[UPDATE][Open Letter] About the Changes to the Epic Battles
Azure Falcon
[UPDATE] WE HAVE DONE IT!!
Congrats to the community! Hats off to the admins for reacting so quickly.
Original article as follows:
I have tried to submit this letter as a ticket this morning but it exceeded the character limit. So I have decided to publish it as my last article before going on a 2-clicks lifestyle.
Dear Admins,
This ticket is not related to a bug or a glitch, but rather something much more important. I would like to convey to you the impression of the community regarding your latest changes to epic battles.
You see, we generally liked last week's event a lot. But with these new rules the overall wisdom is that this event was nothing more than a giant cover up for nerfing the epic-PP rule. And here's where it gets interesting: I think I can safely say that this is the worst decision that you have made in a very long time. Need an explanation? Luckily, I'm here to give it to you:
eRepublik is getting more and more boring by the day. The simple reason is that any wars that were even distinctly imagined to be interesting have already been fought. Every conflict that is present now is years old and there is no excitement even in ongoing battles other than to produce a higher number than the opposite side. But you see how boring that sounds.
In the past, these wars were much more exciting for three reasons.
Reason 1: Novelty. With every conflict, there was a beginning, and that, by definition it counted as a new experience. When the same conflict is played out for the 7th time, it's a lot less interesting. There is not much you can change about this without genuine innovation, sadly.
Reason 2: The stakes. Before January 2015, a lot of conflicts were rooted in the potential gain of a resource that was vital to the attacking country. But then you introduced the Resource Wars event, which - as nice as it was for the week that it lasted for - killed this. By now countries like Hungary, Serbia and Romania have easily made sure to have permanent access to all bonuses in their closest sphere of influence. Not to mention the USA, which has all these bonuses on their original regions thanks to having 50+ of them (while both Russia and China have less - but I digress). You probably see how this eliminated a lot of incentive for a great battle, just as well as we all do.
Reason 3: Tactics & Strategy. These were a lot more present in the era before the current MPP rules. Basically, countries had to be careful which region to attack the others in, so as not to activate their MPPs against themselves. There were also options for region swaps between allied countries which contributed to leading some countries to legendary places (Serbia - Liaoning, Hungary - Heilongjiang, etc.). All this fun was basically taken away with the Airstrike option. Getting to the Americas or the Far East required a grandiose plan and large amount of coordination with allies for European cointries to succeed. Today, all it takes is winning a single battle after launching the airstrike. Not quite the same.
So yes, the current wars are boring beyond measure. Add to that the current diplomatic landscape, where for the first time in the game's almost 8 year old history, we have not had two major alliances for a year now. And it all makes sense: who needs formal allies when the only way to win the war is to spend your money on Combat Orders? I've been playing this game since 2008 and I have seen war plans as long as 20 pages that were drafted with the cooperation of a dozen countries. Today we have none of these, simply the mindless spending of millions of CC on back-and-forth battles.
With all this said, it is time for me to get back to my original point. That nerfing the epic-PP rule was one of the worst decisions you have made in a long time. You see, the problems I have mentioned above are all old ones. These things have been here for all of 2015. And the community is still here, although in a much smaller number than before. What used to be over 200,000 people is now less than 80,000. This means that 3 out of 5 people left the game in the past year or two. The ones who remained though, have made do with something that gave them a replacement for all the excitement that was lost. For a very few percentage of people (including me), it was getting a large number of BHs, new ranks, etc. But that required an account that is stronger than most in ints division.
So what experience do the rest of the players get? For them, it was collecting Prestige Points in the Weekly Challenge. Now, don't mistake me for saying the WC is interesting. It too, is really boring. However the community found a way to make regular epic battles every Tuesday morning so that everyone was able to get a bit ahead with their weekly PP-collection. For players who had no chance for a BH, hitting for epic was their biggest experience.
And you have taken it away. Yes, epics will technically be possible, but you still struck a big blow to it for technically no reason. I have a really hard time in figuring out why. Organizing epic battles wasn't an exploit. Farming energy bars was impossible with double PPs. Heck, even with 4x PPs energy bars cannot be farmed. So really, what's the reason for taking away the community's last source of mutual fun? And what is the benefit of it? I would love to know and I thank you in advance for your reply.
Best regards,
Azure
Comments
[Open Letter] About the Changes to the Epic Battles
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2548342/1/20
Vote | Shout
Az elso, aki veszi a faradsagot es leforditja (minosegi) magyarra, kap 2000 CC-t.
http://prntscr.com/8beeyt
Some objective numbers on active players (voters at elections) in ALL COUNTRIES:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-erep-the-last-chance-to-do-it-right-az-utols-es-ly--2515915/1/20
This means than in the period of ~2.5 years (01 2013 - 05 2015) more than half of the active voters are gone (dropped to ~20000 from 45000). And if the pretty linear trend holds then at the end of 2015 we are expected to see ~10000 active players. That is one fourth of player base in 3 years.
Based on that data I'd say that 2 out of 5 is too optimistic figure... the game is getting more and more boring.
This last change conveys the message: community goals are dead, everything is about the individuals. How can you call something EPIC when people change site and hit on both side to balance the rope at 49-51%? Or to make TW treatries to make "EPIC" TW battles?
I cannot imagine any more UNEPIC user behavioir and UNEPIC fight than this stupid situation what this new rule will kind of force on players.
mi lett a képeiddel?
nálam látszik....
http://i.imgur.com/zaWR1JA.png
Nalam se latszik :/
hmm, lehet a ffox cachében van még benne? Mindjárt updatelem...
sajnos a cikk már nem editálható, a képek itt:
http://i.imgur.com/jPeQnBF.png
http://i.imgur.com/82nbW6P.png
http://i.imgur.com/wZchuTC.png
Yes.
And a PROPOSAL:
Give 20 prestige points for every kill in EPIC, but REMOVE the energy Bars from rewards.
HUpakolasírta egy perccel ezelőtt
Secret massage
https://www.erepublik.com/hu/article/titkos-zenet-sz-ll-a-sz-llel-hozz-d-is-el-r-m-g-ma-jjel-2548543/1/20
V
I miss old good interesting game
This change is great.
I want change my plasma tank skin to old EPIC battle rules ! 🙁
voted! here i say more or less the same. Voting and signing will be welcome:
https://forum.erepublik.com/index.php?/topic/4352-epic-battle-change/
signed 🙂
signed
v
25
I remember times there was no weekly challenge, no EPIC and no double pp.
We Have Survived.
in other words: who cares?
Yeah though we had a lot of other things which provided a much better experience (see the letter itself for examples).
sry, too long for me 🙂
Pretty accurate summation
Voted and shouted
Signed
v
Voted
[removed]
I am sure they are reading our shouts and articles ...
Sarcasm off
HUpakolasírta egy perccel ezelőtt
Secret massage
https://www.erepublik.com/hu/article/titkos-zenet-sz-ll-a-sz-llel-hozz-d-is-el-r-m-g-ma-jjel-2548543/1/20
So really, what's the reason for taking away the community's last source of mutual fun? And what is the benefit of it?
Plutos answer: I do not know 😳 !
🙂
Please send tickets to Pluto about this.
Send something like this:
http://prntscr.com/8baicn
or
http://prntscr.com/8b9zle
shut up and buy a pack, only 14.99.
We'll see how their income will change after this update :/
check latest updates.
just did, and i'm glad 🙂
Hard voted.
I pretty much agree with everything you've said.
The only way to make the game more interesting is to totally change it, from the core.
voted
hey Plato, if you read this, vote my comment pls
thanks
V i miss lionking and hello-kitty times
yeah so do i 🙂
True, but no efect on them..
Way too much text for me to read 😛
Anyway they should put x4 PP when battle is EPIC in any % but they should remove extra points won in EPIC battles because game would be more interesting and all countries will have same chance to win not just Asteria who is leading with current situation...In this situation Plato is not loosing anything because people will still buying PP,BP and other packs/stashes because of that x4 PP per kill and countries would be equal....
supported !
dude make this a little smaller and send ticket,this way it doesn't have any point 🙁
I ended up sending this one: http://prntscr.com/8beeyt
nice 🙂
Signed
és a Ferencvárost vegyék vissza az első osztályba!