Currently on US2 there is 110 players with over 5000 points and you only one player with a score below 17,000 is on the front page (top 8). It looks like 2 players have gone out 89 provinces each for scores of 24,030, and there is still 4.5 hours left.
There are 110 players over 5000 points.
There are 250 players between 2500 and 5000.
There are 367 players between 1600 and 2500.
There are 656 players between 1000 and 1600.
There are 1297 players between 500 and 1000.
There are 2552 players between 100 and 500.
There are about 1224 players with scores under 100 points.
There is a total of 6448 players with 5 or more points.
Big question is what is the breaks down of spending per player in each of those groups? With the game going on 5 years now, I'm willing to bet a high percentage of the players being ostracized with the gross level of dismissal by this move have spent $1000 or and even much more on the game. I'm also willing to bet that the group being referred to as happy with the changes, which is under 1600 points, you'd be hard pressed to find players in that category. There are many businesses where 80-90% of sales come from 10-20% of users. I bet more than half have never spent a dime.
Standing this stupid ground that only a small percentage of players are affected, which looking at my server, 1.7%, is true, but it wouldn't surprise me if these players represent half the financial base of this server.
I'm well past the point where I'm able to convince myself that the old Tournament system is engaging gameplay worthy of the rewards. Spending half an hour each round doing nothing but clicking over 2,000 times to get through all of my provinces has turned into nothing more than mindless busywork.
The reason I advocated for reducing the encounters from 4 to 1 is because the competition has become a battle of whom is willing or has time to do this mindless clicking.
For the top score on my server 89 provinces/tournament x 6 levels x 4 encounters/level is 2,136 encounters. I personally can not compete because I have 25 less provinces open. I have not continuously scouted. KP on 89 provinces is around 955 kp.
Going to 1 encounter per province would reduce that to 534 encounters. This is what was asked for. When you look at the numbers about who's playing to what score, time factors in. Because of the massive click requirements, the game has become a competition of mindless out clicking each other and in those over 600 people between 1600 and 5000 points are players that the drudgery of competing exceeds their will. It is just "ugh, stupid endless clicking" and there is no will or ability to pass that burnout to compete. I've had lots of tournaments this past year that I just didn't compete because of the endless clicking. My live tournament this week, 64 provinces x 6 levels x 4 encounters/province is 1536 encounters. What was asked for was to reduce that to 384 encounters, not say 24 provinces x 6 levels, 144 levels, with having to do about 50 of those manually....
When I envisioned doing some manual battles, I was thinking on only a few, not a requirement to get past around province 15-20, and making a level take even more hours for less benefit.
The ramp-up is way too steep. My proposal is way better and coupling that with purchase offers for expiring consumables would allow players to make purchases to better maintain their tournament level. With my proposal the desirable level 5 reaches the 1.6 difficulty by province 30. That extra consumable takes me maybe 10-15 more provinces... It really depends. With the higher squad size, losses are higher. I'm already using the consumables I make in the MA and win in the spire, and actually, my spire wins are declining. I built up a few when I just could not face the clicking and just didn't play strong tournaments for a period. I think I'd need 2 of those consumables I suggested plus what I make for free to maintain my tournament score with the less steep tournament I've also suggested.
On beta this week I went out 23 provinces and got a score just under 6k and I do not think it is sustainable. I have close to the same kp as I was getting before with the extra chests as I was not doing much of level 5 before, and getting an additional 100 kp out of level 2, so I lost those kp but I probably got an extra 42 to 60 kp from level 5, and we have 3 chests for another 30kp. But I was building on all resources before and now they are all declining. Indeed, if my teammate had not quit and given away his resources I doubt I could have done what I did this tournament.
With how the spire squad size increased, the tournament changes have motivated me even more to stay put in the chapter I am on, with the exception that because I got the orcs that I had not done the squad size upgrade to avoid, I did the squad size upgrade and grabbed 2 expansions that were just on the other side of the squad size upgrade. Where I was sitting it no longer made any sense to not have those expansions, and with the massive hit of orcs and even goods, stopping with the expansions made more sense. I already have the cost of 8-9 expansions for orcs needed included in this chapter, but I did not have all of the expansions. I left 4 provinces requiring orcs in the tournament. I would need about 3 more expansions of orcs to cover those orc costs. There is absolutely zero motivation to move forward from here, so I deleted what I needed in the guest race to get those 2 expansions. On live the cost increases in the spire from going through chapter 16 and adjustments if adjustments were made were massive. The new tournament has the same kind of garbage included and I do not believe I would do better moving forward.
I do love the one encounter/province. This is what was asked for, not a massive slaughter.
