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It's difficult to give my full views on this without summoning the Final Form of
L. Loquax back from the Beta Forum (she hasn't forgotten how to ramble - she's just moved house) ... but I'll try to keep my [long] opinion on the current FA changes in [what I regard as] a shorter form. So :
1. None of the FA's current changes [excluding graphical glitches etc.] results from either an accident or what would have to be several bugs, appearing simultaneously - I think that the changes are just another example of the now-commonplace habit of the F2P gaming industry to operate silent A/B Tests. Now that gaming houses can constantly collect and analyse detailed live player metrics, from trivial daily in-game actions to long-term spending patterns - with many larger companies doing so on a larger scale than perhaps some of us realise - they can very accurately gauge the responses and behaviour patterns of their entire player-base from the moment a player enters the game.
Taking this into account, the 'traditional' alternative of a far smaller amount of necessarily narrower [and subjective] player opinions and data - as were and sometimes still are acquired via Beta Servers, Forums, and similar - tends to become near-irrelevant in terms of its accuracy, and is slower and more difficult for the company concerned to collate and analyse, and while many games operate this kind of A/B testing in quite a broad manner between players and/or in-game groups, in this instance it appears that the testing is also comparing different levels of Chapter advancement as well.
Note : For me (on browser) the ongoing FA has suffered from dramatic server-side lag throughout, with City collections taking up to two hours to be credited to Badge totals, and with many other lag-related issues. Excluding player system problems - which do not apply in my case - this often indicates a high volume of data exchange, which in turn often indicates an unusually high degree of live metrics being taken up (in any online game).
2. The FA, and every other major element of the game, theoretically 'optional' or not, is now intended, by Inno, neither to be genuinely optional nor to stand alone. Inno has always 'given with one hand and taken [usually more] with the other' - and they are now becoming expert at doing so across a broad spectrum of in-game elements. However, without taking a wide and long-term perspective, the complex interaction between many, if not most, changes to the game can be difficult to see, especially if the player is unaware of the history of changes made to the game.
3. Coins and Supplies are the fundamental basic Resources of the game. I doubt there is any need to elaborate further as to how this alone readily explains the severity of the changes we are now seeing to what already were, for most non-early-game Cities, somewhat demanding FA Coins and Goods-based Badges - and it becomes very apparent, once the powerful import of this apparently simplistic fact is further examined, that
the game's entire foundation rests upon the timed accrual of Coins and Supplies, at an underlying pre-set rate outside of the player's control, as therefore do all of its secondary and subsequent Resources [e.g. Goods], over which the player has far more control - as thus does, even if less obviously,
the whole superstructure of the game. And if anyone finds this reminiscent of Farmville-type games - the comparison is valid.
And so, whether visibly or not,
everything in the game, from Troops to Events, and from Spells to Spell Fragments, is fundamentally derived from Coins and Supplies [and later analogues, such as Orcs, Seeds, Mana etc.]. Therefore, the availability - and/or lack - of these vital but, to most players, rather boring and workaday Resources, unlikely though this at first may seem,
entirely controls the function and viability of not only daily City operation and productions, but, in their turn, of all of the game's 'top-level'
and highly visible theoretically 'optional' add-ons as well - such as the Spire-Crafting synergistic system, Tournaments, Events, etc. - and also FAs - as it will control any other similarly repeating content yet to be introduced in the future.
4. It seems to me highly improbable that the ongoing FA changes are a unique exception to every other feature of the game - whether or not the ongoing changes are reverted or adjusted in future (and metrics will be the deciding factor there) - and, as such, these changes, Draconian though they are, are very probably neither bugs nor accidental early introductions of future 'as-yet untested' changes, but rather are an intentional part of a much wider and very long-term strategy, which in Elvenar's case I would expect to extend forward for at least a year, and maybe two years or more.
In Conclusion : With reference to the FA Coins and Bracelet Badges in particular, one significant part of Inno's long-term strategy, at its present stage, appears [to me] to be the intentional draining of players' stockpiles of in-game Resources of all kinds, especially the often very large stockpiles of later-game Cities - in parallel with the early prevention of such stockpiling, which is visible in the case of those newly started Cities which are being assigned the so-called 'minor' ongoing pre-Guest Race [significantly] altered Tech Tree and Chapter Quests, since these Cities are experiencing what amounts to Resource starvation on all levels - especially in Coins, Relics, and KP - but Coins are of note in this discussion.
And my advice : (although of course nobody asked!) is :
GUARD YOUR COINS - do NOT rashly spend your currently plentiful Coin Instants - they may be showered upon us now, but I think this is unlikely to continue. It's no coincidence that Inno now persistently offers, as Event Grand Prizes - and via expensively newly designed 'Tomes' - a choice of
only one of 100% Coin Rain, 100% Supply Windfall, or 20 AWKP Instant. Scarcity is coming.
The No. 1 Rule of [non/low-paid] 'Free' to Play gaming is : Save ALL Resources, from the outset - Waste none - Spend them VERY cautiously.
Last Edited : c.08:00 on 26th July 2022 [for typos and clarity only]