April 2017 Design Spotlight

[cclaerbo]

The only way to help balance out this update is to make the dock not cost workers or at least a lot less. They put out the message about the dock this week and didn't discount it or anything. If we could get armies from the dock a little easier then maybe things would even out some. Making a game over balanced towards defense is not very smart. There are so many in my alliance that struggle with attacks already and now your going to make it harder on them. There are more people that don't regularly get five stars on war attacks than people that do. You've said before that you don't want to make changes based on the top players in the game let's say 5% but that's what your doing here. Visit most alliances and you'll see the scores aren't perfect every war and how many people struggle to get 5 stars as is.

I think most people like doing well on their attacks and that's what keeps them playing but if you think more people will play when you can never beat a base then you need to rethink things.

Offense is is what makes this game fun for me since I'm not a maxed player and will never catch up to those that are maxed

 

[Quovatis]

Yeah, I found the dock message hilarious. It's like "hey, just want to remind you we put a ton of time in this dock building and nobody is using it...but we're not changing it" There's a reason nobody is using it...it makes absolutely no sense from a cost-benefit analysis to use the dock, especially upgraded dock. It's like the only building where upgrading it is actually bad.

 

[peacebreaker vin]

You are not only ignoring the problem of sandbagging, you are now actively encouraging it with every update. Our last 3 wars in a row have been against 20% sandbag teams, and we are on pace to expend every resource we have to overcome 30+ level gaps to combat it. It takes us every hit, every coalition, every tiny advantage we can have to overcome these crazy odds. Now, with the change to stalemates, instead of being proud to overcome 30+ level gaps, we will have had three straight losses. The 30 level gap on the top 80% of bases gives such a huge time advantage, the bottom couple of bases being able to be wiped out in 30-40 seconds hasnt mattered, we've tested it two wars in a row. Ordinarily I'd say this is a good change, but your lack of ability to do anything about sandbagging makes the game even worse.

Now, in addition to this, you are now presenting us with a decrease in tactics that can be used in battle. This makes sandbagging even more powerful again, as those top end AA bases that exist on nearly all sandbag teams will be much harder to beat, especially when a team is already stretched super thin as it is covering such a massive mismatch.

Dominations is the only game I have ever played, where your are actively and severely punished if you take your most prepared, most talented players. There are exactly ZERO scenarios in which this is good for a team. In 100% of cases, it is significantly more advantageous to instead sit good players, and take iron age alts. Manipulating your matchup is so much more important than any sort of preparation, planning, or strategic actions. Its well beyond ridiculous now.

Its been clear from the beginning, if you solved sandbagging without solving stalemates it would make war awful. Conversely, if you solve stalemates (which you basically already had, I cant believe there are real developer posts touting stalemate changes as sorely needed) without solving sandbagging....you make war awful. And, this is now where we are. Anything positive in your update, for me and my team and many others, simply doesnt matter because of these issues.

Oh, and I like Quovatis' point as well. While it doesnt really impact me like the above issue, its a pretty valid point lol. Would like to hear an answer.

good post. articulate and thorough. sums up a serious and ongoing problem with the game.

 

[MartinK12]

About Tactics:
1. I only use sabotage and betrayal so it will be nice to finally see that there are other tactics
But those 1 space tactics still need some buff like demolition on defensive buildings.

2. I also think that university upgrades should be more meaningful both for tactics and other upgrades. Like when someone spend 1 year to research level 10 of library hitpoints - this library HP should feel like a well spent year! Plus give extra color or aura to the library building showing enemies that it's fully uni-upgraded! Now uni is just a waste of time - just few important upgrades per leader and rest is useless And uni upgrades are way too hidden (not even show up in player's experience) so there's no way to impress yourself or others - that's why different color or aura for uni upgraded buildings would be nice
And correct me if I'm wrong but the initial researches of the 5 leaders used to have higher boosts than now, so i think they secretly nerf uni research's bonus with every update

3. You also shouldn't be able to 5 star a base that's one age above you, and 10 level's in player experience. I would hate it if I was an atomic age (the highest so far) and some global could 5 star me. I understand all the reasons with war matchmaking but still higher base is higher base. So from this point of view it's a good thing.

4. They have similar solution in clash of clans so i guess this is a good thing to mixed our gameplay. But in clash of clans when they introduced the same change the also added building for smaller spells (tactics) with new tactics so players have more to choose from.
Dominations could also use some more 1 space tactics to mixed our gameplay.

 

[DomiNationsVigiles]

Hi Quovatis!

We believe that the strategies leading to World War may change with the introduction of Friendly Challenges.

True, it would be possible to approximate an enemy's base--but--the player you're scouting could display one War Base on planning day, and change the base to a completely different layout for War Day!

 

[Quovatis]

Thanks for the response! But you could of course still practice on the (new) base on war day.

 

[Peugi]

So lets count: TC + castle + strongold + pentagon + bazooka tower = 5 sabotages required to 5* an AA base. We will have 3 and no space for another tactic.

I guess that everyone wanted a slight shift of balance towards defense but this just makes 5* on a developed AA base plain impossible. It is not necessarily a stupid idea but Nexon should have introduced it in a package of re-balancing measures, not as a standalone tweak. This way the impact of this change will be too severe.

...and I agree with the poster above: Brandenburg gate will be the only viable IA wonder, all other IA wonders (including my beloved statue of liberty) can now be deleted from the game. RIP

 

[Master Contrail Program]

Boy, Amelia Earhart's buffs must be amazing since you're nerfing tactics so badly. Obviously airplanes will have to become more viable, less vulnerable, and lose their propensity for doing loop-de-loops over every possible air defense?

​​​​​I mean, this has surely been a well thought out and thoroughly playtested massive change your foisting on us. Just like Glory, amiright?

*Taps mic* Hello? Is this thing on?

 

[Htmk5]

I'm quitting at level 204 (with no farms and caravans). I'm done with this greedy company who can't hire developers who actually play the game and know how to attack. It was fun for the time it lasted but now it seems worst at every update. Even pay to win doesn't make a sens if they remove the fun from war...

 

[SebQuattro]

This is the first of many changes coming this year which will improve the balance between offense and defense

This is what worries me the most.

I'm already struggling in multiplayer from where so few players are upgrading their farms, the cost of retraining my army is often more than i'm gaining. Then there's the NTGs, all these updates buffing defense will make it impossible to get enough NTGs for coalitions.

The bugs introduced in the 5.3 update, specially the non display of diamonds/ NTGs on the battle screen and coaltions on the war map. I'm sure they they took no time at all to fix, yet BHG didn't roll out any hotfix to address them. I'm willing to bet CS has been inundated with complaints about missing diamonds. The way Nexon treats their 'customers' is appalling.

 

[King Barbs]

I agree with the idea of friendly challenges and the changes to eliminate stalemates but the change to tactics is absurd. They aren't overpowered now, there aren't too many of them so I cannot work out why they needed to be changed. Some of us have invested a great deal of time & resources in maximising their effectiveness and now you want to cut their numbers by half. You need to stop moving the goal posts and concentrate on fixing the real issues of Sandbagging and WW replays and leave the actual game play as it is.
An update ago you were encouraging us to use more War Coalitions, now you want to make it harder to 5 star bases by reducing our number of tactics, it doesn't make sense to me. Diamonds will be harder to get too. C'mon people get with the program or more and more of us will leave this game.

 

[Mobius]

When I raid I mainly hit dead bases so I don't think much will change there.

But I'll probably drop out of wars entirely when the change to tactics comes. The only way I could see it working is if you massively increased the rewards for war especially at higher ages. As it stands now it's hardly profitable at Atomic Age even when we do win. Fewer (worthwhile) tactics means I'll lose a lot more troops and I simply don't care enough about gaining Glory to pay for the "privilege".

 

[cclaerbo]

Wars are never profitable for those that donate to war bases they should increase rewards

 

[Veldan]

Lol that's like saying all bronze wonders except Acropolis can be deleted from the game, or all gunpowder wonders other than Versailles. There will always be people using the other ones even if they're not perfect war wonders. Also, Brandenburg gate is already easily the best IA (not GA btw) wonder for war, this won't change anything in that regard. The patch will just increase the disadvantage of people who made the wrong choice.

 

[jmemira]

Nobody is going to use the other tactics. If it was like the coalition changes: people weren't using them, so they changed it! but that actually made a difference, made the game more fun and interesting (as you have to decide which coalitions to upgrade and activate (depending on the goods). This is just pushing people out of the game. Without these tactics no regular player can take out a mega spender base.

 

[KingRichard71]

The tactics change is the worst idea yet!!!!! Nowhere have I read anything about anyone complaining about an issue with tactics. Instead of letting people upgrade their defenses more than once per level if they want better defenses, let's limit everyday player's offense. Now, they may have to buy special troops to win fights, so nexom makes more money. Way to put the F U in fun guys.

 

[JuDomines]

Noticed how they smartly pushed the crown sales before announcing this?.... I am speechless

 

[K1ng_kriting]

again and again you kill this game nexon.
how if you change the title of this game..from dominations being PAY2WIN

 

[SebQuattro]

I was looking at the Korean forum, a couple of people seem to think Nexon have an ulterior motive. A Tactic version of the Luxury Estate...

 

[GailWho]

Its really getting hard to stay positive about this game. Only thing I can say I like about this is the Friendly Challenge thing. The rest of it seems like they are changing things for the sake of change.