As for live Winter event feedback:
The good, the bad and the ugly.
The ugly
The event pass is outrageously expensive. Standing with €15-18, it's the final nail in the coffin for me to not invest a penny in the game. If however the options where: pay 2-3k diamonds or pay €15-18, I would've been compelled to spend €50 on the browser, the €10 Apple taxes on the app are just too much, for an additional grand prize. Besides an assumed 7,5k+ diamonds saved from playing the game. Meaning the discouragement program for diamonds for cash is doing its job.
As the event is a gamble event, having fragments for rouge hideouts, is making them fairly weak. In particular as the hideout shrink kit, arguable a more valuable item, isn’t fragmented. While Forge ball for example feels exceptionally buffed. Another ugly effect of this is the reliance on luck to getting sufficient progress with candles. Those who claim "oh well but I did manage it easily" well good for you, you got lucky. Not everyone has luck and this shouldn't be a determination for any participant who've completed the event to getting the full grand prize or not. This makes the event even more weak.
The bad
The event quests are demanding a lot for starting players. Actually they're asking too much. As there where many buy X fps, this drain an inexperienced new player's coins rapidly to the point they can't participate in the event anymore. My advice is to always providing an alternative on this or just not having this quest type for events in ages below late Middle Ages or colonial age.
As mentioned before, luck is of a significant importance. For starters this will be frustrating. As this might be their first event and probably last as they might quit the game because of it. To complete the grand prize at my starter world, to test what new players may experience, I’ve almost had to invest a considerable amount of diamonds, though lucky the incidents and a couple of shuffles saves the day. Some guild members where less lucky to say the least. A new player does not enjoy this. As they’re more likely to making mistakes and are unaware of strategies to actually manage this event: save up currency, collect incidents and spend stars as late as possible so, you may get the additional candles lit up to have the best odds of getting enough upgrades. This event is very unforgiving if you don’t do this. On the App Store reviews of some frustrated new players who've quit the game over this, can be find. Already a couple of years old. I strongly suggest to reconsider this type of game design if Inno wants to continue to pray on new players. Or at the very least, paying attention to poor reviews on the App Store.
The good
The greatest and only good thing of this event, is the grand prize and the guardhouse. As the combination makes the building stands out and being worth a decant investment. However upping this by €15-18 feels overpriced. For a grand total of €65-68 are many better deals out there. Both irl as in other games, compared to this building. If it was €50, it felt okay-ish. As this P2W event pass has inflated the price by 30%, regardless of platform: browser€50 €65 app €60 €78. That been said, if the event price went up from 1.200 diamonds to 2.000-3.000, it would make little difference in costs but at least reward activity in the game by some discount. It would also not give the unnerving feeling that diamonds are losing functionality over directly payed features.
Overall
The event didn’t feel very enjoyable. Much rather like a daily grind and gamble: hoping for a decant daily and hoping somehow the free stars would be enough. In the end I’m happy with the grand prize but feel dissatisfied by the event. The main causes are the nature of the event being a loot box gamble mania. If the game mechanics where more enjoyable, I would’ve really liked this event. In which the grand prize would’ve felt amazing, sadly it’s not.
The 2nd part is the poor diamond deals, despite the 100% extra diamonds sale, as even during this sale the diamonds I can get are less compared to when I’ve started the game. For reference for €20 when I started playing FoE I got 2k diamonds, now even during the sale its more then €20 and less then 1,5k diamonds. I feel sorry for the devs and hope if this feedback is forwarded the main factors will mainly be forwarded. In particular the imho worsening diamonds for cash deals . As such bad deals don’t encourage the purchases to say the least, much rather the opposite. I hope this may change this year. Cause I would love to see the game getting better. Also in the premium deals. To see the game getting through another 10 yrs.
The good, the bad and the ugly.
The ugly
The event pass is outrageously expensive. Standing with €15-18, it's the final nail in the coffin for me to not invest a penny in the game. If however the options where: pay 2-3k diamonds or pay €15-18, I would've been compelled to spend €50 on the browser, the €10 Apple taxes on the app are just too much, for an additional grand prize. Besides an assumed 7,5k+ diamonds saved from playing the game. Meaning the discouragement program for diamonds for cash is doing its job.
As the event is a gamble event, having fragments for rouge hideouts, is making them fairly weak. In particular as the hideout shrink kit, arguable a more valuable item, isn’t fragmented. While Forge ball for example feels exceptionally buffed. Another ugly effect of this is the reliance on luck to getting sufficient progress with candles. Those who claim "oh well but I did manage it easily" well good for you, you got lucky. Not everyone has luck and this shouldn't be a determination for any participant who've completed the event to getting the full grand prize or not. This makes the event even more weak.
The bad
The event quests are demanding a lot for starting players. Actually they're asking too much. As there where many buy X fps, this drain an inexperienced new player's coins rapidly to the point they can't participate in the event anymore. My advice is to always providing an alternative on this or just not having this quest type for events in ages below late Middle Ages or colonial age.
As mentioned before, luck is of a significant importance. For starters this will be frustrating. As this might be their first event and probably last as they might quit the game because of it. To complete the grand prize at my starter world, to test what new players may experience, I’ve almost had to invest a considerable amount of diamonds, though lucky the incidents and a couple of shuffles saves the day. Some guild members where less lucky to say the least. A new player does not enjoy this. As they’re more likely to making mistakes and are unaware of strategies to actually manage this event: save up currency, collect incidents and spend stars as late as possible so, you may get the additional candles lit up to have the best odds of getting enough upgrades. This event is very unforgiving if you don’t do this. On the App Store reviews of some frustrated new players who've quit the game over this, can be find. Already a couple of years old. I strongly suggest to reconsider this type of game design if Inno wants to continue to pray on new players. Or at the very least, paying attention to poor reviews on the App Store.
The good
The greatest and only good thing of this event, is the grand prize and the guardhouse. As the combination makes the building stands out and being worth a decant investment. However upping this by €15-18 feels overpriced. For a grand total of €65-68 are many better deals out there. Both irl as in other games, compared to this building. If it was €50, it felt okay-ish. As this P2W event pass has inflated the price by 30%, regardless of platform: browser
Overall
The event didn’t feel very enjoyable. Much rather like a daily grind and gamble: hoping for a decant daily and hoping somehow the free stars would be enough. In the end I’m happy with the grand prize but feel dissatisfied by the event. The main causes are the nature of the event being a loot box gamble mania. If the game mechanics where more enjoyable, I would’ve really liked this event. In which the grand prize would’ve felt amazing, sadly it’s not.
The 2nd part is the poor diamond deals, despite the 100% extra diamonds sale, as even during this sale the diamonds I can get are less compared to when I’ve started the game. For reference for €20 when I started playing FoE I got 2k diamonds, now even during the sale its more then €20 and less then 1,5k diamonds. I feel sorry for the devs and hope if this feedback is forwarded the main factors will mainly be forwarded. In particular the imho worsening diamonds for cash deals . As such bad deals don’t encourage the purchases to say the least, much rather the opposite. I hope this may change this year. Cause I would love to see the game getting better. Also in the premium deals. To see the game getting through another 10 yrs.
