Salsuero
Well-Known Member
Thanks! I'll add it to my resume when I do.
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Thanks! I'll add it to my resume when I do.
DeletedUser9264
Milk and cookies when you drop off the mail?
*Arturis*
Well-Known Member
To sum it up, the forgot to check this before nuked the GB
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Darkbox
Active Member
1. They sure took the time to post pictures of their CEO and other ridiculous things (Check their FB and Twitter)
2. They took the time to send mass emails about how great their other games are and we should check them out
3. They took the time to complete and publish the announcement for the new event
4. They took the time to push out various diamonds sale event to millions of players
But yet, asking them to take an extra minute or two to turn their vein and hallow message into something that make sense and can actually reassure people is asking too much?
How much do you make as their lawyer / defender / enforcer / janitor / mail carrier?
Edit: Added a job title.
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DeletedUser25920
As others have said, this was a major screw up by Inno. Both the FP to level vs reward stats, and the supposed ‘fix’.
What adds insult to injury is that in none of the announcements is Inno admitting that this situation is entirely their fault (and not the players fault). On the contrary the mention 'exploitation', indirectly blaming the players for this, and they are also being extra nice to say that they won't suspend them. Suspend them for what? They have done nothing wrong.
I was personally not at all affected by this (do not yet have a high level Arc that would enable me to level GBs quickly, unfortunately), but I am shocked that people that had nothing to do with the Oracle had GBs levels wiped out (a huge amount of levels in some cases).
But apart from what everyone else has already said regarding this fix affecting also the ‘innocent’ players, I wanted to say there was no cheat or exploitation and no one should be punished. Everyone is innocent here (apart from Inno, who are guilty of gross incompetence). And yes the Oracle was working as intended, and there was no bug. (The fact that no one bothered to check for later levels what the reward multiplied by 1.9 would amount to is kindergarten level error by Inno developers).
So what is this nonsense about a ‘bug’, ‘not intended’ and ‘exploitation’?
If you take a number, say 500 and you multiply it by 1.9 it will give you 950. Every time. All the time. Nothing to do with intentions. It is a mathematical certainty. It is not something you have to foresee. It is a given. And Inno on purpose made this a No age GB, so on purpose it has the rewards levels of an HMA GB, and on purpose they made the FP needed to level requirements lower than HMA – even lower than BA- so that it is easier to level for the new players. So on purpose they made this have better ”reward fp” /”fp needed for level” ratio, than all other GBs (Else by default the No Age GB would have HMA GBs rewards and HMA fp needed to level . But no, they tinkered with it, and lowered the FP needed to level). It is just they forgot to check for higher levels what the rewards x 1.9 would be compared to the fp spent. Whose fault is that?
It as if saying people exploited the Crystal Villas. No they didn’t. You, Inno, designed it to have better population and coins, so of course people preferred it. Same with this GB.
Players of course look at the stats of new buildings to see which is better to build, and of course would look at the rewards of GBs to see where they are better off investing their FP. So when you give them a GB that has lower than BA requirements but HMA rewards, of course they would see this is a better place to invest FP compared to higher age GBs they preferred until now. I am only surprised that it was only the German and French players that figured that out (I am sure given time more people would realise this).
So no it is not a bug, and no one exploited anything. An exploitation of a bug, or of something not intended, woul be if eg the reward for top spot said “10 fp”, but actually the top contributor got 30fp (with no Arc boost). That would be a bug, an error, something not intended. But this is not the case. The Oracle gave the correct (so intended) rewards, and the Arc boost was applied correctly (as intended).
I read that in the French forum, people asked about it, and they were told it is all ok (these are the rewards Inno decided for this GB, and you are allowed to contribute while having an Arc. Obviously).
It was just a very poorly thought out reward scheme. Once the ‘fix’ is fixed, and people also get back all contributions that have disappeared, Inno should come with a correct solution to this. “Ooops we messed up, and some of you got way too many fp, that essentially unbalances the game. So sorry but we need to take back the fp you earned from the Oracle.” And this would involve Inno calculating in each case how many fp’s player obtained as profit by contributing to high level Oracles (quite difficult I think). And then removing those fps (the additional profit only) from their inventory. Even if it makes it –ve. Removing FPs or levels from GBs also affects all those who are contributing to the current level at least, and that should not happen.
What adds insult to injury is that in none of the announcements is Inno admitting that this situation is entirely their fault (and not the players fault). On the contrary the mention 'exploitation', indirectly blaming the players for this, and they are also being extra nice to say that they won't suspend them. Suspend them for what? They have done nothing wrong.
I was personally not at all affected by this (do not yet have a high level Arc that would enable me to level GBs quickly, unfortunately), but I am shocked that people that had nothing to do with the Oracle had GBs levels wiped out (a huge amount of levels in some cases).
But apart from what everyone else has already said regarding this fix affecting also the ‘innocent’ players, I wanted to say there was no cheat or exploitation and no one should be punished. Everyone is innocent here (apart from Inno, who are guilty of gross incompetence). And yes the Oracle was working as intended, and there was no bug. (The fact that no one bothered to check for later levels what the reward multiplied by 1.9 would amount to is kindergarten level error by Inno developers).
- Was the new GB intended to work as all others GBs? (with the difference you can get the BP's from quests and it needs no goods) Yes, it was intended.
- Was it intended that any player (who has researched architecture) can donate to an Oracle of a neighbour, friend or guildmate? Yes it was intended.
- Were the top contributors intended to be rewarded with FPs, BPs, and medals (in the amounts as listed in the contributors list)? Yes it was intended.
- Was it intended that people with Arcs can also contribute to the Oracle? Yes it was intended.
- Was it intended that people with high level Arcs can contribute to the Oracle? Yes it was intended.
- Was it intended that Arcs boost applies to rewards from contributions to Oracle (same as with all other GBs)? Yes it was intended.
So what is this nonsense about a ‘bug’, ‘not intended’ and ‘exploitation’?
If you take a number, say 500 and you multiply it by 1.9 it will give you 950. Every time. All the time. Nothing to do with intentions. It is a mathematical certainty. It is not something you have to foresee. It is a given. And Inno on purpose made this a No age GB, so on purpose it has the rewards levels of an HMA GB, and on purpose they made the FP needed to level requirements lower than HMA – even lower than BA- so that it is easier to level for the new players. So on purpose they made this have better ”reward fp” /”fp needed for level” ratio, than all other GBs (Else by default the No Age GB would have HMA GBs rewards and HMA fp needed to level . But no, they tinkered with it, and lowered the FP needed to level). It is just they forgot to check for higher levels what the rewards x 1.9 would be compared to the fp spent. Whose fault is that?
It as if saying people exploited the Crystal Villas. No they didn’t. You, Inno, designed it to have better population and coins, so of course people preferred it. Same with this GB.
Players of course look at the stats of new buildings to see which is better to build, and of course would look at the rewards of GBs to see where they are better off investing their FP. So when you give them a GB that has lower than BA requirements but HMA rewards, of course they would see this is a better place to invest FP compared to higher age GBs they preferred until now. I am only surprised that it was only the German and French players that figured that out (I am sure given time more people would realise this).
So no it is not a bug, and no one exploited anything. An exploitation of a bug, or of something not intended, woul be if eg the reward for top spot said “10 fp”, but actually the top contributor got 30fp (with no Arc boost). That would be a bug, an error, something not intended. But this is not the case. The Oracle gave the correct (so intended) rewards, and the Arc boost was applied correctly (as intended).
I read that in the French forum, people asked about it, and they were told it is all ok (these are the rewards Inno decided for this GB, and you are allowed to contribute while having an Arc. Obviously).
It was just a very poorly thought out reward scheme. Once the ‘fix’ is fixed, and people also get back all contributions that have disappeared, Inno should come with a correct solution to this. “Ooops we messed up, and some of you got way too many fp, that essentially unbalances the game. So sorry but we need to take back the fp you earned from the Oracle.” And this would involve Inno calculating in each case how many fp’s player obtained as profit by contributing to high level Oracles (quite difficult I think). And then removing those fps (the additional profit only) from their inventory. Even if it makes it –ve. Removing FPs or levels from GBs also affects all those who are contributing to the current level at least, and that should not happen.
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DeletedUser9264
Agree 100% with Lady E - Inno released this GB with payouts that were unbalanced, that is certainly not a "bug". But you have to just love how they made sure everyone knew that no players would be suspended at this time, trying to divert attention from the fact that they made a huge mistake in letting the Oracle go live. With GB levels being lowered for more than 24 hours, seems like it's going to be next to impossible for them to figure out who is owed what.
DeletedUser31392
Yes! This was hastily rushed into Live with no thought about what the ramifications of said action would cause.
4 days in Beta is hardly enough time to figure any of this out, obtain the prints to get the snowball rolling and determine this was broken and not as intended by the developers.
I would hope that with future releases of GBs with the “No-Age” declaration was examined more throughly so as to not cause another Oracle Debacle.
Simple math and usage of spreadsheets would show how ridiculously profitable this was. I’m willing to bet that some player out there has created a personal cookie-cutter spreadsheet for GBs, their cost vs rewards, and rewards amplified by the Arc boost. Then inputed values to show HMA rewards, and input the values for the Oracle GB, with guestimations on higher level costs based on what other GBs increase their rate at.
I’m willing to bet anything it’s a bizarre formula for additional levels, and rewards appear to be structured based on a pattern. Given the fact that @LacLongQuan showed his Arc unlocked to level 11111 I can safely assume someone didn’t manually come up with these values and input them personally, so a formula based on the cost for the age of the GB would make sense.
With thousands of players out there it wouldn’t be impossible to think someone figured out such a formula, inputted the values into a spreadsheet and can examine at ease the profitability of any GB, including brand new ones.
Given the fact Inno has these values easily at their disposal, and any spreadsheet program can be found easily on the web, an employee could have been tasked to see if there was potential for “abuse”.
The fact remains they dropped the ball and are now blaming the playerbase for their own irresponsibility in the matter.
DeletedUser
Yeah, cause it was the developers/coders doing all that stuff. Sheesh.
Nothing would reassure you people. You want everything back to normal yesterday. For goodness sake, give them at least a reasonable amount of time before you all go calling for their heads. This happens every time someone thinks they've been victimized by Inno. They come screaming to the Forum immediately, demanding to know why it wasn't fixed within 2 minutes of it happening. Laughable, if it weren't so pathetic.
Edited to add: And so predictable.
DeletedUser25920
As I mentioned I do not yet have a high level Arc myself (I am working on it, but it takes time
)But I analyse the stats of all buildings and GBs and have dozens of excel spreadsheets (and I am sure I am not alone). I had not done so for Oracle as it is new, and do not have high Arc yet anyway).
But I have spreadsheets with FP needed vs rewards for most GB's up to level 100 - but not for Oracle- and have indeed come up with the formula used for FP needed for each level for each age. Not difficult. You plot the data in excel and then ask it to fit a trend line (and also show the best fit equation). Same for the rewards (but these need to be rounded to multiples of 5). If I can do that, so can Inno (one would have thought). And I assure you, if I had a level80 arc, I would have looked at the Oracle more closely (even with just published values up to level 10, one can see this likely to be a very good investment), and I would have been donating to Oracles like mad, and would not at all consider that I was cheating or exploiting anything. I would consider that I had done the math, and found what is the optimal way to use my FP.
DeletedUser18851
Why does everyone seem to think that Inno is thinking about how to address all the lost FP's from contributions? All I read in the wording of the announcement is about how to rectify the lost time that could have been used to progress... while we were all waiting for the restoration. Nothing about lost contributions...
ODragon
Well-Known Member
It might be too late for it on A-X but with no one having an Arc on Y or Z, it would be the perfect time to rebalance it for new worlds going forward.
Honestly, that is where I think Inno missed the boat. Every world is exactly the same so what you do in one world will work exactly the same in another. Switch it up! Sure, it would take a little more work but it would make for a more fun game IMHO.
DeletedUser31392
As I mentioned I do not yet have a high level Arc myself (I am working on it, but it takes time
But I analyse the stats of all buildings and GBs and have dozens of excel spreadsheets (and I am sure I am not alone). I had not done so for Oracle as it is new, and do not have high Arc yet anyway).
But I have spreadsheets with FP needed vs rewards for most GB's up to level 100 - but not for Oracle- and have indeed come up with the formula used for FP needed for each level for each age. Not difficult. You plot the data in excel and then ask it to fit a trend line (and also show the best fit equation). Same for the rewards (but these need to be rounded to multiples of 5). If I can do that, so can Inno (one would have thought). And I assure you, if I had a level80 arc, I would have looked at the Oracle more closely (even with just published values up to level 10, one can see this likely to be a very good investment), and I would have been donating to Oracles like mad, and would not at all consider that I was cheating or exploiting anything. I would consider that I had done the math, and found what is the optimal way to use my FP.
I’ve only used excel enough to make simple spreadsheets. Never knew there was a function to derive formulas based on inputed cells. I’ll have to take a look at that. I recently jut made a sheet to analyze the cheapest and most efficient route to get an Arc to 80. Inputed all costs from 11-80, and did the same for reward spots 1-3. I noticed a pattern develop with the rewards as I went down the list and was able to predict the values for levels before looking at the wiki page.
If I am able to do this, with a High School Diploma and only deadend jobs as my skill sets, I find it difficult to believe someone at the company on the development team would never think to do this. Arc has been in the game for at least a year, correct? (I don’t know when it was released but I know there was a time before it) That is more than enough time for a single employee to creat such spreadsheets, and when a new idea for a GB and it’s values come along you pull up the file and input some numbers and then bingo! you can clearly see there would be a serious issue and fix it before it goes any further.
Salsuero
Well-Known Member
You are not alone.
*Arturis*
Well-Known Member
One of my friend just got back from vacation and asked me why didn't pm him for spot lol
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http://prntscr.com/h8gqig
DeletedUser26131
because your a self-leveler , right
DeletedUser31392
because your a self-leveler , right
Assume it has to do with the fix to the GB issue
Salsuero
Well-Known Member
Yeah, and so now people are getting 1st place rewards on super high level GBs for just one to a few FPs while this whole mess continues to be a mess in a different way. So... tons of profit to folks who would probably NEVER see that sort of thing in reality. Be patient... I'm sure ALL OF THIS will work itself out, right?
Basically, the only way they could "restore" these GBs was to simply apply forge points from the owner to every level back up to where they were. They couldn't restore the "history" of investors.
ITown
Well-Known Member
Don't be ridiculous. The entire reason innogames created the Arc was to make it possible for people to power level their GBs.
It all goes back to long, long ago, in a time when GBs could not level past 10. Back then, you could get 150% attack by leveling Zeus, Aachen, and CDM to 10.
Then came GvG. Inno decided 150% was too strong for GvG so they nerfed it to 90%. Then promised that they would uncap the levels on GBs to compensate.
Once the un-capping was done, players began leveling those GBs past 10. And realized that they were only getting 1% attack per 2 levels past 10. Then nearly everybody stopped leveling those GBs because the cost outweighed all of the benefits.
Until one person reached level 30 on a GB and realized that they were beginning to earn massive amounts of points per levelup. More people caught on, and soon there was a frenzy to power-level alcatraz (and a couple leveled CDM). This completely eliminated any justification for gaining points by any other method, because it became impossible to compete with players who were earning billions of points for one GB levelup.
Finally, after more than a year of complaints from the players, inno changed the system - they changed points to scale linearly based on FPs spent (instead of exponentially). This changed GBs from being very lucrative to level, to barely interesting.
Since leveling GBs was no longer highly-rewarding in terms of ranking points, Inno introduced the Arc as a way to mainstream high level GB construction. Now you must level numerous GBs to very high levels in order to be competitive score-wise with players who are highly active in GvG.
qaccy
Well-Known Member
It's never 'too late' to address an imbalance in gameplay. A lot of times, imbalances don't even make themselves known until far along down the road - for example, Rail Guns were an extremely powerful unit for over a year and it took until over halfway through Arctic Future to fully realize just how powerful they were for them to be toned down a bit. On that note, Hover Tanks are now somewhat in that position and could perhaps use some tweaking to take them out of prominence as well. From a design perspective, it doesn't really make sense when military units stay relevant and effective for 2 whole ages after they've been researched. You could say that it's because Inno didn't make new units strong enough, but it's also a lot easier to tweak one extreme example than it is to tweak everything else around it to compensate.
Anyway, that got off-topic. Regardless of what the Arc is theoretically nerfed down to (and let's be honest, it's probably not going to happen), by having one you're still getting larger GB rewards. Doesn't matter if it's 90%, 50% or even 10%. That's an extra % boost you don't have without it. Just seems to be like it's pretty excessive compared to other GBs. Military GBs scale much slower per level, the Orangery and Seed Vault also have very low increases, and the Kraken is one other that reaches a high percentage but can only work x number of times per day. Imagine if Zeus (and the two others), Orangery, or the Seed Vault had a 90% effect at level 80 like the Arc does. Think that might be a little more game-changing or even unbalanced? These things would be to our benefit, but regarding balance I think those are bad moves just like I do with the Arc's current design. Some of the attitudes expressed here are another problem that's pretty closely tied to the Arc: Greed. The Arc enables so much walking all over players who don't have one or are in FP swap groups that it's not even funny, and these players revel in essentially robbing players with very little FP/FP generation of rewards in order to add even the smallest amounts to their ever-growing FP wallets.
This is where I start soapboxing, but a large part of me is advocating for an Arc nerf just to remove that potential from the game. Sniping has always been a thing even long before the Arc, but it's gotten so much worse since its introduction and this sort of thing has caused so much drama even among guildmates that something should be done about it just because of the social impact alone. It's on par with plundering to sweep the rug out from under someone else using your huge Arc bonus, in my opinion. And then to add in 'well they should have locked in their spot then' as an attempt to justify your actions really speaks to how selfish a lot of people really are.
@Lady Egwene
It's not so much that the rewards are too high, though that was also addressed by adjusting the cost to level the GB. The main problem is that people were tearing the GB down and rebuilding it multiple times in order to continually reap those higher rewards. That behavior falls pretty square within 'exploit' territory to me.
@ITown
If anything, your write-up indicates that when something's unbalanced for long enough, it inevitably gets nerfed. Also, the Arc (or more accurately, Future Era) was in the game for about 3 months before the change to GB/ranking points so it definitely wasn't introduced to make up for lost ranking points. But as I outlined in one of my replies above, sometimes it's not immediately apparent that something is ultimately too powerful and needs to be toned down. I think the Arc is another example of that and I personally hope that it's only a matter of time before it receives the rebalancing it deserves, like so many other unbalanced things before it.
DeletedUser
Very well stated, and right on the money. Great post.