429 days later ...

[DeletedUser28129]

TL;DR
Goodbye and I wish all those struggling in this game the best of luck.

==========================================================================
Long version:

This is not a whining session. This is an explanation of why I'll be leaving the game; NEIGHBORHOODS. I've invited others to the game who are leaving for the same reason I am.

I've been playing for 429 days now. Every single day. I've tried very hard to enjoy the game - and I have indeed enjoyed much of it. But there is one situation that has become untenable. First, I understand that some people have more money than I and Inno is in the business of making money. So naturally, some people will spend their money - lots of it - for diamonds and will always be stronger than others. However, the entire makeup of the "neighborhood" concept is why I'm getting ready to trade off everything I can to guild members and find another game to while away any spare time I have.

I've joined an active guild where people really help each other. I've been staying in the Progressive Era for months now trying to level up my GBs that provide defense for my city. I've collected as many Watchtowers and other special buildings as I've been able to in order to add to that defense. I have set up my collections to limit collection times, by coinciding them, in order to protect my stuff. I've set up the best defending army I can get at my current age. Yet still, my city is attacked and plundered all the time by as many as 5 different neighbors who are *overwhelmingly* powerful.

NEIGHBORHOODS
1) Once you're attacked and defeated they can come back any time within 24 hours to plunder. A determined player will come back every five minutes until they rob you of 5 FPs from your Maharaja Palace if you can't collect it almost immediately.

2) Folks in my neighborhood with much, much higher level GBs (I've seen level 23+ GBs in my neighbors' cities) and even high level GBs from 6 ages higher (I've seen level 15+ Arctic Orangeries in lower aged cities than mine) than the rest of the neighborhood and military buildings they were lucky enough to get during events that are higher than their current age.

Being in the same age as your neighbors isn't enough. The "revenge" button is absolutely useless in almost all cases. And what satisfaction would there be for me to attack someone else considerably weaker and do the same thing I'm talking about here? There's no challenge in that and all I'd be doing is giving another person reason to call it quits.

Honestly, I think GvG and PvP should be enough. People voluntarily going up against one another. If those systems are broken, then fix them. Why should there be the constant worry of a newer player (or a player who can't spend all day guarding, defending and planning) of losing their stuff and slowing down their progress even more to someone they can never defeat who was arbitrarily placed in their neighborhood?

************** A "points bracket" system added to the arrangement of neighborhoods would give some people a fighting chance. ***************

I know this is long winded and yes, it's just a game. But there are real people behind these cities - you and me. And the frustration of real people finally reaches a point where enjoyment dwindles and we move on. No hard feelings, no anger. I'm just not enjoying myself enough any more.

 

[DeletedUser26965]

Destroy SoZ, CoA, CdM and Checkmate Square since you don't fight, then destroy all your plunder bait, then destroy about 70% of your city and switch to recurring questing, there, problem solved

Yes I suppose they could try to make the system more fair but it's pretty clear Inno feels favoring the attacker brings home the bacon so I'm not sure how much further they will ever go to make things more fair other than what they have with the merge change and tavern city shield.

 

[DeletedUser26154]

my city is attacked and plundered all the time by as many as 5 different neighbors who are *overwhelmingly* powerful

There should be a weekly cool down for being plundered by the same person.
Once a week and that's it.

A determined player will come back every five minutes until they rob you of 5 FPs from your Maharaja Palace if you can't collect it almost immediately.

This is a real big, valid point.
No one wants to spend money and time winning big prizes, just to have them robbed every single day.
I think the Maharaja Palace, and all other set pieces, should be immune to plunder.

Inno, the Set Pieces are Money-Makers.
You want people to get a lot of them, and enjoy having them.

Why should there be the constant worry of a newer player (or a player who can't spend all day guarding, defending and planning) of losing their stuff

Plundering should not be allowed until at least the Early Middle Ages.
Anyone who has ever played an MMO before, knows what a Starting Area is.
Its the areas where new players first learn the basics of the game.
The Basics, as in how to lay out your city, figure out production times, understanding how combat works, etc.

No other MMO on the planet allows PvP of any kind, in Starting Areas.
Letting new players get plundered and robbed before they even know what's going on, is just plain bad business sense.
I've been in the gaming world for quite some time.
I know a thing or two.



This guy's brother signed my First Edition books.

 

[DeletedUser26965]

No other MMO on the planet allows PvP of any kind, in Starting Areas.

Guessing you never played WoW. oh and doesn't Tribal Wars? and maybe a couple other Inno ones start right of with PvP? I'm sure there are others. You guys do know plundering has been part of this game since the beginning right?

 

[DeletedUser26154]

Guessing you never played WoW.

I've played WoW and yes, the NPC guards slaughter any opposing faction players on sight.

 

[DeletedUser]

Honestly, I think GvG and PvP should be enough. People voluntarily going up against one another. If those systems are broken, then fix them. Why should there be the constant worry of a newer player (or a player who can't spend all day guarding, defending and planning) of losing their stuff and slowing down their progress even more to someone they can never defeat who was arbitrarily placed in their neighborhood?

Ummm, attacking your neighbors is PvP.

There should be a weekly cool down for being plundered by the same person.
Once a week and that's it.

Says the anti-plunderer.

 

[DeletedUser26965]

slaughter any opposing faction players on sight

ah, no but nice try. Play a PvP game, expect PvP, pretty simple concept really.

 

[DeletedUser26154]

ah, no but nice try.

When I played WoW, and opposing faction players entered the starting areas.
They were killed by friendly NPC guards that were like lvl 100 and everyone else was way below that.
It's been over half a decade since I played that game, and I didn't play WoW very long.
I have not played all PvP games, because I'm not a PvP'er at heart.



But letting new players get ganked right when they first start playing is wrong and bad for business.

 

[DeletedUser26965]

But letting new players get ganked right when they first start playing is wrong and bad for business.

So then start a business and show these multi million dollar game companies how it's done. btw WoW also has PvE servers so you can play friendly happy go lucky find me a shiny thing. Perhaps a PvE version of FoE would better suit some folks but I don't think the playerbase is big enough for Inno to risk all that plunderbait going to a non PvP server.

 

[DeletedUser26154]

So then start a business

We'd be Bankrupt in a week.

 

[DeletedUser28129]

Guessing you never played WoW. oh and doesn't Tribal Wars? and maybe a couple other Inno ones start right of with PvP? I'm sure there are others. You guys do know plundering has been part of this game since the beginning right?

I wasn't going to reply to you because your replies are verbally insulting and lacking in constructive analysis. But you made assumptions about me that you couldn't possibly know so I'll regale you with my own reply.

I played WoW for 8 years nearly every day. I played PvE and PvP, I regularly raided with my guild and others. It's not the same by any stretch of the imagination. In WoW you could choose a PvP server or not. In WoW you could avoid hitting anyone flagged or stay out of the opposing faction's areas.

I think you're missing my entire point. Newer/weaker players are at the mercy of *anyone* who stays in a lower age and spends enough money on diamonds to procure GBs way beyond their current age and level GBs far beyond anyone else in that age. There is no challenging them in any way. There's no "revenge". There's nothing you can do about it. It's discouraging to have 5 or more of your "neighbors" attacking your city every single day and lying in wait to grab valuables because they can plunder later at their leisure. I find it problematic. You don't.

If you enjoy the game, I'm glad. Everyone needs something they enjoy. However, my post was not intended to invite personal criticism or snide remarks.

Thank you.

 

[DeletedUser26154]

my post was not intended

The Forums are a magical thing.

@sloppyjoeslayer and I go back and forth now and then.
He is also someone I ask if I have a question about something.
He knows his stuff.
Don't take anything negative he says personally.

Newer/weaker players are at the mercy of *anyone* who stays in a lower age and spends enough money

True true true.
The single biggest drawback of Free to play / Pay to win games.
You can play for free, but you can get ganked by the Payers.
I strongly feel no plundering should happen until the Early Middle Ages.

When I started playing FoE about 16 months ago, I started on 6 servers.
I had 6 cities going at the same time.
I let 5 get deleted and focused on my city on Beautiful Rugnir.
I was getting plundered too much to keep interest.

If it were not for finding a city on a server like Rugnir, I would not be playing.
I would have been discouraged then left.
My money would have gone somewhere else instead.
FoE does pretty well, and I bet it would do a lot better if my suggestion were installed.

There is no challenging them in any way. There's no "revenge". There's nothing you can do about it.

I call it being a Bully.
I am a Payer and I refuse to use my Diamond Power against Free to Play players like that.
That being said... MMO games live and breathe with people playing money to get an advantage in PvP.
There is nothing wrong with buying Advantage.

It's discouraging to have 5 or more of your "neighbors" attacking your city every single day and lying in wait to grab valuables because they can plunder later at their leisure.

I call them Evil Plunderers.
They take way more than they need.
It's worth pointing out that the Maharaja Palace set is way too tempting of a target for any Plunderer.
If I plundered, the Maharaja Palace would always be my first target.

But there's the problem.
Big Elephant in the room.
Plundering isn't bad on the face of it, but when it was designed, Giant Payday Buildings were not in the game.
It's too big of a single hit, too much for one grab.

People paid money to acquire multiple sets.
I also know people are not happy having them robbed every day.
Rugnir is my Living Room.
Set Pieces should be exempt and immune to plunder.

It's a huge marketing disaster to have a fantastic sale on an item...



Only to have it's buyers gain nothing but frustration after their purchase.

 

[Freshmeboy]

You make some valid points Ardak...perhaps a future proposal for set pieces is in the works..? I believe the real issue is players rising too quickly through the tech tree with defensive GBs in the upper eras and 3 offensive GBs in the beginning eras..all too often I see players with few or no GBs at all come into my neighborhood and routinely get slaughtered. I have also heard the laments of players trying to deal with heavily ensconced raiders and wanting a ranking points addendum to the neighborhood shuffle. Would this addendum be good for the majority of the gaming population...? Yes. Is it fair to single out these raiders and pit them against higher age troops in higher eras because of their point totals..? No. Can INNO implement this point addendum at all or is it against their intent...? I welcome any analysis.....

 

[DeletedUser26120]

Inno already has games like Elvenar for those who don't want to be plundered. It's another city building game.

 

[DeletedUser30900]

i still don't know why people left their city like that, but it's not plunders' fault for sure if you dont have a big heart then don't even test it at the first place

 

[DeletedUser27889]

You get several things wrong and several right in your post. Wrong is namely that anyone who has advanced GBs paid for them, they did not, at least by overwhelming majoirty they worked them off using FP. Most advanced GBs also have very little to do with with helping someone get past defenses. Also that you can get advanced military from events, you cannot.

I may get a lot of flack from the plunderers but I think ardak has made very good points, plundering should have it's limitations. The way the AI handles rogues is simply unfair to the defense of the city. When something isn't a fair fight you're not really 'winning'. I think the game would be better off with a complete overhaul of the PvP system. A stand along game where players could sign up to have one batch of troops fight another with something wagered on the line.

That being said inno is a business, they are doing quite well now actually but they have to decide if they are making more money from the attackers or making less money from all the people leaving the game due to the attackers.

There should be a weekly cool down for being plundered by the same person.
Once a week and that's it.

I agree with this. Or at least not every single day.

Letting new players get plundered and robbed before they even know what's going on, is just plain bad business sense.

I agree with this as well. Before I started getting really into the game I had no idea what a lightning bolt meant. I was on mobile. I thought sometimes your productions randomly got hit by lighting and destroyed.

Plundering isn't bad on the face of it, but when it was designed, Giant Payday Buildings were not in the game.
It's too big of a single hit, too much for one grab.

I couldn't agree more with this sentiment. I have never had any of mine plundered but the thing of it is that a set building requires the set, a lot more work than sitting down a goods building. People dedicated a lot of time to collect them and put a lot of work making them fit in their cities. Plunderers did not do this. How come I have to have all 5 pieces to get the benefits but a plunderer has to put in no more extra work than if there had there been 1? It just doesn't make sense when you think about it. The amount of work going in to be able to collect from it VS the amount of work needed to steal from it? I'm willing to bet inno made allllllot of money with their set pieces so I don't think it will be too long before they realize it's the payers putting more of them down. I don't have much doubt on which side they're going to be on.

I understand there's a lot of people on the forums that enjoy plundering and they are playing the game by it's current rules and doing nothing wrong. That doesn't mean I don't think the rules should be changed and I think if even some of our plunderers thought about the 7 rogues, ruining a set piece you did no work in collecting, can plunder any time everyday, virtually no form of defense they would see it's less PvP and more shooting fish in a barrel with a shot gun and calling it fair sportsmanship.

 

[DeletedUser]

You get several things wrong and several right in your post. Wrong is namely that anyone who has advanced GBs paid for them, they did not, at least by overwhelming majoirty they worked them off using FP. Most advanced GBs also have very little to do with with helping someone get past defenses. Also that you can get advanced military from events, you cannot.

I may get a lot of flack from the plunderers but I think ardak has made very good points, plundering should have it's limitations. The way the AI handles rogues is simply unfair to the defense of the city. When something isn't a fair fight you're not really 'winning'. I think the game would be better off with a complete overhaul of the PvP system. A stand along game where players could sign up to have one batch of troops fight another with something wagered on the line.

That being said inno is a business, they are doing quite well now actually but they have to decide if they are making more money from the attackers or making less money from all the people leaving the game due to the attackers.


I agree with this. Or at least not every single day.


I agree with this as well. Before I started getting really into the game I had no idea what a lightning bolt meant. I was on mobile. I thought sometimes your productions randomly got hit by lighting and destroyed.


I couldn't agree more with this sentiment. I have never had any of mine plundered but the thing of it is that a set building requires the set, a lot more work than sitting down a goods building. People dedicated a lot of time to collect them and put a lot of work making them fit in their cities. Plunderers did not do this. How come I have to have all 5 pieces to get the benefits but a plunderer has to put in no more extra work than if there had there been 1? It just doesn't make sense when you think about it. The amount of work going in to be able to collect from it VS the amount of work needed to steal from it? I'm willing to bet inno made allllllot of money with their set pieces so I don't think it will be too long before they realize it's the payers putting more of them down. I don't have much doubt on which side they're going to be on.

I understand there's a lot of people on the forums that enjoy plundering and they are playing the game by it's current rules and doing nothing wrong. That doesn't mean I don't think the rules should be changed and I think if even some of our plunderers thought about the 7 rogues, ruining a set piece you did no work in collecting, can plunder any time everyday, virtually no form of defense they would see it's less PvP and more shooting fish in a barrel with a shot gun and calling it fair sportsmanship.

I have 3 palace sets in my main city. I worked for them. I protect them. I plunder other people's. They don't sufficiently protect them. Get over it.

 

[DeletedUser28670]

TL;DR
Goodbye and I wish all those struggling in this game the best of luck.

==========================================================================
Long version:

This is not a whining session. This is an explanation of why I'll be leaving the game; NEIGHBORHOODS. I've invited others to the game who are leaving for the same reason I am.

I've been playing for 429 days now. Every single day. I've tried very hard to enjoy the game - and I have indeed enjoyed much of it. But there is one situation that has become untenable. First, I understand that some people have more money than I and Inno is in the business of making money. So naturally, some people will spend their money - lots of it - for diamonds and will always be stronger than others. However, the entire makeup of the "neighborhood" concept is why I'm getting ready to trade off everything I can to guild members and find another game to while away any spare time I have.

I've joined an active guild where people really help each other. I've been staying in the Progressive Era for months now trying to level up my GBs that provide defense for my city. I've collected as many Watchtowers and other special buildings as I've been able to in order to add to that defense. I have set up my collections to limit collection times, by coinciding them, in order to protect my stuff. I've set up the best defending army I can get at my current age. Yet still, my city is attacked and plundered all the time by as many as 5 different neighbors who are *overwhelmingly* powerful.

NEIGHBORHOODS
1) Once you're attacked and defeated they can come back any time within 24 hours to plunder. A determined player will come back every five minutes until they rob you of 5 FPs from your Maharaja Palace if you can't collect it almost immediately.

2) Folks in my neighborhood with much, much higher level GBs (I've seen level 23+ GBs in my neighbors' cities) and even high level GBs from 6 ages higher (I've seen level 15+ Arctic Orangeries in lower aged cities than mine) than the rest of the neighborhood and military buildings they were lucky enough to get during events that are higher than their current age.

Being in the same age as your neighbors isn't enough. The "revenge" button is absolutely useless in almost all cases. And what satisfaction would there be for me to attack someone else considerably weaker and do the same thing I'm talking about here? There's no challenge in that and all I'd be doing is giving another person reason to call it quits.

Honestly, I think GvG and PvP should be enough. People voluntarily going up against one another. If those systems are broken, then fix them. Why should there be the constant worry of a newer player (or a player who can't spend all day guarding, defending and planning) of losing their stuff and slowing down their progress even more to someone they can never defeat who was arbitrarily placed in their neighborhood?

************** A "points bracket" system added to the arrangement of neighborhoods would give some people a fighting chance. ***************

I know this is long winded and yes, it's just a game. But there are real people behind these cities - you and me. And the frustration of real people finally reaches a point where enjoyment dwindles and we move on. No hard feelings, no anger. I'm just not enjoying myself enough any more.

Go now, plunderer whiner Person-Leaving-The-Game-Due-To-Plundering-Related-Issues
Elvenar is the ultimate retreat for people wanting no plunder and Forge of Empires. It's basically Forge of Empires Non-Plundering Version.

 

[DeletedUser27889]

Elvenar is the ultimate retreat for people wanting no plunder and Forge of Empires. It's basically Forge of Empires Non-Plundering Version.

Nope... Nope nope nope. I read this and signed up just to see what it was like.. There are fairies.. just everywhere. Instead of Great buildings that you assemble with blueprints, ya know, real words, they collect 'rune shards' to make 'ancient wonders'... Everything is bejeweled and twinkles. One of their military units are called 'Sword Dancers' which later can be upgraded to 'Sword Acrobats'.

And this? I don't even know what to make of this:
:

What are you even unlocking here? A preorder of Nicholas Sparks' next novel?

 

[DeletedUser26965]

I wasn't going to reply to you because your replies are verbally insulting and lacking in constructive analysis. But you made assumptions about me that you couldn't possibly know so I'll regale you with my own reply.

I played WoW for 8 years nearly every day. I played PvE and PvP, I regularly raided with my guild and others. It's not the same by any stretch of the imagination. In WoW you could choose a PvP server or not. In WoW you could avoid hitting anyone flagged or stay out of the opposing faction's areas.

I think you're missing my entire point. Newer/weaker players are at the mercy of *anyone* who stays in a lower age and spends enough money on diamonds to procure GBs way beyond their current age and level GBs far beyond anyone else in that age. There is no challenging them in any way. There's no "revenge". There's nothing you can do about it. It's discouraging to have 5 or more of your "neighbors" attacking your city every single day and lying in wait to grab valuables because they can plunder later at their leisure. I find it problematic. You don't.

If you enjoy the game, I'm glad. Everyone needs something they enjoy. However, my post was not intended to invite personal criticism or snide remarks.

Thank you.

I'll be snidey all I want with ardak kumerin, how else will I get him to post a meme for me to enjoy? That's who I was responding to btw. But okay you played WoW too, good, I assume you we're on the forums and ran into all the complaints about noobs getting ganked by high level players? No? Well I remember those posts. I even remember my first days of playing my first character from the starting area, Northshire, and a high level player offering my noob self a ride through Elwynn Forest to Stormwind so I wouldn't get ganked. I remember Goldshire was a favorite for the Horde to slaughter many a noob and even great battles in Stormwind itself with all the guards and other NPC's getting slaughterd as well to where you couldn't even use the bank because the little tellers were dead lol.

So my point was to ardak kumerin who said;

No other MMO on the planet allows PvP of any kind, in Starting Areas.

It's simply not true and I'm sure WoW isn't the only one.