Feedback Version 1.181

[Pheryll]

So for limit of 1 per customer including the bldgs for the two sets & all evolving from Stonehenge to Flower Goblin I get 34 (this i think increases by 1 @ every 6 weeks).

What they implemented since is that only certain bases would be available, the three phoenix and three bear ones, witch's hut, and one corresponding to what is being rotated through the spire (there may be others). This keeps the bases from being a undue burden on newer accounts, however, it also means that completing an event and then moving into a new chapter does not necessarily give you the ability to sell your base and craft it back at the new chapter stats before evolving it.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

What they implemented since is that only certain bases would be available, the three phoenix and three bear ones, witch's hut, and one corresponding to what is being rotated through the spire (there may be others). This keeps the bases from being a undue burden on newer accounts, however, it also means that completing an event and then moving into a new chapter does not necessarily give you the ability to sell your base and craft it back at the new chapter stats before evolving it.

Nope. On Beta, I have less than half the evolving buildings in my city and the ones I do not have regularly show up in crafting. All bases that have had artifacts offered in the Spire stay in the rotation.

 

[Pheryll]

Nope. On Beta, I have less than half the evolving buildings in my city and the ones I do not have regularly show up in crafting. All bases that have had artifacts offered in the Spire stay in the rotation.

So they will end up with (or have already built up to) the same problem they had before. They need a new solution, because newer accounts will not easily tolerate a glut of evolving buildings they cannot get past stage 1 clogging their crafting choices.

 

[StarLoad]

So they will end up with (or have already built up to) the same problem they had before. They need a new solution, because newer accounts will not easily tolerate a glut of evolving buildings they cannot get past stage 1 clogging their crafting choices.

More than likely the "newer"accounts as opposed to just new cities will likely not know/understand the problem with crafting the evolving bldgs and\or wasting the SF and VV and more on them, nor the dilution of 40-50 buildings in the rotation just to get the chance to get 1 they want.

 

[Pheryll]

More than likely the "newer"accounts as opposed to just new cities will likely not know/understand the problem with crafting the evolving bldgs and\or wasting the SF and VV and more on them, nor the dilution of 40-50 buildings in the rotation just to get the chance to get 1 they want.

Which leads to rage quitting when they finally figure it out.

 

[Ihrlaen]

@EnteiRocks @-Solaris- Are the bugs related to Coldfire Artifacts and Gingerbread Mansion bases being addressed in these changes to the Magic Academy? If not, when can we expect updates and fixes to these legacy bugs?

 

[Darielle]

When I noticed pet food in my MA that required a bear artifact, I cringed when I thought of all the newer players who do not have a brown bear or fire phoenix, the two most important buildings in the game, who are going to trade away their precious bear/phoenix artifacts for pet food. I would not be surprised if Inno starts selling the bear and phoenix artifacts as a way to monetize this game further, and probably not for diamonds but for real $$.

I don't mind Inno making a living. I understand that things cost money and this is a business. But when they prey upon the newer players by offering something that new players do not realize are seriously hurting them if they buy it, t makes me really angry and sad. It doesn't affect me, because I have fully evolved buildings. But it does affect me as a human being with empathy for others.

 

[Dhurrin]

I share your feelings.
I do understand Inno's point of view; bear and phoenix artifacts are the ones most wanted, so people will be far more likely to pay either in-game earned diamonds or cash to get more of those than an additional artifact for say...a Gingerbread Mansion or an Everblossom Sleigh.
So from a business perspective it does make sense. One can only hope that newer players will find a FS that will warn them.

Of course, the best solution would be to have the pet-food offers spread out over all players much more equally. I'm sitting on 100+ petfood with a stack that is slowly growing week by week, even though I use about 6 a week on average, with my Red Panda already having enough to stay active for the next month or so, while some members in my FS struggle to even get 2 petfood per week.
Who is offered what in the MA seems to be really dependant on some kind of allocation system, some see petfood appear almost daily, some see it appear hardly ever.

 

[SeaChelle]

I share your feelings.
I do understand Inno's point of view; bear and phoenix artifacts are the ones most wanted, so people will be far more likely to pay either in-game earned diamonds or cash to get more of those than an additional artifact for say...a Gingerbread Mansion or an Everblossom Sleigh.
So from a business perspective it does make sense. One can only hope that newer players will find a FS that will warn them.

Of course, the best solution would be to have the pet-food offers spread out over all players much more equally. I'm sitting on 100+ petfood with a stack that is slowly growing week by week, even though I use about 6 a week on average, with my Red Panda already having enough to stay active for the next month or so, while some members in my FS struggle to even get 2 petfood per week.
Who is offered what in the MA seems to be really dependant on some kind of allocation system, some see petfood appear almost daily, some see it appear hardly ever.

seem to have way more pet food than I need while others in my FS struggle, I wonder why I seem to get more, I still use them every week for fighting and pandas etc... I'm end chapter, top the spire and 5000 pt tourney player

 

[Dhurrin]

seem to have way more pet food than I need while others in my FS struggle, I wonder why I seem to get more, I still use them every week for fighting and pandas etc... I'm end chapter, top the spire and 5000 pt tourney player

Same here. Top Spire and about 9.000 points tourney.
From both my US FS and beta and a Dutch FS and a French one it seems that it just varies per player. Some just seem to get offers for petfood in the MA way more often than others. Which gives some players a huge advantage.

It wouldn't be so bad if craftable stuff could be traded inside the FS as that would help out even the odds. Though my guess is that such a gamemechanic would in no-time be abused by some players to gather huge amounts of certain items without much effort.

 

[crackie]

I take a lot of new players and have to run them through Spire boot camp. When evaluating their cities to help them transform into Spire climbers, I feel like new players are a bigger sucker for crafting bases without owning any artifacts than realizing what Pet Food is for to craft them. A lot of them have a bunch of level 1, unevolved buildings scattered all across their city. They don't realize they need artifacts to make them worth the space most of the time. If they had started crafting Pet Food from the beginning, they will be able to accumulate a good stash because they won't have any pets to use them on when you start out. My baby city has almost 200 Pet Food bc I don't need to feed anything yet, but I know I'm going to need to feed that Fire Phoenix multiple times a week once I have enough tourney provinces open to need to do so. Alternatively, if I didn't know better and had no pets that require Pet Food, I could elect to not craft any that whole time, thinking I don't need them, and then be in a pinch when I suddenly need a whole lot of it. Of course, if they crafted a whole bunch of bases, they can still evolve them if they wait long enough in the Spire or spend a fortune crafting artifacts in MA. However, if they crafted a Pet Food with a Bear/Phoenix artifact, then they have an expensive Pet Food.

...a Gingerbread Mansion

That Gingerbread Mansion is currently a money making ruse if they don't give us the base to craft!

 

[Elramike]

Well...., the idea for charging phoenix and bear artifacts to produce pet food SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From those of us who have been playing for a while and do not have all the resources in the world, Knock it off! The game is hard enough as it is!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Flashfyre]

Oh, good! Now I have a way to get rid of those worthless phoenix and bear artifacts instead of nuking them. Who needs em, I say!

 

[Silly Bubbles]

seem to have way more pet food than I need while others in my FS struggle, I wonder why I seem to get more, I still use them every week for fighting and pandas etc... I'm end chapter, top the spire and 5000 pt tourney player

Of course, the best solution would be to have the pet-food offers spread out over all players much more equally. I'm sitting on 100+ petfood with a stack that is slowly growing week by week, even though I use about 6 a week on average, with my Red Panda already having enough to stay active for the next month or so, while some members in my FS struggle to even get 2 petfood per week.
Who is offered what in the MA seems to be really dependant on some kind of allocation system, some see petfood appear almost daily, some see it appear hardly ever.

Usually, the problem is that players don't have a reserve of pet food to allow for the fluctuations in the recipe appearance. I usually keep 20 pet food in reserve and have never dropped bellow 10 so even 10 pet food in inventory should do the job. And of course, they need to check every recipe rotation and always leave the slot open for the next recipe rotation.

 

[Dhurrin]

Usually, the problem is that players don't have a reserve of pet food to allow for the fluctuations in the recipe appearance. I usually keep 20 pet food in reserve and have never dropped bellow 10 so even 10 pet food in inventory should do the job. And of course, they need to check every recipe rotation and always leave the slot open for the next recipe rotation.

Nope, that's not what I meant.
I mean, I'm sure that is a problem with some people. But I know several players who just do not even get to craft 2 petfood every week because they just don't get the offers in the MA. And some of them literally craft 24/7 like me.
So that way in order to build up a stock of 20 means they should forego using any petfood for 10+ weeks, so basically 3 months or so if they don't get 2 offers every week.
That doesn't really seem reasonable to me. And even if they do, then what? Using 2/week is hardly excessive, so if they don't get an average of 2 offers a week their stock will just drop again after that.

I craft a lot. Excessively even, cycling recipes and using time-instants to craft more. I craft 1 petfood a day on average. But that is hardly the norm and it cannot be expected that everyone crafts as much. But not getting even 2 offers every week is hardly sufficient for players who are in the last 2-3 chapters in an active FS.
Now I will grant that they may miss an offer at times; people do need to sleep. So do I. But statistically it is not even remotely likely that multiple people in a whole set of different timezones would only get offers to craft petfood during the hours they sleep. Every time, week after week after week.

 

[Silly Bubbles]

Nope, that's not what I meant.
I mean, I'm sure that is a problem with some people. But I know several players who just do not even get to craft 2 petfood every week because they just don't get the offers in the MA. And some of them literally craft 24/7 like me.
So that way in order to build up a stock of 20 means they should forego using any petfood for 10+ weeks, so basically 3 months or so if they don't get 2 offers every week.
That doesn't really seem reasonable to me. And even if they do, then what? Using 2/week is hardly excessive, so if they don't get an average of 2 offers a week their stock will just drop again after that.

I craft a lot. Excessively even, cycling recipes and using time-instants to craft more. I craft 1 petfood a day on average. But that is hardly the norm and it cannot be expected that everyone crafts as much. But not getting even 2 offers every week is hardly sufficient for players who are in the last 2-3 chapters in an active FS.
Now I will grant that they may miss an offer at times; people do need to sleep. So do I. But statistically it is not even remotely likely that multiple people in a whole set of different timezones would only get offers to craft petfood during the hours they sleep. Every time, week after week after week.

That's how RNG works, that's why we need to keep a safety buffer because there are times when pet food doesn't show up. There's roughly 6 pet food per week that appear in the MA on average. The key word is average, it means over a period of time with variations. I've been happily using 6.3 pet food per week for over a year and lately even 7.3 per week when my balance increased to 40 pet food. The safety buffer is very important.

Also, even when we log in every 12 hrs, we can check all four MA rotations. We can use one Sips of Clarity or disconnect the MA to align it to the time we want. Pet food is in the far right slot, so we need to make sure that we don't craft anything in there through rotation to keep it open.

 

[Bearius23]

<insert cliche "long-time listener first-time caller" tag for my first real post>

I'm honestly stunned at these crafting changes, both generally and from a new player perspective.

Firstly, the expiring 1x1 "buildings" that you just added to dilute the building crafting slot in the MA? I noticed you didn't pull a "this was requested by the community" on that bit of nonsense. File this under the "generally bad", not just specifically for newer players.

Secondly, this game is already not very friendly to new players. From essentially grandfathered building options (e.g., bunches of Moonstone Library buildings) that newer players can never match to very little in the way of catch-up mechanics that many games institute once they're a few years old. We've got to dump diamonds essentially just to catch up with what many players were able to acquire just by playing events (Fire Phoenix, Polar & Brown Bear). I was dismayed when some of my FS mentors were debating some of those older building combos (how many library buildings and others they really need) because they are swimming in Combining Catalysts (CCs). I have to craft CCs in the MA regularly. I'm not even going to get into the time factor, aside from realizing it will still take multiple years to get to chapter 21 that was just released because catch-up mechanics are really weak with this game.

Now this patch. You've just increased the CC requirement for pet food (pinching newer players even more), ostensibly for "balance" because you've added more chances to craft it. Which is really misleading when that increased chance only comes at the expense of... you guessed it... phoenix & bear artifacts. That I've already had to spend *thousands* of diamonds on just to get the evolved event buildings mentioned above. Inno, balance is not a synonym for greed. Yes, I know I don't "have" to have those buildings to play but if you're going to be a good contributor to a decent FS you do kind of have to. And because of tournament cooldowns and the amount of time it takes to get Timewarp, for example, newer players have to use more pet food to feed the important buildings during tournament runs.

So, hopefully I've just elucidated why this change is bad for newer players. You just made pet food and CCs, which were already more difficult for newer players, even more difficult for newer players. I'm not an expert, but don't you HAVE to have a consistently strong influx of new players to stay viable as a mobile/browser game?

Bottom line, I was already considering whether I wanted to keep playing, or at least keep playing at my current level. Just the temporal distance between myself and my top FS teammates is disheartening. I had been considering trying to write a thoughtful post about the experience of newer players. But you've just doubled down on your disdain for us, it seems. If this was to make more money (of course it was), it backfired for me personally. I've spent at least a little bit of money every month, sometimes more. Don't think I will anymore without a demonstrably different approach where you quit putting the squeeze on the newer players.
Thanks.

P.S. Cauldron needs a revamp. I've never seen a mobile game put out such an unnecessarily convoluted game feature. I physically react when my sorceress tells me she's back with ingredients. My city has a little shack on the outside of town for her to go and wait for me not to come talk to her.

 

[Bearius23]

Yep this change was pretty disheartening for me to say the least.

 

[Darielle]

This! Very well said, Bearius.

 

[Silly Bubbles]

Yes, some things are harder for new players while others are easier. They are constantly balancing things so I'd keep giving feedback to help to make the game better. Also, it's a challenging game so if you have any questions about things that are hard, there's always a lot of help here.