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Sugar vs. Spice: It Really Does Suck |
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Apparently, I'm not the only one keeping track of the numbers in this event. This warms the cockles of my cold, dead, numbers-loving heart.
Basically, in the posts I've seen, they've come up with pretty much the same numbers I have. Except one person started early, and has the numbers to show that when the "event" started, the numbers favored Sugar. Two days later, they found the numbers absolutely reversed to favor Spice.
This is dirty pool. This is cheating.
First, if you're going to "rebalance" (gads, I HATE that word, so wishy washy), announce it already. Admit you goofed and are trying to make up for it. Bonus points if you say HOW you're doing this. I haven't seen any Dev Announcements about this - if someone has, please point me that them. I will happily (ok, not happily, but willingly) admit I was wrong. I've done so before.
Second, if you haven't done the very basic math on the gameplay, DON'T RELEASE IT. Just DON'T. You don't have to simulate every last action, but c'mon, it took me somewhere between 15 minutes and a half hour to figure out that this game still isn't balanced. Apparently it didn't take others very long either.
I'm almost done. I probably wouldn't have bothered getting this far if some of the rewards weren't soulbound (another scumtastic move by Gaia). I hope there isn't another event for a very long time.
purplewiz · Sun Feb 25, 2024 @ 12:32am · 0 Comments |
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Sugar Vs. Spice: Worst Event Yet Or Just Really Sucks? |
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I doubt anyone is still reading my journal, since most of the people I used to hang out with on Gaia are gone. Or banned. For over a year. With still no official notice of why, and no timetable when their ticket - also submitted over a year ago - will ever get looked at. Yes, Gaia, your customer service sucks donkey dongs. And swallows.
So, let's look at what's wrong with this Valentine's Day event.
First, it's a war game. Because nothing says "I love you" like attacking people. Because today's young people need reinforcement that hurting people in relationships is normal and expected. (If you couldn't tell, that's sarcasm so deep I hope you're wearing scuba equipment).
What was the point of choosing at team at the beginning? Because you can be converted to the other team with one attack when you're just starting to play, you're not going to be on that team very long. So stop pretending there's any choice in the matter.
There's a 5 minute timer between conversions, but there's NO timer on kills. So as a new player, you can be killed and healed and killed so fast that you're going to spend that 5 minutes dead. While you're dead, you can't DO anything - no attacking, no healing. So even if you're on the team you want to be on, it won't be for long, and you can't make any progress. What fun.
There's no safe way to gain energy, like a slow trickle if you're not posting. No, you have to post, and you have to post in the battle forums. So if you have managed to do something before you're dead again, when you run out of energy, you're back to the above cycle. As I mentioned before, what fun.
The amount of points you need to attain the last 6 levels is ridiculous. Good thing this event is going on for weeks, long after the last Valentine's Day half price chocolates have been sold and we're all out looking for Royal Dark Cadbury Mini Eggs. (Yes, they're much more widely available this year, and they're the best. Way better than those Creme Eggs. Trust me on this one. I'm hoarding them so I can have them until next year. But I digress.)
Then there's the growing evidence that this event is stacked in favor of Spice.
Having been both, I can tell you that Spice can make kills FAR faster and with FAR fewer hits than Sugar. Seriously, I've never seen the number of one hit kills as I did while as a Spice.
It may be that Sugar does much more repair with a heal. It's hard to tell, but it doesn't matter. And here's why:
For a kill, you get like 400 EXP. For a heal, it's like 8 EXP per heal. Just looking at this, you're going to get way more EXP for a kill than even a complete heal.
Now reduce the number of heals that Sugars can do on any one until they're fully healed. So not only have you made it harder for them to get the kill EXP, you've made it way harder for them to earn even the pittance that healing gives.
Then add in that Spice, because it's "edgy", meaning evil, attracts assholes. Who camp on Sugar threads and kill the same folks repeatedly. Even when they've finished the event because there are prizes for the top 10. Way to go, Gaia - reward craptastic behavior that makes the event suck for so many other people.
No, I don't have my usual set of numbers to back all this up. (ETA: see ETA below. I just can't stay away from my numbers.) I don't have the kind of time or interest in Gaia that I used to. But I will bet good money that someone at Gaia, Inc. just came up with all these ideas, called it "even", and made it live. I have no doubt whatsoever that anyone did any game play testing or calculations on how the numbers would add up.
One final thought, and this one I DO have evidence for: I started out all my mules as Sugar - mostly because they HAD to pick a side to get the wing sticker. I decided to have one of them convert to Spice, since it would help the Sugar side (see below). I posted ONE post on that mule. She was a Sugar at the time. As expected, she was converted damn near instantly.
But the 15 energy from that posting? It went to the Spice side. NOT the Sugar. Again, THAT POST WAS MADE AS A SUGAR.
Someone at Gaia wants Spice to win, and doesn't care how uneven the event is coded to make it happen.
Yeah, Happy VD to you too, a*****e.
(I need a Spice mule because, as often happens, you get killed before the 5 minute conversion timer has expired. If you have no HP left, you can't get killed again after the timer has expired, so you can't be converted. Having a Spice account where you can do one heal, which will allow the other side to do a quick kill and convert you where you want to be, is a useful thing.)
ETA: Ok, I had to do some numbers. (All numbers rounded). ETA3: Apparently ETA2 got eaten. Love you Gaia. Really. Let me recorrect the numbers.
Heals cost 1 energy. You get 8 pts for each. So they are 8 pts/energy. Attacks cost 2 energy. As a Sugar, I can kill someone at the highest HP in roughly 13 attacks, or 26 energy. A kill is worth roughly 400 pts. So they are 400/13 = 15pt/energy.
If you're a Spice - I'll be generous, and say that you can kill someone at max HP (780) in 7 attacks or 14 energy . That's 400/14= 28 pt/energy.
When I end up a Spice Again, I'll do a little experimenting, but not much, because I don't want to help the Spices. The devs already took care of that.
ETA3: Repeat of ETA2: As a Spice (because of course I got converted back), I was killing people max HP folks with only 6 attacks, or 12 energy. So the return on that is 400/12 or 33 pt/energy.
As a Sugar, I'm actually getting closer to 200 pt/kill. There are a few 400 (it is somewhat random, but not very), but lately it's been 200. So 200/26 = 7.69 pt/energy, or LESS THAN A HEAL.
And people as wondering why leveling takes so damn long as a Sugar. It takes twice as many attacks, you get half the points in return as a Spice. Which also means you're a lot more exposed because you need twice the posts to regain all that energy.
ETA4: typos and grammar.
purplewiz · Thu Feb 22, 2024 @ 11:32pm · 0 Comments |
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