Upjump in dust tourney difficulty.

[Gkyr]

Disclosure: kk, so I upgraded two AW since last touney, but still...

...I have done that before and never experienced the incremental increase in difficulty that I am experiencing in this present (dust) tourney.
Not only me, but my very, very experienced (founding) Archmage has also commented on the same.
I think something has changed (again).
G

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Seems about the same to me as last time, both here and on Beta. One thing to remember is that when they did the last big round of changes last year, the enemies that each week focused on was shifted, or loosened up a bit, and none of the online guides have been rewritten to account for that, in case anyone is using them. Anyway, because of that small amount of extra randomness in enemy squad composition, the feeling on increased difficulty is from the usual Inno bad luck/RNG and you getting more of the bad mix of troops. But other than that, there is no change in the squad size differences by province, and that is the only thing that would truly be a change in difficulty. And Dust is generally considered the hardest one, even a little shift in the enemy troops you are facing will make it feel even harder.

 

[Gkyr]

My dust score was higher than elixir, last time...
I am not concentrating on score - just entire combat/reward experiences.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

My dust score was higher than elixir, last time...
I am not concentrating on score - just entire combat/reward experiences.

How deep in the provinces are you going and how many stars in each province? Every step in either will always be harder than the last one, though it is designed in a sort of diagonal grid, meaning the 6th star of the 1st province will be exactly as hard as the 5th star in the 2nd province and the 4th star in the 3rd province, and so on. But that is when the troop variability can make the difficulty feel different. Also, the terrain on the combat map is there, whether you auto-fight or manual-fight, and a bad terrain layout can make even easy fights cost you more troops than you would expect. But anyway, the actual difficulty numbers, the difference between your squad size and the enemy squad size is set and in the date files, and you can be assured that if these numbers ever changed without us being told, there are some players on the Beta forum that would be all over it and let everyone know it happened.

Also, everyone needs to remember that changing the starting squad size formula, by adding AW levels or expansions or completing required research, only increases your cost in either troops or goods, it does not actually change the difficulty of the fights, which is the percent difference between your squad size and the enemy squad size.

 

[StarLoad]

My dust score was higher than elixir, last time...
I am not concentrating on score - just entire combat/reward experiences.

Maybe your Fire chicken was slacking off, You know every so often I move mine around just to make sure it knows I am the Boss.... just saying.

 

[Henroo]

Maybe your Fire chicken was slacking off, You know every so often I move mine around just to make sure it knows I am the Boss.... just saying.

You're more gentle and subtle than I am! Every so often I eat a drumstick in front of my laptop screen. That's how I show my Fire Chicken who is the boss.

 

[Aritra]

I've never tracked the numbers but I've heard talk about one tourney being harder than others (for example, marble being easiest and gems most difficult). Honestly, I've never understood why this would be. I would expect that the cost (more or less) would be the same week to week and the only real difference being which relic is featured. Can anyone explain why the tournaments are [supposedly] progressively more difficult through the standard goods list (set order nine week cycle)?
[I realize this is not exactly related to the OP inquiry, but I felt it was adjacent enough to throw this in here, being related to comparative tourney difficulty. Not my intention to hijack the thread]

 

[Fayeanne]

Can anyone explain why the tournaments are [supposedly] progressively more difficult through the standard goods list (set order nine week cycle)?

As I understand it, with the new tournament setup, the T1 tournaments (marble, planks, steel) feature one "focus" enemy unit type. So you'd encounter enemies of that type a lot more frequently than any others (in theory). T2 tournaments feature two "focus" unit types, and T3 has three. So in theory, the earlier tournaments would be easier because of a heavy focus on a single unit type or on two types that complement each other. (As we all know, if you are facing a lineup of five enemy Mage units, for example, the battle is pretty simple.)

However, overall the units are still randomized, so despite the weighting the random factor can still mess up these expectations.

(By contrast, in the old tournaments, you only ever faced three unit types per tournament (based on the tournament): two types which complemented each other and one counter type. Despite the counter type, this still made the old tournaments a lot more predictable and therefore easier to handle. Though this did mean the Light Melee tournaments were the hardest because Light Melee is such a bad unit...)

 

[ajqtrz]

Interestingly, I usually lose a lot of troops in the Dust tournament and expected to do even worse this time as I have upgraded 2 or 3 AW's since the last round. But I lost a lot less. Maybe it's just random luck and next time I'll get slaughtered, but this time I had to look up to see if I wasn't mistaken and in some other tournament!

AJ

 

[DeletedUser27062]

Disclosure: kk, so I upgraded two AW since last touney, but still...

...I have done that before and never experienced the incremental increase in difficulty that I am experiencing in this present (dust) tourney.
Not only me, but my very, very experienced (founding) Archmage has also commented on the same.
I think something has changed (again).
G

Please please please don't get mad at for saying this but... You know what, I'm not gonna even... Everyone always gets mad and nobody really cares to hear what might be going on. As you were

 

[Gath Of Baal]

I think I noticed this as well this tournament, but in all fairness I had a lot more of the Brutal Ancient Orcs mixed in with every mage unit I had to fight this time then last, which made me have to select my units less efficiently and take more losses in order to be able to deal with them.

I did 42x6 this time and took more losses then the 46x6 I did last Dust tournament

I just attributed that to my typical bad luck in the randomness of the units I was facing this time, but i could be wrong

 

[Aritra]

So, province difficulty class on the world map really only applies if you plan to fight the encounters?
Other than "red" being a warning to not too get carried away with scouting (whereas at blue and green one feels free to pursue unlimited), catering costs are not/minimally affected?

 

[Dew Spinner]

Please please please don't get mad at for saying this but... You know what, I'm not gonna even... Everyone always gets mad and nobody really cares to hear what might be going on. As you were

LOL! Nailed It!!

 

[Henroo]

So, province difficulty class on the world map really only applies if you plan to fight the encounters?
Other than "red" being a warning to not too get carried away with scouting (whereas at blue and green one feels free to pursue unlimited), catering costs are not/minimally affected?

Well, the catering cost and the fighting cost are both set by how much it costs when you scout the province. So if everything you have is red, that is an indication that catering costs might also be high. On the other hand, one of the key factors involved in calculating if a province is red or not is your current squad size. And I assume that since you are cater only, you have skipped some of the optional squad size tech advances. Because of this a province might be red for you. But for another player who is the exact same level as you but who HAS those additional squad size increases, then the province might show up as orange or even green. That would be purely because player 2 has more squad size than you do. The catering costs would be identical for both of you.

 

[Gkyr]

So, province difficulty class on the world map really only applies if you plan to fight the encounters?
Other than "red" being a warning to not too get carried away with scouting (whereas at blue and green one feels free to pursue unlimited), catering costs are not/minimally affected?

Off topic. This is a tourney thread. Just sayin'. As you were...

 

[Aritra]

As I understand it, with the new tournament setup, the T1 tournaments (marble, planks, steel) feature one "focus" enemy unit type. So you'd encounter enemies of that type a lot more frequently than any others (in theory). T2 tournaments feature two "focus" unit types, and T3 has three. So in theory, the earlier tournaments would be easier because of a heavy focus on a single unit type or on two types that complement each other. (As we all know, if you are facing a lineup of five enemy Mage units, for example, the battle is pretty simple.)

However, overall the units are still randomized, so despite the weighting the random factor can still mess up these expectations.

(By contrast, in the old tournaments, you only ever faced three unit types per tournament (based on the tournament): two types which complemented each other and one counter type. Despite the counter type, this still made the old tournaments a lot more predictable and therefore easier to handle. Though this did mean the Light Melee tournaments were the hardest because Light Melee is such a bad unit...)

So, the claim of marble end of tourney cycle being easiest and gems end the most difficult is accurate [enough] but that is an assessment only relevant to those who combat their tourney provinces? (I'm cater-only and have never seen any noticeable difference, so this could be why).

 

[Aritra]

Off topic. This is a tourney thread. Just sayin'. As you were...

You're right. I have no idea how this (my OP about this) got in this thread.... There was some active thread that it was relevant enough to throw into, but somehow I must have gotten lost and posted on this one instead.... sorry

[ @Henroo - messaged you in Winyandor ]

 

[Gkyr]

No problem. @Aritra , I enjoy your contributions

 

[Fayeanne]

but that is an assessment only relevant to those who combat their tourney provinces?

Yes... You know, I have no idea if they put weights on the catering goods at all. It used to be that the needed goods depended upon the type of tournament, but the new tournament system did away with that. However, it could be they still weight certain goods higher than others for certain tournaments, but I don't recall reading this anywhere.