2015/07/17

Discussion of the new Wartune patch

Unfortunately, I do not have a high level character on tests servers, so I have only 2nd hand information of the Wartune patch changes coming to every server next week. Fortunately, there are a lot of information on the forums, so now we have a vague idea of what's coming. I write a short summary here of the big changes (there are many small ones too I don't list now, like sylph attached to eudameon, new emo icons etc), and try to analyze the consequences.

The good changes

Mounts
Several great additions here. We get 4 new free mounts, and they even move faster than the previous ones. They can be trained with whips. 
Also the developers implemented something I suggested earlier: you can recycle duplicate mount cards, and buy mounts you missed for the "beast souls" you receive. Let's hope we can exchange the old beast shards for beast souls (I wonder why they created a new item in the first place).


New mpd, Narrandera remains
A new mpd is always a cool challenge. As I heard, originally this was for 8 people on the Chinese servers, and the 2 teams had to kill 2 bosses parallel, at the same time. Our version got adapted to the more abandoned servers, here you take only the normal 4-people team, and those 4 players are split to attack the 2 bosses. It's similar to Eternal Forest's first bosses, one is physical, the other is magical immune.
This mpd is once a week. I think this a is a good change. Yes, it  means less loot, longer time to collect the mythic armor pieces which are dropped here. But I like that the time required to play the game is not increased, we can do this on the weekend when we have time.

Bounty targets
A challenge ladder for eudaemons, similar to sylph expedition. Now we have to start developing a 2nd and 3rd eudaemon, that's bad, you would say - fortunately, 90% of the eudaemon's strength comes for free, from it's level, so all you need here is just blood of zeus and buying skills chests from guild shop which you do anyway. So this is a new way to get loot, hopefully useful items, and it doesn't take too much extra time.

Sylph arena rewards upgraded
Now you can choose to get advanced sepulcrum and sylph enchant pack instead of normal sepulcrum and sylph equip shard as reward for sylph arena ranking, that's a good chance.

Circus rewards upgraded
Finally :) But prolly still not enough to waste time on this. But, when you got enough imperial seals from goodies link so you can run a complete circuit without spending too much time, then at least you will get some useful reward.





The bad changes

Wild shop changes
Wild shop changed drastically. It has a lot of new items, mostly useful ones: beads of influence, eudaemon stuff, divinity souls, advanced mahra etc. This is a good thing. But instead of paying for them only with free commodities (insignia, daru etc) now there is always a balen cost associated. And most of the prices are irrealistically high. Also, the refresh cost is now balen instead of daru. This is a very, very bad thing. And fashion cores and good luck charms are gone. This is bad too. But you can pay with bound balens too, at least. So adding new and useful items would be cool, but in overall, this is nerf, sadly. If I were them, I would have added some balen cost (but not so high as now), and would have kept the daru refresh.

Dimensions
Dimensions were already "optimized" twice in Wartune's history, and both time we got a heavy nerf. Looks like this third time is no exception :( At first glance, there are some nice things. A mini-map, you can see how many objects you need to finish, you can even locate a hidden object for 10 energy. But there are much more negative changes.
Looks like the chest contents are downgraded once more, there are less (or not at all?) bound balen as treasure. The reapers seem to be replaced by "trials" which give random treasure (much worse than the eudaemon crystals we got earlier). Some even reported lack of dragon den, and dimensions expiring faster, but that seems unbelieveable to me so still need to confirm. 
The energy regenerates gradually instead of resetting at server reset (bad thing, imho), and various moves has now various costs. Moving to an empty is only 4 energy, but moving to an object costs much more. Can't judge that part, will see if it is good or not.

Sylph merge
For me, one of the most important thing in a game is to have long-term goals. When I read about sylph merge, it sounded an exciting thing, something which will take a lot of time and effort to achieve. But the result is hugely disappointing. Merging together you Aegis and Athena costs 60000 unbound balens. Yes, thats 600 USD! (was 20k on Chinese) And the skills also cost 6000 and 15000 unbound balens EACH! I think Wartune's publisher has made a huge mistake here. As long as developments costs 300, 500 or 1000 shards, crystals etc. which cost a LOT of balens, there was always a hope that it will get cheaper one day, maybe you can get even some for free. But not here. With sylph merge, it is made clear from the start that this feature is open only to about 20-30 players in total who are willing to spend 1500 USD on this. So Loki/Odin wants to be the Lamborghini of Wartune. The big problem is with this, as soon as it becames obvious for a light or medium casher that he can NEVER reach this goal, he loses interest, and quits. There must be ALWAYS a hope. Even a slight one.
I don't even understand who is the target for this sale. People who could pay 600 USD for this has evolved their Aegis long ago...

Conclusion
We have to adapt, as always. About dimensions, I suggest that you do not open new dimension until the new patch; instead, try to clear and loot up what you already have. I will also use my spare Eternal lights to cover as much as possible.
About wild shop, I will do much more resets each day than I used to, I try to spend most of my mystery stones on free items until it's possible.
Also looks like I have to grow blood of zeus again in my farm (was growing mount whips only since a while).
If you are a super-heavy casher, you prolly don't bother much about my blog. But if you do, I recommend that you do not rush making a Loki (or even Odin). If no one buys them, maybe the developers realize that this time they went too far.
What I learned from Doomlord, never change what is working well, never nerf things, and never piss of players by setting outrageous prices. Because right now it seems their goal is not profit, but some kind of weird sociological experiment :)





23 comments:

  1. Some info.
    1. New mount shop. I believe it is for a heavy cashers. Basically, the only free way to get a card for recycle is from event chest. You can't create additional mount card from crypt, Guild, Arena, etc. I believe also that you can not take duplicate mount card from CSGB or CW or other cross-server shop. So, the only ways to get a duplicate card is event chest or voodoo urn.
    2. Circuits. I believe, 300 sepu a week worth the effort. But it all needed to be looked at first. As far as I know, sources of sepu is limited now - it is sylph arena, horns, guild altar. How much you get from arena? 50 a week? Horns - 20 a day, 140 a week, so 105 sepu a week. Guild altar - 10 per week. Circuits give you almost twice of this.
    3. Dims. Holding chest now gives you crystal and will shards only. And dims expire after completion like lightning. But, you can buy coordinate chest in a guild for 1k contribution, so you can have as much dimensions as you want.

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    1. Thx for the info! The mount exchange can be still good, if you get double mounts from a chest (I got one saved in mail), but really need to be allowed to use beast shards there as well.
      I have maxed sepulcrum since a long time, but yes, 300 sepu is a decent reward. As I recall, circuit was a real pain, and took several hours, but now it might worth the effort. Especially since you can skip annoying quests with the scroll.
      About dim, I already had too much of them, got more from chests than I used. So the fast expiration is true, bad news indeed :(

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    2. About dims
      There is a video, showing 45.45% life decrease of a basic dim per day after full occupation and 2.27% decrease of a freshly opened dimension. There is an info, that your energy consumption for simple step can be from 4 to 1 (according to your resistance). There is an info that you can find a mine in dimension, that will produce BB (rate for basic dim is 20BB per hour, duration 24h) So, with some math, I assume that you should suck every floor dry (like stepping on each square) before occupying the tower, because you can get lucky and find offering chest or mine. Or, if you are in a dire need of a res bonus, you can easily complete 2 basic dims per day, or even 3, if you are lucky. Being a vip, it will net you a huge 125% bonus for 5 dimensions of a same kind. Still, trials give you mahra and sepu, not much, but it all adds up.

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    3. So bound balen is still possible, that is good news :) But I hate redoing the same thing each day just to keep the same bonus. I would love mostly a permanent reward for dimensions (which increases very slowly).

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    4. I believe, it is one-time bonus. Like, you get lucky, found a mine, run if for 24h and mine is gone. Why not giving you all amount immediately - well, PvP in dims is still active, so you can lose your dim and other person will occupy the mine. Still, this is only my suggestions, I just try to see some weird oriental logic in it ;).

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    5. Well, more info about dims. Bonus is not a percent, it is a promille (one thousandth)
      So, it is really no point in rushing it - bonus is neglectable. So, I stick to "suck it dry".

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    6. I've done some math on dimensions of how you maximize your shards income, given the following decrease rate per floor: 0,625% exp, 1,768% Adv, 4,535% Int, 9,11% Basic. I assume, you get equal "chunks" for each floor completed for a given dimension.
      Basic: Conquer it first day.
      Int: Conquer it first day. If you can't - try 7 floors first day and complete second. If you can't - 5 floors, than complete or 7 floors. Conquer 6 or 8 floors is non-optimal.
      Adv. It is tricky one. You should stay on lvl 8 - you will get most shards this way. Milestones is 2 floor, 4-5-6 foor, and 7 floor.
      Exp: Also tricky. You should stay on lvl 26. Milestones is 3, 6, 9, 13, 17, 19, 22.
      Also note the differences between worst and best scenario (worst is you complete only one floor, best is complete optimal number of floors first day)
      Basic: 11-15 "chunks" - 26% difference
      Int: 23-30 "chunks" - 23% difference
      Adv: 57-64 "chunks" - 11% difference
      Exp: 160-182 "chunks" - 12% difference
      As you can see, difference with adv and exp dims is very relatively low (and you can make it even lower if you complete optimal number of floors each day), so, the only point in rushing is lack of time and resistance.

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    7. Very good summary! I would like to write a guide on new dimension when I'm back from holiday,will add your numbers too, thx a lot!

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  2. I was within spitting distance of lvl 30 fishing and sweet vip cards, then they nerf it to one week a month. Now I FINALLY get a decent supply of adv dimensions and can take advantage of more loot and HAMMERS from dragon dens, and now that's going away too. All the work, none of the rewards. There better be a TON of positives coming because so far it feels like sprinkles on top of a lump of !%&#.

    But seriously, do they regret dimensions? All the things they could be working on, and yet they keep taking time to go back and "optimize" them again and again.

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    1. I think their problem is that they think dimension gives too much free stuff, thats why they keep nerfing it. First, I dont think it gives too much stuff - crawling it for hours, you can get stuff a casher gets in an instant; and second, free players and light cashers make up the majority of players. They are as important as heavy cashers. So constantly nerfing them and taking away from them is a bad idea. Because if the game has only heavy cashers remaining, they will quit too :(

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  3. UNBOUND balens?! No thanks.
    They are going to lose 75% of players.

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  4. Hope is what keep most of the platers still playing this game, but by making this sylph merge cost this much they already kill most of the players hope. IMO they dun care about this game anymore and they trying so hard now to get rid WT players so they have a reason to close the game sooner. this game give them a huge amount of profit already and they plan to move on to another game tho i cant understand why they have to do this and not try to keep this game enjoyable for most players, recent event already hard to swallow and now this. im seriously disgust with how this devs treat their players and how they mess up a good game.

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    1. Yes I totally agree, still, they put a lot of work into developments, so they do seem to care: they just do the totally wrong things :(

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    2. I see 2 possibilities here:

      1- Wartune will continue to be developed. This means that everything will continue like in past. I remember players paying 300€ to have hades immediately, i'm a free player and i got an hades seal after about 9months, evolved to gaia only recently. I wonder when i will evolve my apollo.
      So will happen the same, (if i keep playing) i will get a free merged sylph from an event box, maybe in 18months? They will continue adding new better sylphs, new dungeons, maybe a new colour after red in the chain white-green-blue-purple-orange-red... "black"? So black astrals, black hero eq., holy forge for black hero eq., holy forge for eudamon and sylphs, double gems for eudamons and sylphs, black sylphs, black sylph eq., black eudamon......

      2- Wartune will not be supported anymore. So we will stop to see big patches in china, only little fixes. Soon our wartune will be equal to china. They will continue with same routine of hot events and sales, merging servers, losing players till R2 will not earn enough money and close servers.
      So these merged sylphs (with wind-water and electro-fire) are the best sylphs and will be the best forever. If you want them you have to pay this price, no other ways to get them.

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    3. We dont know whats the future of the game. I hope it will live on for a long time, because the developers realize what they do wrong and will correct it. Not communicating with players and nerfing things are real bad for a game. Yes maybe you can get the merged sylph eventually for free. But then, everyone will have it, so it will be of no use :) If they wouldnt make a lot of money, they would make so many additions, so I think there is hope.

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  5. In my opinion, sylph merge is a extremely bad deal.
    They went to far this time.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Yes, there is no way to correct this. Only thing they can do is reduce cost, but it will upset the whales who buy it at ful price...

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    3. I do not think so. Whales do not get upset then prices drop. They just do not see a difference between 60 balens and 60k balens. One whale on our server started playing after like a 6 month of a server opening. He learned guild skills, making contribution with balens! Imagine the sum! So, whales spend just to be ahead. So, to keep whales happy, if you give something to all, you give whales a new way to stay ahead. Like - we all can make orange sylph now with farm - whales got fusion, Later we got advanced sepu and mahra - whales new system for gear upgade. And so on.

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    4. Possible. I like to have some hope I can have fused sylph one day :)

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  6. Hi!
    What about Eud awakening sylphs? ATM you can call a sylph for Eud, but you can't awake it in-battle, do you guys know if that's happening anytime soon?

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    1. Not sure. I think they added sylph to euds so the euds have a element type assigned. Eudaemons resist reduce was pretty useless before, since they didnt have any element, no resistant was working against them. Now maybe if you assign a triton for example, then water resist will work vs eud? But have to test this.

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