News from Beta - May Contain Spoilers!

[mikeledo]

Does anybody know what the spirit of essence button does?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Does anybody know what the spirit of essence button does?

Probably, but I can't find it in-game right now. I think it was visible in Beta for a bit and then removed because they were not ready to debut it yet. I think when we earn them, we can use them as an extra negotiation turn in the Spire? Is it only visible when you have failed on the first three tries?

There is also the Sip of Clarity potion you will earn in the next event that is used on the crafting screen to give you a free refresh of crafting, instead of having to spend 50 diamonds, in case people are mixing them up.

 

[LordVorKon]

Does anybody know what the spirit of essence button does?

If I recall correctly, it is an offer that any spirit will accept. Usable only once per negotiation.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

You're giving them far too much credit.
Simple answer is that devs are really just a bunch of clueless muppets who don't play their own game and have 0 clue as to how anything actually works in-game.

Doesn't matter how many actual facts & real evidence we present them to show why their choices/changes are gak-awful and have all but destroyed the game play, they'll just happily continue to play ostrich and bury their heads in sand while the blind geriatric bus driver sends them flying off the cliff!
Given for example just how insane the exponential growth of he Tournament/Spire formula is, in a couple more chapters it'll likely become all but impossible for end game players to maintain both Spire & Tournament play beyond minimum levels... or else end game players will be forced to nuke most of their AW's, AND, place 0 new expansions going forwards to at least give themselves a small break.

I've honestly NEVER seen a game as bass akwards as Elvenar has become, where advancing is actually hugely detrimental vs. just finding a sweet spot and camping out for ever more!

I can't talk about the spire but 1600 points in the tournaments should always be possible, the first part of te tournaments are so easy iy's always possible.

Better results like the 6-7K average needed for 19 chests is something else. we see indeed that with each chapter played the player results drop down dramatically.

1 player in my fellowship went from each week 12-15K to 1-2 low weeks with 1600 points to 1 week with a good results. it's a pain to see them struggle

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I can't talk about the spire but 1600 points in the tournaments should always be possible, the first part of te tournaments are so easy iy's always possible.

Better results like the 6-7K average needed for 19 chests is something else. we see indeed that with each chapter played the player results drop down dramatically.

1 player in my fellowship went from each week 12-15K to 1-2 low weeks with 1600 points to 1 week with a good results. it's a pain to see them struggle.

Is this player a caterer? Because while it is only the number of troops needed and not any increase in difficulty for fighters, I am sure the amounts needed for catering at those high scores has to be huge. So while us fighters can just crank out more troops as our squad sizes get larger, the caterers get more and more screwed as they increase their needs for goods by advancing their cities.

 

[Elivarian]

Is this player a caterer? Because while it is only the number of troops needed and not any increase in difficulty for fighters, I am sure the amounts needed for catering at those high scores has to be huge. So while us fighters can just crank out more troops as our squad sizes get larger, the caterers get more and more screwed as they increase their needs for goods by advancing their cities.

Yes, i just did a 17k run on EN server with 63 provinces all 6 rounds. Passing the 50 province mark or something, then negotiating costs 100-150k per goods. One will very soon run out of goods

But i fought my way, so it was not a problem. I also used a lot of booster buildings, so that i could use either Mages or Light Range without any problem, even though 3 could be counter units

EDIT: It's a chapter 16 city

 

[sam767]

To ensure this brand new feature maintains fairness in the game, we have also implemented measures to prevent exploitations.
New Fellows will experience a brief cooldown before being able to participate in the Fellowship's activities due to this.

This definitely effects my FS. I frequently use alts when a member goes dark. Since the beginning of the Delta surge, I had 4 senior members go dark with no warning. I usually wait until Friday morning to bring in an alt, if needed, to get us to gold in the spire. Now I have to be more aggressive about dropping inactive members and bringing in the substitute. Similarly, when we are in recruiting mode, I leave slot 25 open and only bring in the alt if needed for the gold.

 

[Jackluyt]

From the Beta Forum Community Manager:
To add further clarification to the new balancing, the Moonstone Library will produce T1 goods for the new players that have it at the Chapter 3 level. From Chapter 4 on it will produce T2 goods.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Is this player a caterer? Because while it is only the number of troops needed and not any increase in difficulty for fighters, I am sure the amounts needed for catering at those high scores has to be huge. So while us fighters can just crank out more troops as our squad sizes get larger, the caterers get more and more screwed as they increase their needs for goods by advancing their cities.

You should not define the game as catering or fighter. it's both and depending on where you are in the game, either catering or fighting is the most effective way, but combines is always more effective than one or the other

the issue is that at higher chapters the increase in production is only a fraction of the increase in tourney and spire costs, both as fighting or catering.

Thats why it becomes so hard to get a good score at the latest chapters

 

[The Unbeliever]

I can't talk about the spire but 1600 points in the tournaments should always be possible, the first part of te tournaments are so easy iy's always possible.

Better results like the 6-7K average needed for 19 chests is something else. we see indeed that with each chapter played the player results drop down dramatically.

1 player in my fellowship went from each week 12-15K to 1-2 low weeks with 1600 points to 1 week with a good results. it's a pain to see them struggle

Granted it's only anecdotal evidence, but with helping my dad do his Tournaments, and also occasionally when he askes my opinion on Spire fights, I've been noticing with his just beginning Ch.18 cities:
a) His troop production, despite having a Lv9-11+ Simia is NOT keeping up with the Training Ground/Merc Camp losses. The only reason his Barracks troops totals stay consistent, (rather than growing per say), is due to AW's like Bulwark, Temple of Toads, etc...

b) His cities are more and more dependent on boost buildings + Fire Phoenix to even fight.
Luckily he's been able to generally recoup the 3 crafting buildings per week in each city, and often times can pick up 2-3 extras as well. But it's very RNG reliant and all it will take is a couple poor weeks in a row and he'll soon run out of boost buildings.

c) In a couple of his cities, Dwarven Armorers have basically dried right right up. While I can help him maintain about 2.4-2.6k tourny pts per week, trying to burst through beyond that is basically impossible unless he drastically re-engineers his entire city to hyper focus on troop production by adding in 4-5 more armories.

d) If he gets too many 'auto-lose' fights in the Spire, especially on the 3rd floor, it basically eats up 1-2 weeks worth of goods production.
Again, too much RNG-screwing in a single week can set him back a month or more in terms of resources for researching/upgrading city buildings... this is absolutely asinine and a symptom of a completed broken system!


Now, if he didn't already have a substantial stock of boost buildings from when they came up more often during earlier events/quest lines, etc..., AND, if he wasn't so seemingly RNG-blessed in his crafting, my dad's Ch.18 cities would NOT be able to maintain Lv.3 Spire + Tournament play on a weekly basis.
The numbers are just too large, and the fact that the devs allow for impossible fights to happen is an absolute insult to basic human intelligence which further screws over the players.

THE. FORMULA. NEEDS. TO. BE. REWORKED!!!

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Granted it's only anecdotal evidence, but with helping my dad do his Tournaments, and also occasionally when he askes my opinion on Spire fights, I've been noticing with his just beginning Ch.18 cities:
a) His troop production, despite having a Lv9-11+ Simia is NOT keeping up with the Training Ground/Merc Camp losses. The only reason his Barracks troops totals stay consistent, (rather than growing per say), is due to AW's like Bulwark, Temple of Toads, etc...

b) His cities are more and more dependent on boost buildings + Fire Phoenix to even fight.
Luckily he's been able to generally recoup the 3 crafting buildings per week in each city, and often times can pick up 2-3 extras as well. But it's very RNG reliant and all it will take is a couple poor weeks in a row and he'll soon run out of boost buildings.

c) In a couple of his cities, Dwarven Armorers have basically dried right right up. While I can help him maintain about 2.4-2.6k tourny pts per week, trying to burst through beyond that is basically impossible unless he drastically re-engineers his entire city to hyper focus on troop production by adding in 4-5 more armories.

d) If he gets too many 'auto-lose' fights in the Spire, especially on the 3rd floor, it basically eats up 1-2 weeks worth of goods production.
Again, too much RNG-screwing in a single week can set him back a month or more in terms of resources for researching/upgrading city buildings... this is absolutely asinine and a symptom of a completed broken system!


Now, if he didn't already have a substantial stock of boost buildings from when they came up more often during earlier events/quest lines, etc..., AND, if he wasn't so seemingly RNG-blessed in his crafting, my dad's Ch.18 cities would NOT be able to maintain Lv.3 Spire + Tournament play on a weekly basis.
The numbers are just too large, and the fact that the devs allow for impossible fights to happen is an absolute insult to basic human intelligence which further screws over the players.

THE. FORMULA. NEEDS. TO. BE. REWORKED!!!

Yes I manly said 1600 points tournamens is kinda free, spire ain't
1600 points is 6 provinces 6 rounds and those all almost all 1* enemies and small enemy units making them very easy with very little losses.

But to comba back to luck RNG,

3 boost buildings per week is below average.
I think the average is around 4 week 1.5 LR 1.5 mage and 1.x UUU.
At least thats what my very long time averages look like, currently I am in a mage booster slump but UUU shows up more often. but my stocks are big and I can handle a good slump.

I have no clue what you mean with earlier event/questlines. we had combat buildings during 2 events many many many years ago 4 years or so?
then we had a year of nothing and then crafting was introduced. so which quest lines?

 

[crackie]

a) His troop production, despite having a Lv9-11+ Simia is NOT keeping up with the Training Ground/Merc Camp losses. The only reason his Barrack ks troops totals stay consistent, (rather than growing per say), is due to AW's like Bulwark, Temple of Toads, etc...

I am in a tourney happy FS where almost everyone scores pretty high. The chap 18 cities in my FS pretty much have maxed out all their military wonders to 30 or more. One has finished all the techs in chap 18. They are averaging 8-10k in tourney still. AM is one of those with a small petting zoo of bears, but the others do not have multiple lvl 10 bears. None of them are parking their cities to make things easier. As far as I know, they autofight all of it (in one day) and complete the entire Spire as well. So from what I observe, it can be done. Gone are the days of 30k tourneys but you can still put in a decent dent.

His cities are more and more dependent on boost buildings + Fire Phoenix to even fight.

2500pts is about 10 provinces to 6 stars or 12 provinces to 5 stars. Without buffs, even province 8 is tough to fight for a low chapter player. I know bc I just did a 2 week residency in a Chap 3 city filling in for a friend while she was away for RL issues. Had to cater everything after province 7 pretty much.

As @Enevhar Aldarion said, the difficulty (ratio of your troops to enemy troops) doesn’t change as you chapter. The only thing affecting “difficulty” is the mix of enemy troops presented and terrain. Some combos are easier than others. Heavy melee and mage combos are a skip in the park. Heavy range with light melee and mages are bloody murders. That has more to do with which tournament. Marble and Steel has always been the easiest.

I’m not saying the formula is perfect. I do get with the current projection, mandatory techs will eventually outpace troop production. However, it should be more difficult as you chapter up. A high chapter player has so many more toys available (whether they take advantage of it is a different story)! Real estate is also the most precious commodity in the game. If one can plop down all the plots to their heart’s content, the game will not be much of a challenge at all.

p.s. Player averaging 10k is a big fan of Bud Sorceress too.

 

[Iyapo1]

I think it would be useful if players would specify that the costs outstripping the production increases is a late game issue.

My cities are only in chapter 7-8. At this point in the game production increases are still outpacing cost increases.

I think it would also be useful to mention that the cost of going out 1 more tent is way more than going up another star. Many players are still trying to kp farm like they did before the changes hit. There is nothing wrong with that but it is really bleeding EXPENSIVE!

 

[The Unbeliever]

I am in a tourney happy FS where almost everyone scores pretty high. The chap 18 cities in my FS pretty much have maxed out all their military wonders to 30 or more. One has finished all the techs in chap 18. They are averaging 8-10k in tourney still. AM is one of those with a small petting zoo of bears, but the others do not have multiple lvl 10 bears. None of them are parking their cities to make things easier. As far as I know, they autofight all of it (in one day) and complete the entire Spire as well. So from what I observe, it can be done. Gone are the days of 30k tourneys but you can still put in a decent dent.


2500pts is about 10 provinces to 6 stars or 12 provinces to 5 stars. Without buffs, even province 8 is tough to fight for a low chapter player. I know bc I just did a 2 week residency in a Chap 3 city filling in for a friend while she was away for RL issues. Had to cater everything after province 7 pretty much.

I fight 15 provinces to 4* for him, but I'm not too sure if/how much he does on the Sat at 5* before the tourny ends... sometimes he'll cater a couple early provinces and/or try to fight a few if he's got some fire chicken time remaining.

As @Enevhar Aldarion said, the difficulty (ratio of your troops to enemy troops) doesn’t change as you chapter. The only thing affecting “difficulty” is the mix of enemy troops presented and terrain. Some combos are easier than others. Heavy melee and mage combos are a skip in the park. Heavy range with light melee and mages are bloody murders. That has more to do with which tournament. Marble and Steel has always been the easiest.

It's less the enemy troop composition, but rather the pants-on-head stupid terrain mechanics that makes fighting in this game an absolute dumpster fire...
Would it really be that hard to simply recode terrain so that's interactive, ie: slows movement, buffs/debuffs units? A heavy unit for example could be hit with lower movement (to a min of 1 tile) and take a def penalty if they're stuck in say trees/bushes, while a Light Range unit for example could get a def boost for hiding in the foliage.
Likewise, rocks could offer an atk boost to Heavy Range units as they take advantage of the high ground to lob their artillery, while Heavy Melee units could get atk & def boosts for being on open ground where there's nothing to encumber them, etc, etc...

Would be a helluva lot better than the rage-inducing clusterfeth where your deployment zone is choked up with terrain that forces your units to single file around the entire perimeter of the map, while getting nuked by the enemy who can forever avoid your attack range while safely blasting your to bits.

I’m not saying the formula is perfect. I do get with the current projection, mandatory techs will eventually outpace troop production. However, it should be more difficult as you chapter up. A high chapter player has so many more toys available (whether they take advantage of it is a different story)! Real estate is also the most precious commodity in the game. If one can plop down all the plots to their heart’s content, the game will not be much of a challenge at all.

p.s. Player averaging 10k is a big fan of Bud Sorceress too.

No, it should be that as you advance in the game, things become more challenging, and the fun lies in taking your resources and figuring out how best to over come those new puzzles & obstacles.
Just increasing the difficulty itself, (ie: eventually making costs greatly exceed all possible production), is just an artificial challenge, since you're not meant to win at that point.

Ideally, if the devs weren't a such a giant bunch of clueless muppets, your 'difficulty' curves would be:
1. Enter new Chapter -> catering costs increase by 'X' and enemy unit size increases by 'Y' automatically.
ie: if at the end of Ch.3, say your SS was 75/slot, then in Ch.4 the enemy jumps to say 130/slot - you are now at a marked disadvantage because you have yet to actually research anything in Ch.4 beyond the Advanced Scouts

2. Complete researches in new chapter -> costs go down by 'A' and your unit size increase by 'B'
ie: say if there are 3 SS techs in our new Ch.4, then after researching the 1st one your SS might now be 100 - you're still somewhat disadvantaged, but now it's not as much... research the next one and let's say you now go from 100 to SS 125 - you're almost even-steven, and the final SS research near the end of the chapter will then put you at a slight number advantage!


In the same way that RPG's based around area level caps progress, you always start out getting your butt slapped around silly each time you reach a new area, but as you fight, earn exp pts and thus level-up, your fights become easier and you're not running back to the nearest Inn to rest/recover every other fight anymore!
The level cap mechanic means that you can't simply sit in any area just to level grind to Lv99+ and then play the rest of the game on 'Invincible God-Mode'! (...as fun as it is to whoop Kefka's *** with a party of characters with max 128 stats, 9999/999 HP/MP & double-casting Ultima for only 1MP, it also wasn't very challenging to say the least!)

Thus if the formula was properly reworked, your combats & catering costs would highest/hardest at the beginning of each chapter, and then those costs would progressively decrease as you complete researches as you progress through each chapter!
This way, progression & expanding/growing one's city is always rewarded vs. the current disaster where it's now heavily discouraged to move beyond a certain point in the research tree! (...or for example, where adding expansions is at this point, just shooting oneself in the foot!)

 

[SoggyShorts]

Thus if the formula was properly reworked, your combats & catering costs would highest/hardest at the beginning of each chapter, and then those costs would progressively decrease as you complete researches as you progress through each chapter!
This way, progression & expanding/growing one's city is always rewarded vs. the current disaster where it's now heavily discouraged to move beyond a certain point in the research tree!

Exactly this. I've never played another game where progress is discouraged, it's crazy.

 

[Kawhi is a Raptor]

i am neither fighter nor caterer i am a mitigator

and as idiotic as the anti-progression tourney/spire changes were i am selfishly happy because it allowed me to theorycraft a city where i can be the laziest player on the planet and still own in tourneys

alas i'm completely useless in FAs but oh well

 

[BrinDarby]

To add further clarification to the new balancing, the Moonstone Library will produce T1 goods for the new players that have it at the Chapter 3 level. From Chapter 4 on it will produce T2 goods.

This change severely hurts new players, just like the 3 manor pieces give T1 to EVERY chapter,
so too should Moonstone Library & Endless Scroll give a T2 +1 (and/or) +2. for ALL chapters.

 

[SoggyShorts]

This change severely hurts new players, just like the 3 manor pieces give T1 to EVERY chapter,
so too should Moonstone Library & Endless Scroll give a T2 +1 (and/or) +2. for ALL chapters.

I think most new players are in and out of chapter 3 pretty quick though so even if they have crafted the moonstone set and placed it the impact shouldn't be all that severe for most of them.

 

[BrinDarby]

@SoggyShorts ,

so too should Moonstone Library & Endless Scroll give a T2 +1 (and/or) +2. for ALL chapters.

 

[The Unbeliever]

Exactly this. I've never played another game where progress is discouraged, it's crazy.

Clearly you've never tormented yourself with Fire Emblem Path of Radiance & Radiant Dawn then?!
Elvenar at this point reminds me an awful lot of those dark times...

(note: Dragon Quest 2 gets a pass on 'worst game ever', since it wasn't so much that it was a badly designed game, but rather that it was just far too ahead of its time... note that just 1 year later, DQ3 basically perfected the entire system pioneered in DQ2, and is still considered the best Dragon Quest game of all time, despite now being a 30+ years old!)