Why is it so hard to aid friends?

[KeithOfTheForge]

My friends list is full and almost everyone on it is active. However, looking through my received aid history, I haven't received aid from at least half of my friends list in over 10 days. I play on desktop so it's very easy to just aid all before I log off. Do most people play on mobile where they have to watch an ad before aiding all so they figure it's just not worth it?

 

[Pericles the Lion]

My friends list is full and almost everyone on it is active. However, looking through my received aid history, I haven't received aid from at least half of my friends list in over 10 days. I play on desktop so it's very easy to just aid all before I log off. Do most people play on mobile where they have to watch an ad before aiding all so they figure it's just not worth it?

Momma always said "Stupid is as stupid does". I suppose that many players don't aid because either they are lazy or they use mass self aid items and don't need other players to aid them. I have Seed Vaults in every one of my cities so I aid daily to feed them but I also use mass self aid items because I don't care if others aid me or not. I'm just selfish I guess.

 

[Orius Maximus]

Lazy might be part of it, but possibly it's the result of so many daily things to do in the game that people skip the tedium of aiding.

I actually bother with the ads because it's easier than going through a bar of 140 players, but sometimes the ads are stupid glitchy and that might be the fault of whoever encoded the ad and not Inno. I let the ad auto aid because there is still the small chance of higher age blueprints, and I have a Truce Tower bringing in some small amount of goods.

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

I believe there is some nonsense being done by Inno messing around damaging the aid. I noticed this also, and weeded my Friends lists ( three worlds) A lot of players I dropped claim they were aiding me every day, yet I did not get any aid from them. (This is very unusual, I never had such claims before when dropping Friends) It has been going on for about the last three weeks? to a month. So apparently Inno has screwed up the aid system in some way but is not responding to any complaints about it.
All I can suggest is look for new Friends to get aid from. It does seem dropping the players who's aid is not being registered and finding new players to get aid from does solve the problem to some degeree.

 

[Angry.Blanket]

Mass self aid, it has been said here several times that players use them so they don't have to worry with aiding there friend's.

 

[KeithOfTheForge]

Mass self aid, it has been said here several times that players use them so they don't have to worry with aiding there friend's.

People can't possibly be using mass self aid every day. I think I have less than 40 in my inventory. What do they do when they run out?

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I don't aid more than 2 or 3 times a week, sometimes less. Mostly because of time constraints on my play. Also, it's the least productive way to get BPs, whereas it used to be the main way. And with the lack of Build menu residential/production buildings in my city, along with the overabundance of coins/supplies, there is less need for return aid from friends/neighbors. Priority buildings in my cities mostly get aided daily regardless, and I don't stress if a few of the lesser ones don't. If I remember I use a Mass Aid before collecting, but I usually think of it after I've collected. And in most of my cities it wouldn't make much difference. I get what I need without worrying about it, which is important to me as this is a leisure time activity for enjoyment and not necessarily for accomplishment.

 

[Pericles the Lion]

People can't possibly be using mass self aid every day. I think I have less than 40 in my inventory. What do they do when they run out?

I use one every day. 15 Nutcracker Guardhouses supply enough frags to build 1 MSA daily.

 

[Ironrooster]

I generally aid all on my friends list on each world daily. Because of slippage that works out to about 6 times a week.

The neighborhood also gets aided daily most of the time, but occasionally not depending on how often I play.

I do the mass self aid right before I collect so as to leave buildings for others to aid who might have seed vault, truce tower, etc.

 

[Emberguard]

Hard? No. It's not hard.

Tedious? Yeah. It's not exactly jumping for joy levels of fun to Aid everyone once you have a developed city

Even when I start a brand new city I find it more fun to Aid everyone as it has a goal I can accomplish (recurring quests for gather coins with Aid actually have value in a brand new city) than when I log into my developed cities where I've already got everything up and running, and therefore only need minimal maintenance / has drastically different goals

Which is why I love the Auto Aid feature on Desktop for my developed cities

Also there are ways to reduce the overall amount of Aid required to keep my city running while still keeping it decent. Winner's Plaza's get Aided last. Set pieces that don't need Aid, or have low Aid priority. Having a bunch of buildings that don't need Aid such as the Statue of Honor and Crows Nest.

And of course for the more efficient buildings, bigger footprint is better for reducing Aid requirements. I do have the 1x1 trees, and the tiny Gold League buildings from the last two Events because they're so good. But I can afford to have those because I've reduced the Aid requirements elsewhere, and made sure to have a fairly full (active-ish) friends list

You get 220 Expansions to work with by the end of Titan (+3 from the Castle). That’s 3,520 squares. If you filled your city with 4x4 buildings like the Sunhaven Palaces you’d probably fit somewhere around 195 buildings by the time you add roads. That’s more buildings than friends. So definitely want to either decrease overall Aid needed, or get 15 Nutcrackers to generate Mass Aids so you can consistently keep up with maximum production

I believe there is some nonsense being done by Inno messing around damaging the aid. I noticed this also, and weeded my Friends lists ( three worlds) A lot of players I dropped claim they were aiding me every day, yet I did not get any aid from them. (This is very unusual, I never had such claims before when dropping Friends) It has been going on for about the last three weeks? to a month. So apparently Inno has screwed up the aid system in some way but is not responding to any complaints about it.
All I can suggest is look for new Friends to get aid from. It does seem dropping the players who's aid is not being registered and finding new players to get aid from does solve the problem to some degeree.

I wonder if there’s anything in common with how they do their Aiding that could be causing that?

 

[Dursland]

People can't possibly be using mass self aid every day. I think I have less than 40 in my inventory. What do they do when they run out?

I have 18 nutcrackers in city and over 200 mass self aid kits in inventory. I do absolutely have to use one every single day. It motivates between 40 to 60 buildings.

In fact I'm thinking about adding more nutcrackers to my city because I'm running out of self-aid kits with the finish specials.

Unless inno gives us a better building option for self aid kits I'll end up using mass aid kits to m/p one building lol.

 

[Xenosaur]

So glad others are seeing what the OP is seeing. I've been harping on this for months now, (https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/soccer-event-2023-feedback.45566/post-402989) and the reality is - we're seeing it everywhere.

Many prescient players saw the "handwriting on the wall" for this, and have taken matters into their own hands. Yup - ensure survival of your city collection by employing daily MASS SELF AIDs.

I'm doing the same thing by taking the reins on a solution to the problem and solving it on my own, but don't have as many nutcrackers as the other posters (I have just 5). I squeak by with saved MASS SELF aids, and a few manual self-aids a day where required.

This is because there are fewer people playing FoE, and frankly many find it tedious to aid hundreds of others each day - ie, everyone.

As well, the is NO requirement that you get equal aid back for giving aid to others.

There are no problems like this in FoE beta. Why? No-advertisement aid is a perk (benefit) to all who play beta, so you click a button, DO NOT have to watch video ads, and it's painless to help ALL others. Since it's not tedious, it's adopted almost ubiquitously and all get their stuff P/M'd daily.

In live FoE, you have to watch a 30-60 second video advertisement, for EACH type of aid (meaning: 1) friends, 2) guildmates 3) neighborhood).
Few want to watch 1 ad, let alone 3. So lots of your important buildings go un-aided and then you have to scramble to cover what doesn't get done.

Many quality and FAIR suggestions were made to ameliorate this growing problem, but I doubt Inno will do so.

 

[Xenosaur]

Take a look at how the number of NUTCRACKER buildings (when motivated) can be amplified for a 2x (doubling) production of fragments, by 70% probability (obtained with a Level 91 Blue Galaxy) ...

Number of NUTCRACKERS​	Fragments/day without any 2x boost	Fragments/day WITH a BG 91 (70% Probability) for 2x boost	Fastest Number of Days to Make 30 Fragments = 1 MASS SELF AID kit
1​	2	3	10
2​	4	6	5
3​	6	10	3
4​	8	13	3
5​	10	17	2
6​	12	20	2
7​	14	23	2
8​	16	27	2
9​	18	30	1
10​	20	34	1

 

[Darkest.Knight]

Having a Seed Vault makes it a lot easier to remember both my friends and neighbors daily. Not sure why players have a problem using "aid all," not much effort required and you get all incidental rewards.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

So glad others are seeing what the OP is seeing. I've been harping on this for months now, (https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/soccer-event-2023-feedback.45566/post-402989) and the reality is - we're seeing it everywhere.

Many prescient players saw the "handwriting on the wall" for this, and have taken matters into their own hands. Yup - ensure survival of your city collection by employing daily MASS SELF AIDs.

I'm doing the same thing by taking the reins on a solution to the problem and solving it on my own, but don't have as many nutcrackers as the other posters (I have just 5). I squeak by with saved MASS SELF aids, and a few manual self-aids a day where required.

This is because there are fewer people playing FoE, and frankly many find it tedious to aid hundreds of others each day - ie, everyone.

As well, the is NO requirement that you get equal aid back for giving aid to others.

There are no problems like this in FoE beta. Why? No-advertisement aid is a perk (benefit) to all who play beta, so you click a button, DO NOT have to watch video ads, and it's painless to help ALL others. Since it's not tedious, it's adopted almost ubiquitously and all get their stuff P/M'd daily.

In live FoE, you have to watch a 30-60 second video advertisement, for EACH type of aid (meaning: 1) friends, 2) guildmates 3) neighborhood).
Few want to watch 1 ad, let alone 3. So lots of your important buildings go un-aided and then you have to scramble to cover what doesn't get done.

Many quality and FAIR suggestions were made to ameliorate this growing problem, but I doubt Inno will do so.

I play on PC and thus have no ads, but it's still too tedious and time consuming to do when you have multiple cities.

 

[Dominator - X]

My friends list is full and almost everyone on it is active. However, looking through my received aid history, I haven't received aid from at least half of my friends list in over 10 days. I play on desktop so it's very easy to just aid all before I log off. Do most people play on mobile where they have to watch an ad before aiding all so they figure it's just not worth it?

For a newer city, aid is pretty important. At this juncture, I am more interested in friends to help each other on leveling our GB's. They can Aid me every day, but if they go inactive on a 1.X thread, I ask them if they are done posting there. If they say yes, I usually thank them and explain why I am going to dismiss them. I do have some "old" friends who we continue as friend's, even though they are not helping me level my GB's, but for the newer ones, my expectations are different than when I was new at this game. Aid is just not the priority anymore.

 

[cbalto1927]

I been playing FOE on and off for the better part of 10 years. "Aid all" was the most requested by the players. Now it's finally here. I find it easy to aid all then log off. As for "friends", they are not important to my game play. As the saying goes " There's no friends, only interests".

 

[Wandering Jake]

Mass self aid, it has been said here several times that players use them so they don't have to worry with aiding there friend's.

How does one do Mass Self Aid?

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

How does one do Mass Self Aid?

There is a Mass Self-Aid Kit that would be in your Inventory if you have one of them. You use it like any consumable item. Unlike the Self-Aid Kit, you don't have to select any buildings, because it automatically aids every building in your city that can be motivated or polished but hasn't been yet. It's generally wise only to use them just prior to collecting so you don't prevent others from aiding your buildings. Although I can see some people using it just after collecting to prevent plunders. I wouldn't, but that's just me.

 

[Telemann]

Late to this thread, but rather than start a new one...

I motivate every day. And check my Tavern seats 1-3 times/day. I have one city and don't intend on getting any others.

Most of my Friends are "active within 2 days", of the 140 only 1 motivates every day, most do 3-5 in a week. I have one Friend who often takes the top spot on my GB's., but besides this person, maybe 2-3 irregularly contribute to my GB's and I always make sure they get FP's back (if you have a lvl 90 Arc). I usually level my GB's myself after 2nd or 3rd spot is taken. When levelling sometimes a Friend will scoop in and spend 2 FP and get hundreds back just because I was collecting and didn't spend fast enough.

I have 6 Nutcrackers, when I get enough to be Mass self sufficient, I intend to drop almost all my Friends as I don't see the point. If I want friends who will take advantage of me, I'll get roommates. I have a Blue Galaxy.