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Fort battle – mixing things up

As you all might know there are some problems in the actual state of the fort battles. We think the addition of the resistance and damage formula were a good step into the right direction, but there are still lots of balance issues left and we are aware of it. But as usual the main problem is “where should we start to find a better balance” there are tons of advices from players through all the market forums and of course a lot on the public beta.

Maybe some of you know already that i made a first step to find a better balance on public beta weeks ago my approach was to switch the stamina skill with fine motor skills. I thought and still think it is a step in the right direction, because actually attackers have much more advantages with red skills then defenders have. The outcome is just simple if defender and attackers are equal at health points its 95% clear that the attacker will win, so one thing is clear we need to change something!

After lot of research, mining data and internal discussion we agreed on a more general approach. As first step, which is not really related to the actual balance situation, we want to bring more players to the fort battles with less restriction and easy attending. I will show up how we want to approach that

–       You will no longer need to belong to a town to attend on fort battles

–       We want to add an attending button in the fort battle overview

–       A player does not be present at a fort to register, just during the battle

–       Fort battles of my alliance will be more highlighted in fort overview

–       Screen to choose your side will be reworked and simplified

–       The tactic screen will be simplified and will give you an overview what is required todo

–       You will get a kind of buff icon if you are attending to a battle which also shows the timer when the battle starts and reminds you to travel

–       There will be chat announcements if battles starts within an hour and not full yet

–       You will have the option to get a reminder mail for fort battles

 

With these changes we hope to get more players back to the fort battles.

As our second step we definitely want to do something about the balance lot of player are very unhappy with the actual situation. Health points and red skills are more or less the only viable option and for the evaluating health points are the most important value.

So we finally want to try to change things, but it is very complicated to start and we are aware that we will need to test a lot and a long time and we will need to change many things for example all the fort battle items and sets.

Nevertheless I finally created a prototype of 2 absolute new formulas, which I want to test with you on public beta. The goal or better my intend why I created two new formulas instead of change the old one is I think that the old formula have to much problems in itself and it is not transparent enough for player. Another problem, which many players also mention, is that the old formula has such a very high luck factor in it.

Finally I will present my first version of the formulas to you right now, please keep in mind it is just an idea for now and most of the factors are more or less a blind guess. This is the reason why I want to test it a lot and then adjust it with the feedback the community gives, because I think I am not able to create the perfect formula it should be developed hand in hand with the community / public beta players.

First we have a new hit chance formula, which looks like that:

50 + Leadership^0.3 + Aim^0.4 + Hide^0.5 + ownSectorBonus * 0,5 (max 5%) + offenseBonus * 0,5  (max 5%) – distance^0.6 – targetSectorBonus * 0,5 (max 10%)  // (max 90% hit chance)

 

With this formula is a max value of 90% possible, this means even with more skill points on aim or leadership I cannot get over 90%, but I should think about if I go a little over the top because the distance will be a minus value for myself and the enemy sector bonus will also be a minus value of max -10% (this equals for now a fully build town on biggest fort), with this knowledge it might make sense to skill a little bit over the top to compensate those factors. Just as remark a non – fort battle skilled player will have at least 50% hit – distance – targetSectorBonus.

Second we have a new dodge formula, which looks like that:

5 + Leadership^0.3 + Dodge^0.4 + Endurance^0.5 + defenseBonus * 0,5 (max 5%) // (max 40% dodge)

 

We will also do some smaller adjustments to the resistance and damage formula:

Damage: Weapondmg + Pitfall^0.7

Resistance: resistance(items) + Trade^0.7

 

If Player A hits Player B the Player B has the possibility to dodge with this formula with a max value of 40% I cannot get more that these 40% and I have at least 5%.

So the sequence changes a bit:

–       Player A attacks Player B

–       Player A needs to calc hit chance

–       If he hits Player B calc dodge chance

–       If Player B fails to dodge the damage and resistance will be calculated still in the same way

 

What is the goal of that changes and the 2 formulas?

Quite a lot people will now say that it becomes even more worse, because you will have 2 chances to miss/dodge and this is more or less right. Since we have a calculation for hit and one for dodge there will be another new luck factor, but both new formulas are more stable in their luck behavior and we have some kind of minimal values, which every player reaches. In the actual system it is possible to counter a set of skill directly but it is now that viable, so many player invest most of the points in health points.

So back to the goal of the 2 new formula first we want to reduce the luck factor this is why we added a minimal value and added some caps like (max 10% sector bonus) this also sets the focus back to the skill points. Another goal we want to achieve: make other skills more viable beside health points. We want to see other directions of skill sets such as tanks with much life and a high dodge value or some kind of a sniper with an incredible high amount of hit but low life and dodge, who is protected by the team tanks and stuff like that J

And last but now least we want a system which is more transparent to the player this means that in the evaluating overview the leader will see any hit/dodge/damage/resistance and life values and can do a better decision making. You will also be able to see those stats in the battle in future.

3 Comments

  1. Höken
    Höken September 20, 2013

    “Hide/Setting traps^0.5”, do you by that mean “the square root of hide or setting traps” (and in that case, which one is chosen?) or is it “hide divided by the square root of setting traps”?

    Otherwise i have to say that I find it very good that you put some much needed work and thought into the fort battles. Tank you!

  2. Tanais
    Tanais October 1, 2013

    @Höken
    I assume that “Hide/Setting traps^0.5” means “[Hide ór Setting traps] ^ 0.5 (yes, square root). The skill is chosen depending on the side you’re on in the fortbattle. Defense should still be “Hide” and the attack will probably use the skill “Setting traps”.

  3. the black penny
    the black penny October 19, 2013

    get rid of tanks,
    add cannons,
    add more features to the map,
    add fort damage,
    add more blog posts.

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