Please Note : LONG POST with analysis - please just skip if you do not enjoy such posts. Thank you.
I [still!] have much to say about the FA Coins Badge issue - both
per se and also as it relates to the whole game - but to keep things relevant - here is a quote from the Beta Forum which I find interesting, and also of note in the EN Live Server debate, as well :
[...] the best score for french server was 103.800 ( 7% less than the best score of this team ) and for ranking no change for one of the server , exactly same order for the last 2 FA (motivation is the crucial point of the result)
It appears to me that those players and/or Fellowships who have maintained a similar performance in the most recent FA, despite the greatly increased cost of Sacks of Coins, have done so largely by using up some - or in some cases, all - of their Coin Rain stockpiles. Even some of those players and/or FSs who aim only to complete one Path per Map are saying that they have done the same - in some cases, without success.
This is entirely understandable and in some cases even near-inevitable, because none of us can, by other means, have much long-term and/or sustainable influence over our Coins income, other than perhaps by devoting a lot more City space to Residences, which is not only a non-short-term solution (unlike e.g. building a 'slum' of T1 Workshops/Manus) but also, by the mid-to-end-game point, represents a radical change in the strategies of many players.
However, performing more and/or more frequent NH can only go so far, since it has a hard limit, and I've read comments by many players, both on the Forums and on Facebook, stating that even maximum-level NH wouldn't earn them
sufficient Coins Badges - with one's good/bad/average position on the Map obviously having a strong influence here, since returned visits are a non-trivial factor (as others have already stated here).
Therefore, no amount of motivation (essential to success and also admirable as it is, of course) will, in the end, be able to overcome mathematics - as of course the comments exchange below (also from Beta - and between mathematically capable players) points out:
[...] the cost increases for KP are arithmetic, while gold capacity increases geometically. That means that after a while, the cost growth will be slow enough that your gold income will grow faster than the costs -- just not immediately. I buy KP with gold as often as possible, and the costs are still easily manageable for events. [...] That said, the increase in cost of additional KP is huge at the start of the game, which is where people get this false impression.
That's not really true, because it assumes your progression in the game would be linear. We all know that the later chapters are much longer. And what about people stuck at the end of the game, with no way to progress further ? Of course you still have wonders to keep progressing, but I think that by chapter 16-17 (which is where I'm at on the live worlds), your "easy income" grows much slower. The only part that still grows is getting more neighbors, but doing all the neighbors is tedious at best.
1) It doesn't assume linearity. It assumes the length of chapters grows at a slower exponential than the main hall capacity, which is true.
2) I'm at endgame, and I don't have a problem. This isn't theoretical. It really is easy income. I do it.
The only scary bit is that *at first* it does grow disturbingly quickly. It does level off at some point and any further growth is so slow to be unnoticeable. Think of it this way -- the number of KP you have to buy to increase the price by a set percent grows exponentially. This really shouldn't be a debate -- it's math, backed by actual practice that says it works. Really.
This is all true -
at the moment. But to bring up an obvious parallel : until recently, it was equally true, whether in terms of maths, logic, or mere observation without any analysis at all, that Rune Shards [in excess of Boost requirements], of which most post-early-game Cities have/had far too many, for years on end, were literally worthless - whereas [as we all know] they have now become - suddenly, and with no prior warning - both very valuable and also very influential within the game, in many ways. This was done via a very simple and 'overnight' change, which I would imagine was, practically, very easy to implement - but the idea/belief that Inno implemented such a profoundly influential change
without a great deal of prior analysis of their own - to which, of course, none of us were party - is, I would say, very unlikely to be correct.
So - having seen one of the the game's
least-valued [by players] Resources (and noting that perhaps only Broken Shards were/are seen as less valuable) transformed, by Inno, with no persuasive rationale, into one of its
most-valued Resources - certainly in the case of early Cities which have no stockpiles - what interests me most with respect to the equally unexpected and sudden -
and profoundly influential - re-valuation of Coins Badges, and therefore of Coins themselves [and I do not accept that this was an accident, even if its timing was]... what interests me, then, are the twin facts that : (a) the game is entirely based, at its most fundamental level, upon the rate at which Coins accrue and the amounts in which they accrue - which none of us can influence in any long-term, sustainable, or even very significant manner (with a permanent increase in our engagement in NH - assuming a useful Map position - being the only realistic apparent method); together with (b) the fact that Inno can, at their option, alter the Coins accrual rate, and/or the amounts thereby acquired, at will - just as they altered the value of Rune Shards, at will.
Or to put it much more shortly : If nothing changes, things stay the same. But only 'IF'. And where the game's base Resource is concerned - I, for one, find it somewhat risky to
assume that something so fundamentally important
will never change - especially where I see that there is at least some evidence of such a change for early-game Cities (i.e. the future players of the game) there IS evidence of change, even though we lack sufficient data and insight on this to be able correctly to analyse same - or even, at present, to be certain it will even be implemented as-is.
I would further mention here that I hear reports from some players who are operating 'new Research Tree' early-game Cities that Coins (and much else - but Coins are the topic here) are in very short supply, not least because the cycling Quests have been removed and/or altered to provide non-Coins/Supplies rewards. This, again, means that such Cities must primarily rely upon NH as a sustainable long-term source of Coins.
I personally am not persuaded that the two current situations [of which most of us are aware] in which Coins are not only valuable but even scarce - namely for early-game Cities [always] and for larger, later Cities which compete strongly in the FA - are wholly independent of each other.
I also find it of note that Coins - for obvious reasons - are the one Resource which most players (who aren't heavy Spire Caterers) agree is always [and sometimes overly] plentiful - while also being the one [primary] Resource in the game - again, Coins are actually its foundation - over which we have little, if any, control, and which only Inno can
significantly [i.e. mathematically] influence - when and/or if they so choose.
For this reason, most of us have actively avoided ever winning or earning Coin Rains, and see them as little more than an occupational hazard of playing Events and progressing through the Spire - until the point we have now reached, of course. How many of us will
still see those 100% Coin Rains which are offered as Event Grand Prizes as more or less a joke reward, to avoid where possible or, if won, simply to ignore in Inventory?
And for once, I'll leave to others further thought upon, and/or any conclusions to be drawn from, the possible ramifications of any or all of this...
[ETA at c.17:40 pm : Quotes from Beta Forum extended for clarity]