Top Indefensible Game Design Choices

I love Battle Bay. I've spent almost two years playing this gem of a game, nearly 15k battles. I've been in nightmare league for about 6 months. It's incredibly fun, the progression was slow but steady and many of the features made the game a joy to play in the past.

Unfortunately, a few recent design choices have really tanked my enthusiasm for the game. Note that I'm limiting my criticism to game elements which are truly INDEFENSIBLE, i.e. things which could easily be fixed at low cost and have no obvious explanation.

1. Elimination of MK1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 boat designs. This is just baffling. With the change in ship upgrade mechanics, we're now stuck with mk6 boat artwork? Why in the WORLD would you eliminate what little graphical diversity was present in the game? It's not just a cosmetic issue, either! Seeing the different graphics actually told you something about the health and layout of the boats!!!! I understand making substantive changes to the health, item loadouts, etc. for the different ranks of boats, but scrapping the graphical diversity is just ... I have no words. Were the devs just unable to design multiple graphical iterations of new boats?

2. Event Coins and Ship Tokens. The use of a separate currency for event rewards (coins) that you can then exchange for another currency (ship pieces) and then allowing real money transactions to buy EACH STUPID CURRENCY at DIFFERENT PRICES relative both to real money and to each other is actively hostile to new and long-time users alike. It fills me with rage. It makes me see red. It's the single dumbest game design feature I have ever seen in my 33 years of life. If there is some internal business person pushing for this on the grounds that it somehow increases revenue, that person needs to be fired, NOW. Scraping a few more dollars from a few confused players is going to be offset, and then some, by dampened enthusiasm and frustration among the rest of us.

3. Elimination (?) of Event Perks. Am I the only one who was somewhat interested in continuing to get event perks? Imagine if, suddenly, all the perks for explosive cannon or big shield was just removed from the game with no explanation. Of course Rovio wouldn't do that, because it's stupid. But why are event perks different? Will event perks be coming back? To take a core gameplay element and just, *poof* remove it from the game with no alternative means to buy it is indefensible. They could have kept event perks as items to purchase in the shop, made them spawn in guild raffle, or just, you know KEPT THEM as things you could buy during events, especially since the time cost of the new ships is so astronomical that I have zero interest in purchasing them anyway.

4. New Ship Prices. Separate from the unnecessary complexity of using two currencies to earn new ships when one would do just fine, what we have right now is a situation where there is a ship (Interceptor) which is IMPOSSIBLE to unlock without paying money. Is this intentional? Will it change in the future? The lack of communication on this point is INDEFENSIBLE. Either free-to-play players are being screwed by being locked out of game progression, or whales are getting screwed by a coming devaluation of the price of ship tokens. This is simply unfair to the player base.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, feel free to add your thoughts below if you have any other frustrations or if you agree or disagree with my comments.

I'm increasingly pessimistic about the long term prospects of the game. Anecdotally, I'm seeing many long-time players and guildmates scale back or leave the game. It's certainly not a game I would recommend for new players.

 

I can't disagree with any of your points. I'm not as concerned about the ship cosmetics, but it was really nice to have a visual indicator of the boat level in the match itself. The whole difficult-to-earn coins -> RNG -> ship specific currency thing doesn't seem to be well thought out, and I don't know where Rovio goes from here with that decision.

 

I agree with everything, but I'm gonna add to what you started about events.

I really enjoyed playing them, interesting game modes, new challenges but most importantly great rewards (either item pieces, materials or perks themselves). You always had something to play for.
Now, since I'm not interested in the new ships as a f2p and not hard-grinder I have no chance to get them or then eventually upgrade them, my interest in those events disappeared. Which kinda sucks as it was the only mode left I truly played and enjoyed lately.

 

I agree 100% I've been playing mostly ranked mode during this event which I NEVER did before.

 

I agree. This game is headed south. It may not be tomorrow....but they changed the game in a negative way.

Since rev 4, I have unsubscribed to VIP as there was nothing added for us. VIP was their steady income but no extra benefits for us supporters.

The new ships.....pfffff. That must have been some party. What a joke. It would have been better to give ships and play events for parts for upgrading. Not the least bit interested in them.

It's too bad that the Developers lack imagination and seem to be either in a big rush to add new boats or too stupid to remember to show coins earned in battle log. Pathetic.

And don't get me started on the matchmaking. How can an event be fair when I have to fight against nml players whose weapons deal more damage. Not exactly a lvl playing field. IMHO I think this was done to allow the whales to excel in events which are damage based. That way they can keep them playing and spending.

 

It's normally not worth responding to a salty post but you have some valid points... You are right, displaying coins is a solid indication the patch was rushed and QA is lacking. It's been over 1 year since guild chat shows new message notifications for already claimed quests. While these things are minor, giving the perception that Battle Bay is not a polished product will drive away players.

The other thing is the matchmaking. I'm in the same boat, fighting against NML players with full loadouts when my GS and Infamy is 1000+ lower than them, each. We'd be better off if EventMatchmaker(tm) was based on Infamy because GS matchmaking quality has gone bad.

 

What Captain and Ship level are you now? I haven’t noticed my event games being unfair.

 

In my opinion, this statement hit the nail on the head. I believe BattleBay decisions have been taken over my somebody higher up the food chain in Rovio. The developers themselves are following orders, this is their career and their lives depend on this position or future development positions.
The removal of the MK ship designs and the removal of the Crew from talent trees were a huge mistake for the lore of the game. This decision I can't believe would have been made by the development team that actually created the game.

 

Angry Birds has always used micro-transactions... Battle Bay has always used macro-transactions, so I'm actually doubtful it's higher up in Rovio.

PS: IMO the training tree without conflicts is better.

 

Yup, me too

 

The more I play, the more I agree with these points. After playing for a few weeks now, the event + new ship changes feel like they're 5 steps in the wrong direction.

1. The coins expire at the end of the event - What was even the reasoning behind this change? Now you need to play until you hit 10k tickets or else your progress towards the only guaranteed source of tickets is gone, and that grind is made worse by the RNG ticket droprates of the boxes.
2. The coins can only be spent on ship-specific boxes, and so far there's only been one type of box per event - There's only the choice for Reaper boxes, I can't spend coins to get Interceptor, and I can't save the coins either (for event perks?).
3. It's just not possible to get a level 48+ Interceptor or Reaper, which are needed if you want to be competitive at high Infamy - "Yeah let's have ship upgrade costs scale linearly to the point where it costs 24,000 tickets to gain a single ship level". I can't believe that multiple people had to (and did) say "OK" for this to make it into the game.

Ignoring the new ships+events, gold and sugar prices are way higher now for ship upgrades and training (without increasing gold/sugar gains apart from a small quest reward increase), so getting any kind of currency feels like a huge slog

 

I'm 50/50, 3200 Infamy, just like the NML players I'm going against with 1000+ higher GS.

Most commonly my matches have variations of Gear Scores ranging from 8000-12000. Usually about 4 are 11-12k, 2 are 10k, 4 are 9k or less....,and the occasional really low or really high player. Today I felt sorry for the 1000 Infamy 5500 GS Enforcer going against 12.5k GS NML players. It doesn't matter what I reduce my GS to, I'm still in the same matches, the only difference being that the other side is offset by someone with my GS. Proper matchmaking is not done by balancing GS by side, it's putting players in a match in a close GS range in the first place before balancing occurs.

There's a huge difference between 10k and 12k GS because that extra 2k goes into weapons, which means I'm perpetually mid-range in rewards as I can't always out-damage those 12k players. I've said from the beginning of events, I don't agree with GS matching being outside of a 1k range top to bottom.

 

Exact same thing here. No matter what I do, I get the same matches, regardless of my gear score. With the amount of people playing the event, you'd think they could find 10 people with 9000 gear scores to put in one battle. Instead I am always facing 11 and 12k guys. Now I can't even use a lower ranked weapon or new ship(for doing quests) in my loadout because I need my max gear just to get reasonable coins.

 

Yeah, event matchmaking uses a mix of infamy and gs, but

That is unexceptable

 

I’m I Nightmare player myself, and 90% of the event matches that I do I end up being the only nightmare player in the match. I am often facing guys in low ace league or in Master league which definitely isn’t completely fair to them to be fighting all the way up. I completely agree with you that events should consider both gear score and Infamy. The Gear score only match making runs into major problems for all the players who run right around the 10k gear score mark, because then you end up facing players such as myself who are in nightmare with gear scores of only 10k.

 

Interesting.. at 10k GS you are getting Ace/Master and no other NML players? WTF.

I'm perfectly fine with Gear Score matchmaking and going against NML players in Events as long as their GS is the same as mine. 1000 GS up from me is significant, it means they have 3 more T5E weapons than me... or frequently, evolved Legendary. Events should use GS matchmaking, but GS matchmaking is not properly done by balancing sides... it's using a tight range for match participants, and then balancing sides.

 

No one actually learns anything from success. When I'm rolling over opponents, I just go with it. When I get blown away, I try to figure out why. It's why I like the 1v1 and 2v2 matchmaking... it's by far the most accurate because they can't screw it up in the same way I mentioned above.

 

Here is my take on the game since retiring from retirement. Was gone for 7 months. Learning there were new ships and updates brought me out of retirement.

Conclusion.

Game is harder to aim then 7 months ago.

Ships have hyper activity for agility and way too much hp. I get this as a design change to keep things fresh. While it made the game a new challenge. 3 weeks in. Gets old. Ships dodge n weave everything.

Next weird thing. With every boat being buffed and every weapon being buffed for higher damage. Matches end really quickly. Less strategy then before. And now this massively rewards back tow campers with shooter spam. This wasn't the game before. Yes there was campers. But they got punished by other boats taking advantage of their loadouts. Now not so much. Every weapon minimum hits for 1k. If u have 12k heath in a Level 50 shooter. 12 shots or less. U are dead. This wasn't the case 7 months ago. I had 2k less health. But back row campers didn't own the bay.

Also. I have noticed thru talking to friends who played non stop during my hiatas. Earning infamy is whack now in ranked play. Events have ruined rank. Since top players aren't going to their normal infamy range. It has suppressed every lower boat infamy drastically. This is due to 7 day events. And event upon event weekly. This is massively Stupid.

Why have ranked play then?

These changes I have found for the worse. And won't be recommending this game to friends. And has made me consider retiring again for good. Fun game ruined thru buffing every possible ship, weapon item and making game mechanics close to unusable. Bad combo.