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Discussion Tournament Changes (post-release)

Marindor

Well-Known Member
Hi everyone,

Although I get the frustration when you have a different opinion than others, please try to keep it about the subject and don't get too personal towards other people. I think things like "if you don't like it, just quit" is a bit the same as people who say "if this is implemented, I'm going to quit". It basically kills the discussion. It's not a matter of choosing "accept or quit", but especially at this moment I think it's much more valuable to keep debating about the subject, share different views and help our game team to shape it in such a way that in general everyone is happy about it.

About my post on Friday:

Before going into the weekend, please let me already share with you 2 changes that we strive to implement before the next tournament will start next week:
  • We will remove Guest Race Resources from the Squad Size Upgrade techs, so players who have skipped those can unlock them without having to rebuild settlements.
  • We will implement a way to make certain unit types appear more often in certain tournaments, to bring back some more flavor, enable Fellowships to plan better again and make sure the expiring battle buildings can be used more strategically

The first one we have implemented today (I'll post the Release Notes in a bit). The second one is a bit more complex and although we're working on it, it probably won't be ready before the next tournament start yet. It is still being worked on, though. Just wanted to let you know.
 

Dony

King of Bugs
The second one is a bit more complex and although we're working on it, it probably won't be ready before the next tournament start yet. It is still being worked on, though. Just wanted to let you know.
It is planned for later this week, or not at all for this week, just if it make sense to wait for that change before starting playing the tournament this week. Thank you.
 

Dony

King of Bugs
About optional Squad Sizes, 1 negative thing about them is for players who dont have military AWs (free unit production, faster unit production) will need during FA to make almost 16k units (with all optional researches), which will result for them making less badges.
Also i am not sure if producing units for quests during events are affected only by chapter or by SS aswell
 

DeletedUser2630

Guest
What is the point of a discussion when it is clear from the tower that there is no will to do anything about exponential growth?
It is quite obvious that neither the number of AW levels nor the number of plots reflects the real strength of the player.
Do we have to believe that you will solve it? When we see that the problem known at the tower has not been solved to this day?
 

maxiqbert

Well-Known Member
What is the point of a discussion when it is clear from the tower that there is no will to do anything about exponential growth?
It is quite obvious that neither the number of AW levels nor the number of plots reflects the real strength of the player.
Do we have to believe that you will solve it? When we see that the problem known at the tower has not been solved to this day?
exponential growth on the squad sizes and somewhat linear growth on the other side makes it clear that at some point of your development, you'll hurt yourself. @Marindor please, tell us that you understand this!
 

Pauly7

Well-Known Member
What is the point of a discussion when it is clear from the tower that there is no will to do anything about exponential growth?
It is quite obvious that neither the number of AW levels nor the number of plots reflects the real strength of the player.
Do we have to believe that you will solve it? When we see that the problem known at the tower has not been solved to this day?
The Spire has been improved incredibly since the first days of testing and since it was first released on Live, even. Many people don't consider it to be ideal still, but it went from being reasonably pointless at the beginning to what it is now, which is an incredible resource provider and worth the cost, despite the difficulty in combat.

These tournaments are not going to be re-set back to how they were before. Not in a million years. They had their reasons for wanting to nerf people's KP gains. I believe they've gone about it in an unnecessarily complicated way that's opened up more problems than it's solved, but I still don't believe they will ever backtrack on the principle of what they've implemented.

It's therefore our job to look at the new system and try all we can to ask them to iron out as many of those wrinkles as possible. Hopefully we can have an impact, but they're only going to listen to the smaller scale suggestions, if they're constructive enough, and if they're highlighted by enough people, enough times.

I hope that the combat and negotiations can be straightened out to the point that it's useful and rewarding for everyone, but I'm going to leave that to those here who have a much better handle on those details and calculations, in terms of losses, etc. For me, there are a few other basic things that I would like to be addressed, as follows:

  • Premium expansions should not form part of the difficulty equation. If people are spending hard earned money to give themselves extra space (whilst also supporting the game) then they should have the freedom to leave that space clear, or build a leafy park, or whatever they want to do, without fear that it's going to be a detriment to tournament performance.
  • Certain AWs need to be removed from the difficulty equation. People should be able to build and level Wonders like the Elvenar Trade Centre, Sunset Towers, Vortex of Storage, Lighthouse of Good Neighbourhood, Thrones of the High Men, without the same fear that it will hurt their tournament scores.
  • Orcs should be removed from the catering combinations altogether. They are already so much in short supply for so many people that it renders the idea of half-priced catering almost entirely moot.
 

Lovec Krys

Well-Known Member
What is the point of a discussion when it is clear from the tower that there is no will to do anything about exponential growth?
It is quite obvious that neither the number of AW levels nor the number of plots reflects the real strength of the player.
Do we have to believe that you will solve it? When we see that the problem known at the tower has not been solved to this day?
My bet is that the exponential growth will get developement team's attention when the issue becomes critical = when even end game players with low AWs & low expansions will expirience the same difficulties as players with high AWs levels & lots of expansions experience today.
 

DeletedUser3314

Guest
The Spire has been improved incredibly since the first days of testing and since it was first released on Live, even. Many people don't consider it to be ideal still, but it went from being reasonably pointless at the beginning to what it is now, which is an incredible resource provider and worth the cost, despite the difficulty in combat....
The only reason more people play the Spire is because they increased the rewards but the (negotiating) cost are still growing exponentially.
So when are they going to increase the rewards in tournament to match the increased difficulty that it will be "worth the cost" ?
 

maxiqbert

Well-Known Member
about the AW benefits that ALWAYS are better than the cost, I calculated that if I play 44 provinces over 5 turns, I'd better not upgrade my shrooms, because it would be prejudicial

edit : in fact I'd be better off deleting altogether
 

guivou

Well-Known Member
in math to test a formula , the best thing to do , is to simulate +1 for each parameter, and see how it goes :
if add +1 level on one wonder will still get some benefit ?

i take the example of mountain hall (quite simple to see the impact of this wonder )
my wonder is level 12 , bonus will rise from 176 to 180% , so i will produce 0.5% more resources (4 /776) from my manufactories (not 100% of my total production, event building not impacted )
and my free pop will increase (292 pop) but not with immediate effect because i have already free population.

if this level of wonder, increases tourney cost than more than 0.2% i think it's not valuable to improve my wonder , but i need more information to take my decision before investing 760 kp.

In the help i have the gain of the wonder but i need something to know the penalty

( if formula is not linear, i need to have % of extra cost depending of the number of provinces used in tourney 10, 20 , or more )
 

Jaxom

Well-Known Member
My personal concern is still for those fellowships that have members who play for fun and attempt a 10-chest push at most once a month. That type of group doesn't have a large percentage of big players. Maybe a few who can, on occasion, push for 6-8K points to help their group make the goal. I know that this type of fellowship exists, I am Archmage for 3 of them.

We look forward to doing these infrequent efforts. We plan for what troops we need, what goods to stock up on. The top players accept 0-star and 1-star trades to help the lower ranked players stock up. And the top players do their best to score points so that everyone in the group gets some nice rewards including a blueprint. I admit that this is not your typical "go all out all the time" type of play but I think that Innogames wants this type of player and fellowship.

With the current changes I can't see this type of fellowship succeeding in a 10-chest effort. I know that I won't be able to get 6-8k points anymore without doing serious damage to my inventories. And I don't expect that very many of the other members will be willing to do so. We may try once and then just settle back into doing 4 chests a week and expect that individual players will do more when they need that week's relics.

The purpose of this type of tournament play is NOT about ranking points, it is providing a group a focus for a week and seeing everyone doing their best as a fellowship.

Maybe this type of tournament play is rarer than I think. Maybe this type of fellowship activity is not worth considering. Perhaps Innogames is only concerned about ... I don't know what they are concerned about. But I am getting frustrated with tedious chapters, lousy event rewards, and now this.
 

CrazyWizard

Well-Known Member
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.
This would be a temporary solution but not a permanent one, it would be an delay of execution.
In a few chapters this gap will just grow larger and larger again untill again it's no longer "acceptable" but at that time we are stuck with it for years.

The main issue is how the formula was build from ground level. it's one that simply cannot be sustained in the long run.
For example 100 reseach adds alone will result in a 60% bigger gap, then new expansions increase that gap again as it multiplies with that 60% and last new wonders / levels increase the gap again. so within no time you end up with a gap that increased with 100% or more.

So the core issue is the design itself, not the result. the result it an result of it's design.
 

Deleted User - 86438

Guest
The main issue is how the formula was build from ground level. it's one that simply cannot be sustained in the long run.
For example 100 reseach adds alone will result in a 60% bigger gap, then new expansions increase that gap again as it multiplies with that 60% and last new wonders / levels increase the gap again. so within no time you end up with a gap that increased with 100% or more.
The multiplicative growth has been mentioned quite a few times, but I guess I'll propose a solution.

Multiply each value that should increase the enemy squad size (and cater cost) by a scaling value and add them up.

ACTUAL_SQUAD_SIZE = BASE_SQUAD_SIZE x (WONDER_SCALE x TOTAL_WONDER_LEVELS + EXPANSION_SCALE x TOTAL_EXPANSIONS + RESEARCH_SCALE x TOTAL_RESEARCH ... )

In this way, adding a single extra level to a wonder when you already have hundreds makes a small increase to the total squad size (much like the small impact it makes on your ability to fight or cater) instead of the current result of scaling based off your research progress, expansions, etc.

Obviously there's still plenty of discussion about whether some of these things should be increasing the cost in tournaments and/or spire, but regardless of which numbers they use or what scaling they come up with, this would result in something that doesn't grow exponentially as you add to the various values.
 

DeletedUser3314

Guest
There is only 1 thing equal between all players who progress through the chapters further into the game: mandatory upgrades. All others things are a choice left open for the players. Some will build AWs, some will build more factories, some will build more military buildings, some will buy expansions, etc. So if you want to make the tournament equally hard for everyone the formula should only look at those mandatory upgrades. If a player then choose to build an AW which increases the strength or health of his troops he shouldn't be penalized by it, after all it was Inno them self who introduced such AWs. If they don't want players to have a little advantage they should never have introduced AWs in the first place. Similar, if someone instead wants to build more factories to have enough goods to negotiate in the tournament or builds more armories to have more troops and for that buys extra expansions should he also be penalized by it ? No, of course not, else Inno shouldn't have given us the option to buy expansions at all. Tournament shouldn't become more difficult by these thing, all these things where introduced to help (the casual) players in the first place. If you want to limit (the hardcore) players you shouldn't make the tournament harder for everyone, instead you should make it increasingly less rewarding the further you go in the tournament. Those players that have build AWs and invested KPs into them or that have build more factories or armories can still go further in the tournament then the more casual players but it will be less rewarding, giving those casual player in-time a chance to catch up with the hardcore players.

1595260813946.png

SSo = Own Squad Size
SSe = Enemy Squad Size


Of course this would mean that the entire reward/scoring system needs to be changed but I think that would be less troublesome then what they are trying to do now.
 
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Deleted User - 86438

Guest
There is only 1 thing equal between all players who progress through the chapters further into the game: mandatory upgrades. All others things are a choice left open for the players. Some will build AWs, some will build more factories, some will build more military buildings, some will buy expansions, etc. So if you want to make the tournament equally hard for everyone the formula should only look at those mandatory upgrades. If a player then choose to build an AW which increases the strength or health of his troops he shouldn't be penalized by it, after all it was Inno them self who introduced such AWs. If they don't want players to have a little advantage they should never have introduced AWs in the first place. Similar, if someone instead wants to build more factories to have enough goods to negotiate in the tournament or builds more armories to have more troops and for that buys extra expansions should he also be penalized by it ? No, of course not, else Inno shouldn't have given us the option to buy expansions at all. Tournament shouldn't become more difficult by these thing, all these things where introduced to help (the casual) players in the first place. If you want to limit (the hard core) players you shouldn't make the tournament harder for everyone, instead you should make it increasingly less rewarding the further you go in the tournament. Those players that have build AWs and invested KPs into them or that have build more factories or armories can still go further in the tournament then the more casual players but it will be less rewarding, giving those casual player in-time a chance to catch up with the hard core players.
I agree with this in a general sense, but the major problem is that there has to be a decision made as to how steep to make the scaling to keep the difficulty where the designers want it. For example, if the curve is such that a player that spends every KP on the research (progression) keeps a consistent difficulty with their upgrades, then a player that pauses at any point to create and level some wonders that are appropriate to either fighting or catering could have a very easy time. If the curve is set such that the devs bake in an expectation that players put down some portion of the available wonders as they move along and gain X amount of AK from events, tourney chests, etc the tournaments could become too difficult for players who don't get as much out of events or are in fellowships where there isn't much participation.

From a system design perspective, an incentive to "keep up" with wonders could help solve this, such as setting the base KP cost scaling higher and then reducing the costs similar to advanced scouts so that there was a "sweet spot" of wonder levels that was easy to attain at a given point in progression, but it would be its own complex system and way out-of-scope for tournament balancing. ;)
 

Pauly7

Well-Known Member
There is only 1 thing equal between all players who progress through the chapters further into the game: mandatory upgrades. All others things are a choice left open for the players. Some will build AWs, some will build more factories, some will build more military buildings, some will buy expansions, etc. So if you want to make the tournament equally hard for everyone the formula should only look at those mandatory upgrades.
They've explained that they don't want this because they don't want to give an advantage to someone who chooses not to progress through the research tree and instead work on AWs.

I think that trying to put everyone on an even playing field is one of the biggest problems though. Higher and higher levelled AWs should be what separates those who have dedicated all that time or money over all those months and years. I would personally like to see them all taken out of the equation, though I suspect that's asking too much at this point.

And if you wanted to solve a problem of having players levelling AWs too far and not progressing in the research tree, then why not just lock the Wonders to certain levels for certain chapters? Do that and then you can just take @Lord Soth's idea to just have tournament difficulty increasing based solely on mandatory research techs.
 
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