Release Notes version 1.17

[DeletedUser51]

Dear Humans and Elves,

We would like to hear your feedback regarding our upcoming release to version 1.17.
We look forward to hearing from you!

Kind Regards,
Your Elvenar Team

 

[DeletedUser2963]

• The bonuses from abilities are no longer summed up, but rather multiplied - this resolves problems where the attributes can add up to 100% or more, making it impossible to finish battles, and makes for quicker battles in general

I am sorry, could I get a translation for this one? or an example?

 

[DeletedUser2870]

- Going to decrease the use of the sorceress AGAIN? What did she do to you all to deserve that? She already had gotten almost useless. Dropping her range means she gets to be even MORE vulnerable because she won't be able to stay out of range since the knight-units have a ranged attack she now won't be able to avoid.
- It also means that while humans have been getting more and better long-range units, the elves have gotten nothing at all. Sorceress already was nerfed and now gets hit again, this time in range and the golems also have gotten more vulnerable.
- Priests have gotten pretty useful, sorceress has gotten to be next to useless. High initiative is laughable because you do not want her in front of your troops.
- And Cerberus 2? So now I need to go back in the tree AGAIN if I want it? Which is doubtful since the trainingtimes will no doubt be even more out of sync with the rest of the units than the C1 already is. Not to mention that though the pc's C1 units wreak havoc with my mages and archers, and even gobble up and spit out my elder treants, the other way around it doesn't seem to really work the same way.
- Multiplying the bonuses? How exactly is this going to be balancing? And what exactly is this going to solve? And how is this to speed up battles? Examples please.
- Are the treants going to get a bit of their punch back? They now are only so much dead wood- literally.
- Are players (particularly the elves) going to get a unit that IS able to deal with the opposing cerberus units? I don't seem to have a single unit that deals any kind of significant amount of damage to them.

 

[DeletedUser3489]

Dear Colleagues:

There is a little line in the release notes that you should all pay attention to, if you were every thinking of spending a few bucks on some "Premium" Expansions":

"The maximum number of premium city expansions you can buy has been lowered to 23, to make the amounts more fair. We have also increased the prices for this particular type of city expansion to reflect its value better."​

What this really means is that the end of Inno's fiscal year is coming soon and the Devs are looking for ways to monetize this game and improve their bottom line (I suspect - I would bet a bottle of fine single malt scotch - that they are behind on their revenue targets).

The seemingly innocuous words in the announcement, like "more fair" and "reflect value better" are just pure B.S. In reality, the cost of Premium Expansions is going through the roof. No longer will you be able to spend a few bucks on an expansion to make you happy and grow your lovely city, you'll have to shell out tens of dollars for a single expansion! The new prices are already posted on the Wiki (https://en.wiki.elvenar.com/index.php?title=Expansions#Premium_Expansions_Overview).

You can also take a look at what some folks have been saying about this on the beta forum, see e.g., the very fine post of Caanna here: https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/discussion-release-notes-version-1-17.6402/page-13.

Well, maybe the Devs will roll this back or compensate for it after the New Year, to keep this game alive. Or maybe they won't, maybe this is the denouement of Elvenar. I don't know.

TL;DR ... all I'm saying, if you're thinking of spending a few bucks on a Premium Expansion or two, you may wish to consider doing so before the ver. 1.17 update goes live on Wednesday, 9 November and the costs go way up. Presuming, of course, that you think that Elvenar has a bright future that makes spending even a few bucks now a worthwhile investment. Time will tell.

Respectfully submitted,

-Ked

 

[DeletedUser3297]

I actually like the premium expansion changes. Pay to win players will not be able to build these massive cities and have huge advantages because now they can only buy 23, which they will. 8500 diamonds is a drop in the bucket to what these players are willing to spend.

This gives everyone else a better chance at being closer to the top. This is a great balance between both types of player.

 

[DeletedUser1349]

Well, I just spent my last diamonds on 2nd world expansions. My diamond boycott that began with battle redesign, continues with extreme prejudice...

 

[DeletedUser3489]

I actually like the premium expansion changes. Pay to win players will not be able to build these massive cities and have huge advantages because now they can only buy 23, which they will. 8500 diamonds is a drop in the bucket to what these players are willing to spend.

This gives everyone else a better chance at being closer to the top. This is a great balance between both types of player.

Dear Kayleegrrl,

thank you for your thoughtful response to my post, supra; however, I respectfully disagree, for the following reasons:

• I can't imagine that they will remove the expansions that have been purchased by players under the old price plan, hence these players have now received a "permanent" (until the next morph) advantage in terms of space. How can others be "closer to the top" under the new system, if they cannot (at any cost) acquire, after tomorrow, the space that some already have?
• The cost in real US$ of purchasing the (new) maximum 23 expansions under the new price plan is many times higher than it would have been under the old plan. Which means that those willing to spend lots will gain this significant advantage (23 expansions is a lot of real estate) and casual players (esp. those on a fixed budget - v o t e t o d a y ! ) actually just fall further and further behind.

With kind regards,

-Ked

 

[DeletedUser]

Honestly, I've nearly rage quit the game a few times now. I have other things I can do with my time, and so now I check in 2 times a day to see if there are improvements, and then I don't play after that. We have lost fellowship members that have decided the game is no longer fun to play, so they've quit. I've seen moderators close forum threads that say hey, we don't like this, even if the thread is civil. I'm seeing what look like inno employees running around your forum being bullies when someone states they do not like the changes. The battle system isn't fun, I can't build anything new because I can't get new land. I'm stuck on Dwarves and I'm loosing people to play with. I'm sorry, I haven't been happy with this game in a bit, I see updates happen, and the game still isn't a good one. You want us to spend money instead of putting effort into what we do. Just a heads up, if I'm going to drop money, its only going to be on a game I enjoy playing and that I don't feel like is attempting to sucker punch me into paying to play.

I have tried the battles according to your chart. It was an exercise in futility. I enjoyed doing the battle system before this update came along, and now I feel like I'm being punished for playing the game. You realize how crazy that is right? Hey, you really enjoyed playing this and you got to far on your battle map, so we're going to put a barrier up now that you aren't aloud to pass until... something else catches up. I'm not clear on what that is, and I don't really care at this point.

Do you, the developer, see how this looks to your consumer?

In the mean time, in the economics of the amount of time I have in my day for recreation, I'm going to go for something with more of a payout. For example, knitting, xbox, a tv show, a book. These are your competition, and now they have a better payout for time put into them.

If you read this, then thank you for your time. I hope you understand, you just aren't that much fun anymore.

Sincerely,
Jill

 

[DeletedUser4355]

i don't care !!1 i never spent any dollar for diamonds neither I am willing to. I dont have any competition with anyone, I just enjoy this game.

 

[DeletedUser2753]

It appears the new challenge is not High Score or biggest city, but who can advance through the research and continue playing with the lowest score, smallest city and fewest provinces discovered. PS continue the Boycott. If they wish to kill Elvenar then we will oblige them, and VOTE Today

 

[DeletedUser2870]

This gives everyone else a better chance at being closer to the top. This is a great balance between both types of player.

Sorry, but your logic is faulty.

I actually like the premium expansion changes. Pay to win players will not be able to build these massive cities and have huge advantages because now they can only buy 23, which they will.

First of all, the top players already HAVE those expansions. Since they are paid for, there is no way Inno is going to take them away. And even if they did, who would decide what buildings would suddenly have to disappear?
And got them at a better rate, so it's going to be HARDER to catch up, not going to get easier.

Secondly, though the direct purchase of these expansions is goig to be limited to a lower number at a much higher price, for those who play with huge amounts of diamonds it doesn't matter. They can still scout ahead and just purchase the encounters with diamonds, getting more expansions despite the new battlesystem anyway.

8500 diamonds is a drop in the bucket to what these players are willing to spend.

There's a third point where your logic is faulty. Increased prices mean nothing to those buy-to-win players. So they start with 23 instead of 33 expansions, which is still a huge amount of space, especially if they buy them right away.
However, increased priced DEFINITELY are a setback to regular players who buy diamonds once in a while to get that one more desperately needed expansion, or that one premiumbuilding that will be better than 2 or 3 regular ones.
So once again, it makes it HARDER to catch up for the regular players.

If you wanted it fairer, the old system was much better. Still not excellent, but better. You could only buy 2 premium expansions. Then you had to wait until you upgraded your Main Hall to make more premium expansions available. And the price of them steadily rose. But at least someone with a bucketfull of cash couldn't just buy 33 expansions (to become 23) when they just started.

 

[DeletedUser1349]

It appears the new challenge is not High Score or biggest city, but who can advance through the research and continue playing with the lowest score, smallest city and fewest provinces discovered. PS continue the Boycott. If they wish to kill Elvenar then we will oblige them, and VOTE Today

Agree. While I was never a rank chaser and neither are my two fellowships, we advanced naturally. For me this game was always about the tech tree, not rank. As usual, I will adjust. Being a non-diamond player is just another challenge!

 

[DeletedUser43]

If you wanted it fairer, the old system was much better. Still not excellent, but better. You could only buy 2 premium expansions. Then you had to wait until you upgraded your Main Hall to make more premium expansions available. And the price of them steadily rose. But at least someone with a bucketfull of cash couldn't just buy 33 expansions (to become 23) when they just started.

Yes it was. And they ignored us when we told them selling 33 expansions at once to anyone was a bad idea. Now I guess they see all the things we said would happen have happened. Only unrolling it now is also going to cause problems. The better choice would have been to add more expansions for everyone else to make it fair instead of now having the elites who will never be caught. They never make any of their changes with us current players in mind, they only ever make them for future players.

But hey, every single change has hit every group now. Mid range players got killed with the province requirements, then later players got killed with the orcs, every player has been destroyed with the battle changes, and now the spenders are going to face the problems the non spenders have been saying all along about space. Equal opportunity misery.

As Marindor said, though, the game really is a lot more challenging with less room. You can't just put up all the military buildings, if you do, you will run out of room. You can't just use all the ancient wonders, no room. If you do decide to build that magic academy, you will see it is extremely expensive in terms of space. You have the MA at the expensive of a lot of other things. It is all very very tight.

Of course, they don't really mean they want that much balance between player's scores, if they did, the wouldn't be releasing a diamond culture building that gives 10,000 culture points! What they mean by balance changes, is they want the balance of what people buy to change.

er...um...can someone please explain why they have just make the sorc useless? Talk about over doing it. You took the most powerful and fun troop in the game and made her completely useless. She is a powerpuff with zero range and high initiative. Really, really? I am supposed to put her right next to the heavy melee who can destroy her by breathing on her? Really?

 

[DeletedUser1016]

"The icon for the Orcs resource has had a makeover (...but the Orcs will of course probably still not win beauty contests)"

Nice touch of humor -

 

[DeletedUser4778]

I abhor the decreased range of the sorceress. Range units and mages should have the same movement range as melee units because they wear light or no armor and much better attack range, much more than heavy melee, because they use projectiles and magic. This game is getting more nonsensical and I dread it more with each "upgrade". Fighting was already a chore to me before but it's now becoming a price I think I will no longer be willing to pay.

"Hey, can you make the sorceress weaker?" said no player ever.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

I agree 100% with Draconomicon.
The 'counterunits' often make no sense. Fighting took long, but I deemed it worth the time. Now battles take too long if you can find a battle within the 'allowed range' and are too short if you are ahead, because then there is no chance at all of winning, units are slaughtered before they get into position, so there is no use even trying.
And I feel personally insulted because the elves have been hit waaaaay beyond the humans, and the elven units already were only useful later in the game, meaning human players had a distinct advantage in combat until midrange the game.
With all the other disasters : (fairy units required to be researched but not available for about half a year, magic workshops and residences that were sold as upgradable and then proved not to be, again going to be for months, constantly putting new tech back in the tree, completely ignoring customers and advice of your beta-players, etc etc) the game is getting to be less and less fun and I'm spending more and more time here on the forum instead of playing, and am looking in on the game less and less frequently.

 

[DeletedUser4778]

Their intent is to slow players down which I think they have definitely achieved. However, many have been slowed down to a crawl or virtual standstill and stopped playing altogether. Not all players -- including me -- prefer to progress at what I think of as a snail's pace in a game where there aren't many interesting things to do.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

Indeed.
A snails pace is irritating, but could be acceptable if there was some kind of reward that made it worth it, or something to do during the waiting times.
The tournaments were partially suited for that, but what's the fun of having to cater a lot instead of fighting a tournament?
I don't seem to be able to fight past lvl 4 or 5 anymore, even in the first province. Let alone the rest. So there just isn't much to do. And no reward for slowing down either.

 

[qaccy]

• The bonuses from abilities are no longer summed up, but rather multiplied - this resolves problems where the attributes can add up to 100% or more, making it impossible to finish battles, and makes for quicker battles in general

With how unit bonuses are currently set up, 'stalemates' can literally never happen. What this change is going to do is make it so it's no longer possible to become immune to damage via attack reductions. I'm usually quick to give the developers the benefit of the doubt, but what this line says to me is that they don't like mage units (priests especially) taking 0 damage from heavy range units and want to remove that.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

er...um...can someone please explain why they have just make the sorc useless? Talk about over doing it. You took the most powerful and fun troop in the game and made her completely useless. She is a powerpuff with zero range and high initiative. Really, really? I am supposed to put her right next to the heavy melee who can destroy her by breathing on her? Really?

Exactly my question. A late-game unit that only really got good after the first upgrade even later in the game and now she is useless.
With a high initiative so she either skips the first turn...duhhhh...that kinda defeats the idea of high initiative...or else puts her right in the frontline, even before your own troops who should shield her. Yes, that makes sense...but only if you are high on something, and drunk and have an IQ of less than 70.