When are we going to get Darkstone as the weekly kingdom? The last time we had it was 14 February 2022, it’s been 434 days since (as I’m writing this). Are we going to beat the Pridelands 504 days record? Can we get a Darkstone week sooner than later, @Bramble @Kafka , pretty please? Can you make it a point to schedule weekly kingdoms so that we don’t reach 500 days between any given kingdoms? Please!
Alpaca
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Looks like there might be a Darkstone week early September. Usual disclaimers in regards to data mining apply.
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I didn’t want to mention that, for obvious reasons. If nothing changes in the schedule, we will get a time span of 567 days. 81 weeks. We have 37 kingdoms now, one would think we should be getting them roughly evenly in the schedule, to avoid intervals of 500+ days.
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My guess is that, as per the skill-point distribution, magic-based kingdoms will feature less frequently than attack-based kingdoms which, in turn, will feature less frequently than armor- and life-based kingdoms.
I have nothing to back that up, just a hunch.
You can argue that a simple rotation of kingdoms would maintain that ratio but, in my opinion, the way the game plays now, more magic and attack at this point will make the game laughably easy.
I think that hunch is on point. Always seems to have been that way. No predictable rotation. With a few kingdoms getting closer to having what’s needed for PL 30, i expect to see the other magic and attack kingdoms see some long stretches. Darkstone, at one point, was ahead of everything else.
Both of you are providing explanations that are fine for an end gamer, who has everything and can worry about power level 30. Whether they get kingdom X or kingdom Y and not kingdom Z on any week doesn’t really matter. But imagine a player who started playing last year just after the Darkstone week - how long do they have to wait for that kingdom’s week to craft it’s weapons? Is 81 weeks fair, really? Was 72 weeks between appearances of Rope Dart also fair? Everyone and their brother complained about Pridelands & Rope Dart, but Darkstone is magic, so it can be ignored for that many weeks? All fine, nothing to see, move along, then? This is not fine, this is not fair.
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I don’t deny that it’s unfair, just giving my opinion on the apparent oversight.
There’s plenty of unfair in the game right now. See Gem Dragons and Vault troops for other good examples.
The game has always been extremely harsh on latecomers. Trying to get a mythic, when you have not been around on introduction week? Aiming to get enough underworld shards?
How about something as basic as blue rarity troops? How many glory chests, do you think, will you have to dig through to max those out?
New players do not matter for the long term in the eyes of development. They get ripped of during the first few weeks, then are expected to have left.
The main focus are and have always been the endgame whales, who leap onto every bit of new content.
That’s why the game will one day have a hundred kingdoms, still running in weekly circulation, several thousand troops, of course including hundreds Cedric-exclusives, and kingdom level 40 (500 books and a cash-exclusive kingdom weapon required).
The fellow above me complains about gem dragons? Those are the last thing, I got a problem with. Once there is a new one every six month, then I will hate them.
The game keeps getting worse with every year, not primarily because new concepts are awful (though they often are, and I still miss the pre-17 graphics), but because it keeps growing. And growing. And growing.
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I have to say this community is the only one ive ever seen that hates additional content and pushes for pay to win mechanics.
How do you remove the kingdom rotation system and how do you determine what weapons are in the forge each week?
Wait why does it need to refresh every week if theres no rotation system?
So put all weapons in the forge all the time?
How would that work for mythic troops?
How would that apply to new weapon releases?
Just add everything for purchase to the store. New players could buy anything they want, old players would stop complaining about missing a kingdom 2 years ago.
Can you provide some examples of this?
I don’t think players here hate additional content as a concept, but are free to express an opinion when that content it is poorly designed from their perspective.
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It’s somewhat more complicated than that. What the community usually hates is additional content that is “mandatory” to play. Either because it is time gated, like the kingdom pass, miss out on some daily battlecrashers (which can be a punishing grind due to the intentional randomness involved) and the final reward gets permanently locked away behind a paywall. Or because it is relevant for your guild, with some weeks somehow getting overloaded with a Tower of Doom, Guild Wars and Invasion weekend on top.
What the community has been asking for is ways to reduce the “mandatory” grind, even through payments. Like cutting the number of battlecrashers in half and making each count twice when paying for the kingdom pass. Guess what, radio silence.
I somehow doubt new players would find the pricing policy compatible. Weapons are currently $5 a piece, legendary troops $50, and that doesn’t yet include a price hike for free selection. And there’s zero chance for the price tag to get lowered, because it has already been stated in the past that “protecting the investment of those that spent money” has top priority. While some people may have no issue with spending a few $10k on a game, this is unlikely to work out for most. Even whales will leave once they realize there’s nobody else left.
That’s a pretty good question. I believe some “catch up” mechanic is long overdue, because it isn’t just old players that need to wait several years for weapons (among others), it’s also new players. As a new player I’d really, really avoid touching a game even with a ten foot pole that keeps answering my question “when can I have that essential thingy?” with “dunno, wait for a couple of years”.
I don’t have any good answer what that “catch up” mechanic could look like. I won’t even bother investing time into theorizing about one. It’s a wasted effort, those in charge of this game have forgotten years ago that this game has a community, they wouldn’t want to get reminded by actually getting confronted with “ideas for improvements”.
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This voice is mine, usually. And I stated the reasons for it above.
The game is both crammed up beyond reason and void at the same time.
New stuff is added permanently, but with no thought or purpose to it. We got hundreds of weapons. Hundreds of pets. Soon we will crack the mark of thousand troops.
All while still mostly using the same collecting mechanics, that were once put in place to deal with barely a tenth of this. And to what goal? Why do we still need our weekly kingdom troop, our monthly mythic and legendary?
Goalposts are being pushed further and further, and the road gets less charming the further we go.
I hate “more content”, because I know, that the same company, that is vomiting out this stream, once a long, long time ago knew how to do better. How to create a game, that is finished. A beginning, a middle part, an end.
“Free to play, pay to skip” has lost the knowledge on how to do this.
If I want to have actual fun, I still prefer the original Puzzle Quest.
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I restarted about 2 years ago after an update made me think I lost everything, when I was thinking in stop playing before Hellcrag, the only troops I remember missing were 2 Dooms and things from kingdom passes and campaign so it depends of how much you play if you’re going to catch up or not.
GAPs are a pretty good catch-up mechanism for new-ish players, after they understand what it is for and how to play them effectively (and it takes some players a while to grasp it and take advantage of it). This is a great way to stock up on resources to craft the weapons and mythics needed. So, we have HALF of the problem solved - there is a way to accelerate the gathering of resources: diamonds, gems, souls, glory, etc. This part is not bad at all. But now we need a way to be able to spend those resources on the things that are needed to level up.
I’ve got an alt account that started in early April 2022 and now I need another weapon to gain a power level and I can’t get it without a Darkstone week happening (or a new weapon released for that kingdom before Darkstone gets its weekly kingdom). I’ve got the diamonds, I’ve got the jewels, I’ve got all that I need to craft that one weapon (or two, or three, or however many is needed for power levels compared to where I am in the game). But I can’t, for another 4 and a half months (assuming no changes to scheduling), because “roughly even” seems to be a too difficult concept for the people who work on scheduling for GoW.
There already was a conversation about increasing the number of mythics available per week from 4 to a higher number. This is a step in the right direction. But craftable mythics are on a set rotation - so they will all appear, and then a new rotation will start. Weapons aren’t granted that luxury, we need to wait for the kingdom of the week. And I really honestly don’t care if it’s a magic kingdom or a life kingdom - I need that one weapon to level up. I can understand waiting some. But there’s waiting for something that will happen within a set time horizon (X mythics / 4 per week = Y weeks in one rotation, the rotations are getting too long too, we can no longer fit 3 in one year, but at least the rotation is there) and there’s waiting for “maybe the devs in all their grace and glory will allow us to have that kingdom’s week one day in the future”. 567 days. 81 weeks.
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I feel like when they add something new and have to skip a kingdoms week or an event they dont pick up where they left off they just skip it. So stupid. Just pick up where you left off its not that hard devs
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thanks for pointing it out. I am one of the end gamers who have been playing this game since release. Darkstone will be my second magic kingdom that will hit level 20 once I get 8 more purple books. Once we get a kingdom to kp 26+, we start getting useless offers, like 1 event key. If we don’t have enough pets or weapons to advance, we start getting useless ingots or pet food offers. I intentionally got Carmella to level 19 instead of maxing her out, because of this. I don’t have that 14th weapon yet, so I plan to keep darkstone at kp 26 until I get that last weapon. The same applies to other kingdom that don’t have 4 pets maxed to 20. I used to do arena 3x per day every day for years just for the offers, which is why I had so many deeds, but now it isn’t worth it since I get the useless event key offer once or twice per day. This conversation about rotating kingdoms was discussed over 5 years ago, so nothing new here. And I recalled players having to wait 6 months to 1 year back then just to get a specific weapon as well.
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A tiny update of the situation: the spoilers now say that the Darkstone week will happen one week later than scheduled until now. So… 82 weeks, 574 days. Really? 
Blockquote This conversation about rotating kingdoms was discussed over 5 years ago, so nothing new here. And I recalled players having to wait 6 months to 1 year back then just to get a specific weapon as well.
Well, I wasn’t here 5 years ago. Nothing will change if we don’t speak up. If we do, there’s no guarantee things will change the way we want. But at least the issue is out there. But… now I regret creating this topic, instead of shortening the interval - it got even longer… 
The usual disclaimer about third-party sites, blah, blah, blah. 451 days as of today. Sad, sad Alpaca here…
Nothing changes even when we speak up lol
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I think they need multiple kingdoms available per week instead of just one. One would still be the main focus but you’d be able to craft weapons from other kingdoms.
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Darkstone has disappeared from schedule. Omfg how long will it take for this kingdom to appear?
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