Discussion News from Beta (may contain spoilers!)

[Timneh]

We believe that these changes will, generally speaking, be good for the game and players alike.

If this change is for the good of the game and players alike then why is there no mention of this in the release notes on beta ? There it says the change is simply to make it easier to balance and track this AW which to me means the devs don't want to work so make changes to make thier jobs easier at the expense of the players.
It is good to know how the devs think of us players, in thier minds we seem to be nothing more than something they scrape off the bottom of thier shoes.

 

[DeletedUser441]

Where they say that they want people to play more I think there was a spelling error.
Less resources = less trade = less catering/negotiating = less building !
Possible results = More spending by a few
Probable results = Less playing by many.

But that's just my opinion (or is it ?)
[Moderator Edit]

 

[DeletedUser]

All players, regardless of whether they visit the forums or not, will get MUCH, much less resources from this AW now

Not so, I get nothing now, so it will be a vast improvement for me.

 

[Timneh]

Not so, I get nothing now, so it will be a vast improvement for me.

Unless you have built the bellspire/lighthouse you will still get nothing. It is this AW that gives you the goods so if you do not have it this change will not make any difference to you.

 

[DeletedUser]

Unless you have built the bellspire/lighthouse you will still get nothing. It is this AW that gives you the goods so if you do not have it this change will not make any difference to you.

Timneh, with due respect, I am well aware of this fact. I made my comment to that poster for a specific reason.

 

[DeletedUser2452]

This makes no sense at all. Inno want more NH to be done and then they bring a change to the game that punishes the players that are doing the very thing they want them to do ? Can somebody PLEASE explain to me where the logic is in that. At the moment it seems that if we do the opposite of what the devs want us to do then we will get rewarded but if we do what they want us to do we will get punished.



Ok then will you please answer the question i asked earlier...where is the motivation for me to keep helping all my discovered neighbours when i will only get coins that i do not need and some supplies from the ones that have helped me which i also do not need ?
The devs are hurting a lot of players with this change as it just is not worth the time to visit all cities for rewards that are not needed and therefore i for one will not be doing so. I will state again i do NH for the goods i get, thats why i built the damn bellspire in the first place.

You should read my post, Inno already know and already tell you why
i just extract that most important part of that message and hope you understanding the logic of Inno

So why do this? Simple because now, this system will be easier to balance and track on our side.

may be our hard work ( spending 2 hour to visit ) has make inno hard to balance, so my immediately action on beta world...reduce my visit ( 300 to 400 visit ) and limit visit ( 30 to 40 times) to fellowship member and those who visit me, stop post trades so i know who is visit me by checking "notification"

 

[DeletedUser2452]

we can confirm that the changes to the Crystal Lighthouse / Bell Spire will come to International with next week's update,

Thanks for your confirmation

now we know it is not a rumor and the change will launch in next week

 

[DeletedUser441]

Is there a Forum link to Facebook for this ? Always handy to reach more people.

 

[DeletedUser3032]

Is there a Forum link to Facebook for this ? Always handy to reach more people.

Love this idea! However the FB page is for worldwide. They'd have to list the URLs for every page. Not sure if it's only EN which now has a dedicated page for beta crap but I would have thought so since we are kicking up a fuss. Stops people posting in loads of threads and the 'current' problem staying on top. In 1 thread the problems vanish after a few pages, then theres another problem to moan about and the others are in the past and forgotten about because no one goes to page 3 of 99. It's either page 1 or the last one.

Maybe they could do a post saying visit the forums theres a dedicated page to moan about the changes happening in beta, but you will be wasting your time complaining because we do not give 2 toad stools.

 

[Timneh]

In 1 thread the problems vanish after a few pages, then theres another problem to moan about and the others are in the past and forgotten about because no one goes to page 3 of 99. It's either page 1 or the last one.

I think this is pretty much what the devs know and count on, if you think back to the battle redesign and the wholesaler change there was uproar about both of them and loads of bad feedback that we were told was passed on the the devs but they just took no notice because they knew that after a week or two players would settle down and come to terms with the change and accept it. There is no reason for us to think this change will get any different treatment from them.We have been told that there is a very small chance that there could be some kind of change to what they have done with this AW on beta before it comes to live servers but in reality that chance is probably under a 1% chance. At least from next Tuesday we can talk about this change in the general forum again as it will not be beta news anymore so they will not be able to move or delete it.
Actually because Muf-Muf has already said earlier in this thread that the change is coming to the live servers next week that makes it no longer just beta news we should be able to discuss outside this thread again.

 

[Pauly7]

I, like many others, am VERY disappointed by this change. Probably the biggest reason for this is that people may have sunk A LOT of KP into their Crystal Lighthouse / Bell Spire, purely because of the output of goods that is on offer. If that has been taken away then it seems pretty deceptive to me and at least everyone should be offered all that KP back (though I guess that wouldn't even be possible to calculate.)

This may be controversial and cynical, but I'll take a stab at the real reason for this:

People are taking way more goods from these AWs than Inno ever anticipated or wanted and they realised that they haven't been calculated to their advantage. They may say that they want people to take part in quests and to give neighbourly help, but there is one thing that is a hundred times more important that factors into every part of the game - they want people to spend more diamonds. The hope here is if they take away people's goods production then it will encourage people to complete quests, fellowship adventures, etc, etc, by spending more diamonds.

That's how I see it anyway.

 

[DeletedUser3032]

They said a long time ago they were changing the wonders and making them much better for us. I'm not sure how many of them they have currently changed but this change is by far the worse and doesn't make it better for anyone at all. So it makes no sense to build any wonders now which have not been changed already because they are likely going to get worse also. The one thing I can see happening is that all the AWs which are to do with troops and fighting will get better and those to do with goods + supplies will get worse, to try and tempt more people to fight rather than negotiate maybe. Which is making us play the way they want us too. It's going from a multi-directional to a single path game.

 

[Muf-Muf]

Seeing that this is a thread about Beta, let me also share the post that our Beta Community Manager made last night on the Beta forums here too, since it fits perfectly to the topics that we're discussing:

Hi everyone!

First of all of course we'd like to thank you for your feedback and for sharing your concerns. We are well aware of the points you've brought up and are monitoring the impact closely. As you might have already guessed, the changes to the Crystal Lighthouse and Bell Spire are related to both the Ancient Wonder balancing and the upcoming improvements to the NH System. For those of you who have already played on our mobile app: You'll have a bit of an understanding about the way we want to go with Neighbourly Help and the time it takes. Because NH will take a lot less time in the (near) future, we will also have to consider balancing here so that's always a bit tricky. We want to help you make NH less boring and time consuming but this also means we can't keep giving tons of goods for something that will take almost no time anymore. The actual mechanic, when overused, is actually way too strong in comparison to the costs of these Ancient Wonders and will be even more so when the time to perform NH will be significantly reduced.

Also, it's important to try to look at this objectively. These changes have the biggest impact on our most active players because the players who did take the time to do NH for ages, had of course the most benefit from the amounts of goods this rewarded them with. Objectively though, most of our players (even amongst active players) do not perform a lot of NH and will in the new situation, have more goods with less efforts needed.

We want all of our players to perform Neighborly Help and many do not do it because they do not see the advantage of it. Having bigger and more accessible rewards will actually trigger more players to give Neighborly Help overall. So on a global scale, more help will be performed with this change despite the fact that our most active users will probably slow down on it. For the vast majority of players, this new system will offer more rewards (as most players mostly help their 24 fellowship members or less) and with less efforts. Bigger rewards requiring less efforts will make it attractive to more people to perform at least the amount of Neighborly Help they need to get these rewards.

We also strongly believe that the players giving a lot of Neighborly Help are not doing this only for the rewards and, indeed, it should not be the main reason to give Neighborly Help. The rewards are one incentive, the tools and coins you automatically get are another and the satisfaction of helping your in-game friends is the strongest and most important one for us. If the players who perform a lot of Neighborly help, do believe it’s overall not worth the effort, they can do less of it and spend the gained time into other aspects of the game too.

Hopefully we have been able to explain a bit more the reasoning behind these changes now. We know the changes can have quite an effect on very active players when they are used to perform hundreds of NH's per day but we will also have to keep in mind what would be best for the majority of our players. However we do take your feedback seriously and will keep monitoring the statistics about the effects these changes have for further optimization.

Kind regards,
Your Elvenar Team

 

[Pauly7]

Inno's statement does have the truth within it: "this also means we can't keep giving tons of goods for something that will take almost no time anymore".

I think that the rest of the statement, however, is them trying to quell the storm with a lot of nonsense and they would be best served steering clear of nonsense that people see through. Just one example: "For the vast majority of players, this new system will offer more rewards (as most players mostly help their 24 fellowship members or less) and with less efforts". I think that probably more than 50% of the cities on the server I'm on are inactive. As someone else pointed out they are all probably being put into the calculation. The point is moot, because the decision is made, but this attempted reasoning is unnecessary.

This does feed into what I said previously, i.e. they never intended for people to start taking massive amounts of goods this way and they want to stop it. This is what it comes down to. They knew this would cause anger and they are doing it anyway, so the arguing will probably not help too much.

So I'm disappointed. I will lose the goods I'm getting each day. I have to just accept it. My only last point is, however - shouldn't Inno figure out a way to compensate the people that have already invested large amounts of KP into something that has now had its benefit taken away? That is the only thing I would like a response on. I think they should work out a compensation award of some sort for anyone who already has the AW and is better depending on what level it is on.

 

[DeletedUser3032]

Seeing that this is a thread about Beta, let me also share the post that our Beta Community Manager made last night on the Beta forums here too, since it fits perfectly to the topics that we're discussing:

The only thing people will get more of is coins and supplies, which everyone has repeatedly said they do not do NH for them unless the specifically need them. Resources is what people are doing NH for. Because it's being made easier, are we going to see changes to the amount of supplies and coins we will receive now also in regards to MH rebalancing? ;/ This would affect everyone and not just those who have the crystal light house etc because when this force comes into play, your only really screwing over those who have built these wonders.

 

[Timneh]

My only last point is, however - shouldn't Inno figure out a way to compensate the people that have already invested large amounts of KP into something that has now had its benefit taken away?

Never ever going to happen. Some time ago Inno completely removed one of the techs in the tech tree had many thousands of players had invested 40 KP to research as it was not a tech that was optional. When players asked if we would get those 40 KP back the response from Inno was NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.
Now onto that pile of bs that Marindor wrote on the beta forum
1. We strongly believe that the players giving a lot of Neighborly Help are not doing this only for the rewards
judging from the comments that have been made most players ARE doing NH to get goods as the coins and supplies are just thrown at the whole saler anyway. Here is an idea, if Inno are so sure that players do NH just to be nice to other players then why doesn't @Muf-Muf put a poll on the forum with the reasons players that have a bellspire/lighthouse do NH. Reasons could be for example 1. to get extra goods 2. to get the coins and supplies(goods are a bonus) 3. to help the other player 4. just because they want to be nice.
Im sure there could be more reasons but you get the idea. If Inno are so sure that they are right in what they say lets see them prove it. Making aThe actual mechanic, when overused, is actually way too strong in comparison to the costs of these Ancient Wonders and will be even more so when the time to perform NH will be significantly reduced. thread with a poll should not take more than a minute or two and it would settle the arguement once and for all.
2. Inno are saying that the goods we get are a reward for spending the time it takes to do NH.
Well silly me, i thought the goods were a reward for building the bellspire. If they are a reward for spending so much time every day doing NH then why were we not getting them before we built our AW, we were still spending the time to do NH.
3. The amount of goods is being reduced because WHEN the new way for doing NH is introduced it will take less time
If this is the case then the time it takes me to do all 191 neighbours needs to be miliseconds to make up for the loss of 18515 goods per day. Also why is the change to the AW being brought in AT LEAST 2 WEEKS before the NH will be changed ? This change happens on live servers next week but as we get updates only every 2 weeks that is the shortest time it can be before the new NH can be here and it is not out on beta yet. The 2 changes should be released together seeing that they are connected.
4. The actual mechanic, when overused, is actually way too strong in comparison to the costs of these Ancient Wonders and will be even more so when the time to perform NH will be significantly reduced.
Too strong in comparison to the costs of these Ancient Wonders ? Are you for real ? What about the hundreds of KP needed tp upgrade them by just one level ? The last upgrade to my Bellspire took 2 weeks worth of KP so if you really believe that BS about being too strong compared to the cost you must have your heads so far up your backsides that you have not seen daylight for months.
5. it's important to try to look at this objectively. These changes have the biggest impact on our most active players because the players who did take the time to do NH for ages, had of course the most benefit from the amounts of goods this rewarded them with. Objectively though, most of our players (even amongst active players) do not perform a lot of NH and will in the new situation, have more goods with less efforts needed.
This one is priceless. Basically the players that put in the time and effort to do loads of NH are going to lose out massively and the players that put in little or no effort are going to get rewarded and when the NH change comes in they will get rewards for doing almost sod all. If that is the way Inno think things should work maybe i should stop doing anything in my city and watch as it grows and upgrades itself. Unbelievable....more rewards for doing less, actually not unbelievable it's bloody pathetic.
My last point(for now) is that the release notes on beta for this change were to simply make it easier for the AW to be balanced and tracked. That was it, no mention of any of the crap Marindor has come up with so that makes me think that either the release notes did not give the full information or this other stuff is just to try and appease the players that you are punishing for doing the thing that you say you want to see more of. Make up your minds Inno.
@Muf-Muf i will be interested to see what you have to say on these points as after all

It is my job, as community manager, to make sure that you all are heard and that your questions and/or concerns are answered

 

[Pauly7]

This one is priceless. Basically the players that put in the time and effort to do loads of NH are going to lose out massively and the players that put in little or no effort are going to get rewarded and when the NH change comes in they will get rewards for doing almost sod all.

This is actually the first thing that hit me when I read the statement, although I chose not to go there. You are absolutely right. They have (apparently) decided that a sensible course of action would be to penalise the people who give neighbourly help and benefit those that do nothing. There is so much wrong with that comment in the statement that I can't even begin to unpick it.

 

[DeletedUser3182]

Am I being cynical or have they brought forward the 'monthly' Adventure game, just to sidetrack and distract from the issues they've caused. Let us hope the prizes are worth it this time.

I don't think they can claim they know what will happen when any new aspect goes live, because they don't play as ordinary players. They also showed they don't understand the players' motives, by their rather bland and frankly irrational comment on why we visit. Also, H=how many people actually do use a mobile app for playing this game and how many on laptops or other.

Unless they can somehow speed up NH help, I can't see how it's going to be beneficial. Not sure whether they will be removing the culture bonus on a particular culture item or BH (which is one of the most irritating things to look for, since they are different shapes and colours and I spend minutes searching a player's city and then find it almost hidden behind some other building or culture. I try to give the player what they request in the header, but sometimes just give up and click on the MH. Whether the treasure chest is really going to compensate for the goods we gain from the CL is moot, because searching the outskirts of a city for the chest is time consuming. Add in the frustrations of the game dumping me or seizing up during visits, and I'm still not impressed with their soothing 'it's going to be fine, just wait and see'.

The problem is they have issued two contradictory statements. That players will get more goods and more easily - but they want to reduce the number of goods that players are getting, in a rebalancing strategy. I'm confused by that inconsistency.

I don't see how it will increase spending on diamonds, since the events and especially the Adventures aren't worth the time or effort, let alone hard cash.

 

[Pauly7]

I don't see how it will increase spending on diamonds, since the events and especially the Adventures aren't worth the time or effort, let alone hard cash.

Even without events and adventures there are still people who will want to go for the ranking points on offer in the weekly tournaments. I would suggest Elvenar have noticed a correlation between AW goods production and diamonds spent on the top tournament players spending diamonds finishing multiple goods productions when the tournament is on.

Also, one thing that struck me from the first round of fellowship adventures is that when it had been running an hour or so on the first day there seemed to be quite a few fellowships that had completed the whole thing, which means that they must have got together as a group and committed to throwing a lot of money at it... so I think the market for spending diamonds on events is there.

 

[Timneh]

Unless they can somehow speed up NH help, I can't see how it's going to be beneficial

I don't play on my phone soi do not know what the new NH system will be like but it is supposed to be a lot faster. To me it does not matter how fast NH becomes because the goods you get from visits are a reward for building the AW not for doing NH. Like i said in my other post if the goods were a reward for doing NH then why do players not get them from the start instead of just coins.
Comments on the beta forum from the CM there lead me to believe that the new NH system is still some time away and they have not even tested it yet so that is even more reason to for this change not to happen.