Discussion Tournament Changes (post-release)

[SoggyShorts]

That's an excellent point @MinMax Gamer .
Could it be so simple as to beef up the barracks speed for levels 38+?
I had all of my calculations for how progressing through chapter 16 would affect me posted in one of the 19 different tournament threads but can't seem to find them...

 

[PaNonymeB]

I think focusing on changing the formula in a fundamental way right now is misguided. This ship has likely sailed. Think about it, if you're IG, you've spend presumably a lot of time and energy in revamping the tournaments/Spire, it's been running for months, and you're mostly satisfied with how things turned up, with a possible exception of discontent by a small group of players, at least at the moment? Would you jump in and completely redo the whole thing, something that touches multiple features and literally every single player (tournaments are available from the beginning)? This sounds quite unlikely.

There is an easier way to address disincentives to progress in the late game. Pretty much every other game does that, so I am not sure why it can't be done here. It's inflation, and it's very easy to implement in a localized fashion. You say that doing chapter 17 is not beneficial, because you'll get 20% penalty, but only 10% improvements (not real numbers)? Instead tinkering with penalty function (which is common for everyone, so changes are complicated), what if new chapter gives you 25% improvement? This is something that touches only the chapter in question; more importantly, this can be done for new chapters that no one have seen yet, so those numbers can be whatever they need to be. If you have to scale it exponentially, so what? Plenty of games do that.

Well, you won't fix everything this way. There's still the fundamental problem of regular squad size growing quadratically, while tournament squad size grows exponentially, meaning troop instants get worse late-game. And also the expansions thing, unless you want the 3 barracks not to be then main troop producers anymore expansions won't help producing more troops.

 

[Deleted User - 81190]

Well, you won't fix everything this way. There's still the fundamental problem of regular squad size growing quadratically, while tournament squad size grows exponentially, meaning troop instants get worse late-game. And also the expansions thing, unless you want the 3 barracks not to be then main troop producers anymore expansions won't help producing more troops.

A perfect world is also the one that generally does not exist. Troop instants are new, and are really not that important in the grand scheme of things. And no one said that squad size has to grow the way it does now. They can change future base squad sizes to whatever makes sense without affecting anything currently in the game.

As for expansions and AWs, they can calibrate as to what expected growth should be, and calibrate benefits to the expected penalty increase. Anyone grabbing more expansions/AW levels than that baseline would experience lower net benefit, and potentially net penalty. But this is pretty much what game designers intended, so nothing's unusual here. And no, it won't resolve the fact that not all AW levels contribute the same to the benefits. If they ever decide to open that can of worms that would be terrifying. If you think the current formula is bad, just wait until someone tries to weight different AW levels differently. That would be a nightmare, and I can guarantee that even fewer people would be happy with the end result - no matter what weighting would be used.

 

[PaNonymeB]

As for expansions and AWs, they can calibrate as to what expected growth should be, and calibrate benefits to the expected penalty increase. Anyone grabbing more expansions/AW levels than that baseline would experience lower net benefit, and potentially net penalty.

Do you mean here changing the formula so that expansions past a certain number count less than the first ones ?

 

[Deleted User - 81190]

Do you mean here changing the formula so that expansions past a certain number count less than the first ones ?

No, as I said, I don't see changing the formula as a viable option right now, especially when there are alternatives. What I am talking about is regular calibration of reward, i.e. if they expect you to add 3 expansions over a particular chapter, and that will add 5% penalty, then they can adjust rewards so that it would still make sense. If you add 7 expansions instead, you will see less net benefit, or even a penalty.

 

[edeba]

As for expansions and AWs, they can calibrate as to what expected growth should be, and calibrate benefits to the expected penalty increase. Anyone grabbing more expansions/AW levels than that baseline would experience lower net benefit, and potentially net penalty. But this is pretty much what game designers intended, so nothing's unusual here. And no, it won't resolve the fact that not all AW levels contribute the same to the benefits. If they ever decide to open that can of worms that would be terrifying. If you think the current formula is bad, just wait until someone tries to weight different AW levels differently. That would be a nightmare, and I can guarantee that even fewer people would be happy with the end result - no matter what weighting would be used.

If they went to just counting only one AW per chapter, whichever is at the greatest level, it would go a long way towards fixing the formula and adding a strategy. Some AWs might have benefits that are worthwhile as a second AW for the chapter that you wouldn't consider when you are trying to keep your squad size down.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

No, as I said, I don't see changing the formula as a viable option right now, especially when there are alternatives. What I am talking about is regular calibration of reward, i.e. if they expect you to add 3 expansions over a particular chapter, and that will add 5% penalty, then they can adjust rewards so that it would still make sense. If you add 7 expansions instead, you will see less net benefit, or even a penalty.

The one thing they could easily do is change it so that mandatory expansion research does not hit twice in the formula. Since it is a mandatory research, we get that increase, and then when we place the expansion, we get another increase. All expansion researches should be treated the same. An optional one only increases numbers when you place it, so the mandatory ones should work the same. I wonder how much of a reduction in squad size that would be for someone in chapter 17 after the final mandatory expansion research is completed?

 

[SoggyShorts]

If they went to just counting only one AW per chapter, whichever is at the greatest level, it would go a long way towards fixing the formula and adding a strategy. Some AWs might have benefits that are worthwhile as a second AW for the chapter that you wouldn't consider when you are trying to keep your squad size down.

You know that inno would probably make wonders count 100% more and then just count the highest one, right?

 

[PaNonymeB]

No, as I said, I don't see changing the formula as a viable option right now, especially when there are alternatives. What I am talking about is regular calibration of reward, i.e. if they expect you to add 3 expansions over a particular chapter, and that will add 5% penalty, then they can adjust rewards so that it would still make sense. If you add 7 expansions instead, you will see less net benefit, or even a penalty.

So best strategy would still be placing just the necessary expansions (even lower than the expected number), which we don't want. In my opinion they should just remove the expansion factor :

• Premium expansions shouldn't increase tournament difficulty
• Research expansions are unlocked through research
• Province expansions are linked to research too. It's hard to get many province expansions (many more than you're expected to have) if you're low chapter, because you need SS upgrades and advanced scouts to have easier time in provinces.

So it's research that allows having more expansions, meaning you can have high research and low expansions but not low research and high expansions. Thus they can remove expansions of the formula, and consider when scaling the benefits of upgrades that expansions are part of the benefits of research. This way,

• It's pointless to not place expansions and have less than the expected number for where you are
• It's very hard/impossible to get much more expansions than this expected number

 

[Deleted User - 81190]

So best strategy would still be placing just the necessary expansions (even lower than the expected number), which we don't want.

Why not, it is not much different than the well-established scouting setup. Every chapter you're supposed to scout/open some provinces. The more you scout, the more expensive and slower it becomes (so increasing penalty). But with increased chapters you get more gold/goods production and reduction of scouting costs. But you could overscout by a lot, and in this case you will have much harder time (incrementally). You can accept it as a cost of doing business, or you can pump the brakes and slow down your scouting, and over time chapter progress will get you back to easier completions, on a relative basis.

The point is, at all times you have incentive to move forward, chapter-wise, but you're strongly encouraged to keep your other parameters in certain bands with respect to that, or suffer the penalty. This way, it is easy to make sure that camping in low(er) chapters is detrimental, which I believe was one of the design goals.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

MinMax, I've been agreeing with you in everything you've posted in this thread the past couple of days, But I do want to react to this one.

This way, it is easy to make sure that camping in low(er) chapters is detrimental, which I believe was one of the design goals.

camping in low(er) chapter is currently not detrimental at all. In fact tournament is wayyy to easy in the early chapter and you would be stupid not to do it. For me the cost of tournament at end game feels redicilously high (hard), but in its early chapters its rediculously easy as well.

So if it was indeed a design goal, for me it feels like it failed and it has in fact even gotten easier then it used to be before the change.

 

[PaNonymeB]

The point is, at all times you have incentive to move forward, chapter-wise, but you're strongly encouraged to keep your other parameters in certain bands with respect to that, or suffer the penalty. This way, it is easy to make sure that camping in low(er) chapters is detrimental, which I believe was one of the design goals.

My point was about expansions, not chapter progress. With your proposal you're not ensuring that keeping a very small city (expansion-wise) is detrimantal.

 

[SoggyShorts]

So best strategy would still be placing just the necessary expansions (even lower than the expected number), which we don't want.

Indeed. I absolutely hate that I have earned expansions which I am choosing not to place. Expansions were always the ultimate reward, they are by far the most expensive diamond purchase, and space has always been the rarest commodity. Having such a disincentive as we have now makes the game much less enjoyable for me.

I have a fun little mini-game currently that keeps me going for now where I'm seeing how much I can fit in my cities without keeping any space for guest race buildings or even events. Seeds for upgrading 10 factories from zero to max is the current bottleneck, but once I have maxed out everything I can't imagine my interest will be held for long.

I left the game for a year because the next chapter wasn't going to be released for 100 days. With the current disincentives, the next chapter is infinite days away...

 

[Deleted User - 81190]

camping in low(er) chapter is currently not detrimental at all. In fact tournament is wayyy to easy in the early chapter and you would be stupid not to do it. For me the cost of tournament at end game feels redicilously high (hard), but in its early chapters its rediculously easy as well.

So if it was indeed a design goal, for me it feels like it failed and it has in fact even gotten easier then it used to be before the change.

That's my point, right now there are definitely incentives to camp. With a proper inflation of rewards when you progress this can be addressed.

My point was about expansions, not chapter progress. With your proposal you're not ensuring that keeping a very small city (expansion-wise) is detrimantal.

You do if you properly inflate the rewards. A small city that doesn't progress (in expansions/AW levels/research) would stay where it is, perhaps improving slightly by adding up some choice AWs. This is the current setup, and the only reason why this "staying small" works is because penalties for progress in chapters are higher than rewards of those chapters. If you inflate the chapter rewards, than this will no longer be the case. Progress in chapters generally requires adding expansions.

 

[CrazyWizard]

That's my point, right now there are definitely incentives to camp. With a proper inflation of rewards when you progress this can be addressed.


You do if you properly inflate the rewards. A small city that doesn't progress (in expansions/AW levels/research) would stay where it is, perhaps improving slightly by adding up some choice AWs. This is the current setup, and the only reason why this "staying small" works is because penalties for progress in chapters are higher than rewards of those chapters. If you inflate the chapter rewards, than this will no longer be the case. Progress in chapters generally requires adding expansions.

True but you gotta be carefull, part of the charm of the tournaments is that everyone can join in and have respectable contribution, no matter if you are in chapter 4 or chapter 15. this is something that should stay.

But I am all for "adjusting" training times to a point that no matter what you do it at least won't harm you.
so for chapter 16-17 it should at least compensate for 2 premium, 1 province and 2 research expansions, 70 wonderlevels and 29 researches.
a tiny bit more would be appreciated but not too much.

besides the training grounds they should also change armories, shrooms and bullwark to compensate for the speed increase as speed increase is nothig without the ability tot sustain it over night.

Last but not least improve supply production, especially on the lower chapters, for many before chapter 15, those triple production queue is like a red herring without the ability to create the supplies for all those units.

So it's not as simple as "change" the production units speeds, like always there is a cascading chain that needs to be prepared as well. there is never a 1 change fix as it creates problems down the chain.

 

[SoggyShorts]

But I am all for "adjusting" training times to a point that no matter what you do it at least won't harm you.
so for chapter 16-17 it should at least compensate for 2 premium, 1 province and 2 research expansions, 70 wonderlevels and 29 researches.
a tiny bit more would be appreciated but not too much.

I agree with this except for the wonder levels part. For players outside of the 0.1% maxing out every single wonder every level is unrealistic.
Gaining maybe 20 or 30 wonder levels while actually moving through chapters is high IMO.
I've been playing pretty solidly since 2016 with 1 year off and I'm at 150 to 200 AW levels

Hourly KP is ~9,000 per year and 5K tournament scores in a 10 chest FS is another ~15,000 for 24,000 total which is nowhere near taking 2 wonders from zero to max. 70 AW levels allowance per chapter is far too generous.

 

[Deleted User - 81190]

True but you gotta be carefull, part of the charm of the tournaments is that everyone can join in and have respectable contribution, no matter if you are in chapter 4 or chapter 15. this is something that should stay.

Sure, I am not saying inflation should be to infinity and beyond, that's where calibration comes in. Having said that, I am all for respectable contribution to FS efforts by the low(er) level players, but I don't think that chapter 3 players should be able to hit anywhere close to developed end-game player, this just makes not sense. And this is something that can happen in the current setup.

besides the training grounds they should also change armories, shrooms and bullwark to compensate for the speed increase as speed increase is nothig without the ability tot sustain it over night.

Sure, even though pure speed increase is still valuable just by itself. Even if you're able to produce exactly the same as before, with higher speed you need less total time to do that, meaning you're more flexible with your time. This has value.

Last but not least improve supply production, especially on the lower chapters, for many before chapter 15, those triple production queue is like a red herring without the ability to create the supplies for all those units.

Now this is not really necessary. Big point of inflation of rewards is that it can be done just for the future chapters, without touching existing ones. And it was possible to produce respectable scores even with a single queue before, and now it will likely be easier. Respectable doesn't mean maxed out. So is there low supply production to feed all 3 buildings in mid-chapters? Sure. But here is exactly a reason to rush forward to chapter 15, for almost instantaneous 3x boost. This is inflation of rewards in action. Very few people would camp in chapter 14 when they can reap that kind of benefit in chapter 15, this would just make little sense. Would you go to chapter 18 now if you knew that you'd get 3x troop production? Probably, right?

 

[edeba]

You know that inno would probably make wonders count 100% more and then just count the highest one, right?

Lol, yup, except I think you have that a little wrong, it would be 150% more... It just seems that there is always a bigger take than give.

 

[edeba]

Indeed. I absolutely hate that I have earned expansions which I am choosing not to place. Expansions were always the ultimate reward, they are by far the most expensive diamond purchase, and space has always been the rarest commodity. Having such a disincentive as we have now makes the game much less enjoyable for me.

The thing that stood out the most to me from this thread, https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/tournament-changes-community-feedback-and-data.25576/, was an ongoing theme of less enjoyment... not fun anymore....

A new expansion was an "oh goody," and it isn't any more.

A key point of contention is that with the old system some people's squad size was 50% bigger, but it was easier to win so the losses weren't as big and that different did not translate directly into needing 50% more of everything because you could win a lot of provinces without loss regardless of squad size.

Now the difference is up to about 450% bigger, and because of the steepness of the curve, the losses get much higher very early.

I think if the difference was a maximum of 100% bigger with what they've tried to do it would have worked.

So, even with my two suggestions, the one about declining penalty for each additional premium expansion and only counting the higher of the two AWs in a chapter, the range of difference would still be about a 200% higher squad size. This would not be a perfect fix, but, people would be interested in placing expansions again and no evaluating to delete AWs... It is an utterly insane direction.

 

[PaNonymeB]

Progress in chapters generally requires adding expansions.

It probably doesn't need all the expansions you get. It's probably possible to get to the end of chapter 17 and have all three military buildings continuously working with ~100 expansions (probably even less), while you have 120 free expansions + 39 premium (that are currently better to place than free, if you can afford the diamonds). What would be the point to place these 20-60 extra expansions with what you suggest ?

And anyway, what's the point of having a double dependency in chapter and expansions when a simpler formula would work as well if not better ?