hey who woulda thunk it, we agree on something, but I suppose that's the eventual result of any game really, you get better as you play long enough there's really not much left to do, though I would say holding on to #1 in the guild ranking would be the last remaining challenge for this game but I would like to see GE rank alongside that as well on the board, so whoever has the highest percent of GE first places since that guild had GE would be listed.
I think you guys might be giving a very kind interpretation of what's going on with DC, and also GE Level 4 and similar things like incidences (I'll provide the context for that similarity). Naturally, your perspective is a player's, but we didn't make either, so it's instructive to view it from the people that made it.
Inno is out to make money, pure and simple. It's a business, and that's the primary goal, obviously. It's not to say it's always bad for us, because they need to make the game enjoyable, or it make them money.
Inno wants two things. The first is both obvious and direct, they want you to buy diamonds. I don't think I need to explain why, it's so clear. GE does generate some diamond revenue, for sure, particularly with negotiators. In some instances, so will the DCs, although I expect that's probably quite minor.
In the earnings call, the CEO mentioned that the vast majority of people don't buy diamonds, and that they are still very helpful for the game, because they create an environment where the spenders do. Imagine a server with just paying customers, and you can quickly see how it would die, and the paying customers would cease playing, or certainly, pay as much to play the game. They need people online to flesh out the server, even if they don't directly provide a revenue stream.
People creating an account and being online for three minutes a day won't help that much. Having accounts isn't enough, it's also about how long are people on. The more, the more money they will make.
So, Inno has shifted focus somewhat, to reward being online. The TH took only a click. GvG is rewarding for the guild, but only indirectly rewarding for the individual player, while incurring significant costs. Certainly, someone could skip GvG and not be severely disadvantaged vis-a-vis those who did. It's no surprise only a subset of players did this. Even with that, it degenerated into a slugfest at reset time in many cases, and then people would log off.
Instead, now they put in incidences that require logging in, and also finding them. Then there is GE, which offers very significant personal rewards, and thus encourages players spend the time to solve encounters. Completely L4 GE often requires a considerable amount of time. But, again, at least the rewards justify it for many. And now we have the Daily Chores, which admittedly boring, generally add more time one needs to be online to complete.
So, I think this is why we have them. Sure, Inno would like to make them more fun if they had the imagination to do so, but them being fun is not their primary focus. They put really nice rewards out there, or at least the possibility of getting them, so they justify the time/effort to go after them. It's obtuse and uninspired, but I admit I still do it even with that.
I certainly agree they should change what is required. I'd like to see a game within a game, like chess, or even a contest between several players online. For example (and I realize Monopoly is owned by another company and would take too long, but just take it was a very loose example), you could have a game like Monopoly, and you'd have to win that to do that day's challenge. And you'd have say three other players taken at random to play against. Or even simpler games like hearts or spades, or anywhere in between or outside of those boundaries. Or even a game patterned after in game mechanics, where you'd have to conquer a map while competing with other players, with rules very loosely based on existing FoE ones, but made to fit the mini-game.
There's a lot they can do to make it better, but let's not forget their primary purpose, which it already is serving at least to some extent.