Letter from Will Harbin about the Future of Battle Pirates

  • Mad_Scientist
    Mad_Scientist
    Unicorn Overlord
    Joined Dec 2012 Posts: 7,716

    @Milo-Ant said:
    Albert.E.Roberts said:


    Zeus6927 said:

    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.

    Please do not blame the mod over the years Kix has treated them as mushroom keeping them in the dark and feeding them bull poo.
    The gd team have often told them no change made only to have to admit later map changes,speed changes and damage changes 

    some of the previous MODS actually went out of their way to ban people from forums for speaking the truth

    Personally, I found them mostly to be reasonable. If I went too far, got a warning which usually was deserved. Some maybe spoke their belief of "the truth", but I'll bet many times their language was abusive, or they trolled threads, or did something other than just have a discussion.

    I'm surprised Laredo is still here, it's rough getting kept in the dark by kixeye and having to deal with the fallout, usually over a weekend when the player base is raging and no one from kixeye is around. All of the others get burnt out (Trogar, Dreaded, Toyota obsession).

    Meep!
  • bort
    bort
    Unicorn Overlord
    Joined Oct 2011 Posts: 8,257
    edited 17 Jul 2018, 10:08PM

    @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?

    in terms of fixing stuff, i'd say the stepping stones need to be placed closer together - they're spread a too far apart for the early game now. 

    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.

    not sure - maybe slow down the levelling for a start. level 26 can probably be achieved in one day now. Maybe remove a bunch of the older hulls so people dont find it overwhelming?

    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....

    Refer stepping stones comment

    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.

    the vast majority seem to be extremely adverse to any significant time commitment. i'm not sure that is the answer. even last raid there were a handful of people who were prepared to grind to good prizes with phoenix / skyfire fleets. The majority were not prepared to do so. i dont think the game has truly ever been for 'casual' players.

    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.

    yar, still f2p, but far lazier so i spend a lot less time on the game. i kind of enjoyed last raid so spent a little more time than usual though. i'm on 4g at the moment. connection is pretty ugly most of the time. But with scatters, it doesnt matter too much. And I auto all the chores.

    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.

    for me about 6 hours total. Nowhere near what i was doing in the earlier days. but i only scored around 320 million or so.



    At the top end they're giving out vastly too many tokens. 150 days worth of build time for current fleets was available last month when you add up shipyards, FM, TLCs, Raid. That gives you a huge advantage over others who can't get there. Now admittedly an up-and-comer, should prioritise rather than aim for all of them, but still. And even so, you do still get high level players complaining about build times. wtf?

    Its also been dumbed down too far. You more or less know what to build for each new raid, and only need to make a few tweaks as it goes along (unless you're a certain someone who seems to get it wrong every single time and doesnt listen to advice). Admittedly again, some people still manage to get it wrong.

    PVP is more where the major overhaul is required.

    Base hitting just tends to be too binary these days. Depending on where the pendulum is most bases are either a cakewalk, or convert to being near unbreakable. THere is no 'in between' where a smaller player can actually damage a larger player's fleets. 

    FvF is a bit similar - PvP fleets will generally melt PvE fleets. THere isnt much middle ground of fleets causing damage to each other - its just one sided.


  • mark.catmull
    mark.catmull
    Greenhorn
    Joined Jul 2013 Posts: 5

    I played battle pirates for years and now that I’ve quit for over a year you scum bags want yo try and fix crap. This game isn’t st all fun to me anymore. Waste of money and waste of time, you’ve screwed a lot of people in your lil antics and come up with some cheesy **** excuses. I’ve seen a lot of promises and none have neen followed through with. That’s the reason I quit along with many many others. MADDOXX former ORG leader

  • Milo-Ant
    Milo-Ant
    Incursion Leader
    Joined Oct 2017 Posts: 1,172
    u -mad said:
    AND A GOOD START WOULD BE ANSWER THE TICKETS SENT IN BEEN WAITING 2 DAYS ON A RAID TICKET GOOD JOB

    2 days ive been 2 weeks nearly about a ticket on explosive coldsnaps in an ASSAULT target
  • Milo-Ant
    Milo-Ant
    Incursion Leader
    Joined Oct 2017 Posts: 1,172
    Talk the talk, now lets see you walk the walk.

    Less chores, more fun. Some of us remember the fun days of huge Alli v Alli wars
    The fun was before alliances mate
  • bort
    bort
    Unicorn Overlord
    Joined Oct 2011 Posts: 8,257
    Milo-Ant said:
    Talk the talk, now lets see you walk the walk.

    Less chores, more fun. Some of us remember the fun days of huge Alli v Alli wars
    The fun was before alliances mate
    thats true - from a pvp perspective those sector wars were probably the most interesting.

    but then again, if it had stayed that way it would have died long ago.
  • Jeff_M6871
    Jeff_M6871
    Greenhorn
    Joined Feb 2013 Posts: 5
    Yep lies lies lies..KIX you are killing the game and you can't see or understand that or you don't want to hear that.. But just take a look on how many people are playing now compared to last yr or even the yr before.. You are losing players left and right..
  • Milo-Ant
    Milo-Ant
    Incursion Leader
    Joined Oct 2017 Posts: 1,172

    @Milo-Ant said:
    Albert.E.Roberts said:


    Zeus6927 said:

    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.

    Please do not blame the mod over the years Kix has treated them as mushroom keeping them in the dark and feeding them bull poo.
    The gd team have often told them no change made only to have to admit later map changes,speed changes and damage changes 

    some of the previous MODS actually went out of their way to ban people from forums for speaking the truth

    Personally, I found them mostly to be reasonable. If I went too far, got a warning which usually was deserved. Some maybe spoke their belief of "the truth", but I'll bet many times their language was abusive, or they trolled threads, or did something other than just have a discussion.

    I'm surprised Laredo is still here, it's rough getting kept in the dark by kixeye and having to deal with the fallout, usually over a weekend when the player base is raging and no one from kixeye is around. All of the others get burnt out (Trogar, Dreaded, Toyota obsession).

    Toyota never sent warnings mate, neither did specs. and yes you do know me

    https://www.kixeye.com/profile/502eaf4e35cf36b968000000/gamestats
  • Mad_Scientist
    Mad_Scientist
    Unicorn Overlord
    Joined Dec 2012 Posts: 7,716

    @Milo-Ant said:
    Mad_Scientist said:

    @Milo-Ant said:

    Albert.E.Roberts said:

    Zeus6927 said:
    
    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.
    
    Please do not blame the mod over the years Kix has treated them as mushroom keeping them in the dark and feeding them bull poo.
    

    The gd team have often told them no change made only to have to admit later map changes,speed changes and damage changes 

    some of the previous MODS actually went out of their way to ban people from forums for speaking the truth

    Personally, I found them mostly to be reasonable. If I went too far, got a warning which usually was deserved. Some maybe spoke their belief of "the truth", but I'll bet many times their language was abusive, or they trolled threads, or did something other than just have a discussion.

    I'm surprised Laredo is still here, it's rough getting kept in the dark by kixeye and having to deal with the fallout, usually over a weekend when the player base is raging and no one from kixeye is around. All of the others get burnt out (Trogar, Dreaded, Toyota obsession).

    Toyota never sent warnings mate, neither did specs. and yes you do know me

    https://www.kixeye.com/profile/502eaf4e35cf36b968000000/gamestats

    Forgot your new name... Oops....of course I know you

    Toyota seemed to get more relaxed near the end of his game time here... He was one that did warn me via PM.

    One thing about that, PM doesn't always work. Another thing broken in the game. I've gotten emails saying I received a message, but nothing here.

    Meep!
  • Milo-Ant
    Milo-Ant
    Incursion Leader
    Joined Oct 2017 Posts: 1,172

    @Milo-Ant said:
    Mad_Scientist said:

    @Milo-Ant said:

    Albert.E.Roberts said:

    Zeus6927 said:
    
    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.
    
    Please do not blame the mod over the years Kix has treated them as mushroom keeping them in the dark and feeding them bull poo.
    

    The gd team have often told them no change made only to have to admit later map changes,speed changes and damage changes 

    some of the previous MODS actually went out of their way to ban people from forums for speaking the truth

    Personally, I found them mostly to be reasonable. If I went too far, got a warning which usually was deserved. Some maybe spoke their belief of "the truth", but I'll bet many times their language was abusive, or they trolled threads, or did something other than just have a discussion.

    I'm surprised Laredo is still here, it's rough getting kept in the dark by kixeye and having to deal with the fallout, usually over a weekend when the player base is raging and no one from kixeye is around. All of the others get burnt out (Trogar, Dreaded, Toyota obsession).

    Toyota never sent warnings mate, neither did specs. and yes you do know me

    https://www.kixeye.com/profile/502eaf4e35cf36b968000000/gamestats

    Forgot your new name... Oops....of course I know you

    Toyota seemed to get more relaxed near the end of his game time here... He was one that did warn me via PM.

    One thing about that, PM doesn't always work. Another thing broken in the game. I've gotten emails saying I received a message, but nothing here.

    Lol, 

    Actually earlier you asked bort about seat time for present raid series. 

    The seat time for me to get new hull was probably OK , I did 4 top target sets with 2 fleets of manticores then slow repaired BUT then used my caedes and some damaged manticores in A sets.

    The problem is the number of prizes in the raids, which enforces stupidly high points required (NOT helped by a lot of them being limited BPs) and even more so by needing 5 shards per other limited items, you can only get by hitting the targets you need the items to hit.which then gives refits etc


    without top fleet its going to take days to get the points some need ,which for most of us is a big turnoff


    I still remember when top players had all the prizes 1 hour into raid and were showing them off. Now its days of raiding and very, very few get all the prizes. ( I got 470 mil, wasn't anywhere near enough for all that was on offer, bearing in mind I have everything bar 1 item anyway)
  • Commodore Clambeard
    Commodore Clambeard
    Strike-force Captain
    Joined Feb 2013 Posts: 734
    edited 17 Jul 2018, 11:44PM
    actions speak louder than words and your track record has been paved with lies. want to prove it to us then do so, but dont think for a second i am being duped by your words anymore.  i honestly think the games downfall has crossed the event horizon. i encourage you to prove me wrong....

    i loved when this game was an art form, when we could build whatever for any targets. now it feels like paint by number with having to build ships only one way for them to work in only one specific set of targets. that is boring as f***
  • VvVvVvVvV
    VvVvVvVvV
    Incursion Leader
    Joined Jan 2012 Posts: 1,144
    A prediction -- they say they're going to take re-balancing seriously; I wonder how they plan to do that....

    Although they have a long history of nerfing tech because they "accidentally" had the math wrong or wanted to "enhance player experience", this might not be the best time to do more nerfing of stuff we've already got. 

    Just look how well the CM nerfing went. 

    So how much you want to bet that their solution to re-balancing will be to introduce MORE new tech -- still at ridiculous prices, but they'll swear up and down it's a great deal. 


  • Ray_P
    Ray_P
    Unicorn Overlord
    Joined Aug 2012 Posts: 2,526
    Milo-Ant said:
    Zeus6927 said:
    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.
    Please do not blame the mod over the years Kix has treated them as mushroom keeping them in the dark and feeding them bull poo.
    The gd team have often told them no change made only to have to admit later map changes,speed changes and damage changes 
    some of the previous MODS actually went out of their way to ban people from forums for speaking the truth
    If they let the suspended Mod back on there will be a riot,  he was a case in point.
    Ray_P   


    Winner of Hellhound, Grimshine, Nighthawk,  V2 C/H, JuggX, Mastedon, Interceptor, Atlas, Viper, Enforcer, Nash, Reaper, Spectre, Hellstrike, Vindicator, Triton, Stingray, Interdictor, Hurricane, MCX, Goliath, Barracuda, Strike Cruiser, Mercury, Mauler, Super Fortress, Battleship, Battle Cruiser,  HHA,  HHB 

    Remember at the end of the day it's a game,  it's not your life. 

    Sectors 138,  316,  248,  177,   315
  • Mad_Scientist
    Mad_Scientist
    Unicorn Overlord
    Joined Dec 2012 Posts: 7,716

    @Milo-Ant said:
    Mad_Scientist said:

    @Milo-Ant said:

    Mad_Scientist said:

    @Milo-Ant said:
    
    Albert.E.Roberts said:
    

    Zeus6927 said: 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. Please do not blame the mod over the years Kix has treated them as mushroom keeping them in the dark and feeding them bull poo.

    The gd team have often told them no change made only to have to admit later map changes,speed changes and damage changes 
    
    some of the previous MODS actually went out of their way to ban people from forums for speaking the truth
    
    
    
    Personally, I found them mostly to be reasonable.   If I went too far, got a warning which usually was deserved.  Some maybe spoke their belief of "the truth", but I'll bet many times their language was abusive, or they trolled threads, or did something other than just have a discussion.
    
    I'm surprised Laredo is still here,  it's rough getting kept in the dark by kixeye and having to deal with the fallout, usually over a weekend when the player base is raging and no one from kixeye is around.  All of the others get burnt out (Trogar, Dreaded, Toyota obsession).
    
    
    
    Toyota never sent warnings mate, neither did specs. and yes you do know me
    

    https://www.kixeye.com/profile/502eaf4e35cf36b968000000/gamestats

    Forgot your new name... Oops....of course I know you

    Toyota seemed to get more relaxed near the end of his game time here... He was one that did warn me via PM.

    One thing about that, PM doesn't always work. Another thing broken in the game. I've gotten emails saying I received a message, but nothing here.

    Lol, 

    Actually earlier you asked bort about seat time for present raid series. 

    The seat time for me to get new hull was probably OK , I did 4 top target sets with 2 fleets of manticores then slow repaired BUT then used my caedes and some damaged manticores in A sets.

    The problem is the number of prizes in the raids, which enforces stupidly high points required (NOT helped by a lot of them being limited BPs) and even more so by needing 5 shards per other limited items, you can only get by hitting the targets you need the items to hit.which then gives refits etc

    without top fleet its going to take days to get the points some need ,which for most of us is a big turnoff

    I still remember when top players had all the prizes 1 hour into raid and were showing them off. Now its days of raiding and very, very few get all the prizes. ( I got 470 mil, wasn't anywhere near enough for all that was on offer, bearing in mind I have everything bar 1 item anyway)

    Was just saying that to an old ally mate. We played with a guy in our alliance that wasn't well known but was one of the best hitters I saw in the early days. He was always done with raids in about an hour in the early days.

    He came back to the game this year, left again in the last month because of the time commitment. Too bad for kixeye, he liked to coin.

    Meep!
  • suck-ma-stump
    suck-ma-stump
    Skilled Warrior
    Joined Jun 2013 Posts: 352
    it aint a resignation letter so it dont mean schit more bs being fed to us just to keep us going that bit longer to see if things change 
  • filmbryan1
    filmbryan1
    Unicorn Overlord
    Joined Feb 2013 Posts: 5,870

    Oh now he cares eh? If you guys believe him than so be it. Personally I would believe Alex Jones before I buy anything **** has said.

    You will only receive my scorn from this point forward
  • filmbryan1
    filmbryan1
    Unicorn Overlord
    Joined Feb 2013 Posts: 5,870

    Wow w I l l y is a curse?

    You will only receive my scorn from this point forward
  • Hoot343
    Hoot343
    Skilled Warrior
    Joined Nov 2011 Posts: 316
    Will Harbin,,,,This is NOT putting "players first" ,,,,, I can do the 112's but 117's for the point payout is just not worth it & now your adding new targets & we need to refit armors,,,,NOT putting players first !!

    FM UPDATE

    • Three New Targets: 120,121, 105 (Blitz)

  • dballard601
    dballard601
    Strike-force Captain
    Joined Sep 2012 Posts: 790
    edited 18 Jul 2018, 12:39AM
    My major gripes:
    1) Constant fiddling and upping damage is a pita in the FM targets

    Here here, that is a problem and I know for a fact that it has lost players with these gambits.  I went MIA for about 6 months due to this prominent issue.  Yearly updates is fine, but incremental rather than dramatic changes would be appreciated. 

  • steve.smith.37266136
    steve.smith.37266136
    Minor Nuisance
    Joined Nov 2013 Posts: 193
    Here's my question Will Harbin. Why has it taken so long for you to finally realize hey there is something wrong ? Believe me I like playing this game been for a long time met some cool people around the world. Here is a major problem Base defense is non existence, getting base part uranium titanium is a pain in the ****. players bailing on the game, thousands of dead bases , dead sectors I mean the list can go on. I have thought myself about stop playing but I am willing to give you guys a chance like I said this is a good game looking forward to seeing this through

  • starcraft6
    starcraft6
    Potential Threat
    Joined Aug 2017 Posts: 25
    player first!!!!! i dont beleive this. this game is no fun i need to spend days to figure the right build. this game is so complexe u need to keep it simple kixeye i dont want to refit every time my fleet and every month u force us to build a new hull now for the building time player need at least 120 day to build a raid fleet that is three month i know there is token in the fm but most of the player cant get it and u know why ? ... because everytime fm is getting harder and complex and beleive me u can t build almost a full fleet for the first raid unless u are a heavy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! coiner  and everytime the raid become more harder the dammage become X 3 time than the last time and i really want to know why ? and u even make it during raid that is cheatinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng . i have too many camplain about this game i cant write them all.
    good luck pirates it s just a heavy coiner game but u need to remember u dont need to spend huge amount of money in something that will waste ur time.
  • richard.shipp.58766
    richard.shipp.58766
    Potential Threat
    Joined Jun 2013 Posts: 80
    Having to refit armor that I was told by Kix was the must have is not conducive to putting me (a player) first.  The list of things that have gone wrong in the game is as long as the list of what has gone right.  Then when you finally get something right you change it right away.  I don't want the game to stagnate either but slow things down PLEASE.  Test things BEFORE you release them.  Listen to your customers.  Thanks for posting and saying you're trying, I do appreciate that.
  • BraeBonnee
    BraeBonnee
    Skilled Warrior
    Joined Dec 2012 Posts: 372
    I like what is being said in Will's letter and can only hope that it is true and that the new team put in place works out.
    At the end of the day, despite frustration at times, I still love the game.
  • Blackllllll
    Blackllllll
    Incursion Leader
    Joined May 2012 Posts: 1,125
    Must have been a poor turnout for the raid .
    There have been poor turnouts the last three raids.  They tuned up the damage too high to try to make money on coins and overdid it.

    I actually REALLY like this raid format.  It requires driving, can't be consistently autoed, and has a neat and new feel to it.  If the damage were tuned to an appropriate level it would be one of the best raids in the last three or four years.  It's hard to beat the Garrison raids of 2016, but this would be close.

    The issues, as Harbin correctly point out, stem from the failure of the Dev Team to fix problems and, I think, to *test* in the game environment.  Time and time again I and others have pointed out bugs, lags, broken things, and other crap that was shoehorned into the game without being appropriately tested.  How many times in the last two years have we seen "the update has been rolled back" or "such and such a target has been removed"?  More than any good game should.

    As another example, look at the countermeasure fix.  It was long overdue but as soon as it went out players started complaining that their boats weren't performing like they did and they couldn't do as much game work.  That's a reasonable complaint - but one that could have been avoided if the Dev Team had looked at how the new countermeasure rules would affect *actual player fleets*.  They clearly didn't look at that and had to make a fix to the damage output of the targets on the fly in the real game environment.

    And how many changes have been rolled out without fixing the core issue: player loss at level 50?  Going from 49 to 50 is a death sentence for many players these days because the hulls are stronger but the base defenses aren't any easier to get.  The TLCs bring out important and some might say necessary hulls, but the campaigns smaller players can actually do are at this point almost completely worthless.  The Mercury? Vassago's interdictor? Those are collectors' hulls at this point and worthless in the modern meta.  Even a bunch of the hulls in the foundry are now worthless - lookin' at you, hellwraith.  The Campaign system actually sets players up for failure because they spend time and gain levels on garbage.

    The game needs to re-evaluate how it prepares the smaller players to enter the big boy world, and it needs to ditch the level system.  It's time to go to a Tier system where player bases are Tiered, where hulls and fleets are Tiered, where PvP is tier-gated, and where raid targets are tier-gated (or hitdown penalties are applied based on tier rather than base level).  They already have all the data they need to make these changes, they just need to do it. I have made a suggestion in the past which, if I may be so bold, would fix a lot of the current level-based nonsense.

    Player complaints are nothing new, and in the past the team has responded - the build times of new hulls are SIGNIFICANTLY less than they used to be.  Some of you whippersnappers won't remember when hulls took a month - literally - to kit out completely.  Two days' build time for each component was not unheard of, and these were boats with three or (gasp!) four special slots and 6-8 weapon slots.  Today's builds are much shorter.  The use of the hull class system is actually good - it's realistic and while it takes away some flexibility it helps streamline build decisions.  It also helps players understand what is coming up.  I want to believe, because I love this game, that the new team can fix these issues.

    Look, credit where it is due: Harbin is trying to fix his golden goose.  And there's a chance that this could do that.  But the content has to be evaluated, top to bottom, to see where it fits and what is necessary to fix it.  This is going to take time.


    Your a Regular player LOL  You Lost me at the hit down penalty ........  That alone cost this game ten thousand player I bet . 
  • RODNAR
    RODNAR
    Minor Nuisance
    Joined Dec 2011 Posts: 171
    Having to refit armor that I was told by Kix was the must have is not conducive to putting me (a player) first.  The list of things that have gone wrong in the game is as long as the list of what has gone right.  Then when you finally get something right you change it right away.  I don't want the game to stagnate either but slow things down PLEASE.  Test things BEFORE you release them.  Listen to your customers.  Thanks for posting and saying you're trying, I do appreciate that.
    i remember when they use to do tests on a test server before putting it into game to see how it would do , in the last few years they just throw it into the game and pray it don't mess up, and when it does when they TRY to fix it , it just ends up screwing up the game even more 
  • mWild
    mWild
    Minor Nuisance
    Joined Sep 2012 Posts: 117
    Players first   ya right with 18 hour fleet repairs on manti fleet....start with repair and build times.

This discussion has been closed.