Feedback Fellowship Adventures - 2023

[Silver Lady]

We've had a couple of instances where a non-reading eager beaver grabbed the flag without warning. The policy I have now is that the offender loses their rank & it is given to the next eligible member.

@Laochra How do you even know who pulled the flag? I’ve never seen the name of who pulled the flag displayed anywhere.

 

[Lady Dastardly]

@Laochra How do you even know who pulled the flag? I’ve never seen the name of who pulled the flag displayed anywhere.

I don't think you can see it on mobile, but in the browser there is a notification, just like neighborly help and trades, that tells you who pulled it.

 

[Mirai]

I'm working on a list of Coin Badge values for us all. Several of my fellows have the information, if I can catch up with them and get it, but none of my crew is in Fairy (and my smallest city isn't ready to make the leap). Here is what we've collected so far:

Coin Badges
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 217K
Chapter 4 415K
Chapter 5 765K
Chapter 6 1108K
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9 3049K
Chapter 10 3880K
Chapter 11 4884K
Chapter 12 6019K
Chapter 13
Chapter 14 8751K
Chapter 15 9781K
Chapter 16 11279K
Chapter 17 12896K
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20 26472K

In Ch. 8, it would like 2300K

 

[Dew Spinner]

I would be happy if Inno replaced even 10 percent of the time instant badges I am throwing away just to maintain our 4th place. By the time this ends, I will have almost zero time instants, zero pet food, zero combined catalysts, zero ensorcelments, etc, etc ... you get the picture.

I can't believe that you gut your inventory for the crappy prizes offered in a FA. You are severely hurting your regular game for crappy prizes? That absolutely doesn't make sense to me!

 

[crackie]

I would consider that bad management. If you have Mages & Ambassadors that you need to temporarily change to a fellow, why are they a Mage or Ambassador anyway? These are supposed to be your support staff, so they should be trustworthy and not get temporarily docked.

Generally true and I agree you shouldn’t willy nilly promote the entire team to mages and ambassadors, for example. However, I wouldn’t necessarily consider it bad management. Inno put the participants info and who’s left to go info for each stage in the flag, which means if you are waiting for someone, you constantly have to click the flag to see if they got in. And if you have multiple cities, then you are running multiple FAs simultaneously. Sometimes, you glance back to your window after looking at another city and you are greeted with a giant green button that your mouse wants to autopilot to and click through before you realize/remember what it’s for (esp if you hate reading). There is a human error element, but there is also bad UI design and bad user experience resulting from it.

Also, there are more times in the year when there isn’t an FA going on than there are. The Ambassadors have recruiting privileges AND flag pulling privileges. I trust my ambassadors to recruit and recruiting is a dreaded yearround task, but I don’t trust them to run my FAs. I leave that for mages. I don’t need ambassadors accidentally pulling the flag snooping around looking up who is in and who is not. It would make my life easier if they remove flag pulling privileges from Ambassadors. Then they can get that participants info all they want without pushing the shiny green button by mistake. I am sure many here would concur.

 

[crackie]

But you shouldnt have waypoints on map 3 that take 150-200 badges each and gives 300 points, and then a pit round of 10-15 badges for 50 points (80 badges = 300 points). There is jsut no point in doing that waypoint then. And the pit is more rounded out since it takes all 16 badges. Where as the waypoint might ask for 70 coins, or 90 ghosts all at once. - So the points per waypoint/ points per badge need serious re-balancing to make sense, and to be more fair.

It’s simply because not all badges are created equal. There are always badges you’ll never get stuck on and then there are those that you do. Some badges are easier to make. You can’t count them the same. If you do, then you probably won’t ever win the FA. When my fellowship is “taking it easy”, we will still complete most of stage 3 anyway. It is still the better option than going to the Pit.

FAs are completely optional. You have the choice to do none, some, or all-out. If you don’t care for rewards and don’t care for FA, than option to do NONE is perfect. If “good” rewards are your primary concern, then the ones that really matter are Stage 2 and Stage 3. All you have to do is one path up each stage and call it a day. You don’t need to finish high in rankings bc the group rewards aren’t so great, like you’ve said. The people that select to go all-out don’t do it for the rewards. They enjoy the challenge, the teamwork, and the camaraderie. That sustains them and rewards them more than the group silly prizes.

No doubt there is always room for improvement, but I think Inno is making them, of course at their notoriously glacial pace. I think handing out big chunks of Perk XP points is a good start to making the group rewards “better”. As a new FS, we opted to go as “all-out” as we can to make up for lost ground on the perks front. We would take in prob more than a week of tourney’s worth of XP points. But mostly, we love team play and would do it anyway, even if we are not a new FS needing XP points or if our perks are maxed out.

 

[MagicPagan]

I would be happy if Inno replaced even 10 percent of the time instant badges I am throwing away just to maintain our 4th place. By the time this ends, I will have almost zero time instants, zero pet food, zero combined catalysts, zero ensorcelments, etc, etc ... you get the picture.

You got that right. I feel like I am crafting 50% and 100% coin rains in between FAs, just to use them during FAs.

 

[Dew Spinner]

It’s simply because not all badges are created equal. There are always badges you’ll never get stuck on and then there are those that you do. Some badges are easier to make. You can’t count them the same. If you do, then you probably won’t ever win the FA. When my fellowship is “taking it easy”, we will still complete most of stage 3 anyway. It is still the better option than going to the Pit.

FAs are completely optional. You have the choice to do none, some, or all-out. If you don’t care for rewards and don’t care for FA, than option to do NONE is perfect. If “good” rewards are your primary concern, then the ones that really matter are Stage 2 and Stage 3. All you have to do is one path up each stage and call it a day. You don’t need to finish high in rankings bc the group rewards aren’t so great, like you’ve said. The people that select to go all-out don’t do it for the rewards. They enjoy the challenge, the teamwork, and the camaraderie. That sustains them and rewards them more than the group silly prizes.

No doubt there is always room for improvement, but I think Inno is making them, of course at their notoriously glacial pace. I think handing out big chunks of Perk XP points is a good start to making the group rewards “better”. As a new FS, we opted to go as “all-out” as we can to make up for lost ground on the perks front. We would take in prob more than a week of tourney’s worth of XP points. But mostly, we love team play and would do it anyway, even if we are not a new FS needing XP points or if our perks are maxed out.

Yes, but encouraging lower chapter players to gut their inventories for crappy rewards, I would think, would be contrary to meeting overall FS goals, FS Perk Pts can easily be made up by daily visits and better Tourney and Spire performance which give better rewards.

 

[Darielle]

I can't believe that you gut your inventory for the crappy prizes offered in a FA. You are severely hurting your regular game for crappy prizes? That absolutely doesn't make sense to me!

It makes perfect sense if you are the archmage and trying to help your team have a great time. It's all about the team, not you.

 

[Darielle]

Generally true and I agree you shouldn’t willy nilly promote the entire team to mages and ambassadors, for example. However, I wouldn’t necessarily consider it bad management. Inno put the participants info and who’s left to go info for each stage in the flag, which means if you are waiting for someone, you constantly have to click the flag to see if they got in. And if you have multiple cities, then you are running multiple FAs simultaneously. Sometimes, you glance back to your window after looking at another city and you are greeted with a giant green button that your mouse wants to autopilot to and click through before you realize/remember what it’s for (esp if you hate reading). There is a human error element, but there is also bad UI design and bad user experience resulting from it.

Also, there are more times in the year when there isn’t an FA going on than there are. The Ambassadors have recruiting privileges AND flag pulling privileges. I trust my ambassadors to recruit and recruiting is a dreaded yearround task, but I don’t trust them to run my FAs. I leave that for mages. I don’t need ambassadors accidentally pulling the flag snooping around looking up who is in and who is not. It would make my life easier if they remove flag pulling privileges from Ambassadors. Then they can get that participants info all they want without pushing the shiny green button by mistake. I am sure many here would concur.

Yep, I concur 150 percent.

 

[Dew Spinner]

It makes perfect sense if you are the archmage and trying to help your team have a great time. It's all about the team, not you.

Hopefully, you are not encouraging your chapter 5 and chapter 7 players to gut their inventories for crappy rewards when they can use those inventories for better rewards in Tourney and Spire.

 

[Darielle]

You got that right. I feel like I am crafting 50% and 100% coin rains in between FAs, just to use them during FAs.

I set 12 ferris wheels to coin rains to be exclusively used in this FA. They went for 50 days and I got idk, several hundred 10 percent coin rains. They are going the way of the dinosaur as we speak, lol. I can't believe how many it takes.

 

[Darielle]

Hopefully, you are not encouraging your chapter 5 and chapter 7 players to gut their inventories for crappy rewards when they can use those inventories for better rewards in Tourney and Spire.

Of course not, and I can't understand why you would think that, since you've never been in my fellowship. Besides, I have very few chapter 5 and 7 players in my fellowship. We're all grownups and we do as much as we can without pressure. I was speaking as the archmage, and for me, yes, I'll go the extra mile and then some. If I encouraged them to gut their inventories, though, I wouldn't be a very good archmage.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Of course not, and I can't understand why you would think that, since you've never been in my fellowship. Besides, I have very few chapter 5 and 7 players in my fellowship. We're all grownups and we do as much as we can without pressure. I was speaking as the archmage, and for me, yes, I'll go the extra mile and then some. If I encouraged them to gut their inventories, though, I wouldn't be a very good archmage.

I agree.

 

[crackie]

Yes, but encouraging lower chapter players to gut their inventories for crappy rewards, I would think, would be contrary to meeting overall FS goals, FS Perk Pts can easily be made up by daily visits and better Tourney and Spire performance which give better rewards.

Not necessarily.

In the chap 5 city where I am the lowest on the totem pole, a lot of big cities were in lament at their collective destruction and I joked my rank is actually goes up during FAs. I’m building extra fully upgraded T1. This doesn’t hurt me at all. I am multiplying my T1 inventory several fold in the span of a week. It gets used in Spire, tourney, provinces, techs, and taking wonders out of runes.

In the newbie fellowship where I spent a few months incognito, it’s a free for all and they barely limped to finishing one path up stage 1. No one is being told anything, let alone to participate. And half of them don’t even have the event unlocked because it’s now behind a chap 3 tech.

In the FS where I am the biggest city amongst many small cities, we tell them it’s optional to put whatever away and if they struggle with Spire or tourney, the big cities are here to help. Some of them are told ignore the FA and prioritize working towards unlocking stupid Spire tech all the way in chap 5. The first Spire is delay if you have the timers+resources to do so. The second Spire is sprint it before FA is over if you have the timers+resources to do so. Some can afford to. Some cannot. It’s our first FA and we’re in the Top 10.

You really can’t compare getting 20XP at a time shaking hands to 200kXP wholesale. At 20 members, it’s 400XP a day shaking hands. To get 200k XP would be 500 days of shaking hands, which would take over a year. Similarly, if we are averaging 12 chests, 200k will take 4+ weeks of tourney. How about we do a week’s worth of work for 4 weeks worth of tourney XP AND we get to use those new perks for longer? That sounds like a good deal to me.

 

[defiantoneks]

It's best to stick with the same strategy in all the realms, it's less confusing.

that sounds really nice, but IMO not always achievable. If you manage to have the exact same Archmage & team members across 3 worlds, thats cool. honestly i deliberately chose a second world that none of my first FS members were in so i wasnt "hanging out" with the same people all the time.

 

[defiantoneks]

(post continued...)

So.. with those suggestions in place and the ones inno already made.. we now would have an more efficient way to build and prepare for the fa. We have an easier way to start all productions, an easier way to collect all productions, and an easier way to collect all badges. This would leave the last two steps (depending on how your fs operates). 1. Reporting badges. So the fs knows what it has made and what still needs to be made. And 2. The using of the badges themselves. - Both of these are a bit tied together.

Right now this game has no way internally to keep track of badges made. And since this last fa, with its increases badge requirements, has a total of 4,008 badges needed for to complete all waypoints/crossroads on the main 3 maps. Not counting anything in the pit.) So keeping things straight is often needed. Many fs's have some form of spreadsheet trying to keep track of everything. Each fs's may have there own style for how theirs works., but many use them. Other fs's simply dont want to deal with the stress of it anymore and say screw it. And just let everyone make things on there own. Much less efficient in most cases, but a whooooole lot easier. - And as someone thats 'kept the count' in our fs for more years then i can remember... I can testify that the desire to say screw it and not bother with recording all that is soooooooooooooo tempting. I cant express adaqutly how tempting it is. Its a lot of time, effort, and numbers. I basically have a part time job as an accountant; running numbers and sheets; trying to keep the books in order.
So i would love to have some kind of internal method that would keep track of this. Im refraining from listing possible ideas on this one, because my main idea for it is tied in with the second part of this, the collecting and spending of the badges.

I left the collecting and spending of badges for last. I did that because this is the one that will get the most push back from players. Ill try to keep it shorter (shocking, and probably pointless, statement at this point..). But i could do a whole thread on this one alone. And i have. Thats why i know about the internet push back on it. Tho iv talked to and seen waaaay more ppl that support the idea. They just dont post on these forums regularly. So it seems much more one sided.
And that idea is the controversial 'Fs badge pool'. The idea makes perfect sense to me from a design standpoint and a practical standpoint. It would also take care of that 'reporting' issue i just mentioned. (if it were implemented in the way i envision it.)
From a practical standpoint: The Fa is supposed to be this big group activity. We make plans for it as a fs. We organize as a fs. The rewards are distributed as a fs (for those that participate). But the badge collecting/spending is done as individuals. Thats a cog in the logic machine for a group activity. And i think it should be made more group based like everything else is.
Having all the badges we make go into a 'fs badge pool' helps and solves several issues all at once. The fs badge pool would have an active count of all the badges the fs has. And you could even add a counter next to it for all that badge made during the event. For example: Brewery Badge 140/350. Great! I now know in an instant that my fs has 140 brewers badges on hand, ready to use. And that we have made a total of 350 of them. So i look at how many we need in total, minus total we made and see if we need more of that or not. Not only is that single action a lot more simple.. but that just eliminated the vast majority of the badge reporting and counting that so many fs's do. We no longer need to keep track of every badge made by every player in the fs's. The fs badge pool would do that for us! All that benefit right there is enough to make me want this system.
But wait!!! Theirs more!! Call right now and you'll receive a FA system that the fs's will all be able to progress further in!! Well even cover the shipping!! I know! Your wondering 'how is this deal even possible!!?' 0.0
Its a well known fact how many ppl do not participate in FA's. Its also a well known fact that many players stop making badges/stop participating in the last day or two of an FA. Many ppl have things called.. lives.. and are often not able to get on the last day or so of an FA to use any badges they made. Not only is it a waste of any badges they have, but it also means zero incentive to make more. Whats the point of making them if you know you wont even be able to log on to use them? And its a valid point. Other ppl might have a busy week, or busy life, or jsut not cage much.. and arnt able to get on when the badges they made are needed. So they go to waste anyway. So why bother making them at all? - There is a surprising number of valid reasons iv heard over the year for why ppl do not make badges or do not participate much/at all. And most of the time.. they have a point.
A 'fs badge pool' would allow all badges from all players to have a legit chance to be used. Not only used eventually.. but used right when they are needed. No having to wait a day for a person to log on to spend the badges. - A real life(ish?) example; i dedicate my two cities to filling every space with as many t1's as i can. I try to cover all the 48h statues at once, that way we dont have to worry about them later. No worrying about them, no having to organize 20 ppl on them. I got it! Its quite efficient. .. Downside... if im personally not logged on when they are needed, the whole fa progress comes to a a halt. The whole fs has to wait for me to get on to use my statue badges. Its a massive waste of time. And personally, i made these badges to help my group succeed in the group event. Now im the one holding them up. If they could take my badges and spend them when needed, thus helping the group, id be all for it. - A 'fs badge pool' helps solve this issue. Badges we make have a legit chance of being used, and being used when the are needed. And since players know they have an increased chance of being used, that increases the desire to participate and make badges, both all around, and on that last day or two. They can collect there badges, it goes to the fa badge pool, then they can go to work or family or wherever, knowing there badges can likely make a big difference. - Increased participation means increased badges made, means increase fa progress. Whether its a small group that decides to do an extra path, or a big group that wants to try for a full run of all waypoints, up to the top fs's competing for points. It increases participation and progress all around.
So the 'fs badge pool' solves the majority of the badge reporting/keeping count issue and would increase player participation in the FA. It sounds like an all around win to me.
(Now we can debate the specific details of how to implement the system. Such as would it be an automatic system of badges collected going right to the pool, or could players keep there own inventory if they wished AND have an option to send them to the pool; so everyone's happy. Questions like who would be the ones to spend the badges in the pool. And other such details. And those can be worked out. This part of the post is mainly for illustrating how useful that system could be.
I know ppl have a hard time accepting change, no matter how much they ask for it. We see it all the time here. Complaining about wanting more chapters then whining about the new chapter. Wanting more combat/cater then just tourney and then whining about spire. Demanding new features, then whining about the caldron the moment it comes out. etc etc etc.. - And i do highly acknowledge the difference between ppl whining and ppl offering legit constructive criticizem. I always try to keep mine on the side of constructive criticizem. The logical and mathematical side of my brain has always enjoyed the FA. But has fully acknowledges its flaws. - So i want to see the FA succeed. I want to see it get better. I want to see it get to a point where ppl actually want to participate. I want to get to a day where when the FA is announced its no longer a collective sigh of disappointment. I want to get to a day where we are actually happy about the FA coming. Or at the very least, not utterly upset that there is another one coming. - I want to see FA's get better and so i offer my constructive critizem in hopes that it will help the programmers make the FA better. Which is why i make suggestions from each point of the event, from preparation, to making badges, to collecting badges, to spending badges, to UI improvements, to new features, to balancing badges and points... and anything else i can think of. - I honestly wish those programmers could read this report personally. (Because at this point its basically a book report... so scratch that earlier idea of 'ill try to keep it short'... i should have known better). I honestly believe that most of these suggestions, if implemented in some way or variation, would be a massive improvement to the FA as a whole.

Now! I meant to take a 10 min break and then go clean cages in my chinchilla room... clearly the 10 min part went awry. But now its time to go back! - Back where doc? - Back.. to the chinchillas!!!

i proposed a pit pool once in suggestions. i believe it was largely ignored.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Not necessarily.

In the chap 5 city where I am the lowest on the totem pole, a lot of big cities were in lament at their collective destruction and I joked my rank is actually goes up during FAs. I’m building extra fully upgraded T1. This doesn’t hurt me at all. I am multiplying my T1 inventory several fold in the span of a week. It gets used in Spire, tourney, provinces, techs, and taking wonders out of runes.

In the newbie fellowship where I spent a few months incognito, it’s a free for all and they barely limped to finishing one path up stage 1. No one is being told anything, let alone to participate. And half of them don’t even have the event unlocked because it’s now behind a chap 3 tech.

In the FS where I am the biggest city amongst many small cities, we tell them it’s optional to put whatever away and if they struggle with Spire or tourney, the big cities are here to help. Some of them are told ignore the FA and prioritize working towards unlocking stupid Spire tech all the way in chap 5. The first Spire is delay if you have the timers+resources to do so. The second Spire is sprint it before FA is over if you have the timers+resources to do so. Some can afford to. Some cannot. It’s our first FA and we’re in the Top 10.

You really can’t compare getting 20XP at a time shaking hands to 200kXP wholesale. At 20 members, it’s 400XP a day shaking hands. To get 200k XP would be 500 days of shaking hands, which would take over a year. Similarly, if we are averaging 12 chests, 200k will take 4+ weeks of tourney. How about we do a week’s worth of work for 4 weeks worth of tourney XP AND we get to use those new perks for longer? That sounds like a good deal to me.

Gutting inventories of the FS members for crappy prizes does not help the FS. even with Perk Pts. Your FS is higher than us in the FA Rank, and usually is but your FS Perk Level is 21 and our, much lower ranked FA FS is at FS Perk level 24. It's better to get the prizes and get out for the least amount of effort and conserve the resources for other things that give a better payout.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Not necessarily.

In the chap 5 city where I am the lowest on the totem pole, a lot of big cities were in lament at their collective destruction and I joked my rank is actually goes up during FAs. I’m building extra fully upgraded T1. This doesn’t hurt me at all. I am multiplying my T1 inventory several fold in the span of a week. It gets used in Spire, tourney, provinces, techs, and taking wonders out of runes.

In the newbie fellowship where I spent a few months incognito, it’s a free for all and they barely limped to finishing one path up stage 1. No one is being told anything, let alone to participate. And half of them don’t even have the event unlocked because it’s now behind a chap 3 tech.

In the FS where I am the biggest city amongst many small cities, we tell them it’s optional to put whatever away and if they struggle with Spire or tourney, the big cities are here to help. Some of them are told ignore the FA and prioritize working towards unlocking stupid Spire tech all the way in chap 5. The first Spire is delay if you have the timers+resources to do so. The second Spire is sprint it before FA is over if you have the timers+resources to do so. Some can afford to. Some cannot. It’s our first FA and we’re in the Top 10.

You really can’t compare getting 20XP at a time shaking hands to 200kXP wholesale. At 20 members, it’s 400XP a day shaking hands. To get 200k XP would be 500 days of shaking hands, which would take over a year. Similarly, if we are averaging 12 chests, 200k will take 4+ weeks of tourney. How about we do a week’s worth of work for 4 weeks worth of tourney XP AND we get to use those new perks for longer? That sounds like a good deal to me.

I'm sorry, I am wrong about that, I was looking at Darielle's FS's Perk level not you FS.

 

[crackie]

Gutting inventories of the FS members for crappy prizes does not help the FS. even with Perk Pts. Your FS is higher than us in the FA Rank, and usually is but your FS Perk Level is 21 and our, much lower ranked FA FS is at FS Perk level 24. It's better to get the prizes and get out for the least amount of effort and conserve the resources for other things that give a better payout.

Nope. In the FS with smaller cities, we are ranked 145 with a FS level of 7.