For guilds that like to play fair: without spending gems, or loading up low level islands with high level gunners, it's become increasingly difficult to win. I have a couple suggestions to level the playing field. For guilds that like to gem their way to the top we still allow them to do it, but set a limit on how often an individual pirate can do it perhaps only once, or twice a rumble. The advantage of limiting how often you can speed up the pirates recruitment times is that it creates a situation where you can use it strategically to your advantage rather than brute forcing your way to the win. My second suggestion will probably be rather unpopular, but it will fix the issue of guilds loading up low level islands with high level gunners, to destroy other low levels for lots of BP. Basically you make it so that the current level of your pirates is used for the donated pirates rather than, the donating players level. So if you have a level 10 gunner, any pirates donated to you are level 10. This at least keeps the playing field level on all fronts. Rumbles should be fun and rely on the skills of the players,not how much money they spend. The guild works hard to put up points there's no reason they should get crushed by an opponent who gems like crazy to win.
The rumbles really do need to be fixed. They just aren't fair or fun in their current form. I don't mind the advantage given to gemmers. That's the business model for this "free" game. The weighting that heavily favors low level players is what ruins them for me. It takes most of the skill out of the game and eliminates the incentive to upgrade pirate halls. It would be so much better for the game and the community to encourage players to upgrade their own islands and attack more challenging islands. Scores should be based on the pirate ranking of islands you defeat. Boosting your own pirate ranking will allow you to attack more difficult islands and earn more points. Having a poorly designed island of your own will get you attacked and reduce your ability to earn points. Shifting the emphasis to having strong islands and pirates will encourage many to spend more on gems so that they can be more effective. Making the game more challenging, fair and fun will get more people playing it enthusiastically. The need to maintain a higher pirate ranking will make it harder to upgrade your islands by farming weaker islands, which will also encourage gem spending on upgrades.
This is never gonna happen. It's a for-profit game. Gems make them money. Plain and simple. This has been suggested long ago and they are aware of the mini issue.
Can match ups be based on average rumble score instead of PH ranking, etc? I run a good guild of players who try to rumble regularly we average 50-60k per rumble. We just finished a rumble where we had pirates United guild in our line up and they finished with 600k. If we were matched up against other similar guilds based on score, it would make it more enjoyable vs. throwing in the towel as soon as you see some of these heavy hitters in your matchup. I gem during rumbles pretty heavily but at some point, I don't bother since I can never catch up to them. Midoki could make more money off of me by implementing this change.
I think they were matching the guilds more fair but it took one of our PU guilds around 36 hours to match. Not sure what happened with the match ups though, good point
The old problem used to be artificial guild rank with use of Minis, it was no fair cause the minis would load their GS with high level troops... And it wouldn't do any good attacking minis. Glad that's a thing of the past
This punishes guilds that score high though. If a guild scores highly, they're going to have to have a tough rumble every single time. This kills motivation as well. If tough guilds always face other tough guilds, many will stop trying to rumble as often since it's too stressful to deal with that every day, and given how much more those tougher guilds spend, this isn't a good thing for business. I have another solution that may work just as well though: match up the next rumble based on the previous day's placement in a rumble- not looking at score at all, just how high they place. Guilds that haven't rumbled recently will count as wildcards to fill in leftover slots. A guild that wins every time will always match other guilds that won their rumbles- some of which will be weaker guilds that won an easier rumble, but those weaker guilds still win more often. If a guild comes in last, they're going to match only other guilds that came in last, so the next rumble is a lot easier. At least half of the time you should have a considerably easier rumble, and the other half will be more difficult. Guilds that rumble less often will be encouraged to at least start a rumble during their off days, so their next real rumble is an easier one, so matchup times may improve because of that. Guilds that score 60k and come in third will match other similar guilds every other day, and still have some chance of matching easy guilds even when they match other winners, as half the time other lighter guilds will be in the same boat. This still makes it a bit harder on guilds that consistently score high, but it gives a serious incentive to weaker guilds to rumble more often, helping matchup times, and at least guarding against a string of many losses in a row, which kills spirits, Since weaker guilds will match up more often, the member count parameter could also probably be relaxed more - those 3 member guilds will come in last often and then the next rumble face other last place guilds, so they can provide filler every other day for the harder rumbles, while still winning half the time (since they're likely to come in last in the next first place rumble, and get a last place rumble every other day) There's probably a better less polarizing solution that helps a bit against oscillation, and guards against guilds intentionally tanking to get easy wins, but it's definitely a start.
I really like your input Skye! I was also thinking if guilds were paired according to their Sea Ranks (something Midoki hasn't yet implemented, which would be nice). Sea Ranks: Golden Shellback. 1st Ranked Tier Trusty Shellback. 2nd Ranked Tier Royal Order of the Dragon. 3rd Ranked Tier Blue Nose. 4th Ranked Tier Polly Wog. 5th Ranked Tier Slimey Wog. 6th Ranked Tier
The rumbles do need to be more fairer I agree, our guild is bored of having no chance unless you spend lots of money on gems. They do not seem so much about skill anymore just a case of who spends the most gems to get the most attack wins. Maybe if a total number of battles for the guild was in place.. say 500 battles per rumble. Once that has run out other victories would not count towards the rumble score. This means that people still can gem but also means that others that want to battle the normal way can do also.
