Discussion Tournament Changes (post-release)

[ErestorX]

When they softened the expansion impact, they hardened other factors impact.
With that in mind, what factor should they increase, so they could decrease the AW-level impact?

The only way I can think of to keep SS as it is and lower research and AW penalties to a reasonable level in my live city would be the introduction of a penalty for my firephoenix.

Is this a good idea? I doubt ist. But it shows that Innos mistakes with respect to the current SS calculation are a result of their previous mistake of destroying the game balance with the firephoenix.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

The only way I can think of to keep SS as it is and lower research and AW penalties to a reasonable level in my live city would be the introduction of a penalty for my firephoenix.

I think you give innogames too much credit, if you think this rebalance is to correct earlier mistakes like the multiple fire phoenix and brown bears.
It was never stated they were in any way connected.

 

[little bee]

Competition either tournaments or total rank or both is raking in tons on money for innogames
Destroying that part of the game is both destructive for the game and there revenue stream.

Could you, please, stop trying to argue that hard-core tournament players equal paying players and are therefore more important than everyone else. On my live world I do a lot of manual neighborly help and I have come across quite a few cities that have lv. 1 magic residences or workshops. And I sincerely doubt that these are all bought with free diamonds from another world. So there are definitively casual players that do buy diamonds. On the other hand hard-core players were far more likely to have wishig well farms or to grind large amounts of diamonds from the spire. So it is possible to be a hard-core tournament player without spending real money.

I am not going to discuss with you, how much of Elvenar revenue comes from hard-core players and how much comes from casuals. This is not a matter of opinion. There is a correct answer. You and I do not know this answer and we don't have have any data to calculate it either. So it is pointless to speculate. And it is not really relevant either. We are not here to debate who the more important player is. Nor should we try to pretend that we are speaking for most players. We are here to say our own opinion and possibly to pass on messages from our fellowships. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I am not going to discuss with you, how much of Elvenar revenue comes from hard-core players and how much comes from casuals.

It is not the hardcore or casual players that tend to spend the most money, it is the lazy and impatient players or the ones who just want everything now. They don't want to wait those hours or days for a production or building upgrade to finish or to accumulate the KP needed for a research and so on. They don't want to spend the time, or don't have the time, to tediously play through events to get the grand prizes, so they burn cash and diamonds to get them more easily and quickly. Sure, some hardcore or casual players do this too, but the majority do not. And every single free-to-play game out there is like this. They make money off these players who just want to do things the easy way and have what they want in their game, when they want it, and not on some schedule of having to work for and earn it. They want to throw around their money and say "look at everything I have."

 

[little bee]

From what I´ve read, INNO is quite adamant, that the dificulty/cost of doing "many" provinces should be way harder than before.
I´m pretty sure they especially had "hardcore" players in mind.
I think, that they´re quite satisfied with the current level.
When they softened the expansion impact, they hardened other factors impact.
With that in mind, what factor should they increase, so they could decrease the AW-level impact?
The constant? Makeing it harder for small players?
The research? Makeing it more atractive to stay at lower chapters?
The expansions? Admiting they made an error in lowering it?

There are actually a lot more factors determining the tournament score for new or casual players. These include the increase in difficulty between provinces, the enemies (particulary the number of different enemy types) or their star rank. And there is always the hardcap imposed by scouted provinces. I don't play EN and don't know how exactly casual players are effected by these changes. But does anyone know, if produced troops are even the limiting factor for them anymore?
If not, then raising the constant to lower the effect of some AW would be an option. In fact, raising the catering cost for new cities may be usefull to avoid tournament pushing cities that cater everything with resources from a larger main account.

 

[Dony]

In fact, raising the catering cost for new cities may be usefull to avoid tournament pushing cities that cater everything with resources from a larger main account.

as i have said months ago in this thread, this is impossible to do with current formula, only way is to use old system for new cities and new system later on.
Just for your imagination, chapter 6 city which is for me still new to the game can have province 25 in tournament negotiation cost as 28 T1 and 2,3k coins, you dont even need big city to supply this since wholesaler can make enough

 

[little bee]

Just for your imagination, chapter 6 city which is for me still new to the game can have province 25 in tournament negotiation cost as 28 T1 and 2,3k coins, you dont even need big city to supply this since wholesaler can make enough

These numbers would require not placing any expansions and intentionally missing every third tournament to keep your relict bonus small. Both of these are very visible and could just be banned.
I am would be more interested to know, how the average, new, casual player is effected by the changes. Depending on the answer, rising the constant in favor of lowering the peanalty of non-military wonders in particular may actually be a possibility. But I simply don't have any data for that.

 

[edeba]

chapter 17 is even worse then 16, when you look at the current formula.
You get very little added to the game, while with each research (which is en exponential formula like cumulatiove interest so each chapter adds considerably more then the previous one) and then that is multiplies so made even worse by your expansions / wonderlevels.
there is only a downhill, no spectacular increaeses in production of goods, units, or improved units to counter the increase, there is just nothing there, even the wonders are "useless" add they add 0.0%

Even the reseach part I do not like about the formula, it's really like interest on savings.
I bought a 200K house 10 years back. This is countered with a savings account that at the end of the morgage I have 200K savings.
I only put in small amounds of money each month into that saving account, and in a 30 year period I add ~50K into that account. the other 150K is gained purely from the interest alone.

To counter this, everything in the game should have a similar exponential increase to "stay relevant" which unfortunatly ain't the case.
This means it's not "future proof" every added chapter will make this part of the formula itself run out of control untill it no longer cannot be controlled and the game becomes unplayable just by that little part alone.

If I was a game developer / PM / financial officer I would like to build something (costs are the same in coding) that has potentially the longest possible shelf live. as this means my operating costs become lower or my resource allocation becomes more efficient.

Even if they "fix" it, you can already predict how long it's shelf life will be, and are forced to directly allocate new recources on the roadmap to do it all over again to "fix it"

I think this in itself is a bad way, Why building something that you know will break sooner than you like?

To me it was shocking how much the spire increased from chapter 16. Chapter 17 is pretty low on the priorities for me. Right now it is on my avoid list for the exact reasons you give.

 

[edeba]

Could you, please, stop trying to argue that hard-core tournament players equal paying players and are therefore more important than everyone else. On my live world I do a lot of manual neighborly help and I have come across quite a few cities that have lv. 1 magic residences or workshops. And I sincerely doubt that these are all bought with free diamonds from another world. So there are definitively casual players that do buy diamonds. On the other hand hard-core players were far more likely to have wishig well farms or to grind large amounts of diamonds from the spire. So it is possible to be a hard-core tournament player without spending real money.

I am not going to discuss with you, how much of Elvenar revenue comes from hard-core players and how much comes from casuals. This is not a matter of opinion. There is a correct answer. You and I do not know this answer and we don't have have any data to calculate it either. So it is pointless to speculate. And it is not really relevant either. We are not here to debate who the more important player is. Nor should we try to pretend that we are speaking for most players. We are here to say our own opinion and possibly to pass on messages from our fellowships. Nothing more and nothing less.

OMG, and the tooth fairy is real... Obviously we live in different worlds of understanding how the world works. There is no question that players that pay are way more important to the game because without them, there is no revenue and no game. If you drive those players away, you destroy the financial base of this game, and they are doing a very good job of that with this moronic formula.

My FS lost a strong, financially supporting player to quit rage over this poorly thought out and implemented plan. The other side of it is players just stop spending.

The new tournament steepness is too high and the effect of AW in the calculations is too strong.

 

[Lovec Krys]

These numbers would require not placing any expansions and intentionally missing every third tournament to keep your relict bonus small. Both of these are very visible and could just be banned.

Can you please explain to me, why you want to ban cities which doesn't violate any rule?

 

[ErestorX]

I think you give innogames too much credit, if you think this rebalance is to correct earlier mistakes like the multiple fire phoenix and brown bears.

I didn't mean to say that it was Innos intention. My guess is that they did some number crunching on data that included the effect of the firephoenix and adjusted their penalties with the goal to balance things. That would explain why they penalize wonders (and at least for chapter 16 and 17 research) way stronger than they should.

 

[little bee]

Can you please explain to me, why you want to ban cities which doesn't violate any rule?

We were talking about pushing cities. If anyone wants to build his main city like that it would not be a problem.

 

[Marindor]

Guys, let's please not derail into a discussion which players would be "more important" for the company. We have a complete team to worry about things like revenue, so please just stick to the subject itself and let the company worry about things like that. Thank you.

 

[PaNonymeB]

Just for your imagination, chapter 6 city which is for me still new to the game can have province 25 in tournament negotiation cost as 28 T1 and 2,3k coins, you dont even need big city to supply this since wholesaler can make enough

I think there is a tweak for small cities that makes this wrong. I have catering costs as 17 T1 in province 1, 1* (and then +17 per province and per star) in my chapter 2 city with only 1 expansion placed.

 

[Dony]

Spoiler: Tournaments graphic

made some graphics from my tournament data if anyone is interested to know

 

[PaNonymeB]

@PaNonymeB : Pulling out a single AW, and say 5L=1,5% makes little sense. The more AW-levels you have, the less impact 5L does.

It's indeed a linear +1.5%, so if the base value is 150% it's actually a +1% as you addd 1.5 to 150. But the bonus of AWs works this way too (for one AW it's clear and for AWs that boosts different things the benefits add up and doesn't multiply. But my argument "the most fighting AWs you have, the most you fight and thus the catering AWs become less useful" was wrong as what matters is the percentage it adds to the base (without AWs) production. I'll edit my post above.
Edit : rereading my first post I actually already took care of not saying this and say instead "the most you focus on fighting (and thus level the fighting AWs) the less the catering AWs become useful (up to the point they become hurtful)". I recognize the difference is subtle and I should have made it more clear. It's not leveling fighting AWs that make catering AWs less useful, it's everything else you do to develop a fighting-oriented city (e.g. dedicating a great percentage of your expansions to fighting).

 

[galrond]

These numbers would require not placing any expansions and intentionally missing every third tournament to keep your relict bonus small. Both of these are very visible and could just be banned.
I am would be more interested to know, how the average, new, casual player is effected by the changes. Depending on the answer, rising the constant in favor of lowering the peanalty of non-military wonders in particular may actually be a possibility. But I simply don't have any data for that.

I don´t like the idea of different penalty between wonders. I think it would just .make things more unclear. But some wonders could need a "facelift" to make them worthwhile
My city here on BETA is still in chapter 3, and the biggest obstacle in tournament is the number of completed provinces on map. So maybe rising the constant, to be able to lower the steepness of AW-impact, would make good sense.

 

[Pauly7]

Spoiler: Tournaments graphic

made some graphics from my tournament data if anyone is interested to knowView attachment 7950

@Dony, does this represent the units that you faced in each tournament?

 

[little bee]

I don´t like the idea of different penalty between wonders. I think it would just .make things more unclear. But some wonders could need a "facelift" to make them worthwhile
My city here on BETA is still in chapter 3, and the biggest obstacle in tournament is the number of completed provinces on map. So maybe rising the constant, to be able to lower the steepness of AW-impact, would make good sense.

The problem is that non-military wonders have a fundamentally lower influence on the tournament than military wonders. This does not make them bad wonders as they have great impact on everything outside of the tournament, while the military wonders effect almost exclusively the tournament / spire.
And while military wonders like the sanctuary or the flying academy raise your entire fighting ability there is no wonder in the game that would boost all your catering goods. Nor should there be, as such a wonder would be completly broken. But that means that some wonders will never be able to compare with others. For example the sunset towers only provide seeds. Even if they would give you an infinite amount of them (which would be broken) they could never reach that 9% penalty because seeds will never make up 9% of your catering goods. This does not mean that seeds are useless, but it does mean that they will always have less impact on the tournament than troops. No amount of "facelift" could ever change that.

And lastly, I completly agree with @PaNonymeBs argument. How usefull a wonder really is depends on your playstyle. The more you fight, the less usefull non-military wonders become and vise versa. You can think of it the same way you would think of the relict boost. If you have a 100% tier 1 but only a 20% tier 3 boost, you can choose to only build tier 1 manufactories and trade cross tier. But if you have a max. relict boost of 700% in all your goods then your total goods production is boosted by 700% and not by 2100%, regardless of which boosted manufactories you have build. It is the same with catering and fighting. If you boost both your catering and your fighting ability by 10% each, then your total tournament ability will always be boosted by 10% and not by 20%, as it is currently counted.

 

[galrond]

The problem is that non-military wonders have a fundamentally lower influence on the tournament than military wonders. This does not make them bad wonders as they have great impact on everything outside of the tournament, while the military wonders effect almost exclusively the tournament / spire.
And while military wonders like the sanctuary or the flying academy raise your entire fighting ability there is no wonder in the game that would boost all your catering goods. Nor should there be, as such a wonder would be completly broken. But that means that some wonders will never be able to compare with others. For example the sunset towers only provide seeds. Even if they would give you an infinite amount of them (which would be broken) they could never reach that 9% penalty because seeds will never make up 9% of your catering goods. This does not mean that seeds are useless, but it does mean that they will always have less impact on the tournament than troops. No amount of "facelift" could ever change that.

And lastly, I completly agree with @PaNonymeBs argument. How usefull a wonder really is depends on your playstyle. The more you fight, the less usefull non-military wonders become and vise versa. You can think of it the same way you would think of the relict boost. If you have a 100% tier 1 but only a 20% tier 3 boost, you can choose to only build tier 1 manufactories and trade cross tier. But if you have a max. relict boost of 700% in all your goods then your total goods production is boosted by 700% and not by 2100%, regardless of which boosted manufactories you have build. It is the same with catering and fighting. If you boost both your catering and your fighting ability by 10% each, then your total tournament ability will always be boosted by 10% and not by 20%, as it is currently counted.

I don´t disagree, that military wonders have greater impact on tournament.
When it comes to spire, then the non-military wonders has a great impact as well.
My live cities almost exclusively fight in tournaments and trade in spire. They suck at both, but the reverse is even worse.
If my only goal was to "beat" boss 3 in spire every week, then the situation would be the reverse of tournament: drop military wonders, and focus on production wonders. I would be able to cater spire, and cater a bit longer in tournament. I would need to get orcs ofc, but that be can be fixed.
I wouldn´t be able fight, and catering ain´t a viable way to compete in tournament.
Well if you get seriously pushed, then maybe you can compete. But that´s a different topic
I know, that the "hardcore" tournament players, are likely also able to fight their way trough the spire as well. Then non-military AWs are less relevant in both spire and tournament.
So it´s a valid point, that they should weigh less.
My point is that it would be a logistic nightmare to determine how much less.
Needles has two military components (LR AP) and (barracks training speed).
No doubt military AW.
Martial Monestary has a military component (health), and a non-military component (culture).
I would count that as a military AW.
Pyramid has a military component (free HM barracks units), and a non-military component (free sentient goods).
Some say barracks units are useless. So is this a military AW? If so should it weight differently to a elf, than to a human?
What I´m trying to say is: it´s no easy task to determine the weight of each AW.
It´s by far easier to alter the benefits of AWs, then it is to determine the weight they should have.
To "balance" sunset towers, INNO could deminish seed output, and add something else. If that "facelift" gave some sort of military advantage, then it WOULD affect it´s impact on tournament