Saturday, April 9, 2016

An irregular opinion piece

I haven't written in a while, and there's been a lot going on in the game.  Usually I can get my random opinions out there in the weekly Battle Pirates Crib show, but we kind of flaked out this week (sorry) and I'll just put this stuff out here.

The Anti Hack update:
The big anti-hack update is a mess.  I hope it works and I hear it is (mostly) working so far.  But everything else that was messed up from this update is pretty poor.  Now I know that a fundamental architecture change (which this change was) is difficult, but the level of chaos in-game following the update is just not good.  If fixing the integrity of the game were not so critical for it being viable in the long run, I'd be a lot more upset.  But I guess I'll take the couple weeks of chaos, as long as this change works.

I've seen a few posts here and there suggesting that "the hackers only exist because Kixeye is so greedy."  I think that is a real load of garbage - Kixeye has created this game, and they are allowed to charge what they want for it.  You're certainly allowed to think that they charge too much, but the fact is that nobody ever makes you pay.  You can always choose to walk away today, spend nothing, and play tomorrow.  Some people disagree with Kixeye's management of this game, but if you buy a hack, then you're paying a thief and there's no question on that.

The Double Dragon campaign:
On the prizes - each of the turrets is absolutely worth getting.  For the anti-rocketeer turret, going from 50% to 75% accuracy means that an incoming rocket is half as likely to get through, so I think it's totally worth it.  Defending a ship or turret against two incoming Daisy Cutters or Bunker Busters is much easier than against four or eight.  Or with a 75% chance to shoot down a Pinch, pinching that key turret mid-hit and continuing on your way is a much riskier proposition.  Although Kixeye is letting players run the mastery round twice, I think one of these turrets should be enough for most bases.

For the campaign itself, my biggest complaint is that the best way to win seems like to be using subs.  That isn't really feasible for ACTUAL base defense.  My next biggest complaint is the HUGE range on the carriers for encounter 3 - that also requires a non-realistic base defense to beat.  I had to move my Outpost far away from the center island turrets in order for it to survive (long enough for my subs to sink the attackers). 

The thing I like about the campaign is that I have all week to beat it.  I beat encounter 5 this morning, so I'm slowly working my way through without spending much at all (just a few coins here & there to fix my dock so I can start fleet repair before going to bed).  Yes, like most other successful players I'm using subs.  My fleet has four Tiger subs with Styx torps & a Phantom Tiger with Cobras.  I also suggest that if you want more intel, find one of the You Tube videos showing the campaign so you know what's coming each wave.

More on the turret update:
Kixeye should have implemented the turret update later - the week of the raid or even the week after, and given us a little advance notice (so that we still knew the importance of winning this upcoming hull).  Game's been a bit boring last couple weeks, right?

I thought about doing a DPS roundup post-change, but it doesn't mean much until we know more about the PvP hull stats, so stay tuned.

Raid this week:
The Hull raid is coming up this week, and I'll say it again, the most important thing to go after is the new Revenge hull so that you can get into (or back into) the base-hitting game.  I expect it to have at least 1000 siege deflection, and possibly more (2000+?).  The interesting thing I'm waiting to see is how that hull is tailored to stand up to the new turret statistics, while also standing up to guard fleets, but not being overpowered in the PvE game.

Early info post:  https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/625227

Kixeye calls it Tips & Tricks, but the only tips relate to the new Man-O-War target.  Some of that early info coming out about the Zoe's new "super hull" is kind of interesting, but making that target only pay out Uranium seems sort of weak - players would be much more likely to hit it for shards, event points, or other blueprints.  I guess Kixeye hasn't said it won't pay out shards or prints - we will see.

I'll be posting next when we get some more specific raid & prize info - I expect that to be available with Tuesday's update (as usual).




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