When to spend balens in Wartune?

You can spend any amount of balen - ie. money - in Wartune. You can do it efficiently, and less efficiently. I remember a guy who stopped looong ago. At the end, he was just buying totally senseless things just to reach VIP9 and avoid losing honor in battlegrounds. He spent 5k USD in a record time, then he quit. 

What can make people spend? Major reasons are to reach a goal (like getting a wing, being immune to honor loss, getting a bi-sylph etc) or just keep up the competition with others. The later one is a real motivation. I remember R2 servers once had a character named "Zebq". In like 3 months, he became the top BR, he maxed out everything. If you do it in such a short time, you skip all events, you just buy everything for the basic price, which is horribly high. So we could calculate, the guy was supposed to spend rougly 1 million dollars. Of course I'm pretty sure he didn't spend. He either was a good hacker (but this is quite unlikely, I'm sure if someone gets so much attention, the devs check him), or he was an insider, who just had access to unlimited balens. But nonetheless, his streak inspired the top players to race with him, and spend more. So either this was an intentional goal to milk the top cows, or just an unintentional result of an employee "trying the game", it generated extra income for them.

It usually starts little: you buy a wing or something else you cant get for free, and after you opened your wallet once, it gets easier and easier to open it again. After you spent 10 USD ten times, making a recharge of 100 USD doesn't seem so horrible - after all, you already spend this amount, and for lesser reward. After a longer (or shorter) time, if you did several 100 USD recharges, you will even consider the 500 or 1000 recharge, which is truly ridiculous for a game. And soon you won't even admit how much you spent and look for excuses like "I can afford it" "I spend 1000s of hour on it, it's still a cheap hobby".

As you know, I believe that spending on a game is okay, if it's not such an amount which you will regret after you stop playing  / spending. However, now I believe the game has reached a point after which spending money on it is totally pointless. Lag, freeze, load times, complete and utter nerf of everything, hacks going uncontrolled, and this is going on since a very long time. We see no sign that anything will change. I admit that in the 3+ years since I play this game, I became quite and addict. The time and money I spent made me addict. And I'm sure I will continue to play for a while. Not because I have hope that something will change - just because the addiction, and because after a long day I can still find some fun in it. And secretly I hope that one day, they will explain all the fumbles, bad decisions they made. But I'm not recharging again, I'm pretty positive of that - unless these issues got solved by some miracle.

Ocassionally, when players get really pissed off, someone always says on the forum "boycott them, dont recharge." I don't think it works that way. Players will not sto precharging just because someon says so, or to "punish" the company. They stop recharging because they lose interest. I'm sure some of you still have goals, which, if you can buy it cheap enough, you will pay for it. Like "reaching knighthood" "getting a red sylph" etc.

But here is some advice: if you want to spend money to reach a goal - stuff will get free eventually, or at least much cheaper. Everything does. Just from the near past - first adv. henna sale, you could buy knighthood for 2000 USD. 1 month later, last hot events, you could get it for 400. So just to reach your goals, no hurry.
If you want to spend to compete with others, to keep up: I see a lot of players have quit in the past half year, which is no wonder. But note that the whales, who spent the most, stayed. So do not hope to gain rank by the top players quitting. They won't. They spent too much. Go to battleground, the only opponents you meet will have red sylphs. Go to titan wars, each team is a heavy casher team. So spending to catch up is also pointless, because you will never catch up.

So my answer to the opening question, "When to spend balens in Wartune?" is actually, never, anymore. 

Sacred gold tree analysis

As I promised earlier, I made an analysis for the broken Wartune event, Sacred Gold tree. I prefer the data I collected myself, but I refused to spend balen on something so broken like this. So this data is based on info I got from friends, and also I checked videos on the net where people used Sacred Gold tree then showed what they have won.

A little explanation of what you see:
You can see the total amount of items people won with 1683 attempts. First number row is amount of the item, second is the total value. On the bottom, you can see the average value per attempt: total of all balen values, divided by number of attempts. Please note I made 2 averages: one with the Odin someone won, and one without. You see there is a huge difference. If you are lucky, and you win a bi-sylph, then you will be happy since you made a "good deal". But if you are unlucky, then each 65 balen attempt yielded a 15 balen value item on average. A very, very bad deal. The stats are insufficient to tell the chances, so you don't know if bi-sylph is 1%, 0,1% or what. But we know many people who used attempts worth 40-60k balens won nothing, and some won one from as low as 20-50 tries.

I noticed an interesting thing when I processed the data, one player had an extremely high amount of mahra, compared to the others, and much lower value in other items. So it is possible that it's true what R2 claims, they "rigged" the gold tree, to give "less rewards" for those who use free wands. But I quite doubt it works the way they claim. Rather, they might award less items for those who never spent balens, compared to those who did.

A few words on item values: with the 2k balen coupon, you can buy chests for 27 balen each, so thats the price I used when calculating item costs, which you can get in hot event exchanges - like compliment / gift / blessing of god, moon rock /dust and evolution emblems. The cost of divinity soul, hard to set here anything realistic. So I said, the average divinity soul an average player can make in areasonable time is level 7. You need 16x lvl 4 div soul (if you make it only during hot events), so I take the lvl 4 div souls BR value, multiplied by 2 and divided by 16 to set price for lvl 4.

I set epic sylph seals to zero balen value since they are worthless. Because when you use these, they have zero sepulcrum in them. So you have to use advanced sepulcrum instead of normal sepulcrum. A complete, total waste. You can make such epic sylphs totally free over the time, saving the evolve materials at the cost of 10.000 adv sepulcrum is a very bad deal.

About Odin seal value: its the chest exchange value you need to get the evolve materials (5000 dust/rock, 1500 emblems) plus the 60k balen. 

Anyway, the conclusion: even if the game weren't dying, and the Sacred Gold weren't hacked over for months, I wouldn't recommend spending balen there. The event is the worst gamble in Wartune's history. The mount/chest gamble was already bad, but this? Some people can throw out 1000 USD on the window and get nothing? Some win a bi-sylph for near free, for which others need 2 fully evolved orange, and stuff worth 127k balens? This is the level of gamble which they should have never added, a true killing blow to Wartune. I can imagine people going to the doctor, crying, repeating "Why I did this? Why I spent so much money on nothing?" 

And the hack itself, not corrected for weeks, maybe months... The tree should have been banned permanently from the game: but it won't happen. Because some ppl still spend money there, so they are happy running it, not thinking of the other consequences.

Advanced henna vs cloth set

I promised a sacred gold tree analysis, but something more important came up meanwhile. They added a new exchange:

We didn't get too much free chest, so the question is, do this, or go for these:

At first sight, you would start calculating the BR gain from the cloth set title (the cloth BR is neglectable, as I calculated in a previous article) and then compare it with the henna BR gain. And I would be happy to do that calculation - but it's much simpler than that. If you check the cloth panel, there is a wing for this set too. You just can't get it in the current exchange. You could get it in the past 3 days (210 chest for the whole set), but not now. I'm pretty sure you need the wing for the title as well - but getting 210 free chests until yesterday was impossible.

So now we can witness another Wartune trickery, aka nerf, a well-concealed method to cheat the players (the forum is already full with complaints from people who were victims to this cheat). Unless you spent balens on the chests, you cant get this title. And I hope you didn't spend - if I would be an official credit rating company, I would assign Wartune "junk rating", "don't spend (not even a penny)".  Especially since we got our new nerf. And this one is a BIG ONE. Mount training event nerfed as well. I'm sure you remember that each mount training event in the past 3 year gave back a percent (usually 50%) of the whips used. Not anymore. So yeah - they HALVED the amount of mount whips you can get from now on. Don't worry 7Road/R2Games etc, those players who can't be repelled from spending (and even playing) with this grand action, will keep spending even when the game crashes every minute and just to log in will cost 100 dollars (which might happen soon with the current tendencies).

So anyway, my advice is, if you didn't use your chests up yet, just go for the advanced henna. For 120 chests, you get 1000 henna, which is +300 stats. equivalent to henna you collect in 20 days. One small step towards knighthood :) But much, much worse than the +1000 stats title bonus from the cloth set.

Wartune cloth event nerfs

I wish there would be some happy news around for Wartune, like unlimited events returning, or nerfs being undone, or caching enabled again... But sadly, the opposite is happening. They nerf something every day. Now the cloth events are nerfed further - where you didn't think there was anything remaining there to be nerfed.

1. Cloth synthesis no longer awarding fashion core shards. No one can explain this one. Getting 5-6 fashion cores for free? What was so bad about it so you had to take it away from us?

2. Clothing synthesis no longer awards "unlimited" cloth chests. Previously, if you made 2x lvl 5 armor on the same day, you could claim 2x the chest reward, containing random cloth. A little thing, but it did matter. I think they did not even want to nerf, they just try to make things simpler - but they do it the wrong way. I ignore cloth synth events since a while, I will continue doing so.

3. Cloth set exchange. We have a new cloth set exchange, where you can exchange 210 event chest for a cloth set you might have missed earlier. Wait a moment... I do have clothing shards for that purpose already! I sincerely hope that this panel is not what it looks like. Ie. making new cloth set sold only for balens, unavailable for clothing shards. They already did this to ancient beast shards - letting people collect them, then making it useless - I hope it's not going to happen to clothing shards.

With my next blog entry, I will try to make a sacred golden tree analysis (the most broken thing in Wartune's history), if you have any data, please send it to me or post it here.

What do do while playing Wartune?

Haha, I know the subject is really weird. While you play Wartune, you are supposed to play Wartune, isn't it? Well, the core of the game is a large number of repetitive daily quests, which you have to do each day. Some of these - including dimensions, archeology, MPD, arena, DI (if you do it) - is just a mindless grind, and you can do something else on your second monitor/computer meanwhile.

Of course the best course is talk to your family, wife, kids etc. meanwhile :) But you can also watch films - think I burned thru a couple of seasons of several series while I did these grinds in the past half year. But lately, I play while I play. 

(That's me on the left)

I was always a fan of "trading card games". Back in the old times, I was national champion from Magic: the gathering, been even twice to Seattle, the world championships. And I am the proud co-designer of a unique trading card game, "Hatalom Kártyái" (Cards of Power), which is more poplular in Hungary than Magic. 
Also, I have big respect for Blizzard as game designing company, so I recently tried their card game, Hearthstone. It's as addictive as other Blizzard games, and it's also as simple (and kind of primitive) like those as well :) Poker is a pure mindgame compared to HS, HS is just like... rolling dice, and whoever rolls higher wins. Still, somehow it is fun (unless I lose :)) so perfectly completed the grinf of dimensions.

So guys, what are you doing while you wait in the Arena for the next opponent? Or grind dimensions, archeology etc? Or it's just I'm just hyperactive that I need to do something else meanwhile?

I know some of you expected a more scientific blog entry from me, but honestly, lately really nothing is happening in the game :( the events are very repetitive, and constantly nerfed, hard to analyze chests / rewards because it's the exact copy of the previous ones. Also, I am going for holidays tomorrow morning for a week, so not only I can't post another entry meanwhile, I will have only very limited internet access. And as Wartune is now (each time you log in, it downloads the complete game) prolly I can't play much either :( I wish you good, prosperous events while I'm back! And may Odin help you to resist the urge to recharge :)

Wartune character overview

This is something I promised earlier, an overview of my Wartune character, Fairlight. I play the game since 3 years, and I play it a lot daily, usually 4+ hours. Also I spent a significant amount of money on balens, 100-150 USD a month, sometimes even more, way too much for a game. I also tried to optimize my play whenever possible, both optimizing spendings (to get the most BR for my balens) and other strategies (like accumulating resources and trying to use them in the best moment, choosing the best rewards when multiple choices etc). 

I was drawn into the game by a friend of mine, who spent like 200 USD in total. He said, "I just want to spend an amount I won't regret when I stop." He stopped long ago, then restarted some month later on a new server, completely free. He was a top player even so, until a merge happened, when he stopped finally. I never forget another thing he said, actually the first thing he said about Wartune. "This game is really weird, you can spend ANY amount of money on it." Which would have chased away me at the start, but it didn't - actually, I thought it would be a real challenge to compete with heavy cashers.

With my character, I was in top most of the time. Not 1st always, but in top3. There is an amount of money you can't counter with skills and time invested. After each merge, we got a bigger spender, but each time I was always able to catch up with him, slowly. The game is all about patience, and I envy those who spend only 10-20 USD a month, or even nothing, and can find the fun. I always used to say, if you don't spend anything, you will be just a punchbag, and wish for things all the time you can never get. Also, I think it is okay to spend on a hobby, which is fun for you, and you spend a lot of time on it each day. The amount you can spend on this game should be something you can afford, and something you are not ashamed to admit to your friends and family :)

Character stats

When building my character, I always prioritized ATK. Thats the first thing to be maxed for holy forge and stables, and thats the stat which I always pump with at least an MATK scroll, using my never-ending stockpile of crypt tokens. The game is all about damage.

The second highest priority stat for me is defense. Since we reverse-engineered how combat works in Wartune, the reason is obvious. Hit points, it's importance is lesser, although it gives now the highest BR - due to a bug with eudaemon BR calculation (if it is still around). Critics and blocks, I always keep saying the effect of these are capped, and there is no point in improving them beyond a level, because the gain will be only almost invisible. But I also know a lot of people don't believe me. Well, everyone can find the fun in the game his own way, be it colorful mounts, cute clothing or high crit, I will not argue.




Resists

About resists, I have all level 12 gems. I do not believe that there will be a level 12 event ever, and they give too much advantage anyway to wait. I use a mixture of all 6 resists, dark and light prioritized a bit more, since Hecate/Odin is more common as the other sylphs. The stats could be higher if I would bother more about dimensions, but usually I have only 2-4 (one expert and the rest int). Please note that now you can play around with resists to get higher BR - if you have an expert dimension for fire, equip 6 fire resist gems and you will have a lot more BR.

Sylph
As you know, I have the Odin (thx again to those who donated). Took me a lot more time collect than for others, since I get all the materials for free, and saved up adv. mahra and sepu for 8-10 months. But now I have a 4-moon Odin. SA friend asked if I didn't collect the materials in advance, what sylph I would make now. And I answered, Frigga. Odin has some higher stats, but since it was first, people have higher resist against it. Also, I consider the Frigga skills a bit more versatile: aoe heal, aoe awaken drain, and aoe absorb shield, cool stuff, while Odin have only one skill which affects ALL opponents. 

But now I have Odin, and I'm happy with him. I'm already collecting materials to make red equipment when I have finally enough adv. mahra to make my Odin red (still a lot of time).
My current sylph is far the top on our server, also I made the furhest in sylph expedition (boss 47).

Eudaemon
My top eudaemon is an archer, since that was an obvious choice for a mage at start. Leveling up and building war emblem is not a problem for eudaemons, but equipment takes a lot of time, if you don't want to spend balen there. Wind ranger is better now that archer, but I just don't want to build equipment again for it. Too bad you can't switch equipment here like with sylphs. But I don't give so much importance to eudaemons anyway, they are just "chaos rune magnets", often it's  just easier to leave them home.

Mounts

For me, the top priority was always to get as many mounts as I can. This is the thing where I spent balens mostly. Everything else, from soul crystals, sepulcrum, eudaemon items to cloth sets, I never spend balens, because you can get them for free eventually. But the mounts are still mostly casher-only items. And that's why I was a bit sad when I read that with an exploit, some players could get all mounts for free.

Mount whip is one of the very few resources which is designed well. You can get a fair amount, and you can spend an unlimited amount. So ToK is one of the few events still worth grinding daily.
Of course I try to collect cloth as well, especially sets which give title. Fortunately, most of these you can get for free.

Battle Rating
As you can see on the above screenshot, my current battle rating is 6.73M, this is without any buffs, just academy bonus. 

That's it, I guess... about the future: I'm not too optimistic. I decided to stop spending, and I don't think anything will change that. The devs can't fix the cache since a half year, the game keeps reloading everything, it's at the edge of being unplayable. They keep nerfing everything. Just check the late resist crystal event, I couldn't do even two level 11 crystals, using all I collected since last event.
And now they moved all main championship preliminaries to Tuesday - the day, when I can't be in front of the computer. I will not stop, no worries. I keep grinding,  just while I do dimensions, archeology, arena  - but meanwhile, I just play something else on my second monitor, like Doomlord or Hearthstone. I still hope one day they at least turn caching back on, that would help a lot :)

Opponents in tower of kings

Hello all. I did some testings with Odin today, but it goes damn slow, need a lot of data. So just a short entry until I'm done, about Tower of Kings opponents, which are from the top players. 

Lately I know I was heavy on critics towards the game devs, but with a reason. They did a lot of effort to ruin our fun. But actually, some players have the power to make the game even more miserable for all others. And these are the top players, who are chosen as ToK shadow opponents.

With the recent changes, ToK became really much easier. Even when all 4 sport Odin, we can streak through it easily, at least with our BR. But when someone have Frigga... then its impossible, or takes so long time so its no fun at all, so we do hard instead. But lately, hard is Frigga-infested as well, and when there are 2, hard is impossible too.

So here is my message to Mennoly, Darkdayz, Iceade and anyone else who think it is fun to park a Frigga in ToK. Most of you top players think the goal of this game is to have as high as BR as possible. But you are wrong. The goal is to have the respect of others. You can't achieve respect by spending truckload of money and behaving like an ass. You can have respect by being strong AND being nice at the same time. 

If you spend 100.000s of USDs to be hated by everyone, then you just wasted all that money. So don't be like Mennoly who is always with Frigga in ToK. Be like Quorax who is always nice and brings Odin.