News from Beta - May Contain Spoilers!

[mikeledo]

Initially, the game was designed to make AW upgrades very slow because KP was rare. Some players used push accounts to get an unfair advantage. Players complained. Rather than expunge violators of INNO's rules, they made KP cheap. That did not work so they made KP cheaper with the 15KP=1 rune plus placing a limit as to how much KP can be pushed which should have been their first action. Now everyone was updating AWS like crazy. Not what the original devs wanted. INNO must have felt they needed a way to rein in older players and level things for newer players (I am guessing here as to why) and opted to go back to making upgrading AWS difficult by making the items to upgrade difficult to obtain.

Remember that every decision INNO makes is about the bottom line. Yes, players will quit. They hope those who stay will spend more diamonds. I am already spending diamonds on Chapter 21 upgrades as most of my excess buildings have been disenchanted. I am sure I am not the only one and that could be driving their decision. In that case, we diamond users apologize.

 

[Pheryll]

Another way to look at it is what is the ideal level for a wonder? Level 31 used to look appealing, but now the benefits of the wonder are even more frontloaded, causing the later levels to offer less benefit with regards to the increased tournament difficulty. Some, like decay reducing wonders, will continue to have a high level goal. But with many others the object may be to have more wonders in your city rather than getting higher levels in certain ones.

 

[mikeledo]

Maybe level 30 since level 31 typically only updates half of the benefits.

 

[Mykan]

There are so many changes to wonders it could take a novel to update on everything. Some like ToS its hard to tell if it is an benefit or not while ones like enars look like a clear improvement. The universal cost however, that is of serious concern.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

People with high-level Watchtower Ruins and a lot of skipped optional Squad Size research will get hit with a huge Culture loss. Old version gave extra culture as a percent of your required culture. New version uses
some new AW power value as a percent of your Squad Size. In my chapter 19 city, my level 21 Watchtower went from giving me over 200k extra culture down to 61k. And I did not skip any researches.

Now imagine the loss for someone with a level 30+ Watchtower and a bunch of skipped researches.

 

[Yogi Dave]

My Sanctuary and WatchTower Ruins are both at level 30. Each gives me 40% of my required culture. Together they provide 1,578,000 culture. If I understand the change correctly, the change uses your current squad size. Mine is 10,700 since I've done all squad size techs and am waiting for chapter 22. Level 30 for these AWs give 890% times that which will give me 190,260 from them. That is just 12% of what it was. I'll get a drop in culture of 1,396,540. I hope I'm mistaken, but someone in the beta feedback thread says theirs dropped from 1,326,000 to 181,585 which is 13.7% of what it was, losing 1,144,415 culture. I currently have 1,170,000 available culture in my city. After the change, I'll have -226,540 available culture. Oh, and my city is currently setup for the coming FA which means most of my factories are teleported making my required culture lower than it normally would be.

Maybe the culture gain from those two AWs was high, but to nerf them by 88% is more like nuking them.

 

[Yavimaya]

They didn't just make it to where you need RRs and CCs and SFs for upgrading the higher chapters wonders, it's all wonders. And they didn't just make upgrading way too hard either. They messed with and screwed with every military wonder and the BTG, TW, all kinds of AWs!!!!! And most of the changes are all really bad negative ones and only very very few good ones.

Whoever can see the discord beta chat and the discord beta AW change feedback thread from today will probably cry.

Years of work ruined and without any new way to acquire RRs.

 

[Yavimaya]

Everybody really needs to join discord at this point and put their feelings in this link as this is now where to do this stuff. We can't let this happen. If you start at beginning and read through you will really see how bad this is.

https://discord.com/channels/1136205917306753035/1194609628990935070

If it doesn't take you to correct spot then scroll down in their left side list of sections and click on beta feedback, then click on the "Feedback: Improvements to Ancient Wonders bonuses and costs" post.
It is possible you may have to click on Beta first, then follow directions I listed to find this.

 

[Yavimaya]

They said you do not even have to have a city on Beta to participate in this and they (mods, cms) are encouraging the players to please comment in this specific section to make sure it all gets forwarded.

There are literally players that cannot even make any troops right now!

 

[Henroo]

How is the prize structure for the event currently running in Beta? My understanding is that instead of 1 evolving building that goes to stage 10, this event offers 3 different buildings that go to stage 5. Therefore, to fully evolve all of them will require 12 artifacts. In a standard evolving building event, the 9th artifact you need occurs at 260 points. But in this event, 9 artifacts will not be enough. Have they altered the prize structure to make artifacts easier to get?

 

[Silver Lady]

this event offers 3 different buildings that go to stage 5.

Do you even get all 3 buildings? I read it as you will have to choose 1 of the 3.

Edit to add copy of what I read …Unlock the secrets within the Tome of Sorcerer Trials and select from three extraordinary main prizes…

 

[Darielle]

I am sure I am not the only one and that could be driving their decision. In that case, we diamond users apologize.

The whole psychology behind people buying non-necessities is because it makes them feel good. If Inno is so short-sighted that they actually design their game so that buyers feel the need to apologize for purchasing, then Inno execs have destroyed their company with their own foolish greed. In the end, they make less, not more. Penny wise and pound foolish.

 

[crackie]

They didn't just make it to where you need RRs and CCs and SFs for upgrading the higher chapters wonders, it's all wonders. And they didn't just make upgrading way too hard either. They messed with and screwed with every military wonder and the BTG, TW, all kinds of AWs!!!!! And most of the changes are all really bad negative ones and only very very few good ones.

My little city doesn't even have enough CC's and Spell frags to craft in MA, let alone blow it on wonders. So I guess it's just not going to do either anymore because there's no point in having my little city without the fun people it's playing with, who are now furious and headed towards the exit. Good job. People have passed the angry marker and have reached don't care anymore.

 

[Turtle2045II]

My little city doesn't even have enough CC's and Spell frags to craft in MA, let alone blow it on wonders. So I guess it's just not going to do either anymore because there's no point in having my little city without the fun people it's playing with, who are now furious and headed towards the exit. Good job. People have passed the angry marker and have reached don't care anymore.

 

[Myne]

I think all of you have pretty much covered all my thoughts. I agree with all of you. I can imagine what is going to be like. NOT FUN

 

[Deleted User - 849411552]

Everybody really needs to join discord at this point and put their feelings in this link as this is now where to do this stuff. We can't let this happen. If you start at beginning and read through you will really see how bad this is.

https://discord.com/channels/1136205917306753035/1194609628990935070

If it doesn't take you to correct spot then scroll down in their left side list of sections and click on beta feedback, then click on the "Feedback: Improvements to Ancient Wonders bonuses and costs" post.
It is possible you may have to click on Beta first, then follow directions I listed to find this.

Thank you for the tip, Yavimaya! I broke with my own precedent and actually posted on Discord just now. The overnight changes to Beta cities are insane! I'll say the same thing here that I said on Discord: If they bring this to the live servers, I'm done.

 

[Mykan]

There are literally players that cannot even make any troops right now!

I am fairly sure that is a bug as a result of changes to SS. It should not be a function of culture being negative.

I have to wonder if they have made enars too powerful now. By my calculations I would get around 16Mil mana a week from a maxed enars. They weakened 2 culture wonders because it made culture redundant (arguable point but can understand the sentiment). How on earth would that much mana not make mana a pointless challenge? Even a level 32 Maze collecting 5 times a day doesn't come close to that and they are both large wonders.

Tome of Secrets mechanic switching to story quests is also very concerning. I get 0 supplies from it if I am end tech, which can be for months on end. Surely that is not an intended design.

For those wondering on the 2 main culture wonders it goes from 40% of required culture to approx 4.3% of required culture. Culture on Thermal Springs also seems to go down a bit despite Thrones culture going up a bit.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

@Mykan I still have 212k available culture in my chapter 19 Beta city, and that was after losing around 150k from my Watchtower Ruins, so I don't think it is a bug or everyone would have it. All the people who refused to complete all the optional Squad Size research are definitely hurt by this change, though.

On a different note, I just noticed my Needles in my Beta city got a lot stronger. It is level 21 and went from 30% extra damage to 41.5% extra. And training time speed-up went from 75% to100%. If all the other military buildings got boosts like that also, then it seems Inno is trying even more to steer people into doing more fighting and less catering. All those factories chew up a lot of culture, after all.

 

[BrinDarby]

Egads. If they require Royal Restorations I will never be able to level another Wonder. I'd better hurry and level as many as I can right now...

Years of work ruined and without any new way to acquire RRs.

There are literally players that cannot even make any troops right now!

then Inno execs have destroyed their company with their own foolish greed. In the end, they make less, not more. Penny wise and pound foolish.

My little city doesn't even have enough CC's and Spell frags to craft in MA, let alone blow it on wonders. So I guess it's just not going to do either anymore because there's no point in having my little city without the fun people it's playing with, who are now furious and headed towards the exit. Good job. People have passed the angry marker and have reached don't care anymore.

This sounds horrible and is two-fold..... Originally these wonders
weren't overpowered untill a different change happened and the
unintended consequence was then it might be overpowered, add'd
to the fact Elvenar is the type of game where how you build your
city depends on the fact everything is interconnected. Making the
choice now between A/B will effect later your choice of C/D. If
now A is changed and it was your choice, the choice of lets say
C now is dumb and you need D instead, but you've invested tons
of stuff into C, ALL of that is LOST if you switch to D from C.

Thats like saying "fighting" is overpowered, lets Nerf it a bit.
Causing a bunch of players to say..... "well if thats the case I
shouldda been a caterer long ago, but I spent all my res and
diam on fighting abilities, Now you tell me this"

Yes this will lead to many more ppl quitting, less revenue not
more, and now ppl say ya gotta go to Discord to complain.
I will NOT go to discord, this darn Forum is still open and if
Inno hopes there is less talked about here and visits, something
like this re-invigorates the long time hard core Elvenarians
who only come here..... to be VERY VERY vocal in thier anger,
with many many posts......

Ohh and I guess the code isn't spaghetti enough yet to make
wholesale changes to Wonders a problem, so its prolly also
true that other changes they "say" they can't do, for the same
reason ( Spaghetti code )... is a complete fabrication ( not true ).

I'm piss'd and outraged at this rebalance and in 5+ years I've
never built a AW.... not 1 .... I guess that was a good thing, but
if they decide to go thru the whole database of bldgs in the
same manner, just how many other bldgs have players counted
on in thier city setup, that now might be classified as overpowered,
then just as rudely "rebalance/Nerf" them ??????????

Its much easier to correctly balance a bldg before ya release it,
than it is to nullify an unintended consequence later on because
it effects 10 other things. Its also bad buisness to sell players
things then later say, ohh its overpowered, nerf it, when players
have spent actual $$$ getting that bldg and now is worthless
to thier city scheme. Inno already had the knack of disenfranchizing
thier playerbase, but the new mgmt team has kicked that up
20 fold. They have no problem killing the goose that laid the
golden egg. Its not the just the forum we're losing, its Elvenar itself.

 

[Yavimaya]

Thank you for the tip, Yavimaya! I broke with my own precedent and actually posted on Discord just now. The overnight changes to Beta cities are insane! I'll say the same thing here that I said on Discord: If they bring this to the live servers, I'm done.

I appreciate you taking your time to post over there. Thank you.