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Seasonal Cycles and Client Handling


Sykole

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Hi, been a while

 

Here are my two cents. First seasonal cycles, which is about constantly changing cards' stats and certain aspects of the game. Secondly how to possibly find a solution to reconnecting to games.

Let me just say first, I have no idea what you can and cannot change in development, so reject or accept as you may see fit.

Seasonal Cycles:-

Keeps the game interesting and more competitive, especially in the PvP scene, where players should be encouraged to try out new things. Creating the perfect Shadow deck will not necessarily mean it will stay the best, no. Throughout the seasons, cards will receive a buff or nerf in terms of speed, damage and health. Think of it like in League of Legends.

However, this will also be beneficial for the economy as well, since prices will not stay the same. As cards have their stats changed, their prices will drop or increase respectively. It will create a more interesting, to me at least, environment. When you think of it, prices right now in the AH are the same as they were like, a decade ago, so bringing a new dynamic element would definitely aid a game like Battleforge. It died out for a reason after all.

 

Client Handling:-

Yet again, I do not know how BF handles clients, or how the server does it either, but disconnecting for a moment just to have my 45 minutes progress go to waste is getting frustrating, so why not have a workaround? I assume the game does not accept new client connections, hence the no reconnect option, so why not create a ghost client for every player, and that ghost client "fits the player's shoes" in case they disconnect? Basically it would be one of two things:

1- Ghost client (A) where it is the proxy of the player's client's (B) actions. So (B) takes action -> (A) takes the same action and plays it. Now, if (B) disconnects, and tries to reconnect, it still can (assumingly, do not know if it is possible to send a client into an ongoing game), since the player technically never left the game to begin with, since (A) is still in the game. 

2- Basically 1, but without being the proxy. So the moment the player's client disconnect, a ghost client takes place (of course, units will be brought to a halt), until the player's client reconnects.

1 minute to reconnect, if player does not reconnect by then, they surrender. (Assuming any of this is plausible)

 

Happy new year.

 

gemeiner Lauch and RayG like this
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The fact that the thread is still standing is secretly because we are curious what the rest thinks of this (mostly of the seasonal cycles, because I doubt anyone is against reconnects).

Anyways, we will discuss our content/updates roadmap in the near future, which includes the idea of seasonal cycles. :rolleyes:

There is currently no reconnect option because we can only do so much. We will hopefully explore the possibilities of this in the future.

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Not sure what you mean by seasonal cycles. We're currently working on the balancing and there will be several balance patches in the future which will definetly have an effect on the meta. Is that what you suggested?

Or do you want balancing changes that intentionally make cards stronger than others so that we can actively control the meta? Would be a good idea to keep the game intersting in the long run. But I think the first step for this is to achieve a general acceptable balancing state.

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Hey guys,

Seasons for PvE and PvP are, in my opinion, crucial for a long term motivation to play the game. Also it is an opportunity to introduce changes to balance/rankings/new cards (one day)

PvP:

Ranked ladder seasons of about 3-6 months following a reset or soft reset of stats and elo. This would help a lot to make people actually improve in the game and focus less on stats but ranking. Maybe with an invitational tournament of the top 16 with some goodies for the winner, thinking of shiny portraits, frames, ranks, hall of fame. Or maybe even to decide the next new promo card?

The stat and elo reset for the final release of the game showed that a lot more players feel motivated to play pvp, but maybe we need ~10 "placement matches" that add/lose a lot more elo to get the pros divided from the beginners a little faster. I understand that the system how it works now is better the bigger the playerbase is so it is hard to balance searchtime against more equal matches.

 

PvE:

Since the speedrun rankings are already have a "soft reset" every month they are a little better off already. Of course with balance changes affecting PvE aswell all time speedrun rankings become more or less obsolete and to have a direct comparison the "this month" category will have a lot more impact to compare. Nonetheless end of season rewards would help a lot to keep motivation up aswell as nurture more players interested in getting on a competitive level for PvE. Take this with a grain of salt, since I am a PvP player.

 

Greetings,

Toggy

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I like the economic side of this, balancing the market a bit, since after the release over time it's not unlikely the amount of new players will start slowing down, which slowly starts oversaturating the market. Anything to help with card prices staying a bit unpredictable is a good thing in my opinion.

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I dont think there is a single human being that would reject the first proposal with any good arguments. Thats how games live and die via their content. If a content becomes repetitive and obviously boring people just drop the game. You can see that in games such as Hearthstone that uses cards as well, that in every new patch that they introduce new content the playerbase skyrockets again. But that is on introducing new cards which players try to figure new combos and how to make new strategies.

There have been talks that all brand new cards would be introduced in battleforge as well in the future so we can be damn sure that this will work out. But until we reach there rebalancing some cards would be best. For example, i read in the patches page that Ravenheart would get a brand new ability ( op in my opinion) and then i rushed and bought a Ravenheart promo in anticipation of that update. In the end that specific one did not make the cut but you get my point. It made me change my mindstyle and go and apreciate a card i dont give a damn about, not even discussing how it will affect the market etc. 

So i think that not only changing health-attack which is balanced in a way in my opinion already since we are talking about the old style Battleforge gameplay, but adding new abilities altogether is the way to 'swift things around'. Yeah some will be op, some will be a bit less and some might all out suck. But thats how things are kept interesting. League of Legends used to throw a new champ every 2 weeks back in 2011 and now they release one every 2 months, but its stiill enough to engage the playerbase. And dont forget we already have our own broken cards like Batariel. 

We have a nice launch, the market sorted itself out and the pvp thing is working as well in a way ( those 3 i think were the major issues discussed before the launch), so we can look forward how to develop the game now in new ways unexplored..

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I agree very much with your (Toggy) opinion about long time player retention. Currently the most invested PvE speedrunners are focused on all-time records, which is of course a glory titel to achive, but in my opinion overglorified.

For meaningful balance - which keep the game 'fresh' - changes we need to both buff and nerf things. This doesn't just apply to cards, but maps too. All-time speedrun preservation prevents such significant changes. I'm aware that the game is ancient and why should it drasticly change now?

Firstly because we now have the manpower, willpower and infrastructure to support regular updates to the game. Secondly because player retention drops without change. The best game isn't worth playing if it's dead. 

A regular season (every quater, third, half or full year) in Battleforge is an interesting approach for PvE content - not all will agree with this statement. For me the pros outweigh the cons by far already. If we'd introduce some kind of seasonal reward, competition would be certain. Rewards could be specific additional ranks (I've described an idea in a thread about the golden shoe ranks an another thread already) or even real life prices like 3D printet BF models. 

 

Regards, 

Myno

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