[Discussion] Behind the Scenes: Battle Redesign

[DeletedUser]

The reason I auto-fight mostly is precisely because i don't have enough time to spend 8h fighting everyday, while the tournament lasts. I did try last week in the live server, but I had massive losses on level 5, and I had to do several fights manually, and level 6 was even worse. I only managed to win a couple of fights on auto, then a few more manually with very high losses. After prov 3 i had to cater as i couldn't win most of the fights. And at the end of the day, the rewards are not worth the time invested, nor the supplies (for troops), nor the goods cost. i am aware that not all weeks will be equally difficult, but the bar has been set so high that most players won't even bother trying.
I still think the previous balance was much better, if players wanted challenging fights they only had to go and try to do prov 20 on level 6, for example. I am sure they would have found those fights a challenge.
Now, it is just not worth it, and it is not as simple as saying, you can still get 2 or 3 runes in lower levels, or, go ahead and propose other ways to get runes (been there, done that, got shut down by the devs). The tournaments give other thing,s like the relics needed to keep the MA working, and even ranking points. And, for me, it gave something enjoyable to do in the game while waiting to collect. stuff Now, that avenue has been shut, unless I am willing to devote my whole life to playing this game ( i am not) and doing most fights manually.
The problem with this is that Elvenar becomes more and more a collect, reset manus, dump kps and log off game. It is supposed to be a city building game, not a farm game. But now, we are not supposed to get more space until god knows when, we are not supposed to have a fair chance in tournaments unless we are expert fighters/have enough time to spend the whole day fighting... with all the consequences that nor participating in tournaments brings...
Everyday we have less reasons to play the game... i guess that's why everyday more players quit

 

[DeletedUser651]

but the bar has been set so high that most players won't even bother trying.

That! It seems you have catered your changes to a tiny few and just ignored the vast majority of your players. Are you following how few are doing any tournaments now? I am. Have you seen how few people are doing any of the later levels? That data shows that most of the community isn't enjoying that aspect of the game.

Now, it is just not worth it, and it is not as simple as saying, you can still get 2 or 3 runes in lower levels, or, go ahead and propose other ways to get runes (been there, done that, got shut down by the devs). The tournaments give other thing,s like the relics needed to keep the MA working, and even ranking points. And, for me, it gave something enjoyable to do in the game while waiting to collect. stuff Now, that avenue has been shut, unless I am willing to devote my whole life to playing this game ( i am not) and doing most fights manually.

I completely agree.

I'm happier now than ever that I didn't build the feckless academy on my main account.

The timing issue on the tournaments really needs to be addressed. It was really bad before. People have to go without sleep to do a tournament. That isn't healthy. Seriously. It is not healthy. I will repeat....IT IS NOT HEALTHY. Please take that as very sincere feedback. It is bad to make your players unhealthy....ok? And now you are making them unhealthier. You get LESS sleep because you have to do everything manually. Please stop making people unhealthy and work on the timing.

Everyday we have less reasons to play the game

All I hear is that these changes were made in order to make the game better and yet no truer words were ever said.

It seems some of the good suggestions about the battle system above got missed. Galoyal had some great ideas and nothing was said about the tutorials I brought up.

And while this is from another forum, I think it is important to post here because here is the only place I get any feedback. We keep hearing that if you are just where you "are supposed to be" then you can win fights easily. This just isn't true. I have seen post after post about it. I am copying just one such post as an exemplar. I have heard the same thing many many times and yet all this feedback seems ignored. Players say they can't win battles and they are told yes you can you just need to have explored properly. They say, I tried that too, and no I can't win fights. They get told you have to have researched properly. At the beginning, at the end, in the middle of the tech tree. It doesn't matter. Fighting is too hard for all but a teeny tiny faction of players.

the new system is ineffective and unbalanced. in my fellowship most of the more active players are right around the minimum level of provinces required to enter a new age- and while prior to the change we could win battles losing 1 or 2 of our troops, (or none in some cases) it has come down to having 1 left standing, or losing- more often than not.

the new system is inherently flawed. for example, the elven heavy melee ent has a bonus against heavy ranged. being that they can only move 2 hexes per turn- by the time they can GET TO the very type they are stronger against, they are at least half dead and don't do much damage anymore. that is, if said heavy ranged don't just keep moving out of the way, which they totally can do being able to move 3 hexes per turn.

i could go on- but back to your initial point i quoted: you are entirely mistaken. before i entered into combat after the change, i carefully studied all changes on my troops and the enemy's and planned combat accordingly. it did not go well. it still does not and even when it goes ok it takes far longer. i am not over-scouted nor over-conquered.

We have feedback after feedback like this. And yet no one has said "hey, we hear you guys. We will work on rebalancing things." Or do you not hear any of us? All we get told is we are wrong and the fights are doable and shouldn't be that difficult. Thanks a lot. They are too difficult. HEAR US please. Respond to what we are saying. That's what people want.

 

[ophion]

31 pages used so far arguing about battle systems and fighting in a game we were told wouldn't be about fighting at all and would be a city building game. All the conversation and input these days is about fighting and the inability to win battles. I despair.(
One of these days there will be a true city building game without any form of warfare...I welcome that day with open arms!!

 

[DeletedUser736]

31 pages used so far arguing about battle systems and fighting in a game we were told wouldn't be about fighting at all and would be a city building game. All the conversation and input these days is about fighting and the inability to win battles. I despair.(
One of these days there will be a true city building game without any form of warfare...I welcome that day with open arms!!

With the space you save from not having military building, you can build more good producing one. You can play elvenar without any sort of fighting. I could easily do so. Right now, on the main map, I always negotiate since fight are impossible to win, and I could easily cater to the first rounds of the tournament, wich in my opinion are the only ones worth doing. The only reason why I fight instead of catering is that I like it. But if you don't, get rid of military buildings and produce more. You'll advance as fast as anyone.

 

[ophion]

@galoyal...
It isn't so much that I object to the basic fighting such as gaining provinces etc as it was in the early days of Elvenar. It's just that things have gotten out of hand and fighting has become the main issues of the day and the main topic of conversation. It's also causing too much unrest and we are now seeing long term members leave the game after having gotten fed up with the mess ups that have incurred with the constant addition and focus on adding even more battles and warfare...most of which have wrecked the game for many of us..etc.

 

[DeletedUser736]

@galoyal...
It isn't so much that I object to the basic fighting such as gaining provinces etc as it was in the early days of Elvenar. It's just that things have gotten out of hand and fighting has become the main issues of the day and the main topic of conversation. It's also causing too much unrest and we are now seeing long term members leave the game after having gotten fed up with the mess ups that have incurred with the constant addition and focus on adding even more battles and warfare...most of which have wrecked the game for many of us..etc.

Battles are the main focus on this thread, but that is not the main focus of the game. I am fairly certain one can enjoy this game without ever fighting a battle. And your dream game already exist. It's called Sim City and as been around since my teenage years, and I'm 41 So that is quite awhile

 

[ophion]

Battles are the main focus on this thread, but that is not the main focus of the game. I am fairly certain one can enjoy this game without ever fighting a battle. And your dream game already exist. It's called Sim City and as been around since my teenage years, and I'm 41 So that is quite awhile

Unfortunately, Sim City doesn't look like Elvenar.

 

[DeletedUser1657]

We have feedback after feedback like this. And yet no one has said "hey, we hear you guys. We will work on rebalancing things." Or do you not hear any of us?

I disagree with not been heard, the very fact some tweaks are occuring in 1.16 and 1.17 is proof of that, to what extent we were heard is the part we are yet to (fully) see. Also look back at posts from marindor and they have asked for specific feedback.

You are right that we gets lots of feedback like this, sadly we know for those past the "line" nothing will be done. For those at or before the line just stating you can't win isn't enough. I have tried several times to encourage people to post the details of why they can't win as it is only in the proof of the facts that we can get our point across.

There are many people winning fights and many past the "line" so it reduces the number of people who can post about what isn't working. The people before the "line" or in tournaments are the ones who can prove what is happening. Why not encourage people to flood inno with the proof of difficult fights and force a positive change?

 

[DeletedUser736]

I disagree with not been heard, the very fact some tweaks are occuring in 1.16 and 1.17 is proof of that, to what extent we were heard is the part we are yet to (fully) see. Also look back at posts from marindor and they have asked for specific feedback.

You are right that we gets lots of feedback like this, sadly we know for those past the "line" nothing will be done. For those at or before the line just stating you can't win isn't enough. I have tried several times to encourage people to post the details of why they can't win as it is only in the proof of the facts that we can get our point across.

There are many people winning fights and many past the "line" so it reduces the number of people who can post about what isn't working. The people before the "line" or in tournaments are the ones who can prove what is happening. Why not encourage people to flood inno with the proof of difficult fights and force a positive change?

I agree with you. I am way beyond salvation on the main map, so I cannot produce any example. The problem is, in the past few weeks, I really had no gripe with the tournament. It behaved exactly as I expected, very easy to begin with, fair in the middle, and tough to get the best reward. But that does'nt mean it can't be tweaked to be easier on players who don't have extensive xcom experience like me! (If you think tournaments are hard, give a try to any xcom game )

 

[DeletedUser651]

Why not encourage people to flood inno with the proof of difficult fights and force a positive change?

Ok. Sure. I will ask. But most of those fights will be just be told you aren't supposed to win....which is most of the fights...so this seems pointless. idk...since Marindor came it seems they might actually be open to some feedback, so I'll try.

 

[DeletedUser1657]

But that does'nt mean it can't be tweaked to be easier on players who don't have extensive xcom experience like me! (If you think tournaments are hard, give a try to any xcom game )

I completely agree.

offtopic: I love xcom games

 

[DeletedUser736]

Some toughts I'd like to share with Inno too. I really like the battles right now, and I feel the challenge is appropriate in the tournament. But I consider myself an experienced player in turn based strategy game. If you ever find out that currently it is too difficult for inexperienced player, and feel the need to tone it down a bit, that would NOT take away from my enjoyment of the game. Probably that Mykan would tell you the same since he seem to like the same type of game as me. The truth is, I play Elvenar on lunch break or in spare time. But if I really want to play a strategy game, I'm not turning to Elvenar. I like taking care of my city, doing the occasional tournament battles on my lunch break... But when I want to game seriously, I fire up my PS4.

In a nutshell, I find the current difficulty level enjoyable. But I don't think that making it less tough would make it less fun for experienced players, who are not getting their strategy game fix in elvenar, and never will.

 

[DeletedUser1657]

Some toughts I'd like to share with Inno too. I really like the battles right now, and I feel the challenge is appropriate in the tournament. But I consider myself an experienced player in turn based strategy game. If you ever find out that currently it is too difficult for inexperienced player, and feel the need to tone it down a bit, that would NOT take away from my enjoyment of the game. Probably that Mykan would tell you the same since he seem to like the same type of game as me. The truth is, I play Elvenar on lunch break or in spare time. But if I really want to play a strategy game, I'm not turning to Elvenar. I like taking care of my city, doing the occasional tournament battles on my lunch break... But when I want to game seriously, I fire up my PS4.

In a nutshell, I find the current difficulty level enjoyable. But I don't think that making it less tough would make it less fun for experienced players, who are not getting their strategy game fix in elvenar, and never will.

Well said, agree completely.

 

[Dony]

rather then tone it down they will release more powerful units in a future to compensate this, which will make fights easier but it will take months instead

 

[DeletedUser651]

Dony: So tone it down until those units come out.

Nice post Galoyal.

 

[DeletedUser736]

rather then tone it down they will release more powerful units in a future to compensate this, which will make fights easier but it will take months instead

I do not think that is what they aim for. The whole thing seem to be built so that every units, at the same stage of development, are pretty equivalent, with one being a bit better at certain task than other. And they did this to avoid exactly having to do like you said in the future. In the previous system, when a new update was released, the units getting the upgrade were making older units completely obsolete. For example, in the previous system, as humans, you never ever used your archer, since any other unit could perform better. I'd be very surprised to see them take that route again.

 

[Marindor]

Hi guys,

Just to let you know: All feedback is taken into account very seriously, but as @Mykan stated above pretty well: We'd need to pass on specific examples of situations where the system doesn't work as intended, so our development team can investigate that and alter it. We're indeed already working on this, based on the feedback you gave us and the more examples, the better. It is indeed also true that when your feedback states that you cannot win fights in province 300, that you will get a reply like "you're not supposed to win those battles yet". You might not like that answer, but it is the truth. As a Community Manager I firmly believe that the only way to have a good communication with each other, is by being truthful so I will give you the honest answers, also when they're not the "popular" ones. I hope you guys can appreciate that because I'd rather be honest than giving you the "favorable answers" without getting to a real conversation.

 

[DeletedUser736]

It is indeed also true that when your feedback states that you cannot win fights in province 300, that you will get a reply like "you're not supposed to win those battles yet"

Wich is why I think this suggestion I made before about a warning before a battle would be good. I am going to compare this to FoE wich you surely are familiar with. When I arrive in a province that fields tank, and I got only knights, I instantly know I'm not supposed to be there. It is not that obvious in Elvenar. There is no "clear" or obvious reason, when we reach a province, that makes us instantly think "woah! I'm really too far away" Troops look the same, it's all about their numbers.

Might sound stupid, but my first try at the new battle system was a province, not the tournament. I did'nt bother to check out the stats of the troops, I was just trying it out. Needless to say, I got a sound trashing. So I think even to a veteran player, a quick warning on the battle screen that we are getting into a dangerous territory would be welcome.

And I'd love to provide you example, but as you said yourself, I am among the players who are not meant to win

 

[Dony]

Dony: So tone it down until those units come out.

i fear that will cause another balance problems before even finishing redesign first

I do not think that is what they aim for. The whole thing seem to be built so that every units, at the same stage of development, are pretty equivalent, with one being a bit better at certain task than other. And they did this to avoid exactly having to do like you said in the future. In the previous system, when a new update was released, the units getting the upgrade were making older units completely obsolete. For example, in the previous system, as humans, you never ever used your archer, since any other unit could perform better. I'd be very surprised to see them take that route again.

They actually have learnt lesson here and they wont release imbalanced units any more, every unit will have 3 levels, and rather then giving them 4th level they will release a new unit, and thats right approach.
What will happen now is that with every guest race they will release a new unit with different bonuses as same type already released unit. + some upgrades of already existing units which are not lvl3 yet
whole system is made so that lvl3 units with their buffs are core for balaning (meaning they wont be overpowered), lower version is just a direction players will see where it will go in terms of bonuses
and after all units will be released as planned then battling will be really easy, it will be obvious to choose right unit, at least i hope so (for me its obvious even now )

 

[Marindor]

Wich is why I think this suggestion I made before about a warning before a battle would be good.

Sorry if I haven't replied to that suggestion, but I can tell you that we're working on that and expect to introduce a solution for this shortly (I think the current planning is version 1.18, but that is subject to change). Thank you!