PvP Mechanics Update

We have some important news to share regarding PvP mechanics! You may have heard about a combat playtest we ran to try a bunch of possible rebalances to Heckfire combat. After diving into it with some of our most active and dedicated players in the community, we will be implementing a few updates to the existing PvP mechanics based on some of the most widely-accepted changes we tried out during the playtest.

Our intention with this update is to help with the overall balance of PvP. We learned a lot from running this playtest, and we’re excited to continue iterating on all the great ideas and feedback that we gathered. We want to see the value of teamwork and coordination prove more crucial during PvP, and so our goal here is to strike a better balance with how reinforcement works. Teamwork and cooperation should be a cornerstone of any good strategy, and shouldn’t feel like a misplay.


What’s Battlefield Size?

Battlefield size does not have a visual indicator so it can feel new to hear about, but it has been in play as PvP mechanics since the start of the game. It represents how many troops are part of the battle instance equation.

The more troops you have in battle, more injuries and kills on both your side and the enemy's side. Since injuries are calculated as percentage of your overall battlefield size, and lethality is a percentage of the overall injured amount from the hit.
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Some details on how combat works so you can see the impact of battlefield size being changed:

* All the troops and Dragons on both sides are used for win/loss calculations.

* A limited number of troops (battlefield size) on the defender side are placed on the battlefield. Each participating defending player increases the battlefield size.

* The attacker gets to place all of their troops on the battlefield. Finally, the dragons are added in, and then whatever side is stronger tries to surround the smaller side, with a limit of 1.5x as much as the smaller side.

* Casualties are calculated based on the number of surrounded and surrounding troops that can reach each other. (Any other troops don't get to cause damage nor are they threatened)

* The final lethality amount is the percent of these casualties that turn into deaths.​

WHY?

The recent rise in lethality has highlighted some flaws in how we handle reinforcement and rally joining in combat. Both actions became almost strictly bad choices for a player to make when supporting their clan. We believe this is very bad for Heckfire. We want players to really feel good about assisting each other, and we consider these changes to be a big step in that direction.​

Tomorrow we will be rolling out a set of changes targeted at the way lethality interacts with reinforcing and rally joining.

1. Reinforcer battlefield size has been reduced. This means they use fewer of their troops for casualty calculations. Effectively, this reduces the number of casualties that an individual reinforcer suffers, but it also reduces the number of casualties they cause and increases the number of reinforcing players needed to overpower an attacker.
   
   
   
2. Rally joiners and reinforcers are now affected less by lethality compared to the city Defenderr and rally leader.
   
   
   
3. The "Lethality Dilution Bug" has been fixed. This bug caused rally joiners and reinforcers to lower their team's total lethality the more troops they sent to help.

We look forward to seeing how this plays out and will be listening closely to the feedback as you get a feel for the changes.



- The Heckfire Team