Why people no longer play Bship Crossfire

[glaofucs]

I used to be an enthusiastic bship player who had been gone for a while. Like for about a year.
When I came back, what I saw was the sinking for the game. It was a surprise.
Almost all players that I knew seemed to have left the game except for few german guys.
Now bship crossfire is activated only for 4 or 5 hours a day (when those german guys are online)
and that is extremely short when compared with a year earlier which was about 10 hours.

Why?

It's simple.

Players stack so hard.


Battleship crossfire is a complex game which new players find it hard to adapt to
so when there are 8 people(say 5old and 3new), old players should go into separate teams for balance.
However, in Battleship crossfire, it's like 4 old vs. 1 old & 3 new.
Of course the result is predictable from the beginning of the game
and the whole game ends up as meaningless, unilateral massacre.

Even before when there were pretty many players, I had to play 5 meaningless games to play 1 interesting game.
But now, from what I've experienced for the past few days was that every single game was meaningless game.
The German guys would join altogether as the same team and eradicate the enemies, repeat that several times and leave.
CluelessFlamer and his guys are the most serious stacker. The game is obviously sinking but he still stacks hard.
Every game, it is CluelessFlamer team vs noob team.

He is like the only old guy remaining(the only old player playing regularly),
but paradoxically, he is the one who ruins the game.


I had been a huge fan of this game, but I'm leaving.
No one wants to play a 100% predictable, losing game.
Enjoy.
I think a year after, there will be no one remaining.

[wTc[JediMaster]]

@glaofucs You do know that people stack thier teams where ever they go what ever map or game they play right?
Even Bnet Have AT games, But ye that can be an annoying part for some new or people without team to play with.
And ye seems like your giving up even be4 the game has started if it's allways 100% win chance for them is there no skill/exp/rng in the map at all?

+ if theres allways cluelessflamers team vs some randoms would that not make you part of his team or one of the randoms ?
Seems it's only like 4-5 BS Xfire players then at all time and thats his team then there are some randoms that join and fill up the other slots on the other team and when clueless's team dont play there are no players at all?

But ye not telling you do keep playing a map you dont feel like playing any more thats all up to you. but to say its all doomed just cuz you dont enjoy playing it anymore is not really fair even more so sence there are alot more servers then those that ENT host on so might be some BS Xfire people on some of them that you can play with

But ye take care out there

[CluelessFlamer]

@glaofucs

Hi mate. Im unhappy that you had such bad games recently.

Almost all players that I knew seemed to have left the game except for few german guys.
Now bship crossfire is activated only for 4 or 5 hours a day (when those german guys are online)

You are right. The regular player base today is mainly european (especially german, yes), a few asians (vcpe and pcbox being the best) and some americans I didnt really see so much lately (schredder, generalbell, 7cool6, PieGirl, Spurs1...). So of course we have a hard time getting games to start.

Now about the stacking: Every once in a while we "terrorize" the bot with multiple Clueless aliases. I agree its counterproductive and encourage my mates to stop that. Still, gaming with people I know for many years and speak to regularly is joyful to me. Indeed this often results in unbalanced teams. If I play without buddies in voice you will almost always get me to !votebalance the game. Just ask away.

However I wish to add: I am one of the very few good players taking the time to educate new players. Explaining the basics (start equip, focus on xp, prioritize big ships over weapons and such) often led me to win games vs a team which looks more experienced/better on paper. Communication is a key part in any moba. Still I rarely see people chatting about a strat. Whats your ship pick? What might work with that? How much range do we need to trade damage efficiently? To be honest it's quite frustrating to hear all those complaints about stacking while the enemy team rarely takes a real effort in organizing and coming up with proper teamplay. I see players who give up on a game right away and start griefing (and or upgrading) while being unaware that they topple any chance of their team winning. Ironically that sometimes occurs in games in which I or we actually random our ships...
But theres good role models too. Player Space_Dude for instance: Over the last few games he excelled on the seawaver, beat me and quite frankly suprised me since I never considered the seawaver that strong a ship. I am looking forward to more games with him

I sincerely hope you dont give up on us. Whoever feels that a game is unbalanced should maybe ask "this looks very one sided. can we votebalance?" instead of "OMG STUPID STACKORZ!!1! ENJOY RUINED GAME!" Will I votebalance every game I joined with friends in order to play together? No. Will being friendly increase the chances of a !votebalance? Yes.

Now if you want to talk about this issue or about crossfire in general join our TS3 at xray-gaming.de. Enjoy your games!

[kaddybaer]

@glaofucs

I do play together with CluelessFlamer or others sometimes and I have experienced many players joining and simply seeing the two of us with some randoms and cry out for stacking and imbalanced teams and "I will ruin your game have fun I will ugprade [...]" etc. simply because they saw the two of us (so apparently stacking is now 2 players playing together in a 4v4? interesting).

Secondly, most of those players who complain about stacking have played more than enough games themselves but play like new players, as clue said, no coordination with their teammates, missing communication and adaption to the game, always playing the same ships which are really bad for teamplay and then wonder why they lose. Of course, playing against advanced players isn't easy, I can confirm that feeling whenever I smurf against them.
Ironically, those players who have played over 1k games and still complain about stacking have no interest in improving themselves and acutally BEING a challenge and make it fair - no, the others have to do that of course.

Again, as CluelessFlamer already mentioned, we are always open to teach new players the secrets of Battleships, as long as they ask and listen to what we say (even players from the enemy team). Sadly most of the players have a lack of communication skills and refuse to learn even the easiest things or out of their mistakes (farming -> dying -> farming -> dying -> farming -> dying -> leaving).

Thirdly, could it be that the fading Battleships community might have something to do with the general fading community of Wc3 Battlenet? I can remember the time where a game started every few minutes but times have changed and so has the number of players who spend their time in wc3 (which is very sad and some friends of mine try their best to get some new players to play those awesome games, not just Bships, so we might expect some new positive changes in the future, maybe even an autohost bships shuffle?).

Another thing, I know it is hard for solo players to imagine the feeling to play together with friends, skyping/ts and simply having fun - therefore you expect us to simply split up and play against each other? I've always said, it's just so much nicer to play together WITH someone, not against. Actually, we even did split up sometimes to make it a bit more fair or votebalanced although we wanted to play together.

This message might be tough to hear for you and it might not be as nicely said as the others but I hope you understand that there are different views than yours.

[wTc[JediMaster]]

Now if you want to talk about this issue or about crossfire in general join our TS3 at xray-gaming.de. Enjoy your games!

@CluelessFlamer You should Make a discord too

But ye Hear Hear! Was a good comment, Teamwork & Co-op is a big part of a game. And if you give up even be4 game has started and dont work with your allys it mostly ends badly
For ex: 3 > 1+1+1
Or as I said some years back "Fight with your team or die alone!" (Alot of people have said the same or simular things)

@kaddybaer
Well we'll see if he wants to rethink his involvement with the map or if he'll move on. You 2 seems like decent folk kinda nice to see that there aint just raging and kids out there playing (not saying that he is one, but you know what I mean some games can be very toxic sometimes )

[Ziadoma]

Since when is it called stacking when two friends play together?
Since when is it fair to get flamed and get called a ''ruiner/stacker'' when you take the time with a friend and wait sometimes over two hours to get this game started?
Since when is it wise to whine about people being better, if you only have to watch one replay and do the same we do every game.

I do not even know you. So I assume you are of the guys who has over 100 games and still hasnt learned how to play this game or you are one of the guys you cant even ask how to improve.

I disaprove !votebalance, because there is no elo or score of any kind, which makes the team just get shuffled, which doesnt led to fairer games. And if there is no elo what do you play it for: For Fun! And I have fun while playing with friends or clanmembers.

But noone I know would want to play a unfair/unbalanced games. Its just boring for both sides. All you have to do is talk/chat with us in a mannered way and adress your problem.

And as Clueless said we even have a Teamspeak to play on, which is free for everyone to join. Everbody with every skilllevel will be accepted. We are not only playing Battleships. But keep in mind that even if we are mostly germans, the most of us speak english.