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    Your Elvenar Team

Spire of Eternity feedback

CHANDY

Member
I remember looking over its initial release on beta and thinking that tournaments are a far better use of my time and resources. The way I saw it, the Spire cost more goods, was harder if not outright impossible to battle through thanks to the multiple waves, and had overall worse rewards. Unless things have since been massively adjusted, I expect that to still be the case. and will probably be passing this feature over.

Of course, I will still be looking at this first live version to see if all of this is still true.
Well, I got to the third level and can't go on, the enemy is much too strong and is impossible with the second wave. O did I mention I fight all tournaments and negotiate only the first and second since its cheaper? Guess not, now you know. Sadly I too am done with the spiral, besides I have enough spell fragments to last me a year. Too much trouble for combining catalysts.
 

qaccy

Well-Known Member
Being 3 months on with the Spire now, I have to say that it's actually more like the tournaments than I initially thought in that my participation varies from week to week. It's less predictable than the set tournament schedule, but depending on what mix of units the game decides to put in my way, I've seen myself pushing into level 3 on some weeks and not doing anything beyond level 1 on others. Kinda like how I do barely anything during the scrolls tournament but I'll clear 50+ provinces during a steel tournament because of the different battle conditions.

Taken over a 9-week period like the tournament schedule, I'd say the Spire is relatively fairly balanced. Some weeks it'll be easier to fight than others, and I think that's ok. I think squad sizes are still way too big though. The first 3 encounters in level 1 are fine, but I don't understand why there's a MASSIVE jump starting with the 4th encounter and from there on it's a fairly gradual increase. It's most likely far too late to even be talking about it anymore, but I'd still like to see that smoothed out a bit.
 

Alistaire

Well-Known Member
Some weeks it'll be easier to fight than others

One thing about this; it's not even consistent player to player. I do the first stage in all worlds and on my alt worlds that are all basically well farms in the same chapter, the fights aren't the same. One may have ridiculously easy fights where I get through it all on free orc strategists and others the same day, same stages need to negotiate right after the first 4 fights.

Basically people should be approaching this from the idea of "check each fight to see if you got a freebie but basically expect to negotiate most of them. And if you know the logic behind that mini-game (look up "Mastermind board game strategy" if not) you should do a lot better than trying to fight first.
 

DeletedUser20819

Guest
The spire truly is awful. I've made it to the second stairs past the middle like...once? Twice? The resources to just DUMP into the game are past excessive and based on almost pure luck until you've barfed a bunch of resources into the Catering?

It's pretty bad when you have an event where people just won't play it or it's so destructive to your character that it's not worth the destruction to even get to decent rewards? Worse you pushed it so to get spell fragments you HAVE to play a seriously much much MUCH top hard part of the game.

And what you did to the spell fragments. You've literally made it impossible for me to craft anything now when you destroyed at least a DECENT amount of fragments for regular play/getting regular things to trade for fragments. I'm in a position now where I can't make anything because you made spell fragment payoffs so ridiculously poor that it's a junk system...nice to look at the things to craft, impossible to craft them.

The spire isn't fair, it's not fun, it's not productive, it's not enjoyable...it's annoying, it's been turned into what looks like a way to suck resources out of people who might have A LOT of resources but it's not even close to realistic for people who DON'T have those resources and it's just not interesting.
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
Being 3 months on with the Spire now, I have to say that it's actually more like the tournaments than I initially thought in that my participation varies from week to week. It's less predictable than the set tournament schedule, but depending on what mix of units the game decides to put in my way, I've seen myself pushing into level 3 on some weeks and not doing anything beyond level 1 on others. Kinda like how I do barely anything during the scrolls tournament but I'll clear 50+ provinces during a steel tournament because of the different battle conditions.

Taken over a 9-week period like the tournament schedule, I'd say the Spire is relatively fairly balanced. Some weeks it'll be easier to fight than others, and I think that's ok. I think squad sizes are still way too big though. The first 3 encounters in level 1 are fine, but I don't understand why there's a MASSIVE jump starting with the 4th encounter and from there on it's a fairly gradual increase. It's most likely far too late to even be talking about it anymore, but I'd still like to see that smoothed out a bit.

While you say it seems fairly balanced I find it funny you also mention only occasionally going into map 3 and also talk about squad sizes being too large. Seems a little inconsistent to me. Also interesting as I know your one of the better combat players on our server, so I would think you have a better chance (if using combat)

On the whole I do agree there is a reasonable level of balance for maps 1 and 2. I still think map 3 needs tweaking either in terms of lowering cost or increasing rewards to match the cost. I just find the cost verse benefit of map 3 far to disparate to even consider wasting resources/troops on getting more of something I already have in excess. Will reassess after beta changes come through...
 

qaccy

Well-Known Member
@Mykan I'm sorry if I sounded inconsistent; that wasn't my intent. As I said, I've started looking at the Spire the same way I look at tournaments. It's not a totally 1:1 comparison, but I see being stopped by the first encounter of level 2 (or earlier) as being like the scrolls tournament, where fighting is pretty untenable beyond round 1 or 2 even with my level of army boosts; making it to level 3 is like riding high during a steel tournament, where my units are steamrolling their way through even up to rounds 5 and 6. However, unlike with the tournaments, I refuse to 'cater' in the Spire so if I get to a fight I can't win, that's a full stop for the week for me. I do try to avoid catering in the tournaments as well, but in that regard I use catering as an indicator of how many provinces I'll push out to and how many rounds I do, rather than simply not doing it at all. Since the Spire is seemingly entirely random, it's possible to have a 'scrolls' Spire for multiple weeks in a row, or the same for a 'steel' Spire, but for me personally it's averaged out fairly well.

As for my comment on the squad sizes, I stand by it! While the massive jump after the 3rd encounter is the most jarring, pretty much everything after that is seemingly needlessly large. I might be able to produce units very quickly and have a lot of boosts on them, but even still that doesn't change the reality that losing a single full squad in the Spire can equate to dozens of smaller tournament-sized squads and even multiple squads that can be used for clearing normal provinces. The Spire's prizes aren't really worth losses like that.

This could all come back to the relative balancing between cost:reward for all areas of the game that allow combat, or even the subjective value that we individual players give each one (which makes it basically impossible to balance for everybody). I consider troop losses in the Spire to be fairly debilitating even in my situation, because of how much these losses can impact my tournament performance which is where I place the highest priority. I do strive to go as far in the Spire as I can each week, but I won't throw troops at an encounter unless it's an easy victory because that's about the level I put the Spire's rewards at. Too much weight/prevalence given to rewards that can already be obtained elsewhere, while the rewards that are good/helpful are either very rare or in a small enough quantity that any extra spending (diamonds) can quickly see you being better off just obtaining these rewards from any other available sources or else run the risk of spending more to obtain them from the Spire than you would normally (magic buildings).

I guess overall, my statement could be revised as such: I think the Spire's worth doing until it actually costs me something, and the amount I get for that low-cost approach varies week-to-week based on the enemy units present. I similarly get varying amounts of stuff from tournaments week-to-week, as even there I base my performance on how far fighting can get me. While I do cater in tournaments unlike the Spire where I never even click the button, I do not clear as many provinces/rounds on cater-heavy weeks because I see catering as far more expensive than fighting (partly due to how my city's built). Essentially I try to be cost-effective in both areas, though much more tight-fisted with my resources in the Spire due to what I perceive as less valuable rewards.
 

Deleted User - 3932582

Guest
On the whole I do agree there is a reasonable level of balance for maps 1 and 2. I still think map 3 needs tweaking either in terms of lowering cost or increasing rewards to match the cost. I just find the cost verse benefit of map 3 far to disparate to even consider wasting resources/troops on getting more of something I already have in excess. Will reassess after beta changes come through...
The way I see it, deep tournaments are for people who mostly fight, with very occasional catering for very unfavorable matchups (don't think anyone can afford extensive catering later on).

Deep Spire is the opposite - mostly catering, with occasional fighting with very favorable matchups. Advanced cities can do both as resources are mostly complementary (where else are you going to dump your excess goods production)?
 

DeletedUser20819

Guest
It needs to be said but the game is firing a third type of fighter into the mix of TOO MANY FIGHTS now. That is to say, having a fight that lines up with your character but then you add an "anti-fighter" like a mage to the mix so you can't autofight very often.

The fighting system? It's boring and much much much too repetitive to be fun or a productive part of the game. I assume you've started forcing these "destructive third type of fighter" because people were using autofight too much? The problem with that is most of us DON'T WANT to sit, hand fighting. It's really not a fun part of the game.

PLEASE, stop forcing so many forces that aren't compatible with autofight. The grind of just playing the game is bad enough without forcing us to try to specialize a fight by hand. The fighting system is PAINFUL to do by hand.
 

CrazyWizard

Oh Wise One
The way I see it, deep tournaments are for people who mostly fight, with very occasional catering for very unfavorable matchups (don't think anyone can afford extensive catering later on).

Deep Spire is the opposite - mostly catering, with occasional fighting with very favorable matchups. Advanced cities can do both as resources are mostly complementary (where else are you going to dump your excess goods production)?

I agree with this assesment, there are some problems witrh the spire, but they will complement eachother reasonable well.

On it's own the spire is indeed underwhelming, but if you combine it with other parts of the game, it can be an excellent recource.

@Psyberius , if you see the tower as a fighting thing, you will be disappointed. but it's quite fun and sometimes frustratingly challenging in the negotiation part.
A nace sideeffect, if you are a negotiator, you will be incented to do neighbourly help again, and thats by far the sweetest feature of the spire. more neighbourly help from everyone.

I havent done regular neighbourly help to my neighbours for years but recently I have been quite active in it again to the benefit of them all, and myself (because I getr more often the favour returned)
 

DeletedUser11784

Guest
Cool, but it still uses troops, supplies, and goods that people use generally for tournaments. It makes rebalancing how squad size affects those goods in tournaments an even more pressing issue.
You are so correct. I only play on the first few chests. It uses too much resources and I always end up loosing once I go thru the first gate. I don't care to play as it is too hard and you lose so much.
 

CUTMAN

New Member
The Spire CHEATS !! I can not count the times I will choose to fight and the choices do not tell me it is a Two Wave force I am fighting . How am I suppose to choose my forces when the game doesn't always tell me I am to face a 2 wave assault ? So bang , I've wasted troops and have to go back and use goods .
And on the topic of goods , putting Divine seeds and Mana demands is ludicrous . The seeds are already hard enough to accumulate and the demand on them is so great we can't keep up .
All in all the spire is designed to get us to buy diamonds and the rewards are not equal to the demands . It has some great rewards , but by God expect to open the heavens and pour forth the riches thereof .
 

CrazyWizard

Oh Wise One
The Spire CHEATS !! I can not count the times I will choose to fight and the choices do not tell me it is a Two Wave force I am fighting . How am I suppose to choose my forces when the game doesn't always tell me I am to face a 2 wave assault ? So bang , I've wasted troops and have to go back and use goods .
And on the topic of goods , putting Divine seeds and Mana demands is ludicrous . The seeds are already hard enough to accumulate and the demand on them is so great we can't keep up .
All in all the spire is designed to get us to buy diamonds and the rewards are not equal to the demands . It has some great rewards , but by God expect to open the heavens and pour forth the riches thereof .

It doesn't cheat, you should look better.

As for it's goal, it takes a bit of time to adjust your city to deal with the spire, but I and many fellowship members play the spire to the end.
This will take me between 50-100 diamonds to reach. in general all spend on the bosses of the last of the 3 towers levels.

Some changes are underway and we have yet to see how they will impact the spire performance. but the current version rewards if both you and the guild reaches the top 417 diamonds on average for each spire.

When modifying your city to make it work, the spire could be an excellent way to aquire free diamonds.
 
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qaccy

Well-Known Member
The Spire CHEATS !! I can not count the times I will choose to fight and the choices do not tell me it is a Two Wave force I am fighting . How am I suppose to choose my forces when the game doesn't always tell me I am to face a 2 wave assault ? So bang , I've wasted troops and have to go back and use goods .
And on the topic of goods , putting Divine seeds and Mana demands is ludicrous . The seeds are already hard enough to accumulate and the demand on them is so great we can't keep up .
All in all the spire is designed to get us to buy diamonds and the rewards are not equal to the demands . It has some great rewards , but by God expect to open the heavens and pour forth the riches thereof .

It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that on mobile, I have to scroll down to see additional waves for an encounter instead of having an arrow to click like on the PC. Might this be what you're talking about?
 

DeletedUser24571

Guest
So wit the last Spire I didn’t seem to get all the rewards, my fellowship did extremely well, and the fellowship score was way past the first Gateway, I myself made it to the first Gateway but was unable to beat the guard at the door, even though I tried several times, I ran out of resources and squads.
And I didn’t get the 50 diamonds I normally get with the fellowship score!!!! Why not. The rewards I received were very little compared to previous Spires.
 

KarlD

Well-Known Member
So wit the last Spire I didn’t seem to get all the rewards, my fellowship did extremely well, and the fellowship score was way past the first Gateway, I myself made it to the first Gateway but was unable to beat the guard at the door, even though I tried several times, I ran out of resources and squads.
And I didn’t get the 50 diamonds I normally get with the fellowship score!!!! Why not. The rewards I received were very little compared to previous Spires.
The Spire is NOT like tournaments where everybody gets the top rewards achieved by the fellowship. When the fellowship reaches a certain level that just unlocks the prizes for those who actually reach that level. You personally would have had to complete the entire 2nd level to get the 50 diamonds. Because you opened only 3 gates you received the prize chests associated with the first 3 gates which is considerably less than if you had completed 2 levels or 8 gates.
 
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