Discussion Tournament Changes (post-release)

[Lovec Krys]

That would be very bad for players with 100% cooldown reduction. Hope there would be an exception for that case.
+ hope that "next province" wouldn't be #10 6* or #8 5* each time you finish #11+ 5*
for players without 100% cooldown. Last time I've tried to play tourney on mobile that was pretty annoying.

@Marindor Maybe when this is implemented, add an settings to the profile for that? So we could choose if we want to move automaticaly to the next province or not. That way, both players with 100% cooldown and without it would be satisfied.

 

[Marindor]

Thanks guys, will forward that suggestion!

 

[T6583]

Observations from a Ch 2 city: 3 providences to 3 stars currently.
1. Fighting seems sigificantly easier this week than last week with less troop loss. Granted I also know how to fight being a veteran player on Live servers so this may be harder for a new player who doesn't have that knowledge.
2. If it wasn't for the event and the troop boosters fighting would not be possible. The event has provided me with troops I otherwise would not have access to. Without this some fights would not be possible. Inno may need to consider the troops given when a new player starts or a new city is started to provide some of all 5 base troop types. Right now we currently only have 3 and can only produce light melee and light range unless the city has advanced enough into Ch. 2 to unlock cerberus and build a training grounds. Yes I'm aware that catering costs for small cities is generally lower and easier to do. See observation 3.
3. Catering costs feel high and could be detrimential to a small city's overall growth. If it wasn't for FS members providing 0 and 1 star trades I wouldn't be able to cater them. This could be an issue for people who choose to play solo and start their own private FS which is something I had originally planned on doing here on Beta until a friend offered me a spot in her FS.
4. Making 6 stars without setting alarms isn't possible for me in this city. Ch 1 and 2 cities don't have access to any time reducers to speed tourney up without spending diamonds so the suggestions offered by forum staff such as polar bear, timewarp, and time instants aren't options for us.
5. If tourney is moving to a more Spire like system will Ch. 1 and 2 cities be locked out of Tourney like they're currently locked out of the Spire for similar reasons given there or even the above reasons? If so this could greatly impact FS that cater towards new players and takes away a valuable learning tool for new players to learn how to fight and get resources to improve their cities.

 

[B-kvgg]

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the confusion about "skipping to the next province". What's meant is that we're looking into a way of making browser a bit similar to mobile: When you complete a province, the camera pans to the next province automatically.

Edit: Sorry, there was some miscommunication. That is still on our wish list as well, but for now it's about easier cooldown skip with diamonds or time boosters.

Please, let us be able to disable this function, from round 2 I allways start with the highest province so I can track my losses.

 

[Alcaro]

Please, let us be able to disable this function, from round 2 I allways start with the highest province so I can track my losses.

100% agree. I do the same. First round I go from 1 to whatever, next rounds I always start with the last going towards the first, in case I have to cater to be at the cheapest provinces.

 

[Verde]

100% agree. I do the same. First round I go from 1 to whatever, next rounds I always start with the last going towards the first, in case I have to cater to be at the cheapest provinces.

Perhaps 3 options ... off, on-lowest to highest, on-highest to lowest

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I haven't read all the previous comments so probably it was already mentionned (sorry for that). My tourney strategy here on Beta is catering. The lower catering costs are supposed to help me but I can't go as far as I use to because I am always missing MANA. The requirements of mana (not to mention gold, tools and orcs) are way too high I can not upgrade any buildings requiring mana, I can not upgrade my streets, I can not make progess . I am at chap 15 and I find this very frustrating.

Did you not build the Dragon Abbey? Free mana every time you use an enchantment. And being in chapter 15, you should have hundreds of enchantments just sitting in your inventory.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Did you not build the Dragon Abbey? Free mana every time you use an enchantment. And being in chapter 15, you should have hundreds of enchantments just sitting in your inventory.

1: Once you start using hundreds of them they will be quickly gone
2: This topic is about changes in the tournaments, where we will be able to do a lot less provinces, this also means a lot less spells, which means ... exactly less spells to waste on abby.

 

[galrond]

Let’s see. I would love it if skipping = mark as complete. Can skip a whole round of rune shards of other irrelevant stuff.

Hehe would have been fun: Skipping all the 1* provinces, and go directly to the "goodies" (KP). I had a feeling, that was not what they intended

 

[Deleted User - 81190]

5. If tourney is moving to a more Spire like system will Ch. 1 and 2 cities be locked out of Tourney like they're currently locked out of the Spire for similar reasons given there or even the above reasons?

IMO the reason for chapter 3 requirements for the Spire is that you may need up to 8 different goods (final encounter). This means you need to have at least tier 2 goods unlocked. For tournaments, this is not an issue.

 

[galrond]

@palmira , @maxiqbert
I myself have 49425 currently on live.
It is not irrelevant now, but it will be in the future (unless points from tournaments increase).
If not changed, you might get someday into the 200K points from tournaments and 10M from other sources (so 200K won't matter as much as it matters now). (or more extreme example: 300K from tourneys & 50M from other sources)
Just like linear increase (production) cannot beat exponential increase (costs), so constant (no increase in points from tourney) cannot beat any increase (increasing points from other sources).
To get the image, just compare your points from tournaments to your total score 2 chapters ago and now.
It all depends how fast points from culture & pop requirements will rise compared to the points from tournaments.

Maybe you´re right. But it has nothing to do with change in tournament. That´s the nature of the game: upgrading a building from 31 to 32 weigh heavier than upgrading from 11 to 12, just as it should
But maybe they should make a seperate ranking list, that shows only rankingpoint achived in tournaments? It could keep the competative spirit up

 

[edeba]

no one has 10M global, and some people have 200k from tournaments, so your examples aren't very honest

It was very clearly written that as scores get larger with the exponential growth the relative weight of your score from the tournament declines. That's a very good observation. The 1000 pt ranking prize when the top scores were around 200k was 0.5% of that and now it is 0.05%. I would guess it might be only 2-3 years before scores are in the 10 million range.

have you seen today's offer in en servers? This is the way they think we should replace the lost KPs from tournaments? Ahahaha ... and invest in Wonders? This is very funny.
View attachment 7650View attachment 7651

Btw, isn't very clear (at least for me) was there any previous offer for KPs so that now we have a discount? And what would I get actually? Nevermind is not like I'm going to run and get that offer

I've never understood the pricing for kp. Reducing from 45 to 25 diamonds is still insanely expensive. A 1000 kp AW level would be 45000, down to 25,000 diamonds. Even the highest priced expansion goes to 15,500 diamonds that that's too rich for most players. If kp were 5 diamonds each, that 1000 kp level would cost 5000 diamonds, still insanely expensive, and with the tournament changes, of highly questionable usefulness. One AW level doesn't get you much...

1: Once you start using hundreds of them they will be quickly gone
2: This topic is about changes in the tournaments, where we will be able to do a lot less provinces, this also means a lot less spells, which means ... exactly less spells to waste on abby.

The huge increase in mana cost and huge decline in ability to get spells is a double hit. And then the inability to keep up on the rate of polishing because you don't have the spells is a triple hit.

 

[DeletedUser3289]

Losing steam I’d guess. Much lower comments compared to first week.

 

[Karvest]

Nothing changed since then - nothing to comment...

 

[maxiqbert]

the fact that it's exactly the same tournament as last week needs to be said. It totally defeats diversity IMHO

 

[PaNonymeB]

There were 3 issues with old tournament calculation :
1. Having techs (squad size upgrades) that give more penalties than benefits doesn't sound right
2. Having costs only depending on chapter progress could lead to weird strategies (like stopping chapter progress to level AWs)
3. Lack of information, game was misleading (with squad size upgrades not saying they make tournaments harder).

Now, they are making changes to fix 1. and 2. (although the current iteration doesn't fix according to previous posts, I expect the formula to be reworked as they explicitly said the change was aimed at fixing 1. and 2.), but they should fix 3. as well. This means not HIDING the formula. Show it in the announcement, and when it comes to Live put it in the Wiki. An in-game tooltip next to the tournament squad size similar to what we have for AW benefits would be even better, although given the complexity of the new formula it might not be practical.
And, even if 1. and 2. are fixed, 3. matters as shown in the example below :
I can pay 2000 for the next premium expansion, which would give me 25 squares. But it would result in a slight increase in tournament costs, so that I would actually benefit of only 5-20 squares (not less than 0 as 1. is fixed).
But for the same price, I can buy a Magic Residence that would save me ~15 residential squares... How am I supposed to make a strategic decision if I don't know how much the expansion will benefit me ?
Plus, here in Beta, how could we discuss on rules we don't know (although this might not be the best example as we actually know the rules thanks to @MinMax Gamer) ?? Are we supposed to guess the rules ??

(A bit off topic below)
And this is not only about tournament changes... in current event, the info on grand prize progress is hidden, if it continues this way soon we will not know the possible rewards of the chests... when they released the last crafting changes, they didn't explain how crafting has been changed, even thogh it can have a big influence on using time instants or diamonds in crafting...

 

[Jackluyt]

You may like to share this note which contains screenshots with friends who do not play on Beta:
https://tinyurl.com/yaez3js4

This new fellowship Tournament banner has arrived in the Live Worlds with the latest upgrade.
I would think that might mean that the Tournament Changes are not far away!
But apparently the designers are still going to tweak the enemy army composition before it gets released.

Here are some thoughts:

1. Overall I like the change! With a little tweaking it should make Tournaments much quicker, and one has to stop and think now rather than brainless identical click-click-clicks hundreds of times.
   It makes a big difference if you have more than one city.
   
2. This kind of big change does not usually jump straight from Beta into the Live Worlds. Usually the designers ask for player feedback, suggestions and acceptability, and tweak it one or two times before its general release.
   However, the Tournament counter in Live Worlds is showing numbers above 40,000 since the update on 21-23 July - so perhaps it is closer than we thought!
   
3. The problem I am finding in Beta is that troop requirements escalate rapidly province by province and round by round - so you will have 60 squads in province number one, lose almost none in fights - and by the time you get to province #20 you only have 2 squads to fight with!
   And if you use lots of time boosters to make another 30 000 troops - then that 2 squads only goes up to four -and you STILL don't have enough to fight with.
4. It may help now to do the optional squad size upgrades that you previously skipped - but my problem in Beta is not small squads; it is that I cannot make enough troops to do the higher levels, so I doubt if it would help much.
   Certainly there is no harm in doing the squad size upgrades you skipped - it will no longer make your tournaments more expensive, as things stand right now.
   But I would not advise doing anything about squad size until they have finalised the system; they may still change it a lot!
   
   NOTE: Squad size researches no longer ask for Guest Race Goods - so you don’t have to go back and build a Settlement.
5. It seems that fighting all the way is a thing of the past. Now you fight the first 15 or so provinces on day one and cater the rest, if you wish to go further...
6. The five-day-expiring military buildings still work nicely to save troop losses. It is just that at a certain level, fighting becomes impossible because one simply does not have enough troops. Up to that point, with 5 day buildings deployed, losses are minimal.
7. They more-or-less halved the amount of Goods needed to cater in the tournaments. That makes it much easier.
8. There is a wider variety of goods in Beta tournament catering - so it should not deplete one kind as much as it used to. Seeds and Mana come into the picture, as well as Coins.
9. It is odd that the old tenth chest gives 30 KP - but chests 11 - 19, which are a lot harder, only give 10 each!
   That really needs changing!!
10. Seeing that the enemy troops as things stand are virtually random, it is no longer possible to plan in advance; one just makes equal amounts of every kind of troops and hopes for the best.
    This means that the crafted five-day expiring buildings that boost Mages and Archers are close to useless - because there is no way to predict if you will need them that week. Perhaps it would be better to replace them with a five-day building that boosts the attack of ALL units?
11. Please feel free to submit your own comments!

 

[Deleted User - 86059]

@Jackluyt players are already submitting their comments here where they will be most useful

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I can pay 2000 for the next premium expansion, which would give me 25 squares. But it would result in a slight increase in tournament costs, so that I would actually benefit of only 5-20 squares (not less than 0 as 1. is fixed).

I don't know why other people buy the premium expansions, but I do it for more space for guest race settlements, so that new chapters go more smoothly and quickly. And also to have space for more building in general. Like I have said before, I am not so focused on the Spire or tournament that I ignore the main part of the game. I just finished chapter 16 and used a chunk of my now-free space to put out all the temp production buildings in my inventory, and still have room for rearranging everything.

(A bit off topic below)
And this is not only about tournament changes... in current event, the info on grand prize progress is hidden, if it continues this way soon we will not know the possible rewards of the chests... when they released the last crafting changes, they didn't explain how crafting has been changed, even though it can have a big influence on using time instants or diamonds in crafting...

Maybe they will get more vague in the future, but I figured out pretty quickly that the beacons give 1, 2, or 3 points each toward the usual 20 points for a grand prize. The clue was the distance from your person on the screen. The ones giving one point are one step away, two points are two steps away and three points is three steps.

As for the crafting change, I can't find it any more, so it may have been removed, but there was a more detailed announcement about the crafting, that seems to have been replaced with the little bit in the release notes.

 

[galrond]

Plus, here in Beta, how could we discuss on rules we don't know (although this might not be the best example as we actually know the rules thanks to @MinMax Gamer) ?? Are we supposed to guess the rules ??

Well it does make it much easier to change the rules, if noone knows them
That seems to be the logic in many games in general, and in Elvenar in particular
Rest assured: If anyone ever guess the rules, then they´ll soon change them. After all we can´t have anyone knowing, what they`re doing, can we? That would tip the balance

It´s also easier to dismiss criticism as vague and unconstructive, if noone know excactly what to criticise: "Now they complain about the impact of the town hall. Morons! It´s not even in the equation!", "if they only say that it´s too hard, how can we know what they want changed", and so on......
I think they don´t really want a solution from feed-back. They want someone to comment on things.
Then they polish their halo, say "we listened to our userbase", and then do things as they intended to all along, maybe with a few minor changes.
It´s not unique to INNO. At the end of the day, they´re not better nor worse than anyone else.

As far goes the userbase....... Well many don´t want to work constructively to make a solution either. They want to vent their anger about loosing advantages, and point out what they deem unfair. There´s nothing wrong about that either.
The userbase couldn´t agree on a solution, that all would find "fair" anyway

So INNO makes their new system, many ppl complain, some quit, more stay. If to many quit, then INNO alter a few things, promote them as ground breaking improvements, hope some return, and bring more with them.
I too left the game at a point. I came back, found the userinterface to be inproved in some areas, complained "why haven´t they done more", and resumed playing

I know, that I´m the big naive softie, but that don´t change the fact: I STILL think INNOs ingame information really really sucks
I think it an issue easyly fixed. It don´t affect game balance. It don´t affect game performance. The only reason it´s not fixed is pure lazyness.
Will it make me quit? No. Does it annoy me? YES. Could it be the annoyance, that along the way slowly makes me stop playing? Yes.
Some find grafics importent, for some sound is importent, for me information is importent.