I do not like the pay-for-penalty choice around including the every expensive expansions in the formula, and at a high rate of the free ones, 75%. It is a 75% claw back of a benefit that existed when purchases were made.
I've consistently seen appalling application of math in this game and I'm not so sure with all of the other compounding that is going into the inno enthusiasm to punish their best customers that they haven't tipped the scale so far against paying customers that buying expansions doesn't become equivalent to doing squad size upgrades. We aren't privy to seeing the actual math, but there are numerous examples where you can work out the math and it simply demonstrates a consistent lack of adequate numeracy, especially when linear math overlaps with exponential math.
Completed provinces and expansions are a consequence of gameplay, premium expansions the best revenue source of the game, they should not enter the equation, chapter (or research, if you prefer) should be the main component, as it also contemplates expansions (the normal ones) and at least the mandatory provinces. Basically what you are doing is penalizing players thrice for playing the game for a long time.
I agree squad size research should be normalized, I only skipped the very last ones live, and I have a clear disadvantage in relation to the ones that skipped most, but i really hope you are not planning to make tournaments unfightable for players like me, that have, in my live server, been playing this game for a long time, spent real money to buy expansions and have been investing in AWs since the very beginning.
I remember this... I also remember they did a good job moving from the original tournament to the tournament that it looks like they've slaughtered, and they've removed the main reason why they had done a good job. Right in the video they specifically said they did not want the battle difficulty to remain constant through the levels. The squad size massively increases through the provinces to losses really were increasing the further out you go.
We shall see, if they stay with what the video showed, well, trust was greatly misplaced. But, I thought the spire was crap when it first came out and like now, I was highly critical, and I think the spire turned out to be a good thing.
I think that if they don't adjust what that video showed, they are severely severing the hand that feeds them. It looks to me like a massive punishment to strategic players and to players that support the game financially. It looks to me that a player that regularly gets over 10k in the tournament might end up struggling to get 7 or 8k, and that's not going to be taken well. We also haven't seen if they touched the in game rewards we've gotten with each chest.
Anyway, it isn't over yet... I was just thinking the golden goose in here might be freeing up more time than expected because it won't just be 1/4 of the clicks, it will be 1/4 of the clicks for an ability to do half as many provinces, so 1/8th of the time...
Many of us have warned people before that asked for "less battles" and changes to the tournaments that they were playing with fire.
Stop asking for a cure when it's obvious the cure is worse than the illness.