Version 1.22

[DeletedUser1265]

The game must be engaging enough to keep a new player in the game and provide them with enough progress the first time they log in so that they become invested in the game. This means hopefully keeping them engaged enough to stay at least 15-30 min the first time they log in. So, you need to make sure the initial quests and tutorial cater to this. Also, it should not be too hard to acquire Their 1 goods during Chapter 1 for players who have a very small explored area so have to pay a 50% premium to buy most existing trades. These are also the players who are most likely not in a fellowship yet. Buying 20 or multiple of 20 goods from the old Wholesaler with the Coins from quests was one way to keep a steady progression going at the beginning of the game.

Yip, I agree with this, especially as it is becoming increasingly difficult for newer players to get into an experienced fellowship that can offer mentoring. Over the last few weeks I have been assisting players through messages to keep them motivated and to answer some questions.

However, this isn't necessarily only linked to the wholesaler, however it is something INNO should probably look into as part of a development strategy.

( I VOTE FOR THE TRADER TO RETURN AS IT WAS (which against what you say we all felt was FAIR)

Unfortunately, the aforementioned statement is not entirely accurate, if you read back to the history of the forum the previous wholesaler caused a huge uproar in the beginning. It only really became fair once you got your boosted manufacturies production up to 400% - basically meaning you break even (theoretically). Perhaps, more accurately, it may be perceived as more user friendly than the current system.

 

[DeletedUser3032]

I have been trying to figure this one out too and think I may have worked out the reference. The amounts offered were 20, 100 500. As new player how often would they use 500? never. As an end game player how often would they use 20 or even 100? So despite the 3 offers people were mostly use the quantity that best suited their progression in the game effectively making it 1 or 2 offers at best.

So the linking to main hall was an attempt to try and connect a value more in line with players progression (I am sure there are others reasons for it too).

Regardless of what people bought on the old trader, if you needed 800 marble you'd buy 500 + 100 + 100 + 100. OR you could buy 8x100 and the price was the same regardless of how you did it. I'd have to buy 9 lots and it will cost a LOT more now.

One of the reasons is to slow the game down as probably development is slowing as the 'story' of the game comes to a end and concentration moves onto other projects. So they remove tonnes of coins/supplies/resources from the players pool for the use of the wholesalers and then we have to wait longer for more stuff to advance in the game. Lets put it in a real life perspective. A country has 10 billion 50 Euro notes in circulation, the bank then removes 5 billion of those from circulation. Those 50 Euro notes are in higher demand then so growth slows.

Maybe the figures on the old system were to high as it created a lot of growth quickly. But the new figures are far to low to even give a growth and on top of that the prices increase which is another slow down.

 

[Timneh]

I have been trying to figure this one out too and think I may have worked out the reference. The amounts offered were 20, 100 500. As new player how often would they use 500? never. As an end game player how often would they use 20 or even 100? So despite the 3 offers people were mostly use the quantity that best suited their progression in the game effectively making it 1 or 2 offers at best.
So the linking to main hall was an attempt to try and connect a value more in line with players progression (I am sure there are others reasons for it too).

I am in chapter 6 now but even when i was i chapters 4 and 5 i was buying goods in lots of 500. Now i can only get them in lots of 150. I trade as much as i can to get what i need but as i said in my earlier post there are shortages of some goods and my trades can sit there for 2 or 3 days especially when there is a tourney running. There have been times when i could not take part in a tourney even if i wanted to because i was too low on goods to cater and i do not care for fighting.

 

[DeletedUser3032]

Always used to buy in 500's.

I'd buy 500 marble or steel, a member of FS would buy 500 planks and we trade. Job done.

 

[DeletedUser]

One other note:

Maybe bump up the number of trades you can place from a max of 60, to maybe something like 90. I always try to make sure I put out a number of trades at 100 units just so they are out there for smaller traders / fellowship members. Usually post at 100, 500, or 1000 units depending how overstocked my buffed goods are. But that then limits the number of trades I place out there to acquire more goods through trading if we are supposed to be using the wholesaler less.

I usually can be on to place trades twice a day, but sometimes it is only once a day, and it would be nice to be able to get more trades out there without having to eliminate the 100 unit trades.

 

[Cregganroe]

Yep totally agree with you shadowblack. In the area of the world map where i am there is an abudance of marble and loads of people want steel, planks are very rarely offered and are snapped up within seconds of being placed on the trader. I really struggle to get planks and got most of them from the wholesaler, but not anymore.

Yes I agree totally with you and Shadowblack.... The area I am in has a huge shortage of marble, crystal and magic dust.... Well unless I take (unfair on me) cross tier trades that want thousands of my goods for a couple of hundred of theirs....
I would love nothing more than to trade FAIRLY for what I need but it is impossible with the way it stands at the moment... In fact I have a total of 104 trades up in my trader from neighbours of which there are 16 zero star trades and 27 cross tier trades all in the sellers favour that leaves a grand total of 61 trades and of them 26 are offering goods that I am boosted in.... So I think that shows that trading with my neighbours is not practical in the area that I am....
And like others have already stated swapping inactives for brand new cities is not working because they cannot trade at my level.... So very politely I am asking where you would like me to get my trades from??????

 

[Timneh]

I am really struggling to see a reason for Inno bringing this change to the live servers when it was still a major problem on the beta servers. It must be more sensible to hold things back until they have found a change that works on beta and then bring it to the live servers, after all is that not what beta is for ? If not why bother to have a beta game at all?

 

[DeletedUser1829]

I am really struggling to see a reason for Inno bringing this change to the live servers when it was still a major problem on the beta servers. It must be more sensible to hold things back until they have found a change that works on beta and then bring it to the live servers, after all is that not what beta is for ? If not why bother to have a beta game at all?

Not working and not happy are very different things. We have no access to the statistical data that Inno has, for all we know it was working (big picture). There are definitely areas that have been highlighted that need attention but many of those can be solved in other ways.

 

[DeletedUser3032]

Not working and not happy are very different things. We have no access to the statistical data that Inno has, for all we know it was working (big picture). There are definitely areas that have been highlighted that need attention but many of those can be solved in other ways.

But we do have feedback about this update from multiple servers to look back on. We all know the majority do not like whats changed. The statistical data which we do not see will be all figures to do with money and the amount of wholesaler use verse trading. The fact is the wholesaler shouldn't be compared to FS and neighborhood trades as it's completely unrelated. WS gives you resources. Trading does not, it just swaps them. So really they cannot be compared. This update is just limiting the amount of resources we can pull together at reasonable prices and thus slowing the game down to a snail pace, which probably was the intent.

 

[Timneh]

Not working and not happy are very different things. We have no access to the statistical data that Inno has, for all we know it was working (big picture). There are definitely areas that have been highlighted that need attention but many of those can be solved in other ways.

The fact that this change is still a concern on the beta server means that it was released on the live servers before it was ready. The purpose of beta is to run things until all the little niggles are ironed out and then release it. This is how it is done on on all the other sites i have used that have beta and i am talking both for my work and my private life. As it has been said on the beta forum the live servers and beta do not have a big enough time gap between them, 2 months is not enough never mind 2 weeks.

 

[DeletedUser3032]

The fact that this change is still a concern on the beta server means that it was released on the live servers before it was ready. The purpose of beta is to run things until all the little niggles are ironed out and then release it. This is how it is done on on all the other sites i have used that have beta and i am talking both for my work and my private life. As it has been said on the beta forum the live servers and beta do not have a big enough time gap between them, 2 months is not enough never mind 2 weeks.

One of the games I've played used a 2 week windows for testing but the company listened to the players and corrected any bugs or anything which was a concern before it went live. This included making sure it was balanced correctly. They would make alterations within 2 days but mostly within 36hrs and put the revised version straight back onto the beta server so there was very little downtime (30mins max) for players to carry on scrutinizing the update before it went onto all of their 30+ live servers. That is how it should be done.

 

[Aureliae]

This is the feedback we have collected so far - if anything is missing or wrong, we encourage you to let us know by commenting below

Yup:

• you're missing the fact that you advertised via the 'did you know' log in message that the wholesaler was a good place to use our excess coin or supplies - we did that - and you now have a problem with it. Which is why we're all going WTF and not buying your argument that the wholesaler wasn't user friendly, or wasn't working as designed. If you didn't design it as a place for us to dump excess coin and supplies - then why would you have instructed us to do so?
• You haven't addressed really addressed the fact that *right now* there's now no useful way to use excess coin (in my case about 6m per day). As you can see from the comments, that has already led to people paying six figures for KP as they have run that up, and as you've noted, no longer visiting neighbors as there's no incentive to do so, and indeed no longer visiting fellowship members either as there's no incentive to do that. Killing one element of the game (visits) to try and boost trading (which is just fine if you're in a good balanced fellowship - if you're not, switch, or merge two weak fellowships) is the definition of dumb. Waiting around for you to develop some other game element for us to sink coin in to is not going to fix this critical game-killing problem: players get out of the habit of doing daily visits, they stop logging in every day, and then they just stop logging in.
• There should not be a variable price for goods in the wholesaler. Goods cost what they cost what they cost you to produce. It's flat. The wholesaler should also be a flat price, that doesn't discriminate in who is buying or how much they're buying. You wanna put a markup on it, call it the retailer.

Roll it back. Roll it back now. Before fellowships start disbanding left right and centre and previously active cities go dark across the map.

I have been trying to figure this one out too and think I may have worked out the reference. The amounts offered were 20, 100 500. As new player how often would they use 500? never. As an end game player how often would they use 20 or even 100? So despite the 3 offers people were mostly use the quantity that best suited their progression in the game effectively making it 1 or 2 offers at best.

So the linking to main hall was an attempt to try and connect a value more in line with players progression (I am sure there are others reasons for it too).

Yeah, that argument might work, except that now the amounts we can buy are generally *less* than 500. I posted before that if they had changed it so the levels went up (so it went up to say 100, 500, 1000 at a certain level or whatever) that would be fine! That would be user friendly and appropriate! This is BS.

Edit by Muf-Muf: Merged multiple posts into one.

 

[DeletedUser2553]

I left my guild the other day out of 25 players it was only 4-5 of us left active but with very bad vibes and negative talk about Elvenar's changes, the last ones didn't feel motivated longer to play the game. It's sad as it was a great fellowship

 

[DeletedUser]

It would have been better to fix the underlying issues before bring out the change to the wholesaler, I can see what's being said by Inno and the wholesaler being a last resort rather than the norm, but it seems a lot of us are in neighbourhoods where the active neighbours are in single figures, we've had map moving 2 or 3 times now and for me personally the only effect has been to move one of the active neighbours and the rest of us are still where they were - on a map surrounded by inactive cities. Yes, there are some people who used diamonds and have quit but according to what we were told the inactives would be moved to the edge if they'd reached a certain chapter or had used diamonds, or would be deleted if they were inactive at 30 days. Neither of these has happened in my neighbourhood, the inactives are still there unless they're being deleted on a rolling programme of deletion, quit, deletion, quit, deletion, quit etc. The inactive diamond users are still there, I would have expected that either they would have been moved outward or I would have been moved inward and neither of these has happened.

Once the issues with lack of active neighbours had been solved that would have been the time to bring in the changes to the wholesaler, because our needs would have been met with a combination of fellowship and active neighbours, and the wholesaler would then have been an emergency top up.

 

[Timneh]

you're missing the fact that you advertised via the 'did you know' log in message that the wholesaler was a good place to use our excess coin or supplies - we did that - and you now have a problem with it. Which is why we're all going WTF and not buying your argument that the wholesaler wasn't user friendly, or wasn't working as designed. If you didn't design it as a place for us to dump excess coin and supplies - then why would you have instructed us to do so?

An excellent point that has been mentioned before although i think i already have a good idea of what the Inno response would be to that point but i will wait to see if i am right before i say it.

There should not be a variable price for goods in the wholesaler. Goods cost what they cost what they cost you to produce. It's flat. The wholesaler should also be a flat price, that doesn't discriminate in who is buying or how much they're buying. You wanna put a markup on it, call it the retailer.

I agree. If a person goes into a shop and buys 2 loaves of bread they do not pay 100 coins for the first loaf and then 150 for the second and if they wanted a third that would cost them 200 coins. Each loaf of bread cost the same to make so is sold at the same price. Goods cost what they cost to make but we should expect to pay more to get them from the wholesaler but not on an escalating scale. Inno even stated that using the wholesaler was expensive and that was before this change.

 

[Muf-Muf]

Thank you for your feedback. Please find an updated list of feedback and suggestions below. New entries and changes marked in blue.

The most important, most recurring feedback we have received from you so far has been:

• The change is very much perceived as a negative one.
• It is no longer possible to buy small(er) amounts of goods, which was useful in some cases.
• It is no longer worth it to spend huge amounts of excess Coins/Supplies on Goods in the Wholesaler, since the amount of Goods to be gained from that doesn't compare to the costs.
  
• The reasons for the change have not been fully understood and/or accapted (so far?).
  
• There is no incentive to perform Neighborly Help on (all of) your neighbors' cities anymore.
• The Blooming Trader Guild needs to be revised due to the changes to the Wholesaler.
• The package sizes the Wholesaler offers now are not always the right size and do not cater to the situation the player is in (enough). It would be better if there is any way to choose the amount of goods you want to buy from the Wholesaler.
• There is a problem with not having (enough) active neighbors on the world map, which makes trading (too) hard and caused people to resort to buying many/most/all of their needed goods from the Wholesaler instead of trading with other players.

Suggested changes from you all so far (not listing the "revert the change" suggestion):

• Lower the amount by which the price increases after every purchase.
• Make it possible to buy different amounts of Goods at a time.
• If boosting trades between players is a goal of this change (and it is indeed one of them), then trading itself should also be made easier, to help that. Or, in other words: if we have to trade more, we want it to be more convenient, too.
  
• Improve activity on the world map, since many players are still surrounded by lots of inactive players' cities, who are not helping with providing available trades and Neighborly Help.
  
• Provide different / alternative ways to sink Coins and/or Supplies that are worth using, so that the Wholesaler is not the "go to sink" for those resources. Currently, there are not enough ways to 'get rid of' excess coins and supplies.
  
• Rethink the trader fees and how they impact beginning players in particular. With the Wholesaler changes, these players now may face issues getting the resources they need to progress.
• Assess how to advertise Fellowships and their importance to new, beginning players more/better.
• Lower tier goods should be available in (even) higher quantities compared to the second and third tier goods, because you typically need more of the lower-tier goods.

Then, to address some further comments and concerns regarding the Wholesaler mentioned since our last post:

1. The old Wholesaler was not very user-friendly in the fact that the amounts you could buy were fixed. Many players would have to scroll a lot through the window in order to reach the pages with offers they would want to buy. Especially advanced players who wanted to buy goods in purchases of 500 at a time would have to scroll a lot - these players would rarely be buying the smaller packages, which were shown first. For newer players, the big packages were useless too, since they would not have the resources to buy the big packages to begin with. By connecting the amount shown to the Main Hall level, we intend on always providing you with a number you a) can buy, and b) can use. From the feedback we've received, it is clear that this is still not perfectly balanced and that is something that we will be forwarding.
   
   
2. Trading between players is an important feature of Elvenar. Due to people buying all goods in the Wholesaler, this feature was under-used, causing in problems. This also resulted in negative community feedback, which manifestated itself in statements like 'nobody is accepting my trades' and 'I cannot find the goods I need on the market.' People who buy all their goods using coins and supplies simply don't have a need to trade goods vs. goods anymore, which significantly lowers the amount of available goods and available trades on the market.
   
   
3. Currently some goods might be unavailable or available in less quantities on the world map. This is not directly related to the Wholesaler, but more so to the new Fellowship-based Tournaments we released some weeks ago. The goods used in a Tournament are always in high demand, so trades for these goods are accepted quick(er) than the others when found on the market. Planning ahead, you can already buy the goods you need earlier on, when they are in lower demand - that way, you should be able to find the quantities you need earlier on, rather than at the last moment. Of course this also depends on the players in the area, but the Fellowship-based Tournaments gave a big boost to the participation in the Tournaments, which also has an effect on the market.
   
   
4. Remember, Elvenar is a strategic game in the sense that you have to plan ahead for your city to be optimal. Rather than buying all the resources you need all in one go, you should consider trying to buy some resources in advance, so that you don't even face the problem of not having enough goods to begin with. Yes, that is a challenge and can be hard at times, but it is also part of Elvenar. With planning ahead, you can avoid the increasing costs of the Wholesaler completely.

Again, if anything is still missing (or has been added erroneously), please let us know by commenting below, so that we can update our lists of feedback points and suggestions. Thank you for your time and feedback so far, it is much appreciated!​

 

[DeletedUser3034]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I am sure it took a lot of time, yet this is the level of communication I believe players want.

I will say it makes it easier (for me) to understand what and why.

 

[Aureliae]

One of the reasons is to slow the game down as probably development is slowing as the 'story' of the game comes to a end and concentration moves onto other projects. So they remove tonnes of coins/supplies/resources from the players pool for the use of the wholesalers and then we have to wait longer for more stuff to advance in the game. Lets put it in a real life perspective. A country has 10 billion 50 Euro notes in circulation, the bank then removes 5 billion of those from circulation. Those 50 Euro notes are in higher demand then so growth slows.

That doesn't make a lot of sense. Those at the pointy end know they have to twiddle their thumbs - and they're a tiny minority of players. For them, it's just a 'I need a coin sink' problem, and really, who cares, because their MH is capable of holding such huge amounts of coin anyway. Those most affected are the smaller players who aren't sitting on huge stockpiles of goods and don't have huge numbers of players to trade with - that is, at the beginning or middle of the game.

 

[Deleted User - 106219]

The old Wholesaler was not very user-friendly in the fact that the amounts you could buy were fixed. Many players would have to scroll a lot through the window in order to reach the pages with offers they would want to buy. Especially advanced players who wanted to buy goods in purchases of 500 at a time would have to scroll a lot - these players would rarely be buying the smaller packages, which were shown first. For newer players, the big packages were useless too, since they would not have the resources to buy the big packages to begin with. By connecting the amount shown to the Main Hall level, we intend on always providing you with a number you a) can buy, and b) can use. From the feedback we've received, it is clear that this is still not perfectly balanced and that is something that we will be forwarding.

"players would have to scroll a lot"? I have no idea what you're talking about. The Wholesaler consisted of (at most) 9 pages. NINE. It took at most 4 clicks to reach any one page, and once you were there you did not have to leave until you were finished buying from that page.

Trading between players is an important feature of Elvenar. Due to people buying all goods in the Wholesaler, this feature was under-used, causing in problems. This also resulted in negative community feedback, which manifestated itself in statements like 'nobody is accepting my trades' and 'I cannot find the goods I need on the market.' People who buy all their goods using coins and supplies simply don't have a need to trade goods vs. goods anymore, which significantly lowers the amount of available goods and available trades on the market.

You've got that backwards. People did not have enough trading partners due to too many inactives -> no one is taking people's trades -> People are forced to use the Wholesaler and you get statements like 'nobody is accepting my trades' and 'I cannot find the goods I need on the market.'

Also, you can't use Coins and Supplies when trading with other players, so the Wholesaler gets used even if there are enough people to trade with.

Currently some goods might be unavailable or available in less quantities on the world map. This is not directly related to the Wholesaler, but more so to the new Fellowship-based Tournaments we released some weeks ago. The goods used in a Tournament are always in high demand, so trades for these goods are accepted quick(er) than the others when found on the market. Planning ahead, you can already buy the goods you need earlier on, when they are in lower demand - that way, you should be able to find the quantities you need earlier on, rather than at the last moment. Of course this also depends on the players in the area, but the Fellowship-based Tournaments gave a big boost to the participation in the Tournaments, which also has an effect on the market.

Buy goods ahead of time? Sounds good in theory, but as usual not-so-good in practice. First of all, how are players supposed to know what goods they will need? Is it mentioned anywhere in the game? Sometihng like "For next tournament you will need a lot of Steel, so you better stock up now". What's more, the goods needed change as the player advances, so both a player in Chapter V and a player at the end of Woodelves have access to the same goods, but they need different goods and in different amounts.

Remember, Elvenar is a strategic game in the sense that you have to plan ahead for your city to be optimal. Rather than buying all the resources you need all in one go, you should consider trying to buy some resources in advance, so that you don't even face the problem of not having enough goods to begin with. Yes, that is a challenge and can be hard at times, but it is also part of Elvenar. With planning ahead, you can avoid the increasing costs of the Wholesaler completely.

See my response to previous quote. The planning we can do is limited. This is especially true for newer players with limited experience.

 

[Aureliae]

Assess how to advertise Fellowships and their importance to new, beginning players more/better.

I'm not sure that's of value. Players need to get to a certain level... survive the initial set up phase if you will... before they're really ready for fellowship play. There are some fellowships that will take brand new players, but they're usually fairly small/average ones. As we can't gift goods/coins/supplies within fellowships there's no real way to help newbies through that start point other than with advice, which is time consuming and the fellowship gains nothing from it because the newbie can't produce enough to trade in any meaningful way. The best thing you can do is visit their main hall so they can buy from the wholesaler... oh wait. You broke it.

Especially advanced players who wanted to buy goods in purchases of 500 at a time would have to scroll a lot

What? A maximum of 5 clicks to get to the 2 tier 100 in the middle? That's not a lot of scrolling. And once you were there you'd just click repeatedly for however many you wanted, you didn't need to scroll back again for each bundle - what on earth are you talking about?

Due to people buying all goods in the Wholesaler, this feature was under-used, causing in problems. This also resulted in negative community feedback, which manifestated itself in statements like 'nobody is accepting my trades' and 'I cannot find the goods I need on the market.'

That's an unbalanced neighborhood/fellowship, not a problem with the wholesaler. The trader isn't under-used in any healthy fellowship: I don't think I've ever logged on to less than 5 or 6 pages of trades. The current 'trend' to be against cross tier trades (which I personally am totally fine with, and I don't understand the opposition to) may be depressing trades, and increasing wholesaler use, but that's a social problem, not a game design problem. As mentioned elsewhere the 60 trade limit could also be lifted - I hit that often. You could also widen the net of what trades are included in the market window.

If someone has chosen to go down the path of not being in a fellowship and hypergearing their city to use the wholesaler - so what? That's their choice in gameplay, and it's not an easy option. You can't force anti-social people to be in groups they don't want to be in.

Point 4 is also counter productive to your entire message about why you've stuffed the wholesaler: you want us to trade, right? Not use the wholesaler? Make up your damn mind. Because at the moment there are so many contradictions in your messaging the only thing I'm sure of is that you're conning us.