The Issue with Events

Part 2 of large game issues...


According to Zues, "legendary perks should indeed feel legendary, same as items."


Believe it or not, I have no issue with that statement.


Here's where I see an issue. And it's a big one.

BALANCE
Perks, especially event perks, have a massive effect on balance.

Event perks can easily make a bigger difference than player skill, especially in 1v1 battles.

A player may have extra hit-points or higher damage weapons, but those advantages can be overcome.

However, a player with the ability to fire more shots (via cooldown reductions), at longer ranges (with the same damage), and/or with additional effects like 1200+ extra burning damage (wildfire), stun (rail perk), or even invulnerablity (r.bolt) has a tremendous advantage. And those abilities can make matches obscenely unbalanced.


AVAILABILITY
Is there rank unfairness if a player has access to the epic version of event perks?

.... I would argue not. A legendary perk is obviously an upgrade over an epic, but it's not typically a game-breaking difference. It's similar to the difference between legendary and epic items in the game.

Do players have access to the epic event perk?

... No. Amazingly, in the event's current format, epic event perks are more rare than its legendary counterpart.

Wait? What?!

... Based on a 2% epic perk chance, over time and with a large number of purchases, you can expect 1 epic perk out of every 50 box purchases - or 1 epic perk for every 3,000 coins spent @ 60 coins per box.

Compare that to one guaranteed legendary perk for every 900 coins spent.


..... Seeing the issue yet?




How should this issue be fixed?
If legendaries are meant to feel legendary, then epics should feel epic.

What is the ratio difference between legendary and epic drops in the game?

I'm not exactly sure, but I would guess it's somewhere around 1 legendary for every 20-25 epics. So, if it's 900 coins for a guaranteed legendary, then a guaranteed epic should be between 36-45 coins.

If you're concerned about fewer coin purchases, then increase the legendary perk cost to 2000 coins and guarantee epic perks at 100 coins. This would still be quite the discount over the typical legendary pricing (about $300 for 10 legendary item pieces).


Also, old event perks should be added to the pool for the shop and raffle - with legendary perks appearing in place of the epic perks on the legendary spin (so it indeed feels legendary).

Why? Again, it's balance. If you can't obtain these perks other than by being unemployed or spending hundreds, then all competitive integrity in the game is lost.


Alternatively ...
Obviously, coins could be rolled over.

On one hand, players spent 15 some-odd cumulative hours for those 900 coins, so it's not really fair to say a legendary perk wasn't earned or that it's any less rare.

On the other -- due to the existing issues of it taking thousands of matches to earn the gold to max out an epic item, the lack of inventory space, and lack of powercells -- most players have a limited number of items they want perks for .. so they'd likely save up coins for those few items they've managed to build.

Spoiler: Oddly enough...

If Powercells were removed from the game, players could combine some of their duplicates without fear of running out of cells for their main items, which would free inventory space for more items and perks. Items and perks that they wouldn't otherwise be able to build or use. Players would have more to do, more content to explore, and would be less concerned that progression has slowed to all-time lows because of the new items diluting the pool of items they want. Some might even start buying holiday specials again with all this extra room and the ability to build every item in the game. And, devs would eventually have the ability to actually balance rather than continually nerf the weapons players are locked into using. But, I digress.

Why Fix This Issue?

Spoiler: Answer

Assuming ranked matches are brought back to relevance at some point ... players with jobs/families/responsibilities outside of Battle Bay that are unwilling or unable to spend hundreds on event perks will fall behind the unemployed players that no-life legendary event perks. Likewise, the leaderboard will be nothing more than a measure of bank accounts. Continuing to cater to these two groups alone will alienate the vast majority of your community.

Oh, and how do you balance an item with perks that are making it overpowered when most players don't have those perks? ... By making the item with normal perks underpowered, by leaving the version with the leg perk overpowered, or by nerfing the leg perk they spent hundreds to get ... I can't imagine that's a great situation to be in.

Anywho, this current format is bad for competition, for reputation, and for business long-term. (I could write a book on this point if need be.)

Side Note:
How much time is needed to play for 900 coins?

Spoiler: Answer

In a 46-hour event, you'll have to play around 15 hours of 5v5 TDM to get a single legendary perk.


From the time I hit the battle button, wait in the match queue, loading screen, 5-second countdown timer, play the match, quickly review the results screen, and reenter the main screen, it has been consistently 5 minutes. It also appears that 5 coins is the average per match coin reward (since fire contribution was eliminated).

Thus, 900 coins ÷ 5 coins per match × 5 minutes per match ÷ 60 minutes per hour = 15 hours.

During the work week:
46 hours for event - 16 hours for sleep - 16 hours for work - 2 hours of commute time = 12 hours ... not possible.

During the weekend:
46 hours for event - 16 hours for sleep = 30 hours, 50% of your weekend, or about 7.5 hours a day of grinding.

All for an 1/8 chance at getting the game-changing legendary perk you want. It appears it's less about which events you choose to put your time in and more about which events are even humanly possible ...

 

Well, it's upto Devs to realise this already. I mean , how long are they going to take to realise that the current event rewards are s***. On top of that, the ship pieces boxes are not even specific to ships. It really saddens me to see this. What would a player do with the ship pieces of interceptor if he already has a maxed out Interceptor. This is so wrong in so many levels. Anyhow, they replied today that they would consider the change, but not guaranteed.

The changes you mentioned are well thought and reasonable. Also, I agree that 15 hrs of game play in 2 days is ridiculous. They either reduce that or do what u suggested . I would be happy to get the epic perk, rather grind for so long for the legendary one.

@TheAntiSnipe better stick this thread. I think it deserves it.

 

Two more things:


I've always appreciated Battle Bay's pricing structure for legendaries. And I don't want to change it.

I think the fact that I could spend $10,000* and have zero guaranteed legendary progression is wonderful. It puts 99.99% of the players at the same item cap and makes for a genuinely fair game (or as fair as possible given that companies have to make money).

If someone wants to spend tens of thousands for legendary gear, good for them. It's not some p2w, impossible to overcome advantage. It's never even crossed my mind that they are too powerful or game-breaking.

But, the disparity in event perk accessibility is a much larger issue.

Mines and grenades are very popular example right now. The added range that still allows them to hit for their full damage and crit chance is a huge advantage. You can reach opponents that can't reach you. You can clear obstacles that they can't. It's less of a small difference in power, and more of a giant leap in utility.

Anywho, you've done all this work and made a great game. Of course, it has its issues like all games, but it's something that you can be proud of and it's something that can be built off in the future.

Don't sell off all that hard work you put into balancing the game so cheaply. Selling progression is fine. Selling game balance is a mistake.



* Spreadsheet showing what $10k buys, if everything drops according its respective rate.

Spoiler: More about the spreadsheet ... if you're curious

If you scrap every item other than reds, you'd end up with around 20 leg weapons .. or one of each type of weapon if it RNG'd perfectly.

If you managed to RNG 5 duplicates (plus the leg achievement) of a decent weapon, you'd likely have to scrap most of the other legendaries for parts and cells to level it - since you can't buy those and they rarely drop.

If you're lucky, you'll end up with one max leg weapon that's about 20% higher damage than the max epic version (depending on the weapon) ..

The point being that $10k might (or might not) buy you one weapon that's slightly more powerful than your epic .. or you can drop $100 for a few event perks that are going to make far more of a difference ... assuming players stick around for you to match against.

 

I am going to put this suggestion into the pile of suggestions that will go on deft ears.

The whales will always spending. The extreme grinders are likely not. The mass that willing to spend moderately is ignored. That sounds just like BB business model.

 

It usually takes 4-5 months, but several of the things I've took issue with have changed.

I had several increasingly sarcastic comments about the fire contribution issue 4-5 months ago and that was just changed - although I'm regretting bringing it up now .. my event coin average has taken a bit of a hit since the change.

The skill tree was another suggestion (although they missed the part about power cells). The ability to remove kill notifications was another one.


It would be nice if they removed the random factor from missiles because it makes the game look glitchy and mechanics unreliable. And it would be nice if they added a split second arming timer on grenades (or disallowed players from firing while inside the hitbox of another ship). But those are minor things.

 

Put this in discord, I don't think devs look at the forum anymore

 

Thank you for posting this, and I couldn’t agree more. The current state of event rewards, especially perk boxes, could probably best be discribed as ‘depressing’ or ‘demoralising’.

After an hour of grinding, I’m then forced to chose between an extremely overpriced (and entirely useless) uncommon perk, or 3x parts for ships that I couldn’t play, even if I wanted to (which I’m not sure I do).

It’s currently impossible for me to get a legendary perk now. And it isn’t like I’m not ‘dedicated’ enough to the game: my dedication achievement is currently at 267 days in a row. And that probably understates it. I started playing almost exactly 500 days ago, and I doubt I’ve missed more than 3-4 days in that whole time (and for a good portion of that I was also running a VIP subscription).

But apparently that’s not good enough! Unless you have time to grind out hundreds of games per day, or wish to gamble immense sums of money, it’s like you’re not welcome here.

Which is fine! I can accept that maybe legendaries are only for the games biggest spenders. But the fact that I can’t even obtain Epics, is a real slap in the face. 70% chance of an uncommon perk is such a disappointing reward for an hour’s worth of grinding. I haven’t used anything uncommon in my build for well over a year. Might as well be a 70% chance of nothing (you just wasted your time).

And only a 1% chance of something I ‘might’ actually use (not accounting for RNG). To put it in perspective, at the rate I usually play, it would likely take me over a month to grind out 3000 coins. Yet I’m supposed to squeeze all that into a 2 day event, or get my progress wiped out.

It just makes me feel like I’m not welcome in this game.

 

This is just one of those things that has never made sense to me... ever since events began they have been more giving with Legendary than Epics, and as a result the Devs complained about giving away too much. Ok then dial it back a bit, right? Wrong.. they replaced all rewards with perpetual Events without tangible rewards without no-lifing it. Increasing progression while adding ships and items should have been a no-brainer to keep a flat progression line, but I just can't understand what's going on here.

There is a tiny bit of hope with v4.2, but it's not clear how much of this is addressed properly.

 

AWSOME POST as always xarrogance ..
Totally agree with you .

They should guarantee every tenth perk to be epic as before .
Also once a month or so they could have an event to obtain parts like old events . Every tenth piece is a legendary piece .

At least they could add a parts and pieces that have epics guaranteed every tenth time for a choice in events .

P.S. how am I doing on spacing my paragraphs . . LOL

 

Even that wouldn’t help much, as the boxes are double the price now. Having to grind out 600 tokens, just for RNG to hand you a lemon — it’s not worth it.

 

I would suggest to change the whole system. First, allow players to accumulate coins, and a maximum bank of 3000 coins. If you use an event weapon during an event, then the player is entitled to more coins than players with conventional weapons. Remove random boxes and open a new store, where you can only pay with coins, and the legendary perk will cost about 2000 coins, an epic perk, about 300 coins, and so on. Also in the store should the various parts at the discretion !!!
The stock of the store changes every 2 hours.

 

So many good suggestions here... every single one of them better than what Rovio has been giving us lately. The old Event system was the only time since global launch where I felt progress was finally balanced... and now with no event rewards, extra ships, items, item classes coupled with extra cost training and extra cost boat leveling, progression is absolutely horrid. I'll give it until the 4.2 release, and if that is a 3rd major fail in a row, I can't see continuing with this mess.

 

I wasn’t going to read all of it, but I saw you put quite an effort in doing it so cool. Agree.

Something that I hate is the massive constant silence from the devs towards anything that we say. They coment really rarely and their comments are normally useless.

IDK DEVS, ARE YOU GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT? HOW IS IT THAT EVERYONE THINKS THE SAME SINCE THEY ONE AND YOU HAVENT REALIZED IT YET? Or maybe they know what they are found BUT THEY DONT TELL US SHIT! So thx for that

 

Oh well !

 

I think the reward for the battle is unjust. Why doesn't the whole team receive equally 10 coins for winning? Where is your tolerance?

 

We only got a "maybe" that Epic perks should be easier to come by than Legendary? I have no words.

 

I may not always be right .. but there is only one way that I'm wrong about this.

If Rovio has decided that making anything other than Angry Birds products is a mistake, then this is an excellent way to squeeze every dollar out of players until they quit and BB shuts down.


If, however, that is not the situation, then selling the game balance (rather than progression) is about the worst path you can go down.

 

Let us not forget this th.

Maybe they´ll read it smh and hopefully this new update comes with some improvements to this?