When you add in the stats from Kingdom levels, Elite levels, Guild statues, and Factions, it can be considerably more. Also, higher levels players will have access to way more troops, traits, ascensions, etc. Taking away certain troops/traits would likely hurt new players more than older players, because older players can find plenty of workarounds and ways to loop that newer players may not have access to.
Like @Magnusimus said, metas exist in all games like this. Take away or nerf one, and a new one will pop up. Gotta learn to work around it; taking away troops/traits will primarily hurt the players who can’t compensate - the newer players.
True, but there are a decent number of players I’ve seen under 1500 that are at or very close to having all possible stats from Kingdom Levels and Power, Guild Statues and Faction Renown. And have all the good troops. They aren’t that much worse off than those in the top 0.1% of the level range.
The other thing I’ll note is that, because Guild Wars rewards are so skewed toward the top, I really don’t think it’s a mode worth stressing over unless you are in the top.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t care, or your opinion shouldn’t matter, if you’re not in Bracket 1, or Brackets 1-10.
I am saying that those at the top should probably have a large say in how the mode is played just because they’re the ones with the most to lose (at present). They’re the folks with the highest stakes. Their skin is I’m the game to a larger degree.
Those who aren’t need not stress over the META. What those folks should (I think) be worried about is how unfair the reward distribution is, how long it takes to climb the ranks (including the slow slog of wading through “dead” and semi-dead guilds), and the struggles involved with player attrition (since hopping to new guilds is often easier than building a guild up from the bottom).
On another note, not to change topics too hard — I do notice a lot of dual-empowered teams nowadays. But, interestingly enough, at least to me, is that what the hero holds, or what the fourth troop is, seems to shift a lot more than I used to see in the past. People are experimenting with a lot of different glass cannons right now, whereas when Life and Death was King I saw the exact same version month after month for like a year. And it’s further curious to see which pair of converters gets used on which color day — which day gets Zuul? Which day, if any, gets Bee or Life and Death? Does any day get some of the tricks of the past, like Webspinner or Goblins?
I never know on any given War these days, and that’s sort of…exciting? Interesting? I don’t know.
My words are muddied, and my thoughts are hard to articulate as I fight FOR MY HORDE
I disagree that the top guilds should get a bigger say, but completely agree here. Because of the broken lower brackets as you pointed out, the meta teams don’t matter for us lower bracket folks. But, sometimes those top bracket guilds dont want or care about fixing problems for the lower bracket guilds. It either doesn’t affect them, or they benefit from it. So, I hesitate for them to get more of a say.
I will admit this thread has been interesting. GW is such a joke that I don’t even look at the teams I am fighting. I just start the fight, faceroll on the screen, and bam, win. Empowered? Why do I care? There is no strategy. Sometimes I fight level 5 troops. Seeing this much chatter about actual strategy makes me envious. One day we will get through all the dead guilds. Maybe. Probably not. Over a year and counting.
If they improve this luck based trash or remove it entirely they will get more players staying and the top GW guilds will have no trouble recruiting people. I have seen far more people say they hate GW over arena and I have seen a lot of people quit the game because they hate GW so much.
GW was bugged and flawed when it first came out but at least it required some stratagy to get max points but it has been dumbed down to being a joke when empowered converters can win you the match on your first turn or lose you the match before you get a second turn and a lot of the time the winner is just the one that had better board aligment.
If you hate Wars there is a solution. Don’t play wars. I don’t like Arena so I don’t play it. I’m not asking them to remove it. It was Luck based when you exploded the board and hoped something would happen. At least with Gem converters there is some board control. Bad players hate board control. They would rather explode board and hope something good happens. Wars is once a month anyway so if you hate it just play another mode. There is lots of other stuff to do like PVP, Explore, Invasion, and World event. Also arena and maps plus all the week day events. Should not let a mode lots love but you hate bother you. Chill out. It will go away not week.
I don’t play anything I quit the game 4 months ago.
With gem converters if you can’t stop the extra turn alignments you won’t even get a second turn or if you do most of you team is dead and the surviving troops are close to death. If you really want to think people that dislike the luck based dumbed down converters are bad players than go ahead.
LOL. I have seen so much more hate than love for GW.
I really don’t care what happens with GW. I’m not trying to get it removed or changed just saying you are wrong that people will quit the game if GW is changed or removed. If I do come back to the game and the luck is removed and stratagy returns I will go back to one of my guilds that requires GW and if it stays the same I’ll just go back to my gold only guild.
@rojo and other empowered lovers.
The problem with empowered troops is not that we can’t counter them, but the thing that they make game dull. You have to use empowered troops to get a chance instead the option to build an interesting team. The game mode which shall be the most versatile due to human created enemies is actually the most dull cause your only chance and no matter if it is defense or offense. If somebody uses an empowered troop you have to use one too.
Lets do a thought experiment:
Remove the empowered converters from the game. You encounter Zuul in gw, how many ways you can find to beat him? A dozen at least, I would say.
With empowered converters how many options you left? Maybe two? Either you take an empowered converter to disable the enemy’s emp. converters or you take an empowered troop to drain mana, and that’s it, no other options.
I enjoy building and trying new team ideas but I can’t tell my guild oh I lost all my battles cause I tried some fun teams.
That’s why most of us would love to see them removed/reworked.
As others have said, I’d want them to look into doomed books first. The lack of variety in GW teams might resolve itself if the books were a smidgeon less powerful.
I don’t think I have ever fought a GW defense team with Zuul. I do put him on mine but often my defense scores are often 0/0. Currently, I am three days in a row with 0/0 on defense.
I understand the complaints, but this issue effects so little of the playerbase. I think so many are vocal here because we have a lot of top bracket folks in older guilds here. This is a minority group.
If it were the luck of the boards in every battle, then the leaderboard would shift a lot more than it does. Because the results would be random — based on whoever got the better boards that week.
Because the rankings by and large are the same month after month, that tells me there is something non-random determining the winners and losers.
It is true I often load battles in that now have multiple empowered starts for the opposing team. I can try:
to disrupt the board myself to get rid of the conversions — not always possible — either by matching (whether what I match gives me mana or not, maintains the turn or not) or using my own empowered starters. In many cases, my empowered converter(s) are meant to fuel some sort of sniper, that can take out what the opponent’s empowered converters are meant to fuel. These teams — offense and defense — are Glass Cannons — they fall apart at the slightest touch to their heavy-hitter, but the precariousness doesn’t make them without strategy. In fact, they require a lot, because you have to be on your toes to be sure what you intend to do to the defense doesn’t happen to you: kill one troop, maybe two, and then the empowered converters just limp along; or, alternatively, kill the empowered converter engines and watch the rest of the team be mana-starved while you take your sweet time ending it.
take a move for the mana I want and hope the opposing team doesn’t roll me — the prayer can be a pretty strong bet with Snap Freeze, a lot of the time, or with troops that mana drain, or even just taking the color more likely to make a 4+ happen thanks to skyfall
take a match, when all else fails, that limits what their empowered converters can do. Yeah, they’ll extra-turn. But, if you play it smart, it won’t matter — they won’t have enough mana off that extra turn, and you might have even tricked them into leaving a board state you want to have.
I don’t claim to win every fight, or that every fight is winnable. There are some situations that basically can’t be overcome — a Megavore’s From the Depths proceeding in conjunction with a Thief’s Rising Shadows can end you pretty quick, and I have seen some truly awful starting boards. BUT — this is NOT a coin-flip. There wouldn’t be players with 90+% win-rates if it were.
And anyone who wants to call players with 90+% win-rates “lucky” maybe needs to think harder about why their empowered converters were up front so that the real power of their team was able to be killed by a thief and a fish due to a couple unlucky RNG rolls…
(i.e — risk mitigation begins at team creation, not upon loading a board state. Anyone consistently blaming the board is consistently failing to turn the board to their advantage before the battle has even begun)
What folks here are proposing is to make Zuul with 32 mana cost impossible to fill. There are troops that can one shot Zuul with 6 mana which is one turn. If it’s an extra turn with right banner ZUUL is dead without the DEF even getting a turn. Why do you see so many books now. Well folks complained about life death til they Nerf it so much he now basically can’t win on Def. It is so funny seeing folks that want to rush their battles and lose complain about complete and utter nonsense. All troops and weapons should be able to be used in Wars because you earned or bought or whatever those troops. There are already troops restrictions in most other modes and people complain about that on forums all the time. Let’s not make guild Wars into that. There are no restrictions in wars except you have to use 24 unique troops on Def and use color of day on attack for max points. They are not really restrictions because you can use what you want but you will just get fewer points than the folks that are going strictly by the rules win or lose. I think some folks complain because they have expectations of never losing or game is broke. The others I think are just habitual complainers. The thing is if some folks could use converters but you can’t then I would be 100% behind you. That is not the case. The guilds that win wars are the ones that take their time and the ones that lose rush their battles and complain about the results. The guild I’m in you only have to have battles done by end of week. Daily we could care less. If you want to win you should communicate more with your guild members and if that’s not possible maybe join a top guild that does communicate.
We finish #1 6 out of last 7. We finished 1 or 2 every wars past 12 months. Working for us because we put in the work. Not a bias unless we get converters and you don’t. It’s a fair playing field. We just have better players I guess.
Currently, I am three days in a row with 0/0 on defense.
