Discussion [Discussion] Release Notes version 1.17

[DeletedUser1721]

I've been reading this over and over. The reason that people weren't using the trader is because they don't have enough available trades. The trader cannot work without neighbors to trade with. The world map has been broken since day one. Player movement has made hasn't made much of a dent. Plus, the way you dumped the fighting system on everyone has caused even more dead cities, especially large ones in the center of the map that will never get moved. Now, on top of that we aren't allowed to scout very much any more so we will reach fewer neighbors and see even fewer trades.


In short, the disastrous world map system and all the recent changes have made it less likely a person will see any trades because they have even fewer trading partners and yet you made it more important than ever that people trade? Can you see how this can't work?

This. It's not a matter of I use the wholesaler instead of trading. It's that I use the wholesaler sometimes as a money sink, exchanging money and coins for whatever I happen to have less of/fellowship members need more of, and sometimes to make up for the fact that no one in my trading group (neighbors and fellowship) has accepted my trades for a specific good for days. If you really feel that increasing prices is necessary, fine, I won't argue with that. But please don't take away the ability to exchange coins AND supplies, both, for each type of good. I shouldn't be limited in my city's progression because no one wanted to fairly trade with me and because the resource that I have in surplus isn't the one that is currently used for buying the resource that I need. Or because the resource I need isn't on the list, in the case of people who have reported that they've had the wholesaler offering them their own boosted goods.

I maintain that no one should have their progression in the research tree held hostage to the fact that in all the time they've been posting trades for the goods they need for the research, no one has accepted the trades.

 

[Buttrflwr]

We are looking very closely at the feedback that is coming in. Like, very closely. We see the response this change has generated in the Beta community and we are looking into ways to make the Wholesaler more appealing, without simply reverting it back to the way it was. We know that is what everyone is currently asking for, yes, but we made the changes to adjust the system, as it was not working as intended, and it was actually hurting other features. For example: we receive a lot of feedback that the multiplayer features we have are not being used as much as players would like.

Where, where do you receive that feedback?

One of our absolute most important multiplayer features is trading. The old Wholesaler took away a lot of the potential of trading with other players, and we want players to trade more with each other and interact that way.

If this is true, WHY DID YOU TAKE AWAY OUR ABILITY TO REACH OTHER PLAYERS? You moved me, and put me at the bottom of the world on the live server. I have NO ONE South and West of me, and the ones that I see in my trader are WAAAYYYY out of my reach to the North. In the old system, I could have gotten there by conquering provinces, but not now. Which is what I did, and why I am now sitting on my hands letting my tech catch up with my progress, BECAUSE I HAD TO PROGRESS TO TRADE. Small players can't afford that trader fee, and can't touch some of the trades on the trader anyway...so they HAVE to use the wholesaler. Which brings me back to THIS server. I am in the last tier of the FIRST CHAPTER. WHY do I need elixir? I'll answer that, I DON'T! I have too many supplies, which means I can't do anything except buy worthless (to me) elixir in order to clear out my workshops. I can't start any upgrades to use them because I have some going already. It doesn't help me where I am at now, which is where I need the help, WHERE I AM. Didn't you do all this to stop us from looking down the road, and playing the game in front of us?

The current Wholesaler makes trades between players a lot more appealing

With all due respect, NO IT DOESN'T. It helps me NOT AT ALL. I am too little yet, and I NEED those offers for coins and supplies that you are now denying me.

And now that we can also move players to the center of activity with our new player movement feature, we are confident that trading itself is and will be a viable option for most players again (let's be fair: it wasn't before we could move players).

Again, with all due respect, it isn't that great for many of us now where you have moved us.

Deleting inactive users and moving active players towards the center will be a constant and continuous proces in Elvenar (deleting inactive players already is, player movement will be soon).

Does your statement mean you will be continuing to move us? If so, we really NEED to know that definitively, so that we won't spend time and effort trying to reach potential trade buddies when that becomes an option again.

But, seeing these trends is not enough, of course. We are analyzing our data, but in order to get significant results, we need some time - we cannot base decisions on data from just a single day. We need to find the root of the problem and fix that, rather that treat symptoms.

I hope this means you will NOT force the new wholesaler into the live servers, but WAIT until you get a better, more viable fix for whatever problem you imagine there is with it.

 

[CrazyWizard]

I've been reading this over and over. The reason that people weren't using the trader is because they don't have enough available trades. The trader cannot work without neighbors to trade with. The world map has been broken since day one. Player movement has made hasn't made much of a dent. Plus, the way you dumped the fighting system on everyone has caused even more dead cities, especially large ones in the center of the map that will never get moved. Now, on top of that we aren't allowed to scout very much any more so we will reach fewer neighbors and see even fewer trades.


In short, the disastrous world map system and all the recent changes have made it less likely a person will see any trades because they have even fewer trading partners and yet you made it more important than ever that people trade? Can you see how this can't work?

I can't speak for all, but the player movement did wonders for me, I am overwhelmed with goods since it's introduction, but you are right, if your in no mans land and your not in the best guild, aquiring goods might have been a challenge.

 

[DeletedUser651]

To the north of my city, out of 45 "cities" I have 3 actual cities, two of which have quit, and I have two spots that don't have any coins or neighbors. So, 1 out of 45 in that whole section. I have a bunch of cities to the south. For me, it improved things in one half of the map and destroyed things in the other half.

I am very lucky on the US server and I am in the center, but even there, with every single city filled around me, I have 10-15 people who are playing.....out of 345.

But hey, maybe my two cities are extremely unusual ad maybe most people have hundreds of active neighbors they can rely on for trades.

 

[Elderflower]

But hey, maybe my two cities are extremely unusual ad maybe most people have hundreds of active neighbors they can rely on for trades.

I agree, it is hard to generalise merely from my own experience. Like CrazyWizard I benefited extremely from the movement of players. And even since the changes to the wholesaler my neighbours still seem to be aiding and trading as much as before. I realise I never used the wholesaler to actively seek for goods but rather as a dumping ground for my excess coins and supplies and that hasn't really changed. So for me this new update - while a bit of a shock - doesn't seem to have affected me that badly. Which is why I am interested to read the experiences of other players, especially beginners and those who are about half way through the game so far.
However, many advanced players do feel really strongly about the new system. I am curious as to how many will leave the game entirely, which would be a great shame, and will be looking to see how many holes appear in my neighbourhood map as a result.

 

[CrazyWizard]

The people who leave atm dont just leave for the wholesaler, but because of the cascade of bad news. it's like a never ending story.
there seems to be a developer in the lead that has it's mind only on nerf this nerf that instead of expand this and expand that.

In 99% of the cases (sometimes thing are so screwed up you can only get away with a nerf) there are 2 ways to approach a problem,
1 lays creates a new layer that feels like a great addititon, but balances out the game.
and the other one is by nerfing the shitnitz out of stuff and makes players cranky.

Instead of looking how can we solve this problem forward, they seem to be only looking backwards and say this is wrong--> scrap, this is wrong --> scrap ect.

 

[DeletedUser1590]

...

PS. The game is having lots of trouble loading too. Getting stuck at 8/24.

Yes, those are the issues the devs should actually be looking at, annoying reloads .. game getting stuck .. flash player crashes .. instead of breaking stuff that has been working well.

... And for you to SABOTAGE the wholesaler and our ability to play this game is nothing short of FRAUD!

I'm BOYCOTTING my purchase of DIAMONDS until the Wholesaler is reinstated to the was it was! YOU DON'T FIX SOMETHING BY DESTROYING IT!

+1

 

[lika1961]

I think the most disappointing thing for me at the moment is the absolute lack of feedback or any attempt at improving the situation. We are at the end of a line of bad changes and you would have to be really stupid or totally comatose to not understand that most people are unhappy. This in itself should make the devs jump up and start programming the crap out of something to at least try and improve the situation. But strangely it doesn't seem to have any effect.

I am constantly surprised by the fact that they don't seem to have touch with how we actually play the game.

Surprised by the fact that players don't like cross-tier trading. Really? And if that is not bad enough, you ask us to explain to you why we don't like it? You should know this.

Wanting to force us to trade more when most people already trade a lot. Why don't you know the state of trading?

Thinking that the feeble attempts at moving people on the world map actually made things better. And basing decisions to make changes on this assumption. Are we stupid not to understand that moving from one position on the map to another where you are still surrounded by mostly dead cities is no improvement? The only place where movements on the map actually worked for me is here on Beta. Big improvement. But everywhere else, not so much. I have 6 cities, so I must have some idea of whether it works or not.

Forcing people to stop fighting because the battle system is so bad after all the "improvements". Three buildings to produce units in a game where space is such an issue? That might make sense in an alternate reality, but not here. And repeatedly assuring us that we just need to learn the new system and will then be able to win battles. Advanced players telling you that it does not work well and still you insist that they just need to learn the new rules?

Announcing the Halloween event like it is the best thing ever? Wow! Most of my fellowship felt that it was boring and badly thought out. The best you can come up with is the same old "produce spell power of provision" and "scout 1 province". Really? I wonder how many small players will be able to finish this event. But apparently it is meant to distract us from noticing the bad changes and make us feel all warm and fuzzy. Sorry - it doesn't.

This latest fiasco with the changes to the wholesaler and the patronising response about how people should not use the trader to gain goods. Really? Would it make sense, except to an absolute idiot, to build a city by using the extremely unfavourable rates available in the wholesaler instead of trading 1:1 with fellows or neighbours? And then insisting the changes were made to improve trade? That is just ridiculous. And obviously not realising that people use the wholesaler to get rid of extra supplies or coins now that they are being forced to negotiate instead of fight. How is this possible?

But perhaps my favourite at the moment is the fact that every time someone starts a thread about the wholesaler fiasco, it is closed and diverted to this thread. Are you worried that more people will respond and tell you to stop being so ridiculous? Do you think that by sticking to this one thread people will magically become happy? And do you still not understand that because only some people actually participate on the forum it means that they are not the only unhappy ones?

It is time to wake up, Inno. A lot of your customers are unhappy and unhappy customers leave. It is time to pull a rabbit out of the hat and make us remember why we all loved this game in the first place. And don't give us half a rabbit and then tell us that we just don't understand where the other half is. We need the whole thing. And it had better be a very cool rabbit!

 

[Elderflower]

I think one of the most significant things about this latest update is how many players are creating an account on the forum purely to complain about the changes. We all know of course that people who hate something are more likely to say so than people who like it but we also know that most players never visit the forums. So from that point of view I think the developers should really take note of all the new members to the forum who have joined just because they feel so strongly about what has been done and want to say so.
The folk who are commenting on this thread and signing the petition at https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/petition-for-old-wholesaler.6451/page-3#post-40918 are not just "the usual suspects" and the game designers really need to note that.
(Unless of course they are all robots )

 

[DeletedUser978]

I would like to take this opportunity to give INNO big thumbs-up for the fine job they've been doing in making game features totally useless. I used to fight a lot, now the battle system is messed up. I used to use wholesaler on regular basis, now that is messed up too.
Now I'm off to find a better online game, as this one starts to suck.

 

[Buttrflwr]

Sigh, and here I sit...again. Nerfed by the wholesaler snafu. You want particulars, ok...here goes. I need to upgrade my marble factories because, well, I need marble. But wait, I CAN'T upgrade my factories because I also need planks, which I don't have, and NOW can't buy. Sooo, I buy the elixir, put it on the market. A whole whopping 10 for 160, because, hey...I'm SMALL! And there it sits. Along with my trade for 40 marble for 40 steel because that's what the quest says I need. WHERE THE HAY am I supposed to get steel if I can't buy it off the wholesaler??? And planks too. NO ONE IS PICKING THESE TRADES UP, YOU CLUELESS DEVS! You have effectively tied my hands, and if I was a new player, with no clue as to what the game COULD be, I would have ALREADY QUIT! It is not fun watching paint dry. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE acknowledge that you at least hear us, and that you WON'T bring this disastrous bug (I know, you call it a "dynamic feature"...NOT) to the live servers. This is just not acceptable! REPONDEZ, s'il vous plais!!!!!! (in the true literal sense of the phrase)

PS
Can anyone tell I am UBER frustrated?

 

[SoggyShorts]

A whole whopping 10 for 160

This is the problem. 1:16 is a very bad deal, as explained in multiple posts above, but the new wholesaler options are very limited based on the assumption that those trades are fair and balanced.

 

[Buttrflwr]

This is the problem. 1:16 is a very bad deal, as explained in multiple posts above, but the new wholesaler options are very limited based on the assumption that those trades are fair and balanced.

And the 38 planks or steel I might be able to buy if I had 190 marble (for the planks, which I don't) or 15,200 coins (for the steel, which is over HALF of what I have managed to stockpile) wouldn't be enough anyway, it would take multiple transactions, at HIGHER costs, which I assuredly wouldn't have. Can you see now, why this totally sucks for the new players?? If I was brand new and had no clue what I was doing, I wouldn't even still be in the game. I would have quit. I keep saying the same thing over and over, along with everyone else, HOPING the devs/whoever will LISTEN. This isn't just your "long term" players unhappy with the direction of the game, this is a game killer. I am by no means a long term player, but I was around for a month before these drastic changes showed up. As I stated, I can kind of see why some kind of restructuring was needed on the battle system, it was too easy to get too far ahead, though we didn't know that. We aren't game developers, and don't know the code behind it, or at least I am not/don't, so had no idea what a problem that could come to be down the line. But that has NOTHING to do with this wholesaler. Ok, the horse is about dead, I will stop kicking it now. Sigh...for now. Please bury it, devs. Don't bring it to live, just don't. Not as it is.

 

[DeletedUser651]

That is exactly what I have been saying all along would happen. Katwijk and the rest of people who work for Inno, I am talking to you. Do you see how new players can't play without a trader? Read Buttrflwr's post above.

And as we have all explained to you (that you haven't so much as acknowledged hearing), those trades might sit there a very long time. People don't like cross tier trades. With the goods being so hard to get when you need them, the only logical next action from players is hoarding and picking up fewer trades. Fewer will participate in the tournaments since replacing tier one goods is so hard, and the lower tier goods will begin to face shortages which will lead to more hoarding and fewer trades picked up.

it was too easy to get too far ahead

It was never easy. I don't know why people keep saying that. I have been here 2 years and I am 200 provinces behind what I need to get all the available space. That isn't too easy and it certainly isn't too far ahead. It will take me another 2 more years to get that space at the old "too easy to get too far ahead" space. That excuse by them is total bunk.

In the old system, yes, people could win fights. That was a good thing. We had plenty of other ways to block people from just running through the game. Scouting times increase drastically. So, so what if people won those fights? It takes 3 days to unlock a province and you get a whopping 8 more fights to do. Winning 8 fights in 3 days? That really isn't asking a lot. Now they are saying we can't even do that.

And it isn't just the top players. Players on all levels are being blocked by unwinnable fights. Apparently, most people play this game faster than the devs want people to play. Maybe that is a clue that the devs need to make the game faster? Instead of trying at every turn to make the game slower. We don't want a slower game. Basically every comment by every player, except one, wants a faster game. Every player, except one, wants the wholesaler back the way it was. All the complaints come when they thwart our progress and make us stare at our shoelaces. Again, every player except one would rather not sit here and stare at our shoelaces.

Look what they have done to early players with this wholesaler thing. They have once again "rebalanced" things and made play even S L O W E R. You can sit there and wait for a few days for someone to maybe pick up your trade. How could that not be fun?

From day one we have had fights about how slowly this game should be played. Every single time they slow it down we lose more people. So sure....go right ahead and slow it down more....whatever. Who needs customers, right?

 

[Buttrflwr]

That is exactly what I have been saying all along would happen. Katwijk and the rest of people who work for Inno, I am talking to you. Do you see how new players can't play without a trader? Read Buttrflwr's post above.

And as we have all explained to you (that you haven't so much as acknowledged hearing), those trades might sit there a very long time. People don't like cross tier trades. With the goods being so hard to get when you need them, the only logical next action from players is hoarding and picking up fewer trades. Fewer will participate in the tournaments since replacing tier one goods is so hard, and the lower tier goods will begin to face shortages which will lead to more hoarding and fewer trades picked up.



It was never easy. I don't know why people keep saying that. I have been here 2 years and I am 200 provinces behind what I need to get all the available space. That isn't too easy and it certainly isn't too far ahead. It will take me another 2 more years to get that space at the old "too easy to get too far ahead" space. That excuse by them is total bunk.

In the old system, yes, people could win fights. That was a good thing. We had plenty of other ways to block people from just running through the game. Scouting times increase drastically. So, so what if people won those fights? It takes 3 days to unlock a province and you get a whopping 8 more fights to do. Winning 8 fights in 3 days? That really isn't asking a lot. Now they are saying we can't even do that.

And it isn't just the top players. Players on all levels are being blocked by unwinnable fights. Apparently, most people play this game faster than the devs want people to play. Maybe that is a clue that the devs need to make the game faster? Instead of trying at every turn to make the game slower. We don't want a slower game. Basically every comment by every player, except one, wants a faster game. Every player, except one, wants the wholesaler back the way it was. All the complaints come when they thwart our progress and make us stare at our shoelaces. Again, every player except one would rather not sit here and stare at our shoelaces.

Look what they have done to early players with this wholesaler thing. They have once again "rebalanced" things and made play even S L O W E R. You can sit there and wait for a few days for someone to maybe pick up your trade. How could that not be fun?

From day one we have had fights about how slowly this game should be played. Every single time they slow it down we lose more people. So sure....go right ahead and slow it down more....whatever. Who needs customers, right?

LOL BK, I am with you. I simply meant it was too easy for us to get too far ahead of where they wanted us to be, as stated in the last part of the sentence.

it was too easy to get too far ahead, though we didn't know that.

I personally wasn't having a space issue...YET, as I was able to win the provinces when I stopped buying them, because of their uber expensiveness. I haven't seen your city as we are in different worlds, and I am sure it is WAY WAY bigger than mine, but I was only in chapter 3, so hadn't really started running into those crazy uber big bldgs yet.
And whacha mean, you don't LIKE staring at your shoelaces? Or watching paint dry? It's my fav thing to do. /endsarcasm

 

[DeletedUser1721]

On a related note, are there any programmers here? I've thought of an awesome game concept, we'll be outdoing the devs' vision for Elvenar. My game idea is called Watch Grass Grow. Players get to lovingly tend a field at one tenth ordinary time, and can buy boosts to speed their field's growth up to real time!

 

[DeletedUser1257]

Just goes to show the devs have no clue.

The problem is not that we use the Wholesaler instead of trading with other players.

The problem is the don't have other players who we can reliably trade with because a lot of players are stuck in dead areas of the map and don't have anyone to reliably trade with. This is especially true on the production servers where player movement has only been recently introduced and large numbers of active players have yet to be moved.

Bottom line, it is clear those in power to make decisions don't actually play the game for fun. They just want to make it impossible to get goods so we either quit or pay diamonds to finish the tech tree items that we cannot get the goods for.

 

[DeletedUser1767]

Personally I don't necessarily want a faster game -- I want a richer, broader one. I wouldn't mind the long wait times if there were other axes of the game that I could be paying attention to in the meantime.

For me it's sort of like going on a road trip. If you need to get from Point A to Point B, and there's nothing between A and B but desert or fields or something, then you want to make the trip as fast as you can, and all you can really do about the tedium is make sure you've got some good music in your iPod or your car. But if you need to get from Point A to Point B and there's all sorts of interesting things to do along the way, you might not be in a hurry because you're having fun taking detours for little side trips. A lot of the time playing Elvenar feels like taking the first kind of road trip. Ancient Wonders, Tournaments, and events are all side trips, but since a fair amount of patience is involved with Ancient Wonders, Tournaments are very repetitive and also getting harder and harder, and events involve a lot of grinding, none of these really does much to make the game feel like the second kind of road trip.

ETA: Maybe the devs also see the World Map as a side trip??? But we players definitely don't.

I have the impression that a lot of this game was balanced around the idea that people would stop in once or twice a day, or maybe even stop in a few times a week. There were a lot of players like that in my old fellowship on Arendyll (this is why it's my old fellowship on Arendyll), and they were all pretty content with the pace of the game. People like that don't need much in the way of side trips, so to speak. But a lot of us are much more intense about the game than that. Many people are retired and have plenty of time for the game; I work from home and most of my jobs are boring, so I have the ability to check on my cities every hour or so during the week. We need more to do. I can see why the chapters in the tech tree slow down -- the devs can only create new chapters so quickly -- but they need to be giving us more things to do in the meantime that don't require additional grid space or divert time and resources away from the main objectives.

 

[DeletedUser651]

We need more to do.

That's what I mean by faster. Just sitting there waiting 12 hours for some building to upgrade isn't enough.

 

[DeletedUser1767]

That's what I mean by faster. Just sitting there waiting 12 hours for some building to upgrade isn't enough.

Ah, gotcha! Yeah, I totally agree.

ETA: Also now I'm wondering whether part of the problem is that the devs introduce things they think of as extra things to do that we players see as part of the main game. Something about the way they insist that there are plenty of ways to get Rune Shards when we're pretty convinced that there aren't makes me wonder.