Letting the Cranky Roo out!!

My martini glass is always half full.  I drank what was left in it last night!!

Most people that know me in the game and on the various FB pages know that I try to see the positive side of change. I look for ways changes will help players in the long run. I am always willing to WAIT to see the said changes before I go off on any sort of tirade and even then, I can usually find a positive to balance any negatives. That is until the FM cockup.

My initial thoughts on the FM were that it was a positive change

Kix listened.....Players have long talked about the time it takes to get to the hallowed tokens. No more frustration when Kix would add 3 new prizes to T5 in the FM after a raid.  No more facing the daunting task of having to play catchup if God forbid you took a two week vacation and didn't do your FM while you were out enjoying a life away from the game.

Tokens help a player stay current and build raid fleets that let them progress even further. They are CRITICAL to staying current. If you do not get the tokens you are not going to have, the now required, TWO fleets for a raid.

Another positive, players could catch up in one week, claiming as many prizes as they could claim in the order that would help THEIR needs and not be stuck in a queue of having to clear items that they don't need. Wow, they could EVEN claim tokens after claiming just one prize if they were not caught up!! 

Players had 6 days to grind the FM and do this. No more stuck with 3 days or rushing to finish it if real life got in the way.

Yes, the token amounts were lower and we gave unanimous feedback to Kix and they compromised with adding chests that gave the potential for more bonus tokens. They also increased the time of the Structure and Research Tokens. Not the best solution but it was a start.

I was concerned, (as we all were) about the damage we were going to see and the time it would take to do the targets. Based on our initial math it was going to take more than twice the amount of targets to get to the same point.  But I was willing to wait and see what the targets were like.

So they loaded the FM changes  

Wait, wot???  The tokens have an expiration to redeem???  WTF!! There goes all the extra time to do the FM. 6 days to do the FM??....not so much.

Hmm, okay maybe these new targets won't be so bad. Let me take a peek at a target maybe this will be quicker than expected, even with the extra targets needed.

Challenge Accepted!!  Hold my Martini guys while I go try a new 115 target......

(Editor's note: At this point I can clearly hear a sexy Aussie accent filing the room up with expletives that even a sailor would appreciate!)

Errr... Houston we have a problem.

What goober thought it was a good idea to put "Assault Class Rhinos from Hell" in a Garrison target???  Kixeye I am looking at you.  YOU made the target classes. It is  right there on that handy dandy info screen on the target itself.

It says "Garrison".  Not "Garrison with a super-sized side order of Assault".

You  stated when you released the target types that the ships would be stationary or slow moving.  No where in that description (below) when you released the target types does it state that I will need a damn Assault class ship to kill Rhinos from Hell in a Garrison Target.








I expected to take more damage. I knew I was not going to do the FM for instant repair. I knew that there would be a learning curve. I did NOT expect to be blocked from completing the FM.

There is no learning curve when you take massive amounts of damage from a fleet of stupid over powered ships that do not belong in the FM targets.

When a tank with three...yes I said THREE Charged M armors, 4 x phalanx 4 anti missile and 96% Pen damage protection as well as 69% evade looses a quarter of its health and most of its armor charge from ONE set of ships then we have an issue.  There is nothing I can do to improve these numbers.  Oh, and by the way, the only reason I could get to that point was because I spent $$ on speeding up a Hunter build to clear my shipyard and I happened to have Zelos tokens in my inventory.  My original fleet that did the FM with no issues (unless operator error) disintegrated to ONE set of ships. You can be the best driver in the world but nothing is going to mitigate that damage.

Again, I am not going to use a second incorrect target type fleet to clear the ships in a basic chore target that should not eviscerate my top of the line FM fleet in targets that were not supposed to change until July 2018 (Your schedule of map target changes not mine).

Enough of the 115. Okay, so the 103 is the same.  I guess I could give up any sort of real life and grind them for 5 days to get my weekly done. Goodbye getting anything else done it the game if it takes 5 days to grind out the FM.

Surely the 89 cannot be that bad?  Whoah....a Gauntlet.  I guess that hoses anyone with a citadel fleet.  I guess that is why we keep seeing offers for monos and IceBreakers (which by the way were illegal builds and die in the targets as well but I digress).  The 88 was the bread and butter for lower levels.  Not any more. They are reduced to hitting even lower targets for more time and less points. But wait, those lower targets changed as well.  Hang on, why did the 82 and the other lower targets change?  You explicitly stated the only changes were the re-balance of the 88 and 113. Did someone load the incorrect targets??  Hellloooooo??? What happened here?

At this point I just give up. There are no positives to this change. If a player cannot do the FM they cannot get the tokens, they cannot progress and there is no longer any point in playing the game.

This is not a challenge to beat the targets and get the points down.  There is no way anyone can get their FM done in the short amount of time required to get the tokens unless they coin or they use multiple fleets. You monetized the FM. This is the ONE thing that you HAD to leave alone.

If the 78 pages (at the time of this rant) of complaints and the feedback from ALL the shows and ALL the pages is not enough to convince you of this monumental fail then go run a query of how many points players have. (Editor's note: Exclude the psychos trying to help the community that ran up points trying to figure out how to mitigate this cockup.)  Go run a query of how many bases have been scrapped in the 48 hours.  Go count the amount of posts all over the place from people at all levels that have quit.

These are not just casual players, a lot of these are coiners and some of them coin massively.  People are walking away.

I don't know how to make this any clearer. If you are losing revenue and players, forcing those that remain to coin is NOT a solution. All you do is alienate those that remain. You are driving more players away and on a much larger scale than ever before. The game cannot sustain itself if it continues to lose players.

Most of us are reasonable, if you tell us you are listening and will be making adjustments then most of us probably will wait and see what they are.    Don't just respond with "we are listening to your feedback".  That tells me and other players nothing and just infuriates us even more. FFS, stop listening and start talking. It is pretty dam obvious this is screwed up. Get on the forum and tell us what you are doing to fix it!!

Solution??

I know you cannot roll the code back at this point. I know the data has changed and would be an absolute nightmare to back out and return the original FM. I know we are committed to this format.

What you CAN do, is between this FM and next, adjust the targets.  Next week is the raid (if anyone even bothers) You have a little extra time. If you cannot put the 113 back into play then remove the ships from the 115 (or make them what they should be, an easy kill with a garrison fleet and have them deal low damage).

Return the lower targets to what they were before the change, just adjust the points like you have on the 103's.

I am not sure if you realize just how bad this is. You have just over a week to fix this.....If you do not respond accordingly and make adjustments you WILL lose the game. The ball is in your court.


Cranky Roo.