Aircraft in Review
Day 3,160, 08:53
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Published in USA 
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by
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by ResouIa
So if you haven't heard by now, aircraft are coming next week. A big list of features and "how the hell this crap works" has been released on the forums to explain some of it to us. Today I just want to go over some of those changes in the media and give my honest opinion on them, while also hopefully serving to simplify the forum post for some of you as well. I will mark in bold anything super-important that I want to make sure everyone sees. Like this.
I will provide a summary at the end of the article for those too lazy to read through it all.
Aircraft battles are separate from tank battles. Well that could mean anything, and they weren't exactly 100% clear on what it meant, but here's my impression from the way they typed it up. After 3 rounds of tank battles, which will distribute a total of 33 points over a few hours, we will have a round exclusively for aircraft fighting. In this round all players' damage will count to one wall instead of being divided by divisions. An interesting method, if kind of weird. I assumed before this that aircraft would just count as a fifth division, but apparently it will be its own round. Personally, I do not like this.
One aircraft battle will give 22 points to the winner. That's right. 22 campaign points. All 4 ground divisions won will give a total of 11, but one aircraft battle gives a total of 22, with no chance to split it up since there are no divisions. I am sure everyone can see how overpowered that is, and how unfortunate it is for the side that doesn't have a good air force. This will actually serve to make countries with older player populations more overpowered than they already were. A country with a rich and entirely D4 population can now dominate countries with a good spread of divisions as long as they maintain a better airforce than the enemy. I shall demonstrate with math.
Over 3 ground rounds, a total of 33 points are distributed. 15 of these points come from D4.
Lets say side A wins only D4, they now have 15 campaign points.
Lets say side B wins D1-D3. They now have 18.
Then the aircraft round pops. If side A wins, they then have 37 campaign points.
This means that D1-D3 are literally irrelevant now. As long as a country has a strong D4 and enough money to supply its fighters with enough airplanes, it will win no matter what. Bigger and older countries are now more overpowered than they were before.
Plato, please fix this. Aircraft battles give too many points. You're making new players even more irrelevant than they ever were before. Sure, they're a lot more relevant if someone tosses airplanes their way, but you have gotten rid of the point of them fighting with regular weapons, since divisions 1-3 are made literally irrelevant by this update. Please do not make aircraft this overpowered.
"In order to be able to use higher quality weapons, a Citizen will need to reach specific Airforce Military Ranks. As a first step, only Q1 Weapons are available and further qualities will be added based on the progression of the Citizens." Ok, so you are making new players even more irrelevant. Nice.
"When fighting as a pilot all the players will gain Experience Points, even the ones that have purchased Infantry Kits." Let me guess, so you can sell a new pack? But then again, who cares? Because D1-D3 are now irrelevant. D4 is where you need to be if you want to really contribute.
"The new Pack, added as a test at this stage, will enable players to switch Divisions without any constraints such as bringing down an Objective or consuming Currency." This is very important. This right here basically tells you a very important thing: They know D4 will be overpowered, they know there is now ZERO incentive to buy the IK because of that, so this is their solution. Instead of fixing this they are embracing it in order to sell a different pack, while leaving the IK up for those that do not realize how useless that pack has become with this update. This excludes people that fight exclusively for BHs. Those players will be the main buyers of these two packs by my guess.
"Your in-game Strength will not impact your pilot abilities. A new skill that can be evolved daily will be available in the future." Furthering to make new players irrelevant. Since just like strength, those that train longer will be more overpowered. At this rate, divisions are irrelevant except for the fact that you are selling TWO packs now based off of their existence. You may as well just do away with them in terms of their relevance, but i assume you will leave them up just to exploit the revenue caused by your now obsolete feature.
"The Citizens that deal the most damage in Aircraft battles (for each of the involved sides) will earn the new Sky Hero Medal (similar to the current Battle Hero Medal), and receive 30 Gold as reward. Sky Hero Medals will be available for each Aircraft battle of the Campaign." This one is tricky. I don't know how I feel about this one, but I wanted to make sure everyone else saw this. 30 gold per Sky Hero Medal. Let me know what you think in the comments.
To summarize.
You CANNOT Work As Manager (WAM) in aircraft factories.
D4 is now the only relevant division in ground battles. D4 + Aircraft accrue over twice the campaign points of D1-D3 combined. The only way to win a battle with ground only is to win all 4 divisions.
IK does not work in air-battles. And with the irrelevance of D1-D3, this makes buying this pack a literal waste.
A new pack is coming allowing division hopping. This is only relevant for BH hunters, since everything except D4 is now irrelevant.
An off-breed of the strength mechanic will be introduced for air battles. Get your gold ready for flight training schools!
New players are even more irrelevant now than they have ever been.
All in all, good game, I didn't think you could pull a mistake off that was this bad. You are ruining a whole mechanic and making new players so irrelevant your retention will be worse than it ever has been.
"We had two main constraints when developing the new module: it had to appeal to new players while the negative impact on the engaged player base needed to be minimal." You failed in both regards. Do not release this in this state. You need major overhauls. You cannot make aircraft this overpowered if you want the fighting module to continue being a reason that people stay playing this game.
They f***ed it up. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Or put it in an article, type [WW] in the title, and use it as an entrance to my writing contest which can win you up to 10,000 cc!
★★★★ Baaaa o7 ★★★★
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Votado..
If a country just had a baby boom those D1-D3 players might be stronger is numbers resulting in more foghters and thus overpowering the D4 consisting of old players from a mighty country.. the aviation round becomes a round of numbers. Not so much D4 players can win, but all countries with a large citizen count have strong advantages over small countries..
I must admit I haven't read it all, but I see something which I disagree. In the aircraft battle it does not matter which division you are or how many strength you have, they will work with a different strength formula. Those lower divisions who can't compete with the big guys in strength in their division can finally deceide to give up in that field and fight as hard as they can in the airplane divisions.
But those lower divisions are not rich enough to compete. Aircraft battles are a matter of money since the weapons will be, by early estimates, expensive.
And with aircraft rounds only occurring after every 3 ground rounds, what fun is that? Sitting around waiting up to 6 hours for an aircraft round just so you can fight, since you are irrelevant in ground battles?
I might be too old to be learning how to fly!
★★★★ Baaaa o7 ★★★★
Hahahaha. So true...
"I might be too old to be learning how to fly!"
★★★★ Baaaa o7 ★★★★
I am glad i am rich and have low strength, maybe i can move battles now.
I wonder if they will unlimited rocket factories so i can equip my aeroplanes with rockets!
No weapons of that kind will work in air battles. No rockets, no bombs, etc. Only aircraft 😛. And one Q7 aircraft looks like it will cost about the same as a house.
But what does it REALLY mean for incredibly weak players - I mean like toddler strength - in D2 who rarely if ever fight? Can you explain if I should train harder or just hide in a bunker or smth? Thanks! #FoodSafety
Well, if they're rich, dive all in on aircraft. Otherwise, use whatever food/weapons they have to fight for COs, FFs, and MMs so that they can try to afford aircraft that way. Since going up in divisions will no longer matter for those that can't catch up to fight for BHs.
What if they're ePoor (well except for a stockpile of cash they're giving away) and don't really care about doing stuff except writing stomach ailment jokes, comparing egg burps vs. fart clouds and dumb shit like that? Asking for a friend.
Well if they don't wanna fight, don't fight 😛. Sell your weapons instead. Or give them away XD. If they do, just fight for Combat orders, freedom fighters, and mercenary medals. Easy non-competitive way to make money with weapons regardless of division.
This update sucks really hard. d1-d3 is really useless from now on. I agree with you on that one.
I am not too old to learn how to fly, but I am just not willing to give up what I have been working for since I started. Most lower division BH hunters will think the same. And new players can't afford to get these new training grounds fully upgraded anyway. So only positive effects for div4 players actually.. screw that Pl**o d**kh**d!
And I btw spent money to be there where I am now. Why should I waste all the effort for that? lol.
Lower division BH hunting may actually become easier after this. Everyone that wants to actually help their country will be busy moving up to D4 and fighting in air battles. BH hunters can use the IK to stay low division and waste their damage away for easy BH medals.
In the end, only older players are going to benefit from this change.
Most BH hunters have spent too much money on that game. Not just on that game. They trained hard, were patient and then took advantage of the IK when appeared. Most of them won't waste that possibility and level up so fast.
It's mostly the mid-strong hunters that will think about it or the ones that are really close to level up division anyway.
And yes, in the end, the older players will benefit from it the most.
On the flip side however, D4 players buying the new pack will be able to hunt lower div BHs. So it may also get harder as a result. We'll have to see.
I f***ing knew they'd implement a pack with the possibility to switch divisions. I really f***ing knew it.
VP Resoula: Aircraft in Review
www.erepublik.com/en/article/2605969/1/20
A Quick Rundown of Plato's News Release
If D2 thru D4 can come down and steal D1 BH's like they could in resource wars, a lot of players are going to be beyond irritated.
I've spent going on 3 years fighting little and simply strength training to become useful to my eNation. This game was already heavily pay to win and at first glance, it appears they've made it even more so. I generally lose interest when games do this.
Reading this article, I am currently of the opinion that I've wasted my time. I hope eRep's changes create a new influx of players because I'm anticipating an increase in existing player apathy and departure.
D4 players stand to gain the most from this. Lower-div players only really stand to gain if they are exclusively medal hunters and buy IKs since their division wont really contribute unless they play in a nation that can consistently win all 4 divisions against an enemy that wins the air.
>implying the game wasn't already ruined
10/10
it's not really that bad, although my expectations were greater...
new players who go all in on aircraft can fight, they don't have to care about exp
but the lowdiv tanks won't matter that much anymore 🙁
I think the aircraft round shouldn't matter this much. And it's only one of every 3 rounds, so someone who goes all in on airplanes, have to wait a lot to fight.
It'd be a lot better as just a new div in every round, like for 6 points. Or 4, that's missing anyway.
who is starting an aircraft commune... So who has energy centers and houses (to have max energy available) along with energy bars will quickly separate the biplanes (Q1) from the stealth fighters (Q7), within days forget about winning 30 gold, unless you are rich enough...
I'm still hesitant about one of the following:
Either Plato's staff is one of the biggest bunch of incompetent game designers and absolutely uncapable of analyse on their own the consequences of their updates and changes...
or
they are brilliantly killing their own game, trying to squeeze as much money as they can from the players.
Question on Forum:
"Will the new skill ("Eye to hand coordination"?) and the aircraft battles be introduced at the same time or will we be fighting with a skill value of 0 until the new skill has been implemented?"
Answer:
"The new skill will not be introduced at the same time with the Aircraft Battles, but later on. "will we be fighting with a skill value of 0 until the new skill has been implemented" - yes, that is correct."
Looks like we will have a few days to look at it before we decide to jump in, or not.
Why implement an incomplete module? To honk people off even more? After the resource wars "just kidding, we'll turn it on later" deal, and now this. Utter nonsense.
v+s
Bad news, as usual.
This is why people prefer Pokemon Go.