Today we have prepared a really exclusive interview for you! Lukas works directly at the German headquarters of InnoGames, where he works in the top management of this game, specifically holding the position of Product Manager of the game Elvenar.
How long have you been working for InnoGames / Elvenar, which team do you belong to and what exactly are you in charge of?
I have been working for InnoGames since the beginning of the year and just as long for Elvenar. As a product manager, I make sure that together as a team we work on the right tasks, that we successfully implement them and that we also regularly release updates with useful improvements and extensions for Elvenar. For our team, this means above all new friendly races and improvements to basic elements in the game, such as the Tower of Eternity or ancient wonders.
Is there anything specific you should do with your team now?
We are currently working on the technical foundations for changing the rewards in the Tower of Eternity. So you can look forward to their change in 2021.
Do you play Elvenar yourself? And do you have a favorite chapter? Sure! I'm in the Forest Elves chapter. And I'm really looking forward to the next chapter with wizards and dragons. I really liked the style of the buildings during this year's Magicians' Pilgrimage event.
What do you like best about Elvenar? My favorite thing is that I'm not under constant pressure to defend my city from attacks. In other games, it still happens that you wake up in the morning and you have a part of the city destroyed. But in Elvenar, I start with the good feeling that every morning my city is a little further away than it was in the evening.
And one important thing, do you like unicorns?
I risk falling a little in your eyes, but I've never been a big fan of horses or unicorns. However, in Elvenar, unicorns are a frequent gift and I have them in the city. However, you know the donated horse.
In the new tournament system, additional chests have been added to the prizes. Why don't the rewards hidden in them gradually increase, but still remain the same? It costs a lot of effort to work towards them.
We deliberately chose rewards in this way precisely because they are difficult to obtain. We were afraid that the community would feel the need to change players who score fewer points in the tournament, just to reach all the chests. And just by making sure that the extra rewards are not something you just have to have, but just a nice bonus, we've been able to give the strongest tournament community a new challenge without putting unnecessarily much pressure on smaller communities.
Are there any changes planned in the way the size of the army is calculated? Why should players be disadvantaged when buying premium expansions? And why are they also disadvantaged by the construction of ancient wonders?
We evaluated the tournament data, read the feedback from the players (indeed, we got a lot from the forums thanks to our skillful community managers), introduced some elements of the player's feedback, and understood the impact of the tournament change on the game. The basic goal of the calculation formula is to offer
all playersa tournament that does not benefit anyone and is also a challenge for everyone. Nevertheless, progress in the game in any form should remain an advantage for players and help them succeed in the tournament. We believe that with the new tournament system, we are closer to this goal than before, when the size of the division depended only on research into the size of the division. In this old system, the top positions in the tournament were simply shared by those who had the most provinces at their disposal.
We understand the frustration of players who, with the new system, score fewer tournament points and receive fewer tournament prizes than before. However, no player should be afraid of further progress. For example, from the analyzes we've done, we don't see that players with more premium expansions do worse than players with fewer. On the contrary, these players continue with significantly better results than the other players being compared. And it's the same with ancient wonders, the progress of the research tree, or common extensions. Of course, there is a discussion about how much better these players should do, but we do not see any "penalty" among the above-mentioned factors, which would unbalance the overall tournament result of the player.
Of course, this does not mean that no further adjustments will come. We will certainly continue to monitor the overall behavior of the tournaments, including the above formula. For example, we already see a weakness of the system in the fact that the impact of the levels of ancient wonders on the pattern is the same for all wonders. We strongly agree that some ancient wonders are more important for tournaments than others, and the formula does not currently take this into account. In addition, we continue to monitor players at the forefront of research to make sure that the cost of the tournament does not become too high at some point. However, the number of these players is quite small and it takes a little longer to obtain statistically significant data for analysis.
Will we ever get complete equality between the mobile and browser versions? For example, that we see the duration of spells, player searches, and communities on mobile phones? And that we get more convenient neighborhood help in browsers.
We are constantly working on the equality of both versions of the game. For example, we added the ability to search for players and communities on mobile a few weeks ago. Along with that, we've added an option to browser browsing that suggests communities to enter players to join. And further adjustments will follow.
Will there ever be an opportunity to obtain artifacts for older emerging buildings? After all, some of them can be crafted, but when artifacts are not available, this option is useless. And what are the chances that players could exchange artifacts?
Already now there is the possibility of obtaining older artifacts during events or the possibility of exchange (the last time it was about bears). But we also have some other interesting ideas on how to make old artifacts available in the future (even outside of events). Let's wait to see what comes out of these ideas. What will certainly not change, however, is the fact that events with new buildings will always be the fastest and most effective sources of relevant artifacts.
We do not plan to exchange artifacts between players.
source: https://cz.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/lukas-product-manager-hry-elvenar.6978/