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). 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 reward 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, was 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.