Discussion News from Beta (may contain spoilers!)

[Timneh]

I think you might be a week early for the new event starting, it is more likely to be next week, the 27th. It started on beta on July 9th and it normally starts on live 2 weeks from the following Monday later.

 

[Hekata]

Looks like you're right @Timneh, especially since they found a bug with the timer that still wasn't fixed last night; they made it a day too short and impossible to do the last quest.

 

[Maillie]

I think you might be a week early for the new event starting, it is more likely to be next week, the 27th. It started on beta on July 9th and it normally starts on live 2 weeks from the following Monday later.

July 9 plus 14 days = July 23. My guess would be this Thursday, but that's just a guess.

 

[Timneh]

July 9 plus 14 days = July 23. My guess would be this Thursday, but that's just a guess.

You might be right but events have been starting on Mondays recently on live so i still think it will be Monday 27th July. We will find out in a few days lol.

 

[Pauly7]

It didn't happen today so it will be one or the other. My money would be on next Monday now, but I think we have had Thursday starts in the past.

 

[Jackluyt]

News from the Beta Server:

People who have skipped the optional squad size researches and would like to go back and do these now that the tournament set-up is changing - these researches no longer need Settlement Goods from that chapter - so you do not have to rebuild the Settlement to make these!

 

[Timneh]

It didn't happen today so it will be one or the other. My money would be on next Monday now, but I think we have had Thursday starts in the past.

Since the start of 2019 there have been 13 events. 8 of them started on a Monday, 2 started on a Tuesday, 2 started on a Thursday and 1 started on a Friday so while it is possible the next one will start on Thursday i am going to put my money on next Monday too.

 

[CrazyWizard]

I am too lazy, but just load the gamefiles and look, you can figure out it's startime as accurate as up the the second it start.

 

[Hekata]

I would if I knew how

 

[AstralSoul]

Google is your friend (although I doubt that it's legal tampering with the game files, be careful... I was a super admin in a similar game and its easy to know... You can't imagine what a super admin can see... but much more than you think, trust me, not for this game, but I know!) Even insignificant stuff... every click is recorded in an "admin tools", that for an older, and simpler game, these tools were powerful beyond measure. Elvenar's ones I am sure that is even more powerful, (so its the game.)

 

[DeletedUser7526]

Event ? No ?

 

[Jackluyt]

This new fellowship Tournament banner has arrived in the Live Worlds with the latest upgrade.
I would think that might mean that the Tournament Changes are not far away!
But apparently the designers are still going to tweak the enemy army composition before it gets released

Read more about the proposed changes here: https://tinyurl.com/yaez3js4

Here are some thoughts:

1. Overall I like the change! With a little tweaking it should make Tournaments much quicker, and one has to stop and think now rather than brainless identical click-click-clicks hundreds of times.
   It makes a big difference if you have more than one city.
   
2. This kind of big change does not usually jump straight from Beta into the Live Worlds. Usually the designers ask for player feedback, suggestions and acceptability, and tweak it one or two times before its general release.
   However, the Tournament counter in Live Worlds is showing numbers above 40,000 since the update on 21-23 July - so perhaps it is closer than we thought!
   
3. The problem I am finding in Beta is that troop requirements escalate rapidly province by province and round by round - so you will have 60 squads in province number one, lose almost none in fights - and by the time you get to province #20 you only have 2 squads to fight with!
   And if you use lots of time boosters to make another 30 000 troops - then that 2 squads only goes up to four -and you STILL don't have enough to fight with.
4. It may help now to do the optional squad size upgrades that you previously skipped - but my problem in Beta is not small squads; it is that I cannot make enough troops to do the higher levels, so I doubt if it would help much.
   Certainly there is no harm in doing the squad size upgrades you skipped - it will no longer make your tournaments more expensive, as things stand right now.
   But I would not advise doing anything about squad size until they have finalised the system; they may still change it a lot!
   
   NOTE: Squad size researches no longer ask for Guest Race Goods - so you don’t have to go back and build a Settlement.
5. It seems that fighting all the way is a thing of the past. Now you fight the first 15 or so provinces on day one and cater the rest, if you wish to go further...
6. The five-day-expiring military buildings still work nicely to save troop losses. It is just that at a certain level, fighting becomes impossible because one simply does not have enough troops. Up to that point, with 5 day buildings deployed, losses are minimal.
7. They more-or-less halved the amount of Goods needed to cater in the tournaments. That makes it much easier.
8. There is a wider variety of goods in Beta tournament catering - so it should not deplete one kind as much as it used to. Seeds and Mana come into the picture, as well as Coins.
9. It is odd that the old tenth chest gives 30 KP - but chests 11 - 19, which are a lot harder, only give 10 each!
   That really needs changing!!
10. Seeing that the enemy troops as things stand are virtually random, it is no longer possible to plan in advance; one just makes equal amounts of every kind of troops and hopes for the best.
    This means that the crafted five-day expiring buildings that boost Mages and Archers are close to useless - because there is no way to predict if you will need them that week. Perhaps it would be better to replace them with a five-day building that boosts the attack of ALL units?
11. Please feel free to submit your own comments!

 

[Killiak]

This new fellowship Tournament banner has arrived in the Live Worlds with the latest upgrade.

<snip>

1. Please feel free to submit your own comments!

Please don't forget to mention that the new tournament formula will punish you for:
- Having a lot of AW levels
- Having a lot of expansions (including premium expands)
- Growing in the research tree

Why, you ask? Because the formula is multiplicative! So adding expansions, mandatory tech and AW's, will add to that formula, increasing the difficulty many times over if you have a lot of AW levels and then add an expand, or vice versa.

@MinMax Gamer figured all of that out before, many props to him!, but it's certainly not a good look for Inno. Nerfing down the tournament HARD and trying to sell it as a great thing. Lies, is what it is.

You paid for expands? Punished
Got high level AW? Punished
Grew your city? Punished

@Silmaril Here's some feedback already; in its current form this change is terrible for the players. No, really; a quick trip to the beta forum will show you, with calculations and everything, that this will crush the tournament for players.
Why does Inno try to market this as an improvement? Just tell us that we are getting too many KP from the tournament, and that you are nerfing the hell out of it for that reason. Be honest.

 

[Pauly7]

Just to pick out one of your points @JackLuyt.

7. Halving the amount of standard goods in catering does not make anything easier. A) On top of the goods asked for there is now an additional requirement of coins, supplies, mana and Orcs. The Orc requirement alone is massive so if you don't have huge excess numbers then this makes catering much harder. B) 4 tournament encounters have now been merged into one with 4 times the cost so if you wish to cater just one difficult encounter you will actually be spending double the goods, not half.

As you say, it is still undergoing testing and hopefully there are a lot of changes to make because the current concensus is that it is not fit for purpose right now.

 

[Hekata]

It is odd that the old tenth chest gives 30 KP - but chests 11 - 19, which are a lot harder, only give 10 each!
That really needs changing!!

I thought that by now players here have learnt not to ask for theses kind of changes because if the devs do something about it they certainly won't put 40 kps in chests 11-19, but they just might reduce all the kps form chests 1-10 and make it a 7 AWKP and then put 20 AWKP in chests 11-19 which only a handful of FS will occasionally get with the new system. We won't be getting lots of kps from provinces from now on so please don't say anything to jeopardise those from the original 10 chests. Although as @Killiak has pointed put, not sure what we will do with them if upgrading wonders will only hurt us.

it is still undergoing testing and hopefully there are a lot of changes to make because the current concensus is that it is not fit for purpose right now.

I won't be holding my breath

 

[DeletedUser7526]

Wow. Don’t give them ideas

1-10 and make it a 7 AWKP and then put 20 AWKP in chests 11-19

Sabotage your enemies by dropping kp into their aw and thereby subtly forcing them to upgrade.

not sure what we will do with them if upgrading wonders will only hurt us.

 

[Timneh]

Sabotage your enemies by dropping kp into their aw and thereby subtly forcing them to upgrade.

Very sneaky lol but if that player does not click to upgrade the AW it will not hurt them. They could just sit with all AWs full of KP and not upgrade them, that is what i would do anyway.

 

[DeletedUser9591]

I quickly went through the comments about the changes to tournaments on beta forum.... Horrendous... If things will be implemented here without major changes, I think the best way forward is to delete the account and leave this game (Inno does not clean abandoned cities properly, hence it is better not to help them out with the creation of the illusion that they have many players and not to leave the abandoned account here). Developers and commercial advisers must get back to the drawing board or replaced with new ones - fresh views might be very helpful

I just do not understand this obsession with extremes. Place a cap on how many provinces can be done in the tournament and problem solved. The game should be orientated to the above average player and not to the extremes like now. Same happened with multiple bears and phoenixes, but this is an issue with the shortsightedness of the developers and refusal to fix their own mistakes and not with the feedback received.

Every game has the end, this one probably is reaching this point as well If that is the case, then things are going to the right direction

 

[Gargon667]

I guess I haven´t been here in a while when suddenly there are 10 new pages in the beta thread, took me forever just to catch up with you guys

I guess there have been a few comments about the new event: My only comment: I don´t care, will be more or less the same as the last 3 events, can´t be bothered to think about that anymore.

So now to the really interesting part of the last week or 2 The tourney.

A nerf was coming for sure and I agree it is needed. The current situation where the number of available provinces is the only measure that determines max score is ridiculous and I am sure unwanted. Inno has made tourneys easier and easier over the last 2 years. Now they make it harder again. Of course typical Inno style, by completely smashing it to pieces instead of balancing. So I agree with the basic idea, but not with the implementation. But one can hope for adjustments before it hits live worlds.

Changes:

1. fewer clicks: Most necessary and thank you for that

2. Reduce repetitiveness: Good idea, but I think the result of the changes is quite the opposite. We have exchanged a tourney with unique playstyle for an exact copy of the spire. I understand programmers want to recycle code but this is plain ridiculous.
A suggestion: Instead of choosing units entirely randomly: Choose units from the same type of units as the current weekly tourneys do. To increase possible combinations: choose from all units of the types rather the current 4 (2 of the main type and 1 of each of the other). This leaves each weekly tournament unique while giving more options. The reduction of possibilities by always having 5 enemies is a choice that I personally don´t like, but if you think it is making it easier to understand for newbies, so be it. To me it is an unnecessary reduction in choice.

3. Nerf for high achievers and boost for newbies: As described above, necessary to some extent. Seems it has gone way over board though and may need major revision. But the principle is acceptable. I am in the group that prefers a challenge over repetitive clicking. But if there is an exponential increase in difficulty that makes every body quit within a small range of 5 provinces somewhere between 30 and 35, whats the point? There should be a spread.

4. The way difficulty is increased: by adding the spire formula instead of using SS? Extremely poor idea. Not only because of the aforementioned repetitiveness.
Premium expansions (currently adding 75% of negative effect from regular provinces) may be an extremely unpopular choice and I see not really the point why Inno would do that, seems rather silly. In my eyes this is a point that has good chances to get changed before going live (either down to 25% or even 0%). I personally think the negative reactions in this point are exaggerated, but anyway I see no reason why not to change that to buy goodwill.
The biggest problem I see are the AW levels. So far they only make the spire harder, which is fine. The spire after all is a rather limited environment with a fixed number of encounters. We can deal with it.
Now adding the same disadvantage to the tourney (with a factor of 3 if I read that correctly on beta) would be an insane negative impact on tourney performance. In reality it will mean that an extreme limitation of AWs to the purely military ones has to occur. All non-military AWs will become the same as SS upgrades are now. To be avoided at all costs. People will be able to make their tourneys better by deleting AWs. While that may be a valid tactics to improve tourney scores, it is probably one of the most horrible choices for gameplay. After all what is left in the game if you cannot upgrade your AWs anymore? Guest races are also penalized by doing all the extra techs, take chapter 16 it sucks horribly and will lower tourney scores considerably (it already is bad enough right now, but would be much worse then). So if I want to keep tourney scores, from now on I do not place anymore expansions, I do not upgrade my AWs and I do not play chapters? What on Earth do you think I will do in this game???

 

[Laurelin]

[...] My only comment [about the new Event]: I don´t care, will be more or less the same as the last 3 events [...].

Agreed. The artwork may be pretty (but then again, which mobile game does not heavily rely on attractive artwork to induce spending?), but there is nothing in the Sorcerers' Pilgrimage Event worth the considerable investment of time and energy it requires. The Evolving Building is of no use to me, as a semi-casual player currently nearing the end of the Dwarves Chapter (Sorceresses for Elves? Really?), and the Daily Exclusives are no better or worse than the several remaining Dailies from the Air Traders' Journey which still remain in my Inventory, along with the Grand Prizes from the same Event, thanks to Elvenar's chronically irritating and, in Event Building terms, counterproductive lack of building space (does anyone without a fair few Premium Expansions, at the least, have space for them...?).

So now to the really interesting part of the last week or 2 - The tourney.

Ah... I could say so much on this. But I will (try to) refrain, if only to keep everyone sane by not launching into another of my interminable rants...! Still, there are a few points I'd like to make, since I have, with some difficulty, so far withheld...

4. The way difficulty is increased: by adding the spire formula instead of using SS? Extremely poor idea. Not only because of the aforementioned repetitiveness.

Agree 100% here. I also strongly dislike the Spire-style randomisation of Enemy Squads, which will (a) seriously reduce the effects of Crafted Mage and Light Ranged Boosters; (b) force me to spend time mixing and matching Troops and fighting mostly manually, bearing in mind that I already find Elvenar's combat more of a tedious necessity than an exciting diversion; and (c) generally make Tournaments much more difficult for those of us who already have to ration our Troops due to lack of Evolved Fire Phoenix/any Brown Bear/enough Time Instants earned from dedicated and higher-level Spire playing, which does not appeal to me since I personally find the Spire a net Diamond loser, not earner.

Furthermore, one wonders why the game even still retains the already non-intuitive concept of a 'base' Squad Size (which has always translated rather mysteriously where any non-single-sized Troops such as Orc Strategists, Sorceresses, etc. are involved), when the only place it now seems relevant is in World Map Provinces, which most players, including myself, tend to Negotiate in any case - if a Spire Squad Size-type formula, albeit with Squad Sizes scaled down from the Spire's very high levels, is now to be used in Tournaments as well?

[...] In my eyes this [Premium Expansions] is a point that has good chances to get changed before going live [...] I see no reason why not to change that to buy goodwill.

I'm not sure whether the apparently irrational decision to include Premium Expansions (at any percentage) in the Squad Size calculation, together with the currently very-high-to-unsupportable number of Orcs which are required of higher-level Cities which attempt to Cater, may not have been included in the Tournament's 'first iteration' on the Beta Server with precisely the intention of 'fixing' (or at least much reducing the impact of) these highly unpopular elements during second or subsequent iterations.

This is probably the cynical view, but if these patently unfair concepts have not been created as 'sacrifical lambs', which will be modified to placate the currently furious Forum playerbase, the only viable alternative is to believe that InnoGames really does intend to (a) annoy its highest-paying dedicated customers, since Expansions are beyond the pocket of casual-level spenders, and (b) effectively prevent later-game Cities from Catering, since it appears that there is no way to produce the enormous number of Orcs which are presently demanded. Both of these seem foolish moves, so it would seem that these two features must have been created only to be changed into a more acceptable form, presumably in the hope that the anger of the dedicated playerbase will be so focused on these two elements that they will accept the other changes without much further objection. I can't think of any other reason(s) when analysing the behaviour of a company of InnoGames' size, stature, and experience, since the idea that simple incompetence or naive misjudgement may be to blame is highly unlikely to say the least.

In fact, there is one more quite likely explanation, although it will be far from pleasing to existing players. While existing (or new) long-term dedicated players, especially the small percentage who reach these Forums, are already (or will become) aware that buying Premium Expansions (and levelling-up AWs, for that matter...) will have at least some kind of negative effect upon the difficulty of both the Spire and, if nothing changes, Tournaments, the same can very rarely be said of the large number of short-term mobile-centric players who are almost certainly now the game's primary revenue source.

The large majority of mobile-only gamers do not read Forums, so they are likely to remain unaware of why the Spire becomes so difficult once they start (if they ever do) investing time and/or money into the game by improving their Cities... and by that point, most of them (statistically speaking) have spent about all they'll ever spend anyway, so I doubt whether retaining them is considered a financial priority. Very sad but true.

The biggest problem I see are the AW levels. [...] After all what is left in the game if you cannot upgrade your AWs anymore?

Although long-term existing players will in most cases probably feel just the same as you do, and rightly so, it's an unfortunate fact that new players (a) will be unlikely, in most cases, to stay long enough to build any AWs, let alone upgrade them; (b) will not realise that upgrading AWs is a factor in making the game's competitive elements more difficult (after all, this is very counter-intuitive!); and (c) even if they do discover this, will not remember any time when things were different, so those who remain, and persist in upgrading AWs, are unlikely to be very troubled by it.

And those long-term players who are now, in my opinion, very justifiably upset about the anticipated negative effect of AWs upon combat capability will, if they follow typical gaming industry patterns, at least, either leave (a small number, probably), or will adjust, albeit unwillingly. Again: very sad but true, since it is unlikely that long-term and/or advanced players represent more than a very small percentage of InnoGames' overall revenue, and I am sure that the decision to nerf (no better word) the Tournaments, with all the many hours of planning and development work this must have entailed, has been based not upon mere theory or ideology, but upon real in-game data, detailed gameplay models, and in-depth forward projections of earnings. (NB: Even if InnoGames does stand to profit in the long term from nerfing the Tournament rewards, I cannot find this decision morally justified).

Guest races are also penalized by doing all the extra techs, take chapter 16 it sucks horribly and will lower tourney scores considerably [...]

You are right, absolutely. But again (and I'm not trying to annoy you here; I find the proposed new changes very cynical, and most unfair to long-term players, to say the least...) - it is almost certainly new and short-term players, who will very probably never even reach Chapter 16 (or even the first Guest Race, for that matter) who are the targets of this change. They will find Tournaments, at first, very easy indeed, and this may well encourage them to spend on the early cut-price offers they always receive (or even on full-price items), if they stay around long enough. And if they leave, well... there are, nowadays, many more where they came from.

This goes against 'traditional' gaming wisdom, of course, but Elvenar is now a primarily mobile game (by design, not by accident), and the rules are different in the world of mobile gaming. A large volume of small, short-term revenues from undemanding, uncritical 'revolving-door' players almost always earns more in total than a handful of larger/longer-term revenues from more demanding, more savvy long-term players, where mobile gaming is concerned. Shiny graphics earn money. Complex strategies do not. That's just mobile gaming, in a nutshell. It's a great shame that it's become so much more profitable, by and large, than any other kind of gaming, these days.

So if I want to keep tourney scores, from now on I do not place anymore expansions, I do not upgrade my AWs and I do not play chapters? What on Earth do you think I will do in this game???

I'd take a bet that InnoGames' management, who are responsible for this change (not the developers, even though they tend to get the blame) are expecting you either to leave, or to adapt. I wish I could say anything else, once again, except 'very, very sad - but true'...