Minor differences in the progress before Chapter VI.

[Silly Bubbles]

Tournaments need to stay as they are. Relics are very important from the very beginning. They won't be able to boost their production and will invest themselves way too much into unboosted buildings. Also, enchantments are necessary from the very beginning as well because of the constant shortage of coins, supplies etc. Especially, if you'll keep pushing them to build Magic Academy (that can't be deleted and is huge for early levels), you need to give them access to relics to actually use it. Also, tournament is a great incentive to join a fellowship, you might end up with a lot of solo players without early access to it.

 

[Autumn Breeze]

Relics and Spell Fragments are crucial to the Magic Academy production and crafting...
If they think the Magic Academy is required from Chapter 1, then the resources should be made available for it from that time on....

 

[FairyElina]

I agree with @Autumn Breeze, if the Spire and tourneys start so later many new players could not do events, FA, there will not be good FS and they will simple stop to play. First 5 chapter give possibility to create individual game-play and this game-play include spire and tourneys. The diamonds farm could be block with no sharing the diamond storage between cities.

 

[Alcaro]

I don't understand what's the deal with diamond farming cities - they have to play in those cities, and they have to play really well to actually get significant amounts of diamonds. In En servers you can have max. 3 cities on an account - 1 main and 2 farming. How many diamonds those 2 can get that actions against them are needed to be taken? Are they getting those diamonds for free? No! They have to work for them, they have to be efficient to be able to get to the top of Spire every week, to get CCs, to craft in MA all kind of useless things for the chance of getting 500 diamonds (chances that were reduced with all those new buildings as rewards).

 

[CrazyWizard]

I don't understand what's the deal with diamond farming cities - they have to play in those cities, and they have to play really well to actually get significant amounts of diamonds. In En servers you can have max. 3 cities on an account - 1 main and 2 farming. How many diamonds those 2 can get that actions against them are needed to be taken? Are they getting those diamonds for free? No! They have to work for them, they have to be efficient to be able to get to the top of Spire every week, to get CCs, to craft in MA all kind of useless things for the chance of getting 500 diamonds (chances that were reduced with all those new buildings as rewards).

It has nothing to do with that at all.
It's all about player retention. proper introduction of game mechanics at a certain time.

Just because it does affect farms to some degree doesnt mean it's goal is to screw farms
you cannot stop those people anyway.

 

[Wibbly Woo]

It has nothing to do with that at all.
It's all about player retention. proper introduction of game mechanics at a certain time.

Just because it does affect farms to some degree doesnt mean it's goal is to screw farms
you cannot stop those people anyway.

They claim it is about player retention. We aren’t entirely convinced.

The on thing that is absolutely undeniable about the proposed changes is the end of chapter 4 fighting spire runner is no longer viable. Fixing the problem of the strange difficulty progression of the spire by simply blocking access until everyone is past the quirky part of the formula is not really a great fix.

I would also agree with @Alcaro, the dedicated spire running cities are played active cities, which require a level of mastery of the mechanics to make work effectively.

 

[Giraffi]

I wonder, do they have testers that start a new game over and over to check if the so-called mechanisms are working as intended? Inexperienced players doing the testing? Experienced players would know how to get the best out of the game and not a true reflection of what a novice would experience. How did they even come to the conclusion that the beginning is not functioning correctly?

As I see it, this game is partly about getting your productions up and running as fast as possible and a 700% boost is part of that. Tournaments should be available from day 1. Not having that will make them grow slower and potentially quitting the game sooner than they would have under different circumstances.

 

[schadenfreude]

I wonder, do they have testers that start a new game over and over to check if the so-called mechanisms are working as intended? Inexperienced players doing the testing? Experienced players would know how to get the best out of the game and not a true reflection of what a novice would experience. How did they even come to the conclusion that the beginning is not functioning correctly?

As I see it, this game is partly about getting your productions up and running as fast as possible and a 700% boost is part of that. Tournaments should be available from day 1. Not having that will make them grow slower and potentially quitting the game sooner than they would have under different circumstances.

Given all the problems with the traders affecting everything lately, I'm not sure how much actual testing is being done in any meaningful way

 

[CrazyWizard]

They claim it is about player retention. We aren’t entirely convinced.

The on thing that is absolutely undeniable about the proposed changes is the end of chapter 4 fighting spire runner is no longer viable. Fixing the problem of the strange difficulty progression of the spire by simply blocking access until everyone is past the quirky part of the formula is not really a great fix.

I would also agree with @Alcaro, the dedicated spire running cities are played active cities, which require a level of mastery of the mechanics to make work effectively.

So we should stop changig and evolving because there are weird loopholes in the game and they should stay.
Off course of a loophole is closed thats an added benefit.

BTW nobody from innogames claimed it's because of player retention, but it's so very clear to see thats the case.
It's not the first try and it will neither be the last. if it fails to improve player retention I am certain they change it back quicker than you can blink an eye. but these changes make total sense. I would make similar changes if I was a dev.

I wonder, do they have testers that start a new game over and over to check if the so-called mechanisms are working as intended? Inexperienced players doing the testing? Experienced players would know how to get the best out of the game and not a true reflection of what a novice would experience. How did they even come to the conclusion that the beginning is not functioning correctly?

As I see it, this game is partly about getting your productions up and running as fast as possible and a 700% boost is part of that. Tournaments should be available from day 1. Not having that will make them grow slower and potentially quitting the game sooner than they would have under different circumstances.

They have limited testing capabilities. sometime certain problems only show at scale. I had an issue with the trader just once. if you test sometime A few times and it works. it passes Q&A. if then at scale it turns out that a certain bottleneck on the back end gets clogged it might be difficult to figure it out and fix it. or a certain combination of moves that show up the problem.

also they use scrum and agile, a perfect way to control dev costs, but the downside can be that some "improvements" bear something else.
Thet new part is tested but not the entire game.

Some issues just do not show in a testing evoirment.
Thats why beta is used and thats why international is sometimes used as an extra testing bed. it usually gets it's updates 2 days before the rest of the world

 

[Killiak]

Thats why beta is used and thats why international is sometimes used as an extra testing bed. it usually gets it's updates 2 days before the rest of the world

Beta is used for early detection, so they can get started sooner on fixing any issues.
The issue has to be really bad for any actual delays in updates to 'live' servers though. Usually they just roll them out, bugs and all.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Beta is used for early detection, so they can get started sooner on fixing any issues.
The issue has to be really bad for any actual delays in updates to 'live' servers though. Usually they just roll them out, bugs and all.

Yup, each release has it's bugs. the issue is that if you do not release untill they are fixed there will be no updates. since elvenar is a continuously updated game. there is no "it has to be released here date". so when bug A is fixed, another dev ups his parts and breaks Bug A again.
so there is no point at which the only development is bug fixes and the game is "finalised"
If it would the game would be dead, and thats bad for us.

In essence you try to balance between development and playability, if it's a really critical bug, you delay release. if it's not critical you release it and fix it in the next patch. this way development productivity stays high.

 

[QFol2]

Just a note that the tips in the loading screen are no longer accurate - have just had one saying the spire is available in ch3, which of course it no longer is in my new city

 

[Silly Bubbles]

If I was to make the game less overwhelming and make new players to actually look forward to new things and progress faster for it, I would introduce events and magic academy later. Events, because the quests can be confusing for them or they aren't able to finish some quests and also because the event buildings just go obsolete too quickly because of the fast progress through the chapters. Magic academy, because it takes too much space relative to their available space and can make them to craft wrong things and can be confusing. Personally, I only started using Magic Academy once I had excess relics and access to Spire.

 

[Autumn Breeze]

OK, it seems they have implemented some of these changes... ...and no mention of it in any of the Update Info... SNEAKY!
My smaller city, Autumn Chill, was already existing well before it happened, I have the Spire opened from Chapter 3, and play Tournament and Spire regularly, but for some reason I am no longer being rewarded with broken shards from Tournament rounds???
Is this a bug? Or have they been removed? It's kinda weird...

 

[Silmaril]

It could be that you are at your capacity for Broken Shards @Autumn Breeze. You can check this by clicking the Elvenar icon at the top of the game.
If this does not answer the query, please raise a ticket with support.

 

[Killiak]

Increasing the Broken Shard storage has been a long standing request from the players, btw.

 

[Laurelin]

It could be that you are at your capacity for Broken Shards @Autumn Breeze. You can check this by clicking the Elvenar icon at the top of the game.
If this does not answer the query, please raise a ticket with support.

@Silmaril : I think there may be some confusion here. Your reply seems to suggest that you think @Autumn Breeze is stating that no further Broken Shards can be added to storage once thee long-standing capacity limit of 10 has been reached, but it seems to me that the issue here is that no further Broken Shards are even appearing as Tournament Rewards - and this should not be affected by whether or not one's storage is full, because once the maximum of 10 Broken Shards are in storage, all further Broken Shards won are simply discarded. They do still appear, though, whether as Tournament Rewards, Event Prizes, or anywhere else.

Your reply, above, would seem to suggest that there may be some connection between the long-standing storage capacity limit and the non-appearance of Broken Shards as Tournament Rewards, which certainly doesn't feature in my own City (where I continue to see Broken Shards as rewards, in Tournaments or anywhere else, whether or not my storage capacity is full) - and if this really is the case, it would be a major change which, one would think, should probably be announced to the game community at large, rather than discussed only within one Support Ticket...?

My City is in the Elementals Chapter, and therefore - I assume? - not subject to the ongoing changes to the early game, but I would nonetheless welcome some clarification of your meaning in the above post. Many thanks in advance.

 

[Deleted User - 849634047]

It makes me wonder if the market research team maybe concluded that they can score more diamond purchases this way, from frustrated people.

I think that's exactly what they're doing. They've removed every other avenue for getting better buildings & resources leaving only diamond bought premiums.

 

[Deleted User - 849634047]

It might have helpend if the opening post had a little more information for example that the needed KP to het trough the chapters is pretty much reduced by 50%+ to help players get faster trough the chapters.
Now people do not see they reach chapter 5 as quickly as formerly chapter 3 and only read BLOCKED CHAPTER 5 WAAAAHHHH!

Rather than dismissing the concerns of others you could build a new city to gain some perspective.
The changes have made the game very boring and very restrictive unless ur prepared to spend a lot of money.

 

[CrazyWizard]

Rather than dismissing the concerns of others you could build a new city to gain some perspective.
The changes have made the game very boring and very restrictive unless ur prepared to spend a lot of money.

You are dismissive and saying I lack perspective.

I think of all the people I am one of the remaining people who started 7 years ago with the best perspective, because unlike most I have seen all versions and rebuilds of the first chaper of this game, I have seen the introduction of every chapter, the introduction of wonders, tournaments, events and every other in game feature that for most people here are normal.
So I can even compare certain changes vs how it was back in the day and see if that killed the game.

most of you just look at superficial numbers and respond in panic. chapter 5 WAAAAH, and your respons shows you seem to be one of those.
You dismiss the changes to the quest, you dismiss changes to research requirment (read kp)

I do not dismiss anything, I have a broad view.
I know how it is to play without the tournaments, I know how it is to play without spire, I know how much these give to new players and what there influence is in the first 3-4 weeks.

I also know how difficult it is to have you being pulled to 7 different directions at day one, I know how to budget those directions but a new player does not.
A lot of players are "normies" not exprienced players, not powerplayers, not people who read the forums and wiki.
They just start and play and enter a crappy fellowship or none at all., I see the direction they are going and endorse it. I see that this is the second time they rework chapters/quests, they first time it was very positive for retention. I am sure it will also this time.

And the best part is, Inno-games will be on top of retention numers. it's there bread and butter. if it's really that retention rate drop they will revert it in an instant, why? because it's there bottom line.

That there is now a downside for "old players" with all the knowledge, players who know how to play and budget, players who know how to get access to the correct fellowships, players who know how to get freebees to help them start out superfast and get them running in seconds, players who build assist accounts to support there first.
those accounts are not where the most money that keeps this game afloat comes from.

As inno-games stated before 50% of the revenue comes from normies who are new the game, they spend most money in the first 6 months.
And I would not suprise if the several starter packages in the first few weeks are a mayority of that 50% incomes.

So keep players playing in the first few weeks, with direction from quests makes total sense to me. confusing people with too many option in from the get go does not make sense to me.

Thats how I look at this topic
And even from a powerplay option I am fine with this change, yes it would hurt me if I want to build a bunch of spire slayers on different worlds for diamonds as I now need to unlock more options before I can access the spire and reap the rewards. outside of that scope i love the change.

If I wanted yet another account that really intends to play like all the chapters I would be fine and actually enjoy the refreshing change.
I also endorse it from the point that if player retention is better there will over time be more players to share the game with, potential new fellowship members and maybe even friends.