Hello my friends!
As my friend PinnacleValley knows, we always had a different opinion about turtling even if, at the end, somehow we're not so far from the same position about it...
For me, turtling was a good strategy for good clubs, but let me explain: for my club, bubbling the opposite club has never been the main target. Having fun attacking, getting chests,keep fighting was way lot funny, that's for sure what we're playing for.
Of course, what we share is that with old rules there were two big problems: problem #1, 36h was (and still is) too much time. I always thought 24h would be perfect. Problem #2, too many clubs didn't care about having fun, about having chest and their only target was to win the war, and with those clubs wars was a question of the first 2-3h followed by 33-34h of nothing. That was reasonable, and the main reason is that after boosters has been introduced, even a win wasn't enough to regain purple cash used with boosters (as BlazinsZ well explained on post #51), to not say that a loose was a catastrophe. Reasonable but, of course, very very annoying. So with those clubs I'm totally with PinnacleValley that hated them and refused to call this way of playing a strategy.
But there was another way to read the bubble: a good club, with good team playing, with good strategies and presence had the possibility to win with almost every opposite club. Without staying bubbled for 33h. Gaining chests and having fun. Not easy, sure, but possible. Bubble had to be managed with a team coordination. There were a simple rule to satisfy: have a solid start and gain an advantage. Even bubbling the opposite club. But if the opposite club wanted to win the war, mayors had to exit from the bubble and try. And with a solid strategy, that was the moment to increase the advantage gained. Never lost wars when managed a solid start. Almost never played boring wars when managed a solid start. Always get lot of chests when managed a solid start. Almost never had to wait for more than 4h to find someone unbubbled to attack when managed a solid start. My club never stayed bubbled for more than 4h. And last but not least, my club get to the top50 with this way of playing, beating clubs stronger than mine (even hackers/cheaters clubs that alreasy existed at that time). The only boring wars we played when managed a solid start has been when we matched passive opposite clubs that stayed bubbled the whole war while loosing, not doing anything, but it happened few times.
So YES, I proudly called my way of manage the bubble a true strategy, and I never denied for 33h the possibility of trying to fight back just hiding.
But that's the past, and the past is gone.
I'm not a nostalgic, I like to watch to the present and to the future. But the true is that with SB and KO it's not a question of strategy anymore, or at least way less than before.
SB is the main thing that changed the system. Nice try, thank you EA. But at the end, now the situation is even worts: there's no bubble to manage (even in the friendly way I exposed before), just put a jp, shoot, SB, shoot, SB, and so on. Is it a strategy? No. That's just a question of having war items, and we all knows that hackers/cheaters and their unlimited items are way more advantaged, so there isn't anymore a way to beat them.
About KO, well let's say that KO is almost totally useless. Let's cut the first wars after this update, when clubs had to learn how it worked, and some war had been "stolen" by KO. Now KO rules are well known. Main and organized clubs won't ever loose by KO, except if they decide they accept that KO for any reason; even if it happens, it remains to be seen if the leading club wants to keep the KO running before the natural ending of the war. But people wants their chests now that there isn't a bubbling problem anymore, and often reset KO timer with a SB to get those chests. Thereafter, many clubs just wants to keep the war alive until the 36h end, then trying to get a final KO so to gain maximized ranking points that KO assures.
Is it funny? Well you can try to get chests while loosing. That helps of course on CoM, as you can complete missions while winning or loosing. And you can get all the 9 war chests and somehow improve anyway.
But no, I see way less fun on actual system: team strategy and coordination was what created alchemy by teammates. Now it's just a question of shooting and make the most of any JP, but any mayor can do it without any word to teammates, and I regret times when to speak each others was basic and needed.
That's the present, or at least that's the present with my way of playing SCBI.
The truth is that now, with SB and KO, playing wars is even worst than when bubbling was a way to win. Hacking/cheating was already a problem before those updates, as was bubbling teams, but as said it was possible to fight them all -even if not easy, as you had to have a good team focused on playing wars perfectly-, while right now you'll never have a chance to win vs hackers/cheaters teams if they play well.
And let's say another thing: hacking/cheating has never been enough fought by EA. I won't explore the matter about why is it so (they are not able? they don't care? they got more more money by this way?), but I can only see that old hacking/cheating problems are not resolved.
NOT.
RESOLVED.
Even worst: as a cheating system do exist, and it's the same older one, way more people learned how to cheat so that now is way more common to find cheating clubs as opposite ones.
I know my post is already very long, but let me finally express my opinion and purposes.
About SB: that could be just fine how it works now. In a perfect world, free of hackers/cheaters clubs/players, it would avoid the hated turtling strategy, but at the same time it would keep a fair game. 24/7 clubs/players would be advantaged. And you only could told them to live a real life or you could try to build a 24/7 club (for example with groups of teammates with different timezones), but it would be a fair game.
About KO: as said, it is almost totally useless despite winning or loosing. I wonder if to introduce a "player KO" would be helpful: if a city is bubbled, a timer for that city would start; when the clock is over, if the city didn't unbubbled, that city is out until the end of the war. If/when all the cities are bubbled then a global KO timer would start, working as it does right now. Unbubbling a city would reset the timer of that city AND the global timer but NOT the timers of the other cities. Wouldn't it be better than the actual KO system? I can't answer, it sounds good to me, but I don't know.
About cheater/hackers: as I always said on my posts, those players are the main problem. On july and august my club had a hiatus, so I focused on finding information about it. And please don't misunderstand me: I'm not interested in playing with tricks. How can you say you're a good players if you just use tricks?
Here's what I find out:
First thing, and keep it in mind: getting an account banned for hacking means you won't get that account back from naughty island anymore; instead, a ban for cheating is less drastic, and uses to be 5-6 days long.
I collected this information by people complaining about bans on social medias.
The way to hack is not a basic thing but neither a superexpert matter. I didn't explored it and I can't well explain how it works, but it do exists a way for sure. With these tricks you can manage almost every parameter of the game. But at the same time that's very risky, and sooner or later hacked cities ends banned forever.
To cheat is way too easy. And it's very easy to find how it works or people teaching it. I won't explain how it works. Not Here, neither on PM to anyone. But trust me, it works. And it explains the unlimited war items many clubs have, and many more clubs everyday that passes.
I don't know if EA knows about this matter. I surely would be surprised if EA really don't know about it, so I wonder why they still haven't found a way to cut it.
EA cares about money made by releasing games and tools you can by in those games, and that's right, but my opinion is that they would make more money keeping the game clean and fair than how is it now.
Hackers and cheaters don't spend money, they just defraud EA, while people who spends money quit spending it when they realize they can't compete in this dirty world.
I'm playing less than times ago. My club is playing less than times ago. We don't care about playing using cheats, there's no fun in it, and we'll probably quit soon if something won't change.
If EA really doesn't know about cheating, I'll be glad to share what I learned with them, trying to find a way to cut it.
If they already know and they don't know how to resolve it or doesn't care about resolving it, me and my mates will become other quitting players that won't watch at EA games with the same eyes anymore.
