Feedback - Re-balancing of the old combat system / production / adventures

[Skijackz]

Why was Outlaws removed from the Merchant? Now you can't get it anywhere. My fav adventure is gone. I would have stocked up.

[zugzug]

the 50% production increase is only going to last for 2 weeks.

http://forum.thesettlersonline.net/t...l=1#post245448

[Aurboth]

There are two different things going on at the same time, which seems to be confusing for most players. The long term change is the removal of weapons from the adventures and the resulting requirement for weapons to be produced by the players. This may require the addition of weapon chain buildings, including coal production, in order to start production. The applicable line from the developer's diary is "The production time of the Steel Sword, Titanium Sword, Canon, Gunpowder and Carriage was decreased. Furthermore, the Production costs of Titanium Swords and Canons were decreased as well." Unless you have already started adding new buildings to your island, you will not see most of effect from this yet. There was some shortening of the cycle time for some of the weapon producing buildings, but it is difficult to see the effect as it is greatly overshadowed by the short term change in effect.

The short term change that everyone is seeing is the temporary acceleration of smelters and weapon producing buildings. This means that the primary cycle time was cut in half, and production is therefore almost twice as fast. The massive increase in resource requirements is coming from this change, and as their production times were not changed, is the only thing driving the changes to bronze swords and horse production. However, as most people do not have a 50% overcapacity of the resources needed for these chains, they will be required to use built up reserves to maintain the faster rate. For those who do not have the reserves to maintain it, there is a simple solution that will greatly reduce the problem - turn off some of the production. As the buildings are working nearly twice as fast already, turning off sections of the chain should not result in a loss of overall production. When the increased production time ends, the buildings can be turned back on and then proper rebalancing with the expert weapon chains can be done without the complication of the short-term bonus.

[Snacknado]

i dont understand why someone would turn off weapon chains because of the shortening of production time- if anything now is the time to x3-x4 those buildings because some are now "worth" using special buffs to buff them.

[Hasket]

I could not agree more and think nasnas did an excellent job of summing things up. I'm turning off my production for now and going to enjoy HOMM online for a while. I'll be back in a couple weeks to see if they have "fixed" this issue. If not, I'll miss it, but heck, it's only a game and there are plenty more out there. Sorry TSO, but you really screwed the pooch with this latest change. Hopefully, after the two week period, I'll check back in and see if I can once again balance my resources and production.

[tricore]

I believe the 3 Island extensions, should have been implemented prior to PVP. Lv 50 players Islands have little room for these new Bldgs, why so big? Landing areas for Gens, Qm space, ect. Of course the Coal issue. Let us have more Recyclers, two is not enough. My option is to tear down FMs or Nobles for the space required. Then the Exp. Troops count against Pop. And after you capture a Island, the reoccurring resources are a joke. No ROI, stupid, not thought out. I have spend $100s of dollars to get where I am at lots of time. Not sure at this point worth my time and money anymore. I would assume the Assumptions were that you generate more revenue from these upgrades, right? Then give us more space, don't tear up our existing chains. If we have more space we can adjust chains, or add chains, spent more, get it, therefore more revenue for you guys! I would thing your Bus. Model would tell you this. If not very more Assumptions were made.

[Ciara_Belle]

my weaps and ore was perfectly balanced... i log in and whammo -- all outta wack... i have not bought a lot of extra building licenses so i don't have any to spare to add more mines etc to rebalance... AND you want me to lose 2 more for two new buildings. (someone suggested i spend 845 x 2 gems to get more fish farms to tear down my fishers - which are lvl 5 and i paid granite and exo to get them there).... most of my buildings are lvl 5 or 4 ... if i start tearing down its means wasting all that granite and exo i worked to get for over a year. i spent more than 18 months working to get my island balanced and working... overnight its trashed.

furthermore the 'quests' to teach us pvp have no info whatsoever. 'run an expedition' doesn't even suggest it wants you to do a training expedition... AND that you already have it (i bought a 2nd one) -- AND there are no guides to help you with the training expedition... trust me - this new way of sending attacks is NOT intuitive enough to do without a guide.

I have no way of knowing if i am attacking a friend or guildie? the people who supported me for the last 18 months?? not gonna risk it.

I spent over 2k coin (nevermind marble, stone, hardwood etc) moving buildings the day before you released the free move.... you could have announced on NEWS page or FB that you doing that - instead of buried in the forum that not all of us 'live' on.

The 3 marshalls clog up my star even more... and now i can't see my geos without scrolling down ( a small thing but it removes the 'quick' check to see if they came back if i was on adv etc)... no new tab for gens like many of us asked, no stacking of buffs like we asked for over a year, no fix of the barracks queueing like we asked for over a year. and now i need a stupid amount of coal to create more / new weapons in a house - instead of a chain like EVERY other weapons... (again in stupid queues of 25).

quest says - 'run the expedition' -- gee thats helpful -- not.

I did a test adventure i did (horseback) (because i HAD to kill troops in order to train new ones)... no sounds to announce new collects quest, no sounds for collects found, and the new 'hover' over enemy camp pop-up obscures the crosshairs you are trying to place for attack (and i am not blocking here - straight attack which is what bb wants us to do).

and my FAVOURITE???
i can't run an adventure at ALL while an expedition is open - so how am i supposed to complete guild and daily quests etc?? hope someone has the right ls open?? and that i have the money to buy it?? They are two separate areas of the game - i should be able to have both running.

i am NOT impressed.

[Ornias]

The bigger problem is that BB continues to roll out new systems, without fixing the old ones. How about they fix the stupid 25 limit in barracks? Queue for the bookbinder? Whisper bug (2.5 years and counting)? I don't care about the weapons, but I bet the new guys leveling in their 30's do. Not to mention that it will be all but impossible to balance any size weapon chain at all. Coal is a MAJOR holdup. Even using the cutters bug, you will be hard pressed to build a chain for anything but regular adventures. With the new PVP system the cost of pvp troops are horribly disproportionate to rewards gained. All in all it looks like a Hail Mary on BB's part, and I see it being a major fail. Locked out of doing adventures while a PVP expedition is open? Fail, fail, fail. For those of you saying we do not have to do PVP, you are correct, we do not. However, it will force a lot of people out of this game with the changes. I do not see a lot of people willing to tear down and rebuild their island for the new chains. At the very least the expansion islands should have been released with this patch to alleviate the space problem.

[LordB]

I feel like a lot of the complaints we see here are from either not reading posts or comprehension. Hopefully people have read up on the smelters chain and now realize a lot of it is temporary for 2 weeks because BB is trying to do people a favour and let them build up stockpiles of Weaps/Iron Bars so they can participate in the new structure of the game.

@Orinias realistically the changes won't force anyone out of the game at all. It is binary. Enjoy 'PVP' do it. Dislike 'PVP' old content is there for you too. Also all the talk about hard pressed/impossible to run chains. Try playing the game in its new format and you will realize it is the polar opposite. IT is drastically easier to run chains now than it was before. I will elaborate in the pros to the new system.

PROs
-Entirely new content that feels different than old content.
-Highly repeated able since instead of static guides, player placed 'traps' will make things more cunning and fun
-New weapon chain ONLY for Melee is reasonable in cost. It is a good thing to structure pvp around being an advanced form of adventure that isn't cheap.
-Ability to send more than 1 general at once.
-Free Moving buildings will allow many to find proper placement of buildings freeing up space for the buildings.
-FT adventures feel better and should be difficult. I really love how you also buffed their loot drops to make up for this so that there is real rewards other than beans.
-Removing all the easy buffs floating around from FT adventures will make co op more adventures more active as well as badges. (control inflation by removing gold ore)
-Improving adventure loot for adventures that aren't as quick to finish as IOTP is fantastic. I now have to sit and wonder, should I run outlaws and take more time, or run 2 IOTP quickly. It used to be a binary option, now I can do different adventures and get better value.
-AMAZING job allowing us to send resources directly to storage, bang on and MUCH needed.
-Old combat system even looks better with preview of troops in camps by hovering mouse.
-PVP is not a gem=win system. You made the right choice with all new generals, do not allow gem creep to change this. Competition needs to be fair and advantage gained only from effort.
-It is nice having the colonies as they are a passive way to get additional resources that last all week while you run other adventures.
-Great job not allowing us to select who we attack and keeping it random/unknown. Will keep servers friendly, prevent bullying abuse which leads to toxic environments and means people can pick it up when they want and put it down when they don't.
-Removing weapon drops should have happened forever ago, it is great that you did it finally! People will start building real chains instead of nonsense we use to build.
-Reducing the population adventures drop is also a great move. Bread will become an actual chain people need again as it should be. Being able to run endless adventures just from doing adventures was a bad mechanic.
-Deposit drops for coal and iron are fantastic. It is now possible to run quite a few lvl 5 iron mines endlessly without ever having to rebuild which makes production of higher tier weapons easy.

CONs
-'PVP' is not engrossing or engaging. It feels like a bare bone systems with little effort.
-Insane lag stuttering of the game since update, much like people have been mentioning on test for weeks.
-New experience content NEEDS to be matched with new progressive building content. 2 new buildings is not enough to cause people to have something to work towards again. (I would suggest solving this by allowing a new population building better than FM to be bought with pvp coins. You could even make it produce a small amount of coal or pinewood to dry up some of these salty eyes)
-PVP coins are terribly implemented. The couple towers they buy arn't that important since the current system doesn't breed attachment to colonies. IMPROVE this. Make them more like starcoins and beans. Give actual things for them to buy to encourage use of the system. Flesh it out.
-PVP needs to foster competition it should have had leader boards/ladders/tournament system built into it FROM the START! This should important and a priority. Look what those 'Clan Wars' did for another game that will remain nameless you see people addicted to on their iphones/android/.... Steal ideas like that implement here.
-Guild PVP. You really should have added something to work with this. Guilds foster activity and community, tapping into that and giving them a role that would matter in the game could have been accomplished with pvp. I suggest future content should consider this. It would be EPIC to have to defend a guild island by expending mighty resources over a period of time.
-The lag. Oh god the lag. I know I said it once but this really needs to be stressed.
-Consider making one conquest island permanently defensible and build able on. It would give the die hard fans something to REALLY fight for and make people invested in the game and defending their loot.

-MOST DRASTICALLY COST to Recruit PVP Cav & Bowmen.. its ridiculous.. like absolutely bananas...

Finally the new buildings x25 at a time what a nightmare. This should NEVER go live. Anytime a developer says lets have a building, and lets make people que things 25 at a time, FIRE him on the spot. Do not let him collect his light saber or nerdy cup on the way out. I am cautiously optimistic that you will resolve the current barracks/production house and now the NEW barracks and NEW armoury with the update to test. BUT you guys need to make 25 at a time your biggest priority to fix..... AFTER the lag.

Overall good job on some stuff, just need better execution and development of material.

Best Regards,
B

[Plumz]

BB dropped a bomb on this one. Their intentions to ease up the removing of weapons from adventures by speeding up weapon production backfired with a horrible shortage of coal. As they said, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"... Yes, you can troll them or defend them all you want. The reality is, more and more people realize how clueless the devs are about their own game. When you put yourself in the position of people not respecting you (as a business) you might wanna rethink your profit prospects for the future. All those bloopers and carelessness with decision making affecting players are backfiring now. I warned you about this in quite few posts...

The most interesting thing for me to read (in game chat as well) is how many people are upset about the 2 weeks speed buff ruining the balance of their economy. Way over 90% of comments are more concerned about their shops out of balance than about shortage of weapons. That should teach BB one thing about their player base - balance, planning and confirm, steady game play is more important to players than some new shiny things. Instability, rumors, chaotic changes with unpredictable consequences, lack of vision and communication on the dev part is the game killer for players. Again, warned BB about this in few posts...

You don't listen, don't communicate, drop bombs on players and lack understanding of your own game and your player base. I am inclined to assume: it seems you don't even care anymore about the player base judging by your decisions to postpone the release of the most wanted feature of the game - extension islands.

I wonder where is this all going to lead...besides the devs losing their jobs eventually. Or perhaps the budget axe is already in a swing...