Discussion Tournament Changes (post-release)

[Deleted User - 88314]

That is what boosted regular goods are for at this point. Even with the goods the research required, I probably still spent a few million of my three boosted goods on KP, and I still have over 4 million of each left. That is part of why it only took me three months to finish the chapter.

Enevhar, you are going to spend 4 millions in goods for the research alone, your MH research will cost you 1million scrolls, the second upgrade 1.6 million in scrolls alone. would you like me to continue with the costs of the research? The point I'm bringing across is that the "less fortunate" players who do not have Millions of goods, but are negotiating in Spire and tourneys and doing research can barely catch up with all of that.
You were able so far to at least collect the relics and enchantments with tourneys, that will change immensely with the new tournament rules.
The ripple effect is huge in this one.You will not have enough enchantments to use for your factories, nor will you collect as many relics so you can build enchantments in your MA.This is not just tourney and ranking points, its a game changer all over.And yes, I probably won't have to worry about it because I have my stash of goods for the time being ( will decline as well with new changes), but what about the players who don't have it? You want to make it balanced in the tourney, but you have thrown away all the balance everywhere else. The players will have to wait 9 weeks just to collect 10-30 relics for MA.That is easily used in a short period of time.The larger picture on this is still hitting me, with all of the aspects that will influence with the change.How are you making it easier for " smaller players" is something what I yet have to understand.

 

[Karvest]

Oh don’t say that. We don’t want it to be the be the next nerf.

but they already started nerfing them, look at last chapter production increase for that set (and any other set).

 

[DeletedUser2561]

My suggestion to the developers would be: Tie tournament squad size to chapter (or non-optional research to avoid sudden rises) and nothing else. Calculate what you consider "normal" levels of wonders and "normal" number of placed expansions, and replace those terms in the formula with those fixed factors.

In the past, NOT researching optional squad sizes was a good move for the tournament. But it was counter-intuitive and not really intended to be a good move.

Now raising AW and placing expansions will raise the difficulty of the tournament, so raising only a special selection of AWs (and/or placing only premium expansions) may be a good move for tournaments. Again (as confirmed here by Marindor) it's not intended to be a good move. So no player should even be forced to think it through.

Sure, if wonders and expansions are no longer part of the formula, players with high levels of wonders and a lot of expansions have an easier time in the tournament than anyone else. But here's a secret: Raising wonders and grabbing land has always been a good general strategy, and it feels like it SHOULD be a good strategy. If the best strategy for the tournament is not to do strange counter-intuitive things, but complies with "grow and expand", THEN the formula is good.

Yes, there's still the possibility of players stopping their research at sweet spots (maybe in orcs chapter, with all 3* barrack units but no orcs to cater yet), but there will probably always be sweet spots no matter what you do.

 

[ErestorX]

It is kind of hard to believe that the formula punishes people for progress, as those who struggle most with the spire are usually players with lower chapters and low amount of wonders.

If you want to fight the tower to the end, the improvements for your troops in chapter 15 (especially 3 star frogs) help a lot to minimize your losses. So yes, fighting in the spire is not really hard for those chapter 15+16 players, even if their troop size is very high.

Nevertheless the formula punishes fighting chapter 15+16 players for placing more expansions than needed for their military and building wonders not needed to produce more troops or improve the stats of the troops. In the spire that is not a big problem because all of those players can reach the top. In the tournament that is different, a player who has placed too many expansions or built unnecessary wonders will run out of troops much earlier than competitors in the same chapters with fewer expansions and only helpful wonders.

 

[PaNonymeB]

Sure, if wonders and expansions are no longer part of the formula, players with high levels of wonders and a lot of expansions have an easier time in the tournament than anyone else. But here's a secret: Raising wonders and grabbing land has always been a good general strategy, and it feels like it SHOULD be a good strategy. If the best strategy for the tournament is not to do strange counter-intuitive things, but complies with "grow and expand", THEN the formula is good.

Actually, as @Marindor explained if wonders weren't part of the formula while chapter were the best strategy would be spending KP in wonders instead of tech tree, which is highly counter-intuitive.
But why would anything increase the tournament costs ? The easiest way to ensure progressing has higher benefits than downsides is to put downsides to zero. The formula used to calculate enemy squad size in map encounters could be reused, using the # of tournament province you're in (probably excluding Advanced scouts effect, as else it would possibly make these techs too powerful). Thus, one would be able to afford costs for more and more provinces as one grows. However, a possible downside would be that squad sizes would grow too fast to allow tournament pushes.

 

[edeba]

Actually, just making it so optional squad sizes didn't count for the tournament for anyone would have been the easiest way to fix the problem with how doing the optional squad size techs negatively affected the tournament. Alternatively, the optional ones could have just been counted for tournament purposes once a person finishes a chapter.

Actually, as @Marindor explained if wonders weren't part of the formula while chapter were the best strategy would be spending KP in wonders instead of tech tree, which is highly counter-intuitive.
But why would anything increase the tournament costs ? The easiest way to ensure progressing has higher benefits than downsides is to put downsides to zero. The formula used to calculate enemy squad size in map encounters could be reused, using the # of tournament province you're in (probably excluding Advanced scouts effect, as else it would possibly make these techs too powerful). Thus, one would be able to afford costs for more and more provinces as one grows. However, a possible downside would be that squad sizes would grow too fast to allow tournament pushes.

 

[PaNonymeB]

Actually, just making it so optional squad sizes didn't count for the tournament for anyone would have been the easiest way to fix the problem with how doing the optional squad size techs negatively affected the tournament. Alternatively, the optional ones could have just been counted for tournament purposes once a person finishes a chapter.

I don't understand why you quoted my post... I didn't say anything about optional squad size upgrades

 

[Dony]

After playing all 61 provinces I have on manual combat I must say that I like the difficulty, from start to the end, I am pretty sure if I have had 100 provinces I would be able to do them all aswell. I like that manual fighting feels once again rewarding, in old system i didnt liked that somebody who used auto combat could do so much more with brute force then players doing manual fights in the same time frame that manual fighting didnt made any sense. This will be corrected now in a way that if you find the time and energy to spend for tournament you will be rewarded more then others.

Now about how combat works. Enemy has 15 units and 5 classes, every unit can be used only once (which means that i can face only 1 mistwalker in any battle), which leads to only 3 possible combinations from all randomness we have now
1. combination: Class A, Class A, Class A, Class B, Class B
2. combination: Class A, Class A, Class B, Class B, Class C
3. combination: Class A, Class A, Class A, Class B, Class C
We can never face 4 or all 5 classes at the same time now.
Every single fight in every round in every province is one of those 3, i didnt bother to check how percentages per each combination would look like, but from watching on those combinations you know that for autocombat only viable option is 1 (in some specific cases 2 and 3 aswell but thats not so often). Most of 2 and 3 will result will too much loses, yes you can brute force it but in late provinces this means 400k+ units dead per 1 click of very advanced players.
This made my strategy around 3 mandatory units and used them in all possible combinations, to support them I need 1 mandatory AW, 4 semi mandatory AWs and thats it.
The combat AWs i have believed up until now that they could help me are actually worthless and I would delete them in fisrt chance (teleport) I would have. This can only be changed by more variations in those possible combinations.

So adding a chance that 1 unit can be used 2,3,4 or 5 times can make more variations of everything and that can done per province type like it was done in previous model. In current setup there are never very easy fights like we had before. 1 comment tho, if that will leads to having 2+ mistwalkers in 1 battle then scrap that idea, you should use other 14 units instead, 1 mistwalker is already enough. We are also not facing shared units, similar to Spire which I like aswell, because they are stronger then classic NPC, so keep that as it is now.

Overall i liked new challenges with new setups.

Now when it comes to balancing I will only point to AWs because thats the only factor we can change as a players by deleting it. When you trying to balance things you need to take extreme edges on both sides and balance those 2 first. 1 year ago, which i have pointed back than, the difference between 0 AWs and 26AWs*30lvls= 780lvls was 334% it was said its minimal, 1 year later with 2 more chapters and 5 more levels we are at 415% and thats just 1 single year. What does that mean?

I will describe it in exact example, maxed out city, with all expansion, province 60 (so you can see some big numbers)

City 1: 0 AWs, our sqaud size is 33240, enemy SS is 76452
City 2: 780 AWs, our sqaud size is 111000, enemy SS is 255300
City 3: 1050 AWs, our sqaud size is 137928, enemy SS is 317235

From negotiation point of view if city 1 will need 10 millions of coins per 1 click, city 2 will need 33,4 millions of coins per 1 click and city 3 will need 41,5 millions of coins, all 3 cities have exactly same space, is it even possible to make 415% more coins with all AWs built? Will abyss make this difference? Because main source of coins are from NH, residences (which will be the same amount in all 3 examples), event buildings, instants.
For supplies we can argue that it could be more narrowed, but even non boosted PoP spell is so great in all 3 cities thats i dont think so that city 3 can make 415% more supplies.
For goods it will be more complicated with all the pop/cul/AWs combination, but as others said, we can get insane amount of goods from event buildings as well, and they are not affected in formula.
For orcs, if all 3 cities build their entire cities with armories, they will produce almost same amount of orcs, highly doubt that city 3 will outproduce city 1 with 415% more orcs
Mana is mainly from event buildings but it also decay, i can see that in a long run 2% decay will be much more beneficial then 10% decay, but how much i have no clue.

What i am trying to say here this gap must be much more narrowed, if you lower coeficient per 1 wonder from 0,003 to 0,0003 then difference between city 1 and city 3 will be 31,4% and this for example will fix few problems we have now.

Problem 1, I want to delete AW because it realisticaly hurt me in tournament
Problem 2, I dont want to level any new AWs because it realisticaly hurt me in tournament
Problem 3, leveling AWs will be rewarding, in this case you will actually get bonus
Problem 4, if i cant level AWs why i would need more AW KPs or KPs between chapter from tournament, why i would want to play

From fighting perspective its worse
I wont reffer to city 1 because that is obviously not competitive, but i will take my beta city with around 200 AWs which I believe are around averages per active player. There is only few mandatory buildings I have mentioned up and others are bonus, now I have compared what the result will be with my Live city (about double AWs, more premium expansions) and that would be around 56%, Problem is I have same AWs setup on live world, If 2 cities have exact same output of units then every increase in Squad sizes is bad for them, Why should I train 56% more units.

To put it differently 2 exact same battle oriented cities with maxed out mandatory AWs (max level on barracks) and 1 of them have 200 more AWs just because it is more active and it was needed to put somewhere, why shouldnt it be around the same? I am not even mentioning bears, becasue both cities can have the same amount of them.
And thats where competition come into play, how you want to balance out competition in this regard if 1 city can do much more provinces then other with the same amount of units? And if competitor see that he can lower units needed by deleting AWs which are useless for him, why wouldnt he do it?

I can also see some good buildings or buffs for future if we get that far, for example AW which will reduce initial Squad Size in province 1 by 1% per 5 level, up to 7% (because everything is scaled by first province and we wont to lower that number as much as possible) and this AW will benefit bouth groups of players.

I have saw that you are affraid about some low end cities for pushing and leveling their AWs, that can be fixed exactly like difficulty is in tournament now, instead of coeficient 0,003 per 1 wonder, you start with big steep for first few wonders (100), then lower it a bit to 200 wonders and then normalize it similar how late provinces in tournament are in term of difficulty

In short AWs parameter must be narrowed to be max 100% at any given time, if static coeficient is not enough diminishing returns must be activated and make competition be actually competitive

 

[Gunner1962a]

[QUOTE = "Dony, Post: 87341, Mitglied: 1613"]
Die Größe des Turniertrupps wird ab dem ersten Zusammentreffen im Turm um 20% unserer Turmkadergröße skaliert
was bedeutet, dass es rechnerisch so sein sollte
Provinz 5 = 1. Begegnung im Turm
Provinz 10 = 1. Wächter in Turmkarte 1
Provinz 15 = 2. Wächter in Turmkarte 1
Provinz 20 = letzter Boss in Turmkarte 1
Provinz 25 = letzter Boss in Turmkarte 2
Provinz 30 = letzter Boss in Turmkarte 3
Provinz 60 = 2x SSS vom letzten Boss in Turmkarte 3
etc

Provinz 1 Runde 2 = Provinz 2 Runde 1
was bedeutet, dass es auch zwischen jeder Runde um 20% skaliert ist
[/ZITAT]

Alles, was mir an dem neuen Turnier auffällt, ist negativ. Im alten Turnier können Sie sich vorbereiten, Truppen produzieren und Waren auf dem Markt kaufen (wer zu spät anfängt, ist schuld). Das ist jetzt vorbei. Sie sagen, die Truppgröße basiert auf den Turmtruppen, aber Sie erklären nicht, wie diese Truppgröße berechnet wird. Das heißt also, Sie erklären nichts

Edit Marindor: Please remember: English only on the Beta forums.

Translation:


[QUOTE = "Dony, Post: 87341, Member: 1613"]
The size of the tournament team is scaled by 20% of our tower squad size from the first meeting in the tower
which means that it should be mathematically so
Province 5 = 1st encounter in the tower
Province 10 = 1st guard in tower card 1
Province 15 = 2nd guard in tower card 1
Province 20 = last boss in tower card 1
Province 25 = last boss in tower card 2
Province 30 = last boss in tower card 3
Province 60 = 2x SSS from the last boss in tower card 3
Etc

Province 1 round 2 = Province 2 round 1
which means that it is also scaled by 20% between each lap
[/QUOTE]

Everything that strikes me about the new tournament is negative. In the old tournament you can prepare, produce troops and buy goods in the market (if you start too late, it's your fault). That is over now. You say the squad size is based on the tower troops, but you don't explain how this squad size is calculated. So that means you don't explain anything

 

[Deleted User - 81190]

I have saw that you are affraid about some low end cities for pushing and leveling their AWs, that can be fixed exactly like difficulty is in tournament now, instead of coeficient 0,003 per 1 wonder, you start with big steep for first few wonders (100), then lower it a bit to 200 wonders and then normalize it similar how late provinces in tournament are in term of difficulty

You're arguing for making calculations even more complex than they're today. This is rarely a good option, unless all other avenues are exhausted. They already are unable to explain the actual calculations to a regular player - not the actual mechanics, nor the incremental impacts. Calibration of more complex models becomes even more problematic, and even more holes will pop up, which is usually fixed with more parameters - and this turns into a death spiral of opaque complicated mess that no one (including developers) understands.

I think the main issue with making changes such as this is the fact that there are many things in this game that once done, a player cannot change without starting with a new city (optional research, placed expansions, leveled up AWs to an extent). This makes established players unable to cope with non-trivial changes in the most efficient way.

What would be a better way, IMO, is to change just that. Implement ability to revert previously immutable changes - sort of reconstruction mode. Teleport placed expansions back into inventory. Teleport AWs back into inventory without loss of levels - or better still, with full/partial KP rebate so you can rebuild other AWs that fit the new metagame better. Potentially do the same with optional research. Etc etc. Obviously, this cannot be done on a whim, but some pretty severe cooldowns (maybe weeks or even longer) may allow to cope with external changes like rebalancings and such. So people who invested into Lighthouse back in a day could have just reallocate KPs into better targets because someone else changed the game on them. Instead of just being stuck with now suboptimal choices for no fault of their own.

The changes in the game will happen, this is unavoidable. Based on their previous choices, different players will be impacted in different ways. This is also unavoidable, and it is naive to think that a single magic formula can level the playing field with people making different choices for years before that. But what can be done to level that field is to grant ability to reset and thus adjust to the new circumstances in the most efficient fashion.

My 0.02.

 

[DeletedUser2300]

I think at this point I will wait for this new change to drop to live to see it with my squad size, my AW, my expansions and see what all is happening.

I am just having a hard time understanding or grasping the reasoning @Marindor It could also be that I am used to playing games that do not take your progress into consideration in the manner inno is attempting to do, to decide the difficulty of battles.

It is like a game having raids at three levels: easy, medium, and hard.

All of a sudden, you want to control and micromanage the "balance" between easy, medium, and hard by saying if you have Armor A equipt, your difficulty will increase because you are equipping that Amor A to make raiding easier. (What?)

On top of that, you are saying if you have Armor A equipt and enhance it with let say, a crystal that will increase your casting rate, your difficulty will increase even higher because you can now cast faster (...What? )

To make it even worst, players who gain the same Armor A, with a lesser (word check, is that a word?) stat who once used to do medium, can now do hard with more critical damage ratio because they are 4 points less than you.... but because you have the higher end of Armor A with that special crystal,... something you have spent night and days GRINDING to get the best version of that Armor A and collecting items to craft that crystal, so you can beat that raid at a lesser time so you can do it twice a day instead of once...ACTUALLY penalizes you now because the developers have decided you have higher stat (higher damage) with that special crystal (faster casting) thus your difficulty should be harder because you have these items to make it easier for you (WHAT!??!?!). So in a way, they are balancing out the game by going x=x and if casual player, then x=x+0.5 (we all know this caters to casual players)

I have never played a game in my life where the developers cater soooooo much to the lower end players and take extra measures to diminish the hard work of all of their hardcore players. Casual players are not the ones who buy diamonds, it is your hardcore players and players who been loyal to you.

 

[ErestorX]

Teleport placed expansions back into inventory. Teleport AWs back into inventory without loss of levels - or better still, with full/partial KP rebate so you can rebuild other AWs that fit the new metagame better.

Yes, that should have been done with the optional troop research in the past and it would at least level the playing field now. But the drawback in the current situation is that the sweet spot is at a lot less space than many endgamers have and even less WP in wonders than some endgamers already have. That means going this route would effectively end the game for a lot of players because of a lack of goals to achieve.

 

[DeletedUser2300]

The changes in the game will happen, this is unavoidable. Based on their previous choices, different players will be impacted in different ways. This is also unavoidable, and it is naive to think that a single magic formula can level the playing field with people making different choices for years before that. But what can be done to level that field is to grant ability to reset and thus adjust to the new circumstances in the most efficient fashion.

Exactly! One thing I loved about elvenar is that even though it is a city building game, you can make it your game. Depending on the type of playing style you enjoy, you can build the required AWs to make it into THAT playing style. Now they are saying those who catered to the tournament (fighting) ways, are having things made harder because they made AW to make it easier. Those who caterers are making catering a bit more difficult (with intro of expiring goods) because they made their city to do just that.

Like, are you kidding me? The more I read the moderators response, the more irk I get. I realize they are trying to smooooth it over but I am here to just say, I do not like it even now that I have a decent understanding of your reasons.

 

[DeletedUser2705]

I have no problem adding tournaments expansion and miracle levels to your circuit. I agree that the profit from the area and miracles is incomparably higher than without them, it would be too foolish to devalue them on your part. I welcome that you want to tie the tournament to player development. This is all good, in my opinion, and I understand that. But!

I don't understand the too sharp increase in difficulty in the provinces. Someone wrote above that 40 provinces for 2 stars players who have been playing for many years should still go through, thereby inspiring newcomers to the game, I absolutely agree with that. It is impossible for both young players and oldies to go through 20 provinces. The first because it became easier for them, the second, because it is impossible, because have been playing for a long time. In addition, we, the old people, have different needs for the CP, too, must be taken into account.

Pushing! This is my pain in this game. I absolutely do not like the fact that players use cartoons to upgrade their wonders. But, Marindor, I'm sorry, you had to do something a little early. Now this struggle is harmful. If you really want to fight it, then this is not the method. And you yourself know the method.

Thanks for taking the time to implement this on live servers)

I tried to write as simply as possible so that the translator would not distort much.

 

[DeletedUser2300]

This would also encourage using push accounts and creating extra accounts with which you do nothing besides building some AW, manufactories or armories and use these resources to boost the tournaments. While we don't have the illusion that we will be able to get rid of pushing entirely, we at least don't want to encourage it or make it attractive.

The game has encouraged AND made pushing attractive by all the decisions made previously and will be made with this change. Instead of letting pushers push and turning a blind eye, why don't the game just DO SOMETHING about it? In all of the games I have played, cheating was NOT allowed. It was found, your account was gone. Does that encourage people from cheating? Of course not but they were punished and they had to work extra hard. You will never find a game where someone does not cheat, EVER. It is in our nature as human beings. Do not destroy the gaming experience of your loyal players, whether hard or casual, because you are trying to discourage an action YOU yourself (inno that is) does absolutely NOTHING about.

Even with your current set up cheating is possible. You and your moderators have been saying 25 people doing 6 rounds will get 10 chests. Ya well I have seen many fellowships of Alt1-Alt25 who will do just that. It does NOTHING.

Please forward that to the people in charge to doing something about pushers. You have taken away my grand prizes, and you have taken away my dailies. Please do not take away my tournament, I am not sure what will be left for me here. I look forward to seeing the feedbacks that is taken into consideration.

 

[Deleted User - 81190]

That means going this route would effectively end the game for a lot of players because of a lack of goals to achieve.

Not necessarily, as this way they may be at the top of the tournament charts if that's their goal. There are not that many things to go for in the end-game.

 

[PaNonymeB]

After playing all 61 provinces I have on manual combat

Did you use a crazy amount of temporary military buildings or did they just destroyed the app ?

 

[DeletedUser2803]

All of a sudden, you want to control and micromanage the "balance" between easy, medium, and hard by saying if you have Armor A equipt, your difficulty will increase because you are equipping that Amor A to make raiding easier. (What?)

In any other game if you keep fighting the same enemies, they will drop the same armor, so no improvment. You can only improve by fighting better enemies with your new armor. In tournament you get the same knowledge point that improve your wonders from the same enemies. So to apply the same logic, either enemies need to get stronger or additional wonder levels need new rewards that can only obtained from higher levels.

But you cannot expect to fight the same weak enemies while getting strong and stronger and still getting rewards that make you even stronger.

In every other game, if you want to get stronger with your new armor, you need to fight new stronger enemies.

 

[FieryArien]

1. combination: Class A, Class A, Class A, Class B, Class B
2. combination: Class A, Class A, Class B, Class B, Class C
3. combination: Class A, Class A, Class A, Class B, Class C
We can never face 4 or all 5 classes at the same time now.
Every single fight in every round in every province is one of those 3, i didnt bother to check how percentages per each combination would look like, but from watching on those combinations you know that for autocombat only viable option is 1 (in some specific cases 2 and 3 aswell but thats not so often). Most of 2 and 3 will result will too much loses, yes you can brute force it but in late provinces this means 400k+ units dead per 1 click of very advanced players.

This is quite scary comment from app player's point of view (that's me). I don't want to become second class citizen tournamentalist again by missing crucial feature(s). Since I still remember the time I started playing - when I had no access to wonders (meaning not even building my own), no tournaments (they weren't in the app at all) and also for example empty Magic Academy (you could build it, but that was all), I really appreciate how close to the browser version we are now (even messaging and contributions to fellowship wonders is implemented). I don't want important new features/changes to be dependent on feature that is only present in the browser version.

However, even from the little I saw in the few encounters I had access to (started beta on Tuesday), I think your assessment is correct. :-(

 

[SoggyShorts]

To oversimplify it: Let's say player A produces 2000 crystals a day and needs to pay 200 for catering 1 province, player B who produces 20.000 crystals a day should need to pay 2000 for that province, to make it relatively just as challenging. Once again, that's of course oversimplifying it, but that's the basic of this idea.

I believe you used simple numbers for the sake of simplicity, but I'd like to confim:
Player B should pay ~1800 crystals, not 2,000, right? Because you still want to reward progress and "Progression should always give you more benefit than the negative impact it has on difficulty "
The goal is not to make it "relatively just as challenging", is it?

Even AW that aren't directly related to battles or resources, e.g. when they only provide population, will save you so much city space which you don't need for residences anymore and can now use to place extra manufactories, armories, event buildings producing resources/units/orcs, that overall they will always help you more than the relatively low impact they have on tournament difficulties.

I believe that either the wonders need to be weighted differently (direct vs indirect) which would be complex and difficult to balance fairly, or some wonders need a serious boost. Either way, if they are going to have a significant impact, there are a few that need a good long look at because 20 more levels in your Martial Monastery =/= 20 more levels in your Thrones of the Highmen/Enar's for example.