Discussion News from Beta (may contain spoilers!)

[DeletedUser8632]

why dont you all wait to trash the new thing before you actually see it. IT hasnt even started on beta yet.
From what i understand these shifting are positive things, from get a % chance of getting the CC and teleport, you now get a 100% chance of getting it, if your fs does enough. For me that feels like an improvement.... im assuming you wont need 25 people all doing it 100%

Because I am not primarily criticising a specific mechanic - what irks me is this philosophy of "Just have the FS bully players with peer pressure into using this feature", like @Vetrinus said. Its already impossible to find a halfway decent Fellowship without committing substantial time and resources to tournament combat, like it or not. And even if your FS doesn't impose minimum participation, you still feel like a failure.

 

[Errandil]

Because I am not primarily criticising a specific mechanic - what irks me is this philosophy of "Just have the FS bully players with peer pressure into using this feature", like @Vetrinus said. Its already impossible to find a halfway decent Fellowship without committing substantial time and resources to tournament combat, like it or not. And even if your FS doesn't impose minimum participation, you still feel like a failure.

Well tournaments are really beneficial for the game if you want to develop your city. And any decent FS is focusing on the development and city growth at a reasonable rate. So far I found the spire to be beneficial as well, at least up to the end of the secon floor. If the multiplayer aspect would result in even more rewards for the same effort I don't see many reasons to ignore it anyway, so there probably won't be any peer pressure. Also the new design that rewards player according to personal efforts eliminates half of the peer pressure anyway.

 

[DeletedUser1874]

why dont you all wait to trash the new thing before you actually see it.

Because they posted a preview and asked us to comment on it?

so there probably won't be any peer pressure. Also the new design that rewards player according to personal efforts eliminates half of the peer pressure anyway.

What this image suggests ("oh look, that guy isn't performing enough, let's ask him to do better") is exactly the contrary.
Also, and this is a direct quote from the announcement:

On the progress bar, you can see your own progress (shown in the center of the progress bar), the Fellowship's overall progress (the purple bar), the rewards that your Fellowship has unlocked (on the right side of the bar), and the individual progress of each of your Fellows (on the left side of the bar). Some example scenarios could be:

• Your Fellowship has earned enough points to unlock two reward chests and your own progression is going towards unlocking a third chest (this is the situation displayed in the screenshot above). In this scenario, you will receive the rewards from the two chests the Fellowship has unlocked at the end of the Spire of Eternity (on Fridays).
• Your Fellowship's progress is ahead of your own. To obtain all rewards the Fellowship has unlocked, you'll need to complete further Encounters in the Spire of Eternity to also become eligible for the rewards your Fellowship has unlocked.
• You have earned enough points to unlock many rewards, but your Fellowship's total progress is not yet enough to unlock them all. In this case, we'd recommend you encourage your Fellowship's members to also complete some more Encounters in the Spire of Eternity, so that the Fellowship as a whole also unlocks these rewards and those eligible receive them at the end of the Spire.

We're literally being told to put pressure on those who won't perform.

 

[DeletedUser8632]

We're literally being told to put pressure on those who won't perform.

Agree without reservation

 

[Errandil]

What this image suggests ("oh look, that guy isn't performing enough, let's ask him to do better") is exactly the contrary.
Also, and this is a direct quote from the announcement:

As far as I can tell from beta, if you aren't going for clearing all three floors it's more likely that you won't be eligible for all the rewards the FS unlocked than that you would be ahead of your FS. At least assuming that the rest of the players see the benefits of the spire and play it. So unless this is rebalanced, the players would feel more pressured to get to the unlocked rewards, than to help the rest of the FS to unlock the rewards.

We're literally being told to put pressure on those who won't perform.

Inno tend to say a lot of stuff in the announcements that turns out to be not exactly what they are saying. This may be the rare time when it's actually better than what they are saying.

 

[Deleted User - 1759805]

If the multiplayer aspect would result in even more rewards for the same effort I don't see many reasons to ignore it anyway, so there probably won't be any peer pressure. Also the new design that rewards player according to personal efforts eliminates half of the peer pressure anyway.

What we are likely to see is that top FS will impose some minimum requirements on Spire participation - the same way it is currently done with the tournaments, to make sure that all FS rewards are unlocked. It is unlikely to be very onerous, just like with the tournaments where 1000 points average over some period of time (e.g. 4 weeks) is often as high as it goes. 1000 for tournaments is significantly less than required for full rewards (1600 for 25 people), but quite a few people would do significantly more than that so totals work out anyway. Once you meet minimum requirements you're good.

For most of the FS (the rest of them), just like with tournaments, there will be no requirements so not much in a way of peer pressure. No max rewards either.

What Spire doesn't allow is carrying underperforming fellows by the rest of the team. Which is a good thing long term, but may sting of someone is unable to participate fully here and there, while doing way above requirements on average. In tournaments the team will carry you to full team rewards in the low scoring weeks, but in the Spire you will get less. But that would be your problem, not your fellows' (as long as FS still gets full team rewards).

 

[Killiak]

The pattern is exactly the same as in the tournaments. Team performance to attain the maximum rewards, with your personal effort also rewarding you.

The difference with The Spire is that in the tourney your personal performance does not matter when your FS can carry you. However, if a players wants the map 3 FS rewards from the Spire, he actually has to do said map.

I do wonder about the balancing of the maps though. The third map seems to be too expensive still, at this point, for the rewards it (potentially) gives.

 

[Errandil]

I think that the main difference from the tournaments is that the most fellowships won't even need unlocking the last floor rewards since there won't be anyone to claim them. Unlike scoring 1600+ points in the tournament the cost/rewards ratio of completing the third floor is questionable even with the FS rewards for the majority of players.

 

[DeletedUser8409]

Because they posted a preview and asked us to comment on it?



What this image suggests ("oh look, that guy isn't performing enough, let's ask him to do better") is exactly the contrary.
Also, and this is a direct quote from the announcement:



We're literally being told to put pressure on those who won't perform.

Funny I thought they literally said encourage. I don't literally see the word pressure in that at all.

Encouragement, motivation and advice are positives not peer pressure.

 

[Pauly7]

There's a lot of comparing with tournaments, but I haven't seen much evidence that it will be much of a worthwhile use of time and resource.

However the team/individual format is changed around when you are in a FS where some players are still struggling for tournament points I see no reason to detract from that with Spire play, which will use twice the resource for half the reward.

For the top performing few FSs who get 60k tournament points every week then sure I can see the point of fighting on another front, but I won't ask fellows to play the Spire unless they want to.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

There's a lot of comparing with tournaments, but I haven't seen much evidence that it will be much of a worthwhile use of time and resource.

However the team/individual format is changed around when you are in a FS where some players are still struggling for tournament points I see no reason to detract from that with Spire play, which will use twice the resource for half the reward.

For the top performing few FSs who get 60k tournament points every week then sure I can see the point of fighting on another front, but I won't ask fellows to play the Spire unless they want to.

you cant compare with tournament, not awardwise and not effortwise.
If someone is sick/ on vacation during tournament, others can compensate by doing more in tournament then usual. If that happens in spire, you're all screwed, cause a single player cant do more then 63 points, 3 maps thats it, no overcompensation possible.

the rewards, well the final reward of 100 diamonds, 1 teleport and 10% portal profit, thats not really worth it in my opinion. It will just go into the normal supply and doesnt give you a rush feeling at all. it will probably cost you more then 100 diamonds to just finish that 3rd map anyway

 

[RainbowElvira]

While the tournaments help players to advance in the game, the spire eats too much resources to be helpful. Using peer pressure to make us use this badly balanced feature is something I definitely do not welcome.

 

[Timneh]

I do not like or take part in the spire now and i will not take part in the FS version. The spire is in my opinion one of the worst features that has ever been introduced into the game and is too expensive on troops and resources.

 

[DeletedUser8409]

There does seem to be an amusing divide between players here.

There's some who refuse to play the Spire and think its a waste of resources, while there's others who think it is a valuable source of resources. I fall under the latter.

I suppose it depends upon your style. No right answer for anyone. But if any of my Fellows are struggling I'd happy to offer help and advice and encouragement to get them further - that is good for them and under this new system good for me. That's not peer pressure, that is support.

I think the system Inno have designed here is quite ingenious too to encourage motivation. In Tournament play people could do as little as they could get away with and get a free ride from others. With the Spire now it will clearly show what rewards are unlocked and if a below-average for that Fellowship wants those rewards they will need to complete more of their own Spire to get what has already been unlocked . . . which will in that process unlock more for the Fellowship. Win/win, a virtuous circle.

 

[DeletedUser8409]

Can someone with access to Beta please say how many Fellowship points from Spire are required to unlock all the Fellowship prizes?

And if its a steady or easy to copy/paste amount how many are required for each prize before that?

 

[Julian]

I think the system Inno have designed here is quite ingenious too to encourage motivation. In Tournament play people could do as little as they could get away with and get a free ride from others. With the Spire now it will clearly show what rewards are unlocked and if a below-average for that Fellowship wants those rewards they will need to complete more of their own Spire to get what has already been unlocked . . . which will in that process unlock more for the Fellowship. Win/win, a virtuous circle.

Perhaps they should bring that system to the tournament as well.

 

[Jackluyt]

There's some who refuse to play the Spire and think its a waste of resources, while there's others who think it is a valuable source of resources. I fall under the latter.

Me too!
If you just do Stage One, you win much much more than you spend.
You don't have to do stages two and three.
I have won several Magic Residences already, just doing Stage One every week.

 

[DeletedUser1874]

Funny I thought they literally said encourage. I don't literally see the word pressure in that at all.

Encouragement, motivation and advice are positives not peer pressure.

Non sequitur. It's a well-known fact that encouragement by itself is neutral and can turn positive or negative. And even positive reinforcement can lead to negative effects, so much so that under extreme circumstances it can lead to death. This is a hyperbolic example of course, I don't see it happen in Elvenar, however going by the M.O. and descriptions of many FSs, I think it's safe to assume that people will be pressured to meet certain threshold, and kicked should they fail to do so.
This doesn't concern me, because 1) my FS is awesome and wouldn't dream of kicking people for such trifles, and 2) I complete the Spire weekly, even on WW farms, with little issues. Not because I think it's actually worth it, not past the first two levels at least, but because I can. However it'll concern and very likely negatively impact many others.

 

[FieryArien]

I have won several Magic Residences already, just doing Stage One every week.

Lucky you. I’m doing whole 2 levels every week in two cities and whole 1 level in one city and I haven’t won a single magic residence or workshop.
However, I’m also in the “Spire is useful” group. Definitely the first level especially for the cheap shot for the Mystical chests. Even without the last section. The second level depends on city development and availability of manual fight (I must play the guessing game, because losses on autofight are insane in the second level).

 

[Deleted User - 1759805]

Those who don't like it likely haven't played it enough to figure out that the real juicy benefits are coming not from the regular Spire chests, but from the Mystery Chests. While end-level chests are good, they're hard to get to often. But mystery chests drop with about 2x per level, including level 1. And purple chests are amazing.