Release Notes version 1.40

[Risen Malchiah]

That would be awesome actually. It would completely solve the problem of an AW completion negating your hourly KP.

 

[qaccy]

An AWESOME use of these KP instants would be to replace AW contribution rewards with them, and maybe tournament rewards as well.

This is unlikely to occur, but I could be wrong in specifically the case of AW contributions. Forge has had these 'KP packs' for a long time now (since the game's inception?) and over the past year or so development has been slowly shifting away from this model in favor of direct-to-bar prizes because being able to store things for later leads to the obvious conclusion of players hoarding even more resources, which in turn leads to some game balancing problems. But since KP rewards from AWs are orders of magnitude smaller than FP rewards from GBs on FoE*, and the game has a very poor notification system for when these AWs are upgraded/completed, I could potentially see them being added to AWs as something of a quality-of-life improvement but not really anywhere else.

*In FoE, a GB typically rewards at least 20% of the total cost to level across all the reward slots, and that's before you add in the fact that there's a GB that increases the rewards you receive from donating to someone else's GB. The way rewards are set up over there, plus the fact that FP is much easier to obtain and amass at no real cost, means GBs can essentially be free and almost immediate to level up, sometimes dozens of times in a single day. Needless to say, game balance regarding GBs over there is kind of a mess, and having 'instant' FP is a big catalyst in that.

 

[SoggyShorts]

This is unlikely to occur...... being able to store things for later leads to the obvious conclusion of players hoarding even more resources, which in turn leads to some game balancing problems.

It's not 100% clear, but it sounds like the KP instants are only good for AW use, and if so, hoarding doesn't make much sense. What could a player do with that? Spend 1,000s of KP to win and hoard 100s, and then use them to upgrade an AW as soon as they unlock it at the end of the next chapter? I don't think sitting on KP for months would give a player any advantage over spending them on other wonders.

 

[qaccy]

(I'll be using Elvenar's terms for ease of understanding in this reply)

@SoggyShorts You may be right because it's not a perfect parallel. I did overlook the fact that AWs in Forge are not tied to research at all, meaning a chapter 1 player can build AWs from Halflings provided they have all the runes and goods required and can thus more immediately spend whatever KP they have stored up on an AW almost on a whim (especially since fellowships regularly will trade goods at a loss to their members in order to build select AWs).

Actually, thinking about it some more I'm not even sure how it's such a big issue over on Forge. It must be just the fact that rewards are much better and there's that AW I mentioned that boosts rewards you receive from an AW reward slot. Those two things combine eventually to mean that you can level up a given AW with a net cost as low as 10% of a level. Imagine if a 500-KP AW only caused a loss of 50 KP in order to level up! Although, there is also the fact that if KP is in your inventory, it's not clogging your bar and you can continue to gather hourly KP without the urgency of needing to keep your bar clear. I'm sure that in some way factors into it as well. Use hourly KP to slowly amass inventory KP, and then spend all the inventory KP at once in a big shotgun blast. This may be low-impact though as well since Forge has numerous special buildings you can build (via events) that generate KP every single day with no limit on how many you can build (besides space).

 

[DeletedUser6148]

...And just HOW does having a big, space-wasting border around my city improve play?

 

[Ashrem]

...And just HOW does having a big, space-wasting border around my city improve play?

Aesthetics? They could just leave it black, I guess, but either way we're only going to get the same number of city squares they've programmed.

 

[DeletedUser188]

...And just HOW does having a big, space-wasting border around my city improve play?

I have to ask
What exactly does this have to do with the 1.40 update ?
I couldn't find anything about a "space wasting border" in the release notes

 

[SoggyShorts]

I have to ask
What exactly does this have to do with the 1.40 update ?
I couldn't find anything about a "space wasting border" in the release notes

My only guess is that in the Live Q&A (which is kinda linked to 1.4?) Timon said there will be no more expansion squares added, so the gap between the bottom row of expansions and the treeline is a "space wasting border" rather than an area reserved for future rows to be added.

 

[DeletedUser2870]

My only guess is that in the Live Q&A (which is kinda linked to 1.4?) Timon said there will be no more expansion squares added, so the gap between the bottom row of expansions and the treeline is a "space wasting border" rather than an area reserved for future rows to be added.

Which SHOULD imply they plan on
- either not increasing the amount of space needed for the guestraces, and/or
- upgrading existing buildings will mean some get larger but at least some get smaller.

When no more expansions will be added one can't just continue making buildings larger over time.
And there is a precedent for this: in the dwarven chapter the residences only gave marginally more pop, but were reduced in size, which was where (at least for me) the real gain was

 

[SoggyShorts]

Which SHOULD imply they plan on
- either not increasing the amount of space needed for the guestraces, and/or
- upgrading existing buildings will mean some get larger but at least some get smaller.

My understanding is that chapter 12 guest race will require less space than chapter 11 (to make the minimum buildings that quests require) so that might help.
Another possibility is that upgraded buildings will continue to become more efficient per square, so even though they get a little bigger you will require fewer of them. This of course only works if the productions keep up with costs.

Many players continue to keep the same number of factories in each chapter despite the increased productions out pacing the increased costs- this may not continue to be viable. As an example in chapter 11 your Tier 3 gets a 62% boost in production, but I'll bet very few player use that to drop half of their gem makers. Most probably keep all of them, despite costs not increasing by anywhere near 60%.

Personally I have found that even as a map negotiator every time I unlocked an upgrade for a factory tier I was able to remove buildings and still keep up with costs.

 

[SoulsSilhouette]

I wonder if they are going to end the chapters.... because not adding space limits what you can do for your city. So, if one wanted to have a 'pretty city' it won't be possible without basically removing everything and not really playing anymore.

 

[DeletedUser6148]

I have to ask
What exactly does this have to do with the 1.40 update ?
I couldn't find anything about a "space wasting border" in the release notes

It was a weird fluke. Happened this A.M, looked like the black space on a 'wide screen' dvd. I HATE those. I pay good money - a LOT of it, for a big tv screen and the dvd companies take up half of it with 'artistic' black space. Spare me the artistry. Show me the movie on the full screen I paid for.

 

[SoulsSilhouette]

It was a weird fluke. Happened this A.M, looked like the black space on a 'wide screen' dvd. I HATE those. I pay good money - a LOT of it, for a big tv screen and the dvd companies take up half of it with 'artistic' black space. Spare me the artistry. Show me the movie on the full screen I paid for.

LOL I know what you mean. I like the full screen versions too!

 

[qaccy]

I didn't catch the Q&A, but I've heard this 'no more space is being added' before. Is this being taken to mean that no space is ever being added to the game again, or is it a possibility that there just aren't plans to add more space RIGHT NOW? There've been several instances in the past where it's been said that no new space was being added, but what was actually meant was that there wasn't any added to go along with the game update at the time.

Again, I don't know the actual wording of the developers, but I'm willing to bet that, as it becomes closer and closer to most players being able to max out their grids, more space will be added as has always been the case.

 

[DeletedUser7874]

And will the addition of space fix the bloody chat??????

 

[SoulsSilhouette]

And will the addition of space fix the bloody chat??????

I don't think they care about the chat. They are changing the whole game. They have all but nuked the idea of helping neighbors. The CL/BS downgrade has eliminated the point of visiting hundreds of neighbors. The chat is down more than half the time for a significant number of people so they can't even easily communicate with their fellows. They completely screwed up the fellowship adventures. They seemed to say that there would be no more space added to the cities, thereby making it almost mandatory to either save space by placing premium diamond builds or snailing through everything because you can't build anything. They already changed the economy significantly with the trader, but now with the elimination of goods, they have hit the trade market hard. There is less and less in the trader and more and more abandoned cities.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Again, I don't know the actual wording of the developers, but I'm willing to bet that, as it becomes closer and closer to most players being able to max out their grids, more space will be added as has always been the case.

They did say that there would always be room to place premium expansions, so eventually they will have to extend the map since some players have so many expansions from the world plus the old 32 premiums they must be close, no?

 

[qaccy]

They did say that there would always be room to place premium expansions, so eventually they will have to extend the map since some players have so many expansions from the world plus the old 32 premiums they must be close, no?

Exactly! I've since gone back and reviewed the (edited) Q&A posted here on the forums, and it sounds like it was just a response regarding the immediate future. They did also say larger grids/cities can be a problem for older/slower machines, but I didn't really interpret any of it as 'there's never going to be more space added to the grid'. There just aren't enough players who've 'maxed out' right now for it to be a point of concern really.

 

[SoggyShorts]

@qaccy
I just checked, and anyone who got all 32 premium expansions when that was possible, and has 378 cleared provinces at the end of halflings already has a full grid.

If however we work off the current max of 23 premium expansions there are enough spots for the 1 expansion you get in chapter 12, and 457 cleared provinces (which is as high as the province clearing expansions chart goes on the wiki)

Edit: I don't know what the highest province count is, but I think I've seen someone post that they had 400, so that player could get to 457 in 5 months with 3 day scouts. Or will scout times be much higher than that?

EDIT: The wiki says you can buy 27 premium, so the above is off.

 

[Ashrem]

At least one player who recently exited our FS had/has only three empty expansion spaces.