Players leaving

[Annalisia]

Well the gamers leaving the game due to the changes has started. I just lost a major player in my guild due to Inno’s greed. The cut in diamond payouts in GE and the adds that the game used to not have forced it. Inno officially sucks now. I’ve been playing for 4 years ( the longest time I’ve ever played a stupid online game, and am thinking about stopping too. Yes I have a better life than spending it on this stupid game! And will no longer be recommending it to friends! Thanks for ruining our game Inno!!!

 

[Darkest.Knight]

Sounds like u should bail, the game hasn't changed all that much; has always been a slow go and still is. As far as diamonds r concerned I've never thought the expeditions was all that great by comparison to my miners. I've collected almost all of my diamonds from my miners and not the expedition. I'm not bothered by the ads, I just don't bother looking at them when I play on my phone and there aren't any on the PC platform. Good luck with whatever you play next, I'm thinking about next installment of Diablo, only catch is getting a new machine; not enough RAM to run on my present and it's not worth buying memory for it.

 

[Angel.]

i dont like the ads when im on my phone but only check in on it during breaks at work .i play on pc .
the only thing in ge that gets me is all the fragments .been playing since 2014 going to keep playing if i can .
not happy with the pay thing in events but hey got go with the flow .we should have knew it was coming from the raindeer thing in the winter event .
for the most part inno is doing what every bisness owner would do up what sells .some like it some dont includes me

 

[Angel.]

ps i have also lost a lot of friends an guild members but keep on going

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

Players have always been leaving... and joining. Particularly as Summer approaches. Summer is generally slower and more players leave compared to Winter.
It may be true some player rage quit over changes. If you are one more drone, doing things because your friends say to do it, then quit.
The changes are actually trivial, (though they may seem to be a big deal to some.) Player rage over tiny things, I think it is more personality than the game being outrageous.
Do what you want, not my problem. I adapted. and am again happy with the game. It made me stop and think (which is usually a good thing) and make some changes to my cities. and The fun (yes Forge of Empires is fun to play) I have had solving the new problems is worth it to me.
The rage quits are sort of funny.. Like players are throwing away years of effort to prove some point no one,and I mean absolutely no one cares about (A reasonable analogy would be a person setting fire to their car because it ran out of gas. Stupid as can be. but yeah it is your car. And then friends setting fire to thier cars to show solidarity? LOL)

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

the game hasn't changed all that much

Dude, where have you been? It has changed tremendously and the change only seems to be accelerating.

As far as diamonds r concerned I've never thought the expeditions was all that great by comparison to my miners.

While this is true for you (and me, by the way), not everyone has Diamond farms and thus were relying on GE as one of the best places for free Diamonds in the game (outside of being in a Diamond GBG guild.)

As I've said elsewhere, the Diamond nerf in GE doesn't bother me nearly as much as the total nerf of large encounter prizes. I used to make sure I never stopped one short of a large encounter, because the prizes were pretty decent even if you didn't get Diamonds. Now it is totally fragments of selection kits for those encounters (on levels 1-4) and it stinks like week old fish in the sun.

Incidentally, but still on topic, has anyone else noticed that neighborhoods have gotten smaller? I play on 12 worlds and none of them has more than 74 neighbors. It used to be that most neighborhoods had at least 80 players, with sometimes as many as 85. Occasionally I would have one that was as low as 75 or so, but never on all of my worlds at once. These worlds range from Colonial Age up to SAM, and 5 of them I actively play, with the other 7 being Diamond farms. And only one of my active worlds has more than 70 neighbors. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe.

 

[xivarmy]

Dude, where have you been? It has changed tremendously and the change only seems to be accelerating.

While this is true for you (and me, by the way), not everyone has Diamond farms and thus were relying on GE as one of the best places for free Diamonds in the game (outside of being in a Diamond GBG guild.)

As I've said elsewhere, the Diamond nerf in GE doesn't bother me nearly as much as the total nerf of large encounter prizes. I used to make sure I never stopped one short of a large encounter, because the prizes were pretty decent even if you didn't get Diamonds. Now it is totally fragments of selection kits for those encounters (on levels 1-4) and it stinks like week old fish in the sun.

Incidentally, but still on topic, has anyone else noticed that neighborhoods have gotten smaller? I play on 12 worlds and none of them has more than 74 neighbors. It used to be that most neighborhoods had at least 80 players, with sometimes as many as 85. Occasionally I would have one that was as low as 75 or so, but never on all of my worlds at once. These worlds range from Colonial Age up to SAM, and 5 of them I actively play, with the other 7 being Diamond farms. And only one of my active worlds has more than 70 neighbors. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe.

Mine have usually been at ~75 for a long time. But yes it seems most of my worlds are now below 75. Let's say the maximum is 85 (I did have some come close to that at times).

How the neighborhood system works is very similar to GBG matchmaking. It has a range of "acceptable hood sizes" that it tries to fit an age into evenly. And only pulls from the lower age if that's the only way to hit the minimum. By lowering the minimum it would minimize the number of players that have to be pulled up an age if the age above them is thin on players to make its own hoods).

Dilmun Top Hood (stretching from SAJM down to some of the FE players) has 72 so that may be the new "minimum" at hood creation (since it stretches from SAJM all the way down to FE it should be trying to be as small as possible - and it's unlikely too many players that far along on a new world go missing). If you have some hoods smaller than that my guess is that you had some people "ghost" after the creation of the hood (inactive for too long to be visible).

 

[MKPapa]

The issue is not with game being slow.
The recent changes all can be grouped in 2 parts:
- every event introduces buildings with insane stats that require either diamonds or real money to have fully upgraded;
- nerf of rewards especially diamonds to force players spend more real money.
Both together mean that you have to spend real money to just stay on par, or to slowly fall behind.
Somehow I felt this is happening during WInter event, and stopped spending real money. Let's see where it goes from here, but so far I am very disappointed.
My guess is that the next hit will be on diamond farms - nerf the diamond production of WW and FoY, and may be limit diamonds only to a city where it was obtained.
I am less affected by ads, because mostly play on PC, but can feel your pain when I open in smartphone and get those minute long ads all over the place.

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

To me, a lot of the complaining is based on "they owe me" Inno does not owe players anything. If you paid or worked or played the game and had fun, that was the reward. That was the payoff. There is no future guaranteed payoff. If you are not getting want you want fro the game today... You certainly will never get it tomorrow.
All these expectations.. LOL

 

[Sledgie]

To me, a lot of the complaining is based on "they owe me" Inno does not owe players anything. If you paid or worked or played the game and had fun, that was the reward. That was the payoff. There is no future guaranteed payoff. If you are not getting want you want fro the game today... You certainly will never get it tomorrow.
All these expectations.. LOL

My expectation is that Inno will enforce their own terms of service. They don't. Instead they focus on squeezing money out of a shrinking player base and ignore player concerns, particularly concerns about widespread cheating.

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

So they owe you...
Here is a bit if info straight from the terms of service:
2.1 As User, you conclude a contract with us for the free of charge use of Games via the browser or via Mobile Apps ("Licensing Agreement"). You are neither entitled to a Licensing Agreement nor to the use of the Services or the Premium Services. The Licensing Agreement can be terminated by us and by you at any time without giving reasons, and the Services can be discontinued at any time without giving reasons.
7.3 We reserve the right to discontinue the operation of the Games or parts thereof without giving reasons.

Where in those contractual statements from Inno does it say "We owe you..."? It in fact specifically says you are not entitled..

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

The topic isn't whether Inno "owes" (your words, not ours) us anything. The topic is players leaving the game. I did my checking of friends list today, which I do fairly regularly. I don't actively pursue friends, so my list isn't as full as many or yours are. My lists consist of a variety of players, from fairly new ones through casual players who've been here for a while to long time players. They also range from players under 1M points all the way to players with almost 1B points. Here are the results of this action:
12 Worlds
590 total friends at start, average of 49 per world.
437 total friends at end, after removing all "over 7 day" inactives.
47 additional friends between 2-7 days inactive.
26% of total removed.
8% potential to be removed in near future.
Highest % removed from one world: 51%
Lowest % removed from one world: 11%
While many of those removed could be considered casual players, there were several with point totals in the hundreds of millions, and many more with tens of millions of points. Several were long time players who had been on my lists for years.

While I have never tracked the results of checking my friends lists, the fact that 10 of 12 worlds lost at least 20% this time seems significant. If they had all been at the bottom of my lists, that would be one thing. However, those removed were from every point on the lists, from top to bottom.

It's pretty clear that many players are unhappy with the direction the game is going, and also that a portion of those are leaving the game. Defending the actions Inno is taking won't change that. And it won't magically make us okay with what's going on. All it does is give you a false sense of superiority. In other words, it's just self-righteous pomposity. Inno may not "owe" us anything, but by the same token, we don't owe them anything. Certainly not any loyalty when they're crapping all over us.

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

Without a long survey of years of "What happens in Summer. your survey means nothing. Summer always has had a drop in player activity (compared to the other seasons) So to have a reliable claim that this loss of players is unusual, you would need statistics form previous year Summers. (though because of Covid, the last three Years were weird anyway.
But in particular. players finally able to go on a real vacation makes this years Summer also very unusual since a lot of people are taking long delayed vacations this year.
So yeah maybe a few players are leaving. but to claim most of them are due to recent Inno changes cannot be claimed.

Also, nowhere am I defending what Inno is doing, I am defending making personal decisions based on what I can see is a way to continue to have fun, playing a game I like to play And that includes not going along with the endless "Debbie Downer" attitude**s LOL . I am alsocalling out poor thinking on the part of players with sentimental notions of the past. Not that anyone should play a game they no longer have fun playing.

** yes they have the right to whine and complain. I have the right to say that is a poor way to handle it. Inno moved the Cheese. i see endless players moping "the cheese is gone" and saying they will rage quit. or just stop spending money.. . I went and found the cheese. I am strong proud happy and glad I went and found the cheese. (basically I can autbattle through GE 5 now) I just want to tell others. The cheese is just around the corner. Stop being idiots. go find it! That many players would rather contuinue to mope that there is no longe any cheese? Pfft. LOL

 

[xivarmy]

Also, nowhere am I defending what Inno is doing, I am defending making personal decisions based on what I can see is a way to continue to have fun, playing a game I like to play And that includes not going along with the endless "Debbie Downer" attitude**s LOL . I am alsocalling out poor thinking on the part of players with sentimental notions of the past. Not that anyone should play a game they no longer have fun playing.

Well I mean what "continue to have fun" entails will vary from person to person. More autobattles does not = fun for me

GE5 is far from the only thing to have pissed people off of late as well. If anything the ragequits over GE5 are most likely just a final straw. If the rest of the game around it was still solid and didn't involve people finding a way to make their own fun rather than just playing, they'd be more likely to take it in stride.

As for people sticking around past the sell-by date, I can only speak for myself that there's people I play with that I wouldn't have much contact anymore if I quit. So until the stars align and they're all about done with things anyways again I'm probably still here, hoping inno will add *something* fun to the endgame and I'll stop having to play in contorted manners in order to find my own fun.

 

[The North Wind]

People like to complain
-
Play the game, or don't
If you don't like something, well that kind of sucks

- - -

I have to much to do, if the game displeases me, I'll quit, open up a time slot for something more productive

- - -

I believe most players complain because of the amount of time they invested
To that I say, who cares
It could all be erased in a second
Is there any actual productive point to this game, because in theory ( besides cheap dopamine ) its more harmful than good, as all games are
-
so eat your microwaved food, or go without dinner
Its up to you, I'm sure we're all tired of this nonsense



p.s: I just realized the original poster just joined yesterday, as of May 31, 2023 today, makes the post shameful in a way, joining a community just to spit on it

The new summerhaven manor is a crazy awesome event building btw, 4x4 w/ FP packs

 

[Emberguard]

The changes are actually trivial, (though they may seem to be a big deal to some.)

Well it's only natural we'll be focusing on those changes, they stick out like a sore thumb when everything else remains more or less the same

I believe most players complain because of the amount of time they invested

You're probably right on initial gut reactions to changes. We've invested time (for some people money as well) and gotten used to things being a certain way.

But I do think it also has other factors at play that contribute to those reactions. One of those reasons being how long you can sustain interest in a single game for an extended length of time and not grow tired or bored of it. Particularly if you're playing multiple instances of that game simultaneously

Another of those reasons being players want to achieve completion the first time on a buildings initial release, not the second or third time round. By the second or third time you may have lost interest in the current game you're playing anyway, and therefore never complete it.

The only way you wouldn't have this sort of reaction is if everyone makes a conscious decision to not stress about whether they complete the building during an Event, accept the result each time, and use subsequent Events if they're still playing to fill in the remaining missing Upgrades

Well the gamers leaving the game due to the changes has started. I just lost a major player in my guild due to Inno’s greed.

I’ve been playing for 4 years ( the longest time I’ve ever played a stupid online game,

Think about that second statement for a moment, and then look at your first statement. How long had those gamers that left been playing Forge for?

If they stayed engaged for +/- 4 years as well.... and if they also stayed far longer than they have in any other game..... then regardless of what role any decisions InnoGames made plays in their decision to leave now (as opposed to leaving later on), it's probably also got a lot to do with playing the same game for +/- 4 years no matter what that game is or what changes occurred during that time

To put it another way, if absolutely nothing ever changed in the game would anyone still be playing this game after 4 years? If yes how long would you expect anyone to stick around for? 5 years? 10 years? Their entire lives?

I definitely would have liked the recent changes to have been done differently, on the basis of what I would believe to have a lower rate of short and long term player retention decay, but the real test on those changes will be how long new players stick around compared to the already established players. It's unrealistic to expect people to never leave

 

[The North Wind]

Another of those reasons being players want to achieve completion the first time on a buildings initial release, not the second or third time round. By the second or third time you may have lost interest in the current game you're playing anyway, and therefore never complete it.

Yes, that would most certainly cause dismay in the moment, it is too frequent we see lack of emotional control upon these related matters ( lack of emotional control on the internet being a very serious, and dangerous problem currently. Especially with new generations being raised on screens ) I'm tired and I'm rambling aren't I

Thank you for your response Ember, I agree with what you are saying

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I believe most players complain because of the amount of time they invested

Nope. I complain because what used to be a great game is going down the tubes. And players coming here just to disparage other players' very real issues with what's going on are not helping anyone. If the game is so great for you guys, then go play it and leave us to our complaints. Honestly, do you all have nothing better to do than be cheerleaders for Inno's long slide into oblivion?

Summer always has had a drop in player activity (compared to the other seasons)

This has been stated at least twice, but I've seen no data to back it up. Kind of hypocritical to dismiss my post as irrelevant simply based on your unsubstantiated "it's normal" statement. I've been playing over 8 years and I've never noticed a drop in activity during the summer months. Your conjecture is not fact, even though you state it as if it was.
EDIT: I forgot the biggest reason that your criticism of my post it bogus. It's wasn't even summer yet when these players quit playing.

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

Johnny B. Goode you are so much fun. Thank you for being who you are.

 

[Flavius Belisarius]

Just in Tuulech.... Leavers seem to be statistically insignificant, but it always hurts to lose a friend you've got to know.

Players above 1,000,000 pts	9754
Players above 100,000,000 pts	1293
Players above 20,000 battles	2314
Players above 100,000 battles	555