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.