Making 100% is harder.

This, especially if you're not attacking with particular strategy to avoid getting hit in the first place.
It will more heavily affect spray and pray attackers.

 

For me I have bad days and good days. A lot I think depends on the timing of troop drops and how the quirky AI decides to work, couple that with the new beefier defenses (I'm looking at you, you filthy canons) and you can easily loose a crap ton of troops if you're not careful.

That being said there are times I honestly believe my perks/buffs are not working because my troops die sooooo quick its obviously something wrong.

 

My pirates have reached the max level, and I play as well as before.
To drop them at similar position, but it happened since this Monday or Tuesday, after that my troops also die soooooooon quick, I don't believe nothing has been changed.

Last weekend we have a rumble, my score is 46,491 in 100 games but in this weekend is only half.
I play the same way as before, now this week I only play 49 games and most of it I could not get 100% at several simple maps.

Than I lost the exciting feel to play continuously.

Regarding some gentlemen mention the strategy, could anyone tell me how to negotiate with Ana to follow my order?

Please kindly review it, thanks and nice weekend.

 

Defensive upgrades were lacking behind offensive. As you stated, your troops have been maxed but defenses continue to upgrade. Let me tell you now, defenses will continue to upgrade, so expect things to get even more challenging.

As for Anna, deploy your troops in a manner that they stay in only 1-2 groups, so Anna only has option of 1-2 places to jump to. Using her with Priestess can keep the defenses stunned for great lengths of time.

 

Thank you Spongee, I will think about what you mentioned.

The player of level 600~700 plays hard than others, their weapons have been upgraded since few months/weeks ago. If you play at this level for a while you will play with the same people, the same map!

Compared between two weeks, I could win them (in 100%) easily last week! but this week I only could conquer it in 70~80%..
Event the weapons are the same, the troops die so fast, I am so surprised, I haven't change my deployment.
How come my troops die so fast?

That is why I don't agree with you, of course that is my experience, perhaps that is what you call "bad day".
But how come some and more people starts to complain their troops die so fast in this week or to have a bad day more frequently?

 

In general, if people mess up a couple times in a row, they will assume something has changed that isn't their fault and things are different, and there are many different sorts of psychological biases that reinforce that assumption.

Since the game has not had any update or server-side change, that possibility is completely ruled out, so its time to start actually deducing what else could be causing your losses.

Options left include:

Attack troop level, selection and placement. You say these are all identical, and yes your finger could have tapped a tile to the side of where it had before, or the timing could be a second off, but lets assume you're correct and everything here is identical and you haven't just been attacking poorly. There are still ways to explain it.

Defense level and placement. You say the bases all have completely max levels so that rules out levels, although I don't think many have finished their walls and that leaves at least one thing that has likely changed, but I'll trust that your attacks before and after were only against bases with absolutely every single wall, mine, and defense at max level like you said. Sometimes having even one item slightly different could make a huge deal to how the AI plays out, and not just wall/defense levels, but the positioning of decorations at the shoreline, nevermind the positioning of real defenses, like a certain recent tweak to flamegate placement in popular bases. Are you positive they haven't moved their decorations around slightly, causing you to deploy your troops in a different 4x4 waypoint block? That would significantly effect their behavior in some situations. Have the bases moved their flamegate to the new location? That changes AI even more significantly.

LP level and choice - Assuming the LP isn't the first thing you take out, this is a huge difference from day to day. They may have had a different LP on defense, or the LP could have been a lower level. A lv 10 LP is going to do much less than a lv 25 LP, and pretty much anyone is going to do much less than Caesar or Ching. If Caesar is on defense, my attacks have to change drastically compared to if Ching is on defense, which still have to change from a weaker LP on defense. Extra HP to things is a huge deal - troops may spend an extra second or two in the blast zone of the mortar, and an extra shell or two of splash damage will drastically change many fights.

Once you rule out the impossible (the game changing), you have to accept that either your attacks have gotten worse, or they have changed their defense to something better. I am of the opinion that most players haven't completely finished their base yet, and have likely made small upgrades and tweaks to their layouts, and have probably upgraded their LP or started using a better choice on defense. This would explain why many players are experiencing it, and not just you, since other players are also dealing with defenders improving their situation.

100% should not be easy or given, 1* is still a victory, and from the defender's point of view, unless he has prevented you from getting even 1*, it was a defensive loss. The defender is trying to keep you from getting even 1*, so if you're doing well enough to get 2*, that is already a huge win. I personally wish the game was considerably harder than it is, since I prefer defense and I hate that its nearly impossible to prevent even the most unskilled of attacks from getting at least 1*, but if 3* was easy there would be no reason to even try defending. 3* is supposed to be extremely hard against a well designed maxed base, not some easy handout of points that players seem to expect.

 

If a Dev gets on and says nothing has been buffed or nerfed, you can believe it. As Skye alluded to earlier, meaningful coincidence (a few lost battles due to an unnoticeable and unexplainable change in defense) can create a perceived change in overall game balance to the observer. At a certain point, it starts to become self full-filling. You expect a change in defensive strength due to troop nerfing or defense buffing (Skye pointed out a few extremely legitimate and plausible scenarios) and you become unable to see the the real reason for the change in your attacks. As always, people deny such an occurrence since from their perspective they are convinced there is a change in game behavior, and not them.

 

Thanks Skye and Spongee.

I totally agree with Skye, and understand when a parameter changed will have a different result.

I think we are just at an opposite position, I am a player who pursues the exciting feeling, and you belong to defensive side, just like the batter and pitcher.

But the problem is how many players could distinguish it between challenge and frustration?

No worry, I will continuously to play like dark(offensive?!) side and to find the challenge from the defensive side.

Happy gaming to everyone.

 

I think that a 3* is not a given, you got to earn it, in the other hand think about the positive, if you are having problems beating an island 3* maybe others are having the same problem against your island, I remember when troops were stronger than def and anybody could 3* your island just by deploying all their troops at once, there was no strategy on it, I believe that we got a better balance now and no, I don't think Midoki has changed anything, embrace the challenges

 

Sitting on my gems, with nothing to spend for. Sadto say, but this game has become boring to me.

Make "Events" regulary and challenging(not as easy as the last sailing event)on a weekly basis, add more upgrade levels to legendaries(i have maxed 10/12 and the 2 remaining are close) or give me anything to do.

@Lynsey [Midoki] Hey Midoki i am willing to buy gems but with nothing to spend for, no point at all.

 

I would be a normal player. Even though I've been playing for over a year now, my base is not maxed and my pirates are just beginning to be trained Academy 8 (getting BP for academy upgrades seems like a joke). I've found that attacking anyone over 400 generally results in a loss for me, sometimes not even a one star win. I can throw 60 troops at a base including Juggs and still never get into the core because of the wall strength and base design. It's frustrating and honestly I'm about to hang my hat up on this game. When you add in the changes that have been made in the Rumble scoring, it's very hard for a medium level player to move up any. In order to score well in rumbles, we have to take out high level bases - which is impossible or low level bases, which give way less points. None of the pirates seem to directly target walls, but will go all the way around to a place where they can be quickly destroyed by ground pounders. Farming is near impossible as well as we cannot get matched up with lower level bases, even with a low player rank. So... in short... it's hard to make money to upgrade pirates. It's hard to win bases and get more BP. It's overall just frustrating.

 

@DredPirateDogma The challenges you mention are present, but also avoidable. Sounds like the main issue seems to be your desire to do well in rumbles. Reality is, rumbles are geared heavily towards the higher level players. If you are pressuring yourself to do well in rumbles...stop. Just keep rank low and farm until your are stronger. If you are in a guild that encourages high rumble scores instead of island development, I suggest you seek out a guild that prioritizes player development over rumble scores. There are a few good ones in this game that can alleviate the issues you are encountering with advice and no pressure to generate high scores. For those who do not possess the high level islands, this game is about farming and development.

 

I completely understand Dred, it can be frustrating for me at times too and my troops are almost max'd. During rumbles I have to search out bases I know I can beat (three stars of course) and it takes a lot of skipping to do so.

I think the big factor is the amount of time needed to farm and upgrade your base/troops once you reach the medium/upper levels. One can't play a little and sit on any kind of large amount of the gold/grog because you will get nailed in a matter of minutes (it seems) and so the only option is to sit and play a bunch gaining the upgrade you are looking for before logging off. I wish I could better store my loot.

 

So what you are saying is that a fully maxed academy 9 army minus perks, guild ship troops and an LP can take down a fully maxed base.....that's really hard to believe. If so I really need to bone up on my attacking skills because currently I'm no where near able to do that

 

On top of what Spongee said:
At PR in the low 400s, there is plenty of extremely underdeveloped or poorly designed bases. This is where I get my points during rumbles, and I typically fight extremely weak PH10 bases just so the battle will end faster, as battle time is more important to me than gem cost in a tough rumble. Unless its a rumble rival I don't bother with those usually, since fighting dozens of that same design a day would be too boring. But here's some ideas to help if you're having trouble with a base design:

-Copy it and watch the replay of all the people that manage to easily get 3* against it.

-Look at it and start thinking about how you would plan your attack ahead of time. Once you can beat a base once, you can beat it every single time practicing repeating what you did, which means as soon as you take out that tough design, you can take out every single base in the game that copies it, which makes things easy and boring quick. If you fail one way, try a different way of attacking- your army may not be the right build, or you may be deploying in the wrong place, or with the wrong timing between releasing troops. Dropping all your troops in one place is rarely a good idea against a good design. There are lots of battle strategies on the forum, or if theres a base you're struggling with and people in your guild can't help, ask on the forum. Plenty of us are happy to help players learn.

You said 60 troops which makes me believe you're a lower PH, as PH9/10 have 70 slots. I can beat those max bases with under 60 slots instead of 80 (70+10gs), but my troops are max, and when I use significantly less slots, I definitely need an LP to get the third star, and mine are mostly fairly high level. One star is still a victory though!

Consider focusing on only fighting bases around the same level as you, if you aren't fully upgraded on troops, focus on bases that aren't fully upgraded on defense. Underleveled troops will not do good against higher level defenses, defenses are balanced around troops with a similar upgrade level.

You said you had difficulty with walls - this gets a lot easier when you have high level bombers, you just aren't to that point yet - try hard to get your bombers upgraded to Wallbreaker 2. As soon as they have that, walls become a joke, as it over doubles how much damage they do to walls and it will almost always be faster to bomb through rather than walk around. Don't release your other troops except what is needed to protect your bombers until the wall is breached, so they don't walk around.

Sadie and Ching both help a lot with walls. Sadie will instantly destroy whatever wall she is targetting, and if the closest defenses are inside the walls, Ching will encourage your bombers to run straight for it and bomb through and avoid other stuff in the way, plus she boosts their damage, which then gets amplified even further with wallbreaker. Also don't forget to kaboom if they're about to die!

Also, walls can usually be bypassed by SR, and if you sink a ship like the GS, SR can fly over that as well, if you have good wind. Most of those tough bases can be compromised with good wind and a herd of SR, and once the GP is down, the base is trivialized.

High level bases shouldn't be easy to beat for average players without practice, or defense would have no point, but you don't have to be an average player. Come to the forums, learn some battle strategy, watch defense replays and see what other people are doing. They'll stop being tough.

You don't have to fight high level bases though. For farming, I can pull in 25-50m of both resources gemfree with little effort every day, and could probably do 100m with a bit more time. Upgrades are easy to save for, look for my most recent post on that. And weak troops don't effect that at all! And if you aren't maxed, your focus should be upgrading, not winning.

As for BP, you can pull in a steady stream of 1k+ a day farming battered chests. If you log on regularly and put a lot of time into it and skip out on other farming, it could conceivably be as high as 2k a day, but if you're a slacker like me, its around 1k. This is still enough to have more than enough for the next AC upgrade before all the troops in your current AC are maxed if you do it daily, nevermind the extra PH upgrade time and the time to build the AC. Again, find one of my posts on this.

 

I would really like to see some videos of 100% on fully maxed out wedge bases. No matter what I try lately my troops to where they feel like it stand under a gp and die in 1 hit. Bombers seem to never go right for the wall I place them in front of and would rather wall along the walls looking for a opening unless being used on my layout in which case a bomber will go through 3 thick walls instead of the 0 thick wall in line with a gp...

 

Totally agree!! There is DEFINITELY something different with gameplay, no question about it.
It's much harder today than yesterday. Midoki, you can't deny you tweaked something!
For one, wd wanders off stupidly, bombers don't break walls as easily, units die faster...
Annoying to say the least...

It can't be coincidence that so many are complaining all of a sudden!!

 

On the flip side my lame base is actually holding against some hefty attacks

 

Randomly dropping troops and getting a 3* is lame. They tweeked the defenses to be stronger, not impossible. I still get a 3* almost every attack and I am over rank 600. Usually over rank 700. I just hate that the game has predominantly been tweeked so the wedge base is the only thing I see these days. It's monotonous and getting boring. They need to change something because all the bases looking nearly the same isn't fun. But watching my defence destroy pirates(especially a rumble rival) is quite fun and amusing.