Feedback for Guild Expedition.. Level 5

[Pericles the Lion]

Sure, they're releasing $15 buildings that you can get one maybe two of each event. So with the two phantom towers I have, and the level 9 panda hut I assume I'll get, that brings me to a whopping 64% city attack boost. And it only cost 2 months, $15, and 10k diamonds. To still not be remotely close to being able to do GE5. And after years of people complaining that attack was king and that every variant building without attack was worthless (Moose Mountain anyone?) they're fixing it by making the attack variants even more essential. I doubt I'll be paying for the gold panda building because without course correction I won't be playing much longer.

But if the answer is that we'll just have new event buildings that fix everything, that undercuts the entire "GE5 is a challenge" argument everyone is making. If we simply phase out event buildings for newer ones that are identical but also blue, then we're just locking in a different type of power creep. Whereas before, every event building had to be red to be useful, now they'll have to be I guess purple to be useful. GE5 was a bad design decision. Fake difficulty to mask Inno removing diamonds from F2P players. No real rewards for the people who would have to sacrifice to do it (beyond the portraits, which are admittedly nice), and clearly no effort by Inno to test or balance (good saving buildings that cost more goods to build than they save).

I feel that you hit the nail on the head with this sentence. Players chose to have tunnel vision for red boosts. INNO didn't force it on us. Going forward, I'll wager, both red and blue will have relevance. "Purple" is a fine way to describe it. It symbolizes the balance that I think INNO intended and is taking steps to restore. A lot of players are completing L5 so I would think that it's here to stay (maybe with a bit more tweaking but I wouldn't hold my breath).

 

[Xenosaur]

Yeah - it's now "you like GE (hybrid design, 1 - 4 & 5), or you need to LEARN to like it".

Basically, it's eat what's served for dinner, regardless.

Inno's betting the rapid changes they're making to dump tons of blue juice bottles on you, reset the probability on when you play GE 1 - 4, you get more BLUE city defense stuff (ritual flames) from your TOR, etc. They are quietly attempting to rapidly change the underpinnings of the game to make up for the lost time they neglected City Defense (to wit: @Pericles the Lion , @Friggin Unexpected Jeff point). I'm seeing BLUE-centric buildings a lot more all over the game now - AD daily 6 and AC auctioning (Globe Fountain is popular now!!), Daily Challenges, ToR idols, event filler "junk", etc.

Historically - it wasn't tunnel vision though- there are NO BLUE VENUES - except city defense. There are 7 or 8 RED venues. It's no wonder that with limited land to drop buildings on, people go with the RED ones!! Not rocket science to play a "drop high value buildings that everyone covets..." game.

If you're in doubt, look at how much RED Venue STUFF goes for in competitive bidding situations in the AD.

Inno did a 180 on us, making BLUE important in a RED designed game.

You can "not embrace" now, not embrace ever, but... new generations of players will think this is the "norm" for GE, and only us veterans will know the real story of why it's been done this way...and how we got here.

Inno's grand experiment. Before it's really called a design and implementation victory for them, let's see who's embracing GE 5 multiple months from now, when the novelty and this experiment has tried to secure a place in the game, and attempts to becomes "mainstream".

 

[Diogenes of Sinope]

I have played through level 5 of GE 5 times so far. I am not happy with the current reward/cost ratio. My defense stats are at 425%/1260%. This allows me to win 5 to 6 level 5 battles. (Though some people say that you can win a few more battles through manual means.) The costs of negotiating the remainder of level 5 rises very quickly as you progress and it requires both current and previous era goods. This last time I ran out of AI goods (previous era) before I could finish even though I have a good many buildings dedicated to previous era goods.

As to rewards, many of them are self-serving. The rewards are buildings and upgrades that help you win level 5. So what are going to do with them, once you can play level 5 with less cost?

For now, I am holding off doing level 5. I want to see where Inno is going with this.

 

[DoubleJ]

There are two things going on. Number one is a small change, (GE 5) yes it is a shock, but given a bit of time (six/eight months to a year...) no problem IMO. THen there is the second part, the response... A lot of whining in response. Reminds me of the "Who moved my Cheese?" book and idea. Yes the cheese got moved. get over it. LOL
The one interesting idea is using Virgo Project. A brand new use for a neglected Great Building.

The fact you think Inno cutting GE diamonds for new players by 50% is a small change shows you don't understand the issue. The fact that Inno's solution to breaking GE is to expect us to spend $15 a month indefinitely until we replace all our buildings with purple ones shows why it's an issue to begin with.

And VP is useless. If it triggers, then the first wave is easier. But there are two waves. And I don't suddenly succeed against things 10x my strength just because I only have to do it 1.5 times instead of 2.

 

[DoubleJ]

I feel that you hit the nail on the head with this sentence. Players chose to have tunnel vision for red boosts. INNO didn't force it on us. Going forward, I'll wager, both red and blue will have relevance. "Purple" is a fine way to describe it. It symbolizes the balance that I think INNO intended and is taking steps to restore. A lot of players are completing L5 so I would think that it's here to stay (maybe with a bit more tweaking but I wouldn't hold my breath).

But I don't think blue buildings will have any relevance. Without more features dependent on city boosts, no one is going to take an Athlon Abbey's 20 square footprint over the Tarot Card Caravan. The only way blue will be chosen is if it's crammed with red that people would have picked anyway. If the Phantom Tower was kept the same but lost all its blue buffs, people would still choose it over the other 3. If there were a fifth tower that had the blue buffs but not the red buffs, a Ghost Tower, people would still choose Phantom

 

[Angry.Blanket]

I dont have to do GE 5, So many players skip so many parts of the game because they dont enjoy that part, but GE 5 alll of a sudden has to be doable right now or I quit .

 

[DoubleJ]

I dont have to do GE 5, So many players skip so many parts of the game because they dont enjoy that part, but GE 5 alll of a sudden has to be doable right now or I quit .

All of GE is broken. 5 is just the worst part. The majority of players are F2P, and GE was one of the few consistent ways of them getting premium. Whales pay the bills, but whales don't stick around in an empty pond. GE5 is untested, shoddy garbage, but what's worse is that they broke one of the critical aspects of the game to implement it.

 

[Xenosaur]

I have played through level 5 of GE 5 times so far. I am not happy with the current reward/cost ratio. My defense stats are at 425%/1260%. This allows me to win 5 to 6 level 5 battles. (Though some people say that you can win a few more battles through manual means.) The costs of negotiating the remainder of level 5 rises very quickly as you progress and it requires both current and previous era goods. This last time I ran out of AI goods (previous era) before I could finish even though I have a good many buildings dedicated to previous era goods.

As to rewards, many of them are self-serving. The rewards are buildings and upgrades that help you win level 5. So what are going to do with them, once you can play level 5 with less cost?

For now, I am holding off doing level 5. I want to see where Inno is going with this.

Where's it going? You ain't seen nothing yet. So... Easy answer: Ton's more revenue generation is going to be required - going forward. Ways you can't even contemplate, or might not even stomach in this game.

The party's over for free stuff. You'll go slower in overall progress, it will cost more, and we'll look upon how slow it was historically as a golden age when the game balances prevailed - and we couldn't see it at the time. This just came across my desk on MTG, Inno's parent company:

Executive summary:
Date of article: April 13th, 2023 - 06:00pm
Synopsis: InnoGames to undertake a “strategic realignment” and job cuts
Feeds and Speeds: This realignment will however, result in 75 roles across the company being made redundant

75 people of 400 reportedly in Innogames = ~19% of the company.

https://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/81308/innogames-announces-strategic-realignmentand-job-cuts/

 

[Pericles the Lion]

But I don't think blue buildings will have any relevance. Without more features dependent on city boosts, no one is going to take an Athlon Abbey's 20 square footprint over the Tarot Card Caravan. The only way blue will be chosen is if it's crammed with red that people would have picked anyway. If the Phantom Tower was kept the same but lost all its blue buffs, people would still choose it over the other 3. If there were a fifth tower that had the blue buffs but not the red buffs, a Ghost Tower, people would still choose Phantom

I've said it several times before. I think that more game features that use defending army boosts, like GE L5, are on the drawing board. It's pure speculation on my part but I'm going to get prepared just in case. You're free to do as you see fit.

 

[Orius Maximus]

I'm seeing BLUE-centric buildings a lot more all over the game now - AD daily 6 and AC auctioning (Globe Fountain is popular now!!), Daily Challenges, ToR idols, event filler "junk", etc.

Historically - it wasn't tunnel vision though- there are NO BLUE VENUES - except city defense. There are 7 or 8 RED venues. It's no wonder that with limited land to drop buildings on, people go with the RED ones!! Not rocket science to play a "drop high value buildings that everyone covets..." game.

If you're in doubt, look at how much RED Venue STUFF goes for in competitive bidding situations in the AD.

Inno did a 180 on us, making BLUE important in a RED designed game.

That's for sure. I've regularly seem Ferris Wheel kits go for 250-300k in the AD. If it's not Attack, Attack, Attack, it's often cheap. I was in a bidding war the other night over a Tactician's Tower, someone had a bid for only around 1.8k. I tried grabbing it on the cheap, but the other player was watching the auction too, then a third guy jumped in. I did manage to jack the price up to 18k, but I didn't feel like paying much more than 20k on it, and I left with 2 other players competing on it.

I've completed GE5 twice now in a CE city, and I'm estimating that a player probably needs at least a 400% defense attack to fight through it without too much difficulty. Bringing in Hovers doesn't really help that much if the Hovers can only do 1-4 or 2-5 damage. And I'm talking from direct experience here, if the damage you're doing isn't high enough, then the enemies close in and will defeat you. Defense boosts might help soak damage, but you still need to dish it out. And it's only the last quarter that's a problem. I said last week that I could probably do it without boosts or fortifications for at least the first half, and that was the case this time. I can fight without too many problems through the first 10 fights, and the next two are challenging but not frustrating. It's the last 4 where things get tough, and it's in those fights where the AI gets a massive boost to stats. I think those numbers really do need to get toned down a bit.

 

[P C C]

In the first week of GE 5 in my guild of 11 members who almost always all complete GE4, we had 6 players finish level 5, 2 players do most of the level, 2 barely start it, and 1 decide to ignore it. But based on internal feedback so far, I'd guess maybe 2 or 3 are enthusiastic with a few others dubious but willing to wait and see how it goes longer term.

I just reached SAJM about a month ago. At the time, I figured I'd left more buildings to provide SAV goods than I would ever need but now I'll have to see whether I can do anything effective or whether I'll need to wait for Titan

In the second week we were about the same, same 6 of 11 completing it. With changes to my city to add defender A/D without any major sacrifice, I went from being unable to even defeat encounter 1 unboosted to defeating 4 unboosted. And despite dropping from +1400 from bottles to +1200 I fought 12 and negotiated 4 compared to 10 and 6, using fewer goods. So I'm still not sure what I'll do long term but it's starting to feel less unreasonable.

 

[qaccy]

But I don't think blue buildings will have any relevance. Without more features dependent on city boosts, no one is going to take an Athlon Abbey's 20 square footprint over the Tarot Card Caravan. The only way blue will be chosen is if it's crammed with red that people would have picked anyway. If the Phantom Tower was kept the same but lost all its blue buffs, people would still choose it over the other 3. If there were a fifth tower that had the blue buffs but not the red buffs, a Ghost Tower, people would still choose Phantom

You're way, way too focused on offensive military bonuses. There's obviously more to the game than that, and when Inno takes a big step to remind players of that, rather than acknowledge it and start moving towards that direction, you'd rather stamp your feet and complain about it. Status quo player right here. Attack bonuses okay, defensive bonuses not okay. Have fun staying in 2022.

 

[DoubleJ]

You're way, way too focused on offensive military bonuses. There's obviously more to the game than that, and when Inno takes a big step to remind players of that, rather than acknowledge it and start moving towards that direction, you'd rather stamp your feet and complain about it. Status quo player right here. Attack bonuses okay, defensive bonuses not okay. Have fun staying in 2022.

The game is focused on offensive military bonuses. Literally the only aspect of the game that requires defensive bonuses is GE5. Everything else that awards points, FPs, goods, or prestige, is entirely dependent on offensive bonuses. There isn't more to the game than that. You can try to talk down, but it just shows you don't know what you're talking about. You aren't playing the same game if you're imagining that defensive bonuses currently have any value whatsoever outside of 16 encounters in GE

 

[Dursland]

The game is focused on offensive military bonuses. Literally the only aspect of the game that requires defensive bonuses is GE5. Everything else that awards points, FPs, goods, or prestige, is entirely dependent on offensive bonuses. There isn't more to the game than that. You can try to talk down, but it just shows you don't know what you're talking about. You aren't playing the same game if you're imagining that defensive bonuses currently have any value whatsoever outside of 16 encounters in GE

Doesn't mean they won't add more features that require defense.

In fact seeing how much trouble they went to over GE5 and giving us all those new two way buildings, I would count on it.

 

[qaccy]

The game is focused on offensive military bonuses. Literally the only aspect of the game that requires defensive bonuses is GE5. Everything else that awards points, FPs, goods, or prestige, is entirely dependent on offensive bonuses. There isn't more to the game than that. You can try to talk down, but it just shows you don't know what you're talking about. You aren't playing the same game if you're imagining that defensive bonuses currently have any value whatsoever outside of 16 encounters in GE

I mean, the extra points I get each day from defeating attackers in the PvP arena suggest that there's been another benefit to defensive bonuses for a couple years now. GE5's not the first, it's just a larger one.

 

[RedR0ck]

@mellofax any feedback from the devs? Do you guys plan to change number of fragments for FOY?

 

[Xenosaur]

PvP Arena IS (was, at the time...) a NEW venue, DIRECTLY designed to use BLUE City Defender boosts (with a 3rd set of chosen, non-overlapping warriors, I might add). I don't have a problem with that concept because it's self contained, and homogenized. It allows a player to examine that game venue for entertainment or achievement value, chart a course in the game to invest and pursue it as something of interest, and invest in it - to win it.

BUT... GE was designed and currently built: 1 - 4, is ALL RED.

The vocal majority I've talked to and watch post both here AND in beta seem to be saying the IMPLEMENTATION of HOW INNO bolted on a BLUE GE 5 defense to 4 offensive (RED) layers is wrong. It's a HAIL MARY pass.

It would be marginally better to entice people to OVERCOME that decision, even with the dfficulty imposed, if the rewards delivered something more compelling (or as compelling) but in a shorter timeframe. That might allow people to warm to it.

But GE changes for MORE fragmentation, MORE cost to the players, and MORE dilution of net game value (3 strikes - you're out!) seem like another nail in the coffin of misplaced design and implementation, and it's got the HIVE sensing HUGE financial desperation and then thinking.... despair at the "what are they thinking, what are they doing", approach to the game.

And... it's going to bite hard because the decision was incorrect.

ABOUT 19% of Inno's workforce was just let go. Is it NOT clear they're struggling to design something for FoE that's compelling enough for people to spend money? This is now about what appendage to save. 75 people "made redundant" is a LOT.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

ABOUT 19% of Inno's workforce was just let go. Is it NOT clear they're struggling to design something for FoE that's compelling enough for people to spend money? This is now about what appendage to save. 75 people "made redundant" is a LOT.

The only thing that is clear is that 75 employees were laid off. While you were keeping up with that news did you also notice that Google, Meta, Netflix, Twitter, ands Amazon (just to name a very few) are also significantly reducing headcount. This doesn't mean that they are all on the brink of failure.

 

[Sledgie]

PvP Arena IS (was, at the time...) a NEW venue, DIRECTLY designed to use BLUE City Defender boosts (with a 3rd set of chosen, non-overlapping warriors, I might add). I don't have a problem with that concept because it's self contained, and homogenized. It allows a player to examine that game venue for entertainment or achievement value, chart a course in the game to invest and pursue it as something of interest, and invest in it - to win it.

BUT... GE was designed and currently built: 1 - 4, is ALL RED.

The vocal majority I've talked to and watch post both here AND in beta seem to be saying the IMPLEMENTATION of HOW INNO bolted on a BLUE GE 5 defense to 4 offensive (RED) layers is wrong. It's a HAIL MARY pass.

It would be marginally better to entice people to OVERCOME that decision, even with the dfficulty imposed, if the rewards delivered something more compelling (or as compelling) but in a shorter timeframe. That might allow people to warm to it.

But GE changes for MORE fragmentation, MORE cost to the players, and MORE dilution of net game value (3 strikes - you're out!) seem like another nail in the coffin of misplaced design and implementation, and it's got the HIVE sensing HUGE financial desperation and then thinking.... despair at the "what are they thinking, what are they doing", approach to the game.

And... it's going to bite hard because the decision was incorrect.

ABOUT 19% of Inno's workforce was just let go. Is it NOT clear they're struggling to design something for FoE that's compelling enough for people to spend money? This is now about what appendage to save. 75 people "made redundant" is a LOT.

Just reading about MTG, they seem like a "Vulture Capitalist" company that doesn't create anything of their own, just buys companies and strips them down for profit.

 

[MJ Artisan of War]

The only thing that is clear is that 75 employees were laid off. While you were keeping up with that news did you also notice that Google, Meta, Netflix, Twitter, ands Amazon (just to name a very few) are also significantly reducing headcount. This doesn't mean that they are all on the brink of failure.

No.... the direction they are taking this game means they are on the brink of failure....