• Dear forum reader,

    To actively participate on the forum by joining discussions or starting your own threads or topics, you need a game account and to REGISTER HERE!

Discussion Tournament Changes (post-release)

edeba

Well-Known Member
Unless a wonder is totally useless for your playstyle (e.g. Shrine of Shrewdy Shrooms if you never fight), every Ancient Wonder will give you more benefits than you would need to make up for the minimal increase in costs for building/upgrading one of these Ancient Wonders.


Disclaimer : this is a post from 2019, back when the formula was only used in the Spire and wasn't known. However, AFAIK the formula hadn't changed since then, except the small recent change about expansions, so it should still be valid.

This is very different and much more accurate from what we're told now, which is "every Ancient Wonder will give you more benefits than you would need to make up for the minimal increase in costs for building/upgrading one of these Ancient Wonders." I'd say the actual sentence is "Unless a wonder is not very useful for your playstyle, every Ancient Wonder will give you more benefits than you would need to make up for the minimal increase in costs for building/upgrading one of these Ancient Wonders."

I think the biggest problem here with why this doesn't work and isn't true is that sure, if you look at the benefits of an individual AW it is true that you are better off with it than without, but once you start adding other AWs, well, that benefit goes down because the nature of the formula is that those levels on that second AW cause the benefit on the first AW to go down.

Unfortunately with this formula there is a place where an AW no longer is more beneficial to have than to not have because of the other AWs you have.

So, taking in consideration that they feel that staying at a lower level and working on AW before proceeding is a problem, well, strategically, with the first 3 AW techs I'd go with the Golden Abyss, the needles, and the Martial Monastery. My idea of only including one out of every two AW, and the higher of the two, would still address this issue for these lower chapter players. For the 4th AW tech I'd go for the Watchtower Ruins. To me for the 5th, 6th and 7th AW tech I do like both AW, but the 8th and 9th only one.

I think my idea of just using the higher of the two AW for each tech is actually an excellent way to do deal with the problem, and then, because the AW levels have been diluted, just not count them any more after level 30, or change the AW so they continue to follow the pattern.
 

PaNonymeB

Well-Known Member
I think the biggest problem here with why this doesn't work and isn't true is that sure, if you look at the benefits of an individual AW it is true that you are better off with it than without, but once you start adding other AWs, well, that benefit goes down because the nature of the formula is that those levels on that second AW cause the benefit on the first AW to go down.

Unfortunately with this formula there is a place where an AW no longer is more beneficial to have than to not have because of the other AWs you have.
Actually, the AW component in the formula is linear and not exponential, so that the increase in costs per AW level doesn't increase with each AW level. With some "combo" wonders (like Simia + Needles/FA/V.Springs) it's even quite the opposite, as benefits from these AWs are multiplicative while costs are additive. The problem is, if someone wants to do both fighting and catering, they'll need ~2× more AWs than someone focusing on one playstyle, which means 2× more penalty for the same benefit and thus AWs may become uninteresting. (Basically an AW that's only useful half of the time can become not useful enough to help more than hurt. For example Simia gives +6% to base troop production per 5 levels and +1.5% penalty to base (ie. without AW) overall costs so for it to be useful you have to have more than (roughly) 25% of your base production which is troop production. If you only fight you lose 25% of its benefits, but if you'd fight and cater equally without the AWs the penalty becomes roughly 50% of the benefit. And as your % of fights is linked with whether you choose to level fighting or catering AWs, your statement is somewhat true : the more you focus on catering and level the corresponding AWs, the less useful become the fighting AWs and vice-versa.)
And a way to fix this would indeed be to use maximum levels instead of total levels. I thought I said it in my post above, but apparentlly forgot it so edited to add it. Your suggestion of counting only the most leveled AW for each chapter is fine, another possibility is counting only the X (depending on number of AWs unlocked ?) most leveled AWs. Basically, we want every player to be interested in more AWs than those that count as a penalty, so more than 1 AW per chapter in your suggestion and more than X AWs in mine.
 
Last edited:

palmira

Well-Known Member
I think my idea of just using the higher of the two AW for each tech is actually an excellent way to do deal with the problem, and then, because the AW levels have been diluted, just not count them any more after level 30, or change the AW so they continue to follow the pattern.

Actually it may be an excellent idea for you but not for everybody because I would say only a few players built all the AWs in all chapters and some players focused on a few chosen AWs to level with most players skipping some. What would be expectable was AWs and expansions not counting at all, SSs should be solely determined by your tech progression. If Inno is worried with the players not progressing in order to upgrade AWs and do better in tournament, just have a reasonable cap of doable provinces per chapter and the problem is solved
 

little bee

Well-Known Member
Actually, the AW component in the formula is linear and not exponential, so that the increase in costs per AW level doesn't increase with each AW level. With some "combo" wonders (like Simia + Needles/FA/V.Springs) it's even quite the opposite, as benefits from these AWs are multiplicative while costs are additive. The problem is, if someone wants to do both fighting and catering, they'll need ~2× more AWs than someone focusing on one playstyle, which means 2× more penalty for the same benefit and thus AWs may become uninteresting. (Basically an AW that's only useful half of the time can become not useful enough to help more than hurt. For example Simia gives +6% to base troop production per 5 levels and +1.5% penalty to base (ie. without AW) overall costs so for ig to be useful you have to fight more than (roughly) 25% of the time. If you only fight you lose 25% of its benefits, but if you fight and cater equally the penalty becomes roughly 50% of the benefit. And as your % of fights is linked with whether you choose to level fighting or catering AWs, your statement is somewhat true : the more you focus on catering and level the corresponding AWs, the less useful become the fighting AWs and vice-versa.)
And a way to fix this would indeed be to use maximum levels instead of total levels. I thought I said it in my post above, but apparentlly forgot it so edited to add it. Your suggestion of counting only the most leveled AW for each chapter is fine, another possibility is counting only the X (depending on number of AWs unlocked ?) most leveled AWs. Basically, we want every player to be interested in more AWs than those that count as a penalty, so more than 1 AW per chapter in your suggestion and more than X AWs in mine.
I don't think that counting only the maximal levels of AW would be fair. You have to remember that most players will never see the tournament formula. Your suggestion penalizes players that focus on a single favorite wonder e.g. the abyss while favoring those players that build all the fighting wonders at low level.

If you really want to persue the idea of only counting some wonders then I would suggest dividing them into catering wonders and fighting wonders (with some wonders counting as both). Then there could be a total catering and a total fighting penalty but only the higher one is applied.
And there could even be two different coefficients for these wonders. As it is, there are plenty of level 30 fighting wonders that do add a 9% bonus to your fighting ability, but that is not true for most catering wonders. I can't think of any playstyle where the sunset towers could possibly add such a powerful bonus and even for the golden abyss 9% is a stretch. That does not mean that that these are bad wonders as boosting all your goods by 9% would be much more powerful than boosting only your fighting ability.
 
Last edited:

Heymrdiedier

Well-Known Member
What would be expectable was AWs and expansions not counting at all, SSs should be solely determined by your tech progression.

this is, in my opinion, the only good solution. this makes the base playing field even for everyone in the same chapter (well except the growing group who see no point in going further in the next chapters). If you make your city bigger (more expansions, more wonders), then you become better then your opponent in the same chapter who didnt make his city big.

But in any competition, having an equal starting line for everyone is the basis of the competition. As long as thats not there, it's just plain wrong.
 

Karvest

Well-Known Member
mid ch15, 279AW,115exp

ProvinceMax roundT1T2T3MoneySuppliesOrcsMana
1616 80030 40023 2001 190 00017 000020 000
2662 10054 00012 700002 5000
3668 70027 20028 4000328 000014 000
4615 00065 00043 2000358 000024 000
5664 00074 60049 000002 50020 000
6666 00041 00028 8004 300 000290 000091 000
7669 00072 00072 9000120 0003 00037 000
86105 00088 00042 9003 900 000170 000037 000
9676 00069 00064 5003 600 00008 40091 000
105102 00079 00027 0002 000 000360 0005 90034 000
115117 00081 00041 0002 000 000240 0005 50044 000
125143 00024 00076 0000240 0000142 000
13586 00070 00068 0000560 00012 70047 000
145138 000129 00084 0000270 00000
155150 000194 00033 000007 60051 000
165214 000184 00041 0000270 00000
175198 00093 000100 0002 900 00008 9000
18584 000130 00080 00013 800 0000071 000
195217 00070 00042 00001 050 0000223 000
205323 000111 00070 0003 400 000350 00000
215144 00034 000148 0007 600 000018 60084 000
225311 00037 00099 0007 900 000390 000084 000
235216 000241 00049 0004 600 000830 00000
245108 000175 000134 0008 600 000011 00081 000
255175 00083 000199 0000910 000091 000
265244 00092 000176 0004 600 000460 00011 0000
275128 000225 00091 0009 900 0001 030 000095 000
285188 000196 00098 00015 000 000510 00012 0000
295200 000200 000199 0000490 00012 0000
305275 000201 000205 0000014 0000
315146 000264 000139 0005 600 0001 060 0000120 000
32568 000167 000181 0006 100 000560 00043 000110 000
335296 000285 000147 0005 900 000014 0000
345152 000238 000150 00011 900 000640 00029 0000
355232 000171 000236 00012 800 00000130 000
36580 000250 000199 00012 900 000015 000250 000
375246 000179 000209 00013 400 000620 0000140 000
385262 000318 00083 0006 900 0001 300 00018 000130 000
39582 000204 000259 0006 800 000660 00052 0000
405275 000199 000216 0000710 00018 000290 000
Total6 142 6005 445 2004 244 600177 590 00014 793 000324 6002 551 000

lm:29,13%
lr:27,40%
ma:7,24%
hm:26,61%
hr:9,61%
mistwalkers (counted in lr too)8,11%
different unit types count (lm/lr/ma/hm/hr in general)
1​
0,79%​
2​
14,17%​
3​
55,51%​
4​
27,17%​
5​
2,36%​
guivou, faced with 4-5 different units setups not really much more often than in previous 2 tourneys.
 
Last edited:

galrond

Well-Known Member
@edeba: Building only L1 AW, is a VERY bad idea. Space (expansions) weigh way harder than AW-levels.
@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.
@Pauly7 : The fights NEVER gets easier by producing more troops. You just get troops to do more fights.
@PaNonymeB : Being able to teleport wonders to storage is a great feature, that I strongly support (you have to accept loss of "unused" KP though).

As I have wrote before:
The weight of one AW-level deminishes the more AW-levels you have.
The weight of one more level in a specifik AW deminishes, when it dosen´t require more space (expansions).
As a highlevel tournament player you´re NOT supposed to do as many provinces as before with the same effort.
INNO don´t think the base formula is flawed, and in need of fixing. The scaling of different elements can be discussed (as everything else ingame).
The idea of only counting the highest level AW (both by chapter/tier or in all) is IMHO utterly stupid, insane and unfair :rolleyes:o_O:eek::mad:
As it is the formula favors few highlevel AWs over many lowlevel AWs (due to expansion "cost"). And it should do so :cool:

I fully understand, that ppl don´t like things to get nerfed.
I didn´t like the switch, from rss from NH to rss from helpchests, that you get from Crystal Lighthouse. It punishes the active helpfull players.
But it would give a huge boost to App players (and pc-players with enough time), that would twist the balance ingame. Almost making factories obsolete.
I understood this: So plz understand, that players gaining massive rewards from tournament also twist the balance.
"Unlimited" KP, PoP, EE, MM (and more), drives the demand so high up, that it´s almost impossible for "non-hardcore" tournament players to get anywhere: play tournament or get stuck.
That said, it would be nice, if INNO ajusted the demands, so it reflected the new (smaller) flow of KP and spells.
 

edeba

Well-Known Member
@edeba: Building only L1 AW, is a VERY bad idea. Space (expansions) weigh way harder than AW-levels.
Definitely some reading comprehension issues here. I'm with Pauly, when did I ever say placing an AW L1 would be a good idea?

Placing an AW without a plan to immediately work to upgrade it to at least level 6 has always been a bad idea, and I personally haven't evaluated if that should be level 11 now with the changes to how troop size is evaluated with AW levels. One of my suggestions for how to deal with the very broken formula was to just not count the first 5 AW levels and that suggestion has to do with a level 1 AW being weak, and they take up space.
 

galrond

Well-Known Member
@Pauly7 : Your post #1680 could be read that way.
@edeba : I totally misread your post #1681 :oops::oops::oops: I deeply apologize. I was pretty drunk, but I know that´s no valid excuse :oops: Your post #1689 hits it spot-on with weakness of lowlevel AW :cool: I still disagree with you about not counting all AW-levels, and the notion that the formular is broken. Maybe it could use some rescaling between elements, but it ain´t broken.
 

Pauly7

Well-Known Member
@Pauly7 : Your post #1680 could be read that way.
So when I said...

"difficulty has reached a stage where getting extra troops faster would do nothing to make the fighting easier, considering we can only use 5 squads in each battle."

... You took that to mean I'm saying extra troops makes fighting easier??
 

galrond

Well-Known Member
So when I said...

"difficulty has reached a stage where getting extra troops faster would do nothing to make the fighting easier, considering we can only use 5 squads in each battle."

... You took that to mean I'm saying extra troops makes fighting easier??
Yes. When you write as you did, you imply that if the difficulty was lower it would help.
That said I know it´s just word-twisting, and I wouldn´t (and shouldn´t) have commented on it, had I not been drunk and tired of ppl complaining about the single AW-level weight in formular.
I totally agree, that some AWs are not worth the cost (both in building and in penalty). But the "if I raise my AW from L21 to L22, it goes from worth it to a huge block around the leg"-atmosphere that I sense. I just don´t buy in on it.
I think that the single expansion weight, and the single research weight are far bigger problems.
 

CrazyWizard

Well-Known Member
Yes. When you write as you did, you imply that if the difficulty was lower it would help.
That said I know it´s just word-twisting, and I wouldn´t (and shouldn´t) have commented on it, had I not been drunk and tired of ppl complaining about the single AW-level weight in formular.
I totally agree, that some AWs are not worth the cost (both in building and in penalty). But the "if I raise my AW from L21 to L22, it goes from worth it to a huge block around the leg"-atmosphere that I sense. I just don´t buy in on it.
I think that the single expansion weight, and the single research weight are far bigger problems.
They are all connected due the way the formula is build. You cannot pick 1 and say that one is to blame, it's because all factors are multiplied.

And yes and expansion adds way more than a wonderlevel, but you do not place 800 expansions while you can place 1000+ wonderlevel.
 

spennyit

Well-Known Member
Yes. When you write as you did, you imply that if the difficulty was lower it would help.
That said I know it´s just word-twisting, and I wouldn´t (and shouldn´t) have commented on it, had I not been drunk and tired of ppl complaining about the single AW-level weight in formular.
I totally agree, that some AWs are not worth the cost (both in building and in penalty). But the "if I raise my AW from L21 to L22, it goes from worth it to a huge block around the leg"-atmosphere that I sense. I just don´t buy in on it.
I think that the single expansion weight, and the single research weight are far bigger problems.
@galrond, the major issue is not that the AW levels are considered, but that they are multiplied by the other parameters. Let's consider that you have 100 AW levels: this means that your AW levels have a certain impact in the formula. If you do 30 tree researches (an no new AW level), your 100 AW levels have a greater impact then before because of the effect of the new researches (by which they are multiplied) and this seems not correct. They should just be added and maintain the same impact :)
 

Heymrdiedier

Well-Known Member
So maybe a suggestion.
Chapter 16 has a spire and tournament wonder right? Maybe change(= add) an extra bonus that makes difficulty smaller, by lowering the coefficient of some stuff at some points. If you do it by multiplication factor, like the other stuff, the effect doesn't even have to be that big to have a huge effect on the costs. It might be an incentive for some players to even do chapter 16, since more and more people do'nt even see the point of that chapter.
 

CrazyWizard

Well-Known Member
It doesn't look like they're that interested in giving people an incentive to play chapter 16, judging from the state of chapter 17.

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?
 
Last edited:

galrond

Well-Known Member
@galrond, the major issue is not that the AW levels are considered, but that they are multiplied by the other parameters. Let's consider that you have 100 AW levels: this means that your AW levels have a certain impact in the formula. If you do 30 tree researches (an no new AW level), your 100 AW levels have a greater impact then before because of the effect of the new researches (by which they are multiplied) and this seems not correct. They should just be added and maintain the same impact :)
You`re right that there´s a numerical impact. But there´s no procential impact.
If the elements are added, instead of multiplied, then the procential impact from AWs will become smaller with more research. I don´t think that´s fair.
Many of the AWs give procential benefits: % life, % attack, % of SS free troops, % production increase, and so on. It seems reasonable to me, that their impact on tourney/spire SS should be procential as well.

They are all connected due the way the formula is build. You cannot pick 1 and say that one is to blame, it's because all factors are multiplied.

And yes and expansion adds way more than a wonderlevel, but you do not place 800 expansions while you can place 1000+ wonderlevel.
Yes 1000+ AW-levels weigh hard, but they also have a HUGE positive effect.
If you have the 1000 AW-levels, building a new L30 wonder (not counting space needed) will cost 2,25% increase in SS.
You can discuss if certain wonders are worth it.
The general concensus seems to be, that fighting is the only viable "hardcore" solution. Then wonders that give bonus to health and attack is always good.
Some wonders are worth it to some ppl, and not to others.
Some wonders are just pure rubbish.
The quality issue belongs elsewhere.

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?

I know, that you all want it to become easier for the "hardcore" tournament player.
I just don´t think INNO will deviate much from their current course/goal anytime soon. Maybe after the changes have been implemented on all live servers for a year. And even then I don´t think, that they´ll roll back any of the current changes. No matter how stupid anyone think they are.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

CrazyWizard

Well-Known Member
You`re right that there´s a numerical impact. But there´s no procential impact.
If the elements are added, instead of multiplied, then the procential impact from AWs will become smaller with more research. I don´t think that´s fair.
Many of the AWs give procential benefits: % life, % attack, % of SS free troops, % production increase, and so on. It seems reasonable to me, that their impact on tourney/spire SS should be procential as well.


Yes 1000+ AW-levels weigh hard, but they also have a HUGE positive effect.
If you have the 1000 AW-levels, building a new L30 wonder (not counting space needed) will cost 2,25% increase in SS.
You can discuss if certain wonders are worth it.
The general concensus seems to be, that fighting is the only viable "hardcore" solution. Then wonders that give bonus to health and attack is always good.
Some wonders are worth it to some ppl, and not to others.
Some wonders are just pure shit.
The quality issue belongs elsewhere.

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?

I know, that you all want it to become easier for the "hardcore" tournament player.
I just don´t think INNO will deviate much from their current course/goal anytime soon. Maybe after the changes have been implemented on all live servers for a year. And even then I don´t think, that they´ll roll back any of the current changes. No matter how stupid anyone think they are.

No one claimed that being more difficult for the hardcore players is a problem.
The problem there is a competitive difference between both hardcore and non hardcore players that's the issue.

Think how despair a player would feel is another player at the same stage in the game would have it 100% 400% or 1000+% easier in the tournaments than you, because "he played less".
For many players that is enough reason to quit. Imagine you spend $500 in the game only to learn that the cheapskate in your fellowship has it much easier because he did not spend a penny.
Would that not enrage you / ragequit?

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.
 

PaNonymeB

Well-Known Member
The idea of only counting the highest level AW (both by chapter/tier or in all) is IMHO utterly stupid, insane and unfair :rolleyes:o_O:eek::mad:
As it is the formula favors few highlevel AWs over many lowlevel AWs (due to expansion "cost"). And it should do so :cool:
Why ??
 
Top