Discussion Tournament Changes (post-release)

[Karvest]

Did you use a crazy amount of temporary military buildings or did they just destroyed the app ?

he used +100%HP, +100%LR,+100%MA
Not sure how many days of troops production was wasted...

 

[SoggyShorts]

In every other game, if you want to get stronger with your new armor, you need to fight new stronger enemies.

In most games, there are several ways to get stronger, not just loot drops. Grinding is a very common optional strategy in many games where despite the same enemies always dropping the same loot you get stronger in other ways.

 

[Steelhail]

… (hence the examples above: you'll have an easier time in the tournaments with AW than without them, or with premium expansions than without them), but we don't want to make the game e.g. entirely pay to win, where you buy 20 premium expansions and e.g. get all the rewards basically for free every week for you and your fellowship. We don't think that's a fair approach either …

Thank you for your detailed, thoughtful response. It really helps to see the rationale and concerns of the Elvenar team. I can of course only respond anecdotally rather than statistically, but speaking as a free-to-pay player, I don’t find it unfair for paying players to have this theoretical premium expansion advantage, since 1.they still face rising costs for each expansion (thereby lessening how many they will realistically buy or their speed of increase), 2.I can still purchase my own premium expansions gradually through spire diamonds (and in the past, through the wishing well), and 3.the reason I can pay for free is that others keep the game afloat. I wouldn't see that as unfair for non-paying players. It'd more of a dangling carrot for me to play the spire, and a dangling carrot for paying players to—well, pay.

Rhetorically, it’s easier to sell premium expansions to paying customers by being able to say, “premium expansions will not raise squad size or difficulty whatsoever in tournaments!” instead of having to nuance, “while, technically speaking, premium expansions might slightly increase squad size, in terms of cost-benefit analysis ..."

P.S. edit: hope the nuance paraphrase didn't sound punchy/sarcastic; I more meant that nuance doesn't come across well.

 

[Deleted User - 81190]

he used +100%HP, +100%LR,+100%MA
Not sure how many days of troops production was wasted...

Yeah, I don't think it is sustainable. The boosts above are probably not sustainable on a weekly basis to begin with. Then with those boosts even with manual combat fighting 2x+ enemies will result in non-trivial losses. Given squad sizes at those levels I doubt many would be able to recover those losses, at least without multiple Brown Bears setup.

 

[ErestorX]

Not necessarily, as this way they may be at the top of the tournament charts if that's their goal.

Currently I can be at the top of the tournament charts and go on filling more wonders that actually help me and built a larger city and be on the first page of overall ranking if I want to. And I think it is not difficult to keep it that way, the developers even seem to have defined reasonable goals that could help to improve the game significantly. Unfortunately they messed up completely when they translated their goals into that formula you found.

 

[palmira]

Well, I think I am done with the tournament, going further does not compensate the losses. I didn't even got to 10k, 41 provinces up to 5*, 3 more provinces only 2 rounds and 6 rounds for the first 9.

I catered a lot as some of the combinations are unfightable and I lost more troops then I usually do in 2 tourneys up to 60+ provinces. So all in all, the difficulty much more then tripled for me, will be much worse live. I can understand you miscalculated the joint effects of the phoenixes and brown bears and a nerf was in order but this was an overkill.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Rhetorically, it’s easier to sell premium expansions to paying customers by being able to say, “premium expansions will not raise squad size or difficulty whatsoever in tournaments!” instead of having to nuance, “while, technically speaking, premium expansions might slightly increase squad size, in terms of cost-benefit analysis ..."

Here is the thing I think Inno is trying to say, and a lot of other players may not be getting, because they see this as an all or nothing. They are saying that the benefit to your city of a premium expansion is greater than the negative it may cause in tournament and Spire from making your squads and the enemy squads a little bigger. I don't know about other people, but I will gladly take that extra space in my city and deal with the tiny boost in my tournament and Spire squad sizes. And that is all it does. They only increase squad size. The percent difference between our squad and the enemy squad is totally separate.

 

[UlyssesBlue]

Why not just link difficulty/cost to chapter only? That way those who want to make the tournament easier for themselves can optimise their city for that goal, and those who want to focus on other things can optimise their cities for those goals instead? I don't see why we have to make all cities equal.

 

[Marindor]

I believe you used simple numbers for the sake of simplicity, but I'd like to confim:
Player B should pay ~1800 crystals, not 2,000, right? Because you still want to reward progress and "Progression should always give you more benefit than the negative impact it has on difficulty "
The goal is not to make it "relatively just as challenging", is it?

Yes indeed, that would be even better put, thank you.

Before going into the weekend, please let me already share with you 2 changes that we strive to implement before the next tournament will start next week:

• We will remove Guest Race Resources from the Squad Size Upgrade techs, so players who have skipped those can unlock them without having to rebuild settlements.
• We will implement a way to make certain unit types appear more often in certain tournaments, to bring back some more flavor, enable Fellowships to plan better again and make sure the expiring battle buildings can be used more strategically.

Other changes are still being worked out and probably won't be ready yet before the start, but may be gradually implemented while the tournament is running. When we have more specific info to share on that, we will.

Thank you all once again for your input, have a nice and relaxing weekend and try to rest a bit, for we have a new week of testing ahead of us

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Why not just link difficulty/cost to chapter only? That way those who want to make the tournament easier for themselves can optimise their city for that goal, and those who want to focus on other things can optimise their cities for those goals instead? I don't see why we have to make all cities equal.

Isn't it already like that? Everyone has the same increase in difference in squad size between you and the enemy per province and star, no matter what chapter you are in or how developed your city is. But your personal squad size is controlled a lot by what you do in your city. If you don't care if your squad size grows, you buy expansions or build and upgrade AWs or complete all research, etc. If you like working with smaller squads and lower amounts of goods for catering, you minimize those things. Two people at the beginning of the exact same chapter can have greatly different squad size from each other because of those factors. I found that out when I helped figure out the Spire formula.

I also think people are using the word "difficulty" for different things here. For me, the difficulty is the difference in number of troops between my squad size and the enemy squad. But other people are looking at just the number of troops or goods they have to use as the difficulty, no matter how easy the encounter really is. That is the cost, not the difficulty.

 

[Karvest]

They are saying that the benefit to your city of a premium expansion is greater than the negative it may cause in tournament and Spire from making your squads and the enemy squads a little bigger.

But starting at some point extra expansions give nothing to fighters, so each next is a pure loss.

 

[DeletedUser2300]

Yes indeed, that would be even better put, thank you.

Before going into the weekend, please let me already share with you 2 changes that we strive to implement before the next tournament will start next week:

• We will remove Guest Race Resources from the Squad Size Upgrade techs, so players who have skipped those can unlock them without having to rebuild settlements.
• We will implement a way to make certain unit types appear more often in certain tournaments, to bring back some more flavor, enable Fellowships to plan better again and make sure the expiring battle buildings can be used more strategically.

Other changes are still being worked out and probably won't be ready yet before the start, but may be gradually implemented while the tournament is running. When we have more specific info to share on that, we will.

Thank you all once again for your input, have a nice and relaxing weekend and try to rest a bit, for we have a new week of testing ahead of us

Thank you, have a wonderful weekend.

 

[Maillie]

Anyone that thinks that we purchase expansions to add more manufactories, more Ancient Wonders, etc., to help in the tournaments must not play the last few chapters. The Main House becomes GIGANTIC. All of the upgrades caused burgeoning buildings. We needed new types of buildings with the sentient goods, and a LOT of them. I had to put tier ones into storage, even after the 1, yes ONE expansion earned in the entire chapter which opened sentient goods. Chapter 15 had two expansions, one of which came at the very end of the tech tree, after all other rows of research was completed and buildings upgraded (not very helpful in that never-ending chapter).

We have never received a sale on diamonds in Beta, so my city here is much smaller than my main city. I can't upgrade things and try to make do with smaller event buildings. If my results in this Beta city are indicative to what is going to happen to my main city I'm doomed.

Some of us purchased expansions so that we could continue to enjoy the game, not just to do the tournament. You took away the ability to earn needed expansions with completed provinces. We can no longer just finish 9 or 10 provinces and keep getting expansions. From a standpoint of sales, that was a wise choice, if we wanted to upgrade our buildings ... diamonds. Now I feel as though my main city is getting whacked for trying to enjoy the game as a whole.

I am not a points person. I have no reason to assume that I can compete, and I always applauded those that could. Now my sympathies go out to those that could. I played for fun, and the tournaments were fun.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

But starting at some point extra expansions give nothing to fighters, so each next is a pure loss.

If I can put something in those expansions that helps me increase troop production to counter the increase in troops needed to fight, then I consider that good enough for me. Every expansion helps my city and that is more important than a tiny change in the Spire or tournament that I can easily overcome by making some extra troops.

@Maillie For people who do not overscout, they have not even earned every scouting expansion yet when they unlock chapter 16. Chapter 16 only requires 440 provinces, while the final scouting expansion comes at 500 provinces. So maybe a lot of players have not run out of free expansion yet.

Oh, and I just finished chapter 16 with my Live city and I have bought a total of 13 out of 37 possible premium expansions, so my city is nowhere near as large as those of the big money spenders.

 

[Karvest]

If I can put something in those expansions that helps me increase troop production to counter the increase in troops needed to fight, then I consider that good enough for me.

That's it, there is nothing that you can place there to increase troop production or their strength at some point. And I passed that point long ago.

 

[edeba]

You've got to be kidding me... That is minimal?

Now when it comes to balancing I will only point to AWs because thats the only factor we can change as a players by deleting it. When you trying to balance things you need to take extreme edges on both sides and balance those 2 first. 1 year ago, which i have pointed back than, the difference between 0 AWs and 26AWs*30lvls= 780lvls was 334% it was said its minimal, 1 year later with 2 more chapters and 5 more levels we are at 415% and thats just 1 single year. What does that mean?

I will describe it in exact example, maxed out city, with all expansion, province 60 (so you can see some big numbers)

City 1: 0 AWs, our sqaud size is 33240, enemy SS is 76452
City 2: 780 AWs, our sqaud size is 111000, enemy SS is 255300
City 3: 1050 AWs, our sqaud size is 137928, enemy SS is 317235

 

[DeletedUser2705]

We will remove Guest Race Resources from the Squad Size Upgrade techs, so players who have skipped those can unlock them without having to rebuild settlements.

Seriously? That is, those players who did not pay due attention to the fact that they need to accumulate guest for these technologies are still a plus? It was clear to the donkey that they needed to save up. You have a wonderful strategy ...
If you are so compassionate, can you increase the KP in the additional chest from 10 to 50?

 

[Marindor]

Seriously? That is, those players who did not pay due attention to the fact that they need to accumulate guest for these technologies are still a plus? It was clear to the donkey that they needed to save up. You have a wonderful strategy ...
If you are so compassionate, can you increase the KP in the additional chest from 10 to 50?

I don't think these players will appreciate you comparing them with donkeys. Could you leave the sarcasm and stay respectful towards your fellow players, please? Thank you.

 

[DeletedUser2705]

I don't think these players will appreciate you comparing them with donkeys. Could you leave the sarcasm and stay respectful towards your fellow players, please? Thank you.

I apologize if i hurt anyone, but you, Marindor, hurt me much more with your innovations. Why were guests removed from the units? Where is everyone's favorite strategy? Why for a long time it was more difficult for me to fight and buy out the tournament than for another player who came into the game later than me and did not teach all these technologies to the squad? He developed to my head, became just as strong, but it was easier for him.
And now you took it and reset it in an instant? I apologize for my anger, but it has a basis.

 

[DeletedUser1657]

Hi Marindor
Thank you for the explanation, it is greatly appreciated and makes sense in the direction it is heading.

What we ideally don't want to do, is favor one play style over the other. By just tying difficulty to chapters, we would basically encourage players to stay in low chapters and massively boost their AW without progressing in the game.

This is already encouraged by expiring goods. I know many players with multiple towns who quit those extra towns at some stage during expiring goods as it is too onerous to maintain too many towns in that stage of the game. A more casual approach is to keep your town out of too many expiring goods. A casual play style and expiring goods just don't mix, they are opposite as goods expiring encourage active not casual play.

So far we see the feedback from casual and mid tech players is basiccaly that the new system is working fine for them. They don't have too hard a time, often even get a bit more points than previously, and with a lot less tedious clicking.

tournaments. While we don't have the illusion that we will be able to get rid of pushing entirely, we at least don't want to encourage it or make it attractive.

Sadly this current iteration does exactly this and there is not a huge amount that can be done about it. While your reasons for making the game easier for newer and casual players make sense, the reality is this is what push accounts are. You can't make it easier for this group and discourage a section of that that same group at the same time. This is exasperated even more in this iteration, by making it harder for a single player to earn KP in the tournament. So instead of earning 1,000+ or 1,500+ kp (yes extreme examples) a week by themselves without pushing, the only options for those players are to be satisfied with significantly slower progression of wonders or create casual push accounts.

One thing that can be done in this area is to assess the point at which the difficulty scales so that it is later in provinces then it currently is. This will allow a single account to still earn a decent amount of KP. It also allows for more flexibility in fellowships in terms of town sizes, interest, life impacts, timezones, etc.

Therefore our aim is, for example for players who put 3000 KP in their AW, to make it just as hard/challenging as for someone who put these same 3000 KP in their tech tree. This is not to "punish" anyone, but it's a way to try and make it fair play for everyone, no matter your play style. I'm not saying we're there yet and we have found the ideal solution to everything, but that's what we're aiming to achieve.

People don't level their wonder because they want it to be just as challenging, they do it to make life easier. I can see the double edged sword here, as you don't want it to be too easy. Sadly there probably isn't any simple options here. Comments from dony, soggyshorts and crazywizard probably cover the key options:

• ensure difference in wonders from 0 to 300 to 700+ wonder levels is not massive. So have an increase but keep the difference flat between 0 levels and say 700+ levels. Every chapter extends that upper limit
• scale the wonder difficulty calculation
• Exclude certain wonders or review and seriously buff certain wonders. As some wonders will have different impacts on benefit but all count for the same difficulty. A thrones of highmen for example has minimal advantage early on, in fact one could argue its negative impact until a certain amount of wonder levels including this wonder are achieved. Enars embassy is another good example and its broken shard each week, KP from ToS and spire library also while they add value to a player, don't add anywhere near the value of other wonders and in fact many players would argue that specific bonus is a negative for placing.
• You could add a max limit on the increase from wonders

Look forward to seeing what happens in this space, its not an easy one.

We will remove Guest Race Resources from the Squad Size Upgrade techs, so players who have skipped those can unlock them without having to rebuild settlements.

Great to see, but I am still struggling to see any real benefit to levelling these techs. Are there any players planning to go and level these techs now? do they see any value in spending KP on these techs over say putting into their wonders? Perhaps the increased wonder difficulty might be why to put kp in tech tree over a wonder.