At present I see a lot of discussion for and against the nerfing/disabling of the lightning strike spell. Many who argue to keep it in game do so from a pve perspective and don’t seem to understand how unbalanced this new feature is in a pvp server. It is possible in under a days grind to literally wipe a 40x40 base by someone who’s watched a 10 minute youtube video. Weeks, sometimes months of grinding to watch it be zapped out of existence in an instant by a nomad with a magic wand. That is the major imbalance, the time to create and the time to destroy said creation should be roughly equivalent. If precedence is given to creation you see bigger, more well defended bases. What we will start seeing is the opposite due to this one (pvp) game breaking spell.
The most common argument to keep it in pvp is that it will give solo and new players an equal opportunity to do the same damage an established and/or large clan can do. No argument there. So what happens when that clans base is wiped? Some will leave the game. Others will retaliate. Either case is community destroying. Those who leave will be the ones who just bought a load of dlc and bazaar items to make a cool base. Funcoms main customer base, wiped and replaced by a group of solos who will most likely quit after the novelty of mass server destruction has worn off (or there are no more bases left to destroy, which ever comes first). The second option, that the clan that just got wiped will retaliate is even worse. Once eveyone’s base is obliterated, the winner will be determined by numbers and knowledge, exactly the issue that favoured big and established clans and players in the first place. Giving that much power to new, fly-by-night players to entice them in to buying a game where the majority of game play is about building a base is sending out mixed messages that only griefers will listen to.
Here’s my prediction for the majority of heavily populated pvp servers if lightning strike is kept as it is.
- The number of large bases will decline rapidly and won’t be rebuilt.
- A small increase in new players interested by the new update followed by a mass exodus of loyal and long term players leaving for said reasons above.
- Massive increase in body vaults.
- Gods, trebs and explosives are rarely if ever used again.
- No one buys any of your fancy new furniture funcom because they don’t have a place to put it.
- Clan wars will become nomad wars. Hope you like that bush over there, it’s your new home until you make peace or quit.
Make lightning hard to obtain like grinding for a god. Nerf the hp damage on buildings. Have the strike only hit the top most foundation/tile. Create better counters which don’t involve sitting in your base for 4 hours every night looking at a bunch of floating rocks, hoping you’re looking in the right direction. Give a longer warning (smth like the god icon on the map). Literally any of those suggestions will keep me and I’m sure many other players from raging after having hours of our lives flushed down the toilet by a 10 year old with a god complex who’ll be playing minecraft again in a week after he gets bored from the 10,000 strike.
Fire with fire, the whole world burns
100% agree its busted but it gave me justice 