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Discussion Upcoming Tournament Changes (pre-release)

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CrazyWizard

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Much less value comparing to what though? It's comparing to "what could have been" ;) We don't get less value for the space that we've got - the space is still there just like before. As the whole formula (both for Spire and tournament) is new, there is nothing to benchmark against. It's not like there was no premium expansions in calculations, and now there is. Remember, if you've got +1 premium expansion, you still have more space than someone who doesn't. Or if you have the same number of expansions as someone else but you have more premiums, then you will have better time in the Spire, all other things being the same. That's not exactly penalizing.
An expansion addes X value, the main issue the added difficulty value is multiplied by (relic bonus (3.547) wonders (between 1 and 4), research (5.5 in chapter 16). lets presume the value is 1.
Now for some people the added value is
Case1: 1*3.547*1*5.5=19.5
Case2: 1*3.547*4*5.5=78.0

Look at the difficulty difference, does 1 expansion 1 case 2 really be worth 4 times the value? just because someone ownes more wonders?
I the latter case it's actually a penalty to own more (premium)expansions.

This is also what I ment with the lever effect, as values change for example 100 more researches that same expansion adds 118 more difficulty.
The problem is that from a "balance" point of vieuw you can no longer properly define, or control balance if it's outside of your initial scope of vieuw. if you want to control the outcome of a formula with values that change at a later point (thats balance, control in all circumstances) you can never use muliplication beyond the number of 1. this way it can ver get out of the scope of your intentions.

Well, it's almost certainly not as much of a penalty as the advantage of the extra square, but it is a cost to the expansions which is being imposed after the fact, and therefore is retroactively imposing a negative effect on the calculation of value of the purchase.
Spending money isn't going to make it harder to play, it's just making it not as much easier as it used to be. Still kind of the equivalent of a bait-and-switch, but the game is easier for having bought those expansions. Not as much easier as before, but not harder than if you hadn't spent the diamonds.
I have bougt an expansion last week on my live world and I can promise you the net value was surely lower that the net gain, and this was not by a small margin :(

9. The new tournament cost formula, assuming a change is to be made. The video shows AW levels and expansions as parameters influencing Tournament costs. This should not be the case. These are hard to get, and even are probably the main way INNO gets money (The last expansions are where players pay over 10k of diamonds. And the recent adjustment in cost of KPs in AWs show they're expecting to get money on these.) So these have to be wonderful, and not penalize tournaments. (And the parameters aren't even mentioned in the announcement !! A strategy game shouldn't hide things that directly impact strategy !!)
I think a tournament cost based on completed provinces would be better. Something similar to how costs and enemy squad size in map encounters are calculated. (Remember : tournaments are in the world map.) This couldn't be abused as a number of provinces is required to enter each chapter.
The appearing of orcs in tournaments would be triggered by doing all provinces that doesn't require orcs, plus one. (This potentially postpones arrival of orcs in tournaments to end chapter 10, which is close to where orcs currently appear if all optional SSUs are skipped.) Then we'd have the choice between completing more provinces to get more expansions, or not completing them for easier tournaments. (Perhaps this would require adding more province expansions to make scouting over province 500 interesting. And this would give a compensation to those who'd be hurt by such a change.)

This epic fail was the very first iteration of the tournaments.
How much you have scouted the world map tells little about the strength of your city, you can be in chapter 4 and have unlocked 222 provinces, or like me, should I be punished for playing 5 years and therefore longer than you? I have unlocked 757 provinces in the past 5 years?
Why should I need to have a harder time in a tournament compared to you while both of us have the exact same city. with the only difference is that I play longer than you and you just unlocked 500 provinces and I unlocked 757?

This was the exact problem the first iteration opposed to players who were past the max "unlocked" world map expansions.
 
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Richord

Well-Known Member
IF it goes up to 161-166k points, i'd like to gain the same rewards; so 405kp extra.
only with an increase like that, we'd be interested.
maybe introduce artifacts in the chests or eg 2 chests, clickable for a gamble, but with only 'ok' up to 'very nice' rewards.
 

DeletedUser3289

Guest
Much less value comparing to what though? It's comparing to "what could have been" ;) We don't get less value for the space that we've got - the space is still there just like before. As the whole formula (both for Spire and tournament) is new, there is nothing to benchmark against. It's not like there was no premium expansions in calculations, and now there is. Remember, if you've got +1 premium expansion, you still have more space than someone who doesn't. Or if you have the same number of expansions as someone else but you have more premiums, then you will have better time in the Spire, all other things being the same. That's not exactly penalizing.
Much less value as it’s not marketed with full information. A buyer just buys what’s on the brochure : 25 tiles without realising that there is a penalty in spire, and tourney henceforth.
 

Deleted User - 86438

Guest
As a new user coming in to the game, I was definitely not aware that taking the initial optional squad size upgrades was going to make the game more difficult for me as this is counterintuitive. The same can be said for placing expansions currently (due to spire) and more heavily going forward. The same logic applies for AW building and leveling.

Players actively discussing on forums are much more likely to be optimizing their cities, but I know players who would place an expansion in order to have a place to put an old event building they like the look of, not having any idea that they are scaling up the difficulty of the game by doing so. And I highly doubt a large majority of players knows that placing that first Golden Abyss or Tome of Secrets in their city is going to make their encounters more difficult.

I'll go ahead and sound like a broken record, but why not leave the scaling purely based on progress through research and allow the infinitely-growing difficulty (which I think is a very good change overall, even if it is a painful adjustment at first for many) be the counter to players adding expansions / buildings and wonders. At some point, everybody will now hit diminishing returns where the losses / costs are not worth the points. When I add a new combat wonder, I would expect that limit to move up.

Since all of this discussion is based on the formula for the spire, we will obviously have more information on Tuesday.
 

Deleted User - 81190

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Much less value as it’s not marketed with full information. A buyer just buys what’s on the brochure : 25 tiles without realising that there is a penalty in spire, and tourney henceforth.
That's a fair point. This is not a game with completely full information though (nor does it claim to be AFAIK) - there are other places when the game doesn't tell you exactly what you're getting (e.g. Wishing Wells, Genies etc - not only you don't know what exactly you're going to get, you technically don't even know the odds as these are not public). Other places it is fairly obscure (SSUs, training speed etc). So that's not entirely unexpected. But yeah, that's another place where some strings are attached.
 

DeletedUser2836

Guest
I for one welcome some of these changes. The encounters reduction from 4 to 1 is really appreciated. Now I could even manual fight instead of doing everything by autofight like before, because there is no way I would fight 6 rounds of 60 provinces with 4 encounters each. This 75% time consumption reduction is overwhelmingly good.
The Catering cost reduction is good news for many players that felt unfair that tournaments orbited around battle strategy instead of goods negotiations. Now we could achieve a more hybrid gameplay with this new feature.
Im not very sure about the 5 enemy squad in every fight, I would have to check it before I write an honest feedback. But the more randomized enemy troops is bad in my opinion. This game recently has moved from 'who do the best planning' to 'who react better to random scenarios'. Its a good thing that players can plan ahead knowing what they would face the next week and with this setup people can't plan for anything, just be overall ready for any scenario and hope for the best... The same with the randomized goods to cater.
About the new difficulty adjustments, I don't get the logic behind making expansions a burden for the tourneys. They are one of the most important incomes that you have and you are punishing people for buying them? Why would I finish the Spire every week to get the diamonds if I can't buy expansions because they are counterproductive?
A separate paragraph for the wonders levels. The Spire and tourneys difficulty scaling based on these is focused entirely in quantity and not at all in quality. You are trating every ancient wonder like if they were the same, and they are clearly not. The Monastery, Simia, Victory Springs, Needles and some others are very good buildings, and I understand you making the game a little more difficult every new level but always below the benefits you get from them. But what about the Endless Excavation, Throne of the High Men, Watchtower ruins, Tome of the secrets? How in the world can be possible that the friggin Lighthouse or Enar's Embassy makes your Spire and tourneys harder? If people were thinking twice to build them in their cities before, now you could just delete them from the entire game and no one will care. I would suggest that in the same way that you cherrypicked the Monastery to keep it out from the Lvl. 35 wonders update, this time you do the same with the 'useless' or 'non so good' wonders in order to keep giving the players a reason to invest space, time and resources leveling them up, behind the logic that even if the benefits that they gives you are not very good, at least they don't harm you.
 
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PaNonymeB

Well-Known Member
Why should I need to have a harder time in a tournament compared to you while both of us have the exact same city. with the only difference is that I play longer than you and you just unlocked 500 provinces and I unlocked 757?
True, but actually I think any change would penalize older players more than newer ones. What I say in point 9. is about what's the best ruleset for the future game, without considering the issues brought by changing the effects of the past retroactively (that's a downside I pointed in 8.). And I'm not even sure the change I suggested would be worse for you than the change they're currently willing to make. Especially if as suggested in the last sentence they add province expansions to keep the interest in completing provinces as this means you'd instantly get the expansions for the provinces you've already done. (I know they're unlikely too add more expansions, but I think that's what they should do and not only because it'd make the game easier. It'd not even affect me with 457 completed provinces in my main city.)
 

CrazyWizard

Well-Known Member
True, but actually I think any change would penalize older players more than newer ones. What I say in point 9. is about what's the best ruleset for the future game, without considering the issues brought by changing the effects of the past retroactively (that's a downside I pointed in 8.). And I'm not even sure the change I suggested would be worse for you than the change they're currently willing to make. Especially if as suggested in the last sentence they add province expansions to keep the interest in completing provinces as this means you'd instantly get the expansions for the provinces you've already done. (I know they're unlikely too add more expansions, but I think that's what they should do and not only because it'd make the game easier. It'd not even affect me with 457 completed provinces in my main city.)

Why would long time players get a bigger penalty, it's totally unnesary.
 

PaNonymeB

Well-Known Member
Why would long time players get a bigger penalty, it's totally unnesary.
Both changes (scaling on completed provinces and scaling on AW levels) would give long time players a bigger penalty. So your argument is not showing anything about the statement ("a scaling on completed provinces would be better than a scaling on AW levels").
 

Ashrem

Well-Known Member
Are you serious? In Chapter 16?)
Yes. In Ch 16, a single expansion holds a level 27 factory, producing around 350,000 sentient goods per tournament, or a magic residence providing 13,000 population, or just a little under one fully upgraded armoury, producing 12000+orcs per tournament and adding upwards of tens of thousands of troop units per tournament to your training facilities. Any one of those outweighs the slight increase in difficulty for provinces.
I think what you're referring to [stuff]
Correct. The only real question is whether the devs considered that in their calculations, or if they (as Linus said in Peanuts about the complex Russian names in the Brothers Karamizov) "just bleeped right over it."
 

CrazyWizard

Well-Known Member
Both changes (scaling on completed provinces and scaling on AW levels) would give long time players a bigger penalty. So your argument is not showing anything about the statement ("a scaling on completed provinces would be better than a scaling on AW levels").

There are plenty of alternatives that don't do both. there is no reason to assume there is not alternative that does not penalise players in any way.

Yes. In Ch 16, a single expansion holds a level 27 factory, producing around 350,000 sentient goods per tournament, or a magic residence providing 13,000 population, or just a little under one fully upgraded armoury, producing 12000+orcs per tournament and adding upwards of tens of thousands of troop units per tournament to your training facilities. Any one of those outweighs the slight increase in difficulty for provinces.
Correct. The only real question is whether the devs considered that in their calculations, or if they (as Linus said in Peanuts about the complex Russian names in the Brothers Karamizov) "just bleeped right over it."

Last time I checked that single factories footprint is much larger, unless you can magically create culture and workforce and supplies out of nothing.
Also those numbers have several other conditions attached to it, it doesnt "just" produce it.
 

Deleted User - 86438

Guest
Yes. In Ch 16, a single expansion holds a level 27 factory, producing around 350,000 sentient goods per tournament, or a magic residence providing 13,000 population, or just a little under one fully upgraded armoury, producing 12000+orcs per tournament and adding upwards of tens of thousands of troop units per tournament to your training facilities. Any one of those outweighs the slight increase in difficulty for provinces.
The residence is accurate (aside from culture needs, and also providing coins), but the others assume there are no supporting infrastructure required. The actual footprint needed for that factory is going to be much, much higher than that. It takes roughly 1/2 of a magic residence (so 10 more squares) and a 5x5 current culture building. Now we are at 2 1/2 expansions to make that number of goods.

That armory also requires roughly 1/2 of a magic residence and almost triple the amount of culture (not even taking into account any desire to be above 100% base). So that armory actually eats up 3-4 expansions in total.

Whether this outweighs the increased costs / difficulty of the tournament is still to be seen, but aside from pure culture buildings (or event buildings) the supporting buildings have to be taken into account when talking about the size taken by a building.

Edit: Looks like CrazyWizard and I were typing at the same time, but I wrote it so I'll leave it :)
 

Ashrem

Well-Known Member
Last time I checked that single factories footprint is much larger, unless you can magically create culture and workforce and supplies out of nothing.
Also those numbers have several other conditions attached to it, it doesnt "just" produce it.
Last time I checked, most people who have bought expansions have bought more than one. I'm not going to develop a spreadsheet for people to figure out their exact bonus depending on chapter and how many expansions they've purchased. I'm not offering a case that it isn't a crappy way to treat people who gave you money, I'm just saying that spending money isn't making it harder to play. It's just not making it as much easier as it used to.
 

Skillpowers

Well-Known Member
Why would long time players get a bigger penalty, it's totally unnesary.
you can look it from a political side , if u watch the vid the people think probally far left based on the way they talk and look , so all logic is lost when u are on the far left , "capatalism" doesn't make sense to them , u get punished for spending irl money in the game....
 

Marindor

Well-Known Member
Let's not drag real world politic views into the discussion, please.

Once again thank you all for sharing your thoughts, comments and concerns. As always, we will make sure to forward them all. One small note on the premium expansion concerns: Yes, they do count towards the difficulty in the current setup, but less than the regular expansions. Nonetheless we will of course forward the concerns that in your opinion they shouldn't count at all, but I just wanted to make that extra clear before everyone starts thinking they have a major influence or something, while it's actually very little.

If anyone has anything further to add, please keep on sharing.
 

Maillie

Well-Known Member
Let's say today I need/want to add more space to my city, I have the following options: I have some research expansions I can place, I have some province map expansions that I can place, or I can buy a premium expansion with diamonds. Which do you think I will choose? Yeah, I will choose premium expansion nowadays if I can afford it (in terms of diamonds, this does not have to be cash) and will keep regular ones in storage.

There is a cutoff in later chapters, you cannot earn expansions with provinces like we did in the early chapters. We're getting one single expansion in most of the later chapters. Perhaps in Chapter 5 someone might have multiples of expansions they can choose from, but I would certainly not believe so in the later chapters.
 

SoggyShorts

Well-Known Member
I think a tournament cost based on completed provinces would be better.
I think that there's a flaw in this idea: what about players who have been playing a very long time and have been scouting for event quests?
Someone with 600 cleared provinces doesn't have an advantage over someone with 500 cleared provinces so imo they shouldn't face harder fights.

Or is there a cap where explored provinces would no longer count against you?
 

DeletedUser3289

Guest
Let's not drag real world politic views into the discussion, please.

Once again thank you all for sharing your thoughts, comments and concerns. As always, we will make sure to forward them all. One small note on the premium expansion concerns: Yes, they do count towards the difficulty in the current setup, but less than the regular expansions. Nonetheless we will of course forward the concerns that in your opinion they shouldn't count at all, but I just wanted to make that extra clear before everyone starts thinking they have a major influence or something, while it's actually very little.

If anyone has anything further to add, please keep on sharing.
Is it true premium expansions add to costs (resources or squads) in spire. And is it true that it adds as much as calculated by independent data analysts such as min max gamer.
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Well-Known Member
Is it true premium expansions add to costs (resources or squads) in spire. And is it true that it adds as much as calculated by independent data analysts such as min max gamer.

I helped him with the project on the US forum and servers, and yes, scouting, research, and premium expansions all increase your starting squad size in the Spire. And they do not increase size equally either. I don't have my numbers any longer or I would list them here.
 
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