Behind the Scenes: Upcoming changes for Tournament

[Arkadia]

@Arkadia Was just responding to your comment about increased costs, it could be up or down. The issue of cost verse reward has been raised a lot.

it's all good
lets hope Inno reads our feedback and will have a positive response

As KP is limited I like the idea of 75KP for the fellowship but not at the price in goods/troops and sleep it would take.

I think KP and shard runes r best motivators

Many r maxed out in relic boosts, so what to do w extra relics?
Spells? i havent used them in a long time....now that i started Dragons, i cast spells on my workshops n some cultures cause tech n buildings r supply heavy, so those r not a big motivator either.

KPs we need tons as well as runes....so there u go Inno.... HINT HINT

 

[DeletedUser4778]

People have said here and in beta that it's best to wait until the tourney is over but, in my opinion, the fewer KPs and relics that the starting provinces give is hurtful to all players, ESPECIALLY those in earlier chapters who often cannot afford to do more provinces and stars. I probably won't be participating in tourneys as much as before, IF AT ALL, once this goes live. I think that catering costs being tied to the tech tree instead of # of scouted provinces is a good thing although it will hurt me initially because I've been keeping my number of provinces down as much as possible to cut down on catering costs but will now be able to scout again without it impacting that much on catering/negotiating. At least I've still got the world map since I'm very much within the GZ.

 

[Jackluyt]

The new EPL 'Everything You Need to Know About Tournaments' Note has been published, with screenshots and graphics based on the latest Tournament new-style in Beta.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/elve...ed-to-know-about-tournaments/1821471361464312

Please read it and make suggestions if you see errors, or ideas I have left out!!
Please feel free to share the file, and to use all the graphics and screenshots.

 

[DeletedUser3312]

I know this won't matter a hill of bean to Inno as they are hell bent on destroying this game as fast as they can. But I am voicing my displeasure. I also play in beta and have seen the results of the new "improvements" that have ruined one of the last good things about this game.

You said:

We will lower the number of encounters in a Tournament from 8 to 4. We therefore increased the size of the fights (bigger squad sizes for both your own and enemy units) and the cater costs. We believe this is will be a big time saver for those who want to fight their way through the Tournaments. In total, the amounts of units or goods you need will be similar to what you need now per province.
4 or 8 events in a province does not matter in the least. What matters is the cost to complete and the prizes. The cost has gone up, the value and rewards have gone down. How is that supposed to make this better?

• Since there will now be fewer encounters, we had to rebalance the amount of Tournament Points you can get per encounter.

You did not rebalance it. you screwed it up even more.

• Rebalancing the Tournament Points you receive per encounter also makes it more attractive to play the Tournaments in case if you cannot participate every day of the Tournament or finish all six levels of a tournament province - even in those cases you can still contribute plenty of points towards the Fellowship reward chests.

It is no longer worthwhile to do a tournament. For crying out loud, why do I want to win a spell? I make the spells I need in that stupid magic academy that I can't sell and that takes up so much room that I need for other stuff.

• We've rebalanced the amount of points you need to reach the Fellowship reward chests. This also means that you will now have less trouble reaching the bigger reward chests, if you play together with your Fellowship.

Most fellowship members no longer bother with the tournaments. We all realized in beta that we are wasting resources by doing tournaments as the rewards suck so horribly. Inno should be embarrassed.

• To make all chests worth fighting for, we will rearrange the rewards per chests a bit - we received feedback that not all chests were as interesting as others and we want to improve this. On top of that, we are also adding some new rewards to these chests, such as broken shards that you can use for your Ancient Wonders. Do note: the maximum amount of broken shards you can store will remain at 10, so you will have to take care of making space to receive your rewards in time. With one of our future updates, we will make it possible to receive more than your maximum amount of broken shards - given that they come from the Tournament rewards.

The chests are not really worth much of anything, much less wasting supplies, goods, and military on. To get a stupid culture spell that does not work unless you are already at 125% minimum and someone visits and clicks on it. Do you know how many stupid spells we have that we don't use because they are a joke!!!

 

[DeletedUser1036]

@Jewess +1 to that I'm on Beta as well...

 

[DeletedUser1016]

I don't need to play on beta to understand how this new tournament is not really an improvement, it's just a re-work of what we already have. The one improvement that I can see being a great benefit [and upgrade] is the scaling of difficulty for new players versus long term players [like myself]. I have a great fellowship and most everyone participates if they can, even if it's just to open one province because they want to contribute. This should alleviate the newer players conflict of whether they should help or not; and also help reduce their sacrifice of goods and troops, which is really difficult to give up early on in the game.

But from what I've seen here presented by folks playing in beta regarding the new prizes and chests awards, they are nothing to get excited about. I'll probably play just like I do now since not much else to do. I'm working on the S&D chapter which is a real drain on KP, so I'm playing all the tournaments that I can to as high a level as possible to get as many KP as I can before the tournament change over [I refuse to say "upgrade"].

 

[Mykan]

The one improvement that I can see being a great benefit [and upgrade] is the scaling of difficulty for new players versus long term players [like myself].

This is actually still to be determined, early signs point to new players losing the advantage they had, no one has reported them gaining a new advantage.

 

[MojaveByrd]

Why do the Devs keep making this game harder and harder to play and progress? I'm getting more and more bored with it. Can't do much on any given day. Spend most time helping FS and neighbors. I know the Devs would like us to SPEND REAL MONEY in this game. But since they keep making it harder and harder, they won't see another dime from me.

 

[DeletedUser1016]

This is actually still to be determined, early signs point to new players losing the advantage they had, no one has reported them gaining a new advantage.

Oh? I thought I saw in the March Episode that the catering costs were going to be significantly "cheaper" for folks in the earlier chapters [i.e. chaps I - IV] versus players that are in the advanced chapters such as chapters V thru IX?

 

[DeletedUser6335]

I'm a newer player (been around a couple of months) and I can say it doesn't seem to be any "easier"/"cheaper" now then it was when I first started. Maybe it is and I just don't see it, but it sure doesn't seem to be so.

 

[Mykan]

Oh? I thought I saw in the March Episode that the catering costs were going to be significantly "cheaper" for folks in the earlier chapters [i.e. chaps I - IV] versus players that are in the advanced chapters such as chapters V thru IX?

Nope, most reports are catering for those towns went nuts. Era 3-4 towns could always get well into the top 100 so it was never hard for them. What was said is it is easier for them to fight now.

 

[DeletedUser1094]

Make all the changes you want I still will not give you my money and if you make it harder and harder I will just leave the game, period !

 

[DeletedUser3312]

Catering costs are through the roof. I depleted my entire T2 goods! Battles are impossible. I'm in Dwarves in Beta. The tournaments suck so horribly. There is not one positive things I can say about it now. I warned everyone in my live server cities to play this week as it will be the last week tournaments are worth doing. In Beta, most players may do the first province the first day and that is it. But now, even the ones that did that have slowed down and are just skipping the tournaments. Including me. why do I want to spend thousands of goods on a spell to enhance my culture (it the most popular prize now) when I do good to manage 100% culture? I don't have space to put up so much culture to maintain 125%. Finally I can upgrade my houses so I'm not so desperate for population which is also holding us back. Lack of space to build houses and culture cause you need so many factories to produce enough goods to cater in the tournaments. and now the prizes are a total joke. Inno did not listen to beta players. They just went with their idea and the hell with everything else. (Their SOP as we all know is to ask for input and totally ignore it)

 

[SoggyShorts]

Oh? I thought I saw in the March Episode that the catering costs were going to be significantly "cheaper" for folks in the earlier chapters [i.e. chaps I - IV] versus players that are in the advanced chapters such as chapters V thru IX?

province 1, round 1 in early chapter 6 now cost a couple hundred T3 for me instead of the previous 20 T1 goods, so using INNOs 16:1 ratio, that is a
16000% increase I think

 

[Mykan]

province 1, round 1 in early chapter 6 now cost a couple hundred T3 for me instead of the previous 20 T1 goods, so using INNOs 16:1 ratio, that is a
16000% increase I think

Yes because the changes are trying to match your world map province costs/losses. This is why for many people the price went up, interestingly for those past the goldilocks zone they potentially get a helping hand as catering is no longer ties to provinces but I am sure this is situational.

 

[Jackluyt]

I cannot agree with the negative comments above; I think the new-style Tournaments are a VAST improvement!
I'm in Chap VII; I played 20 provinces (Round One) in Beta last week - that would have been impossible with the old-style balancing; I have never managed to finish more than 15 before...

 

[Mykan]

I cannot agree with the negative comments above; I think the new-style Tournaments are a VAST improvement!
I'm in Chap VII; I played 20 provinces (Round One) in Beta last week - that would have been impossible with the old-style balancing; I have never managed to finish more than 15 before...

Much in this update appears to be very situational and some people win and some lose. With the current system I have never found doing what you did an issue on any town in any era (as in maxing out available provinces) bar having time to do it. In the new system I can't answer yet cause I have only tested one situation but I highly doubt I could do that in any era like before and certainly not back it up regularly.

There are definite wins with the new update but there are also negatives, whether this will be a net win or a net gain....hard to say until it goes live.

 

[DeletedUser3122]

Make all the changes you want I still will not give you my money and if you make it harder and harder I will just leave the game, period !

When they raised the cost of diamonds to ridiculous levels, I will not ever buy diamonds again.

I think the idea of the Fellowship tournaments was better than relying on neighbors, which never ever worked for me before. But tbh, it really doesn't work in FS either. People don't take well to being urged to participate, let alone required. Only a handful of us in the FS contribute in any meaningful way, and we carry the bulk of the load for everyone else in the FS that gets to claim prizes but didn't really participate. I don't know any solution for that either. I don't like feeling resentful that I put in all this time and energy into a tournament while others only do one province and nothing more, just to get the treasure that others earn.

I hope the balancing is much better, as far as earning chests. Because to be honest, there's only 3 or 4 of us that put any real effort and points into earning chests. It's like being penalized because we can't find enough members to really get excited - and who can blame them? The rewards aren't that great. 5 KP and some low level spells? I could buy the KP with gold and goods with far less effort than playing in a tournament.

On the other hand, I've given pep talks, about how much participating in tournaments helps them in the tech tree, with building their cities, etc. It still falls on deaf ears for many.

<shrugs>

 

[Gath Of Baal]

I do not like the fact that everyone in a fellowship can "see" what someone else is doing.. Being able to "see" players tournament scores puts added pressure on those who can not do what the bigger players can. Even if your fellowship is not trying to climb the tournament prize ladder and you are only doing a tournament for individual province rewards -- knowledge points, relics or runes, other players see your score and think that they have to do their part because they can see the score climbing, when its only a result of members just doing their own thing..

I have seen good active players leave fellowships because they can not keep up and feel guilty that they are getting a rewards and not really contributing, even though the reward they are getting is a side result of other members just doing what they have been doing every tournament..

I really hate to hear a smaller player apologizing that they can not do more to help out, this makes me feel guilty for doing my own thing, since my own thing has the added effect of showing up on the tournament score page and making smaller players feel smaller..

The new system will make these smaller players feel even smaller, since the cost is increasing to negotiate and combat has just got harder.. Some of you might say well good riddance to the smaller players leaving your fellowships, but I would rather have a good active daily player who does what they can in the tournament without wrecking their resources, then one who goes all out every tournament then turns around every week and puts ridicules demands for huge amounts of goods in the trader to make up what they just lost...

I wish there was a system in place for an arch mage to block out the tournament page or for a player to block out his/her own score if they wanted to... This would be nice addition
I combat 4-6 provinces until completion every single tournament since the first and I only cater a province if I'm in a hurry.. So the new changes will not effect me other then to make the process faster for me.. But I can see it further alienating the smaller player

 

[SoggyShorts]

So the new changes will not effect me other then to make the process faster for me.

Other than significantly increased losses. There are charts in the beta thread showing about 4x the squad size, so even doing 4 instead of 8 encounters will increase your losses. As @Mykan has said, it's pretty situational. I'm glad that players way past the GZ finally caught a break, even if those of us who obediently stayed within it will see increased costs. It does seem a little harsh that catering is more expensive on my Beta at the start of dwarves than on my live accounts at the end of orcs though.