Feedback Guild Expedition Update

[qaccy]

@thelegend88 This is a post from a CM on the US forums, in the GE5 feedback thread over there:

We have passed the feedback thus far on to the devs but it will be some time before we get any further news on this - please keep an eye on the changelog as this is likely where we would communicate this (though at this time there are no plans to change anything)

 

[Kronan]

^^^ That's a diplomatic (public-relations/marketing oriented...) obfuscated assessment to what's now understood and very clear (to at least me) that Inno is very pre-occupied with the ramifications of a 75 headcount organizational reduction, and the impact that has on keeping a blood supply going to essential game services...

 

[Pericles the Lion]

^^^ That's a diplomatic (public-relations/marketing oriented...) obfuscated assessment to what's now understood and very clear (to at least me) that Inno is very pre-occupied with the ramifications of a 75 headcount organizational reduction, and the impact that has on keeping a blood supply going to essential game services...

Nah. @thelegend88 could have asked this question last month, last year, or next year. The answer would have been the same. Similar questions get asked all the time by impatient players that think they are entitled to frequent "sit-reps". The responses are all variations of the same theme (i.e. "We will let you know when there is something to report").

 

[smartuser5]

The worst of Inno's omissions regarding this level 5 is that few players are able to do everything in combat only.
We all understood that we will need a few weeks to improve and get there.
Meanwhile, for those who finish, they must do so by negotiating which consumes a lot of goods but especially those of the previous era.
But we don't have, apart from the market which isn't very efficient or fast, any possibility of degrading by age the buildings that we have almost all upgraded because the game imposed it on us.
This is what saddens me, having more or less imposed on us to have special buildings of our age and henceforth imposing on us consumption of goods from the previous era.
Wouldn't there be, urgently, an action to be taken on the part of Inno in order to prevent that a majority of players (apart from those of the last age who have had a year to make substantial stocks) who make level 5 stop for lack of means?

a degradation kit would be very helpful

 

[softly explorer]

a degradation kit would be very helpful

Such kind of suggestion is on the DNS list (Do Not Suggest), so Inno will never do that. ..because the player's progress in a game need to go forwards, not backwards (I've read such phrase ) ...
Edit : I can imagine that some players that are in SAM or higher Era maybe delete their city and start over again and do the "trick" with being in Progressive Era while having units of 5 Era's higher (something like that) ...

 

[DEADP00L]

Such kind of suggestion is on the DNS list (Do Not Suggest), so Inno will never do that.

Indeed, but it has never been requested, except since GE 5, to produce so many goods from the previous age.
It's not even believable to compensate with buildings from the tech tree.
Event buildings are the ones that produce the most goods but that we all evolve at the latest possible age to meet various needs.
There they backtracked without giving us the opportunity to adapt to this big change in strategy.

While personally, I would like to be able to choose between building a building so that it produces more attack or more FP AND staying at the previous age to produce goods.

But again, developers add new things without thinking about what already exists.
Just like the interest of providing us with black potions for the attack (more powerful but with a shorter effect) when we already have enough to fill this parameter. Instead of proposing a solution to what they have ignored for years and would like us to pay more attention to it from now on!

 

[Pericles the Lion]

Such kind of suggestion is on the DNS list (Do Not Suggest), so Inno will never do that. ..because the player's progress in a game need to go forwards, not backwards (I've read such phrase ) ...
Edit : I can imagine that some players that are in SAM or higher Era maybe delete their city and start over again and do the "trick" with being in Progressive Era while having units of 5 Era's higher (something like that) ...

There's no harm in asking but it will be DNSL. The solution to a prior age goods shortage is to age up to the next Era but not age up any goods producing buildings. Players in SAJM will need to wait for Titan to be released but it appears that this will be happening on Beta soon.

 

[drakenridder]

Indeed, but it has never been requested, except since GE 5, to produce so many goods from the previous age.

Actually it has been. Downgrade kits have been suggested long before GE5 rumours even existed. See this proposal

 

[thelegend88]

First they removed wishing wells from events, now diamonds are as if removed from GE, in some cases people will spend more negotiating on level 5 than they earned. So basically this is a part of transitioning this game to pay to play model

 

[CrashBoom]

There's no harm in asking but it will be DNSL. The solution to a prior age goods shortage is to age up to the next Era but not age up any goods producing buildings. Players in SAJM will need to wait for Titan to be released but it appears that this will be happening on Beta soon.

or build more event building that gives previous age goods

 

[DEADP00L]

As long as players cannot accumulate enough blue %, they will have to negotiate, but level 5 of the GE costs on average 5,000 goods from the previous age.
So until players are able to produce or win at the market 700 goods per day from the previous age, there will be a time when they can no longer do GE 5.
This will give, from a statistical point of view, the impression that the GE 5 is boycotted.

 

[drakenridder]

As long as players cannot accumulate enough blue %, they will have to negotiate, but level 5 of the GE costs on average 5,000 goods from the previous age.
So until players are able to produce or win at the market 700 goods per day from the previous age, there will be a time when they can no longer do GE 5.
This will give, from a statistical point of view, the impression that the GE 5 is boycotted.

Interesting statement with the context of the last events' grand prizes giving blue %.

 

[drakenridder]

GE5 take 3

Default buffs: 227%/354%
Age: OF
Manual fighting only
GB's: AO, Kraken (several encounters), Virgo (1 encounter)

GE5 enc. 01-4
First 4 encounters went down fighting without major hiccups. Manually fighting was fun but causalities couldn't be prevented. Fortifications helped out quit a bit.

No blue bottles (defence boosts) where used


GE5 enc. 05-8
The 5th and 6th encounter went down without much problems. However from encounter 7 serious resistance started. Had to wait for Virgo+kraken to recharge to help me out. At the 7th encounter Virgo defeated 4 hostile units but kraken didn't join. Got through it with Virgo and AO support. The 8th encounter went down with quit some casualties. Mainly due to mistakes from my side. Used 2x fortifications providing att&def%. Kraken helped out in the 1st wave.

No blue bottles (defence boosts) where used


GE5 enc. 09-12

At the 9th encounter kraken helped out. Casualties where 3 dead and 1 wounded. From the encounter 10th I've resorted to the use of blue bottles (defence boosts). Changed tactics and used a fortification to bolster my defence by 100%. Kraken took care of 1 difficult to kill unit. Major causalities suffered, only 3 units survived encounter 10/16 in GE5. At the 11th encounter I've used the attack fortification again. Had to retreat several times for kraken to attack and knocking down a unit I wanted it to knock out. Major causalities again, only 3 survivors. At the 12th encounter I've used 2x fortifications to bolster my buffs. Kraken helped out too but wasn't really knocking out something I was worried about. Regardless 3 quarter of GE5 was cleared by force, with less consumption of bottles.

23x 20% blue bottles & 8x 30% blue bottles

GE5 enc. 13-16
At encounter 13 lost 5/8 units. I've build another att% fortification. Kraken joined into the fun and helped out. From the 14th encounter I started negotiations. The hostile buffs have grown too large to reasonably overcome without significantly larger consumption of blue bottles. From experience I know this encounter is with larger amounts of bottles my limit.

23x 20% blue bottles & 8x 30% blue bottles

Diamonds spend: 30
Diamonds earned: 90
Netto diamonds: 60

Conclusion
Despite my investments into defence buffs, currently the final encounters have proven to be too strong. Having an AO and using own age units is a must. If you want to get far in GE5 by force. Constructing fortifications is highly recommended. I'm glad the devs came up with this perk.
However as said countless times by others, neg. fortifications don't make economical sense. This needs a revision. Fights however seem achievable in OF as far I can tell. It'll take significant defence buffs. A event building producing blue bottles could help enormously. At least if it's not too large to keeping efficiency benefits on its side and if they ain't less than 20% bottles every 2nd or 3rd day. Since GE is weekly.

An additional note, I got a avatar instead of frag. for a GE5 building I really want. Still feel the 10% chance for avatars is the worse addition for the effort and costs.

 

[GwenGwen]

About the post about GE level 5 adjustments posted on Mars 28 Announcements - Balance changes - Guild Expedition level 5 difficulty and level 1-4 rewards

I can't understand these adjustments because I don't know -xx% of what?
Is there a table with the values of each attrition for each level and each era to understand the real value of the adjustment? .
And where?
Thank you for your answer

 

[drakenridder]

@GwenGwen I don't know the exact numbers anymore and I'm not aware of such an archive. However I do know that the hostile buffs where reduced by quit a bit, compared to the 1st Beta introduction of GE5.

 

[qaccy]

First they removed wishing wells from events, now diamonds are as if removed from GE, in some cases people will spend more negotiating on level 5 than they earned. So basically this is a part of transitioning this game to pay to play model

It's more like the game transitioning to encouraging that players seek out blue military bonuses. After all, a player who fights through GE instead of negotiating isn't going to need any goods at all.

 

[softly explorer]

Over a longer time (if you wish to play GE5 each week) stack defender potions will come to an end. So I believe bringing higher attack & defense for Defending Army (DA) is the better way to prevent that your stockpile of defender potions get empty. If you just need 2 a 3 potions each week and you still have now a nice amount of them, that seems "ok" to me ... till the time you run out of potions your probably had the TIME to work on your boost via GB's and/or special buildings.
Me, being in SAM I could previous week fight till encounter 75 (=11th enc in GE5) with my boost of 461% att / 589% def (=% without buffs).
I used in total 3 x 30% + 1x 20% def potion. This way I can go on for a long long time (if I wish!) ...
This way I can eventually negotiate enc 76 in case a Relic from ToR is in the fog behind enc 76 and I didn't needed many Goods for GE5. But previous week I negotiated till the end, just because I've many Goods in stock. But I shall always try to battle as much as possible.

 

[thelegend88]

It's more like the game transitioning to encouraging that players seek out blue military bonuses. After all, a player who fights through GE instead of negotiating isn't going to need any goods at all.

How much defense boost you need to fight to 64?

 

[drakenridder]

@softly explorer I'm sure we'll eventually running out of blue bottles. However I feel it's probably not part of the intentional design. That they're buying us time to building up blue buffs from the city. I'd like to point out that I would need to obtain and construct:

App. 700% defence buffs, which means:
100x greater ritual flames (400w/<8 years GE5 without getting rickrolled once)
58+ ritual flames lvl2
116+ watchfires lvl2
46+ serpent spikes (184w / <4 years GE5 without getting rickrolled once)
29+ phantom towers (even if I had 2x key masters it would've taken years or serious money)
21+ bear mountains (where to keeping so many bears, while maintaining the city to be functional?)
25x abbey of Athlon (where to get so many)
Lvl 1.350 st. Bas. (the highest lvl a GB has nowadays just barely exceeds lvl200, how am I supposed to push so hard on this while neglecting everything else?)

To be fair the timeframes are ignoring all other options. Still though without watchfires being offered as a daily special during one of the 99.999.999.999.999 events each year we get, it's pretty though to get there. The point however is that we definitely need either a event building that produces fairly efficiently blue bottles of 20% or more, or we need a super efficient blue buff event building. Even though most event buildings nowadays have blue buffs, they're probably not gonna cut it.

Lastly I'd like to point out that GE5 is getting slightly devalued by the way avatars are handed out. Those who like them might find it frustratingly difficult to get them. While those who don't care feel they're getting rickrolled when they get them. So, nobody's happy. As I've pointed out before, a better approach would've been handing them out as an additional reward for either completing GE5 or as a additional reward for completing the 4th, 8th, 12th and 16th GE5 encounter. Which each having their own specific and unique avatar pool. Alternatively to deflate the value of all GE5 avatars handing out randomly GE5 avatars as an additional reward for completing the entire level.

 

[qaccy]

How much defense boost you need to fight to 64?

Assuming you meant 80 (end of GE5), I did it last week in SAV with blue bonuses of about 500% for attack and 600% for defense just from city bonuses. I was building fortifications especially near the end and using defender potions to get my defense up to about 3000% to get through it. The potion use isn't currently sustainable long-term, but it doesn't have to be as I acquire more permanent bonuses from event buildings (and maybe get my Basil and Deal up a few more levels as well).

One thing I'd like to suggest here is that, just like when it comes to red military bonuses, attack is probably more important to look for than defense. Go for Tactician's Towers before Watchfires, as one basic example. Some level of balance is best, but prioritize attack bonuses first.