May 2nd marked the seven year anniversary of Battle Pirates - a game I'm incredibly proud of. Over the years we've seen exciting new factions, incredible player tributes, and tons of emergent gameplay. But if there's one thing I've learned in my tenure, it's this:
Complacency is death.
Unfortunately, Battle Pirates has become a bog of complacency. A lack of diligence has allowed balance-breaking bugs to escape and go unnoticed for months. A lack of community engagement has caused us to lose touch with the speed that players can realistically progress. A lack of planning has forced the team to wildly over-tune stats, targets, and events in order to shoehorn value into new content.
All because of complacency. Well, complacency isn’t going to cut it and it’s time for us to right this ship. So what are we doing to fix this?
First, I’ve put a new leadership team in place. Our issues don’t stem from the talented individuals working long, difficult hours to execute on the nuts-and-bolts of the game, it’s about how we’re deploying those resources. Heading up that leadership team is our new GM, Michael Rubinelli. A State of the Game post will go up in the next few weeks in which he will discuss the long-term look for Battle Pirates. Additionally, our new Lead Designer WrongThinker will be putting up a post on Wednesday introducing himself, as well as the second part of our correction strategy, which I will now spoil.
Battle Pirates has adopted a philosophy that dictates everything we do. It’s simple: “Players First.” Content and features will continue to ship, because that’s how the game is supported, but with every new feature, we will always ask: how does this enhance the player experience? How does this make a player’s life better? Easier? More fun? If the only answer to why we’re putting something in the game is money - I don’t want it in the game.
Finally, we’re tripling down on our community engagement efforts. Expect to see more developer presence, more AMAs, more live streams, more unadulterated proof that the Battle Pirates team is exactly as invested in the continued success and longevity of this game as you are.
The fact that we’re in this position is no one’s fault but our own. The time of complacency is over. You’ve shown us that you’re here for the long haul, and it’s time for us to show you that we’re here for it too.
Long live Battle Pirates!
Will Harbin
CEO
Right...sure...don't believe a dang thing you said...All talk and no action...You guys all suck, you're worse than politicians. All you care about is money...screw you.
Oh wow....I'm scared...truth hurts huh kix...well here's another **** you.
Don't wait for the storm to pass, learn to dance in the rain
i take it this has to do with not making enough money in raid as all i saw in most sectors was about 20 to 60 players doing raid, far cry from the days when leader board for sector would be 300 to 400 players
How about getting rid of the tiered prizes and the "Locked Store" in the raid to help players be able to get want they need/want without having to spend points on "shtuff" they don't.
May 2nd marked the seven year anniversary of Battle Pirates - a game I'm incredibly proud of. Over the years we've seen exciting new factions, incredible player tributes, and tons of emergent gameplay. But if there's one thing I've learned in my tenure, it's this:
Complacency is death.
Unfortunately, Battle Pirates has become a bog of complacency. A lack of diligence has allowed balance-breaking bugs to escape and go unnoticed for months. A lack of community engagement has caused us to lose touch with the speed that players can realistically progress. A lack of planning has forced the team to wildly over-tune stats, targets, and events in order to shoehorn value into new content.
All because of complacency. Well, complacency isn’t going to cut it and it’s time for us to right this ship. So what are we doing to fix this?
First, I’ve put a new leadership team in place. Our issues don’t stem from the talented individuals working long, difficult hours to execute on the nuts-and-bolts of the game, it’s about how we’re deploying those resources. Heading up that leadership team is our new GM, Michael Rubinelli. A State of the Game post will go up in the next few weeks in which he will discuss the long-term look for Battle Pirates. Additionally, our new Lead Designer WrongThinker will be putting up a post on Wednesday introducing himself, as well as the second part of our correction strategy, which I will now spoil.
Battle Pirates has adopted a philosophy that dictates everything we do. It’s simple: “Players First.” Content and features will continue to ship, because that’s how the game is supported, but with every new feature, we will always ask: how does this enhance the player experience? How does this make a player’s life better? Easier? More fun? If the only answer to why we’re putting something in the game is money - I don’t want it in the game.
Finally, we’re tripling down on our community engagement efforts. Expect to see more developer presence, more AMAs, more live streams, more unadulterated proof that the Battle Pirates team is exactly as invested in the continued success and longevity of this game as you are.
The fact that we’re in this position is no one’s fault but our own. The time of complacency is over. You’ve shown us that you’re here for the long haul, and it’s time for us to show you that we’re here for it too.
Long live Battle Pirates!
Will Harbin
CEO
Right...sure...don't believe a dang thing you said...All talk and no action...You guys all suck, you're worse than politicians. All you care about is money...screw you.
Don't wait for the storm to pass, learn to dance in the rain
LOL...y'all are really funny...deleted my other reply...Well, since I'm not scared...**** you...you don't listen to the players...All you care about is the money...so there now
Don't wait for the storm to pass, learn to dance in the rain
@bort said:
biggest challenge will be if you dont gimme stuff, gimme it for little to no effort, and gimme it for free, you will be accused of not making the game for the players.
Just a respectful comment in return. Last year right before I quit, over 40,000 participated in the raid enough to get a non zero point total. When I logged on this weekend, the total was closer to 20,000. Regardless of your opinion about the skill of some, they can't sustain this model.
Regardless of what you think about skill and strategy (I tend to agree with you on your thoughts), they have major challenges
1) how do you keep top tier pve players engaged without disengaging a vast majority of the player base?
2) how do you get new players engaged? I have a level 26 alt, hit 100s of bases, not one hit back. I realize something is broken in game in which bases are repairing (or maybe this was intentional?), But game seems to be dead for new players. Doesn't help that the under level 30 experience is vastly unchanged from 2011.
3) how do you get returning players engaged? It turns out I got a free skyfires fleet (after a year off), only to find I can't get uranium or perform other activities. Yeah, I need to do the fm....
4) how do you ensure the casual player has a good experience? When I left, it was all about time commitment....not spending, not the game being too challenging.
Not sure getting stuff for free is a problem for you, right? Assuming your still f2p, have a good connection and computer, so lag doesn't hurt you, so you can skillfully get a lot of points.
At one point early on, the game used to be play for free but spend a lot of time, or use money to speed up. Now, coining doesn't seem to buy much in the speeding up time category. Raids are a grind with or without coin. Old days, raids were a few hours or less with coin. I'd be curious how many hours people spent on the last raid, guessing it's several hours per day.
I am actually shocked at what has been written by Will.
" Battle Pirates - a game I'm incredibly proud of" - If I were you I'd be incredibly ashamed of this game. While the concept is good, which is why I still play, the constant changes, bugs, build times, chore times, fleet repair times, errors and lack of support are a disgrace.
How dare you insult every player that has ever posted on this forum telling you about all the problems within the game with such a statement "Complacency is Death"
You have not been complacent, you have been downright disgusting in your contempt for the player base. Mistrustful of everything that the players have been stating time and time again. "It's your computer", "it's your isp" "it's working as intended" It is clearly none of these. The bugs are proven time and time again by video evidence sent in by the players. We don't all share the same isp, or the same computer, so it's not on our side!
"lack of diligence has allowed balance-breaking bugs to escape and go unnoticed for months" These have not gone unnoticed for months. The players tell you repeatedly of the issues. You simply do not care, and your post does nothing to reassure the players who now mistrust every word you have written.
"A lack of planning has forced the team to wildly over-tune stats, targets, and events in order to shoehorn value into new content." There is little value in the new content. You have simply added new targets, which cause more damage to fleets which take longer to repair, which means that the time taken to complete the chores in the game mean there is little or no time left for the fun elements.
"Battle Pirates has adopted a philosophy that dictates everything we do. It’s simple: “Players First.”" I personally believe that this is just lies, and lip service to keep the players going a little longer.
"we will always ask: how does this enhance the player experience?" Very little now enhances the player experience. Leave things alone for a while, let players play, let them have fun. New hulls, turrets, specials, weapons for base offence and defense is fair enough, the game progresses, players like the new toys, but ffs leave the chores alone. Let the players get their resources quickly and cheaply with a few well built fleets. Then they will use the coin saved to hit more bases, to fight more fleets, to enjoy more mega battle etc., the fun part of a BATTLE game.
So in summation. 1. Leave the FM, Uranium, Base Parts, Titanium alone. These should be relatively easy in my opinion, a necessary evil. 2. Open both yards to build any hull, or introduce a refit yard along side. 3. Stop with the limited prizes period. Give us the blue prints, let us build what we want, however many we want! 4. Stop with the 1 shard per target during raid for limited prizes. Jeeze that's just a joke! 5. Stop with the locked prizes in raid. 6. Stop with locking players out of specific targets meaning they cannot earn the newest tech.
Regardless of coin and level, all players should be able to attain any prize. Limiting targets to certain hulls is wrong. You announce that assault fleets from last cycle can do low targets. Fine, I accept needing new tech for higher targets. What I don't accept is that if I coin and grind like a mad woman on the lower targets I still cannot attain the newest tech as it's only being drip fed from the S targets. That is wrong!!!
(and before the trolls start, I have the fleets to do the S targets, I did the S targets, I got enough of the new tech, I'm talking for others that don't have these fleets)
THIS IS THE SAME BULLCHIT STORRY AS IT IS EVERY TIME SO DEAR WILL HARBIN , RAMPAGE AND ALL FROM KIXEYE GO F... YOURSELF. STOP TELLING US YOUR FAKE NEWS
Thanks a lot for the communication Will Harbin and I'm truly thankful for this post. Here are some of my thoughts about the post and it was definitely worth reading. Please note that I'm not an active Battle Pirates player and my main kixeye game is instead War Commander.
Firstly, this post can be seen as an indication that kixeye has messed up and that they want to repair the damage caused. It can't be a coincidence that the unicorn himself leaves the unicorn office and writes this post. His approach to repair the damage appears to be sorting out some of the bad apples from the game team and to value the player opinions higher than previously seen.
Secondly, it's interesting to see that WrongThinker will become design lead for Battle Pirates and his skills shouldn't be underestimated. He used to previously be a design lead for TOME and War Commander and he has also been a great advocate for communication between the game team and players. At this time, he has posted a total of 20 different WrongThinker Thinks posts which is inside communication posts about the future and he has also been a major contributor to communication on the WC and TOME forums. He has also been a major contributor to general developer to community interactions on the forums.
Thirdly, I'm also excited to see promised communication between the BP Game Team and the players as this has been a truly successful aspect with WC. My current theory stands that the communication efforts on the WC forums was either some form of pilot project or something accidental which ended up being successful.
For those who haven't been active on the War Commander forums, the communication between the WC Game Team and the players consists out of the following aspects.
Focus Group meetings
WC Game Team members asks discusses the game and future plans related to once specific subject to a community group of players.
The members on the Focus Group invited to the Focus Group meetings do usually change and the information published on the meetings aren't covered by a NDA.
At this time, 3 meetings has been made and the topic has been monthly events, PvP and Shadow Ops for the respective meetings.
The meetings are more or less done to get
Burny's Briefing Room podcast
A podcast were the WC Community Manger interviews a kixeye employee and asks some frequently asked questions. At this state, 5 episodes of the podcast has been published.
Developer communication on the public forums
Developers are active on the forum and discord server and answers community questions about the game. (Link to WC Discord: https://discord.gg/QNdcnxK)
This do also consist about state of official state of the game posts and other forms of pinned communication posts.
Community events
Community contests and events other community events. One of the most recent instances was a PvP event with kixeye employees as a high value target.
In conclusion, I'm truly excited about this post even if I cannot consider myself as a Battle Pirates player and don't forgot to not underestimate the power of WrongThinker. It could just be the case that he thinks right to the player standards.
How long have players been saying this and it has fallen on DEAF ears. Nothing new here.......you are going to have to wait a long time to get a slap on the back for any changes that go on in the game. Credibility comes with consistency of action....not with words. Words are only a start.....so now that you have started we will wait to see if your actions will be consistent. Be ready for players who will not trust that you are going to follow through. You have made this reputation - hope the game is around to actually see something come of this. A lot of people have left because of the crap this game has done. I have weathered lots of stupid storms in the game. Didn't fall for most of the crap....cut back and cut back till basic playing now only. There won't be a lot of time for this "change" to take effect. If you mess this up I will cut the last thread and walk away. I am long time player and on last thread.
All i can say is we will see. We all have heard things like this before. My opinion is because of months of failed raids, they have finally taken a hit in the pocket. I'm not crossing my fingers thou.
Working in similar industry it seems that Will has given this new team a task to try to save the game with probably some specific time lines. So my question is what are those time lines and what if they fail. Basically trying to figure out when they plan to turn the lights off
Thanks a lot for the communication Will Harbin and I'm truly thankful for this post. Here are some of my thoughts about the post and it was definitely worth reading. Please note that I'm not an active Battle Pirates player and my main kixeye game is instead War Commander.
Firstly, this post can be seen as an indication that kixeye has messed up and that they want to repair the damage caused. It can't be a coincidence that the unicorn himself leaves the unicorn office and writes this post. His approach to repair the damage appears to be sorting out some of the bad apples from the game team and to value the player opinions higher than previously seen.
Secondly, it's interesting to see that WrongThinker will become design lead for Battle Pirates and his skills shouldn't be underestimated. He used to previously be a design lead for TOME and War Commander and he has also been a great advocate for communication between the game team and players. At this time, he has posted a total of 20 different WrongThinker Thinks posts which is inside communication posts about the future and he has also been a major contributor to communication on the WC and TOME forums. He has also been a major contributor to general developer to community interactions on the forums.
Thirdly, I'm also excited to see promised communication between the BP Game Team and the players as this has been a truly successful aspect with WC. My current theory stands that the communication efforts on the WC forums was either some form of pilot project or something accidental which ended up being successful.
For those who haven't been active on the War Commander forums, the communication between the WC Game Team and the players consists out of the following aspects.
Focus Group meetings
WC Game Team members asks discusses the game and future plans related to once specific subject to a community group of players.
The members on the Focus Group invited to the Focus Group meetings do usually change and the information published on the meetings aren't covered by a NDA.
At this time, 3 meetings has been made and the topic has been monthly events, PvP and Shadow Ops for the respective meetings.
The meetings are more or less done to get
Burny's Briefing Room podcast
A podcast were the WC Community Manger interviews a kixeye employee and asks some frequently asked questions. At this state, 5 episodes of the podcast has been published.
Developer communication on the public forums
Developers are active on the forum and discord server and answers community questions about the game. (Link to WC Discord: https://discord.gg/QNdcnxK)
This do also consist about state of official state of the game posts and other forms of pinned communication posts.
Community events
Community contests and events other community events. One of the most recent instances was a PvP event with kixeye employees as a high value target.
In conclusion, I'm truly excited about this post even if I cannot consider myself as a Battle Pirates player and don't forgot to not underestimate the power of WrongThinker. It could just be the case that he thinks right to the player standards.
Regards Axel L
Its to early to praise Will Harbin or WrongThinker. The damage is done with the desicions from the last months and Battle Pirate is a very complex game, so i dont expect wonders from a new Dev lead.
We had excessive numbers of updates in the last months, so it is obvious, that there are a lot of problems with the programming. Then we have the problems with the balancing...in the PvP part and in the current raidtargets/maptargets and TLC´s. There is a lot of work to do, so it will not be a matter of few weeks. I am expecting the first significant improvements in the january raidformat.
The next months will be a mess, if we like it or not.
About a year ago i was sick and tired of BP and i started playing World of Warships which is in my opinion much more rewarding and fair in their system of winning equipments and ships. For example if you play a battle you earn credits and VXP this is used to repair youre ship "INSTANT"after it is sunk or damaged,,,advantage=constant be able to play! This can be achieved for free but you need to be patient and get youre ships slower, you can also spend hidious amounts of money in this game aswell ,,if you like but also there is the possibility to spend some more moderate,, small amounts,,,,if you like. If you choose not to play for a while you are "NOT!!"falling behind it simpel stays where you stopped and you continue again.
Now Battle Pirates,,
Kixeye dictates which shipstype to use on certain targets,any form of freedom and creativity(which is fun) is taken out and getting the right hull for the right target cost a fortune. Kixeye forgot 1 very important thing,,they lost all their small spending players(which are the majority) and had their focus on a small group of high spending players,,,,,,,in my opinion this is a class example of financial missmanagement for a bysnis. Kixeye also squized those high spending players with changes of hulls,,targets,,,,,,chores etc to the breaking point of those players which now also quit playing.
To Kixeye: this game is To expensive,,to time consuming,,,glitching and lagging for 7 years,,,,customer(very)unfriendly and most important"NO FUN ANYMORE"
Conclusion: Mr CEO's blablabla story is "NOT BELIEVED!!!" and i think the game is in its last dieing stage I keep logging in just to see when the plug will be pulled
How long have players been saying this and it has fallen on DEAF ears. Nothing new here.......you are going to have to wait a long time to get a slap on the back for any changes that go on in the game. Credibility comes with consistency of action....not with words. Words are only a start.....so now that you have started we will wait to see if your actions will be consistent. Be ready for players who will not trust that you are going to follow through. You have made this reputation - hope the game is around to actually see something come of this. A lot of people have left because of the crap this game has done. I have weathered lots of stupid storms in the game. Didn't fall for most of the crap....cut back and cut back till basic playing now only. There won't be a lot of time for this "change" to take effect. If you mess this up I will cut the last thread and walk away. I am long time player and on last thread.
You've acknowledged a problem but players need to know how you're going to fix it.
I think it is imperative that these words must be backed by immediate action. There is too much doubt that action will happen and too many ideas from the players suggesting where in the game corrections should be made. We don't just need a path forward, you cannot expect players to take your word that down the line the game will be "fixed."
This isn't the first time Kix has had to issue such a letter to its players - and I dont think too many people have the faith or patience to wait out changes they may not see until next month or next quarter.... Right now the players are throwing out all sorts of assertions trying to draw the line at what changes are needed - from freezing content completely to the removal of certain resources to returning DUBs - and as those comments gain momentum, no matter what actions are taken, anything from Kixeye won't be enough.
I have a hard time believing that we are dealing with a company that is brilliantly scamming us AND entirely incompetent.
This is a private company in a capitalist market trying to make money - your money. Give it to them, or don't - but don't fault them for trying.
Thanks a lot for the communication Will Harbin and I'm truly thankful for this post. Here are some of my thoughts about the post and it was definitely worth reading. Please note that I'm not an active Battle Pirates player and my main kixeye game is instead War Commander.
Firstly, this post can be seen as an indication that kixeye has messed up and that they want to repair the damage caused. It can't be a coincidence that the unicorn himself leaves the unicorn office and writes this post. His approach to repair the damage appears to be sorting out some of the bad apples from the game team and to value the player opinions higher than previously seen.
Secondly, it's interesting to see that WrongThinker will become design lead for Battle Pirates and his skills shouldn't be underestimated. He used to previously be a design lead for TOME and War Commander and he has also been a great advocate for communication between the game team and players. At this time, he has posted a total of 20 different WrongThinker Thinks posts which is inside communication posts about the future and he has also been a major contributor to communication on the WC and TOME forums. He has also been a major contributor to general developer to community interactions on the forums.
Thirdly, I'm also excited to see promised communication between the BP Game Team and the players as this has been a truly successful aspect with WC. My current theory stands that the communication efforts on the WC forums was either some form of pilot project or something accidental which ended up being successful.
For those who haven't been active on the War Commander forums, the communication between the WC Game Team and the players consists out of the following aspects.
Focus Group meetings
WC Game Team members asks discusses the game and future plans related to once specific subject to a community group of players.
The members on the Focus Group invited to the Focus Group meetings do usually change and the information published on the meetings aren't covered by a NDA.
At this time, 3 meetings has been made and the topic has been monthly events, PvP and Shadow Ops for the respective meetings.
The meetings are more or less done to get
Burny's Briefing Room podcast
A podcast were the WC Community Manger interviews a kixeye employee and asks some frequently asked questions. At this state, 5 episodes of the podcast has been published.
Developer communication on the public forums
Developers are active on the forum and discord server and answers community questions about the game. (Link to WC Discord: https://discord.gg/QNdcnxK)
This do also consist about state of official state of the game posts and other forms of pinned communication posts.
Community events
Community contests and events other community events. One of the most recent instances was a PvP event with kixeye employees as a high value target.
In conclusion, I'm truly excited about this post even if I cannot consider myself as a Battle Pirates player and don't forgot to not underestimate the power of WrongThinker. It could just be the case that he thinks right to the player standards.
Regards Axel L
Its to early to praise Will Harbin or WrongThinker. The damage is done with the desicions from the last months and Battle Pirate is a very complex game, so i dont expect wonders from a new Dev lead.
We had excessive numbers of updates in the last months, so it is obvious, that there are a lot of problems with the programming. Then we have the problems with the balancing...in the PvP part and in the current raidtargets/maptargets and TLC´s. There is a lot of work to do, so it will not be a matter of few weeks. I am expecting the first significant improvements in the january raidformat.
The next months will be a mess, if we like it or not.
They don't have that kind of time mate.
Its gonna take swift, decisive action NOW, if they want to even have a snowballs chance in hell at saving BP.
Too Little Too Late, if you mean what you say bring back the DUB bases for a few months so people can get some easier Uranium, sick of prepping for them.
We repeatedly get flowery statements like this in "state of the game" addresses with no followup. I truly hope you are sincere this time and not just blowing more smoke up our... chimneys. I do believe you are proud of this game and I do believe that once upon a time I loved playing it. If you can bring balance, logic and fun back the love will surely follow.
where did the fun go? would you mind bringing it back?
kixeye a gaming company for game players by game players? your moto right? why don't you play the game? and without free coin from kixeye go get the res. needed to play the game do the refits/build the ships ( oh wate! you all ready know what works and what doesn't ) to change out the armor on inferno dragons is a week to do so per ship the FM has been nothing but a joke since the dragons came out. a month to refit and another month to build the flag if someone got the flag NOT COOL! players first? BULL why the reduced point payout from last raid to the one that just finished last raid I got just over a mil points for a level 60 set this past raid the points were just under the mill and this is with the hit down do to base level players should not be penilised for not having top fleets or content the point is that you refuse to lesson to the players I have seen at least a 70% drop in players from this game all because of greed from kixeye this is the 2nd time I read that kixeye is going to put the player first well the first time it failed and that wasn't long ago maybe a month or 2
I've been playing since blaclwater days, and have stuck it out through all the BS that's been fed down our throats. I'm at not coining anymore due to all the hull specific crap, limited tech, and chores. Now Kix you're telling us the builds we need to do upcoming FM just to make us refit once again. The assault raids have been a joke with damage tuned way up. Now all of a sudden CEO Will Harbin comes out of hiding with a letter to all of us players saying how things will change. I call BS Will. Maybe Kixeye would do better if you resigned as CEO.
sad to say , but the CEO is to late to save his beloved Battle Pirates . He's done let the team run the game without a leash for over a year, more or less. There's no turning back folks , it's to far gone and odds are, neither Kixeye nor the CEO will ever see any of these comments, they simply don't care
In order for the letter to have credit-ability it has to be more than more of this which is window dressing, in the Business the operative phrase is "Perfuming the Pig"
There has to be specific action to the game starting with reductions in build times, chores,damage ect. Will Harbin, if you want players to continue to distrust everything and anything that is said then continue to do things like change crap when you said you wouldn't, change the damage 3 times in the first hours of the game, and putting in weapons that cause damage that you can't defend against as a few examples. Right now I don't believe much of it, BECAUSE you have given us ample reason to not believe a word. And seriously Will you need a new community manager, this guy is a joke.
Just a respectful comment in return. Last year right before I quit, over 40,000 participated in the raid enough to get a non zero point total. When I logged on this weekend, the total was closer to 20,000. Regardless of your opinion about the skill of some, they can't sustain this model.
Regardless of what you think about skill and strategy (I tend to agree with you on your thoughts), they have major challenges
1) how do you keep top tier pve players engaged without disengaging a vast majority of the player base?
2) how do you get new players engaged? I have a level 26 alt, hit 100s of bases, not one hit back. I realize something is broken in game in which bases are repairing (or maybe this was intentional?), But game seems to be dead for new players. Doesn't help that the under level 30 experience is vastly unchanged from 2011.
3) how do you get returning players engaged? It turns out I got a free skyfires fleet (after a year off), only to find I can't get uranium or perform other activities. Yeah, I need to do the fm....
4) how do you ensure the casual player has a good experience? When I left, it was all about time commitment....not spending, not the game being too challenging.
Not sure getting stuff for free is a problem for you, right? Assuming your still f2p, have a good connection and computer, so lag doesn't hurt you, so you can skillfully get a lot of points.
At one point early on, the game used to be play for free but spend a lot of time, or use money to speed up. Now, coining doesn't seem to buy much in the speeding up time category. Raids are a grind with or without coin. Old days, raids were a few hours or less with coin. I'd be curious how many hours people spent on the last raid, guessing it's several hours per day.
" Battle Pirates - a game I'm incredibly proud of" - If I were you I'd be incredibly ashamed of this game. While the concept is good, which is why I still play, the constant changes, bugs, build times, chore times, fleet repair times, errors and lack of support are a disgrace.
How dare you insult every player that has ever posted on this forum telling you about all the problems within the game with such a statement "Complacency is Death"
You have not been complacent, you have been downright disgusting in your contempt for the player base. Mistrustful of everything that the players have been stating time and time again. "It's your computer", "it's your isp" "it's working as intended" It is clearly none of these. The bugs are proven time and time again by video evidence sent in by the players. We don't all share the same isp, or the same computer, so it's not on our side!
"lack of diligence has allowed balance-breaking bugs to escape and go unnoticed for months" These have not gone unnoticed for months. The players tell you repeatedly of the issues. You simply do not care, and your post does nothing to reassure the players who now mistrust every word you have written.
"A lack of planning has forced the team to wildly over-tune stats, targets, and events in order to shoehorn value into new content." There is little value in the new content. You have simply added new targets, which cause more damage to fleets which take longer to repair, which means that the time taken to complete the chores in the game mean there is little or no time left for the fun elements.
"Battle Pirates has adopted a philosophy that dictates everything we do. It’s simple: “Players First.”" I personally believe that this is just lies, and lip service to keep the players going a little longer.
"we will always ask: how does this enhance the player experience?" Very little now enhances the player experience. Leave things alone for a while, let players play, let them have fun. New hulls, turrets, specials, weapons for base offence and defense is fair enough, the game progresses, players like the new toys, but ffs leave the chores alone. Let the players get their resources quickly and cheaply with a few well built fleets. Then they will use the coin saved to hit more bases, to fight more fleets, to enjoy more mega battle etc., the fun part of a BATTLE game.
So in summation.
1. Leave the FM, Uranium, Base Parts, Titanium alone. These should be relatively easy in my opinion, a necessary evil.
2. Open both yards to build any hull, or introduce a refit yard along side.
3. Stop with the limited prizes period. Give us the blue prints, let us build what we want, however many we want!
4. Stop with the 1 shard per target during raid for limited prizes. Jeeze that's just a joke!
5. Stop with the locked prizes in raid.
6. Stop with locking players out of specific targets meaning they cannot earn the newest tech.
Regardless of coin and level, all players should be able to attain any prize. Limiting targets to certain hulls is wrong. You announce that assault fleets from last cycle can do low targets. Fine, I accept needing new tech for higher targets. What I don't accept is that if I coin and grind like a mad woman on the lower targets I still cannot attain the newest tech as it's only being drip fed from the S targets. That is wrong!!!
(and before the trolls start, I have the fleets to do the S targets, I did the S targets, I got enough of the new tech, I'm talking for others that don't have these fleets)
Conq yard = all aspects of PvP..
GO F... YOURSELF.
STOP TELLING US YOUR FAKE NEWS
Firstly, this post can be seen as an indication that kixeye has messed up and that they want to repair the damage caused. It can't be a coincidence that the unicorn himself leaves the unicorn office and writes this post. His approach to repair the damage appears to be sorting out some of the bad apples from the game team and to value the player opinions higher than previously seen.
Secondly, it's interesting to see that WrongThinker will become design lead for Battle Pirates and his skills shouldn't be underestimated. He used to previously be a design lead for TOME and War Commander and he has also been a great advocate for communication between the game team and players. At this time, he has posted a total of 20 different WrongThinker Thinks posts which is inside communication posts about the future and he has also been a major contributor to communication on the WC and TOME forums. He has also been a major contributor to general developer to community interactions on the forums.
Thirdly, I'm also excited to see promised communication between the BP Game Team and the players as this has been a truly successful aspect with WC. My current theory stands that the communication efforts on the WC forums was either some form of pilot project or something accidental which ended up being successful.
For those who haven't been active on the War Commander forums, the communication between the WC Game Team and the players consists out of the following aspects.
- WC Game Team members asks discusses the game and future plans related to once specific subject to a community group of players.
- The members on the Focus Group invited to the Focus Group meetings do usually change and the information published on the meetings aren't covered by a NDA.
- At this time, 3 meetings has been made and the topic has been monthly events, PvP and Shadow Ops for the respective meetings.
- The meetings are more or less done to get
Burny's Briefing Room podcast- A podcast were the WC Community Manger interviews a kixeye employee and asks some frequently asked questions. At this state, 5 episodes of the podcast has been published.
Developer communication on the public forums- Developers are active on the forum and discord server and answers community questions about the game. (Link to WC Discord: https://discord.gg/QNdcnxK)
- This do also consist about state of official state of the game posts and other forms of pinned communication posts.
Community eventsIn conclusion, I'm truly excited about this post even if I cannot consider myself as a Battle Pirates player and don't forgot to not underestimate the power of WrongThinker. It could just be the case that he thinks right to the player standards.
Regards Axel L
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The damage is done with the desicions from the last months and Battle Pirate is a very complex game, so i dont expect wonders from a new
Dev lead.
We had excessive numbers of updates in the last months, so it is obvious, that there are a lot of problems with the programming.
Then we have the problems with the balancing...in the PvP part and in the current raidtargets/maptargets and TLC´s.
There is a lot of work to do, so it will not be a matter of few weeks. I am expecting the first significant improvements in the january raidformat.
The next months will be a mess, if we like it or not.
Decoding Pirateslangword "F.A.R.M." = Foolish Amateur Reaches Midgame
For example if you play a battle you earn credits and VXP this is used to repair youre ship "INSTANT"after it is sunk or damaged,,,advantage=constant be able to play!
This can be achieved for free but you need to be patient and get youre ships slower, you can also spend hidious amounts of money in this game aswell ,,if you like but also there is the possibility to spend some more moderate,, small amounts,,,,if you like.
If you choose not to play for a while you are "NOT!!"falling behind it simpel stays where you stopped and you continue again.
Now Battle Pirates,,
Kixeye dictates which shipstype to use on certain targets,any form of freedom and creativity(which is fun) is taken out and getting the right hull for the right target cost a fortune.
Kixeye forgot 1 very important thing,,they lost all their small spending players(which are the majority) and had their focus on a small group of high spending players,,,,,,,in my opinion this is a class example of financial missmanagement for a bysnis.
Kixeye also squized those high spending players with changes of hulls,,targets,,,,,,chores etc to the breaking point of those players which now also quit playing.
To Kixeye:
this game is To expensive,,to time consuming,,,glitching and lagging for 7 years,,,,customer(very)unfriendly and most important"NO FUN ANYMORE"
Conclusion:
Mr CEO's blablabla story is "NOT BELIEVED!!!" and i think the game is in its last dieing stage I keep logging in just to see when the plug will be pulled
I think it is imperative that these words must be backed by immediate action. There is too much doubt that action will happen and too many ideas from the players suggesting where in the game corrections should be made. We don't just need a path forward, you cannot expect players to take your word that down the line the game will be "fixed."
This isn't the first time Kix has had to issue such a letter to its players - and I dont think too many people have the faith or patience to wait out changes they may not see until next month or next quarter.... Right now the players are throwing out all sorts of assertions trying to draw the line at what changes are needed - from freezing content completely to the removal of certain resources to returning DUBs - and as those comments gain momentum, no matter what actions are taken, anything from Kixeye won't be enough.
Its gonna take swift, decisive action NOW, if they want to even have a snowballs chance in hell at saving BP.
# PLAYERS FIRST
players first? BULL why the reduced point payout from last raid to the one that just finished last raid I got just over a mil points for a level 60 set this past raid the points were just under the mill and this is with the hit down do to base level players should not be penilised for not having top fleets or content
the point is that you refuse to lesson to the players
I have seen at least a 70% drop in players from this game all because of greed from kixeye this is the 2nd time I read that kixeye is going to put the player first well the first time it failed and that wasn't long ago maybe a month or 2
There has to be specific action to the game starting with reductions in build times, chores,damage ect. Will Harbin, if you want players to continue to distrust everything and anything that is said then continue to do things like change crap when you said you wouldn't, change the damage 3 times in the first hours of the game, and putting in weapons that cause damage that you can't defend against as a few examples. Right now I don't believe much of it, BECAUSE you have given us ample reason to not believe a word. And seriously Will you need a new community manager, this guy is a joke.
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