That's it, I'm throwing the BS flag once and for all!!!!

[frenda]

Attacked a player with 423 Defense versus my 4348 Attack. Still lost a scout and an APC. Unbelievable.

[Wildfire]

I lost an APC and a Frigate against somebody very like that a couple of days ago when I thought his Munitions Stockpile looked like a freebie raid. Not just two units but one low and one very low casualty ones together. Frigate was also close to what I said at the time!

[Agent Orange]

I got you beat, I lost a Super Hornet, a Troop Transport, a medic and a scout on one attack. The game seems to have been rejigged so super power players can't go out and easily hunt and kill the weaker ones. Kind of makes sense but that just underlines how screwed up the programming of the game is.....

[Meddicc]

i think if your attack is double their defense you don't lose any units. Most of my battle I don't lose any units unless i have the "same level" attack quest you get when you level up.

[osubuckeye]

why is this BS?

What do you mean? if you attack an army of 20 light gunners with 10 super hornets, 15 cruisers, 20 frigates, 10 APCs, 50 Rangers, 5 helicopters, 2 heavy bombers, a gunship, and 4 tanks...

it's totally logical that they would take out at least 1 or 2 of your frigates or gunships.

They have guns for goodness sake! of course their 7mm bullets randomly shot in the direction of your massive boats will kill everyone on board! of course their hand thrown grenades will take down your helicopters! duh!

Geez, you guys don't know anything about war

EDIT: okay there have been a lot of comments further in this thread from people taking what I'm saying as if I'm not being sarcastic. The next poster gets it but others seem to be trying to tell me I'm wrong. So just to be clear... this is totally a sarcastic point. I completely agree with the OP. I definitely think this game is unpredictable, maybe even go as far as to say it's screwed up. Certainly not realistic.

[frenda]

LOL osu, yeah, didn't think of that. His units were pretty run of the mill, nothing sexy or over the top, and even with the units you listed, he'd have way more than the attack and defense he had showing. Even maxed out with Defense skill points, I still don't see it.

Meddicc, my attack was 10 times his defense. That's what baffles me.

[Wildfire]

Emm Osu, your argument might apply in life but doesn't hold up at all within the game. If you loose units against weak players shouldn't two players of equal strengths wipe out half each others units or more in each battle then. Also shouldn't those random bullets also be able to wipe out gold units, after all there should be no invincible units in war!

[heath4pack]

Just posted this in another thread, but applies here as well:

sigh...all I do with this game now is try to build as much as possible and grow income.

I'm at lvl 33 with a 104K/hr income. I splurged and bought a stealth boat the other day and lost it on the same day on a "test attack" to see my stuff in action LOL.

I guess I play pure defense now?

Just very discouraging. Lost the boat against a much weaker opponent as well. I have plenty of weaker boats that could have been sacrificed but noooooooooooo....

[frenda]

My point exactly. I commented after you on the other thread, making a similar point.

[ShawnBB]

Hey osubuckeye, holy ****!
I'm study at osu too and love this game so much! I'm now lvl 46 and find a lot of strategy in it. Let's be Allie

[Agent Orange]

why is this BS?

What do you mean? if you attack an army of 20 light gunners with 10 super hornets, 15 cruisers, 20 frigates, 10 APCs, 50 Rangers, 5 helicopters, 2 heavy bombers, a gunship, and 4 tanks...

it's totally logical that they would take out at least 1 or 2 of your frigates or gunships.

They have guns for goodness sake! of course their 7mm bullets randomly shot in the direction of your massive boats will kill everyone on board! of course their hand thrown grenades will take down your helicopters! duh!

Geez, you guys don't know anything about war

No the game is a lot more screwed up than you think. My guess is that you are still in the lower game levels where it is not obvious that there is a real problem with attacking low powered players.

[General Principle]

I think he was being facetious. You're both making the same (correct) point. In MW world it's perfectly logical that one can take out an aircraft carrier with a blunderbuss. They should have an option to buy $50 cave men with simple stone weapons. Let's see a $120K Eagle stand up to that. Oog smash bird with big rock!

[Meddicc]

That is strange. The only time ever I have lost a unit is when I attack their base, not the player. I camp one player MagnumPI if you read my comments I think he hates me, but since no one has attacked me for 15 days, he is at the top of my news feed still. Poor man. Anyway, I only attack him for the "win 26 battles in a row" with no ally pre-requisite. I have only ever lost 2 units to him. I attacked his guard tower. Other than that I make units attacking him.

[Agent Orange]

Ok here's an example. A player popped into my Rival list just now.

He's L 53 with 11 allies so out of curiosity I attacked him and won. His stats are.
1870 Missions completed, 101 fights won, 1389 fights lost. Alliance members 11, # 0f units 1120, attack 482, defense 671

My stats, L 75, Missions completed, 2933, fights won 4127, lost 642. alliance 936, units 1509, attack 12,326, defense 17148.

I lost 1 Super Hornet in the attack and he lost nothing. So tell me why this isn't screwed up?

Second attack I lost nothing. And no I don't really care to loose another high valor unit so I won't attack a third time.

But what seems to me is that the game is purposely making it so that these really big mismatches are more costly to the higher level player. Can we say social engineering.....

[Tramp Stamp]

This reminds me of old arguments over the original Civilization where players were appalled that they lost battleships to militia.

[Gobroncos95]

Totally agree that the fight mechanics are fundamentally flawed. I am not saying that we shouldn't lose items in a battle. However, it would be logical if the weak units died first - e.g. kill a couple of Scouts BEFORE a Super Hornet is lost. On one of my accounts I am L39 and have 680 wins/35 losses - but I no longer fight...EVER. In one of my last fights I won handily, made $0 but lost a Bradley, APC and a Sniper - costing me $103,000 of units!!!

This begs the question - what is the point of playing this game? If you fight, you lose huge amounts of money. If you turtle to build income then what do you do with the money? Build an army that you lose when you finally start fighting? Seems silly.

The developers are singly focused on getting people to buy gold rather than developing a game that has lasting mechanics. I'm not blaming them for trying to make money, but I do blame them for not realizing that you CAN develop a game that generates great income while still allowing a population of casual players to flourish and generate interest in the game.

[Meddicc]

I disagree, I am happy to lose Valor units. I only ever attack people that complete Valor missions. I may lose 400 Valor units in the process of completing the mission, but with 2 missions on at any one time, I can clear 1200 Valor for a 400 loss. I think you really need to do this for a few days and see the difference. I am honestly so much stronger using this strategy.

[Meddicc]

ok level 55, just attacked Zeke level 59 (3010 / 3199).

Lost 5 Jungle Stalkers, 1 Hum vee, 2 engineers, 1 Sniper, 1 Army Truck, 1 Striker Eagle

Made 950 Valor. Lost 400 Valor. WIN WIN.

I always keep 200 Jungle Stalkers in my army as they die so often, its worth it.

[Gobroncos95]

Sorry Meddicc but I am not following you. I have never heard of or observed a "valor mission". Plus, since there is no way to see how many valor points someone has by looking at their profile, how would you find someone with high valor other than getting lucky? I have 5,000 valor and have never lost more than 2 valor in a lost fight so your observation of losing 400 valor and winning 950 doesn't make sense unless the amount of valor won/lost increases exponentially if you have more valor.

[Meddicc]

I have 0 Valor, I spend it as soon as I get it. How I get more Valor is I only complete the fight missions, which return higher Valor each time you pass one. I nevertake into consideration the valor i get from 1 off fights as it noramlly is 1-4. I get all my Valor from missions - the ones where you must attack Rivals.

Also remember you always have a mission to attack Rivals. Always.

Add me 272623280 and look at my units.

[Agent Orange]

I have 0 Valor, I spend it as soon as I get it. How I get more Valor is I only complete the fight missions, which return higher Valor each time you pass one. I nevertake into consideration the valor i get from 1 off fights as it noramlly is 1-4. I get all my Valor from missions - the ones where you must attack Rivals.

Also remember you always have a mission to attack Rivals. Always.

Add me 272623280 and look at my units.

Just a minor detail but what do you figure you are loosing on each fight granted you are still kind of low level wise to really see the difference. We've been tracking this and so far the losses are higher than the gains. Which is why you don't see a lot of players attacking each other.

[Meddicc]

Hi Agent Orange, I lose not much at all. Honestly, My Jungle Stalkers go or low level items. i am currently level 55, and each fight I lose around 2k and 25- Valor. I think the trick is to have a sh*t load of one item. For some reason they always go in a fight. Picking up 620 Valor per mission is = 24 jungle Stalkers. I never lose more than 1 per round. I'll attack someone now and tell you what I lose:

Mission 11 battle with rivals over 166 allies: 5/11 so far.

**Yesterday 24 hours ago I was 5991/6648**

Beagle 4175 / 4972 to me now: 6893 / 7306

Lost 1 Jungle Stalker, 2 Engineers,
Lost 1 Jungle Stalker, 1 Tree Sniper
Lost 1 Jungle Stalker, 1 sniper, 1 Engineer
Lost 1 Engineer, 1 A10 Warthog
Lost 1 Jungle Stalker, 1 Jeep
Lost 2 Engineers and 1 Jungle helicopter
86 EXP, 650 Valor Completed

Next Misson Win 32 battles in a row, no requirements. I will now farm my rival list for people that are Low - MagnumPI is going to be very, very angry as he is level 41, 1000 attack and top of my rival list.

[Agent Orange]

Yes because you are still at a much lower level than me. One of my brothers is at L47 and other at L56 and they do not experience the losses I do. Just keep in the back of your mind that at some point soon you might cross through the point where your losses suddenly start to radically increase.....

I'm currently L75 with 12300/17500

[Meddicc]

Good point, I am unsure what will happen when i get to your level.

[Agent Orange]

Good point, I am unsure what will happen when i get to your level.

Not much it's pretty boring, we've all realized that attacking and raiding is not cost effective so nobody is doing much of anything other than waiting to see if things get fixed or new challenges appear. It will be interesting as more people reach the higher levels and they have the advantage of finding out from our mistakes what works and what might not.

But the most important thing you can do is make sure you keep upgrading and using your vault as pretty much the only thing the whales can do is poach the lower level players who happen to have a pile of cash outside their vaults. Then it's a feeding frenzy, but those with their money protect are probably a bad target for whales as they will loose units and not gain anything.

[osubuckeye]

we've all realized that attacking and raiding is not cost effective so nobody is doing much of anything other than waiting to see if things get fixed or new challenges appear.

I agree with the first part of this statement.

I barely run a profit attacking now. But to your earlier point, I'm at lv.20, so the deficit will probably just get worse. It's hard enough at this level to find people with loads of cash sitting outside their vaults. Is it harder at the higher levels? or is the main complaint that the losses are much more likely?

another question for you high level folks, do you keep about 40% fodder in your army? I do this and lose only my fodder (rangers) over 90% of the time.

[Wildfire]

A question, has anybody compared losses when the rival has unprotected cash to losses where no cash is exposed? I've just attacked 5 people who were all under 3000 defense against my attack strength of 6000 and was surprised to drop 4 units in 2 attacks against one. What struck me afterwards was that they were the only rival with exposed cash, a miserable 23 units of it to be exact, it may just have been a coincidence but...

[frenda]

It's great to see all the discussion. I think we're all nipping around the edges of the same problem. Even Meddicc with his example is proving the point. He's not just losing valor units, he's losing A-10s at a cost of $24,000. To me, the payoff in valor units after reaching level 50 isn't worth it anymore. I was keeping a lot of stalkers and rangers in my units as well, and yes, I was losing them regularly, but I was also losing A-10s and other costly units. It makes no sense to lose some of these, especially when going against a vastly inferior opponent. The fight algorithms are screwed up, plain and simple. I do this for a living, folks, and if I had results like this in one of our wargames, I'd be fired or at least get laughed out of the after action review by senior commanders and staff. We all want a better game. Funzio wants to make money. I think the two shouldn't have to be mutually exclusive. I'd even put up with ads as long as the game improved. Roxio makes $1 Million a month just on the ads on Angry Birds. That's not chump change...

[Wildfire]

Yes I think the losses are stifling the gameplay at the minute. I've just finished doing the 30 kills in a row mission and having picked the weakest players I could find all the way through I still lost an Avenger, 2 A10s, 4 Amphibious Troopers 2 mini subs, 2 snipers and several loot units, all for 510 valor, so when the Avenger's replaced thats a net gain of 410 valor at a cost of about 60000 which is pretty good. However, had I lost a Stealth Frigate or a Super Hornet as can easily happen rather than the Avenger then it would not have been worthwhile. To fight at all needs so much care in chosing who to attack without bad losses it almost comes down to bullying somebody weak in the end.

[ShawnBB]

Hey buckeye, I'm osu student too and now lvl 47.
At your lvl, if you want to profit through raiding, then calculate the building's income that you spent the 3 Ammos on.
every time you took 15%15%and 30% the money out of that building.

Let's say you raiding a lvl 5 Oil Derrick, 15200*60%=9120 that's all you earn.
During the 3 times fight you have to lost at most 4 rangers or 9 scout or 15 light gunner.
So it comes to 1 ranger or 3 scout or 5 light gunner per round at most.

It is impossible to profit if you set your main troop as a ranger troop.
You have to put 80% of your army as light gunners and desert soldiers(insurgent camp mission) to max your profit, cause scout works the same as light gunners when attacking but cost more.(you can easily increase the def stats through other units.)

always keep in mind of each money building's income before you raid. Those income less than lvl 5 oil Derrick 💰15000 is actually not worth for a raid.
I got a lot of players around my lvl have monstrous 30000+income buildings, so Im profiting well here.

[osubuckeye]

I lose 1-2 rangers every time I do anything PvP (raid or fight). So I don't make any attacks lower than $3k return. But my aim is to get $10k +. I have to stick my nose in the fight to see if I can get that out of them.

I have no doubt I'm just above breaking even (because of the odd frigate lost). But the good thing is that my game is growing.

I have nearly $80k/hr income with no supply depots and only lv4 armories. lv5 barracs, lv4 ship/war factory, lv 2 airfield. So the strength of my army is cruisers, frigates, combat boats. The rest is odd PvP drops and rangers.

I could do the light gunners instead... I'll drop my attack by about 15% and lose about half the money I currently lose in fights/raids.

Is that really worth dropping my attack so much that I might incur more losses? is it worth it so I can't attack as many people? 15% attack drop is pretty steep.

this is all subjective. :p

[Flipmode]

Attack everyone to get the missions. Lose a ton of Rangers and the occasional medium unit.

For me it is just a way of trading cash (essentially free resource once you get economy going) into valour to buy tastier treats.

Probably not the most efficient, but growing steadily. I'm not one of those 'stick at level 2' kinda players though, not bothered about playing the game ultra efficient, seems dull. I like to fight, grow, fight bigger people!

[frenda]

What level are you at? That all seems to change when you pass Lvl 50.

[Flipmode]

Oh, I'm relatively new then! Only level 34.

I do wonder sometimes if this change in casualty rates was done more to protect smaller players than to annoy larger ones. Understand that people on the forum will be the larger players and therefore get annoyed, but under the old system it sounded like there was zero disadvantage in pounding the hell out of a lower ranked player. Not really good for building up a community if it becomes totally dominated. Some people just sound very cynical/paranoid about what is basically a bit of fun to pass the time!

Then again, when tou've spent as much on a 'free' game as you could have spent on a real one then I suppose you are going to take it personally!

[frenda]

The game really started becoming bizzare when I hit Level 50. I posted on another thread that I was attacked by a level 111 guy. I mean, how the hell do I show up on his rival list?

[Agent Orange]

I think we can thank the ally list for this. I have nearly 1000 (yeah I know I only need 1/3 of that but I'm bored) and I notice a lot of really weak L50 players turning up. I think it's the game trying to keep x number of people listed so it pulls from the next most likely players. Which really must suck for them as I'm seen L50's with 1-10 allies and under 1000 attack and defence.

For the sole purpose of data collection I've attacked a few of these and noticed high losses so there might be some point that JMC crossed that starts to reduce your losses? The other thing I noticed is that my stealth frigates took a real hit during the time Funzio screwed up their value and made changes. Since then I notice I loose a lot of these and I thought it was because they programmed something in so that the game would take away all the units I bought when their cost was too low. I must still have a few left as I keep loosing these a lot.

[Wildfire]

I'm level 53 now and my rivals list is mostly players from level 47 - 55, probably 80% below level 50, so I assume the pool of players above level 50 must still be quite small as up until now my list has never been so heavily balanced towards lower levels. I struggled to find suitable victims for the kill 19 level 53 or higher mission, I lost more units than I liked testing out those with 2000-3000 defense. How it works I don't know with an 8000 attack I was able to hit someone at level 55 with a 2400 defense and loose no units, but lost 2 good units against a level 53 with 1690 defense along the way. Over 2500 defense I always lost units.

I also can never find players who attack me in the rivals list I assume they are too high for me to see.

[frenda]

You both bring up excellent points. How does a Level 111 guy find me to attack me in the first place, when I'm still Level 52? And I have the exact amount of allies I need, so I don't see the logic in having guys vastly superior in my rival list.

I think the frigate thing is a possibility. It's not random enough for it to be just an algorithm, there must be some tweaks to it that the programmers incorporated. And I don't think there's some magic break point though, since I attacked someone 1/10 my points in Atk/Def and I still lost units, and I had someone with 91K, yes thousand, attack go against my measly 5700 defense and I didn't lose any and I'm sure he lost some. So, what's going on, Funzio? We just want this to make sense so we can have some sort of strategy instead of it just being totally random. If not, this is as much fun as playing "war" with cards... Remember that stupid game?

[Flipmode]

Let us say there are 50 targets on everyone's list, ranked by level and ally numbers.

From the top down, the largest single player would be able to see and attack players 1-50.

However, the player ranked 50th would have a target list of the 25th to 75th ranked players.

This would explain how people are attacked by players of a much higher rank than they see in their own rivals list.

At level 35 and having neither pushed nor intentionally avoided either allies or levelling up, I am only just beginning to see players on my rival list with a defence 1/4 of my attack. I think the 'level 50' change that people are witnessing may just be a coincidence that that is the level at which the target list becomes most broad.

As for losing units against outclassed defences, personally I feel it to be prudent (if possibly poorly implemented) if it makes higher level players choose their targets and not just stomp all over those players below them.

[ShawnBB]

I lose 1-2 rangers every time I do anything PvP (raid or fight). So I don't make any attacks lower than $3k return. But my aim is to get $10k +. I have to stick my nose in the fight to see if I can get that out of them.

I have no doubt I'm just above breaking even (because of the odd frigate lost). But the good thing is that my game is growing.

I have nearly $80k/hr income with no supply depots and only lv4 armories. lv5 barracs, lv4 ship/war factory, lv 2 airfield. So the strength of my army is cruisers, frigates, combat boats. The rest is odd PvP drops and rangers.

I could do the light gunners instead... I'll drop my attack by about 15% and lose about half the money I currently lose in fights/raids.

Is that really worth dropping my attack so much that I might incur more losses? is it worth it so I can't attack as many people? 15% attack drop is pretty steep.

this is all subjective. :p



The problem is that, at your lvl, you don't find player who has those ore mines and high lvl stockpile and military markets. Meanwhile, those high income buildings' collection time is very long which means your need pure luck to catch a big farming turtle at the right moment before he vault.

Then your ammo must be stay full most of the time cause you couldn't find one and give up.

Dude seriously, cost ranger to increase that bit of atk is a joke(you are not china which has infantry bonus, are you?). The key point for this game is profit after all.
Light gunner is the second choice, I'm using desert soldiers which is pure profiting all the time now. Your rest of the army component is great, buy the most high status unit go with massive gunner. So your stats is ok and profit is max.
Btw I just raided a guy with lvl8 stockpile and 2 lvl2 ore mine 😊，200K! He made my day lol

[Agent Orange]

Yeah the fight mechanic is still screwed up.

Just attacked someone at L74 w attack 3987 and def 3642. I lost 1 Super Hornet and 1 Spectre Gunship. I don't think they lost anything.
My attack is 12500 and def 17200.

[Flipmode]

Yeah, guess the game must be different at your level.

Barely done raiding. I only do constant attacks to get the valour from the goals. The attacks themselves will always lose more than they gain, but competing the goal makes it worth it.

Game forces you to only attack if it is for good reason! (I know, a lot of you are certain it is broken, just a thought/joke)

EDIT: Just did my usual attacks. Lost 3 loot units on my first three attacks, was slightly concerned!

After that, about 10 attacks in a row losing light gunner/ranger/jeep etc. so level 35 game mechanic does not seem to have been massively effected by anything that has changed.

[Jammed Up]

The battle algorithm is ridiculous...it's like the Navy SEALs going up against Mrs Williams 2nd grade Tumble Tots and losing half their planes and combat soldiers in the battle.

[Dead Ready]

I have noticed a big change in my rival list over the past week. It is full of low def guys. 2 weeks ago I had to search hard to find someone to beat. But last week that all changed. I can say that at the moment I am not losing many units at all. It's real strange.

[lsandmanl]

I see this happen to a lot of people in my faction