A Different Perspective

Gameplay Chat (PC/Mobile)
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So, I have been doing a lot of thinking (read Soul Searching) lately about GoW. I am deeply entrenched in the game, my guild, and this community. And despite these affiliations, I am finding myself struggling more and more to log in and play beyond my requisite obligations.

This has led me to reflect. And I have come across a slightly different perspective regarding the state of the game, which I would like to share with you.

GoW began as a card collecting, casual match-3 game with rpg elements. This was successful. People earned resources for the time they put in and grew their collections. Guilds added a social element but did not really alter the game structure, it was still a solo game where your pace determined your reward and your Guild was merely another source of increased resources.

Then something shifted. People correctly point at GW as that new element that shifted the game focus. AND they accurately identify that the game became LESS casual with the invention of Guild Wars. HOWEVER, and this is where my new perspective begins, I think that we as a community have been hung up on the wrong thing. The argument is NOT casual vs competitive gaming, but rather resources.

You see this game, when you strip away all of the game mechanics comes down to one thing: CARD COLLECTION. The REASON I match 3 is to earn gold, glory and souls. The gold and glory allow us to purchase keys which unlock TROOPS which we level up with souls. That is WHY I match 3. The REASON I play dungeons is to earn diamonds to craft TROOPS. And the reason I COMPETE in Guild Wars is to assist my Guild in achieving a high enough rank to… you guessed it… EARN MORE RESOURCES!

Nowhere am I motivated by competition, nowhere am I inspired to see my name on the top of the Leaderboards. And yet, the game has forced my hand, has forced my play style to shift.

WHY?

Not because I am a competitive gamer, but because I am a collector and the only feasible means for me to not merely maintain, but improve my collection is to play in a way that is against my nature.

What does all of this mean?

To me, it means, we have missed the mark here in this community. Our focus should NOT be fixing Guild Wars. They work… for ONE type of gamer. They are a wonderful incentive/motivator/resource for the competitive hard core gamer. What GoW has lost is an EQUITABLE outlet of RESOURCE GAIN for the NON-COMPETITIVE player.

SoulForge is a HUGE step in the right direction… BUT without the gem intake provided by being in a top GW team, I can no longer purchase gem bounties AND save up for the next mythic drop. (Remember this game is about Card Collection!) And if I leave my guild, then I start purging gems each month and then as a COLLECTOR I see that there is NEVER a chance to complete my collection and the draw to play is gone.

SO… DEVS…

How can you increase the resource gain to the vast majority of players? To be more transparent: If I were to leave my Guild, which I probably should at this point, I would be forfeiting a great number of resources that can ONLY be attained via GW? Those resources should be attainable elsewhere, perhaps in a smaller quantity, but in some way… imho.

Another way of phrasing this: The devs have chosen to REWARD competitive players with GW. Perhaps it is time to REWARD casual players.

(In my mind this is like the Solo Campaign in an FPS. I love solo campaigns, but despise the multiplayer modes. Which is why I am so excited about Star Wars Battlefront II and why I played BF 1 for about a week and put it away.)

GoW USED to be a solo campaign with bonus resources for being a social gamer. Now it is Battlefront 1 and I am getting very close to putting it back in its case and walking away until GoW 2…

tl;dr: As a casual gamer one USED to be able to maintain a collection and “win” in GoW, now casual gamers are doomed to “lose” as troops are being added more frequently and resource gain is being nerfed.

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You’ve taken the words right out of my mouth. Well said.

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Treasure map reward revamp would be one option.

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Eika just asked this in another thread:

I really hope that the devs would see the value in a solo mode that didn’t force people to rely on high achieving, stressful guild environments to earn enough resources to keep up a collection.

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I have been a strong proponent of this for a while now and I think you are absolutely correct. Making Treasure Maps actually relevant at END GAME would be a HUGE step in the right direction. :+1:

@Ashasekayi and @Eika- My hesitation/concern is that I don’t want to LOSE the SOCIAL element of guilds. I think that is important, but I think that having access to a Lone Wolf mode should be independent of Guild Association.

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So very accurate.

I viewed GoW as collectible tactical solitaire.

I joined a guild to be able to get enough resources to grow my collection and have fun.

I spent money, not because I had to, but to support the game I enjoyed.

It is now a RND driven grind. Where they keep reducing resources gained, because we spent money and organized to increase our ability to gain them?

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Gems of War would only have been more popular if this Lone Wolf mode was around, as many 1000s of players just quit the game asap when they see that a guild is required gathering the best resources, not everyone is interested in that guild stuff, or interacting with people.

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I agree to this. I have 4k+ maps as well sitting there wishing i could make resources out of them. But, literally I feel this 100% It’s what kept my strive into the game, is rewards and collecting the extras and collecting in general. Ever since they’ve reworked the resources, game took alot of incentive away even from me to keep really striving 100% to even finish the game. Getting alot less stuff then back a few months ago, just takes more time then ever too. I hate that those guilds that work hard together and even in LT’s barely get rewards (I think) we deserve. But even just regular tasks, the small amount of keys we get back is unbearable. The Gem decrease is a whole another story… INcrease rewards and make them great again!

Edit: Oh I’ve spent plenty of money too. Yes, like @Esoxnepa has said, because I enjoy it. Just like any other game I’d buy (console or Pc) and support. The feeling of being a VIP player has devalued like crazy. I also feel as if VIP should atleast get a little more nowadays as they’ve nerfed everything.

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An arena revamp would be another option. However, I know that arena doesn’t have a significant money making tie in. So, they could make a different mode that uses your actual traited cards but has limits by rarity or sets different battle conditions. Or, it could have a gauntlet game mechanic. The main point is that they need more modes that allow a solo player to earn viable resources at a decent rate.

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I agree. A lone wolf mode would not kill guilds though. Ultimately, you will always have people that crave social interaction. Also, a group of people after the same goal will always earn more than a single individual. Rightfully so.

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I mostly thinks most that is required is in going lone wolf mode is some form of basic tasks. They might cost a little more than the 30 / 15,6mil = 533k. Their payout might be a little less, masteries a little less etc. But still a very solid beginning of what a lone wolf mode should be like.

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I think this is the wrong perspective, and I think it distracts from the core issue. It’s not about resources, it’s about FUN.

The only change with GW, in terms of resources, was a few new cards. That’s not what’s made people unhappy. You could get those cards for free each week just by participating. Not being able to instantly Mythic them isn’t a big deal. That’s true for most cards in the game. Not getting the big Gems payouts also isn’t a big deal. People have always made progress at different rates.

The issue is that (1) GW has encouraged people to use really obnoxious teams that make the game no fun to play in (2) an environment where losses matter, and (3) the devs haven’t done anything about it.

#2 explains why people are upset. Never before did the game punish losses. It was never really frustrating to lose b/c you knew that it wasnt a big deal and you could always try again.

#1 & #3 are why people are upset and leaving. It’s bad enough to lose, but to do so in a really unfun way where you’re looped and devoured to death, and to have the dev team sit idly by for months like everything is okay, that’s where it grinds you down.

It’s the long slow decline as you’re facing the same annoying teams over and over again. That’s the problem. Asking for a “lone wolf” mode is really just saying “I think GW is awful and I want no part of it so please give me a way out.” The real answer is to fix GW by encouraging variety and nerfing the most obnoxious/OP troops.

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You are welcome to your opinion of course but for some peoples the fun comes from collecting and that requires resources.

I really dont think nerfing is the answer to every problem.

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It’s like you didn’t even read my post and stopped with the first couple of sentences as soon as you saw something objectionable. As I said, the resource formula didn’t change with GW. It’s 6 troops, which you can still collect. It didn’t slow down your progress at all.

Virtually nothing changed, in terms of resources. You can’t accuse GW of being a problem b/c of a fundamental change in resources when there was no such change. The fundamental change is that we’re now being forced to do 5 battles/day that aren’t fun b/c they’re against obnoxious teams and losses matter.

And, yes, nerfing isn’t the answer to every problem. Neither is never nerfing them, which seems to be your stance. Clearly a few troops are making everyone’s life miserable. That strikes me as a pretty good indication that they are a detriment and the easiest way to fix it is to nerf them.

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Well… Maybe i have misunderstood something and if so i apologize but i am pretty sure i am spending gold, souls, and glory on GW each week. I am also under the impression that in addition to x copies of a troop i get from GW every week i also get some gems. Please correct me if i am mistaken.

And dont forget the removal of gems from tasks…

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Gems was removed from Tasks very recently. People have been complaining about GW and the state of the meta for months prior to the changes to Tasks. Let’s not confuse the two.

The bottom line is that you can play in GW and get more free stuff than you were before at no cost, if you choose. You can literally just register the guild and never play a fight and get more free stuff than you were getting before GW existed. As I said, GW hasn’t reduced the resources you get. It’s actually increased them. So it makes no sense to claim that GW changed resource accumulation in some fundamentally negative way. It just didn’t.

What it did change is the stuff I listed in my prior post.

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Unless you are spending resources on GW each week

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@Delinquent Let me begin by explaining that I agree with you.

My OP however, is offering the possibility that despite the “UnFUN” of GW there is ALSO a missing element from the game which, hopefully, inadvertently has led to the suppression of the casual collector, who USED to be the bread and butter of GoW.

Also, regarding the troop increase, I was not referring to ONLY the 6 GW troops. The weekly release of troops has caused a flooding of the troop market without a matching flood of resources. The devs are introducing all of these troops, and yet because of the current state of the game (see your Unfun comment) nobody uses them. My question then is why bother crafting the troops in the first place?

Spend that development time on FIXING old and not crafting new that will be underutilized at best if not completely ignored.

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I can echo what you have stated perfectly @efh313. I first found this game on Xbox when I was scrolling through the Free to Play section. I was needing a break from my current game and looking for a time waster.

After playing Gems of War for a couple of hours, and getting to roughly level 25, I realized that I was going to love this game. As an avid collector and completionist, I knew that I wanted to move to Mobile before I got too far into the game. This was so that my collection would feel more permanent. Something about having it at my fingers tips instead of my console at home.

From getting all new troops, to getting those troops to mythic, to leveling and traiting them all (still working on it); this game has been so much fun for me. What keeps me going is the drive to complete my collection (well, get about as close as I can).

One problem (which you have pointed out) is the release schedule of new things. I’m to the point in the game where I save all keys and gems for new releases. The kigdoms every 3 months feel good, but the monthly mythic is what can hurt. There are barely enough gems for me to get the new mythic when it releases. And what does that mean for the old 12 mythics that I didn’t get before switching to a spend on new mythic strategy? Guess I will have to craft them all because I don’t have enough gems to open chests any other weeks.

I still very much enjoy this game, but I know as a collector that I’m going to hit a wall that I won’t be able to move eventually.

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there must be some alternative to gw and maps.
not all collectors like treasure hunting.

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