Next steps with Mobile Video Ads (Feedback thread)

[Mit the explorer of dos]

Please keep your feedback directly related to this test - posts simply about quitting the game will be removed

And there it is!
So many leaving, MTG tries to hide it.
I'll come back when the ads are gone.
Been playing/supporting this game with at least a hundred usd a month, and you're throwing ads at me to the point the game is unplayable.
Get rid of the ads for the whales. You've lost too many already.
I refuse to play until this is fixed.

 

[Mit the explorer of dos]

Please remember folks that this is as we mentioned before a test and part of the purpose of the test is also to gather feedback, which is why we announced it. If you keep your feedback honest, polite and on point we will absolutely be passing it on to the relevant teams. Your voice will absolutely be heard. Thank you to everyone who has provided their thoughts.

I sincerely hope this is correct. I refuse to pay or play until the ads are removed for paying players like myself, and NOT that overpriced, ridiculous FOE+ package. I'll spend $80 for diamonds every event before I'll spend $10/MO (no WAY would I spend THIRTY!!!) on that worthless FOE+ package.
Let me know when the test is over, can't wait to play again.

 

[Mit the explorer of dos]

Use your data to drive profits. I have little doubt discounts are your biggest drivers. I'm absolutely certain ads are not your profit driver on your MOST important player, the Whale. Minnows and dolphins aren't keeping the lights on, whales do, and they love discounts.
You have NOT had decent discounts in quite a few of the last events.
Make it interesting again, stop using cookie cutter events, and ADD VALUE.

 

[The Lady Redneck]

This is why every other game has test servers

The Game does have a Beta server for testing new Events and game changes. I am sure the company has a reason they did not keep the testing of this nonsense to that server until they worked out what balance of ads its customer base would tolerate before adversely affecting game play and revenue. Perhaps there was a reason given for breaking with this practice, but I cannot recall seeing it.

 

[Ignatz the Bewildered]

If changing from no-ads to forced-ads, after 10 years, is an iterative change, the next iteration should be to roll back this terrible idea, entirely.
But, that's about as likely as Inno even counting up the negative responses in this thread.

 

[Lord Lanik the Just]

Whether I watch the ads or not, the incidents and quests don't really bother me that much. Honestly the sales and package alerts are more obnoxious IMHO.

Even with watching the ad in order to aid-all, it's still a time saver and seems a small price to pay if you think of it in terms of funding the development of the feature.

What truly irks me personally is the change to the Tavern to default to the ad tab. Whether a player values the reward or not, it's an extra tap/click the user has to do to get to the tab they really wanted. Click counts are an industry-standard method of measuring user experience and someone made a bad call in defaulting to that tab.

 

[Xenosaur]

Let's take a deep breath and continue to be philosophical.

A time-honored story that FULLY demonstrates the approach here is one written by Aesop called: The Wind and the Sun.

You can read the very short fable

Here's the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The moral this fable demonstrates and teaches about being successful in an approach to a problem is the use of PERSUASION over FORCE. It has made the story widely known and yields a superiority of results.

Many articulate posters have patiently and aptly reiterated this in almost every post here; your "wind-style" problem approach shows no sign of abating. The implementation of the video advertisement system has examples that are "in your face", game and play nuisances:

1) Tavern BOOST (SALES) tab with 5% offerings was made an unchangeable "primary" tab upon entering the tavern, vs classic seating tab.
2) The single Castle System daily points collection button has been split in size to now predominately favor the ad view pick (touch), vs no-ad (just the reward).
3) Barrel Chest incidents flash all day if unpicked.
4) There is no way to abort any of these things, or anything else dreamed up using the same annoying paradigm, unless you buy something.

In other words, you have to endure ALL this every day to play this game.

Inno? Be the SUN, not the Wind. You have no player council to help you shape the game, and your current methodology to deep design and build something first and then subject us to it for a reaction that many think is hollow, and just window dressing... costs you a fortune you really don't need to spend if it was designed to meet more than just a financial perspective to begin with.

We all watched and certainly do remember the extreme pushback on just getting you to move the HEAL ALL placement button - well -- it's DEJA VU all over again - just worse. The soul of the game is at stake for many people.

Come on now... you need to work with us. The player addiction to this game only goes so far, you're going to be on a razor's edge with a lot of people. It's a big gamble to be wrong about this. It's feeling like it might be wrong.

 

[RazorbackPirate]

@Xerosaur

While well presented, the flaw in your argument presupposes Inno's motives are pure. I don't believe they are.

I believe Inno knew from the get go what the reaction would be, hence the A/B rollout (not test). MTG/Inno couldn't care less about free or long time players leaving, they generate little to no revenue compared to new players.

Who's going to spend more? The new player looking to build their cities rapidly or the legacy player sitting in the last age waiting for the next one? Who also generates the most complaints? The new player who doesn't know any better or the legacy players who remember the way things used to be?

At some point, this change (let's call it the Great Reset), will reach equilibrium. Those who will quit will have quit, eventually replaced by new players who know nothing else. Once that point is reached (zero sum or net positive revenue for MTG/Inno), they will proceed to the B group roll out, where they will just rinse and repeat. Flushing the legacy players in favor of the Noobs who know nothing else.

Honestly, other than the temporary PR hit which has now been highly suppressed here on the forums, I see no downside for MTG/Inno, only upside. With the loss of last age players at the top. Top spots are opening up, which means players who had no chance before of getting to the top now can, if they spend enough, of course. This also relieves the pressure of having to quickly develop new ages that new players won't get close to for years.

It's quite a brilliant strategy in a Machiavellian kind of way. I could be wrong of course, but time will tell.

I think this "test" is producing exactly the results Inno wants. The only question is how long the A part of the "test" will last before the legacy players who quit or stop spending are replaced by new players who know no better. Once that happens, Inno will declare the "test" a glorious success then roll out ads to the rest of the players. If a Great Reset in the player base were my goal, this would certainly be a great way to achieve it.

 

[The Lady Redneck]

@RazorbackPirate
You pretty much nailed it. Plus without any Legacy players what need will they have spend to keep developing the actual Game. It can sit as it is as a platform for more Events and mini game type add ons. which again will appeal to noobs who know no different. So they will spend. Even now I can see some players liking it.

 

[iscaspar the Ghost]

Oh look, 12 hours later and anything too negative has been deleted, along with another 8 or so I quit posts.

 

[Severus 700 the Fair]

@Xerosaur

While well presented, the flaw in your argument presupposes Inno's motives are pure. I don't believe they are.

I believe Inno knew from the get go what the reaction would be, hence the A/B rollout (not test). MTG/Inno couldn't care less about free or long time players leaving, they generate little to no revenue compared to new players.

Who's going to spend more? The new player looking to build their cities rapidly or the legacy player sitting in the last age waiting for the next one? Who also generates the most complaints? The new player who doesn't know any better or the legacy players who remember the way things used to be?

At some point, this change (let's call it the Great Reset), will reach equilibrium. Those who will quit will have quit, eventually replaced by new players who know nothing else. Once that point is reached (zero sum or net positive revenue for MTG/Inno), they will proceed to the B group roll out, where they will just rinse and repeat. Flushing the legacy players in favor of the Noobs who know nothing else.

Honestly, other than the temporary PR hit which has now been highly suppressed here on the forums, I see no downside for MTG/Inno, only upside. With the loss of last age players at the top. Top spots are opening up, which means players who had no chance before of getting to the top now can, if they spend enough, of course. This also relieves the pressure of having to quickly develop new ages that new players won't get close to for years.

It's quite a brilliant strategy in a Machiavellian kind of way. I could be wrong of course, but time will tell.

I think this "test" is producing exactly the results Inno wants. The only question is how long the A part of the "test" will last before the legacy players who quit or stop spending are replaced by new players who know no better. Once that happens, Inno will declare the "test" a glorious success then roll out ads to the rest of the players. If a Great Reset in the player base were my goal, this would certainly be a great way to achieve it.

Yeah screw those players that paid the bills and kept the lights on for this company the last 8-10 years lol... I'd hope they would value them in some kind of light. Time will tell for sure

 

[Oswyn the noble]

Oh look, 12 hours later and anything too negative has been deleted, along with another 8 or so I quit posts.

I see 2 posts i made is gone. Should i sugar coat a reply? "i love foe, i think its the greatest online game in history despite the test video ads. Its worth spending real money which boosts inno's revenue. Good job guys" deleting in 3. 2. 1

 

[Sharmon the Impaler]

It's extortion , give us your lunch money every week or we will rip the game apart until you do. Why not just a big black screen every day until you login in and send 5$ which opens up the game for the day.Why not set up Inno on Onlyfans and only paying subscribers get to play the game ?

 

[Sharmon the Impaler]

I used to really enjoy playing Forge of Empires. spent almost three years dong so. Now i think i have to scale back, realize this game is spiraling out of control to oblivion. and find something else to do all day long. LOL
having fun is the main thing that is being lost here.

The question being asked here is how to make the ads work not how to make the game any better. What kind of feedback were they expecting this is a game forum not a Simply Accounting forum ? Give us something that you would like to do to attract more people in ?

 

[Sharmon the Impaler]

Nothing stops loyalty like the feeling of contempt for your patronage.

 

[Cyrus the Adequate]

The question being asked here is how to make the ads work not how to make the game any better.

Indeed. The question being asked is not the question that needs to be asked.

As Yogi Berra opined, "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."

 

[Kaidi]

@Xerosaur

Who's going to spend more? The new player looking to build their cities rapidly or the legacy player sitting in the last age waiting for the next one? Who also generates the most complaints? The new player who doesn't know any better or the legacy players who remember the way things used to be?

I'm kind of outside those parameters. In my current world, I'm in PE. In my previous world, OF, ready for VF. Pre-GBG I played up to 5 at a time, but it's just not possible for me to do that efficiently any more. So it's the one city, but it's still $40+ per week. (lol. While my spend might get me "whale" status, what I spend it on as a rule, doesn't. I'm basically lazy and impatient, so it's healing troops so I don't have to manual, collecting all at once, finishing buildings for events, or supply productions, if I'm out of rushes, every single scout beyond the first half dozen provinces...like that.)

In the normal course of things, I would have eventually migrated over to a new world/new city/start it all over again, with all the expansion/scouting/etc. costs involved. In all the time I've played, never hit a space age.

I would like to think/hope that if your prediction comes true, that they'd end up with people who play for a minute and then bug out. I'll take ads in a game, or I will pay to play, but I won't do both. The amount of money required to rapidly build a city is not trivial, this is NOT a cheap game when you're paying to play. With all the games out there, I can't imagine why even newbies would hang out spending tons of money, or accept being forced to pay $360 per year for a city builder game. There are likely thousands to choose from.

 

[Sharmon the Impaler]

Don't forget that the 32.50$ per month is on top of any other spending. The subscription does not get you anything but a larger FP bar. The rest is just getting the game to where it was before the ads. The rest of the extras are trivial and outside of when you first start out are not really helpful.

 

[The Lady Redneck]

My post of offering to help stop getting ads was removed with a warning to not be telling anyone how to get around the game. Says it's against the rules. Guess what, this 5+ year playing member is out but not before I blast how to get around the ads to my guildies. See you later Inno but would not want to be you. Oh and I will be changing my 5 start review to a 1 star one.

Hey they are bolting the door after your horse took off running LOL. I know at least 3 other people who have posted your info to their guilds whose members in turn are passing it on.

 

[Notorious RHG]

Anyone else notice that everyone is giving different prices for forge plus and all of them are too expensive? In my city it's $29.99. I'm seeing people listing much higher prices on this thread. Why isn't it standard?