Let me first say that here I have just a baby city, semi-abandoned due to not enough spare time. With the scarce troops I've had, I didn't even make it halfway through the first level, so I might be unable to see the full picture, although skimming through the 20 pages gave me some idea about it.
I want to give a suggestion that I only saw mentioned here twice so far.
When I heard about exploring the Spire and the map in the video, I imagined it a bit differently. Right now it's all a single lane - I would like to see it having some additional conflicts. Either as separate ways (admittedly, somewhat similar to the FA layout) or as a few additional conflicts scattered here and there, even if just for some additional visual treats.
In the first scenario, I imagine there would be different ways to reach the same point(s), provided that there would be only 1 of each of the supposedly more valuable chests, i.e. if the conflict is resolved on one path, its counterparts would automatically be resolved also on the remaining paths, regardless of the individual progress for each path. It could be done through making all of the paths cross in the particular point(s), just like all of them would eventually lead to the only platform guarding the next level. This way it would not create too big of a gap between players who can afford resolving all of the conflicts and those who cannot. On the other hand, this would serve as some additional treats for those who are stuck and cannot progress further through the Spire ("consolation prize").
In the second one, there would be just 1-3 conflicts with a dead end here and there, as additional branches. These would be purely for the additional gains, unlike the other "choose a path" thing, although the rewards still shouldn't be too OP, as not to make it feel like missing out on something unique if omitted.
Perhaps this one would also be more suitable for the overall look of the Spire than the first proposition, I can see the very potential of the graphics to fit in perfectly with it. And looking at that picture of towers hanging in the air makes me think of extending it even further - once per level (or once per Spire event in general), in one of the dead ends there could appear a special passage/portal to one of those hanging towers.
As for the location, it would be best if the portal was assigned randomly to one of those spots at the beginning of the level, so it could not be known in advance where it would be found. As for the content, I see it as a hidden "boss room" with the chest there giving all of the spoils with a 100% chance, not just one. Alternatively, it could give a chance for something really good, although I'm not so much in favor of this solution because that would go against the idea of overrewarding, so to speak, and I believe that many players would be happy knowing that there's a reward without a gamble aspect. Nonetheless, that could be an incentive to do more for the ambitious. However, once in the room, we would be able to go back to the main part of the Spire the same way we came in without having to resolve the encounter if we feel like the reward is not worth it/the conflict is too hard.
Just to make it clear, all of the conflicts should remain optional, not mandatory in order to progress.
Last, but not least, changing it in this way would help differentiate it from the FoE feature and, in case of the 2nd option, even from already existing feature which, as far as what was said in the video, was not intended to be duplicated.
That said, I see how there should be some balancing in order to make it work. At least some of the concerns:
- the conflicts are already very/too difficult, more would be too excessive;
- the rewards are not worth it;
- I really fear the FS aspect mentioned somewhere between the lines - all of the "play at your own pace without breaking it for your FS" goes to waste as we all know there will always be those competitive enough to once again form "Elite FS-s" for the sake of being the top, no matter how insignificant the rewards.
As for the timers, I'm all for doing away with them, or at least making them all 3-4h or so. In its current form, it really doesn't seem worth it to arrange the schedule around completing all of the floors.
As for the difficulty, I feel like introducing the additional, optional conflicts could help balance it out. Like, the main path should become easier - even as it is now, to be honest, judging from the feedback here - while adding some more encounters to solve, that is places to waste more fodder for some small treats.
As for rewards... I'm pretty sure there could be way less coin and supply boosters.
1. Personally, I like KPs/KP instants and time boosters (although anything less than 2h in total for one conflict feels like a joke to me).
2. Aside from the buildings that are already there (and the need to do something about everyone having the same T2 produced in them) I'd say that some expiring buildings could be good. It may be good to introduce some new expiring buildings that last really short, like a week or so, and not necessarily making them military boosts - that's just a rough idea, though, rooting from the fact that sometimes I find myself looking forward to the 50d ones expiration, so that I can free up the space. Shorter expiration time would make them more convenient to place in the periods between races, when there happens to be some free space before researching another portal.
3. Some amounts of troops would also be welcome as rewards, as already mentioned, even if there are players who consider any fights and producing troops as a waste of time and resources, and rely solely on their goods.
What else... the Catalysts and Spell Fragments, especially the latter, are rather good rewards. Diamonds, too, of course, that's out of question.
4. I'm not much of a fan of shoving event currency in there, like someone proposed, since we already have that in the Mystical Object, however, I can see that it could work nice for the badges in FA-s as both are short-term events.
5. And why not give us artifact fragments/shards that we could forge into any artifact we want, as for now it seems that they won't be unified? That could be based on the already existing AW rune system (who wants to see broken artifact shards?) - depending on how rare of a reward they would be, the amount of shards needed for one artifact could be adjusted.
That's all from me I could think of for now.