, if I saw someone in the coop queue, I would jump in. After all, if we're both capped, we'd get 200CPs for the faction, which was better than the 160 capped suicide I could do by myself. Now, when I see someone agonizing and waiting in the queue, I think "tough luck...I'd rather do my solos for 230-300 CPs with the limited time I have". With the recent changes of the bonus algorithm and uncapped suicides, the Top 10 darkies have a ridiculous influence over the direction of this game. With the bonus, top darkies can get 560+ CP per suicide...2% per hex!

There will always be imbalances, and there NEED TO BE imbalances, otherwise there will just be a stalemate. Darkies have proven they can earn more CPs than lighties without a bonus, so I don't know what the logic is behind having a CP bonus in the first place. The imbalance from the bonus algorithm seems much more artificial and unfair than a population imbalance, in my opinion.

Posts : 3 Join date : 2014-04-04

I was asked if I had any solutions to the current problem. First I must explain how I play.
I would start my day with coffee and some BC. Check my stuff in the market, see how the map looks, change the MOTD, do a battle, grab my res, chat a bit and repair broken stuff from the night before. Lunch log in and do same thing. Get home from work and do same thing. Log in at night and crank out some battles and break all my gear and go to bed too late. Now I play other games during the day and log in once at night. So today I didn't really enjoy playing BC at all. The other thing I didn't do today was buy gems again. The $100 worth of gems I have been putting off buying since this crazy equation was introduced got delayed again.

So here is my possible solution for the current problem. Fix the game or else we, the players, stop playing! Let us fight fairly! If you can't get this fixed the addicted ones, like myself, stop spending money. You the devs stop making money and your game becomes a footnote in history. BC dies and that is all. Maybe that is what the devs want so they can spend all their time rolling out BC 2.0.

Since I have all this free time not playing BC because it hurts or stats I have found a few other games I think I would much rather play. I still can't do it though because of the players, both factions, who I have grown to like in game.

Sorry for the long winded post. I can't log in to BC, (it hurts our stats,) or I would be playing BC right now instead of venting here.

The Unyielding Posts : 802 Join date : 2013-05-31

Narmis wrote:

Fyrr wrote:: Johntheright wrote:
2. The bonus needs to be maxed at 25 %.

Elaborate why 25% and not 30% or 20% or none?

Remind me again why a faction that is earning more CPs than the other faction needs a 40% bonus on top of that?

I was asking for thoughts on a fairer cap of the bonus.. Meh.
In dark faction there are some people who don't have anything better to do.. for a while. :p That doesn't invalidate the bonus.. We have less noobs, so less chances to get more no-lifers.

Narmis wrote:: There is no possible scenario in the world in which I could ever complete 140 battles in one 24-hour period.

Some light got over 150 battles ^^ It's in a way good for the opposite faction, because after that some rest is required.
No possible scenario? Hire an asian gamer to do the fighting for you. alien

Narmis wrote:: When lighties said "fight more" to the darkies complaining about a population imbalance, we were met with derision and disdain and cries of "its not fair".

Yes... Complaining is ok (when devs react to it.. which isn't known now), and it doesn't mean we gave up on fighting.. otherwise you'd have gotten the capital back then.

Narmis wrote:: Now, when I see someone agonizing and waiting in the queue, I think "tough luck...I'd rather do my solos for 230-300 CPs with the limited time I have".
With the recent changes of the bonus algorithm and uncapped suicides, the Top 10 darkies have a ridiculous influence over the direction of this game.

Top 10? Meh. Anyway, top darks (and lights?) do tons of coops. I personally choose coops over solos sometimes, they're not that bad.....
What if coop CPs were raised, would that solve something? Would you personally coop more? ^^

Narmis wrote:: The imbalance from the bonus algorithm seems much more artificial and unfair than a population imbalance, in my opinion.

Why even lights used to agree that population imbalance is a bad thing? scratch

Artificial.. hmm..
Lights were outnumbered in Olympus, darks here.. So many threads. It was fixed/improved in the past, both sides survived... That's comforting.

I don't recall any good arguments for leaving population unattended. Do you?
To be fair, that bonus should turn off at some point when both sides get similar CPs/people/whatever.

wogrf wrote:: You the devs stop making money and your game becomes a footnote in history. BC dies and that is all. Maybe that is what the devs want so they can spend all their time rolling out BC 2.0.

Devs don't even have that much power over these things, gee. Or fix anything atm.
And yeah.. would be easier for them if BC died. In a way.
Good point about hurting the faction by logging in though.

Narmis wrote:: there NEED TO BE imbalances, otherwise there will just be a stalemate.

Which imbalance seems the most fair to you? CP one?

We all have some idea how to fix it, but not any implementable details... Why no one posts details... Also, devs. Hope they'll inform us soon again Suspect

The Restless Posts : 445 Join date : 2013-11-24

Narmis wrote:: Remind me again why a faction that is earning more CPs than the other faction needs a 40% bonus on top of that?

I can't give the long version again. Short version: IF the side that TRULY has less players, with the other faction TRULY having between 32%-40% more players, it makes sense.

Narmis wrote:: There is constant talk of a population imbalance, but what about a time imbalance? There is no possible scenario in the world in which I could ever complete 140 battles in one 24-hour period.

I don't get the point...both the DF and LF operate on the same time. Do you believe that the DF is able to fight battles faster, heal faster, or otherwise cut corners on time so they can fit more battles into a day than Lights can?

Narmis wrote:: When lighties said "fight more" to the darkies complaining about a population imbalance, we were met with derision and disdain and cries of "its not fair". Now darkies are killing lighties without the bonus...seriously destroying us WITH the bonus, and we're crying "not fair", and darkies are saying "fight more". Sounds hypocritical to me.

There are plenty of people that don't fit that categorization, on both sides...as well as those that do.

Narmis wrote:: Also, with the whole "time imbalance" thing....with the limited time I have to play, I often only get a chance to run my solos now before I have to log off. Before the uncapped suicide change, however, if I saw someone in the coop queue, I would jump in. After all, if we're both capped, we'd get 200CPs for the faction, which was better than the 160 capped suicide I could do by myself. Now, when I see someone agonizing and waiting in the queue, I think "tough luck...I'd rather do my solos for 230-300 CPs with the limited time I have".

I have to make that choice too.

Narmis wrote:: With the recent changes of the bonus algorithm and uncapped suicides, the Top 10 darkies have a ridiculous influence over the direction of this game. With the bonus, top darkies can get 560+ CP per suicide...2% per hex!

I'd be fine with reducing the CP in suicides to 160+ bonus...it changes some things, but probably for the better overall.

Narmis wrote:: There will always be imbalances, and there NEED TO BE imbalances, otherwise there will just be a stalemate. Darkies have proven they can earn more CPs than lighties without a bonus, so I don't know what the logic is behind having a CP bonus in the first place. The imbalance from the bonus algorithm seems much more artificial and unfair than a population imbalance, in my opinion.

I believe the predecessor to this argument held that the side that generates less CPs, regardless of number of players, should receive the bonus. However, you're not going that far here, you are just saying we should not get a bonus if we outproduce you in CPs, not that you should. That IS a road that can be explored, but you would need to go much further with the idea than you've thus far gone...and I'd guess that there would be issues that you'd have to account for in some fashion. Still, you should pursue it.

wogrf wrote:: So here is my possible solution for the current problem. Fix the game or else we, the players, stop playing!

How would you fix the game, specifically?...replying with "I would fix the game." is not specific enough.

Posts : 3 Join date : 2014-04-04

Ok then. Down to specifics. My fix to this mess we, dark and light, find ourselves in.
Tactics and unified effort should always prevail. CP's applied correctly must always advance your cause. Every cycle there will be an imbalance of CP's generated by either of the factions. The faction with the deficit should produce a Capital Army/s with that possible amount of CP's of influence. Each cycle the CA should apply that deficit of CP's to front line hex/s at random. The hex/s should be influenced near the middle of a cycle. As long as you work as a team you can advance. If the sides are even the CA does very little. If the sides are very uneven it should give your faction one or more hex/cycle. Will this produce a stalemate? No. Some captured hex will just be bypassed and others will need to be recaptured but, at the same time, your faction is applying CP's as they desire. Each faction then has time to think and react to the CA targets. The key point is the side with the best tactics and unity should always win eventually.

I have no idea how to fix the choice of which faction new players choose. The only possible way is to lose the light/dark thing and go grey vs beige. That would be a terrible loss to the sides we have come to love.

The Unyielding Posts : 802 Join date : 2013-05-31

wogrf wrote:: Every cycle there will be an imbalance of CP's generated by either of the factions. The faction with the deficit should produce a Capital Army/s with that possible amount of CP's of influence. Each cycle the CA should apply that deficit of CP's to front line hex/s at random. If the sides are very uneven it should give your faction one or more hex/cycle.

Interesting idea... I can't even say I'm opposed to seeing that in action, in some way.

Hm.. so if one side continually earns more CPs, the opposite faction (regardless of how many players there are) is given the AI horse with sometimes stupid targets, to compensate... Wouldn't the winning side feel like they're fighting AI instead of real people, exactly like now? Just without knowing that at least both sides have to deal with enemy horse.

It's kinda fair I guess, since the people with more CPs miiiight advance easily enough, but isn't it bad for motivation? I mean if one side gives their best, they have to deal with totally OP enemy horse, so why even fight a lot if it doesn't reward the effort?

Unless... there is some other bonus, so that the side which gets more cps, also gains something which is motivating but doesn't make the other side feel bad. Directly scaling to how well the faction performed. Something like a significantly high faction-wide (or personal, based on effort) +droprate, or +gold, or +exp bonus for a day... Like guilds get when they claim the bonus regions. Or a frag, or a few gems :p Or access to some special battles.. I guess that's way too complicated at this stage though.

I may understand why people is unhappy with the bonus and capital armies strength and many other imbalanced things in the game, but just leaving a very good game with unique battle sistem and strategy just for cp imbalance?, the only things that I seriously care of imbalance is units imbalance where some units of a race are very powerful but the same units of another race are so weak.

The little problem there is that when devs boost or nerf something they usually overboost or over nerf the things and that really cause big imbalance, people should understand a little and have patience because it seems to be very hard for our dear devs to balance things and keep us happy with everything (maybe testing things first could help more, slow changes but good, remember that changes should be slow because radical chances just cause more chaos and anarchy in other words is a big risk), sincerely before and after the bonus I didn`t care much of winning or lose the war I sincerely don`t care of the map and the only reason of why I run solos is to help my guild, to get recourses and the most important thing (GL frags), then the only parts that are very fun to play for me are coops and the pvp, the reason of why I don`t care of losing or winning is because I no longer take games seriously, taking games seriously cause drama, rage quits, people insulting each other, people blaming the opposite team, the game, the devs and their own guildmates for everything just because they lose, remember it`s a game you play it for fun, is the only way you can find fun is winning then you may don`t have many fun because you feel there is no a challenge, because it wasn`t hard to achieve your victory, I like pvp because is a good challenge, I don`t like pvp against noobs because is free win but against more powerful players I lose often but when I get a victory it feel sweet, try winning and for the moment keep fighting and playing for fun, always try to get the victory but don`t leave a defeat ruin all your fun, just have some patience devs may come back and calibrate the bonus and everything should be fixed or at least better soon, but with still complaining you can`t do anything, the only way you can beat your enemy is facing him.

Posts : 27 Join date : 2014-03-24

At least in my opinion, the reason this game is so frustrating now to the point where I'm thinking about quitting is not the overpowered AI armies, the new bonus algorithm, or the uncapped suicides, but the fact that all 3 changes were made around the same time, and now none of the 3 issues are being addressed.

The AI army almost single-handedly beat us back when we were only 2 hexes from the dark capital (yes, darkies put up good resistance, but with the AI army hitting 2-3 times a cycle = 24-36K CPs/cycle and 80-90K CPs a day....that's hard to overcome). Seriously frustrating and demoralizing, but could have been handled if not for the other 2 changes.

Many think the bonus needs to be tweaked. Personally, I remember population differences of around 25-30% being thrown around, so not sure why the bonus ever goes as high as 40%. Especially when the "underpopulated" faction is outproducing the faction with more members. I just don't understand why a faction with 100 players that do 5 battles each should be punished if the other faction has 10 players that do 60 battles each. Yes, you want to have roughly the same number of people in each faction, but this just doesn't seem like a reasonable fix to me (and, yes, nerfing the bonus to maybe a max of 25% seems fair, if that is the population advantage that the light has over the dark). So, yes, getting out-CPed is fine.....that's the game....but getting out-CP-ed and then slapping an extra 40% on top of that is demoralizing.

And, as far as the uncapped CPs go, for me, personally, that might be the most demoralizing of all. I started playing around February. A light on Olympus, and we were getting crushed and it was what it was. No complaining then from me. I saw guys like Soulthief doing crazy things and thought "well, this game seems cool, so I'll play and work at becoming one of those heavy-hitters". 6 months of too much time playing this game, and I was able to max suicides and actually "hang with the big boys". And with maxed coops (100) being much closer in value to maxed suicides then (160) than they are now (400+), it really seemed more about the time and effort you put in. Now, with uncapped suicides I am again unable to "hang with the big boys". I can MAYBE get 300 CPs, if none of my gear is broken, but there's always SOMETHING broken. Usually I get 230-280 CPs now. So I went from being able to compete with the Ysosads and Fyrrs of the world to, in a good battle, MAYBE getting 50% of the CPs they get with the bonus. And I have, like, over 50 GL pieces of gear, and it still takes me 2 battles to earn the same CPs the heavy-hitters can earn with 1 battle. So, after being a heavy-hitter, to dropping down to an "upper middle-class hitter"...well, that's the most frustratingly demoralizing change of all.

Again, any one of these changes wouldn't be so bad if the other 2 changes hadn't happened at the same time.

Sorry for the long rant. I think I'm done with the subject now.

Posts : 86 Join date : 2013-12-30

It looks like 1 cp bonus is not a solution. Maybe few bonuses will help.

1. CP bonus to underpopulated side but not all active players but just fighters. It should be average from 10 or 20 days, if one side has 20 fighters and the other 30 then one side should get bonus based on fighter imbalance, cp output and average victories/player or something like that, but daily changes should not affect that bonus.

2. CP imbalance, something to help new players they get 5 cp per battle so its not important in general cp output (only in victories) and other thing is that 20 small players can't win with 5 big players.
Thats all for imbalance in the game.

3. Bonuses for efforts, one for victories/player other for cp/player (concerning to #2). Now only underpopulated side can get bonus, light side never got cp bonus in this and previous wars. Doesn't matter how hard we fight we wont get any bonus and we were only punished - volcano armies, strong CA, faction activity. A side that produce less cp but players (fighters) fight more should get cp bonus. Moreover the side that fight more and get less cp/player should get higher bonus, something to think about.

Now dark side wins in players activity, number of victories and victories/per player and light side has no motivation coz we can't get any bonus if it change maybe we start to fight more and try to win the war. One more thing CA, they are really to strong, no one on light side want to fight against so strong DCA, we had to counter DCA attacks but when we were on hex 45 we couldn't counter 50k cp so without changes to CA it doesn't really matter for light side. And really last thing, wars don't have to last that log, light side should win the war 3 or 4 weeks ago and dark side should be at light capital right now. Do we have to fight for months?

» Addressing the Population Issue and change to the CP Bonus
» Dwarven racial bonus/Elf racial bonus
» Dark Capital Army out of Control
» Unit control
» Winning on Olympus