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hoopity
Well-Known Member
Suggestion
Reduce the base time that we wait between rounds of the tourney from 16 hours to 14 hours.
Premise
Getting sufficient sleep is important for health, and in the US (and yes, the EU) large portions of the population are chronically under-sleeping. For some of us, that problem is Elvenar and in particular, the tournament timer. The current 16-hour timer requires anyone who wants to complete all 6 stages of a given tourney province to sacrifice their sleep and play in very strict time-windows at least once or twice per week, every week, indefinitely. When the tourney was first introduced (over six years ago?) perhaps nobody imagined the issue or that players would continue to do this for years at a time, but it's been long enough, and it's such an easy change to make.
How do we know that this is a big deal? Well, you added the Timewarp AW at the end of Chapter 14 that reduces the tourney wait time. When it comes to game elements that players unlock through the course of play, there is not a bigger quality of life improvement than unlocking the Timewarp. Without a spending a single drop of extra KP, a player at the end of the Constructs chapter can place the Timewarp and get -12% to the tourney wait time, bringing the timer down to 14 hours and 5 minutes. Suddenly, that player can now wake up at 7am, do the tourney, and still have a reasonable amount of time to do another round in the tourney between 9-10pm before going to sleep. Only a few levels invested in the wonder will bring the total reduction to 20-24%, where life gets easy with a ~13 hour wait time.
Rebuttal to Common Criticisms
"But the Timewarp is already in the game, so this problem is solved"
Players don't unlock the timewarp until they've completed Chapter 14 -- even burning through the chapters quickly, most players will take 1-2 years to get that far. In the meantime, they're stuck with the punitive game design choice.
"You can purchase a Polar Bear as soon as you have an MA which makes this a non-issue"
True, you can get a level 1 Polar Bear fairly quickly if you know about it. But without spending half a years' worth of artifacts evolving it, you are stuck with only a 12% reduction, which costs you 1 Pet Food per week!
"Just use timers"
Everyone uses their timers differently, and not everyone is awash in timers from consistently topping the Spire. I don't think this is a strong enough objection, though I admit, for people who are really dedicated to the tourney, it is an option. With that said, it's a tremendous pain using the (desktop) interface to use timers on dozens of provinces.
"This will devalue the Timewarp AW -- I have a lot levels on mine!"
True, the Timewarp would be made somewhat less important. But, it would still be useful for getting the tourney timer into even shorter ranges. You can still save on pet food when you get your timer down to 5-7 hours between rounds and do 3 rounds per day. You still benefit from being more flexible during events when you can save tourney provinces for the right time to complete a quest. You can still get the 0-hour wait in conjunction with the Polar Bear and double-dip on expiring troop boosts. And of course, it still has the sentient production boost!
"14 hours is a gross number, but 16 hours is such a clean fraction of a day"
I agree, and presumably so did the original authors of the game, who stuck everything on very similar timers. Nowadays, though, the game is filled with odd settlement production timers with all manner of duration, so I don't think this matters.
"This goes against the spirit of the design of the game"
Only Inno can decide this, and they've made pretty large changes to the tourney before...
Pros
Happier players who are less prone to burn-out, especially in the first year (critical for player retention)
An increase in the pool of players willing to compete on tourney ranking (more engagement)
Doing the right thing for the long-term physical well-being of your player-base (more money)
Presumably a trivial change to implement and test
Cons
People would be less willing to spend Diamonds ($) on opening up the next tourney round. But I have to ask, how many people could that possibly be?
Reduce the base time that we wait between rounds of the tourney from 16 hours to 14 hours.
Premise
Getting sufficient sleep is important for health, and in the US (and yes, the EU) large portions of the population are chronically under-sleeping. For some of us, that problem is Elvenar and in particular, the tournament timer. The current 16-hour timer requires anyone who wants to complete all 6 stages of a given tourney province to sacrifice their sleep and play in very strict time-windows at least once or twice per week, every week, indefinitely. When the tourney was first introduced (over six years ago?) perhaps nobody imagined the issue or that players would continue to do this for years at a time, but it's been long enough, and it's such an easy change to make.
How do we know that this is a big deal? Well, you added the Timewarp AW at the end of Chapter 14 that reduces the tourney wait time. When it comes to game elements that players unlock through the course of play, there is not a bigger quality of life improvement than unlocking the Timewarp. Without a spending a single drop of extra KP, a player at the end of the Constructs chapter can place the Timewarp and get -12% to the tourney wait time, bringing the timer down to 14 hours and 5 minutes. Suddenly, that player can now wake up at 7am, do the tourney, and still have a reasonable amount of time to do another round in the tourney between 9-10pm before going to sleep. Only a few levels invested in the wonder will bring the total reduction to 20-24%, where life gets easy with a ~13 hour wait time.
Rebuttal to Common Criticisms
"But the Timewarp is already in the game, so this problem is solved"
Players don't unlock the timewarp until they've completed Chapter 14 -- even burning through the chapters quickly, most players will take 1-2 years to get that far. In the meantime, they're stuck with the punitive game design choice.
"You can purchase a Polar Bear as soon as you have an MA which makes this a non-issue"
True, you can get a level 1 Polar Bear fairly quickly if you know about it. But without spending half a years' worth of artifacts evolving it, you are stuck with only a 12% reduction, which costs you 1 Pet Food per week!
"Just use timers"
Everyone uses their timers differently, and not everyone is awash in timers from consistently topping the Spire. I don't think this is a strong enough objection, though I admit, for people who are really dedicated to the tourney, it is an option. With that said, it's a tremendous pain using the (desktop) interface to use timers on dozens of provinces.
"This will devalue the Timewarp AW -- I have a lot levels on mine!"
True, the Timewarp would be made somewhat less important. But, it would still be useful for getting the tourney timer into even shorter ranges. You can still save on pet food when you get your timer down to 5-7 hours between rounds and do 3 rounds per day. You still benefit from being more flexible during events when you can save tourney provinces for the right time to complete a quest. You can still get the 0-hour wait in conjunction with the Polar Bear and double-dip on expiring troop boosts. And of course, it still has the sentient production boost!
"14 hours is a gross number, but 16 hours is such a clean fraction of a day"
I agree, and presumably so did the original authors of the game, who stuck everything on very similar timers. Nowadays, though, the game is filled with odd settlement production timers with all manner of duration, so I don't think this matters.
"This goes against the spirit of the design of the game"
Only Inno can decide this, and they've made pretty large changes to the tourney before...
Pros
Happier players who are less prone to burn-out, especially in the first year (critical for player retention)
An increase in the pool of players willing to compete on tourney ranking (more engagement)
Doing the right thing for the long-term physical well-being of your player-base (more money)
Presumably a trivial change to implement and test
Cons
People would be less willing to spend Diamonds ($) on opening up the next tourney round. But I have to ask, how many people could that possibly be?
