Totaly agree with what NO_ONE said. Dedicated players are trying to get to the point, where they can match the top players and there should be at least some balance between those who invest a lot of time (and some money) with those who invest a huge amount of money.

What i found attractive in this game in the first place was broad variety of units with unique graphics and most importanly a freakish amount of ways to pursue and improve your whole army and city, that is what i call a perfect gameplay and is something most free to play don't have.

Even some of the last changes were awsome in this way and improved the gameplay by a lot. Daily quests with better rewards, Warfares and Tournaments with even more rewards, even the rule of always getting units when attacking persion positions helped. That's why i would love to see more achivements with higher levels and according rewards or more units for example, both means more gameplay.

It's just about drawing the line between "slow" and "impossible"! 

All (or most, at least) free to play games offer some advantages to people who purchase some services.

Of course, that's expected; They have to pay the bills too.

But the line is, or has to be that someone who choose to go the free-to-play road is able to make it, given enough time spent/dedication in the game.

Sadly, this update doesn't really allow that.

The first level of ressources building cost 120 sketches ( 180 for farms ). So, to upgrade your 15 ressources buildings just 1 level each, that's 2100 sketches. At the cheapest price ( if you buy in bulk ) sketches cost 10 drachmas each. So that's 21000 drachmas.

Let's assume the next level are the same price ( they probably are even more expensive, but keep it simple ). 5 levels = 105000 drachmas.

A good hard-working player who has all 4 unit queues going 24-7 can get MAYBE 1000 dramchas a week. Just a rough figure. 

(Of course you could get 10k+ in ONE week if you already have a large army, but you can't do it every week. We're talking about what you can get regularly here ).

So, 105000 drachmas at 1k a week, that's 2 years. Just for your ressources buildings. Not all buildings are a "must" to have, but a few are. The ressources, the temples that give you +% ressources, the infirmary, which I assume will revive more units at later levels...

So you're looking at 2 or 3 years of dedicated gaming (if you don't raid much and don't keep your units queues going 24/7, you make even less drachmas ). 

Now you say... Ok, so you can make it?

Yes, you can, if you spend 3 years on a game ONLY FOR THAT. 
But in these 3 years, Plarium will, undoubtly, add something else. Because big coiners will buy all these upgrades in days, weeks or months... and then will be looking for something else to throw their credit card at.

Plarium will certainly obliges. 

So if they release something as big in, say, 6 months from now... Well, you just made 1/6th of the drachmas you needed, and now you have something else to worry about. You'll never "get everything done". You'll have to choose in which way you'll accept to be gimped against other players. And you will never ever make it, unless they don't release anything new to be bought with drachmas for 3 years, and you know it's not happening.

So you never make it to the end. That's what cause F2P players to drop a game and call it P2W. 

I mean it already had big P2W elements ( you can just buy armies with $, that's something ) but the only way a game can be called F2P is if you can play for free and get "to the max".

Before that update, you could. I started the game a bit after the start, but now all my "free" buildings are upgraded to the ressources-only max level, my temple of xenia has a few levels already, I'm getting there. And (before that update) I WOULD get there at some point. Doesn't matter if it's days, weeks, months... I would come to a point where I have absolutely everything a player can get. All the buildings, a very large army, everything.

That's how the hard work/dedication works for an f2p game. And it would still work if they were priced more reasonably. This update could've been great if they were priced a bit lower, so you could reasonably hope to get them with the events, over a reasonable period of time... 

But now, even hard work and dedication won't cut it, because it would take years to get the drachmas you need without buying them for real money. And keep in mind that I was really conservative with my "3 years" figure. I didn't account for price increases between levels, and for a lot of other buildings that are usefull but that I skipped because they're not absolutely vital. 

That "3 years" could easily be 5 or even 10 years.

A decade of dedicated gaming just to get what people can buy in a hour with a big credit card.

On the websites, the games are all advertised as "free".

But if you play "for free" you now can't ever hope to get everything.

That's like buying a car, but once it's yours, you see that it doesn't have wheels. Hey, it's still a car, no one did anythign dishonest! But it's not exactly what you thought you were buying.

So you can only play a portion of the game for free, and as it's a multiplayer games, you'll constantly be up against people who DO have everything. Even if they did not put any effort into the game, they can have everything. All they need is $. 

You can raid/carefully play for 6 hours a day for years, and you won't be on par to go against someone who just throw money at problems. 

This isn't a Free-to-play game anymore, and this isn't an "hard working can help you get shit done" game anymore.
This is a game for super casual amateurs ( who don't care what they have or have not ) and coiners.

The #1 group of players this update screwed off is the hard-working playerbase. Those who log in everyday and raid everyday and all that.

Amateurs don't really care if those upgrades are too expensive, they're just working toward their farms lvl 10, they don't even know what's up there and will never get there.

And coiners, well of course that's heaven for them. They can just throw more money at the screen in order to win against players who don't.

This update spits in the collective face of players who have spent hundreds or even thousands of hours in the game, thinking they would "make it" at some point if they played hard and smart enough.

You just told them that unless they draw the credit card like the rest of them...

No, they won't "make it". 

Ever.

Plarium,

For simpliity, why not make these sketches available for purchase with gps. Something like same rate 1-1...100gps buys 100 sketches or whatever.

Something like the above would still not make it too quick and easy to complete buildings and would be similar to offering sketches as a direct reward in tournaments.

That way people can decide to turn their rewards to either buildings, agreements or both, makes for more choice. Also players that have signed all agreements and are not in so much of a mad rush for gps anymore, will then have their tournament interests rekindled, because they can trade gps into sketches for the upgrades.

Leonidas I think you already know my comment on this topic, you brought another feature that only benefits drachma players and still ignored real issues that the game has. You greedy greedy person. You should take all those new upgrades and stick them up your rear sword holster.

As i said, I for one am not disappointed by the option to increase the levels of buildings for sketches (question is what is the reasonable rate at which those sketches should be traded for drachmas).

What i do not like much much more is option to boost the offence/deffence by so much! For a player like me, who spend alot of time playing this game and try to train and gain as much army as he can and not risk too much, this new option diminished my effort by quite a bit a therefore it is ruining my game experience by a lot (since im not the coiner and if i buy boost for GPs, there is still 10% difference).

Great Meant to be restrictive means MORE POWER TO COINERS... GREAT JOB

The advanced levels are really nice luxury upgrades, but are by no means mandatory.

Dedicated players are still capable of raiding to keep their training queues busy for weeks at a time.

They're still capable of keeping their resource pools well below 18,000.

The infirmary maxes out at healing 50% offensive units, but healing 30% defensive units will not change.

Resource generators will take much longer to pay for themselves, given the immense costs without discounts. Would you prefer a credit card player to max out their buildings or to buy a couple thousand units to wreck you with?

Remember, these are advanced levels, and they have some pretty serious upgrades. The resource generators start at 100 additional resources per level instead of the 20 per level for previous upgrades. They're supposed to be restrictive. Otherwise, players would max them out in a matter of months and we would continue to get complaints that their artisans have nothing to do.

Players will not win the game simply for purchasing these upgrades.

New items are expensive for the sake of novelty, and will become more accessible as time progresses.

The advanced levels are really nice luxury upgrades, but are by no means mandatory.

Dedicated players are still capable of raiding to keep their training queues busy for weeks at a time.

They're still capable of keeping their resource pools well below 18,000.

The infirmary maxes out at healing 50% offensive units, but healing 30% defensive units will not change.

Resource generators will take much longer to pay for themselves, given the immense costs without discounts. Would you prefer a credit card player to max out their buildings or to buy a couple thousand units to wreck you with?

Remember, these are advanced levels, and they have some pretty serious upgrades. The resource generators start at 100 additional resources per level instead of the 20 per level for previous upgrades. They're supposed to be restrictive. Otherwise, players would max them out in a matter of months and we would continue to get complaints that their artisans have nothing to do.

Players will not win the game simply for purchasing these upgrades.

New items are expensive for the sake of novelty, and will become more accessible as time progresses.

Archons! I appreciate your feedback and suggestions given, I'll definitely forward them to our devs. 

First of all, every Archon has a choice - whether to use these Sketches or not. If you want them, you buy them. If you don't like them, you won't buy them.

I remind you that there are a lot of ways in the game to earn Drachmas as a reward. So all the Archons have a possibility to buy these Sketches.  

And finally, there is a possibility that the gods will decide to add these Sketches to the Tournaments' rewards