Autumn Zodiac

[DeletedUser1874]

That sentence made me think for a minute, could the devs be making things that players will actually need to make the game easier and putting them in features like the spire to try and force players to play those features. Very sneaky if they are.

It's been common practice for years now for devs to come up with deliberately annoying mechanics (if not downright obstacles) that the players can pay to avoid.

 

[DeletedUser8632]

It's been common practice for years now for devs to come up with deliberately annoying mechanics (if not downright obstacles) that the players can pay to avoid.

I have thought about this and while I agree with you on principle the changes that have been introduced recently point more towards general lack of capability (or resource drain) and a development lead with more clout than competence:

1. Several development adjustments were very blatant knee-jerk reactions to a sever misjudgment on the development part side. Example: The spontaneous quests added to Stonehenge after it became clear that the majority of players wouldn't be able to complete the event. The added quests were purposefully painful and difficult to achieve. A bit like "well, we added this because you lot were whining" (and not because their initial assessment was wrong).
2. The redesign of the event format was a convoluted case of "dick-measuring". While the entire community gave a clear and succinct assessment of what was wrong with events (T1 factory size inbalance etc.) the development team decided that they, and only they know how the game is supposed to be played. For the first time in Elvenar's history the devs told people how to play the game and they still haven't understood how fundamentally they changed to dynamic of the game.
3. The development team has not even the most basic understanding of the game mechanics and the players. They were utterly unprepared for people to reach the end of their first "endless quest" experiment, which is not only a sign of laziness but a clear evidence of incapability. Their reaction however ... see (1) and (2)
3. The development team was completely out of their depth to even implement basic parameters of the new event format. Despite having a fully functional beta environment, the existence of such things like a premium workshop seemed to take them completely by surprise. In addition the dev team seemed to be unable to either understand or communicate the exact required level for workshops and factories, despite this being a key factor of the new event format.
4. The development team seems to either not know or not comprehend how the distinct parts of the game interact. The general approach now seems to be throwing things on the wall and looking what sticks (see: Spire of Bad Conceptualization) or implementing things in the hope nothing goes wrong. Which is not only a testament to incompetence but an insult to players as well.
5. Why Inno retains a beta environment is everybody's guess. Normally a beta environment helps to fine-tune changes but Inno devs seem to completely ignore this and only spring into action once the roof is on fire (Event rewards in the last event and many many more embarrassing examples)

For me this is also something I have seen before. Inno's mothership has likely removed any capable and competent resources from Elvenar to other projects (Nowadays you don't buy stakes in a development company for the product, you buy a development company for the resources they have), Players and the game don't play a role in the long term strategy anymore. Elvenar development is now a sounding board for potential talent, likely led by a developer who has more ego than competence. The Elvenar team is likely more worried now about the new KPIs than if players actually like the game.

Not unexpected, Sad nevertheless.

 

[DeletedUser1874]

I have thought about this and while I agree with you on principle the changes that have been introduced recently point more towards general lack of capability (or resource drain) and a development lead with more clout than competence:

You're certainly right on some things, such as the Stonehenge event with quests being added, but if you look through the smoke screen you'll see the bigger picture, which is to get us more addicted. Take the Spire for instance. It wasn't worth doing nor fun and the balance was way off. Now all of a sudden the Teleport spell makes its appearance, just before a new chapter is announced. A chapter in which a huge amount of space and repositioning will be needed - through teleport spells. Moreover, events now require buildings to be of high level, so those too will have to be teleported and stored unless one wants to rebuild them by scratch every single time (not physically possible given how many events are throwing at us, nor enjoyable even if it was possible). So they created this vicious circle in which we have to play the Spire (time-gated, RNG) to obtain Teleports (RNG-gated) to be able to play the game. Teleports are needed to progress through a space and sentient goods intensive chapter, and they themselves are gated behind sentient goods via the Spire. The Spire is a diamond sink. The ridiculously high amounts of sentient goods (and race-specific goods not affected by PPs) will coax a lot of players into speeding the artificially-created annoyance with diamonds, and the snake will bite its tail. Some may quit, but more will come, and Inno knows all too well how to foster and exploit addiction, I should know. Sure, they might've made some rookie mistakes - but there's a very clever business plan behind all this, and I see right through it, because I've seen it before, performed in a nigh-identical way, and because as someone with an addiction-prone personality, I've done my research with qualified professional and I'm now very capable of spotting schemes aimed at exploiting those personality traits.

 

[m4rt1n]

Take out my moment of FOMO weakness in this event, that did 2 scouts with diamonds and 160 keys, the rest has been a lot of tournament play, using all time boosters for troops, scouts, CC spells crafting and completing each spire, I now have 2 fully upgraded bears, a full 2nd set of bears and 13 bear artifacts.

Not nice and a lot of upset, but I guess my biggest issue has been no end line. No message of congratulations so I just kept going and have a lot of useless stuff in inventory and 4 bears to disenchant. I may build a second Brown Bear and may not. I am feeling more towards the full set of 3 for aesthetics.

Also the random quests have driven my crazy, I play a city building game through choice because I like to solve puzzles and plan, not be hit with RNG over and over again.

 

[DeletedUser1874]

Take out my moment of FOMO weakness in this event, that did 2 scouts with diamonds and 160 keys, the rest has been a lot of tournament play, using all time boosters for troops, scouts, CC spells crafting and completing each spire, I now have 2 fully upgraded bears, a full 2nd set of bears and 13 bear artifacts.

Not nice and a lot of upset, but I guess my biggest issue has been no end line. No message of congratulations so I just kept going and have a lot of useless stuff in inventory and 4 bears to disenchant. I may build a second Brown Bear and may not. I am feeling more towards the full set of 3 for aesthetics.

Also the random quests have driven my crazy, I play a city building game through choice because I like to solve puzzles and plan, not be hit with RNG over and over again.

Exactly. That's how addiction is created. That's even how it occurs naturally with some chemicals, your body gets used to them so more and more are needed for your body to feel ok. However since this a game, it's artificially created to be addictive in this current format, which makes the situation rather worrying. I for one haven't spent a diamond, just got the +1 per key collection building in my FOMO weakness moment. But that's the point: that wasn't my FOMO weakness moment. My FOMO weakness moment and addiction ran through the whole duration of the event. Little does it matter I didn't spend real money on it (arguable, since time is money), I just played a lot (and played smart, admittedly), but really, my social life suffered during this event. I'm "happy" with the massively overpowered army of bears I've got, but did I have fun getting them? Was it worth it? Did I miss out on other things I could've done instead? Did I injure further my shoulder by bringing along my iPad along with two very heavy power banks in order not to miss a single collection?
I guess whoever's reading can guess the answers. What's for sure is I had more fun when the event reached a point where it was OVER and I was happy, accomplished and satisfied. Now it's never over, and I always crave for more, not unlike a heroin addict. And that's exactly what Inno wants. Get us addicted. Now that's something to think about, isn't it?

 

[DeletedUser7968]

if you added all the quests everyone has had together I wonder what % "Scout 1 Province or Research 1 Technology or Gain 15 Vision Vapor" ? I Have 3 cities and just counting today I have 2 back to back in my first city, 2 back to back in my 2nd city and now 1 in my third city so all 3 cities have the same quest ...it wouldn't surprise me if this task amounted to 50% of all tasks ...it makes me want to puke ...as a gesture of goodwill to players for putting up with it Inno should remove this quest completely fro the next event ... oh and I just saw a pig fly over my house

 

[DeletedUser7968]

if you added all the quests everyone has had together I wonder what % "Scout 1 Province or Research 1 Technology or Gain 15 Vision Vapor" ? I Have 3 cities and just counting today I have 2 back to back in my first city, 2 back to back in my 2nd city and now 1 in my third city so all 3 cities have the same quest ...it wouldn't surprise me if this task amounted to 50% of all tasks ...it makes me want to puke ...as a gesture of goodwill to players for putting up with it Inno should remove this quest completely fro the next event ... oh and I just saw a pig fly over my house

and another ... like many others here I'm wondering if it worth continuing to play this game now that all the fun has gone from it

 

[Deleted User - 1759805]

if you added all the quests everyone has had together I wonder what % "Scout 1 Province or Research 1 Technology or Gain 15 Vision Vapor" ? I Have 3 cities and just counting today I have 2 back to back in my first city, 2 back to back in my 2nd city and now 1 in my third city so all 3 cities have the same quest ...it wouldn't surprise me if this task amounted to 50% of all tasks ...it makes me want to puke ...as a gesture of goodwill to players for putting up with it Inno should remove this quest completely fro the next event ... oh and I just saw a pig fly over my house

No, it's less than 13% over 900 quests or so:
https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index....diac-event-feedback.20926/page-56#post-159942

Reposting updated chart in case it doesn't show up:

 

[DeletedUser8632]

No, it's less than 13% over 900 quests or so:
https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index....diac-event-feedback.20926/page-56#post-159942

Reposting updated chart in case it doesn't show up:
View attachment 4018

So, 4 out of 21 quests amount to over 50% of the quests given in a sample of 900. Thats CLEARLY a normal distribution and just bad luck /s

Edit: I am going to save this (if you don't mind) and bring it out the next time somebody claims that events don't force mid-chapter players to overscout. (Well, technically they don't if you are ok with not getting a price or not participating)

 

[Pauly7]

Talking of knee-jerk reactions - I mentioned before how much of a mistake it is to allow players to rebalance the game themselves with unlimited prizes. I think this has already happened spectacularly and some players are getting double the scores in tournaments.

As expected the devs have jumped in and made this week's tournament doubly hard (probably a sign of things to come). The effect of this is to take away the benefits of those who spent all the money to begin with and at the same time further grind down the regular players.

 

[DeletedUser8632]

Talking of knee-jerk reactions - I mentioned before how much of a mistake it is to allow players to rebalance the game themselves with unlimited prizes. I think this has already happened spectacularly and some players are getting double the scores in tournaments.

As expected the devs have jumped in and made this week's tournament doubly hard (probably a sign of things to come). The effect of this is to take away the benefits of those who spent all the money to begin with and at the same time further grind down the regular players.

Yes, I think this is accurate. Potentially Inno is hoping to milk the high-rollers for what they are worth. I don't think players with little or no contribution to sales play any role in Inno's considerations anymore and that there is no long term strategy (because traditionally games like this cannot afford to lose casual players at the rate the Elvenar does right now).

Speaking of things to come (and because I want to write this down so I can later point at this post and tell everybody smugly "I told you so!"): I am convinced that Chapter 15 was the last ever chapter in Elvenar and I am fairly certain that within the next 6-8 months a Player vs. Player encounter system will be introduced. It will utterly destroy the game but like I said, I don't think Inno cares anymore.

 

[Hekata]

Speaking of things to come (and because I want to write this down so I can later point at this post and tell everybody smugly "I told you so!"): I am convinced that Chapter 15 was the last ever chapter in Elvenar and I am fairly certain that within the next 6-8 months a Player vs. Player encounter system will be introduced. It will utterly destroy the game but like I said, I don't think Inno cares anymore.

You mean one of those systems where other players can attack my city? That is the n1 reason I stayed away from many games. I have worked too hard on my city to have someone comes to destroy it or whatever. The moment they introduce that option I'll delete it myself and won't give a second thought to this game, if these awful events don't chase me away before that.

 

[Timneh]

I am fairly certain that within the next 6-8 months a Player vs. Player encounter system will be introduced. It will utterly destroy the game but like I said, I don't think Inno cares anymore.

If they do introduce that and it is the same kind of thing as they have in FoE then all the players that have taken the peaceful path i.e negotiate instead of fighting will be wiped out in a mater of a week or so because they will not have armies and the troops they do have will probably only be basic ones from the barracks.

 

[DeletedUser6205]

Not liking the new format (produce from your chapter or previous 3 chapters). With the sentient goods in higher chapters I have lost out on 1 and 2 day production as I have upgraded my Tier 1 buildings. I have also limited such buildings due to rewards from event buildings. If this new format stays, I may have to reconsider whether I want to continue playing. Being unable to finish events would be frustrating as I don't want to sacrifice valuable space for more buildings that I do not want to build, and I wonder how many people are in the same boat as me. The whole idea of events is to allow players to gain from the prizes, and without events for me, it would make my game play unrewarding. Maybe allow for more expansions.
Edit: Also, I find with the random quests, I kept getting the same ones over and over and over. Mostly ones that would make me advance farther & faster than I want. scout/research. Gain xxx relics, solve an x number of encounters. Seriously, not much mixing up of quests. I liked the old format where I could find the quest list as I have limited time to play. On my night shifts I get to log in once/day, so the list was very handy. I have, in the past spent money during events, but these last 2 I said "No Way!" You are trending towards the ways of Forge of Empires, and I liked that this game was different.

 

[Timneh]

If this new format stays, I may have to reconsider whether I want to continue playing.

Inno have already stated that this new format is here to stay.

 

[Errandil]

Well, this questionable event has almost ended. My final results for quests above 90th if anyone is interested. As before the only money I've spent is the event outpost since I wasn't sure about the difficulty.

Spoiler

I'm actually not sure what to make out of this. On one hand I've ended up with 3 fully evolved bears and 13 artifacts to spare (and I'm glad that it wasn't more, wouldn't like to think that I'm just short of the third brown bear). On the other hand the most fun from the event was brought by all the extra KP and other prizes, not by the process of doing the event. This definitely not how things should be. Recently I've started a city in FoE because of all the comparisons with it and there I'm having fun actually doing the events, not only getting stuff. Also I must notice that I'm actually glad with the uneven distribution of the quests, since with the chapter requirements it's way easier for me to be active for five days during the tournament and have some rest in between than doing all the ws and manus quests. And I've managed to build 16 workshops for this event, and had no issues with keeping 10 of them with toolboxes since I normally play without the workshops at all. Don't want to think how it was for someone who has less WSs and actually rely on them.

Overall I probably can live with this style of the events and wouldn't like to go back to the fixed amount of quests, since this style is way more beneficial. For my city several thousands of extra KP are totally worth it, the bears now allow me to partially compensate the addition of 3* frogs, and with the current amount of PPs I'll be able to fly through chapters 13 and 14 without the settlement and tech locks which should compensate the 3 weeks of delay before getting to Amuni. But still I'd like if the events were actually fun. Also I realise that my results are way above average and most of the players don't have fun with the event and don't get enough stuff to compensate for it which would definitely have negative consequences in the long run.
And I would definitely like if the level requirements were dropped. Having a huge part of my city occupied by the buildings I don't need without the ability to teleport them because of the event frequency is annoying and would be even more so when I get to the chapter 15.

I wonder what the winter event would be like, with the improvements to the current system devs are planning to make. Hope it at least won't get worse.

 

[DeletedUser8409]

Thank you Inno for this event - it has been the most challenging event I've faced before and I've pushed myself as hard as I could and enjoyed the challenge. I know a lot of people are saying what they don't enjoy, so I hope you see in this thread appreciation where it is. I've enjoyed having a challenge to see how far I could get rather than a set restriction that meant there was no challenge.

 

[Deleted User - 1759805]

No, it's less than 13% over 900 quests or so:
https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index....diac-event-feedback.20926/page-56#post-159942

Reposting updated chart in case it doesn't show up:

Final update with the update from @Errandil, which pushed the total number of quests to 1000+:

No material changes, really.

 

[OldHag]

Thank god it's finally over.

I love events and did very well in this one, as in got 2 sets of bears. I'm not a diamond spender, but time online is my diamonds.

But to anyone who says this type of event was more of a challenge then previous ones, I'd say bollocks.

Using time boosters made this no more of a challenge then the previous style event, but it certainly angered a lot more of your player base then any previous event, well done!

All you had to do, Inno, was to make it so that we could use any T1 manu. Very simple really.

I'm not a fan of the 'win multiple grand prizes' nor the 'endless quests'.
I'm not sure what you thought was so wrong with players winning one grand prize or finishing an event if a few days, if that was their preference.

 

[Tiriake]

Having participated in every single event they have released so far...this was the worst. I didn't find anything challenging about having to use instants. I have enough to evolve 1 bear. That's fine, didn't really push (read waste more time instants) and that was intentional on my part.