Discussion Fellowship Adventures

[CrazyWizard]

I am not quite sure how bringing the residue badge to a better balance would cause the slumming of the old FA.

Do one path on each map is a fairly moot point in that there are lots of choices about how to do that and there is quite enough of all badges with fairly minor adjustments to be able to that, however for FA that wish to compete in the FA, well, you will need to convert land to level 1 workshops and level 1 manufacturers, and put out extra level 1 that are fully leveled. But I think whether you do that is really limited by what you can get from the residue and the degree to which you are will to burn your tournament for an FA.

Balance is what you make of it. if it's "out of balance" then you do something that makes it go out of balance. in the end you decide balance.

but to anwer your question.

If you can make lets say 100 residue badges, then you need xx worshops / factories to complelent those 100 badges.
Now lets day "for balance" we make it 400 badges, you now need 4x the amount of workshops/factories to complement 4 times the badges.

So the more you can make of the weakest link the more "slumm" you need to complement it.
Residue is for now the weakest link and therefore it decides how much of the rest you need. there is little point in "collecting more" of other things that you could use because of the weakest link.

Also do not forget this is the first FA in this new format, you can bet your ass that in the next one more fellowships will be much better prepared.
For some groups this also might be the perfect opportunity to do something with all the diamonds they collect in the spire between FA. and I have already seen players with 1500+ CC to expect more of those kind of players.
So next time we might see much crazier scores than this time, and still some very decent slumms.

Plenty of fellowships got taken off guard by these changes, but for a run of the mill fellowship I find this variant so much more fun for every member of a fellowship compared to the former ones. It's also doable for most "active fellowships", and create a challenge for the smaller ones to work at.

Off course I do understand this is a shock for the most active FA fellowships so far. they dailed in there workflow and now they need to adapt and it feels strange and unnatural. it requires more "city" and less slumm. but with adaptation they will again go crazy soon enough and build ridicule scores as well.

 

[edeba]

Balance is what you make of it. if it's "out of balance" then you do something that makes it go out of balance. in the end you decide balance.

but to anwer your question.

If you can make lets say 100 residue badges, then you need xx worshops / factories to complelent those 100 badges.
Now lets day "for balance" we make it 400 badges, you now need 4x the amount of workshops/factories to complement 4 times the badges.

So the more you can make of the weakest link the more "slumm" you need to complement it.
Residue is for now the weakest link and therefore it decides how much of the rest you need. there is little point in "collecting more" of other things that you could use because of the weakest link.

Also do not forget this is the first FA in this new format, you can bet your ass that in the next one more fellowships will be much better prepared.
For some groups this also might be the perfect opportunity to do something with all the diamonds they collect in the spire between FA. and I have already seen players with 1500+ CC to expect more of those kind of players.
So next time we might see much crazier scores than this time, and still some very decent slumms.

Plenty of fellowships got taken off guard by these changes, but for a run of the mill fellowship I find this variant so much more fun for every member of a fellowship compared to the former ones. It's also doable for most "active fellowships", and create a challenge for the smaller ones to work at.

Off course I do understand this is a shock for the most active FA fellowships so far. they dailed in there workflow and now they need to adapt and it feels strange and unnatural. it requires more "city" and less slumm. but with adaptation they will again go crazy soon enough and build ridicule scores as well.

I think you've kind of made my point... If you are wanting to compete to win, you will try to match your badges, but even though you can adjust to make more BS, etc., the residue limits how far you can go. The time instants required to up the residue will slaughter the tournament.

My live FA was really looking forward to playing a strong FA at some point in the future, but combined the new tournament and new FA, well, I feel like the tournament is about 100 times more dependent on resources than it used to be so actually deciding to turn my city into a slum for a planned effort to compete didn't hurt my tournament at all. We had a lot of fun, which I never thought I would say about an FA. However, trashing CC for useless spells to get residue harms the tournament. Using timers to increase the number of residue instead of using for military harms the tournament. Everything about the tournament changes has astronomically increased the need for all the of the resources your city provides, so doing anything to take away from that hurt the tournament. My interest in competing in the FA has really taken a nose dive when I consider the costs of doing so. We were able to work together and support any player that was hurt by going all out to compete, and that's not possible any more because everyone's tournament is harmed from this, and I think the residue is the most harmful. I just realized with the collective of the changes to both the tournament and the FA my interest in the FA as anything more than just getting through it is pretty low.

 

[CrazyWizard]

I think you've kind of made my point... If you are wanting to compete to win, you will try to match your badges, but even though you can adjust to make more BS, etc., the residue limits how far you can go. The time instants required to up the residue will slaughter the tournament.

My live FA was really looking forward to playing a strong FA at some point in the future, but combined the new tournament and new FA, well, I feel like the tournament is about 100 times more dependent on resources than it used to be so actually deciding to turn my city into a slum for a planned effort to compete didn't hurt my tournament at all. We had a lot of fun, which I never thought I would say about an FA. However, trashing CC for useless spells to get residue harms the tournament. Using timers to increase the number of residue instead of using for military harms the tournament. Everything about the tournament changes has astronomically increased the need for all the of the resources your city provides, so doing anything to take away from that hurt the tournament. My interest in competing in the FA has really taken a nose dive when I consider the costs of doing so. We were able to work together and support any player that was hurt by going all out to compete, and that's not possible any more because everyone's tournament is harmed from this, and I think the residue is the most harmful. I just realized with the collective of the changes to both the tournament and the FA my interest in the FA as anything more than just getting through it is pretty low.

Guess to some extrend we are also looking at if from 2 different points.
I planned and motivated my fellowship twice, the very first FA and the very first FA that had the modern first prize building. we won twice.
besides that I never liked the FA, the idea that I should modify / destroy parts of my town (pre-teleport) was such a downer that I really did not like the FA.
The idea that the FA was based on city destruction instead of city building was really discouraging.
To a certain extend that still exists, as you said yourself, if you want to win the FA you still have to give up something else, in this case timeboosters you can also use in the tournaments.

What I love about this change that now without any destruction (or teleporting) in my town I can now play the FA, yes I cannot play for the first place, but now we can just play for the FA prizes without compromises.
If you play it "casual" instead of competitive you do not need to use a single timebooster, not a single diamond and 2 teleports for each player on average average will be enough to get the job done with ease.

I understand that if you go the competitive route at least for now it feels slow and draggy because of the the residue. everything goes fast but this one is holding you back.
It's one of the few things that are hard to work around, at least not without a "cost" involved.
Some like to be competitive in everything, but we already had plenty of FA specialised fellowships that could not compete in other area's guess to a certain extend that did not change. they in the end are still doing to be on top.

I would be in favour changing it to two craftings instead of 10VV, this guarantees 50-100 badges for the competitive fellowship a day with none/little time booster investment.

But this change is essentially what many people have asked for over the years.

• more diverse production
• something that stops the need for slumming like a madman
• ability to use all your badges in the end phase.

They have delivered exactly what many of us asked for since the introduction of it.
It would not like it if due to some complaints we would return tot the old format or something that resembles that.

Let these changes work out, give people time to adjust to them and then look at it again.
Lets say halfway next year after we had a handfull of them.

 

[edeba]

Guess to some extrend we are also looking at if from 2 different points.
I planned and motivated my fellowship twice, the very first FA and the very first FA that had the modern first prize building. we won twice.
besides that I never liked the FA, the idea that I should modify / destroy parts of my town (pre-teleport) was such a downer that I really did not like the FA.
The idea that the FA was based on city destruction instead of city building was really discouraging.
To a certain extend that still exists, as you said yourself, if you want to win the FA you still have to give up something else, in this case timeboosters you can also use in the tournaments.

What I love about this change that now without any destruction (or teleporting) in my town I can now play the FA, yes I cannot play for the first place, but now we can just play for the FA prizes without compromises.
If you play it "casual" instead of competitive you do not need to use a single timebooster, not a single diamond and 2 teleports for each player on average average will be enough to get the job done with ease.

I understand that if you go the competitive route at least for now it feels slow and draggy because of the the residue. everything goes fast but this one is holding you back.
It's one of the few things that are hard to work around, at least not without a "cost" involved.
Some like to be competitive in everything, but we already had plenty of FA specialised fellowships that could not compete in other area's guess to a certain extend that did not change. they in the end are still doing to be on top.

I would be in favour changing it to two craftings instead of 10VV, this guarantees 50-100 badges for the competitive fellowship a day with none/little time booster investment.

But this change is essentially what many people have asked for over the years.

• more diverse production
• something that stops the need for slumming like a madman
• ability to use all your badges in the end phase.

They have delivered exactly what many of us asked for since the introduction of it.
It would not like it if due to some complaints we would return tot the old format or something that resembles that.

Let these changes work out, give people time to adjust to them and then look at it again.
Lets say halfway next year after we had a handfull of them.

Yes, I was in a FS that won when they had better prizes and I also have 1 first and 2 seconds currently in my inventory. Dreading the idea of doing another FA with pressure to win was one of the reasons I changed FS. But then I was in a FS where the planning was so good, and with the new way to grab badges, even though it is awful that they didn't take it a step up and let you go in, collect, and then make your badges from what you collected, it is good enough to compete and not bring up bile at the thought. So then my current FS attempted to win an FA this summer and we didn't make by about 1%. It was so close, and we had a lot of fun and decided we'd like to make another go at some time. So, even though you can still play without changing your city as much, I think it is probably the changes to the tournament that makes resources necessary that's turning me off the competition idea. There's just no question the residue wastes really important resources if you are intent on competing, and 2 recipes would not fix that. I have not yet during this event required 3 recipes for a residue, and I have gotten some with just one. I think that suggestion would actually make it worse.

 

[Karvest]

New FA is a good time to use your diamonds from spire to get more expiring buildings in MA. That will make you stronger in tournaments.

 

[guivou]

and don't forget with 100 vv the chest opening with quite often 500 diamonds to win...

 

[Lelanya]

I still think the Residue makes fools of us all. Without some adjustment this is is just one more element in an abusive cycle to push Spire ever harder in our faces.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I still think the Residue makes fools of us all. Without some adjustment this is is just one more element in an abusive cycle to push Spire ever harder in our faces.

But... it's good for you. You should do the spire.

 

[CrazyWizard]

It's such a shame not everyone loves the spire.
Iove it, free time boosters, free CC, Free fragments, Free buildings and free diamonds

It's a honey pot a treasure throve. who doesn't like treasures.

Yarrr

 

[Heymrdiedier]

It's such a shame not everyone loves the spire.
Iove it, free time boosters, free CC, Free fragments, Free buildings and free diamonds

It's a honey pot a treasure throve. who doesn't like treasures.

View attachment 8370
Yarrr

I hated spire since the beginning, because I felt it was too expensive. Now that they made tournament use the same formula i started hating tournament as well. So I guess I hated it because I wasnt in the desired city advancement that inno wants me to be in now. too bad for me

 

[Lelanya]

Oh I do Spire, every week. I just don't think I should HAVE to. There is increasing pressure from all quarters to make it a necessary part of the weekly grind, and now FA is part of this, sadly.

 

[edeba]

I hated spire since the beginning, because I felt it was too expensive. Now that they made tournament use the same formula i started hating tournament as well. So I guess I hated it because I wasnt in the desired city advancement that inno wants me to be in now. too bad for me

I agree that the spire is expensive, but it does have great rewards, but there isn't the payback from the rewards in the FA like there is in the tournament.

I was looking at the balance again and I think going from 5 to 10 workshops for a farmer was a bad move.

With the new set up 3 t1, which is 6 squares, makes a necklace, whereas you need 5 workshops, which is 20 squares, or about 3x the land resources, so blacksmiths are 3 times more difficult to make than necklaces. Statues take 2 days and use 4 squares, so an 8 square equivalent.

I think what they should have done is left the farmers and adjusted the BS to 2 x 24 hour workshops, which is right in the middle of the necklaces and statues. This would do a much better job of pushing the land use to beneficial and actually balance the badge difficulty.

And then thinking about it, using t2 and t3 goods for a badge would be more line with actually playing the game. And goods from the crystal lighthouse chests and the wholesaler should count.

 

[galrond]

It's such a shame not everyone loves the spire.
Iove it, free time boosters, free CC, Free fragments, Free buildings and free diamonds

It's a honey pot a treasure throve. who doesn't like treasures.

View attachment 8370
Yarrr

Shame on you @CrazyWizard . You forgot to mention free teleports
Hehe I DO like the spire.
But I don´t think it´s free in any way
My two live cities do 2/3 the spire, and my beta do 1/3 the spire.
My biggest city can at times be a bit pressed on sentient goods, but does is without serious problems.
My other city is pressed on goods, and it hampers my tournament effort.
My beta city is pressed on goods, and it hamperes my tournament and map progression.
The main reason I do spire, is the chance to get magic residence/workshop, and the diamonds are welcome too.
My live cities got the timeboosters, CC, fragments, and teleports they need (thx to spire). My beta city could still use some more.
I know, that I´m a "bit" conservative in my use of the above
So it´s not the ability to make the emblems on live, that´s my problem. It´s the thought of making JUNK, that I have NO use for. I can´t help thinking, that I should make better use of CC/fragments, than making relics, and buildings to scrap

 

[PaNonymeB]

And then thinking about it, using t2 and t3 goods for a badge would be more line with actually playing the game. And goods from the crystal lighthouse chests and the wholesaler should count.

Definitely agree for the crystal lighthouse goods (I'm complaining about supplies I get from ToS not being counted since produce supplies quests appeared in events), but less about the wholesaler. It literally makes throwing goods away a way to get more bracelets. There's very little difference between replacing everything with level 1 factories and trading the goods you get in the wholesaler.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I hated spire since the beginning, because I felt it was too expensive.

It's harder to judge with goods, but for troops, it's not expensive at all, since you can turn a profit.
The catch is that it just takes a little investment.

Once you craft a few UUU&ELR&MMM and save up some troops you make a push all the way up. Place those buildings on a Thursday or Friday so that they are good for 2 spires. You can bypass all of the gates using timer boosts since the spire gives more timers as rewards than it costs, and you can replenish troops with the excess timers if needed. If you do this you get a 12-day break from the spire after the second one too.

Completing the spire can give DAs to help with sustainability as do the CCs & SF from the set and encounters.
Winning Magic residences and workshops is huge too especially in later chapters where replacing a normal workshop is like getting a free expansion.

The diamonds are the biggest draw though where aside from the guaranteed ones you can also get Genies. Crafting in the MA is fantastic too, even if the recipes aren't great or your inventory is full or PP, if you craft a few recipes every day you get hundreds of free diamonds from the Mysterious object every month.

If I couldn't afford to do the Spire and tournament I would go so far as skip the tournament until I had my sustainable profitable spire set up.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

It's harder to judge with goods, but for troops, it's not expensive at all, since you can turn a profit.
The catch is that it just takes a little investment.

Once you craft a few UUU&ELR&MMM and save up some troops you make a push all the way up. Place those buildings on a Thursday or Friday so that they are good for 2 spires. You can bypass all of the gates using timer boosts since the spire gives more timers as rewards than it costs, and you can replenish troops with the excess timers if needed. If you do this you get a 12-day break from the spire after the second one too.

Completing the spire can give DAs to help with sustainability as do the CCs & SF from the set and encounters.
Winning Magic residences and workshops is huge too especially in later chapters where replacing a normal workshop is like getting a free expansion.

The diamonds are the biggest draw though where aside from the guaranteed ones you can also get Genies. Crafting in the MA is fantastic too, even if the recipes aren't great or your inventory is full or PP, if you craft a few recipes every day you get hundreds of free diamonds from the Mysterious object every month.

If I couldn't afford to do the Spire and tournament I would go so far as skip the tournament until I had my sustainable profitable spire set up.

Don't worry about me, its not because i hate it, that i don't do it. I've climbed to the top every single week since its release. In the beginning i catered only, now i fight mostly and cater only sometimes. I dont use any boosters, its not even needed. To be honest its easy compared to fighting in tournament now

I even do the spire on more accounts, but I've found that the fighting part is only a good option with 3 star units, and that's only later in the chapters...

 

[edeba]

Definitely agree for the crystal lighthouse goods (I'm complaining about supplies I get from ToS not being counted since produce supplies quests appeared in events), but less about the wholesaler. It literally makes throwing goods away a way to get more bracelets. There's very little difference between replacing everything with level 1 factories and trading the goods you get in the wholesaler.

You can use coin and supplies to make goods with the wholesaler. I wasn't thinking about the trading goods for good part of the wholesaler, but if goods from the wholesaler counted and someone wanted to throw goods away to make a badge, well, I don't see that as a problem, but rather a choice.

 

[edeba]

I was looking at the balance again and I think going from 5 to 10 workshops for a farmer was a bad move.

With the new set up 3 t1, which is 6 squares, makes a necklace, whereas you need 5 workshops, which is 20 squares, or about 3x the land resources, so blacksmiths are 3 times more difficult to make than necklaces. Statues take 2 days and use 4 squares, so an 8 square equivalent.

I think what they should have done is left the farmers and adjusted the BS to 2 x 24 hour workshops, which is right in the middle of the necklaces and statues. This would do a much better job of pushing the land use to beneficial and actually balance the badge difficulty.

And then thinking about it, using t2 and t3 goods for a badge would be more line with actually playing the game. And goods from the crystal lighthouse chests and the wholesaler should count.

I did a bit of exploring for competition FA level and it really does confirm my position that going from 5 to 10 workshops for farms was a mistake. Taking the BS from 5 to 2 workshops and putting the farmers back a 5 would reduce this, and subbing out one or two of these badges for a t2/3 badge, or a t2 and a t3 badge

And, as predicted, there's a bunch of t1 for the bracelets that aren't finished leveling, but these are in addition to 6-7 that are fully leveled that aren't included in this picture.

 

[Maillie]

In one of my live cities, in fact my largest city, we are still not close to finishing the green row in the third map. We are well within the top 100 fellowships. What this tells me is that there is a possibility that a LOT of players that may not see the final prize. We don't have any exclusively "event" cities in our fellowship, and we have a mix of very large and very small cities, but we almost always make it to the pit, and often have finished the entire third map. Not this time. Not even close. I have a great group of players, some of whom have been there for well over 4 years, and we always had such fun with this. Not this time. Not even close. We have finished in the top 10 before. Not this time.

If we're in the top 100 in the largest live world and stuck 1/2 way up the green row there is something that needs to be adjusted here. Farmers needs to return to what it was, and the amounts to secure the bracelets and VV is still way off. I time boosted a totally useless 4th tier one to max level for chapter 17 and they are still not enough and I'm running out of pet food, which shows up in crafting rarely, and I'm running dangerously low on decent time boosts. (Yes, I'm expecting arguments on that one from people insisting that they get pet food in crafting 6 times a day, but I certainly don't.)

This has taken a lot of our fun away. We're not a tournament based top fellowship, we're the average team of players that used to do very well in this event. Not this time. Not even remotely close. Think of the hundreds of fellowships that are behind us in the standings.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

In one of my live cities, in fact my largest city, we are still not close to finishing the green row in the third map. We are well within the top 100 fellowships. What this tells me is that there is a possibility that a LOT of players that may not see the final prize. We don't have any exclusively "event" cities in our fellowship, and we have a mix of very large and very small cities, but we almost always make it to the pit, and often have finished the entire third map. Not this time. Not even close. I have a great group of players, some of whom have been there for well over 4 years, and we always had such fun with this. Not this time. Not even close. We have finished in the top 10 before. Not this time.

If we're in the top 100 in the largest live world and stuck 1/2 way up the green row there is something that needs to be adjusted here. Farmers needs to return to what it was, and the amounts to secure the bracelets and VV is still way off. I time boosted a totally useless 4th tier one to max level for chapter 17 and they are still not enough and I'm running out of pet food, which shows up in crafting rarely, and I'm running dangerously low on decent time boosts. (Yes, I'm expecting arguments on that one from people insisting that they get pet food in crafting 6 times a day, but I certainly don't.)

This has taken a lot of our fun away. We're not a tournament based top fellowship, we're the average team of players that used to do very well in this event. Not this time. Not even remotely close. Think of the hundreds of fellowships that are behind us in the standings.

If you say you have a mix of small and large city then this should benefit you more then top scoring Fellowships. The small citys are the one who should be making the bracelets only since they require lots less manufactories per bracelet. While the big citys can focus on spending their space for lots of lvl 1 factories/workshops.
I don't know how you guys handled it- you probably did it as i suggested, but if you let the small citys build the lvl 1 buildings then its gonna be hard to get everything you need indeed. You need to divide the badges and do more teamwork.