Discussion Tournament Changes (post-release)

[Marindor]

Hi everyone,

Although we don't have any specifics to share yet, we can already share a few things that are updated or new compared to my message last Wednesday:

• As mentioned before: we're looking to add a little more variety to the Tournaments again, so that not every Tournament is the same. We hope to have this implemented shortly.
• We're looking into the amount of Orcs required in the Tournaments, and may still make some adjustments in that regard. That would likely also mean that other resources might be asked for a little more instead of Orcs, if we end up making changes.
• Other changes (especially about the balancing feedback) are still being looked into.
• We will not make too many changes simultaneously because if we want to get it right, we need to know the effects each change has. Therefore, you may see smaller changes being implemented over the course of the next weeks/months, rather than major adjustments all at the same time.

As soon as we have more specifics, we will of course share them with you.

 

[DeletedUser1739]

What I like about these new tournaments:

1. The fact that it is only one unit which is requested but all.
2. The fact that all resources are requested. Thus the market is no longer unbalanced.

What I don't like about these new tournaments:

1. The nerve on the wonders. We are advised to ride them and we find ourselves penalized for this fact.
2. The fact that premium extensions are taken into account in their calculation. If this continues like this, I will spend my diamonds elsewhere if I find any use.

Throughout the last week, I have been recouping the costs of negotiations and friendly / enemy squads for my community. It is a tournament over 5 days and 16 provinces.
Here are the links if you are interested:

https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1025877

https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1025923

https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1025989

https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1026128

https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1026288

 

[DeletedUser1953]

The fact that all resources are requested. Thus the market is no longer unbalanced.

It is not true, it becomes permanent unbalanced, on some server/guild, there is too much metal, but you can sell it while some tournaments (metal/../dust), now these players has 2 chooses : to start a new town or to search a new game.

 

[Deleted User - 88256]

Throughout the last week, I have been recouping the costs of negotiations and friendly / enemy squads for my community. It is a tournament over 5 days and 16 provinces.
Here are the links if you are interested:
https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1025877
https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1025923
https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1025989
https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1026128
https://fr.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/spoiler-les-news-de-la-beta.3902/post-1026288

Comparing these numbers to catering costs reported here for live tournaments, it turned out that while they roughly divided by 4 goods costs (although now more T1 and less T3 are asked) orc costs almost doubled (see full analysis here). An unnecessary balance, that forces caterers to fully rework their city and reinforces the nonsense of needing armories (classified by the game as military buildings) to cater. I really hope this will be reworked. Why not simply use previous catering cost balance between goods ?

 

[DeletedUser2803]

reinforces the nonsense of needing armories (classified by the game as military buildings) to cater.

If you don't care about training size orc nests from crafting are way more efficient than armories in matter of producing orcs. Same goes for buildings from events like orc ships from air trader event.

 

[ErestorX]

What I want to say is, if they decided to narrow the gap between players in tournaments, they should be focussed mainly on AW levels (the benefits they bring) and less so on expansions or chapter, which are not as powerful and everyone can improve these two faster than AW.

You gave good examples for strong wonders for fighters (needles+simia). But why would you increase the troop size if a player has enars and sunset towers instead? Or why would you increase catering costs for somebody who built needles early before he knew that fighting is not for him?

Some wonders are very strong, but if that is an issue for Inno, the consequence should be to reduce the effects of wonders individually instead of destroying the balance of the tournament.

 

[Lovec Krys]

We're looking into the amount of Orcs required in the Tournaments, and may still make some adjustments in that regard. That would likely also mean that other resources might be asked for a little more instead of Orcs, if we end up making changes.

Increasing amounts should include only T1-T3, mana requirements are already high and supplies & (especialy) coins requirements are already crazy.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Hi everyone,

Although we don't have any specifics to share yet, we can already share a few things that are updated or new compared to my message last Wednesday:

• As mentioned before: we're looking to add a little more variety to the Tournaments again, so that not every Tournament is the same. We hope to have this implemented shortly.
• We're looking into the amount of Orcs required in the Tournaments, and may still make some adjustments in that regard. That would likely also mean that other resources might be asked for a little more instead of Orcs, if we end up making changes.
• Other changes (especially about the balancing feedback) are still being looked into.
• We will not make too many changes simultaneously because if we want to get it right, we need to know the effects each change has. Therefore, you may see smaller changes being implemented over the course of the next weeks/months, rather than major adjustments all at the same time.

As soon as we have more specifics, we will of course share them with you.

Hi Marindor,
I think so far the focus has been to much on orcs, ones that is "fixed" the focus will become mana as just as a similar problem, especially since so many things ask for mana, and it's a decaying good.
Just like sentient ain't included so should any decaying good not be included in negotiating costs.

 

[DeletedUser2630]

I think we may not care what cosmetic changes you make. If you do not change the error of the formula, which we have known since the addition of the tower, then the words about the changes are quite funny.
I really don't know what it will be for me to be able to prepare for the tournament if I still can't clear more than 15-20 provinces? I don't have to prepare for this.

So can you write straight out if you plan to correct the exponential growth of the formula? both towers and tournaments?
Or will the feedback be realized only about cosmetic changes and no one listens to the essence of the exponential, as with the tower?

 

[Dl. Goe]

But why would you increase the troop size if a player has enars and sunset towers instead?

Well, I have never claimed my ideas are perfect and if possible all of them

But if I understand it well (that they try to narrow the gap between very top players and the rest, without restricting specific developments options –like fighters in tournament, others specialised on catering, others not interested by tournaments, but…and they should have viable options), all kinds of players should have a chance to be competitive in this game, according to their style (today it is not, tournament trumps and for good results in tournament one should be a fighter).

One option might be to introduce as many kinds of “challenges” as possible (like the spire), targeted for different styles/players and with similar rewards as tournament. Or, the simplified version of this, during tournaments offer different options of catering (like standard resources for some, sentient resources for others and mana+seeds for a third group, to name some) and with “equal” chances to perform well.

Regarding the problems related to AW levels (those who maxed out everything are in another league), maybe one should be allowed only a specific “collective level” of AW (based on…chapter, years played, or even result in tournament/challenges); those with everything maxed out will still keep an advantage, because they can switch from one set of AWs to another, at least from time to time (so everyone who has too many levels of AW should choose which of these are active at a specific time).

And I didn’t get drunk yet…

 

[DeepTerminal]

So can you write straight out if you plan to correct the exponential growth of the formula? both towers and tournaments?

They said they are still looking into the feedback specifically on balancing do you not know how to read

 

[Angeduciel]

Totally agree that decaying goods should not be part of the catering cost! The actual exponential growth of cost/difficulty are way too brutal the way they are now. What are we trying to achieve here, really? Don't Inno see the risk of disgusting/discouraging all hard tournaments players? The benefits for smaller players are so negligeable i..m.h.o, I can't see these changes as a win win situation.

Catering costs in T1, T2 and T3 have been reduced significantly at the beginning which is nice... but others costs are ruining my gameplay. I hate fighting, but I am force to fight if I want to win a decent amount of KP. I want to be able to make the choice to do 100% catering and still be able to go to province 20.

For reference, here were the costs of last week tournaments for my chap 15 city. I did prov 1 to 18 at 6 stars, and the last 2, at 4 stars. Look at the mana costs?! Each piece of road cost me 20k of mana, how can I play tourneys while still making progress in my city?

thanks for reading and taking our arguments into account.

 

[palmira]

Well, beta is a test server so not much money spent here but if these changes hit the live worlds where a lot of people invested a lot of money to get an advantage and suddenly discover they are being heavily penalized by having spent money the reactions will turn ugly for sure.

After all, Inno is breaching the contract established when we used real money to buy the expansions that now will be used against us. The same with the AWs, it is a breach of contract changing the rules 180º in the middle of the game where the AWs are no longer an advantage but a huge disadvantage.

If they don't want players to stagnate in a race there are other ways like a maximum amount of provinces available in the tourney for each race, punish the paying players doesn't look like a good idea.

 

[Pauly7]

The table is quite eye-opening @Angeduciel. I wouldn't consider catering a 20 province tournament unless the coins, supplies and Orc requirement were all less than a tenth of that... Mana I don't care about. I can't burn that stuff fast enough.

 

[ErestorX]

...those with everything maxed out will still keep an advantage...

No, you missed my point. I have most wonders that are helpful for fighters between 26 and 35, I have all available expansions and almost all tech (avoided troop size research in chapter 16). But another player in my live fellowship has everything I have plus a few additional wonder levels and eleven additional wonders. Those 11 wonders will give him about 2-3% more troops (because of the new chapter 16 wonder) and increase his troop size (and losses) by about 40% compared to mine. So tell me, why is he penalized for generating more WP than I did in the past? And why should I keep trying to get as many WP as possible out of each tournament when using those WP to build additional wonders will be a severe disadvantage in the future?

The first is unfair the second just ends the game significantly earlier, because the value of WP becomes 0 when a lot of wonders are still unbuilt.

Again, if Inno wants to level the playing field, they could and should simply reduce the effectiveness of some wonders. That would have the same advantages but none of the disadvantages of the current solution. Using wonder levels in troop size calculation is definitely not compatible with the goals @Marindor stated earlier in this discussion!

 

[DeepTerminal]

• We're looking into the amount of Orcs required in the Tournaments, and may still make some adjustments in that regard. That would likely also mean that other resources might be asked for a little more instead of Orcs, if we end up making changes.

If the devs really want to make catering a viable option, they should be further reducing the required amount across the board. Drastically reduce or remove Orcs requirement, remove decaying goods requirement, and just focus on T1/2/3 goods and supplies.

 

[Karvest]

Just took my data from previous tourney (I was fighting only, but gathered stats for negotiation as well) and organized it same way as @Angeduciel, Chapter 15 too.

Spoiler: table

Province	Max round	T1	T2	T3	Money	Supplies	Mana	Orcs
1	6	22 100	14 200	17 600	330 000	150 000	19 600	3 800
2	6	51 000	55 200	9 400	0	83 000	0	2 900
3	6	31 500	85 900	10 400	2 200 000	0	0	2 900
4	6	15 000	36 700	36 300	2 800 000	83 000	17 000	10 400
5	6	102 000	34 900	11 400	4 400 000	120 000	44 000	2 900
6	6	73 000	71 000	21 800	1 800 000	270 000	57 000	3 300
7	6	61 000	40 000	30 600	3 000 000	510 000	73 000	6 600
8	6	107 000	88 000	41 300	3 300 000	0	0	9 200
9	6	63 000	90 000	36 300	2 200 000	220 000	77 000	14 900
10	5	48 000	58 000	63 000	2 200 000	220 000	0	13 800
11	5	141 000	82 000	16 000	1 800 000	220 000	83 000	4 600
12	5	203 000	60 000	16 000	2 300 000	490 000	53 000	0
13	5	120 000	51 000	85 000	0	470 000	89 000	0
14	5	105 000	99 000	34 000	8 000 000	480 000	56 000	0
15	5	150 000	106 000	52 000	5 500 000	300 000	0	6 200
16	5	109 000	139 000	19 000	6 000 000	330 000	66 000	14 500
17	5	116 000	146 000	37 000	6 500 000	0	136 000	8 700
18	5	224 000	89 000	21 000	3 200 000	320 000	126 000	16 600
19	5	44 000	65 000	130 000	3 700 000	700 000	76 000	17 400
20	5	136 000	244 000	70 000	3 500 000	380 000	0	0
21	5	194 000	73 000	115 000	4 200 000	0	156 000	10 000
22	5	254 000	112 000	100 000	0	380 000	0	19 500
23	5	110 000	155 000	76 000	4 200 000	0	332 000	11 000
24	5	0	168 000	243 000	0	0	83 000	10 000
25	5	332 000	127 000	0	9 100 000	910 000	90 000	12 000
26	5	290 000	88 000	57 000	0	980 000	96 000	34 000
27	5	182 000	92 000	147 000	5 100 000	500 000	96 000	23 000
28	5	248 000	236 000	125 000	0	480 000	100 000	0
29	5	256 000	99 000	159 000	0	510 000	100 000	26 000
30	5	276 000	158 000	127 000	5 000 000	510 000	0	26 000
31	5	203 000	54 000	66 000	16 700 000	550 000	220 000	41 000
32	5	280 000	216 000	104 000	5 800 000	1 690 000	0	0
33	5	295 000	225 000	105 000	0	550 000	230 000	15 000
34	5	229 000	109 000	151 000	12 100 000	1 160 000	230 000	0
35	5	312 000	119 000	112 000	0	610 000	250 000	46 000
36	5	237 000	179 000	116 000	6 600 000	1 210 000	260 000	16 000
37	5	318 000	182 000	164 000	12 900 000	680 000	0	17 000
38	5	324 000	125 000	129 000	13 500 000	1 380 000	130 000	16 000
39	5	336 000	199 000	40 000	7 100 000	1 380 000	410 000	16 000
40	5	358 000	197 000	176 000	0	1 360 000	140 000	17 000
41	5	0	272 000	224 000	21 600 000	680 000	0	37 000
42	5	362 000	207 000	185 000	0	1 510 000	140 000	18 000
Total		7 317 600	5 046 900	3 479 100	186 630 000	22 376 000	4 035 600	549 200

 

[Yogi Dave]

In summary: I believe everybody by now is sort of OK with the increased difficulty of the tournaments, the real problem is the SS

No. I'm not 'sort of OK' with it. While the main problem is the SS, it's still unacceptable for the difficulty getting as high as it does. Don't just sweep that under the table.

 

[Steelhail]

Again, if Inno wants to level the playing field, they could and should simply reduce the effectiveness of some wonders. That would have the same advantages but none of the disadvantages of the current solution.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that the solution is to weaken some of the more powerful tournament-related wonders that players have already placed and built up (to make up an example, maybe level 35 flying academy speeds up 100%, not 112%).

That would have some hugely negative repercussions. Looking at past precedent, when the bell spire was weakened, or the golden abyss was weakened for the early chapters (players woke up to negative population!), people were really angry. When it happens only to some specific wonders (such as the bell spire), it ends up targeting one specific kind of player with one specific kind of strategy who had already invested a lot of kp into that strategy.

I've been tempted to build my flying academy and simia to level 35, despite all my other wonders being much lower, because of the synergistic benefits for those two wonders: if I invested that time in the trade-off (high level expensive wonder) and suddenly lost the benefits I'd expected for how much kp I had to put into them--not because I invested in wonders, but because I invested in the "wrong" wonders--I'd be pretty angry.

 

[B-kvgg]

Well something had to be done with the turnaments. The issues with the current turnament system started back in mid-late 2018 where a lot of chapter 5 cities were catering their way to the top of the turnaments, these cities stayed in chapter 5 for a long time, leveling wonders and bringing home a lot of turnament points to their FS so that they could get the 10. chest. This could have been stopped very easy by increasing the amount of non tradeable goods( like it's happening now), this didn't happen. Instead the fighters in the turnaments got a very good wonder in chapter 14, simia sapiens, and while we waited for about 6 month for chapter 15 all we could do was to level wonders! Then came te fire Phoenix and the bears, this was for some reason not enough for INNO's dev team, so they released chapter 15 with barrack upgrade, mercenary camp upgrade, armory upgrade, 3 unit upgrades, 4 optional SSU AND NOT ONE SINGLE MANDATORY SSU, what were they thinking? Well the result is what we see now, they hit the brake hard, very hard.
I don't think we were ment to do 5k+ every week and now the most active players have trippled that every week. The KP difference between a active turnament player and a player that doesn't do turnaments has simply become too big for the dev. team to handle I think.