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[edited 28th June to shorten this post and change cleanse/heal/DE and Fairy]

The current age (age 78) is expected to end: 2016-06-29 18:00:00

Age 79 is expected to begin Friday 1st July, first tick will be 19:00ST.

We are nearly at the end of our big planned changes for the game, thanks for your patience whilst we have been doing this, in a few months once we're done we will focus on getting more players instead.

Age 79 Changes:

• During protection period you can always reset.
• Magical void can be casted on alliance mates again.
• Reversed last ages change regarding capped Mage Level (ML goes back to being based on how many acads you have).
• Reinstated Ruler Age on tribe page.
• Race + related spells are removed (mortality, DF, Brood, CF, Pest and also cleanse+heal).
* Thieves Trap can be performed on allies.

The full list of races in play for next age are listed in further detail below, there are 12 races in total including 3 brand new races. Most races have changed their abilities, numbers in red show figures that changed.

Right click -> open in new tab for an enlarged view :








EDIT 28th June - please note we have changed DE Elite to 3/5 and increased cost of Fairy Def Spec to 800cr.

For those interested, here is more detail behind the race changes:

http://alliancesatwar.com/forums/game/edit/717701/0-25#717701

Man this is more complex again

Sorry, i remember before i was in staff when people used to keep posting race changes it really annoyed me as it felt like the goal posts were constantly moving. One of my biggest aims in staff was to try to rectify this as i found it so off-putting as a casual player but so far i was not able to achieve that and we have had to make significant race changes each age whilst trying to find a balance.

This time around i took it in my own hands and *tried* to make something simpler by kind of starting again in total with each race having a “unique selling point”. That's what i thought i'd done here but maybe it just seems simpler to me coz i studied it and lived with it for the past couple of months...

Or maybe i should delete the second post i made with all that detail and put it in Game Talk so its not so overwhelming to look at all at once.

Hmmn let's see anyway but complex is not what i was aiming for either as it does my head in

I think you were on the right track last age, and then by removing race spells. Now the prior complexities are just swapped for new ones. Sorry not trying to be negative. Totally appreciate your time and effort :)

No it's OK, you are fully entitled to your opinion and it is very interesting for me to hear some feedback so thanks for taking the time... I hope you will change your mind over time and that you can still enjoy it but yeah... I will keep my fingers crossed!

WHHHHHHHHHHHHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GIMME MY RACE SPELLZ YO

Eagle's guard houses produce mana points. That means cap and regen?

Bill, the current changes are to help balance “classes” of races (A/T/M) as there's always been trouble trying to make each of the three roles equally appealing.

Check out our planning road map, vote and comment on changes you'd like to see :)
https://trello.com/b/r5wXC2Ue/orkfia-road-map

should be no difference in any race for training... especially with brood being removed... what is the thought behind this?

Smokey - can you reword your question please as I am not sure what you're asking.

I think Bill will unfortunately quit after this age which is a real shame and obviously not my intention... The race changes were made like this hoping that when someone sees these races for the first time, they are easier to understand (and easier to remember) as we tried to make each race have a unique character that comes through in its abilities. I thought this was quite important since we are trying to get old players to come back and new players to stick around. Marketing department recruited 40% more players earlier this year to come to the game and we pretty much lost them all again within 2 ages.

Feedback I had from some who did return/join/leave was that the races/game in general was too complicated with too many “exceptions to the rule” to learn. I also thought that myself for quite a while and there have been lots of suggestions/comments around this area.

These changes try to address this by reducing the total number of exceptions and where there are exceptions, I tried to make them face inwards towards the tribe rather than outwards to other people so that when tribes are interacting with each other, there are hopefully less exceptions to remember/get frustrated by. In addition each race has been thought about as a character with traits that tie in to that character where possible to try and make each race have a unique reason to earn a place in our 12 race line-up, and hoping the sum will have a broader appeal (for example lots of players I know in other games like to play the buff/medic role as they like to be part of the team without actively fighting.. there was nothing like that in Orkfia, now we'll have Hobbit/Fairy).

My intended result is not to drive old players away (we were doing that for free for years after all without any effort ;) ) so I am sorry if Bill (and others) may leave because of these changes. I know it's existing players its most rough on as if you're still playing, its likely you could more or less understand the current races and now you have to relearn it again. A pain but one I couldn't see a way around unfortunately in the quest to get the playerbase up.. I think there will likely have to be a few adjustments the age after these are in play (if we notice unacceptable problems with any race) but after that my plan is to leave the races alone for a while to become the background of the game so that everyone can learn them and feel confident in their tribe interactions.

Bulby the thought behind was to make a perk based on attacker/thief/mage speciality rather than human/bird/ork/undead/elve speciality as it seems more straightforward in the end and some of the race spells were not as useful as others (and there are an unequal amount of those background races).

isnt cheaper acres for an attacker a prety good perk? cheaper to take 500 than to explore it as you get larger...

Jamzi,

Eagles receive a magic point regen and magic point cap bonus currently, but the magic point regen is being taking out as a racial and being given as a “class” mage bonus. I see no mention of the magic point cap trait any more, so that means it's going away, right?. This new trait, the one for guardhouses granting half guilds, does that mean it counts as half a guild and provides both the magic point cap as well as the magic point regen as guilds normally do?


For the record, I don't mind the new traits/races. Not as drastic as going to “classic” mode.

Removal of race spells isn't the right approach in my opinion. Alter them instead.
For example; remove free acres, but keep the other bonuses (maybe change numbers). Races should have some perks, not just 'classes'(attacker/mage/thief)

The combination of race+class should have advantages and disadvantages. So there's a reason to choose a human over a cursed, or the other way around, etc.

I don't have any solid ideas, just throwing my thoughts here. And maybe I misinterpreted something, feel free to enlighten me if so.

Fisk,

I always pondered the concept of picking a class independent of a race.

This could lead to things like:
Attacker + Mori
Mage + HE
Thief + Eagle

Hey now i never said i was quiting. Just gonna take a break since i died and wont be worth much starting mid age, then next age i dont want to learn new mechanics to play. Just break as usual And maybe the changes are easy to get. This age was. Im just being lazy. Dont use my laziness as a measuring stick!

OK thanks Smokey - yes magic regeneration ability has been taken away from Eagle as a racial ability but then given back via a “class” trait to Eagle (and the other 3 mages). Being able to hold more MPs/magic cap ability is taken away completely and no race has that currently.

Fisk - I do see what you mean, it's a shame to lose the race spells in some ways, maybe we will end up bringing back a new version sometime (but not in the near future) if we can work out a way to make it worth doing (some background races only have one or two races available now).

Instead now we tried to put that character into each race individually. To me it seemed more logical and clear-cut to have a/t/m have some advantages divided in the same way since that choice (a/t/m) seems to be the start point for many people deciding their alli or individual set-up (eg. we need x mages, x attackers and x thieves or I want to be thief"). Then I was hoping when picking race, people's first choice would be simpler; 1) Do I prefer a/t/m style of play and 2) which of 4 races within that class do I play.

Dunno though as I know for sure some people would prefer to have the race spells like you say, I just went with my own gut feeling and it was a gamble to either leave things the same or change them, this was the only way I felt happy with changing them as we tried lots of less drastic changes over the past months and I still felt more or less the same about the races in total so I went back to the drawing board to have one final crack at it, starting from the bottom.

Bill :) :) OK glad to hear that, thnx and I hope when you do come back that we will have more stability so everyone doesn't have to keep reading/relearning walls of text. At least that is my ultimate goal for Orkfia but let's see!

I think it is a good thing what you are doing. making it more streamlined and giving attack/mage/thief distinct advantages and every race his sub advantage. It will make it easier for newer players.
although whit the removal a small part off old orkfia dies off, it makes us move to a next chapter.
we can clearly see that old ork didn't worked out lately so keeping it moving.
we will so how big the new changes are =]

0/9 700cr for Fairy is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too cheap

they are supposed to be quite defensive (fairies are hard to catch hold of to give a smacking ;) ). What do you think it should be?

it has a per-point value of 88.89 in the current cost.

Whatever cost it's going to be, the per-point value of a 0/9 can't be lower than that of a 0/5.

The cheapest 0/5 is Eagle's for 475, so a 95 per-point value.

a per-point value of 100 is the absolute minimum unless you give the race actual penalties, which it doesn't have.

I don't buy your excuses. Just admit that it's a typo and we can move on.

I am just trying to warn you before every single person picks fairy next age for the cheapest space efficient unit of all time

OK thanks Sanzo and don't blame Bolle as this was me ;)

Others said to me they think DE is the obvious and OP choice. I have made a request to Max for the below last-minute small changes:

Fairy def spec from 700cr to 800cr
DE elite from 4/7 to 3/5

Let's see how that goes.

Cheers!

No one complained about the fairy because they all wanted to play it

I still think it's too cheap but whatever

Agreed, too cheap. Eagles are crying lightning over this.

OK, well I do appreciate it but I am also not psychic and I tried :D

Not sure if we are still in time to change it again but if so..