Yes, but the release date according to tarans cant be the end of the campaign either, since its under 2 weeks away
One more suggestion… If you plan on keeping this “event” as is.
Players that complete all of the events and fully upgrade the artifact to level 10 should get a permanent stat for every maxed artifact they collect. +1 armor, life, attack, or magic just like when you hit certain milestones in delves you gain stats.
Players that weren’t around for the campaign can either go back and purchase the artifacts for $10 or so. Or maybe even use gems to slowly upgrade previous artifacts. I’m willing to listen to suggestions on the best way for new players to obtain the artifact so they aren’t missing a stat.
This way at least the true F2P players would see a real reward at the end of the campaign instead of all of their work being a waste of time.
3 Likes
Tarans is inaccurate I think with anything to do with 5.0
But you are of course right to question it, and I am wrong to assume what they will do makes sense 
2 Likes
My thoughs on 5.0 and the direction of the game.
(Uber long post, scroll down fast if you don’t want to read). Cons are longer than Pros but that does not mean they outweigh the pros.
5.0 Gameplay
Negatives
What is new? The main disappointment was that this was hyped to be a .0 update.
We’re going to bring back that was ignored and despised (old adventure tasks). We’re another layer of grind. We fixed the rewards so people would go for them but failed to address that they are annoying and some ask you do make suboptimal decisions with resources (ex. treasure maps & resource spending tasks). Nothing in this patch changes the way we play except higher stats and stuff to do that we would rather not do.
Compare this to the introduction of Delves, Guild events, PvP, Traits. etc.
Revamping arena and treasure maps would be a significant upgrade to the game, these are valuable game mechanics that are only obscured because of their ability to give resources for players who strongly value growth. Either of those would have been a stronger upgrade to the game than the campaign.
Positives:
More Lore. Brings more story & personality to the game which will enrich the experience for casual players. Big bonus. Veteran players too but this adds more dimension to the game past guild competitions which only cater to the top of the pack.
Temporary artifact. While I like permanent bonuses as a RPG player, this mechanism limits power creep to something controllable and allows newer players to catch up at a reasonable pace. I have heard good ideas about changing it to be permanent but the idea is interesting & manageable to stop it from being disasterous.
Direction of Gems of War
Negatives:
The game demands more time out of players without providing a challenge to the top players. ToD, World Event… these are easy for end game players, but SO TIME CONSUMING. There’s basically no challenge here, just requires hours of my day to complete. This extends to delves, bounty, delves etc. there needs to be a good way to scale up difficulty in order to save time while giving out resources and that’s not done effectively with the plenty of the newest additions to the game.
Lack of Quality of Life improvements. Similar to the point above, every is unecessarily time consuming.
Ex. Explore has clicks that are pointless, the tasks no not auto collect, I have to stop what I’m doing and claim tasks on a separate screen. Must play on Sunday if you want to compete in guild wars. Missing an easy way to change medals, specifically for guild wars.
Will choose to not talk about deeds in this post.
Positives:
New content is being added that is still interesting. Troops are still engaging, the new mythic was at least fun, great! The game is still evolving as it gets more and more dense to move around.
Community seems to be more alive than ever Maybe 5.0 will create outflows but the mass “my guild can’t recruit active members” days are gone. Yay! There will always be struggling guilds, but it seems to have been much better for those active in the forums.
5.0 Monetization
Negatives:
I specifically dislike how the game opts to go for a resource shortage to coax spending rather than goodwill. This is another edition of it. $10 isn’t a lot, but the idea is still annoying. The initial outlook is to make life harder for those who don’t pay. Not enhancing the experience for those who do pay.
I will still stand to promote cosmetics & rewarded ads because it lets players (and in the case of the ads, F2P players) have a financial vote in how they feel the game is going.
I do implore that cosmetic need to be accessible in small amounts, don’t pack costumes with resources to inflate the price, it artifically raises the barrier to tip. I also feel that there are many ways that visuals can help improve the experience of the game.
Ex. different boards, gems, backgrounds, permanent event skulls… Sunshades for troops…
Guild wars is outdated and maybe an afterthought in meetings. There needs to be something that is done with the event to make it either more engaging to more people, or removed entirely.
“We’ve grown out of the mold of guild wars” Is genuinely something we as a community can be proud of, even if it is our best option to compete without time being the biggest factor". If there isn’t a possibility that the bonus stat or a potential mythic troops could be required by guilds to maximize their chance for guild wars.
The Elite pass is fair, but with guild wars, there’s a chance it can be destructive
Positives:
The monetization is fair. That’s a major step in the right direction, I don’t get the feeling of “ouch” when the price pops up on the screen the for the pass unlike some offers.
You can buy a pass later in the campaign without penalty to your progress after purchase. This one is big, other purchases like the deathknight armor force you to make a decision up front before it starts “degrading in effective value”.
Newer players especially have another, affordable way to speed up progress in a longstanding server and there is something to entice end game players.
Deeds were not in the pass. We might be a couple stats down temporairly without Elite+ but that’s fine as long as everyone can still progress reasonably (fair prices, fair drop rates for exclusive items). Players aren’t forever down in weeks after a specific pass if they don’t purchase if this is done correctly.
12 Likes
I would not touch Guild Wars mode. Lots like it. JS
3 Likes
If this type of behavior is what caused LGoH to implode, the devs should really pay attention. Players left that game in droves.
Also, 100% agree with the rest of your post. This new “event” is another glorified resource bleed.
3 Likes
In regards to removing GW, that would cause a lot of players, and a lot of them end gamers, to quit in droves, not just not play as much, but full on quit.
GW is the single mode that keeps the most players in the game still. A lot of players like the game and hate GW, but if a single mode was removed, they would keep playing.
While there are bugs in GW that def need to be fixed, it is the only truly competitive mode in the game, and while its not for everyone, it is for a lot of players, and if you arent in a top guild competing at the top of GW, then you dont have to do it, as the rewards are minimal and offer 0 account progression.
14 Likes
The devs are on record as stating they won’t remove the extra clicks/taps from Explore. This means that they specifically want it to be more time-consuming/less user-friendly.
Note that in the previous incarnation of Explore, a revamp was done that included removing the extra clicks/taps. People LOVED that update.
Other than trying to slow players down, I have no idea why they’d remove a feature that went over so incredibly well with the community. Oh wait…that’s exactly why they removed it. They want the game to be more of a timesink.
12 Likes
It is to slow people down. With the increase in the gold you get from the higher explores, you already make more than in PvP. You remove the extra clicks, and it becomes a lot more.
But I fully agree it needs to be streamlined, it ruins player immersion and will stop them from playing as much or as often in a sitting.
4 Likes
The thing is, I don’t understand why they feel the need to keep slowing people down. Players who are having fun will play more, bring their friends to the community, be more likely to spend, and be more likely to encourage their friends to spend.
Nope. Can’t have that. Gotta push on the FOMO instead!
8 Likes
After almost 2 years since 4.0 was released this is what you present us?
Some lame ass crap event with some hidden blackmail methods of making 10-25$ out of addicts, classy move.
Maybe it is time for you to move along, maybe sell the company to someone with the proper drive?
This game could be sooo much better and sometimes we just wonder what the hell are you guys even doing.
Listen to the community and prosper, soon you will be ur own community.
27 Likes
so the pass somehow worth 5.5k diamonds ish
(not counting the time needed for the mythic and weapons to be available in soulforge)
I imagine that many diamonds would cost a lot more than $10. Probably more than $25 even.
1 Like
Who knows, perhaps they feel that the end of the game is near, and they try to cash out as much as possible before that. And that’s why there is a paywall and no new content in 5.0 update and only re-hashed one which most players disliked already years ago?
Shall we support a lazy and greedy developer? I am sure, we will! Who wouldn’t!?
7 Likes
please give us a chance to craft doomed scroll, while i kinda dislike doomed tower, i like the doomed weapons, even if doomed weapons will still be in the forge, we dont have a way to upgrade it if tower of doom event is removed …
1 Like
@awryan
The coin has two sides. And there are two points of view.
One is what you present - people that dont pay for f2p games can play because there are some people that pay.
Second one is that, players that dont pay create much larger player base than those who pay. It’s not 100% true that they dont give anything to developers → they are giving them player base, which results in better gaming experience for other players (either by being opponents in PVP, members of the same guild etc.)
If you eliminate any of the group you result in either:
- game being shut down because lack of funds
- game slowly dying with player base reducing its size → non-payers leave, then there aren’t enough people in the middle (only high end gamers with maxed stuff and newcommers with nothing), after which new players, who might see their position as: “not able to catch up the old accounts” leave, same time end gamers getting bored of fighting over and over same people… player base shrinks to the size where those who pay cannot support the game itself, which eventually leads to game being shut down.
So DEVs basicaly try to balance things out, so that:
- those who pay, wouldn’t feel they are paying for useless things
- those who dont pay, wouldn’t feel they cannot catch up payers
As a non-payer, I see this new patch as something neutral (neither hyper-optimistic nor hyper-pesimistic). Only thing that might wory me a bit, is that elite+ pass, which can give advantage in GW, even over those who would pay for elite pass. Which can result in some payers leaving the game. Guess that might be an issue with top brackets guilds rather than those below, but i might be wrong.
i’m quite happy with return of what was used to be daily tasks - personaly feel they were much more fun than AB, they created more entertaining and diverse gameplay than it is now.
6 Likes
I don’t disagree with your points. I would attribute then them to basically “free to play common sense” at this point. But the point I quotted I couldn’t agree more with.
1 Like
In GW, every skill point can make a difference, so it could be that the Elite+ Pass players will top the bracket leaderboards. While I am only in b5, I don’t always win Paragon. The war before last, I was even a Vanguard, despite having these bonus:
+21 Attack, +18 Magic, +43 Life, +37 Armor
Our Paragon last war had these stats:
+14 Attack, + 12 Magic, +29 Life, + 26 Armor
He also was a Vanguard during the war before last, yet outscored me to gain the Paragon position. So +7 Attack, +6 Magic, +14 Life and +11 Armor didn’t do me much good that time. Yes, over time it will, but not always. And yes, I am aware that B1 Guild Bonus are much higher, as well as Endgamer Kingdom Bonus. But if my Attack and Magic stats are 1.5 times as high as the guy who got Paragon over me, then I would think if I were in B1, any advantage an Elite+ Player would have, could be overcome as well.
I lost once in b6, and once in b5, while he went 30/0 and 27/3, I think. Maybe 26/4. I can’t speak for him, but my losses were due to operator error, not insufficient stat points. Allegedly.
from my observationof 2 years game play:
stat boosts give bigger difference in early game, than in late game
having +2 magic while being lvl 50 gives you a significant advantage over other players in similar levels
having +20 magic vs +22 magic, doesn’t give than much of advantage in endgame, what comes in play is team composition, experience with playing with your team, experience when fighting against enemy team and finally RNG (which in some cases decides of the victory or lose)
3 Likes
I’m curious when the update will only be released on July 14th or earlier. It would be nice to know something specific because everyone is excited.