Summary of the "new balance" changes and what they mean to you.

We play the game for fun. Accepting some chores as part of it, in order to have some fun. The "re-balancing combat changes" proposed on test server are going to curb the fun factor by quite a bit. How BB will play those numbers we don't know, but the general consequences of that "play" are as follows:

1.Decreasing the importance and usage of Recruits and Bowmen. That comes with force push for players to use more advance units (M and LB) and with epic adventures Canons, Elite Soldiers and Crossbowmen. MA general is also degraded to a BHG status- no more happy clearing using his suicidal attack on most camps.

2.Increased cost of clearing adventures. More advanced units cost more in resources and time to produce. The costs of doing epic (and FT) adventures skyrockets. Some of current adventures doable by players lev 30+ will not be available to them until lev 42 (Elite Soldiers) example:Sons Of The Veld, Motherly Love, Mary and Traitors.

3.Increased number and time of "chores". The push for iron and the unfair iron ore ratio needed to make bars (compared to copper-bronze) will demand to find, build, upgrade and buff more Iron mines than currently copper mines. A regular geologist takes 5 min to find copper mine and one hour to find Iron mine.

4.Increased cost of using and losing more advanced units. The current ratio of production for Dama swords, crossbows and canons, for titanium bars, the long chain of production needed to make cannons are extremely slow and unfair toward the proposed changes forcing players to sacrifice quite few of those units in order to continue playing adventures.

5.All the above will consequently slow down the rate of doing adventures. Players lev 50 with upgraded chains of production and stockpiles of weapons will have it easier than players lev 30+ with their chains of weapon makers at lev 2-3. Some of them might be able to do 1-2 adventures a week, before they can remake the weapons needed to retrain lost units.

6.The cost of adventures goes up, the loot value inevitably goes up with it. (but not the rewards value). Less available granite and titanium inevitably slows down players progression and upgrading speed of production.This is additionally impacted by removing weapons from loot tables on all adventures. In BB own words this is to force us to make use of advance weapon makers.

7.Re-design of players entire island economy (from bronze to Iron and titanium). Established players will have to remove parts of large chains of production and replace it with much more expensive and slower chains. This will take time, resources and will be very costly. Remodeling players islands will add additional cost (moving expensive advance production workshops)

8.There are still few choke points in the proposed changes that can make the game almost unplayable by lower level players, or at least take all of the fun out of it. Production of advance weapons (1hr cycle), amounts of work and time required to produce iron weapons and longbows, increased difficulty of lower level adventures, increased demand for coal and wood, problems with adding more production buildings to already packed islands...

Ultimately, it will be decided by players if those changes and the direction of the game will keep them interested. How much it is uncertain yet, but BB's minds are set firmly on reducing the fun factor of the game for everybody and slow it down considerably in any aspect (progression, adventures and upgrading).

I agree with your points... mathematically they are correct. I don't necessarily agree with the "fun" aspect (talking for myself and maybe few other lvl50s) -

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but BB's minds are set firmly on reducing the fun factor of the game for everybody and slow it down considerably in any aspect (progression, adventures and upgrading).

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Whats fun for player A, might be pain for player B. I personally don't think it is fun to run adventure after adventure after adventure after adventure after adventure ...like a robot. Yes, I am doing it to keep up with other players who are doing it as well. I'd rather play less adventures that requires more thinking. Are these changes going to require more thinking when running adventures? They won't, but they will require more thinking to deal with the problems that BB throws at us - redesigning your economy, diversify your trades, etc. So yeah, I will probably have more fun :)

There is another factor of those changes. They will re-balance the game toward heavy use of iron instead of copper. Endless copper mines will not become obsolete (still can make bronze sw and tools with them), but will definitely loose quite a lot of value. This is a slap in the face for all those of us who invested 20 000 gems to purchase one. It is not that hard to predict Endless Iron mine sitting in design drawer of BB already waiting for the right time to be proposed, just as Epic weapons yards. More gem purchases, sure but not by reducing the worth of previous ones at the expense of players.

Making MA (the most expensive general in game) losing its value is another example. I can't accept devs of this game making items which I spent my hard earn cash to purchase losing so much value with one change of few numbers. It is not FAIR. I simply consider this cheating.

When we got up this morning here in Wimpyville, the welcome to Wimpyville sign had a banner placed over it saying: Coming soon, Detroit.

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Originally Posted by Wimpy

When we got up this morning here in Wimpyville, the welcome to Wimpyville sign had a banner placed over it saying: Coming soon, Detroit.

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did it have bullet holes in it?

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Originally Posted by Troll-Phu

did it have bullet holes in it?

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Only a few arrows.

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Originally Posted by Wimpy

Only a few arrows.

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did you take one to the knee?

"they will require more thinking to deal with the problems that BB throws at us - redesigning your economy, diversify your trades, etc"

I'm a spreadsheet junkie. Modeling efficient layouts and production times, an efficient large gold chain support system (it's a hobby), bread/farm/silo system, etc is a great deal of fun and I enjoyed it right up till it was done. Then no more fun.

I've already done preliminary resource models for the iron-and-up weapon chains and am looking at at least 5 scenarios and layouts (resource projections, trade ratios, etc) depending on as-yet-undetermined usage models. It took about three hours. I just need to get the final times/outputs and follow one of the plans. Done. Bored now.

Trade Office diversity...*large yawn* Big. Bloody. Deal. Few more arenas of trade, that's nice but ultimately what does that get you? Nothing. Demand for some things will go up, others down, and you'll re-establish equilibrium just like after the FTs were added.

-> Greater expense
-> Less adventures
-> Less fun when you run them.

Blocking is the only interesting thing the adventures provide, and given the server variability (i.e., lag) it's a tiny challenge. I'm sprint-running BKs atm (stocking up) and the only fun part is the first attack which has 2 blocking generals. The rest is just target-shoot. It. Is. Boring. As. Hell.

I certainly understand that marathoning advs isn't everyone's joy-point but you certainly aren't forced into it if you don't in a game where the only competition you have is yourself.

"It is not that hard to predict Endless Iron mine sitting in design drawer of BB already waiting for the right time to be proposed, just as Epic weapons yards."

This, I believe, is the single and only reason for this shakeup. Put the player into a massive pain-point that only gems can really solve. Typically, it's gone about in the worst way possible. Rather than grow the game with carrots and advantages for altered play-patterns, it's the big-stick approach of so-what-if-that-was-fun. This approach pushes people out, alienates large segments of the playerbase, leads to poor decision making and implementation processes, but on the plus side shows off the effects of cognitive dissonance as people defend the logically indefensible.

Frankly, I don't care if they want to make iron-and-greater machines more advantageous, adventures more difficult or costly, or try to shift the game's pain-points to get a bump in no-doubt-lagging sales. I'm fine with that: a business is a business is a business. But the game needs to grow into those changes. And that's not happening here.

This is m-m-massive chaos just to walk at a slower pace.

well imo the actions taken in regards to the game are of a company trying to kill off a game. the game was allready slow to begin with why slow it down now? since they sped everything up with premium. why introduce mods since CLs wern't welcomed? why introduce nukes just to nerf them? why call this a "New Combat System" when NOTHING has changed except for the players troops being nerfed? i may be wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but most of these changes seem to go against the wishes of the players (yes the ppl paying your salaries). there is a HUGE thread with suggestions and that a few were implemented most good ones were ignored. so How will this affect me? this new system? well it will make me think twice before purchasing another product from this company.

Yep. This is a big stick pushing us to pay more gems. The only reason for all of the "balance" (my ***!). The "balance" is unbalancing the entire economy of the game. People don't like to be pushed especially when they pay real money for something. It's not about a change at all, it is about how is it forced upon us and how radical it is. Funny, the devs proposed changes to the combat and after a week of testers posting on forums the consequence of it they commented they will be looking into changes into economy... they didn't know the iron push will need some major changes in production. Speaks highly about the design team. (insert sarcasm here)...

On the other hand you have to admit, such a brilliant move on dev parts. Nerf recruits, tweak enemies attacks by few numbers... kapow! We got another 2 years of steady gem sales. Yea, and half of the population of your servers, plus the other half who stays will be pretty much pissed off/disappointed/not trusting anymore enough to give you some money.

Thank you Pinkleet for such a well spelled out summary.

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Originally Posted by theWhiteCane

"It is not that hard to predict Endless Iron mine sitting in design drawer of BB already waiting for the right time to be proposed, just as Epic weapons yards."

This, I believe, is the single and only reason for this shakeup. Put the player into a massive pain-point that only gems can really solve. Typically, it's gone about in the worst way possible. Rather than grow the game with carrots and advantages for altered play-patterns, it's the big-stick approach of so-what-if-that-was-fun. This approach pushes people out, alienates large segments of the playerbase, leads to poor decision making and implementation processes, but on the plus side shows off the effects of cognitive dissonance as people defend the logically indefensible.

Frankly, I don't care if they want to make iron-and-greater machines more advantageous, adventures more difficult or costly, or try to shift the game's pain-points to get a bump in no-doubt-lagging sales. I'm fine with that: a business is a business is a business. But the game needs to grow into those changes. And that's not happening here.

This is m-m-massive chaos just to walk at a slower pace.

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This is my perception of the upcoming change as well. Although, this was more eloquently phrased than I would have stated. I sure am glad that I spent 40,000 gems on ECMs.