Feedback Changes to Road costs in Vikings and Feudal Japan

[Markus Stormrider]

from what i've seen so far: these new road costs make it totally impossible to ever complete vikings in time for even the bronze chest (regardless of how many times its completed before). great change ;P

 

[DeletedUser9778]

Poor Viking settlement, was the first one, and every time new settlement is released is beaten with something new, while getting no addition improvement or new features like the other ones

 

[xivarmy]

Has anyone started a viking/japanese settlement since they added the road costs? I'm curious if they increased the starting currency as well (which would address a lot of 'but what about at the start' concerns. The egyptian settlement had 9000 i think while the previous two had 5000/4500.

That said, just got my timer done after abandoning a settlement so started on egyptians now. The first fight had its charm. 3 fights a day is not so many - and if completion of the settlement is primarily bound by loot it should be low-stress and enjoyable - as opposed to the other settlements that are bound on running things on 4-8 hour cycles as many times a day as you can.

 

[Dudettas]

Please see the announcement here. Existing feedback on the Ancient Egypt thread will be moved to this feedback thread.

 

[ebs the drunk]

Has anyone started a viking/japanese settlement since they added the road costs? I'm curious if they increased the starting currency as well (which would address a lot of 'but what about at the start' concerns. The egyptian settlement had 9000 i think while the previous two had 5000/4500.

They raised the starting coins. 7000 in japan and 7500 in vikings. So 2500 coins to buy 12 roads.

 

[DeletedUser10017]

Had to figure how to reset my password just so I could post as I’m just a lurker....but had to post this time....I’m on my 38th run of japan as I find it a nice diversion but I’ll never do it again once this is live....whether it was intended or not by leaving it this long it’s fully engrained into the mode...it’s absolutely ridiculous to change it now and ramp the difficulty especially on those who get caught unaware as most don’t come to beta. some Consideration should be made also for fun and I can’t believe any tester thought this change was remotely fun....tinkering with your village and reoptimizing yo Fit in one more building is the fun of this mode,,,it’s a puzzle.,,but now even if you figure something better it ain’t worth the change...too expensive. So with this..my days of keeping a settlement going just for fun comes to a close

 

[DeletedUser10265]

Players would sell roads to temporarily place diplomacy buildings, to briefly be able to unlock the next advancement. Since this strategy goes against the intended balancing, but also because we feel that using this strategy is annoying to the player in the long run, we introduced costs to the roads.

I see, IG prefers to use a stick rather than a carrot. If the diplomacy buildings gave more diplo or the diplomacy requirements were lower, we wouldn't be forced to do that in the first place.
Why did we do that instead of just buying one expansion more and building diplo stuff there for instance? Because buying one expansion more is too expensive and decreases chances to complete the settlement within the time limit.
What is the conclusion? The settlements, especially vikings, were unbalanced in the first place, this lead to some "undesired" behaviour, which IG is trying to fix by punishing players with paid roads.

Furthermore, this change affects rearranging the settlements, as removing and rebuying roads was the easy way to gain some free space to move buildings. The idea of paid roads is wrong from the very beginnig.

Oh, and why "fixing" it over a year after releasing the vikings? This trick was known from the beginning.

 

[Fenix]

This is a joke, it only can be a sad ugly joke:

but also because we feel that using this strategy is annoying to the player in the long run, we introduced costs to the roads.

 

[Markus Stormrider]

if the problem was that people removed roads to quickly unlock buildings by building them for a few secs, then why not instead make the quest only completed if those buildings finished building instead (at a rate of 1 or 4 hours depending on which)? then you can just keep roads for free and the intended strategy is then enforced as well (as you do need roads for a building to finish completion ). but please do not apply this suggestion and *keep* the road costs as well -_-

 

[podkap1970]

We have seen more and more players using a strategy that was never intended in the original design: Players would sell roads to temporarily place diplomacy buildings, to briefly be able to unlock the next advancement.

a year later, you guys found out, that players abuse a mechanism you don't like ? that's even more sad

 

[MasterofDeath]

I didn't notice if there was daily allowance from the Embassy in my Viking settlement this morning, so I guess pretty small as to not make a difference

 

[Achaeus]

So is sniping a game strategy that was intended with the introduction of the Arc? That is an annoying activity that causes an in-balance in the game too but nothing has been done about that!
Advancing through research to get higher age units to be able to attack and plunder is annoying and creates an in-balance ... how about stopping that?
The point is players have adapted to other game features that give an even greater advantage and nothing has been done about those, so using that excuse for this issue it not reasonable. So what is the real reason the adaptation the players have found to deal with an unreasonable time constraint which allows them to complete the task (annoying or not) has been eliminated?

 

[Sl8yer]

What on earth makes you think the used strategy would be annoying to players in the long run? If it would be, they would stop doing it. Strategy was the only way to do it inside the time limit. More and more I come to the conclusion that you and the ddevs hardly know your own game. You are great at making the wrong changes based on totally wrong conclusions.

 

[kaymedic]

@Dudettas Is it now still possible to do the vikings in time?

I know you also have a speed server to test it, but are the devs still able to beat the time on the normal servers? Would be nice to hear an answer on this

Edit: Obviously I meant the gold time with the most fragments.

 

[DeletedUser9859]

Players would sell roads to temporarily place diplomacy buildings, to briefly be able to unlock the next advancement. Since this strategy goes against the intended balancing, but also because we feel that using this strategy is annoying to the player in the long run, we introduced costs to the roads.

Yes, it was annoying. But adding a cost to the roads makes it even more annoying and punishing. If you don't want people to replace the roads with diplomacy buildings, add the 6 diplomacy to them. Then we have no need to remove them anymore.
And as an extra you can make use of the Shrine/Toro in a different way: as an increase to coin or goods production or reduction of building times or production times. That would bring new strategic elements into the game. Or just remove the Shrine/Toro if you don't want that. The possibilities are there, just don't pick the most annoying ones.

 

[DeletedUser10234]

We have seen more and more players using a strategy that was never intended in the original design: Players would sell roads to temporarily place diplomacy buildings, to briefly be able to unlock the next advancement.

This makes me wonder, what IS the original design intent then?

As I see it, there is currently absolutely no way to meet the cultural requirements of a lot of researches and to make the gold/silver/bronze medals without either destroying roads or destroying production buildings. Destroying roads is done quickly, as you can replace them pretty much instantly, but rebuilding goods production buildings takes an hour. Which is why this was the preferred route. Why you now come to this conclusion after the Wikings have been out for around a year and Japanese for around half a year is beyond me. THEY HAVE EXISTED IN THIS FORM FOR MONTHS! So why change this now? If this was really a serious issue, you could have fixed this right after the settlements came out.

This chance only makes things more annoying, as I now need to tear down pretty much all goods production buildings now whenever I need to research a new technology. I just can't afford to spend 3000-4000 coins every single time to rebuild roads whenever I research a new tech. Now the production buildings have to go.

 

[Aambroo the Lord]

Then delete an axesmith and rebuild it if you still can support 2 axe smiths and shrines at the time. When I did 2 axesmith starts though i usually had to take the 2nd one down for a little bit anyways because I was running out of coins without shrines.

Delete and rebuild its a solution yes. But this will take more time in the future, as you have to wait again 1 hour for hats, and then 1 hour for the goods building to be build. And this for every round you have to unlock the next chapter.... Sorry, but this means def we need more time to end for each settlement.

If they really like to do that change, they can maybe add some Diplomacy for roads. Then we don't have to build Stones / Toros. That could be a trade off.

Otherwise its easy for me: I wont play settlements anymore with this change.. Its sad for the devs to build something and noone else will play it.. But not my desk...

 

[forwandert]

I completed both so not really affected by this but to add this change over a year down the line is ridiculous.

I dont buy the reasoning behind it, it's completely to nudge players into spending diamonds on coin production buildings.

 

[DeletedUser5097]

been done about that!
Advancing through research to get higher age units to be able to attack and plunder is annoying and creates an in-balance ... how about stopping that?

What do you mean? If you advance in the TT you will get a new neighbourhood from your age. Also you can plunder with units of your
own age no prob.

 

[CrashBoom]

change

We have seen more and more players using a strategy that was never intended in the original design: Players would sell roads to temporarily place diplomacy buildings, to briefly be able to unlock the next advancement.

what changes that for me?
I will sell goods buildings, place diplomacy buildings temporarily. unlock tech, and then rebuild goods building

what does that change:
instead of 8h 8h 4h goods producing it will then 1h building time between one of those times

just wondering:
how long it will take for InnoGames for the next change because using this strategy was sure also not intended in the current change