Grepolympia...is too much

[DeletedUser29371]

It is not you alone versus 120. You and one other are 'leading' the Grepolympic race - I do not know about others as I have not looked down the leader board. Thanks to your own admission we know that you're spending about 15,000 gold in a day so the other would not be far behind. Money, or anything else, does not allow to make the perverse claim that you are "owning" me or any other person.

Dude your guy is number 3 and jumps to 1 occasionally... did you even check it?

Its not about spending gold to win the race... the only thing orestes and i did was start training the 1st minute it came out and launched and we have not stopped since (24/7) thats it...

The only thing we did is paid back with INTEREST RATES to anyone who was ever smart about our alliance... And I assume you meant the 2nd guy to be me... well you might ask your fellow members who spammed the 2nd most spells on them and you will see shocking answers. It wont be Alcarin.

Then again you are free to do the same... spend 15k gold aswell

About ''owning'' .... How many cities were taken from Unknowns by members of Paragon and how many was vice versa? Then we see who is owning who

bottom line olympics are fine the only people that find olympics unfair are those who are not so safe behind numbers anymore Transient no more free simming your city you should've join that simmer world instead

 

[DeletedUser15240]

Someone mentioned chess earlier. Chess is highly regarded because it's a "thinking" game. Let's imagine that the official rules of chess were changed. What if players could buy as many pieces as they want with real money? Would lots of people still play?

Of course not. Chess would become a laughingstock.

Well, chess isn't a computer game, its a board game not owned by a company wanting to make money. Chess doesn't require lots of upkeep costs to keep things running. Chess is a finalized game, grepolis will always be updating.

Your analogy makes no sense because:

1. No one would get the money, unless its a high level competition.

2. Chess is commonly played causally as a 1v1, grepolis is not

3. Chess is a board game, Grepolis is a computer game.

4. No one owns chess.

5. Chess cannot change, grepolis can.

6. Chess doesn't need money to keep it running, grepolis does.

 

[DeletedUser]

Well, chess isn't a computer game, its a board game not owned by a company wanting to make money. Chess doesn't require lots of upkeep costs to keep things running. Chess is a finalized game, grepolis will always be updating.

Your analogy makes no sense because:

1. No one would get the money, unless its a high level competition.

2. Chess is commonly played causally as a 1v1, grepolis is not

3. Chess is a board game, Grepolis is a computer game.

4. No one owns chess.

5. Chess cannot change, grepolis can.

6. Chess doesn't need money to keep it running, grepolis does.

Fair enough. I agree, my analogy was imperfect. Let me put it another way.

Going back to a previous post:

I suppose it comes down to why we play Grepolis.

If you play for the social aspect, then everything's fine.
If you play because you like to win (and you have gold to spend), then everything's fine.
If you play the game because you like a battle of wits, then you might as well leave now. Gold now makes such a huge difference that strategy plays a minor role.

I don't think I'm exaggerating Grepolympia's effect. One month of theoretically unlimited resources is a very long time.

People in the first two categories will have no problems with Grepolympia. Unfortunately, I am in the third category. I primarily enjoyed Grepolis for the same reason that I enjoy chess: strategy was paramount.

In conclusion: Grepolympia may attract new types of players, but (for better or worse) it will turn off many lovers of strategy.

 

[DeletedUser]

Most player get 90 laurels at this stage per attempt at the hoplite race. 50 laurels gets you 5,000 resources, so 90 laurels are essentially worth 9,000 resources.

To fill up a level 30 warehouse with booty researched (25,500 capacity) you would have to buy 5,000 res x 15 at a cost of 750 laurels.

If I bought 12,000 gold I could afford to fill up that warehouse 26 2/3 times. At a cost of $81.99, that means it costs me $3.11 USD to fill a warehouse. To buy a LS nuke of 200 ships would cost me 10 times that, or $30.

$30 isn't cheap, even for me. At such high expense, it's doubtful the Grepolympics will shake the servers as it's being portrayed. Most grepolis players are kids and they can't even afford gold.

1 Manticore costs 10,800 resources and 405 favor. To train 50 of them for a nuke would cost 540,000 res and 20,250 favor. Just to get the necessary favor you'd have to buy 150 favor from the store x 135. You'd also have to buy 5,000 resources x 108. That converts to a cost of 12,150 laurels. At 90 laurels per attempt, you'd require 135 attempts at a cost of 6750 gold. In other words, 50 manticores cost $46 (a little less if you buy with Euros because I get screwed paying with dollars).

Manticore nukes are awesome, but that's pretty expensive. How many people are gonna buy these over and over?

Let's also not forget it would cost a fortune to rush production of these units. You can only build 1 manticore at a time and have 7 things in queue at once, so rushing training would be essential to the process and add to the expense.

 

[DeletedUser]

To Orestes:

If you don't think that players will spend a lot of money on Grepolympia, why not place a limit on the number of re-entries?

IG would still get money from those who are willing to re-enter a few times. And it would take care of those few big-spending, potentially-server-shaking players who would otherwise re-enter past the limit.

I don't see many downsides to this course of action.

 

[DeletedUser]

If you propose a limit to the number of entries allowed per day, you should also propose a limit to the number of times you can summon the Phoenician Merchant per day.

Even if grepolympia was removed entirely, big spenders can get practically unlimited resources from the merchant. Even with a dynamic trading ratio those players with really deep pockets can still do a lot of damage. It may be a bit easier to take advantage of the grepolympia store (by costing less gold), but in the end they are the same thing. You're buying victory with gold. It's part of the game, but at least this event is temporary. Merchant never goes away!

 

[DeletedUser]

Sure, you get an advantage by using the Phoenician Merchant. You also get an advantage by using the Administrator, the Merchant, the High Priestess, the Commander, the Captain, the "Olympic Games" event (in the Agora), and the construction time reductions for buildings, ships, and troops.

I'm not asking IG to remove all Premium features. They need to make some money, after all.

But the difference between Grepolympia and the other Premium features is that spenders can increase their advantage infinitely. They simply cannot get "practically unlimited resources" from the merchant. It's limited, period.

Theoretically, they can only get an extra 5000 resources per 24 hours, or something like that.

Theoretically, in Grepolympia, they can get infinity resources per 24 hours. That's a lot more.

In any case, the Phoenician Merchant is beside the point. We can deal with him later. Grepolympia is the focus of this thread.

EDIT: Also, where infinity is concerned, "temporary" is not very different from "permanent". In a month, you can get all the resources you want, to last as long as you want. What's the difference between unlimited resources for a month and unlimited resources forever? The effects of Grepolympia could last as long as you like.

Not to mention that the Phoenician Merchant already has a limit, sort of. Eventually, the trade rate will be so abysmal that you'll actually suffer by trading with him.

 

[DeletedUser]

5,000 resources per 24 hours? Where'd you get that figure? With a level 30 harbor and merchant shop you can trade 7k resources for 14k resources. Granted, the next time you summon it the trading ratio will be a bit less than 2:1, but you can summon the merchant darn near a dozen times a day before the trades lose profitability. That's WAY more than 5,000 resources. Try more like 50,000. It's just an estimate and yes it would cost a lot more gold than you'd have to spend at the grepolympics store, but that's beside the point. Your point rests on the assumption that the player is a one percenter with infinite monetary resources. A rich player has been able and will always be able to take advantage of this game if he really tries and doesn't care about money. Greolympics make it a little easier, but it's just an event.

 

[DeletedUser]

I apologize. I have no idea what the figure is, but I do know that it's less than infinity. If it's that bad, maybe you're right and the Merchant should be changed. (But AFAIK, the other premium features are far less damaging.)

 

[DeletedUser]

You can't buy resources to last forever. It's a four week event and your warehouses have a maximum capacity. Even if you stocked your warehouses and marketplaces to the gills, that res would disappear soon. The rewards for each competition only last a week and you can only redeem your laurels for one week after the event ends.

 

[DeletedUser]

Returning to Grepolympia. Either there are players who are willing to spend enough money to shake the servers, or there aren't. There's no middle ground. And either IG is going to change Grepolympia (to prevent server-shaking), or they aren't. No middle ground here either.

Let's look at the different combinations of these two possibilties, and their "pros" and "cons".

Case 1: These types of players do not exist.
------------------------------------------
Case 1a: IG changes Grepolympia.
Pros: Strategy-obsessed players and players who hate Pay-to-Win games will keep playing.
Cons: None.
IG does not lose or gain money.

Case 2a: IG does not change Grepolympia.
Pros: None.
Cons: Some strategy-obsessed players and players who hate Pay-to-Win games will leave.
IG loses some money.


Case 2: These types of players exist.
-----------------------------------
Case 2a: IG changes Grepolympia.
Pros: Strategy-obsessed, etc. players will stay. Servers will not be shaken.
Cons: Players that only care about "paying to win" will leave.
IG loses some money from pay-to-win players, but keeps the money from strategy-obsessed, etc. players.

Case 2b: IG does not change Grepolympia.
Pros: Players that only care about "paying to win" will stay.
Cons: Strategy-obsessed, etc. players leave. Angry players who get stomped by "pay-to-winners" leave. Servers are shaken.
IG gets money from pay-to-winners, but loses money from lots of other people.


Maybe my presentation is biased, but I think my reasoning is sound. In every combination, changing Grepolympia is the better decision.

You can't buy resources to last forever. It's a four week event and your warehouses have a maximum capacity. Even if you stocked your warehouses and marketplaces to the gills, that res would disappear soon. The rewards for each competition only last a week and you can only redeem your laurels for one week after the event ends.

Unless you get lots of warehouses (by getting more cities, which shouldn't be difficult with unlimited resources). And you can definitely get enough silver in your caves to last forever. So the whole Espionage part of the game is messed up.

 

[DeletedUser]

A better decision for whom? You? Or Innogames? lol

 

[DeletedUser]

Both, if my table is accurate.

 

[DeletedUser]

Saska: I agree. Very few (or no) players will literally buy their way to victory.

But to me (according to my obnoxiously large table), it looks like IG and the playerbase would both benefit from a change to Grepolympia.

 

[DeletedUser]

The only people that really lose are the noobs, so who cares? As soon as I see a mass exodus from my server I'll start to consider the tyranny of money, but there will always be plenty of noobs to feed upon. Mature servers with skilled players will benefit little from this event. Younger servers with inexperienced players is where this event has the greatest effect.

 

[DeletedUser8396]

Look. A change wont happen to Grepolympia due to its rather short lifetime, and if it does, i will be completely surprised.

I do not think the benefit from gold buyers will be all to great in established worlds. The thing we should worry about is the money bags joining Zakros.

 

[DeletedUser]

One of my previous posts. This is really the core reasoning behind my table.

If you don't think that players will spend a lot of money on Grepolympia, why not place a limit on the number of re-entries?

IG would still get money from those who are willing to re-enter a few times. And it would take care of those few big-spending, potentially-server-shaking players who would otherwise re-enter past the limit.

I don't see many downsides to this course of action.

If there aren't big spenders, then it doesn't matter much either way. If there are big spenders, then changing Grepolympia would stop them from unbalancing the game. I really cannot see any argument against changing Grepolympia. Am I being close-minded?

 

[DeletedUser]

Saska says:

If we put it in to perspective we have 300,000 players in the en servers alone we are seeing a VERY small % of people complaining about it, most of them that do is because they got bolted, or attacked etc.. by someone that has used the gold to get a small advantage.

I'm that dude you complain about. lol

 

[DeletedUser]

Saska: That's reasonable. I just hope that IG does things differently with future events, as you suggest.

 

[DeletedUser]

I'd just like to mention (snidely) that I thoroughly like being hit by 5-7 earthquakes every two hours... from the same player. But that's no big deal right? Nah not at all. It's not like I was holding off an entire alliance on my own until my walls disappeared because of dozens of earthquakes not otherwise possible to enact. But it's okay, those with skill are greater than those with money... until money takes your tools away.