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Observations from a post-rebalance medal-dropping run

Black tiger

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May 20, 2018
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Some observations from a recent medal drop run...

I’m L262CW German and was sitting at 3600 medals when it got too hard and boring in Dynasty leagues (often weeks between defenses, and man, these L300 bases with full blessings and stacked museums are tough to crack). So decided to grab some loot to finish my traps with my old-style medal dropping loop, which goes something like this:

Set a training blessing and continually raid opportunistically on poorly-defended markets and oil refineries with small groups of raiders and wall breakers. With some practice it’s easy to do this back to back while troops retraining and get loads of loot. I’d do this until I fell down to the minimum 200 medals and then switch to full assaults with HT or AV/APC/HA. Full assaults rarely lose troops due to prioritization of weak bases and could also be done back to back continuously and easily up to approx 2000 medals (no generals, tactics or mercs). A year ago one trip down and back could pay for many L16 walls. It was so easy and I knew I had broken the game. The only thing stopping me from flying through levels were build times after walls were completed. I know lots of others had the same idea as I would see them going up and down with me like a bunch of yo-yos. Note to those who think players with max walls must be cheaters... not necessarily so, we’ve just mastered the medal drop loop and put in a ridiculous amount of time. Between January and April of last year I raised my walls from L9 to L16 (something like 5 billion gold/food) while keeping all but 1 of my citizens busy at all times.

So I was interested to see what changed while I was sitting in Dynasty through the rebalance:

Apparently very little has changed, as this approach is still valid. My HT are now max and museumxbuffed and it’s still just a matter of how much time you have to play limiting the loot.

The number of derelict bases was always surprising to me. You can spot them easily when you see no red in the mills. This time though, it felt like there were so many more abandoned bases. It makes it harder to raid gold (I have no more use for food) because the markets in these bases are empty and gold shows up randomly on the roads, which you can’t see until you drop a troop, so I often skip these bases. On this run I’d see as many as 10 derelicts in a row sometimes. Slowed me down marginally.

What really struck me were the amount of one-troop drop-and-surrender attacks on my base by others also dropping medals. I never do the 1-troop surrenders myself because I personally find it too boring, not even looking at the base, just tap tap tapping medals away. My raiding approach is more strategic and yields piles of loot on the way down - just a personal preference. But holy cow - there’s a medal dropping frenzy going on below 1000 medals right now! I went to work in the morning at 400 medals and when I checked back at lunch break I was over 1000, showing 22 defenses, most of which were 1-troop surrenders. I would say this has increased exponentially since last time for me. BTW, my TC is exposed on the edge but virtually no one went for it.

Which brings me to an observation and a question. I think perhaps the 1-troop surrender may have become the most common attack in the game. If it is, what do you think about the effect this is having on our player base?

For you, Nexon, is this what you envisioned? Is this how you wanted us to play the game, just tap tap tapping medals away most of the time to circumvent equal matchups? I’ve just made 60M loot in a few hours by picking around the edges of bases or steamrolling weak GAs that I should have no business matching up against - all without 1 single challenging attack.

Just thought I’d share and wondering what other players think about the medal system.
 

shukra

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i share your criticism.
i play a little differently, i do the 1-troop surrender method because i find raiding boring -- i want to wipe out my target because i enjoy the exercise. but the criticism is the same; i will spend too much time gamig the medals system.

please .. community ... brainstorm what would be better.
when i try ... i recognize there's a problem. i don't see a clearly better solution.
making 'medal dropping' a feature in the interface would make it less clumsy, but might break the system.
the status-quo is that people who can tolerate boring medal-dropping mechanics are going to do better, and that's not good.

another new trend is the ubiquity of global bases since CWA attackers avoid them; i do because they don't give artifacts.
 
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Dvicious

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Feb 8, 2018
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Nice observation. I just maxed my walls at atomic and am glad i can take a break from the yo-yo-ing.


just had one point RE: " gold shows up randomly on the roads, which you can’t see until you drop a troop"

FYI its not random, the gold is dropped where the caravans are when you drop your first troop.
 

Manifesto

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Sep 26, 2016
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BTW, my TC is exposed on the edge but virtually no one went for it.
That's only natural. Sniping a TC is not conducive to medal dropping. :D
But I understand your concerns/frustrations. With medal droppers I can go from 800 to 1400 in 2-3 days and I have rss exposed, including oil!
I'm guessing after 2-3 years players are so conditioned to ''Hit search, drop, end, retrain, search, drop. end, retrain,'' etc, that they don't even see when rss are exposed and/or attainable.
But it is what it is. The current mechanism hasn't been caused by the rebalance, its just been exacerbated by it.
Medal dropping might not be such an issue if bases were matched against similar bases, within a +-1 age range and a +- (say, 50?) player level.
 

No Angel

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Gosh people! All other strategy-civilizations games also have this mechanism! 😑
It feels like personal Campaign mode if we have the system to adjust our medals in 1 button! 😆
 

pckrn

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Apr 14, 2016
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Medal dropping might not be such an issue if bases were matched against similar bases, within a +-1 age range and a +- (say, 50?) player level.

this would improve the quality of life for many people, but it could be game-breaking for some.

case1. lvl 300 that cannot defeat 250. being prevented from meeting anyone less than 250 would be game breaking for them. and because from 250 to 300 it’s all defensive upgrades, 300 attacking 250 isn’t even attacking ‘down’. there actually was a forummer experiencing this in one of the anti-rebalance posts

case2. lvl 250 that enjoy challenges and finds it fun to only ever meet 270+ bases. what good is dynasty if you are matched with a puny lvl 200?
 

oddin

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a good idea would be to put a limit to how low in leagues a certain age can go.

i.e.
Enlightment Copper III
IA can't go lower than Silver III
Global can't go lower than Gold III
AA Kingdom III
CWA Empire III

All players would play as they like but all would operate within a certain low boundary. Simple solution and super effective
case solved. !!
 

Corne

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Oct 10, 2018
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Its a strange system but we should leave it as it is. After rebalance the game lost a lot of players. If they make grinding for resources more difficult we will lose another pool of players. There is already a system where certain ages cannot attack 1 or 2 ages below. People who are doing the agerush event will run into big problems if they cannot go to lower leagues. If nexon wants to fix this droppingmedal method they should undo the rebalance so it is possible to attack bases of your own level again without losing too much army.
 

No Angel

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Black tiger Other games I once played had these 2 mp mechanism : total destruction + all surviving troops returned, and medal dropping (as a nature) where we trained infantry for medal dropping 😉
They didn't have training blessing as far as I remembered though hmm...

I personally never found medal dropping boring, it always felt like a nature to me, much as the way I liked to play.
I could drop 1-2k medals in a short time. That's just the way we play, whether it's with or without rebalance 😊
Thus, if fellow medal droppers went after my base to dump their 1 infantry, I would only shake my head and laugh 😆
Oh I never reached medals over 2.5k though, so I'm not sure how it goes above there.
 

Corne

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It is not intresting thinking, it is thinking without thinking of the results. This will result in more people leaving. Cause you limit yourself to only strong opponents. The game is unbalanced atm, you need to attack lower opponents if you want to 5 star and have some survivors if you dont do heavy tank attacks. First fix this unbalanced thing after that you could think about what wrathchild sugested
 

oddin

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Corne, relax dude!! It is you that you rush to make decisions without thinking. Let me help you....

Imagine all players in, lets say as an example, atomic age. If everyone has this cap and MUST be at least Kingdom III then weak and strong bases will be at the same pool. You will attack with the same level of difficulty if you stay Kingdom III but will not be able to harass Global age players UNLESS someone decides to enter Kingdom III. Now, if someone from atomic age, decides to climb to Empire III then he will be able to attack cwa bases too and get more loot!

Nothing will change for the players except that there will be a clear distinction between ages and leagues for those that wish to stay low. Those that still want the challenge, will be able to find one if they simply go higher.

Now, that I explained it better, what do you think?
 

Corne

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No still not ok, the weaker globals are in gold 3 and me as an atomic cannot attack the weaker globals when i look at your list. So i am limited to stronger globals only. If those globals ever decide to go to my atomic kingsom league. So for me atomic I will get harder opponents. Very nice idea but we will lose more players.
 

oddin

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If your playing style is to only farm weaker globals then yes, this idea is horrible for you. But for the majority of us, that are still playing the game after 4 unfair rebalance stages, adapting and becoming a better player is our ultimate goal. The globals I coach, can hit low and mid atomic bases with no problem. Maybe you just need to adapt your troop composition...that simple.

Moreover, as a cwa player, I no longer attack global bases because NOW they created a real incentive for me to take down CWA bases. Its called Domination bonus and fills my coffers in the blink of an eye! Who doesn't want that?
 

Corne

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There is nothing wrong with attacking weaker globals and trying to keep as many troops alive as possible, thats the same ultimate goal to become a better player we share. I can 5 star cw bases so there is also nothing wrong with my troop composition. And your idea should be good but in the state that the game is now its not good. We will never know cause nexon will never implement this idea. But if they do we will see another exodus.
 
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