posted to fb pages lots of old players won't come back and other players don't believe to little to late. seven years wow i may be gone to but time will tell. no pun intended
i really like the gesture of words but with every single target in every single aspect of the game Raids ,FM and Campaigns they all have hidden passthru's and unavoidable damage just meant to hurt you and its not small damage its huge just to squeeze every bit of coin out of you some of the best parts of the games was back in the day when we were able to create and build a fleet trying to beat the system and with a tweak here and there could use one fleet for almost everything now we need 30 fleets with no space to keep them
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
Much needed communication from Kix top brass and it is good to see that changes are being planned.
But, player community needs more than words now. Its been a long time since any "Player First" change is implemented. We have been seeing only "Coins First" for past few months.
One word of advise from a moderate coiner - If you force players with top tech to coin more, the mid/lower levels will have no option left but to quit. Coining should be a choice with top tech. We have more than enough addicts here so revenue wont be impacted, in fact, it will go up since moderate coiners will coin more as they will get more value out of coins. (e.g. I would willingly coin a 2 hours repair during raid after each T8 set but not a 5 hour repair)
Empty promises from people that don't play their own game. I haven't logged in for months because Battle Pirates is irreversably broken and unplayable. Nobody will ever read these posts so who cares? Good luck to the players that continue to get ripped off and lied to.
"First, I want to make it clear that our users are the lifeblood of this game. Your happiness is our primary objective and everything that we do to improve the game is aimed at increasing it." Will Harbin. CEO, Kixeye.
to be perfectly honest. and i have seen this posted on TFC page. Priceiswrong, BP Prof. and quite a few high known players have left after years of dedication. rumors that huggy page will not be updated and eventually go down.. is showing the road of things to come hell i have heard dedicated pirate say that things are coming to a head and the game is basically going to become a bphq app where people just click and hit targets on auto and then repair.
repairs times have gone up and all these stupid limited things have driven the nail into the coffin for a lot of people.
Ive been here for around 7 years Ive of seen a lot issues ignored. At least you are pro active I was with AOC FOR a longtime was there when ed sundown I almost quit all internet games because of that. Thank you
It is easy to say " not before time" but I hope for the sake of the everyone that your words are not empty and that you can pull it off. There is only one way that guys will return to the fold and that is by current players telling them that things have changed for the better and then there is a future after all !!!! Good luck from me to that.
They're good words, but the balance has been broken for years - not months.
Battle Pirates (like any game) needs to evolve over time - however, it's the speed of that evolution that's the problem. Think back to when Floating Fortresses and Hammerheads were the norm, and a few lucky players had hulls like the Dreadnought. When SW's could take many targets on the map and when the game was fun.
Contrast that to now, where unless you've got the latest and greatest tech, you don't stand a chance. And that latest and greatest tech is usually obsolete within a few months (sometimes less with Bounty). Where base defense is moot unless you can win big in Bounty or access the locked store in a raid. The older turrets just don't cut it against the current overpowered Conqueror hulls.
The raids in 2018 have shown that in the main, only the latest and greatest tech stands a chance (and even they can get hammered). And as usual, the damage got ramped up very quickly from the beginning.
My own advice as a higher level with mainly 'average' Tier 6 and below fleets:
1) Reduce the build times, especially for pre Tier 7 hulls. It's crazy it takes longer to build an outdated hull than the latest fleets.
2) Leave the FM well alone. This is the only chance many have to catch up, and tinkering with it (or redesigning the targets) only makes that catchup process ever longer.
3) Remove the points modifier in raids. Level hasn't meant much for years now, as a new player with a good bank balance can just buy the latest fleets fully ranked. Crazy that a higher level with only Phoenix and Skyfire fleets gets penalised, when a lower level could well have bought a few Manticore fleets. It used to be said that money only bought time in the game. To a degree that's still true, but money can now also buy some of the top tech, putting lower coiners at a massive disadvantage.
4) Make ALL base defense items researchable.
5) Revisit some of the older decisions, and make them work. Addons like the Foundry sit idle, while the Hyperion hull is just a floating campfire unless you're in an Alli. The Hyperion was meant to usher in a new age of combat. Instead, it's just a white elephant for many players - give it something to do, even if it's only using it on expeditions as it isn't much use anywhere else.
6) Introduce decent tech in the raids, not just for top players or high coiners. The lower level tech in the raids is fairly worthless and not worth the grind.
7) Introduce decent hulls in the FM, ones that would give lower levels or struggling players a real chance. Hulls like the Apollo etc are realistically no good in raids, and largely a waste of shipyard time.
8) Revamp the standing campaigns available - the tech and hulls offered are hopelessly outdated and no good to anyone.
9) Once you've built the Hyperion campfire, at least have generic VXP tokens available for both Conqueror and Defender hulls. Any Conqueror hull can benefit at the moment, but only 1 defender hull can.
10) Make the second shipyard available for all fleet builds, not just Conqueror and Defender. Many players just haven't got time to retrofit or keep building hulls for the FM, Raids and whatever else comes along.
Could go on, but BP needs and deserves decent changes if it hopes to both retain and attract players.
Hopefully this is a step in the right direction. But we've heard about slow downs before etc, and then the opposite happens.
No chance of getting anywhere now. Most friends have left the game thanks to changes, and given the crazy chores now I'll doubtless join them.
Me like many others are hopeful that the game will improve but as others have already pointed out; we have heard it all before. You say you are listening and are putting the players first. PROVE IT. One way you can do this is to put on hold the recent ideas that the OLD team was working on and rethink if they are helpful to the game. EG DO NOT go ahead with the proposed FM changes and also either remove the SSRBs or give us the dubs back as well as the ssrbs.
after reading the statement, two words come to mind, "coming soon", for those who have been around a long time (100k id), those know the meaning of those two words in kixeye parlance, you had a chance to buck the trend and make an executive decision to put players first, such as stating we are putting an immediate cut on build or repair times,
hopefully the new team coming in will publish a time table of planned improvements and stick to it, but by previous experiences i'm not holding much hope
"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."
And you've over seen this problem burgeon and grow for more than 4 years. Do you understand why some of us are a little skeptical? Actions speak louder than words...
I think one thing that should be noticed is the number of players in this thread who started over 5 years ago, but have fewer than 100 forum posts.
As someone with a very low player ID, I've seen a lot.
The main thing is that the fun has been removed from a game. People don't spend money when they are not having fun. I used to spend money when I was having fun.
Areas that I have problems with (no particular order):
Chore target battle maps are way too large, making the completion time too long.
Chore targets that are not available all the time is very frustrating. If I need this or that and I have to wait until they might spawn again, I'm off the game to do something else.
The length of time to build ships is insane for most of the hulls. Example: Punisher is the first hull the new player has access to that can do a few things takes over 5 days for an empty ship. Even with tokens, this is not acceptable. Other ships, with full gear, should not take a whole month to build a single ship.
Ship repair times have gotten insane. Fleets that take a whole day to repair aren't used often, and when they are repairing, I'm not playing the game. My current raid fleet took over 9 hours to repair, during the raid, when it was low on health. My raid was play 10 minutes, repair 4 hours, repeat.
No one should need a Ph.D to understand how to build a ship in any game. I understand the need to evolve over time, but when you get the point where Huggy's Shipyard is not able to understand changes, that is real bad for the game.
Too many targets are hull restricted. That is stupid. I really miss the days of multipurpose fleets.
Too many items are limited items, and who ever came up with the idea of shards for a limited print (super hulls excluded), needs to be taken out back and shot. Worst move ever.
Blah blah blah, no one ever reads this far...
I seriously doubt we will see any positive changes, and any that might show up are likely to be squashed shortly thereafter.
I'm tired of my in-game friends quitting the game.
~Polyeidus BP Since June 10, 2011 Player ID: 1,039,890
I am waiting for the apology from all the moderators that threw complaints and opinions back at players over the years... I feel I will be waiting a long long time.
We will see what they future brings but I have heard this or similar before , even to the extent that certain peeps were asked to do a report card on how Kix had got on at fixing stuff etc. Well I also think some of the higher ups at kix need to play the games , not just the latest ones , maybe 30 min -1hr each day on the real server with non kix coin and see how they rate the player experience.
Priced yourself out of the market, not just the money market but the fun market. For us folks outside of the USA (speaking of my personal experience and not for everyone) our money generally goes less far than the domestic market of the USA due to conversion losses. Its cheaper for me to play WoWs without any real incentive to coin again in BP, which is a shame as it was a great platform. In 2 months it'll be 7 years since I started, where ive gone from daily logging into the game to now its lucky if I do over the last 7 months, its such an unincentivsed chore!
All the best Will, so many players have said whats wrong for years. Hard to change a culture created by Kixeye overnight with a few new leaders but no player incentive for committing their time or hard earned "resources" to something that has ignored them for so long.
Thank you for the heads up! I look forward to the new changes. I truly hope that you mean what you just said and aren't blowing hot air. If you really want to help us Players,
1) How about you fix the Countermeasures 2) Stop PvP hulls from attacking PvE hulls 3) Mega ship vs Mega ship only 4) Have your team play the campaigns in real time with real hulls and not overpowered hulls 5) Pay more in resources. 6) All raid targets should payout the right points no matter what hulls are used on what targets 7) Fix the PvP and base weapons
BP strategy has always been and always will be the same: The Perfect Milk Point !!
that is and endless effort to always stay at the perfect milk point: dont milk the players to much so they dont coin and god forbid dont milk the players to little so you dont lose coin potential. the way to execute it is also simple: milk the hell out of them untill you start to see a break point then give em some currots till they little bit happy and visa versa ...
the big ignore about this raid shout from the players will never be forgoten ... and dmg in raid is still about 1000% to much... and even A sets get NEW targets each month... and fm ... well lol ... and resources ...
LMAO on the "players first" and super LMAO on the "money is not first priority" ...
i ll just keep on playing basics and non coining and maybe spend little bit on the short "happy" periods ...
A good place to start by helping us players is get rid of limited bp's,I mean 50+mil just to get 5 for a fleet let alone 100mil just to armour a fleet now Is ridiculous and getting stupid and shouts money,money money. As a long time player all I see is points requiered are going up,damaged received is now mandatory(skill over damage seems to be disappearing in favour of damage no matter how u drive) but rep times are still high 15-20hrs( none raid rep bonus)
i long for the day when kix turns sector travel off to make trouble in the ranks mwahahaha
They're good words, but the balance has been broken for years - not months. . . . Hopefully this is a step in the right direction. But we've heard about slow downs before etc, and then the opposite happens.
is good. fix PVP by re-baselining all Conq's, turrets and defenders and go back to "paper, scissors, rock" instead of needing to do damage in the millions to damage a conq
We've seen and heard it all before.
This is like trying to save the Titanic after it has hit the iceberg by replacing the crew.
Mark my words, we'll just get more of the same.
If you want to prove your actions - Cancel the FM changes.
But, player community needs more than words now. Its been a long time since any "Player First" change is implemented. We have been seeing only "Coins First" for past few months.
One word of advise from a moderate coiner - If you force players with top tech to coin more, the mid/lower levels will have no option left but to quit. Coining should be a choice with top tech. We have more than enough addicts here so revenue wont be impacted, in fact, it will go up since moderate coiners will coin more as they will get more value out of coins. (e.g. I would willingly coin a 2 hours repair during raid after each T8 set but not a 5 hour repair)
repairs times have gone up and all these stupid limited things have driven the nail into the coffin for a lot of people.
Battle Pirates (like any game) needs to evolve over time - however, it's the speed of that evolution that's the problem. Think back to when Floating Fortresses and Hammerheads were the norm, and a few lucky players had hulls like the Dreadnought. When SW's could take many targets on the map and when the game was fun.
Contrast that to now, where unless you've got the latest and greatest tech, you don't stand a chance. And that latest and greatest tech is usually obsolete within a few months (sometimes less with Bounty).
Where base defense is moot unless you can win big in Bounty or access the locked store in a raid. The older turrets just don't cut it against the current overpowered Conqueror hulls.
The raids in 2018 have shown that in the main, only the latest and greatest tech stands a chance (and even they can get hammered). And as usual, the damage got ramped up very quickly from the beginning.
My own advice as a higher level with mainly 'average' Tier 6 and below fleets:
1) Reduce the build times, especially for pre Tier 7 hulls. It's crazy it takes longer to build an outdated hull than the latest fleets.
2) Leave the FM well alone. This is the only chance many have to catch up, and tinkering with it (or redesigning the targets) only makes that catchup process ever longer.
3) Remove the points modifier in raids. Level hasn't meant much for years now, as a new player with a good bank balance can just buy the latest fleets fully ranked. Crazy that a higher level with only Phoenix and Skyfire fleets gets penalised, when a lower level could well have bought a few Manticore fleets.
It used to be said that money only bought time in the game. To a degree that's still true, but money can now also buy some of the top tech, putting lower coiners at a massive disadvantage.
4) Make ALL base defense items researchable.
5) Revisit some of the older decisions, and make them work. Addons like the Foundry sit idle, while the Hyperion hull is just a floating campfire unless you're in an Alli.
The Hyperion was meant to usher in a new age of combat. Instead, it's just a white elephant for many players - give it something to do, even if it's only using it on expeditions as it isn't much use anywhere else.
6) Introduce decent tech in the raids, not just for top players or high coiners. The lower level tech in the raids is fairly worthless and not worth the grind.
7) Introduce decent hulls in the FM, ones that would give lower levels or struggling players a real chance. Hulls like the Apollo etc are realistically no good in raids, and largely a waste of shipyard time.
8) Revamp the standing campaigns available - the tech and hulls offered are hopelessly outdated and no good to anyone.
9) Once you've built the Hyperion campfire, at least have generic VXP tokens available for both Conqueror and Defender hulls. Any Conqueror hull can benefit at the moment, but only 1 defender hull can.
10) Make the second shipyard available for all fleet builds, not just Conqueror and Defender. Many players just haven't got time to retrofit or keep building hulls for the FM, Raids and whatever else comes along.
Could go on, but BP needs and deserves decent changes if it hopes to both retain and attract players.
Hopefully this is a step in the right direction. But we've heard about slow downs before etc, and then the opposite happens.
You say you are listening and are putting the players first. PROVE IT. One way you can do this is to put on hold the recent ideas that the OLD team was working on and rethink if they are helpful to the game. EG DO NOT go ahead with the proposed FM changes and also either remove the SSRBs or give us the dubs back as well as the ssrbs.
hopefully the new team coming in will publish a time table of planned improvements and stick to it, but by previous experiences i'm not holding much hope
Unban all banned base for one time on 7th year anniversry of battle piraTws
Don't kid yourself that this "thread" is nothing more than a hopeful PR stunt to keep those on their last few threads longer.
NOTHING will change, NOTHING.
Sadly
As someone with a very low player ID, I've seen a lot.
The main thing is that the fun has been removed from a game. People don't spend money when they are not having fun. I used to spend money when I was having fun.
Areas that I have problems with (no particular order):
- Chore target battle maps are way too large, making the completion time too long.
- Chore targets that are not available all the time is very frustrating. If I need this or that and I have to wait until they might spawn again, I'm off the game to do something else.
- The length of time to build ships is insane for most of the hulls. Example: Punisher is the first hull the new player has access to that can do a few things takes over 5 days for an empty ship. Even with tokens, this is not acceptable. Other ships, with full gear, should not take a whole month to build a single ship.
- Ship repair times have gotten insane. Fleets that take a whole day to repair aren't used often, and when they are repairing, I'm not playing the game. My current raid fleet took over 9 hours to repair, during the raid, when it was low on health. My raid was play 10 minutes, repair 4 hours, repeat.
- No one should need a Ph.D to understand how to build a ship in any game. I understand the need to evolve over time, but when you get the point where Huggy's Shipyard is not able to understand changes, that is real bad for the game.
- Too many targets are hull restricted. That is stupid. I really miss the days of multipurpose fleets.
- Too many items are limited items, and who ever came up with the idea of shards for a limited print (super hulls excluded), needs to be taken out back and shot. Worst move ever.
- Blah blah blah, no one ever reads this far...
I seriously doubt we will see any positive changes, and any that might show up are likely to be squashed shortly thereafter.I'm tired of my in-game friends quitting the game.
~Polyeidus
BP Since June 10, 2011
Player ID: 1,039,890
All the best Will, so many players have said whats wrong for years. Hard to change a culture created by Kixeye overnight with a few new leaders but no player incentive for committing their time or hard earned "resources" to something that has ignored them for so long.
1) How about you fix the Countermeasures
2) Stop PvP hulls from attacking PvE hulls
3) Mega ship vs Mega ship only
4) Have your team play the campaigns in real time with real hulls and not overpowered hulls
5) Pay more in resources.
6) All raid targets should payout the right points no matter what hulls are used on what targets
7) Fix the PvP and base weapons
Just a few ideas I could think of right now
A good place to start by helping us players is get rid of limited bp's,I mean 50+mil just to get 5 for a fleet let alone 100mil just to armour a fleet now Is ridiculous and getting stupid and shouts money,money money. As a long time player all I see is points requiered are going up,damaged received is now mandatory(skill over damage seems to be disappearing in favour of damage no matter how u drive) but rep times are still high 15-20hrs( none raid rep bonus)