Stay of Execution

Feature Requests and Game feedback
21

I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to run the numbers. I guess – for me, at least – the issue isn’t that it’s three events running concurrently; it’s that there are three events running concurrently, and one of them is Guild Wars.

If we had ToD and Invasions running as week-long events, along with, say, a bounty or a weekend faction event (i.e., a new faction), I could probably manage that along with the weekly faction and class events and a campaign. But GW matches take me between 20 and 30 minutes each, if each opponent fields a different team. I could run five whole delves or five complete pet rescues in the time it takes me to do a day of GW. Because it’s never one battle; it’s two or three practice battles; it’s discussing teams and tactics with guildmates; if you lack one of the opponent’s troops, it’s requesting that someone else assemble that team as a defence that you can try things on.

And then add to that the pressure of extracting the maximum forge scrolls out of ToD, because you’ll not have another shot at them for sixty weeks (and then doing your 200+ floors or letting all those sigils rot). The whole thing is a death march.

8 Likes
22

See, this is exactly the issue.

For us (and by that I mean anyone not in the top GW brackets, which is the majority of players), GW might take 10 minutes a day to just roll through. So for us, it’s just like having 2 events that week.

However, that’s not the case for others who basically live for GW. Just remember, unless you’re aiming for the leaderboards, you can just let the extra sigils rot since you’re not getting any more forge scrolls after the 25th floor other than exchanging gems for scrolls.

We’re pretty much stuck with the 10 weeks of kingdom events during campaign, but let’s brainstorm some options:

  • Option 1: Nothing is changes.
    • This means the next ToD + GW week will be in 44 weeks once the 11-week and 4-week cycles align.
  • Option 2: ToD joins the ranks of weekend events.
    • If no other event is removed, we’ll now experience a 7-week cycle, but we’ll be limited to 3 days of climbing the tower. If all shop rewards remain the same but the cost drops to weekend values, this might be a better deal since we’ll get ToD events more often than we’re getting now and forge scrolls could be purchased at a lower price. Even if tier 7, which costs 200 gems for weekend events) is reduced to 1 forge scroll instead of 3, the overall cost per forge scroll will be reduced (unless you buy a TON of tier 7s).
    • Drawback is that a lot of people enjoy this event and cramming it into a weekend reduces scouting and planning time.
  • Option 3: Introduce and extra week break from campaign, transforming it into a 12-week cycle.
    • One off-week would be for ToD and the other would be GW without any other event running (other than whatever weekend event they opt for)
    • GW would happen twice during campaign (so there’s still a chance of 3-event weeks) and ToD would now happen every 12 weeks instead of every 11.
  • Option 4: GW and ToD events become part of the lore of campaigns.
    • Every 4 weeks, the campaign kingdom event is “replaced” by GW, followed by some lore.
    • ToD would either stay during break weeks or also replace another event and become part of the campaign lore for that week.
    • This one is the least likely to happen since it would impact the lore
  • Option 5: Forge scrolls become available elsewhere
    • This would remove the pressure of spending an absurd amount of gems on a specific week, and the FOMO of not spending your now absurd number of sigils.
    • While this would solve the pressure of the scrolls, it would not solve the issue of having 3 events in one week, nor would it solve the issue of having ToD and GW in the same week.
  • Option 6: Change GW to 11 weeks and ToD to a 4-week schedule
    • (Un)popular but would absolutely resolve the issue of having any other event coincide with GW while also preventing the campaign buffs from “unfairly” affecting anyone who opts not to do the campaign or decides to buy the elite+ pass.

The biggest issue I can see is that GW happens every 4 weeks while campaigns run for 10 weeks with a 1-week break. Options 3, 4 and 6 would “fix” the issue of having multiple events during GW and ToD weeks.

If anyone can think of another solution, other than scrapping 10 consecutive weeks of kingdom events (which I actually enjoy), feel free to add to the list. We could even make a poll of it if there’s enough interest.

1 Like
23

@JammieJams your post makes me jealous that GW works for you. :joy:

My guild is currently #1 in our bracket. It takes ten minutes tops to do all fights. I am saying ten to be kind. I actually timed it yesterday and it was five. I don’t bother switching teams or doing practice runs for each fight because why, they’re too easy.

This week two guilds we fought were dead (they scored zero points), and two others were one person low level guilds. Out of six fights, only two were serious, but still easy enough for us to rush through and get first place.

It has been like this for over a year. GW is a joke to anyone but the top brackets, and climbing there is a joke.

I feel for the top GW guilds. Really, I do. But, they are the minority.

I like having other events with GW. When GW used to be on its own, it was a wasted week. I play primarily for events, not explore of pvp, so I am definitely glad events I can actually spend time in now weekly events.

Granted, I think the real solution here is to fix GW, but until that happens, I will keep saying GW is a faceroll event in how fast it is.

I also still think that if people cannot keep up with the number of events, they should drop to a more casual guild. Plenty of people love the high number of events. Although I am not a casual player, I run a casual guild so I only force the main week long event. But, personally, I do all events and still have time left over.

There is no shame in being in a more casual guild. Join a guild that lets you (general you, not any specific you) play however much you want. You do not have to do everything.

1 Like
24

Noooooo. Please no GW week with no other concurrent event. :no_good_woman: I couldn’t like your post because of this. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

25

There was some indication some time back that once all ToD weapons were done, it would revert to a weekend schedule following on. Like Raid and Invasion.

Tbh - Invasions or Raids - no weapons Tier 2. World Event - Tier minus 10,000 if possible but 2 usually.

However if I can use souls in a team, I will do more.

Guild Wars won’t have so much of a problem with a weekend ToD probably; you don’t need to mess with medals much for a start. It’s the turgid world event and medal issues that’s something I try and avoid where possible.

If ToD comes round on weekend rota, it may speed up the scroll issues for newer players for a start.

26

The devs seems to believe that flooding the game with events, which are barely distinguished enough in some cases, is a good thing since it gives the players options for what they want to do. That’s not entirely wrong, but there is a pernicious little detail they must consider:

  • Top guilds can only exist, or remain at the top, if all options are pursued at max efficiency.

If they are aware of this and are still pushing for a “Make it or break it!” state of game, then they are purposedly trying to end the top guilds and get the veteran players out of the game by sheer burnout.

6 Likes
27

Coming soon: Event chains!

Rescue the Pet and it will grant you an Arena ticket. Win those battles and face a showdown against the Raid Boss (using your Arena team). Beat the Boss only to find that you must now repel the Invasion, and the final tower you face is a Tower of Doom! Atop the Tower you must face a level 500 Faction Assault - you’ve still got all four troops on your Arena team, right? Well, I hope they were all from the right faction, because that’s the only way to unlock the final Treasure Hunt. Now you’re a mere 250 moves away from the grand prize, a special shiny card border that gets applied to a random troop or weapon (note that already-shiny troops/weapons are not removed from the pool, as shininess has nine levels to obtain).

One free attempt per day, 100 gems to continue each time.

GACHA!

13 Likes
28

Don’t give them ideas!!!

29

Lmao @XLS78. I am now imagining shiny versions of troops like pokemon…

30

This campaign intermission is the answer, but I disagree with needing GW and ToD necessarily needing to be kept separate from each other and everything else. A week long ToD and a week long GW at the same time would probably be fine for most if there was not a 3rd weekend event to worry about too. We also know that a week long World event along with GW and a weekend event is every bit as much of a problem, if not more.

Mostly I think we need more ToD events than once every 11 weeks. Once every 6 weeks with one inserted in the middle of the campaign would be an improvement. It would also give everyone a break from the grind of the repetitive feeling World events week after week for 10 weeks in a row. Then it’s just a matter of what gets paired with ToD those weeks, maybe new factions or bounty would be a good idea to be on a 6 week interval with ToD? IDK…

Other than that, when GW is running then no 3rd weekend event should occur. GW is the second thing for everyone to do on those weekends, so no third thing is needed, that seems pretty simple to me.

3 Likes
31

Yup, fair enough. When I started playing, I made one of those one-person guilds so the game would shut up about joining a guild (it was slumber-party themed, hence my name), and, once I dismantled the blanket-fort and joined an actual guild, I definitely encountered the dead and dysfunctional guilds endemic to mobile games that made me not want to bother from the outset. But I don’t have a real good sense of what proportion of all players are in your situation versus mine, and what that means for the economics of GoW. The top two guilds in our group take GW seriously, so this week has probably been pretty rough for a chunk of players in the top eight to ten brackets? I’m curious to know – I could be off-base, here.

My partner plays in the bottom guild of our group, where the requirements are absolutely the minimum, and she still commented on the excessive number of events. The difference is that she plays a handful of games, says “cool, I’m ninth in the guild for invasions!” and then goes back to her book.

If this is the sort of player that the game is looking to cater to, then I retract my previous rant and humbly ask that 505 introduce the ability to discard pets, because she’s super affronted any time she opens the pets tab and sees Compact Cookie. Please end rescue remorse!

3 Likes
32

For reference, @Snooj and I are in bracket 226, and that’s after a year of being in first pretty much every bracket. When I joined earlier this year, I think we were around bracket 300. I don’t know if this is an issue in the top 100 brackets, but even then there are over 1200 guilds between us and the top 100. Of the ones we’ve faced, which is around 800 guilds since I joined, at least half of them have always scored 0 or been 1-5 person guilds. If this trend continues, as it has, then there’s another 600 dead or dying guilds ahead of the 1200 between us and top 100. And this assumes that there are no dead guilds in the top 100 brackets, which I know from other posts is not the case.

2 Likes
33

Well folks if they run a bunch of time consuming events at the same time it will keep you out of explore and PVP where you can earn gold for tasks. That’s where Shrines come in :joy:. These people are not stupid. The issue is 100k gold gets you absolutely no where in this game since the invention of Epic tasks. Shrines may work on some folks but not this guy. Nope!

1 Like
34

I don’t think it’s super helpful to suggest people just throw in the towel and change how they play the game when most people actually have a good idea how they want to play.

‘Just’ joining a more hardcore or more casual guild is often the wrong fix for a problem with the game.

I’m in the middle tier of a triple guild alliance and I’ve seen people move up to our tier only to drop back down that same week because our more competitive guild culture is not a good fit. I’ve also seen people move down to our mid-tier guild only to quit the game at the end of the week because there’s no point in playing semi-competitively when what you really want to do is keep playing hardcore while having a life.

We try to accommodate as many play-styles as we can in our alliance. I think we’re doing our part. I wish the developers did the same and stopped trying to gate-keep the viability of (all?) play-styles.

If you’re casual you’ll never get to experience the game as a synergistic match-3 team builder. The game’s gotten way too large and diffuse for that. Warbands were meant to address this but they put an entry fee on them? Sucks to be casual I guess.

If you’re semi-casual you’ll never get the scrolls to upgrade your Doom Weapon(s). If you managed to craft one in the Soulforge, that is. How long are cycles anyway? You’ll never be fully viable in Guild Wars. Sucks to be semi-casual.

If you’re hardcore you’ll never be able to keep up unless you sacrifice having a life. Epic tasks. Campaigns. Banners behind paywalls. New events, more events, events all day, every day. GoW every waking moment. And don’t forget to play some arena to re-roll that daily offer, son. Sucks to be hardcore.

7 Likes
35

The devs have laid a course for the game - the direction seems to be focused only on how to get us to play more, spend more gems on various and ultimately spend real money.
We all know, this game doesn’t exist because we like it - it is a business, the devs aren’t working for free. Apparently the game wasn’t enough focused on things and events that would trick us/lure us/force us to spend real money - that has changed dramatically now.
New content is not important, focus group are new or mid players.
My feeling is that the devs hope that the rest of us are such addicts that they can throw anything at us and we will stay.

Why am I saying this?
When epic tasks were implemented, the decision then was: should every member contribute a huge amount of extra gold to be able to reach Legendary tasks OR just say goodbye to ever seeing Legendary tasks.
My guild said goodbye to ever seeing Legendary tasks. Same goes for everything else that has been implemented.
Keeping up as your guild(s) are doing will burn some/many out. Some will continue no matter what.
This game will be heading the same direction - I hope your appeal will be heard, but I seriously doubt it sadly. We need to face that this game has changed - I think the solution is that we as a guild or as guild leaders need to decide what we will ask of our members and ourselves. Instead of just doing all events, then choose which ones are important to you or the guild.

3 Likes
36

As I see the developers/decision makers take a wrong direction just like Blizzard took with wow. They filled the game with content to provide entertainment for all times, but they went too far. Hardcore gamers want to complete everything and they just realized they can’t. The average age of players dropped significantly in wow since adults just simply don’t have time for it. This is the biggest mistake a game can make.
The real goal is to make your players pay willingly instead they put so much content into the game that people can’t keep up they have to give up their life. When it comes to should I go to work so I can buy food or should I farm gold for one more LT the majority will choose the first. A game needs “just enough” content, worthy offers with a reasonable price. The goal should be make the player pay with as little playtime as possible instead of making them play hours.

3 Likes
37

@awryan makes some excellent points.

But they’re largely points that have been made many times before. Salty has “heard” them all before, but never acknowledged their importance. It’s quite likely she hasn’t passed them on to anyone else, based on her recent record. Or possibly, the devs no longer care – plenty of evidence for that, too, sadly.

I wanted to reiterate my own contribution from an earlier thread (sorry I’m not linking it), since it seems relevant:

Some calculations, guided by reasonable assumptions, suggest that Guild Wars and the World Event require roughly the same time commitment – at all stages of player development.

For those actually serious about Guild Wars, the time commitment shoots up by a factor of 3 or 4.

My point? Whether it’s Tower of Doom or a World Event, Guild Wars at least doubles the workload that week for almost all players.

7 Likes
38

I’m clearly in a minority here, but I enjoyed the three events. Tower of Doom is my favourite event and doesn’t come around very often, Invasion is super easy and Wars is 5 PVP games a day. I was quite happy to go tier 5 in all 3 events, as long as that doesn’t become a weekly thing.

1 Like