Feedback for Guild Expedition.. Level 5

[Lorendar]

I am selling me something. ROFL. The spurious hope that there might just be hope at the end of the tunnel.

That's not a light at the end of the tunnel, that's FOE's Charcoal Express coming at you.

 

[Lorendar]

Alright, that's what I initially thought. That message I replied to was talking about good attacking troops not necessarily being good for defense, which had me thinking that maybe the AI was in charge of these battles as well!

God help us if AI was in charge of running GE5 battles. You may as well pack your suitcase and go home, dragging a white flag.

 

[Lorendar]

I wonder if they'll come up with Fragments of the Poop Emoji. 600 fragments. I'd like that one.

 

[WiserOneFineDay]

I can tell that won't help. Massively increased defense boosts is the only way to get through battling GE5. Anyone telling you different is selling something.

I have nothing to sell you

I was able to fight all the way through GE 5 with my Hover Tanks in the Progressive Era and 136/100 city stats, HT's didn't take any damage at all until the third from last post, auto battled all except for the last that was an easy manual battle win.

Getting advanced age units is all the more important now if you are still in a low enough age to do so.

Follow the guide to higher age units here on the forum:

Guide to Higher Age Units

 

[LoveNkind]

Despite having a very healthy goods inventory, I doubt very much if I will do level 5 at all on weeks that my guild does not face stiff competition. That way I can keep increasing my goods and medal stock so I can neg most of level 5 if needs be. Whilst slowly increasing my defense and eventually become able to fight more..

Thank you very much indeed for this suggestion.

 

[LoveNkind]

There has never been any point in worrying about your city defense. It may be a part of the game but it is a waste of space if you collect on time.

At EMA, you can open PvP. You lose points when someone successfully attacks you, so most PvP players have high defense stats. I have 289/676 in my Modern Age city. I am looking forward to trying out GE5 and seeing how that works. Note to devs--Defense needs more attack power options.

My Iron Age city is almost never attacked, so I throw away defense stuff there. I will look at negotiating level 5. I have discovered that you win more negs if you realize that you need green sections only on the last throw and use the earlier ones to gain maximum information. Red is NICE. I will see how far that gets me and let y'all know soon. I am on Level 4, encounter 63 now, so I should start level 5 a few hours from now.

 

[Big Daddy Bertucci]

5 members of our guild have completed level 5.
I completed level 5 fighting the whole way. I did not negotiate at all.
I was able to update the defender boosts in my city with no loss to attack boosts. My attack boosts actually increased at the same time.
It can be done, if you try hard.

Did you even try?

In your posts you seem very focused on being able to complete GE5 and not whether it is worth it. Everyone in my guild could likely complete it right now if they wanted. It just wouldn’t be worth A) spending the goods or B) changing up their cities and losing out on other stats. That’s basically it in a nutshell. As others have noted, maybe way down the road with OP buildings there won’t need to be any changing out of buildings, although at that point any reason to get the GE5 rewards would be even more diminished.

 

[LoveNkind]

I just found something that Inno could use to improve GE5.
I have never used Tavern Defense boost. I looked at it just now, and saw that it is very very weak and only boosts the blue defense stats. It would be improved just by switching that to attack stats.
In my opinion, the overall strength of it should be doubled or tripled to make it interesting.

 

[honey55]

I have nothing to sell you

I was able to fight all the way through GE 5 with my Hover Tanks in the Progressive Era and 136/100 city stats, HT's didn't take any damage at all until the third from last post, auto battled all except for the last that was an easy manual battle win.

Getting advanced age units is all the more important now if you are still in a low enough age to do so.

Follow the guide to higher age units here on the forum:

Guide to Higher Age Units

It appears that level 5 may not be the long term challenge for everyone. They seemed to have failed to make it the challenge for your age that it is for say, Jupiter. We can't fight level 5 without high boosts that take months to get. We can't get advanced age troops. If someone in Jupiter can do it without redoing their city, fighting, not negotiating, I'm all ears. If i want to enjoy the game, i won't be negotiating. I even hate negotiating when it's 3 items. To me, it simply isn't fun to the point I'm considering getting rid of my SC. Level 5 should be the same difficulty no matter what age your in. Since it's not, posters should tell their age when giving feedback because feedback is age relevant. Really would be nice if they not only gave their age but their total boosts when fighting. That would make it more helpful to me.

 

[Be Chuille]

In your posts you seem very focused on being able to complete GE5 and not whether it is worth it. Everyone in my guild could likely complete it right now if they wanted. It just wouldn’t be worth A) spending the goods or B) changing up their cities and losing out on other stats. That’s basically it in a nutshell. As others have noted, maybe way down the road with OP buildings there won’t need to be any changing out of buildings, although at that point any reason to get the GE5 rewards would be even more diminished.

The challenge is the reason for doing it.
IMHO, the main point of any game is the fun and the challenge.
All the "stuff" you win is not real.

 

[Orius Maximus]

So far I've done the first 6 fights on level 5 in a CE city with a 195/604% defense boost. The first two weren't that tough at all, I built the attack boosting fortification for both fights. At worst, I was doing 2 points less damage to enemy units than normal while not taking a noticably larger amount of damage than normal. After 3-4 manual attacks with both I just hit auto since there was very little threat of me losing.

The next three attacks I did not build any fortifications, and did not have any trouble getting through the encounters. The last encounter, I built another attack fortification.

The first few fights weren't too bad on the combat boosts. The first enemy started with about a 190/190% which isn't that tough to me. The next few didn't get that much tougher either. I did note the 6th encounter with a bit of alarm though, as the bonuses went from around 220-225% to a bit over 240. That's a bigger jump than normal for GE. I looked up the numbers on the wiki, and it seems the highest bonus on the CE fights is a little over 1200%. I'm not really pleased with that amount given just how much higher the numbers jump here. I might be able to do it anyway. The highest numbers I've beaten on player cities were about 900-1000% attack and about 1400-1500% defense. But that was with my attack bonuses and players don't have two waves. A 1200% with my city right now is going to be rough, I may need at least a 350-400% attack boost on defense to clear that with CE units. I might need to cheese it with Hovers to get through, and I don't think it's a good thing if higher aged units are really required here. CE does have a reputation for being an easy GE age though.

Two members of my guild have finished all of level 5, one SAJM, the other VF. The VF guy did comment that it was brutal though, and that he needs to boost his defense attack score. Boosting defense attack I think is going to be the key here.

Still it's yet another example of Inno only using Beta for bug testing and to hell with balance concerns. I think these numbers are probably ramping up a bit too high, and Inno's judging things by offensive combat bonuses which are a little easier to get.

I got 2 of the 3 diamond rewards while plowing through level 4.

 

[Big Daddy Bertucci]

The challenge is the reason for doing it.
IMHO, the main point of any game is the fun and the challenge.
All the "stuff" you win is not real.

Right, I’m saying there is no “challenge”. Most people can do this right now if they really wanted. It just isn’t worth the cost to do so. The rewards are not worth the inputs. You could do other “challenges”, which by this I assume you just mean other parts of the game, and grow your city and guild faster and better than wasting resources in GE5.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I have nothing to sell you

Really? Because you proceed to try to sell me this:

I was able to fight all the way through GE 5 with my Hover Tanks in the Progressive Era and 136/100 city stats, HT's didn't take any damage at all until the third from last post, auto battled all except for the last that was an easy manual battle win.

Getting advanced age units is all the more important now if you are still in a low enough age to do so.

Follow the guide to higher age units here on the forum:

Yeah, no. In my mind, using higher age units is tantamount to cheating. You do whatever you want, but using someone else's formula to game the loopholes in the system is not my idea of fun. And using Hovers in PE proves absolutely nothing. It's like using machine guns against a cavalry charge. The outcome is predetermined no matter how much training the cavalrymen have had.

 

[qaccy]

Why are you comparing military training to a game ? One is very cerebral and takes a sit back and think twice before every move approach. The other however is designed to shock your 5 senses and then physically and mentally exhaust you before your final test while learning to function at 100% with your unit. If it’s really specialized like BUDS this process is repeated in waves to keep only the best remaining. They aren’t even in the same ballpark of mental and physical preparation even with an alternate reality ffs.

As I said originally, it's not much more than a surface-level comparison, and that's all it should be taken as. Gonna jot you down as someone else who also took it took it too seriously and were unable to see that basic similarity. Side note: It's not even my analogy, I just happen to be able to see what the original poster meant by making it. You aren't.

No, that's not simply doing it more, as you implied. That's taking other steps.

To "improve" defense boosts. No, you don't have to sacrifice your city. To improve them to the point where you can fight through GE5? Yes, you would have to sacrifice most of your city. You're ignoring the fact that your defense boosts to conquer GE5 have to be much better than your attacking boosts necessary for GE4. That's just ridiculous. What they should have done is start GE5 enemy boosts at a lower level, more like GE2 or 3. Instead they start them above the level of GE4. Which would make sense if we were still using attacking army boosts, but not when they are first introducing the concept of using defense army boosts to attack.

Um, no. Yes, you update and improve your city over the years. But I've been playing since early 2015, and nothing else that they have introduced has even remotely made me completely remake my city's development like this would. And since it's such a minor feature, I won't do it now. This isn't just adjustments, this is overhauling your entire city design. As others have said, the history of the game is that defense boosts don't matter, and now they're demanded by GE5 at a higher level than attack boosts are required for GE4.

For someone who's been playing since 2015, you're apparently remarkably short-sighted. Inno's flat-out said that they don't intend for GE5 to be easy to clear right out of the gate, especially given the reliance on defensive bonuses rather than offensive ones. Which means that they intend for this to be something that's built towards over time, perhaps even years, not overnight. Indeed, from the perspective of a new player who has no boosts whatsoever (or otherwise relatively small ones), they'll be able to build these bonuses up as they advance and GE5 isn't going to seem as jarring to them. Especially given how, again, a lot of the newer event buildings are stacking on more and more military bonuses, making it easier than ever to get those numbers up. I don't think it's going to be all too difficult to gradually gather more bonuses for GE5 over time. Besides, it's not like we necessarily have to match those bonuses to be able to win, either. Fighting manually, it's likely possible to do it with a lot less depending on age.

 

[JJ597]

Am I disappointed with GE5 and changes made to rewards, YES! If Inno had left the GE 1-4 rewards the same for diamonds, but changed others (victory towers, comes to mind) I'd happily spend $ on the anniversary event! and would look at GE 5 as a challenge! Now, GE1-4 is a waste of time and GE5 a waste of resources. I will be playing in less worlds, and not spending any $ on this game, while waiting to see if GE is changed and the diamond rewards restored.

 

[qaccy]

Am I disappointed with GE5 and changes made to rewards, YES! If Inno had left the GE 1-4 rewards the same for diamonds, but changed others (victory towers, comes to mind) I'd happily spend $ on the anniversary event! and would look at GE 5 as a challenge! Now, GE1-4 is a waste of time and GE5 a waste of resources. I will be playing in less worlds, and not spending any $ on this game, while waiting to see if GE is changed and the diamond rewards restored.

If these changes are why you aren't going to spend money on the game, I'd wager you were never going to spend money anyway. I mean, the game was probably giving you enough free diamonds that you wouldn't need to. I'm not seeing the logic here.

 

[JJ597]

If these changes are why you aren't going to spend money on the game, I'd wager you were never going to spend money anyway. I mean, the game was probably giving you enough free diamonds that you wouldn't need to. I'm not seeing the logic here.

 

[JJ597]

Your wager would be WRONG! I've spent $ on this game. I would have spent $ on the anniversary prize line, now I will not!

 

[JJ597]

GE 1-4 was my way of farming for diamonds. Since that has been removed, the incentive for a newer player to play has been removed!

 

[qaccy]

Your wager would be WRONG! I've spent $ on this game. I would have spent $ on the anniversary prize line, now I will not!

What, did the prizes somehow get worse as a result of the changes? They all still look exactly the same to me, Still not finding any logic here. Sounds more like a bit of a tantrum.