Fix these things and this game would be better

[DeletedUser4943]

I know this isn't FoE, but I have been playing Forge of Empires for 3 years now and there are things done in that game that could benefit this one in the long run. I see some similarities between both games such as the research tree and the battlefield, but what I think this game lacks are certain attributes that allow newer players the ability to reach certain goals without getting stuck along the way.

Here is my list of things that could easily be changed to better help players enjoy the game more, rather than becoming frustrated and quitting...

1. Moving buildings could be easier to accomplish, especially with the lack of expansions in this game - Since expansions are very limited because of where they are on the research tree and due to the battlegrounds not being as fair as they should be, moving buildings around should not be that difficult. I mean if I have a 5x5 building and I need to move it to a 5x5 area, but there is a 3x3 building in the way, I can't just simply swap those two buildings by dragging the 5x5 over the 3x3 and swapping them, no I have to find a space for that 3x3 which takes a hell of a lot longer to do than just simply being able to drag and drop between 2 buildings. FoE incorporated that simple technique into it's game and it's made it a lot easier to rearrange a city.

2. The items in the research tree need to be spread out better through out the chapters - I am currently stuck on chapter 2 and can not expand my city or upgrade my Main Hall because of where these items are in the tree. Having 2 city expansions at the end of the chapter is ridiculous and having the Main Hall upgrade in the middle is also ridiculous. I think the city expansions should be spread out more through out this particular chapter as City Expansion 3 is in the beginning while 4 and 5 are at the very end. 4 should be in the middle right after the Advanced Main Hall research. Tell me why the Tournament research is at the very end of Chapter 2. What is needed for players to participate in these tournaments? Does it have to be at the end of this chapter or could it be moved to the beginning?

3. Provinces - Why does it take 4 provinces to get an expansion? For new players that is a bit unrealistic as the size of a players army is only as big as their research allows. If I can't win battles than why should I bother trying to get 4 provinces? I can simply negotiate the province, but I will run out of goods to negotiate and than I'm back to square one. This system should be tweaked in order to accommodate newer players who are trying to get through the game without having to spend money all of the time. I don't mind spending a few buck here and there on games like these, but to constantly ask players to open their wallets, because the game design is flawed is probably why players quit this game. FoE has a better game design than this one and I think borrowing a few of their ideas to make this game better wouldn't be such a bad idea.

4. KP's for Coin - The cost for 1 KP is 500 coins, why is it so much? New players can't buy KP points to help them achieve their goals through out the game, because of the cost. I think the amount of each KP could be dropped to 50 or 100 as that would help a lot of players out. As a player keeps purchasing the cost increases 50 or 100 each time, not 500 each time like it is now. I get that the developers are trying to have players battle more, but the battlegrounds are not fair and because of that issue, players may try to purchase KP's and wipe out their coin supply in the process. Than they have to wait hours just to get a decent amount of coins back from their residences. This is a clear domino effect and I believe this is a main issue with this game as well.

For now, those are my only major concerns when playing this game. I don't think this game should be exactly like FoE, but tweaking it a bit would be better for this game in the future.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

Sorry to have to dampen your enthousiasm, but here goes....

The swapping of buildings is something I agree on. However, I don't think Inno will go for it, it has been suggested before.

There also is a definite lack of expansions in the techtree, and they are indeed not exactly logically placed in several chapters and I'm sorry to tell you they will become horribly expensive to place, near to the max coin capacity of your (upgraded) mainhall.
Again, I HOPE Inno will do something about it, but wouldn't take a bet on it happening.

The further you go in the game, the more provinces you will need to get an expansion, until you need 9.
That, with the constantly increasing scout times AND the unwinnable battles limits the number of expansions you can get this way. (I'm now at nearly 3 days/scout, needing 9 provinces/ expansion, so I can get 1 expansion per 27 days, IF the scouts end at a time that I can immediately reset it, which is not always the case...so about one expansion a month.

The KP's for coin...well...each time you buy one, the price goes up. That goes for goods as well as coins. So if you regularly do this, you'll at some point hit a limit where the amount needed will restrict you from doing other things, like scouting or upgrading buildings.

Inno seems to be determined to slow players down to a snails-pace unless the pay ridiculous amounts of money.

 

[Thistleknot]

KingCit,

I played FOE for a year or two and got to the Modern Era before quitting. I very much enjoyed FOE, but I got to the point where my buildings were so big and my gaining new expansions so small, that I had trouble improving my city. Couple that with the need for two sets of manufactories and an inability to get good trades pretty much shut me down. I will say that there are several elements that I would really like to see pulled from FOE to improve Elvenar. The building moving model for FOE is one of those things.

I personally do not see an issue with the number of provinces needed for an expansion. Dhurrin stated that he needs 9 provinces for 1 expansion. Once you get to your 32nd expansion by conquering, you will need anywhere from 9 to 11 provinces to gain an expansion. I am not so worried about that. If the combat system was better balanced for players to win combats, this would be less of an issue. The alternative being that the cost to negotiate should be lowered as well. Although on another thread, I did some analysis based on something that Soggy wrote and discovered that even my city, which I feel to be pretty average, is able to produce enough goods every three days to negotiate through my more expensive and outlying provinces. So the negotiating costs might not really need to be changed.

The costs for KP is also not really an issue to me. I saw some asking questions about the wholesaler. He stated that he was paying 600K to buy one KP. Yes that is an insane amount, but that also means that he has bought a lot of KP using coin. And that's because coin in this game is actually pretty easy to come by. I don't remember any point in this game this I was not able to fill up my main hall in just a day or two of collecting from my residencies and doing rounds.

As far as the research tree, it has been shuffled around a bit since I started playing. If I had the time, I would start another city in another world just to get an idea of how things are currently at the lower levels. Since you are going through this right now, I would think that you are fairly accurate in stating that the tech tree needs to have things redistributed.

Of course, these are just my observations based on my experiences with the game.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I think the amount of each KP could be dropped to 50 or 100 as that would help a lot of players out.

Those prices are very unrealistic, if the prices were as you suggest you would get way too many.
In fact I have bought 500 KP with coins so far, using your pricing I would have gotten 1,582 for the same coins.
I think being able to buy 3 KP per day is about right (my average since I started)
Buying 9 KP per day is overkill IMO

 

[DeletedUser4943]

Dhurrin and Thistleknot,

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it. I have never come across an expansion issue in FoE and I'm not a money spender on these games. My complaint about the coins stems from my experience on FoE were they charge 50 coin for each point needed instead of 500 coin like this game. I just think that is a bit steep of a price to pay for a new player with limited expansion. I don't have an issue with the amount of coin you get from each residence as that is set up fairly well.

I guess I'm so used to how FoE is set up that coming to this game I expected more similarities with these issues I have, but I also know that Inno doesn't want games to be exactly the same. A few tweaks could make this game more appealing to players and Inno could have more players wanting to continue their growth rather than quitting and moving on to something else.

 

[DeletedUser4943]

Those prices are very unrealistic, if the prices were as you suggest you would get way too many.
In fact I have bought 500 KP with coins so far, using your pricing I would have gotten 1,582 for the same coins.
I think being able to buy 3 KP per day is about right (my average since I started)
Buying 9 KP per day is overkill IMO

I can spend 1500 on 3 KP as well, but when I first started playing the game, that was unrealistic. Maybe dropping it to 100 is not realistic, but dropping the cost for KP I think would help others out, especially since battling on the World Map is very unrealistic in this game. Plus it costs goods and coin to negotiate which in turn costs players coin just to reproduce those goods they lost. Trading is available, but you can't trade goods when you don't have any after spending them on battles.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

Since I have been moved I can easily fill my main hall again, so the cost of the KP in coins is not that much of a problem and I tend to be able to buy 2-5 KP's per day that way, which is an ok rate I think.

However, there are 2 problems with that.
First it only works if you have enough neighbours. If you're situated on the edge with a lot of goldmines around you, you will definitely have a much harder time.
Second, as one expands, the time it takes to make the rounds on the map gets to be too long. I like playing a game, but I really don't have the time to spend over an hour each day only to visit everyone on my map, so there definitely is room to improve the way to handle the visits.

As for the expansions: since they -beep-ed the battlesystem it's gotten considerably harder to get expansions that way. The number of expansions in the tech tree are a bit too limited in my eyes since most of the buildings keep getting considerably larger almost every time, so one more in each chapter wouldn't be overmuch.
And they should indeed be spread out a bit more throughout the chapters. In several chapters the expansions that can be researched are too close together.
Even more so now that they raised the prices of premium-expansions to a height where many people just won't be willing (or even able) to pay what they ask for them.

 

[edeba]

This so needs to be improved. I got to about 100 provinces and I hit the wall in how time consuming a icky it is to just do that level of repetition over and over to get coin, and it got slower... So, it wasn't that there were more provinces, it was more provinces that load slower... I don't like visiting anymore, not that it was ever exciting, but it is awful now.

Second, as one expands, the time it takes to make the rounds on the map gets to be too long. I like playing a game, but I really don't have the time to spend over an hour each day only to visit everyone on my map, so there definitely is room to improve the way to handle the visits.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

@edeba

Yes, that is a problem for me as well, and I have seen others mention it soo.

If one loads a lot of larger cities it becomes very slow after a time. I only make the full rounds once or twice a week now and then I have to close the browser and clear the cache one or two times to be able to finish (I have over over 300 provinces cleared and some that are scouted but not conquered yet, so the number of cities has grown alike)

The amount of time tied up in this makes it booring and mostly not worth it unless I am really short of coin. But it's something that many people have asked for to change...however, the dev team doesn't seem to want to listen to anything the players say.

 

[Thistleknot]

I go for the greed. I want every coin, supply, and goods that I can get from helping my neighbors. Currently it takes me about an hour to get through everything. I do occasionally skip helping my neighbors and only help my fellowship. Usually my wife, who also plays Elvenar, is understanding, but from time to time she gets exasperated at me.

 

[DeletedUser4778]

@edeba: Off-topic but I saw your city in Winyandor. Very nice!

 

[MojaveByrd]

As far as the techtree goes, it needs to be redone. If I have a bonus in Marble and will never get one in Steel, why am I required to do the Steel in the techtree? There should be a way around this. I don't have steel; I'm not interested in steel; and I'm tired of wasting my KP and other resources on uneeded education. I've read info from advanced players who say you should only have manufacturies in the goods you get bonuses for. So having steel in a marble city is a big waste.

 

[DeletedUser5251]

I've read info from advanced players who say you should only have manufacturies in the goods you get bonuses for. So having steel in a marble city is a big waste.

This is true, and I agree, but you should just resign yourself to the fact that it's not likely to change. There will be many technologies you don't want to waste your KPs on, but have to anyway to get to the next thing you really want/need.

 

[DeletedUser5251]

If I had the time, I would start another city in another world just to get an idea of how things are currently at the lower levels.

For reference. I started my first city in the middle of August and I'm in chapter 6. About a month ago, I started a new city in another world and this new city is only half the size my other city was by this time (about to finish chapter 2). I'm dedicating the same amount of time to it per day that I did with the first city. I even joined a fellowship much earlier and never bothered with building non-boosted goods and I still feel like I am moving at a snails pace. I have cultural buildings I won in the event just sitting in the bag because I don't have the room to place them and I won't for a while. Between the battle troops being almost useless in the beginning and the lack of expansions in the tech tree, it really feels like an effort in futility to make any progress. If we weren't in the middle of an event, I might've abandoned the new city by now. If it were this slow in the beginning for me I doubt I'd still be here.

 

[DeletedUser3507]

Keep in mind, each event has buy X kp's and if you done quite a few event, your most likely to have a very high cost to buy these.

At some point around 300k coins Inno should stop it from escalating any higher in my opinion Or else remove the buy X kp's from these events..

I am at 232k coins per kp. And feel like I am being robbed, 600k god no anything over 300k forget me buying them.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Keep in mind, each event has buy X kp's and if you done quite a few event, your most likely to have a very high cost to buy these.At some point around 300k coins Inno should stop it from escalating any higher in my opinion Or else remove the buy X kp's from these events..I am at 232k coins per kp. And feel like I am being robbed, 600k god no anything over 300k forget me buying them.

I just hit 300K per KP, still buying a few every day.
To keep costs low for events I just never ever use my tier 1 to buy KP except for events--For the snow flurry I was able to buy 25 Kp without any effort =)

 

[DeletedUser3507]

Do you consider it fair Soggy, above someone said there at 600k?
My main hall hold 10400 but really over 300k per kp.... Inno's into highway robbery.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Do you consider it fair Soggy, above someone said there at 600k?
My main hall hold 10400 but really over 300k per kp.... Inno's into highway robbery.

I have no idea what my income will be like when I get to 600K, but for my city that just started chapter 7 during the even,t it seems to be a fair price.

edit: I make close to 4,000,000 a day right now,
so if I'm not doing any really expensive upgrades or scouting I could increase my daily KP by over 50%--that's a lot in my opinion.

 

[DeletedUser4778]

I very much enjoyed FOE, but I got to the point where my buildings were so big and my gaining new expansions so small, that I had trouble improving my city.

Aren't you experiencing the same things here? (Not a sarcastic question -- I really want to know.)

 

[DeletedUser5251]

I am. I really want to start building the Gardens of Harmony, but it's bigger than a whole 5X5 expansion which means I need two new expansions just to build one. I could sell off some smaller cultural buildings (though most of my smaller ones were bought with diamonds and contain culture), but it would still be difficult to rearrange everything to fit such a large building.