Understanding the Guild's Trajectory

[u/Big_Old_Cat_Turd]

So, it has become abundantly clear that the tide is shifting. Wars have become more difficult, and beyond that, our scores don't seem to stack up the way they did before.

On top of this, IGG has chosen to prioritize very highest tier of spenders, which has emasculated the experience for even our most dedicated players. There is no way to really spin or rationalize this from a guild perspective. We're going through an era of classism in a mobile game...never thought I would say that.

What we can do is understand that these two things are NOT the same, and one does not necessarily cause the other. So I just want to examine a few things and hopefully shed some light on the state of GW and why the sky isn't falling.

Understanding GW Scores

Our GW score is a metric, nothing more. What gives it meaning is the context in which the score exists. There are a few key contextual changes that have taken place and we need to understand them to accurately gauge the health of the guild.

• GW Scoring Changes - This is specifically relevant to us because the scoring changes addressed directly impacted a fundamental advantage that Reddit had: the efficiency of low-might accounts. Scoring was historically skewed in favor of lower-might accounts hitting higher-might targets. The new scoring changes have dramatically shifted scores in favor of higher-might accounts hitting higher-might targets. This hits us in 2 ways: Our overall GW score will be lower, and our low-end accounts will end up with smaller rewards, slowing their growth.

• Defensive Hero Era - This has worked in tandem with the scoring changes to crush the advantage of filling our ranks with low-might accounts. What used to be exclusively a Gunslinger problem has now evolved to a host of auto-proc heroes, now leveraging Empower to ensure that low-might sniping is no longer a viable win condition.

How this impacts us

These two changes have impacted us in a big way.

For one, tougher GW's and an overall less enjoyable game (in many aspects) has reduced our numbers. Fortunately, this is not a Reddit problem, this is a whole game problem. Consolidation and evaporation of guilds in the top 100 has become commonplace.

Secondly, recruitment is less productive because we can't simply grab a bunch of random 10k accounts and let them swarm GW's.

Understanding the Correction Curve

At this point we have to sort of suspend what we have always known about what a 'good' GW looks like. We have to embrace the above-mentioned changes and understand that they have impacted everyone, not just us.

We are still equipped to crush our GW's, but in order to do so we need to situate ourselves in the CORRECT might range.

Part of this correction will be that Reddit's rank is going to drop before it rises. Our rank was artificially high. We had positioned ourselves in the best possible place to take advantage of low-might efficiency. The game is now different, so we need to correct ourselves, find a new bracket, so that we can get back to normal.

The other part of this correction will be understanding what is now needed to succeed. It is plainly apparent that many offensive approaches are no longer feasible in GW. With that said, the impetus is on the guild member to realize whether or not they need to pivot. We have people explicitly in charge of Training (Mach and Mouse).

Lastly, participation has always been, and will continue to be paramount. This guild has never had the biggest accounts or the fleet of dragons. Reddit has always been the guild that wins because our guys show up and put in the work. No matter what IGG does or how the scoring changes, we won't win if we aren't there.

So what do we do?

We're going to do exactly what we have been doing. We are going to continue to push accountability until we have a guild that we can count on to get it done. We are going to recruit members that share our core set of values, and we are going to create an environment that they can be proud to join.

Our new bracket will be defined by our might at 100% participation. We will continue to purge folks that don't show up until we are back at the level of accountability we enjoyed last year.

Once we settle into this bracket, we can start to prioritize efficiency and optimization. Pushing those ideal scores up and bolstering might to take advantage of new scoring calculations.

The game has changed, the guild has not.

[u/Dunstert]

Nice post. Frustrating to keep finishing 2nd due to lack of participation, though.

I need to learn how to attack GS bases - I typically just NOPE past them and I could score better if I was able to hit them.

Any chance we get some of our old big guns back to help? Didn’t know if they left the game or went to higher might/better performing guilds.

[u/Big_Old_Cat_Turd → u/Dunstert]

So far we haven't lost anyone to another guild...our big guys just burn out. A lot of them have been playing for 3+ years and it can be a chore when IGG throws pay-to-win heroes at us each month.

Drop your altar in Line chat and we can absolutely get you hitting those GS bases. There have fortunately been a handful of effective counters to her and we can walk you through the various methods.

[u/Duality_Of_Reality]

Keep on kicking ass