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    Your Elvenar Team

Rebalancing of select (old) event buildings

Deborah M

Oh Wise One
Not everyone knows to come to the forum to look. And, since they didn't know it was coming, why should they come to the forum at all? I only come to the forum when I have a question about something. I do not come to the forum just to read posts on a whim. A public announcement to the whole community would have been better. They give public announcements every time they do an upgrade to the system..
There is no reason to be snippy towards others who don't make it a habit to come to the forum. Most people, set their cities, do their visits (if they do them at all) and leave.

I was not being snippy toward people who don't regularly come to the forum. I was being snippy toward someone who kept saying the same thing over & over & over. The point was that someone was saying that the only way to have gained prior information on this was to be on the beta server and/or go to the beta forum. It had been explained multiple times that it was also discussed on this forum. It just got very tiresome that the truth was being ignored in favor of complaining about something that was proven incorrect.
 

DeletedUser17837

Guest
The fact they say the buildings were over powered is a tactic to change the fact they did 1 thing and it was to disguise the fact that it changed the product alot of us spent money on to something different...That in itself shows we can no longer trust that spending money in this game is safe and will have a honest value.... They will come back and take twist and change anything and everything they want to now because they have done it once and they got away with it... Personally i went in and deleted 3 of my 5 cities that were negative and am debating on deleting a 4th one. i sent msgs to customer support to remove the cities and that i was no longer participating in any events and buying any further diamonds as long INNO took the position that it could change products i bought and paid for.
 

DeletedUser3122

Guest
They knew they were going to cut these values, but did nothing till AFTER the adventure ended.

If your FS had known about the upcoming changes in advance, would you have still spent the money to rank #3? If not, it seems ya'll have grounds for refunds.

i sent msgs to customer support to remove the cities and that i was no longer participating in any events and buying any further diamonds as long INNO took the position that it could change products i bought and paid for.

Unfortunately this is what they've gotten away with and it seems to me folks could and should receive refunds for any item they bought that was devalued.
 

Ashrem

Oh Wise One
To be fair that would still have got a ton of complaints from those with them who couldn't upgrade them. They did consider this option but decided the current update was the lesser of the two evils.
All they had to do was the make the spell convert them from the old stats to the new ones. It's always better to give people choice. "We're leaving the existing buildings as a legacy. if you want to drag them into the future, applying the spell will change them from the legacy building to the new one and move them ahead a chapter." It would still have meant a loss to do so, but a lesser loss, and all at the same time, on the player's schedule. instead there is a large inconvenience with a nebulous reduction of that trouble in some future. Sorry, Mykan, I have a great deal of respect for you, but there is no way to polish this particular turd.
 

The Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
All they had to do was the make the spell convert them from the old stats to the new ones. It's always better to give people choice. "We're leaving the existing buildings as a legacy. if you want to drag them into the future, applying the spell will change them from the legacy building to the new one and move them ahead a chapter." It would still have meant a loss to do so, but a lesser loss, and all at the same time, on the player's schedule. instead there is a large inconvenience with a nebulous reduction of that trouble in some future. Sorry, Mykan, I have a great deal of respect for you, but there is no way to polish this particular turd.
No, because that would not address the main issue with these buildings, which is that they are game-breakingly over power to begin with!
If you got a field of Winter Stars from O&G chapter at the time, and can still use them to provide 50% or more of your pop needs in bloody Halflings, then something is very, very wrong... not only do you save an enormous amount of space (BIG advantage 1), but you're also able to focus more on factories (big advantage 2), and then still have room for your 'turd town' to crush events/FA's/etc...

What this does, is basically create a 2-tier game where the 'crusty old vets' get to play on easy mode, while anyone coming in new from Herds event and on, is now by comparison playing on 'hard mode'.
And when competitions like FA's come along? It's even worse as anyone without a field of these legacy OP event buildings and/or big diamond spenders now get to play the game on 'lunatic mode'.

So sure, it hurts like hell for anyone who got caught planting fields of OP buildings, and Inno is partly to blame for releasing these very obviously game-breaking buildings in the first place...
However, for the long term health of the game itself, this is a very big POSITIVE step forwards!
Otherwise, we'll just inevitably see Elvenar slowly spiral into the cesspool that is FoE, where new players are ruthlessly stomped on by anyone who's been playing for 2-3+ years, and have cities filled with fields of OP event buildings & Lv50+ AW's.
 

stephenr10

New Member
They said these were old event buildings from 2016 and early 2017 that would be changed, but that was not true for me. My Father Trees of Candy Cane I got January 2018 during the Three glacier giants event. The numbers changed from 1100 culture and 1100 pop. To 180 culture and 810 pop. . I made a ticket out for it and they just closed the ticket with out responding to my concern. I had choices during that event and I would not have chose these if that would have had the current numbers. I got 6 of them, so the impact was huge. Somehow they should make it right by giving me the option of 6 of the other items that were available.
 

The Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
They said these were old event buildings from 2016 and early 2017 that would be changed, but that was not true for me. My Father Trees of Candy Cane I got January 2018 during the Three glacier giants event. The numbers changed from 1100 culture and 1100 pop. To 180 culture and 810 pop. . I made a ticket out for it and they just closed the ticket with out responding to my concern. I had choices during that event and I would not have chose these if that would have had the current numbers. I got 6 of them, so the impact was huge. Somehow they should make it right by giving me the option of 6 of the other items that were available.
That building was first introduced during the 2016 Winter event, and was reused during this past year's winter event. It is still however a building from 2016, since that was when it was initially introduced.
 

Ashrem

Oh Wise One
No, because that would not address the main issue with these buildings, which is that they are game-breakingly over power to begin with!
That is patently ludicrous, becasue the game didn't break. Most people used them for two or three chapters and then removed them. A few people who move very slowly haven't used them for three chapters yet. As with all other things, a bunch of people placed them and then abandoned the game, so they are having no effect on the game at all. If a handful of people are clinging to them 3 or 4 chapters later, when they are no better than replacing them with something recent except for having been free, that is their choice. It is in no way breaking the game. Your rhetoric is misplaced.
If you got a field of Winter Stars from O&G chapter at the time, and can still use them to provide 50% or more of your pop needs in bloody Halflings, then something is very, very wrong...
Oooooo, scary stuff. still useful in the third chapter after you won them. The world will no-doubt collapse under the weight of it.
What this does, is basically create a 2-tier game where the 'crusty old vets' get to play on easy mode, while anyone coming in new from Herds event and on, is now by comparison playing on 'hard mode'.
For two to three chapters. Which most people get through in under a year, but some take longer. They don't get any further in the game for playing slowly.
Inno is partly to blame for releasing these very obviously game-breaking buildings in the first place
The fact that you keep using that term makes it clear you've never played a broken game. Elvenar is limping along quite fine, generating millions of dollars a year in revenue despite being broken.
for the long term health of the game itself, this is a very big POSITIVE step forwards!
Yes. Most of us are fully aware that this is a good, and necessary, change. How it was handled was awful.
Otherwise, we'll just inevitably see Elvenar slowly spiral into the cesspool that is FoE, where new players are ruthlessly stomped on by anyone who's been playing for 2-3+ years, and have cities filled with fields of OP event buildings & Lv50+ AW's.
Wild rhetoric aside, I've never disagreed they needed to change things. My sole complaints have been the method of implementation and communication.

But please feel free to keep using game-breakingly and cesspool in bold italics in an attempt to convince us all that nuclear holocaust is just around the corner. :rolleyes:
 

DeletedUser9934

Guest
I was not being snippy toward people who don't regularly come to the forum. I was being snippy toward someone who kept saying the same thing over & over & over. The point was that someone was saying that the only way to have gained prior information on this was to be on the beta server and/or go to the beta forum. It had been explained multiple times that it was also discussed on this forum. It just got very tiresome that the truth was being ignored in favor of complaining about something that was proven incorrect.

Frankly, I can just envision what the management team of the Elvenar division is up against. With only 7 worlds in the US, this division must be a smaller revenue stream. (I played Grepolis a couple of years ago, and there is a plethora of servers serving the US market.) The older of the Elvenar worlds are aging, and new features have to be issued for them to keep on meeting the 24% revenue increase that Inno enjoyed last year. (I used to work in a smaller software company...)

The rolled out feature of re-structuring event buildings does not seem to have had very much of an impact on the versed players. Nor on "freeloaders" like myself. Where it has struck negatively is for the casual spenders, that spends extra on the seasonal events. One of my fellows invested into 7 "Father trees of candy canes" and is now about -1200 in population and -4000 in culture. I do respect you very much for your work, Mykan, but what is the "lesser evil" of such game? What are they supposed to do?"

Deborah, you are a "well-known member", I am "new". And you may be technically correct - but the handling of this issue is far from smooth. Consider my response to Mykan (quoted above) -
 
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Arayla

Well-Known Member
They have announced the compensation for the rebalancing on Beta. There is a new post in the General Discussion on this forum with more info.
 

The Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
Granted, a simple in-game announcement + link directing players to the forum for additional info would have greatly helped out.

But still, these 3 main buildings; Candy-cane Tree + Winter Star + Glossy Garden were pants-on-head stupidly OP and do break the game badly in favour of those who loaded up on them.
Add in that we will now have the ability to continuously upgrade our event buildings, and yeah, these nerf battings were absolutely needed, otherwise we'd just end up with "FoE2.0 - The Fantasy Version".:rolleyes:
 

DeletedUser6326

Guest
This is a mess. Yes, we were warned. Yes, we get a free magic residence soon and a free restoration spell.
That doesn't make any of my members in all seven of my fellowships feel any better....
I've lost one long time member yesterday.
All the re-balancing over the last couple of years has taken its toll on a lot of players.
Not all players check the Forums (Beta or here). They also don't care about what's going on in Development land or what opinions there are on the Forums. They just want to play and enjoy their games.
It feels like a punishment to them each time something like this happens. They've spent a long time building up their towns...and then are later punished for trying to do their best.
...and no one dares to complain or express concern because they are ripped apart over here or they are ignored or talked down to when they send in a ticket...so we stick together as a fellowship and support each other there, as best we can.
What a fun game....
 

DeletedUser12171

Guest
One thing people need to realize about online games is that you never actually own the game even if you spent real cash on it.

I've played MMOs for over 10 years and I can tell you, you have nothing on the devs when it comes to game changes

What you are paying for, when you do pay, is a service. The service rendered to you by the game developers, which includes the hardware (servers), maintenance, the making of and continual updates of the game. Everything belongs to the devs. They don't legally have to answer to anyone when they change a thing, that's the hard truth. You may think you own something just because you paid for it, but you need to realize that in this business model you don't. Just like paying for a taxi ride doesn't buy you the taxi, and should the company change their cars from a big one to a small one while keeping the same pricing, you're not entitled to demand your money back or that they keep the old cars. You were simply paying for the service of someone using a vehicle to take you from point A to B

I mean come on look at this: you paid money to buy diamonds, a virtual currency created by the devs, for use in the virtual world they created. Do you really believe that you own any of this stuff? This is the exact reason why virtual currency traders can be prosecuted or at least be subjected to law enforcement - because they are selling something that belongs to the company, not them, even if they spent real effort to get that virtual currency! Now if Inno violated their terms of service, then you would have a case. E.g. You paid for 1000 diamonds but got only 500 and they said, it's a bug, too bad and didn't give any compensation

Those who still think that Inno owes them because they paid... Might be good to chew on this a bit. I'm not saying that so we just suck it up and accept abuse, but you need to know the reality of things because it might help you manage your expectations
 
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kctanzen

Well-Known Member
This is a risk / benefit for early adopters.
Part of the risk is that the original design may have unintended consequences. be poorly designed or have bugs, and may change arbitrarily at any time in the future because that is within the rights of the game company.
Part of the benefit is just having had access to those buildings, tactics, or strategies longer than someone who may started last month.
The company has had the benefit of having the potential paying customers in the fold and creating revenue longer than a newer player who didn't get to take advantage of that game design issue.

I am likely reiterating something I already said but feel it needs to be stressed -- a change with this type of impact on a broad swath of potentially paying customers WITHOUT a clear communication of the understanding and time frame for mitigation to that change (which the game company has stated is "in the works somehow for sometime in the future") is a major issue.

It is a carrot and stick approach, using a fairly large stick to solve a self inflicted problem without the player base having a clear idea how or when the carrot of unknown size or possible advantage. may show up in the pantry.

I am not a coder / programmer but have had a pretty good exposure to database design / architecture in my working career.
It should be very straight forward to implement a solution similar to what Ashrem has mentioned.

A script is run to add a check digit on legacy buildings with the check digit functioning as a block, leaving the building at original stats / functions and preventing upgrade spells from having an effect.
When the upgrade spell is available and used, that removes the check digit, bringing the building forward to new stats or functions.
In addition, when the player changes to a new chapter, this also removes the check digit but without moving the building forward and only changing the stats.
 

The Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
This is a mess. Yes, we were warned. Yes, we get a free magic residence soon and a free restoration spell.
That doesn't make any of my members in all seven of my fellowships feel any better....
I've lost one long time member yesterday.
All the re-balancing over the last couple of years has taken its toll on a lot of players.
Not all players check the Forums (Beta or here). They also don't care about what's going on in Development land or what opinions there are on the Forums. They just want to play and enjoy their games.
It feels like a punishment to them each time something like this happens. They've spent a long time building up their towns...and then are later punished for trying to do their best.
...and no one dares to complain or express concern because they are ripped apart over here or they are ignored or talked down to when they send in a ticket...so we stick together as a fellowship and support each other there, as best we can.
What a fun game....
While a lot of the fault lies with Inno, especially for how they're handling the rebalancing, we have also accept some responsibility for this mess as players...
When we see an upcoming reward and we collectively go along the lines of, "good god - that building is as a good as fully-upgraded residence from the next chapter - and only 3/4 the size? load up on 'em boyz & girlz!!"
We end up kinda responsible when the company in question then realises their mistake, and goes back to nerf these handful of overly powerful buildings.

Every game company in existence that's worth their salts does constant rebalancing... Hell, if any of you have ever been around competitive console gaming, or collectibles like Tragic: The Saddening, or table top minis like Warmachine, etc... you simply come to expect it.
Stuff is initially released and is far too good/game skewing? It gets nerfed. (and typically, it inevitably gets over nerfed!)
And trust me, there's a helluva lot more money spent on those competitive hobbies than the Elvenar player who maybe dropped $100 to get 12+ of a specific event building. ;)
(ie: when a nerf comes, sometimes a player is out $500-600 or more, and then needs to spend that same amount or more just to stay competitive)
 
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