Found a nice one, and the weird thing is this one is really a low level city and doesn't looks like a big spender one (Phoenixes excepted).
What I would like to know is how the heck one thinks he's going to keep feeding all of them. I mean, having them around is nice and gives some bonuses, but the real benefit is only activated after feeding them. Even if one would get the petfood in every set of crafting offers, it still is going to be nearly impossible to feed them very often.
Eh, there's a middle ground. Think about people who pushed MH to level 30. The arrival of sentient goods undermined them quite a bit. Same for those who focused on Maze. Mana is still important, but seeds are more scarce.
I can see Inno working around this power creep in lots of different ways. E.g., create "Power Troops," that don't get benefits from current AWs. They have their own AWs with separate bonuses. Create side portals, where your guest-race specific city doesn't use population, but rather prestige-like units to support other buildings. Completely erase mana or seeds as a necessary good for development.
I actually don't expect a lot of this, because there isn't any pvp aspect, and the only "downside" a new player has today is that they're worse than someone 3 years in. But that's true independent of the Fire Phoenix. The Fire Phoenix definitely worsens it, but what's the problem for that new player? They can't compete for top 10 tournament points? Not the end of the world. They won't be as attractive as an FS member? By the time that new player reaches end-game (which will be 2+ years), a majority of the players with a max Fire Phoenix will be ghost cities . So on the margins, there will be times where the new player is hosed because a veteran with a Fire Phoenix is just too appealling, all else being equal. But it will be rare. People just don't stick around long enough in these types of games for developers to have to worry too much about god-like cities. And even if there are 3-4 god-like cities per server, its fine. Its been like this already when a few players used push accounts to max out all their AWs. And the game lived on...
I disagree.
A player who came on 3 years ago has had to deal with all kind of crap. Units nerfed in a bad way, the CL being castrated, useless KPs since there wasn't much to do with them once your bar was full. Being retroactively stuck because the sudden introduction of orcs. Being confronted with retroactively introduced and necessary research. The list goes on.
And newer players have all kinds of benefits that make it MUCH easier to get through chapters. The instants to get coins and supplies at will. The portal good instants. The change from KPs won to instants instead of having them dumped on your KP bar. A far larger number of event buildings that outperform the regular and sometimes even premium buildings, event buildings that create free goods. If one starts now, one has all kinds of advantages compared to those who started years ago.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I deem it unfair, I just disagree with the idea that newer players have a disadvantage. In fact, players starting now will likely have yet even more overpowered buildings coming up for them.
Erasing mana and/or seeds would be a terrible idea since a lot of players have invested time and KP's in AWs that help out there. Suddeny making them completely obsolete would be a sign of complete and utter disregard for such players. Cut back on the amount needed and introduce something else, fine, but completely cutting them would be harmful. It would not be unlike suddenly deciding there is no fighting anymore.
As for the phoenix, the 50% additional damage sounds good, but I've used it in 2 tourneys now and somehow I don't see a lot of difference in the damage dealt. Certainly not in the amount of losses without and with the feeding activated and there should be, since so much added damage should have an impact on the opposing units.
I really hate to say this but I feel like we were just given the middle finger
I am pretty darn sure the grand prizes were discussed in the Q&A but I definitely know nothing was ever said about there being any possibility of getting multiples. I guess we are forewarned that Inno will not be forthcoming with complete, accurate info on events going forward
*ROFL*
Sorry, but Inno has a really bad communication on just about everything. It's been like that for years and there has been no improvement in that time that I can see. I don't expect that to change either. In fact, I've given up on Inno to ever get to a decent level of communicating with the Elvenar players.