FA improvements 3 - Fellowship badge store

[Zoltan Alte Socke]

The FA is not equal for every FS since some live almost the same timezone others live very different time zones. If different members work on different badges then the time zones make their progression slower comparing to others.
Also there are active fellows who put many easy badges into the waypoints and others whom less active or work on 2 days items and can't make a contribution on a given stage because the easy waypoints are filled.
It is very hard to manage the FA by the messages or excel sheets since many players play on mobile device and if they jump to the browser then they have to wait till the game app load again. So they don't use the excel sheets.

So!

1. It would be great if there would be a FS store and the members could send their badges into there. If a member sent only 1 badge into the FS store at a certain stage then this member is counted as participated and should get the reward. It doesn't matter whether the badge was used on that stage or not.
The member has to send at least 1 badge at the next stage too.
Only the mages are allowed to put the badges from the FS store into the waypoints. This way the FS doesn't depend on the time zones anymore since everyone send their badges to the store and the mages decides how to use them. When the mages are online they can make the progression. Also the members can't put the badges into a waypoint which shouldn't be filled.

2. It would be great if the UI would display the summarized badges of the members which are not sent to the FS store yet.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

The "badge bank" has been suggested many times, and is always rejected for 2 reasons
1. Inno makes money from players being impatient and using diamonds to finish map spots in order to access the next spot rather than wait for X player to come online.
2. Communication, co-ordination, and planning are key aspects of the FA. If everyone can simply send all badges to the AM, then zero co-ordination is required.

 

[Julian]

Also 3. It would effectively nullify the concept of having waypoints and the Map. The FA would effectively descend into "collect a vast amount of badges"

 

[Zoltan Alte Socke]

2. Communication, co-ordination, and planning are key aspects of the FA. If everyone can simply send all badges to the AM, then zero co-ordination is required.

Elvenar doesn't support any kind of team work. There is no tool or solution for co-ordination.

 

[Zoltan Alte Socke]

Also 3. It would effectively nullify the concept of having waypoints and the Map. The FA would effectively descend into "collect a vast amount of badges"

You have to see that it is much easier to do the FA for those fellowships which don't have to wait 6-8-12 hours for the member(s) who worked on the badges needed for the next waypoint. Then they also have to wait 6-8-12 hours for the other players.

The FA is already "collect a vast amount of badges".

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

Elvenar doesn't support any kind of team work. There is no tool or solution for co-ordination.

Regardless of whether or not inno provides good tools for team-work (they don't), it's still an important part of the event, and basically the ONLY positive feedback that players consistently give about the FAs is that they "like the teamwork aspect"
Removing or reducing that is a bad idea.

You have to see that it is much easier to do the FA for those fellowships which don't have to wait 6-8-12 hours for the member(s) who worked on the badges needed for the next waypoint. Then they also have to wait 6-8-12 hours for the other players.

Easier? Yes. Better? No.
Sometimes removing a challenge can make things worse.

 

[Zoltan Alte Socke]

Regardless of whether or not inno provides good tools for team-work (they don't), it's still an important part of the event, and basically the ONLY positive feedback that players consistently give about the FAs is that they "like the teamwork aspect"
Removing or reducing that is a bad idea.

Easier? Yes. Better? No.
Sometimes removing a challenge can make things worse.

You are talking about the team work aspect. But that is created by the fellowships with different things (excel sheets, messengers and message threads) and not the game. Walking in the mist, not knowing when the others appear, reading through 50 messages isn't team aspect but chaos.

I am saying it would be great if we had a glass for our tea.
And you are saying no-no, I want to sip my tea from my hands.

 

[Pauly7]

You are talking about the team work aspect. But that is created by the fellowships with different things (excel sheets, messengers and message threads) and not the game. Walking in the mist, not knowing when the others appear, reading through 50 messages isn't team aspect but chaos.

The point is that if you want to do well in an FA then you have to be able to do those things. Not every FS will be able to. Not every FS can win.

As others above have said, FAs are about teamwork and communication. Take those things away and there is no real point to the exercise. They don't provide tools to aid in this, but an important part of the Fellowship Adventure is teams figuring out their own ways to manage this. It's frustrating for every fellowship at some point, but you make it as good as you can.

Also, I can imagine it being a much duller week for some people if all they're being asked to do is churn out a particular badge type and dump it into a respository, rather than thinking through what they need to do with those badges.

 

[Zoltan Alte Socke]

The team aspect is you tell them: who, when, what and how much produce.

Anyway, it is pointless coming to this forum.

 

[Gargon667]

You are talking about the team work aspect. But that is created by the fellowships with different things (excel sheets, messengers and message threads) and not the game. Walking in the mist, not knowing when the others appear, reading through 50 messages isn't team aspect but chaos.

I am saying it would be great if we had a glass for our tea.
And you are saying no-no, I want to sip my tea from my hands.

Well instead of asking others to do the work for you, you could also just sit down and do the work yourself Clearly whatever you do doesn´t work for you, while others seem to have no problem. So maybe work on your system while waiting for the game to get upgrades?

If you really think this would be the most important thing for developers to work on, sure go ahead, I just don´t think that there are too many people that would agree with your order of priorities. At least I don´t, that part of FAs works OK (not saying it couldn´t be better), but other things are much higher priority for me.

 

[Pauly7]

If you really think this would be the most important thing for developers to work on, sure go ahead, I just don´t think that there are too many people that would agree with your order of priorities.

For me it isn't even a case of priorities. What makes the FA the FA is trying to get through to everyone and persuade them to place badges where they need placing and produce what needs producing. I do realise that it can be more difficult for teams where there's a language barrier or people in different time zones, so I wouldn't mind the idea if they decided to implement the option to flag a preferred route or waypoint, but I wouldn't want people to have the ability to stop everyone posting their badges.

Fun fact - if they did do this I would probably end up putting no badges at all onto the map until the last day.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

. What makes the FA the FA is trying to get through to everyone and persuade them to place badges where they need placing and produce what needs producing.

Exactly!

Fun fact - if they did do this I would probably end up putting no badges at all onto the map until the last day.

100%.
Why show the other teams your hand? Wait until there is 10 minutes left and go from 0 points to first place before anyone can react.
Of course, several fellowships would do this so if would be fun to watch a few times, but in the end I think top performers would hate the lack of real competition.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

You are talking about the team work aspect. But that is created by the fellowships with different things (excel sheets, messengers and message threads) and not the game. Walking in the mist, not knowing when the others appear, reading through 50 messages isn't team aspect but chaos.

I disagree on half of that.
Yes, that teamwork is generally created/managed outside of Elvenar using 3rd party resources.
I would LOVE for those to be incorporated into the game.
I would hate for the timing and coordination to be REMOVED though, which is what a badge bank does.

I am saying it would be great if we had a glass for our tea.
And you are saying no-no, I want to sip my tea from my hands.

No, you are saying that we shouldn't have to get together for tea, we should all just wire the money to our leader and they can be in charge of drinking all of the tea alone.

 

[Gargon667]

For me it isn't even a case of priorities. What makes the FA the FA is trying to get through to everyone and persuade them to place badges where they need placing and produce what needs producing. I do realise that it can be more difficult for teams where there's a language barrier or people in different time zones, so I wouldn't mind the idea if they decided to implement the option to flag a preferred route or waypoint, but I wouldn't want people to have the ability to stop everyone posting their badges.

Fun fact - if they did do this I would probably end up putting no badges at all onto the map until the last day.

I never place more than a single random badge on each map Some of our fellows love doing the maps, so I leave the maps to them and dump all my stuff into the pit instead haha.

Just imagine the overload on the servers in the end if they did that, basically guaranteed they would crash and then everybody would loose all their badges and get zero prizes lol. Man I would die laughing from all the insanity hahaha

 

[BlueBlou]

Just imagine the overload on the servers in the end if they did that, basically guaranteed they would crash and then everybody would loose all their badges and get zero prizes lol. Man I would die laughing from all the insanity hahaha

Lol, before you go insane or die, I do believe dumping is already a strategy along with its associated risk of crashing the servers and getting no points for all your efforts.

 

[Gargon667]

Lol, before you go insane or die, I do believe dumping is already a strategy along with its associated risk of crashing the servers and getting no points for all your efforts.

Well it was much more of a problem in the old FAs, when we had so many more badges and the pit used fewer at a time, we sometimes were limited by time for spinning the pit in the end and not by any badge....
Nowadays it´s much more relaxed. The pit eats more badges at a time and we have fewer of them, but the proposed change would make things way more crazy than they have ever been

 

[foolfighter]

The team aspect is you tell them: who, when, what and how much produce.

That sounds very boring. In my FS no one is told what to produce or how many. We run a google spreadsheet that everyone has write-access to, and everyone can easily see what, and how many, badges we have placed on maps, have in member's city inventories in store, and what we need most to produce next - and it is up to them how they organise production. Some with a few hours to spare will open a bottle of wine and produce Breweries for three hours (it really is tedious Inno). Overnight sleepers will opt for 9 hr incubations. Once a day players will produce Necklaces and Blacksmiths - all their own choice and we can all see exactly where we are at all times. It's a well oiled machine with players all around the globe and really easy to organize. Now if only we could compete against those diamond buyers.......

 

[Gargon667]

That sounds very boring. In my FS no one is told what to produce or how many. We run a google spreadsheet that everyone has write-access to, and everyone can easily see what, and how many, badges we have placed on maps, have in member's city inventories in store, and what we need most to produce next - and it is up to them how they organise production. Some with a few hours to spare will open a bottle of wine and produce Breweries for three hours (it really is tedious Inno). Overnight sleepers will opt for 9 hr incubations. Once a day players will produce Necklaces and Blacksmiths - all their own choice and we can all see exactly where we are at all times. It's a well oiled machine with players all around the globe and really easy to organize. Now if only we could compete against those diamond buyers.......

Yours is just a higher level of organisation, but whatever way FS choose they somehow have to do it together if they want to make it up high in the ranks.

I don´t know what world you play in and I can only talk about EN3, but diamonds are not a problem in our world, they may make the difference somewhere down in the ranks when some people buy a few last minute badges to jump up a rank, but they are not a problem, you can easily beat them by simply playing a little better yourself (they may buy 5 or 20 badges, but if you´re 5000 points ahead they´re not going to even bother) and they sure have nothing to do whatsoever with who wins the FA