[Archived 02/2020] News from Beta

[DeletedUser12171]

You all talk about the bears as if everyone's going to get bear artifacts easy peasy.

I will paint you a (real) scenario I faced with the Phoenixes.

I have 3 Phoenix but only 10 artifacts, which one should I evolve?

Aureate - increases base production of T1-T3 goods. Similar function to Mountain Halls

Storm - increases power of Magical Manufacturing. Similar function as Elvenar Trade Center

Fire - bonus attack power to all troops. No other permanent building gives a similar effect.

I chose Fire. Why would I choose the other two over Fire if I could get the same effect via an AW? Furthermore AWs don't require additional activation costs (read: pet food)

In the same vein I would prioritize the bear with effects I couldn't get otherwise. Also, you need no reminder that having the provinces open is nothing if you don't have the goods to cater or the units to fight it all in a single session

 

[Pheryll]

In the same vein I would prioritize the bear with effects I couldn't get otherwise. Also, you need no reminder that having the provinces open is nothing if you don't have the goods to cater or the units to fight it all in a single session

When you get to the end, many choose to set their limits and stockpile units. This means they have plenty to complete the tournament from the beginning and during the tournament they replenish and stockpile more.

 

[DeletedUser12171]

Okay, this is going to be a sort of lengthy post, so if you wish, skip to the end for the TL : DR

When you get to the end, many choose to set their limits and stockpile units. This means they have plenty to complete the tournament from the beginning and during the tournament they replenish and stockpile more.

I agree with this statement to the extent that it is not generalized but only for a certain subset of players. this holds depending on what a player is going for in the tourney. Since you talk about endgame players, here's my example:

Some stats to establish the baseline:
- completed chapter 14
- Tournament cooldown of 8:19 h, squad size 2811, training size 8222 + 2796 Simia collection bonus, training times 2:45 h, 2:32 h and 2:40 h for Barracks, TG and Merc Camp respectively
- weekly minimum tournament goals: Prov 1 - 9: 6 rds, Prov 10 - 27: 5 rds, Prov 28 - 45: 2 rds
- I fight approx. 3/4 of encounters overall

I start every tournament with approx. 100 squads main unit + 50 squads counter unit + 30 squads secondary support. By the end of Round 2 (as you see, i'd have done 45 provs to rd 2), I'm down to about 1/3 or less of what I started with. I need to continue training throughout the tourney to have enough troops to hit my target. Ergo, for the goals I want to hit, I can never finish the tourney within 1 day, even if the cooldown was reduced to zero. At this time, I usually finish on Friday night, and immediately begin training for the next tourney, and even then I usually only get my 100+50+30 squads by the time the next tourney starts. That being the case, reducing tournament time beyond a certain comfortable point has no additional value. That point is ~8h, which is why I've stopped leveling my Time Warp at the moment. If/when the "Timewarp Bear" comes out, unless there is another compelling effect, it will be of no use to me

Now, my take on the value of such a "Timewarp Bear": it is most useful for anyone who has not reached endgame.

The Time Warp AW is only available at the VERY END of Chapter 14 and that is a looooooooong time to wait. Even playing at my speed (I tourney a lot, hence, more KPs to pump into Tech Tree), I took ~18 months to catch up to the endgame (for reference, I started when Halflings was final chapter). Anyone who isn't ALREADY in the final 2 chapters will be the biggest beneficiary of the Timewarp Bear. For the endgame player having access to the Time Warp AW, especially those who do a lot in tournaments, Timewarp Bear has little additional value. Furthermore, the tournament runs for 5 days. Unless you only have time to do tournament once during those 5 days, what's the value of reducing tournament time to zero? It isn't hard for an endgame player to hit 1,600 within a single day even with 16h cool down.

TL : DR - Timewarp Bear will not have a significant benefit to endgame players with access to Time Warp AW. Rather, anyone not in the final 1-2 chapters will benefit the most since they get access to reduced tournament cooldown without having to make the long journey to the endgame.

 

[Ashrem]

TL : DR - Timewarp Bear will not have a significant benefit to endgame players with access to Time Warp AW. Rather, anyone not in the final 1-2 chapters will benefit the most since they get access to reduced tournament cooldown without having to make the long journey to the endgame.

You don't think there's benefit to getting three rounds in on a single Bear and Phoenix feeding, then spending 2.5 days building troops (and being able to do other stuff) and getting three more rounds in on a single feeding of bear and phoenix again Friday-night/Saturday? It still permits building troops for the entire duration of the tournament, but clusters all the fighting into less than two days at the start and end.

 

[Pheryll]

You don't think there's benefit to getting three rounds in on a single Bear and Phoenix feeding, then spending 2.5 days building troops (and being able to do other stuff) and getting three more rounds in on a single feeding of bear and phoenix again Friday-night/Saturday? It still permits building troops for the entire duration of the tournament, but clusters all the fighting into less than two days at the start and end.

At his current 8hr. gap, @RandomNo. is able to have 3 rounds on a single fire phoenix feed, thus two pet food minimum per week. While it is possible with the time warp alone to go down to 1 pet food for the entire tournament, this would require essentially pulling an all-nighter. The ice bear + the time warp + fire phoenix is a different arrangement of the 2 pet food in the week.

 

[DeletedUser12171]

You don't think there's benefit to getting three rounds in on a single Bear and Phoenix feeding, then spending 2.5 days building troops (and being able to do other stuff) and getting three more rounds in on a single feeding of bear and phoenix again Friday-night/Saturday? It still permits building troops for the entire duration of the tournament, but clusters all the fighting into less than two days at the start and end.

In fact, that is already what I do now. My cool down is 8:19 h. When I start the tourney, I feed my Fire Phoenix and within the next 24 h I can do two more rounds. So with regard to time, I can finish 6 rounds within 48 h. What stops me from doing that is my troop training rate. I start with approx 160 - 180 squads and I keep building and using them, so my guess is I use anywhere between 200 - 260 squads each tourney, maybe more, I don't know. There is not time for me to train that between Saturday and Tuesday, unless perhaps I take a week's break from tourney to "reset" my troop production. But since I am a daily active player (albeit lower activity on Sat - Sun), there is no need for me to do so

Of course, I am perhaps what you may say "extreme" tournament player. But players who are not this "extreme" actually need not bother with cooldown at all. As I said, 1,600 can be achieved simply logging on two times on a single day (2 rounds x 25 provinces, so anyone mid-game and beyond can certainly do it)

edit: I'll add that in the case where a person is not actually going for points but a specific number of rounds, for example for certain prizes - in this case the Ice Bear would be supremely useful PROVIDED one does not have access to the Time Warp AW - again, non-endgame players - reiterating my stand that Ice Bear is not a value-add for endgame players.

 

[DeletedUser12171]

While it is possible with the time warp alone to go down to 1 pet food for the entire tournament, this would require essentially pulling an all-nighter. The ice bear + the time warp + fire phoenix is a different arrangement of the 2 pet food in the week.

I'm going to assume that most people wanted a lower tournament cooldown so that it would be easier to fit tourney play into their schedule, so an 'all-nighter' hardcore tourney day probably isn't going to be what most people are gunning for

so, I as an endgame player, doing up to 6 rounds every tourney, find that a Lv16 Time Warp giving me 8:19 h cooldown is sufficiently comfortable. If I wanted to get that even lower, I have the option of simply further leveling my Timewarp, which is simply going to cost me KP and time. The only reason I'd choose the Ice Bear, given that one usually only gets enough artifacts to fully evolve 1 - 1.5 buildings per event unless you plonk down some cash, is if the other bears had comparatively useless abilities. I certainly wouldn't give up anything that gives me more resource (goods, soldiers) for the sake of further reducing cooldown.

 

[Pheryll]

@RandomNo. , your deletions when quoting me caused a misquote where the subject of those doing all 6 rounds in 24 hours (all-nighter) was replaced with you at 8hr cool-down. The two do not coincide.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I'm going to assume that most people wanted a lower tournament cooldown so that it would be easier to fit tourney play into their schedule, so an 'all-nighter' hardcore tourney day probably isn't going to be what most people are gunning for.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

I have complained many times about that weird 16-hour cooldown timer. With my work schedule of working Tues-Sat, and not wanting to interrupt my sleep just for a tournament round, I normally only get in one round per day, so I have almost never gotten more than four stars in a tournament province. But I finished Constructs at the beginning of the Mermaids event and have now got the Timewarp built and leveled a couple of times, and now just need to rebuild my troops before the easy tournaments come around again to see if a 12 or 13-hour cooldown lets me schedule a fifth round or if I need to make the cooldown even shorter first.

 

[Pheryll]

I'm going to assume that most people wanted a lower tournament cooldown so that it would be easier to fit tourney play into their schedule, so an 'all-nighter' hardcore tourney day probably isn't going to be what most people are gunning for

Which was my point. The time warp by itself realistically gets you down to two phoenix feeds. The ice bear takes a feed to bring it down to one phoenix feed. In other words, you stay at two feeds regardless.

 

[DeletedUser12171]

Which was my point. The time warp by itself realistically gets you down to two phoenix feeds. The ice bear takes a feed to bring it down to one phoenix feed. In other words, you stay at two feeds regardless.

Reducing it to a matter of number of feeds is, imo, too superficial. As you said, to tourney like that, one needs to basically either have a ton of troops and/or goods to throw at the tourney all at once, or, in the case of a non-zero cooldown time, be playing extremely frequently for 24h. Is that really a boon that the Ice Bear will bring? The average player doesn't need a zero cooldown, they just need whatever interval suits their schedule. For an endgame player, the type which has been mentioned so much thus far, Time Warp more than adequately does that. As far as I can see, CrazyWizard the only person thus far that has mentioned the utility of Ice Bear for non-endgame players, a point with which I agree that is the biggest purpose for the Ice Bear, and not to make a super-duper-zero-cooldown tournament situation. As an endgame player, I have already outlined why that is both unnecessary and unfeasible.

Now, there is the other point, which I mentioned in my first post on this issue, and nobody has yet joined in to discuss, is given the difficulty of obtaining evolving artifacts, how advantageous will it really be to go for the Ice Bear over others? I have heard through the grapevine that Sentient goods are going to feature large in the coming chapters. If there is a Bear giving Sentient goods, that's going to trump the Ice Bear for me. Even if it were Standard goods or free Troops - those would go way further in tournament mileage than further reduction of cooldown - which I might remind you, can be achieved simply by further upgrading the Time Warp!

In short, I don't think the Ice Bear is as superb as you all make it out to be. Definitely a serious consideration for mid-game tourney players with time constraints, but not really so for anyone else.

Edit: I realize that you guys may have simply been discussing the possibility, and not desirability of the ice-bear-time-warp-zero-cooldown scenario. In that case, I have nothing to add to that conversation.

 

[Pheryll]

Edit: I realize that you guys may have simply been discussing the possibility, and not desirability of the ice-bear-time-warp-zero-cooldown scenario. In that case, I have nothing to add to that conversation.

Correct, I am only discussing the possibility.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

By the way, where are you all getting this info on these Bears? I have looked at the Beta forums and see nothing there. Has it all been deleted?

 

[DeletedUser12171]

@RandomNo. , your deletions when quoting me caused a misquote where the subject of those doing all 6 rounds in 24 hours (all-nighter) was replaced with you at 8hr cool-down. The two do not coincide.

My apologies, I misquoted. I have corrected the quote.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

That sounds like a fool's errand, but it needs to be viewed in the context that lots of people who can place the time warp AW right now probably have nothing else to do with KP at the moment. If they are an aggressive tournament player, they probably have 500 or more KP to put into AW's every week, and have been doing so for at least a couple of months.

Sure, all time warp users are by definition end-game right now. But "nothing else to do with KP"? I don't know about that. I feel like the KPs invested in leveling TW would be better spent elsewhere. I'd probably dump them into Martial Monastery first, then into other military AWs. I can understand if TW allows to squeeze an extra round (or 2!) due to schedule, but if one can already do 6 with regular cooldowns then TW feels like a waste to me just for pet food savings.

Unless, of course, all those other AWs are already at L30, but I don't think there are than many people like that

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

nd nobody has yet joined in to discuss, is given the difficulty of obtaining evolving artifacts, how advantageous will it really be to go for the Ice Bear over others?

If the last event with repeating quests is a pattern for the future, we may have much easier time obtaining artifacts for multiple pets. I got to 2x L10 plus some spares with about the same level of effort as my Phoenix event (where I indeed barely scraped for 1x L10 with extended quests). Several people got 6x L10 this time around without paying.

So we might be able to fully evolve more than one kind of bear (or even multiples of the same bear). We'll see.

 

[Jackluyt]

Autumn colours have come to Elvenar on the Beta server - and that presumably means that the Autumn seasonal event cannot be far away!!

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

TL : DR - Timewarp Bear will not have a significant benefit to endgame players with access to Time Warp AW. Rather, anyone not in the final 1-2 chapters will benefit the most since they get access to reduced tournament cooldown without having to make the long journey to the endgame.

Sorry there is as an end game heavy tournament player ranked tournament player.

For the why, I let you figure that one out yourself.

 

[Pheryll]

By the way, where are you all getting this info on these Bears? I have looked at the Beta forums and see nothing there. Has it all been deleted?

Yes, the post has been since deleted. That post cited the following as if it were dealing with source code.

1) The addition of a spell to return buildings to inventory. (No clue if this was a player tool or dev tool).
2) The brown bear improving troop production when fed. It produces exotic troops.
3) The ice bear reducing tournament time when fed. It produces mana/seeds.
4) The panda bear producing "goods from another land" when any pet is fed after it. It produces standard goods.
5) The denotation of them being implemented in autumn (not necessarily of this year)

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

1) The addition of a spell to return buildings to inventory. (No clue if this was a player tool or dev tool).

Yep, read this one and did shake my head. It's not necessary and I think this will simplify the game too much - especially for end-game players (well, assuming it will be reasonably available). Right now in the end game you may want to think whether you keep your high-level mana/seed/sentient etc productions that you don't really need until the next chapter (or at least don't need as much) - especially if these are event buildings that are not easily available again.

Now, I'd just teleport these facilities back into inventory until the next chapter comes in, and swap these out for extra manufacturing, troops or wishing wells. When the next chapter comes, just do the reverse switch. You lose nothing, so don't need to think about it.

Unless they make it superexpensive a la RR spells - but then I don't see a use case for such a spell.