Mordican
I absolutely love this idea. It seems necessary after playing in the KY bg. The player base is extremely small here, as a result, I've seen so many people quit because of this deficiency.

I hope the change isn't reverted; if so, I severely hope it's considered to group state bg's together.

It's childish to demand changes with the ultimatum of quitting if they don't get implemented; if you truly like the game, you'll keep playing. Many people are simply complaining in order to have their way.

The Ky bg is in a severe decline and is losing the player base as a result. Thanks for all the work that has been put into this game!

Therein lies your problem. We're the ones receiving short-shrift and we have to take our lumps? Is it our collective faults that your BG is so small? Recruiting is a major aspect of this game. Perhaps you missed that? Just because your old BG had little/no culture develop is not my fault. The game for many has been drastically changed.

Khamos

There are a lot of aspects to consider, both community and gameplay wise. We have read a lot of your feedback and carefully monitored gameplay during this week. This gives us good basis to decide how to go forward next week.

This sounds to me like all they're monitoring is volume of play. If volume has spiked due to novelty, this "New & Improved" system will stay, is what I am reading into here. Well, as I've said before, if this stays, I go. Mordican, you can call me a whiner, IDK, but I call it voting with my feet.

A compromise, might be to treat the Countrywide BG idea as a Grand Slam event (like tennis) or a major tournament (in golf), 4 campaigns a year. All other weeks would be "normal" statewide/regional BGs.

The "normal" setup would see the social aspect of the game continue to grow and really foster the teamwork aspect of the game. The "special" feel of the countrywide BG would force players out of their comfort zones and give them an opportunity to: step up to represent their BG, meet new allies, learn new techniques, easily explore new territories.

Big change is never received well, especially in video games. Some of this backlash is to be expected, but I really think GA needs to respect the amount and severity of the countrywide BG feedback. I do believe it's a good occasional mix-up, but is harmful to good game play. Chat is chaotic, ABC/AHCs carry devastating results, base camping has increased tremendously and social groups & battle partners are being split up. But the biggest effect is balance on the leaderboards is disrupted as 20 hours of work for 6k points is rendered moot. 7k gets you 40th place and 1 pot as a reward.

The end result of the big BG is motivation to score higher decreases, the social aspect get diminished, the neighborly respect factor decreases and organized battle becomes harder. How are any of these changes beneficial. Where are the "pros" that outweigh these "cons"?

I think doing four of these a year would be cool, actually.

I'm not gonna gripe about it, but the way the battlegroup system worked this round was pretty horrid.  I don't really have a solution to the problem, but I can point out what I thought were problems.  1. People have developed personal relationships, and fierce loyalty to their state bg, splitting these up has caused much dissent, and anger.  2. People (like me) who are not on all the time find it hard to compete if we happen to get placed in a super aggressive bg,  perhaps bg selection could be based on your energy performance in the previous campaign to place players with other players of similar "hardcore-ness." I enjoy playing casually, and I find in a bg with regular scores over 15k my little bit doesn't amount to much, and the chances of me getting a payout or making a game winning difference is nil. 3. There is a vast difference in the number of people on each team, it should be more even.  The top ten energy producers should not be on the losing team due to an abundance of low scoring members of the opposing team.  

Well that is my $0.02 anyways

Thanks, an I do love the game.

It is clear that this is a business decision by GA (and good business should make good business decisions). GA stays in business by selling pots. hard core players burn through pots... pots that they buy...hence they are the most valuable players to GA. allowing them to self select into a BG is smart. they do this by timing their log on. others can control the intensity of their play by timing their log in too. just like introducing spiders (pot burners = revenue generation) was smart. players can choose to spider or not. one hard core player is worth many casual players. losing the hard core players is an issue. and hard core players do not want to play with casual players. the solution? create the option of choosing a BG that is either US based or regional. then players can sort themselves. the location aspect of the game is what is interesting. it is completely lost with the national BG. please bring it back . without that, you will soon have a smaller group of players (high value though they will be ) thanks for listening... Lightbird