@Marindor@Muf-Muf
It would be great if you guys would start thinking about how to bring updates to the players. hire some PR agent if needed.
Inproper communication to players is one of the main reason we are so angry about updates, we always get nothing saying responses as "stuff was broken" for all sakes explain to us WHY it is broken. we arent stupid we can understand.
It took you a whopping nealy 2 months and a facebook Q&A session to somewhat better explain why the wholesaler needed to change, it can be explained much better that what timon did, but at least it was a start. but only months to late.
any change to an existing core mechanic will create controversy, but you get a lot more praises if you start to explain the way's a lot better, or why changes needed to be made.
that means explicit explanations and not vague "general" crap like "it's broken"
It took you a whopping nealy 2 months and a facebook Q&A session to somewhat better explain why the wholesaler needed to change, it can be explained much better that what timon did, but at least it was a start. but only months to late.
To be fair this was explained, I have known those reasons for months. However I do not recall which forum I read it and am fairly sure there was not consistent information across even the 3 forums I read, so there is definitely large gaps in the communication.
I however have not really seen a reason why the current prizes are broken or "mediocre". Players have said repeatedly that these "mediocre" prizes are more valuable to them and I am sure someone pointed out even the diamond prices reflect this. It would be greatly appreciated if these reasons where explained a little more and the value of rewards.
I do acknowledge the broken shard value was explained and we understood its value was/is yet to be understood by players due to its newness and now a future update we are yet to see. Will the need for KP for wonders devalue in that future update? As I don't see players value on KP lessening as long as the KP needs remain so high.
Edit: Another feedback item that has not been addressed from the prior update is why can't the points be cumulative instead of resetting? Many people have being mislead by this until they realise it resets and then they have to calculate the true points for each level manually.
I agree with CrazyWizard - vague explanations of elements being "broken" is actually not good enough. It is ironic that in a lot of cases things that were "fixed" are more broken after the fix.
I doubt that the devs knew that the changes to the Wholesaler would result in the huge increase in cross-tier trading that we are seeing now. This will probably have a negative impact further down the line, but of course that will be explained away by "fixing" something else.
Or perhaps the idea is to only develop 3rd tier factories and trade for the other tiers. Not sure who you will trade with once everyone only has tier 3 factories, but that is a problem for another day. Perhaps you can get rid of your tier 1 and 2 factories to make space for the new AWs. After all, they are so exciting that you won't mind the loss of score and ranking. Good thing we got rid of that broken Wholesaler, right?
Please read it and make suggestions if you see errors, or ideas I have left out!!
Please feel free to share the file, and to use all the graphics and screenshots.
To be fair this was explained, I have known those reasons for months. However I do not recall which forum I read it and am fairly sure there was not consistent information across even the 3 forums I read, so there is definitely large gaps in the communication.
I however have not really seen a reason why the current prizes are broken or "mediocre". Players have said repeatedly that these "mediocre" prizes are more valuable to them and I am sure someone pointed out even the diamond prices reflect this. It would be greatly appreciated if these reasons where explained a little more and the value of rewards.
I do acknowledge the broken shard value was explained and we understood its value was/is yet to be understood by players due to its newness and now a future update we are yet to see. Will the need for KP for wonders devalue in that future update? As I don't see players value on KP lessening as long as the KP needs remain so high.
Well I never found an "official" proper explanation on the wholesaler, off course I did understand the change but the the responses from innogames where as vague as those of today, as far as I know the "timon" explanation came from players including myself not from innogames.
Even if they responded on some forum somewhere, the problem is it should have been explained properly in it's own explanation post at he announcements, not hidden somewhere on some forum where only a few can / did find it.
I also dont understand why they were "mediocre" reward but I do understand why for example the KP are dropped considerably, again not because they explained it. but simply from experience I had myself as a game designer.
When the tournaments came out I really thought those guys (devs) had lost there mind, we went from 24kp a day (168 a week) to an additional 200 or so (for an advanced player) from the tournament and even newbies brought in like 40 kp a week. the influx of knowledgepoints was just nuts. similar with the relics, in a single round the value of the world bonus provinces degraded to useless, we went from 400 somthing% as advanced players to 700+% in like a few weeks. took us a single tournament of each of our bonusses.
Also new players flown trought the provinces like never before going way to fast trough the playing experience. chapters are currently not experieced by many, but the more active well planning players just "tick" them off.
Years ago I took over the development of a Online DnD based RPG server, when I took over the server was unfortunatly unsalvagable "balance" wise.
Creativity of players was severly limited due to choices made by the former devlopment team pushing players into a limited amount of designs
The only option was a full server reset where all progress of players was lost, the most severe and extreme measure you can take and usually means a giant loss of players.
When I took over I started to design all game mechanics from scratch, I designed a new item ruleset, I designed a new crafting system, I had to make 1 minor nerf to 1 race and 1 class and then I had to design and build 6 new classes from scratch to plug some holes.
I explained all of it clear and detailed to the playerbase and was accepted with very little resistance, A server reset was carried out and we lost almost no players. in fact the playerbase doubled in the weeks after as many found back the creativity and fun they had lost as balance wise the difference between the weakest and strongest builds were no longer as severe as before and therefore a lot of new play options and styles became posible.
Out main problem became server stability because the loads on the server was way beyond the capability where it was designed for.
Without good communication with the playerbase we would have lost a lot of players. and would have seen a severe negative reaction. I had seen 3 similar resets in the past and it was always a very negative experience. something we did not see because we communicated well with the playerbase.
The whole wholesaler fiasco can be contributed to bad communication, Even when the second wholesaler was released they still had not learned there lesson from the first one. they just "dropped" it again on the playerbase telling then it was better than the first based on feedback.
That was surely true, but the still ignored the fact that players where not just mad of the fact that the firs tone was very por made but that they "lost" something. that on itself should have teached them that with the second release they might need to go a little bit more in depth about why this change is important in the long run. not with 5 words somewhere that it "disturbed the balance" but with a good explanations similar to how they talk with eachother on why and how it should chance on a development meeting.
Edit: not with an explanation at release but you can also prepare the players in advance by showing them where the problems in the game are and that your looking for a solution, that way players already know that you are working on something and a change doesnt come as a "suprise" to them.
So the answer to the issue that there aren't any rewards players actually want for the tournament is -- eventually there will be more in the game so that these are desirable.
Okay, let me make a modest proposal... Leave in rewards that make the tournament enjoyable for now, then as soon as these other features come out, then you redo the rewards. That way, the rewards get changed soon, but also players get to play an enjoyable game with their friends as opposed to losing players to loss of interest, and then hoping that the tournament goes back to being worthwhile again.
In this chart you can see how fast will squad size increase in coming months and that 2 people with same barracks speed have cca 50% difference in difficulty (50% more losses, 50% getting deeper in tournament with same amount of units, 50% more supplies needed), i have also included where our barracks get upgrade
I used Barracks and Needles of the Tempest combo because its the most used combination and this makes the most amount of units per given time.
Numbers are usually based on patterns we have now.
Last row is how much losses we get with scouting maps in tournaments with Mist Walkers (so in chapter 13 i will losse 35k units to scout battlegrounds while making 41k units per day). Why i should be getting 50% more losses on checking battleground then somebody 2 chapters behind me (incompetence of solving this long time problem with no battleground preview).
It also shows how much 10% of losses are per round clear (in this example 14 provinces) (if you usually end with 50% losses then its 5 times that amount)
Ramp up of squad size is so fast then sooner rather then later a lot of fighters will just stop fighting because it will be inefficience compared to negotiation.
Sometime i have feeling that developers think that for fighters it takes same 10 minutes to battle all provinces as for negotiators to negotiate
All this chart is if we win every battle on first try with max 10% losses which everybody knows is not and will never be a case.
There are a lot of time cases when you send 5 squads of units on autobattle and you just losse with 11865 units on province 14/chapter 13 per 1 TRY, while you train 41k/62k per day (25%, 19% respectivelly from daily production), i hope you starting to realize that this will not work, every sane person will just not trying it anymore.
Another problem is you dont give players a room to learn battle, there is no training battleground where you can test different units in action without lossing anything. (Maybe just maybe if new fighters had some extra units regularly which they can throw out to learn battle, it would be better for them).
I know that we will get new event buildings which give us free goods/troops per day but that numbers are not appealing to me right now
It doesnt matter how big our squad size is when we are getting 50% losses now we will most likely get same 50% losses from 10 times bigger squad size (with same level of opponents).
So unless you give us insanely powerfull spells for barracks (like 200% increase in training for 2 days) or increase speed of producing troops with wonders this will not work. We all know that now you are telling us how redesigned AW will be powerful but you are telling this all the time with zero effect later on.
Or lower the speed at which squad size increase from 5% to 3% for example. I can give you chart with 3% already to see the difference just for comparison. (this wont solve 50% difference between same barracks level of 2 players in different chapter, which is a big problem from balancing perspective)
The past has proved that you have problem with balancing properly on first try, 1 year ago when you introduced tournaments for first time can be an example, prime example is now announced AW redesign, while it was obvious from the start that some bonuses will become obsolete pretty fast.
Another problem with current numbers is that fighters are limited with our barracks (MC, TG) + corresponding AWs while negotiators can earn extra goods from other sources (like scamming new player with cross tier ratios, wholesaler). I cant buy army with coins, nor i can trade different ones with others on market.
As i mentioned earlier, squad size research should be mandatory because people who already researched it have no way to drop that research, while others can skip it now and have much easier encounters.
Note: i have ignored leveling Needles of the Tempest in this example
I do have a a problem with bigger squad sizes being based on OPTIONAL techs. That means i could just make a new account skip all the optional ones, and have an way easier tournament then i have now.
Making the optional techs obligated is probably the way you will solve it, but thats still better then it is now
Or they could add a way to un-research these technologies. Heaven knows these techs are useless fighting on the world map, but then to find out that they actually HURT you in the tourney is the worst.
Please, don't punish players for researching the optional techs.
@Marindor
Another issue I find EXTREMELY annoying is unannounced changes to scouted provinces. Exmples:
1) After they were added to the game Mist Walkers appeared in some previously scouted provinces, replacing the Archers/Bandits that were there originally.
2) Now Valorian Guards have appeared in some previously scouted provinces, replacing the Heavy Melee units that were there before. For example, in a Marble province where I have completed 5 out of 8 Ecnounters I now have to fight:
- Valorian Guard x22, Mist Walker x 68, Mist Walker x 68, Mist Walker x 68, Orc General II x68, Orc General II x68, and Orc General II x68
- Cannoneer x25, Valorian Guard x25, Mist Walker x76, Mist Walker x76, Orc General II x76 and Orc General II x76
- Valorian Guard x20, Valorian Guard x20, Mist Walker x 62, Mist Walker x 62, Mist Walker x 62, Mist Walker x 62, Orc General II x62, Orc General II x62
Once we have scouted a province we are SUPPOSEDLY stuck with it and no changes are possible - yet we get new units in those same scouted provinces! And those new units "just happen" to be better* than the units previously there, so the difficulty increases! At least have the decency to announce such changes instead of letting us find out the hard way, please.
*There's a whole thread dedicated to Mist Walkers and why they are better than other Light Ranged units, so I'm not going to repeat what's been said. As for Valorian Guards, they have range 2 (same as Knights and Paladins), Strike Back (like all melee units), and... size 6, same as Treants and Paladins, which also comes with appropriate base stats. So basically better than Knights, and much better than Swamp Monsters. And we start meeting them long before we get to Sorcerers and Dragons (I am currently near the end of Chapter V). Not so bad for Humans, since they have their Priests, but definitely makes things a bit more difficult for Elves.
Edit: not with an explanation at release but you can also prepare the players in advance by showing them where the problems in the game are and that your looking for a solution, that way players already know that you are working on something and a change doesnt come as a "suprise" to them.
Its a shame the Q&A session are so dominated by certain questions often even repeats of the same question. I would love to see a Q&A where a variety of questions are asked from players such as yourself and other forum users. I think it was Timon who said "no hard questions" but I am sure there would be harder ones from a prepared Q&A and one that provides far more useful information to a variety of players on a variety of topics.
I understand they still need to filter questions but I think we would see improved communication as a result. There has been so much speculation for the tournaments and anxiety as a result due to the communication issues and the responses about KP and wonders and future updates raises more concerns in my mind than answers.
@Marindor
That's not what I'm talking about! I have no problem encountering these units in NEW provinces, i.e. provinces scouted after the update.
The problem is, these units appear in OLD provinces, i.e. provinces scouted BEFORE the update. The Marble province from my example was scouted WEEKS ago. At the time there were no Valorian Guards there. Even after Sorcerers and Dragons were released there were no Valorian Guards there. Now suddenly there are. THAT'S what I'm talking about. Why are NEW units appearing in previously scouted provinces (replacing the old units that were there)?
I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect the excuse will likely be something along the lines of: "Due to technical reasons (read: poor planning and thus poor implementation by the devs) we cannot replace only the units in new provinces - at least not without doing a full rewrite of that part of the game, which is just not feasible at this time". Still, if that is the reason - say so, please.
Not sure he overlooked your post since your post came after the feedback was posted, but that doesn't matter.
Maybe i can clarify this:
The squad size in tournament goes up, with every squad size upgrade you research. Of course at the start it goes up slower (maybe you need 2 or 3 then before the numbers actually change), but at the end of the research tree, every squad size upgrade will make an impact.
Not sure he overlooked your post since your post came after the feedback was posted, but that doesn't matter.
Maybe i can clarify this:
The squad size in tournament goes up, with every squad size upgrade you research. Of course at the start it goes up slower (maybe you need 2 or 3 then before the numbers actually change), but at the end of the research tree, every squad size upgrade will make an impact.
Then all squad size research needs to be made mandatory.
Personally, I have never figured out fighting in this game - only negotiate in the provinces - at least before I got TOO far out - and autofight the tourney. I participate in the tourney strictly for KP and the occasional rune. However, I am also a bit of a completeist and I do complete every research in the tree - even the optional ones. Not only have you taken my primary motivation to participate in the tourney away by drastically reducing the amount of KP that can be won in the individual rewards - put you have but me at a serious disadvantage - just because I choose to complete all research - even if it was something that wasn't required and which actually doesn't help me since I don't fight in the provinces.
Not sure he overlooked your post since your post came after the feedback was posted, but that doesn't matter.
Maybe i can clarify this:
The squad size in tournament goes up, with every squad size upgrade you research. Of course at the start it goes up slower (maybe you need 2 or 3 then before the numbers actually change), but at the end of the research tree, every squad size upgrade will make an impact.
But that would mean that players who skipped squad size upgrades have an advantage over players who dutiful researched all the squad size upgrades. So the latter spend more kps, more goods and more time on it, and are now paying yet another extra prize for it This hardly seems fair to me Especially not, since I have no real use for the squad size anymore since I've scouted to far and are facing enemies 200-250% stronger
I'm not sure skipping squad size would help. I believe the enemy squad is based on your farthest point of research, in which case skipping those upgrades would hurt rahter than help the player.
I'm not sure skipping squad size would help. I believe the enemy squad is based on your farthest point of research, in which case skipping those upgrades would hurt rahter than help the player.
