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Discussion [Discussion] Release Notes version 1.17

DeletedUser1126

Guest
Just a quick thought. I take it this wholesaler change was made to make it harder to get rid of the excess coins and supplies (easier to get goods), and the battle re-balance to shift excess supplies to be spent on unit production.

Do I like it?

I never used the wholesaler so I couldn't care less about that change. I do understand other players grief though, I do!
The battle re-balance however... I have never lost as many units before as I have done the past week. It feels like all I do is train units only to see nearly all wiped out 1-2 battles later.

But this is InnoGames. What did anyone expect?!
If it ain't broken we will fix it anyway!
 

DeletedUser1767

Guest
In my fellowship, the neighbourly help now stopped, because players dont see the point in it since they have to many coins they can do nothing with, making the hammer supply even worse
I just did mine, with a sort of "do it for the team" mentality, but as I was doing it, I realised that the wholesaler change doesn't just affect people's motivation for giving NH. It also affects our motivation for receiving NH.

What do we get when someone gives us NH?

Main Hall buffs gives me coins. Well... that's no good. I don't want to be given more coins now. I have too many as it is and I can't do much with them.

Culture buffs give me a culture bonus. That's great, right? Well... but what does a culture bonus give me? More coins and supplies, which I have too many of. Maybe I don't really want a culture bonus now.

That leaves the builder, which is unaffected by the change, but no one has more than five builder buffs available, many people have only two, and if you're not in a position where you can build anything, they might sit there for a while before you can get to them. Also, it's less useful for less-advanced cities where the build times are relatively short.

So... this change makes both giving and getting of NH less attractive, which I guess is symmetrical, but... it doesn't seem quite right as a desired consequence, somehow.
 

Elderflower

Well-Known Member
I don't follow that Neighbourly help is a waste of time. The wholesaler has become more expensive so we actually need more coins not less. So I am still dumping my excess coins on the wholesaler. I don't mind if I get goods I don't need because I have a good neighbourhood and Fellowship where I can always trade these goods at no penalty for something I really do want.
I won't trade goods on the wholesaler but then I never did before.
It does add a layer of complication to the whole process and people with few trading partners will definitely feel the effects.
 
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1) Just because you and me can win a certain battle doesn't mean everyone else can win it too. Neither of us is a new player, so we can't judge difficulty for new players that are not yet very familiar with the game and the battles (though we can guess)
True - we might know the system, while others might not. Does it help if I say that I tried fighting using just a single squad (size 24), and I could still win most of the fights that I tried? :) Of course it depends on the enemies you face - I'm well-aware of that, but on the first few rings it really should be possible to win the battles (even if you make "poor decisions", so to say). Should there be examples of fights in those provinces that are absolutely impossible to win, please do share those with us (a screenshot of the army selection screen or battle screen showing the enemy units would be very helpful in such a case, and please also include in what ring the province is located and where you are in the research tree). We'd be more than happy to take a look.

I'm not even done unlocking Tier II goods yet, and the only thing I can get for my supplies, two days in a row, is elixir! I now have 50 elixir, and it looks like there will be more of it in my immediate future. You can say "well that elixir will be helpful later," and yes, sure, that's technically true (and it's exactly why I have bought the elixir so far, rather than just sitting there maxed out, because I'm that sort of rainy-day person), but it's not helpful or satisfying now, and there is a great difference between a player in Chapter IX having to wait a day for an ideal deal and taking a lesser deal in the meantime, and a player in early-mid Chapter II having to buy elixir. Especially if all I am ever able to buy is elixir! I'm assuming the repetition is a bug, but I'm not really brimming with benefits of doubts at the moment.
While you might not need the Elixir yourself, others might. You can always trade it for the lower-tier goods, too.

On a slightly different note, I have, without particularly trying, managed to come up with three or five ideas about how they could have changed the Wholesaler to get a similar effect without causing catastrophes for new players and potentially nerfing NH. Should I post them here or in the Ideas forum?
Either would work. If you want feedback of others, I would suggest the Ideas and Suggestions forum, so that a discussion on the idea(s) can be more easily hosted.

Marindor has been very good about responding to all our other feedback (even if we don't like the answer), but I am confused why no one has said a word about this. What's up?
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. 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. The current Wholesaler makes trades between players a lot more appealing, because you are not able to get every single offer for just Coins and Supplies anymore, and with this change we hope that players will trade more again. We already see some trends of trades being accepted faster than before, and more trades being created. 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). 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). 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 that gives you all a bit of an insight in our current activities - more news will follow in the next weeks, as we make progress. We'll do our best to keep you in the loop as good as we can without making promises we couldn't possibly keep. So, no promises for changes yet, but we will promise to take your feedback seriously and look into it carefully. We do thank you for sharing what you have shared so far, and we would be more than happy to take your suggestions into consideration as well. :)
 

DeletedUser1590

Guest
...
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. The current Wholesaler makes trades between players a lot more appealing, because you are not able to get every single offer for just Coins and Supplies anymore, and with this change we hope that players will trade more again.

Honestly?

That is a very feeble excuse, no not even an excuse, that is a desperate attempt to try and whitewash a bad decision, a desperate grasp at straws in order to find a justification.

No one will voluntarily pay 5:1 for goods. Paying 5:1 has always been a last resort: Unable to find a player to trade with, but desperately in need of a few goods to get some building started, go to the wholesaler and pay the exorbitant fee. That option now no longer exists.
 
Yet the Wholesaler always had a 5:1 ratio - since the very start of Elvenar. You are absolutely right, though: the Wholesaler was always meant as a last resort, and instead it turned into the "no-brainer go-to response". This had a direct effect on trading between players and that is something we're trying to solve with this change.
 

DeletedUser1657

Guest
True - we might know the system, :) Of course it depends on the enemies you face - I'm well-aware of that, but on the first few rings it really should be possible to win the battles (even if you make "poor decisions", so to say).

I started a new town to try fights as a brand new town and I intentionally auto-fight the battles to compensate for knowledge and the AI does make "poor" decisions compared to a player. Fielding 5 squads I have not lost a fight, I did find in ring 2 a province that had a larger then the others squads size but I simply ignored it until another squad size. My feeling is that knowing how to scout as a brand new player is more of the issue then difficulty of the fights and that is where experience of the game does come into play. If you make a scouting mistake as a new players it just gives you more difficult fights that can put you off when you have only just started.

While you might not need the Elixir yourself, others might. You can always trade it for the lower-tier goods, too.

One issue here is many players dislike cross tier trades and will ignore them or wait a long time to take them. Some fellowships ban their members from doing these sort of trades. I do know we can trade that elixir for another magical good but if what you need is basic or crafted you might not get what you need or have a super long wait.

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.

Thank you for the feedback. I trade heavily and use the wholesaler for excess coins (occasionally supplies). My trading needs are fine it is more I don't feel I have a worthwhile avenue for my excess coins now. Highly inflated prices of either the current wholesaler, or buying KP are not what I call worthwhile I am simply forced to dump coins there or have them wasted. Is it possible for the inflation factor or scaleability to be looked at? I could only afford to test 2 purchases but 50% inflation on each click seems rather steep.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
While you might not need the Elixir yourself, others might. You can always trade it for the lower-tier goods, too.

The problem is that a lower player will have very little trading parterns with, so who is he supposed to trade the elixir with???

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. 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. The current Wholesaler makes trades between players a lot more appealing, because you are not able to get every single offer for just Coins and Supplies anymore, and with this change we hope that players will trade more again. We already see some trends of trades being accepted faster than before, and more trades being created. 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). 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). 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 that gives you all a bit of an insight in our current activities - more news will follow in the next weeks, as we make progress. We'll do our best to keep you in the loop as good as we can without making promises we couldn't possibly keep. So, no promises for changes yet, but we will promise to take your feedback seriously and look into it carefully. We do thank you for sharing what you have shared so far, and we would be more than happy to take your suggestions into consideration as well. :)[/QUOTE]

This will not help players trade more, the only thing it will lead to, is lead to even more trading imbalances, like it was pointed out by @Bobbykitty. Also, don't get me started on the movement players, because i play in 4 worlds, and I haven't been moved in any of them yet. And although they are not in complete wastelands, most of the players there are dead cities. cities which get turned into goldmines every 30 days. the problem is, those gold mines are then replaced with new players before i get moved. It would be ok, except 95% of those new players turn into dead cities after a couple of days. so i am not moved, and outside of fs I have little to no trading partners. Now, for an advanced player in a good fs, this is not a problem, but for a new player? you might as well quit the game!

Also, have you thought that many fs use the wholesaler to make up for goods they are chronically lacking in, because of how hard it can be to recruit players with the "right boost"? this change only makes it harder for fs to recruit, as more than ever, you will need a perfect balance of goods in the fs, as you will no longer be able to use the wholesaler to make up for any shortage in any type of goods. this means, it will also be harder than ever for some player to get into a good fs, because they might not have the "right boosts", and in the meanwhile, how are they supposed to get the goods needed to play without the wholesaler??

So i am sorry, we get it, you wanted to nerf our ability to generate goods, so we cannot negotiate provinces and advanced on the map that way. But once again, this change was poorly thought out, and the true ramifications haven't obviously been considered.

So give us the old wholesaler back, even if with an increase in price each time we buy something. It is a ripoff, but its better than nothing, and at least it would still be there to help the players that truly need it. as it stands, the wholesaler is useless, and soon you will have players with maxed out MH, prevented from even participating in the events because they won't be able to collect coins or supplies, not to mention all the other issues mentioned already.

Edit: Do you really think that players prefer paying the absurd wholesaler's fee instead of trading with their trading partners, where they can get a 1:1 ratio??? really?? Do you think all elvenar players are dumb as bricks then?? because no one in their right mind would buy from the wholesaler INSTEAD of trading with players as you are saying. wholesaler is used as last resort or to spend excess coins/supplies, it is not used by anyone as an alternative to trading with players, that idea is simply ridiculous.

 
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Deleted User - 60107

Guest
There are exactly two cases when I use the Wholesaler:
In the begining of the game, when I need a particular good but have nothing to offer for it because I produce only a small amount of goods and I need what I produce for research and/or upgrades. Previously I could buy from the Wholesaler. Now I have to rely on luck because:
- the Wholesaler may be offering an amount that I can't afford, for example 120 Planks when that cost too much when I need just 20-30 Planks
- the Wholesaler may be offering a particular Good for something I don't want to spend, for example offering Planks for Steel at a time when I need my Steel and I want to instead buy Planks for Coins or Supplies

The other time I use the Wholesaler is when I have reached the limit of Coins and/or Suppplies, so I'm trying to free some space by buying a Good I am short on (for example Gems).

I try to trade with other players whenever possible because it is cheaper, but that is not always an option. Now I also can't rely on the Wholesaler to get the goods I need.


Two other things I'd like to point out:
- because there's no longer a reliable way to spend my excess coins and supplies I will reduce the amount of Neighbourly Help I give (because the Coins and Supplies I get from NH are now even more useless than before)
- thanks to the "improved" Wholesaler I will be doing LESS trades than before because I will now have less unboosted goods and thus will be less willing to trade away such goods
 

Dony

King of Bugs
for the beginners there could be a solution to unlock "new" wholesaler with advanced scout in chapter 4 where we already have tier 3 manufactories

and while you trying to improve 1 multiplayer feature you immediately make worse another multiplayer feature like NH and without interaction this game would be dead
 

DeletedUser1570

Guest
To be honest, the sorceress range nerf pisses me of now more than anything. What was the point of that?! What player feedback said that sorceresses have too good range, please reduce it?! WTF?! It's an overall nerf, it doesn't matter that they do more damage now. Auto combat with sorceresses doesn't work now. Well it didn't work before quite well either, but at least there were wins with medium losses. Now there is no win. You really want me to waste a ****load of time in the tourneys by having to fight manually everything?
 

DeletedUser629

Guest
To be honest, the sorceress range nerf pisses me of now more than anything. What was the point of that?! What player feedback said that sorceresses have too good range, please reduce it?! WTF?! It's an overall nerf, it doesn't matter that they do more damage now. Auto combat with sorceresses doesn't work now. Well it didn't work before quite well either, but at least there were wins with medium losses. Now there is no win. You really want me to waste a ****load of time in the tourneys by having to fight manually everything?

The reduction of the Sorceresses range is part of the new battle system. You can still win fights with auto battle, but not as much as before. We've created a great looking battlefield for people to enjoy fighting. If all players do is fight automatically because it's easier and less time consuming, we wouldn't have had to create the battlefield to begin with. New units were added to make battles more diverse and challenging, and overall, more enjoyable.

p.s.

Mind your language a bit, thanks.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
The reduction of the Sorceresses range is part of the new battle system. You can still win fights with auto battle, but not as much as before. We've created a great looking battlefield for people to enjoy fighting. If all players do is fight automatically because it's easier and less time consuming, we wouldn't have had to create the battlefield to begin with. New units were added to make battles more diverse and challenging, and overall, more enjoyable.

p.s.

Mind your language a bit, thanks.

Now all most players do is not fight at all. I still do what i can in auto, anything else i simply don't bother with. Have you seen how players are finishing the tournaments with a lot less points? do you know why is that? they don't fight as much anymore.
 

DeletedUser1657

Guest
We've created a great looking battlefield for people to enjoy fighting. If all players do is fight automatically because it's easier and less time consuming, we wouldn't have had to create the battlefield to begin with. New units were added to make battles more diverse and challenging, and overall, more enjoyable.

I think this overlaps with the tournament timer discussion/issue, people auto-fight(in tournaments at least) to compete in a reasonable time frame due to long reset timers. The joys of game balancing, everything is inter-related. :)
 

Deleted User - 60107

Guest
1) The battlefield really isn't all that great-looking
2) Part of the reason many players prefer autofighting is BECAUSE it is much faster. Even when using max combat speed battles are quite slow, especially if you have to use Heavy Melee, such as Treants, there are many obstacles to slow things down even further, and/or there are 7-8 enemy squads. Both negotiating/catering and autocombat are much faster than manual combat, so it's hardly surprising that players would choose the more expensive but faster option
 

DeletedUser1570

Guest
The reduction of the Sorceresses range is part of the new battle system. You can still win fights with auto battle, but not as much as before. We've created a great looking battlefield for people to enjoy fighting. If all players do is fight automatically because it's easier and less time consuming, we wouldn't have had to create the battlefield to begin with. New units were added to make battles more diverse and challenging, and overall, more enjoyable.

p.s.

Mind your language a bit, thanks.

It never happened before and most likely it never will that "all players do is fight automatically", so that is irrelevant. The auto-combat so far was there as an option not only for people who don't want to fight at all, but also for people like me who likes to fight, but don't want to grind. Because it's quite obvious for me that the tourneys are nothing more than a boring grind, if you want to do them seriously. Fighting 8 times per province close to daily is boring even for those who like to fight, except maybe for some hardcore fighters. Not to mention the time it takes with all the slow animations and loading times and also time wasted to check the battlefield, so you know where to place the units, because there is no preview option.
So my question then is this: what is auto combat for? IMHO auto combat should be there as an option for those who don't want to grind or don't like to fight. Obviously it shouldn't be perfect, it should generate more losses than one would get if they were fighting manually. But it still should be an option. Or at least it should be an option for the first 2-4 rounds in the first 4-8 provinces, I would be fine with that as well (I just said random numbers, they could be changed). Do you agree with this, does Inno agree with this? If not, then what do you think auto combat should be for?

p.s. You are 100% right about my language, I apologize.
 

DeletedUser1767

Guest
There are exactly two cases when I use the Wholesaler:
In the begining of the game, when I need a particular good but have nothing to offer for it because I produce only a small amount of goods and I need what I produce for research and/or upgrades.
The other time I use the Wholesaler is when I have reached the limit of Coins and/or Suppplies, so I'm trying to free some space by buying a Good I am short on (for example Gems).

I try to trade with other players whenever possible because it is cheaper, but that is not always an option. Now I also can't rely on the Wholesaler to get the goods I need.
+1 to all of this.

There is exactly one circumstance in which I will use the Wholesaler in lieu of trading, and that's when I happen to know that my entire fellowship is running low on a particular good, and I'm a bit short of it myself, but not in dire need of it. I don't want to post trades for something when I know it's in short supply and other people in the fellowship actively need it. For instance, my Arendyll fellowship had a run on marble last week, so I've been avoiding posting marble trades this week to sort of let the market recover.

In a somewhat more extreme example, my previous Arendyll fellowship had an even worse run on marble last Christmas when all but one of our marble boosters disappeared on Christmas Eve and everyone left behind suddenly all needed a lot of marble at the same time. We got through the Great Christmas Marble Shortage of 2015 by (among other things) giving priority on marble trades to people who couldn't afford to get it (or to get enough of it) via the Wholesaler.

I really do have several ideas about how to change the wholesaler that are in keeping with the spirit of the new system, and I'll try to post them in the ideas section later tonight, for other people to then improve on, but I think one very important feature of all of them is: if you don't want us to spend so much at the Wholesaler, you have to give us more to do with our excess coins and supplies. Honestly, that was already needed, but the Wholesaler changes make it imperative.
 

sunrae

Well-Known Member
I am now stuck. I can buy 210 marble from the wholesaler - with tools not coins - and then have to wait 24 hours to buy a few more - I actually need two thousand. I can't afford to trade like tier for like tier due to the tournament costs and the neighbours trades are zero rated big time. Due to the wholesaler change you say people are trading a little more but the trades are very imbalanced ! I can't afford to activate a tech. I can't afford to finish a province. This means I can't get the space needed for the Halloween culture building. I haven't been building an army very quickly as I have been waiting for the recent battle changes to settle down and so can't afford to fight and now I can't afford to trade. So I've got about 2 days waiting just to move a little forward. City building games are waiting games but you need to make sure the waiting times are reasonable. The change you have made to the wholesaler is, in my opinion, definitely NOT reasonable and why do it now when we are still trying to catch up on techs for the battle changes?
 
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