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SummitVista3310's avatar
5 years ago
Solved

Suggestion : Improvement of Shield Buster

Shield Buster is originally invented to deal with turtling. But now it's mainly used to score more off of one Jackpot and to block the opponent collecting war items. Before SB was invented, war was more strategic. Now it's all about which club has stronger attacks(means mags and SB), which club has more war items stocked, and which club can stare at the war screen more often. To make the matters worse, SB made the cheaters/hackers life so easy.

So I'd like to suggest limiting the uses of Shield Buster per war to improve this situation.

If the use of SB is limited, war will be strategic again. I don't have a specific idea how to limit, number of specific conditions? Maybe like "each player can be busted only once per war" or "SB is invalid when JP is active". So the attack can be used as its original purpose which is to deal with turtling, and make the war strategies comes back. Hackers/cheaters wont beable to beat legit clubs easily how they are doing now.

TBH, I want SB to be removed because the knockdown system itself can solve the turtling problem. Though there must be plenty of players who spend a lot of simcashes to upgrade SB. So I suggest to improve it but not remove it.

I also read another suggestion to provide the victim all the 7 items from buildings that are automatically repaired. It's an interesting idea but I'm afraid it makes players like hackers/cheaters. Because it makes players to get tons of free war items when they matched up with hackers/cheaters...

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Thank you!
Summit

  • Thank you everyone for all your ideas! I was so excited to see all your comments. The subject jumped all over to hackers/cheaters(of course, its the major problem in the game), CoM, war schedule, use of booster etc, KO system. Though I'm going to stick to the original subject "Improvement of Shield Buster" and summerize everyones opinions.

    Shield Buster is originally invented to deal with turtling. But now, it's mainly used to get more points off of 1 Jackpot. It created the infamous "unlimited mags and SB storm" problem. SB needs to change to fit its original porpose.

    -Limit the use of Shield Buster
    following options came up
    *each player can be busted only once per war
    *each player can bust only once per war

    Those 2 solves the endless mag/SB issue, but it doen't really solve the turtling. The number of the targets will be so limited. 

    *invalid SB when JP is active, or only can bust once in 1 JP
    With this way you can use SB mainly to break the Shield. Disadvantage of this it'll be hard to earn points. Most of clubs use SB to hit as much as off of 1 jackpot. (so the hackers)Though the box points remains the same before and after SB invented, it can't be used as excuses. This doesn't solve endless mag/SB issue, it can be done without jp.

    -Remove SB
    KO feature solves the turtling problem, dont need SB. The problem is there are so many players who already spend lots of cashes to upgrade the attack. This solves the endless mag/SB issue, but it doen't really solve the turtling. Only one city needs to come out to reset the timer and that's the only target you have for the next 4-8 hours, horrible. (edited Aug.31) 

    -Sell the shield instead of SB
    Increments of 4 hours up to 2 per war and set the rule that it can not be used the last 4 hours of the war eliminates the hiding while provides folks with a life a chance to participate. Everyone gets a free 8 hour shield per war, but that’s it. That would introduce the need for real strategy.
    It sounds like it's a long ambrella booster that SB cant break..?

    - Provide the victims 7 war supplies that are automatically repaired
    This way victim won't lose chances to get war supplies, and they are given a chance to fight back. The problem is it means you get tons of free war items by getting busted over and over. War items is something you can get by rebuilding, deliveries or war store, but not given free by hackers. This option has a huge risk to provide a lots of free war items in internal wars between feeder clubs. This idea might work well under the "Limit the use of SB" option.

    -Add 2 buttons to starting war "shield war" "non-shield war"
    This way clubs can choose how you want to play war, no SB and no KO allowed in "shield war", SB is allowed in "non-shield war". The problem is you'll still suffer hacker's attack-SB-attack- SB in "shield war" option.

    -SB is okay how it is
    Get rid of hackers/cheaters. Well they wont vanish in one day, thats why something else has to change.

    Id be appriciated for any additional comments. If there's anything missing, let me know. 

65 Replies

  • @Duckups I like rebuilding but I don't think everyone "should" keep rebuilding. You can be a sand bag if you are tired. Even if the attack phrase is shorter, unlimited mag/sb will be still there. I'm glad you matched up with an enjoyble club, I'm sorry your teamamte pushed the button in the wrong time. 

  • PinnacleValley's avatar
    PinnacleValley
    5 years ago

    @SummitVista3310  Just the example I shared of 1 time per city eliminates the multiple times cities can be hit effectively limiting the unlimited Mags/SBs...the only way to address the unlimited mags is to address the hackers/cheaters (primarily the feeder networks) issue which sadly is not happening nearly quickly enough. 

  • meesfeet's avatar
    meesfeet
    5 years ago
    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.
  • @meesfeet  As always well thought out and on target. As you and I have discussed in detail previously there is a huge difference between the “run & hide” strategy also known as “turtling“ and effectively utilizing the bubble as part of an overall strategy that encourages competition and not absolute boredom. Sadly too many folks relate the SB and the hacker/cheater issue together not understanding that the later has been in place long before the SB was introduced. Early in the war games we discussed limiting the amount of time allowed in the bubble to eliminate these nuisance clubs from simply hiding and EA’s answer was the shield buster and it effectively addressed the “strategy”. 
    The real problem is the unlimited supply issue that’s created by the hackers and feeder club networks which should be easily identified and addressed, but I’m not the IT guy, that’s your area of expertise. 🙂 Of course limiting the number of times it can be launched will help but orchestrate it with the length of time your opponent lingers in the bubble...too many folks want to eliminate it so they can return to days gone by.

    Take care my friend.

  • athewhofan2's avatar
    athewhofan2
    5 years ago

    most of them in our club dislike short wars and most not be happy. My idea if can't git rid of hackers then i would wish they could have hackers match hackers only, but then I don't think it would work as most legit teams still match them. As for the SB if the limit was reduced by 5 each player, also this would save a lot of gas. As ea wants players to use up war items I very much doupth they do that as ea want people to use up war items as they always choose events that uses the most war items.

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