More Optional Technologies

[HonuMoana]

Greetings,

This game has developed a lot of choices from the game side, and this is a good thing. However, I think the players need more choices too. Perhaps an easy way to accomplish this is making more of the technologies optional. A good way to get this started may be to make all of the cultural building techs optional. With event buildings, the standard cultural buildings have become less and less useful. They aren't entirely worthless, not saying that, but clearly a player could pretty much skip them entirely now, and probably never miss them.

Obviously, all of those diamond buildings infecting those techs could get short shrift in this situation. I guess the MBAs at Inno might balk there. Some might call this an either-or suggestion. If the cultural buildings on the tree were a bit more beneficial then players might want to build them, etc. This isn't what I am saying here. Those buildings are fine for what they are. I just think giving players the choice will get them thinking about those buildings more carefully, and I think they should be fairly skeptical about them. Having the opportunity for this sort of reflection may make the game more intriguing.

There are other techs that could be considered optional as well, but without a tree that allows for the options we are all locked into the same old thing. Let's make more options, not less.

P.S. I will admit, part of my motivation is eliminating those annoying cultural building notifications. They are the worst!

 

[StarLoad]

My only issue is that the Dev's would just add more required techs to make up the ones you can skip? I say this because I doubt the Dev's want to speed the game up, since they are doing everything they can from ch15 on to slow to a turtles pace the game progress.

 

[ajqtrz]

@ed1960 I like turtles. They are the only animal with which I can keep up.

 

[HonuMoana]

My only issue is that the Dev's would just add more required techs to make up the ones you can skip? I say this because I doubt the Dev's want to speed the game up, since they are doing everything they can from ch15 on to slow to a turtles pace the game progress.

It could lead to faster progress, and I sort of get why they don't want that. I also think they are just taking what they think is the easy way out. I suspect their desire to slow things down is probably just limiting their buys overall.

Here's an idea. Add some other also optional magical technologies, ones that let us do truly wondrous things like Constantly collect and restart productions from a manu. Or, transfer all of my FA Badges to another player. Heck, they could make those really expensive, players would want them big time, and it would probably slow things down overall.

We need more magic, and not dumbed-down magic like the Teleport Spell. Although I am glad to see they are working on that one. If it's a Teleport Spell it should be able to do anything. Heck, even the Main Hall, which would be hilarious.

 

[The Fairy]

@HonuMoana how about the quests that requires these researches? Do you want those to be optional too or does the player need to wait doing the quests till the are done with the chapter and all quests get optional?

 

[HonuMoana]

@HonuMoana how about the quests that requires these researches? Do you want those to be optional too or does the player need to wait doing the quests till the are done with the chapter and all quests get optional?

I am glad you brought up those. Because of what I mentioned about the standard cultural buildings, the chapter quests to build those questionably valuable buildings are essentially obsolete already. I am sure I am not the only one who has frequently waited until the next chapter to decline those useless quests. They could delete ALL of those quests this very instant, and NO ONE would miss them. I don't even think that is worthy of a suggestion though. The game runners ALL know they are useless and annoying. They must serve them some purpose, but I can't imagine it is anything good, or even really necessary.

 

[Lelanya]

I am glad you brought up those. Because of what I mentioned about the standard cultural buildings, the chapter quests to build those questionably valuable buildings are essentially obsolete already. I am sure I am not the only one who has frequently waited until the next chapter to decline those useless quests. They could delete ALL of those quests this very instant, and NO ONE would miss them. I don't even think that is worthy of a suggestion though. The game runners ALL know they are useless and annoying. They must serve them some purpose, but I can't imagine it is anything good, or even really necessary.

Those quests serve to point the way for those who don't know how to fix issues in their cities. New folks join, sometimes while they are ill and stuck at home. They might leave the game and return to work, only to pick up their city later on and barely remember how to play. Chances are, if they are still in a FS it's not with the better informed players. Hey they may even pass their city to a partner, family member or roommate.
Point is, at any point, the quests will show us how the game is meant to be played.

 

[HonuMoana]

Those quests serve to point the way for those who don't know how to fix issues in their cities. New folks join, sometimes while they are ill and stuck at home. They might leave the game and return to work, only to pick up their city later on and barely remember how to play. Chances are, if they are still in a FS it's not with the better informed players. Hey they may even pass their city to a partner, family member or roommate.
Point is, at any point, the quests will show us how the game is meant to be played.

I do believe there is a need for some gentle leadership by the game, but in this case I don't think it fully applies. Sure, keep a couple of those quests, and even require one of the techs early on, but once a player reaches the guest race chapters, I really don't think they appreciate being led by the nose. I know I don't.

The quest issue is really not that important to this suggestion. It came up as a comment. The quests can be kept while making the techs for them optional, although I still favor dropping them. My suggestion here is about giving us more choices, perhaps even encouraging exploration of the possibilities, for the curious players. My comment above applies especially to the higher chapters. Once we are able to get enough space in our cities, some muscle behind our productions, and some upgraded Wonders, it would be nice to have some options, instead of basically being locked-in to doing what everyone else is doing. I exaggerate for effect. We need more choices.

 

[OIM20]

Constantly collect and restart productions from a manu

I'm... curious about this. I know it would have to be in a different suggestion thread. But, are you advocating an enchantment that would cause an instantaneous 3-hour production cycle for a set time frame? It would have to be relatively short. (How many times can you click in 30 seconds? A minute?) And it would have to be expensive to obtain with the reward offered. Like 15th or 20th Tourney chest kind of expensive.

But about the proposal... I don't know. From the way you said you were tired of getting cultural building notifications, I think you're referring to the quests. So it sounds like you want to make the cultural techs optional and eliminate the quests that encourage players to complete them.

So, other than the perception of cookie cutter Elvenar, do these techs create issues for players? To elaborate, having additional expansions and completing the optional squad size research affects the difficulty of tourney and Spire encounters. Is there any detriment to the player during normal gameplay to them completing these cultural techs?

 

[samidodamage]

having additional expansions and completing the optional squad size research affects the difficulty of tourney and Spire encounters. Is there any detriment to the player during normal gameplay to them completing these cultural techs?

The old tourney formula for tourney squad size(SS) was based on your regular SS. Then, skipping optional SS upgrade techs could keep your regular SS lower, thus lowering your tourney SS. That is no longer the case (as of the tourney changes ~Sept/Oct 2020?). The formula now includes expansions (premium expansions have less of an impact than research and province expansions), mandatory research techs activated, total AW levels, relic boost, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. The point is that all mandatory research techs are now part of the formula. This includes the mandatory cultural bldg research referenced in this thread. The formula for Spire uses the same information to determine your squad sizes there.
That makes me think there would be resistance to changing anything in the number of mandatory/optional techs regardless of what type of research it was.*
*My conclusion is based on the assumption they worked out that formula with detailed knowledge of the number of mandatory techs & implemented it in the tourney globally about a year ago. This was after months of beta testing and additional months of testing on the International live server. They received a huge amount of input and feedback on the new tourney structure from those tests as well as from the remaining live servers over the past year. TMK, the only changes they've made to tourneys have been minor ones; none have been made to the formula since they reduced the detriment of premium expansions and I think that was done when the formula was only used in the Spire. Spire launched in Aug 2019. I just think they aren't going to want to touch anything that could significantly impact their formula.

 

[OIM20]

Ah! Thank you - that's very helpful information.

*puts out a plate of noms of your choice for @samidodamage*