Why Would Battle Bay Devs Change The Game?

I was planning to bring up the poll. The devs showed that they don’t care about the players. They only care about how to boost the bottom line. The players that think the devs actually listen are somewhat delusional. (Sorry for the harsh comment.)
They made a poll that the players voted for ship. They tested max agility in event and the feedbacks were mostly negative. They went on with the update that introduced new weapon and max agility. If the poll resulted in weapon and the max agility event got positive feedbacks, then they’ll come out and saying they did what the players wanted. The fact is that they never listen to players unless it can boost the bottom line right away. If somethings that were discussed by the players make it to the game, it was pure coincidence.
To the OP, how does max agility make the game more attractive to the newer players? The newer players need to start at slower pace as they just started the game. The major problem facing the newer players right now is once they left the bubble, they immediately get slaughter. Climbing the rank is much harder now than it was a year ago.

 

I do think there are a handful of simple but huge wins to be had that would address matchmaking issues. The ideas aren't new, but I'll repeat them

1. Level all boats at once. It eliminates all kinds of issues with high level players using low level boats in ranked or event matches. EventMatchmaker(tm) uses MK level as a crutch because it is still struggling with this issue. Easy fix, and I can't imagine any player would have a valid complaint against Rovio just doing this in all accounts.
2. Add 2 more NML levels and Bump up NML reset to happen at each of those levels. 4000 is too low, and the impact has a Domino effect throughout Ace League.
3. Apply a simple moving average to a player's Infamy. There's no good reason to adjust it +/- 24 per match because a player's effectiveness doesn't change match to match. In other leagues/competitions I'm used to player ratings based on at least 20 prior matches, but in Battle Bay terms, I'd expand it to the duration of a season. This will reduce instances of seal clubbing in lower-infamy rated matches for better rewards with short term Infamy drops, and players will spend significantly more time battling close to their actual Infamy.
4. Add an Infamy floor. If, for example, a player has reached 3800 Infamy, is there any reason they should be in 2400 Infamy matches a week later? It's more common than you think... Infamy decay over time is fine (SMA in #3 allows for that), but let's just put a floor on it... 400-800 drop. The reasons for big Infamy drops are many, both unintentional and intentional, but items 1-3 cover many of the reasons why and their solutions.

At that point when infamy is stabilized better, it would be easier to implement tournaments and Battle Royale events, which I would recommend to do with standard-issue equipment for everyone to make it a true skill competition.

 

I think while a lot of the ideas are good, players of any game are notoriously terrible at balancing because they don't have access to the same data/knowledge that the devs have access too. It's easy to suggest something simple like "increase Gat damage", but it's the devs that then need to think about the effect it would have on the game as a whole. It might sound great as a single sentence suggestion or a poll option, but there's a whole bunch of other side effects that players don't think about when they act like it's an obvious solution to a problem.

 

u know they could make levelling up ships both infamy and level based... but there will be those guys who drop infamy after getting new ships... its simple there ship should downgrade in infamy games till they go back up, for other game modes like custom they could keep the ship at the same level

 

no need to use average, just change infamy system to increase/decrease infamy after every battle based on personal performance
this works, for example, in War Robots, you can even gain rating when you lose, if you are in top 4 (or something like that) of the whole battle

 

This is such a great point. Devs keeping such a broken mechanic around is utterly indefensible, and friction like this absolutely drives players away from the game.

The other complaint I would make is that the user interface and basic quality of life issues appear very neglected to me. I wrote a long post over 6 months ago with suggestions on UI improvements, see here: https://forum.battlebay.net/threads/user-interface-improvement-suggestions.17723/

There were some devs that commented that they appreciated the suggestion, but many of the very most basic suggestions (improving in-game visibility of what your fleetmate is doing, making visible hidden item stats like minimum torp distance, repair box crit chance, mortar speed, etc.) were never implemented.

Additionally, I feel like the devs have really missed an opportunity to develop better tools for the community to create and share content. The inability to fast forward or rewind in a replay means I almost never watch or share replays, and the work of creating quality content on YouTube must be overwhelmingly tedious. Also, the lack of purchasable cosmetics is baffling. It's leaving a massive revenue stream on the table, makes the game less visually appealing for players and spectators, and forces all player investment to be in the form of p2w advancement.

All that is to say that I GREATLY appreciate the devs taking risks on this game, and I think the game needs MORE risk taking, not less. Look at how a game like fortnight blows up out of nowhere just because devs are willing to experiment with something new (fortnight was not a BR game originally, and wasn't even f2p). I'm still a faithful player and I hope to see the game and the community grow!

 

I believe that if they are going to max agility, than they should also give something like a 50% speed boost to all ships, raising the max by the same. I was away from the game for 15 days, and when I came back, I’m like, what’s wrong with my enforcer???

 

For one you can just get on Fortnite and in the first game play with equipment equal to everyone else in your match. Battle Bay is far from that outside of Events.

Good suggestions. Leveling restrictions would help get equally equipped opponents.

As to Power Cells, yea, I have yet to find a player that finds the purpose behind them anything but mysterious. I ran into massive Rare power cell issues, took me 3 months to get past it. I haven't yet run into Epic power cell issues, but that's for a couple reasons: (1) I learned my lesson with Rare power cells., and (2) RNG has been unusually stingy with Epic items that I actually use.

The real drawback about Power Cells is this: It restricts variety by forcing players to stick to a single set of items and a single boat because there aren't enough power cells to go around. I can't think of how lack of variety is a benefits to Battle Bay, particularly with Events enabling the experimentation with other boats. The time to remove Power Cells has long past.

 

While I don't think the success of PUBG or Fortnite means every game has to become another free to play Battle Royale clone, some common elements to those games' popularity include:

1) low barriers to entry, but high skill ceiling
2) extremely popular/exciting streaming communities on twitch/youtube
3) no pay-to-win elements, games are either financed by up front purchase or cosmetics.

Needless to say, BB is just a different type of game and will always be slightly more niche. But I think the crucial factor for growth is figuring out a way to speed new players to higher power levels so they overcome the depressing grind against OP opponents at low infamy levels. I know the dev team may be averse to this approach due to the short term financial sacrifice, but if Rovio sticks to what they're doing this game will not grow.

 

Announce Battle Bay 2

 

Specifically what would you do different in Battle Bay 2?

 

Good question. To create our hypothesis, first we have to create a new account and play as a new player. To save you the trouble I have gotten about 30 accounts from level 1 to 10. Why you ask? As soon as you become level 10 you are put into infamy matches. You are set against mk6 and 7s. (Sometimes even on the very first infamy match!). Which is why I always stop playing once I reach level 10. You play a few matches very balanced, all mk1 vs mk1 mk2 vs mk2. Then all of the sudden you reach a level that unlocks you being up against mk's 4 and 5 levels higher. I personally could not start any game like this. This is due to the overbalancing I talked about earlier that results in mk6s and 7s at very low infamy. After this the smaller things like new crew, ships, items will keep the game fresh

 

I like it besides the downgrading. I think lots would abuse this feature to seal club in TDM. I think upgrading your mk level should give you a big advantage. To where 5 mk5s have way less chance to win against say... 4 mk5s and 1 mk6. Seems a bit unfair but in the long run mk5s would hardly ever get set against mk6s and same for all other mks

 

Theres a lot to do differently, mainly in the game economic/progression rate..for example, remove un-needed cost like retraining cooldown, ship upgrade and power cells..

Improve scrapping, allow players to regain some of the lower parts as well (currently we get only the the item's rarity parts or higher)

Rework special offer, most are stupid offer with no value..allow access to purchase leggy parts at certain infamy level ( 3k+ for example) improve VIP

Tournament mode (weekly competitive 2v2, 3 days event, 15 battles, tournament standard ship and items, big reward)

Shorter rivalry to allow players to actually grind infamy with their best weapon..having rivalry 24/7 means a lot of players will have to use weapon they dont have upgraded, hurting their infamy climb..3 days rivalry a week is good imo..

Better ranked game matchmaking(honestly dunno how to solve this but i guess individual infamy gain/loss is a start), better gear score value in event (need to take talent tree into account)

Simpler, less grindy, more controlled and rewarding event..atm we can grind as much coins we want which is part of the reason why people seal clubbing..then for some other group of players, event is too grindy to complete (by complete I mean gettinf 900 coins) and as for the reward, its RNG based which is stupid because game have enough RNG as it is, so let us choose what reward we want for busting our ass grinding 900 coins! Not just buy a box for 35 coins and get 1k common parts you dont need!

Sell ship skin or whatever kind of decoration that does not affect gameplay..you make money and still keep your game out of trouble..

I can go on and on and on about this but in the end if Rovio (and I mean Rovio, not the devs) decides they want only money instead of allowing devs to let us have fun, then its pointless..

I have played a lot of games, mostly I play long term..in each game, I've seen how they die after 3-5 years because of progression issue or fsilure to combat hacker and also seen some stabilise after reaching its mature period because they are willing to adapt and realise new player need faster progress to catch up in an old game..

I guess BB tried it with leggy piece in event but whats the point when you cant upgrade it? They half solve it..and they still cannot even half solve infamy progression issue lol

BB need to evolve, Clash Royale was crazy expensive when first introduced but F2P knows they have a shot at maxing out! BB however, theres no chance to have full set of max leggy even with money, let alone f2p lol and CR eventually make it easier to progress, make the game cheaper as well..BB remain the same if not worse

Can't believe I spent time typing all this shit wow

 

I like @TheAntiSnipe ’s idea of having restrictions for infamy and mk, etc, but personally, I have found that RNG is being quite nice from me leaving for 15 days, in the past two days, I have gotten,
2 more rare flares, now I have all of them I need for Tier V
1 more rare blast, can get it to lvl 40
Another epic grenade, can get it to lvl 40 and extra
Two more rare Tesla’s shields

New feature devs? Be nice to returning players? Haha.

 

I was thinking same. Dont know if there is a point in asking devs to implement it.