Listen, Kafka. I appreciate what you do for the community, but my response to this thread is because I love Gems of War. And, because I love Gems of War, here is everything I have to say about the current state of the game.
Before I begin, I tried to offer solid feedback on how I feel about the game. I wanted to be positive like the thread asked for and I simply don’t agree that the positives have all disappeared entirely. If you can stomach the changes to troop cards and weapon cards without it doing damage to your health, the next challenge is knowing what to focus on and accepting that progress isn’t going to be immediate past a certain point in the game. So, basically, not giving into FOMO.
On the other hand, those screenshots of players that have spent Dragonite on 30+ dragon eggs and counting are stuck in my brain and not even paying rent.
I’ll be as positive as possible, but keep in mind that while I love aspects of gameplay, there are still negatives that must be addressed. I can’t simply say I like this or that without the contrast. Again. I love Gems of War. This post includes plenty of the positives that you’ve asked for.
Because this thread asks for positivity and only positivity, I initially avoided responding to this thread out of fear that this post could potentially cross some unseen line and I receive the ban hammer. Please understand that I’m doing my best to be respectful with everything that I’ve mentioned here.
With all of that out of the way, I can finally start.
PVP
This is the first area of the game I’ll focus on since it’s recent. I’m a competitive person so I do see some positives from the rework. We’ll get to my criticisms in a minute.
Monoliths give buffs in PVP. This helps with Blood Frenzy and I like having the buffs, especially now that the XP bug has been fixed.
Alliances are a neat concept as well. My only real criticism is resetting VP at the end of each season. This is too much work for most of the player-base to handle and it will lead to burnout.
Citadels. I’m neutral here. I don’t have much feedback to offer.
Immortals. Interesting concept but poor execution. Most players aren’t being given enough burning marks to properly enjoy what Immortal troops bring to the game. Saving up burning marks is an option if people are willing to see if they get better rewards from not spending everything all at once, but what players get for free is still not that great.
Season goals. You’re supposed to complete everything in 11 weeks. I get that, but I need to get 560k VP per season if I want all of the rewards. I’m simply not that competitive. When I lost my VP at the beginning of the season, I lost less than 500k VP, because I never passed 500k during Season 0. Even if I do get 560k VP in a season or most seasons, that’s just a “free time” flex more than anything else.
The rework in general is pretty solid. If player feedback was listened to, the game could be even better.
Troops, classes, weapons, etc
Troops. I like a lot of the troop art. Even if a troop isn’t that great, sometimes I’ll use it just because of the art or the restrictions for an area or event. The appearance changes for troop cards and weapon cards were unnecessary and some players had to leave the game over them. I was able to adapt, but it says a lot that some players didn’t even leave the game over things like one more duplicate from RNG dragon eggs. This aside, I enjoy reading the flavor text for certain troops. Humor is a huge positive for this game.
Classes. We have a lot of classes in the game. I like some of them, but it seems like Immortal troops are supposed to be a response to the Elementalist situation. Well, one class is still clearly the best one. I’d like to see the other classes get more love too. All classes should be useful even if not the best. Talent trees don’t make me feel like each class is unique either since some classes share talents. The only true unique class is Elementalist.
Weapons. Most of them are terrible. Life and Death, Essence of Evil, Wand of Stars, and Mang are some of my favorite weapons in the game.
Overall, there’s a lot of quantity and not enough quality. This is pretty standard for a live service game. Power creep is common in all of them and it’s part of how you get players paying.
Guild events
I’m not sure I like any guild event right now. I just like helping my guild and this motivates me to keep contributing what I can. All guild events are a variant of the same grind though. Only Tower of Doom stands out and I’m not the biggest fan of it. With Tower of Doom, I like that the leaderboard features the entire guild as a whole instead of just one individual. In my opinion, this would be ideal for all guild events, but I’m not going to nitpick too much in this regard.
Guild Wars. I hated Guild Wars. That said, after reading all the stories about why it helped guilds stay together and active, I understand how Guild Wars created a sense of community, a sense of community that is now gone. When reworking PVP, the devs underestimated the importance of Guild Wars in the Gems of War community. I honestly had no idea either until I read what people had to say about it.
Arena
I don’t like Arena, but it feels fair and accessible to most players. From what I’ve seen, stats and progress don’t matter here, which is definitely a bonus. Everyone is on equal footing and capable of earning all the rewards. It’s not my thing so I don’t touch the mode.
Campaigns
I actually like these. It’s fun to play with heroic gems, but some of them aren’t as useful. I’m not a fan of Lycanthropy gems, for example. To be clear here, I love lore. It’s not much but just enough to keep me interested in the next part of the campaign. The stories are often simple and nothing special, which doesn’t make them bad. It’s nice to hear about the troops themselves and get more information about who they are. I love the humor in some parts of the campaign too. Do we remember how things work in Grosh-Nak? There’s only one way to fix everything (I can’t remember the campaign for this one).
PVE
I love vault weekends. Hunting gnomes is one of my favorite parts of the month. Stocking up on vault keys is part of how I replenish resources.
Underspire. I also like Underspire. I can’t afford a full run every week, but I’m one of those weird players that would probably still do sentinel battles even with all 6 sentinels. I’m in the minority here. On a related note, the drop rate for sentinels is way too low. It’s realistically possible that players could go a full year, or even several, with no sentinel whatsoever if their RNG is that bad.
Treasure Hunt. I love Treasure Hunt. The rewards need to be better, but it’s otherwise something I can do when I need to relax and do something that isn’t too complicated or stressful.
Legends Reborn. I’d like to see the stories of Krystara without having to wait for an event like this, especially once a kingdom’s Legends Reborn event is over. These stories have charm and I don’t understand why an event was needed simply to give players the option to read them again.
Delves. I’ve lost track of how many years it has been since I started playing. Deep Delves are interesting in concept and not so nice in practice. Players can’t max out a faction and do a Deep Delve without it being forced to be Level 500. I can clear an entire Deep Delve at Level 500 without too much of an issue, but it’s not worth the cost for players that are still maxing out delves, number one. Number two, most players don’t see the random gnome as a worthwhile cost to begin with. I can count the number of delves I have left to max out on one hand. Deep delves helped a lot, because old factions started getting weekend events again and this helped me figure out which faction to max out next. The first delve I maxed out had a memorable impact. I’ll never forget all the harpy troops that spawned over and over and how great it felt when I finally won.
Explore. After so many years, I didn’t forget to craft that second Ironhawk. I believe Explore is fun, but I also feel like there’s more pressure to ignore it and focus on PVP. If I ignore the pressure, everything’s good again.
Other
The community. This is the primary reason I’m still playing. Other players helped me understand how to play the game and what to prioritize versus what to wait for until later. Years later, my guild keeps me motivated to keep playing. Why? Honestly, I just hope things get better. I’m not necessarily sure I have this mythical “hope” it’ll actually happen, but as long as the game is alive and around, it’s possible.
No energy/life system. I agree. This is a huge positive, because it means there’s no limit on how often we can play. On the opposite extreme, we’re now asked to play this game as our “job.” So, while we’re not limited on how often we can play, this is used to keep us playing.
There are other things I could talk about, but this post is long enough and I hope I wasn’t too mean.
