Major game balance changes

Well I am sorry I reacted to this in the way I did. I realize this is alpha and many changes will take place. I think I was just disappointed since I had already planned what I would build when I got home from work and then found that I couldn't. I also was used to updates being released earlier in the week so I was just shocked by the changes coming before a weekend. As to paying players having more advantage I have not seen that to be to true. Maybe that is because I have spread my spending between all of my heros but I don't see where I am really bigger then any of my neighbors and I assume they aren't all paying to play. Also I just wanted to see how the cash shop worked so used alot of my cash for that as I thought you wanted it tested.  I did not mean to bash you and I know I should have waited to reply until I got over my initial shock. As you know though from my long history of posting that I am always initially verbal with my opinions but not afraid to contradict myself later. I do appreciate that I no longer need to use a blueprint to upgrade my sheds at least so far. I am also still feeling very crowded this time around  and I guess that is adding to my disapointment with these changes. But again I attribute that to the addition of players and being spoiled by stage 1. I am not having any trouble with people attacking me and I do wish that someone would just because that should be part of the experience. Also I am disappointed that I can't find the amulet in any of my heros although I have clicked on and tried everything I can think of. You say it isn't important but it is making me feel like a fool and I hate that but I also don't want a hint.  So again I am sorry but you shouldn't take my initial reactions as bashing just as the shock and surprise I am feeling and I will try to do better at not posting those since they are not welcome.   

Yes I realize that it wasn't to me personally but I still wanted to explain how I was feeling just so you would understand when I was coming from. As you can see I'm still playing just have to rethink what I can do for now.

. Also now when you go to bed at night you will no longer feel like your town is progressing because you started an 8 hour building. I already buy hammers to queue buildings for the 16 hours when I am at work but now that will be impossible also.

I may be wrong, but I thought the point of all of this is so we will no longer need to take a long winter's nap while we wait on an 8 hour building. Upgrading different resources and production buildings both increases the amount of resources and decreases the time it takes to accumulate them. So if I concentrate more on resource building from the very beginning of my game play, they will be at higher grades than they are now in later game play, and will producing more when I need them to.

For me this isn't a long winters nap but a good nights sleep and off to work in the morning. My computer is only turned on nights and weekends and on days off so I can only play for a couple of hours during the week each evening.

So now i must say a little bit to the update. As every balancing thread is nice to see.

Firstly @berserker: As I read your post berserker it's like you are switched out over a few days.. everytime i talked about pay2win concept / timing / shop system, your answer was more like "no it's nice how it is with small fixes" - and NOW you have followed an idea which is that, was i was all the time talking about. Now paying vs. non paying player is more balanced. That this will never be equal... that's sure. But that's a nice decision from your side. I can remember that you deny the pay2win concept... and now such an update, nice one.

So now to the update itself: The updates seems not bad as all, but I think there was no real decision process behind (with some "that's because of ..." "that should be higher, because of ..." and hard arguments and local testings), it seems more like "mhh let's try to raise here a little bit, but lower anything in later stages down, and then here, and ...".

And that's how it feels. Now I can go through all the buildings and say what is nice, what is really strange and so on. But that will be really to much - in fact I can say, that the timing overall is nicer, as you can do more and can play longer (if you want to). I think such a timing is better for player, who have fun with that game and really want to progress. So you are not forced to be offline for hours. And that's more important as some players who only wants to come online one time per day. That player will mainly not pay for your game.. but the other ones will. So you now target the more efficient people. The costs for some buildlings are still too low and can be raised, some timings can be lowered too, and some buildings costs too much, and blocks you heavily from progression.

As some people mentioned the low-build timing are raised and have already some opinions, I don't have at the moment. In my 3rd town I think the timing for the ressource fields is too long, but I'll check the real timing with my 4th town. Today I don't have enough time to be online so frequent, so I'll settle it tomorrow, I think. Then I'll check the timing as it is my first town.

Conclusion: The update is more positive than it's negative. So I see a small light on the end on the tunnel.

 Now paying vs. non paying player is more balanced. That this will never be equal... that's sure. But that's a nice decision from your side. I can remember that you deny the pay2win concept... and now such an update, nice one.

Nice to hear but i really don't know how. Sure all the items of highprice-buildingtime-reducing nearly meaningless but thats a kind of balance? Now you need sheds (with really small buildingtime) and res-buildings with cheap prices but longer buildingtime. A Pay2Win player could raise his income to the max within 1-2 days because you need just a full store and some items to finish all next production buildings and then you can really rush away.

What about balance to the 25% production bonus items, or the global ressources like marble, fur or deer. What about whool to be able to built more sheds and raise your store.

What about balance of non working hard-core-players staying online whole day to other player who will just come online 2-3 times per day for 1 hour because of family or work, school or peacefull dreamings ;)

Hardcoreplayer can built now many buildings/upgrades within 24hours, some expansive big ones and many cheap ones. If you are online just for 1-2 hours you can start 1 maybe 2 upgrades.

. Well, I will be starting on my third town tomorrow. I have 18 days invested in the two towns. I will let you know how the third town grows with the changes you made Bers. I am a casual player, I only have a few hours in the evenings to play and after the time changes were made there were days that I just started my buildings and went off line because it took so long to build. My first town was built by growth and the second one was grown by settlers (8) A person that had a lot of time on their hands would probably prefer to use more time and less resources and a person with very little time would probably prefer to use more resources and less time. It maybe difficult to balance the two.

What about balance to the 25% production bonus items, or the global ressources like marble, fur or deer. What about whool to be able to built more sheds and raise your store.

Can't you see the difference between 25% increase in something and buyng something outright instantly? Really or just trolling? With 25% bonus you can achieve your goal 25% faster, with instant speedups you can achieve that in no time. Infinity times faster.

With such bonuses i comepare a hardcoreplayer with a player who is a few times online here. Now because ressources are primary important you can increase your development just because some global ressources (also with some items for casher). Before your changes (as time was more important) there was no global ressource with real influence in account expanding.

And back to the discussion of balance of payers to nonpayers. At moment all my stores of wood full all other ressources nearly empty. Also because of this fact my wood-shed in my 2nd town is 4-6 level bigger than food or stone because its always the last option i have because its a building just for the wood i have remain. With cash i always use some merchant badges and change my remain avaible wood into stone or food and built much more important buildings for further development. At least you can't balance noncasher vs casher but now you reduce balance of some other things. Sure in past a cahser could finish a 24hour building within a second but he still need ressources for other things now casher just need ressources and he is able to get them in different ways. Even the fact as casher you can raise your whole income very fast at the beginning and you will earn this investment along whole playtime, in past you just had a advantege with the building and the up speed.

Lets take a look at single buildings with a special example of 1 town:

Lets say i have full store of 3000 of all ressources.

Shrine of knowlege level 8 - 1050 food, 0 wood, 2100 stone
Altar 7 - 460 food,  0 wood, 1840 stone
Petroglyph - 200 food, 0 wood, 820 stone
Mission 5 - 0 food, 600 wood, 2400 stone
shelter - 0 food, 390 wood, 1180 stone
Obervation post 11 - 1400 food, 460 wood, 0 stone
Totempole level 7 - 800 food, 800 wood, 3200 stone

Dosn't matter what i would built wood is always remain and other ressources empty.

Bererker you just point out one fact i discribe but i talk about the whole progress. After a restart now i had a completly different development. This stage i try to rush for my 2nd town (with next stage i would try to do this again, because now the ressources very important and a 2nd town means much more ressources) This stage i needed some ressources for my last settlers and so i used the items for better production and 10-15 coins and 2 merchant badges to exchange this ressources. At the gamble time i parked some overlaping ressources at market with a really bad exchange rate to be sure no player accept my bad offer. But this was just 1 day all other i primary ignore my ressource-income because the store would be overloaded.

Next stage i will buy many small items to push my income within the first 2-3 days. I will ignore huts this time but raise my gardens, forestries, stonefields. If i have enough resources i would raise my sheds too. With an income of more than 1000 ressouces per hour and enough store you are unstoppable then and im sure no noncasher would be so fast. Another sideeffect i would push my research this way too. maybe im lucky and have some wool in my domain so im able to built cheaper sheds (2 small shed of level 5 cheaper than 1 shed of level 10) and so i could store faster more amount.

Your country skew towards lumber is intentional as well. Different playstyle requires different type of resources. Some players complained they lack food or stone after the update. That was also made intentionally to stimulate trade.

Hmm i don't see a gamestyle which need more wood at moment, only buildings with more wood would be palisade and towers, also hut but all this buildings had large builringtime and in relationship to the time a small price of ressources. If i would built this sure i need more wood but i got more wood in meantime.

For example hut level 4 need 500 wood but depending on population and other huts you need 4-6hours. If you have more than 120 wood per hour this building won't help me to reduce my reserve of wood.

So just tower and palisade is remain but such buildings raise my population without effects in culture and because of the longe buildingtime i don't like to built them now. Also towers just can built up to level 5 at moment.

At moment the market is primary misused to find other players or store some overloaded ressources. To stimulate the market i would change the handling completely. There should be a place close to your domain, could be "heralds home" for example and there is a market or a flying trader. If you want trade your trader don't move to the town of other player but he move to the flying trader at heralds home. Both player need the number of traders to hold the maximum amount of this trade. For example if you give 500 food and want 1000 wood you need 5 instead of 3 trader. because you need 5 trader to bring all the wood back to your town.

So you can trade with everybody doesn't matter how far away he is. You got the ressources very fast because you don't must wait 1 hour or more. Im sure trades with more than 30min will be uninterressting for the most player. You don't find towns of other players at worldmap and if you want store some ressources at market with bad exchange of 1:2 you need double number of trades or with other words you just can store the half at market.

Lets take a look at single buildings with a special example of 1 town:

Lets say i have full store of 3000 of all ressources.

Shrine of knowlege level 8 - 1050 food, 0 wood, 2100 stone
Altar 7 - 460 food,  0 wood, 1840 stone
Petroglyph - 200 food, 0 wood, 820 stone
Mission 5 - 0 food, 600 wood, 2400 stone
shelter - 0 food, 390 wood, 1180 stone
Obervation post 11 - 1400 food, 460 wood, 0 stone
Totempole level 7 - 800 food, 800 wood, 3200 stone

Dosn't matter what i would built wood is always remain and other ressources empty.

Seems you change the totempole and observation post, right? Nice to see wood because more important again. Thx.

RE: Hardcore cash player V casual not too much money player  -
Here's the deal with me,  I have purchased a good bit of Enkord cash, I don't work and have plenty of free time.  However, I find that compared to players, such as yourself Knutsi and also Brenda, that do work and don't have much free time to play, I am way behind.  You both had your 2nd towns on the go and I was still nowhere near ready to start mine.  So I think it comes down to how many hours of gameplay that you are prepared to put in.  More Enkord cash does not mean quicker expansion and development unless you put the time in.  In my opinion time spent playing is what speeds these elements up and not the amount of money you spend.  I didn't play for 4 or 5 days over Christmas which really slowed me down so I bought more EC to try to catch up with both of you but that didn't really work as I only started my second town 3 days ago.  So from where I'm standing, time outweighs cash everytime.  The first thing I do when I turn my machine on each day is log into the game and I leave it running in the background all day while I'm busy doing things around the house and walking the dog I said I was not getting!!!! but I don't put a huge amount of time into actually playing.  This will change though when stage 3 is released and I can get a true reading of whether time or money is the necessary ingredient for speedy  progress as my plan is to start 2 countries on the same day, one of which I will invest time and no money in while the other my Enkord cash and very little time.