Balancing combat - what is the goal devs?

[Pinkleet]

The tester forum is kinda buzzing right now. Quite few people raised their concerns about the ripple effects of those changes on economy and game play. I can't imagine an average player having more than 2 Damas smiths or 4 SS. The reasources needed to run them are just too great, and you can't run 2-3 Rb's back to back to get tons of titanium ore to make those. Steel swords are entire different matter not sure if those few 500 depos on our islands will even support a steady flow of them. Remember they are planning to remove all weapon drops from adventures. This will run TO dry faster than anyone thinks because people will try to run adventures like they used to - many.

The change to range units obsoletes bowmen and the increased dmg and HP of enemies forces you to actually not only use LB and Xbows but to lose some of them in process of completing adventures. Have you check how slow xbows production is? or LB for that matter?

Not only it will cost us many more expensive units to finish an adventure but the rewards are less (no weapon as loot). And the other loot doesn't seem to be changed in volume either. This is not a change this is a NERF that might really make lots of players under 50 think "screw it". Try doing SA and lose 2x to 3x more units you losing now and most of them advanced (not R). It is just not worth it...

People are also upset about BB dropping something like this on us, unfinished (even for testing) and expecting us to do their job. Giving splash dmg to all units is the dumbest idea ever. Epic and FT advies will bleed your barracks to the bone. Expect FT to truly take 7 days to finish Unless you got 10k troops ready to wipe. Even with that you will not have enough generals to do them in a day. The changes are just way too much in all aspects.

[CrazyOol]

My guess is that their goal is to make expert weapons more expensive. All of the buildings after the Exotic Wood Sawmill are just expensive decorations, and it is uneconomic to produce weapons when you can loot them or buy them in the trade office. I have a level 2 forge, and I figured that it would cost me about 8gc to build a cannon if I buffed it every step of the way. I would think that removing weapons from loot would be enough incentive to give players a reason to turn on all of those buildings that have been sleeping for as long as we can remember. But if they wreck the combat system to give us massive losses, that is just overkill. I won't be running 2-3 adventures a week, or even a month. I will just log in to turn buildings off and on, and buy an occasional loot spot.

[Draconus2004]

Many aspects will need modified to work with the changes. Try it, and suggest intelligent, reason backed changes. That is what I will do before I simply say I will quit if it goes live.

[Milo_Orpheus]

One of the devs driving this change listed their goals on the test server forum. This is my response to their stated goals and in that thread is a link to their original post: http://forum.tsotesting.com/threads/...-No-Confidence

[Plumz]

Tanks Milo for posting this. I completely lost confidence in devs of the game. Increasing the need to make more advanced weapons and not even knowing that the iron deposits as they are will not support such efforts is just embarrassing. If we start losing ES and Xbows on daily basis while doing adventure how are we supposed to replace the units? The cycle to make Damasc sw is 1hr 12 min!!! Do they even know this? Mores cost to the adventures? More advanced units needed to finish them? What for? For crappy, lousy loot? Most of the adventures are not worth doing already...

Vote of no confidence from me as well. And I am sure I am not alone.

[Vanessa]

In my opinion, these changes are not in any way intended to please the player community but instead, to reduce server load issues that they created when they made it just too easy for players to level up quickly and do many more adventures. Years ago I could see what the intended direction of the game was meant to be but they just never got it implemented i.e. forcing us to make our own advanced weapons and taking days to do an adventure instead of hours. Now it appears that they have to come up with a solution to their problem, not ours.

As a guild leader it has already been obvious to me that there is a slow decline in player enthusiasm and many seem to fade away after reaching level 50 because the challenges become too great for the game to be fun and lets face it, this game is becoming less about fun and more about frustration. Can you imagine how long it will take for the guilds to complete the guild quests that require us to experience an adventure with these changes? I have a member in my guild that recently bought all three endless copper mines just to find that now they intend to greatly reduce the need for bronze swords. I mean it has already been hard enough to keep new players interested and active. Do they think this will in any way improve that? Who will want to use premium time now with greatly reduced chance for reward and i don't know about the rest, but I play this game for the rewards... take away that and who will want to continue to play?

Of course they want to stop us from blocking even though it has been part of the game all along, intended or not. It seems to me that it was meant to be a part of the game because why else would it take longer to defeat towers and castles if not an attempt to make blocks possibly fail.

I think if this goes live, developers will sit and cheer when high level players with over developed islands leave the game. Yay, server load reduced! Then a call comes from marketing... "revenue reduced!"... doh!

I for one hope they put this idea on the same shelf where they left the Guild Bank... which I'm still waiting for by the way lol.

[Wimpy]

I agree with you Vanessa

[Pinkleet]

I think they want to create some output and a solution for the increasing stockpiles of resources people get from adventures. Forcing us to use more advance weapons and using titanium and exotic wood to make them will unload some of that. Unfortunately those changes will hit very hard players under 50.

Making it harder for everyone to play and less rewarding, but especially for lower level players is a dangerous slope. Besides, I lost confidence in the devs. They clearly don't play their own game and just have no clue about quite few basic things. (How many working Iron smelts can all of your iron deposits sustain for example and how many adventure will you be able to do by your daily IS production). The majority of people actually do adventures on self sustained basis as much as their economy allows them to do with some added a bit of trading. Those will get hit hardest.

Not sure if the devs can see pass this. Consequences of such changes could be devastating to player base.

[Moonlime]

I think they want to create some output and a solution for the increasing stockpiles of resources people get from adventures. Forcing us to use more advance weapons and using titanium and exotic wood to make them will unload some of that. Unfortunately those changes will hit very hard players under 50.

Making it harder for everyone to play and less rewarding, but especially for lower level players is a dangerous slope. Besides, I lost confidence in the devs. They clearly don't play their own game and just have no clue about quite few basic things. (How many working Iron smelts can all of your iron deposits sustain for example and how many adventure will you be able to do by your daily IS production). The majority of people actually do adventures on self sustained basis as much as their economy allows them to do with some added a bit of trading. Those will get hit hardest.

Not sure if the devs can see pass this. Consequences of such changes could be devastating to player base.

From reading BB_Mara's post, I think that's the intent.

yup... I've tried it...Cavs, recruits and mma are useless in the new system. Elites defeat everything instead of blocking. The training times for an adventure are terribly long considering those training times remain unchanged in light of troops needed and the need for iron has increased considerably as many have mentioned. I've played many games. The amount of resources one holds has not been a problem because like building licenses, there's a limit to how much one can hold. In other words, you can't just add storehouses beyond the "maximum" point to hold more (because there is a limit). But wait...feedback needs to go in the tester forum...Ha!

[Pinkleet]

Thanks for the info Moon. All those concerns are valid and true for lev 50 players. As of now nobody can finish any adventures with tavern generals only (even the lower ones). How are the new players supposed to advance without Vets/ GM ES and Xbows? That is a real question to ask