the good and the bad; get your daily constructive criticism

[shukra]

------ the good ... why i like to poke at my tablet with this game.
wonderful tactical exercise (really good) complemented by engaging civlike city construction with good aesthetics and relevant history.
upgrading and enjoying good artifacts in the museum.
interaction with others in WW -- community strategy.

------ the bad ... are the things that pull me away from the tactical exercise and enjoying the civlike city construction game.
grinding artifacts and 'gambling stress' in the museum: traumatizing. effectively interrupts the game. grind artifacts with a fifth of scotch.
diminutive community interface; not even a whisper function in alliance chat.
the design compromises (and some financial interests) disrespecting the strategic 'theme' defined by our expectations.
the rebalance was probably necessary to be competitive, but it violated thematic assumptions: possible catch-22 here.
dominations is the amer-british raid-the-weak simulator, and perhaps that's just how nature works in psychopathic kaliyuga.

the good has held my attention for a few years -- that's pretty good.
the consensus is communicating that the bad is frustrating ... while the good is still there enough for us to talk about it.

 

[Funken_A]

I use to like the game because it was fun.. Now its is just work.. SO I don't bother actually playing it. I have kept checking in but in reality I no longer can successfully raid at a level that satisfies

 

[Manifesto]

shukra , I dare say the ease has gone out of the game. As Funken said, now it's more like 'work'.
While I like 'challenging', I'm not a big fan of obtuse.

 

[Persia]

That’s exactly what it is. I’m about to start using raiders again, because I got all 5 stages of Pershing a while ago. There’s literally no incentive for lower age players to use barracks armies, and it’s not like we have factories to turn to or anything; we have to make do with what we have, and that means no war, because a gust of wind in my army’s direction seems to take out 4/5 of my archers. Someone can stack three towers right next to one another, a move not exactly requiring Napoleonic strategic ability, and wipe out a large portion of them, because for some reason a classical tower can one-shot medieval troops, and they have so little attack power that even if I sabotage, it only works long enough for them to destroy whatever’s next to the tower and maybe land a few hits on the tower before dropping in the tens. Even with 34 shooters, I lose at least 20 on the absolute worst bases, and usually lose them all, because moronically constructed (I dare say it, but it’s true, some players just aren’t hardcore and don’t really care about their base, no offence if you’re a casual player and have fun.) This isn’t a problem with my deploying, either, I used to lose less than five with very good consistency and five-star every base I attacked. Along with others’ opinions on the issue, I suspect that something’s up.

 

[skychan]

Yes, when it becomes work there is a problem. Right now... Multiplayer is Work, and so is the Artifact grind. I'm actually kind of upset that I'm going to 'have' to start going through artifacts while the event is on. And that is a huge warning sign.

 

[Bootney Lee Fonsworth]

Hear, hear on that. The artifact grinding process is such a tedious chore that I have to psyche myself up to bother with it. Though if I'm being honest that's true of the game in general nowadays, at least for all of my non-CWA accounts. The irony being that since I quit wars I really don't need to do anything with my CWA account. A few battles a day for diamonds and victory chests and I can just sit there between lengthy builds secure in the knowledge I'll never be attacked in a meaningful way.

TL; DR: Practically everything in this game has become a tedious, soul-sucking grind until you get to late game. Though that's not much fun either due to absurd build times and maxed out resources providing little compelling reason to play if one is no longer into the laughably-matched, poorly-incentivized wars.

I'd suggest they hurry up with whatever their big plans are to fix all of this instead of lollygagging through the holidays.