[Archived 02/2020] News from Beta

[KarlD]

Sure, why not put one more knife in the idea of solo players and Fellowships for the sake of fellowship. If they've decided that nothing really matters except the fellowships that are committed to doing whatever it takes to be number one anyway, why not reward the top handful even more? it's not like they already get all kinds of extra benefits which aren't available to the vast majority of players. Oh, wait......

I really don't get the appeal of not belonging to a fellowship. I get that some folks don't like to chat or don't want to feel obligated to do anything at all, but there are fellowships that support that style too and you still can enjoy the benefits of better trading, and more prizes for tournament and spire. We have someone in our fs who has barely said a dozen words in chat over the years I've been here and doesn't participate in KP chains and basically is solo while belonging to the fs. But she benefits from the 10 tourney chests and if she does the Spire she can get the fs level prizes of up to 125 diamonds, 18 5hr instants, and more if she chooses to participate in the Spire herself. The idea of putting the knife in the idea of solo players makes no sense to me. Basically there are these solo players who say "I could get all these prizes and benefits that would help my city immensely with virtually no cost to me than to just belong to a fellowship rather than not, but I really don't care about them", but then they are like "Why aren't I getting more prizes like those people in fellowships?" It's like Inno put a button in someone's city and said click this button and get 5000 diamonds and they are like "Why should I have to click that button? Why can't Inno just give me the diamonds?" And then they refuse to click the button.

I would say that as a business Inno has a vested interest in bringing people together. Those are typically going to the be the best customers who return because of their connections to others. They're the ones who are more likely to spend diamonds just to help their fellowship. They're more likely to feel more competitive in one way or another to want to grow their city. That's not to say there won't be some diamond buying solo customers, but people are less likely to invest money to grow their city when they have no one to share it with. That's just not where the money is. Inno would rather give folks more incentive to be more connected with others.

 

[Ashrem]

How I change my raze to humans

You can't change your race. You'd Habs to switch to another world, or make a new account and select human at the start.

I really don't get[....]

We don't have to get it. One of the things that makes computer games successful is that people don't have to in interact with other people to play.

 

[Deleted User - 4455456]

There is a new F A starting on Friday 3rd in Beta!
Expect it in the Live Worlds a week later.
There is a new play set - I will post details as they come available.

I had a feeling that the Fellowship Adventures format would change, to bring it into line with the new-style Events. Waiting eagerly to see what they have dreamed up!

Announcement:

Dear Humans and Elves,
Brace yourselves! On Friday, January 3rd we will start a new round of Fellowship Adventures on Beta, so get your Fellowships together and grab some nice rewards! This time we'll introduce a brand new play set.
Of course we'd love to hear all your feedback in our Feedback Thread and the bugs you'd find, in our Bugs Report section!

Kind regards,
Your Elvenar Team

It seems like I am a Noob! Why am I having a hard time expanding the area to keep up with population or upgrading the buildings?

 

[Risen Malchiah]

It seems like I am a Noob! Why am I having a hard time expanding the area to keep up with population or upgrading the buildings?

The need for an ever-expanding area to put things is one of the challenges of the game, but here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Build only your boosted factories. If you try to build ALL the factories, rather than trade for your non-boosted, you will quickly run out of space due to your population and culture needs.
2. Take a good look at your culture buildings. Stuff that you placed in the early chapters may be outdated and need to be replaced by something that provides more culture.
3. Build a Golden Abyss ancient wonder. When you first unlock it, it is very weak and not worth the space. But by around chapter 4-5, it becomes very useful. And by the later chapters, it will provide more population than any other building in the game for such a small size.
4. Resist building too many Ancient Wonders early in the game. Some are more useful than others depending on your playstyle and trying to build all of them too early will mean not having enough space for other things.
5. Expand on the world map more. You'll earn more expansions to place. Just be mindful of how many provinces you've completed when you start approaching around ~200 or so until you've reached the Orcs & Goblins chapter.

And above all, make sure you're in a good, active fellowship. Having other experienced players who can help answer questions and take your trades is vital to your growth.

 

[Deleted User - 4366037]

Hi all, I have reviewed the details of the proposed evolving Valentine Float in the upcoming event, and it just does not seem to me to be worth pursuing, or even that good of a building. I expect to be in Chapter 5 when I would receive the building, meaning it would mostly give me gold and supplies, neither of which I really struggle with. I briefly considered it as a replacement for one of my workshops, but it produces much less supplies, so even with the other benefits (including the dual-added culture effect), it does not really seem to have much value to be worth the effort of a whole event. I know from these forums that Inno has worked to reduce the value or strength of more recent event buildings. Is this just an outcome of those efforts? Am I missing some perspective or strategy here? I appreciate your thoughts!

 

[NightshadeCS]

Several others have expressed that the stats are not particularly attractive. If you are not to a point in the chapters where you need mana and/or seeds, then it really seems just ho-hum.

Just a caution that sometimes the stats change when going from Beta to Live.

 

[samidodamage]

I don't think you're missing anything, lol! I'd love to hear from anyone else who has found a benefit to this bldg over anything available in-game. I suppose *if* you were in Ch6 and *if* you were having issues with T3 goods, it might serve a purpose. I don't know that it's an outcome of reducing strength of event bldgs or if that is even a thing. The Carnival, imo has mostly always been a 'meh' event. There was one with set bldgs that focused on T1 goods that would take the place of a factory, but everything else has mostly been middle of the road prizes. Pop/culture bldgs have good culture for a hybrid but pop isn't great, no outstanding culture-only bldgs, just a run-of-the-mill event. I've got 2 cities: One in early Halflings, the other very early Ch15. At my lvl the Float produces mana and seeds (valuable resources at this level), but not at amounts that are attractive: seeds are not even equal to the same output as the Festival Merchant I can get in crafting. I really don't know what I'll go for in this event, lol!
Personally, I think that's ok. I don't think every event needs to offer superior prizes. I'll pick up some stuff that'll be useful (PP's, time boosts, KP's), some that I've come to take for granted (coin rains, supply windfalls) and some that aren't particularly useful at all (relics, broken shards). *Useful* to me where my cities are right now, ymmv. For me, it will be a low stress event. I always try my best to do as many quests as possible, so we'll see where I end up.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

I am not busy upgrading - quite the opposite. I can't upgrade for long periods of time because I am waiting for orcs production. And sure, from the above viewpoint's perspective time component can be completely ignored. After all, even when the next chapter is released, nothing else changes. You can still do whatever, and the next chapter is still going to be there. Which is true. But not necessarily how everyone plays it; certainly not me.

In the meantime, it takes about a week's worth of orc production to do one level of upgrades to Barracks and Mercenary Camp. And every day that I haven't upgraded these military buildings is a day I do less than I could have in tournaments. And between that and the Spire these are the things for me to do in-between chapters.

I stated it before: craft orcnests. They provide MORE orcs/square than even an armory at lvl 35. They don't require supplies and they don't have to be reset at exactly 12 hours. If you are 'waiting for orcs' all the time, you'll just have to plant a few more of those.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

I stated it before: craft orcnests. They provide MORE orcs/square than even an armory at lvl 35. They don't require supplies and they don't have to be reset at exactly 12 hours. If you are 'waiting for orcs' all the time, you'll just have to plant a few more of those.

Who said I don't? I have 3 nests, and that's all that came by my Academy in quite a while. It's not that I can summon arbitrary number of orc nests at will...

 

[AtaguS]

For me, it will be a low stress event. I always try my best to do as many quests as possible, so we'll see where I end up.

Sometimes the simple joy of having some fallen something to hunt for between mana-collects is enough to make an event worth its time.

 

[Sir Squirrel]

Valentine events are usually pretty short compared to the winter, summer type events and don't usually require a lot of effort to compete to get the prize, hence why the prizes are also not that great. But some may want it just because they like the look or are in need of a little extra of something they are lacking. We can upgrade event buildings too now, so it might be worth it to someone for that reason or just to do the event and never place it. I do that a lot with the valentines ones. lol.

 

[Darielle]

Valentine events are usually pretty short compared to the winter, summer type events and don't usually require a lot of effort to compete to get the prize, hence why the prizes are also not that great. But some may want it just because they like the look or are in need of a little extra of something they are lacking. We can upgrade event buildings too now, so it might be worth it to someone for that reason or just to do the event and never place it. I do that a lot with the valentines ones. lol.

Good point. And I also love getting buildings I don't want just to disenchant them for crafting.

 

[Deleted User - 4366037]

Thanks all for the feedback. I wanted to be certain there wasn't some aspect of this building I was missing or underestimating. I could use a lot of the daily prizes anyway to replace some of my older culture and cult/pop buildings, so it looks like I will focus on those and not stress about the grand prize.

 

[Socrates28]

Thanks all for the feedback. I wanted to be certain there wasn't some aspect of this building I was missing or underestimating. I could use a lot of the daily prizes anyway to replace some of my older culture and cult/pop buildings, so it looks like I will focus on those and not stress about the grand prize.

Exactly the conclusion I have come to as well.
Now if they were Bear Artifacts that would be something entirely different!

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

Exactly the conclusion I have come to as well.

I find that even for that purpose the daily offerings so far are quite lacking. The only one that I may consider is a Dragon Float, because it is still better than a regular residence and has the same dimensions in later chapters. But comparing to some other event culture/pop buildings it is not that good. So I may resort to going after Wishing Wells or AWKPs, and that feels like a waste of the event.

 

[The Unbeliever]

Exactly the conclusion I have come to as well.
Now if they were Bear Artifacts that would be something entirely different!

I'm almost certainly just ignoring this year's Carnival event, and instead am going to wait for the Phoenix/Spring event, in the hopes of seeing if we get more Phoenix artifacts come back.

It will be incredibly interesting to see what the Elvenar team will do once we hit this point, since it will be the first chance at a 'repeat event' since they introduced the evolving/pets last year...
With the way they've been bludgeoning us with the 'ol Nerf Bat(tm), a part of me is expecting that we won't see the birdies or their upgrades make a return.
Yet on the other hand, doing that will mean that the far greater majority of players - especially everyone who joined *AFTER* last year's event is now royally screwed over, since they will (likely) never have a chance to get even a single Lv10 phoenix.

And then we're strait back to 'the rich getting richer', as new players will just forever be kept leagues behind those who have the OP fire phoenix and/or brown/polar bears, etc...

 

[Risen Malchiah]

@The Unbeliever That's my thinking as well. They almost have to offer Phoenix artifacts in the Phoenix event. Otherwise, as you said, new players are stuck with a crafted level 1 Phoenix indefinitely. But at the same time, the event can't be *only* Phoenix artifacts for all the players who may already have them evolved. My hope is that the event also includes a yet-to-be-introduced Phoenix pet to go along with the existing ones so people have options.

 

[Ashrem]

@The Unbeliever That's my thinking as well. They almost have to offer Phoenix artifacts in the Phoenix event. Otherwise, as you said, new players are stuck with a crafted level 1 Phoenix indefinitely. But at the same time, the event can't be *only* Phoenix artifacts for all the players who may already have them evolved. My hope is that the event also includes a yet-to-be-introduced Phoenix pet to go along with the existing ones so people have options.

They might be able to get around it by offering a new version of the buildings with similar feeding that doesn't stack, but different ancillary effects. So you can replace your phoenix, or you can have both, but the combination doesn't make you stronger at combat than having one or the other.

 

[The Unbeliever]

Honestly, I really, really, REALLY wish they'd give us a new event prize that boosted all unit HP...

Atm, our military boosts are;
offensive: AW's w/+40% atk boost for each unit type + Lv10 Red Chocobo + *Enlightened Light Range/Magnificent Mage Multiplier boosters.
defensive: Sanctuary/Monestary AW for 30% HP boost + *Unleashed Unit + *Dwarven Armorer.

So while we can get ready access to a good 90% atk boost, defensively, our units are poop with only a permanent 30% boost available, while the other 2 options are both rare (crafting or worse yet - rarer Spire only rewards), AND, both are only temp boosts...

A new event prize offering at least a 25%HP boost via a set building or pet mechanic is desperately needed, especially since Elvenar is far, far more prone to hyper RNG terrain screwing vs. FoE.

 

[Jackluyt]

The Event Questline has been changed!

We will post details once we have them.

Dear Humans and Elves,

We are making a change to the Elvarian Carnival quests on Beta today: we will, for this event, not use the randomized quests. Instead, we will be using a questline that will be the same for all players, as we have done previously. We are making this change because of both feedback that we've received from the community during past events, as well as data that we have for these. We are aware that, on Beta, this change is made during the event itself, but we want and need to test this change before we can release the event, including these changes, to our Live worlds next week.

For Beta, these changes will result in the following two effects:

1. When you log in, you will see the quest(s) that you had available before the update, but you may notice that it will not give you a reward upon completion.
2. However, as soon as you complete the old quest, the new questline will start from its beginning, that will also be available on Live from day 1 of the event.

These are known effects, and this happens because otherwise we would have introduced issues that would cause duplicate rewards for all event quests. We will not be able to manually grant rewards for quests, nor will we be able to manually accomplish quests for which you would not get a reward. We know that these effects are not ideal, but please be reminded that this is a Beta environment where changes like this can and will happen for various reasons. Just know that you will still be able to collect plenty of Candy, because you will be able to play the full event questline that will also be available on Live.

We do apologize for any inconvenience and/or confusion the changes may cause, and ask for your understanding in why we are making them. Thank you as well for continuously providing us with feedback on our events and the game in general - your feedback is invaluable!

We are of course looking forward to hearing your feedback on the changes. Please use the discussion thread to share your thoughts with us!

Kind regards,
Your Elvenar Team