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    Your Elvenar Team

Tournament Changes - Community Feedback and Data

I am an end of game player Chapter 16 (for now). I have no intention of progressing further given the current circumstances. For your reference I started this game late and speed my way through to the end game.

The Good: Encounter reduce from 4 to 1 encounter.

The Bad: Just to achieve a bit over half of my previous average tournament score I needed the below items (I am being conservative). I normally don’t cater but fount it so difficult I was force to or I would have to stop.

  • 16 Unit upgrade building (1 DA, 5 UUU, 4 MMM & 6 ELR)
  • 7 to 10 million worth of (T1, T2 & T3)
  • 8 to 10 million mana
  • Goods a lot (I didn’t keep track)
  • Coins a lot (I didn’t keep track)
  • Orcs a lot (I didn’t keep track)


I see quite a few people who never get over 2,000 points now getting 4,000 to 6,000 and I don’t begrudge them as the changes has helped quite a few people. I see this as a good thing for some.

My one and only point is I don’t see any incentive to grow, certainly I won’t spend anymore.

Edit:
 
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mucksterme

Oh Wise One
I like having just one encounter. Although it can be tough if you are in an event and you get a "complete 12 tourny encounters" task late in the week.

I liked the new system in beta with my chapter 4 city.
I was wondering how I'd feel when it came to live world.

I have completed Chapter 16, have all the AWs through Chapter 15. And am in a top ten FS.

First off, I hate every time Inno decides to make a change that completely contradicts the way they wanted me to play the game for the last three years. Now all of a sudden it is bad to have AWs or level them up? So what, should I start tearing some down and just kiss goodbye all the planning and resources that went into them?
I agree with what others have said about Inno seems to want to cater to small cities. Now I can understand wanting to encourage new blood, but why piss off the people who have been supporting you for years?

As to how this has affected me directly.
I can not go long in the tourny anymore. I used to routinely go 30 - 40 provinces. And occasionally I'd go 5 rounds in 60 provs to get the big KP haul.
Now, going two rounds in any prov past #20 is just too expensive.
And I know I'm not the only one with similar feelings.
When I look at the top server scores I notice some familiar names are missing and the top scores are now thousands of points lower.
More evidence that the tourny is now tilted more to the little guy.;

Look, we already have the Spire to drain our armies and resources. We don't need the tourny being exceptionally hard also.

I don't mind a bit of a challenge, especially since the one encounter system makes it less of a chore to fight manually. But you've gone too far.
 

Nightguest

Ex-Team Member
A small note from me for @elvalf

While I hugely appreciate the effort that you have put into your write up, I have removed it from here as we specifically need write ups from people who are directly playing around with the new tournament system.

That said, I have made a copy of what you wrote and I am not going to disregard it for the long run. It's just for this particular topic that I need to be rather strict on what is reported here as this thread is being showcased as 'direct experiences' to the Elvenar team.
 

Steelhail

Member
Apologies for the length—I’m sure a lot of this data is boring, but I’m erring on not leaving out pertinent context. What I’m passing along here is focused not on fairness issues but just on sustainability for high tournament scorers transitioning to the system. Before the tournament changes on sinya, I’ve been in the top 3 tournament scores server-wide for 90% of the last 20 tourneys. Post-change, I’ve been in the top 3 tournament scores for all 3 weeks so far, and based on the difficulty of the first three tournaments, it’s sustainable at the moment. (I obviously can’t speak to the future effects of chapter 17 difficulty, ever-increasing AWs, or different enemy units for the tournaments I haven’t experienced yet.)

Relevant context: I’ve got the regular expansions (minus 1), 24 premium expansions, 329 AW levels, and have finished chapter 16.

Based on chapter 16 being released on April 20th (27 weeks ago), I can see from my chapter 16 inventory that my weekly combined total of UUUs, MMMs, and ELRs average out to 3.77 military buildings per week, ranging from 31-36 total for each of those 3 buildings over this period. (My 6-hour crafting rotation allows me to check the MA 4 times a day.) With a level 30 timewarp and polar bear, I can use the same set of military buff buildings for two separate tournaments by setting them out on Friday, and reusing them Tuesday/Wednesday. This means that for every tournament, I should be able to have 2 Dwarven armorer (or UUU equivalent), usually 2 (possibly 1) ELR, usually 2 (possibly 1) MMM, and fire phoenix, at a sustainable weekly rate, unless the crafting ratios change.

In the new system, once I hit 20+ or 30+ (depending on the tournament difficulty), I switched to manual fights. I have done zero catering. My lowest tournament was province 48 to round 5, and highest was 63 to round 5. The military losses seem sustainable (with brown bear and spire instants), though I might have to dial back a few provinces. Since my fellowship has gotten between 16-17 chests each week so far, that is like boosting my lowest so far (province 48, round 5) to a province 53/54, round 5, in terms of added kp. In the past, I usually did about 69-72 provinces to round 5.

I do not think time-wise this is sustainable for me, because having to sit at a laptop to fight manually is tough. Adding manual fighting capabilities to mobile (particularly my Kindle’s bigger screen) might be sustainable for its increased flexibility. The timewarp/polar bear is intense on Tuesday/Wednesday and Friday/Saturday, but it does save on total weekly time by letting me do autocombat on 20+/30 provinces very easily (though trickier on planks). I also do autocombat for spire during these times to save my manual fighting time for higher tournament provinces.

Perhaps the take-away is that some players with a similar past tournament performance can sustain that ranking because of the timewarp/polar bear combination to maximize the number of limited military buff buildings. That military boost also makes manual fighting more sustainable, in that I can go farther on autocombat (20+ or 30+ provinces) before I have to switch over to manual—but, of course, I have a more limited time frame to do that manual fighting (Tuesday/Wednesday, Friday/Saturday). People who scored high in past tournaments but who can’t get a level 10 polar bear—or who don’t have work schedules that let them use these benefits—are bound to be super-frustrated by the changes.
 

Rp44

Active Member
Also apologies for length.

Background:

I am an app-only player by choice (except for FS recruitment). I prefer to (auto)fight in tournaments and the focus of my troop training is tournaments, though I do fight in the spire if the match-up is favorable & I have boosts out and/or the Phoenix fed for tourney. I would not fight manually even if you paid me, it does not interest me in the slightest, even if I had the time.

I have active cities in S&D, Halflings & Elementals and semi-active cities in chapter 5 & Dwarves. Most are elven with a few human. I only have the barracks in my cities, though I do plan to build the Mercenary camp once the troops are upgraded further.

I have been playing about 15 months. I do not have stacks of temp military boosters in inventory, though I craft them every time they come up, see almost every crafting cycle, and boost completion so the building slot is empty every refresh. I do have a brown bear & a fire Phoenix in all the active cities.

Rank does not matter to me, with regards to city or tournament score. I enjoy the rewards from the tourney and the FS working together to achieve more rewards. I have been scoring between 3-5K because that is what my fellowships have needed from me to reach our goals.

My feelings about the new tournament style are mixed. I want to be excited because of the pros, but the long-term possibilities of the cons weigh down that excitement.

Pros:

*One click instead of four. Especially when playing multiple cities, this is a huge time saver.

*Many of my fellows are gaining confidence and enjoying the tourney more so they are doing more. One FS was starting to get 10 chests before the change but now will be getting 10-11 regularly with much less effort needed by those of us who were carrying the weight before. Another FS with 19 members got 10 chests for the first time this last week, which would not have been possible under the old system.**

Cons:

**Besides the confidence, the above is also a con in a way. I am so pleased that my smaller FS got 10 chests for the first time - they are a fantastic team of people - but that FS has several cities that are not optimized in any way (not even boosted-only goods). If enthusiasm and enough people are all one needs to get 10 chests occasionally, why make tough choices & work to optimize your city at all?

*I am in the group of players I believe Mykan mentioned, who were comfortable doing 20-25 provinces before and are now getting wiped out after province 15, at least after the first round. I have been able to do around 20 for the first round, but if I want the 5KP from the second round, I often have to cater or face staggering losses. By staggering I mean 2-3 squads when I only have 10 squads available at those squad sizes. If the terrain is unfavorable, it can be a total loss. And that is with at least a UUU & the Phoenix fed.

I can live with only doing 15 provinces because the rest of my teams are doing more now. But I am lucky enough to be in mostly full and active fellowships - what about people who aren't? And will it get more & more difficult to do those 15 provinces as I progress?

*Randomized enemies make "difficulty," i.e. troop losses, measured only by squad size differences kind of a joke (though I don't have a better alternative for that measurement). They also make results vary widely. I have two Halflings cities, one elven, one human (elven city slightly more advanced in the City Advancement Level). Planks tournies of course go better for the elven city anyway, but in this tourney the elven city also got several favorable enemy line-ups with very few counter units, even in later rounds. The human city was not so lucky, and had to cater much more than I am comfortable with. That city finally unlocked the second star for the Orc Strategist toward the end of the tourney, but by that point there were hardly enough of them to fill the slots, even in the few battles they could have normally undertaken. Catering the lower 20s for the human city (doing a 10 chest push or I would not have done them) in the third round asked for 20K-25K mana three provinces in a row, which is very expensive when your stash is 200K because you just completed some research.

*Troop training now feels more like a job. I am an active player and am almost constantly training troops for the tournament, but I really feel it now if I put the game away for longer than I normally would. That is definitely not enjoyable.

~~~~~~~~
Despite the above cons, I can adapt to this moment. If I start doing only 12-15 provinces to 5-6 stars I should be able to start building troop numbers up again while still scoring enough to continue helping my fellowships meet their goals. However, the biggest con is the unknown future:

*I like to have all the information I can when making decisions. I am a numbers girl. If you tell me progress will still be positive but someone whose numbers I trust (because they were transparently gathered, explained & refined multiple times to give accurate predictions) shows me that it won't be positive after a certain point, I am going to believe the numbers. Please show me the numbers that will allow me to make informed decisions about where to go with my city.
~~~~~~~~~

Neutral: I am in one FS where the change really hasn't made much difference, in attitude or scores, until this last week. The members are quiet, busy people, not all of them are enthusiastic about tournaments, and they are mostly just doing the same amount as they have always done. We usually get 7-8 chests. I noticed this week we were closer to 9 than usual, so I made a comment in chat, and by the end we ended up with 10 chests. I am calling this neutral because we just added a couple of members to make 20, and we couldn't have done it without them. I don't think it will become a regular thing either, just an occasional one. I really feel for those fellowships who had bigger cities carrying them to 10 chests while the others grow, since the bigger players can't carry the same weight consistently anymore without eventually crippling their cities.

Last thoughts: I count myself lucky to be a part of active fellowships that are full or with at least 19-20 members. The groups have a good mix of cities along the spectrum of the tech tree, and if they don't, they are close to mid-level or below (my Halflings cities are among the furthest along in those two FS). I do not mind personally scoring less since many of my fellows are now doing more, but it is frustrating to be so limited in what I could do if we needed to make up some deficit for real life things. And I don't know where to go from here. I am already feeling the increased difficulty of the spire as I progress. And I need to know what to tell my people about the consequences of the choices we make going forward.
 

KarlD

Well-Known Member
Although I like manual fighting I found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to manual fight through 6 rounds of around 40 provinces to get far less than what I was getting before by autofighting 50-60 provinces with so much more effort. Then it occurred to me that maybe I'm looking at these changes in the wrong way. Basically it comes down to: "so what if the game got harder?" So I can't get as many KP and other goodies from tournament as before. So what? Frankly, I'm at endgame and my city hasn't really been growing much for a while. I was doing 50-60 provinces each week and accumulating tons of spells and such that I didn't know what to do with. I rarely catered so I've been accumulating tons of goods I didn't know what to do with. It's hard to give up stuff that I've been getting with relatively little effort, but ultimately, what's the point of having it if it was just piling up? What Inno has done is to redistribute the wealth somewhat. Some folks at the top of the tournaments are making less while many at the bottom are making more. I was like the billionaire that had more money than they could spend in a lifeftime and was desperately fighting raising their taxes to help large numbers of folks at the bottom.

The game has changed for all of us. If my goal is to move up in rank then I need to work harder and/or smarter than others to rise. If I'm just treading water as I've been doing then it makes little difference what happens. I think I need to rethink how I play the game. Maybe I should cater more. Maybe I need to pick troops better for autofight. Definitely I need to get used to getting far less from the tournaments than I've been used to. It's time for me to just relax and work with what I have.
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
Pros : NONE

Cons:
1) newer players wait 14 hrs to fight, then now its over in 3 minutes, not 15-20
2) learning curve fighting, takes 4x as long with 1 fight per province.
3) Land ( expansions ) should've been removed from difficulty calc.
4) allowing FSs to go past 10 chests defeats the purpouse of stopping
those same FSs from racking up 10k+ pts/player ... its still ""the rich get richer""
5) Provinces 1-6 too easy, 7+ scale too fast..... make 1-6 harder, less scaling !!!!
6) be consistent, in Barracks SS is 114, it should be 114 everywhere not 6 and
certainly not 256.
7) Event tasks were not scaled back to reflect new tourn changes.....
( complete 8 t-encounters ) used to be 2 provinces, now its 8..... sayyyyy whaaaaaat ?
especially when you stack 4 of those tasks in a row....really ????????
8) Manual fighting now is necessary !!!!, way to screw all your mobile players !!!!

there is NOTHING for this player to like in the new tourn system, as a CH3/4 player
it used to mean something getting my 1620 pts per week, now that is NO challange !!!!
When I see FSs now that get 15+ chests, I puke, we still can't get 10......

As I said this is a micro-causm of all thats wrong in Elvenar, Inno will waste hundreds
of hours in dev costs to roll out something 75% of the playerbase hates, while simple
1-2 lines of code, changes, that make the game easier to navigate or play are ignored.
Those are things 95% of players would welcome, and have ask'd for....The new Tourn
system was supposed to help newer players, all it did was piss off older players, at the
same time took away any semblance of pride for newer cities, for reaching basic benchmarks
that in Elvenar are coveted.....

I sent in a report on the tourn list screen, 1-2 spaces add'd in formatting to make it look
more professional, and even thats too hard for the dev team to fix ????? ( 10 sec fix )
That shudda been fixed within 1 day of my report, but it hasnt been addressed.....

Either adjust Events to coincide with Tourn/Spire better or seriously..............
""complete xxxxx encounters"" need to be any...... reg province, tourn, or spire ....
 

Kekune

Well-Known Member
I have two active cities:
- mid ch 8, in a low-key but active group
- end game, in a 10+ (15-16 so far) chest group

The ch8 city likes these changes. Since I don't usually go anywhere near 20 provinces deep, and I don't need orcs or mana to cater, my scores here have gone up with ease. Fellowship scores have increased, too. Folks in that group seem content.

For the ch16 city...it's more complicated. My stats:
  • AW levels: 180
  • Total expansions: 131
  • Premium expansions: 15
  • Extra resources: Fire phoenix x1, brown bear x1, time instants and crafting supplies from spire gold every week. Usually place 1x each buff building each week, with a couple extra if I intend a push.
  • Avg before the change: ~7000
  • Avg after the change: ~8000, but 6500 is probably more sustainable...if I don't upgrade anything
In general, I am mostly fine with the overall changes. There are a couple of big caveats to that at the end of this post. But I'll start with the good or decent stuff.

1. I use autofight almost exclusively, so the single encounter truly is a time savings for me. This is a very welcome change.

2. I like the bonus chests. In the old system, folks sometimes felt their efforts didn't count if they hadn't been able to do much before we knocked down 10 chests in 48 hours. Now, no matter when folks start they help earn more group rewards.

3. I can accept an increase in difficulty as an attempt to balance the system. **I do not think this system succeeds...but that's later.** Partly, this goes hand-in-hand with reduced encounters. Partly, I would like a system in which "winning" the tournament isn't locked down by the players who are biggest, oldest, and/or most willing to push KP. I think it is ok for the system to ultimately make "winning" hard enough that no single city can achieve it consistently (except $$$ can always win, because that's how the world works...).

4. I can accept an increase in difficulty as it currently affects me personally. My style (5-6 rounds, buffs every week) aligns well with the new tournament. My costs are higher and my rewards are fewer, but I am mostly ok with that, and I don't mind adjusting my strategy. Though honestly, I would mind very much if I had to do ch16 without the benefit of the KP I got from the old tournament system.

5. I can accept an increase in difficulty as it currently affects my group's overall performance. As the AM of a strong tourney group, I see the tournament as a group achievement as much as (if not more than) an individual one. Our fellowship's collective score hasn't changed dramatically Our higher scorers are reigned in, and our lower scorers find it easier to go further, and overall we're grouped more tightly.

My biggest concerns:
1. No system should cause players to fear/avoid growth, advancement, and overall progress. The current one clearly does. In my comments above, I said that I'm fine with how these things affect me as my city currently stands. Although I'm at end-game, I'm a young city compared to many other end-gamers and I haven't had time to accumulate the AW levels and expansions some others have. I suspect I won't feel the same after I level a few more wonders, or finish ch17, or place another expansion. I shouldn't have to worry about those things. Full stop. No ifs, ands, or buts. I'd like to see Inno address the concerns players have raised around these issues.

2. The new system encourages pushing. I've seen several dedicated push fellowships coasting to 10+ chests. Players who have achieved their high city ranks through pushing may have had their tournament wins curtailed, but the system changes (both in time required and difficulty) now make it easier than ever to push on a grand scale, and the lowered rewards per person increase the motivation to do so. So long as a player cares more about their city rank than their tournament rank, they will still push their wonders higher. This lets the most dedicated pushers get around the system that's limiting other big cities' access to KP.
 

i8sh

Active Member
For info: I am at the end of chapter 14 (currently not advancing to Chapter 15), have been playing for 3 years and over the last year have been focusing on building up my AWs (presently @302 levels) to help my city via increased seeds and to help with the tournament.

Pro:
  1. 1 encounter/province:
    • This sped up my first 8 provincial encounters
  2. Multiple training queues
  3. Apparent removal of certain enemy troops
    • This is my observation only: I did not see any 3* valorian guards, Forest Wardens, or Toads to this point (currently in Crystal and would have expected to see the frog prince.
Cons:

  1. 1 encounter/province:
    • After the 1st page (encounter 9 and above) I feel the need to scout and manually fight. This has actually had the opposite effect by making it longer for me to complete the tourney.
  2. Mixed enemy troops vs set troops/province
    • I use to be able to plan for the tournament by collecting the goods and troops required and strategically using my UUU/DA/ELR/MMM buildings collect the goods. The benefit of the ELR and MMM have decreased because now they may only help in a few of the encounters vs most in a particular province.
    • The presence of the mistwalker in any encounter now has serious consequences as my troops get decimated as soon as I hit fight. Previously (in the 4 encounter system), the mistwalker might remove at most 1/2 of the 1 of my 5 fighters with their 1st shot. Now, with the ridiculously large squad size after province #20, I may as well just have started with 4 fighters. I would guess that 99% of the time a there are mages behind them to make sure I don't scout 1st with heavy ranged units or that I will pay a hefty price to do so.
  3. Manner by which the tournament difficulty is now determined.
    • I will echo many of the other players comments here.
      • Penalize players who worked hard to develop high level AWs
      • Penalize players who paid money to purchase expansions
    • I have no objections with making tournament difficulties increase with advancement in this game but strongly object to this new system. I never thought that I would consider destroying my AWs because their benefits are now detrimental to anyone who wants to make their city special and have a chance to do well in the tournaments. I would not do the deep KP runs like some (mostly because I did not over-scout), but I do believe that my 31,400 tournament points proves that I have enjoyed playing the tournament and would hold a 5 to 6K average most weeks. I feel that my catering costs have increased astronomically when doing the higher rounds (5 or 6) out at province 15 or higher and that my Squad size calculation has it such that I can win the fights (manually) but will suffer huge loses. I could do 1 large run for KP if I want to, but I no longer have the drive to do so as previously I would invest those KP into AWs and can't understand the logic behind penalizing us for this. I actually now have no more drive to collect KP because no mater what I do with it, it will not assist me. Put it in research to advance and I am penalized (I admit that I am OK with this as a way to even the playing field with newer players as my new tech is supposed to make my life easier and overall I would still be ahead - even if marginally), put it in AWs and again I am penalized.
    • Penalizing for land expansions is like buying a candy bar and saying "enjoy it now but you will vomit each week that you keep the wrapper". This has had a negative impact not only on my interest to purchase more land but to compete in the spire for diamonds (which were used to finance some of those purchases)
Overall: The joys of fighting the tournament was one of the driving forces which has kept me playing all these years. I have witnessed many changes to our tourney (some good....some bad). On the fence right now of what I want to do and I am probably going to be placing my city in hibernation mode with the hopes that someone will correct this catastrophe of nuclear proportion. Some smaller players may enjoy this for the time being, but they will succumb to the radiation with time when they realize that to take 1 step forward is really taking 2 steps behind.
 

sam767

Well-Known Member
Week 4 update (I already posted initial impressions).
My FS continues to easily get 10 chests - this is a super plus for me.
I did my 50x2 and then 9x4 this week. The first time since marble.
Minus: Manually fighting is so much more time consuming than the old system. This game is a an addictive/clickfest time sink. My brother is asking about a 12 step group for recovering Elvenar addicts.
Plus: More interesting. Since I don't compete for top scores and related points, the increased difficulty to achieve high scores does not irritate me so much. I actually lost a manually fought battle in R2-P38. Wrong force selection and difficult terrain.
Minus: I'll elevate this as a minus from time-sink: a proposal to provide a low time-cost preview of the battlefield was forwarded from the suggestions thread a few months ago. This is increasingly urgent as manual fighting increases. Open the battle, see the terrain, click surrender, redo force selection/layout takes a significant amount of time for people like me who otherwise like the tedium-free new format. Please make this a priority.
More color: Between Marble and Crystal, my armies completely recovered with organic production. My supply of 5 hour instants grew to close to 300. (Gold spire FS). During Crystal I fed Mr. Brown Bear and after I fed him again and burned instants to fully recover my barracks. Now that I retired my CH16 breweries, I will use my Orcs to upgrade the Mercenary camp and will feed Mr. BB again and expedite my key Mercenary troops. I will finish with more than 200 5HR. The Training Grounds will largely recover by the time silk comes around. My initial assessment that I could do this every other tournament holds. A step back for me, a step forward for my FS.
More color: I deployed a DA, 2 UUU, an MMR and an ELR for this. Another reason I cannot do this every week. My MM is at 26 and my NotT are at 24.
More Color: I have purchased max expansions. Advancing is currently on hold at 75% through CH16. So far, I tend to agree with those who assert there is no point. I would love to see the counter-analysis that says there is a point to finishing 16 and moving into 17.
 

KarlD

Well-Known Member
One thing I do like about the new system is that it does allow one to excel by manual fighting. It's hard for even the biggest cities to do much over 10K points, which you can get with fewer than 40 provinces. In the old system somebody with only 40 open provinces in my world couldn't even come close to the top because cities with more provinces could reasonably easily autofight their way to the top. Now few cities break 10K points and you really have to manual fight to get there. If a smaller city is willing to put in the time and effort they could reach the top or close to it.
 

Swankey Bob

Member
So I stepped back and took some time to come up with some concrete numbers with the intention of presenting some mathematical issues for a second post given my first mainly covered feedback and data is also a big part. This was my journey as a player in your game:

I started this game after leaving another game called "Game of War" from "Machine zone." The reason I got into it was that I could spend money to make an army and use math to destroy a city worth literal tens of thousands over and over again. The stakes and competitive nature really appealed to me at the time. The thing that made me leave after spending literal tens of thousands of USD between my own money and a sponsor I picked up after a year or two was the depreciation of the value of what I gained from what was spent. That game hit something called "Hyperinflation" because their business model was 'Increasing at an increasing rate' which was unsustainable. The money spent just gave less while the time until that money spent's return value just grew shorter.

The thing that got me into this game was that it was not PvP competitive and that you guys did not scale sales. What 100$ got you one month got you roughly the same amount 6 months down the road and my personal competition was with myself. I could grow my city while measuring my performance against myself which was cool and I enjoyed playing and supporting the game.

I got more serious in April of 2019 when I did my first push to see how hard I could hit in the tournament. I got 5921 points in that crystal tournament and hit 5th in my server which felt great (especially considering I was in dwarves competing against maxed people at the time.) I then steeped back and took a hard look at the game structure. After lots of running numbers I recognized that every chapter I made it through I got better but also that costs scaled and that greater size growth had more value than research growth.

I decided to test this idea and did in June hitting 8370 while only in the Orcs chapter! I am still 99% sure I am the only player ever on any Elvenar server to hit that hard at such a low chapter and kinda proud of that while I got 2nd in the server. I kinda outgrew my FS around there. I still love the Knights of the Nine but when I rambled about math and theory I felt taken as a joke. I also decided there I had to hit 1st and I wanted to do it in a way nobody else ever had. I wanted to break down how space, time, and AW levels were the true currency in the game and beat the socks of the hardest players on my server who had started a very long time before me.

My next attempt was after I grew the account for about a year (Yes a literal year) without advancing in chapter. Around this time I lost my love for the Fellowship Adventures. There was massive work but people were using macros to run scripts that harvested badges and ensured their wins. I did some digging into the game and found out about 'account pushing.' I figured you guys just did not know until I came across threads that blatantly provided irrefutable evidence and a blind eye was turned (vocally) once it was clear the community wouldn't let it go until a response was given. It was then I decided I wanted to beat the biggest accounts in a way they had never thought of. I wanted to stack up scouted areas because its what locked me into 2nd last time while dumping all my KP into AW's to give me that big edge I craved to take on the servers best and show them they could be outplayed in the current gamestate because they followed the meta instead of innovating.

I had mathed out how its easily possible to slam out 3k points a tournament forever and had set a goal to see how much I could hit consistently and I knew I needed to draw in my KP to pull off what I wanted. Around then (October 2019.) I left and joined the Mystic Knights. I pushed myself (without hard coining) and got 5076, 6072, 5736, 8562, 5130, 4014, and finally 3624. 4 of those scores were in the top 10 with my top only (once again) stopping me by my max scouted provinces.

That felt good. I had well exceed my expectations and even better, I had beaten out most players who had tons of accounts dumping KP into their AW's at max chapter. Not only that but I felt that my hard work crunching numbers, innovating on growth strategy, and spending time on the game had paid off. I felt like I had once again reached real progress and grown both in ratio to myself as well as played the game better than others.

Then I had to grow. You guys radically changed quite a few things to include crafting troop boosts, and adding new chapters and I recognized to achieve my goal of 1st on the server I needed to do attempts in surges. I hit a new high of 11k in January 2020 (once again maxing provinces) but realized after a tiny repeat I had to change things up. I saved up for a chapter or three and plotted my hard push.

October 3 2020 a gems tournament started. I used every boost building I had and maxed every province out. Then I realized it wouldn't be enough and I dumped speeds into unlocking provinces, then using speeds to max those provinces out. The thing lasts for days on end but it came down to the last few seconds (very literally.) It ended with me and LadyGoGo frantically clicking through provinces with a literal tie on our score but I got 1st. I know my last province click was in the last 5 seconds so it felt like a photo finish (although I am sure she woulda easily spanked me with another few seconds given it was the last star of my last province) This, once again felt like personal progress and made me want to grow to see if I could handle competition normally. I loved the community with both the time Pineapple Joe trounced me for 1st and I tied / won with LadyGoGo for 1st where we had genuine comradely.

-Here is where the changes took place-

I had herd they were coming and got blind love in my eyes when I read about 1 fight per province. I did a bunch of research on what was known and wrote up a big post for my FS to understand the upcoming changes. And then.. 'They' happened.
Didn't feel like a big deal although the smaller accounts scored big and the bigger accounts scored small. Then I dug into the math a bit more and understood what you guys had done. How you had decided to 'level the playing field.'

I tried to deal with that for a while. I talked about it with the community, advocated with help forums to get a response for the community and even pushed to keep civil and productive conversation once those responses finally came. But I just dont enjoy the game.

I had worked for literal years to create a city mathematically calculating the optimal strategys and doing things I still feel no player has ever done at low levels just to have the carpet yanked out from under me. All of a sudden this really cool and unique city build that had done great things was a massive bummer.
I then studied the new gamestate. The money I spent on the game for maxed expansions and other perks now meant I couldn't compete. My new score would be a huge fight to get above my very first score after I got serious about getting a score while new accounts could run circles around me. Last event I even spent a bunch of troop boosts to gather some statistical info and I couldn't even bring myself to click through the levels. Like.. even trying to force myself just to click for this game was too much.

This brings us to now. I don't know if there is anything left to say. I hope my story explains why so many of us no longer consider the game fun. You took away the progression I enjoyed and changed the rules after I had worked so hard to play well in your game. Is the community's negative response even unexpected?

I do understand you guys have a weird balance to keep. Your trying to inject bran new players into servers to keep them alive while also somehow keeping the new guys competitive with the old ones. The problem you face now is that you are choosing between the new and the old but by choosing the new those same new players have no reason to stay and grow. You are not just killing your older player base but also killing the drive your new players have for staying.
 
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Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
I am in halflings and always autofight the first three rounds until I start losing; then I cater the rest of the tourney. I will never manually fight. Before the changes to the tournament, I generally got around 2K points. Since the changes happened, I earn about 3-4K per week in the tourney and spend just slightly more resources than before. I do fewer rounds but I go further up in stars. For me, the overall changes are a net positive for now, and if they could stay this way, I would be a happy camper.

The things that bother me are:

1. A fear that I will run out of pet food having to spread out my tourney play over more days to go higher in stars rather than more provinces, and that you won't increase pet food in the MA to compensate.
2. I have stopped progressing through the chapters; I haven't even built my portal for halflings yet. I can see what happened in the spire (which I sometimes make to the top) after I entered halflings. My mana/orc costs in the spire raised HUGELY, and the fights require a lot of 5-day buildings. I'm terrified of the same things in the tournament, and so I've stopped trying to progress. That feels like I am being penalized for wanting to play the game. Aren't people supposed to get stronger as they progress, rather than weaker?
3. I am afraid to put down or upgrade any wonders, because I don't know what will count against me. I only do the ones I really love now, and leave the others alone.

Overall, when I started this game, I felt like I could go as fast and as high as I wanted to. It was a thrill. Now, the spire got so ridiculously expensive to cater that I feel sorry I passed chapters. To make your players dread making it to the next level instead of looking forward to it just seems like a crazy way to retain players.

I hate to complain because this has been, as I say, overall positive for me and I thank you for many of the changes. For newbies, this is a good thing. But the screen shot taken above with caters for more than 100K in goods have me terrified of going to that level. I guess I'll just stay in Halflings for now.
 

i8sh

Active Member
This is my second post in this thread as I would like to add a bit more with some information to back up my claim. Now I realize that MinMax Gamer has been collecting data to determine the weighing of different effects on the new tournament difficulty, so I polled my FS to determine their matchups in terms of squads required for them to fight vs enemy squads.


Pro: The ratio of troop to enemy is constant between players regardless of the players chapter, AW levels, # of expansions. This means that each player will for example face a ratio of 1 to 1.035 for province # 10 in rd #1 and 1 to 1.49 in rd # 2. These numbers appear to also always be the same for the following round less 1 province (i.e rd #3 province #9 will have a 1 to 1.49 ratio). This is very fair and does serve to make the tournament more challenging from a troop perspective as you progress to higher levels compared to the old model of equal ratios for all provincial encounters is a given round.


Con: The impact of those AW levels/expansions are massive on your set troop numbers and are determined in such a way that it is detrimental to increase either.


Here is some of the data from this weeks Scroll tournament from my fellowship to show how squewed it is. Now I am no mathematician, but you can clearly see in the spreadsheet that if you compare the numbers you can see how much these changes make in the number of troops that you need on hand to fight. Now I did create a ratio to the players actual squad size but I believe that this no longer applies.

Scroll tournament.PNG



In my list, Serra has the least advanced city with the fewest AW levels. If you compare Serra’s to mine for province #10 in rd#2, I require 2.13X more troops, or Knight of Mystra who is more advanced by 4 chapters and requires 4.35X more troops. This is not as big of a deal for the early rounds, but you can see the effect of doing higher provinces is greatly amplified until it comes to be ridiculous amounts of troops required to fight a given province; whereas smaller cities are not impacted as much as they fight higher level provinces.

But this is comparing apples to oranges. Let’s look at Trashcanman vs Knight of Mystra (both just starting Chapter 17) so their progress is similar, but there is a significant difference in both AW levels and expansions. Now we do not have Knight’s numbers for round #1 but the troop increase is constant from round #1 to round #2 so we can estimate that he required 13,056 troops vs 8,912 by Trashcanman for province #10 in round #1. This represents a ~46.5% increase in his troop requirements based only on the fact that he has more land and higher AW levels. It is this increase which is unfair and unjust and again will only be amplified as they both complete higher levels.
 
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Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
I was not sure which tournament thread to put this in, but it feels sort of like feedback to me.

When the changes came to the US servers, the fellowship I was in averaged 6 chests per week, when not doing a push for 10. The first two weeks of the new tournament, that fellowship got 8 chests each week, with no perceptible extra effort and 5 members not even doing a single province. Everyone in that fellowship had a score of at least 100k. That lack of participation had me switch, in between steel and planks, to a 10-chest fellowship that just happened to have an opening. In the three weeks there so far, we have gotten 12, 12, and 13 chests. Yes, 13 chests in scrolls, with only five of us doing over 5k points, and the top three doing a little over 8k each. And the previous two weeks, I don't think anyone did more than about 7k. So yes, the changes are hurting the more hardcore players who pushed their cities to the max, it is not hurting those of us more in the middle, or maybe the edge of hardcore, as much as some people want to make out.

I think the numbers for provinces 20+, or maybe 25+, should be toned down some to help those hardcore players, but the changes to provinces 1-20 seem to be working well.
 

BrinDarby

Well-Known Member
Lets look a different way.....

its HM, LM, LR, M, HM (them) ... versus LM, LM, HM, HM, HM (us) .... all 10 are 1 star ...
End result lets say is loss of just the 2 LM slots ....

Lets now move to next fight same troops, but SS is effectively 1.5x , how is this harder ???
its NOT !!! , just more troop loss's. Exactly what end-game, middle, and new players are saying !!!!!

Players are not stopping doing provinces cause they are too hard, they are stopping just cause
the troop loss per province is too high..... Sounds like thats not the only thing thats "too high"
around here, I mean really ???? The old tourny system ( 4 fights ) actually got harder, but with
new training cue, Inno had to find a way to cause more troop loss.....:rolleyes: along with 1/4th the
fights thus a need to kill 4x more troops per battle phase. :eek:

Fighting tactics need to improve to defeat "Harder" enemies, not just more troops.... Its like
the difference between (5) 1 star slots vs (5) 2 star slots of the same basic SS.... and
(5) 1 star slots (2x SS) vs (5) 1 star slots (4x SS) ....

Along with Fighting tactics, there are only 5-6 basic terrain possibilities it seems, so I'm
seeing difficulty also not adjusted with terrain issues either.... I have only seen (2) terrains
that basically .... radically adjust how/what troops are used....

Due to no ""theme'd"" use of opponents anymore, I only need Treants/Cerebuses and just UUUs.
Again, I don't see how this made tourns more enjoyable or satisfy'n to complete anymore.... Its
the same fight every time now, every province....

and WHY, please tell me ( Inno )....
Why is SS ( in Barracks ) not universal, then difficulty adjusted from there ???????
If my SS is 114, then untill I research more SS, it should be 114 everywhere, Why isnt it ??????
BrinD
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
For some context, I have a late game town (end tech when changes occured) but I also play the game with my family so I have witnessed and experienced the impacts on town around ch 4, 6, 7 and 15. The larger towns have bought and spent diamonds while the little towns are free to play. As we typically log twice a day I would call us casual players although some might not consider me such.

Pros:
  • 1 fight per province - fairly obvious benefits on the face of it (time and clicks), but completely overshadowed by a con for anyone trying to do more than 20 provinces (approx)
  • Increased difficulty scaling as provinces increase - The concept of making this more difficulty so that skill comes into play rather than production and provinces scouted is a nice idea
  • Catering for small towns - not just viable but potentially outshines combat, allowing troops to be saved for world map. Harder for the chapter 3/4 towns who have to cater world maps but they can save troops until those fights become realistic.
  • Gifting of approx 10 provinces to each player. Costs are so small these provinces are extremely cheap for the rewards. It encourages people to achieve a decent tourny score for fellowship and get good individual benefits
  • Gifting of 10 chests - Making the first provinces so easy for each player makes getting 10 chests extremely easy. Kids fellowship was around 8 chests a week with the occasional 9 or 10 chests. They jumped immediately to 11 to 12 chests with how easy everything was made
  • Time saving for a casual town doing 20 or less provinces (this pro changes to a negative at 20+ for casual towns)
Neutral:
  • Always 5 enemy squads - This can be postive and negative. It reduces variety but also makes it easier to assess difficulty as it is always a 5v5 fight. People really struggled with the understanding that an 8v5 fight could be easy as the didn't understand the comparison of squad sizes
  • Including of expansions and wonders in cost of doing tournaments - I like the concept of scaling but am unsure if this was the best way to do that. The impacts of the chosen method are listed under negatives, whther real or not there is strong negative perceptions.

Negatives (all towns):
  • Lack of variety - I now have 2 spires every week and that is boring and expensive. I love spire and tournaments and liked that they were different and unique in their style, approach, planning, etc. Together it feela much more grindy and costly. 1 spire a week was great but 2 just feels too much and the rewards for the second spire don't scale the same as the first.
  • Buying diamonds :diamond: - I feel punished for buying and spending diamonds, my kids towns can outscore my town while still building troops and goods. I struggle to obtain my score in what I believe to be an unsustainable fashion. Only reason I beat their scores currently (by a small margin) is our timezone only allows for 4 rounds (without timewarp/polar bear) and I control their bed times :). I bought diamonds to make my game easier in terms of guest races and tournaments, so I could do more with the space.
  • Levelling wonders - Same as buying diamonds, I worked hard in tournaments to level wonders to help me do more. Unsure how badly wonders are hurting me as I understand it is a complex formula but the combined effect is hurting
  • Manual combat - To be competitive this has become necessary, impossible for a casual player to have a chance of competing as the time is not an option and the auto-combat and map issues are compounded now. Manual combat is very time intensive and involves way more clicks (this completely negates the benefits of 1 fight per province in terms of time and clicks for 20+ provinces)
  • Limited challenge - I can do 20 or so provinces for no real challenege (Boring - I couldn't even lose first 10 fights in beta while trying to lose them,no satisfaction in accomplishment). If I try to go past that point the losses scale so quickly it feels too steep in the "difficulty"
  • Random enemies
    • Auto-combat AI is known to struggle more with multiple unit choices but random enemies forces mutliple selections which means higher losses, this compounds with the random bad map and high losses.
    • Lack of strategy and reliant on luck. This compounds with the luck of a decent map and luck of AI behaving
  • Auto-combat - When the AI fails now the results can be crippling. Placing 5 archers up against 5 HM and getting wiped out is heart breaking, even worse when you have a level 30 needles, and some boost buildings and your only in provinces 20-30.
  • Lack of variety - Certain troops are superior to others especially with the random enemies, some troops are never trained anymore. Troop training has minimal variation from one week to the next. This also makes some wonders less valuable if their free troop is never used.
Negatives (Small towns specifically):
  • Random enemies - This creates a lack of training for new towns in combat. New towns have a very difficult time learning the combat system, players recognise this as the most difficult time in the game to combat on the world map. The world map scales faster then their town does for the first couple chapters. They used to be able to come to tournaments to learn how it worked in a scalable way. Now the fights are gifted to them their learning is impeded. The fights don't match the world map so they lose that benefit and they can't actually lose a fight if they put 5 squads in. Most towns this size only have up to 10 or so provinces. Learning requires level of challnege which the first 10 provinces don't have.
  • Without timewarp and polar bear only 4 maybe 5 rounds can typically be done in a week. The change in approach reduces the strategy option to do more provinces to less rounds. This means some players will be doing less points even though it is easier.
I am certainly concerned by the impacts of the change on the game. Push accounts have been rewarded and single player accounts punished. The new system allows for a lot of abuse in a proportion never seen in tournies so far, but it takes time to build those towns. I am aware of people already making push accounts and tourny exploit accounts to exploit the new system.

The other major concern is the strategy for tournaments is to delete wonders and not progress your town. These are the strategies experienced players are now teaching newer players of the game. It took time for the "don't research SS techs" to become a common strategy, something that really didn't have a major effect on progression or competitivness. Only time will tell how the new strategy will be adopted and impact the game.
 
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EarthbornIcarus

Active Member
4-year player, Have spent thousands.
AM Ceravyn, Flight of Icarus fs.,
Chptr 15, most AWs between 10-14 Needles 22, Sanctuary 22
Casual player, log in every day

Positives:
1-click Thank you! & my hand thanks you.
A *few* of my smaller members are finding it easier to do tourneys.
Having all 3 Military training is great, if extr. costly

Negative:
Balance in my city is now way off, which has had a ripple effect on my game
Can no longer make enough troops to do tourney to 20-25 prov successfully, with troops left to fight Spire battles as well
Production amounts in current chapter are not enough to sustain either troops or catering every week
Old system: Regularly fought all tourney battles, to 20-30 provinces, with out losing all troops or even half....plus able to gain top of Spire, tough but do-able.
New system: Can barely do 20 prov, with most of my troops DEAD, have none left to do Spire>>Unless I want to spend diamonds to keep up w this insanity- which I do not.
Old system: used to be able to gain enough time instants and boosters in Spire, to use for troop training and battle boosters
New system: unable to make enough troops every week to account for the extreme losses in tourney, unable to get as far in Spire w/o spending diamonds to keep up, city's resources diminishing



Result: stress level up, desire to log in & play: down
Result: doing far fewer rounds in tourney, and far fewer rounds in Spire
Result: Atmosphere in fs is taking a toll, with so many unable to fight as accustomed, and losses that wipe out troops far quicker mean fewer members doing high points in tourney, loss of excitement and loss of fun.
Result: seeing more long-term players quit the game
Result: feel betrayed - as a customer, to have game changed at this point- to something akin to a slavish work load rather than a fun relaxing Elven city building co-operative game.


As an artist, I loved the graphic "puzzle" aspect of resolving city design, achieving balance between game aspects, while being able to upgrade and move along chapter story line.
Now- the game seems all about winning enough kp, boosters, instants etc to just be able to keep up each week in tourney and Spire, but is actually no longer do-able in any fun sort of way.. I am looking for a new game, one that doesn't punish me for spending my money by making the game less fun and harder to play the longer I stay.

Inno does not even provide the most important & special aspect of the game- which is the amazing wonderful people and players that help each other learn the game, and grow their cities, and share wins and achievements with each other. Its the only reason I am staying, at this point.

Below are some screenshots of my province 10, second day results:
Discouraging & disheartening, is the word I'd use.
Normal troops would be at 15-20 squads per type. This is w once daily visits to produce troops.
 

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