The New Rebalancing: an Observation, new PP version released on March 18 2015

Astonishing! Meanwhile over here I am clearly slacking with my raiding and wall upgrades...

 

No worries. With the new loot calculation formula and the inability to find good loot from PH6s, I doubt if anyone of us would manage to max out all our walls without paying to gem

 

They've tried to get back into the leader boards, they've attacked Jimmy's MM style base with 7+ fully maxed HGs combined with fully maxed Juggs for the rest with fully leveled Guild Ship Support and no dice, it's a problem and it's something that should make you feel good that's fixed because it will prevent people from being able to out rank us which makes competition not much fun. I know who's been on the leaderboards and right now some are nearly 200 points below the top ranks due to the new patch, they weren't this low yesterday. I'd like to see them raise again and challenge us, not because I think I'm the best pirate in the world, but because we love playing this game in MM.

 

No no no, you aren't slacking, I was there a week ago, it's okay, but I know it's a pain in the butt to get the walls upgraded.

 

Huge pain indeed. Now with high level walls being even more challenging to raiders, I think we all hate walls now don't we? XD

P.S. Imagining what it's like to be in a situation like yours currently, I understand how bored/down you feel

 

And like a boss, you are absolutely correct, there's no way in hell that I got my base to this level
and troops without gems, if it's not obvious, it should be.

 

Thanks for the 9 free PR points Green player guy from the Chinese guild thingy, that put me up another 9 PR points, please try again, I don't have a shield. And as a quick FYI, I'm not saying this as a taunt, I'm saying this because I'd like to show that the imbalance between defense and offense is still very NOT balanced at all. It shouldn't be this easy for me to gain PR.

 

I really hope enough people suicide on ppg to put him over 2015 and rank 1, so that the forfeit pushed chinese player has to break shield to try and take back first and drops even further. Its annoying seeing that as rank 1 :c Please take him down for me.
Wishing you luck on #1.

 

Thanks Skye, it's happening a lot now, but my PR is just going up, this is all good news for Midoki to see. I just gained another 5 PR points. This time, the same attacker mentioned in my previous post, used 8 Heavy Gunners, 9 Juggernauts, and the rest gunners in addition to full guild ship 10 tavern contribution. I beat him 44% on this huge effort, previous time, I beat him at 34%. Both times, not even a 1 star win. I don't think this should be happening, especially with a line up of 8 Heavy Gunners and 9 Juggernauts.

 

Since PPG is too modest to taunt you I'll provide an assist.
We're all waiting on your answer to the challenge below Mr. Green. Lol

 

Yeah, I get it, the strange thing is that people took this entire post as a taunt, and not a single one of us at the top, Ktown, Jimmy, and myself have lost a single battle since. Collectively, we have gained around 150 PR total by doing nothing. I'm only 23 PR points from the #3 position in the world now, fine by me, but after a while doing this, I'm sure it's going to finally click in other players heads that I didn't come here to toot my own horn, I came here to talk about a problem I see that is making the game unbelievably easy for the people at the top.

In fact, the other two at the top in my guild haven't even logged in for about 4-5 hours, their mines are broken, their flame gates out steam, but their PR keeps rising like active volcano. Another fun fact, the guy that keeps hitting us from an Asian guild has dropped from PR of 1001 when he first attacked me to a PR of 929 now that I'm looking at his base. You can keep attacking, but the problem is much more complex than that. Anyway, I'm done talking about this in this in the forum. I hope that more people see this issue so that Midoki sees what's going on. It's nice that the game is easy at this level, defense wise, but it would be much more interesting if best strategy wasn't to just log out and go to sleep.

Good luck in your pirate adventures, folks, I'll be seeing you all on the battle field I'm sure. This is the last post I'm going to make, only because I think I've made my point.

Happy Pirate Hunting!

 

I definitely get that and didn't mean to insinuate otherwise. But Mr. Green has taunted me several times today in other threads and then he taunts you in this one. So I'm just curious to see if he will put up or shut up.

 

Ahh Tex, you are fine, I'm just super conservative because I know that my posts can be taken the wrong way, but you are good to go, no worries. Mr. Green or someone he knows tried to attack us and that's fine, but it didn't work out so well. Oh well, maybe he'll understand now what I'm talking about. Hahaha, but I don't think he will, I just really want to go on the offense but it's too easy to do nothing right now!! Anyway, Tex, thanks for the support, you have no idea how many people are frustrated right now, it's sort of a nightmare and I know you see it.

 

I figured this out too late. But started gemming troops like mad when hearing about the pending changes to matchmaking. I was on a real tear over the last 2 weeks building walls and spending gems, exactly what Midoki wanted, right? Unfortunately I did't finish before the update last night. Why is it the most crappy update ever actually came early? Maybe that explains the problems. Anyway, I'm so sick of the changes I've totally stopped gemming. So it's kind of ironic that Midoki's threat of changes made me a gemmer (and it was a blast) but the actual update has completely turned me off to gemming (or playing). I've had a full crew waiting for the last 4 hours, but the game is so frustrating I'd rather not play. Seriously!

 

I shouldn't be complaining because I'm in a good spot, but I'm literally fighting for the idea that I know the game is going to be very bad for people like you, Tex, and therefore people like me who want to compete with top notch players like yourself. I don't want this game to lose players so that I have no one to fight that plays this game as detailed as I do. Anyway, I feel your frustration, not directly, but in he future I will if there isn't good players to compete with!

 

Morning Tex

PPG is a valued member of Meyham Mutineers whereby we not only work together as a guild but post helpful and informative information on the forums for everyone to see. We don't enter into 'tit for tat' banter, we love the game and enjoy playing with like minded players.
Please, and this goes for everyone, if you come across Meyham Mutineers, have a go and we can all work together to create brilliant and fun gameplay.
Enjoy your day and Plumder on

 

Great work PPG. THIS IS MIDOKI RESPONSE

Ahoy, and thanks for the feedback. A few things in response!

No pirates have been nerfed at all - their values are literally untouched.

The changes are extensively researched, and the increase to the defences' HP has been based on extensive play testing. Part of the reason for the increase is to compensate for troop donations (as a top level guild boat adds an extra 10 slots to your army), but the new numbers have also been tested with armies that have no donated troops. We've found that on optimum layout bases with max level everything, it's still more than possible to secure a 1* - 2* victory (and even 3* for some of the testers) with a max level army (we've tested multiple army compositions too) with no donations (and no Ching!).

That said, we are keeping an eye on the analytics, and if it looks like the top level victory rate (PH8 vs PH8) takes a massive dip even with donated troops, then we may look at toning the defences HP down a bit.

 

Id love to see what Midoki is testing as an "optimal base layout"

 

see? Exactly what I've told you! No offence, but stop crying and practice your offence skills. Please do not make early judgement again. I'm speaking for a large community who, have tested( on the high ranking) without the 10 bonus troops, were sill able to have 100% on all maxed PH8bases. In addition, I guess you know that our army, the most skilled players, are still farming in the low ranking but will be back to the top very soon!

 

I have a long development and database background as well, though not on iOS. Really don't think it affects gameplay or my opinion of it at all though, nor should it, because as you know, every application is dramatically different depending on how it was architected and evolved over time. I also will note for everyone else's benefit than I am your guildmate and friend, so everything I say in argument to your points is done so with the utmost of respect.

I would hazard to guess that this is because you (and the rest of us) have been playing offensively, and the last couple releases (PH8/Academy8 and CNY) both tilted the game to be much more offensively-favored than it should have been. We all grew used to that - even sloppy attack styles could get anyone into to PR 800+, and base design didn't matter so much because you could make any losses back with a few attacks and Ching and highly-leveled troops could tear up even the best of bases without a lot of difficulty. I can honestly say that while it was fun while it lasted, it was also boring in it's own way (attacks were way too predictably easy to win), and frustrating too (Jimmy, myself, and others who tried hard to develop a base that could hold off the high-level troops had a lot of challenge and could not get anything to work as well as we were in previous releases). With the previous updates, we all adapted to playing with a more offensive strategy and had fun with it. No reason to do any different with this release.

This goes to show how disbalanced things were prior to the latest update. I don't think any layout should be impenetrable or impossible to win against with proper troop deployment. The very best layouts should be difficult and require a lot of care when attacking to defeat, but it should be possible to win against them, and not by a margin of 1%.

Difficult, but not impossible. It is much easier for people to exactly copy a good layout than to develop good offensive skill. I think that our offensive skill actually dropped in the last couple releases because it was not so important. Now we must attack more carefully with patience. I was frustrated at first but then I adapted and started winning most attacks, though my current PR is nowhere near yours. Any losses I can honestly say are due to sloppiness on my part. Getting at least one star, even on pretty maxed bases, is not that difficult. And now with an extra 10 troop slots from the guild ship, it's even easier. At high PR levels, using guild ship troops is more crucial. I have won against several bases with lv11 walls without guild ship troops, though to be fair their PR is low.

This does not appear to favor lower level players, in my eyes. So many PH8's are down in the 200's and 300's now - I found many lv9-lv11 walled bases there, and relatively very few in the 400's. There is always a bit of transition pain while everyone adapts to a change, but to me this appears to discourage dropping to farm since you now have to use more troops and/or attack more carefully. But currently there are many, many high-level players down in the low PR levels working on the new wall levels, and sucking the loot availability from everyone else. This update also highly encourages training your troops, not staying content at a lower level.

You would do better playing if you got a lot of attack practices in and cultivated careful attack skill adapted to the update. I did. I doubt you will reach #3 in the world by not playing, and I think you're exaggerating here. Every layout is vulnerable to specific attacks, and I have seen obvious flaws in the attacks of the replays you shared. People will adapt to it. Even if it is possible now in the immediate term, more good layouts will float up to the top for the same reason, and you will have more competition! I think you had an advantage hitting the update with an already-high PR.

YES, I think it was. The hit point increases seem very appropriate. I am not convinced that troop toughness is at all decreased - it doesn't seem like it to me.

So you don't deploy all your troops is big clusters that are so vulnerable to mortar hits? That is a pretty fundamental tactic. You deploy so as to avoid losing too many troops at once to splash damage, and take out the mortars (and now GP's) first. That is not hard especially with the new range of the HG (which I don't even have/use yet). What's the issue?

I seriously doubt this had anything to do with money. So many people obviously bought gems to get PH8 and new upgrades, and still are. I think that Midoki is just trying to make the game more fun by making defensive strategy more important, and I personally think this latest update is GREAT! The guild ship bug is a little annoying and the lv10 distilleries costing only 6500 gold is obviously a bug but very minor. Personally, I feel LESS desire to spend gems now since I feel that my base can hold it's own defending more than it used to.

Regardless of the changes, remember that all players play the same game by the same rules, and will adapt and even out over time. It was a big change all at once, but it's hard to make these sorts of changes gradually.

Try it and see how long it works... Your base design is quite good but people will adapt and purely relying on defense won't work forever, particularly as more people get their Guild Ship built and upgraded to lv4. Also other designs also defend well and over time, those who have put the most care into their layouts will be rewarded by floating up a bit higher in the ranks, though offenses will still be important to strive for the top!

I am not trying to suck up to Midoki or anything but personally I think this latest update is absolutely fantastic and brings a lot of new fun to the game. The only thing I'd really like to see fixed is the replay accuracy - I would much rather see them spend energy on this than any rebalancing. I would advocate stop worrying too much about rank and just play and adapt and have fun!

Cheers mate, see you in the game!