qaccy
Well-Known Member
The oceanic expansion has so many flaws with advancing, military units and requirements that either players that are in that era are looking to go backwards since it is better or the next era needs to come out quickly to improve the game. At this point, the game has really ended at the Future age. the arctic and oceanic futures are poor at best and not worth the time to play. unfortunately many players have devoted significant amounts of time and resources to get to this point, they hope the next age will be better, only to be disappointed... again.
Items that need to be improved:
Military units: some will argue but I find myself using and beating most AF and OF battles with FA units. Why are units several ages older better than the advanced units? this is a Game Design flaw. The initial response on the latest OF unit Manta is again, poor at best.
Look at the different ages and the percentage of attack / defense increase of a unit from age to age. the last two ages, the units are not gaining a proportionate increase from the previous age making the OF units weak compared to units from 2 ages prior.
Not really true. The only FE unit with any relevance at all anymore is the Hover Tank, and that's only because AF and OF units, paired with the relatively weak AI, have a distinct weakness to units with stealth. This also somewhat applies to Eels, but they lack attack range and armor, and have a comparatively rarer terrain type in which to hide. However, Hover Tanks are not powerhouses by any stretch. They gain no terrain attack/defense bonuses whatsoever, have armor but fairly low base defense, and also a fairly weak attack stat. The only units from either of these two ages that don't beat a Hover Tank in both attack and defense are Dragon Drones, with 10 less attack, and Recon Raiders, with 5 less defense (though they possess Dug in, which adds 60 defense to their base value). All 11 of the other units (including Champions) has more in both stats from the range of 30-90 for attack and 15-65 for defense. With values of 120/105, minimum increases of 30 and 15 are pretty significant, are they not? That's a jump of 25% and nearly 15%, and those are just the minimum increases.
The other FE units by now are irrelevant. There's no reason to use Satellite Spotters, Drone Swarms, Exoskeleton Soldiers or even Rail Guns against AF or OF units as there are other units from these ages that are much better at anything these units can do. Satellites and Drone Swarms can't win a fight against any of these units (except for Drone Swarms against an all-artillery opponent), Exoskeletons could have some use while facing FE units but there's nothing they can do that Hover Tanks or Rail Guns can't do better, and even Rail Guns have been rendered obsolete by Plasma Artillery for all but flying opponents (which you really wouldn't want to use Rail Guns against anyway, if there are more than two present) and Turturrets are even better still, being able to attack a large part of the unit roster before they can even move and hitting multiple targets at once. It's also worth pointing out that all of these units fall victim to the same lower stats that the Hover Tank has, with similar deficiencies compared to the AF and OF units. The Rail Gun is an exception in regards to stats, but it has to contend with Reload and the fact that if you're using Rail Guns, you can't utilize the bonus from an Arctic Orangery which is definitely a boon to have when facing the high boost values in something like the Guild Expeditions.
In short, I have to disagree with your assessment that the AF and OF units are 'weak'. I'm certainly using them extensively in my battles, because FE units would not be up to snuff. The numbers simply aren't there. Again, Hover Tanks are the only exception but that's because there isn't a good counter to stealth and the AI often doesn't utilize the 'Hover Tank killers' properly. As an indication of how weak Hover Tanks actually are, they can barely stand up against Sub Cruisers, a unit they're boosted against, as they can't outrange a Sub's Contact ability, the Sub has Dug in, and the Sub is able to retaliate for the full 4 damage nearly every time which is about the average damage a Hover Tank will do per attack at full health. They often will still win the battle, but the age difference certainly shows as Battle Fortresses are able to handily dispose of Subs in 2 shots while also taking less damage from the retaliation.
Technology advancing: Many of the OF advances require goods from 1 or 2 ages prior. when in the advanced ages, goods are made from goods of 3 ages back. by OF, this is several ages to build up to. Many of the goods are acquired through rewards or the made from unrefined goods that are from great buildings. To get the correct unrefined goods, would require 3 separate goods buildings so to produce one type of good would require 4 goods buildings (assuming you have the boost for each of the 4 building types). To get the previous era goods, you no longer have rewards giving you unrefined goods making the ability to make the goods significantly more difficult.
GBs give the stage of goods needed to produce same-age goods, which in the case of AF is Contemporary goods and in OF is Tomorrow goods. Does it really matter that you aren't getting Progressive goods to make the Contemporary goods (or Modern/Colonial to make the Tomorrow goods) when you're already getting the finished product for free from your GBs? It would only be an issue if you have few and/or low level GBs, but since most active and motivated players strive to obtain GBs, I would think that those lacking in GB production simply wouldn't care very much about their city's efficiency anyway. Even though the collections are random, I've been able to run 3 AF goods buildings for about a year now and I'm living off of nothing but GB collections for my CE goods. And since those goods are freely produced, I have no need to maintain a stock of PE goods for these productions. On paper, sure, it's a long chain, but the reality is that GBs are a core part of the game and I'm almost certain that the developers plan on players having them in some capacity while developing new content.
In short: The developers expect you to get a good portion of your unrefined goods from GBs, rather than producing them all the old-fashioned way.
The other way to get goods is by trading. Up to future age, trading down is relatively easy. the higher age goods are typically worth more so to find trades is easy. With AF and OF, the demand for the goods is not there. Fewer players are in these ages, the great buildings needing the goods to be built are not that good (again, little demand) and the GvG does not need these goods so there is an unbalanced surplus of AF and OF goods. I am finding it hard to get Trades for FE goods when I offer 2 OF to get 1 FE good.
Another draw back in the technology advancing is the rewards are also getting worse. A mandatory quest to keep the tree going and the reward is only an avatar... this is just wasting time and/or lack of creativity.
The last 2 ages are long and drawn out with no good rewards in these ages, so why should a player keep playing when the last 3rd of the game is lame?
Agreed that there is a lot less demand for AF and OF goods, but that's almost entirely because of the lack of a GvG province to spend these goods in - all other uses of goods are still there in these ages, with the addition of the two Harbors (this still pales in comparison to GvG costs, however). The extra lack of demand is mainly because these goods simply aren't old enough yet - it's fairly common knowledge that the easiest goods to get are the ones that match your age, as GBs either give them to you directly or give you the materials to make them, and quests as well give you small bits here and there. Future Era goods were comparitively lower in demand when that was the last age of the game, as they were easy to obtain through (repeatable) quests, produce through GB collections, and enough players were doing the above two that there was simply a huge supply of them. Now, Future is two ages in the past, meaning the majority of active late-game players have already moved on and those two easy sources of goods immediately get shut off once the Town Hall upgrades. The supply has dwindled much more quickly than demand has, as new players are always moving up through the ages but these new players are often not stockpiling and producing FE goods for months like the first people to enter the age were. For what it's worth, Contemporary Era goods were nearly impossible to trade for back in FE because everything I just said applied to them at the time. The somewhat confusing but simple truth is that the most valuable goods are the ones that are the hardest to produce, not the ones with the highest coin/supply requirement.
The GB argument isn't entirely true for AF, either - the Arctic Orangery is a powerful building, and even the Seed Vault can pay dividends in the long run if you own one for long enough. The argument is much more accurate for OF; though the Atlantis Museum certainly appeals to the small part of the population that thrives in plundering, it has little value to anyone else.
Another draw back in the technology advancing is the rewards are also getting worse. A mandatory quest to keep the tree going and the reward is only an avatar... this is just wasting time and/or lack of creativity.
I agree with this one. Looking at the quests that were released with this new tech, they begin by steering you down towards the technologies that most players would not be going after first, rather than the much more 'essential' technologies that upgrade the Harbor, award an expansion and provide access to the new military unit. I'm usually here trying to defend/rationalize Inno's decisions in the face of irrational whiners, but this new trend in the tech tree definitely smacks of them artificially trying to waste player resources. Avatars should be add-ins, not technologies by themselves.
The last 2 ages are long and drawn out with no good rewards in these ages, so why should a player keep playing when the last 3rd of the game is lame?
Your view is obviously subjective, as I disagree. When viewed as complete packages, AF and OF definitely have a lot to offer and are worth advancing to - stronger units, better buildings, more expansions - all hallmarks of a complete tech age. Any reason to avoid advancing is probably when a player is at the end of FE, about to move to AF, and would be almost exactly because of GvG (if they own GBs that produce treasury goods). I see little reason to stay put otherwise.
For my own subjective view, I found Industrial to be much more forgettable and 'lame' than these two ages. I prefer having an entire age available at once rather than chunks at a time, but on the whole I've enjoyed AF and OF as much as or more than all of the other ages in the game.
What needs to be fixed: A new age that has:
1) Better military units than the 3 ages below it. there needs to be a balance between each of the units within the same era, but not a balance for the era's below it (that is why it is a technology advancement).
2) Technology tree that has buildings and rewards that are worth getting (having avatars as a 2nd item or reward is fine). Also have the cost of the tech items within reason with relation goods (previous and current era's, although with the last few era,s there is a surplus so they might be abundant).
3) Goods buildings that help the later age players and have a desirable advancement or advantage.
4) Create a demand for the goods of the new era. The GvG area has created a demand for goods that stops as the Future... a new demand for goods needs to be created (demand for the player or the guild does not matter, but there needs to be the demand).
5) MOST IMPORTANT !!!! A reason or goal for a player in the advance ages to want to keep playing (a new avatar is NOT it).
1) Already done. As I pointed out, there are very few or no situations where an AF or OF unit will not be better than anything below it. Hover Tanks cover those situations, which to me sounds like they're more likely to be reduced in effectiveness at some point as they're an extreme outlier. What's interesting is that they perform worse against FE units than they do against AF and OF units because of the inter-age unit interactions.
2) There's no problem with tech needs continuing to increase as a player advances, as this has been happening since the beginning of the tree, and offerings have remained the same throughout. Required goods for research has always been from the player's current age and going down up to 3 additional ages, and each age has always offered 5 goods buildings, 5 military buildings (6 in AF), 2-4 each of housing, supply, and culture buildings, various decorations and sometimes a new road as well. For I think the third time now, I agree that avatars should decidedly NOT be tech rewards by themselves.
3&4) I already tried to share some insight on how goods actually work in terms of general gameplay usage, but in regards to these point I'll say that nothing's really changed about goods in these ages besides the lack of GvG inclusion. If you exclude the fact that these days there are extremely high level Arc GBs donating hundreds of goods to dozens of guild treasuries each day, the fact that AF and OF goods are needed to unlock levels in the Guild Expedition is a solid use for them. Should the developers design a use for hundreds of thousands of goods that have come solely from one GB? Is the Arc common enough (and at a high enough average level) that a reasonable portion of the population would be able to utilize a feature that can drain a treasury gaining thousands of free goods per day? Certainly, GvG would be able to accomplish this but I'm going to opine that the developers didn't forsee just how much of an impact treasury GBs would ultimately have on the GvG landscape and, rather than do something controversial, merely quietly swept GvG under the rug with the release of the All Ages province. (probably coupled with my suspicion that they aren't able to get GvG working the way they want it to)
5) How are these ages any different, or rather, worse than the previous ones? As I've explained, while the approach has been markedly different, the final product brings the same relative benefits as every other previous age release. Of course, OF still isn't finished but AF in particular is definitely a complete age comparable to any other. I can't see any objective reason to consider it a bad age unless you're really dead set on collecting GvG goods from your treasury GBs.
I wonder how many people this post will put to sleep?