I know this debate it old news now, but my thoughts, as I am here, just briefly...
I honestly don't have any issue with the output changes of the AWs, and I don't really have any problem with the CCs and spell fragment costs. Sorry, I know that sounds controversial. This is partly because I have mellowed massively during my time in the wilderness and I am very much more of the frame of mind that whatever decisions they make, hey let's just go for it and see how we cope and adapt. However, it isn't just that.
Somewhere back there, someone (or some people) talked about how long it would take to upgrade every AW to level 35 and how it was unreasonable how long that might take. I think that line of thought may miss the point slightly. Right at the very start of this, Inno explained how it had become way too easy to upgrade AWs, and how they were always intended to be aspirational things that took lots of time to accomplish. So I would say the idea is that you are meant to pick some of the wonders that match your style and work on those, and know that even they will take some time.
When the AWs were first conceived of, for those that remember back that far, they were tough to upgrade. KP came from your hourly KP timer and it came from tournaments. It was much harder to score big in tournaments. I remember placing first on the server with a tournament score of 5,900. And that wasn't on a difficult week. Back then most fellowships struggled to make 40k for the blueprint. An individual tournament score of 1,500 - 2,000 was considered a good contribution. These days a score of 10k won't even make the top 50. So... if someone had a level 27 Sanctuary, it would take 5 or more weeks to upgrade it because KP was the limiting factor.
These days, people are averaging triple or quadruple the KP from tournaments. There are all sorts of evolving buildings giving out KP. There are KP instants. There are rewards everywhere. KP is no longer a limiting factor. So what they did was put the brakes on everyone by charging spell fragments and CCs. That level 27 Sanctuary can still be upgraded in 4 or 5 weeks. They have just slowed it back down again. Especially with the recent cost reduction, I don't think it's that unreasonable.
Sure, they want people to spend money to buy diamonds to make things easier. That's always going to be the case. But that brings on my next point, which is how freely available diamonds are now. Back in those days I mentioned, the only way to get diamonds was to buy them. Literally. Now, they come in their hundreds from Spire, from mystical objects, from genies, from other rewards. Inno shot themselves in the foot. They should have left diamonds as premium currency and they probably wouldn't need to take these other steps to try to make people use up their supplies.
However... my big issue is the Royal Restoration cost for the the big upgrades at level 16, 21, etc. As I mentioned in my other post, my own game position is like this - I have 49 Royal Restoration spells in hand. I am shortly going to move to a new chapter where I will need 914 of them to upgrade all my evolving buildings, etc to the new chapter. So, for me, I am now never going to upgrade another AW to one of those big levels, and I am never going to build a new one. To me, RRs are just too valuable for upgrading culture buildings.
Now, I realise that for others this may be completely different. Maybe there aren't many people like me that have every evolving building ever released in their city. Maybe many people are happy to just ditch culture buildings and replace them with the next one. However, that is not for me. So, for my personal journey, I am only really disappointed that they made AW upgrades cost RRs. Because in my opinion, this is not what they are for.
I realise that what I say is slightly hypocritical. Obviously I, too, can use all these extra accrued diamonds to purchase more RR spells. So I am not going to condemn Inno's decisions, even on this point. I will just say that this is where I, personally, am disappointed, because this is how it affects my own game adversely.
The one real problem is the imbalance between new and old players, as many others have already mentioned. These new costs only affect you if you haven't yet built and upgraded those wonders. How is this solved? It can't be. Will this put off new players? Maybe, or maybe not. Maybe players will accept they are never going to get that high powered. That's for Inno to reconcile with themselves. Because the future of the game depends on it.
Paul
