Hello Everyone,
I haven’t had much time to stop by the forums lately, as we’ve been racing towards the Unity Update to Gems of War on iOS/Android, along with changes to Guild Wars, AND Crafting - coming in the 3.1 update.
So… Today, I wanted to do 2 things:
- Share some of the minor changes we’re making to Guild Wars next week (on ALL platforms), when it starts back up
- Give you a bit of a taste for a few things that are coming soon (including a first look at the crafting menu)
GUILD WARS
Why did we even take it offline?
Good question! It was potentially a silly thing to do, since Guild Wars has really been moving the needle in some key areas… more players were definitely playing more often, in fact I think almost every single KPI about the game was doing better than pre-guild wars. HOWEVER, we still want to make the game the best it can be, and so, given some of the feedback we’d received, we thought we’d give it a 2 week rest while we figured out ways to improve it some more.
When is it back?
NEXT WEEK!
What is changing when it comes back?
We’re keeping it simple for now, just so we don’t have to do a client update, which means console, PC and mobile can all get the same update together. We’re going to change the following 3 things:
- All battles are now worth 300 points, not 100 – 500. The reason for this will become clearer below.
- We’re altering the scoring system, from its current form where you gain points for winning, using colored troops, and not losing allies to something that takes a number of other things into account.
- We’re reducing the weekly troop type bonuses from 25% to 10%
How did we arrive at these? HOURS of discussion, good-natured arguing, and looking at data AND all the info everyone here on the forums has provided in the GW thread! Details on these changes are below…
Change #3: Reducing Weekly Troop Bonuses
I’ll start with the last one first, as it’s the simplest to explain. 25% bonuses can just push good troops into being annoying. That’s not cool, and it’s PARTICULARLY disheartening for mid-game players sometimes, I think, as well as making end game seem a bit stale. We want to keep the bonuses, as they’re fun and help convince a lot of players to try new things, but we’re going to try a reduction from 25% to 10%, so they’re not quite as punishing to face.
Change #2: Altering the scoring system
Now… The new scoring calculation. You’ll all want to know the exact details, I’m SURE! I’m not going to give you the EXACT details (since we’ll tweak it, I’m certain), but I AM going to describe all the parts for you.
Colored score bonuses WILL remain the same btw.
Stepping back for a moment, let’s look at the CURRENT calculation. I LIKE simple things… simple formulae, simple designs, simple visuals… You get the idea. Simple rules are generally harder to exploit, and more intuitive to grasp, so I use them whenever I can. The problem is that the current scoring system is a simple thing that had a single complication layered on top of it… for a good reason, but still, that single complication is where the problem lies.
SO why did we add this single complication? It goes something like this: We’d like a simple system to represent your victory. However, at the top-tier, just giving points for a win would leave too many people tied on points at the end of the week, so we introduce one extra thing… you get a few less points for each troop you lose. That ONE extra rule tells our best players: “Hey! If you want to maximize your results, you should use the most efficient methods of killing enemy troops AND making sure yours are NOT killed. So Devourers & Summoners enter the meta for defense & offense respectively. There was a clear optimal strategy, and we can’t blame players for following it.
Now since we can’t simplify the rule, we only really have one option left and that is to add some more (preferably orthogonal) rules, based on what we observe “good” players doing (and by orthogonal rule, I mean rules that are mostly independent of each other). The rules we’ve chosen are based around 4 facts:
- Good players lose less troops (that’s the one we already have!)
- Good players win their game in less moves
- Good players have far higher mana efficiency (i.e. their mana collected, in proportion to their opponent’s mana is far higher)
- Good players have far higher damage efficiency (i.e. their damage dealt, in proportion to their opponent’s damage is far higher)
Now we have 4 things contributing to a score in such a way that they each push a different type of troop into the meta… Do we go for cheap kills? Slow games? Large AoE damage outputs? Or board control? Our hope is that the relative balance of these things ,and people’s varying experience with them, cause a bit more variety to appear in the end-game meta for Guild Wars.
Change #1: Battles are now ALL worth 300 points
There is one inherent problem with using moves, mana efficiency, and damage efficiency for scoring though; it can be affected by a little bit of luck. A VERY unlucky game could affect your score. And thus, the final part of this puzzle… homogenizing all the base scores to 300… So an unlucky paragon battle does NOT ruin your daily points disproportionately. The luck DOES even out in the long term, and we’ve noticed players do converge on actual efficiency numbers as you look across multiple gameplay sessions.
What is changing in the FUTURE for Guild Wars?
We’ve identified a few areas to change that WILL require a client update. This will NOT be in 3.1… we’ve got quite enough OTHER stuff going into that one, without the extra work! We may have a 3.1.5 shortly after 3.1 launches to add these. This is still in discussion.
The first thing is something you all talked about and seemed in agreement on (amazingly!), and it was only counting the top 27 players for score. We’re quite willing to experiment with that, but it WILL require a client update.
This next one is the big one though, and actually has me quite excited. It’s the idea of a Defense Menu where you can properly set up your defenses. The reason we’d like to go to a defense menu is that I think we could do something a little sneaky and different, and that is giving a bonus to your weekly points for how many different troops you use in a week’s defense teams! For example, use all 24 troops as different, and you get the maximum multiplier. You could still put the same team in every day, but your multiplier would be small, since you would have only used 4 troops for the week. This system WOULD require your defenses locked in on Day 1, but we have a few more logistical issues to figure out before we begin any work on it!
And finally… OTHER STUFF!
Last thing today is that I just wanted to give you all a heads-up about a few things coming soon (with pictures!)
First one is a graphic refresh to the UI.
I’m starting with this one, because you’ll see it in the Soulforge & Dungeon screenshots below! Basically Gems is showing its age a little bit, and we’d like to give it a slick new upgrade to look like a game from 2017! This is quite a big change, and is still a work in progress, so don’t judge too harshly!
Full disclosure: This is a mockup, and not from the actual game! It’s ALSO not quite final yet. Apart from Soulforge & Dungeon Menus, you won’t be seeing this new UI until 3.2!
Next is the crafting system - the Soulforge.
Here is a first screenshot of crafting. I’m not going to go into any details on crafting TODAY (more coming on that later), but just wanted to give you a teaser for the various bits of crafting! Crafting needs a new resource called JEWELS, and Jewels come from the next item down…
Full disclosure: Another mockup, though we have this screen working in game now, and it looks like this one! Also… numbers on here WILL change!
The Dungeon System
Every day has a different Dungeon, and each Dungeon has 3 wicked bosses to fight! For beating them, you get… you guessed it… Jewels! Each day’s dungeon is themed around a different element (except for Sunday – it’s special), and allows you to win Jewels of the appropriate color! Simple!
Full disclosure: Another mockup, though we have this screen working in game now, and it looks like this one! Also… numbers on here WILL change!
Okay, that’s enough from me. Stay tuned for more previews though when I get a chance!
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Here’s hoping its as awesome on release as it is in the mock-up. Well done dev team!