News from Beta - May Contain Spoilers!

[Guurt The Destroyer]

Again though, this isn't that.
There's no spending your way past it. I mean I guess you could use diamonds to replace dead troops in battle, but I don't honestly believe anyone does that.

This is the solution they want. And I do think there are some players doing just that.

Don't you have thousands of diamonds?

This game makes money when people buy diamonds.

 

[Kawhi is a Raptor]

We don't use Light Melee much at all, so VS is kinda pointless since half it's worth would hardly ever see use. Coupled with the fact that the of the two specialist buildings, the Training Grounds is by far the weaker of the two.
The only troop we don't ever use much from the Merc Camp is the Bee rider, while the only troops we sometimes use from the training grounds are the Dryads & rarely the Ork Strats + Banshees.

So sinking levels into the VS is just needlessly pumping up the numbers in the tourny/spire.

this is objectively incorrect

there are plenty of fights where dryads and orc strats are the best choices over their barracks/merc camp counterparts (plus banshee equal to BM) and the mitigation of losses plus troop production will outweigh the VS aw levels

like if you're facing 4 heavy melee and a mist walker and you're sending 5 blossom mages and not 5 dryads you're just throwing troops away

 

[SoggyShorts]

This is the solution they want. And I do think there are some players doing just that.

They aren't. The costs are prohibitive- Replacing the extra troop losses from CH16 to 18 in this way would cost thousands of $ per week.
Unless by "some" you mean a dozen out of tens of thousands of players

Don't you have thousands of diamonds?

All free. Never spent a dime.

 

[Guurt The Destroyer]

They aren't. The costs are prohibitive- Replacing the extra troop losses from CH16 to 18 in this way would cost thousands of $ per week.
Unless by "some" you mean a dozen out of tens of thousands of players

All free. Never spent a dime.

I suspect they do in fact want players to spend a lot of money. There are plenty of P2W games where players are in fact spending thousands of dollars a month. And yes they only need a few hundred players spending large sums of money.

I have always assumed that the longer I played and the farther I advanced it would get harder and harder to keep going without spending money.

Most of the P2W games I have played have used this model.

Again, I am not saying this is great design. But it isn't that uncommon especially when you get to the end of a game's content.

I have yet to see any reasonably priced offers for this game. The prices are outrageous considering what you get in exchange. It is clearly geared towards a small group of whales.

 

[crackie]

We have Bulwark in all our cities because it's main use *IS* to massively boost the training stacks. They can honestly outright remove the Barbie/Sword Prancer production and it wouldn't make a difference in the Bulwark's overall power.
On the other hand, why sink resources & levels into an AW that boosts the single most useless troop type & boosts the worst of the three military buildings? If there's only 300 AW levels to spread out before you get 'formula nuked', you're going to want to put those very limited levels into more critical AW's.

I'm using Bulwark as an example to your argument that you chose NOT to have a Victory Springs because "we don't use Light Melee much at all, so VS is kinda pointless since half it's worth would hardly ever see use." Clearly you ignored that aspect of your own argument if you DID put a Bulwark down, a wonder whose secondary benefit is giving you free Light Melee.

Again, my opinion based on observations, but the fear of wonder levels is overblown. Most of the late chapter players in my FS (most of them are late chapter) have all their military wonders maxed at 30+ and still all pulling in massive tourney scores. I'm not afraid to go over 300 wonder levels. If my teammates have figured it out, I will too.

As for end game having more toys to play with, so therefore it's not that much more difficult vs. early game...
Again, Elvenar has an artificial difficulty because it's just about sheer numbers vs. any kind of real tactical strategy or puzzle solving.
If we had a proper system, things would be very difficult/challenging at the beginning of a new chapter, and then slowly become easier as you complete the tech tree for each chapter, thereby rewarding progress vs. actively discouraging it!

I didn't say having more toys equates to being "not that more difficult versus early game". Your words, not mine. Having more toys is a big advantage over early-mid game on many fronts. For example, you can buff various units with wonders like heavy range and heavy melee. An early game player has to rely on crafted military buff building, which can never buff certain classes, or would need an evolved Fire Phoenix. If your units have built-in buffing, you can also weather dry spells in the MA regarding buff buildings and pet food a lot better. Late chapter players also have access to more promoted units. Buffs/debuffs are critical to fighting/surviving high provinces, and if you don't fight the higher provinces, they make fighting low level provinces so much easier!

Also, what do you think the difficulty factor is for a caterer? Is it not just increases in sheer numbers? The puzzle for them to solve is making enough stuff given real estate constraints. If you can add infinite number of plots without penalty to squeeze in all the factories to your heart's content, that puzzle just got meaningless. So is raising their costs an artificial difficulty?

Lastly, there are tons of real tactical strategy and puzzle solving in manual fights, even more so when accounting for terrain, which you don't like either. The battles are set up more like chess matches versus other fighting games where you just plow your characters forward towards the enemy and keep bashing one button until the battle is over.

 

[The Unbeliever]

this is objectively incorrect

there are plenty of fights where dryads and orc strats are the best choices over their barracks/merc camp counterparts (plus banshee equal to BM) and the mitigation of losses plus troop production will outweigh the VS aw levels

like if you're facing 4 heavy melee and a mist walker and you're sending 5 blossom mages and not 5 dryads you're just throwing troops away

Well, as I said, we do occasionally use Dryads & Ork Strats, and I myself will throw in some puppies on occasion since I haven't yet unlocked Rangers for super-mage-murdering.
Banshees are pointless though since Priests are also equally bent vs. Heavy Ranged and have the extra range cushion, while Blossoms badly outrange the angry ex-girlfriends.

In this game, especially because terrain so stupid, range is king. Hell, they had to nerf Frogs literally into the ground because they were beyond stupid when their 3* upgrade first hit! I can still recall fights where I could throw 5x Frogs up again even 3 banshees/necros and they'd win handily simply due to their range & their initial -50%def debuff.
Hell, that one week or so where the devs screwed up the coding and the Fire Chicken bonus was applied to enemy Frogs?! Now THAT tournament week was an absolutely hilarious bloodbath!

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Lastly, there are tons of real tactical strategy and puzzle solving in manual fights, even more so when accounting for terrain, which you don't like either. The battles are set up more like chess matches versus other fighting games where you just plow your characters forward towards the enemy and keep bashing one button until the battle is over.

This shows the huge divide between players on browser and players on the app. And as the number of app users grows and browser users declines, this type of thing is just going to confuse more and more people. Plus manual fighters are likely just a small minority of all browser players. Moving forward, Inno will likely only update/modify/balance combat from the auto-fight perspective because of this. This is also why when I talk about the pros and cons of fighting, I always do it from the auto-fight perspective.

In this game, especially because terrain so stupid, range is king.

Terrain that cannot even be looked by players using the app. The Facebook groups get a lot of posts from app users wondering why they lost a fight they thought they should have won.

 

[Kawhi is a Raptor]

Well, as I said, we do occasionally use Dryads & Ork Strats, and I myself will throw in some puppies on occasion since I haven't yet unlocked Rangers for super-mage-murdering.
Banshees are pointless though since Priests are also equally bent vs. Heavy Ranged and have the extra range cushion, while Blossoms badly outrange the angry ex-girlfriends.

In this game, especially because terrain so stupid, range is king. Hell, they had to nerf Frogs literally into the ground because they were beyond stupid when their 3* upgrade first hit! I can still recall fights where I could throw 5x Frogs up again even 3 banshees/necros and they'd win handily simply due to their range & their initial -50%def debuff.
Hell, that one week or so where the devs screwed up the coding and the Fire Chicken bonus was applied to enemy Frogs?! Now THAT tournament week was an absolutely hilarious bloodbath!

sadly i obtained 3 star frogs the same week as the debuff correction so i never got to experience the op version

 

[Guurt The Destroyer]

This shows the huge divide between players on browser and players on the app. And as the number of app users grows and browser users declines, this type of thing is just going to confuse more and more people. Plus manual fighters are likely just a small minority of all browser players. Moving forward, Inno will likely only update/modify/balance combat from the auto-fight perspective because of this. This is also why when I talk about the pros and cons of fighting, I always do it from the auto-fight perspective.

Manually fighting is the only reason I stick with this game. I still find it interesting. And it makes a big, big difference. I would move on if it was auto-only. Personally, they need to fix their code so everyone has the option of doing manual fighting. It is just a better game when you have the option of manual fighting.

I use browser for 99% of the game. But I use mobile for doing neighborly assists and to get my daily prize. It is odd how there are some features that are mobile or browser only.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It is odd how there are some features that are mobile or browser only.

The two platforms have two separate development teams, so a lot of stuff goes to one or the other first. The app was also pretty bare bones when it was first released a few years ago and that team has been playing catch up ever since.

 

[Henroo]

His 2 Human cities have the Flying Acad since Priests are god-tier, but his Elven cities skipped out on both AW's.

I have both 2 chapter 16 human cities and 1 ch 16 elven city. I would say Flying Academy is actually MORE important in my elven city because I am making so many Blossom Mages in MC there in addition to Rangers and Frogs. In human cities MC only has to make Rangers and Frogs. Speeding up MC is the primary purpose of the Flying Academy. The free mage units it gives are very much secondary.

 

[SoggyShorts]

his Elven cities skipped out on both[FA&VS] AW's.

Huge mistake imo.
Without the FA and VS you are producing half of the troops that you could be. Even if you like other units better, cutting your army in half is not the best move.

An Elf city with all 3 speed up buildings leveled in chapter 16+ can do very well by just training
100% blossoms
100% Golems
100% Dryads (+ a few stacks of dogs)
Add in Vallor/strats/dojos/witch hut and you're good to go.

*note this is by no means the perfect setup, but it's super fast, and combined with 1 DA, 1 MMM, 1 ELR + Firebird to auto fight everything works fine.
You won't break records, but it's enough for sustainable gold spire and ~3-4k tournament scores.

 

[Iyapo1]

What is this new spectral stone in the Spire? How are they acquired?

It is part of the Fellowship Progression.
Here is a link to the beta forum announcement.

https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/fellowship-progression-is-coming-to-beta.16963/

We dont know how to you earn it exactly...but there are hints. You collect from FS Spire performance, FS tournament performance, FS visits and KP exchanges...???!!!
You unlock Fellowship Perks. Banking tournament points or spire points are perks. Spectral stones and sip of clarity are probably perks? Maybe? Inno is being all supersecrety!

 

[SoggyShorts]

Spectral stones and sip of clarity are probably perks? Maybe? Inno is being all supersecrety!

Doubtful, the perks are pretty clearly defined (other than the upcoming KP perk and a few specifics for mechanics).

Sips of clarity are going to be added to spire chests (third gate 3rd floor replacing SF 55% chance) and they are already in the event progression rewards for misty forest 2021

Spectral stones are still unknown although crafting, events, or FS rewards from spire seem like good spots.

as for what they do, sips reset your MA crafting for free, and spectral stones are a guaranteed correct guess in the spire

 

[OIM20]

Sips of clarity are going to be added to spire chests (third gate 3rd floor replacing SF 55% chance)

Gah! That's terrible news! I need those spell fragments!

 

[OIM20]

Someone in my Harandar FS said that @Jackluyt had posted on FB about the FS perks thing - that the one about the KP has to do with AW donors.

For those of us who don't have accounts there, can anyone post details?

They mentioned it's for those who donate to AWs, but specifics would be appreciated before I bombard someone with asinine questions.

Thanks in advance for any helpful replies.

 

[The Fairy]

@OIM20

https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/new-knowledge-sharing-perk-for-fellowships.17099/

 

[OIM20]

Thank you!

 

[Henroo]

What are the other fellowship perks? And is there any word when they will come to live worlds?

 

[DeletedUser29768]

What are the other fellowship perks? And is there any word when they will come to live worlds?

There are also perks for the tournament and spire archives and extending neighborly help effects. I don't know when they're coming to live, though.