Discussion Time to leave Forge of Empires.

[Owl II]

Many, many years ago, a developer explained in a forum that the game had been created with the goal of reaching Future Era and finish there. We arrived well until that era, everything else are patches.

Years ago I return every day to FOE hoping to find what it once was but every day I drop out disillusioned.

It won't be the same as it was. It's not necessary. But game need a general concept. Players need to understand what they are playing. We have an cityplanning strategy in which the construction menu is not used (except in the first month or two of the game). We have battleground in which the battle takes place only for the farm, and often within the guild. Our ranking is determined by a feature that affects only 5% of players, according to the developers. We have a PVP arena in which all PVP is about beating weak bots. Make something definite here. At least something that looks the same as it is called

 

[Finkadel]

The main problem is there is not (for now) any game designed for adults, like this used to be. I am really bored with this cartoon looking so-called strategy games, where it is known after an hour that it is strictly P2W, not strategy. That is why I always end with FoE and their lovely design. I am not fan of dumb carrot harvesting or strictly fighting to death. There are limited options for those like me, though I can always play chess, I guess. Not so pretty as FoE graphic's designs, but always favoring mind over mindless clicking. Click. Click.

 

[vidicecilia]

.... But game need a general concept. Players need to understand what they are playing. We have an cityplanning strategy in which the construction menu is not used (except in the first month or two of the game). We have battleground in which the battle takes place only for the farm, and often within the guild. Our ranking is determined by a feature that affects only 5% of players, according to the developers. We have a PVP arena in which all PVP is about beating weak bots. Make something definite here. At least something that looks the same as it is called

You are claiming that the game will be what it was in the past.

 

[Owl II]

You are claiming that the game will be what it was in the past.

The game had a defined genre in the past. We knew what we were playing and what we wanted to play. Now they write "city planning simulator" in advertising, but players are offered to master battles and other multiple mouse clicks instead of cityplanning. In this sense, yes, I want the game to go back to the past. People should not be disappointed. They want to build houses. They come to play with us in the guild. But we don't build houses with them together. We drive them to do a bunch of fights...

 

[Amdira]

The game had a defined genre in the past. We knew what we were playing and what we wanted to play. Now they write "city planning simulator" in advertising, but players are offered to master battles and other multiple mouse clicks instead of cityplanning. In this sense, yes, I want the game to go back to the past. People should not be disappointed. They want to build houses. They come to play with us in the guild. But we don't build houses with them together. We drive them to do a bunch of fights...

Agree. In November I tried to play as much old-school as possible on a complete new Server. It was almost impossible to find ppl who would join in, as most just were trying to play as they were used to on old servers. They even told new players (who were directed to the new server as first suggestion) to play in a that way, even those just couldn't have neither the knowledge nor the ressources to do so. It was impossible to find a handful players to support an old-school Obersatory-support as some already had bought an Arc and insisted on their used way to play. They even insisted on a 1.2 to 1.9 support while almost nobody could afford an Arc (good for me to have them in the hood, but that was the only fun with them ). They told completely new players to delete the Oracle (who of course did so and then wondered how to get enough supplies and happiness), to concentrate only on combat and get their goods from the hood by plundering like this would be the only way to play this game.. To be honest, I was really sorry for those new players there - maybe this works on old worlds, where there are many experienced players who can support them with good, FPs, prints and all they need to play the game like this. But how shall they learn how to build up a city in a thoughtfull way? New players aren't taught how to build up a city anymore.
The only way to bring this old-school feeling back would be a brand new server which is not connected to the old ones, will mean no access to diamonds from other worlds. This would have been a great idea for the anniversary. But it won't bring diamond sales ....

 

[Emberguard]

The only way to bring this old-school feeling back would be a brand new server which is not connected to the old ones, will mean no access to diamonds from other worlds. This would have been a great idea for the anniversary. But it won't bring diamond sales ....

If you really want to shake up the thinking on how to do things, also restrict the building of Great Buildings to current age and below only.

They told completely new players to delete the Oracle (who of course did so and then wondered how to get enough supplies and happiness), to concentrate only on combat and get their goods from the hood by plundering like this would be the only way to play this game.. To be honest, I was really sorry for those new players there

Yeah.... many of the common tactics really only make sense if you understand why you're doing it. Oracle is a massive boost to a brand new player because they really don't have the experience to optimise their city layout yet: so the amount of usable space they have is also going to be drastically smaller compared to experienced players with the same amount of gridspace unlocked. A lot of new players are probably only using 50-70% of the space they have unlocked due to inexperience, and those tips to delete this or do that don't take any of that into account

 

[Fire Witch]

Had to clean up this thread a bit.

 

[drakenridder]

Agree. In November I tried to play as much old-school as possible on a complete new Server. It was almost impossible to find ppl who would join in, as most just were trying to play as they were used to on old servers. They even told new players (who were directed to the new server as first suggestion) to play in a that way, even those just couldn't have neither the knowledge nor the ressources to do so. It was impossible to find a handful players to support an old-school Obersatory-support as some already had bought an Arc and insisted on their used way to play. They even insisted on a 1.2 to 1.9 support while almost nobody could afford an Arc (good for me to have them in the hood, but that was the only fun with them ). They told completely new players to delete the Oracle (who of course did so and then wondered how to get enough supplies and happiness), to concentrate only on combat and get their goods from the hood by plundering like this would be the only way to play this game.. To be honest, I was really sorry for those new players there - maybe this works on old worlds, where there are many experienced players who can support them with good, FPs, prints and all they need to play the game like this. But how shall they learn how to build up a city in a thoughtfull way? New players aren't taught how to build up a city anymore.
The only way to bring this old-school feeling back would be a brand new server which is not connected to the old ones, will mean no access to diamonds from other worlds. This would have been a great idea for the anniversary. But it won't bring diamond sales ....

I've experimented with both extreme ends: Beta as vanilla old school as possible and live as event/special/great building reliant as possible with the least amount of regular buildings. Guess which city thrives and which struggles? The vanilla (Beta) city manages like it's walking on broken legs and improvised support. The special buildings city thrives like it's an massive company that doesn't knows where to keep the continuously stockpiling resources and even that city is barely half way where the top dogs.
From what I've learned from that experiment after the years is that the game is really difficult to play without event buildings and GB's. Sure if you like you can ignore them. It's possible to construct an mostly functional and decant thriving city up to VF while playing as Vanilla as possible. Though GB's are fairly important for the military bonuses on the cmap but other then that you should be fine.
From SAM and onwards however it's highly impractical to play vanilla. Even to the point where I would say it's an hard challenge to accomplish and where the game really starts to soft push you into the event builder playstyle. That been said the large variety and massive availability of event buildings do allow for some decreasingly level of strategical city building and planning to specialise in combination with GB's.
The problem however is that you'll eventually reach the hard limits: space and efficiency. Once those hard limits are reached the strategical part stagnates until it's coming to an grinding stop. Where only an new event, special or great building can temporarily activate the city planning part again. Though most of the time unlocking more expansions causing the most minimal strategical amount of planning which usually is already done months in advance.
I think that is what really makes the game less interesting. Reaching an point where expending further is exceptionally expensive and yields hardly any satisfying reward. The only 2 current features that escaping from this are the disposable cultural settlements and the colonies. While I disliked the disposable nature of those side cities I can see its function: resetting continuously to strategically building up an city. From which I personally feel only the settlements have an meaningful purpose: unlocking everything and beating gold/silver/bronze time for an reward to (at times slightly) benefit the main city. Where colonies fall short and their only purpose is to fund the supply of special goods. Both are highly limited to an minimal time frame. Thus imo only the settlements being the somewhat functional solution to the issue where facing and some of us are drawn to quit.
In my up most honest opinion, the only real solution for Inno I see is creating an side city which has an long term purpose through at least it's own age and future ages where players are forced to reconsider their strategies and repurposing that side city to accomplish whatever set of appealing goals Inno could create to achieve. Otherwise this negative feedback loop of hitting bedrock limits with both space and purpose will strengel this game slowly but surely to its end as an strategical game.

 

[vidicecilia]

Had to clean up this thread a bit.

Thanks a lot!!!!

 

[prince chaki royalpants]

Many are quitting because of others using scripts and Inno dont want to accept them and deal with them. Here is a one script that I found on youtube, maybe something will change after this, maybe...
[link deleted]

 

[outoftheline]

Many are quitting because of others using scripts and Inno dont want to accept them and deal with them. Here is a one script that I found on youtube, maybe something will change after this, maybe...
[link deleted]

So you think they do not know about this script yet?

 

[Pericles the Lion]

Many are quitting because of others using scripts and Inno dont want to accept them and deal with them. Here is a one script that I found on youtube, maybe something will change after this, maybe...
[link deleted]

Call me naive. How rampant can script use be? I have A/D of 1384/913 and autobattle a lot in GBG (no GvG). I'm in OF and need to swap out, or replace, units every 2-4 battles. I do not use scripts but, even if I did, it would not provide much benefit. Maybe players with 2000+/1500+ stats can make it work but how many of them are there that want to cheat?

 

[moideux]

FOE was an cityplanning strategy at first with minor elements of entourage (interaction with neighbors, with other players). And yet the main content of the game was to build a city and guide it through the ages. All this has been destroyed or leveled currently. A new age appears once a year and takes place in 2 weeks. Cityplanning in its original form has been completely destroyed. It was replaced by special buildings. The city is not rebuilt with the change of age. It just makes up in five minutes. The project must developed. So, new elements appear in it from time to time. GE.. Settlements... Events... PVP... GBG... But what are we playing now? In city planning? in a remake of Civilization? The battle of the clans? As soon as the developers find the answer to this question, the game will return to normal. Or not if they don't find it.

FoE has never been just about city planning, in fact on pf the 1st quest was to defeat an enemy. otherwise it was impossible to advance. While know of at least one player who only eve has done that single battle, this is not the norm. The game always has rewarded the battlers batten than the farmer/developer. I have been playing one Inno game or another for over 15 years and what has happened in all of them is happening now in FOE.
The very 1st thing that the Devs did wrong was to start building a game based on a dying architecture in Adobe as as a result of its limitations FoE has suffered as to how it could develop and expand. It has taken the devs years to port to HTML and other engines. Had they listened to the gamer's like me who were saying this from the beginning, they would have been much better positioned to deal with the massive growth of the FoE community.
2ndly, they have never accepted that anyone playing FoE had as much or more programing knowledge as their team, so they never took any player advice that I know of and they still don't. I do not think that any of them or their programmers know a wit about sandboxing, other wise we would not have the constant silly errors after and update that take weeks to fix.
The same goes for their willingness to listen to the long time players about how to improve game play. If one looks at the input from players with7-8-9-10 years of playing one notes that this is a wealth of knowledge that the Dev;s are refusing to look at.
I keep playing and hoping that someone other than the Dev's; like the bean counters, look at the feedback and seek to make changes which could lead to helping their bottom line while at the same time improve gameplay.

 

[Kronan]

Call me naive. How rampant can script use be? I have A/D of 1384/913 and autobattle a lot in GBG (no GvG). I'm in OF and need to swap out, or replace, units every 2-4 battles. I do not use scripts but, even if I did, it would not provide much benefit. Maybe players with 2000+/1500+ stats can make it work but how many of them are there that want to cheat?

No one makes it work without warrior swap outs, and your 2-4 is about right - for most people.. The AI design reads each players war posture before a battle, and stays relative to each person. It's been boosted by INNO to be more hostile and predatory, much like the CONTINENT map AI is for higher eras.

ANY wounds at all ( red chips) in your warriors make the defensive AI focus on that specific warrior. If you've chosen to deploy a 1+7 army, and that single 1 warrior is chipped, you severely INCREASE the risk it will be killed first, leaving 7 rogues to be poofed.

This is not about punching autobattle with impunity anymore (as it used to be... for dozens of fights in seconds...), or for even 10 quickie fights in a row. Even in super low attrition situations, your warriors are going to show massive dominance ON PAPER vs the defenders, but get chipped up - leaving you to consider nearly every battle if they should be refreshed.

 

[maff]

some strategy to do the investigations of the jupiter era and where to go and what path to follow, thanks

 

[crabbyoldman]

One thing we forget, when we complain about the situation. Every player, that has reached a certain level, is no longer of interest. Some of the high level players might purchase diamonds but most of us gain enough by playing GBG or other sources. Interesting players are new players, that wants to progress and purchase diamonds to achieve that.

So Inno does not care if endgame players drop off, I even think it is the other way around, they hope we do. So why bother listening to experienced players and develop interesting stuff for them. New players will have enough interesting stuff.

I think you are quite right about that. And if we are gone there is no one to tell the newer players what they are missing

 

[crabbyoldman]

Yes, and what if the game still got worse with him on the team? These are obviously mutually exclusive scenarios and we can't know what the other option would look like, but given how these things usually go it's likely that the game would have still gone 'downhill' anyway. It's interesting to think about who or what would be blamed in this alternate reality where Anwar is still working on the game instead of his death/departure being used as a reason why some feel the game's gotten worse. In a way, it's almost like it's somehow still his 'fault' when he's brought up this way and IMO it's pretty disrespectful.

My feelings about the game deteriorating are based on my direct involvement playing it for 8 years. It isn't his absence that makes me feel that way

 

[indian20]

So in the meantime I have made my decision and i have left the game after nearly 8 years. For some time I was in the Top60 of Qunrir and I was hoping that at some point, Inno would understand what it means to loose experienced players but right now I have lost all motivation to stay. It was like riding a dead horse. So this is me saying goodbye to everyone.