Discussion Release Notes version 1.25 + Tournaments rebalancing

[Dony]

according to innotv we didnt even finished rebalancing tournaments and you already announcing rebalancing all ancient wonders

 

[DeletedUser]

I think there is a problem with the AI if the enemy is having a couple of withered thornrose mages and you are using archers. I had the same problems when trying to autofight as shadowblack has and when I did the fight manually my archers killed the mages with one shot !?

 

[lika1961]

I am afraid that this tournament change has done the opposite of what it was supposed to do. The idea, as I understand it, is to make it more attractive to players and thus encourage more people in fellowships to take part. If anything, it will probably do the opposite. Some players are just sick and tired of hearing the same old blah blah about rebalancing. If you don't get decent rewards from something you generally stop doing it. It is a very simple thing. There is a fundamental problem with the devs' understanding of the word "rebalancing", so every change makes something worse. There is never balance. Ever.

I don't mind negotiating tournament provinces because, lets face it, there is precious little else to do with goods. I am sick and tired of all the fighting issues so, even if it is ever fixed, I will never do it again. Which is ironic since I was forced to have all the units and military buildings. Players can understand in seconds what the issues are, but the devs have to be told over and over again why something does not work. Why? If you change something you can surely see what the result will be, right? But worse, even when people like Dony explain in detail what the problem is, it still does not seem to make a difference. I'm over it.

The changes to the wholesaler that was supposed to encourage trade has in fact caused the opposite effect for me. At any time there are pages and pages of cross-tier trades in my trader. Small players don't even bother trading tier for tier any more. They just go straight to trading tier 3 for tier 1. I don't ever accept cross-tier trades, so effectively there is no trade available to me. I believe smaller players will pay the biggest price for this as there will be consequences down the line. It is easy to ride out something when you have a million steel. Not so much if you only have 10 000 and there is no more on offer. I used to help smaller players whenever I could as a few hundred here and there is not an issue. They are now losing out on that help as well. Encouraging trade my foot!

The way to encourage co-operation and excitement in a fellowship is by letting people believe they can achieve a goal together and get decent benefits from it. At the moment most of the conversation about tourney is how the fights are not working properly, so there is very little positive energy around completing the chests. The goal to be achieved is overshadowed by the constant issues that are created by changes, so no, I don't believe it is working as intended. And receiving shards and spells is not more interesting, however you try to spin it.

 

[DeletedUser1721]

I think part of the problem is that when players say "more interesting" they mean "in addition to" and when the devs think "more interesting" they think "instead of". So when the devs implement something to give the players what they think the players want, they always take something away as well, because they think that they can't give players things for free. This reflects a fundamental error of thought on the part of the devs... they think that their version of the game is balanced, and thus, any input the players give and things the players want have to be compensated for by taking things away to maintain the devs' idea of balance... the problem is that as far as the players are concerned, the devs' version of the game is completely unbalanced, and the players are trying to suggest things which will make it balanced. Players wanted broken shards in addition to the previous tournament rewards because sometimes when you have most wonders' rune rings completed, you need very specific runes to continue filling in the ring for the one wonder you want. Not instead of the previous rewards, because people still need relics, but in addition to, because these are people who find participating in tournaments each week boring and want shinier prizes to motivate them to participate. Or not even shinier prizes, just more versatile. One needles of the tempest shard every week from tournaments because luck says you're getting needles of the tempest when you absolutely have no interest in ever fighting, don't have space in your city to build it, and have a filled out needles of the tempest rune ring, blocking breaking the new shards, is boring, because it's essentially useless, since you can only try to break them after emptying out the filled rune ring. One useless needles of the tempest shard each week because luck, plus a broken shard which players can actually do something with, is more useful and interesting.

Why can't players have both relics and broken shards? Considering that the current biggest roadblock to building wonders is the fact that the devs won't give us space to put them on, the devs shouldn't be concerned that people will use an increased number of broken shards to get "more ancient wonders than they deserve".

 

[Heymrdiedier]

Your devs went too far with the removal of the rewards. I need the Relics (at the KPs, but mostly the Relics) because I am nowhere near the max boost, but I am getting too few Relics now, taking a very long time to increase my boost. The costs I have to pay do not care about that, though.

Also, here's a battle that's unwinnable for the AI:
View attachment 2280
This is the SECOND tournament province, round 4 (I already completed the previous three). The AI lost - likely thanks to the obstacles blocking the path of my archers. Without those obstacles I could hit 5 enemy units: 3 Mages, 1 Orc and the Thieves. But the obstacles make it unwinnable for the AI. And that's an early province.

You guys REALLY need to do sometihng about the battlefields - far too often terrain leaves one side at a HUGE disadvantage, like in this case.

EDIT: And here's another that proved impossible for the AI:
View attachment 2281
This one is the very next province (the third one), the very first battle of the fourth round.

I am done trying to fight in the current tournament. I am almost out of Archers because of all the losses.


Another one impossible for the AI, just as a test (from tournament province 6):
View attachment 2282
Dryads are suposed to be good against both Mages and Heavy Melee, and the enemies are either mages or Heavy Melee. But the Swamp Monsters are 3 stars, while the Mage and Knights are 2 stars, while my poor Dryads are 1 star and will stay that way until the Woodelves, many months from now.

I think there is a problem with the AI if the enemy is having a couple of withered thornrose mages and you are using archers. I had the same problems when trying to autofight as shadowblack has and when I did the fight manually my archers killed the mages with one shot !?

the problem with that map was that it was a pipehole. and the ai want to move forward to be able to kill something. So one by one your archers come in range of the enemy, while they are never in your range.
Manual this is easy fight. Just wait one turn (and spread your troops a bit so you remove the pipehole) and then when the mages come closer you can easily kill them.

 

[DeletedUser]

the problem with that map was that it was a pipehole. and the ai want to move forward to be able to kill something. So one by one your archers come in range of the enemy, while they are never in your range.
Manual this is easy fight. Just wait one turn (and spread your troops a bit so you remove the pipehole) and then when the mages come closer you can easily kill them.

That's still a problem with the AI. It's almost always better to wait the first turn.

 

[SoggyShorts]

As always, wild guesses and assumptions everywhere. No wonder.
Marindor is calling for a solid feedback, but why don't the devs post some solid info here? People are complaining about lack of KPs, but is that even true? Maybe it is, maybe it's not. If the devs post a chart with all the rewards for the first twenty provinces, there will be no more guessing and there will be fewer unfounded opinions.

Come on dev-guys, if you start treating this community as betatesters, maybe you will get some serious feedback.

Major updates should come packaged with an updated Beta wiki. Charts included.

if the pattern will be same as first rounds then we still need 6 provinces with 6 levels with 25 people in fellowship to get last reward
or 8 provinces @ level 5 x 25
or 11 provinces @ level 4 x 25

Maybe getting 25 players to do 8x 5 stars would be easier than 6x6.... if the troop losses hadn't quadrupled, and the catering costs increased tenfold.

they also said they think the amount of units or goods will be similar to what you need now per province. read carefully province fights, so a lvl 15 tournament fight should take about the same amount of units as a ring 15 province fight on the world map.

I already had players that said they got more out of clearing the world map than they do in tournaments, and now with the greatly reduced KP and relics rewards coupled with the massive increase in catering for tournaments, it makes even less sense for them to allocate their efforts towards tournaments.
Compare clearing a boosted province for 8 relics, 8 kp, and a part of an expansion with clearing a tournament province. If they cost even close to the same amount it makes no sense.


note: since I'm travelling I can only go by what others have posted--I've just been a leach the last few tournaments.

 

[DeletedUser1657]

For the first time I am feeling rather disappointed by the changes. It feels like the opposite of what was requested has occurred.

Original feedback (As I understood from reading forums)

• Fellowship reward levels are too difficult requiring 25 people to do 6 provinces to level 6
• Rewards are not enough for the costs (not an issue for first 2 provinces)
• Variety in rewards (in addition to increase incentive)
• 16hr timer (Ok, we knew this probably would never happen)
• Greater incentive needed

It would have been nice for feedback to state that an increase in variety would reduce existing rewards and then see if the feedback continued. The rewards removed are some of the highest prized rewards to be replaced with much lower value items at much higher costs

Updated summary
Pros:

• Points per round are more compact so greater impact from members who achieve earlier rounds
• Greater variation in rewards for an individual (but this has a con, see below)
• Fellowship rewards improved timing across reward levels (but this has a con, see below)
  • Total rewards are almost identical to prior with 1 less relic and a few extra spells
  • The spread of relics is earlier then previous
  • Spread of KP and runes is greater across but this can be good or bad depending on the level you obtain, generally neutral to good.

Cons:

• Still requires 25 members to go to round 6 in 6 provinces - many people don't even do 5 provinces
• The number of level 6 provinces required at each checkpoint has generally increased!
  • Edit: Table removed due to error. Refer to Table by @Jasper on the next page.
• Muf-Muf comment on not needing round 6 was misleading (maybe I misunderstood) but round 6 is definitely needed because if you struggle to get people to go to rounds 4-6 you can bet you ain't going to get them to do 8 provinces especially with escalating costs/losses. Some will, most won't.
• Perception of ability to achieve as a fellowship has barely moved while perception of individual rewards is much lower, thus less motivation then before for people to participate
• Perception to achieve as an individual has lowered as costs are higher while ability to replace those costs has not changed. More losses of troops/goods = more difficult/cost.
• Individual rewards are much lower than before especiall for KP/relics/runes. The 3 main reasons people did tournaments was KP/relics/runes
  • Spoiler: Changes

    
  • Players do not feel 1 spell is worth the price of KP/relics that the devs do, these are seen as lesser rewards and are easily obtained through other means or MA so they really are seen as a very very cheap offer. Adding these on top of the existing rewards would have been seen as a minor improvement
  • Hard to say how players rate broken shards as they can fluctuate from helpful to useless depending on where you are at in terms of collecting runes. One thing is certain that a rune that can be used is always better than a broken shard as worst case it becomes a broken shard.
  • With so many spells for individuals if this can't be improved could the spells in fellowship rewards be dropped and KP/relics added there? Some players won't like this due to a feeling of pressure from fellowship and would rather these be for individuals instead.
  • 50% of the runes for 6 level 6 provinces A often highly rated reward
  • 50% of the KP for 6 level 6 provinces A highly rated reward
• Cater costs appear to have significantly increased - specific mention of early towns requiring a lot more goods than previously needed
• Losses from fights are greater thus more difficult for the same reward
  • The constant increase in squad sizes every province accumulates too fast adds a big disincentive to go too far out, opposite to what is needed to get a blueprint as you need your power players to go further to compensate for those who can't do 6 provinces to round 6
• MA is becoming almost unecessary. A building that had a lot of value is continuing to be devalued by the ease of obtaining spells outside of this building.
  • Having relics to make spells is better than having spells as we get to decide how we use those relics which includes increasing our boost
• Wonders were already difficult to level and took massive investment and planning to increase them, the decrease of available KP makes this even harder to do. Would rather have 50% of the KP locked to wonders only than only get 50% of the KP.
• Ability for new players to compete in tournaments got harder. This was possible before and they could get in the top 100, seriously doubt this will occur now. (Opposite to what march TV episode says)

Conclusion
Actually very simple the cost to participate has increased, the reward levels have not changed and the rewards for an individual are less. None of this will encourage people to do tournaments. All of the original feedback except variety remains and in most cases got worse.

 

[DeletedUser1767]

@Mykan's assessment is dead-on.

What frustrates me most about the new system, as a whole, is that it's not hard to envision a different version of this system that could be good, if they recalculated the costs in various places and rethought the individual rewards (I still think scaling them to individual progress is the best option). I get trying to motivate people to do many rounds of many provinces, but you have to make it obviously worth the effort, and it's just not right now.

 

[DeletedUser1657]

I still think scaling them to individual progress is the best option.

If that includes cost, absolutely. Those who do 10+ provinces regularly could talk more to this but for someone who does 6-10 provinces regularly the diminishing returns kick in very fast and with what I view as much lower returns now.

Rewards for the first 6 provinces to round 6. You will notice a pattern, rewards for province 1 rounds 2-6 are the same ass rewards for province 2 rounds 1-5, this rotating pattern continues. Anyone who does 10+ provinces does the pattern repeat at some point or just continue?

Spoiler: province 1-3

Spoiler: Province 4-6

 

[Dony]

10+ provinces are all the same and based on 9th province round before

 

[CrazyWizard]

Also autofight is totally impossible now, before you could survive the sometimes "random" totalloss a autofight created, with the mayor increaed troop size this is now impossible, all fights need to be handled on manual mode. why? well loosing 5x 168 troops = +- 40 min of production
5x 1000 troops = 4 hours and I prduce troops almost twice as fast as most people around my level.

This means 1 single failed battle would set them back so hard that autocombat becomes impossible.

So the amount of fights are cut in half, but the time we need to handle those fights have increased from a few minutes to hours.

well done. :S

Why is there no one on the dev team with actual knowledge about the game, ok maybe they dont have the time, but what about all those volunteers who help out, can't you not find a few of them with the ability to help the devs making good decisions instead of constant game breaking ones?

Just break the mod teams into sections depending on there interests and throw your ideas at each of the groups and see the results of "each" play style on your ideas.

Live feedback before you invested a lot of time (and so money) into something thats just stupid and before the game managers are to proud to back out of there failures in time.

 

[CrazyWizard]

to add something.

This AI is just terrible, absolutly terrible, the behavior of units is just beyond stupid.

If you guys intend to keep this AI instead of the 1.23 one, and this tournament setup,I rather have you kick the curb to the entire tournament thing and just strip it from the game, better nothing that this crap.
I have enjoyed the tournaments from the start and have one of the highest "total" ranks on all servers as show when that part of the game broke, but even I wont participate competitive in this tournament version anymore.

I intended to buy some nice premium building but decided to stop it and refuse to spend a single dime on this game if this time once again you ignore all of us and push it to the live servers once again. (like the AI everyone but 1 person who only fought 2-3 tournament provinces each week gave an ill advise to)

 

[DeletedUser1657]

How do players priortise the rewards? I know it varies based on place in the game but I feel the devs place way too high a preference on spells (especially inspiring meditation)

I would see reward value mostly as:

1. Runes
2. KP
3. Relics
4. Broken Shard
5. Spells (because relics let me make these and I get lots from tech chests, visit and events)
   1. PoP
   2. Magical Manufacturing
   3. Inspiring meditation
   4. Ensorcelled endowment

Even with new towns I would not vary this a lot, at most relics and KP might swap for a very short time. So few relics are needed to boost production a lot hence I rate the others higher, getting an early wonder with KP to help level while still doing tech help a lot. Decent production and enough relics for MA (which are abysmal when it is unlocked) tend to be the biggest issues, after space of course.

Do people feel the exchange of KP/relics for spells was worth the trade?

 

[Deleted User - 60107]

Do people feel the exchange of KP/relics for spells was worth the trade?

Absolutey not. KP and Relics are worth a lot more than spells.

How do players priortise the rewards? I know it varies based on place in the game but I feel the devs place way too high a preference on spells (especially inspiring meditation)

In the begining of the game:
1. KP
2. Relics
3. Everything else, as we don't really need Runes (we don't even have any AWs at first), Broken Shards or Spells

After we unlock some AWs:
1. KP
2. Relics
3. Runes and Broken Shards
4. Spells

After we advance some more:
1. Relics - because we have to spend some boosted Relics on upgrading AWs and increasing our Boosts slows down considerably
2. KP
3. Runes and Broken Shards
4. Spells

After we have maxed our boosts:
1. KP
2. Runes and Broken Shards
3. Relics (for upgrading AWs and for creating spells)
4. Spells

In some cases Runes and Broken Shards might be more important than KP (such as if you are tech locked or are trying to finish the Rune Wheel of a particular AW).

Spells are consistently the least important. We can get them from start-of-chapter chests, events, NH, and the siupposed main source - the Magicless Academy. Said Academy is now even LESS useless than it was. I built on Beta to test it, but ever since the last event ended I have not used it a single time. I have simply had no need for any spells.

Speaking of spells, I'd rate them like this for active players:
1. PoP
2. Magical Manufacturing
3. Ensorcelled endowment
4. Inspiring meditation

For less active players 3 and 4 might be switched.

 

[CrazyWizard]

How do players priortise the rewards? I know it varies based on place in the game but I feel the devs place way too high a preference on spells (especially inspiring meditation)

I would see reward value mostly as:

1. Runes
2. KP
3. Relics
4. Broken Shard
5. Spells (because relics let me make these and I get lots from tech chests, visit and events)
   1. PoP
   2. Magical Manufacturing
   3. Inspiring meditation
   4. Ensorcelled endowment

Even with new towns I would not vary this a lot, at most relics and KP might swap for a very short time. So few relics are needed to boost production a lot hence I rate the others higher, getting an early wonder with KP to help level while still doing tech help a lot. Decent production and enough relics for MA (which are abysmal when it is unlocked) tend to be the biggest issues, after space of course.

Do people feel the exchange of KP/relics for spells was worth the trade?

For me personally
relics yes, knowledge points no.

I am already at the 700% mark so for me more or less relics doesnt matter, it's the opposith off course for players who havent reached the mark.
The KP no, we need those to level all those marvelous wonders the just told us to level quickly in the latest innogamesTV episode.

I do understand the KP part tho, when tourenament came out I was totally amazed that we were granted THAT MUCH! it was totally unexpected since to be honoust is was way to much compared to what we had pre tournament.

I think the main problem is that fact that people fly trough the chapters faster than they like. but they could have solved that more gently, for example with "wonderpoints" and you could earned these at the "tournaments" or trade them for KP.

This way you would have the best of both worlds.

 

[lika1961]

For me spells can never be a reward as long as we are forced to have the Academy. I use spells, but as I have hundreds of relics getting some as a prize is not a reward for me. The broken shards also leave me cold as I find the AWs underwhelming, so I have no burning desire to update them quickly.

I would always place KP as my number 1 reward.

 

[Sir Squirrel]

I agree Crazy wizard, I think when they added as many KP's as they did to the tourneys it was so players could upgrade there wonders faster, not go through the tec tree faster. I think this is why they are limiting them now. I think the same for relics as I don't think they for seen how fast players were going to max there boosts, so now are limiting them as well. What bugs me, is they won't say that, they instead say that it was our suggestions to have different prizes that has lead to this change and that makes us the scape goat for the changes. I have seen on the live servers where they did this before with the increased difficulty to the AI, I think the suggestion for this was to make the auto battle feature work better for those that fight, so we wouldn't have to spend so much time fighting manually, but turned out making battles harder to fight manually now and while it might be partly true it seems more of a way to put the blame for unwanted changes on us and players in the live forums saying why would you guys suggest such a change, when actually we only suggested a very small change that would benefit all players, but when the Dev's get done balancing everything out again it doesn't really help anymore or makes it even worse then before.
I like the wonder kp idea, but think they should be strictly for wonders, even lower level players could use them to put in other players wonders to get the rune shards for wonders they are trying to get if they don't have a wonder built yet. I think adding that instead of spells would be a better idea then how it is now. Just to be clear, I still think a fair bit of regular kp's should be given as well, but if they have to limit them this would be a good way to limit regular KP's, but still give us more kp's to put into wonders as they need tons of KP to upgrade.

 

[DeletedUser1767]

I'm in complete agreement with @shadowblack's breakdown of the rewards hierarchy at various stages. The only place where my preferences differ is in the ranking of spells, where I'd say:

1. PoP
2. IM
3. MM
4. EE

I don't use IM very often, but there are times when it's invaluable; and on the occasions when I use the MA outside of events, it's almost always to make IM.

Also count me in the group of people who would favour Wonder Points. That's a fantastic idea.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

The number of level 6 provinces required at each checkpoint has generally increased!

• Spoiler: Increase

  

  I assume this is because more rewards were moved sooner in the list but it is an opposite response to feedback

Mykan i totally dont understand this table, what does it show? i assume with round in the first colum you mean province, but i still dont know what you are comparing here