Thoughts about Arcane Residue...

[Kekune]

I like the idea of this badge. It is a good equalizer between large and small towns, and also gives cities who really aren't fans of the FA (but love the spire) a way to contribute. The randomness and waste is rotten, though. This one really should stack/overflow.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

This is the badge that is giving us the hardest time. Is ridiculous!

Thats the exact point of that whole badge,
To skew awat FA from completely empty cities with a main hall and only level 1 workshops and factories to a FA thats more skewed toward playing the game.

By having 1 good that its resonably hard to get, you remove the effectiveness people taking over abandoned cities and turning them into the above FA towns.

I like the new concept as it allows you to just play the game and be a decent contributor to the event instead of level 1 madness and destroyed towns

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

You can't do this with limited CCs, the Spire does not give enough of these to run your crafting 24/7, you need multiple Spire Library sets to do that.

Or you are encouraged to spend a few diamonds on a better MA.......you know something about a commercial company that needs to pay the bills

But yes the moonstone set mess created on this point a bigger mess.
There is no denying on that one.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Players also should use all the free diamonds they get in-game to upgrade the MA before anything else. Getting the production time of a CC down to 6 hours because your MA is level 5 really helps. Plus, level 5 means more spell fragments for smaller cities when disenchanting.

A level 5 MA needs a good hand to feed it (read a lot of tournament play)
But that ties in all parts of the game, luring you to do them all.

 

[Dew Spinner]

@Dew Spinner The blue path all three stages requires 35 AR badges, the green path requires 52, and the yellow path requires 79.

Those numbers dont require 24/7 production unless you're in a FS of 3

You are forgetting about the pit and the fact that most FS that do the FA do more than just one path on each of the 3 stages. How many are needed to do all 3 paths on all 3 stages??? Also Spell Fragments are an issue with only being able to get 1 Moonstone Set for new and pre chapter 3 cities. I can make anything look easy using the minimum requirements.

 

[Sprite1313]

I’m on an active FS that does gold spire every week, and over 10 chests, every week. We also normally do as much of every map as we can during FA, and spend a lot of time in the pit. This badge slows us way down. Inno may have intended it to be an equalizer in FA, but I don’t think it is.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

You are forgetting about the pit and the fact that most FS that do the FA do more than just one path on each of the 3 stages. How many are needed to do all 3 paths on all 3 stages??? Also Spell Fragments are an issue with only being able to get 1 Moonstone Set for new and pre chapter 3 cities. I can make anything look easy using the minimum requirements.

If a Fellowship shows at least 9000 points at the end of the FA, then they probably completed one path on each stage, since it takes 1500, 3000, and 4500 per stage to complete one path. So assuming no wandering on stage 1 or 2 preventing a finish on stage 3, 9000+ shows a completed FA.

I will use Beta as an example, since this FA is finished there. Looking at the list, 208 fellowships got at least 1500 points or enough to claim the 1st stage chest, if no points were from incorrect waypoints. Of those 208, 153 fellowships got at least 4500 points, or enough for the chests from the 1st and 2nd stages, again assuming no incorrect waypoints completed. Of those 153, 100 fellowships got the minimum of 9000 points needed to complete one path on each stage and get all three chests. Now, of those 100, only 15 fellowships got at least the 27000 points needed for completing all three paths on all three stages. Of course, a couple of those probably did not complete all nine paths and went into the pit as soon as they could. I know mine did. We did not complete the 3rd stage orange path because of that one waypoint that requires 49 arcane residue. We have skipped that one every time since the new badges were added, and we have still gotten first place two of the three times since the new badges were added. Oh, and those 208 fellowships, that is out of 690, most of which are probably inactive, as only 270 fellowships got any points at all.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

I’m on an active FS that does gold spire every week, and over 10 chests, every week. We also normally do as much of every map as we can during FA, and spend a lot of time in the pit. This badge slows us way down. Inno may have intended it to be an equalizer in FA, but I don’t think it is.

Not an equalizer but a push towards normal play,
It makes no sense to keep ghost towns for months to wait for a FA. it's not good for the game to promote towns with 1 main hall, 1 whatever you can't whack and only level 1 factories and workshops.
Yet this was the strategy that would make you win pretty much any FA.
This discouraged many teams to compete in the FA as it made no sense, and other teams to take over towns from large players who quit to build cities that only became active during these mad FA's.


It's not just this badge but also all the other badges they changed but unless you eliminate all the level 1 badges all the other changes will make no difference to this level 1 insanity.
So you need a big limiting factor that makes the destruction of city's and sprawling of pure level 1 cities pointless.

If you can limit 1 good to such an extrend than 5000 level 1 workshops/factories make absolutely no sense then you have achieved your goal.
So essentially the competition in the FA revolves around the magic academy.
Any fellowship, and I really mean any fellowship can now make a FA push of they would desirem so, they must make some room for it but with a few teleport spells you get pretty far.
It then revolves about saving goods for an extended period of time to be able to make as many of the most difficult badges as possible.
Anyone can save up, CC, timeboosters, free diamonds ect. it's now back to it's initial purpose. a war of attrition, who is willing to dump in the most resources while playing the game, instead of who is willing to destroy his/her town the most. since you need to play to collect those resources.

And when competition is close there will be people opting to buy new recipes. (which can be done with free earned diamonds so it's not even pay to win perse in that regard.
So with these changes competition is restored again to a point normal players can join the competition and in addition revenue might increase for inno-games

In the end it's a win-win for everyone even if it annoys you, it's the 1 and only thing that makes this work.
If we would remove this artificial limitation we are essentially returning back to the dead town from former players who only exist to destroy normal competition in any FA.

 

[SoggyShorts]

Not an equalizer but a push towards normal play,
It makes no sense to keep ghost towns for months to wait for a FA. it's not good for the game to promote towns with 1 main hall, 1 whatever you can't whack and only level 1 factories and workshops.

I disagree and I hope they bring this back a bit.
It was fun trying to rearrange everything for events and the FA, now events just complete themselves by normal play. Boring.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I disagree and I hope they bring this back a bit.
It was fun trying to rearrange everything for events and the FA, now events just complete themselves by normal play. Boring.

Sort of. I still had to put out some extra level 1 production and workshops for the quests wanting specific time-length productions. I am not about to waste time boosters for that, when I have the space for the baby buildings. But yeah, thankfully the days of needing 20 or 30 little workshops or factories for those quests are gone, especially the quests that wanted anything over 9 hours to make.

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

I disagree and I hope they bring this back a bit.
It was fun trying to rearrange everything for events and the FA, now events just complete themselves by normal play. Boring.

I can find you point in that, but I never want to see that destructive behavior never back again.
You can still modify your town if you want to compete, you will not become 1st with "just playing" you might want to swap out t2-3 factories for t1 for example. and you still need enough level 1 workshops / factories for some production.

But the extend to which you need to make these changes has becomes dramatically less.
We have an expression, give them 1 finger and they take your entire hand.
it doesn't take that much before destructive towns becomes king again. it's reigned in just enough to prevent it.

If you were not the competitive kind, the short route was easy in both the old and current version. but I like it that any player can now participate even if they are not in between 2 chapters but also when they are crapmped for space they can still lift there weight in other ways.

I am a big fan of this change. we even talked this FA about a possible reentry for us to make that push maybe again some day in the future.
And yes this means prepping and modding out towns (which is easier now with teleport spells)
before not a hair on my head would even consider reentering the FA, not a chance I would whack my entire city to destruction just to compete.

 

[Dew Spinner]

You are forgetting about the pit.

If a Fellowship shows at least 9000 points at the end of the FA, then they probably completed one path on each stage, since it takes 1500, 3000, and 4500 per stage to complete one path. So assuming no wandering on stage 1 or 2 preventing a finish on stage 3, 9000+ shows a completed FA.

I will use Beta as an example, since this FA is finished there. Looking at the list, 208 fellowships got at least 1500 points or enough to claim the 1st stage chest, if no points were from incorrect waypoints. Of those 208, 153 fellowships got at least 4500 points, or enough for the chests from the 1st and 2nd stages, again assuming no incorrect waypoints completed. Of those 153, 100 fellowships got the minimum of 9000 points needed to complete one path on each stage and get all three chests. Now, of those 100, only 15 fellowships got at least the 27000 points needed for completing all three paths on all three stages. Of course, a couple of those probably did not complete all nine paths and went into the pit as soon as they could. I know mine did. We did not complete the 3rd stage orange path because of that one waypoint that requires 49 arcane residue. We have skipped that one every time since the new badges were added, and we have still gotten first place two of the three times since the new badges were added. Oh, and those 208 fellowships, that is out of 690, most of which are probably inactive, as only 270 fellowships got any points at all.

So if my math is correct "most" FS do more than 1 path on each stage, which means using the "minimum requirement" for 1 path on all 3 stages isn't relevant to the discussion and again the pit is not factored in to the equation.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Not an equalizer but a push towards normal play,
It makes no sense to keep ghost towns for months to wait for a FA. it's not good for the game to promote towns with 1 main hall, 1 whatever you can't whack and only level 1 factories and workshops.
Yet this was the strategy that would make you win pretty much any FA.
This discouraged many teams to compete in the FA as it made no sense, and other teams to take over towns from large players who quit to build cities that only became active during these mad FA's.


It's not just this badge but also all the other badges they changed but unless you eliminate all the level 1 badges all the other changes will make no difference to this level 1 insanity.
So you need a big limiting factor that makes the destruction of city's and sprawling of pure level 1 cities pointless.

If you can limit 1 good to such an extrend than 5000 level 1 workshops/factories make absolutely no sense then you have achieved your goal.
So essentially the competition in the FA revolves around the magic academy.
Any fellowship, and I really mean any fellowship can now make a FA push of they would desirem so, they must make some room for it but with a few teleport spells you get pretty far.
It then revolves about saving goods for an extended period of time to be able to make as many of the most difficult badges as possible.
Anyone can save up, CC, timeboosters, free diamonds ect. it's now back to it's initial purpose. a war of attrition, who is willing to dump in the most resources while playing the game, instead of who is willing to destroy his/her town the most. since you need to play to collect those resources.

And when competition is close there will be people opting to buy new recipes. (which can be done with free earned diamonds so it's not even pay to win perse in that regard.
So with these changes competition is restored again to a point normal players can join the competition and in addition revenue might increase for inno-games

In the end it's a win-win for everyone even if it annoys you, it's the 1 and only thing that makes this work.
If we would remove this artificial limitation we are essentially returning back to the dead town from former players who only exist to destroy normal competition in any FA.

Exactly, it revolves around the MA which is the hardest for small cities to begin with and with the new one and done Moonstone Library set it kills the inspiration for small cities to even play it. Saving up resources for weeks for a FA also severely hurts small cities because they can't use those resources to grow. And now FSs will start not accepting newer players that can only get 1 Moonstone Library set because the can't help the FS as much, it's a lose/lose for small and new cities. It's a "Big Boy" event now that excludes smaller cities for the most part. I think they just need to scrap the whole FA in it's current state and come up with something entirely new, they have messed this up beyond repair!

 

[Iyapo1]

So if my math is correct "most" FS do more than 1 path on each stage, which means using the "minimum requirement" for 1 path on all 3 stages isn't relevant to the discussion and again the pit is not factored in to the equation.

You only need to do one path per stage to complete the FA. Anything more is competitive. Your competitors are just as unhappy with this badge.

Also I think it is 170 for all paths all stages. So in a FS of 15 that's under 2 badges a day. If they want to pit they need to craft more.

 

[Dew Spinner]

You only need to do one path per stage to complete the FA. Anything more is competitive. Your competitors are just as unhappy with this badge.

Also I think it is 170 for all paths all stages. So in a FS of 15 that's under 2 badges a day. If they want to pit they need to craft more.

And for the younger cities already in a competitive FS this is a big problem and for new and smaller cities wanting to get into a competitive FS this is a big problem. You are using the lowest bar for you defense. I "can" only do 1 province to 1 star on tourney but how far will that lowest bar get me...nowhere. I don't think you are seeing the bigger picture, a lot of FSs are going to shun new and smaller cities because of the one and done Moonstone Library set. First the set kills scrolls boosted players now it's going to kill all new and smaller cities. New and smaller cities are going to be forced into casual FSs because other FSs won't even look twice at them which means more dead cities that don't spend money. My discovered map area is well over 80% dead now, before this change. Instead of fixing problems, INNO is just adding to the original problems.

 

[Iyapo1]

You are using the lowest bar for you defense.

Would you like me to use a higher bar?


I was in chapter 3 when these changes rolled out. I defended this badge then and I defend it now....even though my production numbers have not moved much because...haha they cap if you dont roll the MA. They cap for everyone.

Edit: They went up a little when they dropped the requirements but not a lot.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Would you like me to use a higher bar?


I was in chapter 3 when these changes rolled out. I defended this badge then and I defend it now....even though my production numbers have not moved much because...haha they cap if you dont roll the MA. They cap for everyone.

Edit: They went up a little when they dropped the requirements but not a lot.

Yes, 1 path per stage is the lowest bar and most FS don't do that, which was proven in a post above by another poster. The majority in his/her world did more than 1 path per stage and then there is the pit. The object, for a lot of players, is to get into a 10 chest or above FS, most of them don't do just 1 path per stage and then on top of that low bar also stay out of the pit. When a new or smaller city is extremely limited in how many of the most limiting badge they can produce, 10 chest and above FSs will not look twice at them. Using the lowest bar to say there is no problem isn't a good gauge of the issue.

 

[SoggyShorts]

You can still modify your town if you want to compete, you will not become 1st with "just playing"

I have zero interest in competition within a P2W game, but I would like a less boring event & FA structure. A greater challenge, even if it means making the choice to have a shantytown that requires a lot of attention.

 

[Iyapo1]

When a new or smaller city is extremely limited

That's just it. They are not more limited. By chapter 4 a spire city in a spire FS can make as many AR badges as a chapter 17 spire city in a spire FS. Even without moonstone sets. You just have to use speedups for crafting CCs.
Chapter 1 and 2 cities are extremely limited but even they can make the minimum.

 

[Dew Spinner]

That's just it. They are not more limited. By chapter 4 a spire city in a spire FS can make as many AR badges as a chapter 17 spire city in a spire FS. Even without moonstone sets. You just have to use speedups for crafting CCs.
Chapter 1 and 2 cities are extremely limited but even they can make the minimum.

No they can't, not with just 1 Moonstone Library set when a currently chapter 17 player has 5 to 10+ Moonstone Library sets. Spell Fragment deficiency, CC deficiency, Relic deficiency, Time boosters use up more CCs and Spell Fragments and Relics that a smaller city is already deficient in by using them to make more than 1 recipe per 6 hr rotation. So, I really don't understand your reasoning because it is a pretty clear disadvantage to new and smaller cities on it's own but when you add in the added disadvantage of a lot of FSs not even looking twice at players that are limited to just 1 Moonstone Library set then it becomes a really huge disadvantage.