BM ang1243 said:

Peter John (US1) said:

Welp, I've been holding my breath for GGS to NOT masking the shapeshifter battle power and suddenly I woke up in the ICU.

@Peter John (US1)

In the last announcement of this, I thought we made it clear it would properly display the actual melee and ranged defense strength?

To give you a sort of idea on how this could be done, my belief is a plan could be to take the total melee defense power and total ranged defense power, then divide each of them by the strength of KGs, then displaying that number of KG strength Shapeshifter defenders.

e.g. 7500 Veteran demon horrors would appear as 1000 Melee Shapeshifter defenders.

STEVIEBEANZ (GB1) said:

David Noble (US1) said:

But if you do not know who the attacker is why bother to empty the castle?

I've already told you this. You are competing with other people to get the most points. If you evacuate every incoming attack, you reduce the amount of points your competitors can win.

That's all there is to my point, but it is on the assumption that an attacker doesnt get many points for hitting an empty castle

BM ang1243 said:

Peter John (US1) said:

...

@BM ang1243

First, this is the first time you responsded that incoming attacks won't be masked. You have NEVER responded to several of my post where I laid out issue with masked incoming. So, let me asked you a stone cold clarification in here, the masked troops is ONLY for the totem (hence only when we are attacking).

Second, about how you set your PvP attack, that's your personal choice. I've also posted several comments that this is strategy games, where attacking is supposedly a calculated risk. Whether you want to attack in a way that you assume it will always be defended hence you go mofo all the time, that's your personal choice. On the other hand, a good strategy game should also reward a player that managed to figure out exactly how the battle is calculated and that player may choose to attack using optimum formation, providing the risk of the defense change formation and/or get supported is acceptable to the said player.

Bottom line is, you can't properly calculate the risk to begin with, if you don't have a actual configuration of the target. YES, it's possible to change, but that's beside the point. You NEED to plan the attack based on certain assumption, otherwise what's the point of spying? Whether one don't care of spying (which in certain case, like war, it make sense) or still hedge him/herself against possible change, that's personal choice based on how comfortable (s)he is with the risk.

My biggest problem is, player like me (who really like the math of the battle calculation), get punished and will have to resort to putting more tools/troops as the risk is now significantly higer (basically I can no longer calculate the risk properly, hence I should assume higher risk and hedge against it, or not participating actively to the event). And as a povo player, this make my participation to the event limited, hence it actually against the idea of the event.

The event is to revive PvP, I get it, and I supported it. But don't cater only to players that can only afford to send max out attack all the time. Most of player base can't afford it. Technically speaking, from coding perspective, masking the troops is still possible, just mask ScKG to ScKG shapeshirter, and so on. So the player can still properly plan an optimum attack for that kind of defense, and let him/her decided how to hedge against possible defense changes.

Let the strategy/tactic actually can be used in this so-called strategy game.

Hey @Peter John (US1)

Forgive me - but I simply don't understand how if the melee and ranged defense statistics are displayed correctly - just with different troops - how does it make a difference?

Angus

Wiglema (NL1) said:

BM ang1243 said:

Peter John (US1) said:

Welp, I've been holding my breath for GGS to NOT masking the shapeshifter battle power and suddenly I woke up in the ICU.

@Peter John (US1)

In the last announcement of this, I thought we made it clear it would properly display the actual melee and ranged defense strength?

To give you a sort of idea on how this could be done, my belief is a plan could be to take the total melee defense power and total ranged defense power, then divide each of them by the strength of KGs, then displaying that number of KG strength Shapeshifter defenders.

e.g. 7500 Veteran demon horrors would appear as 1000 Melee Shapeshifter defenders.

I'm trying to understand how that would work.
Suppose we have the following hypothetical case:

A castle with 500 archers on the wall. Total defense strength: 26 500 melee, 27 500 ranged.
These will be masked as Shapeshifter defenders.
Suppose these Shapeshifter defenders have the same stats as Kingsguard defenders.
Melee Shapeshifter defense strength: 150 melee, 65 ranged.
Ranged Shapeshifter defense strength: 70 melee, 139 ranged.

The question is: how will the 500 archers be masked?
I can come up with several options (all numbers are approximations):

A. As 379 ranged Shapeshifters. Total defense strength: 26 500 melee, 52 620 ranged.
B. As 198 ranged Shapeshifters. Total defense strength: 13 850 melee, 27 500 ranged.
C. As 177 melee Shapeshifters. Total defense strength: 26 500 melee, 11 480 ranged.
D. As 423 melee Shapeshifters. Total defense strength: 63 460 melee, 27 500 ranged.
E. As 147 ranged Shapeshifters and 108 melee Shapeshifters. Total defense strength: 26 500 melee, 27 500 ranged.
F. None of the above (please specify).

Note that the real defense and both options A and B can be completely nullified by a sufficient number of shields in the attack. Options C and D are not at all affected by shields and option E can be reduced by shields, but not to zero.

In my opinion, options A to E all fail to properly represent the true defense.

@BM ang1243 what is your opinion?

• 2 Sentinel of the Kingsguard with 150 melee and 65 ranged defense each
• 1 veteran flamebearer with 196 melee and 79 ranged defense each
• 3 Scout of the Kingsguard with 70 melee and 139 ranged defense each

David Noble (US1) said:

I just watched a stream video and I found out that if you decide to not defend you are giving away points to the attackers and they also said that opening gates is void giving me the impression that it will not work against Shapeshifter attacks which makes sense since their is no risk at all for defending. If the opening gates will not work against Shapeshifters that means there would be no point in wasting rubies to open gates from Shapeshifter attacks. As for protection mode I am still uncertain about that, but at least opening gates anyway apparently will not work against Shapeshifters.


 If you want to make it hard for a player to make points then that means you have to defend the castle and it is actually "hard mode" as well that can get you more points too as an attacker. If you attack a really big castle for example and lose I would say that could mean less points for the attacker as well which is quite different than the Alliance Tournament where attacking bigger castles can lead to more glory points gained even if you lose the battle. This is to help clear up any confusion about the event in general.

And so it would not be practical to empty out a castle during the Shapeshifter event because of you making it easier to give points away to the attacker. However, there are plenty of ways though to defend properly including when you have a strong enough cast in addition to using your best tools for this pvp event including fire moats, arrow slits, melee tools, and/or murder holes which you would not have to worry about running out of from this event because of their being no risk for the defender including no defensive tools lost which does help also because the Kahn attacks when taunting can drain a lot of defensive tools as well.

GreatLord (NL1) said:

I hate the fact that you can only do 5 attacks per day. This is unbalenced because higher players have more chance at moor deff troops then lower players( you get placed in your catargory level players)

Manatee (US1) said:

So are the shapeshifter troops going to be reflective of existing troops?  Or are they going to be a new algorithm of strengths to help mask who the defender is?

If it's a new algorithm, let's ignore other bonuses for now, going solely by troop strength.
I'm assuming the following, say the defender has 7 defenders with the following stats:

• 2 Sentinel of the Kingsguard with 150 melee and 65 ranged defense each
• 1 veteran flamebearer with 196 melee and 79 ranged defense each
• 3 Scout of the Kingsguard with 70 melee and 139 ranged defense each

Added up, melee shapeshifters have 496 melee and 209 ranged defense total
And the ranged shapeshifters have 210 melee and 417 ranged defense total

A scenario using 4 troops for each would be:
4 melee shapeshifters of 124 melee and 52 ranged defense
4 ranged shapeshifters of 53 melee and 104 ranged defense

If broken down for both melee and ranged troops separately like that, there really should be no difference attacking it than if it were the normal troops we're used to seeing.

@BM ang1243 is it anything like that?  Or is it just going to be a different name and picture for the units?

Peter John (US1) said:

Edit:
 I might misunderstood what are you trying to say in here. Are you saying the SS M/R def power value may change? Meaning, say for the M Shapeshifter their M/R def power may not be always 124/52? Basically it changes depends on the actual composition of the actual troops? If this is the case, it might works (not perfectly ideal as most of the time there will still be rounding no matter what, but I think it won't matter much) IF AND ONLY IF the averaging calculation is strictly per wall sections and CY. Meaning M SS on left the displayed M/R def power are purely based on the actual composition of the troops on left wall ONLY, and it may be different value then the rest of the wall and/or CY. However if the M/R determination on based on ALL troops in the castle collectively, then NO WAY (I have posted this scenario on earlier responses on why it's not gonna work).

Batten (GB1) said:

A lot would seem to depend on which castle they pick to shapeshift.  Given some players have attack ops which just hold attackers you get one of those your chances of winning if player isn't online go up but your point score potentially goes down.  Even worse if you get players who don't bother with defence at all.  The number of actual troops is probably early in the gameplay going to be less important than actually some defensive troops being there.  

From a strategy point of view and given the number of defender I'd normally hold having watched the Twitch chat I'd be inclined to defend now or least try to do so.  Some adjustment of troop types and HOL is probably required but given you could get completely different set ups on each of the twenty attacks you'll face will make things more interesting.  Ops certainly become more relevant than perhaps they would normally be.  And actually given you are constantly developing main and ops does allow for different gameplay.  Looks pretty good piece of development.  

I like the matchmaking more than I thought I would effectively if you are matched 1-6 7-12 13-18 etc on powerpoints makers for some very interesting match ups.  I saw a suggestion that players might try to drop powerpoints to get an easier draw but I'm not convinced that works so well as the building scores are constant, the titles give advantage that restrict you if you deliberately drop them and unequipping commanders or castellan or reducing troops huirts you.  Potentially you risk dropping to a stronger rising player who takes you out.  But having fun watching whether the Powerpoints move see who is getting nervous.  All the old Berimond masters I suspect are dusting off their armour and touring some of the top castles:)