Changes to Tournament System

[Jackluyt]

Me personally, the main drain on relics is the continuous making of CC spells, which need Plank, Silk and Dust relics. Instead of focusing on those three tourneys to replenish those supplies, I have to work at all 9 tourneys to get the same amount of relics.

Now, that's me, and I'm not a typical. Your mileage may vary.

This is one of the changes in the Beta Announcement:

• Change in costs of magic spells - The current cost balancing of Enchantments leads to an uneven spending of relics. This is a disadvantage for all players, but it gets more and more critical the farer a player progresses in the game. A player e.g. might spend all his relics for ascended goods and then is stuck for a very long time on higher chapters. With changing the costs of spells, we hope to take away that problem.

My understanding of that is that in future a player like yourself won't just need Plank, Silk and Dust to make your favourite MA spells - but I'm not yet sure exactly how they are going to achieve that. If they are going to rebalance spell making to use an even spread of relics, that will be a very powerful and welcome change.

 

[BlueBlou]

Has anyone noticed that we mostly need t3 relics for crafting pet food? Now that is one thing I think surely need to change to cover the whole range of relics.

 

[Feyth]

I like this I have been in FS where some big players do nothing in the tourny unless it is their boosted relics, as a keen tourny player, of medium size, I always put in a good showing in each tourny 3k+ each week, can be very frustrating to see someone capable of much more doing 240 just to get the prizes I have worked my butt off for! Yay INNO! IMHO!

 

[Hekata]

I just haven't had to consider relics for a long time, so I have exercised the freedom to do more in one week and less in another as I see fit, just based on if I fancy it or if I have the time, or maybe for the sake of an FA, or if I want to save troops or petfoods. I don't think it will change anything if I keep doing the same thing.

In one city I think I'm mostly ok with relics but in the other one that's not the case, all my CC relics are lower than what I'd like them to be so I don't like this change. Plus it's not just about me. A lot of players are not used to do all tournaments equally, they just play at a somewhat less active level than we do. I'm not sure they'll be willing to change their way and they might find themselves in relic trouble very fast.

Suppose you always did 9 provinces per tournament. You would get x Marble relics one week, x Steel relics the next, etc, over a 9 week period.

With the rejiggering, You would still end up with x of each type of relic over the same 9 weeks. Instead of Getting all Marble relics from all 9 provinces the first week, you would get province 1's the first week, province 2's the second, 3 the third, etc. Instead of getting all Steel relics from all 9 provinces the second week, you would get province 1's the second week, province 2's the third, 3 the fourth, etc.

The same would be true for any consistent number of provinces completed every week, pre and post change, not just multiples of 9.

For me the point is not whether we can get the same amount of relics by playing all tournaments but the fact that we are all being pushed towards the same style of playing this game. Our freedom of choice and strategy is being remove more and more with every change Inno makes.

 

[Hekata]

I like this I have been in FS where some big players do nothing in the tourny unless it is their boosted relics, as a keen tourny player, of medium size, I always put in a good showing in each tourny 3k+ each week, can be very frustrating to see someone capable of much more doing 240 just to get the prizes I have worked my butt off for! Yay INNO! IMHO!

If you don't like how your fellows are playing tournaments you should probably try to find a fellowship that would better suite your playing style, one that is more tournament oriented. The way tournaments are now they allow us to play the way we want, the new system forces us to all play the same way. Some of your fellows obviously like to be more chill about tournaments and that's ok. I don't think you should be happy they are going to be forced to do more. As I said you should find a better FS for you and not force your fellows to play the way you want.

 

[Sir Derf]

As you now need to pick up the same of each you will now potentially need to be picking up relics that you didn't need to. However, that's offset by being able to pick up the same number of relics over a lower range of provinces, meaning it can end up cheaper to do.

Either I'm not following your reasoning/math, or you are wrong... The scenarios I come up with either cost the same, or cost more, to accomplish equivalent goals pre versus post adjustment.

Could you please describe the scenario that fits what I bolded?

 

[Sir Derf]

This is one of the changes in the Beta Announcement:

• Change in costs of magic spells - The current cost balancing of Enchantments leads to an uneven spending of relics. This is a disadvantage for all players, but it gets more and more critical the farer a player progresses in the game. A player e.g. might spend all his relics for ascended goods and then is stuck for a very long time on higher chapters. With changing the costs of spells, we hope to take away that problem.

My understanding of that is that in future a player like yourself won't just need Plank, Silk and Dust to make your favourite MA spells - but I'm not yet sure exactly how they are going to achieve that. If they are going to rebalance spell making to use an even spread of relics, that will be a very powerful and welcome change.

I suppose they could be describing a process where the recipe rotates through three sets of relics. As I stated earlier, currently my CC requires Plank, Silk and Dust, which are all Boost+2. If the recipes rotated between requiring T123, then next T123+1 then T123+2, that would make an even spread over time. They could do the same to all the Spell recipes, so long term needs of any Spell would require an even accumulation of relics.

 

[Sir Derf]

Assuming that my above guess of the implementation of Spell cost balancing is correct, I see a slightly different challenge for newbies. Your two major gains of relics, scouting and Tourneys, are mostly balanced. Your major drain on relics, Spell production, is also balanced. But, you will still have an unbalanced need to accumulate a large quantity of relics of one particular type at a time to improve your boosts as you go Chapter to Chapter learning one boost a time., This change might make it easier for a newbie to produce spells, but will slow down the newbie at improving their boosts.

 

[SkyRider99]

Same as with many changes in the last year or two. makes it easier for newbies and makes sure everybody gets the same and noone can get more/better stuff than anyone else by using strategy. new tourneys, shuffleboard events, etc

Pander to the newbies and hope to get more diamond customers? Well they do have a business to run after all

 

[Feyth]

If you don't like how your fellows are playing tournaments you should probably try to find a fellowship that would better suite your playing style, one that is more tournament oriented. The way tournaments are now they allow us to play the way we want, the new system forces us to all play the same way. Some of your fellows obviously like to be more chill about tournaments and that's ok. I don't think you should be happy they are going to be forced to do more. As I said you should find a better FS for you and not force your fellows to play the way you want.

And that is exactly what I did, however, I do not like to switch FS all the time, and often FS don't keep their overview updated, so a player can join thinking yay for goodies and be disappointed. Hopefully when inno introduce leagues, this problem will reduce, if the leagues are ranged from Rocket to sleepy Sunday Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything, the game is there to be played, and personally I don't see much point in joining an FS at all if you are not going to play for the team! That is after all the whole idea of fellowship is it not? If I see an FS with an overview that says you can all play our own game and we don't much care...I move on, but not all players, especially new ones are getting the full benefits of the game and and have much idea there is anything else out there to be had...so still Yay INNO

 

[Gargon667]

And that is exactly what I did, however, I do not like to switch FS all the time, and often FS don't keep their overview updated, so a player can join thinking yay for goodies and be disappointed. Hopefully when inno introduce leagues, this problem will reduce, if the leagues are ranged from Rocket to sleepy Sunday Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything, the game is there to be played, and personally I don't see much point in joining an FS at all if you are not going to play for the team! That is after all the whole idea of fellowship is it not? If I see an FS with an overview that says you can all play our own game and we don't much care...I move on, but not all players, especially new ones are getting the full benefits of the game and and have much idea there is anything else out there to be had...so still Yay INNO

There is elvenstats to check on how FS do in tourneys And for the spire you can already see the medals. FA performance one can unfortunately only see back to the last event. But if you really want to know the top performers you can look at the trophies in some long term members towns ...

 

[Feyth]

There is elvenstats to check on how FS do in tourneys And for the spire you can already see the medals. FA performance one can unfortunately only see back to the last event. But if you really want to know the top performers you can look at the trophies in some long term members towns ...

This is of course all true still like the new tourny system though

 

[Pauly7]

Either I'm not following your reasoning/math, or you are wrong... The scenarios I come up with either cost the same, or cost more, to accomplish equivalent goals pre versus post adjustment.

Could you please describe the scenario that fits what I bolded?

Well, with the new system you can cherry pick the provinces that you do.

Let's say, in the old system, that I complete 27 provinces all the way through 6 rounds in a Magic Dust tournament. That gives you 162 encounters picking up that particular relic and you're waiting 9 weeks to get any more.

So, in the new system, what if I do 27 provinces in round 1, then I just do the other 5 rounds in those provinces that are giving me Magic Dust relics? Then I will have completed 18 Magic Dust encounters. If I do the same thing in 9 tournaments in row then I've completed the same 162 encounters that gave me Magic Dust. However, with this system I've only gone past round 1 three times each week.

I know that when you apply maths to this you will say that I'm going to round 6 the same number of times over 9 weeks. In that sense you are right and my statement is wrong, but... for many players who have a limited number of troops to use, it will be beneficial to spread those difficult encounters so that troop production has a much better chance of keeping up with demand.

 

[Sir Derf]

Okay, that's much less than I thought, because of a wrinkle I had not thought would go that way.

First, my quibbles...

So, you do 27 provinces first round, then 3 provinces the remaining 5 rounds. And over the 9 weeks, those 3 provinces would shift, so you went to completion on the first 27 provinces over those 9 weeks, equal to having gone to completion in 27 provinces in one tourney old style. But, you had to do 24 first round provinces extra for 9 weeks, so you are still doing 216 extra provinces (albeit easy ones) every 9 weeks, Which means it costs more.

Now, that overage can be reduced, since you don't have to do 27 first-round provinces each tourney, only as many as necessary to get to the three provinces that have your target. Still extra, I think 108 instead of 216...

Lastly, long term, whether you're draining your troops all at once every 9 weeks, or gradually over those 9 weeks, troop production will have the same 9 weeks to keep up with demand in either case, so no better or worse chance. Actually, you possibly have a more problems with gradual, as if you have a particularly bad week or two, you might run short of a particular type mid-9 week, which won't happen mid-all-at-once.


Now, to the wrinkle I had not thought of. I had assumed that the rotating relics would shift province-to-province within a round, as well as shifting round-to-round. I had not considered it possible to open many provinces first round allowing vertical specialization on particular relic types.


Whichever way it goes, it kind of waters down the concept of "this is a Marble tourney". Okay, the first province, first round gives Marble relics, but after that? Most people's efforts in a 'Marble' tourney will end with them getting more relics of a single non-Marble type then Marble, and equal numbers of non-Marble to Marble relics. Okay, the bonus relic rewards for group participation will be Marble, so there is that...

 

[Pauly7]

Whichever way it goes, it kind of waters down the concept of "this is a Marble tourney". Okay, the first province, first round gives Marble relics, but after that? Most people's efforts in a 'Marble' tourney will end with them getting more relics of a single non-Marble type then Marble, and equal numbers of non-Marble to Marble relics. Okay, the bonus relic rewards for group participation will be Marble, so there is that...

Not that it in any way makes up the difference, but in the marble tournament the team rewards at the end of the week are all marble relics.

 

[Paladestar]

Awwww, I thought this was going to be about a change to stop the tourney formula from punishing people for not playing the game as intended - you know, doing niche things like actually progressing through chapters as they're unlocked and crazy things like upgrading AWs. I suppose you could group these silly things together as 'playing the game' or something similar.

 

[Jackluyt]

These are the new trophies in Beta, for Tournaments and Spire.
Gold and Silver are unchanged.

 

[Pauly7]

But the twist is - No one has any idea how that Spire Fellowship Reward works. It's giving seemingly random numbers to different teams, so whatever it's supposed to do it's bugged right now, I think.

 

[Hekata]

This new system has been on beta now for 2 weeks but still no announcement for live worlds. Are they having second thoughts or just forgot to inform us?

 

[CrazyWizard]

We will see tomorrow