Introducing Regional United States Battlegroups
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- Anvar
- Archmage
Cliope
This, as a temporary measure.
Then, open a dialogue with your players (a core group if you like, or everyone, through the message boards). State what problem you were trying to solve by changing the battlegroups.
By including your players in the problem solving process, you'll end up with a solution that works better than trying random changes.
I asked for this BEFORE the mega-BGs were inacted. We'd gladly either choose from our ranks, by volunteer, or even request of GA make a "Player Council" that could be an initial sounding board for any potential changes. We get next-to-no lead time (a few hours) as it is now. Is GA afraid to spill the beans on new content? What gives? It wouldn't be that difficult to implement. GA talks of their "vision", why not share it with it's customers??
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- Seldon
- Archmage
Khamos
Few of the main reasons why we decided to implement the regional battlegroups for this week are to support players communicating with the local mages around them and to more easily form relationships and alliances with players who are playing in the same area. These were some of the biggest concerns presented by players during last week when the battlegroups were drawn randomly nationwide.
(second paragraph omitted, not relevant)
Edited by Khamos (yesterday 12:38:23)
Khamos: those are problems that only existed because you went to the US-wide battlegroups in the previous campaign! Yes, you've solved those, but we didn't have those problems when we had state battlegroups!
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- Aristo
- Enlightened
I have to laugh or cry. The forum crashed while I was writing about the problems in the game deleting my rather lengthy discussion about this new campaign. I gave it a chance and it still stinks. If the game was like this when I started, I would not be playing. I could have saved some money too. The game continues to crash, freeze, drop beacons, friends and make it almost impossible to help the friends that I've made and the only reason I'm still playing. For the casual player, who could occasionally win or place top 10, now it will be top 100. And occasionally top 50 to get that one pit of mana. Lol I know you have to make money to improve the game but if you alienate the core players who will help the new players? Now we are afraid the new player is an alternate for the enemy and are spying to know your weaknesses. If this can't be fixed, then I and a lot of players will just stop playing. This regional is still to big and I'm in a smaller one. I can't imagine the Midwest mountain group or the other huge regions. When a team gets ahead by 20 or 30000 points, players lose the motivation to try and come back. If nothing else, it changes the game and if you think you can't win, you can't. It has demoralized the whole group. I've heard it in the chats between team members so I know you have heard it. Please fix this game either back to states or improve the server power. It is no fun to crash in the middle if a big battle and lose out on points because the system can't handle the number of players .
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- Nofreemilk
- Enlightened
The new regional battlegrounds are a huge success. Great change. We had one of the most exciting rounds ever in the Texas and friends BG. Well done GA, you really hit a home run with this setup. I'm sure you can see that by the play time and higher scoring.
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- Seldon
- Archmage
Nofreemilk
The new regional battlegrounds are a huge success. Great change. We had one of the most exciting rounds ever in the Texas and friends BG. Well done GA, you really hit a home run with this setup. I'm sure you can see that by the play time and higher scoring.
That's nice.
As a member of the (once and hopefully future) Michigan battlegroup, this has been a load of utter crap. We've gone from a state battlegroup that was highly contested to a 20-state abomination that is so solidly green it isn't worth playing for points any more. Gabriel's numbers showed that the greens traditionally put in 400,000 points more across a campaign; last night, we got skunked by around 102,000 points. This is a headcount game at that point. The other regional battlegroups have large spreads as well... with the exception of the group you happen to be in, which stats showed as close enough to go either way.
I'm glad you're happy, but your experience of a close, exciting battlegroup is precisely the opposite of what the rest of the country is getting.
Edited by Seldon (Dec. 1, 2011 14:14:30)
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- Depth
- Scholar
Seldon, I side with Nofreemilk, as I am in same BG. The Architects one at the last minute with around a 4,000 point lead. It kept going back and forth, and was highly contested. I can imagine the chaos in the other BG's, and that is precisely why I bumped the Poll I created in General Discussions. (It is a poll on how the regions should be split, if at all.
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- Depth
- Scholar
Seldon, I side with Nofreemilk, as I am in same BG. The Architects one at the last minute with around a 4,000 point lead. It kept going back and forth, and was highly contested. I can imagine the chaos in the other BG's, and that is precisely why I bumped the Poll I created in General Discussions. (It is a poll on how the regions should be split, if at all.)
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- Shekkara
- Archmage
Depth, you're missing the point. I'm glad you had a competetive experience.
Three other US bgs were very far from contested, and it's not necessarily because the Architects aren't playing. Architects were well represented in the top 100 of the Midwest-Mountain battlegroup, and we had about seven people in the top 10, but we still lost by over 100k. For all those top 100 players who worked hard, that's pretty discouraging to lose by such a wide margin. We are badly outnumbered, and the main way to combat that is to grind, grind, grind. That gets exhausting. Not everyone can afford to give that kind of time to the game. It becomes un-fun when it seems like what you do doesn't matter.
I preferred my state battlegroup, but if we're stuck with regional ones, then they can be improved. Call whatever is good about regional battle groups the "baby" and whateer is bad the "bath water". While we don't want to throw the baby out with the water, the bathwater is pretty darn dirty and needs to be pitched.
[and I haven't addressed the social aspects that many of us see as harmed by such large battlegroups]
Three other US bgs were very far from contested, and it's not necessarily because the Architects aren't playing. Architects were well represented in the top 100 of the Midwest-Mountain battlegroup, and we had about seven people in the top 10, but we still lost by over 100k. For all those top 100 players who worked hard, that's pretty discouraging to lose by such a wide margin. We are badly outnumbered, and the main way to combat that is to grind, grind, grind. That gets exhausting. Not everyone can afford to give that kind of time to the game. It becomes un-fun when it seems like what you do doesn't matter.
I preferred my state battlegroup, but if we're stuck with regional ones, then they can be improved. Call whatever is good about regional battle groups the "baby" and whateer is bad the "bath water". While we don't want to throw the baby out with the water, the bathwater is pretty darn dirty and needs to be pitched.
[and I haven't addressed the social aspects that many of us see as harmed by such large battlegroups]
Edited by Shekkara (Dec. 1, 2011 17:05:10)
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- Depth
- Scholar
I am not missing the point. I uinderstand completely the chaos of the other 4 BG's. GA obviously doesn't want to go back to the state BG's which is AGAIN, the reason I bumped my poll in general discussions. It gives links to all 4 plans for a regional split. 1 by me, 1 by Keiri, and 1 by Abbraxis (Sorry for mispellings.) and the one by GA. It is made, to show our strength of disagreeance with how they split the USA, and if anyone actually used it, it would show how we mostly think the regions should be split.