Comparison of FA3 & FA 4 (stats)

[DeletedUser15113]

Arendyll
1622 Fellowships
Stage 3: 1-69 (7200+ points)
Stage 2: 70-160 (3300+ points)
Stage 1: 161-294 (1100+ points)
100pts: 426-659

*

Our fellowship finished around 50th in points, but we didn't even finish stage three. I noticed the green path (at least according to GoK) gave a lot more points than the blue or orange for stage 3. We did all but the last node on the green coming up about 25 troop badges too short. We did complete a few other nodes along the way which also booted our points. So we are one of the 69 with enough points to have finished, yet still failed. Just wonder how scewed those stats are going to be to show how many actually did finish all 3 stages.

Edit: Oops, I see the numbers I quoted were later updated. Still same point is made, we were one of the 77 with enough points but still failed to finish stage 3...

 

[SoggyShorts]

Edit: Oops, I see the numbers I quoted were later updated. Still same point is made, we were one of the 77 with enough points but still failed to finish stage 3...

Yep, as I noted in the first post, there is no way to know which FS did spots on the map that didn't get them closer to the chest without contacting all 1300 fellowships. Same goes for the numbers for FA3 though, so the comparison is still somewhat valid.

 

[NightshadeCS]

Yep, as I noted in the first post, there is no way to know which FS did spots on the map that didn't get them closer to the chest without contacting all 1300 fellowships. Same goes for the numbers for FA3 though, so the comparison is still somewhat valid.

Should we start an email tree, @SoggyShorts ?

 

[SoggyShorts]

Aside from the relics and goods quests FA4 was better than FA3 in almost every way. The only explanation I can see for a 25% drop in participation is burn out from the quest cycling.

I think the major factor in having a lower total turnout was the general attitude regarding the FA.
When FA3 came out without a fix to the quest cycling, the feedback (before it started) was bad. When it happened again for FA4, it was terrible.

I'm pretty confident that if FA4 had come before FA3 it would have had higher numbers than either of them did.
I'm also guessing that FA5 will have even lower total participation numbers if the quests aren't fixed first, regardless of any other improvements.

 

[DeletedUser13002]

I disagree. The numbers should be about the same, if not a little better. Those who liked it this time around (certainly a higher number than FA 3) will be primed to do it again, and word has gotten around that things are improving, so even some attrition should get compensation from new fellowships giving it another try.

Of course, this is all just speculation....

 

[DeletedUser9601]

I disagree. The numbers should be about the same, if not a little better. Those who liked it this time around (certainly a higher number than FA 3) will be primed to do it again, and word has gotten around that things are improving, so even some attrition should get compensation from new fellowships giving it another try.

Well also consider timing. This FA came on the heels of the Valentine's Event, which tapped out some people. It also came right after the release of the Elementals chapter, which requires by far the most guest race space to date. So a bunch of high-level players ignored the FA because they didn't have the city space for it.

If I recall correctly, FA 3 was early February, and was a few weeks after the Winter Event finished. There was more "down-time" for players to reset. Whereas this FA 4 was announced to lots of groans of "there's too much to do!" (a weird complaint, I think, but a real one for some of the player base).

 

[SoggyShorts]

Well also consider timing.

Riiiiiight, I totally forgot about that.
Having the top 5% of players go from having 16 expansions to play with down to zero was probably a very significant factor in participation.

 

[DeletedUser2768]

I know my fellowship in Elcysadir chose not to participate due to the crapshow that was the last one.

 

[ajqtrz]

In reality I do believe the discrepancy between stage 2 and 3 is more likely that those who finished stage 3 were more determined to do so than those who were determined to finish stage 2. Psychologically finishing all three would be more important than finishing only the first and second so, it's probably that bigger "push" was made to complete the whole thing at the end.

Just a guess, of course.

AJ

 

[DeletedUser1108]

Even though we began this FA saying we weren't going to do anything, by day 2 people started throwing in incidental badges and eventually around half the fs ended up doing some work on it. We actually ended up finishing 2 lvls and by picking off some of the higher scoring points by sideways detours at waypoints we actually managed to finish #69 - all in all it was a far less stressful and unpleasant experience than the previous version. We had very few people with giant lvl 1 'crap' cities, but some of the fun did seem to return. The stage prizes were definitely an improvement, the final prizes still meaningless to the point of insulting. Seemed to be less click intensive as well, but the bugs in disappearing quest cycles was pretty annoying and the chat instability continues. Refreshing the game 5 to 10 times an hour is just ridiculous!! Overall I'll give them a B- on improvements, overall grade a C (up from D- on the previous Adventure).

 

[NightshadeCS]

In reality I do believe the discrepancy between stage 2 and 3 is more likely that those who finished stage 3 were more determined to do so than those who were determined to finish stage 2. Psychologically finishing all three would be more important than finishing only the first and second so, it's probably that bigger "push" was made to complete the whole thing at the end.

Just a guess, of course.

AJ

Those numbers reflect how many more or fewer people completed each stage in comparison to those who completed the same stage in the last round of Fellowship Adventures. The will to finish should have been the same in FA3 as FA4, but significantly more people WERE able to finish in FA4. This leads us to think that stage 3 was not as difficult this time.

 

[The Unbeliever]

The prizes being a pile of steaming gak for the majority of players also isn't helping anything...
Nor is the fact that despite constant criticism, the 'Top 3' "winners" being pretty much exclusive to the creditcard warriors club.
Even as a team of 25 people, this latest FA4 was still a very significant effort for everyone involved, and the rewards only seem to be getting worse and worse. (and for the first time, we actually *also* had a lot of complaints about the top 3 prize buildings being hilariously underwhelming too!)

My other city on E-world never even bothered with this one, and the main reason was, "the prizes suck the big one for effectively 'stalling' our cities for a week, while watching the game crash 2-3 times per cycle through the quest list!"

I'm not advocating for the outright dumb, "everyone should get a big gold trophy & $100 just for showing up!" nonsense, but INNO should seriously be putting at least some minor decos/2x3/3x3 buildings from previous events into at least *some* of the major intersection waypoints...
At least it would make all that endless clicking seem like more of an tangible pay-off.

 

[DeletedUser1791]

I think the prizes were pretty decent this time around. Everything we got will be put to good use.

I would very much like to see one small change in the FA quest list, and that's when you complete a quest it does not automatically move on to the next one, but recycles the one you just completed first. That change alone would save a TON of clicking.

 

[dikke ikke]

I think the timing of the FA was critical. I joined my current FS 2 days before FA3, so there was FS3, Winter event, start of elementals, valentine event and the FS4. It was too much in a short period of time. My FS decided to take it easy on this FS, not go all the way like wit FS3 where we finished 1st, so we ended 4th this time. I hope there will only be an FA5 between the spring event and the Summer event, maybe we can go all the way in an attempt to be 1st again.

 

[Ashrem]

Yep, as I noted in the first post, there is no way to know which FS did spots on the map that didn't get them closer to the chest without contacting all 1300 fellowships.

Depending exactly what is captured and archived, I think you could get an approximation using the underlying data from elvenstats.com to look for cities that didn't have Menhirok's barrow deployed before the FA finished, and did after.

If not this time (and, again, depending on ease of capture) next time, once beta knows what the grand prize is, it might be worth capturing the buildings for all arch mages (if not others) at least for that particular building, before the next event gets too far, and again in the days after.

 

[SoggyShorts]

it might be worth capturing the buildings for all arch mages (if not others) at least for that particular building, before the next event gets too far, and again in the days after.

Good idea. It would have to be more than just the AM though as not everyone places it right away. I know the AM in both of my FS hasn't placed hers yet as she is in the middle of a renovation and doesn't need the pop boost yet.

 

[DeletedUser5521]

The prizes being a pile of steaming gak for the majority of players..

I personally disagree with this statement, but of course I am only 1 player, not the majority, so how could I even think to speak for the majority..? Perhaps if you said "not worth the effort", I would agree with that, but I appreciated the 80 kp (certainly not steaming gak) that I was able to flip with my fellows, and I'm sure the 5 hour and 8 hour time instants (again, no gak here, steaming or otherwise) will come in handy when I decide to use them.

and the rewards only seem to be getting worse and worse..

Those of us in my 4 fellowships who partook in this latest FS were actually discussing how the rewards for this FA were the best so far, at least for the map level rewards. Still, not worth the work involved, but I don't see how they are getting worse and worse? If you are only referring to the top 3 final rewards, I don't know how they compare, as they are such rare "trophies" granted to so few that I myself don't even think much about them

 

[NightshadeCS]

Good idea. It would have to be more than just the AM though as not everyone places it right away. I know the AM in both of my FS hasn't placed hers yet as she is in the middle of a renovation and doesn't need the pop boost yet.

Yes, definitely more than the AM. We are in the same boat, ours has not placed hers. But out of 24 active members, about 15 in our FS placed the Barrow (or had it already). Hard to tell how many people had that one in their city beforehand, though it seems a high enough percentage to make a call that we won the prize.

Interesting side note, the ones who placed the Barrow go all the way from the top to the bottom of our fellowship, so everyone must have found it a worthy prize.

 

[Ashrem]

It would have to be more than just the AM though as not everyone places it right away.

If more is easy, then that would be better. We're not talking about an absolute, anyway, just an extra indicator to go beside total points. Event just the AM would move a few teams from "probably finished" to "did finish," though with no absolute "did not finish despite enough points."

If you simply restricted the capture to "cities in Fellowships of 5 or more that did not have the coming grand prize deployed on day one of the tournament" It would probably provide near perfect coverage. Afterwords, checking only cities in FSs that got the minimum points would reduce the data set.

 

[SoggyShorts]

anyone care to update this? I don't actually know how many points for the stages this time