The thing about tournament encounters is that they had to change the amounts as otherwise it would be really unfair to those who have the new system as they would have to complete 4 times as many provinces.
Almost every time any change is suggested which may involve InnoGames' programmers doing some programming, we gain the impression (how?) either that (a) "it would require too much coding" (so what else do programmers do, anyway?), and/or (b) "the work is too complicated" (presumably implying that InnoGames employs incompetent - or at least rather amateur - developers). And yet we are talking about programmers who not only can incorporate large sections of Forge of Empires' functionality into Elvenar at will (actually, this is probably quite easy, considering how very similar the two games are), but also can, and often do,
target individual players with different Diamond discount offers, 'flash sales', and so on... and yet these
same programmers
also can't distinguish entire
Servers from each other and, having done so, adjust their Event code to allow for dissimilar in-game conditions - which they themselves have created
by implementing different code on each bank of Live Servers? Seriously?
I haven't yet contributed my personal dislikes regarding the new Tournament format, but I am certainly getting more than annoyed about being obliged to decimate my Troops
and spend (already) nearly
one-third of my stored Resources, as well as getting through a far greater than normal amount of Instants (Coins, Supplies, Time Boosters) - all of which took months to amass - in order to be an involuntary test subject for the new Tournaments, especially because my primary objections are [unsurprisingly] identical to those already provided on the Beta Forum. If InnoGames are trying to make me feel 'valued', they have missed by a mile; I actually feel exploited, and if the Zodiac Event
really has not been adjusted on a per-Server basis to account for the much greater loss of Troops/Goods which I, for one, am experiencing due to the 'Complete X Tournament and/or Province Encounters' Quests, then this strikes me as being both a lazy
and a very cavalier attitude towards a significant part of the playerbase.
So yes the people who don't currently have the new tournament are having everything massively easier but there isn't much difference for those with it as you still have to do the same amount of provinces for the quests as you would have with the old system when tournaments needed 4 times as much.
And thanks to the far quicker and larger ramp-up of Squad Sizes per Province in the new Tournament format, I am now
both losing many more Troops
and spending more on Catering in each Tournament -
in real terms, i.e. after allowing for the 4-into-1 Province battle combination - than I have ever done before. Again, I can see no reason why the Zodiac Event Quests must be identical on all [or any] Servers, which obviously disadvantages the EN Servers (in continuance of the past 3½ weeks...). Although it wouldn't help me personally right now, since the only Troops I have used in the new Tournaments, so far, have been 95% Light Ranged and Heavy Ranged Barracks Troops (not a joke; maybe this improves when my other Troops aren't all 1* and 2* vs 3* Enemy Units?), could we not at least have seen the 'three simultaneous Troop queues' activation (if this is actually going to be implemented), rather than being given nothing but a straight handicap in what is already quite a laborious Event to complete?
Lastly its never been Inno's intention for all the quest to be done straight away so they wont care to much that you can't do as many provinces with the new tournament and so they will be fine with you having to slow down the pace you do quests.
This Zodiac Event is already time-demanding enough for those of us who are hoping only to acquire and level-up one Brown Bear; the number of 'old' Bear Artifacts I can win, even as a committed daily player, will be unimpressive to say the least. The new Tournaments make this building near-enough mandatory for anyone who is trying to maintain (sustainably) even a reasonable Tournament score, by which I mean at least 1,600 Points per week and no more; in Chapter VII, I am having serious problems with this, whereas I was formerly able to reach around 2,000 Points each week, or more if I made an extra effort. I am far from amused by the thought that I should simply put up with all of this just because InnoGames 'will be fine' with it. I'm certainly
not fine with
any of it - in fact, and in many years of video games, I really can't think of an example of any (still-existing) gaming company treating [some of] its players in such an inequitable and, frankly, presumptuous manner - well, other than EA, perhaps, although competing with them in the 'how little respect can you show to your players' stakes is probably a competition any reputable company would wish to avoid.