That’s a big post but let’s face it B1 is once again being wrecked by mixer. We know who is at it. If we ain’t playing our own individual wars then there is no sense of collective skill or effort. Personally if sum1 wanted to play my games or stream them to “help” then I would rather lose than “enjoy” a hollow victory. Wars is once again fooked
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“mixer” ? 
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I heard Mixer dont exist anymore since a few days. The cheaters have now moved to Twitch apparently.
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Not necessarily. Just like with any other activity, there are people with varying degrees of innate talent. It doesn’t make them better at the game than you but it could make them better at pattern recognition or whatever other factor allows someone to complete their matches faster.
My GW matches can take anywhere from 20-30 minutes a day to 60+ minutes a day depending on how much I care about my score. That could also be a factor.
The last option is that perhaps someone isn’t being entirely honest in an attempt to flex.
You can’t profit from ANY EVENT that you contribute a “fair” share towards completing. Weekly events like Invasion and Raid Boss would give 55-65 or so Gems back but buying to Tier 3 costs 250 Gems total. Even this week’s World Event costs 100 Gems if you want to target earning 1/30 of the required points, and it doesn’t give you a profit back.
This is normal behavior for Gems of War. Gems are the price of admission to participate in events if you want to complete them. The fact that other events give “other carrots” is immaterial because those carrots are of varying value depending on the player.
I suspect I am grossly misinterpreting your tone on this but it’s coming across as entitled whining that you feel you should be able to play the gamemode with the highest payout potential in the game for free…and I would agree with you if Sentinels didn’t exist.
They are optional. At the top end of competition where everyone uses them, not using them can put you at a detriment, but they are nevertheless just as optional for you as they are for the ladies and gents in Bracket 100.
The devs could level the playing field completely and get rid of them. Why don’t they? Because they are a Gem sink. No one gets a free pass on a Gem sink, whether you’re in Bracket 1 or Bracket 101. I would hazard a guess that this particular Gem sink is targeted at players of your caliber more than players of mine, because the higher up you go the more you feel the pressure to get every possible advantage…but I would also wager that a lot of us GW plebians also get snared in the net, because easier stats = easier battles, and when you hate GW, easier battles is a really nice prospect.
TL;DR - It’s a Gem sink, and this company loves Gem sinks. Don’t hold your breath on anybody getting a free pass, or the sink being removed.
In your opinion. People can and do. If Sentinels are to be free, they should be free for all, or removed from all. See the above comment about why that is unlikely to happen.
Doing something less often does not magically make that thing more valuable.
You’re a forum regular. I’m sure you’ve seen me do my fair share of critiquing of the game direction. How many times have I posted about “new events and their Gem sinks”?
Guild Wars were reduced in frequency to make room for Gem sinks. This was absolutely a nerf to Gem gain, and by design. Players getting up to 6,000 Gems for free per month was no longer acceptable to the business plan when that amount could be slashed by 75% while driving more Gem sales due to implementing new events that all run on energy sigils that have to be purchased in a shop if you want to participate in any measurable capacity.
Again, I am going to assume I am grossly misinterpreting your tone here, but doing the equivalent of stamping your feet and saying “But but…it’s NOT FAIR!!!11!111” is not going to change the devs’/publisher’s minds and cause them to apologize and hand over an extra 4500 Gems per month for free.
Yes, it does. Yes, they will. People who started the game before me have Gem stashes and Glory stashes I cannot even DREAM of accumulating. People who had massive Glory stashes were able to cash out before the nerf on buying Event Keys in the shop.
These nerfs were done to stop the pool of the “mega-rich” from getting any larger without significant financial investment, and since then, steps have been taken to try draining off some of those reserves. Like implementing a whole series of Gem-sink events, for example.
If my post history doesn’t make it obvious, we are in perfect agreement here.
Respectful disagreement is A-OK in my book. I understand a lot of your points even if I don’t agree with them.
Yes, a source of Gem income (Guild Wars) was cut. Nobody is going to have their GW payout quadrupled to make up for the nerf and return their Gem income to its former amount, because the nerf was intentional. We have three choices: roll with it to maintain our own personal status quo; change our personal situation to lessen the impact (i.e. drop brackets or join a guild that doesn’t expect you to buy Sentinels so you can save 340 Gems per week); or quit the game.
Resource nerfs been the trend of the game for a while now and will continue to be the trend of the game as far as I can tell. Your responses feel emotionally charged and that tells me that you might be mourning what was lost. That’s the same sentiment that goes into a lot of my critiques as of late. Like I posted in another thread, I feel like my days here are officially numbered. I just don’t know what that number is.
To quote one of my favorite movies, “I am a relic, and I have misplaced my tambourine.”
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*Except Guild Wars. If you finish in the Top 3.
I think the “Top 3” should be at least the Top 10–that’s pretty much it.
Didn’t expect to be called “entitled” or receive pushback for requesting that at least one bracket in the game was profitable for all involved, or that one event would be rewarding as opposed to taxing.
All I’m arguing as far as rewards go is that the current .03% of this game’s elite class be expanded to a mere 1%. Hardly Marxian, or destabilizingly radical, methinks.
But I am surprised to see this; isn’t it just as icky here that the expectation is “you have to buy this to keep up” as it is for the passes, especially since for 70% (at least) of the people being pushed toward the purchase won’t see the return they envisioned from the investment? Or is it the fact that gems are what is being extorted make the difference, since they don’t exactly equal real money?
I don’t expect anything to change. I think my original post made it clear I was being pretty fatalistic—the ship has sailed. I’d be lying if I claimed not to be upset the course seems set to the Strait of Messina when we could have gone to Hawaii instead, though.
And now we have wandered far afield from “on-topic.”
ON-TOPIC:
Guild Wars should have its own dedicated week to accommodate those who take it seriously, and also to allow people with time constraints to take it seriously without missing out on other aspects of the game.
It should also be updated so that all players feel compelled to take it seriously. It should be explained to the playerbase so more people “get it” and can actually compete without going through a top-guild boot camp (which, of course, would probably still be beneficial). I would like to see it be more fair, being the only truly-competitive event, and I would like to see that caring from all players is rewarded. The only way I see that happening is to have rewards not be the same regardless of how a guild performs — which is basically true for all brackets that aren’t at the tippy-top. Other guild wars quibbles that have been argued ad-nauseam elsewhere for years…
I wouldn’t know. I use neither and nor do you or U1. It’s quite pathetic when a guild can’t trust ALL of its team to win or lose
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Hence my disclaimers about the assumption I was likely severely misinterpreting you, which appears to have been the case; but at the same time, that’s how the words came across (likely thanks to the fact that text doesn’t carry emotion very well). I am sorry I took your words in a way they were not intended.
About the rewarding vs taxing…I actually agree. I would love to see a mode that’s pure reward! And no, I don’t consider Explore or Treasure Maps to be pure reward - I would like to see a full week-long event with no Gem sink where active participation actually gives players something of real value (as opposed to a few Runic Traitstones and a handful of Souls).
Which will likely never happen, because “dollars”.
It is quite icky. Just like in my own posts about icky, I’m seeing the cold logic of it as a business decision and basing my responses around that.
The only counter I have, and one that I suspect any “official” response would include, is that there are avenues in the game that allow players to acquire Gems without spending cash, which include the blue guild guardian and tribute collection. Fundamentally, this is true. However, you are quite correct that it doesn’t eliminate the aforementioned ickiness at all.
Yup. I’m right there with you on this.
I don’t know what changes would be required for me to be comfortable with this, but that’s because I personally despise Guild Wars. Even in my modest location floating between Brackets 5-9, I encounter far too many grief teams for it to be a fun game mode. If I were to feel “compelled” to play the mode as it currently stands, I’d probably stop playing it entirely instead of continuing to complete my battles to help my guild get its handful of free Gems each month.
I agree with the dedicated week concept, but I would expand this to getting rid of the weekend guild events and either turning them back into week-long events or getting rid of them entirely while cycling the related weapons through the Soulforge for collectors.
Agreed 100%. Those who wish to compete should be able to do so on as even a playing field as possible. I’m not sure how exactly that could be accomplished, though. Maybe some sort of Arena-like restrictions?
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SECONDED! THIRDED! FOURTHED! FIFTHED!
I’m so stressed out. It’s too damn much. And bounty on top of it? The most boring grind of all? Ugh.
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I’m still amazed by this thread. Too MUCH to do in a F2P game? That’s never a complaint - usually it’s “there isn’t enough to do without paying $$$” or “I have to wait how long to play again because of an energy bar?!?!”
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It’s a game streaming / sharing application. You start it up and invite your guildmaster/paragon/ringer to either coach you through the entire match or share the controls with them so they just play the match for you. In any other type of video game competition that would obviously get you banned. But that kind of cheating is A-OK here.
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I think so!
But whereas the Arena is a bare-bones strip-down, my ideal Wars situation is a ramped-up smorgasbord (which should be “shmorgasboard” but apple autocorrect assures me I am wrong 
).
What I mean is: Give everyone all troops in the event only. Fully leveled, traited, medalled—the works. If not this, then at least max out whatever a player has in his or her collection.
Same for weapons and classes, though I could be persuaded that classes need not be artificially maxed because, it could be argued, that sort of defeats the purpose of leveling them in the first place. I disagree, but whatever—I can hear the howling from some already. Ever onward nonetheless!
Knowing availability of everything might just reduce every person down to the META of the day, consider this: a war where Life and Death was not allowed. Not just for those lacking it, but everyone. Done. That’s not a defense that war. And that’s just one possible solution—periodic prohibition(s). I can think of more interesting ones, like “get 50% bonus points if your defense teams are also the color of the day.” Mix things up, keep it fresh, return to the “Classic” flavor every couple months or so to appease the diehard lovers of the way things are.
Give everyone max Kingdom and Renown bonuses so stats aren’t puny, like they are in Arena (ever get mad there when cards with high base-rate spells are able to outcompete cards that are “better” in every other mode? Yeah, me too 
). Get rid of Sentinels and Artifact bonuses, or lump ’em in, too.
Change rewards to be more meaningful, but this might not be needed thanks to no sentinels. I’d be fine if Bracket 1 looked something like 1st gets 1k gems, 2nd 900, etc… make it so the 1st place finisher of Bracket 1 retains the 500 “bonus” gems if we must.
Still, tweaking gems alone is boring to me. I think everyone should be able to choose a “secondary” reward: tokens, gold, souls, glory, guild guardians—whatever the choices are, make them payout in accordance to Bracket. In Bracket 1-10 and choose “tokens”? Enjoy your token orb that might be a Nysha, Anu, or 3 Aranea. 11-25? Anu, 3 Aranea, or 1 Aranea. So on. Allow what is chosen to be changed every war, and default to what was last chosen if no new choice is made.
Just spitballing. Orcs have lots of spit to ball.
You could even make it so that certain choices are locked out of lower brackets, or that some things like souls and/or gold don’t get as dramatically worse as the brackets descended, making those choices more attractive than “tokens” for the person in Bracket 75 who would be wise not to choose them anyway and get only Gaards when they could have gotten souls to help level troops.
Have a rulebook accessible to every player at every war that explains the event in minute detail so all understand who can. No more shadow scoring, no more scores based on dumb reasons like “you devoured that, which isn’t worth as much as killing it with Zuul’s lethal damage.” Nah. A kill is a kill is a kill. Mark it.
This would also be especially helpful if wars were more dynamic, as I suggested above, by incentivizing other playstyles with quirky bonus points. You bet your bippy I’d use my Crude Club in every fight if it meant each fight got me 500 bonus points. Crude Club is an Orc’s best friend, anyway—but I’d want to see the bonus points spelled out in the rulebook so as not to miss out, or be confused on the battlefield 
Weird idea: Turn 1 Victories are treated like bowling—you get to take a second swing. Get another, it’s a strike—bonus points! Just an idea, since Turn 1s currently can actually hurt you sometimes. Scratch this if it’s dumb (orcs are sometimes dumb—or at least accused of being so! 
)
Dead guilds drop precipitously, as great guilds rise rapidly. I’ve written elsewhere on what a “dead guild” is to me, and Chunky has gotten red in the face with me many times explaining why it should be easier for guilds to have bracket-mobility (though not the free-for-all every war that some have proposed. Have respect for longevity—just an appropriate amount, rather than an overweaning fawning like we have now for the guilds that are “the best” because they always have been).
And on an on. But I veer verbose and go off-topic again. Apologies. Passionate about Wars, especially during Wars week.
Hopefully I can be forgiven by the horde by saying, to close: the least that could be done to make Wars better for all is to keep other events out of its way, as the OP suggests, and to do so in a way that does not subtly destroy the event by making it payout less or get played less often.
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Totally agree, this is far the worst idea the dev’s ever had … until now.
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I really like the thought you put into your response in spite of it being for a game mode I don’t have a personal stake in. I actually like a lot of your ideas.
This is what kills me. Instead of having a robust in-game help system, IP2/505 have instead gone the route of requiring the player to look up external “help” articles, and the mechanics of the game still aren’t explained in detail even in those.
It’s like they’re intentionally obfuscating how the game works, and I can’t comprehend why they seem so adamant to do that.
I’ve defended their stance for not revealing the GW scoring mechanic before because it would allow participants to try and min-max their teams, but if everyone were on a level playing field, why would allowing everyone to try to min-max be a bad thing? If everyone had access to the same power level, it would come down to team construction and strategy to put some emphasis on skill and creativity, and under that kind of system (as opposed to what we have now) scoring should be fully transparent so that, again, everyone is on equal footing.
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Interesting. Did not know that - there are lots of ways to do this; I imagine.
As I understand it, the game communicates to the server before and after the match - not during. So not sure how they could police this sort of thing.
I don’t really have an issue with having too much to do but they need to make medals assignable to teams. They should have been built that way to start with, have been constantly requested by players since their inception and with world event becoming the norm it has moved from being an annoyance to an actual problem.
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I don’t know why people keep saying we need Medals tied to teams for GW. All you need to do is join a guild like mine in Bracket 73, as you attempt to find competition for over a year, where you only get attacked one day of the week. Problem solved!
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I think they said that when they provide the exact formula, players complain/send tickets that they didn’t get the good result because of them making mistakes when doing the math.
Here they are:
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Then we don’t know if there are other tweaks.
They can’t.
Something like 2 years ago, Kafka said that they dont encourage unfair use of Mixer and that they dont want players to hotseat their accounts to gain unfair advantages…
Then they realized that they can do absolutely nothing against it, so they simply took the stupid lazy stance saying that “Mixer is perfectly find to use”.
btw Mixer dont exist anymore since a few days/weeks but to replace it, the cheaters migrated to Twitch.
I do not use mixer myself but the Devs stated that it was not cheating. Calling folks cheaters is against the rules. If you have evidence of cheating then you are to send in the evidence. You are not supposed to come to forums calling folks cheaters. Not sure why folks need to be told this over and over again. Laughable
Even when you take guild wars serious, and we do in our guild in bracket 5, there was never that much to do during guild war week. Running a world event concurrently is a good thing and a fun way to complete the campaign tasks. World event battles are often ridiculously quick and easy too.
Of course people are whining about campaign tasks too, as they do about every change. So you have to do an a few extra battles or wait a day to continue, so what?
Finally, sentinel gem cost can be covered by the gems you get from the hourly tribute.
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