not sure if you misunderstood the cost to level a farm from 24 to 25 is 800 sketches which imo is not that much compared to other buildings

Stewart_KT1 said:

Jezebel said:

not sure if you misunderstood the cost to level a farm from 24 to 25 is 800 sketches which imo is not that much compared to other buildings

Ah, yes a misunderstanding, But how to get those sketches without coining at all?

tournament rewards :) They have given them in tournaments a few times and you can save your saphs earned and purchase the sketches at 30% discount :)

I am pretty sure if I hadn't used them elsewhere I earned enough sketches for all 6 farms from level 20 - 21 by now  (people in bigger leagues would have earned more than me since the sketches have been rewards in league tournaments more than solos) - it would take time but heck I just now got level 12 crystals after 2 1/2 years of game play lol

there are two things that will make me WANT to get points in tournaments lately and that is Whirlwind Dragon Marks and Sketches - I see those and I usually try to get some points

oh while we are at it I totally did not mention that the Dragon Stone can also help with food production or give you instant food delivery and its FREE

Jezebel said:

oh while we are at it I totally did not mention that the Dragon Stone can also help with food production or give you instant food delivery and its FREE

I never use that feature though

You have more patience than me on the sketches im afraid.

Unfortunately i do need to use the dragon stone food boost if i want to spend some build speedups on troops. As you cant speedup if you are at minus 100k ph or more.

Jezebel said:

oh while we are at it I totally did not mention that the Dragon Stone can also help with food production or give you instant food delivery and its FREE

I never use that feature though

You have more patience than me on the sketches im afraid.

Unfortunately i do need to use the dragon stone food boost if i want to spend some build speedups on troops. As you cant speedup if you are at minus 100k ph or more.

Although now i will be on level footing as i only have 5 1day boosts left, I used up over 700 of them from when i was spending more.

Gadheras said:

Jezebel said:

djmoody said:

Jezebel said:

BeastMaster said:

Providing a solution to balance that requires people to level multiple building to lvl 25 is a bit of a contradiction, surely?

It might be normal for you but it's not for the rest of us.

This can be done without coining so yes its a better solution than continuing to let the big spenders control the game

We should run a poll for that - see how many non-coiners have lvl 25 farms and catacombs. I would be expecting slighly different results than you I think.

Farms can easily be upgraded without coining they aren't expensive - if people are playing and earning saphs they CAN get the upgrades without coining - I suppose it would be a priority thing for most just like the craftsman when you first start playing you save your saphs for them - Catacombs are quite a bit more pricey but again I suppose it would all depend on what you think is a priority in your castle

Level 25 farm upgrade = 800 sketches 

I personally don't have all farms to level 21 yet as I don't have to and chose to upgrade my catacombs instead

Problem is, you can get sapphires from tournaments etc. but tbh, the rewards to bad. Why would I even want to do those awfull things when I get set back weeks and more in troop numbers, due to the god awfull time it take to train units. Faster unit training would help close the gap between big coiners and the rest. Issue is, Plarium doesn't want too, because it would make us able to take part in more tournaments more often. But they doesn't benefit from us win more sapphires do they?

only true if they also penalized the build times of someone with a huge army and slowed their build times, coiners raid and build also so you could never keep up if they could train their troops even faster

Jezebel said:

djmoody said:

Gadheras said:

Its the recovery after absolute defat or losing big that is the crux for faster unit build time. Because it decide when you can do something worth the while in the game again. Coiners and big hammers will always be there regardless. What do I care if a hammer is 1b, 2b, 3b or whatever? I can't do much about that. 

For me it's the other way around.

Because Plarium allow direct purchase of end game - infinite troops, immediately. The 1b,2b, 3b hammers mean you will never be able to achieve something worthwhile in the game. The speed of rebuild is kind of irrelevant, because the gap between real players and coiners is simply too huge.

It is never going to change here thought, because the whole business model for Stormfall is simply to catch 'whales' and make easy money.

agree totally with that

The easy solution is.... hey there is a lot of other games out there -)

Jezebel said:

Gadheras said:

Jezebel said:

djmoody said:

Gadheras said:

Its the recovery after absolute defat or losing big that is the crux for faster unit build time. Because it decide when you can do something worth the while in the game again. Coiners and big hammers will always be there regardless. What do I care if a hammer is 1b, 2b, 3b or whatever? I can't do much about that. 

For me it's the other way around.

Because Plarium allow direct purchase of end game - infinite troops, immediately. The 1b,2b, 3b hammers mean you will never be able to achieve something worthwhile in the game. The speed of rebuild is kind of irrelevant, because the gap between real players and coiners is simply too huge.

It is never going to change here thought, because the whole business model for Stormfall is simply to catch 'whales' and make easy money.

agree totally with that

The easy solution is.... hey there is a lot of other games out there -)

unfortunately I have spent 2 1/2 years playing what used to be a great game - its kind of hard to let go after putting so much work into it

Well, I play a lot of games. After a while, you start play one game less than others, and one day you find yourself not logged into some game for a very log time. How much you spent on this game after 2 and a half year?

BiohazarD said:

brunsonthomas said:

Jezebel said:

Gadheras said:

Jezebel said:

Gadheras said:

Jezebel said:

djmoody said:

Gadheras said:

Its the recovery after absolute defat or losing big that is the crux for faster unit build time. Because it decide when you can do something worth the while in the game again. Coiners and big hammers will always be there regardless. What do I care if a hammer is 1b, 2b, 3b or whatever? I can't do much about that. 

For me it's the other way around.

Because Plarium allow direct purchase of end game - infinite troops, immediately. The 1b,2b, 3b hammers mean you will never be able to achieve something worthwhile in the game. The speed of rebuild is kind of irrelevant, because the gap between real players and coiners is simply too huge.

It is never going to change here thought, because the whole business model for Stormfall is simply to catch 'whales' and make easy money.

agree totally with that

The easy solution is.... hey there is a lot of other games out there -)

unfortunately I have spent 2 1/2 years playing what used to be a great game - its kind of hard to let go after putting so much work into it

Well, I play a lot of games. After a while, you start play one game less than others, and one day you find yourself not logged into some game for a very log time. How much you spent on this game after 2 and a half year?

It not money its TIME I have logged daily and built my castle I raided every day and worked to build an army - I spent some - not as much as others I would rather use my money on things that will benefit me in real life - spending on a game that's your entertainment is not really an issue is it?  Everyone spends money on entertainment -  HOWEVER those that spend enough to feed a family of 5 for a year need to get their heads examined - USE THIS MONEY FOR GOOD SOMEWHERE

Not everyone makes the same income. Some of us struggle to make ends meet while others have plenty to spend on anything. This is their chosen form of entertainment and Plarium enjoys the profits of the ones who have plenty to spend and the rest of us have a game we play for enjoyment not spending fortunes we do not wish to waste on this game.

One of the main reasons this is a problem is the outnumbering mechanics.  If you get a big enough army, the game lets you kill smaller armies for almost no losses.  So if a 3 billion hammer hits a beacon with 20 million defense on it, the hammer won't lose close to 20 million offense, it will lose maybe 1-2 million.  This means that smaller leagues can't even wear down the big spenders, they just get squashed. That's why I think there should be some limit on either the amount of offense a player can have, or at least the amount that can be sent in a single attack. 

Wouldn't it be nice, if you had to have a "food upkeep" to send your army out. No armies march on empty stomachs after all :p So the more units you send the more food you need to send with them. I guess something Plarium could benefit from as well. If you had to buy food packs to even send your army out. Or an army of a certain size. 

As a game leveller I suggested a mechanic where league strikes could be have more than 3 members.

BUT as you add more members an increasingly putative cap should apply to the league strike.

This would allow smaller leagues to strike with meaningful hammers while not allowing the uber hammers to get any bigger. I quite like this balance method. Leveling the playing field by letting more people have a chance at launching a major attack. Effectively closing the gap between the biggest and normal sized hammers.

I posted a lot more about the idea in a thread to a CM but it got totally ignored because its a cracking and amazing idea.

Alyona Kolomiitseva said:

It has already been discussed on forum. We will not reverse the update which happened 2 years ago :) It's a step forward for our game, and we want to see more epic battles.

I think Plarium wants to see epic wallets. Events dont gve troops back for losses taken. They give occult troops only out for reward. The horrible heat events and some xp events give a few bestiary troops but pointless.

Event are misleading that your getting rewarded to participate but thats the scandel to convince you, you need to spend. As they spam you with spending money everytime you login to game. Its just a self promotion to developers.

All the epic wallets they seen already makes them want to make more updates. The "influence "  in game could be the scam its self but what do I know. I dont work for this company.

As a game leveller I suggested a mechanic where league strikes could be have more than 3 members.

BUT as you add more members an increasingly putative cap should apply to the league strike.

This would allow smaller leagues to strike with meaningful hammers while not allowing the uber hammers to get any bigger. I quite like this balance method. Leveling the playing field by letting more people have a chance at launching a major attack. Effectively closing the gap between the biggest and normal sized hammers.

I posted a lot more about the idea in a thread to a CM but it got totally ignored because its a cracking and amazing idea.

djmoody said:

As a game leveller I suggested a mechanic where league strikes could be have more than 3 members.

Leveling the playing field by letting more people have a chance at launching a major attack.

If losses had been maintained at 1:1 then none of this would be necessary - This entire thread would be unnecessary

If two equal armies fight then we should expect both to lose 50%

If 1 million defense is attacked by 9 million offense then both players should lose 900k

If 1 million defense is attacked by 99 million offense then each player should lose 990k

etc

B / (A+B) - http://prnt.sc/bgrn44

The problem is that armies can be 'overwhelmed' and that attacking army size is not capped for stormfall beacons (but are capped in other games - http://prnt.sc/f77qnb    )

Ask yourself why

djmoody said:

I agree about the timer mechanic. It's a great way to go.

I recently played Grepolis for about half a year. It's constant hardcore PvP and people can take everyone you have and literally wipe you off the map. But at the same time it has a 2 attack timer mechanic which means you don't have to be online 24/7, if someone makes a play for your stuff you know roughly when the second attack will be and both attacker and defender can therefore be online for the fight that decides whether a city is taken or not.

It's still a very hardcore game though.

Eve is a hardcore game too. If you are an alliance with assets out at risk you need to be active to defend them.

The plus side of Stormfall is that you can play very casually and at times of your choosing. While you are away you can catacomb all your stuff and be away as long as you like. It's a different style of gaming but actually suites me right now as I am not gaming much per day atm.

Yeah EVE is hardcore, but with the new citadels they introduced in the game. Peoples stuff inside is safe, anywhere unless in wormhole space. If the structure get destroyed, your assets get moved to closest NPC station (that decision did create a lot of heath on the devs btw, but they had to wage the desire for players to "get stuff from others" vs the desire to have players populate space. . Which probably could be a huge pain too if its in hostile space. But its not a total loss, also EVE work quite different as you would be silly to put all your assets in one location.

I agree that Stormfall can be casual and you can pick it up again after be away for a while, but so you can with most mmo's out there. When you return to Stormfall the chance is you return to a lot more stuff to spend cash on. When you return to most other mmo's for a extended leave, you actually return to a lot more added (actual) content.

My biggest gripe with Stormfall is that every action I do outside simple raiding or bash someone, is a "loss venture". Invested time and effort no way reflect the possible gain in so called rewards.   

Well in theory defence has a massive advantage at beacons and fortresses. An entire league of 160 people can defend and only 3 people can attack.

It's just that due to uncontrolled coining, for a limited few that 3 can be billions and bigger than even the biggest leagues defence.

Spying is completely unnecessary. If you understand the mechanics you can read beacon defence from even very small test hits. That is skill and tactics. Building an enormous spy bomb on an alt isn't something to get excited about in my books (not saying you do that, but many do).

djmoody said:

I agree about the timer mechanic. It's a great way to go.

I recently played Grepolis for about half a year. It's constant hardcore PvP and people can take everyone you have and literally wipe you off the map. But at the same time it has a 2 attack timer mechanic which means you don't have to be online 24/7, if someone makes a play for your stuff you know roughly when the second attack will be and both attacker and defender can therefore be online for the fight that decides whether a city is taken or not.

It's still a very hardcore game though.

Eve is a hardcore game too. If you are an alliance with assets out at risk you need to be active to defend them.

The plus side of Stormfall is that you can play very casually and at times of your choosing. While you are away you can catacomb all your stuff and be away as long as you like. It's a different style of gaming but actually suites me right now as I am not gaming much per day atm.

Yeah EVE is hardcore, but with the new citadels they introduced in the game. Peoples stuff inside is safe, anywhere unless in wormhole space. If the structure get destroyed, your assets get moved to closest NPC station (that decision did create a lot of heath on the devs btw, but they had to wage the desire for players to "get stuff from others" vs the desire to have players populate space. . Which probably could be a huge pain too if its in hostile space. But its not a total loss, also EVE work quite different as you would be silly to put all your assets in one location.

I agree that Stormfall can be casual and you can pick it up again after be away for a while, but so you can with most mmo's out there. When you return to Stormfall the chance is you return to a lot more stuff to spend cash on. When you return to most other mmo's for a extended leave, you actually return to a lot more added (actual) content.

djmoody said:

Well in theory defence has a massive advantage at beacons and fortresses. An entire league of 160 people can defend and only 3 people can attack.

It's just that due to uncontrolled coining, for a limited few that 3 can be billions and bigger than even the biggest leagues defence.

Spying is completely unnecessary. If you understand the mechanics you can read beacon defence from even very small test hits. That is skill and tactics. Building an enormous spy bomb on an alt isn't something to get excited about in my books (not saying you do that, but many do).

Imho, if you look at it sort of realistic. A fortified position got only room for so much troops, before you can't add more. And as an attacker you can only field so much the field of battle give room for, or else you will trample down your own troops, or press the frontline to hard. 

The whole mechanic should have been changed. 

In EVE, Corps/alliances can have starbases and structures. Other players can attack these, but they will have timers. So you can't just walk over them with a massive force. Initial attack put them into a reinforced state. In Stormfall this could be a "lay siege". The reinforced stage last for x time and give the defenders time to figure out a response, or call it a lost cause. Stormfall lack a lot of tactics and gameplay for beacons and fortress's.

A game where overwhelming force is the end of all, is just terrible. If you played any TW games. And in particular siege battles. Few can stand against the many with proper tactics and right units, but there is a limit to what you can deal with. At same time, attacking yourself with the right units and you can make an siege rather painless yet dull affair.

The game is what it is, we suffer from how terrible the game become. I say become, because I assume from the early days, what we see these days was not possible back then. So In a way Plarium screwed the game by chase the sapphires without adjust the game mechanics at same time. Ignoring consequence of changes. Now we probably reached a critical mass that is so flawed it would take a massive undertaking by Plarium to fix, and at this age and time and flash being what it is. I don't see them do that. The more "p2w" features and coining options being added to this game will just speed up the demise of the game. 

There is those that will just shrug this off as doom and gloom, well so be it. We ride a train that is reaching the end of the line. But oh wait we got the Stormfall App now.... right. You cram flash into a stand alone client, because browsers stop support the use of flash due to security reasons and the discontinued support of. I'm sorry, but it doesn't make the kitty any less dead.

Imho it would been better if Plarium took the experience they got from Stormfall, both good and bad. If not re-make it, so make something similar in a new engine and start over from scratch and actually have players beta test it before go live. The base concept is still sound. The current execution is not.

Well the problem with force limits is it can make some targets invulnerable.

To run with an example lets say the force cap on beacon strikes in 50m.

We all know how the siege mechanics work. A 150m beacon would for all intents and purposes become completely invulnerable. The losses needed to take it down would be WAY in excess of 150m, to the point where all but the biggest coiners would simply resign themselves to leaving it alone.

Up the cap because of that and you soon get back to the point where smaller leagues can be wiped out by bigger forces. Back to square one.

The problem with the game isn't dreaming up mechanics that will make it work. It's the ridiculous imbalance that Plarium how allowed through instant troop coining which means pretty much however you structure the mechanics you can't make a workable, enjoyable meaningful game.

I liken this game to chess. It should be a strategy game where you pit your whits against your opponent, considering their possible plays/moves and planning your counter strategies.

Under Plarium my opponent starts with 16 queens and the game is rendered pointless.

When I find the time I will find and post the >3 league strike idea. It for sure won't "fix" the game as that is impossible without removing the dumb coined armies. But it would make the game a little bit better. 

As a game leveller I suggested a mechanic where league strikes could be have more than 3 members.

BUT as you add more members an increasingly putative cap should apply to the league strike.

This would allow smaller leagues to strike with meaningful hammers while not allowing the uber hammers to get any bigger. I quite like this balance method. Leveling the playing field by letting more people have a chance at launching a major attack. Effectively closing the gap between the biggest and normal sized hammers.

I posted a lot more about the idea in a thread to a CM but it got totally ignored because its a cracking and amazing idea.

Snowgoon said:

djmoody said:

As a game leveller I suggested a mechanic where league strikes could be have more than 3 members.

Leveling the playing field by letting more people have a chance at launching a major attack.

If losses had been maintained at 1:1 then none of this would be necessary - This entire thread would be unnecessary

If two equal armies fight then we should expect both to lose 50%

If 1 million defense is attacked by 9 million offense then both players should lose 900k

If 1 million defense is attacked by 99 million offense then each player should lose 990k

etc

B / (A+B) - http://prnt.sc/bgrn44

The problem is that armies can be 'overwhelmed' and that attacking army size is not capped for stormfall beacons (but are capped in other games - http://prnt.sc/f77qnb    )

Ask yourself why

Oh that is easy; Its all about the sapphires/money.