Feedback Guild Expedition Update

[Lindsay]

Just a silly question. Why do you persist in trying to make players lose resources/diamonds without the slightest possibility of making any profit, or having anything that promotes their evolution? Players are not stupid or ignorant, they don't want to sacrifice themselves for anything. Yet another innovation doomed to complete failure.

Not a fan of this new 5th level exactly because of the absence of diamonds or wishing wells as prizes. But dude. They literally gave you GBG - collect diamonds as much as you can. They gave you 3-4 levels of the GE - go and gain around 150-200 diamonds every week. Optional - fountains and farms in the other worlds. It's more than just "slightest possibility". What are you talking about?

5th level was not as hard as everyone is screaming here about. If you are a player (I mean every-day player) - it's absolutely possible for you (yeah, negotiatons only, but still). Who cares about the ones who just started the game recently or the ones who can't do it in your guild and fight till the end? If you wanna stay in the top guild - meet the requirements. If you are too small for it - get out and come back when you are grown enough. Incentive to grow and develop yourself.

 

[Hiep Lin]

On other occasions I have already written that the problems with FoE come from the fact that it has become a pile of novelties that go badly together.
With the evolutions the defense of the city (which has always been bad) has become totally useless.
It is also to compensate that galata was created: impossible to defend so we block looting.
The creation of the arena was used to try to put the defense back in operation, but it failed.
So they came up with the idea of using city defense bonuses for this level 5 expedition, and the result is a change that happens like a hair in the soup.
It's totally illogical, especially since levels 1 to 4 are not concerned, and it necessarily displeases players who have shaped their cities for years.
There are no valid solutions in this way, either the change is drastic (as expected here) and players will drop the novelty, or it is minimal and serves no purpose.

At the point where the game is, the only solution to obtain balanced functions is to release a completely redesigned version 2, implemented little by little in new worlds.

 

[Hiep Lin]

As part of a completely revamped version 2, one could consider that, for all 2-wave fights in all functions:

The first wave is our attack with our attack bonuses,
the second wave is the opponent's counterattack, therefore with our defense bonuses.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

Not a fan of this new 5th level exactly because of the absence of diamonds or wishing wells as prizes. But dude. They literally gave you GBG - collect diamonds as much as you can. They gave you 3-4 levels of the GE - go and gain around 150-200 diamonds every week. Optional - fountains and farms in the other worlds. It's more than just "slightest possibility". What are you talking about?

5th level was not as hard as everyone is screaming here about. If you are a player (I mean every-day player) - it's absolutely possible for you (yeah, negotiatons only, but still). Who cares about the ones who just started the game recently or the ones who can't do it in your guild and fight till the end? If you wanna stay in the top guild - meet the requirements. If you are too small for it - get out and come back when you are grown enough. Incentive to grow and develop yourself.

Since it seems that you completed L5 please share some data. What age are you in? How many L5 encounters did you fight/negotiate? What are your Defending army A/D boosts? If you used bottle boosts how many of each? Did you use a tavern boost? In your negos, how many goods did you spend? Did you build any of the new structures? Did you spend diamonds and, if so, how many?

 

[Lindsay]

Since it seems that you completed L5 please share some data. What age are you in? How many L5 encounters did you fight/negotiate? What are your Defending army A/D boosts? If you used bottle boosts how many of each? Did you use a tavern boost? In your negos, how many goods did you spend? Did you build any of the new structures? Did you spend diamonds and, if so, how many?

Iron age. Negotiations only, failed to fight even the 1st one, so there is no reason to post my a/d boosts.
I didn't used any boosts except the one that gives you an extra turn from the friend's tavern.
How many goods - have no idea at all, didn't count, my bad.
I did build new structures every new step and I really enjoyed it - I wish there were an extra slot for the regular ones, right now we have only 1 slot for regular ones and 2 slots for every 4th step. And it really helped - I used the ones that reduces the cost of negotiating and the possible negotiation options by one. And yes I did spend diamonds - around 200, I guess. I had 1400 or something and right now 1282 left.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

Iron age. Negotiations only, failed to fight even the 1st one, so there is no reason to post my a/d boosts.
I didn't used any boosts except the one that gives you an extra turn from the friend's tavern.
How many goods - have no idea at all, didn't count, my bad.
I did build new structures every new step and I really enjoyed it - I wish there were an extra slot for the regular ones, right now we have only 1 slot for regular ones and 2 slots for every 4th step. And it really helped - I used the ones that reduces the cost of negotiating and the possible negotiation options by one. And yes I did spend diamonds - around 200, I guess. I had 1400 or something and right now 1282 left.

Thank you. Based on your experience I would agree that completing L5 is not that hard. TBH, very few aspects of the game are hard for players willing to spend diamonds, or real cash, to deal with them. Knowing how many goods you used would have been very useful information and I am hopeful that other players will be able to provide this information in time. I suspect that the goods requirements will severely strain most cities. On average, GE1-4 provides approximately 160 diamonds so, needing 200 to complete L5 becomes problematic. So, in its current state, most players will not be able to fight L5 (without massive reorganization of their city) and most will not be able to negotiate without spending more diamonds than GE provides. As it stands, it's a non-starter for me.

 

[VeniVidiVeni]

The main problem for me isn't necessarily that the enemy boosts are ludicrously high, it's that defense is far too inefficient to build. The reward is technically great, but it's not even remotely going to offset the investment required.
Reaching values of 2000% when what most players will reasonably work with is 1% every 2 GB levels... that's not happening.
At the same time, negotiating isn't cheap but also free of challenge, as always. So these two options are completely at odds.

I was thinking of a way to reduce the personal investment required when defending: what about using the guild support pool? Have that contribute to each player's defense stats. Bottom line is that investing in the defense GBs (and observatory) is more valuable, both to yourself and to the entire guild and it wouldn't be necessary to plaster the entire city with defense just to have a shot at GE5.
Let's say every 100 support pool increases defense stats by 1% (just for GE). With all 80 players having just the GBs at level 10, the guild has 12800 support pool, giving every player a 128% increase (2.28 multiplier). Meaning a last-age player would "only" need around 1100% boosts to match the AI on the final encounter, less to beat it. With higher guild and GB levels this requirement could be brought down to 300% or so.
Still requires plenty of investment, across all guild members, but less space in everyone's city.

 

[Lindsay]

On average, GE1-4 provides approximately 160 diamonds so, needing 200 to complete L5 becomes problematic.

sorry I didn't mention that most of these 200 diamonds I spent on buying an extra attempts, because our guild opened the 2-5 levels too late and I just wanted to go through it as faster as I can. Didn't want to waste my medals, since the diamonds are free every event.
So if we talk about 5th level only - with an extra turn from the tavern I just needed 2-3 times to buy an extra turn by diamonds (I failed to solve the negotiations with the 4 turns 2 or 3 times).

 

[Sl8yer]

Funny thing. The Inno released video for GE lvl 5 tels us we will need to "defend our position against enemy forces!". Except we are not defending at all. We are still attacking a two wave battle. Only thing changed is that we get to use our defence boost. Not our attack boost. Button still says "attack", not "defend". Initiative has not changed either. We are not defending at all. We are attacking with a much lower boost.

 

[Scarlett P]

Considering that the majority of players have always chosen the best Attacking Army boost on all old event buildings, inquiring minds want to know, "Can we please have a prize to LOWER an existing event building and then use any stored Level Ups to change the top level?"

 

[Demeter7]

I wonder if maybe Inno thought this was some kind of answer to the GBG inequity. Maybe they think that players will start dumping their Attack buildings if they have tons, and replace them with Defense. That would lower the attack strength of many players.
But.. I can't see that happening. GBG is still going to be more profitable to those who have invested in extreme Attack.

 

[Adrienne]

@Dessire - that's a B-school - failing grade idea. Exclude huge swaths of people and their money? Hmmmm. You don't build massively exclusionary products!!! That drives people away!

Wasn't lvl4 hard once?

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio]

I really can't grasp the logic of creating events and buildings.
In the new event all the building bonuses are for the attacking army.
Can anyone make the connection to the Level 5 of the GE?
I give up.

 

[Kronan]

Wasn't lvl4 hard once?

Level 4 is STILL HARD (pleasantly challenging is a better term...) - but it's a measured upgrade hardness compared to 3, but it DOESN'T"T run amok and have us change horses to DEFENSE. It continues to curve up the hardness in the SAME way 2 does to 1, and 3 does to 2.

It's an OFFENSIVE adventure so you can grow your city and skills to beat it.

Unlike GE 5, which shifts the paradigm to city defense stats, which 95% of the people here have learned in 10 years - is a worthless endeavor to grow because you can NEVER stop someone who has relentlessly developed their attack offense.

GE should be 2 tracks... An offensive one - as we have now, but EXTENDED to 5. Leaving 5 as "HARD" as the CURRENT GE 5 DEFENSE is - BUT for offensive players to learn to beat - is a MUCH BETTER PLAN!

SO then....GROW SOMETHING NEW!

A NEW, FRESH GE DEFENSE adventure, that starts @ 1 and grows to 4 - like the offense one does. We can learn it, grow our city defense skills and building boosts - if we want to play it.

Inno should have NEVER NEVER bolted a defense track onto the offense one. WHAT were they thinking?

Judging by the reaction here - the decision was crazy - is running in the 90 percentile for - WRONG STRATEGY.

 

[CrashBoom]

Wasn't lvl4 hard once?

and lvl 5 is insane

 

[Sir Lancelot the Avenger]

I have no problem with level 5 being hard, but to expect us (me) to destroy attack buildings which I use in GBG, GE, Events, GVG and PVP and build city defense just for 1 level of GE makes no sense. I get far more rewards from my attack army than city army. Maybe the developers need to play the game they develop. It seems to me, to use attacking army, but much harder would have done the same thing. I would rather Titan have come out than GE5 or another event. INNO is free to design the game any way they want, but that does not mean we have to play what they design. This is just a step backwards. I have tons of goods on live server, but why spend them on this? GBG re-balance was a bad idea to me. I liked it the way it was. It made me and others in my guild, on live server, build cities that could compete on GBG map with any guild. That is part of this game, to constantly advance, build stronger cities and stronger guilds, not sit in colonial for 3 years. Of course, if you chose to sit in an era long term, it is your choice, and you can not complain how hard this game is against higher era players or guilds.

 

[Kronan]

Funny thing. The Inno released video for GE lvl 5 tels us we will need to "defend our position against enemy forces!". Except we are not defending at all. We are still attacking a two wave battle. Only thing changed is that we get to use our defence boost. Not our attack boost. Button still says "attack", not "defend". Initiative has not changed either. We are not defending at all. We are attacking with a much lower boost.

This is a bad flip to defense, for a city building game tuned for 10 years, 7 OFFENSE fighting venues, and lots of design, testing and INNO money - FOR OFFENSE.

Edited for accuracy...

 

[CrashBoom]

Your Kraken is NOW worthless, when in GE 1-4, it was helpful.

it is for battles not for attacking
so it should work in level 5 (I have not tested it yet)

 

[Bonnie McBoobs]

I'm reading all these whining about "how terribly difficult and impossible this level 5 is" and I'm thinking to myself: what did you expect? Another farm like GBG? That you would just "swoop in" to this level and bang it just like that?
Level 5 is supposed to be difficult! And it is very good that it is, because on 4 I was already falling asleep, just click, click, click, and the end.
I'm very glad that the new level is challenging, because these challenges in FoE are less and less even for me, not so extremely advanced player at all.
That you have to spend a lot of goods, or rebuild a city? That's a very good thing, too! Don't you get bored with pointless clicking on GE or GBG with 1,000,000% attack bonus?
Too bad there is no "Dislike" button. , I would have some fun watching TOP players click "thumbs down" under my post.

It should be challenging but not difficult just to be difficult. Bumping up required goods and choices isn't hard or innovative.

Also, it doesn't make sense to use defensive and even if it were worked in, in a fashion that could somewhat make sense (like the second wave idea another had mentioned), the neg costs are still ridiculous.

If they wanted to make use of defensive, then offer better prizes in PvP rewards/chests/rank and make it more obvious when a user loses or actually develop gvg. I know they've said several times that they won't touch that part of the game, but there are some guilds that play it religiously still and would make sense to use defense more since you actually place defensive armies..

 

[Pericles the Lion]

Wasn't lvl4 hard once?

Not really. In an IA city it takes about two seasons to stockpile enough goods to negotiate L4. Then, it takes maybe 6 months to build up enough attack boost to fight instead of negotiate.