New Fellowship Adventures!

[SoggyShorts]

What has the potential to stop us from completing the 3rd path? Elvarian Guard Badges.

It's a bit late now, but you can try and get one more per day by splitting your training overnight between training grounds and barracks, that way you don't "waste" troops by collecting too many at once when you wake up.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I was for 7 months
I was one of the first to finish Halflings.

Actually Elementals came out 5 months and 12 days after you finished Halflings

 

[DeletedUser3507]

Seemed like 5 years
during that time increased aw total levels by 44
I will pity those that don't have that don't have that long of a break...

 

[DeletedUser14078]

Don't know if the devs are paying attention to the forums and the feedback these threads generate but...

For the record, the fellowship I am in is not participating in this FA adventure. The cost in goods and relics was a deal breaker for this one. I was the first in my FS to speak out against it by stating I would not be participating, I am usually the one hosting the Spread Sheet that gets posted on the Gems of Knowledge site, this time I refused to set it up for our FS.

The last FA we only had half-hearted participation, this time none. The changes that keep coming down the pipe don't set well with us.

That is all.

FLD

 

[SoggyShorts]

My FS just finished stage 3 with more than 2 days to go. Just waiting on 1 straggler to log in and put a badge somewhere.
All around good FA for us, the goods and relics were a bit expensive, but we had a handful of players with max boost who were able to use excess relics, and spreading out the goods was ok.

I think my biggest complaint would now be that each player has to contribute to get a prize. This made us sit for many hours while waiting for someone to get home from work or school. I see no real downside to just giving everyone in the FS the prize.

 

[samidodamage]

It's a bit late now, but you can try and get one more per day by splitting your training overnight between training grounds and barracks, that way you don't "waste" troops by collecting too many at once when you wake up.

I've been doing that, but so many of our members are small and it takes them forever to make a badge. Some only started training troops to help with these badges! With only about 12 of us actively playing, it just doesn't look like we'll make the 150 badges. But I found a way to cut out 100 of them! We're going to switch to blue for the last 3 waypoints. It will mean 15 more brewers, 15 more bakers, 45 more farmers, 10 more bracelets and 15 more of each of the spell badges. The spells will be a challenge, but we'll work the tournament for as many as we can and it looks doable. I and one other member have lvl 5 Magic Academies, so we're going to be busy, lol! My entire Orc settlement is a lvl 1 farm, giving me 50 WS and 18 sets of mixed T1. While I'm the biggest lvl 1 farm, several players have smaller ones and we think we can do these extra badges easier than we can the Guards. So, that's our plan now; let's see how this works out, lol!

 

[DeletedUser9730]

For us, the Witch Hat, Magic Potion, and Wand creation had us stuck constantly as getting these is based in-part on luck of the draw. The cost was high but we don't mind doing the builds to create all the necessary quest items. Overall, completely unfun - never get a sense of accomplishment, always stuck with a boat-load of created badges, etc... sitting and waiting to be used. The Elvarian Guard Badge cost was a bit high as well. I think we will probably not participate in FA going forward. If it's not fun, why bother.

 

[DeletedUser9838]

I'm not a beta player, but lurking about their forums, it seems like;
a) The unit badge is based off of your total number of Squad Size techs researched.
b) All? paths now require you to **** away relics for no bloody reason, beyond Inno being the world's biggest Trolls.
c) The prizes overall still suck for the massive amount of effort require.

So, a+b+c-INNOintelligence = FA's still suck all the fun out of the game!

I'm sure Soggy will be along to help correct my math on this?!

I agree with the Unbeliever, and this is unbelievable, what is going on with these folks, on the second round, they want 90 relics X 3, are you guys serious??? these take so long to acquire to just **** them away, for prizes that aint worth a dam, what is INNO trying to get us to buy diamonds for these FA's??? I am done with these fellowship adventures, I am disappointed with INNO games, i feel ripped off....

 

[NightshadeCS]

@samidodamage In our FS, we are taking the green path until the second multicolor, then switching to blue. (on the third level/screen). This requires only 50 elvarian guard badges. We have to complete an extra multicolor, but it is worth it, I think.

We'll see if we make it to the top. Fingers crossed! We did make it all the way through the first FA, but not the second.

 

[SoggyShorts]

we are taking the green path until the second multicolor, then switching to blue. (on the third level/screen). This requires only 50 elvarian guard badges. We have to complete an extra multicolor, but it is worth it, I think.

We considered this as an alternative if we didn't get the guard badges, but the extra 15 of each spell would have been hard. The tournament only gives 3 MM spells until round 6 when you can get another 3.

 

[Rocce Sqirl]

I've been tracking and guiding my fellowship's progress in the current adventure, which threw a few new wrinkles at us. After going through two stages I must offer this:
1. DO NOT demand something like 50,000 Orcs. That is an item only accessible to those who have an armory at stage 20 or more, which I figure at roughly the top 4% of players. In my fellowship exactly 2 players have that capability (and neither elected to participate this time). It is a grossly unfair item and disenfranchises most players who might participate, especially the newer ones.
2. The demand for relics is absurd. Items made in the factories or workshops are possible for any player, as are most items from the magic academy, all of which can be achieved by the determination to go do them. Even the ransom for 100,000 of some good, while a bit outrageous, is still achievable and can be participated in by even the newest players. But the relics -- at the amounts demanded -- take months of play to acquire and defy an intent such as "i'm going to go collect 90 elixir relics now." An Elegant Statue may take 48 hours to make, but I can still decide to go do it. If the fellowship as a group does not already have those relics in hand, or damn close to it, they're pretty much out of luck. And even if they are available asking players to deplete their relics supply is unreasonable. The challenges -- some easy some difficult -- should all be do-able by a group starting at zero, not something that requires giving away items acquired over weeks of play prior to the adventure.
3. I'll add this note on the Elvarian Guard -- it's damn hard, and way too easy to screw up, but still meets the standard of something achievable starting at zero. The biggest problem with it is how easy it is to screw it up when part way through it because of the way the quests jump up and down to rank in number order. As you are declining your way through quests to get to the one you want, that one can jump up (or down) and if you're not careful it can get declined unintentionally and you lose hours of work. Separate the two quests so each is independent of the other (if you're seeking a quest on the top one, the bottom one stays as it is no matter if it's #15 or #3), and that would basically resolve the problem. (The Sack of Coins would present the same issue except it's #16 so it always stays on the bottom.)

 

[Rocce Sqirl]

And may I add one more observation. We just went through the green path on the second map, which did not have ANY Brewers, Treants, Blacksmiths, Statues or Guards. In other words, while depleting players' supply of relics or demanding ransoms of 100,000 T1 goods, there were FIVE challenges NOT EVEN USED! On the first map we did the Blue path which had NO Farmers, Blacksmiths, Statues, Wands, Wonders or Coins. SIX challenges NOT USED. Which only makes instituting demands for relics and ransoms even more stupid.

 

[DeletedUser15306]

It seems like the latest badges have basically ruined adventures. I've only done one before this, and it was a lot of fun: challenging, and requiring a lot of planning and building teamwork. I was really looking forward to this one now that I have a better idea what's going on. But what I found was that my fellowship, which is fairly strong, just said "screw it" and didn't even bother to do the final stage because the costs were too high. The prizes weren't even that great for my level, and basically the strong people in the fellowship all already had them anyway. So what's the point of giving up large amounts of goods and relics?

 

[Shellizzie]

My FS just finished stage 3 with more than 2 days to go. Just waiting on 1 straggler to log in and put a badge somewhere.
All around good FA for us, the goods and relics were a bit expensive, but we had a handful of players with max boost who were able to use excess relics, and spreading out the goods was ok.

I think my biggest complaint would now be that each player has to contribute to get a prize. This made us sit for many hours while waiting for someone to get home from work or school. I see no real downside to just giving everyone in the FS the prize.

The problem with just giving it to everyone is that you have one person who does nothing and reaps the rewards of everyone elses hard work. We have one such member. Everyone but one person has contributed. Why should he get rewarded for sitting on his butt.

 

[The Unbeliever]

My FS just finished stage 3 with more than 2 days to go. Just waiting on 1 straggler to log in and put a badge somewhere.
All around good FA for us, the goods and relics were a bit expensive, but we had a handful of players with max boost who were able to use excess relics, and spreading out the goods was ok.

We're pretty lucky too that the vast majority of the FS are all late game players, and we're to the point of getting at least 8-9 chests/week in the tournies, which means the relic costs for us as a group are negligible...
But in my other city, which didn't participate in this adventure, we've only got about 4-5 players who are WE's or S&D's, and most of us don't have max boosts yet.
Hence why we decided to say "feth this!" to this FA!

IMHO, since that vast, overwhelming majority of Fellowships in the game are NOT comprised of hardcore active players, the whole idea of outright forcing players to pee away their relics is just INNO flipping us the bird...
There's got to be another alternate to relics!

And honestly, I'd also prefer less goods donating too, since unlike FoE's Guild Treasuries, which use the 'donated' goods for the actual group play aspects, here, we're literally just throwing away a very important resource for a handful of overall mediocre "prizes".
Again, 200k of each T2 goods as an example might be just a drop in the bucket for the top 20-50 fellowships... but what about the other 150 fellowships to whom that can easily represent 1-2+ weeks worth of production for the entire fellowship?!

INNO needs to design a system that isn't simply a 'mildly annoying 7 day event' for 30-40;ish or so fellowships.

 

[SoggyShorts]

The challenges -- some easy some difficult -- should all be do-able by a group starting at zero, not something that requires giving away items acquired over weeks of play prior to the adventure.

According to @Xelenia, Inno doesn't agree.(link) The idea seems to be that not all fellowships should be able to finish all 3 stages (like not all FS should be able to get 10 chests in the tournament) but rather that reaching such a FS level should be a goal that your FS should work towards.
I have mixed feelings about this myself, but having turned our FS from a 3-4 chest tournament FS into a 8-10 chest FS over the course of a year, I can tell you that there is a great sense of satisfaction in doing so, and perhaps that is the goal with the FA as well.

1. DO NOT demand something like 50,000 Orcs. That is an item only accessible to those who have an armory at stage 20 or more, which I figure at roughly the top 4% of players.

You have a point, but I believe your number to be way off. More than 4% of players are in chapter 12, which is almost twice as far as chapter 8 time-wise.

, there were FIVE challenges NOT EVEN USED! On the first map we did the Blue path which had NO Farmers, Blacksmiths, Statues, Wands, Wonders or Coins. SIX challenges NOT USED.

This is a good thing. Like your complaint about the orcs requirement, there should be a way around badges that you can't/don't want to do. Each stage gave you a choice between
1. orcs
2. guards
3. wonder KP&coins
Our FS specifically went blue>green>green so that we could get away with making zero blacksmith badges: one less thing to worry about.
I do think there should have been a way to avoid the relics and goods as well, with the other option being a bunch of icky badges like dwarfs and statues.

The problem with just giving it to everyone is that you have one person who does nothing and reaps the rewards of everyone elses hard work. We have one such member. Everyone but one person has contributed. Why should he get rewarded for sitting on his butt.

Is there a difference between that player leeching a spot doing nothing vs by inserting 1 plank in a route your FS isn't even doing?
Assuming you aren't going to kick out that member, don't you want their city to get better? Wouldn't them having 80 KP that will go into a wonder improve your FS? Also if they get an event building that improves their city doesn't that help them along making them potentially better at tournaments, trades, and the next FA? You gain nothing by not giving them a reward.
Opinions on this will certainly differ from FS to FS, but we have a couple players that either had very little access due to schedule, or outright said they hate the FA so much they don't want to do it. Our answer to both of these groups was "No problem, we will keep an off route easy spot open so you can get the prize anyways"
This is the same problem as when tournaments became FS based, since all a player needs to do is clear 1 province 1 time to get all of the FS rewards. Either you are a team that will carry members because they are otherwise good teammates, or not. I think the trade off of allowing automatic leeching but not having to wait for other participants would be a good one.

 

[NightshadeCS]

I personally don't see a problem with some players floating along and reaping the rewards. Either they are a good person for your fellowship, or they are not. They may bring that light-hearted banter that raises morale, or they may be useful in other ways. Or maybe you just need a filler to make a few trades with and get the occasional neighborly help.

OR, they may be a jerk, in which case, why are they still in your fellowship?

One of the PRIMARY goals of the fellowship adventures is for everyone in the fellowship to work together toward a goal and to communicate. Even in a fun FS like the one I am in, there can be quite long stretches of relative quiet, with not much chat and everyone just sort of plodding along. The FA really gets us communicating, and that is great! Now, I will also admit to the downside in which a few members feel alienated because they either don't like the FA, or can't contribute much. We try to overcome this by stressing that this is voluntary and for FUN, so don't get too consumed by it all.

 

[DeletedUser9838]

I've been tracking and guiding my fellowship's progress in the current adventure, which threw a few new wrinkles at us. After going through two stages I must offer this:
1. DO NOT demand something like 50,000 Orcs. That is an item only accessible to those who have an armory at stage 20 or more, which I figure at roughly the top 4% of players. In my fellowship exactly 2 players have that capability (and neither elected to participate this time). It is a grossly unfair item and disenfranchises most players who might participate, especially the newer ones.
2. The demand for relics is absurd. Items made in the factories or workshops are possible for any player, as are most items from the magic academy, all of which can be achieved by the determination to go do them. Even the ransom for 100,000 of some good, while a bit outrageous, is still achievable and can be participated in by even the newest players. But the relics -- at the amounts demanded -- take months of play to acquire and defy an intent such as "i'm going to go collect 90 elixir relics now." An Elegant Statue may take 48 hours to make, but I can still decide to go do it. If the fellowship as a group does not already have those relics in hand, or damn close to it, they're pretty much out of luck. And even if they are available asking players to deplete their relics supply is unreasonable. The challenges -- some easy some difficult -- should all be do-able by a group starting at zero, not something that requires giving away items acquired over weeks of play prior to the adventure.
3. I'll add this note on the Elvarian Guard -- it's damn hard, and way too easy to screw up, but still meets the standard of something achievable starting at zero. The biggest problem with it is how easy it is to screw it up when part way through it because of the way the quests jump up and down to rank in number order. As you are declining your way through quests to get to the one you want, that one can jump up (or down) and if you're not careful it can get declined unintentionally and you lose hours of work. Separate the two quests so each is independent of the other (if you're seeking a quest on the top one, the bottom one stays as it is no matter if it's #15 or #3), and that would basically resolve the problem. (The Sack of Coins would present the same issue except it's #16 so it always stays on the bottom.)

I couldn't agree more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[samidodamage]

It worked! We did it! We completed one path in each round and got the prizes! I'm giddy. With 12 members actively working it and 3-4 more who were more casual (this was the first FA 3 of them had seen). We're now having a badge burning party in the pits to celebrate!
One note about switching to blue for the last three waypoints. We had to complete the switchpoint on the blue path to get the other 3 points to open up. It took 200 each of the T3 relics. While we weren't prepared for that, 2 of us knocked it out in under a minute.

 

[DeletedUser13002]

I just wanted to say thanks a lot @SoggyShorts for trying so hard to come back with things to think about and be positive. That's not an easy task and you're awesome attitude on the forum all the time is really amazing..

Can I agree with this? While Soggy often appears contrarian, he's just trying to keep a positive perspective on things—and accomplishes it nicely by pointing out the alternatives instead of casually insulting them. That's something of a rarity on the interwebs. I certainly appreciate it.

I think there needs to be something difficult/expensive in order to make getting the reward feel like an accomplishment.

• They tried loads of small badges like beverages, and we complained that it was too tedious.
• They replaced many of those with easy long badges like statues and blacksmiths, and we complained that they took too long and there were too many.
• They reduced the number of badges, and replaced some of those with relics and "gain coins/troops" and now we complain about relics.

I honestly can't think of a challenge that they would implement that wouldn't be complained about.
Perhaps you have a suggestion?

Can I agree with this, too? You can't make everyone happy all the time, and this is a situation primed to tick at least some people off all the time. I think the variety is good (although I would agree with those who've knocked the difficulty in producing a bunch of 2-day badges in a 5-day event). I like some of the newer, more creative badge ideas.

Maybe, but the rewards should be equal to the difficulty of the FA challenge or it will be another failure.
Elvenar has a bad record on this 0 out of 4 successes

Can I go ahead and agree with this one while I'm at it? This is the central problem with these things (well, this and the tedious logistical issues). I think one of the biggest reasons a lot of fellowships are starting to sit these things out isn't because they're challenging; it's because the rewards aren't worth the challenge. Menhirok's Barrow is admittedly better than the Traveling Merchants, but it's still not quite a medal worth the effort—especially since these FAs are specifically (as testified by Inno reps) geared toward higher-ranking fellowships, most of whom will either already have the prizes offered or won't need/want them. If they came up with a better carrot to dangle at the finish line, they'd get a better response. If they coupled it with a marked improvement in the interface—taking out all that damnable clicking and making group-wide badge collection easier—FAs would become a more popular activity than tournaments.

And may I add one more observation. We just went through the green path on the second map, which did not have ANY Brewers, Treants, Blacksmiths, Statues or Guards. In other words, while depleting players' supply of relics or demanding ransoms of 100,000 T1 goods, there were FIVE challenges NOT EVEN USED! On the first map we did the Blue path which had NO Farmers, Blacksmiths, Statues, Wands, Wonders or Coins. SIX challenges NOT USED.

I'm gonna disagree with this one (had to happen at some point, right?). I consider the variety in the different paths one of the tangible improvements they've made. Before, it was simply about variances in quantity; now, fellowships can choose to avoid the need for badges they don't want to deal with. That makes each path truly unique, and offers every group an actual and measurable decision for how they want to go about achieving the goals.