From the Release Notes:
As part of the Crafting changes mentioned above, some Recipes that were previously removed have been made available again, chances of certain Recipes appearing have been adjusted, and some Recipes have been removed. Among the removed Recipes are the Stage 1 versions of all Evolving Buildings except for the four Phoenixes (Aureate, Fire, Storm, and Coldfire), as well as the recently released Festive May Tree. More changes to the available Recipes may happen in future updates.
@Silmaril : Please would you kindly clarify the section of the Release Notes which I have highlighted above - specifically, could you please confirm:
(a) whether or not, as of v.1.108, the Stage 1 versions/bases of the three Evolving Bears buildings will still appear in the Crafting options - and, if not;
(b) why has one of the two essential* combat-related buildings (Fire Phoenix) been left as a Crafting Option, whereas the other (Brown Bear) has not?
* NB : my grounds for regarding Fire Phoenixes/Brown Bears as being 'essential' are probably obvious, but for absolute clarity: I think it is fair to say that it is not only my personal view, but that of the large majority of commentators here, that no existing
or particularly new player [who spends an 'average' amount of money on the game] will
ever be able to compete with others who own at least one fully levelled Brown Bear and/or at least one fully levelled Fire Phoenix, and especially not with players who own one or more of both buildings.
Oh, we all love it when a Frozen Flame Orange comes up!
Don't we indeed,
@Pauly7 ... although I was even
more thrilled today to see a Frozen Flame
Green (for the first time ever!) in this morning's first Crafting Rotation...
/s. Even though it's been an option for a while, it was still hardly an auspicious surprise to see it occupying my single Building slot.
@Silmaril : Please would you kindly clarify why a building as statistically poor as the Frozen Flame Green has not been removed from the Crafting Rotation - especially with its undeserved classification of 'Legendary' quality - as well as why this building is so expensive to Craft (600 Spell Fragments and 4 Combining Catalysts)? For comparison, the Lava Codex (also a 4x4 pure Culture building) has, at least until now, appeared in Crafting with a cost of only 300 SF and 2 CC to Craft, while providing 100 more Culture points than the Frozen Flame Green (570 vs 470 - i.e. 25 more Culture per square - in my current Chapter, Dwarves) although it is rated as only a 'Basic' quality building, despite its evidently superior stats.
Once again
@Silmaril : Following on from the above, would you also please clarify
why the far superior of these two buildings is classified as 'Basic', while an evidently inferior but directly comparable building (Frozen Flame Green) is not only more expensive to Craft, but is also classified as 'Legendary'? Although experienced players will know that the apparently less-appealing of these two buildings (Lava Codex) is actually superior, these mis-classifications will probably mislead at least some new or even existing players into Crafting inferior
and expensive buildings, which seems an odd decision to make at a time when the Crafting Recipes have been altered ostensibly to make them
"more relevant" (as per the Release Notes).
Of course, I recognise that the most likely, if least desirable, player-perspective result (if any) of my making this comment will be either the removal of the Lava Codex from Crafting or, alternatively, its re-classification as also being 'Legendary' or 'Epic', with a commensurate increase in its Crafting cost, but I am always more inclined towards the direct approach than dropping obscure 'hints' - and I would also hope that the game developers would not be motivated to respond in such a disappointing way (rather than taking the more player-friendly approach of, for example, removing the Frozen Flame Green [and similar] from Crafting - or at least re-classifying it, too, as 'Basic' - and reducing its Crafting Cost - to match the Lava Codex).
While on this subject, there are, in fact, several other such (in my view) mis-classified buildings available both in the standard Crafting Menu and via the 'Mystical Object' (some statistically excellent - and even a few best-in-slot - buildings mis-classified as 'Basic'), but it is my view that this is probably an accidental bug/consequence arising from the re-purposing of former Event-only buildings originally classified as 'Legendary/Epic' before Crafting was introduced. Even so, the value of these excellent buildings may not be at all apparent to players (again, especially new players) who do not consider each building's stats, but rather primarily judge them according to their 'corner-flash' colour-coded 'rarity' classifications - which is a common habit of players of mobile games. This entire issue is an inconsistency which I think would benefit from review.
And finally,
@Silmaril one last time : Would you please, if you can, advise us as to why we are not informed as to
which Recipes may appear in Crafting, or provided with even a hint as to the likelihood of each one appearing? The most common answer I read in response to
any question about the game mechanics is that stating such information might give some kind of advantage to gaming industry competitors, but many games are far more forthcoming (even regarding 'hidden' mechanics such as how their combat systems work) with no apparent ill-effects occurring - and
in this particular case, I can see
no reason why informing players which buildings they may or may not expect to be able to Craft (even via broad general hints, if not specific data) could possibly lead to another gaming company misusing this information in order to achieve a competitive advantage.
This knowledge would, however, be of enourmous value to players of what is described and marketed as a strategic game, rather than a game of random chance, which at present best describes our only way to predict (well, guess...) which items - some of them very strategically significant indeed; some quite the reverse - may or may not appear in the Crafting Menu. For most players (who are not heading towards end-game), SFs and CCs are difficult-to-obtain and valuable commodities which we need to spend wisely, and this naturally cannot be done if we are not even aware of which Crafting items may or may not be available at all at any given time, let alone which are more or less likely actually to appear in the Crafting Rotation, and with what level of frequency. Vague statements such as
"... some Recipes that were previously removed have been made available again, chances of certain Recipes appearing have been adjusted, and some Recipes have been removed" and/or
"More changes to the available Recipes may happen in future updates" are hardly very informative or useful, even if accurate.
Thank you in advance for any responses you can provide to these several questions,
@Silmaril - and also a PS: I realise that the Release Notes currently state that all Stage 1 Evolving Buildings except the Phoenixes and May Tree have been removed, and I also know that the term 'all' should (in its literal meaning) include the Bears, but Release Notes are not always set in stone (or accurately phrased) - and even if they are in this case both final and accurate, I would still like to make the point that removing the Brown Bear [in particular] from the game while leaving the Fire Phoenix [in particular] still available seems neither rational nor equitable (unless, of course, Brown Bears [or equivalent] will be made available again in future).
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This message also
@MinMax Gamer for information, and with apologies for its verbosity... conciseness was never my strong point (QED!) ^_^
