The Guild Battlegrounds update 2024!

Enjoy the updated Guild Battlegrounds starting from the newest GBG season kicking off on all servers on December 5th! 

With this update, we aim to refresh the GBG and address notable community feedback where possible. Continue reading to find out what awaits you in the new season!

Introducing Defensive Army Boost

To allow you and your Guild to use all your army boosts to the fullest, we're introducing defensive army boost to all GBG maps! 

This means that at the start of GBG, and every time a province is captured by a Guild, the system will choose whether an offensive or a defensive army boost will be required to fight on that province. As usual, the defensive boost is indicated by blue symbols, and the regular offensive boost — by red. 

The GBG map will influence the provinces' predisposition towards one bonus or the other:

• The Waterfall Archipelago map will have a higher chance of a defensive army boost.
• And the Volcano Archipelago map — a higher chance of an offensive army boost.

As the required bonus changes from one province and map to another, both players with a more "traditional" offensive and those who employ a newer defensive strategy will be able to apply their skills flexibly depending on the needs of their Guild. In addition, your unused defensive bonuses will finally have a proper application.  

Matchmaking Enhancements

To improve your GBG experience and address popular community feedback where possible, we're introducing matchmaking changes in this update. Please remember that the opponent selection is inevitably heavily influenced by the number of Guilds and their power in any given game world, so repetitive and challenging matches that pose a concern for some of our players will still be possible. We aim to make those situations less common by introducing a so-called "avoidance" mechanic:

1. All possible Guild pairs are gathered into a list.
2. That list is then compared to the historical match data and all Guilds are split into groups defined by their "match count", using 0 for Guilds that haven't matched yet, 1 for 1 match, and so on.
3. Guild groups based on the number of matches get sorted in ascending order, i.e. Guilds that were formerly matched once against one another form a group 1 and so on. Within every group, Guild pairs are also ordered randomly.
4. The fewer previous matches a pair has, the higher the matchmaking priority for that pair.

This procedure results in a prioritized list of contestant pairs, favoring those who have matched less frequently (or not at all).  

In addition to this mechanic, we are also adjusting the League points ranges and introducing a narrower threshold for keeping one's spot in rankings, as well as expanding some of the Leagues: 

Current League ranges:

New League ranges:

Diamond League special matchmaking mode

Twice per every GBG Championship, in the 3rd and the 6th seasons, Diamond Guilds will experience a special matchmaking mode, reserved for our most competitive players.

During those seasons, Diamond League Guilds will be put into a separate pool, ignoring the general matchmaking rules, and matched against one another in the order of their ranking in 4-Guild increments: top 4 Guilds first, then 5-9 Guilds, 9-12, and so on depending on the size of the League.

In this mode, no League points will be deducted from Guilds participating in this mode, no matter their final placement. Only Guilds participating in this mode will have no League points deducted. For the rest of the Guilds, the regular matchmaking process applies, as well as regular League rules. 

In cases when the game can't fill a Battleground with only the Diamond Guilds, top Platinum Guilds will be also involved in the matches. On smaller worlds, where the Diamond League is too small, the special mode will not apply.

To recognize that this matchmaking mode is active, look for this icon in the GBG welcome window at the start of every third season:

Usability Improvements

Map and Province visual overhaul

As you may notice from one of the screenshots above, the GBG map now offers an improved detailed view that will be enabled by default after the update. Thanks to this view, you can now more easily see crucial details about every province:

• type of army boost (offensive or defensive);
• coordinates;
• number of province buildings;
• chance to gain attrition.

Should you prefer a cleaner look, you can easily disable the detailed view by clicking on the corresponding button on the GBG HUD:

The province info window has also received an upgrade for a more streamlined and detailed look, featuring both information already visible on the map and the following additions:

• Ignore and Focus guiding markers that can be set for each province by players with corresponding rights;
• when available, the name of the Guild that owns the province;
• the amount of total Victory Points generated by this province (the amount will vary depending on the presence of VP boosts);
• information on up to SIX the Besieging Guilds and lock timer;
• reward chances;
• province buildings menu.

Those UI changes stem from another common player request to improve GBG usability and interface. Aiming to improve your experience and further facilitate faster battles, we have also moved the elements of the Province window around so that they fit better together. 

Reward pop-up removal

Currently, every time you receive a reward for a GBG encounter, you face a familiar pop-up describing what you received.

We often hear from our players that those pop-ups disrupt the battling flow in a high-paced environment like GBG. As a response to this feedback, with this update, we're replacing the pop-up with a reward banner that will temporarily flash at the bottom of the game window. In conjunction with the previously introduced improvements, such as hotkeys, this change will allow you to battle faster and easier than ever before.

Note: should you need to view the reward details, you can do that by clicking on the Chest icon on the reward banner.

Province Buildings Overhaul

Cost and Victory Points scaling

Currently, all province buildings require the same costs and yield the same number of Victory Points regardless of a Guild's position in the ranking. To ensure a more cohesive and fair Goods spend and the corresponding Victory Points reward, after this update we will scale both in accordance with a Guild's place in the rankings. To achieve this, both the base Province building costs, as well as the Victory Points yield will be multiplied using Leagues' specific multiplier:

Note: the number of Victory Points a Province can generate remains a random value, however, we have decreased this randomness by raising the min and max values in the selection range for each Province. 

New ability

We are expanding the selection of Province building abilities with a brand-new addition that will allow some buildings to generate extra X Victory Points for the Guild that owns them. Naturally, the ability needs buildings to be attached to, so we're adding six new buildings to account for that:

This increase will work by adding a flat value of extra Victory Points to the base number of points a Guild generates. From that value, the game will calculate the final Victory Points reward using available percentage-based abilities that boost VP yield. The final reward is also determined by the Victory Points multiplier described in the previous paragraph.

In addition, we have also decreased the randomness in the number of assigned building slots to ensure you can take more advantage of the new additions. 

New look

Finally, all Province buildings will receive a visual overhaul as well, further supporting our aim to facilitate a clean and modern look for Forge of Empires.

New attrition levels

Last but not least: with this update, 50 new attrition levels will be added, raising the total number of levels to 300.

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