Science System Needs Tweaking

[Elements]

So while waiting for my troops to head over to an adventure.. I decided it was time to sit down and do some rough calculations with the science system. Now the sub-building timers are kind of redundant as players can build more than one of each type. My real concern lies with the Bookbinder itself... and the times needed to produce skill books. (I don't really care about not being able to make multiple books at once.. however unless you collect the book and start a new one directly afterwards.. the time needed to max out geologists will be significantly increased).

Updated to take book increase into account:

To max out 6 geologists it would take 357 Days (vs. the 7.16 months previously calculated) without the last skill point in each as seen in the following thread: http://forum.tsotesting.com/threads/...-cost-increase

Add approx. 30 Days for the remaining points.

[Brayarg]

That is long time indeed I quite like the science system (so far) I'm happy for it to remain as is, or be shortened, Kinda easy going on that front I do see your point though.

[Elements]

Don't get me wrong, I love the science system - the timers are the only thing that lets it down.

[King-Fero]

Who says u SHOULD be able to max out everything u have in a very short time though?

U might just as well demand that:
-exp for levelling up is reduced because it takes so long to reach lv50
-costs of building upgrades is reduced as it takes so long to get everything to lv5
-production time of materials must be reduced because it takes so long to create military
-production time of provision house and barracks must be reduced because it takes so long to train troops, create buffs and so on

I think that for strategic playing, a bit of trade-off between decisions makes you think more of the choices you make. If you decide to max out several geologists, then it means you won't get to have maxed out generals or explorers anytime soon, or vice versa. Like in the early game, you need to think what to spend your scarce coins on. Should you upgrade some building? or buy one more specialist from the tavern? Or maybe get a noble deed from the TO to free up a license?

I did beg for the bookbinder to be faster too, but my argument was that the costs of the books should be so high that it would be a challenge in itself to keep the bookbinder occupied 100% of the time. I think it would have made sense that the speed of one's scientific development is proportional to the efforts put into it, not limited by an arbitrary bottleneck like the bookbinder is now. But I don't think that getting the books both fast and easy is the way to go.

[Elements]

Nobody said anything about fast and easy. Please point out where "fast and easy" was implied.

As stated in the above post.. a 1 - 2 hour reduction would be welcome. This reduction would hardly make books any easier to produce and would actually bring the Bookbinder more in line with the production chains. Overall a 1 hour reduction would mean:

Required Manuscripts: 31 - Total production time @ 11h/manuscript = (31x11)/24 = 14.2 Days
Required Tomes: 21 - Total production time @ 14.4h/tome = (21x13.4)/24 = 11.7 Days
Required Codex: 11 - Total production time @ 16.8h/codex = (11x15.8)/24 = 7.2 Days

Total time - 14.2 + 11.7 + 7.2 = 33.1 Days per Geologist (Multiply that by 6) (33.1 x 6)/30 = 6.62 Months

A 2 hour reduction would mean:

Required Manuscripts: 31 - Total production time @ 11h/manuscript = (31x10)/24 = 12.9 Days
Required Tomes: 21 - Total production time @ 14.4h/tome = (21x12.4)/24 = 10.9 Days
Required Codex: 11 - Total production time @ 16.8h/codex = (11x14.8)/24 = 6.8 Days

Total time - 12.9 + 10.9 + 6.8 = 30.6 Days per Geologist (Multiply that by 6) (33.1 x 6)/30 = 6.12 Months


I hardly call that fast. Seems more like a reasonable tweak without disturbing the system very much.

[Gerontius]

Think about it. If the science system had been in place from the time you started playing the game, all your geologists would be fully upgraded by now.

This isn't something that was introduced for the high level players to be able to pick up and use immediatey. It was something that's supposed to grow with players as they level up.

The timing for the bookbinder is the ONE part of the whole system that does look balanced to me.

[King-Fero]

Please point out where "fast and easy" was implied.

I felt your calculations involving the maxing out of all specialists were something you found outrageous to accept. If you would only like to see a one-hour reduction to the production time, then I'm really missing the whole point of this post to begin with. A marginal change only has a marginal impact, so if you are unhappy, you would only be marginally less unhappy after the change. And if you think a 1 to 2 hour reduction would take the system to it's optimum, then you're implying that it's only marginally off the optimum as is.

Add Generals and then the production skill trees for the Island and your looking at 2 years time

So regardless if it takes 1.9 years to max everything out, or 2 years, or 2.1 years, I was getting the impression that you are disappointed in how long it would take to reach this ultimate objective. I apologise if I was jumping to conclusions, but I imagined that such disappointment would not be alleviated by just reducing the overall time frame with a month or two. I therefore challenged you to refocus your time frame from 'getting everything' to 'getting what's most essential', after which it's a continuous improvement throughout your gameplay.

Even in your response you continue to calculate the time for 6 geologists. The other parts of the science system aren't live yet, but the idea I'm trying to get across is this:

Once you have all the science stuff available, you'll look at your options and find a skill/tech you think 'this one I must have!'. It might be an enhancement to your general's combat ability. It might give an explorer higher odds of finding your favorite adventure. Or it might be the possibility for your geologist to fill up an almost empty gold mine for no cost.

Whatever it is, reaching that particular goal will be a matter of weeks instead of months or years. To close the loop, this is the first thing I said:

Who says u SHOULD be able to max out everything u have in a very short time though?

So the 'very short' was a misunderstanding then. But that was not the only point I had to say. It was the prefix of your post, where you use getting all your specialists maxed out as a measure for the science system, that I'm challenging. So let me rephrase myself:

Who says u SHOULD be able to max out everything u have at all though?

[Proliator]

I can understand why BB would want to deter fast progress but for people who have several specialists (including premium ones), the current science system drastically hinders their advancement compared to others who don't have as many specialists.

The current science system simply makes anyone think twice about the drawbacks before paying for premium in the future. Why do people opt for premium? Because they want the best now, they want to do things faster, they want game play to be easier and less of a hassle/ inconvenience.

I have 48 specialists (36 premium) and I have to wait:
[35.8 x 48 (all specialists) = 1718.4/365.25 + 10% time wastage]
5 YEARS 63 DAYS 23 HOURS 45 MINUTES 36 SECONDS to fully utilize my specialists ONLY

WHY SHOULD ANYONE WHO HAS INVESTED IN THIS GAME HAVE TO SUFFER SO MUCH ?

Solution
Have a specialty building type (The Grand Master's Library / The Great Library / Surveyor's Guild / Explorer's Guild / Military Academy etc...) to pump say 54 books into each specialty type (21 codex, 18 tome, 15 manuscript) then in accordance with what you've researched, pay gold to specialize each geologist/explorer/ general etc to learn & reset each of their talents.

Example
For each geologist and provided you've researched the skill sets in your specialist guild; to learn the manuscript skill set, it could be 10coin each (max 100coin used), for the tome skill set it would be 100coin each (max 1,000coin used), for the codex skill set it would be 500coin each (max 5,500coin used)

This way EVERYONE advances at the SAME TIME and isn't anywhere near as affected by how many specialists they have in comparison to the current science system.

How to implement this?
Reset everyone's talents, refunding in full their used books, then implement the specialist guild building type, no one will be negatively affected, save for the coin needed to relearn the skill sets.

[Elements]

In reply to King-Fero..


I understand where your coming from, however I am very unhappy with the timers on the bookbinder - although even a moderate "tweak" would, and I'm sure most would agree, change that to happy.

Currently the system requires excessive amounts of time for moderate gains. Even if I wanted "fast and easy" given the current system and the amount of books required I would need to spend a grand total of 132,000 gems to max out six geologists (last skill point not included).

The reason I chose to calculate for 6 geologists is that more often or not - the scope of time involved wouldn't be as appreciated on the small scale, and therefor I chose to look at a much larger picture. (although due to book increases the calculations were half of what they should have been)

I have invested in this game, choosing (yes it was a choice) to spend money (games need money) - however the amount of money involved in maxing out geologists is not good value at all. For the gems I could buy lets say - 3 endless copper mines - and have another 72,000 gems to turn into gold coins. Given the current ratio of gems to gold coins... that would yield approx. 216,000 gold coins at the very least.

The above was only to illustrate that players aren't getting a system that is balanced, profitable or of good value and therefor needs to be tweaked.

[Dorotheus]

The way I see it it's not that the times are so long but that the buffs to reduce time are limited. Prices started high and no doubt will go up in price until the next time BB release more into game. The book production problem would be alleviated to some extent if we knew there was a way we could continue to produce books as 2x speed. Not making such a desirable item available for gems is a big mistake. The high level players with lots of NPC's have the means of buying book buffs at a price. As it stands BB are ignoring a potential revenue stream.