Ideas to save BB - regarding hardcore TDM and Ranked

I've been playing just ocassionally in the last month. The game is dying, it isn't fun anymore. Event spam is just out of control and it has destroyed strategic game and competition in the bay. I tried Hardcore TDM tho and read the patch notes. I think there's another chance for the game if devs are willing to make BB great again.

First of all: HARDCORE TDM. This mode (mode, not event) is pretty fun. I actually thought it was going to be awful when I read the patch notes but I've actually played it over and over. It has a great potential and can be really hardcore in terms of strategy with some tweaks. But if devs release it for ranked without fixing it or keep it as an event (as events have been working right now), it will become boring and suck just in the same way CTF was awesome and then it started to be awful. So my ideas to improve HTDM are the following:

1. Cap respawns. 2 or 3 boats are enough. We don't need floaters just running into the other team with one boat after each other.
2. Make mines' lifetime shorter. It has become a crazy minefield out there. First line will always be miners and then, as second boat, hardcore dps. Mines are too powerful to last equally long in this gamemode.
3. Help players to build gears. This is the most important part. HTDM won't become a serious mode if we don't have enough gear for 2 or 3 boats. I don't think the same items should be usable in 2 or 3 boats, it would make respawn buggier and would be a mess. The solution here is to help players to get blue (+teal) and yellow items easier. It's pretty obvious that we don't tend to scrap the weapons we like or think are good. It happens the same with green items. Furthermore, we get a free leggy with achievements. However, yellow and blue items tend to be scrapped once we get a fully upgraded item in cases like: turbo, nitro, overboost, frost launcher, frost bolt and big shield (A1). Once we get a T5 (even T4) epic, we scrap rares and even legendaries. Devs didn't tell us to save them. They were useless! so ragarding this I have 2 ideas:

3.1 Make scrapped items before January 9th listed in A1 purchasable. We must be able to buy them for the parts we get when we scrap them + gold (legendary parts are damn hard to get). This would just be fairplay from Rovio.
3.2 This one is a bit more ambitious. We should be able to purchase dups of each item listed in A1 once we get one of these items to level 50 (respectively). I mean: if I get a full T5 rare turbo, I would be able to buy as many rare turbos as I want from the shop for 500k-750k gold. The same with uncommons, epics and legendaries, although the cost of epics should decrease to 500 or 1k pearls. Legs would be 3k pearls or something. This one is important for newbies. If devs take 3.1 in account without 3.2, newbies would be unable to play HTDM.
4. Fix daily quests. Make weapon quests only for the weapons we use all the time., even if we have other weapons equipped in our boats. Same for boats. I don't play Fixer ever but I keep getting fixer quests just because I have the boat at level 50.
5. Reduce inventory slot increase cost. We won't be able to level up the gear needed to be competitive in HTDM if the costs of increasing inventory solts keeps being as insane as it is now.
6. HTDM must be an occassional ranked gamemode. This is viable if 1, 2 and 3 become changes. I will talk about ranked modes in the next part.

Now, RANKED gamemodes. IMO, events as we now them should disappear. They suck in so many ways. The game needs to keep diversity though, so my ideas are the following:

1. Keep 4 modes playable all time: 1. regular ranked mode, 2. casual, 3. custom, 4. rotating ranked modes. These ones are a must and a can, because they don't need a huge playerbase to keep active 24/7 (80% or 90% of people would play ranked always). Rotating gamemodes would be unlocked once players reach infamy in regular ranked (explained in point 6).
2. Rotating Ranked Modes: regular 5v5 elimination (it must be kept in the game), Hardcore TDM (with the changes I proposed), 2v2 and 3v3 TDM (with fleets), Capture The Flag. Regular 5v5 elimination should be active 24/7 and the other 4 modes should rotate every 2 or 3 days.
3. Legendary perks and ship pieces: rewards for rotating ranked modes would be event coins as it is now + 50% or 70% ranked rewards (gold, sugar, pearls). "Event" chests would remain the same. Event coins shouldn't expire.
4. Infamy: infamy count would be different for each mode (3v3 and 2v2 TDM could have the same infamy count). HTDM infamy could start being +50 for a win and -30 for a loss and then reducing-increasing according to the infamy count of each player. 2v2 and 3v3 would be +20 - 20. CTF +30 -30. To clarify: every single player would start having his actual infamy in regular ranked, 0 infamy in HTDM, 0 infamy in 2v2 and 3v3, 0 infamy in CTF.
5. Leagues: League infamy would take in account the total infamy of all ranked gamemodes. Ofc it would break the leagues as we know them now and we would have top players hitting 12k infamy. However, competitivity for the first places would be crazy, and a lot of players would be coming back because of the diversity and competition in all gamemodes. Over time, devs would be able to redistribute Nightmare, Ace and all other leagues fairly.
   
6. Matchmaking: matchmaking in rotating ranked modes would work as it works in events: infamy of that specific gamemode + GS. To make things fairer for newbies and save them from havoc, rotating ranked modes would be unlocked after this infamy: HTDM at 3.5k, 2v2 and 3v3 at 3k, CTF at 2k. This way, they would need to progress and learn basics of the game before they face old players in rotating ranked modes.

I know it's a lot of information and it's hard to understand, so i'll be answering every single question you guys have. Feel free to make comments and proposals.

 

I hope this thread of yours gets sufficient response and attention! Thank you for voicing out on behalf of the community

~Gucci

 

Hi, Gucci! Thanks
It was kinda sad to realise you changed your in-game name lol

 

Great thinking mate!
Loved it
It can really save BB the game that we used to love the most!

 

You know what , NEW INFAMY System is too bad . they need to fix infamy system first rather then making new battle styles .

 

I really like this idea. It would give advanced players the freedom to expand their existing builds, without circumventing progress for new players. It’s an almost perfect solution.

The only exception might be Defender, as it would allow players to build their 2nd Epic Shield much faster, but that might actually be a good thing, as Defender is probably one of the hardest ships to complete, currently.

I’m not sure that prices really need to change. 3k for an Epic can feel a bit expensive, but if you’re in a good ‘active’ guild, you could easily save that up in a matter of weeks as f2p. Yes, it would still require a bit of patience and grinding, but in contrast to acquiring Legendary duplicates (which might take multiple human lifetimes), it’s an entirely achievable proposition.

Also I don’t really have a problem with Rovio making money, especially from something like that. There are certainly things in this game that I’m resentful about having to spend pearls on, such as perk salvage and inventory slots. However, new items (that you need) is definitely not one of them. In fact, that would probably be the thing I’d most enjoy spending my pearls on, and get the most value out of. New toys + Instant progress = “Shut up and take my money, Rovio!”.

 

Whoa — the Devs should hire you!

Absolutely. I'd be interested to see what happened if your Mines all exploded as soon as you died. That would incentivize Miners to stay alive so that their Mines stayed activel

I doubt Rovio has any records of what was scrapped. If they do, this is an AWESOME idea, though there might need to be a limit on how many copies of a single item can be recovered. (Some people could probably get 6 copies of an item in this way — it would be too much.)
What is A1?

This is brilliant.

This is a great idea, but the numbers are too high. Players from lower Infamies should be able to enjoy the rotating modes to.
I'd say they should be unlocked at 800, 850, and 900 Infamy, or at some Infamy around that. With the numbers you suggested, it would be possible for a player to play for a year without hitting 2v2, 3v3, or HTDM. I personally would say a player should be able to unlock all the features in a game in no more than 4 – 5 months.

+50 for a win in HTDM is a lot. Why so much — wouldn't people ignore other modes when HTDM was an available mode? With a 50% win/loss ratio in that gamemode, people would gain 20 Infamy for every two battles (Assuming they win one and lose one, as in the 50/50 ratio.).
Also, that would put Infamy into the pool of Infamy at a crazy speed. Infamy as a whole would climb overtime — eventually players would be hitting 20 000 Infamy total, from all gamemodes.

Thanks for taking the time to put this together! Your ideas are fantastic — I hope the Devs see this thread!

 

Thanks for the feedback!

Some comments and answers:
A1 is the Group of items I think should be affordable after having a full T5: "turbo, nitro, overboost, frost launcher, frost bolt and big shield". I kinda explained the reasons of this specific choice.

The infamy requierement is a way to guarantee that the players won't be able to play these modes unless they already have the gear avaliable to be competitive. If the infamy requirement is lower, old players Will destroy them easily, and the average infamy for those modes would increase at an incredibly high ratio. On the other hand, players stuck at 2k and 3k would be playing unlocked rotational gamemodes while -2k infamy players would have it easier to again infamy and unlock the other gamemodes.

HTDM should have a higher infamy (50 at 0 infamy for that gamemode but decreasing progressively at higher infamy levels of the gamemode) because players need gear for 2 and even 3 boats to be competitive. This means an important effort and should be rewarded with important infamy progression. It also provides an incentive to spend more money or to play more, so IT would help the game finances.

I agree that Infamy ratings-infamy pool is the weakest item of the changes I'm proposing, but I'm sure the devs could find a solution over time to reorganize the leagues and everything.

 

I think there are some good ideas there ..

Especially (with a twist) ..

A 5v5 single-elimination, single queue (no fleets) should be the main ranked ladder. (And is honestly about the only thing that would keep me remotely interested in the game at this point).

A rotating tournament with different game modes that allow fleets (even fleets up to 5) would be an excellent replacement for events. Although, I'm not sure they'd be able to make a different tournament or event for different infamy levels each week.

Anywho .. Placing within the top few hundred rewards you with that tournament's legendary perk, few thousand rewards an epic version, and so on ... with the rest of the event perks hitting the shop and raffle pool.


As far as making money goes ..

Spoiler: ...

They've made a multimillion dollar mistake. And they won't realize it until it's far too late (if ever).

The microtransaction strategy that's made so many mobile apps successful has been forgotten here .. rather, they've dedicated all of their energy on making more and more new stuff for the whales to buy.

We'll keep getting more and more ships, more items, more event perks .. and how many of you even have a built gatling gun ..? (The first new item they intro'd under this rapid content expansion explosion).

Maybe they should figure out why the majority of their players stopped spending money... I'm willing to bet full inventories with duplicate item backlogs for years to come might have had something to do with it.

 

@xArrogance as usual you are spot on with your observations. Rovio's Battle Bay team continues to fumble with trying to maximize income because don't seem to understand why a player would want to spend money with them.

I've stated before that while I'm generally F2P, I've thrown some money at the game here and there in small increments, and I set aside an amount that would have doubled my spending in this game, but to do that I have to feel it actually contributes to progression. Unfortunately most of their latest moves in v4.0+ are being rolled out in a way that solely benefit P2W players. While I'm struggling to put together a single T5E boat going into my 3rd year in the game, they roll out multi-boat HCTDM without competitive governors, so now I'm further behind P2W and any money I throw at the game will result in less relative progression today than just a few months ago. I have to see value to spend, and I have to see truly competitive matches for players of all levels to feel like I have a chance in every match, but the competitive landscape in the matchmaking algorithm is really bad as it sits today.

 

This game was made as a competitive game but it turned out to be almost pure P2W game. The devs had delusional idea to make this into e-sport when there never was a balance battle of equal gears. Items are unbalance and there don’t seem to care much for it. One of the funniest balancing method Zeus used to use was the amount of damages produced by sniper, blast, and EC. How did equal overall outputs by those cannons mean they were balance.

Anyway, another wave of players left since the last update. This forum has been pretty quiet lately too. Doesn’t take a genius to see the direction of this game.

 

Agreed...Battle Bay could easily become an eSport, but that requires equal gear Events, Matches, and/or Tournaments open to players of all levels. It's really that simple. In fact that would solve the problem of players wanting to play with friends new to the game, which would result in more players, which in turn keeps interest, and ultimately derives more income. Ah the potential...