Decline in battle activity

[Falco]

we need to get new players and energize the old players, if we wish this game to survive.

Unfortunately, new players aren't going to energize the old players. The new players tend to be iOS. They don't hang out on Facebook and chat. They are often monster hunters mostly, and they don't bond with guilds as much. They don't check orders as much, and due to the number of hours in battle, battle fatigue means that the new non-bonding players and less cohesive guilds have a significant advantage. Thus, having more new players tends to dampen the enthusiasm that older players have for guild battles. New players will help the game survive in the new way, but I don't think they'll fix the decline in battle activity. There are simply too many battle hours to reach the exciting levels of battle strategy we used to have.

[Rev Sim]

The gameplay works in this game.

The biggest problems are within the abilities of the devs to control.

1. We need more new players. Now, there are almost no humans left that are willing to slog thru the h*ll that is the first few hundred levels that is this game. The solution to this is to start new characters at a agreed upon level with an agreed stats. Level 300 would be what I would pick with the actual starter stats being up for debate.

2. Devs need to realize that FP are not physical bricks of gold sitting in a vault. Run more contests. The facebook page should be giving away small amounts of FP almost every day of the week. There should be some FP to give away on the forums also. Try to work a small random FP drop into the game mechanics. It can be really small, even 7 FP for free for every time you do a daily collects 7x without missing a day would be sufficient. I am not asking for hundreds of FP per player per month, that is silly, but a small amount to keep interest up.

Don't like my daily FP idea? Then come up with your own. 1 FP to join a battle would be enough to bring activity up. Or perhaps 1 FP when you collect if your activity if above 1000, c'mon that is possible with the first 10 tokens.

Anyhow, the crazy Rev thinks we need to get new players and energize the old players, if we wish this game to survive.

[Raf_thfc]

I'm in a vanguard 10x squad, the only regular active in that squad and would say I get active opponents less than 1 in 10 battles

I think many mid level guilds are realising there's not much left in the game unless your prepared to spend big - couple of 10x and conquest gives enough guild coins to tick over and with no new seasons or anything to really use the coins on the hassle of blue balls/cheaters means longer battles just don't give the rewards to justify the time.

yeah that's pretty spot on

the battles are either walkovers or you get crushed I turn up now and then to get the coins i need - whether the reasons are people with multi accounts, or significant amounts of password sharing doesn't make much difference, there's not many guilds extremely active in all battles where it is one user, one account played. It doesn't really matter you get the coins either way, just it gets boring. The matchups are poor, usually see the same guilds at least 2 times a week ad infinitum in the same battle slot. So you get to know your opponents well and they you.

[B0ngMan]

I know what will fix the game, it's obvious another version of TI or Monkeyfool is what this game needs, maybe another monster for fools with more money then brains...

[Falco]

My response was to someone complaining that there are too many battle per day. Each guild and squad can adjust the game settings to have fewer battles per day, which is different from choosing to skip an actual battle. Just have it set to only do one 100v a day if that is what a guild wants.

It doesn't work that way. Like Elandal says:

Nothing is gained from not opting guild/squad in to full three battles a day. Can't get negative ranking points, only positive. So for as long as anyone in guild just might drop tokens, just leave the battle opt ins there.

Because scoring works the way it works, and because there are other guilds out there, and because these are battles so opponent activity matters, trying to enforce activity concentration at a guild level is counterproductive. The only viable options are at the level of the individual player or at the whole game.

If any guild tries to open less than the maximum number of slots, they'll lose their more active players to other guilds, and thus activity will become sparser. The less active players will stay, so they won't vanish completely. They'll just have low activity.

A guild can aim for a hybrid solution: leave max slots turned on but encourage people to make a special effort to join one slot in particular. The guild can improve activity and fun during that one slot at the cost of very low activity in other slots.

Either way, they either have 1 high-activity slot and multiple low-activity slots, or they have fewer low-activity slots overall. The low-activity slots, no matter how they're caused, mean that opponents during those slots are likely to have a boring battle, and thus, their opponents become more likely to find more interesting to do than battle, so the activity of their opponents are likely to drop. And that in turn affects other opponents.

The problems with activity density can only be fixed at a game-wide level. We had much bigger, better, more competitive, and more exciting battles when each guild was able to opt into only one hour of Festival per day. Even the load was less because the computer needs to run each guild in only 1 of 12 slots per day instead of running each guild in 3 of 4 slots per day. Running an average of only 8.3% of guilds per battle slot probably resulted in fewer performance problems than running an average of 75% of guilds in each slot.

Yes, "each guild and squad can adjust the game settings to have fewer battles per day", and yes, that is "different from [an individual] choosing to skip an actual battle". However, because of the reality of how the game works, there is absolutely no point to guilds or squads skipping battles, and it would result in no increase in activity in the game, or even within the guild or squad, compared to having each individual choose which battles to join.

Back during the Festival days, I know many guilds that decided to not migrate to iOS to get extra battles because we all already realized back then that having so many battles per day would be a problem. We were right. While some managed to survive the increased number of battles, I suspect that most are having less fun now than we were when we had only the 1 Festival battle per day and far fewer features in the game to play with.

[₳ӿëŀ]

My response was to someone complaining that there are too many battle per day. Each guild and squad can adjust the game settings to have fewer battles per day, which is different from choosing to skip an actual battle. Just have it set to only do one 100v a day if that is what a guild wants.

I am with Elandal on this one. Telling a player to just play less than 3 TvT and 3 HvH and a classic battle per day because they feel there ARE too many is exactly why we have a decline in activity. I dont think guilds go as far to opt out of battle slots but the number of actives per battle goes down when there are more battles.

The game is going stale very quickly. Never ending seasons and the worst connection problems surrounding every battle (worse on Tuesdays) is just keeping people away. There is the ever increasing "Pay Wall". The past 3 years of this game have changed it from pay-to-win to pay-to-play at all.

At this point we are not splitting hairs over players who dont spend at all quitting due to being edged out.... we are talking about players who spend $45-$100 a month to stay relevant who are furious the game is in auto-pilot mode and that they are expected to pay out even more money to keep playing with a broken game.

Not to forget the whales who are all one by one quitting or stop spending. When these players give up hope you know its bad.

Lower battle activity is just the symptom of the larger issues with the game.

[Elandal]

My response was to someone complaining that there are too many battle per day. Each guild and squad can adjust the game settings to have fewer battles per day, which is different from choosing to skip an actual battle. Just have it set to only do one 100v a day if that is what a guild wants.

Nothing is gained from not opting guild/squad in to full three battles a day. Can't get negative ranking points, only positive. So for as long as anyone in guild just might drop tokens, just leave the battle opt ins there.

[thomasj8]

Yes, many players are doing fewer battles, leading to many guilds having only one or two people battling, even on 3x day, and that's exactly why we're talking about "Decline in battle activity".

My response was to someone complaining that there are too many battle per day. Each guild and squad can adjust the game settings to have fewer battles per day, which is different from choosing to skip an actual battle. Just have it set to only do one 100v a day if that is what a guild wants.

[sven ios]

My life changed so now I can't join EVERY battle as I did before only 1 maby 2 10vs10 and 1 Hvsh seldom do guild battle, it hurts my GC income alot...

[Falco]

Then do fewer

Yes, many players are doing fewer battles, leading to many guilds having only one or two people battling, even on 3x day, and that's exactly why we're talking about "Decline in battle activity".

[thomasj8]

There are definitely too many battles in a day.

Then do fewer

[₳ӿëŀ]

There are definitely too many battles in a day.

[John944615]

Too many battles per day which is draining and tedious. The scripters convinced the developers to do so many battles per day. And now they upped the cost to be competitive with these new 235 fp 8 general to get 6 stars. If one didn't have a general and was saving to build, now all of a sudden, it costs 595 fps. It looks like they are planning a new arena which will probably result in the loss of more players. Hardly anyone other than those scripting like arena. It sucks that the development of this game was greatly influenced by people cheating. Seriously, who has time 10-12 hours a day 365 days a year, every year to play a game? It's worse than having a second job.

[Romelis]

the problem is not milking. problem is that devs put new content too seldom. it doesnt have to be some collosal feature , you just need to do some things like once a month at least. release a new land for gods sake, or new monster (can connect with land) start a new season in 10v10, add forth general to the aliance. etc.

make gold usefull again. increase hero max lvls. anything.

half baked meteorites or dominions wount save it. this game is alive for almost 9 years, and it can go for 10 more easy in small steps. no need to overthink problems

[leebs]

1good things dev do right .... keep milking $$$... still many fall for that ...