5.16: Super Ascend unlocks 17 new levels and also gives one of four permanent rewards.

5.14: Many levels now have a completion time goal that gives permanent ore production increases as a reward.

I must say, I'm a little bit salty about the loss of the ore production increase after the super-ascension.
Is it my English, or doesn't "permanent" always mean permanent?

Fizzer, maybe there is some sort of a mistake? If not, is there a chance for reconsideration, before I decide to sacrifice everything for one additional artifact slot?

Edited 11/27/2021 02:09:44

While I agree that this is another point were the wording became out-of-date by the latest update, could you imagine a better wording that Fizzer should have used with the 5.14 update? And do you say, that Fizzer can't change his mind on things?

They were permanent in the way that they persisted even after finishing those levels so after you finished this map, you will have this benefit on other levels you start. Therefore it is permanent.

You could make a similar argument for the new super-ascension rewards potentially not being permanent in case Fizzer comes up with a mega-ascension feature.

What is permanent at all? Even life ends at some point. So, if you have a life-time subscription to something, it will ultimately end (even if you personally won't mind at that point).

At some point the last atom in the universe will decay and reality as we know it will have ended as well. Permanence is more like a guideline.

Agree with Parsifal, don't call it permanent if it's not.

Parsifal has a good point, the terminology no longer works. And yes fair to say, Fizz has changed his mind on a few things.

Making some assumptions here, but I'd say:

Update 5.14: 'permanent' upgrades & the Hardened Levels & everything else in that update were a few ways to breath life into the game for those who finished EH, Ascended a bunch of time and had nothing left to do. This could be achieved even with late phase 3, not even phase 4 Adv's. At that point, these upgrades (ore and others) were really going to be 'permanent'.

Update 5.16: This update was made in response to the late phase 4 user base saying "I've finished the game, there's nothing left for me to do, AP is worthless, I have all I want, what do I do now, just quit the game?" So along with giving those players a choice for something to do, poof ... aforementioned 'permanent' upgrades are no longer permanent. This is really just a way of giving the formerly late phase 4 user base a very very long road to have things to do. And in order to do this, it's kind of necessary to level the playing field, b/c there is a wide variation between the late phase 4 players. Some like Math have every single useful Adv unlocked and the one's he hasn't is b/c he's actively opted not to b/c they're actually problematic, while those like me have all the ones I care for and not much gain for more and have invested JUST ENOUGH to be able to SAsc, and others probably just finish off Faster Digging, Better Hospitals & Increased Army Caches and then went back to the other phases. But some of us Ascended 5 times, some 10, some 40-50, so it's hard to make new maps/content that would be equally enjoyable/challenging for all of these players, so the playing field gets leveled by removing it all and starting again. It's a cheap and easy way to make "more content" out of the same content. Akin to the old adage of asking someone to dig a hole, just to fill it back up again with the dirt they just dug. Or maybe just like the old Pac Man era games, where you finish the whole game, and in order to have 'more', well it just starts back again at level 1.

It's pretty clear that there is no full roadmap in place, things are being thought up & made up & planned as the game progresses, and b/c some things are reactive to how previous updates/player feedback come into play, some things undermine what came before.

I personally think the loss of AP & Adv's is fine-ish, but losing Artifacts just doesn't feel right. To start with, some people probably paid real money for those. I don't see how you can charge for Artifacts but then take them away as part of game play. Paid artifacts aside though, the game so far set us up thinking "artifacts are the way to go" and we invested time in digging them up. But the way they are designed to require 125 Uncommons for 1 Legendary, etc, this means having 3 Legendaries, 2 Epics, 4 Rares, both of UC's, C's & P's is all waste beyond the 3 Leg. Yea, it probably took 6-9 months to dig all that, well now it's gone. Or you can choose to NOT SAsc and spend another 2-6 months getting those 3 Leg to perhaps 1 Insane + 2 Leg? Or 1 Insane + 1 Epic? It just feels like this aspect of SAsc does not respect the effort players put into digging up the artifacts, and that it also doesn't align with the previous updates the game itself has made -- which is essentially the point that Parsifal is making here.

So yea he changed his mind that the 5.14 upgrades were actually permanent, that the Hard Creek bonus was Legendary, and other stuff too. I get that it's new functionality to give late phase 4 players something to do, but the MASSIVE throwaway of artifacts just isn't right. There needs to be some kind of "Trade in" for the stuff you're throwing away but don't have enough for a higher level upgrade yet (b/c it takes months).

But if we're arguing about terminology, there's a lack of cohesion on several WZ terminology/ideology in place. The idea of "WZ" is WZC+WZI but "WZ membership" is actually only for WZC, that Levels only apply to WZC, but Achievements are a shared repository for both of them, etc.

just another thought: I still believe that the terminology has to change given the 5.16 update, but as long as you don't super-ascend, the previous permanent bonuses are still permanent. Similarly to The Legend not being legendary anymore, the descriptions are outdated now, but partially I don't understand your uproar, because Fizzer hasn't taken anything away. There were other updates where we actually lost one thing or another (the nerved Hospital Boost artifact to just name one). This time he extended the game! If you're fine with what was there before, the bonuses are still permanent; if you want to try the new feature, you have all the information beforehand to know what you are signing up to. And as I said: put yourself in his position and ask yourself how you would have described the things better given that he (probably) hadn't known back then that he would introduce such a thing as super-ascensions.

You're right Phoenix, now that I think of it, the only place it says "permanent" is in the blog post. Which is fine b/c at that time, it was permanent. The actual in-game text reads as follows:

Hardened levels have special rewards but are also more difficult than normal levels. For this level, it is recommended you have at least unlocked phase 2 advancements before attempting it.
Reward: Superpowers (already earned)

No mention of 'permanent'. Ok, so let's give it a pass on this point.

The 'uproar' is that the cost of continuing in the new features feels unfair. Yes it's announced, no one is duped into doing it and we can opt out. But it feels like the game is it odds with itself to get you to build up your AP & Artifacts slowly over time, to just then rip it all away. And it's really the artifacts that is the kicker b/c 80% of your inventory will be poof unless you invest significant time in upgrading them to compress their collective value in 2 or 3 artifacts. Can you imagine if a game like WoW or HOTS or Fortnite did something like this? Put out a new module but with a requirement that if you wanted to play, you had to throw all the stuff you've collected over the past year away?

Analogy. Let's say you are a Star Wars fan (I don't know if you are, let's hypothetically say you are), and Ep 10 comes out in December. You're invested in the series, you've watched every movie and are excited for the next release. But there's a catch, in order to get a ticket you must donate all your money and assets to charity & just before going into the theater, a thug will be on site to break your arm, and then before you will see Ep 10, you must first sit through a showing of every other SW movie. The film will never be released in any other format, no clips on YouTube, etc. So you either see it in the theater under these rules, or just settle for the stories other people tell of it. This has been announced well in advance, there are no surprises, no one forcing you to watch, you can opt in or out as you see fit.

Last point ... I was considering using coins to buy some artifacts, but changes like this make me hesitant. I know a few players who actually deposited money to get coins to buy artifacts. 1 guy bought a whole bunch of artifacts, $100 worth in order to get some he hadn't found yet and get fodder for some he wanted to level up. And now unless those are his 2 or 3 best artifacts, that money is gone. Bet this doesn't sit well with them either, when actual money is put into the game and they're now faced with a choice to throw that away or forego the new content.

Hmmmmmmmm.

The 'uproar' is that the cost of continuing in the new features feels unfair.

Well, what in life is fair, and who defines what is fair! As I said, this update only added new features (except for "The Legend"-change) and these new features come with new rules. When you signed up for WZ and (hopefully) read that the ToS prohibit the use of bots to play or enter the raffle, this was the same situation: You were faced with new rules for a new service. Sure, some might say, these terms are unfair for whatever reason, but they are the rules you agree to in order to participate. Some will like them, some don't. If the update changed anything we were dealing with already and made it worse, then all those complains would be (somewhat) justified.

Yes it's announced, no one is duped into doing it and we can opt out. But it feels like the game is it odds with itself to get you to build up your AP & Artifacts slowly over time, to just then rip it all away. And it's really the artifacts that is the kicker b/c 80% of your inventory will be poof unless you invest significant time in upgrading them to compress their collective value in 2 or 3 artifacts. Can you imagine if a game like WoW or HOTS or Fortnite did something like this? Put out a new module but with a requirement that if you wanted to play, you had to throw all the stuff you've collected over the past year away?

There is an argument to be made that the game changes significantly although it already is out of beta. This clearly has its ups (new content) but also its downs (you expect the game to function in one way while the next update turns this up-side-down). But the comparison with WoW, Fortnite, and HOTS is highly unfair. WZI is an idle game. And among them there are a lot of games where you can sacrifice everything for some production boost on your next try. That is one of the concepts that make up idle games and that can keep you playing them; and without min-maxing when to reset, most of the idle games that use this feature can't be beaten in a reasonable time because at some point you need those boosts. Usually these resets aren't bound to you effectively already having beaten the game (100k in phase 4 is more or less the ultimate end-goal for every normal player) but can be done at every stage of the game. In this version, the more you have progressed into the game, the higher the reward for your next try will be. In WZI the rewards are fixed so I get why they similarly assume some fixed requirement. (And as a side-node: If you are one of the few players who can super-ascend right now or very soon and therefore can complain about having spent all this time with the wrong goals in mind, then you are fortunate to even have gotten so far, most players can still use this new update to change their course of play before super-ascension even becomes an option.)
And last comment on this paragraph: The game never mentioned that APs and artifacts are the end-goal, that was pure interpretation by the players. Yes, I would love for Fizzer to publish more information on several topics, but you can't blame him for stirring you in the wrong direction. He never (as far as I know) said, that the game is about artifacts and APs. In contrast he even said (at several occasions) that players should focus on few artifacts. So, if we are honest to ourselves, we have to admit, that we all already knew that having few artifacts is what Fizzer wants us to use. Whether or not this is "fair" for the developer to dictate how the game is played is another question.

Last point ... I was considering using coins to buy some artifacts, but changes like this make me hesitant.

This obviously is a justified criticism. Especially in a game that more or less follows the "loot-box-scheme" were you have to spend the game's premium currency to get some random asset. Buying an artifact is exactly this. Therefore, true, having to sacrifice all your artifacts - even those bought with coins - is a lot to ask. That's the one point that will decide whether I want to super-ascend when the time has come or not. And I personally only spent some excess (raffle-)coins on a few poor artifacts in the beginning and never used actual euros/dollars for artifacts. But as I said elsewhere, I have one artifact of every type. And it took me (I think 9) months to get there. I don't care much for my APs or advancements (you can even use super-ascension as some sort of AP-reset if you are that far into the game and know that you spent APs on the wrong things, aka make wiser decisions the next time). Sure, getting back to 0AP means a lot of inconveniences. But you still have some artifacts and the new permanent rewards (whatever you choose) to make up for that. Getting back all the artifacts that you are used to have will definitely take some time. And if new updates again change the effects of artifacts and you need other artifacts to play efficiently, then this will be a pain in the butt (again).

Some closing thoughts: I'm not defending Fizzer because he as the developer is always right. I just think that with every update he did a good job presenting the new features to the community. He could have done better, but he probably had no plans back then to make the "permanent" rewards not-permanent with the next update. That was a natural evolution of the game. And I don't like to sacrifice all of my artifacts, either. This will be a tough choice. But given his previous comments on several players play-style, this update doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I was more surprised that he published an update with this new super-ascension only weeks after players discussed a very similar idea in the forum.

@Phoenix
I agree with a lot of what you said. Essentially the only thing that really troubles me about the Super Ascension is the throw away of the artifacts. There's no reason for it. Let players trade in the fodder that doesn't fit into an upgrade into some other reasonable benefit. I'd be happy to carry over the fodder as "Inactive Artifacts" which can't be equipped and could only be used as upgrade material for other artifacts. With that, I'd be fine with SAsc.

Edited 11/29/2021 19:50:42