Discussion News from Beta (may contain spoilers!)

[Pauly7]

Why advance any further, why upgrade my Wonders at all?

Exactly. Honestly I think that when they conceived this idea they just hadn't realised the negative impact that some AW levelling and expansions would have on players. Surely, once they come to terms with that they will realise they need to fix it. There's no point at all if certain AWs become 100% useless. Whether it's the existing players or the new generation advising each other to only build particular Wonders, and only then if they're completely sure what they're doing.

I am thinking the same as you that I wouldn't consider advancing through the storyline any further now. I am only levelling AWs that have a specific military purpose that I am fairly confident will beat the penalty.

 

[Deleted User - 1759805]

On the other hand, they have asked for feedback and they now have almost a hundred pages of it, which is about 99% negative.

Well, another way to look at that is that all those pages are produced by what, couple of dozens of posters (I didn't actually count)? It's not that there is a whole lot of new arguments out there. As far as Inno is concerned, it might all be amounting to a tempest in a cup. And I bet that most of those few posters are very far from average player, and even average paying player.

It's been said before, forums are not necessarily a good representation of the playerbase at large. These tend to be dominated by a few advanced players. If you want to check out reactions from the more "regular" players you can check out @JackLuyt posts (or go to his FB group directly). There is no panic there, quite the opposite.

 

[Killiak]

There is no panic there, quite the opposite.

You mean they don't understand the mathematics behind this, and are cheering Inno because instead of 5 or 6 provs, they can now do 10?
The group of people who never really utilized the KP potential of the tournaments?

Doesn't change my point; everybody with lots of AW levels and many (premium) expansions is getting heavily punished in favor of 'the average player'. I just hope there won't be an exodus of the higher-level players.

 

[C-Nymph]

Surely, once they come to terms with that they will realise they need to fix it.

Have you ever really seen Inno admit to making a big mistake and fix it so things go back to how they were before the mistake? No. If anything, they do some minor tweaking and then claim they 'listened to feedback and have changed the game accordingly' and call it a day.

You mean they don't understand the mathematics behind this

The average players will probably not even notice the 'nerf' part of this new system, as they never went deep to begin with... Hence they probably only see the benefit of the fewer clicks... The only people who are negatively affected by the new system are the so called 'advanced players' who actually had to perform a thousand clicks while going deep. This whole thing is so ironic it hurts...

 

[Pauly7]

Well, another way to look at that is that all those pages are produced by what, couple of dozens of posters (I didn't actually count)? It's not that there is a whole lot of new arguments out there. As far as Inno is concerned, it might all be amounting to a tempest in a cup. And I bet that most of those few posters are very far from average player, and even average paying player.

It's been said before, forums are not necessarily a good representation of the playerbase at large. These tend to be dominated by a few advanced players. If you want to check out reactions from the more "regular" players you can check out @JackLuyt posts (or go to his FB group directly). There is no panic there, quite the opposite.

I could argue that those couple of dozen posters are representative of the player base... or at least as close as it's possible to come to being representative. As a group, on average, they are people who know a lot about the game, its mechanics, what they can see is going to be good, what is going to be disastrous. The "average" player, if there is one, does not complain about, or have input on, such things because they are not affected in a meaningful way. To the average player it's just a game. They play it or they don't play it. They have no need to offer opinion, particularly. If asked, they may appreciate the fact that there will be less clicking. Some of them may be newer players who appreciate that it is easier to get a small score than it was before. These same players, however, may at some point walk away from the game because they aren't enjoying it anymore. It may not be announced, or they may not even realise the moment they did it or exactly why they did it.

It's the vocal minority who are passionate about the game and care about the direction it's going in who seek to improve this experience. It may only be a couple of dozen people, but they are people from all walks, from many different countries and backgrounds. They just happen to be the hardcore representative of the wider player base.

 

[Timneh]

Judging from past experience whenever the devs ask for feedback about a change to the game, if the feedback they get is not what they want to hear they just stick their heads in the sand until the uproar goes away (as it always does).

I got called cynical for saying this elsewhere but a crazy silly theory of mine is that the devs want to drive all the end game players out of the game so they don't need to create any more new chapters.

 

[Deleted User - 1759805]

because they are not affected in a meaningful way. To the average player it's just a game. They play it or they don't play it.

And that's pretty much why hardcore players are in no way representative of the average players. It's like saying that Usain Bolt is representative of average runners as far as running shoes design is concerned. For me, running shoe is a running shoe - I may care about color, or if it's comfy to walk around the town etc. For top runners running shoes are tools to enhance their performance. Their considerations would be very different from mine. We both run, but our running game is different - not to mention that sprinters and marathoners probably won't agree.

Same reason is race cars don't make good daily drivers. If car manufacturers start making blanket changes to regular cars based on race driver recommendations, they'll quickly go out of business. Here, we have a whole bunch of race drivers making recommendations on updating a general-purpose car.

 

[Pauly7]

Same reason is race cars don't make good daily drivers. If car manufacturers start making blanket changes to regular cars based on race driver recommendations, they'll quickly go out of business. Here, we have a whole bunch of race drivers making recommendations on updating a general-purpose car.

I like the analogy and it makes sense, only it's not the same. That general purpose car is still being bought by lots of people and so those people probably do have a vested interest in what it turns out like.

The fairer comparison would be to have a group of professional cyclists commenting on how to improve those free bikes you get in town that people can borrow. The Average Joe won't want to comment because they're going to ride it for half an hour and it doesn't matter to them. They say the bikes are fine. Meanwhile the cyclists are giving a lot of feedback to the bike manufacturer about how to improve those bikes. Without realising what's happened Average Joe has a better positive experience if that bike was quicker, more comfortable, a smoother ride. So maybe then they end up riding the bike again. Maybe they take up cycling and become one of the professional cyclists.

 

[Deleted User - 1759805]

Without realising what's happened Average Joe has a better positive experience if that bike was quicker, more comfortable, a smoother ride.

That's generally not how it works - this is a similar to race cars example. Tuning and setup for a race car (just like with a professional bike I can imagine) is very different than with a daily driver. Quite often, what makes things better for a professional makes things worse for a regular Joe. Say, stiffer suspension, heavier clutch, super-sensitive steering, manual shifting all tend to be useful by professionals in order to achieve best times on the track. This also reduces comfort of regular driving on regular roads for regular people. Race drivers also like to reduce all unnecessary weight - e.g. no AC, music etc. They also don't care that much about significantly higher fuel consumption. All these things are opposite of what regular drivers want.

This is not because race drivers do not know what they're talking about - they certainly do. It is just that their use case is very different.

 

[Gargon667]

Judging from past experience whenever the devs ask for feedback about a change to the game, if the feedback they get is not what they want to hear they just stick their heads in the sand until the uproar goes away (as it always does).

I got called cynical for saying this elsewhere but a crazy silly theory of mine is that the devs want to drive all the end game players out of the game so they don't need to create any more new chapters.

Only problem with that theory is: If they want to stop making new chapters they can simply do that, no need to kick out players first...

My theory is: they simply don´t care too much if we stay or leave, we are not the big majority of players after all... not even the majority of where the money comes from most likely. But we´ll see what happens.

 

[Pauly7]

This is not because race drivers do not know what they're talking about - they certainly do

You may be right, but interesting as the analogies are it doesn't change the fact that certain elements of these changes will serve as a penalty to the Average Joes too and they may be content because they haven't realised this fact.

 

[Gargon667]

You may be right, but interesting as the analogies are it doesn't change the fact that certain elements of these changes will serve as a penalty to the Average Joes too and they may be content because they haven't realised this fact.

That is just the way it is. Game or RL... The uninformed are always easily cheated and stay happy and content
Seems to work just fine even up to the very highest level lol, judging by who gets elected nowadays...

 

[DeletedUser9591]

I don't think that player base on beta server is representative at all Nobody asked me about what I like in this game and what I prefer. I don't waste my time on beta account - not even interested.

I am player like many other players who likes expansions and AWs. Only two things why I still in this game.

For me it will not be an issue to delete my account, because there is huge amount of free and paid content nowadays to keep people engaged. My impression is that stupid strategic decisions will kill this game very soon. One thing is to place a limit on something, quite another make it difficult or almost impossible to get.

Players are leaving this game even without these changes. Making this game more difficult (I would argue it will be more difficult for every player - do not forget that active small players grow fast), will only make things worse.

I am just wondering... did anybody in the survey mentioned that leveling AWs and placing expansions will make tournaments significantly harder? you know... you can get false answers in you asked wrong questions or deliberately will not disclose the facts

 

[DeletedUser7526]

I don't think that player base on beta server is representative at all Nobody asked me about what I like in this game and what I prefer. I don't waste my time on beta account - not even interested.

I am player like many other players who likes expansions and AWs. Only two things why I still in this game.

For me it will not be an issue to delete my account, because there is huge amount of free and paid content nowadays to keep people engaged. My impression is that stupid strategic decisions will kill this game very soon. One thing is to place a limit on something, quite another make it difficult or almost impossible to get.

Players are leaving this game even without these changes. Making this game more difficult (I would argue it will be more difficult for every player - do not forget that active small players grow fast), will only make things worse.

I am just wondering... did anybody in the survey mentioned that leveling AWs and placing expansions will make tournaments significantly harder? you know... you can get false answers in you asked wrong questions or deliberately will not disclose the facts

Well answered to minmax analogy.

 

[valle]

The main problem with the tournament in it's current form is that it produces to much KP. When I started playing this game you got 1 KP every hour, and that was it. You could get a few extra in events, but most players were limited to about 24 every day.
Now you get hundreds from tounament alone. In real world economy you would call this hyperinfaltion.
A lot of those complaining here only cares for those extra KP it seems. But for the game to work well those KPs need to be rdeuced, thats one of the main reasons for tournament changes in my opinion.

 

[Hekata]

The main problem with the tournament in it's current form is that it produces to much KP. When I started playing this game you got 1 KP every hour, and that was it. You could get a few extra in events, but most players were limited to about 24 every day.
Now you get hundreds from tounament alone. In real world economy you would call this hyperinfaltion.
A lot of those complaining here only cares for those extra KP it seems. But for the game to work well those KPs need to be rdeuced, thats one of the main reasons for tournament changes in my opinion.

It is exactly what I thought as soon as I saw the new tourney changes, that all those kps are the reason for the tournament nerf. But isn't a much simpler solution to just not give all those kps in rounds 2 and 5? I saw a suggestion somewhere, beta maybe, to just repeat the prizes that go from province 1 to province 9; we'd have the same prizes from 10 to 19,, then 20 to 29.... Problem solved. Or if even that's too much, they could just give prizes until let's say province 30 and then the rest is just for points for players who are into scores and ranking. This feels to me like Inno is trying to kill a mosquito by burning down the house.

 

[valle]

It is exactly what I thought as soon as I saw the new tourney changes, that all those kps are the reason for the tournament nerf. But isn't a much simpler solution to just not give all those kps in rounds 2 and 5? I saw a suggestion somewhere, beta maybe, to just repeat the prizes that go from province 1 to province 9; we'd have the same prizes from 10 to 19,, then 20 to 29.... Problem solved. Or if even that's too much, they could just give prizes until let's say province 20 and then the rest is just for points for players who are into scores and ranking. This feels to me like Inno is trying to kill a mosquito by burning down the house.

But the problem of to many KPs comes from the fact that the tournament has become to easy. Everybody with enough troops can do as many provinces as they have time to do. Not much fun in just repeating a simple task. Making the fights harder makes the tournament more of a challenge, What fun is a game that is not challenging? Now people must adjust there cities/playstyle to adapt, can't see any bad in that.

 

[Killiak]

The bad is simple; you are being punished for GROWING your city. For getting expansions and leveling AW's.

If we accept this, then where does that end? What is the point of a city building game where getting better and stronger in the game will PUNISH you for doing so?

That's the real issue here.

 

[Hekata]

But the problem of to many KPs comes from the fact that the tournament has become to easy. Everybody with enough troops can do as many provinces as they have time to do. Not much fun in just repeating a simple task. Making the fights harder makes the tournament more of a challenge, What fun is a game that is not challenging? Now people must adjust there cities/playstyle to adapt, can't see any bad in that.

The problem is not, at least for me, that the tournament is getting harder, I'm fine with it. The problem is that upgrading Aws and placing expansions will make it harder. What's the point of getting extra KPs from the tournament if you don't want to place them in the AWs because it will make it harder for you in the next tournament? I want to be able to upgrade my Sunset Towers if I want to without negative consequences for the tournament since it doesn't have much to do with them.

 

[Pauly7]

It is exactly what I thought as soon as I saw the new tourney changes, that all those kps are the reason for the tournament nerf. But isn't a much simpler solution to just not give all those kps in rounds 2 and 5? I saw a suggestion somewhere, beta maybe, to just repeat the prizes that go from province 1 to province 9; we'd have the same prizes from 10 to 19,, then 20 to 29.... Problem solved. Or if even that's too much, they could just give prizes until let's say province 30 and then the rest is just for points for players who are into scores and ranking. This feels to me like Inno is trying to kill a mosquito by burning down the house.

I think that KP accumulation is the biggest driving factor, but they are also considering that they want tournaments to be a smaller more manageable experience. So all in all they think, hey how can we make it so that the upper limit of tournament play is 25 to 30 provinces, as it used to be? It then becomes impossible to do that without punishing those people at the upper end who have been accustomed to doing double that every week.

Certainly there could be a compromise here and if they found a way to take expansions and AWs out of the equation so that people could go further again, whilst also taking away some of the KP prizes from the rewards then I would welcome that.

The strange thing is that they've introduced chests 11-19. Opening all those would need 161k tournament points so they must be allowing for the fact that people should be able to push further at some point. As it stands right now I doubt there's more than one or two people on Beta who could get 6,500 points consistently. Opening chest 19 would take a fellowship of 25 people getting an average of that score. This might be completely impossible for anyone playing on the mobile app, except on the odd extreme week when they're able to lay down enough DAs or UUUs to get to that mark by brute force... and we know that they do want to cater for app users.

So the question is - have they made it a little harder than intended? We will see if there are changes.