New Reward System - Economy - Gear - Battle Difficulty (Modes)

It was mentioned a while ago that we will change the reward system.

As a player already posted, the current reward system is plain wrong and silly. It is like mixing milk and orange juice and serve it as an aperitif. It is doable, the person receiving it can drink it, but it will probably mess up his stomach. In our case....the game economy.

When we first introduce the reward system, healing times and costs were different and units could be lost if they were destroyed in battle. Since then, there have been a lot of changes, which although they provided a faster gameplay, since players could play many battles very fast due to low healing times and healing costs, they have created a turbulence in the game economy with gold being severely depreciated.

Gear is yet another variable which caused a problem in the economy. Since the last change we made with AI receiving gear with a GS dependent on the GS of the player, most of the players preferred to use naked units in battles and only use gear in PvP. Definitely not a good decision from our side...

It was never part of the game design to allow gold acquisition of 20k - 40k per day.

Below we describe the first steps of fixing the reward system and the economy in general.

Reward System

The reward will depend on the following:

1. The number of units brought in battle
2. The Battle Difficulty
3. The General's performance in battle

Details:

As a General prepares his army in the "Prepare your Army" window, the range of reward will be shown.
A higher battle difficulty will always provide more rewards than a lower one. For example, Hard difficulty will NEVER provide more rewards than Nightmare difficulty no matter how many units are brought in the battlefield.
If a General has up to 40% casualties in APs then he will receive an additional reward. If his casualties are less than 30% then an even larger one.

Healing Cost

Units will have a default healing cost per HP depending on the type of unit and its level. Therefore, the less casualties a General has, the higher the net profit derived by a battle.
It makes absolute sense that his units are equipped with Gear in order to minimize casualties and maximize damage to the enemy, especially when the AI will be equipped with gear as explained below..

Gear

The AI GS will NOT depend on the GS of a player's army any longer. Instead, the AI unit will be equipped with gear according to its level and the battle difficulty. Obviously, you can expect low AI GS on Normal difficulty, a bit higher on Hard, higher on Nightmare etc. etc.

PvP

PvP will provide a more than double reward than CO-OP.

CO-OP: 600 - 950
PvP: 1350 - 1900

There are more things that we will add to PvP as rewards, in order to provide more incentives to fight in this mode. More on that later on...

Conclusion:

- Battle Difficulty and the number of units in battle will dictate the final reward when an army is victorious.
- A higher difficulty will NEVER give less rewards than a lower difficulty no matter how many units are brought in the battlefield or the GS of the army.
- A General's performance in battle will be rewarded. The less casualties he has, the more gold he will acquire as a bonus.
- An AI army will have gear with the GS depending on the level of units and the battle difficulty.
- The less casualties a General has, the higher the net profit from a battle. Equipped armies will always have better results than unequipped armies.

The above changes should go live today.

Thanks RuneSlayer.

All sounds quite promising.

Could you please provide some more information on the specifics of AI gear?

As Nightmare units are already a series of levels above us, how much can we expect the AI gear to affect the difficulty level?

Will the AI gear be visible? Will they be ranked like usual (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Godlike).
Will gear on AI be consistent?

Please add a variable that the reward would depend by the amount of the AP a player uses as well. Great news otherwise

XViper wrote:

Thanks RuneSlayer.

All sounds quite promising.

Could you please provide some more information on the specifics of AI gear?

As Nightmare units are already a series of levels above us, how much can we expect the AI gear to affect the difficulty level?

Will the AI gear be visible? Will they be ranked like usual (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Godlike).
Will gear on AI be consistent?

Depending on the GS available for the unit (GS will depend on its level and the battle difficulty) the system will choose relevant gear. An example: On Hard difficulty an AI unit of level 6 may or may not have gear of around 29 GS.

On Nightmare difficulty, an AI unit of level 10 may or may not have gear of around 60 GS.

Yes, AI gear will be visible and will be ranked as usual. Gear on AI will not be consistent, but it will follow rules as described above.

Piktas wrote:

Please add a variable that the reward would depend by the amount of the AP a player uses as well. Great news otherwise

Since battle difficulty and the number of units brought in battle dictate the range of the reward and each difficulty will spawn higher AI enemy units, it is assumed that higher AP will yield higher rewards.

RuneSlayer wrote:

XViper wrote:

Thanks RuneSlayer.

All sounds quite promising.

Could you please provide some more information on the specifics of AI gear?

As Nightmare units are already a series of levels above us, how much can we expect the AI gear to affect the difficulty level?

Will the AI gear be visible? Will they be ranked like usual (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Godlike).
Will gear on AI be consistent?

Depending on the GS available for the unit (GS will depend on its level and the battle difficulty) the system will choose relevant gear. An example: On Hard difficulty an AI unit of level 6 may or may not have gear of around 29 GS.

On Nightmare difficulty, an AI unit of level 10 may or may not have gear of around 60 GS.

Yes, AI gear will be visible and will be ranked as usual. Gear on AI will not be consistent, but it will follow rules as described above.

Thanks for the clarification.

I understand you don't want to give out too much information, however.

Quote :

On Nightmare difficulty, an AI unit of level 10 may or may not have gear of around 60 GS.

May or may not? Could you perhaps give us something like 40-60?
I'm looking at my own army, and I'm kinda shitting bricks. My level 10 HI only has a GS of 45, compared with the fact that all AI will be a higher level than what I'm fielding (on Nightmare), I'm thinking I'm about to get stomped to hell. :\

So if I do Nightmare with 10 units all naked and then do NM again with the same 10 units same lvl but only full in rare gear and lose the same amount of troops both times I will earn more rewards the second time? (not assuming the -+15% thing)

Piktas wrote:

So if I do Nightmare with 10 units all naked and then do NM again with the same 10 units same lvl but only full in rare gear and lose the same amount of troops both times I will earn more rewards the second time? (not assuming the -+15% thing)

No? At least not the way I understand it.

Whether you have gear or not, you will face the same level of difficulty.
With gear you are more likely to win and take less casaulties.
The less troops you lose, the more rewards you get.

From what I am 'guessing' the AP of gear does not count towards calculation of rewards?

XViper wrote:

May or may not? Could you perhaps give us something like 40-60?
I'm looking at my own army, and I'm kinda shitting bricks. My level 10 HI only has a GS of 45, compared with the fact that all AI will be a higher level than what I'm fielding (on Nightmare), I'm thinking I'm about to get stomped to hell. :\

"May or may not" meant that the AI unit may have gear or may not have gear.

You have several things that the AI doesn't have though...

1. Heroes (with gear even better)
2. Tactics
3. Probability of not having gear at all

Piktas wrote:

So if I do Nightmare with 10 units all naked and then do NM again with the same 10 units same lvl but only full in rare gear and lose the same amount of troops both times I will earn more rewards the second time? (not assuming the -+15% thing)

The reward will be approximately the same both times. However, God knows if you will win Nightmare with 10 naked units, but even if you do, your casualties will be severe. On the other hand, with fully geared units (Rare) you will probably win and sustain SIGNIFICANTLY less casualties than in the first case and therefore your net profit is SIGNIFICANTLY higher.

XViper wrote:

No? At least not the way I understand it.

Whether you have gear or not, you will face the same level of difficulty.
With gear you are more likely to win and take less casaulties.
The less troops you lose, the more rewards you get.

From what I am 'guessing' the AP of gear does not count towards calculation of rewards?

Spot on.

Important:

Recruited Mercenaries with no healing cost/time, guaranteed loot and significant "muscles" WILL give the upper hand to a General both tactically and loot wise.

Yay, I got stuff right.

RuneSlayer, I have a feeling items are about to be requiring a lot more repairing.

Please have a stroll over to the suggestion forum to have a look at a few ideas on making repairing a little less of a chore.  

I see... Let me refer to my first post then :

Piktas wrote:

Please add a variable that the reward would depend by the amount of the AP a player uses as well. Great news otherwise

If i field 10 lias or 5lias and 2hi+3cavs the reward is the same? Also if i take 10 lvl 8 units or 10 lvl 12 units the reward also is the same? That sounds unjust.

Do the AI units get the plus melee and armour research?

Tibr wrote:

If i field 10 lias or 5lias and 2hi+3cavs the reward is the same? Also if i take 10 lvl 8 units or 10 lvl 12 units the reward also is the same? That sounds unjust.

Seems very unlikely.

I don't think that is what he meant to imply.

I can see legions of dogomes popping up letting you do all the tanking and FFing all day long. If i won't be able to increase my rewards by going overkill with AP there will be no point for me to do coops. I will have to arrange them all the time with people that are in my lvl range because in random coops I have to do most of the tanking anyway now and after the update people will run away to MAKE me do all the tanking.

Also how will FF influence the good general thing? If I lose all my troops or most of them because of FF that's not my fault.

Im really angry. Not because of bad update, but because of timing of it.

I put about 5 days effort to upgrade barracks to lvl 14 so i could play NM mode now, because it is easier than normal mode. With my lvl 6-7 units i win in NM all the time, but close victory and get 2x higher rewards than on normal difficulty. What I want to say, now I must gear myself, forget about 5 days effort, play at normal mode, because I wont have a chance on NM, and I will get 1/2 rewards.

The problem is, normal mode gives 12-14 enemy units, and NM gives only 8. On normal mode enemy have level 7-8, while NM have lvl 9. And normal mode gives 1/2 rewards.
So, its good for newbies and high advanced players, because they will still play easy mode, normal mmode with minimal enemy levels for normal mode, or NM players, which already are over lvl 8 or 9 units.

What I want to say, players at level 6 or 7 really takes the worst of it. And Im completely in the middle.

Quote :

3. The General's performance in battle

What about CO-OP? It will make players hide in the back, letting other player to kill everyone so he could get higher rewards & less gold for heals (which will be worth lot more than now).

But overall, the change was really needed, so GJ.

Tibr wrote:

If i field 10 lias or 5lias and 2hi+3cavs the reward is the same? Also if i take 10 lvl 8 units or 10 lvl 12 units the reward also is the same? That sounds unjust.

Yes, the reward will be the same.

It is not unjust if you consider the fact that you can choose the battle difficulty.

More powerful army, means less casualties which lead to higher rewards.

In fact, it is not going to be very profitable to use high level units at low level battle difficulties.

The higher the battle difficulty, the higher the rewards. It is up to the General to decide on which difficulty he will play and what army he will field.

Piktas wrote:

I can see legions of dogomes popping up letting you do all the tanking and FFing all day long. If i won't be able to increase my rewards by going overkill with AP there will be no point for me to do coops. I will have to arrange them all the time with people that are in my lvl range because in random coops I have to do most of the tanking anyway now and after the update people will run away to MAKE me do all the tanking.

Also how will FF influence the good general thing? If I lose all my troops or most of them because of FF that's not my fault.

Would you prefer us to add command points to CO-OP instead? You can do as many CO-OPs as you wish...that is the trade off..

tommarkc wrote:

Im really angry. Not because of bad update, but because of timing of it.

I put about 5 days effort to upgrade barracks to lvl 14 so i could play NM mode now, because it is easier than normal mode. With my lvl 6-7 units i win in NM all the time, but close victory and get 2x higher rewards than on normal difficulty. What I want to say, now I must gear myself, forget about 5 days effort, play at normal mode, because I wont have a chance on NM, and I will get 1/2 rewards.

The problem is, normal mode gives 12-14 enemy units, and NM gives only 8. On normal mode enemy have level 7-8, while NM have lvl 9. And normal mode gives 1/2 rewards.
So, its good for newbies and high advanced players, because they will still play easy mode, normal mmode with minimal enemy levels for normal mode, or NM players, which already are over lvl 8 or 9 units.

What I want to say, players at level 6 or 7 really takes the worst of it. And Im completely in the middle.

Quote :

3. The General's performance in battle

What about CO-OP? It will make players hide in the back, letting other player to kill everyone so he could get higher rewards & less gold for heals (which will be worth lot more than now).

But overall, the change was really needed, so GJ.

Not possible. Normal mode should spawn AI units of -2 to 0 levels compared to the level of the player's units. Are you using Mercenaries? If so, what level is he and what type?

Piktas wrote:

I can see legions of dogomes popping up letting you do all the tanking and FFing all day long. If i won't be able to increase my rewards by going overkill with AP there will be no point for me to do coops. I will have to arrange them all the time with people that are in my lvl range because in random coops I have to do most of the tanking anyway now and after the update people will run away to MAKE me do all the tanking.

Also how will FF influence the good general thing? If I lose all my troops or most of them because of FF that's not my fault.

FF will obviously be calculated in the algorithm.

resource price is back to being crazy for example 1k iron for 3000 i tried putting some up and they actually sold very fast, same for stone and wood is about 1k for 2500g ...

i personally make 4600 in NM battle along with 1500-2000 resource 4lia 6 cava
but after this patch i will to to put some items on so getting gold and res will be even harder

, i was thinking maybe asking kongregate (greg-badge adder) to put some acheivements for the game, it will keep the game alive more and regulates res price back to normal.

Bblazer wrote:

i personally make 4600 in NM battle along with 1500-2000 resource 4lia 6 cava

Exactly the reason for these changes....

Badges have nothing to do with the price of the resources. The economy of the game needs to be regulated. 4.6 gold per battle is just ....plain wrong...and definitely not part of the game design.

RuneSlayer wrote:

Not possible. Normal mode should spawn AI units of -2 to 0 levels compared to the level of the player's units. Are you using Mercenaries? If so, what level is he and what type?

I screenshooted a random battle: http:      //s15.postimg.org/4zqw28rvf/battle.jpg

Looking closely at the picture, you can see 14 enemy units, lvl 5-7, while mine are archers lvl 7 and HI lvl 6. I maybe had mistaken about lvl higher units, because i mostly play CO-OP ;)But its really hard to fight that army, now youre giving them gear too, so should I gear up to rares to win (if i will have luck), while rewards will not cover even heals and repairs? Or play easy mode, and maybe get 200 profit for 15 mins of work? Or should I play COOPs and do all the work almost every time for maybe 300 profit? I think it will be more profitable to just gather resources from buildings and trading. Battle wont be profitable anyway. And when any1 say to me, battle shouldnt be profitable anyway (like in RL), I say to them it is an quest in BC with title: "Who said war cannot be profitable? (or something like that)