Higher losses in recent tournaments

[Ashrem]

I beg to differ Ashrem...below is the tournament ranking for scrolls in October 2018 (average for the top 10 = 3989.1) in my world and yes players like myself have improved our game play.

1. You're trying to speak for the whole game, when you are only using the fourth oldest server.
2. Stats for scrolls a year ago can't be compared to now, because we don't have the stats for this month's scroll tournament. The stats for Khelonaar for the crystal tournament a week before the one you showed are noticeably different, with the highest score at 70% above that of the immediately following scroll tournament you used as your sample.
3. The crystal tournament before that, the high score on Khelonaar was nearly 15,000

Things are not "just getting back to how it used to be,"

 

[i8sh]

Thank you Samidomage.

@Ashrem: Perhaps you should read a little closer when I said the average of the top ten and not the highest score, as this will give you a much better reflection of how the players are doing. You will also notice in your example (staying in Khelonaar) for the crystal tournament that the average of the top 10 in 2018 was in fact lower than last weeks tournament

You should be able to compare numbers in a few hours for this weeks tournament

Complain if you must...but I see nothing wrong with a more challenging tournament...but I do agree that if our boosts are being applied to the opposition troops then that is wrong.

 

[Mykan]

Personally it is irrelevant what the scores used to be, of course scores will be getting better over time. There was a time for months and months that scores of 2,000+ was guaranteed number 1 and that position has just increased over time. Reasoning is simple:

• People learning how to fight better
• More access to units - we had less tech a year ago then we do today as we get the upgraded units the last of which we are only getting now
• Gap between barracks speed and SS in tournaments is increasing as players skip SS techs. So players can make more troops between tournaments then they used to
• Wonders are increasing, again for multiple reasons. Seeds, focus on tournaments, waiting for chapters, etc, etc So bit by bit people are getting more units or better quality units. Not to mention something like timewarp to help with better timing for more rounds to be completed
• Somewhere in the mix they extended tournaments by 3hrs. While for some time zones it will have had little impact from this, for others it increased ability to do more rounds
• More free troops from crafted buildings and wonders. People have ben able to place several vallorian vallors and grounds of orc strategists along with a wonder for each barracks troops. Even now a person has to finish amuni before they can have access to every unit producing wonder. So as people progress they get access to increased ability to produce more units. More units = more provinces/rounds

All of that is even before you consider the evolving buildings of phoenix and bears or the temp military boosts.

So of course tournament scores have increased over time. Due to the new and temp buildings it can be harder to compare one tournament to the next even if it is the same tourny 9 weeks ago. But many people also have a routine in tournys and can often do a fixed amount of provinces/rounds or minimum points. At the end of the day inno has confirmed there is a bug impacting this.

In terms of crystal and scrolls my subjective view is I saw a lot more frogs in provinces then I am seeing rangers. I have had numerous fights with no or only 1 ranger. So a bug that impacts those troops only will have differing results for people just based on frequency of appearance alone. Then there is a matter of what temp effects and wonders they have which impact the specific troops which will vary between the 2 weeks.

The next few tournaments have some troops we can train

• Silk - Cerberus (light melee)
• Elixir - drone rider (light melee)
• Dust - banshee (mage)

Hopefully the bug is fixed quickly otherwise we at least have some information about the bug and can plan as best we can around it.

 

[Ashrem]

@Ashrem: Perhaps you should read a little closer when I said the average of the top ten and not the highest score, as this will give you a much better reflection of how the players are doing. You will also notice in your example (staying in Khelonaar) for the crystal tournament that the average of the top 10 in 2018 was in fact lower than last weeks tournament View attachment 6686 View attachment 6687

You should be able to compare numbers in a few hours for this weeks tournament

Complain if you must...but I see nothing wrong with a more challenging tournament...but I do agree that if our boosts are being applied to the opposition troops then that is wrong.

My reading comprehension is excellent, as is my memory of things I read earlier. Yes, the average was lower a year ago, but it was still well above 4000, because the lowest score was above 4000. The average score in the 2018 example in your post was a hair under 6,000 (5990), which is 50% more than the 4,000 you claimed.

More importantly, though, part of last week's Crystal tournament overlapped the last few days of an event, where quests required 1) solving 45 tournament encounters, 2) gaining 11 relics, 3) gaining 5 spells. There was no event going on the week of last year's August crystal tournament. Many groups choose to push tournaments during events now because it naturally overlaps with that need to gain hundreds of relics, gain dozens of spells, and finish hundreds of encounters. In a typical crystal tournament, I would go about 15 provinces deep. Last week I went 38 provinces deep, specifically to gain more encounters, relics and spells for the event. I also took provinces to three and four levels that I wouldn't normally because of those relic and encounter needs.

More players and high event requirements mean there are too many variables to make any sort of accurate claim about how difficult tournaments are compared to a year ago. For any given person, they should appear somewhat easier, because they have a year more experience than they did a year ago. Anecdotes are anecdotes.

And that doesn't even take into account that during last August's Crystal tournament, there were no players in chapter 14, because it didn't exist yet. They have more explored provinces, and more resources.

 

[Alistaire]

but I see nothing wrong with a more challenging tournament...

Let's stop for a sec and examine this though. Why not? You/we should have a problem with this. Let's say a third of players are boosted in scrolls, and the majority of those see pretty quickly this specific tournament is rougher than others, even without bugs involved. That's gotta be pushing at least some of them away, and even if not it's not remotely fair.

Let's hope Inno takes this opportunity to not just fix a bug but to put this tourney in line with the others as it should be.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Let's stop for a sec and examine this though. Why not? You/we should have a problem with this. Let's say a third of players are boosted in scrolls, and the majority of those see pretty quickly this specific tournament is rougher than others, even without bugs involved. That's gotta be pushing at least some of them away, and even if not it's not remotely fair.

Let's hope Inno takes this opportunity to not just fix a bug but to put this tourney in line with the others as it should be.

I have never liked the tournament for a tier 2 relic to be considered the hardest one. When this system for the tournaments was first implemented years ago, I thought the difficulty would increase with each tier, with the tier 1 tournaments being easiest, the tier 2 tournaments being in the middle, and the tier 3 being the hardest. But I guess Inno could not do something this simple.

 

[Ashrem]

I have never liked the tournament for a tier 2 relic to be considered the hardest one. When this system for the tournaments was first implemented years ago, I thought the difficulty would increase with each tier, with the tier 1 tournaments being easiest, the tier 2 tournaments being in the middle, and the tier 3 being the hardest. But I guess Inno could not do something this simple.

And even at that, if all of the T2 relics were equally difficult, it would be less irritating.

 

[Miroami]

You should at least remove their response.

Removed.. I was unaware... Thank you for the heads up..

 

[DeletedUser21660]

Is there somewhere that clearly explains all the changes made in August-- explains how they calculate the difficulty? I know it has to do with Squad Size and AWs.... but do not have exact info. I am a mage and would like to be able to explain better to the FS. I feel Inno should have done so in their release notes.

 

[DeletedUser21660]

I'm still convinced people are exaggerating somewhat.

btw, I may be new here, but have been playing for 2+ years- and yes it did get noticeably harder in August. I do not have Fire Phoenix or Brown Bear. I also have to do mostly manual fights now, which is becoming tedious. Tedious=not enjoying a game.

 

[Ashrem]

In theory, the only thing that changed about combat recently is that they introduced two new units, the Frog Prince, and the Ranger, which are three star versions of the heavy ranged and light ranged units. What seems to have actually happened is that they introduced a bug where some units are benefiting from buffs which we have applied to our own units.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

they introduced two new units, the Frog Prince, and the Ranger, which are three star versions of the heavy ranged and light ranged units.

Three new units - also Vallorian Champion (3* heavy melee).

 

[Alistaire]

I don't think it's just that, though. On my new town on H world everyone in my fs has been talking about how much harder this tourney is. And I've done scrolls tourneys while at the end of ch3 before on other worlds; this week's been nuts and it's not because of my boosts being applied to the enemy...I don't even have Needles out on H world yet let alone any other boosts.

 

[DeletedUser21660]

It is not just this tourney- it is all of them. since August. It is eluded to in the August release notes, but not fully explained. I am sure they made the changes knowing they were coming out with evolve buildings- but it is ridiculous now. I am also thinking the penalties my troops put on enemies are not lasting as long as they are supposed to (eg 2 rounds) or if the decreases are mathematically correct. It used to be regular provs were harder for me, now they are easy compared to tourneys.
I have seen something like this b4 in another game and it makes me....mad.... considering what I have invested here..

 

[qaccy]

I think people are only now starting to realize how much of a disadvantage melee units, both light and heavy, have in battle. Crystal, scrolls, silk, and dust have always been the most costly tournaments to fight in because while melee units are supposedly favored for them, attack range is king in Elvenar's combat system and my experience going all the way back to the beginning of tournaments and provinces as we now know them strongly indicates this. It can be boiled down as simply as this: Range is so powerful, ranged units can often win a battle with zero damage taken. This is completely impossible with melee units. Therefore, any tournament that favors melee is automatically going to be 'harder' to fight in because most of the time, they're taking moderate to heavy damage before they even get the chance to attack. This compounds on itself by also reducing the damage you're able to deal, meaning enemies live longer to continue to deal more damage. Bugs or not, the root problem simply lies with how the units are designed.

 

[The Unbeliever]

I think people are only now starting to realize how much of a disadvantage melee units, both light and heavy, have in battle. Crystal, scrolls, silk, and dust have always been the most costly tournaments to fight in because while melee units are supposedly favored for them, attack range is king in Elvenar's combat system and my experience going all the way back to the beginning of tournaments and provinces as we now know them strongly indicates this. It can be boiled down as simply as this: Range is so powerful, ranged units can often win a battle with zero damage taken. This is completely impossible with melee units. Therefore, any tournament that favors melee is automatically going to be 'harder' to fight in because most of the time, they're taking moderate to heavy damage before they even get the chance to attack. This compounds on itself by also reducing the damage you're able to deal, meaning enemies live longer to continue to deal more damage. Bugs or not, the root problem simply lies with how the units are designed.

Um, ranged units regardless of game or system have ALWAYS had a massive advantage over their pointy-stick carrying melee counter-parts.

Mind you, Elvenar is a special level of screwed up, mainly because terrain is an all-out impassible barrier vs. just being passable tiles that may slow down movement while conveying a bonus (or debuff) to units standing on them...
ie: if 'shrubs' perhaps gave a defense boost to Light Infantry/Range, while say a rockpile gave a damage boost to heavy ranged, & open ground a boost to heavy melee, etc...

As it is, it seems that at least 50% of the time, I'm just outright "terrain screwed" into auto-losing any battle because it's simply impossible to navigate the massive 1-tile wide gauntlet of death for 5 turns, while the enemy gets to sit back and plug away with their endless dakka.

Our battle system is simply broken, and (like most of the newest changes to this once great game), should just be tossed into a flaming dumpster.
I used to really love this game, but now it's just something that makes me angry because Inno don't know their backside from their underside.

 

[qaccy]

@The Unbeliever The thing is, the battle system has been like this since the beginning. Terrain has always been impassable, and on the same token units have always been unable to walk past each other. These obstacles have always plagued melee units, but people are only now starting to take notice of it (or at least talk about it) and that's what I find most interesting. How come people weren't really bringing this up months or years ago? The units being unbalanced is not a new thing, is what I'm saying here.

 

[Mykan]

Inno brought up the map issue when they changed the combat system. I thought from that they were going to address it. Looks like it either fell in the too hard basket or they just prioritised other things instead.

 

[The Unbeliever]

@qaccy: It's probably only being noticed (and complained about) more now, because tournaments have become a much more integrated part of the gameplay...
More and more fellowships are encouraging more participation, even if only to grab the first 4-5 chests/week.
Events have literally outright forced heavy tournament participation due to the extremely high volume of both the "gain relics" and "complete X encounters or Y tournaments" quests.

It used to be that only a bare handful of fellowships were dedicated 10-chesters.
Now, more and more fellowships are at least instituting a weekly minimum of at least a few hundred pts per week, AND, the higher volume of events are constantly demanding more and more as well... thus, a much larger proportion of the player base is playing the tournaments, and so are now subjected to our pile of crap battle system.
(and yes, Elvenar's system is literally THE WORST EVER turn-based strategy style battle system I've ever seen... and this is coming from a Fire Emblem player!)

Add to it that negotiating gets stupidly expensive very, very quickly, and it yet again pushes players to use the fighting option.


@Mykan: I think an overhaul of the battle map system simply fell into the "who cares, feth the players anyways" basket.

 

[Ashrem]

Events have literally outright forced heavy tournament participation due to the extremely high volume of both the "gain relics" and "complete X encounters or Y tournaments" quests.

This. any stats around the last crystal tournament are difficult to assess, as lots of people needed to do 45 tournament encounters or gain 11 relics during the first couple of days of the tournament. The scrolls tournament for last week will be a much better comparison.