ElegantZara,
Eve Online...the answer is Eve Online. I don't plan to quit though, but since I don't have to spend 30 - 40 minutes doing around 60 provinces of 4 battles each for 6 rounds, I got time to spare. I'm just going to do my 20 provinces to get the 5k points needed for Emerald Elites to get all the chests. I'm not going to let INNO suck me dry trying to push anymore.
Plus, I gave manual fighting a shot, and that only made me angrier. I think it was when I sent in 5 Wardens to kill 5 mages only to be blocked by obstacles in the map layout from getting in close enough within range, but the enemy mages with a range of 5 were able to strike me the following turn (Oh and nice move with the offer to buy troops there INNO...Touché). Even if I positioned my troops for minimal damage, every hit is a big loss of units for provinces 35-40. Okay, I accepted INNO was making it harder, but with maxed out expansions and over 600+ AW levels, the losses are very costly, so having terrain that ensures I'd have to take these losses regardless of planning and skill is really devious. Unhappily, I simply accepted tournaments were going to suck for all of us.
However, after the tournament is done, I see jmroach30 with a score of 17,280 followed by Alistaire at 16470. This shows me INNO failed in trying to limit how many provinces everyone was supposed to achieve. Instead, they simply nerfed advanced player cities and shifted the ability to get 600+ KPs to players that are clearly less developed in expansions and AW's. Using jmroach30 as an example, this player's city clearly has a very small number of AW's levels but with a 28th level needles and 16th level sanctuary, they are rockin' the new tournament system. Look these scores were typically obtained by Maggi, clusseau, and members of my FS (Maggi and clusseau didn't even make it into the top 3 nor did they even break 15K). After only the second week, with a steel tournament that was much harder than the marble tourney emphasizing HM enemies, it is clear that the new norm is not preventing players from getting 600+ KPs a week. Rather, it is simply shifting that kind of ability to a different set of players with less developed cities (I want to make clear, I'm not trying to bash these players getting these scores, but this is a good example of why these changes are so messed up that frankly accepting it is pretty much impossible for me).
I don't like the idea of different standards for different players, and certainly, growing should not be punitive. I don't know why INNO would have FA's anymore since punishing players for having more expansions or even considering filling the extra space with a bunch of level 1 workstations or manufactories, would effectively be a nonstarter. Furthermore, spending money on provinces that were and are increasingly more expensive is just crazy. Heck, why even pay for events to win prizes that can't match up with the extra manufactories and armories needed to negotiate during these new tournaments on said extra expansions that increase tournament losses? There were already debates about whether some AW's were even worth developing because of the space they used up, but in the infinite wisdom of the developers at INNO, they felt it was a good idea to allow every level of a questionable AW to add the player's tournament squad size and negotiation expense. I just can't fathom the logic here.
As stated before, if it was to somehow limit players from getting 600+ KPs during tournaments, y'all failed. Nope, this is clearly a straight-up nerf that ruined fun for those who donated the most time and money toward Elvenar. BTW, who cares if players were getting 600+ KPs a week. It was fun...isn't that what games are about? Fun? Now before someone calls me out about how this was not INNO's intent for players to have fun with gaining so many KPs, I remember when Street Fighter II came out. An unintended consequence of that game's mechanics Capcom did not expect was the combo feature. However, instead of fixing that, they saw the fun it added and they nurtured that aspect of the game, Additionally, they made a heck of a lot of money developing Steet Fighter II into a global sensation with tournaments gathering players from all over the world. It seems INNO decided to ruin the fun by going in another direction, except they didn't ruin the fun for all, they just shifted it to a new set of players by rubbing salt in the eyes of those who bought diamonds for years and gave up their time to support Elvenar. Not kool INNO, not kool by a mile (1.6 KM for the rest of the world).
So...I conclude with this, you should have listened to the community and used required SS's for your base measurement. If you, INNO, really wanted to rank tournaments, required SS's would have put everyone on even footing per chapter and allowed players to aspire toward getting better scores as they developed. You, INNO, could have put those required SS's at the beginning of chapters and worked on the single battle system per province. Furthermore, you could have kept your new percentage increases for each additional province. However, you should have allowed AW's and expansions to be an advantage for advancement in tournaments instead of some biased system that ruins the fun for more developed cities. Your system sucks because its ranking system is skewed toward punishing development, which kills fun!
Okay, I should stop now. My opinion could be wrong, but this is my personal truth. I hope these observations are an objective truth shared by more since this way I will know I'm not crazy. Am I wrong? Maybe...I don't think so though.