Forum Discussion

NotRealUltra's avatar
NotRealUltra
Seasoned Newcomer
6 years ago

An idea to improve GAC time dramatically

I'm not sure about the rest of the playerbase, but one of my biggest gripes about Grand Arena (and Grand Arena Championship) is the defense phase being 24 hours long.

Issue: Players have to wait a day after one battle before being able to do the next

I understand because the game is global there is no way to reduce the timer. What I am proposing is something different. What my solution is getting rid of defense set phase, allowing us to shorten GAC by more than half. I'll go into more detail by what I mean, we aren't completely eliminating the defense period, per se

The idea is that you set defenses before your first opponent, and you have access to Defense Set Feature that lets you adjust what defense you would like to place against your next opponent before you know who you will be paired up against

I know some players like to set defenses according to who they are going against, but by doing this we can eliminate 2 days of waiting, and I think your defense should be adjusted to any team. The other thing is, by looking at the points of others in the bracket, you can pretty much guess (binary elimination) who your potential next round opponents will be

The idea is you had a defense option next to feats



Make the tabs divided into three equal parts instead of two as it is now

On clicking the Defense Tab, you get this screen:



Basically you can set or CHANGE your defenses anytime during the attack period until you are paired up with your next opponent. What this would do is:

Day 1: Players join, and wait to be placed in the bracket
Day 2: Defense period (24 hours)
Day 3: Battle first opponent
Day 4: Battle second opponent
Day 5: Battle third opponent
------
Week 1 ends and its time for a new set of 8 players

Day 6: Defense period
Day 7: Attack (1/3)
Day 8: Attack (2/3)
Day 9: Attack (3/3)

There is more active GAC going on since you are battling every day rather than having an off day and instead of taking 5 weeks for GAC, its shorten down drastically

The biggest drawback is that the devs would need to redo the feats aspect, like instead of 15 fleet battles per week, reduce it to 7 battles in 4 days or something to that effect

Interested in hearing if people dislike the 24 hour defense period in between, which is much worse when your opponent doesn't participate or you quickly get your attacks in

EDIT: Defense Tab can be used to change your defenses on the fly to use that defense for the next opponent. Its available 24 hours during the attack phase
  • What if they ran 2 concurrently but offset a day, so that you'd be setting defense in one, but in attack phase on the other? Rewards would have to be adjusted ofc, but it would eliminate the downtime on defense day.

    (And by concurrently, I mean you can play BOTH, not pick one).
  • The OP asked for feedback and I provided it.

    One more argument against the advance defense setting is the new feat system. It rewards specific tasks in GA. Depending on how I did in earlier rounds that might change how I would set my defense/plan my offense. With your system I would then have to change that for several defense settings again. This is just too much effort for no/limited gain.

    If people are bored on the defense setting days start a second account or play another game. Optimize your mods or help your guildmates figuring out how to beat their opponents. Take a more active part in TW/TB coordination,... It is easy to fill spare time. It is however hard to free up additional time if you feel the game is already a time sink if you want to play competitively. I have seen people quit the game because they said "it takes too much time" or "feels like a second job". I have not seen anyone quit that said "there is nothing to do" (It is if anything about the quality of what there is to do). From a business perspective I think CG should worry about people burning out rather than being bored for a day in-between..

    "Kyno;c-1896597" wrote:

    this is also just your opinion and they do things they think will help the masses, that doesn't' mean everyone will like them (and they have never hit the allusive 100% mark with any of them)


    Seems like this is something we can agree on. My take is that they decided to go for individual defense setting and 24h deploy periods to give everyone enough time to think about what defense to set. Consider yourself in the "not everyone will like them" bracket then. Personally I don't think there is any need to change the current approach because they will never hit the 100% mark. ;)

    P.S. nevermind that whenever CG introduces new complicated features they are likely bugged and take time from developing other parts of the game.
  • As I said, I like the 24 hours for defense and dont mind the timeframe, but if we are going to try to condense it, I would still like my ability to set individual defenses for my opponents. If that means I would have to set the for all, I would prefer that then to not know who I'm setting a defense for.
  • Speaking as a reasonably stupid person: this would likely confuse the heck out of me
  • i could go even crazier and say day 1 set defense for all 7 opponents then do 7 days of attacks so you face everyone in a round robin format. then rank 1st-8th based on record, if tied then on points earned. Then someone is not just lucky they did not have to face certain opponents is not ranked higher then maybe they deserve.
  • Pass....I set my defenses based on my match-up and sometimes change things up based on how certain teams held up the previous round. I don't think they should take strategy out of the game just because some people have no patience and want to fast-forward to everything. If we all lived in the same part of the world, they could do a 12 hour timer but the 24 hour timer is the only fair way to do it in a global game. And I have even less interest in scouting 7 opponents and setting defenses for 7 opponents when I'm only going to face 3 of them. That would be a complete waste of time....so instead of some extra waiting time, which requires no effort from me, I'd have to waste time scouting opponents and strategizing defenses for opponents I'll never even play. No Thanks.
  • NotRealUltra's avatar
    NotRealUltra
    Seasoned Newcomer
    I don’t find the idea of setting 7 extra defenses as a what if opponent feasible from a time (user) and storage (database) perspective

    Interesting idea @gura but the purpose of 8 man bracket is to make sure you are paired up with winners if you win and losers if you lose in same GP bracket instead of getting 3 easy opponents chosen purely by random
  • Vaderizer's avatar
    Vaderizer
    Seasoned Newcomer
    if (opponent = x) {
    return (setDefense = defense.x)
    } else {
    return (setDefense = defaultDefense)
    };

    I'd be into it.
  • "Ultra;d-207312" wrote:
    I'm not sure about the rest of the playerbase, but one of my biggest gripes about Grand Arena (and Grand Arena Championship) is the defense phase being 24 hours long.

    Issue: Players have to wait a day after one battle before being able to do the next

    I understand because the game is global there is no way to reduce the timer. What I am proposing is something different. What my solution is getting rid of defense set phase, allowing us to shorten GAC by more than half. I'll go into more detail by what I mean, we aren't completely eliminating the defense period, per se

    The idea is that you set defenses before your first opponent, and you have access to Defense Set Feature that lets you adjust what defense you would like to place against your next opponent before you know who you will be paired up against

    I know some players like to set defenses according to who they are going against, but by doing this we can eliminate 2 days of waiting, and I think your defense should be adjusted to any team. The other thing is, by looking at the points of others in the bracket, you can pretty much guess (binary elimination) who your potential next round opponents will be

    The idea is you had a defense option next to feats



    Make the tabs divided into three equal parts instead of two as it is now

    On clicking the Defense Tab, you get this screen:



    Basically you can set or CHANGE your defenses anytime during the attack period until you are paired up with your next opponent. What this would do is:

    Day 1: Players join, and wait to be placed in the bracket
    Day 2: Defense period (24 hours)
    Day 3: Battle first opponent
    Day 4: Battle second opponent
    Day 5: Battle third opponent
    ------
    Week 1 ends and its time for a new set of 8 players

    Day 6: Defense period
    Day 7: Attack (1/3)
    Day 8: Attack (2/3)
    Day 9: Attack (3/3)

    There is more active GAC going on since you are battling every day rather than having an off day and instead of taking 5 weeks for GAC, its shorten down drastically

    The biggest drawback is that the devs would need to redo the feats aspect, like instead of 15 fleet battles per week, reduce it to 7 battles in 4 days or something to that effect

    Interested in hearing if people dislike the 24 hour defense period in between, which is much worse when your opponent doesn't participate or you quickly get your attacks in

    EDIT: Defense Tab can be used to change your defenses on the fly to use that defense for the next opponent. Its available 24 hours during the attack phase


    ;)) you have too much time for a mobile game
  • @Ultra
    Not random choose. You always take opponent with closest GP / best matchmake to you excluding these whom you already fighted against.


    "Ultra;c-1897094" wrote:


    Interesting idea @gura but the purpose of 8 man bracket is to make sure you are paired up with winners if you win and losers if you lose in same GP bracket instead of getting 3 easy opponents chosen purely by random