The new explore is great, but I struggle to stay involved

Feature Requests and Game feedback
1

After much play and consideration of the new explore system, I would like to offer some feedback, please.

Firstly, I like it. Overall. But I find it difficult to play. So if I like the new system, why do I find myself resisting? It took me a while, but I can explain it better now. Early on I would have said ‘There is too much interruption in the gameplay’. But now I understand what all of those are doing to my desire to play.

I find myself having to force myself into each battle, and when a round is done, I want to leave, like I am driven towards the exit. Each new explore round is a whole new commitment that I don’t know if I am ready for, and is a new set of decisions to make about where I am going next, can the team I am playing with atm handle that new kingdom, should I change, do I even have time for a whole round right now – it’s a break to assess whether I should leave or continue playing.

I don’t want all the decisions. I just want to play. I get enough decisions everywhere else, I enjoyed having something to do that didn’t require so many of them. And explore used to be that. I used to sit for hours and just grind through explore battles. Now I find myself struggling to talk myself into going one more round. Because there is no ‘one more fight’.

I like Gems of War because there is a certain level of monotony to it. With the previous system, I could just keep clicking play and grind out some explores, without keeping track of how many have been done… until I have achieved a goal. Like, a certain number of traitstones.
It kept me in the game a lot longer. There was no constant assessment of anything.
It might be better for the very casual player, who only plays one round and then has to leave anyway, but if you have a few hours to burn, it only hurts.

Conclusion:

I still like the idea of the new system - on paper, it’s great. In theory, it’s much better than the old one. But in reality? There are too many exits in the gameplay, and I find myself driven towards them more often and actually playing a lot less, which is sad.

I hope there will be a way to remedy this at some point, but I am no developer - Im not sure how to smooth the bumps in the current system to make it easier to play continuously.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

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2

I can see your point, but the system is designed with a mini boss and a boss before chest to end each explore match.

I’m not sure how they could work Explore to be endless like before, because the new system is built around tokens/medals to improve your troops.

I enjoyed your post, I might not agree with everything you wrote, but I can certainly understand where you’re coming from.

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I have left explores after fighting 2 or 3 of the battles, and returned a week or so later to finish. The game will save your progress.

Same with daily delves. I once forgot I had started a delve, and resumed a month later. gl hf

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I think it’s possible to cut clicks out of it. Something like the way Quests progress might feel a little fun. I’m imagining a process like:

  • At the end of the 3 battles that won’t result in a boss of any kind, you get a “Next Battle” or “Leave” button. I don’t really care where “Leave” sends the user but the other one ought to be obvious.
  • At the end of the 4th match, the button says “Mini-Boss”. You get a title card like you do for the boss fights in Quests. (I don’t like the extra click but it feels like this one’s worth it.)

Post-Mini-Boss is a spot where I don’t know an elegant solution. It takes some interaction to decide to open the Mythic Boss since that spends resources, and I like having that be a conscious choice.

So it’s not a matter of “it needs to go away” or “I think this mode is flawed”, but more that I actually sort of like Explore but think it can be improved. It’s a little tedious, and the only tedious I enjoy is the “actually matching gems” part. Anything the game can do to make me spend more time on the battlefield instead of the UI is probably something I’ll take.

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Clicks are not even remotely the issue. Anyone whining about this click or that click is irrelevant. Issues extend far beyond. Up to you if you see the problem.

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Yes, I have a bunch of kingdoms half played. If I have to leave half way through, I always forget where I was and start over somewhere else. (Which also breaks momentum).

And again - I do like the new explores. They are a definite improvement.

It could just use a lot of smoothing to make the ride easier. Considering that “flow” is the problem, two things especially could help save some momentum and bring some flow back.

More flow = easier ride = more inviting gameplay = more people playing more.

1: The idea of “Next” and “Leave” buttons, popping up at the end of each battle (providing that the battle count is also shown somewhere on the same screen) sounds great. It would keep your head in the game - you would pick up subliminally that you’re expected to battle again.

(The current system makes me feel like you expect me to stop.)

2: The chest automatically opening at the end of the mythic fight. (The same way that Orbs “open” when they are received.)

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3: The difficulty select could be a slider, yes? Like the casual PVP difficulty selection, with arrows to change it. Except disable the arrows during a round, like you disable the team editting during a delve.

8

I understand your point. GoW is a strategic-casual game and recently it lost a little of the “casual” part.
Sometimes we need to chill out after a hard working day and mini games like Arena, Treasure Hunt or Daily Tasks help about that. It was like this for explore, but now it changed.
After all we could just play it at a very low difficulty level to continue enjoying it like before. May it be?

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