I have been playing every day since day one in November 2014 so have seen many changes over the years. Here, briefly, is my personal take on the State of the Game,
UNDERSPIRE
I believe this game is slanted towards end game players bearing in mind that the free sigils are not going to get you to the end so you really need to have some spare gems and that you do need to have a good selection of troops from the featured kingdom. Having said that, Trinkets are a great addition which can be extremely helpful.
Over time there were complaints that a) there wasn’t much to do and b) nothing for end game players. All addressed now it seems.
I really enjoy this mode.
PvP
Not a fan in the first week or so but it is settling down now and I am sure that easy/medium/hard options and maybe a ‘casual’ area where players can farm XP would be beneficial. I have been enjoying assembling teams according to kingdom or colour or troop types and get to use troops I have never used before ! Because of the original problems with Wand, Stella etc many of my teams now include ‘inhibitors’ to silence, curse etc the enemy team. There is a thread on this in Community Guides on the forum.
https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/stellarix-wand-counters/83782
I think that the “region” (lantern) battles should NOT appear in the Blood Frenzy area, as players who cannot overcome that obstacle are limited then to just one “region” battle option, with the one at Blood Frenzy log-jammed.
I enjoy the new PvP and think it gives the game more depth
BLOOD FRENZY
This area of pvp is optional. It gives players a chance to accumulate VP at a much faster rate by awarding much more VP per win than in ‘normal’ areas. Handy to bag your 6500 weekly ‘VP Goal’ quickly or if you are trying to go up the PvP leaderboard. I can win (easy) matches here without using (the free) booster sigils but it is fun to beef up the teams and run riot for a bit. I would much prefer that the booster timer runs on ‘in game’ time rather than real world time - or if you could allocate the time in chunks.
I enjoy dipping in to Blood Frenzy - it is quite fun and challenging.
JOURNEY
Hmm… well my guild (also established in 2014) enjoyed the last Journey, (quelle surprise ! ) but it turns out that The Cartographer was generating 1 more gem than he should have LOL. It made all the difference. Shame he has been “fixed” now.
Nothing more to add here
GUILD WARS
Most of my guildmates and I are not fans but we still participated and shared successful teams and have managed to stay in brackets 10-15 for many years.
It will be interesting to see what it evolves in to.