Grepolis United: DevBlog and Rebalancing General Discussion Thread

DeletedUser36743

Guest
I think you all ought to look at the total amount of favor that can be stored ?

Someone who has a 175 pt city can store 500 and someone who has 100 full grown cities can also store 500 .... and quantity of favor is the currency that is used to purchase Myth units....

This needs a serious relook to my mind
 

DeletedUser28137

Guest
Should revamp library because it really needs it IMO. I love all the special unit revamps but I think the Library should be included. I also agree Artemis should be in all worlds.

Also, I really think that horsemen should not be upgraded and perhaps chariots should instead because they aren't worth it when it comes down to pop vs a hoplite.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Demolition Ships can continue to work as it is i mean it cannot kill transports or Colony Ships. that is fine. But THey should be the first line of defense and not the last. Example If a city had 10 Biremes and 100 Demolition Ships and if it is being attacked by 10 Light Ships then the result of the battle would be 10 Biremes and 90 Demolition Ships. Then people will automatically start building Demolition Ships.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Huh?

Demolition Ships can continue to work as it is i mean it cannot kill transports or Colony Ships. that is fine. But THey should be the first line of defense and not the last. Example If a city had 10 Biremes and 100 Demolition Ships and if it is being attacked by 10 Light Ships then the result of the battle would be 10 Biremes and 90 Demolition Ships. Then people will automatically start building Demolition Ships.

1) You're assuming the defender knows what the attacker has.
2) Who in their right mind build 100 Demo Ships thinking they MIGHT need them (That's roughly half the city pop)
3) By the time you build your city and those 110 ships sucking up another 880 pop plus actual troops, I wish everyone did this!

Demo Ships Aren't broken but cost too much population when a BR is also 8 pop increased movement to 6/7, 5/6pop and 10% cheaper.. They only need a tweek, not a smash..

Regardless when defending against 100LS and you have 100FS attacker loses 1k pop and you lose 800.

The wiki tooltip explanation is "Fire ships are burning ships that approach enemy fleets and ignite them. "

I would assume that in real life most people wouldn't accept a 1:1 kill ratio acceptable.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
LOL since Demoships are like the last line of hopeless defense (CS and Transports apart) they are pretty useless so people do not train them. But if Developers change the way Demo Ships work not their stats but just by making them fight first than last will make them pretty huge deal.
 

Ghostboyrazox

Phrourach
As a conservative player, I would ask that you be VERY VERY careful about making large changes. They would mess up many of one's current city layouts and strategies, and what items you have already researched, not to mention the several tools one might have personally developed for the way things are. At the very least, I would hope that these changes only go into new worlds.

Also, I would ask that you still favor defense as you do now. Real life military planners say that you need a 3-to-1 advantage to beat a normal defense and up to 10-to-1 to beat a well dug in defense like in urban fighting. My experience here is that it really does take about 2.25 attacking cities to beat a well defended city, all else being equal. Since I actually do have to take an occasional few hours away from Grepolis :), I hope that you do not reduce this defense ratio very much.

BYE, Ghostboyrazox
 

DeletedUser31207

Guest
I don't agree on the fact why cata aren't build much.
take a heavely defended city with wall at 25.
hitting with 1600 slingers and 20 pults reduces wall level only by let's say 2.
When there are a lot troups in it the effect of cata is low.
So you have to kill troops first. then hit with 20 cata twice and the wall is destroyed completly.

lowering the pop consumed, won't make me build more cata.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Here we go... it is nice that your asking for player's opinions or feedback, but all that is asking is players to do your job for you. Time and time again I have used the term: "Devs that don't play the game". All you do is look at numbers and come to conclusions instead of actually playing the game. Go home, create a player account, log in, and start from 0. No GM or Dev tools, play it as an actual player would. Starting with 1 city and working your way up. Don't use short cuts, just play it. Join a warring alliance and then you will see why what is used and where, then you will get first hand knowledge as to what is annoying as hell, how some of what you have done causes lag when under heavy attacks, (50 or more at once), why players build they way they do, why they use units as they do.

Until you do this you will never understand your own game, because all it is at this stage, are numbers. You can change the stats of buildings, mythical creatures and units all you like. All you will ever see are the numbers used.

I have been playing on-line since 1997, I have been a Game Master in a couple of them and partial developer at one time. All the people I worked with did the same thing... never played as a player... So this is nothing new to me.

If you want to do yourself and the players of this game justice... Play it yourself.

You have 70 worlds...
You require a minimum or 325 players per world...
That's a minimum of 22,750 players total...
and how many are registered to these forums? What %? Less then 1% maybe? and this is going to be your opinion base for re-blance?
 

DeletedUser

Guest
As for re-balancing, you will get both appraisal and critique. I personally, agree with Sam (above poster), that devs playing their game is the best way to learn... Nevertheless, a lot of re-balance ideas come from actual data. => Numbers don't lie... what "sucks" is obvious. How to change it that's a complicated part. I am very glad that you guys are looking into it and suggest ideas for it.

As a player (2 years playing + giving you money to do your job), I am satisfied with enthusiasm you guys are putting into it. Many re-balance ideas are VERY reasonable. Some of them are absolutely new and can change the dynamic + essential of the game drastically. But it will certainly improve variety + options a player has. This is an absolute must, cause now despite many option... the main choice of the city is a thermal bath or theater... which nuke to use and as for researches... there was pretty much no choice at all.

Good job overall, would enjoy changes a lot!
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
re-balance of specials

Suggestions with regards 'special buildings'

Allow any of the buildings to be built in the two slots

I liked oracle

If I understand War Council correctly it does the same as tower but more so... I predict tower will instantly become unfavourable.

Re-balancing special builds is going to be a bit annoying for those that have already chosen what they want. Perhaps you should include a cost in gold or CP to change choice of special build. If you do delete oracle then the player needs to be compensated in resources.
 

DeletedUser345

Guest
As a conservative player, I would ask that you be VERY VERY careful about making large changes. They would mess up many of one's current city layouts and strategies, and what items you have already researched, not to mention the several tools one might have personally developed for the way things are. At the very least, I would hope that these changes only go into new worlds.

Don't you think a bit of change is good? So what you may lose an odd culture point re-setting some techs but in the grand scheme of things they are only improving things. I could see cause to complain if they weakened stuff but improving it is all good I say.

Also, I would ask that you still favor defense as you do now. Real life military planners say that you need a 3-to-1 advantage to beat a normal defense and up to 10-to-1 to beat a well dug in defense like in urban fighting. My experience here is that it really does take about 2.25 attacking cities to beat a well defended city, all else being equal. Since I actually do have to take an occasional few hours away from Grepolis :), I hope that you do not reduce this defense ratio very much.

Have to say I disagree again, this is not real-life and imo 3-1 ratio would be horrible let alone 10-1 and would totally ruin the game. I'd go as far to say that the game favours the defence too much at the moment and makes it easier for turtles to be successful without attacking themselves.

Here we go... it is nice that your asking for player's opinions or feedback, but all that is asking is players to do your job for you. Time and time again I have used the term: "Devs that don't play the game". All you do is look at numbers and come to conclusions instead of actually playing the game. Go home, create a player account, log in, and start from 0. No GM or Dev tools, play it as an actual player would. Starting with 1 city and working your way up. Don't use short cuts, just play it. Join a warring alliance and then you will see why what is used and where, then you will get first hand knowledge as to what is annoying as hell, how some of what you have done causes lag when under heavy attacks, (50 or more at once), why players build they way they do, why they use units as they do.

Until you do this you will never understand your own game, because all it is at this stage, are numbers. You can change the stats of buildings, mythical creatures and units all you like. All you will ever see are the numbers used.

I have been playing on-line since 1997, I have been a Game Master in a couple of them and partial developer at one time. All the people I worked with did the same thing... never played as a player... So this is nothing new to me.

If you want to do yourself and the players of this game justice... Play it yourself.

You honestly believe that the devs don't play the game? They do like to enjoy themselves you know, perhaps not on the english servers but 100% i'd expect to find them on the German ones.

You have 70 worlds...
You require a minimum or 325 players per world...
That's a minimum of 22,750 players total...
and how many are registered to these forums? What %? Less then 1% maybe? and this is going to be your opinion base for re-blance?

Registered to these forums i'd say about 20-30% although only around 5% active users. I don't really understand what your point is? There not basing there re-balance on it they've already decided it they are now just looking for feedback I also find the forum community are generally the most active percentage of grepolis players and a lot of the best ones so I don't see how its a drawback?

... Just fyi regarding re-balance and forum usage.

I personally was a very active user, got banned on the external (Forever and ever...) with reasoning - being absolutely anti-social. Some forum mods are just killing forums... So while you have some biased forum mods, don't expect players willing to spend their time on the forum and in return get banned/infractions etc if express opinions.

Been here since day two and can't say I've ever encountered a case of bias from the mods, I suggest if you do feel this way you contact either Tyrion or Richard about it.

Suggestions with regards 'special buildings'

Allow any of the buildings to be built in the two slots

Its a fair shout and you should make an idea thread but personally I'm not a great fan and think its fine how it is.

If I understand War Council correctly it does the same as tower but more so... I predict tower will instantly become unfavourable.

War Council is effectively the opposite of tower in that it favours the attacker rather than the defender, the popularity of it will depend on the play-style of the player.

Re-balancing special builds is going to be a bit annoying for those that have already chosen what they want. Perhaps you should include a cost in gold or CP to change choice of special build. If you do delete oracle then the player needs to be compensated in resources.

Very few people use oracle, however I assume they could just switch it to War Council in their cities which is the best option anyway so i couldn't see much complaining. Change gold or CP to chance special building? Big no.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
So my thoughts on the proposed ideas for changes are below.
(although I wish you would make some basic overall changes first, before changing things that impact strategy - examples: why do the forum, the ingame forum, and the ingame clock all use a different time/date format? Why do you have multiple names for the same unit (demo ship vs fireship)? Why do explanations of some units and buildings make them sound like they are better than they are (tower: "...turns your polis into a nearly invincible stronghold against attackers." - so not true. myth unit erinys: "they are the most feared opponents to anyone alive" - when in fact they suck)

Horsemen: I don't think the problem with horsemen is that they are too weak (although boosting them up some is an idea I like). I feel the problem is the combination of recruit time and resource cost. Slingers are faster and cheaper, and when you want to push out maximum offense, slingers win. I don't think the extra 5 pts of offense will actually make a difference. I think you would need to change a lot of things to make a significant difference in what units were built. Perhaps the most significant but simplest change would be increasing the distance in defense values vs offense values across the board although I think a better tactic would be a combination of the following:
-- If offense loses, don't have all attacking units die in combat, and the stronger the unit, the more survivors (or allow for a retreat percent when in combat, and allow units to stop engaging when percent is met, and weaker units lose more when fleeing)
-- Allow for more building specialization. Barracks at lvl XX allow stables. Stables increase horsemen stats as they go up in levels.
-- Allow for a center special building that boosts only one type of unit offense / defense (thus making your primary unit more powerful - but only that unit)

Catapults: It is my understanding that catapults are rarely used because:
1) You want to conquer the city you are attacking, and if you destroy the wall to any degree, keeping the city would require an exponentially higher amount of defensive troops. Smash the wall to 0 and try to defend it vs ground assault (or myth assault - have never figured out if you classify flying units as ground). It's not worth the effort.
OR
2) If the defender has a significant force in place (say 10k population of troops - with a significant amount being swords) then you can hit the city with 20 or 30 cats / max slingers and still simply lose all attacking units with NO wall reduction at all. I don't quite understand how losses are determined (I understand how to determine winner vs loser, but have never seen how the number of units lost is figured), but when 30 cats can be lost with no benefit at all, it makes it hard to want to build them.

Possible ways to make cats actually useful (in addition to not all of them being destroyed as per above suggestion)
-- make catapults (or any ranged attacker - although you'd have to change what ranged does then) actually fire first, and damage the wall before close combat and wall bonuses to close combat occur
-- allow catapults to damage more than the wall in all worlds, not just hero worlds with extra research
-- add a new ship type that has catapults built on it, so one or both of the above ideas can be implemented; and that if breakthrough has been researched can actually damage a wall without land units being put into play even if defensive ships are in the harbor


Triremes: When doing the math, a combination of a single light ship and a single bireme is always better than the trireme when comparing population used. Why have a "super" unit that still falls short of the basic units. And to upgrade the trireme so it's still slower than the basic unit makes me question how you determine the value of units. Power wins. Speed wins. The two together are what everyone (that knows how to play the wargame aspect of grepolis) focuses on. If you make a "super" unit that fails to be superior to the basic units you still have a unit no one will play with (unless they don't understand why triremes suck to begin with). Why in the world would you want to research something that isn't better? It is my sincere belief that if you want the trireme to be considered, you have to
1) make it significantly better in multiple ways but
2) give it a debilitating factor that makes players consider using it anyway, but not in all cases

If you can't find that combination, players will either always use it, or never use it, which is what you have now.


Demo ship / fireship: It is my belief that the fireship is useless because of the combination of the following:
1) It cannot be used to attack (speaking of: why is it that the only way a person learns this is if they try to put it in a non-CS attack, and get an error message? Shouldn't all units have full disclosure on what they are and what they do??)
2) They attack last, making them useless in almost all cases
3) They cannot target a CS or transports.
4) They are insanely slow.

These are the negatives to why fireships don't get researched. So by the time a player might be in a position where they are being hit over and over with LS attacks to make them say "yeah, mathematically I'll win the BP war if I build a fireship" they either can't stop the attacks anyway, or they can simply ask alliance mates "can you stack my harbor with biremes please". All in all, taking time to research them won't change if the four negatives above don't change. But if they do decide to research/build them, they still get taken out by LS (or a smart player sends birs to attack and take them out) or they aren't building biremes and the attacker then sends ground or CS attacks and the fireships are useless anyway.


Researches:
You say: "The plow is the most favored research in the game, closely pursued by ceramic. Both researches are done in nearly all cities. On the other hand, diplomacy, espionage, cryptography, meteorology and breakthrough get researched seldom"
That's because what matters in the game is population space and rebuilding as much and as fast as possible, thus maximum resource space. If you can't compete with what will actually make you more threatening, you wont get researched. It's really basic, and I find this entire set of potential changes to be disappointing because all you are doing is either failing to understand that, or making a few changes in the new "best set of items to research". I don't see the win-win here of making all researches equally needed.

The same is true with your special building changes. Unless the buildings equally allow you to have an advantage at winning, all you will do is change the set of buildings that get built. Who won't build a war council in an attacking city? No one...



Overall:
I like some of the ideas and theories, but unless you actually make a more significant change or change strategy in a grander scale, you will fail to get the results you desire, and simply get new sets of "whats best".
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Stats_zps1aed1f35.png


846 active forum members Achilles ;)
 

DeletedUser345

Guest
Triremes: When doing the math, a combination of a single light ship and a single bireme is always better than the trireme when comparing population used. Why have a "super" unit that still falls short of the basic units. And to upgrade the trireme so it's still slower than the basic unit makes me question how you determine the value of units. Power wins. Speed wins. The two together are what everyone (that knows how to play the wargame aspect of grepolis) focuses on. If you make a "super" unit that fails to be superior to the basic units you still have a unit no one will play with (unless they don't understand why triremes suck to begin with). Why in the world would you want to research something that isn't better? It is my sincere belief that if you want the trireme to be considered, you have to
1) make it significantly better in multiple ways but
2) give it a debilitating factor that makes players consider using it anyway, but not in all cases

If you can't find that combination, players will either always use it, or never use it, which is what you have now.

You misunderstand they are making the trireme much faster than the other two basic units...
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Hey Achilles. What did you think about my comment on demolition ships?
 

DeletedUser

Guest
You misunderstand they are making the trireme much faster than the other two basic units...
Thank you for pointing that out. I play in a speed 2 world, so compared the new speed to the speeds in my world, which of course isn't accurate.
 

DeletedUser345

Guest
Hey Achilles. What did you think about my comment on demolition ships?

Firstly they're fire ships :D

But in seriousness I think you raise a strong point, however as an attacker I would find that this totally unbalances naval combat. Imagine running to 2000 stacking fire ships, what a disgusting waste of light ships. What i think needs to happen, although it sounds stupid, is improve the attack power per farm space of the light ship to 25. At the moment is had the same (20) as the bireme's defensive per farm space and the biremes is faster. This makes the bireme stronger than the light ship which is unfair considering your paying a lot more farm space. If the light ship's attack was increasing to 25 then biremes wouldn't be as strong and I think people would consider using fire ships more, especially if their speed was increased.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
The changes that most appeal to me are in the special buildings. Beyond the baths and tower, and an occasional lighthouse or marketplace, I find no use for special buildings; I'd rather have the farm space. Changes to the units will create a nominal difference that will need to be adjusted to (an enhanced trireme may now serve a purpose in revolt worlds) but rebalancing the special buildings has the potential to truly change how I build and use my cities.

Additionally, I'd like to see more developer attention payed to the naval portion of the game. Rebalancing the trireme is a great start, but the Hydra needs a major rebalance as well. Since the vast majority of battles are fought over the sea, adding more nuances to this facet would provide many more strategic and tactical options.

As it stands now in the world I play in (Olympia, a revolt world) my Building view -- City wall totals show 45,004 light ships and 13,791 biremes defeated and lost as compared to 57 triremes and only 24 hydras. I believe the same proportional disparity is evident all over this server, and in revolt worlds in general where the trireme and hydra just don't have enough going for it to justify researching and recruiting.

Good luck with the rebalancing and I look forward to the changes!
 
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