Discussion Release Notes version 0.28

[DeletedUser118]

Maybe change the priorities?
It is not only the beta server where players are unhappy about inactive players and holes in their neighbourhood, but very likely it's the worst here.

This is roughly how our populated area looks like:

[tr1][td]

[/td][td]Estimated 2-4k players in the well populated green center.

The other 8-10k players scattered in the blue area[/td][/tr1]

Seeing all that sand, it rather makes me feel like being on Dune instead of Elvenar... I wonder how long it takes till we can research sandworms.

Seriously, please do something about the map and the gaps. It was probably meant to be a nice solution for some problems but its not helping us at all nor does it solve any problems for us. Its rather making it worse.

 

[DeletedUser651]

I have an idea....it isn't a good solution, but it would help the beta players.....

How about bringing BACK the inactives and populating the world with them. Then....as someone said....don't delete them until you have new people to replace them? I also think the same policy should be followed on the live servers...don't delete anyone until you have a replacement. It can't be that hard to do. The code simply states that if they don't play then they get slated for deleting and if they are slated for deleting then they get deleted in some order if and only if a new player joins.

Don't worry if you think this still isn't fair, because frankly, 90% of any neighborhood is filled with inactive players. The difference between having inactives vs having actives is small....maybe you get another 5 people helping you back and you get a few tiny supplies when you visit them. The difference between having inactives and non existents is simply enormous. You are giving some players MILLIONS of more coins than others. Then the devs get so confused as to why some are complaining so much. I simply adored all that Phil wrote!!!!

So please, bring back the inactives, or put bots in their place or something. Otherwise it is like inviting players to play poker and some players are given cards from a deck that contains aces and facecards while others see nothing but cards in the 2-9 range. Good luck playing against each other.

 

[Muf-Muf]

The brown gaps in the map on places where inactive players were deleted are a bug and it has been forwarded for fixing earlier today.

 

[DeletedUser118]

That's good to hear.

Aside of Bobbykittys idea you could also use my idea with the dwarven cities to replace the lost players. Maybe not all of them with quests, so ppl can only get Coins from them, too when visiting them.

 

[DeletedUser283]

... and that's a good thing

now about the way the map appears after the update, considering how it looks on my 21" screen, I feel the pain of those of us who play on a laptop;
the map did not become clearer in anyway, and we now have less of it;
I see it as a "quick fix" from the dev team : "ok, so they experience issues when moving around the map ? well, let's show less of it so that is uses less memory"
suggestions have been posted for having a minimap or a zoom, and it is high time to think about it !

 

[DeletedUser651]

We didn't say that anyone exploited these quests. The changes were made in order to prevent exploits.

I will say it until I am blue in the face: No one can EXPLOIT anything if they are playing the game the way it is designed. Maybe it is a language barrier. But the word exploit is very negative. It means to take advantage of someone normally for malicious purposes. Additionally, the word puts the blame for the potential situation on the players....it is their fault because they are doing something or might do something.

How about phrasing it like this? These changes were made because the devs realized they messed up and they designed the game incorrectly. The devs realized they created an imbalance that they needed to change. The devs realized that they can't make money this way and had to tweak it. The devs MADE A MISTAKE. Then...if you really want to be a good company, you could APOLOGIZE to the players for the mistake that the company made.

Do you see the difference I am talking about? I am not talking about the silly quests, I am talking about a difference in attitude towards customers. In the way you all keep talking about it, WE are the one to blame. WE might exploit you poor pitiful game owner victims and WE have to be stopped before we harm you. In my way, you all are grateful that anyone plays your game, you court players, and you treat people with respect all the while knowing that any errors in how people are steered to play this game lie in the hands of the ones on the steering wheel. When you make mistakes, as we all do, then you as a company can do something to fix that error.

Instead of worrying about how you might get "exploited" how about instead worrying about how you are going to make things up to the players that are now unhappy with all these changes you keep foisting on them? That is if your goal is to KEEP customers. If you don't care if anyone pays you money or gives you good reviews or is a happy customer....then...ignore everything I said.

Which type of attitude is likely to make you more money? Which one is going to make your money? Which one is completely true?

I am not complaining, I am simply trying to help this game and this company.

 

[DeletedUser629]

I will say it until I am blue in the face

You're an elf, you've been blue in the face since you started playing this game

 

[DeletedUser651]

@Goryn Rofl! Well said.

 

[Lissona]

Don't worry if you think this still isn't fair, because frankly, 90% of any neighborhood is filled with inactive players. The difference between having inactives vs having actives is small....maybe you get another 5 people helping you back and you get a few tiny supplies when you visit them. The difference between having inactives and non existents is simply enormous. You are giving some players MILLIONS of more coins than others. Then the devs get so confused as to why some are complaining so much. I simply adored all that Phil wrote!!!!

I don't know how many neighbours I have, cause I don't visit them for polishing (I would if there would be a possibility like in FoE). And only 1 or 2 are visiting me.

But - I do not have any problems with coins, supplies and goods. Regarding coins/supplies I produce enough or too much for myself (with 100%/125%) for research/buildings/scouting. Goods were a problem - especially Elixier, but after a strict reorganisation of our fellowship (removing the ones who were inactive and getting new members) even this problem was solved easily days ago.

For players in fellowships with a small amount of members, players who are playing alone or are just playing for lets say 2 hours in the evening (which perhaps is even the majority on normal serves but on the other hand don't have problems with the neighbours on the normal servers) - I can see that there is a problem with the neighbourhood, the coins/supply and the correspondig goods - but for players who really invest a lot of time in the game on Beta , there isn't any problem (if they are willing to adapt their playstyle to the environmental conditions).

 

[DeletedUser240]

The new map sucks , it's more difficult to find open provincies or area's to scout. A time ago i posted the suggestion to implement a button next to the scout to scroll through the available provincies to scout. When you have more then 150 provincies this should be very helpfull

 

[DeletedUser651]

for players who really invest a lot of time in the game on Beta , there isn't any problem (if they are willing to adapt their playstyle to the environmental conditions).

There is adapting to environmental conditions and then there is simply trying to survive. If you have a level 15 main hall you get 13,200 coins a day per each player visited. When you scout it costs a lot of investment, but what you get in return are more neighbors discovered and a chance to make 13,200 coins off of each one of them every day. Some players have scouted 200 provinces and their world map looks like this with this many opportunities to make 13,200:

Others, such as Spinster, have a neighborhood that looks like this:

As I stated earlier....it isn't just "adapting", one of these players lives in a thriving metropolis, the other is lucky to see a mirage. Poor Spinster! That neighborhood is so sad!! If we can donate KP to each other, I think we should be able to donate coins and supplies! (Passing the hat around for Spinster).

 

[DeletedUser538]

New suggestion for missing neighbors and making the game fair for every player when it comes to being able to gain the bonus for NH:
https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/make-provinces-independent-of-players.3640/

 

[DeletedUser778]

Is it intended that you can't see wonders in the background with graphics set to low?
I normally play with animations off (aka low graphics now), because all the little movements in my city would drive me insane, but I can't see the wonders in the background then. That is sad, since they are not animated (at least I saw no animation).
If I switch to high graphics all the wonders appear in the background.

 

[DeletedUser762]

so, when are you going to change it back to normal (the map)? it's awful and as you an see from above it's 99% negative feed back.

 

[DeletedUser]

How often you get new neighbours depends on your location on the map. Unfortunately, there aren't enough new players coming to beta to fill all the gaps.
The 24 hour quests were meant to give players who have difficulties trading their goods an option to gain a small amount of non-boosted goods. They were not meant to be used as primary source of goods income by building 30 tier 1 factories and put them all on a 24 hour cycle.

Is there no way to just limit the number of times a player could use the goods quests in a 24 hour period? I don't play much on Beta but I do play and have fellowships on the US servers. I work to make sure we have a balanced portfolio of goods boosts to ensure smooth trade within the guild. We've managed pretty well and climbed into the top 20 and I think we are structured in much the way the Dev's envisioned. I have used the goods quest to help out when there was an imbalance that was severe. Not 30 buildings. Maybe I had 3-4. Just enough to keep us going until we could sort it out. I would have traded for the goods, even with a 50% fee but somehow, yet again, the neighborhood had the same deficit of producers.
I understand not wanting an exploitable avenue that alters the dynamics in a severe way but is there no way to just limit excessive use?

 

[DeletedUser]

Still Hoping that dev's change their mind about reverting back to the Old Map soon ...Its really being very difficult to browse the map, look for provinces to scout or fight with the current framed set-up ... To know how difficult it is to see the map on a 15" inch screen laptop, I have already submitted a picture in my previous post ... Waiting for a positive response from the dev's side.

 

[DeletedUser613]

Well, I had a fully developed city using the maximum population and space when I reached the end of the tech tree, so basically stopped playing until new spaces and techs arrived as I had also used all the space available foe expansion in my city. Once the new tech arrived and extra spaces I started to play again, once I had researched dwarven workshop, dwarven residence and dwarven style plank manufactory, I started to undertake a massive redevelopment of my city which is still ongoing. In order to undertake this I deleted all decorations and just kept the major cultural buildings, I also enlarged my city space by a total of 6 expansions (working on a seventh but having to negotiate and trade for the expansions as troops unable to conquer any more)

At the start of the redevelopment I had 25 tier 15 residences and an indeterminate number of tier 8 residences (more than 16 but not sure how many as some have been deleted, possibly as many as 25 in total) These have now been replaced with 32 tier 16, 2 tier 17 and 7 that are working through tiers 10-15.

workshops - I had 2 tier 15, 15 tier 10 and 7 tier 6/7 which gave me enough supplies for all the needs I had, the current workshops are now 3 tier 17, 6 tier 11 to 14, 9 tier 10 and 7 tier 6 and I am still coming up short because of the redevelopment

Plank manufactories - 3 tier 15 and 3 tier 9, these have been replaced with 4 tier 16

The bulk of the additional space (150 squares) has been taken up by the addition of a level 2 portal (9 squares) , 7 marble (42 squares), 13 portal alley and 2 premium cultural (21 squares)

Also, because my redevelopment is still ongoing and will probably not be complete for at least another 2 weeks, I currently have 119 unused spaces because of the fact that buildings are constantly being upgraded

 

[Muf-Muf]

so, when are you going to change it back to normal (the map)? it's awful and as you an see from above it's 99% negative feed back.

Still Hoping that dev's change their mind about reverting back to the Old Map soon ...Its really being very difficult to browse the map, look for provinces to scout or fight with the current framed set-up ... To know how difficult it is to see the map on a 15" inch screen laptop, I have already submitted a picture in my previous post ... Waiting for a positive response from the dev's side.

We will not be reverting to the old map, but we will improve our current map. We have heard your feedback and we are considering our options. One of those would be to make the new border thinner, so that it won't hinder the world map's visibility. This will require some work from our art team, so we won't be able to offer that immediately.

 

[DeletedUser118]

Could you also please attach arrows so you can move around on the map without having to click on it? In 9 out of 10 cases you always end up accidently either inside a city or a province you never wanted to visit.

 

[DeletedUser503]

The trader now shows trades that have already been accepted.
Click on 'Accept' and message reads" trade has already been accepted
by another member."
Why is it still there then ? LOL