The Good[]
Hey this is a quick off shoot post from my LAW guide, going over my feelings and suggestions for Nubee in regards to the LAW (dunno if they'll ever see this).
I like the top level concept of LAWs, albiet mosty because there's no definitive negative. Nothing is really lost from LAW being implemented, and for the few gimmicks it brings to gameplay/endgame, it's therefore an overall positive change. The other thing that I really like about LAWs is that it's a seperate avenue of endgame for players who don't want to rank. Ranking Rewards aren't really anything to write home about; the exclusive URs aren't that strong anymore and ranking is a pain that requires a lot of EH Advanced grinding + lucky summons. The rewards from LAW are decently nice, and once they work out a decent encounter rate I feel like they'll be an excellent addition to lategame, and even mid game players. Any avenunes to acquire free URs is a nice addition.
tl;dr: Loot concept of LAWs is appealing.
However. However.
The Bad[]
Sigh.
That said there's one massive issue I have with LAWs: The Alliance invite function currently implemented is horrible. The speed at which at a relatively high power but poorly organized Alliance can kill a LAW. E.G the majority of VC Alliances that are enthusiast tier. Right now I'm in an Alliance with a fair share of strong members who can inflict 30-40m damage per BP, and play a lot. However the Alliance isn't that organized, so often with 1-2 minutes of finding a LAW the Alliance has already killed her. I can't camp my phone all day, and even still; if I look away for even 3-5 minutes I'lve already missed a LAW. A decent number of players in my Alliance rarely get to fight a LAW and it's incredibly fustrating. My teams are strong and I want a chance to fight and a chance at getting some good cards. Right now LAW isn't a challenge of who can build a good team and fight it, it's a challenge of who can actually GET to fight the LAW before it's instantly killed.
It's incredibly unfun and it makes me feel like I'm in a cage of starving dogs occasioanlly being tossed scraps of meat.
I propose the following settings be added to Alliance Page for Leader use:
- Min number of partipicants before fight can start: Basically, until X number of people have joined, no one can fight the LAW. For smaller/weaker alliances this number can be set lower, for strong alliances this number can be set higher so more players have a chance for fighting her.
- Min time delay: Until X number of minutes have passed, no one can fight the LAW. Pretty self explanatory. Leaders can set it to no delay, or up to 10-15minutes. Again this is to ensure that more players can fight LAW.
- Max number of BP allowed per LAW: Basically how many times someone can fight a LAW. I've seen some people blast 5, 7 + BP into a LAW, and while I can understand the need for greed, it just rubs me poorly since that limits whether others can even have a chance to
I probably stand for a lot of the "above average" playerbase in VC: Someone who can deal decent damage to LAW but cannot camp their phone all day. I have school, work, and I move around a lot. I can't check my phone every 1 minute to see if someone found a LAW. And it's incredibly disappointing to check your phone 5 minutes later and within those 5 minutes 3 or 4 people killed a LAW in one minute. Sorry if this sounded a bit ranty, but I've missed 5 LAWs in the past few hours because I checked my phone at the wrong times, and it's getting really fustrating.
The somewhat ugly[]
LAW encounters consistency, along with scaling, are completely nonexistant. I suppose part of this lends to the intrinsic design of VC, which has an unusually low "end-game" ceiling due to how the battle mechanics and alliance help mechanics work. However that's not the point I want to chase here.
First: LAW scaling.[]
It's obvious the LAW was aimed at late game players and alliances, but its implementation is questionable and it misses the mark both for newer players and late game players. For early game players, the problem with LAWs is that there's no gating for LAWs. Anyone, anywhere, can randomly bump into one. This means that a starter with a small alliance can bump into a LAW, and, feel excited for a bit only to realize that no one can do any damage to her. Being powerless is an extremely unfun experience for any player. On the other hand, LAWs for late game players are almost trivial. Most late gamers I know can do somewhere from 20-50m per BP, which means 2-4 late gamers will instantly destroy a LAW with little to no consequence.
So, I think LAWs require a form of scaling: If your Alliance is weak/new, you can only encounter Tier 1 LAWs. These have about 20-30m HP, minions at 100k hp, and do less damage. You're also given 2 hours to kill these LAWs. The loot table will be worse, but we're targeting lower level players here. Mid level Alliances will face the currently implemented LAW (Tier 2). Strong Alliances will be able to face both Tier 2 and a rare Tier 3. Tier 3 LAWs will have 300-500m HP, the minions will have 3.5m HP each. She could also use some other skills: Ressurecting her minions would be a very intersting skill to have for example.
Second: LAW encounters[]
The way LAW encounters works right now is pretty bad for people who actually want to fight her more actively. It's a lot of time wasted, and a lot of resources wasted. I propose two avenunes in which LAW encounters can be improved.
1: Everytime you kill an AW/FAW you'll get a +% to LAW encounter. FAWs will give you more points obviously. This functions similarly to limited enemy. A problem with this is that newer players might feel uneasy about killing AWs since they might bump into a LAW, but with the scaling I mentioned before I think this shouldn't be that big of a problem. This method benefits all players equally more or less; though late game players might still be annoyed that they need to kill a lot of useless AWs.
OR:
2: LAW exclusive campaign zone. This method is aimed more at late game players. Basically this is an extra zone in campaign that costs a lot of vitality to advance, and has very strong "normal monster" battles. However only LAWs can be encountered here, and LAW encounter rates will be decently high. It's nothing fancy, it just speeds up and improves the rate at which LAWs can be found. This zone should only be accessed at certain times, or requires brittle keys. That way people won't just sit in this zone 24/7
The... lootable?[]
LAW Loot divison[]
Right now, LAW loot distribution is really just "The rich get richer and the poor get N/Rs." LAW rewards are calculated based on damage done, which makes sense for late gamers, but alliances tend to have both late gamers and new players. However what's ironic is that the players who really need the SR/UR cards are probably early gamers.
I say we give alliances loot settings:
- Merit based split: How it's currently done. Everyone gets their card, finder gets two. Aces get better stuff, newbies get garbage.
- It's not a terrible system, since it does reward late gamers. However, this encourages BP/damage hogging get Ace, and it leaves newer players in the dust.
- Non-merit split: Everyone that participates has an equal chance of getting something. Aces have the same proabability to get stuff as someone who only inflicts 10k damage.
- I actually don't think this system is that great, because the caveat is that drop rates would have to be normalized. This means for late gamers the rates of UR/SR will be lower, but for newer players they'll have a better chance of getting those cards
- Rollable Pool: After a LAW is killed, a pool of loot is formed. The amount of cards in the pool = Number of players who participated. The finder gets an extra card. People can then roll need or greed on stuff that's dropped. After Need/Greed is done, everyone rolls a number 1-100 for loots.
- I like this system because it encourages more people to participate in fights since it increases the loot pool. The need/greed part I can see up in the air though. The intent of need/greed is for people who have what they need to pass on better cards for people who haven't gotten good cards/the current UR. However realistically I can see everyone spamming need on the SR/UR. Also this system requires people to vote right after the battle; sometimes people exit the game after fighting a LAW because they are busy. I suppose a remedy for this is that there is a time window in which loot can be rolled on; afterwards if a player does not vote they are automatically put in the "Greed" list.
- Distributed Pool: After a LAW is killed, a pool of loot is formed. The amount of cards in the pool = Number of players who participated. The finder gets an extra card. The Alliance leader then distributes loot as seen fit.
- This works exceptionally well since it removes RNG from the equation and everyone wins. However, that will require a good alliance leader, and good communication amongst all members. A biased leader or greedy people can probably send this system into havoc. This is probably the best solution for well established Alliances who work well together. However, this does carry the "problem" of dramatically reducing farming: Less farming = less shoes/BP used, which could mean less money for Nubee. Knowing how mobile game companies work, anything that can reduce player incentive to spend usually doesn't see the light of day.