spire reward change

[Pauly7]

They have the graphics to pull them in and the mechanics of the game will keep them for a while. And one important thing you also miss; Is that it's only us old idiots that knows the "good old days". They don't feel sucker-punched like we do. We knew how things were better. Our things got nerfed, twisted and bend sideways in so many ways. They don't know about all that. It might be stories they hear; But that's all

That's all true, but any of these newer players who want to push the boundaries of the game a little will still eventually end up realising how the new formula makes them take steps backwards eventually, even though they don't have a frame of reference of the good old days, ultimately they will still see a broken game.

 

[DeletedUser]

That's all true, but any of these newer players who want to push the boundaries of the game a little will still eventually end up realising how the new formula makes them take steps backwards eventually, even though they don't have a frame of reference of the good old days, ultimately they will still see a broken game.

As i wrote "the game will keep them for a while.", though i'm not so sure. Their starting point is completely different from ours.

They have no Phoenixes, no Bears, no multiple Moonstone sets, and no of the other T-whatever giving sets from the events. They will of course meet a lot harder game than we did; But that will be what they know.

The game is not broken - It's just how we see it. And we need to remember; This is business - Which also is why we should stop kidding ourselves believing that they listen to our whining. They only use it to find out how much they can turn things moneywise. From a business standpoint, it actually could work in the long run. I though would have loved a more cooperative way of doing it, and some care about us who plays the game; But that baby is flushed

 

[Gargon667]

That's all true, but any of these newer players who want to push the boundaries of the game a little will still eventually end up realising how the new formula makes them take steps backwards eventually, even though they don't have a frame of reference of the good old days, ultimately they will still see a broken game.

I agree, it is still broken, but most of the newbies will never get to that point, only very few will.
Of those few: If they have spent money to make it that far, Inno has already made their profit. If they have come that far without spending money, Inno couldn´t care less what they experience or not, they are highly unlikely to start spending money now, if anything they might start spending money to overcome the broken game...

 

[Pauly7]

The game is not broken - It's just how we see it.

If building an Ancient Wonder, or levelling up an Ancient Wonder, does nothing except make things more difficult... then the game is broken. If advancing through chapter 16, 17 and 18 does nothing except make you less powerful and make things more difficult - then the game is broken.

This has nothing to do with how difficult things are. They could make everything bolt hard for everyone and that's just the way it is. I've never objected to them making tournaments harder for people. This isn't the same as the above though.

 

[DeletedUser]

If building an Ancient Wonder, or levelling up an Ancient Wonder, does nothing except make things more difficult... then the game is broken. If advancing through chapter 16, 17 and 18 does nothing except make you less powerful and make things more difficult - then the game is broken.

This has nothing to do with how difficult things are. They could make everything bolt hard for everyone and that's just the way it is. I've never objected to them making tournaments harder for people. This isn't the same as the above though.

The problem is still that you come from the way you think - not like they do. To them this is harder.

As i initially wrote, i would have loved seeing them do it in another way, where they actually listened to us players. In the end that would have made them the most profit. But what they have now will still bring them profit.

And i do agree that upgrading wonders making encounters harder and thereby degrading them, is a bad choice; But it still works, because it hits you right from the start. It's only us old players that have seen nicer times, that will complain about it. And again; They DON'T listen to that. They only use it to figure out how much they can twist the game to pay-out as much as possible.

I will also bet you that they have a very nice spreadsheet that tells them that the average time, months/years a player plays this game, is telling them that they are close to the endpoint of how many chapters there needs to be in this game. What they of course also do, is that they have now succeeded in slowing the players down, so they can cut development costs on new chapters and channel that into the Spire and make every player want to play that slot machine.

The best thing they do in it, is let us win diamonds. I will bet you again, that they have another very nice spreadsheet which tells them that exact same thing from crafting and winning them there; We get accustomed to having diamonds - and are therefor more likely to buy some when we run out of them.

If they were not old-school business people, they would listen to the players, but also be real with us and tell us that to them this also is a business, so they just can't hand out everything; And they would actually make loads more money.

That part of the psychology course they went out for drinks

 

[Pauly7]

And i do agree that upgrading wonders making encounters harder and thereby degrading them, is a bad choice; But it still works, because it hits you right from the start.

No, but the point is you can have an AW on level X, then upgrade it to level N, but level N actually diminishes your performance. It doesn't matter your perception of how things used to be - progress should be progress. It shouldn't be penalised... whatever the starting point was and however hard it has always been.

I will also bet you that they have a very nice spreadsheet that tells them that the average time, months/years a player plays this game

Absolutely they have this and all they look at is what the average players do in the game. Things stop catering properly for those who excel, or who push the boundaries. However it's dressed up, though, these average players are still being penalised for some of their AW upgrading. The difference is that the average player doesn't go far enough in tournaments to even notice and 99% of players never ever see what's being said on the forums, so they will just end up none the wiser. That doesn't stop it being fundamentally flawed if people are being penalised for progress.

 

[Wibbly Woo]

To reinforce what @Pauly7 said, some “progress” has immediately obvious penalties that doesn’t require anything more than simply playing the game to notice. Try comparing spire encounter difficulty before and after your enter chapter 5. The one tech is a very noticeable degradation in spire performance.

 

[DeletedUser]

No, but the point is you can have an AW on level X, then upgrade it to level N, but level N actually diminishes your performance. It doesn't matter your perception of how things used to be - progress should be progress. It shouldn't be penalised... whatever the starting point was and however hard it has always been.

Absolutely they have this and all they look at is what the average players do in the game. Things stop catering properly for those who excel, or who push the boundaries. However it's dressed up, though, these average players are still being penalised for some of their AW upgrading. The difference is that the average player doesn't go far enough in tournaments to even notice and 99% of players never ever see what's being said on the forums, so they will just end up none the wiser. That doesn't stop it being fundamentally flawed if people are being penalised for progress.

But as i understood it, the change in regards to AW's, they still give us an advantage, just not as much as before ?

Every AW level according to MinMax's calculator adds 1 unit per squad to the fight, per round. I can't see how that is more than an AW gives us

And there's only 2 AW's we have that give us nothing, which is Thrones and Blooming Traders Guilds, everything else gives us something that adds to our ability to produce more of something or gives strength to troops or gives free troops, or more goods + boost to both troops and goods production.

 

[DeletedUser]

To reinforce what @Pauly7 said, some “progress” has immediately obvious penalties that doesn’t require anything more than simply playing the game to notice. Try comparing spire encounter difficulty before and after your enter chapter 5. The one tech is a very noticeable degradation in spire performance.

I must say that i no nothing about that since i was way past chapter 5 when the Spire was introduced and i also didn't play it because i thought it was a rip-off. It sill is, though i can use the time boosters for upgrading my buildings at the moment, so therefor i toss the dice in it

 

[Gargon667]

But as i understood it, the change in regards to AW's, they still give us an advantage, just not as much as before ?

Every AW level according to MinMax's calculator adds 1 unit per squad to the fight, per round. I can't see how that is more than an AW gives us

And there's only 2 AW's we have that give us nothing, which is Thrones and Blooming Traders Guilds, everything else gives us something that adds to our ability to produce more of something or gives strength to troops or gives free troops, or more goods + boost to both troops and goods production.

I do not know where you get that number from. That is not at all how the formula works. Tourney costs depends mainly on 3 factors (tech, AW, expansion), it is simply not possible to say how much 1 AW level adds to costs without knowing the other 2 factors, which are a) different for every town and b) change all the time (unless you stop progress and never place anymore expansions).

Just as an example (completely arbitrary numbers!):
Town 1: 500 techs and 100 expansions: 1 AW level adds 50.000 to costs
Town 2: 50 techs and 10 expansions: 1 AW level adds 500 to costs

There are many other numbers involved (like constant factors). So this is not exactly how it works, but it explains the point very easily I hope.

And that is only the starting SS. (which means your very first fight in the first province). So yes you can build as many AWs as you like if you never inted to do more than 1 single fight every tourney.

The real costs come much farther into the tourney, when playing higher provinces. Costs grow exponentially as you progress through the tourney. Depending on your other base factors (expansion+techs) and the tourney province you are in, the 1 troop cost in province one can easily be thousands of troops in every single encounter in higher provinces.

There are very few AWs that can produce that amount of bonus, the question for most AWs is therefore NOT IF, but WHEN each of those AWs becomes a burden more than a bonus.
Very few AWs (the direct military ones) have the possibility to overcome that problem, by changing the difficulty of the fight (rather than changing its costs). Which means there are less than 10 AWs that can more or less be guaranteed to be beneficial. All the other AWs are definitely causing more cost than benefit if you play tourneys high enough.

 

[Gargon667]

I must say that i no nothing about that since i was way past chapter 5 when the Spire was introduced and i also didn't play it because i thought it was a rip-off. It sill is, though i can use the time boosters for upgrading my buildings at the moment, so therefor i toss the dice in it

If you are interested in this topic is has been discussed at length recently, you can find it using the search function.

Bsically, most people have the same experience as you do, but it does not have to be. By now quite a few people have managed to turn the spire into a huge resource producing machine (especially producing far more troops and diamonds than it costs to play, ending up with a big net gain of both), so the exact opposite of what the big majority of people experience.

 

[Pauly7]

Yeah, what @Gargon667 says sums it up.

However...

Very few AWs (the direct military ones) have the possibility to overcome that problem, by changing the difficulty of the fight (rather than changing its costs). Which means there are less than 10 AWs that can more or less be guaranteed to be beneficial.

Even on this point, I've seen someone show a calculation that when you get to a given stage in the tournament, for certain cities, then even the most nailed on AWs can start counting against you. For example, Simia Sapiens and Flying Academy will provide you with X number of extra troops, but there can reach a point where the extra is outweighed by the burden. It's almost hypothetical, though, and won't affect many people at all.

Sanctuary / Martial Monastery is the only one that so far seems completely beyond reproach.

 

[Gargon667]

Yeah, what @Gargon667 says sums it up.

However...

Even on this point, I've seen someone show a calculation that when you get to a given stage in the tournament, for certain cities, then even the most nailed on AWs can start counting against you. For example, Simia Sapiens and Flying Academy will provide you with X number of extra troops, but there can reach a point where the extra is outweighed by the burden. It's almost hypothetical, though, and won't affect many people at all.

Sanctuary / Martial Monastery is the only one that so far seems completely beyond reproach.

That is because extra troops don´t make it easier (only cheaper), so if more troops from FA/Simia is fewer than the costs in more troops from extra AW levels in the tourney, even those AWs become negative, but I wonder how high you have to go in the tourney to reach that point.

On the other hand all AWs that actually make the tourney easier rather than cheaper will be more benficial the higher you go. The MM is of course the perfect example because it works in every single fight. DA, Needles and Toads only work when you use the respective units, but I think if you average over the whole tourney cycle they will be just as useful as the MM. In theory even Heroes Forge and Victory Springs would be in the same category, but since they boost units one never uses they become also useless again.
And don´t forget the Timewarp, another guarantee benefit as soon as you reach the point where you can play 2 tourneys on the 5-day-boosters.

So in my eyes you have 5 AWs with a guarantee to be useful, plus FA and Simia that will be even more useful than the other 5 AWs for 99.9% of people, while worse for people at the end of the tech tree with all premium expansions bought and still doing a 20k tourney average (or something like that)...

Then of course there is the option to buy ELR and MMM with diamonds, so if you are a heavy diamond spender you don´t need Needles and DA.

But for most intents and purposes I think the 7 AWs are safe to max out for anyone.

 

[Pauly7]

DA, Needles and Toads only work when you use the respective units

Agreed, although there is another point which they never answered on and that is that levels above 30 for these wonders are now entirely counter-productive.

 

[Gargon667]

Agreed, although there is another point which they never answered on and that is that levels above 30 for these wonders are now entirely counter-productive.

which is fine by me, they were always meant for ranking purposes anyway, I am surprised they left us 2 (or 3) useful ones that actually make sense to go higher than 30(or 31) on.

 

[DeletedUser]

I do not know where you get that number from. That is not at all how the formula works. Tourney costs depends mainly on 3 factors (tech, AW, expansion), it is simply not possible to say how much 1 AW level adds to costs without knowing the other 2 factors, which are a) different for every town and b) change all the time (unless you stop progress and never place anymore expansions).

Just as an example (completely arbitrary numbers!):
Town 1: 500 techs and 100 expansions: 1 AW level adds 50.000 to costs
Town 2: 50 techs and 10 expansions: 1 AW level adds 500 to costs

There are many other numbers involved (like constant factors). So this is not exactly how it works, but it explains the point very easily I hope.

And that is only the starting SS. (which means your very first fight in the first province). So yes you can build as many AWs as you like if you never inted to do more than 1 single fight every tourney.

The real costs come much farther into the tourney, when playing higher provinces. Costs grow exponentially as you progress through the tourney. Depending on your other base factors (expansion+techs) and the tourney province you are in, the 1 troop cost in province one can easily be thousands of troops in every single encounter in higher provinces.

There are very few AWs that can produce that amount of bonus, the question for most AWs is therefore NOT IF, but WHEN each of those AWs becomes a burden more than a bonus.
Very few AWs (the direct military ones) have the possibility to overcome that problem, by changing the difficulty of the fight (rather than changing its costs). Which means there are less than 10 AWs that can more or less be guaranteed to be beneficial. All the other AWs are definitely causing more cost than benefit if you play tourneys high enough.

I understand what you write @Gargon667

But my point was what one single level of an AW would do to a fight. When you use MinMax's calculator, it for the first rounds shows that provinces 1 will be 1 unit bigger, province 2 will be 2 units bigger, 3 -> 3 up till province 5, where it adds 6 units to squad. Province 30 adds 33 units to the squad.

 

[Gargon667]

I understand what you write @Gargon667

But my point was what one single level of an AW would do to a fight. When you use MinMax's calculator, it for the first rounds shows that provinces 1 will be 1 unit bigger, province 2 will be 2 units bigger, 3 -> 3 up till province 5, where it adds 6 units to squad. Province 30 adds 33 units to the squad.

View attachment 5390

You keep ignoring that this is only true for your town with your exact values from right now, not for mine or anyone elses, not even for yours in a week from now. It changes every time when you place an expansion or activate a tech... but yes it may be true for you right now.
Even then it is not highly relevant to look at the first 30 provinces, SS are sufficiently small to not be a major problem, you are still fighting less than double your own SS...

 

[DeletedUser]

You keep ignoring that this is only true for your town with your exact values from right now, not for mine or anyone elses, not even for yours in a week from now. It changes every time when you place an expansion or activate a tech... but yes it may be true for you right now.
Even then it is not highly relevant to look at the first 30 provinces, SS are sufficiently small to not be a major problem, you are still fighting less than double your own SS...

I'm not sure we understand each other @Gargon667

Do you say that when an expansion is added, then ,AFTER that - NOT adding the expansion at the same time, adding (just an example) 1 AW level will add 2 units per squad on the first province first round ?

 

[DeletedUser]

This is before adding 3 expansions. Still 227 -> 228 AW level.

And as you see the after is only slightly higher on the first round for the first 30 provinces. In total 15 units is added over 30 provinces. So only ½ a unit is added averagely per squad for each AW level after adding 3 expansions.

 

[Far Reach]

I'm not sure we understand each other @Gargon667

Do you say that when an expansion is added, then ,AFTER that - NOT adding the expansion at the same time, adding (just an example) 1 AW level will add 2 units per squad on the first province first round ?

You might want to go back and read @Gargon667 's last post. He explained the situation accurately there.

For each tournament, each player has unique number (called their base squad size or BSS say) which is scaled to calculate their army size and average catering cost for every province and round. (The way in which is done is pretty straightforward and many of us figured it out just by looking at our individual cities. It is also described on the forums if you care to look). In the new tournament the calculation of the BSS is more complicated than before and requires quite a lot of data points to figure out. @MinMax Gamer crowdsourced these data points from many players and used to determine how BSS is computed.

One option you have is to use MinMax's calculator, playing around with the inputs in order to decide how you should develop your city. Alternatively you could seek a deeper understanding of the formula and systems. The answers you've got here and elsewhere should allow you to do that.

As far as AWs are concerned, the answer which I gave you when you asked the question on another thread (about the effect of AWs on tournaments) is all you need.