Rune Shard changes

[MichaelMichael]

But yeah deliberately dropping a thousand KP on someone just to lock them up is kinda evil minded....unless it is a joke, then it is an evil minded joke! Players giving away a little KP are not what was being discussed.

I did lock up a player, but it was gift, not a joke. I did not consider it evil and neither did he; he immediately gave me back 200 and presto - unlocked. I will also gladly take a direct gift of 800 KPs. Yes, I will be locked up, but I'll take it. The truth is I do not use feeder accounts, I just give away enough KPs that I get a lot of chests in normal times. When Rune Shard suddenly became available to finish AWs, a lot of players used them to upgrade a lot of AWs at the same time. This gave me a lot of chests at one time for a few days. This triggered the controls to limit feeder accounts. I was locked up a few days, that was it.

The addition of Rune Shards

as a KP source changes the game IMO. It rather dramatically increases the value of the top chests. For example, Level 17 for Dwarven Bulwork gives 65 KP and 45 for 2nd chest. So, a bid of 30-35 was justified for that top chest. Now that top chest has 4 Shards (equivalent to 60 KP), so the net gain is 125KP. For that top prize, 50 or even 70 is a reasonable expenditure if you can be sure to get it. That fact is just optimal play, but it isn't nice to go into someone's fellowship where all the chest are taken and dump 70 KP at the end to take the top chest. Optimal used to be taking the last chest. This offended some, but really should not have. The new optimal is to come in at the end and take the top chest, preferably completing the AW with that final contribution. Consider a fellowship member who puts up 80 points expecting the full 125 value. Dropping 81 at the end drops his take to 45+2 shards (75 equivalent) - a loss. That is just mean, but that is the new math of Elvenar. It is a bad game design IMO as it promotes more aggressive play in an otherwise mostly friendly game.

BTW, the solution to that problem, is pretty easy. Optimal is having very active trading within your fellowship so the top bid is 20% or more of the KPs required, all of which the contributors get back (in trade) on their own AWs. No interlopers will touch that top chest and lose KPs with the top chest (and most other chests) remaining within the fellowship. If you choose to visit my fellowship, that is what mostly happens. Top chest of mine typically go in the 20-50% point range. Late in play, the leader will often just put enough KP to ensure that the second position cannot top the leader. To give a current example, my favorite today is the Great Bell spire - Level 19 requires 960 KP, the Top 3 positions have 185, 110 and 90 points - their equivalent gains are 120, 85 and 75 KPs respectively - no rational player will attempt to take those top chests from my fellowship. The contributions are actually quite low because of the shard situation. I contributed 300 KPs. In normal times, I would trade 100% of all the KP chests so my contribution to my own AW was always ZERO. Today, gifts (and trades) are optimally shards, not chests. This leaves me with otherwise unused KP instants that end up on my own AWs. On my Great Bell spire, one interloper took the last chest for 2 which is a profit of 3. I don't mind about the last chest as it just doesn't matter - yes return is 5 for 2, but the gain is 3? who cares about 3? Was it worth the trouble and wait? I don't think so. I'd also add that with a few hundred points to go, I expect there is a good chance a trade of 5 or 10 will push him of the chart.

I play aiming at ones getting a few small chests, some gains of 4 and plenty of losses of 1. In the grand scheme of things, it amounts to nothing to any individual fellowship and next to nothing for the contributor - unless the contributor put out thousands of 1s (which I do). For my fellowship, I don't sweat the small stuff. I don't mind if "2 wins 5" so long as my fellowship keeps the big chest (4 shards and 60 KPs in my example) in the family. I also would say that within my fellowship we are pretty aggressively taking top position when the stakes are low. If a chest is worth 120 with a winning bid at 15, I can assure you someone will bid more. There is an old saw in marketing, "it is far better for you to cannibalize your market than to have a competitor do to you". The same applies in Elvenar.

 

[Bellerefon]

We are on the same page here MM.

See a gap, go in. No complaints.

Hey, is anyone distributing chocolates here?

 

[Deborah M]

I've run into an unexpected consequence of this. I have a few FS members who I always do 1:8 trades so they can do well catering Spire & Tournament. Now since they cannot donate KP to me they are saying they feel like leaches and have agreed amongst themselves to just cut back and log in once daily and let the chips fall where they may. They don't feel like they have much to offer now except a one way street and that is not exactly a warm & fuzzy feeling to enjoy the game. Sometimes I feel like I can't win for losing

 

[Alram]

I've run into an unexpected consequence of this. I have a few FS members who I always do 1:8 trades so they can do well catering Spire & Tournament. Now since they cannot donate KP to me they are saying they feel like leaches and have agreed amongst themselves to just cut back and log in once daily and let the chips fall where they may. They don't feel like they have much to offer now except a one way street and that is not exactly a warm & fuzzy feeling to enjoy the game. Sometimes I feel like I can't win for losing

Why can't you just keep charging them their kp for your excess goods? Are you kp locked?

 

[Deborah M]

Why can't you just keep charging them their kp for your excess goods? Are you kp locked?

I am NOT charging anybody anything EVER! I do get locked but I’m not really paying attention because keeping track would be too much like work. Sorry if the concept of some not wanting to feel like leaches escapes you. Honestly, it would be beneficial to me to store a few factories and put out some of my many stored premium culture buildings that I really like. The thing is that I also enjoy helping my FS so I wait for in between chapters. No worries though. Since I have more time I’ve started playing a couple of other games

 

[Alram]

My

I am NOT charging anybody anything EVER! I do get locked but I’m not really paying attention because keeping track would be too much like work. Sorry if the concept of some not wanting to feel like leaches escapes you. Honestly, it would be beneficial to me to store a few factories and put out some of my many stored premium culture buildings that I really like. The thing is that I also enjoy helping my FS so I wait for in between chapters. No worries though. Since I have more time I’ve started playing a couple of other games

My apologies. Semantics.
You have been bestowing goods upon them because you are generous. They have been bestowing kp upon you because they are generous.
How does the rune shard change effect any of y'alls generous donations to each other?

 

[Killy-]

I see the anti-pushing is working.

 

[Lelanya]

*Ducks*
We need an umbrella icon.

 

[Deborah M]

@Alram It has not had any effect on me. The only thing holding up my upgrading is insane amounts of mana. I am just sad that some of my FS members are unhappy when they try and mine is locked. If it has made them less interested there isn’t much I can do about it. I also have added some upgrade quantities to them. If I was willing to do Accounting on it I guess it would work better. Thing is I retired after a lifetime of accounting so just NO.

 

[Deborah M]

*Ducks*
We need an umbrella icon.

Not really. I just chalk some things up to ignorance. I know very well what pushing is. It created a glass ceiling in rankings. The top few had multiple fellowships of small cities whose sole purpose was pushing. The major pushers are no longer with us. I am not happy that those players are gone since at times I was in same FS but it did make it so I and a few other top ranked players could make it to top few rankings after being on page 1 for years.

 

[Lelanya]

Yeah I too have lost fellows, friends over this change. I don't judge others for their strategy but prefer to avoid reading about it on my chat circle.
I do have an old friend who said, hey I didn't invent this strategy, I just figured it's the cheapest way to get to be a top rank player. Can't fault that.
I don't push myself, but I have been judged, for the company I've kept, and had my second city treated badly, by players on the EN server.

 

[Alram]

@Alram It has not had any effect on me. The only thing holding up my upgrading is insane amounts of mana. I am just sad that some of my FS members are unhappy when they try and mine is locked. If it has made them less interested there isn’t much I can do about it. I also have added some upgrade quantities to them. If I was willing to do Accounting on it I guess it would work better. Thing is I retired after a lifetime of accounting so just NO.

It is sad that some of your FS members have lost interest in playing if they can't give you kp. I understand that it hasn't affected you and you have no control over it.

 

[Deborah M]

I figure I’m assumed to be a big pusher because of game friends who I couldn’t even compare to. I also figure some of that would be jealousy over what I built with a whole lot of $$ spent over the past 6+ years.

Thanks for that Alram. I’m just hoping they either just get used to it or get used to not doing the 1:8 trades. Time will tell. I probably won’t be in such a bad mood over it if I ever finish the drudgery of chapter 19.

 

[Sirenia]

We do Wonder Society (pile-on same wonder) for the speed of getting wonders built. Therefore, we can dump at any denomination until the Wonder is done and it gets tracked via spreadsheet. The whole thing is on steroids with runes. Like @edeba said, you’re going to finish wonders by the hundreds. I’m thankful we don’t bother with swap threads bc you would need really high denominations to keep up in the first few days.

The spoiler is that there is a mechanism that will stop you from adding more KPs to someone’s wonder if they hit a certain number of KPs received unless they donate out again. There is no written documentation for it so you just learn of it when it gets triggered because support staff enjoys getting inundated with tickets by surprised players. This means if you randomly dump runes into someone’s wonder that they aren’t building bc you happen to have a tons of runes for it, you could potentially lock them out of the wonder they want to build, at least temporarily. Early chapter beginner cities will be susceptible to this because early chapter wonders are what people have most runes for, but they won’t have the gigantic piles of runes to give back. However, the flip side is new cities can get a level 20+ Needles or GA almost overnight while it took the rest of us a lot more sweat equity and elbow grease to get that done. If you got new players, now would be a good time to remind them that wonder levels do affect costs.

Yep..this happened to me. I had a player who was going to take a long break..so he donated all his shards and KPs to the other fellowship members. Most of us are locked out now. Cannot donate on the KP threads as no one can donate back. Makes the "give and get back" theme useless.

 

[Darielle]

We're having our first gold spire push this week. As spire mage, I created a party atmosphere and I'm handing out kp/runes like candy to everyone who joins the party. We're sure to get our gold now (number one in Spire in Sinya Arda, at the moment), and even though it's cost me a good amount of runes, I'm not sorry. I'm generating interest in the spire and showing people that they CAN do it ... especially the people who didn't believe it was possible ... and that will only help me in the future because I always play the spire. Planning the party with virtual food, drinks, music and then kp at the rooftop seems to have done the trick. We're soaring. So yes, it was very well worth it. I'm SOOO glad they changed runes like this. If they hadn't, I never could have done this.

 

[ajqtrz]

Besides, you’ll notice in @sambria ’s foreign language thread that nobody speaks fish fluently!

My goldfish replied: o0OO-0o0 (Translation: AJ Does!, cause I get fed)

PS: Please let me know if I'm wrong about this.

I think you are right, but really appreciate the willingness to admit you could be wrong. Too many, I think, don't start their comments with the idea they could be wrong as even a slight glimmer in their minds.

Related to this, I've heard some wild numbers given (90!) on how many rune shards to save for the next rune phase. My rune phases usually only take 20-30 shards and the higher end is only with bad luck. What are your experiences with this?

I've recommended 60 held back. Since most of our fs have hundreds it means a lot of upgrades. We've tried to slow it down by asking everyone to follow a procedure when giving, and it seems to have worked. We'll now return to "Wonder Wednesday" where each player put in a Wonder and on Wednesday we fill that Wonder.

Players giving away a little KP are not what was being discussed.

Thanks for the reminder. I was about to comment on one of Soggy's replies but that would have taken us way off topic. So I erased my reply.

I've run into an unexpected consequence of this. I have a few FS members who I always do 1:8 trades so they can do well catering Spire & Tournament. Now since they cannot donate KP to me they are saying they feel like leaches and have agreed amongst themselves to just cut back and log in once daily and let the chips fall where they may. They don't feel like they have much to offer now except a one way street and that is not exactly a warm & fuzzy feeling to enjoy the game. Sometimes I feel like I can't win for losing

This is, indeed, a big problem. I try to remind our players that they are under no obligation if they are given something. I tell them that a "gift" is a "gift." If they feel like they have to pay it back in some form then one of two things are true: They have read the intention of the giver wrongly or 2) it wasn't a gift,, but a business transaction in which the "giver" didn't lay out the terms of the transaction. Then I add that if it's a gift they should take it without obligation since it was freely given. If they feel like leaches, they shouldn't feel that way because they didn't "suck" the gift out, it was freely given by the giver. And if they are made to feel by the giver that they "owe" for the gift then the gift wasn't a gift but an implied business contract....one they are not required to sign. Of course this may be a bit convoluted to most and it takes a bit of time to get people to understand that we are a giving fellowship, not a business one, but they get there by the examples given and things continue to roll along without drama and with generosity.

Maybe the distinction will work for you? Or maybe not. Wish I could help though.

AJ

 

[MichaelMichael]

I'm Jones and I'm behind you! LOL

AJ

Well, then one has to keep ahead of those footsteps I keep hearing.

A wise man once told me "It isn't paranoia, if they actually are all out to get you" LOL

 

[BrinDarby]

@helya ,
I ask'd earlier in this thread about players with NO Antient Wonders,
and was told these limits wouldn't effect me......

1 of my worlds is now AWKP lock'd out, and I have NOT given away
even 1 rune !! This situation Must be address'd , becuse up till now
I @least could donate my KP overflow, and AWKP instants away to
EARN runes, now I cannot ?????

Only Rune selling should be capp'd .... Regular KP and/or AWKP
should NOT apply .....

 

[BrinDarby]

WTH is going on, 1 minute I can't donate, then I can......
Sorry @helya , It gave me the AWKP lock msg , now it
magically dissappeared, not cry'n wolf here, it really
was lock'd out for me , now its not, and I didnt do
anything to chg this situation.

 

[crackie]

The lockout message you get is because the person whose wonder you're trying to donate to is locked out, not you. They can't receive, not you can't give. So that person needs to donate out more for you to be able to donate to them. It is not 1:1 ratio though apparently.