Question 1: Why do you force this update on us without giving us any say in it?

Question 2: Can we have a vote?

I would like to propose Plarium makes a voting topic. And then add a news message with a link to said topic.

They will let this topic run for say hmmm 1 week.

3 vote options:

1: Keep the new infest system

2: Return the old infest system

3: Neutral

If the outcome is at least 51% for any option 1 or 2 that gets implemented.

Would be a great show of respect towards the long time players and give us the feeling they are listening to us players

Question 3: The smaller payouts mean you will be able to kill less infests meaning the game will only get even slower. Buildtimes have already been increased, research times have been increased, it already takes quite long to just build troops in the buildmenu. Why are you making this game so terribly slow. This is quite frankly only making the bar higher and less interesting for newer and older players. 

Question 4: The Infest system is a direct copy paste from Geotopia where it was also met with negative response. Why put the exact same system here without any changes to it so that it might actually be an improvement

Question 5: You claim you are doing this for balance reasons, but we all know that for example the TT-18 unit is overpowered and we have provided proof.

You chose to ignore that valid claim yet now you reconfigure infests for "balance". Isn't that a bit silly?

Question 6: If people send units to an infest they send them because they want them gone. Why change that so we now have to resend the troops that return? If I send units to an infest I do not want them back, period. 

Question 7: If you wanted a new infest system due to our complaints, why not ask the player base how we would have liked to see infests, instead of going on the blind guess that dev's who do not even play the game or even use a testserver that we would want this new system?

Question 8: There already was negative feedback BEFORE you even implemented this new system, in the a thread (that's now closed) some of which was from people playing on Geotopia. So you knew this implementation would be met with very negative feedback, yet you chose to ignore the input of the players and implemented it anyway. Why?

Question 9: When will you implement or change something the community asks for? For infests I am pretty sure there were some suggestion in the suggestion section yet this is also completely ignored.

Question 10: Why do you not make a specific guide to infests, their costs, their payouts, everything basically.

Yes there was a player made wiki. But with something as complex as infests which are an integral part of this game, I think the gamemaker has the responsiblity to provide the details needed not some vague descriptions, but cold hard numbers and statistics.

I think these are valid questions and you might like them being asked, but I am being polite here and I think we deserve the answers.

- Rhylian

I have a couple of suggestions which I believe might help improve the new infestations system:

1. Increase the likelyhood of getting higher level troops. In the original infestations system I rarely got infantry troops from the infestations, but because of the multiple smaller rewards it seems like it has made it much more likely to recieve the smaller, less desirable troops. I think this is because the amount being paid out effects what the odds are you get each type of troop, and since we are being paid less often we are getting the smaller troops frequently.

2. With the small rewards we have to go through more infestations and load much more troops into the infestations before me max out the bank, so I suggest that the amount of infestations available daily is increased and that the training speed of the troops are given a bonus based on the power (the same variable used in the troop kill tournaments) of the troops lost in infestations during the last 24 hours.

So we have there the same speech word by word as in sparta (http://forum.plarium.com/en/sparta-war-of-empires/news-and-announcements/topics/get-guaranteed-rewards-at-persian-positions-/2/), where players are as happy as us with that new system.

To answer to your first point, yes they were still players who thought it was about hitting the right infest. Do you think that getting 319 quantic on a level 56 will please them anyway? They were just targeting the consequence of their lack of mechanics and their insufficient knowledge of the infest.

Also you say troops come back if fight was close. i did experienced yesterday return from light tank and thunderbolt respectively 10/33 and 4/12 while i had over 250 thundebolt to use to get rid of the infest. So what close really means for you? Loading means sending unit to death not see them return, and from my experience the bigger the strike the more often there's artefact delivered ( but i didn't test to kill a level 60+ nemesis by nemesis).

The lesser rewards, which interrest do they have? Even if reinfested they are not able to kill a third of an infest of the same level that they come from.

The game did already lack speed, and now will be slower.

For now i do stop infestation and i'll see if i commit one month to try to take back my bank. After that infest will be over. Having to prepare one month or more to be able to do a decent tournament as no appeal to me when i was used to rank in top100 scoring 20 to 40k in each tournament. 

You're right, i'm rethinking my strategy, and that one is to find the way to be the most effective without infestation. I already have my ideas, but it seems the fun will only be during the week-end.

Commander Rhylian, we respect our players and the updates that we make are meant for the game improvement. Please don't doubt, our engineers know what they do. That's why no updates will be released if there are doubts in their practicality.

The reason behind there has been no option to vote for/against this Update is that we have thoroughly analyzed a huge amount of data that proves the system works for the Commanders. We won't return to the old system as this is a step back, we intend to move forward.

It's true, New Infestation System was firstly released at Facebook server, where a negative feedback was observed. However, we have been monitoring the players' feedback over a couple of weeks and eventually decided to minimize travel time to the Infested sites which resolves most of concerns of Commanders. BTW, decreasing of travel time was a suggestion of our player, which also proves that we tend to keep the game balanced while hearing the voices of the Commanders that would like to take part in the development of the game. Now the situation has been changed, as our players had enough time to test the system and see the positive results. We also collected statistics data which shows that both newbies and experienced Commanders can succeed in this activity.

We consider not to change the function of returning troops from the infestations in case of any possible failure as this implies a huge change in whole scheme. Still we truly believe that the new system is pretty straightforward and comprehensible. We do hope it won't take much time for players to get used to such feature and make a new strategy based on it.
Again, we are here to collect players' ideas, suggestions and feedback and address them accordingly rather than ignore it. On our part, we ask you to try the Update thoroughly.

Again, we never ignore our players' ideas, suggestions and feedback. On our part, we ask you to try the Update before judging it.

All players have a different progress in the Infestation activity, that's why some of Commanders can get good payouts almost from the start of the new system, the other ones need to hit more infestations.

You remember huge payouts for the infests, but you should also remember that they were a rare thing. Now you get the guaranteed payouts for Infestations, though in smaller portions. This brings more balance to the Infestation aspect of the game. If you calculate all the rewards received using a new system, you will see almost the same value which is divided into several parts.

General, huge reward were rare? Really? Not in my experience of the game if job was done the right way. And not in the experience of daily infest playing commander.

oliv said:

General, huge reward were rare? Really? Not in my experience of the game if job was done the right way. And not in the experience of daily infest playing commander.

Commander, if you are an experienced Infest player, it won't be hard for you to succeed using a new system.

That last part maybe true but here is the problem:

It is doable to have enough offense to kill 4 lvl 100 infests if 1 in 4 pays out (average of 4.5m to 6m per infest so a total of  20m offense maximum needed).

Now try doing that with 10 infests when you don't get enough payouts to do one after the 4th. It's impossible.

You would need 10 infests times 6m maxmium = 60 million - 10 times 10% payouts = 54 million maximum. Unrealistic tbh.

4 infests will not payout enough troops to kill 5-10. So you slow down the amount of infests we can kill. This is not balance this is simpy slowing down the game even further which is something I already mentioned and you didn't adress. Why are you constantly slowing down each and every aspect of the game?

On the vote: well I think the reason is that if you actually did allow Geotopia us and Sparta to vote ... the outcome would be a removal. 

And not because going back would be a step backward but quite frankly THIS new system is a step backwards.

You claim to collect data, ho about you collect opnions instead as again the devs and you do NOT play this game, we do. 

We see the consquences and you quite frankly see numbers which pretty mean very little to someone that doesn't play the game, sorry but that is a fact.

Just because you add a single small suggestion to the game doesn't mean you do not ignore 99% of our input.

All the updates we have gotten so far have had like what 5% player input?

Sorry but engineers deciding if updates should be pushed is silly.

They have no real in game knowledge as you also do not have a testserver (which is something most games actually have).

How can someone without actual ingame knowledge be trusted to know the exact effects of an update? They simply cannot.

You want to move forward? Do it with the players. Don't just walk al;l over their opinion and force your updates down their throat.

There are reasons why people say something will not work.

You may be able to pull up some numbers, we actually experience it day by day.

Which is something you nor your developpers actually do.

The game speed is slowing down more and more, which quite frankly makes the game less and less interesting.

I currenly have a 4 month building que. I already needed 3 months for a single infests lvl 100 to build in units.

You have now mulitplied that by 2.5 (4 months vs 10 months) so that comes down to 7.5 months of building units before the result is the same as

what we had with the old system. How does that make it better? Don't give a me one of those vague answers. I want a real answer.

And I'd like you to adress all my questions and not pick and answer whatever you want to answer, because sorry that is what you are doing.

On top of that do not constantly force players to change their playing style with each and every update. That is not progress, that is just changing things because you have run out of real solutions.

Also how can you claim to listen to our input if you are just going to enforce each and every new update without any changes and make it clear that you do not intend to make any changes to it?

Also where are the promised ways to get construction packs through other means (yes you said this)

Where are the promised ways to use echelon points if you are capped (yep also said)

You have had 6 months of 2015 to do that. Still nothing in sight of promises you made.

So tell me how can we have any faith in you?

And let me be "brutal" here: this is how much you really know about the game

http://prntscr.com/7q9kni

THIS IS ALREADY NOT TRUE.

It does NOT reduce creditconsumption in ANY way

The financial corp RAISES the amount of credits you get by 25%.

This 25% is by the way applied to the BASE amount of what all your vaults make together (so it doesn't stack with other bonuses aka get bonus upon bonus, but you get each bonus calculated to the base amount of the vaults and then it is added together)

Now if you already make a mistake like that ... how much faith can we put into you actually knowing anything about the effects of things on this game at all?

General T. Winters said:

oliv said:

General, huge reward were rare? Really? Not in my experience of the game if job was done the right way. And not in the experience of daily infest playing commander.

Commander, if you are an experienced Infest player, it won't be hard for you to succeed using a new system.

For the "if you are an experienced infest player" check the top10 ranking on mission 2 weeks ago or the ranking in the previous infest tournaments General.

And yes with the things you said and the tips given by BIO and Mania, there seems to be a way to do thing but as we all say it will be slow, even more because of the fact you implement this update just after a tournament where players do finish most of their infest and just keep 3 to 4 infest stongly harmed to just infest a 2 days production or part of a reward and get back on destroying Morgana. The 3 i had for it didn't pay decent troops and so now it is question to build 500-to 700k off or def for each infestation in order to do them without finishing them before going for the big pay out and try to empty the rest of the bank by finishing all other stongly armed infestation. We are talking about months (which are already queued for the artillery). And i won't sacrifice the core of my troops to confirm faster if that method is the right one as i don't intend to convert imperial desintegrators and the few hundred air unit i have for raid and pvp in random units.

So to be cost effective, players have to keep their infest between level 20 to 25 to convert unit, without having to be just poor passive builder for weeks.

By the way you didn't answer about the what you name "close" for a fight when i have more than 5 times offense power still to send to the infest to kill it and already have survivor coming back home.

general, i understand that with the new system you want to make a balance between new and experienced player

experienced player found a way to do infest with the old system, and maybe will find a way to do infest with the new system too

why you don't give us the exact mechanism of infestation? if you want to help both little and big, new or old commander, why is so hard to do this?

i'm thinking that all the old and the new system was globally unprofitable, and commanders losing fleet waiting for reward. sometimes the rewards was good, othertimes was not so good, but globally was a lose. with this new system you want to hide this real lose with returning units, more rewards etc

if there is a way to make profit from infestation (and personally i have serious doubt about it), why you don't make a tutorial, how we can do it?

if you want more player under your command, why you don't help them

of course it's a business and you want money, but what is better for you and for game? a few hundred of players who cover the infest loses with crystals, or many thousend of players who exactly informed about game mechanics, but still pay and play the game because they like it

and just a reminder, every online game will die if the number of players don't grow constantly, i'm an old player, but i left many games after 2-3 years from this reason

So, do you give us the exact mechanics or not?????

Update: Great travel time has been reduced.

Guess what? It is nullified by the fact that I have to send my units FIVE times to the same infest again because it keeps returning them.

How does that improve anything?

This was on a lvl 70 infest that wasn't even red. 

Seriously that is not an improvement in any way ...

But well you already made it abundantly clear that you are not going to change it anyway -_-

Commander Rhylian, stick to the subject of this topic, please. We are talking about the Infestations right now.

an another thing general

i think that you remove the most important thing that keep the game balanced credit consumption

dismissing fleet in negative credit was the biggest ballance, so little player has a hope to catch big players, and big player who lose all of his flett have a hope to became big again

removing this just help multi acounter to build bigger and bigger fleet, and after a while nobody can fight with them

pls think about it

General T. Winters said:

Commander Rhylian, stick to the subject of this topic, please. We are talking about the Infestations right now.

It is all connected ....

Because you do and say one thing it affects other things -_-

Anyways can I get an explanation why I have to resend the left overs five times now to an infest and how that is better?

Commander oliv, I guess you are talking about this text:

This only applies if the fight is close. - this means that if you send a group of troops and you're not sure who will win, the forces are pretty evenly matched.
If you send a group of troops which is obviously weaker than Morgana's horde, you won't be able to save at least some part of your army.

Not true.

The lvl 70 infest was RED. This means the fight was NOT close.

http://prntscr.com/7q9uq3

Here is the infest now at orange.

No I did not send anywhere near enough to kill it this is AFTER I had to resend 100K offense FIVE times to the same infest.

So no it wasn't a close fight. 

No the travel time is now combined larger (5 times 1 minute VS one time 2-3 minutes)

General T. Winters said:

Commander oliv, I guess you are talking about this text:

This only applies if the fight is close. - this means that if you send a group of troops and you're not sure who will win, the forces are pretty evenly matched.
If you send a group of troops which is obviously weaker than Morgana's horde, you won't be able to save at least some part of your army.

Yes I do understand the theory. And i wish an answer for the real example i explain you that i reput  in this post " i did experienced yesterday return from light tank and thunderbolt respectively 10/33 and 4/12 while i had over 250 thundebolt to use to get rid of the infest." I also sent a few other troops besides the 250 thunderbolt. So first time i had one third of my troops coming back i don't call it almost even but strongly unbalanced fight.

Completely agree with decay. Give us the exact formula and guide on how to hit infests. Even if this new infest system is good (ha), it will take weeks for players to figure it out, which is extremely frustrating.

Commanders, if you want to play a strategy game, don't wait for ready answers. Total Domination is about finding your own way to win.

Can I get a reply to my post tyvm? Because it is not working as advertised already.

You claim I would not have to resend units if the remaining troops in the infests were way stronger then the amount I actually send.

Turns out I had to resend them FIVE times.

Rather misleading don't you agree?

General T. Winters said:

Commanders, if you want to play a strategy game, don't wait for ready answers. Total Domination is about finding your own way to win.

lol, my own way, with your hidden rules, that can be changed randomly from minutes to minutes, or can be changed in a way that only you know

general be honest, you know that this is impossible