New Endgame: Temple hunt – Update

Hello everyone,

I would first like to thank all the feedback you provided us, with it we were able to have some very productive discussions and reach some great improvements to the new endgame, I hope you enjoy it.

Small Temples – Update

After the feedback and some internal talks and we decided to change how the small temples work in a few ways.

Location and Spawning

The first big difference is the temple locations and presence in the world. We decided that Small temples will be distributed in the world from the start, players are able to see where they are located and what buff they provide once they are conquered.

There will still be a waiting time until these temples are open for conquest, but this change will allow alliances to scout the world for the best potential positioning for their cities, therefore reducing randomness and luck and providing a large area for strategical expansion.

The position and buffs of these temples will still be random to provide different scenarios on every world that has this endgame.

Portal temples

Portal temples are just Small Temples that allow players to send units to Olympus (and only Olympus) through the portal reducing the travel time no matter where it is located. This will reduce the luck effect of Olympus changing positions and increase the importance of controlling small temples.

Portal temples have no other buffs, their only power is to send units to Olympus.

Portal temples are spread out in the world following very specific random rules, this should guarantee an amount and distribution of Portal temples for several alliances to be able to conquer them, but also not enough of them to cause wars and battles for the best positioned ones.

Sending units through the portal: When sending units through the portal players will have the regular travel time from the city to the temple plus a fixed teleportation time to reach Olympus. We do not have the final number for the teleportation duration yet.

Units sent to Olympus through the portal DO NOT return through the portal, the return way will always be the long way home and the travel time is based on the distance from Olympus to the home city.

Large Temples – Update

Spawning

We decided that Large temples will spawn based on time, just like the small temples. After the small temples are unlocked, another timer will start with the date of the large temples spawn.

Buffs

To make up for the raised importance of Small temples (because of the Portals), we decided to make the Large temples able to hold multiple buffs. This should increase the rewards of owning a large temple and the efficiency of capturing Olympus by the alliances that hold one or more large temples.

General changes

Spying

There will be no spying on temples. All units in the temples are displayed for anyone to see. At all times players are able to open the temple windows and see what units are stationed there.

Movements to and from temples are only displayed to alliances holding the temple of holding a siege on a temple.

This decision was made to reduce complexity of the general gameplay and management of the temples.

Casting spells

Spells cannot be cast on temples, there is no exceptions. Spells like Lightning, Earthquake, Plague, Wedding, and any other city target spells will not be able to be casted on any type of temples.

Spells can be cast on commands heading to temples, but never directly on the temples.

Powers that affect all cities of a player or all alliance members will not take effect in the temples as well. The only powers affecting the temples will be the Temple buffs themselves.

Alliance rights

For this endgame we will have a new alliance right that provides some management of the temples. Leaders and founders will be able to grant that right to the selected alliance members.

Rights allow members to send units back to their home cities (as if a city owner), activate deactivate visibility of commands for a selected temples to either Founders and Leaders or to every alliance member, and mark/reserve temples in the world.

Feedback

Again thank you for all the feedback, we really appreciate the effort put into giving us your perspective so that we are able to make a better feature.

Cheers

As a Game Designer, I work to improve Grepolis in any way I can. I mostly listen to the community and find good ways to make players life easier and more exciting.

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12 comments on “New Endgame: Temple hunt – Update
  1. Die-Melder-Bireme says:

    Hey,

    I have a few questions before I let go of any feedback 😀

    1. portal temple

    These are extra temples now?

    So there are the small temples, the big temples and the portal temples? (+Olympe)
    I’m not getting so really smart out of the system you can explain that again 😀

    2. movements to and from temples will only show alliances holding the temple to besiege a temple.
    So the Ally who controls the temple can’t see if ut’s/atts arrive?
    Just the ally she’s conquering right now?
    3. I don’t know if the temples/lympe have a wall (very important for the system!)

    (I always go from bela to never go from revo because I don’t play the system. . . )

    • bernardgra says:

      Hello,

      1. These are part of the small temples, they will be there from the start of the world.
      2. Movements are shown to alliances holding the temple OR besieging a temple, just like a regular city would but applied for an entire alliance.
      3. We have not decided yet on the Wall for the temples/Olympus, I have a tendency to leave the them without any walls.

      Thanks for the questions,
      Cheers

      • Mim le Fay says:

        Hi Bernard,
        as you know, I asked in one of my former postings for your ideas in this concept concerning revo worlds. Actually, the more I think about it, the bigger the question marks I have thinking about it. To remember: With Revo, you have sufficient time due to the usually half-day lead time, even if you are working or e.g. shift worker. That is why this is a game that played by players who are not permanently online, for example shifter or other workers. The especially dangerous thing about Revo is that when the “red” Revo is running, the Colony ship immediately takes over the temple and you have only few possibilities to defend yourself. One of the main defense mechanisms in Revo is therefore to build the wall and put land units in the cities within the lead time. If you don’t have a wall in the temples when playing Revo and if you even have a permanent loss of troops with Olympus, you have no chance for defending. Permanently watching the city very closely is the opposite of actually needed in Revo, and therefore doesn’t necessarily attract such players.
        Also, Revo doesn’t have anything like the siege report for siege worlds, so it will be interesting, how it could be working. Therefore, I don’t think that the idea of temples in Revo Worlds is mature, and would ask you not to distort the game concept too much. In particular, it must be possible for defending alliances to influence the height of the wall – whatever the case may be.

        • bernardgra says:

          Hello Mim,

          Those are good points, we are still analyzing the best solutions to each conquering system. In my view the lead time in Olympus still performs the intended result, as players will have time to organize defenses prior to a Colony ship hitting, I do see the problem with the Wall but for planning I think it remains about the same. The curse in Olympus, in my opinion, will just force players to coordinate their defenses in a more precise manner. Players wont be able to just fill up the temple as soon as a blue revolt starts, they will need to keep an eye on when the attacks are arriving and time the defenses accordingly. As for the “live siege reports” from conquest worlds, every temple will have a live view of movements that will perform exactly that role of informing the alliance when and where the attacks are coming from.

          But with all of that said, I do understand the concern and if we feel like this endgame is not fitting to Revolt worlds in its beginning, we are able to postpone these worlds until they work in an interesting way for players.

          Thanks for the feedback,
          Cheers

  2. Mim le Fay says:

    Hi Bernard,
    May I ask you a short question from German Forum. the attack planner will work well for the new planned end game, for little and middle temples, as well as for attacks via the portal temples and for direct attacks against Olympus?

    Will the planner do working with all buffs as well?

    regards
    Mim

    • bernardgra says:

      Hello Mim,

      Good question! 🙂
      We are planning on having all the temples (small, large, and Olympus) on the Attack planner, yes. I cannot guarantee that the attacks to Olympus through the Portal temples will work on the planner unfortunately, this will demand some technical investigation and it is too early to tell, but we are aware of it and will do our best to make it happen.
      As for the buffs I also cannot say for sure, this is a bit more complicated than having the temples on the attack planner but also it needs investigation. Again, we will do our best to have them ready to go but no guarantees.

      Cheers

  3. -hell raiser- says:

    First of all, I thank you for your commitment and for sharing your ideas with us. I have a question … initially it was said that there would be no temples outside the populated map areas. Creating temples from the beginning, how do you plan to avoid this? you can’t know how many seas will populate … usually now only the central ones have players … if you create temples from the beginning, some would risk staying out of the “real playing area”.

    I would also like a clarification… the temples belong to the alliance and not to the player, but nevertheless a single player must send the colonial to conquer them. what moral would we have in a siege server, with active morale, if we attacked a temple under siege by a player with few points?

    • bernardgra says:

      Hello -hell raiser-,

      Like mentioned in the first post we will have different world sizes preset from the settings, with this we will create worlds that fit (at least very close to it) to the amount of players that are in each market. This should allow us to have a playable area (unlocked islands) where players will be able to spread by founding, but also wont be too far away that they cant be reached or bothered. With the temples spread around this playable area, I hope that part of the strategy will be to identify the oceans where the “best” temples are and try to position the alliance in that area.
      As for the morale question, there wont be any morale effect on temples.

      Thanks for the feedback,
      Cheers

      • -hell raiser- says:

        Thanks for the reply. I hope that the worlds are indeed just the right ones, otherwise we risk nosense as with domination. Battles for marginal islands with weak players and alliances who found the half-empty islands valid, boring … I am confident that you do a good job. On the walls, what do you think about putting a level equivalent to the small temples possessed? let me explain better … if I have, for example, less than 10 temples, walls to zero on all the temples in possession of my alliance. If I have 15, level 1, with 20, level 2 and so on … obviously the temples without owners will have walls at zero even if they were of an alliance and have been abandoned.
        because it would become too long and boring to destroy all the troops of all the temples if they had walls even without an alliance. we use the same principle to determine the walls of the Olympus. Without walls, or at least an adequate defense factor, it would become difficult to hold a siege over the Olympus, unless the server has already been decided by the previous battles. If the walls at 25 were too large, as you can’t earthquake or go down, you could keep level 15 as a maximum, for example.
        Obviously numbers are only indicative

        • bernardgra says:

          Hello Hell raiser,

          I like that idea of the walls, I will consider how it would work with the rest of the system, but that is an interesting take on how walls can work for temples.

          Thanks for the feedback,
          Cheers

  4. OZZZ says:

    Shrinking the map is a foolish idea.
    Smaller players need to use distance to counter the massive size of the ubber guilds. Removing tactics from a game based on tactics is a good idea how? A smaller battlefield will do exactly that.
    As it is most new players get trounced by a large guild, decide that was not fun and quit.
    But some times they are able to pitch a city farther out or restart farther out where they are not just an easy snack for said ubber guild.
    From there they can now grow, learn the game and start to fight back with other players closer to their caliber. This gives them time to get attached to the game. You would be effectively removing what little player base growth you have. Further this will not solve the problem of people not fighting. That problem is created by the top four gilds electing not to fight each other like the lazy cowards they are. Instead they turn on all of the smaller guilds to make it a contest of who can eat up the most small players instead of the epic combats they all CLAIM to desire. This will just further exacerbate 2 existing problems the game already has. New player retention and the top 4 guilds refusing to actually fight comparable opponents to win.
    Further Making any game world seem smaller is never a way to improve a game.

    This seems more like a response to counter what might happen if you let players drop wherever they want. Yet another bad idea.
    A huge issue the game has is the same old players playing with the same old people over n over again. The random drop some times helps break that up. Some times they just choose to join the alliance they are near and the player base gets a bit mixed up. Or if not at least the trial of moving adds a bit of early game excitement and leaves the question on the table just a little bit longer on who will win the server as it takes a little more time for alliances to tighten up their core. Let big guilds all drop just the way they want on day one and you just shorten the time the game is still exciting because the players have not yet figured out who will win.
    Do you guys play grepo?

    • bernardgra says:

      Hello OZZZ,

      With this new endgame and the map sizes differences we are trying to bring a new way of experiencing Grepolis, we are also considering sizes with enough room for players to expand but also battle. The main purpose of the change in the map size is not to enforce battle it is to guarantee a healthy distribution and amount of temples for different sized worlds.
      Also, the introduction of this new endgame will not remove the others, players will be able to pick the worlds with the endgame they like and also try the different ones. So adding this to the game will bring more variety, but it will not change how you play the game unless you choose to experience it.

      Thank you for your feedback,
      Cheers