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MrXLink

Community Manager & Designer (Retired)
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Everything posted by MrXLink

  1. It has been months now, and I want to apologise for not having had the time to tackle and implement this feedback as extensively as I'd want to. I feel like I may be a little too rough on the abuse factor of rewards in a game mode that is not straightforwardly farm-able and requires a lot of setup. The point @RadicalX makes about the 50% winrate is admittedly a huge oversight that has significant impact on the actual GPM values that would come out of this, let alone the longer queue times. However, we can't factor in queue times that much due to the current server population holding back until the wipe, so I generally hope that through these measures we're going to get some more PvP popularity in general. I was sceptical at first about Radical's idea for the higher losing values but I can understand where he's coming from, and I do believe that while this makes things easily more prone to abuse, I think it's only fair to give this system a chance as it's way fairer on your average user. Though I would personally consider this to be a bit high on the loss end for players as opposed to gaining absolutely zero for failing any rPvE, despite the fail frequency being way lower there, I think it may weigh out to make PvP more appealing, which is a general priority here. Therefore I would be willing to adopt the formula @RadicalX stated as it's pretty much in tone with the rest of the game modes (after running some calculations based on fairer, more comparable W/L rates and queue times). I do, however, still want to add to the reward for climbing the steep slope that is PvP to make it more appealing in a less bland way than to add flat rates. I have an idea of rewarding consecutive Ranked wins and possibly an incentive to keep playing PvP without turning it into a farmfest (which is still my biggest concern and a threat to PvP enjoyability), along the lines of gaining a gold multiplier on Ranked after each win, that would help the PvP community to farm up a bit better without making it directly easier than rPvE, which we can agree on should be the main go-to for farming (or speedrunning Guns of Lyr, the likes of EA-era PtD and Conversion I suppose). Without establishing a ton of dominance for high-level PvP players and/or smurf potential, there could also be a slight gold bonus for having a comeback after X losses (thus making up for lost gold bonuses). This would be a different way of stimulating repeated PvP play without simply increasing the flat gold rates or formula. An example would be to gain +3% gold after each consecutive victory, but a comeback after min. 3 losses may net a +5% gold bonus per previous loss. There would of course me maximum values to this. This way winners and losers do gain a good amount of bonus gold if they do well or manage to come back from a tight spot without it being too prone to abuse. 50/50 players would not be penalised as opposed to comebacks or streaks all that much, rPvE would not siphon unwilling players to PvP and I think this system would be a good motivator. This also incorporates @Kubik's idea of supporting constantly winning players and helping hardcore PvP players to boost their decks ever so slightly more, all without making PvP too appealing for mindless grinding, but appealing enough for variety. Example data below: I am currently aware of the possibility that Streak and Comeback bonuses could theoretically be abused by stalling a match, but I do believe stalling a PvP match would put the player at risk of being beaten in the process, and with the max time for earning gold being in place, this stalling would be a risky but not really abusive practice. With these ideas up and going for implementation, the final changes would look as follows: Increase base ranked PvP gold for victories by 20% (250 > 300) Change the gold-over-time formula for PvP matches to bring win and loss values closer together Maximum time win gold increased to 3500 (up from 1350) Maximum time loss gold increased to 1800 (up from 500) This means loss and win scaling are now 88% apart as opposed to the original 175% Sparring Grounds will now grant 33% of the gold Ranked PvP would earn, after a set time has elapsed in a match (likely more than 2m) Ranked PvP matches may benefit from a win streak and comeback system For every consecutive victory, gain a +3% gold bonus, stacking up to a max of 15% For every consecutive loss, gain a +5% gold bonus applying to your next victory, stacking up to a max of 25% Hopefully, these changes will make PvP significantly more attractive. Please feel free to give further input on these proposed changes, sorry again for the delay, and thanks a lot to @RadicalX for bringing the ongoing issues to light, so that they are ironed out before implementation.
  2. The reason accumulative time isn't a thing is because, among other reasons, one can then simply idle a 1-player map for half an hour and get the rest of their wins by having a friend surrender in PvP for example. There needs to be some sort of system in place that prevents abuse like that and ensures people spend sufficient time in-game, and I am fully aware that that is currently affecting speedruns. While currently the best solution is to pick a map that lasts slightly longer, or try out some new cards or strategies in your daily GoL grinding, I'll look into a solution here. Perhaps a win can count if it's over the fastest speedrun time recorded, that would at least have this affect a lot less speedrunners, but indirectly then penalises whoever beats the fastest run by a single win on your daily. Obviously "punishing" the best is not something we aim to do, but accumulative time is sadly a high-risk system that I really want to avoid and have rejected on multiple occasions.
  3. Greetings Skylords, Skyladies, and Skyfolks! After some time and several iterations of the gold reward system, I feel like overall rewards feel like they are in the right place. rPvE and to a degree cPvE rewards feel progressive and most players seem to enjoy the current boosted flow of gold to upgrade and charge their cards. However, there has been one difficult aspect of the game that has been far behind on this income and kind of feels like the younger, neglected brother of the BF gamemode family: PvP, specifically Ranked PvP. There have been many requests and some threads regarding the gold rewards for Ranked PvP as it stands, and that they are considered to be far too low. Why haven't we touched this before? It's because PvP is always an extra sensitive subject when it comes to game economy, as the game is fully in the hands of two players, and therefore more susceptible to feelings of rage, unfairness or abuse. Specifically the latter, abuse, is something to take very seriously, as we don't want PvP, especially Ranked, to be swarmed with players that don't care or throw for the sake of a better reward. The Ranked PvP income has therefore always been kept relatively low, despite already gaining a 200-400% bonus compared to the original BattleForge. I understand this is tough, and that the PvP community feels forced to play PvE or trade in order to get their decks set up and working. While it's a great thing to stimulate hardcore PvP or PvE players to play a different mode every now and then, the gap between rPvE (the main source of income for the majority of players) and PvP was enormous, with rPvE lv. 9 netting more than double the rewards Ranked PvP victories would give, with rPvE lv. 10 clocking in at about 2.75x as much and solo cPvE Expert Victories at nearly 4x on average (if all upgrades go to the same player). Note, however, that despite cPvE being grossly out of proportion with other game modes if soloed and speedran, cPvE feels like it's in a good spot when it comes to earning gold and upgrades as compared to rPvE in the original BF, and we would like to keep it the way it is regardless of its exploit potential for skilled players. This also has to do with the way we set up Loot Lists as per community poll request. Regardless, it sure shows that PvP, both ranked and unranked (which makes no gold at the moment), are not worth it for gold farming. It's time to change that. With your suggestions and worries regarding this subject, I decided to run some further calculations. While the calculation for PvP rewards is not as straightforward as it would seem, after some thought and many, MANY comparisons to rPvE lv. 9 (the most played gold-rushing rPvE level) and 10 (the most profitable rPvE level), I've come to figuring out some values that would be more in line with other game modes. You can review some of the thought processes behind this in my post in one of the PvP reward suggestion threads: After running some comparisons with altered rewards, I feel like the following changes will help PvP be a more viable option for those who wish to earn some gold without having to resort to PvE grinding. Additionally, I am putting some faith in you, the community, to open up some more possibilities to earn gold without having to enter the scary realm of Ranked play, which will hopefully prevent future abuse. Also keep in mind that reward/system abuse and AFK/"just kill me" matches are considered to be report-worthy offenses and you can help keep the community safe and fair by using the in-game /report tool to notify us. Without further ado, the following changes are proposed for Ranked PvP and Unranked PvP (Sparring Grounds): Increase average Ranked PvP rewards for wins from 72 Gold Per Minute to 125 Gold Per Minute Increase average Ranked PvP rewards for losses from to 27 Gold Per Minute to 35 Gold Per Minute Sparring Grounds will now earn gold equal to 33% of ranked rewards after a set time has been played These changes will make PvP victories 7x as profitable as they were in the original BattleForge, and will make sure to narrow the gap between it and rPvE. There are more factors to PvP gold rewards than a simple Gold Per Minute ratio, but for the sake of clarity these have been left out for now. rPvE9 victories will now comparatively only be about 16% more profitable (currently 102%), and rPvE10 victories will respectively be 52% more profitable in gold (currently 172%). Yes, this does mean that rPvE is still slightly better to go for, but keep in mind that this is initially what rPvE was made for and will prevent Ranked PvP from becoming dominant in gold rushing, which would be detrimental to match quality. Also, rPvE losses will grant no gold at all, whereas PvP losses will give some gold. Sparring Grounds will now also reward some gold, so you don't have to feel obliged to play Ranked if you still want to earn some gold for your training and PvP pursuits! Beware that these changes are not live yet and won't necessarily be final, but let me know what you think, and hopefully this will help breathe some life and motivation into the PvP sector of the game again! I am thinking of implementing this in the upcoming few days or so, and your reaction would be appreciated!
  4. The major problem with PvP rewards is their sheer vulnerability to abuse (e.g. AFK, doing nothing, partying up and surrendering). There's a good reason that Unranked does not yield rewards, as this would simply lead to people actively AFKing just to extend PvP matches and get their gold. In this case we deem an environment with less abuse and less wasted games to people who are actually serious more important than a substantial gold gain. However, with the current apparent ease of farming considering all you need to do anything in rPvE is to have a Lost Spirit Ship, I understand that PvP doesn't stand up to the fight whatsoever. Admittedly, BattleForge is not a well-balanced game difficulty-over-reward-wise. Conversion rates for cPvE have been outrageous in the old game (yet to this day I hear complaints about cPvE not being rewarding enough, but I digress) and so was rPvE farming, let alone PvP was utterly useless back in the day for farming as well. Considering the calculations I made are vastly based on token conversion, the current rates do reflect EA's original ratios and even there I have already manipulated PvP rewards to be more fruitful, by about 100% on a loss and 200% on a victory (roughly and very simplified), which in game design terminology is easily a huge shift and means rewards are doubled for losses and quadrupled for wins as compared to EA BF. I have gone through the numbers, and I have roughly come to the following ratios for PvP over rPvE 9/10 and cPvE with "average" rewards. I'm involving cPvE in this by means of pointing out how terrible a point of reference it is. This data is based on a 10m PvP game and does not account for queue time, so we can imagine gold incomes to be even lower for PvP. For the sake of clarity, numbers and percentages are rounded but based on live data. Mind that baffling enough, this is QUADRUPLE what EA used to offer for PvP and it's still grossly out of proportion with the rest of the map earnings (not to mention cPvE which is terribly out of balance but seems to currently be in a good enjoyability spot and does encourage players to actually revisit campaign maps over non-stop rPvE so we're currently making do with that). Either way, yes, PvP falls back way further than it should if you want to balance out game modes. However, this is not accounting for abuse, and this is a topic I'm sincerely worried about due to the nature of PvP. The PvP community is relatively small by itself, and the community that wants to play PvP to actively gain gold through PvP is even smaller. What we want to avoid is for PvP to become profitable enough to have pure gold rushers come in to PvP and ruin the experience for more serious players, especially in ranked. Current live data shows that abusing PvP is not all too profitable compared to other game modes. This takes queue time differences into account. The annoying thing here is that consistently winning at minimum time gets awfully close to consistently winning at maximum time. The problem with this is that we can't exactly penalise people for finishing their matches quickly, but we can also not promote system abuse either. There's a delicate balance here that needs to be kept. A change is needed for sure, but let's for the sake of simplicity state that we're going to up the PvP bonus to +200% baseline rather than +100%. This roughly means that instead of victories gaining x4 gold compared to the original game, they now gain x8, and losses gain x3 gold rather than x2. Since there's a logarithmic relation here, the gap between winning and losing does change, which is to account for abuse. Now the winning numbers start to look vastly different: Ignoring that yet again cPvE is grossly out of balance, this would put PvP more in line with rPvE. However, it needs to be taken into account that this PvP victory path makes more gold than an rPvE9 victory, yet losing a PvP match would also net about 76 GPM, so you'd be ignoring losses completely in these calculations. This is fair enough for your seasoned veteran Spirit Ship spammer, but for regular players this is a significant difference which isn't too hard to be found out. After all, an average of 118 GPM is quite a nice boost opposed to the 72.5 GPM rPvE9 would offer if we account for a 50-50 win/loss ratio. Would this bring more people to PvP? Probably. But it would also bring less seriousness into the mix, which could prove to be a big dent in player experience. Let's have a look at the "abuse" ratios again with this new model: Now, ratio-wise you can see that there's a bigger gap between winning and losing, making an AFK strategy less viable and that's good, but with an average GPM of 118 for abuse strategies, this by far crosses the line of rPvE's aforementioned 72.5 GPM at the same win/loss ratio, and that's not accounting for queue/startup times for rPvE despite those being minimal. I'm not too fond of a 49 GPM abusive strat to even get remotely close to rPvE averages, because everyone can lose a PvP match and gain gold for it. rPvE7 has a 45 GPM ratio, and that would require you to win half your rPvE matches whereas the 49 GPM doesn't require you to do anything. Long story short here; the PvP gold distribution is incredibly sensitive and intricate related to the rest of the game and messing around with it can massively change up the game environment, which I consider to be the top priority within this project. I hope it's clear that this is a lot more complicated than it seems on the surface, but I hear you and I agree that PvP could use some change. So, I've come up with the following GPM changes to better match other game modes: This will actually put PvP at an average GPM of 78 as opposed to rPvE9's 72.5, making PvP in theory slightly more profitable at a 50-50 win/loss ratio, and roughly on the same line when taking the extended PvP queue times into account. Comparatively, it is generally easier to win an rPvE9 so it would hopefully not cause too drastic a mainstream gold farming shift to PvP and hopefully promote the gamemode more than to tank its quality with players that don't play seriously. Just for comparison's sake, here's the presumed abusive data: A maximum-time win on PvP in this model fits snugly in-between rPvE9 and rPvE10 victory GPMs as opposed to the current version which doesn't even come close. The 42 GPM ratio for consecutive PvP losses does not seem too penalising, and lies slightly off the halfway point between rPvE6 and 7, to which I agree, rPvE6 should be achievable to most players and definitely most gold rushers. Whereas I am still concerned about how this will impact the general PvP environment, I believe this balance should definitely help the gamemode way more than it hurts. Also, be mindful that AFK-ing or "just kill me" matches may be reported, and may get abusers banned. The biggest problem currently lies within the base threshold of rewards for PvP matches. There's a baseline gold reward in place to make short matches less underwhelming, but this also means that in turn surrendering early technically grants about 7 GPM more. This is a low number but it is a difference, and hopefully this will not be a huge threat to the PvP environment. Still, the following idea might help counteract this slightly: I get that getting no reward for Sparring Grounds can be frustrating, but due to the high vulnerability of the gamemode (being able to terminate matches at will and the possibility of group abuse within that issue), the gold rewards will never remotely be able to stand up against any other game mode. Using an undefined minimum match length, though, we could allow a gold reward on Sparring matches equal to 33% of a Ranked match. With a 1167 gold reward for a 20m match win and an average GPM of 42 per win, this should not at all be a profitable pursuit, but still allow Sparring players to feel at least a bit rewarded for their games, and might help people refrain from purposely quick-losing ranked matches where their GPM will be the same. TL;DR: I'm proposing the following changes to the PvP reward system: Increase average Ranked PvP rewards for wins from 72 Gold Per Minute to 125 Gold Per Minute Increase average Ranked PvP rewards for losses from to 27 Gold Per Minute to 35 Gold Per Minute Sparring Grounds will now earn gold equal to 33% of ranked rewards after a set time has been played Beware that these changes are not live yet and won't be final, but let me know what you think, and hopefully this will help breathe some life and motivation into the PvP sector of the game again!
  5. Please don't refer to CardBase for map drops. The database loot lists can currently not be edited and the one in charge is unreachable right now. Sorry for that! Please refer to this instead:
  6. The reason the startup time was implemented is due to drastic measures that needed to be taken against serious system and account abuse that came forth from Hawk's decision to give every account free boosters from the get-go. This issue was foreseen but we decided to find out how big abuse and it's effects would get, and the results have been overwhelmingly troubling. Just calling the issues and abuse the free boosters have caused "multiaccounting" really doesn't do it justice. From both a player experience and a programming point of view, untradeable cards is something we really want to avoid. Not only will this cause confusion among traders but it may also promote scamming and abuse, and we strive to keep these issues at a minimum and as easy to deal with as possible; having to do untradeability checks as a new user is one more step in trade complexity that we do not want our players to have to go through. During the closed test phases of the project we came to the conclusion that this "dead" time limit would be the least impactful on player experience as it would be a reasonable one-off gap to cross. Remember the original BattleForge did not even allow trades until a certain level in PvP or PvE was reached. However, we already have plans for future updates (determined far back into the alpha stages) that may make this start-up period more bearable for newcomers while not benefiting or promoting abuse: We will introduce a soft-cap BFP gain system that rewards BFP for playtime indefinitely (replacing the daily "play for X minutes" quest). This system will be focused around rewarding more BFP in your first few games, and less BFP the more you play, but a good BFP gain nonetheless to keep rewarding those who play a lot without dramatically hurting those with less time to spare. I am currently considering to have this system bypass the startup stage but having it completely capped at a lower rate by default until the account is fully unlocked. This way new accounts still have access to boosters and card variety while multiaccounting will net a significant disadvantage as opposed to playing on your main. New and themed boosters are in development. BFP earned will be able to be spent on these new types of booster. Due to possible differences in price we will leave this to be determined by the players spending BFP themselves so they can choose whether to go for more cheap boosters (e.g. bigger pools) or a few expensive boosters, whatever aligns to their tastes or spending habits. This exposes new players to the game's card variety and leaves them in control of what faction(s) they pursue. Hopefully these future changes will make the startup phase of accounts a more pleasant experience without exposing the project and community to abuse. We are not considering to decrease the startup time or implement untradeable cards anytime soon, but we do aim to make these measures as bearable as is feasible.
  7. I would like to refer to what I wrote in the thread above as to why we give you no estimations or deadlines.
  8. I don't mind the detail that this topic is getting into, but just for the sake of clarity and to give you a definitive answer to the topic's question: We can't give you any estimation time regarding our development progress due to the sheer uncertainty and unpredictable nature of this project and its development team. Considering BF is a complex and strange game when it comes to code, and due to us working in our spare time, we can't make any accurate prediction. Any ETAs made in the past that we were unable to abide by due to sudden bugs, sudden dev inactivity or development hindrances, have caused serious backlashes, flamewars, accusations and unnecessary conflict within the community. This in combination with development uncertainty sadly turns us to not be able to give you any semblance of an ETA for the sake of the game and community environment's health and atmosphere, and to not give you any sort of false expectations. Sorry about that, but we believe it's in everyone's best interest in the end to not set or announce any deadlines.
  9. MrXLink

    32 bit

    Yes, as Kubik just stated, Hawk or Aviat0r will be working on an update for the game updater that allows you to swap between 32 and 64-bit to support your system. The launcher already supports this, what's left to do is to make the updater apply it.
  10. Banning or punishing toxic players isn't anything new, really. Especially with the current gaming trends of MOBA and Battle Royale cultures, and with gaming getting bigger and bigger amongst everyone in general, toxicity needs to be taken seriously and is therefore against the rules. Anything that's against the rules is subject to their respective actions, penalties and/or bans depending on severity. As @Ultrakool stated, being toxic isn't the same as being unfriendly. If we would ban anyone for any remark we deem to be offensive, that would indeed be over the top. However, high levels of toxicity such as grave and/or repeated insults, obscenity, personal attacks, or anything in the rules that is deemed to be severe enough will be considered to be a threat against the community and/or the global experience of the game and its environment and will result in measures being taken as is stated in the global rules. We all know people can sometimes have bad days or suffer from bad sportsmanship, and while we encourage people to behave appropriately, have/learn proper manners, be friendly and supportive and keep their rage to themselves if needed, we do differentiate between unfriendliness and toxicity, and frankly that's not the hardest difference to spot.
  11. PM stands for Private Message, which means you should not discuss these matters publicly. I've sorted things out though.
  12. Please under no circumstances create an additional account. This is against the rules and may get you banned without being able to reverse it. Please PM me the email and username of the old account to delete the old one.
  13. Yes. Direct quote from the topic you should read before installing/playing the game:
  14. The answer is in the FAQ. Please read it before making topics, saves you a lot of time
  15. The project will be released when it gets released. Whenever it's done. We can't give any estimation, please stop asking for an estimation because we are unable to provide you with a satisfactory answer. Please read this thread thoroughly. /closed
  16. Greetings, Skylords, Skyladies and Skyfolks, We would like to remind you all that we do not condone making multiple accounts in any way, be it for reward/progression system abuse in-game, shadowing your identity, circumventing penalties, or literally any other reason. Multi-accounting is strictly forbidden, Accounts in households, shared computers, or shared dwellings should not affect our system, and if you stick by our regulations, you should all have nothing to worry about. To make sure everyone is aware of this, there are warnings in place on our forums as well as in-game, and additional clarification has been added to the Global Rules (Rule 3.1). Also be reminded that this specific rule is a part of our Terms of Service (ToS) and our Registration Policy, meaning that by creating your account, you agree with the risks of multi-accounting and accept the reset of your main account and the loss of your access if you re-offend. Please also note our main warning: https://forum.skylords.eu/index.php?/announcement/29-beware-multiaccounting-can-cause-permabans/ We hope you understand our concern and abide by the rules to make the forums as well as the game a safe, enjoyable, and wholesome place.
  17. Here's an update: Lightblade (Shadow) was a typo and has been assigned to Blight Decomposer has been added to Convoy (all difficulties) Nox Carrier (Frost) was a typo and has been changed to Nox Carrier (Fire) Stone Tempest (Nature) was a typo and has been changed to Stone Tempest (Frost) Frost Shard U1 has been assigned to Oracle - Standard Lost Vigil (Shadow) U1 has been assigned to Blight - Standard Lost Spirit Ship (Nature) U1 has been assigned to Raven's End - Standard Sylvan Gate (Frost) U1 has been assigned to The Treasure Fleet - Standard Evocator's Woe (Shadow) U1 has been assigned to Nightmare's End - Standard Soulshatter U1 has been assigned to Nightmare Shard - Standard Grim Bahir (Fire) U1 has been assigned to Convoy - Standard Dying Breed (Nature) was a typo and has been assigned to Nightmare's End Loot list sheet has been updated accordingly.
  18. MrXLink

    A problem

    9 Multiaccounts have been detected for your original account. Your game and forum access has been permanently revoked. You can not enter the game.
  19. The game requires 64 bit right now. You can find more information on requirements and how to play the game in this thread: I am unsure whether we will ever make a 32-bit launcher. Right now, it is not planned.
  20. TBO has been following the project, so who knows!
  21. Alright, if you want to take this publicly, here you go. You were reset for having used up to 14 alternate accounts. That's punishable by our rules and terms of service (ToS), and therefore you have been reset. If it does happen again, your access may be permanently denied as per rule 3.1, our ToS and the orange announcement above every page on this website. This or worse is sadly the action we have to take if someone multiaccounts to shield our game environment and reward systems from abuse.
  22. Account resets happen when we do major server updates, and everyone will likely be informed of them. If your account gets reset without warning and other people's accounts aren't, you probably have done something you shouldn't have, like not reading the rules or the big, shiny, bright orange announcement on the forums. If so, please consider the fact that you still have access.
  23. I duly apologise @FarRockBF for being rather shallow-minded about the multiple FarRocks that go around. You have had quite some impersonations before (mainly Discord), and through handling multiaccounting issues on a daily basis, I am more alert about these kinds of issues than ever. However, with all these cases and all the toxicity going on, I have admittedly overlooked and overthought this whole situation, and I sincerely apologise for my ridiculous and outrageous comment there. I should have given it more thought. On a side note, now that you've explained your login situation, I'm also offering to merge your accounts to retain your content and to not be flagged as impersonating or multiaccounting. Feel free to get back at me for that. Please also take Fiki's words with a grain of salt. We all get complaints about server stability on a daily basis, some of which are extremely volatile, harsh and sarcastic, and that puts a lot of pressure on all of us (especially due to very few of us having professional experience with this), and especially Fiki tends to express this vividly. Take from me that he means well. It's definitely not the right approach to lash out like that, and it's not to be condoned, but I figured an explanation is in order as to the sudden, regrettable aggression you have just experienced. Apologies aside, I do agree with the fact that things get WAY too tense around here lately, and I agree that we should all follow the way of the Frost Mage and chill out. I truly mean no harm here, and I'm sure the team and even the majority of the community doesn't either.
  24. The game is very popular right now, slots are limited, and the servers can't handle this many people online at the same time just yet. The best approach is to simply try again later; everyone has equal chances to get in. /closed
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