Gabriel
About 33%. I'm going to counter your selfishness by pointing out you have the smallest energy-gathering BG and actually have a chance to put up a fight. I'm in the biggest.

Of that 33%, you well know it's mostly green energy being earned. I'm not against the challenge, just noting that there's a strong influence from one area. My major concern is the demoralization effect, well seen this past week in nation-wide BGs: one side gets down by around 15-20k or so the 1st day and that's a wrap.

Well, Midwest & Mountain averages 400,000 more energy from the greens. Don't see the point in trying, really, with that kind of spread. It's done.

I'm sure this wasn't the motivation for the groups but based on Gabriel's stats it couldn't have done more to ensure permanent green domination of the US if it were designed as deliberate gerrymandering by Animators on the GA staff. At least with the state BGs, we could win individual states so the whole map wasn't green.

(Note for non-US folks who may not know the term: gerrymandering is the process of redrawing political election districts to ensure that the opposition's votes are concentrated in a few districts, or diluted across many, so the party in power stays in power. It is still widely practiced today.)

@Anvar: yeah. I earned all of 800 points this last round, almost accidentally. Demotivated. Want my state BG back, where what I did mattered.

Edited by Seldon (Nov. 28, 2011 15:04:13)

You couldn't have said it better, Sel. Other MMOs have fallen apart due to team imbalance. SC appears to not have learned those mistakes made by others and is headed down the same road.

Edited by Anvar (Nov. 28, 2011 18:17:07)

LOL! So nothing is really changing. During the last campaign we had about 4-5 BGs and now, with this new and improved structure (based on all the feedback), we have...5 new BGs. And this time, they are not capped at 1,000 players, thereby exacerbating the previous complaints. Ugh!

Perhaps we would understand your motives better if you explained the real reason behind this reshuffling of BGs, such as 1. we are giving out too many mana pots in the US 2. our servers can't handle this many BGs in one area or 3. we have run out of new innovative ideas to change the game so we need to start throwing curve balls. We all know that the rationale was NOT to meet new people, that's BS. I have met people from all over the world via my friends' statuses.

I still believe that smaller BGs (250 or 500 mages) are better to nurture the new players and give them a chance to win every now and again. Currently, the BGs will be dominated by the grinders who put in a lot of work to win each time. It would be very encouraging to a new mage to have a chance to win a round. In the current setup, this will certainly never happen and people will start to lose interest quickly...

Depth
That would be nice. So far we have 3!

GA's Plan
Keiri's Plan
Depth's Plan

^_^

We have four.

I posted this last Wednesday: http://www.shadowcities.com/forum/topic/2541/

Obviously, it would take a little tweaking (California, New York and probably Texas would be BG size on their own), but as I stated, it was a starting point.

Edited by Abbarrax (Nov. 28, 2011 17:15:16)

Dangerdoom
Perhaps we would understand your motives better if you explained the real reason behind this reshuffling of BGs

This! I've been asking this question, too, without any response as to the problem the reshuffling is trying to solve.

Dangerdoom
I still believe that smaller BGs (250 or 500 mages) are better to nurture the new players and give them a chance to win every now and again.

And this! Smaller BG sizes mean individual BGs are more even, except for the left overs, which aren't as out of whack as with larger BG sizes. BGs in the same region need some way to communicate...I still like the idea of a regional overlay on smaller state based BGs, but that's just me.

Humans are creatures of habit and thrive on familiarity.
I'd wager that if we'd started out with regional battlegroups, we'd be hearing the same amount of griping about state battlegroups.

And I will simply note that the medal for this campaign depicts a turkey.

Edited by Seldon (Nov. 28, 2011 18:17:21)