The Game Improved, but Are You Having More Fun?

Gameplay Chat (PC/Mobile)
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Hi there,

I’m Zepp and I’ve been playing since before Guild Wars, which means I know 10% more than someone who just started yesterday. Gems of War has added many many things since I got my first Goblin troop.

A Few Notable Events Added:

  • Guild Wars
  • Delve
  • Tower of DOOOOOOM
  • Raid/Invasion/Bounty
  • Dungeons

A Few Notable QoL/Cosmetic Things:

  • Chat upgrade
  • Pets
  • Leveling things more than one level at a time
  • Mass Ascension
  • 4x Gem Speed
  • SoulForge

But are you having more fun?

I love all the events and the variety. I am glad those things happened, and I think they went a long way to keeping the place fresh.

I don’t love the direction gameplay has gone. Power Creep has made 90% of the troops obsolete. The strategy of working the board a few turns ahead offensively and defensively has been ruined by (troops that double convert / gem exploder troops / empowered troops).

This is no longer a strategy game. It’s just a fairly mindless grinder. RNG gem waterfalls decide games more than studying the board. The 4x Speed has taken away the accomplishment of a single match. It’s all about matches per minute now.

Warframe is a grinder, but one that keeps me fully engaged. Gems of War had the best Match 3 implementation of all time, but like many action movies, they have abandoned the fulfilling progression in favor of CGI and Special Effects. I don’t know if they horse is WAY too far out of the barn, but I’d like to see more of the strategy game it used to be instead of the multiple board clears per turn it currently is.

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I agree with all the above and have to add the daily tasks as well to the list of things to do. For me is the massive time sink that is required to be able to be on top of power curve. I remember people were requesting constantly more content and things to do but at least Guild wars was a 30 minutes per day affair. Now it takes more than double plus all the other additions!
At least my OCD was satisfied when i crafted zuul and now I am happy skipping individual events to avoid burnout and just do the guild ones.

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If the devs put trophies in everything and make it so gold can be gained more equally.
It wouldn’t be such a struggle to find a balance between doing your part for the guild and to simply just have fun playing GoW.
The negative to all the additions is the lack of balance being changed to compensate for time. Yes guilds could Lower Requirements, but most don’t have to. What players end up doing is choosing to focus on what’s best for the guild rather than what’s best for them and ultimately, retention. It’s impossible for a GM to read the mind of the members and know who is exactly having fun, and who is chasing the idea of fun.

I yell until my face turns red that the devs need to worry more about retention. But if veteran players don’t make them enough money. I see why they don’t care. They want the fun to be at the beginning and at the middle, but at the end it’s like :person_shrugging:.
The difference between a mega hit like Fortnite and GoW is…GoW becomes fun once you become more powerful. But at the beginning it’s a real grind until you have a good team. Maybe that grind is necessary.
What I would like to see is the addition of a super arena. Let the players choose 1 Mythic, 1 legendary, 1 epic (that are fully traited) and their hero to use in an arena type environment. They can’t keep the troops without spending real money on them. But will allow players of all levels to have some fun with the “best” troops in the game.

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Am I having more fun? Probably not.

I got into this game having originally played Puzzle Quest, Puzzle Quest II and Puzzle Forge.

To start with, it was a lot of fun, I wanted an enjoyable Match 3 game and I liked the troops which let you do extra things when you cast Spells or their Traits (which I had to grind Explore battles for) did stuff.

But now…

… now I’m beginning to wonder why I’m still playing. This game has changed from Gems of Wars to Gems of Chores.

(Just as I was writing that, my phone pinged! Time to pick up Tribute so I can feed Gold into Guild Tasks…)

Let’s see, what else have I got to do?

Play PvP battles to get up to Level 1 for the Guild Seals.

Do the Dungeon Battles for Diamonds to craft another Mythic that I’ve not got yet.

There’s Guild Raid Boss battles to fight

I could kill a few more enemies in PvP to get Snot-Stones

Maybe I’ll fight a few Faction Battles to get Chaos Shards so I can boost Hoard levels to give myself a better chance of winning Delves.

Oh, yeah, Delves need to be done…

There’s a new Class Trial in a couple of days. Is it one I’ve maxed out or should I spend time doing some of these battles too?

etc etc etc

I am no longer playing this game “just for fun”. I’m not firing it up during a break for a quick fix of matching gems, zapping a few enemies and then getting on with some work, it’s all about “what am I trying to achieve next”.

I’ve got other games on my phone which haven’t even been opened for a couple of years or more because GoW is taking up all the time with its endless rainbow chasing…

This may be fun for some people, but after two and a half years or so of playing this pretty much every day, I’m really wondering what it’s for and whether it’s worth continuing.

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I’m playing for fun. I paused a year when it wasn’t anymore and returned because I was curious of the new content and really bored (broken leg).

You phone notifies you when there’s tribute to pick up? Sounds very extreme. Why would you enable that? You have a boring private life? Nothing else to do but this game?
You created your own chores and dislike it, why continue?

I only have the pet alert and mostly I ignore it anyway ^^ I hardly play delves, actually only when there’s an event, because I don’t like it even when the rewards are very good.

You cannot be in a guild with high demands and complain about chores at the same time. You need to be in a guild that has a much lower requirements. A casual guild. A good mixed casual guild. And then you play for fun. No notifications, no 'i have to’s.

Some weeks I only play the guild events the first three days because then the opponents are so strong that it’s no fun and then I just don’t play. So what.
I’m done with this week’s boss event too. Cba to continue.

Pause for a year. Just do it. Say good bye in your guild, logg out and deinstall. It’ll be the same grindfest when you return.
If you return.
It was a grindfest when I quit and has been even more so when I returned.

But I never had it so easy to get good mythics. Before I quit I had Wulfgarok and Guard’s, both too useless for fun.
Now I’ve the ones I want, all but one crafted, and it’s fun playing them.

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Player experience is highly subjective (duh), but for me the recent “quality of life” improvements have added to the fun more than any new event could. Better chat features, better guild admin tools, the new honor system…all good stuff.
I do think there are steps that could be taken to vary the existing events/games a bit more. Right now the mechanics of the games are too similar to consider them different activities, really.

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I’m relatively a newbie. I started over 3 weeks ago when it came out for the Nintendo Switch. Some what you’ve said rings true but, for me, I understood the nature of a f2p game and accepted it. I knew going into this game that it would be a grindfest. However I’m learning how to offset some of that grind such as joining a guild. For example, I don’t have to grind so much for keys. At some point I can see gold not being a problem either. The Soulforge allows one to get just about anything he wants. You just need to grind for the materials.

The power creep argument I can’t say much other than I’m not sure it made the low rarity cards obsolete. I think it still largely depends on the makeup of your army. When I started, I was able to beat many opposing armies that were much higher in strength. Also, if I had known, I would have sought out the Titan class which would have made battles even much easier. Incidently, I think it must be easier now than years past of upgrading and ascending troop cards. I’m only around level 110 but I’ve been able to upgrade 2 of my cards to mythic. So far, I’ve only been able to pull an actual mythic only once.

Anyway, I think GoW is a fun game with a lot of tactical and strategic elements. Of course I can’t compare from years past though.

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Hey there! I’ve also been playing since before guild wars and the answer is somehow…yes. I’m in a high level guild, but if things ever got too grindy for me I could join our more casual guild yet still…I haven’t.

No other F2P game has captivated me since 2002 Runescape. Everything in this game is still super attainable with the right attitude and some of the events I’ve really enjoyed.

Do I sometimes find things a chore? Sure. Do I still hate high level Guild Wars? Yes. But I haven’t found anything else out there F2P that I can just sit on my couch and mindlessly play while watching TV. Nothing else that inspires the camaraderie within the guild.

Delves have breathed new life into the gameplay personally, and some events like Tower of Doom have been a blast to coordinate. If it was still the same game from before Guild Wars…I doubt I’d still be playing. There was just too little to do.

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Before the Events, there was nothing to do aside farming trophies…

Potions are quite a nice add which makes the Events quite fun.

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This is an interesting point. I thought the same thing at first. The devs have made the events ‘fun’ by giving the player and advantage to make us feel overpowered. That’s lazy design, and it is the hallmark of Gems of War. Each person will find their overall win rate to be over 80%. Everyone feels like they are good at the game because the game is tilted strongly in their favor. This kind of fun only works if the player does not realize their accomplishments are hollow.

No competitive endeavor has 80% winners. Gems of War has become a ‘trophies for everyone’ game, which is unfortunate.

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@Alkali - I play my games in a certain way that satisfies me. But if that becomes a chore, I would prefer to change to a different game.

So thanks for your suggestions, but they’re not a solution for me.

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It has ever been, thanks to endless pvp which never was a proof of quality. Thank god trophies are totaly useless anyway.

TT: Yes :slightly_smiling_face:

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You forget that these events are more and more disadvantageous for the players as much as they win.

Not sure if it’s a question of win rate. Battles before can just take ages and it is always boring to fight troops which has x5 your stats.
I guess that more players are playing it because it is a less a chore, for the boost of mana at the beginning of the battles (ie enchant + explode 4 gems) which make them more dynamic.

Is there really an accomplishments not hollow in this 3-match game? :thinking:

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GoW is less fun than when I played religiously for my first month. It’s an inevitability, eventually you’ll run out of new stuff to do. The only way to avoid that is by playing massively budgeted games with constant DLC and microtransactions, which is a major reason I stick with this game because it’s very not pay-to-play.

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The in-play strategy is just gone.
At launch, a gem match gave mana.

Now, a match will explode some gems, freeze someone, barrier another, maybe kill a troop, summon a bandit, charm something, destroy armor, and explode the board again.

Too much happens passively and so there is no more turn planning to do.

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I must admit that this is no longer Gems of War, but more like Gems of Luck.
And yes, you lose interest in a time. A year or two, or even less, it gets boring.
New content brings nothing new, it’s practically recycled in a new package.
What is old is new again.
If only the bugs would be taken care of.

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As many already said: No

I dont even think the game “improved” tbh, just changed (and btw isnt even so long i started so guess years ago there was even more strategy), imo the strategy end in the team creation screen where you can “plan” some combo that can happen in the matches.

Once there tho is just, oh let’s match that and let’s see if it’s a bingo or a fail.

There’s not a real challenge, stuff is either impossibly lame (lvl 500 faction runs in delve) or a walk in the park (whole rest of the game except maybe GW).

Right now am just doing the “duty’s” (daily’s, guild stuff i MUST do, events) in game as fast i can, collecting tributes (like today, had the game running whole day but i was just collecting tributes while playing MgT Arena on Lappy) and that is.

Oh, actually came to my mind that there’s still a part of the game where thinking, and not just “hoping on cascades, multiple explosions, crap like that” is required, treasure maps, sadly did those TONS when i started the game at the point i cant, almost, do them anymore (just doing few of them when weekly event for the early gems).

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If you wanna see what the game looked like at launch, play arena. No class, no weapon upgrade, no traits, basic stats.

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Which were also added to drain gems so some would use real money to buy more gems. I agree potions make them more fun or even doable (delves) but whens the last time the devs added something strictly for player benefit without taking something away

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Oh right, forgot about it, indeed there you gotta actually think a bit about moves, still that work only if you self impose to yourself to not use either DB or a Doom or some other broken weapon otherwise is just a joke as all the rest (nuff said when they make an arena race some ppls do like 10 arena in 1 hour, that make? 80 matches, plus all the screens and stuff, in 1 hour)