Feedback for Guild Expedition.. Level 5

[DreadfulCadillac]

Aside from the switch from horses to motors, cars were just a progression from wagons. LOL
You know what horse drawn wagons left in their wake? Horse manure, which is exactly what this statement of yours is.
"Aside from the most jarring change in FoE history, there's nothing special about this." ROFLMAO
Yeah, dismiss the most important point out of hand just because it doesn't fit your agenda. Rubbish is what that is, dude. Try again.

Wrong and wrong again. The only part of the Forgotten Temple that's useful is the attack boosts. Mostly because it's been discovered that the FP boost isn't what it's cracked up to be. Aside from the ability to get that boost along with other useful benefits from other buildings, there's the fact that you have to keep finishing GE5 every single week to maintain it. The Feathered Serpent Statue is decent for its size at level 3, but it takes 12 weeks finishing GE5 to get one. The benefits of the Serpent Fins and Feathers are negligible and are more easily obtained elsewhere. The Serpent Spikes are useless outside of GE5, and the boost is so small as to be useless unless obtained in mass. The Divine Sky Watch isn't terribly impressive. You would need several of them to make any impact and the benefits can easily be matched by other buildings. And as you said, the Greater Ritual Flame is virtually useless outside of GE5.

So I will affirm that all of the 7 unique buildings available only in GE5 are either useless outside of GE5 or easily matched by buildings much more easily obtained by other means. Part of the usefulness of buildings is how you can obtain them. With all the other ways to obtain attack boosts, finishing GE5 is the least efficient way to do it. Defending army boosts are useless outside GE5. Any other benefits from the buildings are exceeded by many buildings outside GE5. The cost benefit analysis is where GE5 breaks down.

So that's 50 squares of your city only useful in GE5. (Kraken's effect in other battles is negligible at best, I sold the one in my main city several weeks ago to make way for more effective buildings.) Then there's 12 squares for the Forgotten Temple. And another 6 for each piece of the Serpent Statue chain that you place. Don't forget the SBC and Star Gazer that you mentioned earlier, another 50 squares. Greater Ritual Flames. Now you're talking about getting close to or exceeding 150 squares of your city almost totally devoted to GE5 that are mostly useless outside of that. The only one of these buildings that I would want in my cities is the Star Gazer, only because I do solo guilds and getting previous era goods without having to find or pay for trades is nice. Not critical, but nice.

Seriously, I can't believe anyone would waste space on the Virgo with it only having such limited attempts. Even at level 80, it only gets 5 tries at about 69% or so. So maybe 3 or 4 battles affected per day. Sometimes less. Occasionally 5. At least the Kraken gives FP.

I'd urge you to take a closer look at the Divine Sky Watch, because I find it to be really nice, actually - In FE (my era now), It gives 4% attack AND 5 forge points in a 3x2 (6 squares). A nice balance of attack and FP that's on par if not exceeding many recent event buildings. That's .83FP/Square, and .6%Attack/Sq. Better than the buildings recieved from GBG, Better than so many other recently released buildings. The upcoming Panda Reserve, when upgraded to the Panda Shrine, gives 17 FP in FE, on 20 tiles - or, .85FP/Square. Sure, it also gives a bunch more attack and whatnot. However, the nice thing about the Divine Sky Watch is that you can pretty much semi-reliably get 1 per month. It's better than the Stage of Ages and so many other recently released buildings when it comes to FP/Sq - you should really reconsider!

Also, for the record, I've never been on the Attack HypeTrain. I'm at 900 attack at the moment, and it's plenty for me. Once I get more reno kits to upgrade my attack buildings from older eras and as i keep replacing some of the older buildings in my city with newer ones, it'll be even more. I also produce ~700 FP/Day, excluding my blue galaxy. Further, I've got a total goods production of 1k/day, excluding CF and SV. Why? I don't want to become overly-dependent or overly tied down to any one game feature... Sooner or later, GbG will be rebalanced. When that day comes, a lot of players who have solely focused their city around attack over the past few years will be VERY salty. I, on the other hand, will be chilling with my FP chains and whatnot. Point being, balance is key. Why do I bring this up? I bring it up because I believe that, for me, the Divine Sky Watch presents an incredible balance, one similar to the SoA. The SoA is weighted for attack, with an FP/Sq efficency comparable to an SoK. Whereas, the Divine Sky Watch is weighted for FP, with a rather mediocre Attack Efficency. And that's fine. I like that. It's good - great even.

 

[DreadfulCadillac]

ge level 5 was bang out of order by inno, just a pure cash grab,here is a little hint inno if you want me to spend more cash on this game stop nurfing gbg; and our gbs its that simple

Why the false sense of entitlement though? You're not required to complete GEV - it's certainly not an obligation. I ignore cultural settlements, and likewise, if you hate GEV this much, you can ignore GEV

 

[qaccy]

Aside from the switch from horses to motors, cars were just a progression from wagons. LOL
You know what horse drawn wagons left in their wake? Horse manure, which is exactly what this statement of yours is.
"Aside from the most jarring change in FoE history, there's nothing special about this." ROFLMAO
Yeah, dismiss the most important point out of hand just because it doesn't fit your agenda. Rubbish is what that is, dude. Try again.

What 'agenda'? I'm just clarifying why it wouldn't make sense for the boosts in GE5 to be lower than the boosts in GE4. The negotiation costs go up, so do the boost amounts. GE5 using blue bonuses rather than red ones is a secondary consideration to the intention that the total % is still going to increase because it's a higher level.

Wrong and wrong again. The only part of the Forgotten Temple that's useful is the attack boosts. Mostly because it's been discovered that the FP boost isn't what it's cracked up to be. Aside from the ability to get that boost along with other useful benefits from other buildings, there's the fact that you have to keep finishing GE5 every single week to maintain it. The Feathered Serpent Statue is decent for its size at level 3, but it takes 12 weeks finishing GE5 to get one. The benefits of the Serpent Fins and Feathers are negligible and are more easily obtained elsewhere. The Serpent Spikes are useless outside of GE5, and the boost is so small as to be useless unless obtained in mass. The Divine Sky Watch isn't terribly impressive. You would need several of them to make any impact and the benefits can easily be matched by other buildings. And as you said, the Greater Ritual Flame is virtually useless outside of GE5.

So I will affirm that all of the 7 unique buildings available only in GE5 are either useless outside of GE5 or easily matched by buildings much more easily obtained by other means. Part of the usefulness of buildings is how you can obtain them. With all the other ways to obtain attack boosts, finishing GE5 is the least efficient way to do it. Defending army boosts are useless outside GE5. Any other benefits from the buildings are exceeded by many buildings outside GE5. The cost benefit analysis is where GE5 breaks down.

Rather than just repeat myself for what'd be at least the 5th time, I'll pass the ball straight back to you and ask you to provide examples of specific buildings that are 'better' than the ones in GE5, while also comparing them against the same metrics you use to evaluate the GE5 buildings, with a particular focus on any costs to obtain and/or place them. I've already pointed out how good the GE5 buildings are. Time for you to point out which ones are 'better' (or at least as good) and obtainable as consistently as the GE5 rewards are.

 

[DoubleJ]

Sorry, but anything that exists in the game has passed the 'concept' stage. And I'm not really seeing them being 'actively discouraged' as far as the buildings providing the bonuses are concerned. Players may have sneered at buildings like the Athlon Abbey or Bear Mountain at the time they were released, but point-for-point they're just as good as other event buildings that provided other bonuses, give or take some stat shuffling and the general advance of powercreep over the years. And yeah, it probably stings to hear that someone who's playing, by your definition, 'non-competitively', is able to be successful in GE5 and in the rest of the game as well. I mean, as far as red boosts go, how much is necessary? GE4 caps out lower than GE5 does, GvG doesn't go higher than 75%, and GBG is generally a farming fiesta against enemies with no boosts at all. That just leaves the PvP Arena, which in terms of player benefits, hardly makes a stronger argument for stacking red boosts than it does for blue ones. The strawman arguments I already told you I wasn't going to respond to anymore, since you already made it clear you've got your eyes wide shut on that one.


Yeah, Wishing Wells were a prize back when their productions were actually relevant and the big spenders were filling their cities with SoKs. Nowadays, literally the only thing that keeps them valuable to some players is that slim chance of collecting diamonds from them. This is why they eventually made it into the Antiques Dealer and started appearing less frequently in events.

OoD exists in the game. It is not intended to be built. No competent player would have one past the Middle Ages, if they built one at all. Culture buildings exist in the space ages. No one has a need to build them, and anyone who built one because they thought it improved their city doesn't understand the game. Blue bonuses are much the same way: they exist, but if you actively sought them out you weren't playing the game competitively. No one is successful in GE5. It's just a transaction: my goods for Inno's portraits. It's like bragging about being successful at having mastered the right click. GVG is not about your bonus, it's about how easily you can win a fight with no damage so you don't have to replace troops so you can have more fights per minute. Again, you don't seem to understand GVG. GBG boosts matter during races, for the same reason. Fights per minute. Yes, in a farming season they matter less. But I'll always prefer fewer clicks to more. PVP Arena allows success with 0% blue boosts. Try beating Ebony with 0% red boosts.

Wishing wells are less common and less valuable. The former is a design decision by Inno to encourage spending. The latter is power creep, which is fine, but there's no replacement for them, which is not fine.

Parliamentary Inquiry: "Since I run the Abort 2000 RQ machine" how do your hands not die? no, really. How are they not dead. Because I did ~700 Abort RQs today, and I had to stop because my hands actually physically hurt. What's the secret? How do you not have carpel tunnel? Jealous

Autoclickers. The same things that allowed players to abort quests to get fights and get tens of millions of points through fake fights.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I'm just clarifying why it wouldn't make sense for the boosts in GE5 to be lower than the boosts in GE4.

You didn't clarify why anything. You just stated that in your opinion it's fine. Which flies in the face of logic. It's like letting someone do trap shooting with a shotgun for years, then saying, "Oh, here, try shooting them with a longbow." But we won't slow their flight speed any. Your contention that it should be just as high as the enemy boosts when we can use attack boosts is just ridiculous. And you should know that, if you know anything.

The negotiation costs go up, so do the boost amounts.

Yeah, the mechanics in negotiation don't change fundamentally, like they do in fighting. It's not the same thing, and you know it.

GE5 using blue bonuses rather than red ones is a secondary consideration to the intention that the total % is still going to increase because it's a higher level.

This is a statement that would be embarrassing if said by a noob, let alone a supposedly experienced player. Sheesh.

Rather than just repeat myself for what'd be at least the 5th time, I'll pass the ball straight back to you and ask you to provide examples of specific buildings that are 'better' than the ones in GE5, while also comparing them against the same metrics you use to evaluate the GE5 buildings, with a particular focus on any costs to obtain and/or place them. I've already pointed out how good the GE5 buildings are. Time for you to point out which ones are 'better' (or at least as good) and obtainable as consistently as the GE5 rewards are.

Rather than just repeat myself for the umpteenth time, I'll just point out that all other event/special buildings can be obtained by doing things we're already doing, without uprooting our city or completely changing our focus*. That fact alone negates any tiny "metric" improvement you claim to see in the GE5 buildings. If someone has the goods production already, or can ramp their current production up a bit to meet the GE5 goods requirements, fine. But the fighting side of it is a ridiculous degree of change for the average player and you know it.


Here's a question that I haven't seen any of the GE5 apologists answer. How do you justify the massive change in Treasury goods requirement to open GE5? For other levels, it's double the previous level. For level 5 it is quadruple. That is inconsistent and there is no valid reason for it to be so.

*Well, except for the ones now that you have to pay cash for.

 

[qaccy]

No one is successful in GE5. It's just a transaction: my goods for Inno's portraits. It's like bragging about being successful at having mastered the right click.

I'm not sure why 'success' in GE5 is being arbitrarily measured differently than it is in other areas of the game, or even other GE levels. If I'm clearing GE encounters, it doesn't really matter whether they're in level 5 or level 1. I don't consider lost troops to be a cost considering how plentiful they are compared to the relatively few GE encounters, so as far as I'm concerned I think I'm already pretty 'successful' in GE5. Only going to be more so as I get more rewards, both within GE5 and without, allowing me to cut out potion use and perhaps even fortifications.

GVG is not about your bonus, it's about how easily you can win a fight with no damage so you don't have to replace troops so you can have more fights per minute. Again, you don't seem to understand GVG.

I'm curious to hear more about how 'GvG is not about bonus', while being able to 'easily win a fight'. Anyway, the requirements for GvG are essentially zero by modern standards since Inno shelved the feature nearly 7 years ago now. By the time you have enough boost to clear GE4, you have more than enough for GvG. How much damage you take in battle is going to be more influenced by AO and Keen Eye procs at that point. Pretty much applies to the majority of GBG as well, but this arena will vary season to season and/or depending on the guild you're in. Where I'm at, it's pretty much always just farming. After all, any guild that's in Diamond League has pretty much maxed out the guild benefits from GBG so at that point it's just about personal rewards. Maybe you're not in a guild that's farming GBG so this'd just be a difference in perspective.

PVP Arena allows success with 0% blue boosts. Try beating Ebony with 0% red boosts.

Try beating any opponent with no bonus. I'm not sure what argument you're trying to make here, but that seems to be somewhat common from you. But this may also be a situational thing, since I'm only ever seeing other players in the Arena and not NPCs. I wouldn't be able to fight Ebony even if I wanted to!

And finally, for @Johnny B. Goode, I was prepared to type up some more to respond to your post that showed up while I was typing this one, but I can see that it won't really be necessary since you didn't actually provide anything of substance to reply to. Well, except for one point that I want to drive home:

You didn't clarify why anything. You just stated that in your opinion it's fine. Which flies in the face of logic. It's like letting someone do trap shooting with a shotgun for years, then saying, "Oh, here, try shooting them with a longbow." But we won't slow their flight speed any. Your contention that it should be just as high as the enemy boosts when we can use attack boosts is just ridiculous. And you should know that, if you know anything.

All of this is irrelevant. Again, this is the 5th level of GE. It's not a new game mode/feature, it's an additional level of GE that comes after the 4th level. There are no changes to mechanics here, aside from the addition of fortifications. Battles are still fought the same way, negotiations are still performed the same way. But it's still a higher level, therefore the enemies are stronger and the negotiation costs are higher.

The rest of what you said is basically just you stamping your feet like Jeff up there's been doing in a lot of his posts. You've both resorted to bringing up bad analogies because the only argument you really have is that you don't like blue military boosts. Anyway, I've said and repeated my piece enough by this point. I'll be over with Pericles and the rest of the apparently 'non-competitive' players who're already clearing GE5 every week for the rewards, in addition to the event rewards that come along since I'm plenty capable of earning those as well. It's nice that these things aren't mutually exclusive!

 

[honey55]

If those for this new feature weren't so bent on belittling those against it with their terminology, i might actually give things they say some merit. All one has to do is state what they believe is true and why. Phrases like "stamping your feet" just show the writers character, nothing relevant at all to the point one's trying to prove.

And the fact that ge5 has been completed by many does not prove it is a good feature. It still cost more for most to complete then the rewards they get. It still gives portraits. It still uses blue defence though we're not defending and makes use of attack gbgs when we're supposedly not attacking. They still don't end after the first wave if we manage to defend against those attacking like happens when we attack a2 wave battle.

We're not going to agree. I suppose you all think the summer event is wonderful too as it is on beta. Can't wait to read that thread. Of course, maybe all those posters on beta are just stamping their feet as well.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

If those for this new feature weren't so bent on belittling those against it with their terminology, i might actually give things they say some merit. All one has to do is state what they believe is true and why. Phrases like "stamping your feet" just show the writers character, nothing relevant at all to the point one's trying to prove.

And the fact that ge5 has been completed by many does not prove it is a good feature. It still cost more for most to complete then the rewards they get. It still gives portraits. It still uses blue defence though we're not defending and makes use of attack gbgs when we're supposedly not attacking. They still don't end after the first wave if we manage to defend against those attacking like happens when we attack a2 wave battle.

We're not going to agree. I suppose you all think the summer event is wonderful too as it is on beta. Can't wait to read that thread. Of course, maybe all those posters on beta are just stamping their feet as well.

Just like nothing that you have said proves that it is a bad feature. "Good" or "Bad" are subjective terms. It's up to each individual player to decide for themselves if GE5 is good for them, or not. I think that it is good, you disagree. Maybe we just leave it at that? I'm not trying to convince you, or the other naysayers, of anything. My purpose here is to provide INNO with feedback on my actual experiences.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

Except that you reply to every post on it , try to be a little less disingenuous next time.

I reply when I am being attacked. Like now. How about you begin to challenge the content of a post and not attack it's author? Jeez, saying that I reply to every post is the pot calling the kettle black. No one appointed you Forum Moderator.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I reply when I am being attacked. Like now. How about you begin to challenge the content of a post and not attack it's author? Jeez, saying that I reply to every post is the pot calling the kettle black. No one appointed you Forum Moderator.

LOL. The post by @honey55 that you responded to wasn't even directed at you, yet you responded, so...

All of this is irrelevant. Again, this is the 5th level of GE. It's not a new game mode/feature, it's an additional level of GE that comes after the 4th level. There are no changes to mechanics here, aside from the addition of fortifications. Battles are still fought the same way, negotiations are still performed the same way. But it's still a higher level, therefore the enemies are stronger and the negotiation costs are higher.

Talk about someone "stamping their feet". "It's just the same as when you use attacking boosts!" No, it's not, and it won't be just because you keep repeating it. A lie repeated a million times is still a lie. You're either being intentionally dishonest with your statements, or you're just stupid. Which is it?

 

[mellofax]

Lets avoid the escalation into personal attacks please. Keep it on point and I will not need to start removing posts etc.

 

[DoubleJ]

I'm curious to hear more about how 'GvG is not about bonus', while being able to 'easily win a fight'. Anyway, the requirements for GvG are essentially zero by modern standards since Inno shelved the feature nearly 7 years ago now. By the time you have enough boost to clear GE4, you have more than enough for GvG. How much damage you take in battle is going to be more influenced by AO and Keen Eye procs at that point. Pretty much applies to the majority of GBG as well, but this arena will vary season to season and/or depending on the guild you're in. Where I'm at, it's pretty much always just farming. After all, any guild that's in Diamond League has pretty much maxed out the guild benefits from GBG so at that point it's just about personal rewards. Maybe you're not in a guild that's farming GBG so this'd just be a difference in perspective.

Try beating any opponent with no bonus. I'm not sure what argument you're trying to make here, but that seems to be somewhat common from you. But this may also be a situational thing, since I'm only ever seeing other players in the Arena and not NPCs. I wouldn't be able to fight Ebony even if I wanted to!

The rest of what you said is basically just you stamping your feet like Jeff up there's been doing in a lot of his posts. You've both resorted to bringing up bad analogies because the only argument you really have is that you don't like blue military boosts. Anyway, I've said and repeated my piece enough by this point. I'll be over with Pericles and the rest of the apparently 'non-competitive' players who're already clearing GE5 every week for the rewards, in addition to the event rewards that come along since I'm plenty capable of earning those as well. It's nice that these things aren't mutually exclusive!

It's about winning fights per minute. Whatever bonus you need to not replace troops is what matters. But not replacing troops is the metric. In seasons where there's one other strong guild it's about farming. Occasionally we get seasons with 4 strong guilds, or no strong guilds. In all cases, how many attacks you can do before replacing troops is what matters.

I can beat every single encounter in every environment of the game with zero blue bonuses. The one aspect of the game that requires blue bonus is GE5 combat. It is completely pointless in every other inch of game code. Once you get to the top of PVP arena you always fight one NPC worth more points than the other two human players. You could fight Ebony if you had a city optimized for success in combat.

The argument we had that you continually ignore is that Inno sacrificed GE to figure out a way to drain players of goods. There is too much goods bloat and they're sucking them out. GBG did the same thing with guild goods because treasuries were overflowing after Arc hyperleveling. But GBG was a new feature that had worthwhile rewards and didn't displace existing structures for new players. GE5 is poorly implemented (and obviously untested, as it has buildings intended to save goods that cost more goods to build than they save), puts diamonds out of the reach of new or lower power players, and exists solely to drain higher age players of their stockpiles. Because despite what you and Pericles wrongly insist is happening, SAJM players aren't now and aren't in the future ever going to go for blue. They'll just keep dumping goods down the hole until they get the portraits they want, or just avoid GE5 entirely. Because it's not worth it. It'll be 3 months to see a pay off and by that point the new event buildings will be better than the FS. Just like with the TF2. By the time people had upgrade kits, there were better ways to get 12 fp for 30 squares.

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

Facts: I play three Worlds fully (no Diamond farms) In those three worlds my guilds in relation to GE 5 The recent past Season are as follows:

XX Guild 25 players completed 80 (So did all GE 5), and an additional 11 completed some GE 5 (five players did not take part in GE at all**)
YY Guild 41 players completed 80 (So did all GE 5), and an additional 16 completed some GE 5 (All players finished at least 64 which is the Guild requirement)
ZZ Guild 20 Players completed 80 (So did all GE 5), and an additional 18 players did some GE 5 All players finished at least 64 which is the Guild requirement)
All three Guilds open GE5 and all allow players to only complete 64 of they don't wish to do GE 5

**XX guild has no requirement to do GE at all, and so 5 players had 0 GE encounters of any kind.

No comment is needed to show what is happening in the real world of Forge of Empires. The facts above speak volumes.

 

[Just An Observer]

To Dreadful Cadillac: No autoclicking here! I have a Logitech mouse. My hands are in good shape. When doing Abort 2000 RQ, I break it down into 5-10-15 minute segments. As I click away, music plays and helps me enjoy a nice rhythm. It is a good time to use for relaxing! Use the clicking time as a meditation.

I have run Abort 2000 RQ every day for a long while. It is easy to do.

 

[Angel.]

you can fight it just takes a bit longer to get those boost up i made it to turn 9 this week fighting
loveing the chalange dont like all the frags

 

[DreadfulCadillac]

To Dreadful Cadillac: No autoclicking here! I have a Logitech mouse. My hands are in good shape. When doing Abort 2000 RQ, I break it down into 5-10-15 minute segments. As I click away, music plays and helps me enjoy a nice rhythm. It is a good time to use for relaxing! Use the clicking time as a meditation.

I have run Abort 2000 RQ every day for a long while. It is easy to do.

Nice - I may have to try that out! I've also got a logitech mouse - a G502 SE

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I'm wondering when this GE5 feedback thread turned into a discussion of RQ aborting techniques and which mouse is best for it. @mellofax maybe you could address this, too.

 

[honey55]

The real challenge of ge 5 for negotiators is producing enough goods especially past age. The real challenge for fighters is getting enough blue boosts, especially attack boosts. This is really not much of a challenge for p2w as they can get extra event buildings, especially since Inno is now producing buildings with great blue boosts. The biggest chsllenge is for f2p. Players who can normally only get 1 building and that may take months to complete. And once the boosts are high enough it wont be a challenge at all any more than level 4 is, we'll just hit auto. The trade off at that point will be all the space we devoted to just do one level of ge. It would be interesting to see a chart showing for example how many fps one could get on the area used for so those tactician towers, ritual flames and watch towers. (The reason to check fps is because that is one of the draws to getting the one month building, FT.). Granted if using event buildings one might get other things as well. But, it is likely to take years for a f2p players to replace them. I think if someone really wanted to prove ge5 gave more then it cost. They could maybe prove it. Pretty sure for me space used for red attack pays out much more than i lose by placing the buildings. Not sure if it will still be true after the nerf. Someone must be smart enough to prove one way or the other. I may check my inventory and see what would fit in the space I've used for blue boosts that don't give any thing else i want. Still wont change the fact that we are attacking not defending.

 

[DreadfulCadillac]

I'm wondering when this GE5 feedback thread turned into a discussion of RQ aborting techniques and which mouse is best for it. @mellofax maybe you could address this, too.

It's directly correlated to procuring goods for the new feature that requires an unprecedented quantity of goods: GEV