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Version 1.15

DeletedUser

Guest
Yes and no. To be clear about this: We don't say anyone did anything wrong, or did something that wasn't legit. What we say is that the current system has flaws in it, which gives possibilities it shouldn't give because they are disrupting the game balance. This was not how the game was designed, but it was the result of bad balancing in the battle system, which is now going to be corrected. Again: Noone is blaming you for progressing as far as you can, bceause that's totally fine. It just shouldn't have been possible to get this far ahead in the first place, which is not your fault but ours :)

How is it disrupting game balance, if all people have access to the same system?
Or to put it another way, since some people are far ahead. wouldn't it be more disruptive to restrict people (like myself) who have not taken advantage of the system, rather than change what people can do in the future? (rather than backdating, essentially) This leaves the people at the top out of reach due to restrictions on me, that they did not have.

So with the changes it means I can no longer compete with those who are ahead, rather than allowing me to compete, but those ahead to not get further ahead... if that makes sense, it is late sunday night..
 

DeletedUser363

Guest
No, nothing is "permanently" limited. World Map progression is temporarily limited if you are far ahead of where it should be, in terms of game balance. When new Chapters are introduced, new "Advanced Scouts" and "Squad Size Upgrade" techs will be introduced as well, which will lower your scouting costs, scouting times, strength of enemy troops in these provinces and which will increase your own strength, so these provinces will be conquerable for you by then. In the mean time, you will also keep getting the tech tree city map expansions.

You miss my point, we are limited because the village sizes are limited, so villages cannot expand, therefore getting more provinces makes no difference.

Effectively the devs are penalising those that have chosen to play the game from near the start, and for sticking with it. A lot of those players have already left....are INNO trying to persuade the rest of us not to waste our time on here anymore? We have waited months with very little to do other than build new buildings and scout provinces between races (and this is not having used diamonds to progress through the tech tree), and now that will not be possible either.
 

DeletedUser1925

Guest
Yes and no. To be clear about this: We don't say anyone did anything wrong, or did something that wasn't legit. What we say is that the current system has flaws in it, which gives possibilities it shouldn't give because they are disrupting the game balance. This was not how the game was designed, but it was the result of bad balancing in the battle system, which is now going to be corrected. Again: Noone is blaming you for progressing as far as you can, bceause that's totally fine. It just shouldn't have been possible to get this far ahead in the first place, which is not your fault but ours :)
If I'm getting this right. You are punishing new players because older came too far, grow too fast and you think this update won't affect balance in a bigger way then current "imbalances?" Just think about orc's with current city sizes it takes you 2.5-3 months to finish chapter. After new balances it will take 2-3x longer? How is being stuck on the start of the chapter different then being stuck at the end of the chapter?

The most imbalances are caused by premium then every other setup in the game.

Expect more new players to quit even sooner or login once a week leaving MH upgrade unfinished for whole week which means active players can't use NH on that neighbor. (It's been a week since I message support to finish MH on two neighbors = Issue still not resolved. You are trying to make economy harder yet your game design fails at basic things like finishing Building when exactly is finished and not when player login. Seriously what do you expect from players?
 

DeletedUser9

Guest
So with the changes it means I can no longer compete with those who are ahead, rather than allowing me to compete,

It's exactly the other way around :) Players who are that far ahead, are being limited now from going even further, so you will be able to compete again with them in the future :) As long as the distance of the provinces you fight, matches your tech tree progress, the fights will be perfectly doable. This means that by this alteration we're making now, a moment will come when all players are as advanced on the World Map as they should be at that point, so it will be an equal competition again, which it currently isn't :)

we are limited because the village sizes are limited, so villages cannot expand

Yes, that is the whole point. By allowing players to scout ahead 200 provinces further than they should, they gain a lot of expansions that shouldn't be available to them yet in this stage of the game. City space should be limited, depending on where you are in your tech tree. When it's limited, you have to make better choices on how to arrange your city. When you have all space available, you can just build anything you want without having to think about efficiency, which takes away the fun.

Effectively the devs are penalising those that have chosen to play the game from near the start, and for sticking with it.

No, only if you choose to see it that way yourself :) Noone is being punished, we're bringing back the game balance so the game will stay interesting and challening, particularly for these players. Yes, this means that they're currently stopped from acquiring even more provinces on the World Map, but it is necessary to make sure that future chapters remain interesting to them. Once their game progress matches their World Map progress again, they will again be able to scout further and fight harder fights and the game will be a lot more fun than it is now (just battling with some overpowered units and keep on acquiring as many city expansions as you can once you're at the end of the tech tree - which is no fun at all). Again: The fun of a City Builder is having to think strategically about how to design your city in an efficient way. The fun is not in keeping on battling and having plenty of space available once new guest races arrive so you can build anything you like without having to think about strategy.

If I'm getting this right. You are punishing new players

No, then you're not getting it right :) As explained above: First of all, noone is being punished. Secondly: We're balancing World Map progression now in such a way that new players have a possibility to catch up with the others again. It's quite a common system, actually. I don't know if you have played more city building games, but it's quite normal that when you're in a certain age/era/chapter, you're limited to explore a World Map beyond that point. This can be because you'd have to fight battles against higher-aged units, for which you're not strong enough at that point or e.g. you'd need higher-era goods for negotiation, which you can't produce yet. This is turn means that you'd have to advance to the next era, to be able to explore those parts on the World Map, which is exactly how it should be.

The big difference here, is that that balance wasn't correct from the start. Yes, we should have seen that coming sooner, but nevertheless it is something we have to do something about now, to prevent it from getting out of balance even further. The thing is: For new players, it won't be any problem. It's only logical that at a certain point, fights get too hard and the need to progress to be able to win. For our current players now, it is a different story for they were used to a different situation, in which they could just go ahead and fight battles against armies that were 5-6 times as large as theirs. For them it will now (temporarily) be a limit and of course that's never nice, but it is needed to bring the balance back in the game again and we don't do that because we want to "punish" anyone, we do that because we know it's necessary to keep the game interesting in the long run. :)
 

Deleted User - 106219

Guest
All of that would be A LOT more believable if it wasn't possible to just BUY your way through the game.

Want more space? Buy some of the 33 premium epxansions. Already bought them all but need more space? No problem - just negotiate some encounters on the World Map! But you need Orcs to negotiate and you don't have any because you are still at Fairies (or even Dwarvers)? No problem - you can just use Diamonds to compensate!

The "balancing" looks like just a cheap excuse - and it will continue to seem that way for as long as you can use Diamonds to get around the changes that are supposed to "balance" the game".
 

DeletedUser9

Guest
Premium players will always have an advantage above non-premium players, that is true. It's a totally different subject though. The conversation here was about the battle rebalancing, not about premium features and the difference between premium and non-premium players. Like in many city builders, premium players have access to more expansions than non-premium players but that's not what the game is balanced on. The game is balanced on regular and non-premium gameplay. That premium players can make it more easy for themselves by paying for certain features, is of course true. If you want to have a discussion about that, please open a seperate thread for it :)
 

DeletedUser1925

Guest
If you are really want to be efficient you get no where. Just upgrading humans marble manufactory from L3 to L4 is hell inefficient.
Only efficient buildings to upgrade are residence (L20 ignored), workshop.
 
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DeletedUser363

Guest
which takes away the fun.
Just because it would take away your fun don't assume you can say what is fun for other people.

The fun of a City Builder is having to think strategically about how to design your city in an efficient way.
I have played City Builder games for over 20 years, and I still play the others, this is the only one I have ever thought of packing in
 

DeletedUser1829

Guest
Something I think people have missed with this update is that tournament fights have had opponents change so someone in earlier eras are not facing high level golems and paladins. This was a much needed fix for newer towns to be able to fight in tournaments.

Just shift your focus from far away provinces to tournaments. They are a great alternative to keep on fighting realistic battles and acquiring relics :)

I do focus on this in some of the worlds I play and the relic generation is not sufficient to keep the MA (level 2) running constantly, maybe it is not meant to run all the time. Lack of relic generation in the early game makes the MA a waste of space at the time it is available, I often wonder if it and tournament techs should swap in order so relics can at least start to accumulate a bit first.

Is there any information on the upper limit of the expected range? I saw your comment of 3-4 province expansions per era so do we just use that as the gauge? So for orcs that is 24-32 expansions and however many provinces are needed to unlock those? As the tech eras increase this gap of range would seem to grow and thus might no be the best estimate of an upper limit. While we can fight until it is too hard I think people would appreciate an idea of where they should be progression wise whether to know they are keeping up or ahead of the curve. Thank you for your many, and often long, posts to explain this update.

I do play tournaments. But catering costs are too big and with fighting you can't come far unless you play tournaments every 14 days and waiting 16h per level means no Level 6. Unless I become zombie and you don't want that or do you?

City Expansions from tech tree only are not enough.

I read somewhere that tournament catering is effected by the number of scouted provinces, this may also be something that readjusts as the tech tree catches up to the province expansions.

What do you want to do in your town? From my experience there is sufficient space with the "expected" provinces and tech tree provinces for most things. Yet to see if you can build all wonders in that space but you do have room for many wonders on top of essential and mandatory buildings.
 

DeletedUser1775

Guest
Dear mods,

I have just one little question. I am one those people that never used to fight but since armories are forced on us, i decided to make the most of them and build golems and sorcerers, and just auto-fight my way into first few of tournament battle, so far i have managed to do so with little loss. Will this be possible after patch? Or will it be impossible to auto-fight at all? I for one have zero interest in the battling side of the game and further more, i have neither time nor the patience to do them.
 

DeletedUser9

Guest
I do focus on this in some of the worlds I play and the relic generation is not sufficient to keep the MA (level 2) running constantly, maybe it is not meant to run all the time. Lack of relic generation in the early game makes the MA a waste of space at the time it is available, I often wonder if it and tournament techs should swap in order so relics can at least start to accumulate a bit first.

Thank you for this feedback, we will pass it on. When you complete a tournament province and the countdown timer begins, you should be able to do the next province right away. Is there anything that makes this impossible for you? (e.g. too little goods to pay for catering costs, too few armies for new fights, not enough provinces to do a next tournament, anything like that)?

Is there any information on the upper limit of the expected range? I saw your comment of 3-4 province expansions per era so do we just use that as the gauge?

The chests you need to unlock new chapters, are a good sign of how far you should be on average at these points. 10-20 provinces above these numbers would be normal for regular fighters.

I am one those people that never used to fight but since armories are forced on us, i decided to make the most of them and build golems and sorcerers, and just auto-fight my way into first few of tournament battle, so far i have managed to do so with little loss. Will this be possible after patch? Or will it be impossible to auto-fight at all?

Auto fight will still be possible, but at the moment it seems that AI is not always making the most smart decisions. We are currently gathering specific examples of this on Beta to see how we can improve that, to lower the losses you get from Auto Combat. :)
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Just shift your focus from far away provinces to tournaments. They are a great alternative to keep on fighting realistic battles and acquiring relics :)

Shifting the focus to tournaments is not a great alternative, since by doing the tournaments one cannot gain new expansions.

No, nothing is "permanently" limited. World Map progression is temporarily limited if you are far ahead of where it should be, in terms of game balance. When new Chapters are introduced, new "Advanced Scouts" and "Squad Size Upgrade" techs will be introduced as well, which will lower your scouting costs, scouting times, strength of enemy troops in these provinces and which will increase your own strength, so these provinces will be conquerable for you by then. In the mean time, you will also keep getting the tech tree city map expansions.

Then why oh why ... : was the limit on buying expansions extended a few updates ago - there is no limit anymore on buying expansions. In the past the amount of expansions one could buy depended on the in-game advancement of a player; depending on the level of the main hall one had.

In terms of 'game balance' the ability to buy all diamond expansions from the start of the game makes no sense.
 
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DeletedUser1829

Guest
In terms of 'game balance' the ability to buy all diamond expansions from the start of the game makes no sense.

The balance issue been addressed here is not that of expansions but that of province exploration. With our recent contests there were quests to explore or complete X provinces. To balance that sort of thing when people have 3 day scout times to people who have less then 24hrs is impossible. There was a lot of complaining about that imbalance and whether we like it or not closing the gap on explored provinces addresses issues like that and I believe negotiating costs in tournaments. @Marindor Are you able to confirm if tournament catering is a factor of scouted provinces?

Something else to note is that this restriction only applies to fighters, currently negotiators are still unrestricted so do not be surprised if we see similar changes to balance fighters and negotiators in the future. I am certain this is not a question of if but of when.

Thank you for this feedback, we will pass it on. When you complete a tournament province and the countdown timer begins, you should be able to do the next province right away. Is there anything that makes this impossible for you? (e.g. too little goods to pay for catering costs, too few armies for new fights, not enough provinces to do a next tournament, anything like that)?

The chests you need to unlock new chapters, are a good sign of how far you should be on average at these points. 10-20 provinces above these numbers would be normal for regular fighters.

Thank you that is most helpful. With the MA, I particularly like to build the power of provision spell, the tournaments have a 9 week cycle so I need to store up 9 weeks worth of relics for that spell in a single tournament. Simply at an early stage of the game there just are not enough provinces and/or goods to obtain that many relics. Prior to this update I was forced to negotiate tournaments on the early era towns, time will tell if the battle update helps or not as I haven't been able to produce enough troops to test it adequately and the AI issue will be necessary for me to fight tournaments in a reasonable time. I could possibly talk more on this but risk derailing the topic. ;)
 

DeletedUser

Guest
It's exactly the other way around :) Players who are that far ahead, are being limited now from going even further, so you will be able to compete again with them in the future :) As long as the distance of the provinces you fight, matches your tech tree progress, the fights will be perfectly doable. This means that by this alteration we're making now, a moment will come when all players are as advanced on the World Map as they should be at that point, so it will be an equal competition again, which it currently isn't :)

You could see it that way, or you could see it that I can't get expansions that they could, so my city can't grow as fast, so I have to grind longer and be even more bored. Just because I can catch up to them now (which annoys them) doesn't mean I don't like the changes that mean it takes LONGER to catch up to them (which annoys me)
Essentially you are making the game longer and more annoying for both classes of player.

I keep hearing "... where you should be", "balance" and "so the game stays interesting and challenging"
This is not a PvP game. It IS a pay-to-win game. So why is balancing required? (besides a naked cash grab) If I get further ahead by only catering and building my city a certain way, so what? I am ahead, go me? There is no PvP, so no requirement to balance. All these changes are designed specifically to slow the game down, which has only one reason, profit.

For a game to survive, it needs to make money. Equally, it needs subscribers and devs that listen to them. It is pretty clear that this version of Elvenar is the trial version, that is being tuned to extract the maximum cash from the players, while still being reasonably enjoyable. Again, I don't have an issue with that per se, just don't tell us that it is for the players good, when it clearly is not.
 

DeletedUser1414

Guest
from what i have been reading am glad i have started playing another game as i think i time is wasted. I use to enjoy playing now its just became another boring chore, i'll get more exciting cleaning my toilet than playing Elvenar.
 

Killiak

Artisan
As has been repeated several times now by our wonderful Community Manager; the devs want to slow you down because you are going way too fast. You need to slow down, and get frustrated by the boring slowness, so you will BUY diamonds and become a PREMIUM player.

It's about monetizing this game. No more, no less.

Premium players will always have an advantage above non-premium players, that is true. It's a totally different subject though. The conversation here was about the battle rebalancing, not about premium features and the difference between premium and non-premium players.


It's not a different subject. It is what this whole change boils down too, it's the actual (and the only) logical consequence.
Non-premium players can expand fast enough, by either negotiation or smart use of combat units , which means they do not get bored or stuck in chapters/tech. And because they have OPTIONS to keep growing and building what they need, they can keep their cycle of growth going.

So basically, this change will limit their combat option, which will limit their city growth, which means they can build less, which ALSO limits their growth because they will have less resources for negotiation/building/combat units.

But luckily there are diamonds!

It becomes more clear with every one of your posts...
 
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DeletedUser1925

Guest
Auto fight will still be possible, but at the moment it seems that AI is not always making the most smart decisions. We are currently gathering specific examples of this on Beta to see how we can improve that, to lower the losses you get from Auto Combat. :)
Why are gonna go ahead and still release something that it doesn't work?
 

DeletedUser

Guest
The balance issue been addressed here is not that of expansions but that of province exploration. With our recent contests there were quests to explore or complete X provinces. To balance that sort of thing when people have 3 day scout times to people who have less then 24hrs is impossible. There was a lot of complaining about that imbalance and whether we like it or not closing the gap on explored provinces addresses issues like that and I believe negotiating costs in tournaments. @Marindor Are you able to confirm if tournament catering is a factor of scouted provinces?

Something else to note is that this restriction only applies to fighters, currently negotiators are still unrestricted so do not be surprised if we see similar changes to balance fighters and negotiators in the future. I am certain this is not a question of if but of when.

First of all, I personally don't feel a game needs to be rebalanced in order to do contests, Imho this is a sophism. After all, it is easier to rebalance a contest :p and anyways all the contests were doable within the time provided. Also nearly every contest quest demanding for either exploration or acquiring provinces also had an alternative mission for completing the quest - mainly producing PoP spells.

My main aim for exploring and acquiring new provinces is to gain expansions. I cannot speak for every player ofc, but I'm pretty sure many will agree with me on this ;) I agree with you that the new battle system 'only' - :confused: - affects fighters and yes, one can still negotiate provinces - this depending where one is in-game, there already is a restriction on negotiating by needing orcs for many provinces, while many players are not able to produce orcs for negotiating their new provinces.

As I understand from Marindor's previous responses, the battle system will undergo more changes in the future, making it possible again to conquer provinces. My issue atm is that the possibility to conquer provinces will be reduced to nearly zero with the current redesigned battle system and no indication when this situation will be resolved.

Many players who currently are too far advanced - according to the developers - will get stuck and will probably lose interest in the game. :(
 
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DeletedUser702

Guest
Many players who currently are too far advanced - according to the developers - will get stuck and will probably lose interest in the game. :([/QUOTE]

This is where I'm at and all I can do is collect! Currently ranking 52 and own 200 provinces, no room to expand and x amount expansions
in my inventory and in need of a truckload of diamonds to get ahead in the techtree! this is where I was in the beta and I've departed that
one! So, my next choice is departure as my reason to play a game is enjoyment which is not forthcoming......;)
 

Jixel

Spellcaster
I've seen the battle update on Beta, and my thought :
This change should not be released on the live servers yet, because it is not complete.

Issues:
1. Early players are having difficulty winning any fights
2. Mid-game players are having difficulty winning any fights
3. Advanced players are having difficulty winning any fights
4. Expert fighters (like Goryn) are having difficulty winning any fights
5. Clearly, there is some serious rebalancing work required.
6. There are still no Fairy units !
7. There's going to be a change where the Cerberus unit is made available to all players, but it requires a new building (i.e. more space !). But that's not coming with this update either.
8. Laughably, there are still no spells that aid in battle ! Seriously, that would be the easiest thing for the devs to do to offset some of the frustration with the new battle system.
9. And auto-battle, as noted above, has not been tuned for the new units and abilities.
10. (Added later) Armory production has not been scaled up to match the current level, e.g. I can only queue up 5 hours of troop production on Beta, instead of 18+.
11. (Added later) Due to the troop size change, your armies are basically being stolen away from you, e.g. you might have 30 squads of something now, and 10 squads after.

Inno: Please do not bring this incomplete and frustrating change to the live servers yet. IT IS NOT READY.
 
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