Open | In progress Limited fellowship offerings to new players

[crackie]

I don't know if this is a bug or a feature, but if it's a feature, it's very disconcerting. A new city not in a FS yet is searching for a FS to join. The game only ever offers them two possible FS. Clicking the "Get new choices" button continues to display the same 2 fellowships. Even checking back several hours later, it's still the same two FS, which makes me wonder if the offerings only change once these are full. If you click to view the details of the FS being offered, it's a a roster of all new cities, which means the game is potentially funneling all new players into new FS generally headed by new Archmages on purpose. This is going to be terrible for the game if it's an intended function because it's promoting new players into situations where they're likely to be led by people that don't know the game much more than they do, creating a blind leading the blind situation. On mobile, if you click the rank number under the profile image and go to the FS tab, it only lists the top 50 FS on the server, which are unlikely to accept raw new players, so the new player is pretty much gonna have to accept the pitiful 2 FS offerings given by the game. New players now have very little options as to what their first FS experience is going to be unless they already know the name of an existing FS to search for. Considering a functional FS changes the dynamic of the game, this is very very very very very very very very bad for the game.

Game version: Version 1.162.0-c618312-256 (us 1.162)
Game world: Felyndral
Browser + version: mobile app
Operating System: iOS & Android
Screen resolution: n/A
Account name: crackie
Humans or Elves: Elves

Reproducibility: 5/5. Tried it in my city and someone else with a new city experienced same thing too.

Current situation:
A new city not in a FS yet is searching for a FS to join. The game only ever offers them two possible FS. Clicking the "Get new choices" button continues to display the same 2 fellowships.

Expected situation:
Players be offered a wider list of FS to join.

Reproduction Steps
1. Click FS shield -> Join
2. Click "Get new choices" button repeatedly
3. Come back and try again later.

Only shows SAME 2 FS no matter how many times you click "Get new choices".

 

[Astram]

Will be looking into this closer. Please send in tickets to support on this

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The mobile app has always been crap for looking for fellowships. When trying to recruit people, that list of 25 choices never changes either when you tap the Get New Choices button. And has been that way for all the years it has been available in the app.

 

[defiantoneks]

i didnt even know you could do that. i just check te FS list, find those with openings, and start comparing.

 

[Myne]

Yeah that's a load of whooey. A player should be able to choose their playing style AND THEN choose their fellowship.

 

[Astram]

As of 11/14/222 Bug report is still open.

 

[Sir Squirrel]

The pc version sucks just as bad too! When I made a new city about 4 months ago it only gave me 3 or so options and they were all dead FS's with only 2 active players in them. They really need to fix this for sure!!

 

[crackie]

The pc version sucks just as bad too! When I made a new city about 4 months ago it only gave me 3 or so options and they were all dead FS's with only 2 active players in them. They really need to fix this for sure!!

Right? So bad for the game! At least browser version lets you browse all fellowships if you click the rank score. Mobile only shows top 50.

 

[Shae-Leigh]

I was looking at Fs's this evening on mobile. Everytime I clicked "shuffle" to get new Fs's, it just literally shuffled the order instead of giving new choices. I had more than two options though.

 

[Astram]

I will follow up on this regularly

 

[Talaedraiia]

When I started two years ago I had the same problem. I was offered about three choices and the one I joined was dead, dead, dead. Been playing about a week and didn’t know much about the game, but knew i was not getting anywhere with this group. I was savvy enough to figure that there must be a forum associated with the game and stumbled on our forum where I posted that I was very new but very eager and played ever day. Henroo was kind enough to invite me to his fs where I’ve been ever since.

 

[Lady Dastardly]

I checked this out a few weeks ago when I changed FS because I was curious to see if it worked any better for a larger city than it did when I tried it the first time as a newbie. For a Ch. 15 city I got more than 2 choices (can't remember exactly how many), but shuffle just changed the order without giving me new choices. All of the FS choices offered, except for 1, were low level FS's with only a single player in them. I didn't check all of them, but of the 4 I checked on elvenstats, 3 had been inactive for 2 years or more, and the 4th never even progressed enough to make it into elvenstats. To me, this is by far the most broken part of the entire game.

*apologies, I know this is more of a rant than a bug report*

 

[crackie]

It would also be better for the game overall if they don’t allow you to form a new FS until you have some more experience under your belt, but this game is too open ended for that.

 

[Astram]

...

*apologies, I know this is more of a rant than a bug report*

Actually, it helps to show that the problem is more important than just a minor distraction.

 

[crackie]

I have a baby city hanging out in one of these newbie fellowships until it gets Spire access. It wasn't exactly easy trying to explain to them how FA works before FA started. I got quality beginner questions back like, "What is a level 1 workshop?" Ummm, a workshop that is level 1. Surprise (to no one)! We're still stuck on the very first checkpoint. Pretty sure this is going to turn into if I can finish 1 path by myself with a tiny city. Again, who thought it'd be a good idea to rope all the new cities together?

 

[Lelanya]

I have a baby city hanging out in one of these newbie fellowships until it gets Spire access. It wasn't exactly easy trying to explain to them how FA works before FA started. I got quality beginner questions back like, "What is a level 1 workshop?" Ummm, a workshop that is level 1. Surprise (to no one)! We're still stuck on the very first checkpoint. Pretty sure this is going to turn into if I can finish 1 path by myself with a tiny city. Again, who thought it'd be a good idea to rope all the new cities together?

Ooo, Crackie is AM'ing newbies again.

 

[crackie]

Update: It took 3 days but we finally overcame the 5 Arcane badges. We’ve finished 5 checkpoints! Can we make it to the flag still with 3 days left? <Dun dun dunnnnnnn>

Ooo, Crackie is AM'ing newbies again.

Definitely not the AM. Got a random invite and thought, eh…why not? The experience of being in a tiny newb FS so far feels like this, but in slow motion. You’re still hanging on, but eventually you wonder where did the driver go or who is driving?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1592231208498655232

 

[ajqtrz]

I'm wondering, since it gives you a choice to join, if the problem is that only a limited number of fellowships offer the "free to join" option and with all the others you need to apply? Smaller, new fellowships are more likely to let anyone joint, I would think, but it may be their number on any given day is very, very low.

Just a possibility that came to me.

AJ

 

[crackie]

I'm wondering, since it gives you a choice to join, if the problem is that only a limited number of fellowships offer the "free to join" option and with all the others you need to apply? Smaller, new fellowships are more likely to let anyone joint, I would think, but it may be their number on any given day is very, very low.

Just a possibility that came to me.

AJ

No. When I created my EN group, we were closed from the start and required applications. Inno promotes the newly created fellowships to be the visible ones because we still got a wave of new players with no histories applying. Then after a period, those newbie applicants dropped off to nothing and you lose your “promotional” period.

The newbie FS I am hanging out in only had 9 when I joined. We are up to 18 now, all of them new cities joining in the last day or two so we prob just got pushed to the list of FS newbies can see.

The FA was super difficult. It wasn’t like I expected us to do well, but even with super low expectations, I was surprised how difficult it was. Arcanes were the hardest, but we even got stuck on the ones most people take for granted like Guards and Wonder Society. I mean, making an Arcane badge is the repetition of crafting to get to 9VV, but the difficulty was the crafting itself, which makes it an inherent problem regardless of whether an FA is in progress or not. The FA just made you focus on an element of the game that you may have otherwise been completely ignoring up until now because it was too difficult. With no access to tourney for relics, you have to resort to clearing maps for relics to craft enchantments like CCs, unless you get occasional one from NH. Most of the time, I don’t have relics to craft anything. My 3rd city is also a baby city, but I am playing that one a lot differently bc she got recruited into an established FS. I sprinted to chap 3 for gold FS access right away so she gets CCs galore weekly as team rewards. The 4th city is getting the full newbie immersion experience taking its time and hanging out with other babies at an adult-less daycare evidently. The difficulty is just compounded because they are herding all the new players together, as this bug report is highlighting. It is such a bad idea!

It makes no sense to push tourney and spire to chapters 4 and 5 on the tech tree AND put all the new players together. It creates situations like they can’t make Ghost badges or wonder society badges. With the latter, they need to have unlocked the tech to do so and if everyone is a newbie, there is a high chance a lot of people haven’t done so yet. Furthermore, in our case, only one person had a wonder built to dump KPs into. Sure, you can dump KPs to neighbors too but how many new players will figure that one out if no one is the wiser. We struggled to make one chest in tourney since half the FS is on the new tech tree and do not have tourney access. If just getting one chest feels like a stretch and out of reach, you think people would care about bothering for second chest? They’re gonna give up at 2 before they get to 10. I imagine most will play this like a city builder and ignore other aspects of the game like crafting, FAs, tourneys, and spire. After all, the new tech tree will have them ignoring them for 5 chapters and be just fine. They might even ignore trading. 7 out of 8 players were trying to make their own unboosted goods when I joined. By chap 6, everyone would already have established very inefficient habits for many chapters all because Inno pushed all the new cities into their own fellowships.

 

[Iyapo]

Just adding update. This is still a problem. I started a new city 7 days ago, when I clicked join a fellowships, I had 3 choices.

The ants at The Anthill saved me from bad choices but only because they knew I hoard sweets.