Kafka's Curiosity: What's to love?

Feature Requests and Game feedback
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Hi all,

This is a PERSONAL discussion prompt to quell my own curiousity by asking you all directly. This is not an “official” post organised by the team.

Apologies in advance - I’m a wall of text-er and as this is just a personal prompt, I’ve not spent time condensing this down:

Here on the forum, we get a lot of feedback and the overwhelming majority of that feedback tends to skew negative - which is HELPFUL, it is often THE MOST helpful feedback we receive.

However, it can be difficult at times when there is a lot of negative feedback to understand what exactly it is that you all enjoy about the gameplay. I think it’s easy to forget sometimes that it’s been a long time if ever when you’ve as an individual mentioned why you play the game. One of my jobs is to ensure that what people like about the game also gets through to the team - this is super easy in other areas of the community, outside of the forum players aren’t shy about telling us what they love about the game: the big general one being the gameplay concepts of match 3 mixed with a battle card game and collecting.

However, here on the community forum is where we get the most detailed and helpful feedback.

So I’d like to ask you as GoW community members who are so engaged with the game that you take time out of your day to come here (outside of the game!) to tell us in detail what you think about things, if you would give us your time to tell us in your way:

What is it that you like/love about Gems of War?

The goal of this thread is to highlight why you all play Gems of War.

With this in mind, I’d like to lay out some LOOSE guidelines - please feel free to break them but please also be mindful of not derailing the topic into a discussion we’ve already had extensively in other threads, please don’t make me battle for my life to keep it on topic haha

  • Unless you literally play games for the amount of rewards you receive, reward feedback probably isn’t relevant to this thread

    • For example: It makes sense to share here that you love collecting Troop cards - please give as much detail as you’d like including if you enjoy a specific method of collecting them, but it’s not relevant to the topic if you say something like “I only play PvP to earn Gold Marks” you didn’t install the game and keep coming back every day/week/month/year because of GOLD MARKS, maybe you keep playing because of what you spend them on though - is what you’re spending them on a part of the game you love? If yes, talk about that instead, if not then it’s probably not on topic for this thread.

  • Please try to keep discussions about why you don’t like something out of this thread - unless you think it’s a small point that won’t overwhelm the rest of your post or the whole topic

    • For example: “I love team building, which is why I hate PvP because every opponent has the same team” - not really what I’m hoping for out of this thread as we have tonnes of discussions about that all over the forum HOWEVER “I love team building so my favourite game mode is ABC specifically because of XYZ” is more in line with what I’m looking for here.

  • If your only reason you play the game is because of the friends you’ve made and your Guild - please do let us know here, but also I’d love to know how long you’ve been playing the game and how long you’ve been with your guild - are you even in the same guild as your GoW friends? and what you think would bring that joy back to you for the game (focusing on the nice thing we could aim for rather than the bad thing we could eliminate - because again we have SOOO many discussions about the negatives already - I want to look at the aspirational here to get the feedback from a different angle)

Be respectful

This is not a space to tell someone how they feel is wrong. Different gamers place different levels of importance on different areas of their games. Everyone deserves to be heard - and as a reminder this is a community guideline. The way we grow and maintain a healthy forum community is by allowing others to speak and share their experience in respectful ways. I don’t know about you folks but I’d love to see us acquire more regulars here in the forum and the way we do that is by being respectful and kind to one another so that it feels like the kind of place new faces want to hangout with us discussing what we’re all passionate about, regardless of any disagreements about what’s good or bad about it - Gems of War :slight_smile:

Not sure where to start?

Here’s some more detailed prompts if you’re not even sure where to start with that big general question - try to choose your favourite part of the game, here are some examples if any of these are your favourite or give you an idea of where to start. If any of these touch on an area of the game you don’t particularly enjoy or even think about - don’t answer it, this is all about your personal likes:

  • What is your favourite game mode and why?
  • Do you enjoy collecting Cards? If this is your favourite part, which method of collection is your favourite? Crafting, Chests, earning them through event rewards - and is there a specific event that you like better for this than others etc?
  • Do you like the progression system? What about it do you like specifically? Did you like any stage of the game better than another (ie, first week/newcomer vs mid or endgame)? Would you consider yourself new, mid or endgame now and how long ago did you create a new account? What are you working on in terms of your account progress currently if you are enjoying it right now?
  • Is your favourite part your Guild? What about your Guild is it that you love the most? Is it just the social chat? Chatting about the game itself? The teamwork on the Guild events and Guild Tasks? Something else?
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Right now? My guild. Thats it.

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I’d love to know more @Sylwani if you’d like to share

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Its mostly i enjoy talking to people ive known years from this game. Been with the same guild family my entire 6 or so years. If it werent for them Id have uninstalled a while ago. Theyre the only thing keeping me playing.

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What did you enjoy about the game back when you started? :slight_smile:

That’s awesome you’ve been with the same guild for 6 years!!!

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I don’t even remember. Its hard for me to find something else positive to say right now given how unhappy I am with the state of the game…sorry

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That’s ok, thanks for joining in still :slight_smile:

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Favourite Game Mode:

Tower of Doom: This mode encourages team work and it’s fun to see how high we get as a guild.
PvP 7.3: I really enjoyed this mode a lot more because there was no hero in it.
Underspire: I love the rewards in this! I just wish I had more time to play it.
Vault Weekends: Gnome a Paloozas baby!!

What I like in general:

  • Collecting cards
  • Getting Books of Deeds
  • Getting new pets
  • Helping others out in understanding the game
  • Feeling good about my progress with just playing a shorter time every day.

Progression System:

My favourite part of the progression system would definitely be the mid game - end game stage. I remember feeling so great when I started getting my kingdoms leveled up and getting a good amount of tribute so I could actually get more mythics. What a huge difference from the beginning slog! I also couldn’t have made it through without my guild to be honest. They are the ones that showed me that there was light at the end of the tunnel!

Best part of the game - my guild :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::

My guild is really the best part of the game. I’ve been with them for 3 years now and it’s the place I go to laugh and have a positive bubble surround me. Even if I had a bad day or encounter some negative vampires (you know the ones), all I need is to hang out in the guild and I’m surrounded rainbows and sunshine. :rainbow:

We’re all hilarious, goofy and we always cheer each other up every single day. I’ve heard from so many other guild members about how much they love the guild because it brightens their day. I’ve seen shy people come out of their shell to interact more and they just love the positive vibes.

We’ve really become a family in virtual way and I’m honoured to be a part of this wonderful environment.

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I love the Vault and the rewards that we can pull from them, but I feel that it can be a more rewarding experience, pardon the expression. For instance, Cedric should be removed from the droptable once it’s ascended to Mythic and we have at least four copies, like the Guild Guardians. Also I think the Daemon Gnome in the Epic Vault should be replaced with a Dragonite Gnome, Cursed Gnome, take your pick, since Chaos Shards can be easily farmed through Delves and Faction Assaults.

I loved the old Dungeon that didn’t punish us for choosing a trap door and was simple and to the point. What’s the point of the Dungeon since one mistake will end with us empty-handed as far as Dragonite is concerned?

Don’t get me wrong I want to love this game, but is difficult to do so when the devs refuse to listen to their remaining playerbase.

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Glad to see the more “business casual” lion here on the forums.:lion:

I will admit that there are MOUNTAINS of reasons of why I enjoy playing the game, but I will try to keep it as concise and informative as possible.

• Helping out my brothers and sisters in my family is definitely #1. I’m normally a sponge for information, so my friends have gotten used to asking me about current and future events. There are times when I get confused or overwhelmed with too little or too much information, but it is a process that I will have to continue to deal with as long as I play this game. With nearly 1,500 troops and 600 weapons, it can be hard to theory-craft in a restricted format…

• We have seasoned veterans who are still learning new things, and I enjoy talking over team compositions and strategies with them to get through harder content. (Like this past journey event, I created a safe, but effective undead team that could defeat evel 400+ opponents).

• There are also people in our family who ask for my advice on things like kingdom upgrading, so I help them make sure they use precious resources like deed books wisely. (For team score and overall stat usefulness, it’s better to prioritize magic>attack>life>armor, but a higher chance of hourly tribute is also important).

All these things aside, our guild and many others have missed the camaraderie and sense of accomplishment that has been lost ever since guild wars. I know this is a personal opinion, but I don’t get the same sense of accomplishment from playing pvp all the time. Because it’s just that–whoever plays the most, wins.

:sparkles:Please bring back guild wars and don’t ruin it with monetization. Just clean, fair battles that don’t have any of this pvp nonsense.:sparkles:

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I find it fun when a team has a synergy or a flow to it. Which is what I enjoy most about the open restriction modes – and also what can make some of the forced restriction teams difficult to enjoy, at times. I would love for more of them to feel intentional, purposeful, and like there’s some real thought behind them, because those are the times I find myself actually enjoying playing the weekly or weekend event.

I enjoy when there’s more than one way to find that team flow. People have different playstyles and I enjoy the events where I see a bunch of different – very viable – team recommendations in our guild family Discord. It’s fun to see that creativity at work and then figure out what works best for you and your own playstyle. It’s not as much fun when there’s only one truly viable team composition. It’s not fun when you just have to make the best of a bad situation and just do your best to get through it. Losing isn’t fun, especially when your attempts are limited (e.g. sigils). Getting a Valraven is fun. Losing one because it flew away isn’t fun.

I’m a bit of an outlier in that I absolutely love Treasure Hunt (TH). I would love to feel like my time spent in that mode was more productive than it currently is, but I enjoy it so much on its own that I’ll do it anyway, even if it is a “waste of time” as so many others have described it. I’d really love to be able to feel like I could spend more time in that mode without feeling so pressed for time because of the workload. What I love about TH is that it’s me versus me. It’s about beating my own personal best. How high can I get that number of moves? How many safes can I make? I love that I can set up my own move for the next move without worrying about “setting up” my opponent. I’m not the world’s most competitive person, clearly. I wish there were a way to take my love of TH and use it to benefit my guild in some way.

Which leads into: I love the cooperative aspect of the Guild events. I like the fact that everyone works together to complete a goal. I like the events where the guild competes together for the leaderboard and wish there were more of that. Individual glory is nice, but - it’s just not why I’m here. It would be a lot more engaging if there were both an individual AND a guild leaderboard for all weekly guild events. Like a lot of other people, the guild I’m in is the reason I’m still here. Seeing our guild name on the leaderboard is motivating and it is fun.

I enjoy the progress toward leveling up my kingdoms. I’m bummed that it starts to get so slow/difficult toward the end. And I don’t totally understand why level 30 is still the cutoff. Seeing kingdoms progress is rewarding, even if it is just pixels in a game.

I enjoy the variety of the various tasks/modes. Which is why the events that are very long/tedious like Journey are such a drag. I don’t want to spend 90% of my game time doing one thing over and over again. I enjoy the ability to bounce around - so the longest events (Journey/Bounty) just become monotonous and boring. I’ve complained about the new PVP requirements so this may be surprising, but I actually really like the variety of doing some PVP. I just don’t want to do a metric ton of it every single day. I don’t want to have to do a metric ton of anything every single day.

Sorry, Kafka, I tried my best to be as positive as possible, but it was a bit impossible to explain fully without the contrast. Also, I’ve been tough lately in my criticism - but person to person, I have so much respect for you. I genuinely think that you’re the other part of the reason I’m still here, in addition to my guild family. It’s clear that you have a genuine interest in improving things, even when I disagree with you about how to get there. Your asking questions like this is what gives me hope that things might improve. I do believe you care about the answers. I really hope you’re able to effect some change.

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Yeah, the amount of rewards is relevant if the gameplay loop revolves around those rewards.

The ONLY thing I like about Gems of War is IF they release a fun troop, which if we’re lucky is maybe 1-2 times every 3-5 months, then I can try fun things.

I can’t name a single glory troop from these last 10 weeks of this current campaign. There was absolutely nothing to note.

As I’m growing older, the Gems of War goalposts keep moving so far back, its getting ridiculously long. We’re talking about multiple things that take multiple years.

I no longer enjoy making account progress in the game: traitstones and medaling troops was about as far it went. Things like Shiny Keys? No thanks. Deeds was as far I’d stomach; they then released Deed Books that take it way too far.

I don’t enjoy troop collecting: see dragonnite Dragons, Underspire Sentinels, P2W Immortals.

At some point Gems of War is its own worst enemy. Instead of a polished game that let’s players enjoy among various modes at their pace and choice, we’re aggressively pushed to spend money in a buggy mess of a game playing the modes the Devs wants us to play: this time its PvP.

There’s a lot of little things I wish were handled differently. Like… Warbands. I was told rotating things is good for a game. How many times did Warbands rotate? like… 1 time in 8 months?

So… what’s something I like about Gems of War that doesn’t affect me personally? I like that Vault Events exist so newer players can catch up.

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For my part, things I like:

Variety of game modes: lots of variety in the game; from a simple core mechanic (deck-builder + match-3) have sprung a lot of variations. There’s a lot of clever design in making these feel different while still remaining true to the game’s (admittedly fairly loose) “adventuring” theme.

Team-building: It’s very satisfying when an idea for a team clicks together nicely. I’m not particularly fond of the meta teams as they rather take away some of that process of challenge, thought, satisfaction in favor of “use this team and win.” Troop restrictions do often work here to provide a little extra challenge.

Little touches of wit and whimsy: I rather like the troop flavor texts and battle taunts; I’m a bit of a sucker for puns and dad jokes.

Dip-in/dip-out: I like that I can drop in for a few quick battles here and there during the day – coffee breaks at work etc; it’s very bite-size friendly, you’re usually not committing yourself for long.

PC/mobile cross-play: So handy; Steam is my home base but it’s so nice to have the same game, and the same player account, in my pocket too.

Guild: I inherited the GM role in my casual guild, and for me it’s a mixture (1) loose camaraderie and pulling together to do our best in guild events and (2) a feeling of giving a little back by helping to bring up new players.

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For myself, I enjoy the underspire most. I like that it focuses on actually exploring a dungeon that gets progressively harder, rather than simply selecting a battle from a menu. It feels, to me, more like a game than any other mode. I’d love to see this concept expanded.

For any kind of constructive criticism, I wish the game focused more on maps than menus. Ideally, I’d love to see a picture/map of the city when you click on the kingdom. Have buildings in the town that you click on to activate different game modes. Perhaps the keep/town hall would allow us to upgrade the town, while a barracks could allow summoning of random kingdom specific troops, and the city gate activates explore (which would be a map like the new PVP, where you see the kingdom shield in the center and random battles around it. Have the battles refill as you go, getting harder with better rewards as they fill in newly emptied spots. Explore ends when you click on the kingdom shield to return to the city.) I’d also like to see certain extra modes get positions on the world map, such as treasure hunt, arena, and soulforge. And, I’d add a new location that is simply a marketplace, being a standard exchange location for all types of currency. Allow players to exchange a currency they have too much of for another they have trouble getting ahold of. Maybe alter the exchange rates between certain currencies every week to keep things fresh. But it would have to include EVERYTHING, so that currencies you can only get in a single game mode aren’t preventing players from advancing on an even playing field.

Anyway, just my two cents…

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I am enjoying the new PvP and UNDERSPIRE the most.

I have played this game every day since 2014 so Delves are all maxed, as are classes etc so the new PvP has reinvigorated the game for me and encouraged me to put together scores of unique teams to suit the required region parameters of colour, kingdom and troop type.

Often I have dusted off and enjoyed using troops I have never used previously. Quite the departure from the meta snoozefest of the old pvp where one team fit all and facing the same old same old.

The special gems give the matches a zing (except the mana potions which slow the matches down way too much)

I like the Blood Frenzy option giving me bigger rewards.

I like dropping in to PvP land most days and collecting some easy gold marks. It’s surprising how they stack up.

I like that there are Talismans for players who need boosters and one that doubles VP which I find very handy on Mondays.

I like that the Season Pass is divided in to 2k chunks which sets an easy next goal.

I like the Immortals, the fact you can actually own them all at the outset (I’m a card completionist !) and then level them over time.
Some of the Immortals will no doubt be a challenge to face when they grow up but there will be a way to beat them. There alway is.

UNDERSPIRE

I enjoy the challenge of constructing a kingdom specific team each week and often having to use troops that I have literally never used before.

I like that there are a couple of rules that can guide me to identify where the Boss and the Keystone might be.

I like the option to double the Boss rewards, and that they are valuable in the main.

I like the concept of trinkets which are very helpful at the final stages where enemy levels have progressed to 250+

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I enjoyed when Sirrian and Nimhain were directly involved with the community.

Treasure Hunt, but the rewards need to be updated to match the latest useful rewards.

Match3 with some strategy in gem selection, board manipulation and troop line-up. (Now it’s cast one thing and the board is cleared, the entire line-up is mana’d up and it loops until the opponent is dead. Now it’s more of a grind/efficiency game).

I enjoyed the completionist aspect for f2p, but that’s no longer possible.

I enjoyed being f2p and keeping up, and only spending when I felt like supporting the game.

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I enjoy the game because I’ve met some amazing people here, but sadly that’s the only positive I can say at the minute. And that’s not taking away from all the hard work you and your team have put into the game. But you don’t listen to what people are asking for, at the end of the day it’s become about how much money you can make from the game. I have spent a lot of time and money on the game, and it’s becoming harder and harder to force myself to do that anymore. All I’m saying is that you forgot to stop and listen to what people want.

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I used to love the gane but now its becoming a chore to put the hours in. I enjoy the grind and farming gold to do lots of legendary tasks. I used to like farming medals to gold elite troops ( on about 1100 or so i believe ) but since you have made made sentinels an absolute joke to get i find myself wondering whats the point?

If you paid any attention to player feedback devs would have seen the rng elements are annoying and pushing us away but you bring out even more of it. It makes no sense, sadly i believe all this will lead to the games downfall. I hope not because I’ve met lots of great people over the years and would be sad to see it go. Hopefully you turn it around before its too late

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What I loved about Gems of War no longer exists. Why I play Gems of War? Because of time, money, and people I’ve invested into. At it’s core Gems of War is still a fun game. But there’s so much negative fluff on it that a staff member of the development team starts two separate threads asking for feedback about Gems of War. And then the first thread gets so much negative feedback. She pivots and tries to get positive feedback instead solely. Hope is why I continue to play Gems of War. Hope that fundamental change is made in the world that makes micro transactions actually be regulated. I started playing Gems of War because the focus was on fun and allowed players to choose to help keep the lights on. Now not a single change can be made in the hopes of fun without tying a micro transaction to it. Because Gems of War is needed to keep the publishers lights on. My hope is the focus eventually shifts to fun again. And until then, if it happens at all, I continue to play to help support others enjoyment of the game. I am the captain of the ship that a small group of us have carved out of it. Therefore I will go down with that ship. Or… hopefully…“up” with that ship for at least another 7.5 years.

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I have always loved that GoW is a progressive game. Meaning the more you play, the stronger you get and the easier some things become. This is unlike many games with a match mechanic, that tend to be set up to get harder and harder.

The way account progression flows (not sure how else to say it heh) has felt good to me too. Other than books, nothing feels insurmountable? And even that, feels like it is supposed to take forever. Because something has to.

My favorite game modes are the guild events, generally, except for journey. :zipper_mouth_face: :zipper_mouth_face: :zipper_mouth_face: I think it is because I like the co-operative goals. I’m personally more motivated when someone needs my help, versus when I am just doing something for myself. If that makes sense.

I love the sheer volume of team building possibilities. I wish I had more time to experiment!

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