Thursday, August 18, 2016

Raid Thoughts

Raid Thoughts and the 106 Problem 

The Raid is over, and with it the record high of 1 billion points, and a record of behind the scene changes of Kixeye. From adding missiles with 1000% and 13.5K damage to a cannon with 1000 damage, 2 second reload, and a single salvo, oh yeah with an accuracy of 1000%.


 Mind you this was in a single target, 106. The other targets were easier than before to many player's perception, until about halfway through the raid and many reported increased damages. 

What does this mean? 

Kixeye doesn't know how hard or how easy some sets are, and they aren't willing to test them out on the player base first to judge them.

If you remember back to the Preview server on the 9th, the only targets available were the Drac mine bases and the Reaver Armadas. Nothing detailing the raid in 3 days, just the prizes. 
While this is useful for deciding what to get, Kixeye should also allow the players to test all the targets available in the raid, and not just the prizes. This allows for the players to give feedback upon the targets, and make last minute changes. Not allowing the players to test the targets, leads to 106's. 

Remember the July Raid? With the Vanquisher prize? Now the Preview? What could we all hit during the Preview? 

Player bases to test out the Vanquisher, which was very nice, don't get me wrong there. But Kixeye didn't let the players test out any changes to the raid targets. Which was a large mistake. 

Previously the S target was overrun with missiles, but with countermeasures they were cheaper and easier than A sets. People who were doing the A sets switched over to S sets for an easier gameplay. 

Kixeye noticed this change, and thus changed the S sets into 2 targets and increased the damage.
This raid, people jumped from S sets to A sets. Because of the difficulty of S sets, and it was cheaper and faster to do A sets.  

Kixeye blindly adjusts the targets, without getting the vital feedback critical to the raid's success. 
With the success being judged upon the number of people who (were) "Interested", "Went" and "Invited" on the Battle Pirates Facebook. With the numbers decreasing within this raid series, by 800 people after the first raid, and 300 people after the Allegiance Raid. 

Now, this doesn't seem that high to the current 65K people playing on Kixeye site, through all of their games. But the last series, only 3 raid long. lost only about 50 people! 

Now, you could be claiming that the number dropped because of the number of people "invite" to the raid. However, if you compare the number of people "invited" from Revenge Raid 2 to Schism. it's still a huge drop. 

Revenge Raid 2 had 3618 people invited, and 6089 went. 
Schism had 3589 people invited, and 4300 went. 

So, the number of people invented doesn't matter. Defiance had 1,800 more people who went than Civil War Escalation, but both drew the same number of invited. 

The Initially drop between the first two raids in Civil War are to blame for this, with the initial Mega Hull hardness. What did Kixeye do to the difficulty of this target?  


But the Elite (S) was changed after Escalation, if it lead for players to choose it over A sets. 

All in All, Kixeye needs to start doing thee things and stop doing a single thing. 

Do these 
  • Tell the players of any changes to the targets, such as lowering difficulty 
  • Report the number of players that legitimately played the raid, such as getting more than 100k points, to weed out those who try, get a little amount of points, and quit
  • Open up a live preview server (more about this below) 
Don't do these 
  • Leave the preview only for testing the prizes, bring in the new targets and let the players test them before you have another drop again. 

Live Preview Server 

The last preview lasted 2 hours, and had GD Raiken in the chat along with other kix employees, nice touch. The preview was only for testing the prizes, bad touch. 

Now, what I believe ya'll should do is this 
  • Increase the time from 2 hours to 4 hours
  • included a popup feedback after every target, can be disabled, for the first 15 minutes of combat every half hour. 
  • update the server every 30 minutes based upon the feedback in the popup 
Now, the feedback popup should look like the basic feedback we sometimes get. With a scale of 1-10 in bubble form , and a description box.  Take away the description box and add in basic info, again all in bubble form, such as fleet, most damage from, coin amount. 

At the end of the 15 minutes of combat, change the targets based upon the feedback received, not from all the targets, but from a lottery of 10. Average out the score, and adjust when necessary. Keep on doing this every 30 minutes for 4 hours, you should be able to reach the perfect level of difficulty. 

Until in a few days where I post something else, keep those tinfoil hats on and fingers crossed. 



4 comments:

  1. very nice but you have forgotten one vital component, time against repair unless there is a massive drop in repair times during every aspect of the game not just raids , players will continue to leave or indeed just log in and do something in there base , if othe game companys can accomadate repair time issues (many are instant and free)and still make a profit im sure kixeye can also do this instead of fleecing there player base , just a thought

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  2. These are nice ideas but, these changes would require a level of caring about their customers and the game that I do not think they are capable of. Let's be honest, what kind of person or persons, thinks increasing the damage and accuracy of NPC weapons was going to be a good thing? Also, the DRASTIC reduction or negation of any coutermeasures working in many targets, not just S targets? Let us not forget, this was for a HULL RAID. Historically, suppose to be easier so your lower level players can catch up on tech they missed out on. Regardless of the "lip service" that is paid by Kixeye employees to high profile shows and players about the game, they show a level of caring that a fast food worker does that they get your order right. No, we are but faceless pennies that are only cared about if we are missing from their coin purse at the end of the day. And only then if it is thousands of us.

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  3. who actually cares about this game they are just taking the piss everytime, more damage, ships that get ever more powerful cost of repairs etc costing more and more for what? a game that is slowly dying a death at the hands of people who could not give a rats ass about its customers !!!!

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    Replies
    1. The why do you keep on playing and looking at the BP groups?

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