Hello Commanders,
Given the recent changes that were made to PVP, I wanted to check in and discuss their impact, as well as what mitigations can be made to make improvements.
Why were changes made?
There were two main reasons:
First, the biggest issue we were trying to address was the practice of intentionally bubbling friends/alliance mates. The issue with this strategy is that there was no counter play, and it created a situation where if you weren’t doing this, you couldn’t compete on the leaderboard. Any strategy that can’t be defeated is inherently unfun for all those participating.
Secondly, prior to the change, 100% of important PVP was fighting other players’ bases. While this should remain the foundation of PVP, Platoon versus Platoon fights should still matter.
What was changed?
As listed in the patch notes:
Intentionally bubbling an alliance mate will now result in Infamy loss.
This is self explanatory. If you’re abusing damage protection mechanics to protect a friend, you should have to pay for that
Voluntarily leaving damage protection results in a cooldown
Again, this is self-explanatory. If you choose to leave damage protection, you shouldn’t be able to immediately re-enter an invulnerable space
Destroying an enemy platoon gives Infamy
The goal here was to make it so there are sources of Infamy outside of just players’ bases. Platoon versus Platoon battles are more fun, and it makes the World Map more dynamic and interesting. We were afraid of it being exploitable, however, so we did this:
We removed inflation from Platoon versus Platoon battles. In normal PVP battles, an average of 75% of the Infamy gained is from inflation inherent with the formula. By removing this, all platoon battles are zero-sum; sitting around with friends attacking each others platoons will result in no Infamy gain. It also means that if you attack an account’s platoons with 0 (or close to) Infamy, you’ll gain nothing. This stops you from “farming” low level platoons of a friendly, or alt, account.
What went right?
Instances of friendly bubbling are down slightly. This is moving in the right direction. In addition, PVP activity has increased, which is again a positive change.
What went wrong?
We made two mistakes:
This post should’ve been made sooner; and
The cooldown of 5 minutes is not long enough.
What will we be doing about it?
We will be increasing the cooldown of 5 minutes to 10 minutes immediately. This will take effect today. If that isn’t enough, we’ll keep bumping it up
We’ll monitor the rate of Platoon versus Platoon infamy exchange. If it’s too high, we’ll lower it
Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns!
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So you want to bump up the time to make it no one would think about popping their bubble to protect a friend
You know how many times you can get flattened in 10-15 minutes if there is no bubble??
I have already seen people lose 400-500 infamy in the 5 minute cool down
Just driving players away with these new changes because you dont listen
Absolutely amazing. Some of us had stated this right after last update that 5mins cooldown isn't long enough and there was a simple workaround for those who intentionally abused the protection bubble times.
Also loving the platoon vs platoon infamy gain. This takes care of the situations where infamy hoarders would have their bases covered with layers and layers of toons on the map thus making it almost impossible to get to the player's base.
I only request one thing in upcoming changes/updates. Get rid of the retreat function in platoon battle. Let us enjoy actually destroying the platoons of other players if we are getting rewarded infamy for it. At present the only platoon vs platoon battles are when you kill toons of offline players.
And to that effect, please add a leave platoon fight button.
Overall amazing update to PvP. Loving it. Kudos team!!!
This "cooldown" is horrible. Like stated above, it will make you able to hit one player and gain a little infamy, meanwile you can be hit multiple times. Go gain a 100 to lose 400?
Good luck with that. Also plz change the amount of infamy gained from toons. 5 buggies shouldnt give more then the base itself
The way i play: jump in and start hitting and pop constantly or at least a couple times, that style of playing makes no sense now. At least not for gaining infamy.
I think you didn't understand how the cooldown period works. If you voluntarily end damage protection, the cooldown period will make sure you don't get a bubble in that time. That doesn't stop upu you from getting hit by players and getting your base 100% destroyed. Infact you can be hit multiple times in that cooldown period and lose infamy and still not get a bubble. This takes away the instant 69 thing which has been taking fun out of PvP.
This style of play has been the same since the start of the game. But some idiots ruined the fun by exploiting it by using instant 69 so that even if you pop multiple times, others can't hit you cos you get instant bubble from a friend/alt account etc.
If you wanted to gain infamy, make sure you hit a sector without getting noticed. That's how it always used to be since the beginning. Once you get spotted and don't have backup, you get over run by sector residents.
Based on this, I'm currently planning to also decrease the amount of Infamy that can be exchanged through platoon battles.
Given the concerns posted above, do you think 7 minutes would be a more appropriate cooldown timer to start with?
Regards,
Goldendoodle
It's good that Platoon battles matter now, but they probably matter too much right now.
Right now we're looking at reducing the current exchange rate for platoon battles by 66%. Do you think that's enough?
Regards,
Goldendoodle
Can we have concrete numbers on how much infamy (what %) do we get from platoon battles. Then we can give a feedback on the reduction %.
But as I posted in discord, it would be great if the infamy gained from platoons is correlated to the units in those platoons. Legacy and SF era units give very low infamy, while faction era units give medium and unique units in platoons give high infamy. Something on those lines would be nice. Will actually bring back strategy in platoon battles.
Note: he didn't even attacked my base.
Loosing infamy to smart guys who just attack plats is stupid and is killing the game.
And you didn't solve the problem of 69.
u don't even take in account some player use autoclick just sit in base gain infamy what's u gonna do about that. @Goldendoodle