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Proposed changes are here!
Please use this thread to provide feedback (or other suggestions) on the currently posted changes (keep an eye on the changelog at the bottom of the post for any changes that might be made to the proposed changes post).
You can find the announcement here: Age 81 Proposed Changes
I think the military numbers inflation is a mistake. Elite numbers are out of whack.
Way too many duplicate bonuses.
Gold status... just lol
Did you really just change 6/6 8.5 NW elites to 6/5 10 NW on Dwarf? You must be looking to have 0 people play a race.
plz stick to known things..
Faery
Bonuses
Access to All Racial Spells
+20% Wizards Per Acre
NO!
+20% WPA.
Also, when you bring back spells (GW), plz add the effect - most have no clue what the effect was as it was removed over 10 years ago..
Gold Status is a Good idea. It shoud be there many years ago.
Increased wizard production across the board doesn't decrease pump times, it inflates wpa numbers. So be sure that's the effect you're after.
it will decrese pump times as mystics wil recover faster and you will not have space to run 4raw wpa or whatelse magic theory is out there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tadpole
We had wizard production that was boosted by science, and it was a blunder.Quote:
Originally Posted by chalsdk
Did not look at the numbers and stats yet, mostly shuffle arround I guess. I also want to know the effect of Ghost Workers.
Unfortunately I see gold membership as another pay to play feature, we already got sitting, invites and taunts and it is more or less mandatory for decent kingdoms to run the bot that has been bugged like once every week this age + hostile meter as it is no longer enough to count the numbers of attacks to and from each kingdom. When does it end? people are not likely to be fans of paying for something that used to be a free game even if some of the features are usefull on occasion. If you want to enable people to play 2 provinces get genesis running again I'd be more inclined to pay for using that server, especially if it gets to run with a retro theme playing with rules of past ages, if I was trying to compensate for lack of players by running 2 provinces in the same kingdom it would end up feeling like a chore at some point even if it could fill an otherwise empty spot right now.
The good thing about haveing multiple servers in the past was that you could log into your other province which was dooing great as a relief from the current war that you was loosing or where your province had been utterly destroyed. If playing two provinces in the same kingdom you would have both provinces in more or less the same situation.
I don't care for the nerf to Undead elites. Loss of offense and still the very high cost to train them. Yet Orc's have more offense and cost half the gold.
As far as the gold status.. idk kinda feels like pay to play but might work out.
Orc is hurt to the point of near unplayability with the 20% spell fail and op fail.
Gold status is lame and shouldn't be created... its straight up pay to play.
Dwarves needed a buff, not a nerf. Give them +50% Artisan science or something. I don't see them being all that playable, and they don't feel much like a dwarf these days. The BE doesn't even affect a lot of important buildings now so +20% won't get you all that far, especially considering the giant food penalty. Seems like a null race to me except for some limited hybrid/tm possibilities.
Dwarf should be given old traits for example. Free build, 50% construction time and keep elite 6/6 <<< that at least makes people think about playing them.
Orc with stronger yet cheaper elite than undead. hmmm...
We had double wizz production in eowcf at some point. All it did was make the game worse since everyone ran double normal wpa. It ruins game economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by chalsdk
2 provinces / kingdom is the end of utopia as i knew it. It will turn half the server in super organized 1 tick wave kind-of kingdoms. Whether this is good or bad is debatable, but the gap between haves (11 player kingdoms) and have-nots will push out the have nots faster than any other change can.
My kingdom is discussing it, they're an active core of maybe 8-12 filled with just as many "slackers" that just play out of habit, and eager to "weed out the chaff". This means at the very least 5 people will quit (they don't play utopia because they like the game so much, and thus won't bother randoming, they just like being part of the kingdom)
you do know, no one is forcing you to have higher wizzes, you can use the time for something else.. like sceince or outright more elites..Quote:
Originally Posted by zed
Also, new changes get played, it takes time to get the magic go off. Time never given
- Remove Ghost worker spell from Humans (Strong enough) and give to UD - they are already undead, how can they not have it ?
- Either remove the ability to train elites from UD or increase the cost even further. In it's current form, UD's will manage to run full elite armies after 2nd-3rd war. The need to train elites through attacking adds activity and carnage on the server. (Once trained up with full elite army as an UD, you'll want a good reason to send said elites out, as each attack will be very costly - and people just turn lazy and dont attack)
- Reduce Halfling Elite defensive strength one or two points. They already have huge bonuses to their thievery, let there be some downside to picking the race.
- Orcs looks like fun - Strong attacking race, but balanced with TM vulnerability.
- Dwarves could use a little love, with such high NW on their elites, they dont really look very attractive.
- Keep Heretic at +25% Cunning science. NM waves are already strong enough.
- Paladin and Cleric are from a RPG perspective kinda similar. Could it be an idea to merge the 2 and instead put out another personality ?
- Maybe add a side effect to Vermin spell - A province will have increased chance of catching plague, when afflicted by vermin ?
For the CF mechanic, I would rather see this working upwards only. Say if you wave a KD 105%+ of your own size and then get a forced CF the KD should suffer a penalty. If you get waved by a bigger KD and declare CF, there shouldn't be a penalty involved. Already enough incentive for bigger KD's to hit down.
As for Gold it seems interesting, but I disagree with the part where playing 2 provinces is allowed. Toss in as much goodies and freebies as you want, but 2 provinces - legal multiing - seems too much.
Feedback on Age 81 proposal:
Pretty much all of the mechanics / miscellaneous I agree with, except perhaps wizard production increased. Maybe it makes it too easy to get wizards? Though I like not having to spend ages pumping wizards after getting AW'd. QoL stuff is :fire:
For races / personalities, I have two categories of feedback. One is balance (this **** is too strong or too weak or whatever), and the other is cohesion.
Avian:
Balance: Seems very strong. Yes there is a solid weakness of burnout, but the offensive power is kinda out of control, and QF and the -10% gains kidna cancel each other out in a way. Maybe if BL goes back to old values it's a little closer to ok.
Cohesion: Seems sensible-ish? Grabs a ton of land, can hold it decently well with ambush protection and solid def. I'd imagine avian a different way (per my proposal), but the overall direction isn't so bad.
Suggestion: -1 elite offense if you want to keep this direction for it. I'd also prefer no -gains and no QF.
Dwarf:
Balance: Seems very weak. Can tank pretty well but kinda went backward from last age? Or is around the same? With others getting buffs, dwarf feels like it's falling behind.
Cohesion: good, makes sense, sturdy, tanky race with bonuses to buildings.
Suggestion: +1 to elite offense
Elf:
Balance: Also seems very strong. No real weakness (no dungeons is quite minor, higher explore cost is not that huge of a deal), and +1 dspec with +10% ME makes it extrememly tanky and still have quite a lot of offensive power, plus mana and casting on mates. Too much.
Cohesion: not sure what -25% train time is doing on elf. Why isn't that on avian which needs to train up faster to make the best use of its speed? Otherwise this seems fine as a mage / support race
Suggestion: remove military training time bonus and ME bonus, give +1 elite def
Faery:
Balance: Seems balanced. Adding the extra pop penalty brings it in line, and self spells cost 2 mana works great with the access to all spells bonus. -massacre losses is interesting, but it seems odd since that should kind of be fae's weakness i think. It's not well suited to attacking, but is quite a strong t/m, so massacre should be the obvious way to deal with it.
Cohesion: seems fine to me overall
Suggestion: remove the massacre protection
Halfling:
Balance: Holy OP Batman! Bonuses with that elite are WAY too strong. No wonder you said you'd play halfling next age lol. Halfling can't have both insane TPA bonus and a crazy strong defensive elite that's super cheap (compare it to fae lol).
Cohesion: Halfling is also having a serious identity crisis and some really strange combinations of bonuses. Is it an attacker? I can't tell really since it gets stronger mercs/prisoners and a bonus use of spec creds, but it also can't use hospitals :thinking:. Furthermore it has -thief cost and spec credits for thieves. Which is confusing because now your thieves cost less than your specs so what's the point.... This is too much of a mishmash of different ideas and partly why I wanted a bocan and a halfling. Half of these things belong to one and half to the other.
Suggestion: I definitely strongly prefer my own design for halfling. But if you're gonna go this route...pick whether this thing is intended to be an A/T or just a T generally and orient bonuses around that. Don't have multiple bonuses that go toward the same thing but from competing directions. Example: 5/7 elite, remove thief cost reduction and hospital penalty.
Human:
Balance: Seems strong, but not necessarily OP. Will hit hard out of the gate with +2 ospec and will be strong late with sci bonuses, but the -1 mana is a pretty significant penalty. I like -wages as a compromise to +income that doesn't make its eowcf super OP.
Cohesion: It doesn't really excite me, but it seems to hang together decently well. Attacker with solid econ and science and a defensive elite.
Suggestion: seems fine overall?
Orc:
Balance: Pretty strong race. About avian level offense, which is pretty strong, and all the solid usual trappings of orc. I like the +damage from ops. My own preference generally is not having -mana and insta fail because it's so painful for things like ritual casting, so my preference would be to put some of the penalty here on human instead of -mana and have more t/m penalties for orc that don't screw with ritual casting, but it's ok i suppose.
Cohesion: Why are orcs immune to dragons? :shrug: just seems kinda odd. Otherwise I'd prefer something more interesting than a pop bonus (not sure why orcs get that either) like the old gains bonus or even something like +20% massacre "gains". Seems orc-like and a good way to deal with t/ms as an attacker.
Suggestion: remove dragon immunity and max pop, give +10% battle gains. Remove insta-fails, add -15% WPA/TPA or an overall -arcane arts sci
Undead:
Balance: doesn't seem great. It did need a nerf, but -2 elite offense, -10% losses, -5% pop seems pretty harsh. I don't see it being super competitive unless you could easily train those elites, and then it would be pretty fine maybe.
Cohesion: I guess it all kinda works together, but man this kind of design is tough to balance.
Suggestion: Go with something more like what I initially suggested for UD. High off elites that can be trained, bonus to ponies, slower attacks, and the normal UD stuff.
Heretic:
Balance: Seems fine, would still like to see dice on it though.
Cohesion: Check
Suggestions: add paradise
Mystic:
Balance: Seems ok, although removing the +1 mana over to elf is quite a significant nerf
Cohesion: Check
Suggestions: move +rune production and +wpa over to elf from this and fae, bring +1 mana back here, adjust accordingly
Paladin:
Balance: Ew, once again seems pretty low value outside of pairing with elf for casting on mates.
Cohesion: If its only real value (sure it has good dragonslaying, but is this really just for someone to be a dragonslayer bot? The other half of valor sci doesn't fit with the rest of paladin at all) is being able to share a good spellbook with others, then seriously, why isn't casting on mates here instead of on elf? I really don't like this design. Would much prefer something like what I'd designed as a merger beween it and cleric.
Suggestion: Read my proposal again. I'd also like to see a guild bonus. It's slightly odd to have starting wizards but no guild bonus I feel, and this personality desperately needs something.
Rogue: good, nothing to say
Tactician:
Balance: Seems pretty solid
Cohesion: extra building credits just feels a little out of place here. I'd prefer going deeper on its core bonuses and moving bonus credits to some other place where they cohere better (like on the human proposal or my bocan proposal). Fanaticism is also mildly out of place (although not so bad) and I'd prefer seeing this replaced with something a bit more flavorful toward speed/gains. War Spoils generally comes to mind as an interesting tactical option.
Suggestion: Move credits elsewhere, add some more to siege bonus
Cleric:
Balance: Now that UD isn't OP as all ****, plague immunity isn't quite as high value, and this personality feels fairly weak
Cohesion: What's valor sci doing here? Isn't that the paladin thing? (Or if you used my proposal, the WH thing)
Suggestion: Merge with paladin somehow
War Hero:
Balance: Seems ok I guess, same as this age.
Cohesion: Nothing here really holds together much. I'd like to see a redesign here and some fresh life breathed into the personality.
Suggestion: Read my proposal again
Warrior:
Balance: Seems kind of weak. Even if you had 40% tactics base, this only bumps it to 50, which is barely a 7% increase in overall OME, making this a pretty low overall offense bonus. Also, no spellbook?
Cohesion: military wages is ok, but still feels a little out of place here.
Suggestions: How about lower losses on conquests as I proposed, making warrior the clear tank buster. Also might want to add fanat or (old values) BL
Overall issues:
Paladin is pretty much only playable with elf
Elf only has 2 personality choices that give it an extra spell to cast: Paladin and Cleric. Would love to see more options here (could just mean increasing the list of support spells). Or better yet move casting on mates to paladin and rearrange some spells so that you can have some interesting and useful combos with races.
Agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quacky-T
- Most significant benefit of Gold Status is ability to have 2 (two) Provinces in your single account (in same Kingdom) (we're looking for feedback on this to determine whether or not this is implemented)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ahab
NO NO NO NO NO.
Do this and I will quit Utopia forever. That's just under-the-table pay to win.
We'll just have a bunch of multis playing separate rogue and attacker provs. Everybody not playing two provs will have to be extra careful who they mess with, because they might be retaliated by a multi. Yes, there isn't anything that can't be done with two people and outside comms...but the coordination of a single person doing it removes that element entirely.
This is a bad idea. This is the worst idea.
The ONLY good thing that can come of this is an expanded province pool (so more kingdoms). Do it the right way, find ways to increase player base.
Perhaps a more succinct version of my above dissertation, in the spirit of "if i were writing revised changes":
Avian -> 8/3 elite, +25% BR, lose gains and casualties penalty, lose QF
Dwarf -> 7/5 elite, ghost workers, lose GP
Elf -> +20% WPA, +25% rune production, lose +1 mana, 7/4 elite, lose train time bonus, lose ME bonus, gain GP, lose IA, MA
Fae -> Lose WPA bonus, pop penalty to -5%, lose massacre protection
Halfling -> 5/7 elite, gain MA, maybe rethink the A/T aspects
Human -> lose ghost workers, lose sci bonus, gain SI, gain +20% spec credits
Orc -> lose pop bonus and dragon immunity, lose instafail penalties, -15% WPA and TPA, 9/2 elite, +15% gains
UD -> lose pop bonus, conversions, sci penalty, spec penalties, 10/2 elite 1100gc, +1 ponies, +10% attack time
Heretic -> gain paradise
Mystic -> lose rune bonus, gain +1 mana
Paladin -> gain +50% guild effect, -20% casualties, casting on mates, lose SI, PI, valor sci, dragonslaying, gain PF
Cleric -> Remove in favor of merge with paladin
Tact -> lose spec credit bonus, siege sci to 40%
WH -> lose dragon immunity, gain +30% dragonslaying, +30% valor sci, lose PF, gain PI
Warrior -> lose wage bonus, gain -25% losses on cq
Add fanat to support spells perhaps?
And yes, that means elf and paladin both get casting on mates. Support spell category is nifty!
Can we get a baseline of what ghost workers even does? 10%? 15%? 20% 5%? Umm hello?
The changes to avians are very good. Should make them a popular choice, but still a bit tricky to play.
Dwarves need a boost. To go with all the nerfs.
What does Ghost Worker spell do?
I'm an orc fan, but I think they've been boosted too much, especially when compared to the undead nerfs.
The gold option might work, especially if you keep the current restrictions in place for when multiple accounts share an IP address. So the two provinces would have to attack different targets.
I think it's +10% BE, but my memory may not be accurate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alleria
Prelim power rankings up. Short form - Human OP, UD unplayable, Avian and Elf maybe need toning down once Human is fixed. Dwarf elite NW has to be the longest brick joke ever - when are we going to get at least vaguely sensible elite NW values? (Avian is an example of a good spot atm - could even go up to 9 from 8.5 as their small nerf once human eats the big nerf bat.) At least a few NW values are ok, even if others are hopeless.
I don't even know what to do to save UD. It is a little bit an artifact of my estimation, but I show them needing the elite increase by *5 points* to rival Human. As in 9@10NW goes to 14@10 NW. If we keep the current NW ratio, it'll get even stranger... I show giving them a 900 offense elite (for 1000 NW) doesn't even get them past the 108% mark, and thus still behind Human, Avian, and Elf. (This is because of the 70/30 off/def split... but still!) The science is a huge problem, the bad specs are a big problem... either they suck to the point I'll try to get them banned from my kingdom, or they'll have so much offense they're super-suiciders, there is no balanced point. Tone down their penalties a bit and they'll become a lot easier to handle. Perhaps +15% pop, -20 science, and put the elite at 10 for 9 instead of 9 for 10? That's about the best I've got for fixing them.
Not sure why dwarf is stuck with 6/6 while elf and human get 7/7(with +10% ME) and 8/7 (with +15% sci). Dwarf needs a +pop modifier, which would make more sense than giving it to something like orc.
Avian-Heard a lot about avian not sustaining after 2-3 days of war. remove 10% extra casualties and +1 dspec to compensate
Dwarf-weak military, good econ. compared to the other races with perks that stack with personalities, this is lacking. I think others' suggestions are good to help this
Elf-I like this a lot, but not the self spells. Move to Cleric (or Paladin) to separate their purposes. Besides, why can't the cleric be a support/buffer personality? :)
Faery-I didn't think Faery was so dominate but the charts tell another story. With as annoying as -5% pop was, -10% is going to hurt.
Halfling-Someone suggested 5/7 elite, good start to taming these peeps
Human-quite a few people said -1 mana really, really hurt. change this to reduced rune production, or another suggested increased mana for combat spells if I recall correctly
Orc-as pointed out, +15% from ops will melt orcs. auto fail 20% is already annoying then this? remove pop increase and the extra op damage suffered, move Drake Immune to Paladin
Undead-Overall I think a good nerf. Would rather see Ospecs untouched but I get it.
I only think Paladin and Cleric need touched for personalities. Make one the support caster.
I prefer Cleric for this, just because cliché. Add in increased support spell duration. remove plague immune and increase that casualty reduction to 40% make them really shine.
Paladin gets drake (instead of WH) and plague immunity, the increased drake slaying power stays
I also like Gold Status. At best, remove it if it turns out to not be healthy. Looking forward to QoL changes too.
what will happen when gold accounts with 2 provs sit other gold account? Will you manage like 4 provs?
First off, I liked the integrated intel this age - much less hassle for monarchs this age I think.
For changes - like someone already said, lots of duplicate bonuses.. Better if there were none I'd say.
Dwarf elite seems a bit weak and nw heavy
Faery's -10% Pop seems harsh, but I sort of like it. Gives a challenge to play it - they have a large selection of selfspells (now at reduced cost) + highest def elite to compensate.
Halfling - Seems a bit strong with all the thievery bonuses. Would prefer a lower def value on their elites, so that Faery is unique in their 8 def point elite.
Orcs and Humans seems strong, but with some serious drawbacks - i like such a balance.
We already had increased wizard production, and it wasn't so great. I prefer it the way it is now - Wizzies and spells is great if you can take the time and train them + use them. If you fail to protect them then thats also part of the game. Do what it takes to protect them - or if this is too difficult, go without.
Encourage people hitting up instead of down when it comes to targets - make forced CF give you the honor if you wave a bigger KD and they block you.
Not a big fan of double provinces.
Many may disagree with me here, but I quite enjoyed playing Undead this age and I think a similar feature might be good for Utopia in general:
I remember in the past, we had both Elite conversion only (which was not that great for TM's) and we had extremely expensive elites (which slowed things down as people were spending time pumping anyways) - but could it be an idea to combine the two - like this ages Undead ? Where elite costs were increased, but provinces would also be able to train elites via conversions .
This way, specs would be in use and play a role for the first few wars and first part of age - while later on we would see the current all elite offense/defense emerge. And as long as people can hit and earn elites, much more attacking (and activity) would happen I think.
If you're going to give Heretics +50% Cunning science effectiveness, which seems really excessive, give one personality increased Shielding science effectiveness. Like Cleric maybe, which needs a touch more of something. Drop Valor and give them Shielding instead.
At this point I think we have to acknowledge there really is no way to increase the player base and keep Utopia what it is. I struggle to explain what the game is even to my friends who are into tabletop RPG games. One friend tried to play for a couple weeks and was borderline mentally incompetent. "Do I have to like pledge my troops to my monarch to participate in war?" "Why can't I just leave my province for a few days and let resources collect?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Caelum
I don't think there is a way to make the game appeal in any significant numbers to people in this age of sophisticated dopamine-inducing games and phones with--literally--more processing power than the computer I started playing this game on in 1999.
This might actually increase player base. It's a proven fact, people don't mind p2p, it's the p2w people object to. This is not p2w.
edit: It's actually a disadvantage at the top. 100 people with a gun will wipe 50 people with 2 guns
It's a good point that there are costs to running a 13 man kingdom (more likely it will be 15-20 with sitting still used). We all know when we're sitting it can be incredibly annoying to try to do two provinces at once during a wave, and even more annoying to have to keep track of two army return times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wilmington
I disagree, hand me two provs and I'll out play 2 players each with only 1 prov. The out gun scenario doesn't apply here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andurilas
I concur that dwarves are too weak.
I think undeads are fair now (not too weak): plague (and being plague immune) and no food are so powerful.
Human 8/0 O spec is :O
The point isn't that SOME people can't benefit from it. There's a reason some of us like sitting to have two provinces. But there is a cost in terms of human bandwidth. Wouldn't you rather have 2 krhonosschoties if you could?Quote:
Originally Posted by khronosschoty
you lost me at:
- IntelBot will remain 30 credits to purchase
- Guilds will produce more wizards
just another gey elf age
No thanks
The networth value of dwarf elites would make more sense at 9.5. But the elite strength could stand at 6/5 if you lowered its networth value, cut the food penalty back to +50%, raise BE bonus to +25%, and give them +50% artisan science. They really need some kind of boost to keep them in the mix much. Diversity of combos is good for the game.