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Spire

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Ah I just saw this part: This is very surprising! I am playing EN3 exclusively, the youngest little backwater of the ENs. And we have I think 7 FS that get gold (maybe not all of them every week, but still). I always assumed EN1 and EN2 should have far more grown up FS capable of this!
At least for tourneys I know that EN1 used to be far ahead in tourney scores to us (until this week anyway). I guess I assumed the same for the spire...

That might be the issue,
You should see what kind of tricks I employ to keep playing the spire
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Thats 37/40 active ensorcelled spells, just so I can handle the coins for it. (and have some spares for upgrades)
and having massive production of goods so I can acctually afford the spire.

700+ wonderlevels and most premium expansions hurt a lot! (missing 8, but already got the premium for 1 more)

I do not agree with this statement, because it depends on the strategy of individual player and design of the city. This game is really primitive and multiple features are based on numbers (no need to spend months playing in order to understand how it works; actually, many games have similar elements).

Theoretical example: FS gets 10 chests, every player in FS contributes equal amount of points and stops as soon as 10 chests goal is reached. The amount of troops required to do this can be easily produced without any time boosts. So spire is redundant feature in this scenario.

I do spire 3 maps and know very well the costs. With the amount of PPs given in the spire (every week I get few of them - most common award), one cannot expect that player will spend months and months doing, say, dwarves chapter. So yes, diamonds are used to buy blueprints, if player decides to do so. Again, it depends on individual strategy.

Finally, repetitive, routine tasks like weekly spire, tournaments, endless events pushing development of the city into the last place (I am not talking about the players in the last chapters) is not the form of entertainment I like. Same applies to the time required.

I will repeat once again, map 3 in the spire is way too expensive to do, even taking into consideration potential rewards for gold medal. I would advocate to make this stage easier and decrease the amount of the points to reach the gold medal, so that FS could achieve it when one or two players are not available. Implying that only those who are lurking here every day can do tournaments 10 chests and/or spire gold will not generate more interest, for players like I it will have completely opposite effect. In a way I would like to see the spire similar to the tournaments, e.g. allowing players to play wihtout pressure and without penalizing whole team. For those who have too much time on their hands, there can be always another layer of rewards - extra ranking points. Everybody is happy then :)

We had the exact same comment when the tournaments started, look where it's now and how many fellowships are able to turn to 10 chest atm.
That said the spire is quite a bit more difficult. but the potential rewards are "better" as it's the only place to get premium consistently.
Just like last time it takes time for people of similar mind to flock together. with the added difficulty that wishing wells were still abundand when the spire came out, making it more "difficult" to change peoples mind, before you got them with just 2 harvests a day, but now you actually have to to something for it.

Just give it enough time, and the spire might become the next tournament, it took the tournaments 2 years to get to the participation level we see today. the spire is only a few months old.
And if you cannot wait that long, find a fellowship who already got you desired target.

lowering the bar just to fit your needs at a particular time is not the solution.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
That's a might fine culture bonus @CrazyWizard! How does the percentage end in a 2 though?
Lighthouse of good neigbouhood is my new pet peeve it empowers the ensorcelled spell, it's only level 4 (+6 bonus vs +5)yet since I also need to level flying academy, tournament arena and spire library.
Eventually the spell can go up to 12% per activation, if I get the full 40 activations that would be a +480 bonus :)
This should totally solve my coin woes, and maybe allow me to do a lot less neighbourly help saving me some time.
 

Pauly7

Magus
Lighthouse of good neigbouhood is my new pet peeve it empowers the ensorcelled spell, it's only level 4 (+6 bonus vs +5)yet since I also need to level flying academy, tournament arena and spire library.
Eventually the spell can go up to 12% per activation, if I get the full 40 activations that would be a +480 bonus :)
This should totally solve my coin woes, and maybe allow me to do a lot less neighbourly help saving me some time.
Hmm, interesting. I dismissed the idea of the Lighthouse and never looked at it again since... but I'm missing something that will improve my coin production. I might have to start thinking about it.
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Hmm, interesting. I dismissed the idea of the Lighthouse and never looked at it again since... but I'm missing something that will improve my coin production. I might have to start thinking about it.

Same with me it only occured to me a few weeks back when for I don't know what reason I looked at it again and thought damn, thats just what I needed.

I dismissed this wonder as useless when it came out as it was mana related and with a high level dragon abby you do not event want to use mana generating buildings. nor did I ever use ensorcelled since we already were overflowing with coins, so why bother?

I like to note that I already have a high level crystal lighthouse, this is why I can maintain such a high number of neighbourly help activations. otherwise only a 3rd is resonable and it might fluctuate a lot during the day depending on when your neighbours decide to give help.
 

DeletedUser9591

Guest
Doing less of anything costs less. The strategy of scoring 1,600 points and stopping in the tournament does not even begin to tap the benefits of playing them. Having an extra 500KP in the week is the reward for playing them. In order to consistently do that then the best way to pay for the troop requirements is by picking up a lot of time boosters in the Spire. If the prize at the top of the Spire was 500KP then I am sure you would agree that would be fair compensation for the effort.

But this is the problem. You are not keen to spend long periods of time playing in the Spire or playing the tournaments. There is nothing wrong with that. If so don't play the top level of the Spire and don't push further in the tournaments, but you can't say that the top level of the Spire is not worth the reward for those who do like to put the time into both disciplines. Those people can be well rewarded.

Well... let's be more inclusive when we make statements like that :)

Not every player does tournament in order to get extra 500KPs. That is the major difference between tournament and the spire - the issue I am discussing here. It is not about my personal score or achievements.

The point you just re-iterated is that does not matter if every player does 1,6k or 10k+ pts during the tournament, 10 chests will be relatively easy to achieve. But when it comes to the spire, the absence of few players means that maximum collective reward is not achievable. Roughly 22 players must reach the top in order to secure gold - minimum amount required to get 1330 if others cannot contribute. It does not apply to the tournament. I hope, you will not start arguing that minimum required score in the tournament is 10k, otherwise the performance is well below average? Maybe this game is only for players consistently scoring 10k+ pts in tournaments, whilst opinion of others does not count? :) Because it feels like that in this thread.
 

DeletedUser9591

Guest
We had the exact same comment when the tournaments started, look where it's now and how many fellowships are able to turn to 10 chest atm.
That said the spire is quite a bit more difficult. but the potential rewards are "better" as it's the only place to get premium consistently.
Just like last time it takes time for people of similar mind to flock together. with the added difficulty that wishing wells were still abundand when the spire came out, making it more "difficult" to change peoples mind, before you got them with just 2 harvests a day, but now you actually have to to something for it.

Just give it enough time, and the spire might become the next tournament, it took the tournaments 2 years to get to the participation level we see today. the spire is only a few months old.
And if you cannot wait that long, find a fellowship who already got you desired target.

lowering the bar just to fit your needs at a particular time is not the solution.

Actually, when I started playing spire I liked it very much. It is only when I started doing all maps I began to dislike this feature :)

On a contrary, I would personally avoid the FS which would demand mandatory 3 maps in the spire every week. I just do not see the value of map 3 and would not put pressure on others to do gold at whatever cost. To make this comment fair, not doing spire at all, players are losing out.
 

Pauly7

Magus
Whilst the OP's original point was about gold medals, this was not what we were talking about here. You made a point that it isn't worth playing the 3rd stage of the Spire when the only reward is 125 diamonds. This has nothing to do with medals. I therefore explained how 125 diamonds isn't the reward to be playing the Spire for and how the Spire links to tournaments. So I don't think it is me making any sweeping statements.

As I say, play the Spire, don't play the Spire. It's your choice. I'm only trying to explain its relevance and value.

Of course there should be no requirement for 10k tournament scores so I'm not sure where that came from. Beyond getting 10 chests, tournaments very much become an individual pursuit. The individual gains outweighing the team reward, arguably. I am not trying to be provoking when I said if you don't want that in your life don't do it.

I don't think this conversation is really going anywhere, though, and I'm conscious of this being way off-topic. Apologies OP.
 

DeletedUser9591

Guest
I will summarise all my posts:
well-designed objective must be challenging enough. However, when it becomes too challenging people lose their interest (behavioral science).

Based on effort/reward ratio:
10 chests in tournament is well-designed objective
gold in the spire is too challenging (meaning, 125 diamonds is poor reward)

The above supports original post, asking to lower requirements in the spire.
 

DeletedUser9591

Guest
You made a point that it isn't worth playing the 3rd stage of the Spire when the only reward is 125 diamonds. This has nothing to do with medals.

Just to be clear, 125 diamonds is not a guaranteed reward. It can be 25% PP as well or any other reward. Some diamonds can go towards negotiations diminishing the return/value of playing map 3 (I would not recommend spending diamonds on negotiations in maps 1 & 2, as cost of the failure is not so high). Odds and gambling aspects were discussed in another thread.

Why it has nothing to do with the medals? If player is not interested in doing map 3 (whatever the reason) and you have few players like that in the FS, the gold medal becomes unachievable. Otherwise same team can do very well in tournaments or other team events. In this situation, should FS get rid of the players who do very well in tournaments but do not achieve much in the spire as they do not see value/have less time/are engaged in other resourse-intense tasks like completion of the chapter, etc.? Start pressurizing them or what? Players constantly doing all maps will feel resentment sooner or later, if they will see that every time they are close to the collective reward. Getting rid of fellows is not a solution either (argument towards creation of like-minded team; with so many requirements consensus might be a very difficult task). Request to lower threshold in the spire is completely reasonable and would balance the above. The vast majority here do not have that much time in order to prepare well for weekly runs in the spire (in contrast, to achieve 2k pts in the tournament does not require much preparation and can be done without temporary military boosts)- let's not forget that this is a game and not a full time job with some FS run like formal organisations (this aspect is off topic).
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Why it has nothing to do with the medals? If player is not interested in doing map 3 (whatever the reason) and you have few players like that in the FS, the gold medal becomes unachievable.

You can have up to 10 people doing only 2 maps and still het the gold medal as long as the other 14 do reach the top.
The mayor challenge is to get all people on the same page in the same week.

I will summarise all my posts:
well-designed objective must be challenging enough. However, when it becomes too challenging people lose their interest (behavioral science).

Based on effort/reward ratio:
10 chests in tournament is well-designed objective
gold in the spire is too challenging (meaning, 125 diamonds is poor reward)

The above supports original post, asking to lower requirements in the spire.
How is an achievement you can reach with just 2 players challenging?
The spire is challeging, since you need a minimum of 22 players actually playing the tower. there are little to no shortcuts.

Instead of looking for ways to lower the bar, look for ways yo make it.

And ok if you and your fellows find an average of 220 diamonds, 79 hours of timeboosters and some other goodies not good enough for stage 3, and to low of a reward, then don't play it, just keep ignoring it.

Again the same complaint we had when the tournaments seen it's current form (there was an old form with 400.000 points)
1600 points per player was seen as excessive and too much.

I already see a trend of many guild improving there scores and the spire is only a few months old.
And if every week is too much, try to coordinate special tower weeks,, just like many guilds have done before to reach 10 chests in tournaments and most likely some still do.

Instead of calling for lower bars try to find ways to achieve it.
Now that most wishing wells have dried up, very slowly more and more people are joining the bandwagon already, and diamonds are a really good reward, 220 diamonds thats half the price of the first expansion., and a full tower reward is ~434 diamonds almost a full expansion.
From the developer sides point of vieuw they are giving away money, free money should be a real challenge and not just a given.

I am pretty sure they are following the "giveaway" closely and if it gets to easy, they will just lower the diamond payout to protect there revenue, as they should be.
So lowering the bar wil directly influence the rewards as they will drop significantly.
They already made that change to divert some of the lower level diamond rewards to the last stage, that was no coincidence.

So instead of asking for a lower bar lets search for solutions instead that keep "gold" gold, but allows a group of determines players to reach there goal.
 

DeletedUser9591

Guest
I already see a trend of many guild improving there scores and the spire is only a few months old.
And if every week is too much, try to coordinate special tower weeks,, just like many guilds have done before to reach 10 chests in tournaments and most likely some still do.

Instead of calling for lower bars try to find ways to achieve it.

It is not a complaint, it is a suggestion.

I am looking to reduce time and effort spent here and pursue other interests, therefore I cannot support players implying that hard work pays off. It is a form of entertainment. At the same time I fully appreciate that there will be handful amount of players who will go extra lengths (like with FSAs - one FS can just collect rewards choosing one route, others will go crazy for rankings; tournaments have similar elements, the spire - no). I prefer being part of FS which consistently does 10 chests and appreciates that some elements of this game might be not of interest for those who just play this game. I specifically do not go for FS which prefers high rankings in FSAs and mandatory weekly spire (currently I still do all maps, but I would not agree for this becoming a mandatory requirement). Finally, I am fully aware that I can always delete my account if I am not happy.

I believe many things were introduced/amended since the introduction of tournaments? Fire phoenix, bears, Timewarp, etc. The fact is that newer players do not have any of those and here often someone from last chapters starts explaining things only from their perspective. Example in this discussion, extra 500KPs during tournaments - one needs to advance quite a bit in the world map in order to have a sufficient amount of provinces in tournament. For smaller players might be not a good idea to go extra hard, it is far better to focus on the development on the city first. Moderation is the best answer in this scenario.

The most recent phoenix event was a complete disaster. Do not see myself repeating similar event for whatever prize. I do not like gambling either - key feature of the spire for somebody who negotiates. So, unless there will be substantial changes related to this feature of the game (lowering the bar and introducing extra rankings for those who always want to feel superior would be easiest way to fix it :) ), I will not put a huge importance to the spire. If FS spontaneously will reach the gold - great, if not - does not matter.

By the way, without those extras and so many team events/weekly requirements smaller players definitely will start feeling too much pressure. I do not see how this imbalance can make this game more appealing for newcomers in the long run. Probably it is not a coincidence the announcement about the potential changes in dwarves chapter so that players could go through this chapter easier. Seriously... It is already bad that somebody completely new can join the game with fully established players at the stage which feels like game slowly nearing to its end :)

As one of the newer players I support the suggestion made :) Or... even better... let's introduce yet another weekly event in addition to the spire and tournaments, so that moaners like I would have so much work that they would not have time to show up with their silly suggestions in the forum? :)
 
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Gargon667

Mentor
I am all for challenges for every level of player, that includes top level players. Unless you want the game to loose all the top players...

I believe many things were introduced/amended since the introduction of tournaments? Fire phoenix, bears, Timewarp, etc. The fact is that newer players do not have any of those and here often someone from last chapters starts explaining things only from their perspective. Example in this discussion, extra 500KPs during tournaments - one needs to advance quite a bit in the world map in order to have a sufficient amount of provinces in tournament. For smaller players might be not a good idea to go extra hard, it is far better to focus on the development on the city first. Moderation is the best answer in this scenario.

This part desrves a quick response: It actually is quite the opposite. Tourneys are what make your city grow! Hit them hard from day 1, the more you do the faster your city grows. The first and most important effect is you get your goods boost maxed out much faster. The KP make you fly through the chapters. The spire only comes in chapter 3, but I guess it can take a back seat if necessary (level 1 is so simple it should always be finished by everybody). By the time you reach the first guest races you can at least finish 2 levels a week if you want to. The smallest towns in our FS (currently chapter 7) finish level 3 every week and have a tourney average above 2k. There is nothing at all that prevents small towns from performing well if they want to.

500 KP extra is of course not possible for small towns, but their researches take only a fraction of the KP to complete, so I would say 100 KP for a small town gets more researches done than 500 KP for a chapter 16 town. And it also relates to their average AW levels KP requirement similarly (of course that depends on various factors).
 

Gargon667

Mentor
That might be the issue,
You should see what kind of tricks I employ to keep playing the spire

Thats 37/40 active ensorcelled spells, just so I can handle the coins for it. (and have some spares for upgrades)
and having massive production of goods so I can acctually afford the spire.

700+ wonderlevels and most premium expansions hurt a lot! (missing 8, but already got the premium for 1 more)

Of course your town is quite an extreme example, but in this case I would argue: it would probably be more efficient to delete the Lighthouse of good neighbourhood together with all the other more or less useless AWs you must have to make it up to 700 AW levels. Spire costs would go down by more than those buildings give you. I know you do it for the ranking points, but that is a whole different story, so as for the spire I am sure that I will never have to resort to such acrobatics, simply because I keep my AWs strictly to those that help more than they cost. So the max AW levels I will ever get to is probably below 500 (In the first 16 chapters are about 15 AWs worth upgrading in my eyes, not all of them need 30 levels, but heck why not, right? but that only gets me to 450 levels...not that I think I will ever get there, I am at 300 now getting the last 150 levels will probably cost double as much as the first 300 and that took plenty of time).
 

CrazyWizard

Shaman
Of course your town is quite an extreme example, but in this case I would argue: it would probably be more efficient to delete the Lighthouse of good neighbourhood together with all the other more or less useless AWs you must have to make it up to 700 AW levels. Spire costs would go down by more than those buildings give you. I know you do it for the ranking points, but that is a whole different story, so as for the spire I am sure that I will never have to resort to such acrobatics, simply because I keep my AWs strictly to those that help more than they cost. So the max AW levels I will ever get to is probably below 500 (In the first 16 chapters are about 15 AWs worth upgrading in my eyes, not all of them need 30 levels, but heck why not, right? but that only gets me to 450 levels...not that I think I will ever get there, I am at 300 now getting the last 150 levels will probably cost double as much as the first 300 and that took plenty of time).

There is the game and there is the spire, To take you example, do not progress in the game, and do not place wonders in your city, but then whats left in the game?
It surely is an extreme town, and therefore I need to seach for extreme measures to counter it.
The double lighthouse wonders might be a way to circumvent it, and it's defenately worth it.


The best for the spire is to get to the tournament sweet spot account at chapter 4, then start building around the spire, it's the most efficient way to play it, no wonders, and only premium expansions
And as a side account it might be fun, I am actually trying to build an extreme version of it. it will only aquire 3 regular expansions so I can reach chapter 3 then go premium from the tower earnings. it will be an interesting town and experiment.
But at the same time it's a nice account that makes no sense to play as a regular account.
 

Pauly7

Magus
Of course your town is quite an extreme example, but in this case I would argue: it would probably be more efficient to delete the Lighthouse of good neighbourhood together with all the other more or less useless AWs you must have to make it up to 700 AW levels. Spire costs would go down by more than those buildings give you.
If @CrazyWizard can achieve a culture bonus of 382% then I could argue that the Lighthouse is paying for its space. The more I now think about it the Lighthouse is a great AW, but it has a high maintenance cost. You need a lot of spell boosted culture buildings in your city to realise its worth. If you don't use EE spells, then it is just a pretty monument.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
If @CrazyWizard can achieve a culture bonus of 382% then I could argue that the Lighthouse is paying for its space. The more I now think about it the Lighthouse is a great AW, but it has a high maintenance cost. You need a lot of spell boosted culture buildings in your city to realise its worth. If you don't use EE spells, then it is just a pretty monument.

I haven´t done the Math for that, but 30 AW levels probably costs quite a lot in the spire, I am sure it can make up for the losses of gold/supplies, but it also raises the costs of all other goods required for convincing so you have to make up for that some other way. Lets say the Vortex of Storage to boost your Sentient goods? but that then increases your costs of gold/supplies without helping with those and your regular goods still need to be upgraded etc... Well it works for the crazy wiz so it can´t be completely pointless, but I would say far from necessary for people with less than 500 AW levels, they would most likely benefit much more from upgrading other AWs first. But that is just my opinion of course.
 

Gargon667

Mentor
There is the game and there is the spire, To take you example, do not progress in the game, and do not place wonders in your city, but then whats left in the game?

I guess we have to disagree there, to me playing a chapter is no point in itself, especially if it makes tourneys worse rather than better. I have no ambition in that direction.
AWs yes, I do love upgrading them, but it will still take me a year or more likely 2 to get to a point where all the good AWs are lvl 30, so no hurry, but yes I can see in a few years down the road changing my opinion on this and start upgrading "useless" AWs just for the sake of upgrading some AW (and then better some that at least try to make up for the additional cost they have.

What I do get out of the game: Team events! I play the game for those. Especially the FAs. But in between FAs I also enjoy organizing a new record in the tourney or something like that, I can get really excited if we challenge ourselves to hit some crazy goal (tourney or FA) and then do all we can to get there. Spire, well there isn´t much ambition past finishing the team spire every week (not open end like the other 2, so no way to get better than everybody finishing), it is a fun thing I enjoy doing though. The spire is much more enjoyable to play than tourneys.

So for me that means: If a chapter makes team events better, I play it, if an AW makes team events better I upgrade it, and since ranking points give me nothing of the sort I never could get excited about those either...
 
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