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Situation of the Game

RaiderTr

Master Sergeant
We all had our ranting, complaining etc moments but I will try to be as constructive as possible here. Nothing below will be the things you don't already know though.
On a side note, I'm one of those first players that came back after a looong hiatus, and I've gathered a lot of feedback from others.
(https://forum.the-west.net/index.php?threads/situation-of-the-game.58573)


Let's be realistic, the game has been, and still is, in Coma state for a while now, regardless of still making some money. Current player-base is just a shadow of its former-self.
But that doesn't necessarily mean it can't recover, not yet. Mostly thanks to being the only proper (browser-based) West game, in my opinion.

> Why Coma though? What's wrong?
Well it seems that the deterioration of the game started/gained pace with the "Tombola sets" era. Slowly, but surely.

I mean, I understand the need of Events (or some New content every once in a while) to keep the game going, and let's be realistic, we can't just expect you to stop making new sets (unless you make a Classic server of sorts)

But there are issues need addressing.
And I believe the real issues, most being related, are;
  • Power-Creep of the Sets (which is/was made even worse by the Upgrades)
  • Mechanics, Formulas, Class bonuses, Buffs etc. that can't keep up with the Power-Creep
  • NOT keeping both sides of the coin (like Melee v Ranged, FF Damagers v Tanks etc) balanced all the time
  • Town shop & Named items, and all the Chests dropping them, Quest items being obsolete (that's like half or even more of the game content poofed)
  • Frequency of Events and the endless waves of long Quests (that don't really give something worthy) coming with them
  • "Day of the Dead" event itself, being a pure gamble, pay to win/lose one. Still loathed.
Then.. at the end of one's rope.. the instant-buy over-powered P2W Nugget sets..

I mean.. Job, speed etc related ones are okay-ish, but when you get them into PvP, like Duel or Fort Fighting, and make them Upgradable on top of that.. (Like, Union Officer) it's REALLY game breaking.

> On top of all these, opening new servers every year and stretching the already small player-base too thin, then not merging/closing the "old" servers is only amplifying the issues.

Ps. Lack of "Mobile version" is also a big issue while there is a really high demand for years.

Ps nr2. Here, We had/have some collection of ideas/suggestions regarding Fort Battle related issues.


This will be all for now.
Now it's up to you to decide to either let it die or help it recover its former glory.
 
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DeletedUser4699

Guest
i agree with heavy on this not being the best place nor the best way to explain and deal with the problem, however, it was my understanding from my past game experience on the-west, that this actually is a problem, and that the-west needs to change.
i hope my opinion helps you all :)
 

RaiderTr

Master Sergeant
If "Official" forum is not the place to talk about the issues of the game.. I don't know where is..
Not like "Support" or parent company MTG wasn't tried though.


On a side but still important note, seems I've forgotten to mention the lack of "Mobile version" issue even though there is a really high demand.
As far as I know, this is the only game that they don't have one.
 

DeletedUser1406

Guest
literally no one cares about your opinion of the game
I would've cared a couple years ago. Maybe that's the problem. Nobody cares anymore.

Negativity caused by you, literally no one cares about your opinion of the game, right now you're being a thorn in everyone's back side. I open the forum,and the first thing I see is you whining again, at this point it's disrupting gameplay,no one wants to hear how much you hate union set or whatever crap you're talking about.
I genuinely have no clue who you're trying to defend here. I see a lot of people that care and agree with @RaiderTr. If you disagree with something you're more than welcome to simply ignore it.

The game's been stalling for years and it's heading nowhere. That's a fact. Even if you like it or not.

Can it be saved? No. In my opinion.

Is it worth trying? Yeah, if you're still playing the game.
Honestly,if I was a new player

I highly doubt there's such thing as "new players". They haven't advertised this game in like 4-5 years. "new account" != "new player"
 

RaiderTr

Master Sergeant
Nobody cares anymore.
Might seem like it, but that's not true. I've talked with a lot of "Veterans" and they still do care and talk about it.
It's just they did what they can, but after being ignored hundreds or maybe even thousands of times.. They just gave up trying.
Can it be saved? No. In my opinion.
I believe it can be, but will it be? Very doubtful with such incompetent management.

I bet they are clueless of what to do against amassed, delayed issues of years and they don't have enough people to deal with them.
They haven't advertised this game in like 4-5 years
Instead, they advertise their other games on this very game (or on its Facebook page) :D

And yea, still majority of the already small "consistent" / "loyal" Player-base is the "Old" Veterans
 

DeletedUser500

Guest
Anyone who doesn't care about the sorry state of the game is perfectly entitled to continue picking berries until they close the servers. For the players who are here for PvP like duels and fort battles, there is nothing left in this simple casino game anymore due to multiple massive imbalances, unless of course you are the <1% that benefit from the disgusting pay to win mechanics. I would argue that those still posting pointless crap like this, hoping for any improvement, are the only ones who can claim to care about the game, and your lack of care of our grievances simply enable Innogames to continue exploiting us all.

Been well over 2 years that people, including me, have been asking for the consequences of Innogames tombola sets on Fort Battles to be addressed - and quite simply nothing has. The notable decrease in the frequency of complaints are due to players leaving the game and the very strong precedent set by InnoGames that feedback will be ignored and there's no point in trying anymore. Not because the players don't care about it. I am quite sure Community Managers don't even bother trying anymore, for the same reasons.

You don't like our "negativity", that's cool. I don't like your compliance in being farmed for tombola money while none of the glaring issues in PvP, known to the players for years, are even acknowledged anymore.

There's no other platform for the community to discuss these issues, regardless of the Official West forums existing for this exact purpose.
I'm also not going to lie to someone who somehow discovered this game, by telling them there's no problems and everything is as good as it could be, and you shouldn't either. We should be open, honest and always trying to hold to account those that turned this from a game into a casino simulator to stimulate those who can afford it with an instant-gratification dopamine rush when you pay for a 800 nugget spin on the gambling mechanic lifted straight from an EA developer's wet dream.

PvP is not worth participating in anymore.
PvE alone offers absolutely nothing to me after 10+ years of PvP, in fact the PvE should exist solely to compliment the PvP.

It's probably too late to even fix fort battles, as the community continues to shrink throughout this horrible period in the game's storied and award winning history, but @Leones please do keep the pressure on Etriel to actually do something to improve the situation she's built for us, because we can't do anything about it ourselves as peasants who just buy the premiums, nugget munchers who have decided to boycott spending money until the game is improved, or even moderators who care so much about what this game once was that they give up free-time to help it in any way they can.

If development of PvP features has completely stopped on this game, please just have Etriel tell us so we can quit instead of living in hope because of how much this game once meant to us.

A side note, I found my InnoGames branded tea mug earlier, and I felt ashamed at myself for once being part of this. :(
 
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DeletedUser1406

Guest
No one cares, that's my point exactly. It's more than obvious at this point that this game will never get fixed, seeing the same old crap about unbalanced forts, so on and so forth is getting annoying .
This will only stop if something actually happens my dude. You're really not in the right position to ask him to stop whinging.

Look at the shitstorm created by the Sonic Movie. There was a huge community riot when the first abomination-trailer was released. Now, with the last trailer, a lot of people are happy with what it ended up looking like, strictly because they listened to their fans.

I believe it can be, but will it be? Very doubtful with such incompetent management.
You'll have to change 3 levels of management for something to happen (all the way up to the head of community management), good luck with that.

A side note, I found my InnoGames branded tea mug earlier, and I felt ashamed at myself for once being part of this. :(
Imagine finding your custom hoodies/t-shirts lol.
 

RaiderTr

Master Sergeant
You'll have to change 3 levels of management for something to happen (all the way up to the head of community management), good luck with that.
I mean, it seems MTG became the parent company of InnoGames in '16/17 but some says u can't get anywhere through them either :hmf:
Sucks.

In the mean time, Facebook page of TW asks;
"J. Fry Fort's weapon will be available soon! What bonuses would you like it to have?"
:D
 
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DeletedUser1406

Guest
Oh man I forgot you bought those, hahahaha
tenor.gif


I mean, it seems MTG became the parent company of InnoGames in '16/17 but some says u can't get there anywhere through them either :hmf:
Sucks.

In the mean time, Facebook page of TW asks;
"J. Fry Fort's weapon will be available soon! What bonuses would you like it to have?"
:D
They own a part of the company, it doesnt mean they take part in these decisions. Haven't followed the Facebook page in a while. Last time I did it looked like a 14y/o was taking care of the posts. (funny, I was "in charge" of it too at one point)
 

RaiderTr

Master Sergeant
Not all, no but they own %51, and we all know what that symbolic number means. But what do I know :p

Well that Facebook page is very active. At least much more than here or .Net forum.. Ironic.
 
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DeletedUser500

Guest
"No more major changes or improvements will be implemented." is a pretty clear statement for me.
I know of a statement like that, but I'm hoping it's different circumstances considering the major changes that happened as a consequence of neglecting PvP balance, and it would be correcting that, not improving or majorly changing the game. I don't really suppose the differentiation matters though.
 
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DeletedUser4699

Guest
tenor.gif



They own a part of the company, it doesnt mean they take part in these decisions. Haven't followed the Facebook page in a while. Last time I did it looked like a 14y/o was taking care of the posts. (funny, I was "in charge" of it too at one point)

Umm, I thought the mods on facebook were like the Heads of community management, so, like your bosses.
that is how it works on most of the innogames (at least on forge)
 

asdf124

Private First Class
Umm, I thought the mods on facebook were like the Heads of community management, so, like your bosses.
that is how it works on most of the innogames (at least on forge)
Forge is like their masterpiece, their golden goose! Of course they wouldn't let a 2 year old run it. UNLESS IT WORKS!(more profit, mmmmmmm profit.... licks the cubie cigs....)<imagine the owners of innogames.
 

Leones

Master Sergeant
Former Team Member
So, first off, MTG. They're an investor and don't really have anything to do with the day-to-day business and the development of games. Sending a message or mail to them won't help, as it will at most be routed to the appropriate person within InnoGames, as an e-mail sent to InnoGames directly would.

I saw the quote "No more major changes or improvements will be implemented." appear above and, well, that's true. The game is currently in a state where we consider it mostly done and feature-complete. That won't mean that there won't be any changes, but that they'll mostly be minor in scope. A major interface update or a new feature like adventures are unlikely at best. The changes we do will mostly be new items, new quests, new achievements, new crafting recipes and minor improvements of certain parts of the game like HTML5 battles, the crafting update that will hopefully come soon, and of course various bugfixes.

The development team is also quite small nowadays. As the game evolved, player numbers started dropping even before the development team was scaled down and it wasn't feasible to keep a large team anymore.
As such, we have to set certain priorities. We can't just do everything we want, as there aren't a lot of developers working on the game at the moment. Priorities have to be set and besides the community requests we want to implement, we have to fix issues, update used libraries and important maintenance in general. It doesn't mean we do not care, do not listen, or whatever, just that we do not currently have time to add such things.
A full mobile version, as mentioned by @RaiderTr in the OP, is not in the cards, though the game should currently run reasonably well on most modern phones.

So, generally, be realistic. Don't expect massive overhauls. Minor changes like tweaking fort battle formulae could be done at some point in the future but there are many things on our table and there are only 40 hours a week to work on them, even less for some part time developers we have.

Then something completely unrelated, Facebook. Facebook pages are managed by the community managers of that language and any moderators they choose to employ to help them with those tasks. Lead community managers (i.e. my superior or the superior of the community managers of other games) generally do not help out answering Facebook comments.
 

RaiderTr

Master Sergeant
Thanks for the honest answer and some insight info.

You weren't very clear on that part but from what I can tell, you "acknowledge" at least some of the "issues" I mentioned.
The game is currently in a state where we consider it mostly done and feature-complete. (...)
I don't think anyone, or at least majority, objects to that.
Issue is the imbalance in current features thanks to the things I listed.
though the game should currently run reasonably well on most modern phones
So I was told. But how many people actually knows about this? No advertisement or anything in patch notes.

Talking of Advertisement, I wish there was a more fitting, recent advertisement video including all parts of the game (at least all PvP, or Forts) rather than only Dueling.
As the game evolved, player numbers started dropping even before the development team was scaled down
I mean, I can't really comment on that but we could definitely use some merges/closure of servers..
Minor changes like tweaking fort battle formulae
If that counts as "Minor" then there is still some hope :p

God forbid another upgradable, 'coming from future' Union officer kinda stuff until then at least ey? :roll:


#makeresistancepercentagebased
 
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JustAMoment

Lance Corporal
So any character rebalance changes in future are out of chance along with server merges are out of idea too? I mean atleast on CZ(not sure how other localizations are doing) we have some servers with 300~ people and we havent seen fort battle if you dont count 5v5 in many many months. Same goes for active dueling option nor chat.. You could give us (those playing on rip servers) option to enjoy the game once again untill its "active" atleast at some point on other servers, yea great you are opening new ones, but doesnt mean you can't merge old dead ones or something so the game can become actually "competetive" again. This game has already kinda small playerbase, thats why you should try to keep us ingame as long as possible imho.
 

DeletedUser4692

Guest
I saw the quote "No more major changes or improvements will be implemented." appear above and, well, that's true. The game is currently in a state where we consider it mostly done and feature-complete. That won't mean that there won't be any changes, but that they'll mostly be minor in scope. A major interface update or a new feature like adventures are unlikely at best.

So you are satisfied with where this game is headed?
Low playing rate, items at shop,tailor, gunsmith are totally useless due to overpowerd items from events and shop..

I dont know about you guys, but there are 10 worlds on my server.
The world i play in, has 300 players, i repeat 300 players and still no migration. The other servers are similar. Cant duel anyone, there are no proper fort battles, noone is writing in the saloon, basically nothing. Oh i forgot about the "amazing" adventures (i dont play it) but according to what ive heard average waiting time for 1 game is 30 minutes.

ok....., you can continue opening new worlds and adding more new ovepowered items untill noone will be playing it.
Thanks, im done with this game.

Could you at least change the text at the home page? Its totally deceiving, cause ive never experienced any of those for the past 2 years.


+EDIT
Anyone who is contributting to this game by buying nuggets is for me a crazy man, because even a monkey can see that you are jsut draining money from the last remaing people before you shut it down permanently. "
who would invest money into getting a fort, duel sets when there are no forts, duels, nothing?!"
 
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