Redress of Grievances

[DeletedUser]

I am not bashing Inno or trying to be fired from my Forum Moderator position. I am simply trying to present an argument disagreeing with what has been done and what is being done with the game. This is my opinion.

I encourage you to read the whole post before formulating your response.

Months ago, I posted here, saying that the removal of the GG stack and the HP that has been added to the game will kill fort battles. Now I'm taking it a step further.

InnoGames' actions have destroyed the fort battle aspect of their game, and their slow reaction to players' complaints and suggestions will be acted upon too slowly to quell the magnitude of their desire to increase nugget expenditure.

Let's be honest here: The goal of every developer is to make money. You have to make money to keep the servers online, pay employees, and keep your business afloat. However, unlike many games, The-West has become extremely money centered and there is not the slightest attempt to hide it.

The main problem facing fort battles is the Golden Gun and its' adverse effects after the stack's removal. At first the gun was not a problem. Initially only a few players decided to spec specifically for the gun, but once its power with the stacking bonus was realized, new tactics were developed for battles and multitudes of players began flocking to FMS to get their Key Three.

Coincidentally, Worlds 2 through 10 were brought in to the Expanded Premium System around the same time. This allowed more players to use hundreds of nuggets to skill for The Raid, Art Thief, Pure FMS, and back to their original build. I know many people who bought nuggets in order to aid with their skilling, or amped up their The-West spending to help out. Now you can't do as well in a battle without having spent nuggets.

Crafting, in my opinion, is just another way for an increase in nugget use. How many level 100+ people pick cotton, even for crafting? Why should you? Just go to the market, buy your item, then use ten nuggets to have it instantly delivered. Half-way time, skill buying, cash deposits, and energy refills also fall in to the area of the game that was created purely to increase revenue.

Additionally, the slow response of the developers often has hindered the game's progress.

For example, at the beginning of the GG stack, the complete removal was a viable option. I voted for it. Two months later I was saying how health would kill battles when the GG stack was removed. Not to boost my own ego here, but I was right. Attacks on the more active worlds have been rendered next to impossible. During the GG stack Worlds 11 and 12 beefed-up on health in order to combat the massive dueler-crit-sized-hits being shot from the GG sectors running laps around the fort. Even a level 1 did 5052 damage in the GG sector, which clearly showed that the stacking bonus was too powerful.

Now the stack is gone, but the HP remains in its inflated state. This has made it nearly impossible to clear towers and enables many to simply sit on their tower's point, tanking for what seems like an eternity. Even if the attack does manage to clear the towers, the only chance of winning is to mount, clear the inside of the fort, and rush as soon as possible.

InnoGames' removal of the GG stack seems ill-thought-out, and the increase of HP was clearly not considered. There supposedly is a "fix" coming, and I foresee either diminishing returns on health or a less influential GG stack. This is supposedly coming with the next update, 1.32. We were told 1.31 was "Coming soon!" for months before it was actually added on May 18th, and there is no telling when 1.32 will actually be added to the game.

Attacks are already getting harder to fill, and I do not think anyone will be signing up for a guaranteed suicide within a month. I already know many devoted fort fighters who are moving points for dueling. In short, unless Inno fixes the health in battles within a month, there won't be a reason to fix it.

I'm not saying making money is wrong, but it seems like every idea Inno comes up with is purely based off of the desire to make more money.

And so the question stands: Where does InnoGames draw the line, and when will they begin listening and reacting faster to player concerns?

 

[DeletedUser]

even the new lvl 100 quest, its just to spend nuggets to reskill a.p's into the 50's to get all the +3's a.p

 

[DeletedUser]

Response to the changes

You missed one underlying problem in the latest change.

That is quite simply, the players confidence in the premium system has been shattered. Many people spent gobs of real money to purchase nuggets to reskill for the Golden Gun because of it's power and benefits throughout the game ... only to find those powers and benefits stripped from an item that they essentially "purchased" (honestly, without nuggets it could take six months to a year to get the GG in World 1 without being able to Placate the Shaman). It's like going to a restaurant, ordering and paying for steak and lobster but getting hamburger and chunks of imitation white fish instead. Many of these people feel robbed, and I feel totally sympathize for them too (especially the ones who didn't know it was coming because they don't read the forums).

So, how willing are these players going to be to spend money on nuggets for the next time around?

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

 

[DeletedUser]

GG, HP and the down fall of The West

I agree completely with Josh. I have no problem with nuggets. I have bought enough of them. However, in an effort create more opportunities to use nuggets Inno has created a huge problem. Obviously there was not enough investigation done into the ramifications that the GG and stack would do to the game. The GG stack made defenses useless and frankly caused a number of great players to quit. Now, once again, we find ourselves in a quick fix dilemma. If Inno had done the proper investigation they would have known that the stack had created an HP frenzy. This new HP boost now makes it almost impossible to shoot out towers and the pendulum of power has completely swung from the attack to the defense. Like Josh i have no problem with a company trying to make money on its product. However, customer satisfaction and customer service are with out a doubt the two most important attributes of any great company. Inno has severely damaged both of these vital elements with its recent "sell more nuggets campaign".

 

[DeletedUser]

Jouais that is very well thought out and I agree with all your points. But I think the main problem that most people had with the GG is that if you messed up your quest you could not get key 2 and therefore could never compete on the highest level of fort fighting, no matter how many nuggets you wanted to spend. That was the part of it that seemed unfair to most players.

A better choice for the update, or maybe something they could do in 1.32 if they pushed it out fast is make another way to get key2. Also nerf the stacking bonus of the GG. The best solution two solutions to GG stacking are:

1. Nerf the shared bonus to +1 att/def and +3 damage. This still lets attackers try to use the newer stacking strats in attacking forts but it doesn't overwhelm defenders with a whole sector hitting for 700+ damage each hit. Also it would allow for future pieces to be added to the Golden set, for instance add a Golden hat that has good fort stats and could up the bonus to +1 att/def and +5 damage. Then a year to 6 months later you could add another piece. This keeps people spending nuggets to quest for items but doesn't let fort battles take drastic changes and gets one side overpowered.

2. This is a more simple solution. Make the GG bonus work like the soldiers leadership bonus. It only affects the people directly touching you. This allows attackers to keep a tight group and use the stacking strats without having it dealing overpowered hits. But the Defenders would have a huge advantage on there towers so that would have to neutralized. So the GG set bonus would read some like fort battle sector bonuses only work if you are on the ground that does not give any +/- advantage. So attackers would share GG bonus while moving around on the ground but would lose it once they mount for a shoot out. Defenders would not get the bonus on the towers, walls, flag, or buildings. But defenders could use the bonus once this drop down and are sniping.

Some kinda fix needs to come soon or inno will lose more players. In the last few months the game has gone from well over 200,000 accounts to now just 132,000 accounts. I don't want this to continue so I hope the changes come soon. Cause Jouais is right, attackers won't show up to battles very soon.

 

[DeletedUser26406]

I agree with you on some of that,

1. I am very happy that the GG stack is gone.
2. I do not mind if Inno wants to make money and I understand them well,as a business they need to make money to cover their costs.
As long as it is still fair to the people who don't buy nuggets,for this reason the only premium I appose is Skill Buying.
4. I do not think HP is killing the battles and I find it a interesting part of battles,
I personally have never played as a tank and probably never will,I find that Tanks are not that powerful,all they do is be shot and thats the beginning and end of it.
However 11,000 HP is a bit overdoing it.
8,000 would be a very fair limit in my eyes.

 

[DeletedUser]

1. Nerf the shared bonus to +1 att/def and +3 damage. This still lets attackers try to use the newer stacking strats in attacking forts but it doesn't overwhelm defenders with a whole sector hitting for 700+ damage each hit. Also it would allow for future pieces to be added to the Golden set, for instance add a Golden hat that has good fort stats and could up the bonus to +1 att/def and +5 damage. Then a year to 6 months later you could add another piece. This keeps people spending nuggets to quest for items but doesn't let fort battles take drastic changes and gets one side overpowered.

2. This is a more simple solution. Make the GG bonus work like the soldiers leadership bonus. It only affects the people directly touching you. This allows attackers to keep a tight group and use the stacking strats without having it dealing overpowered hits. But the Defenders would have a huge advantage on there towers so that would have to neutralized. So the GG set bonus would read some like fort battle sector bonuses only work if you are on the ground that does not give any +/- advantage. So attackers would share GG bonus while moving around on the ground but would lose it once they mount for a shoot out. Defenders would not get the bonus on the towers, walls, flag, or buildings. But defenders could use the bonus once this drop down and are sniping.

Because I think the game is too dependent on nuggets, I would have to go with option two. Option one requires, just like with the Golden Gun, the use of nuggets to get special items in order to perform adequately in fort battles. However, too many people used nuggets to spec to get the GG, and I don't think it's fair for those people to have their gun nerfed as much as it was, especially if it was their only time to use nuggets.

I would prefer that Inno give some reward to those who used nuggets to get the GG, but not create any future quests or special items that require nuggets in order to gain advantages in-game.

That's precisely the problem; how much gained for spending nuggets is too much? Incentive, not requirement.

 

[DeletedUser]

Although Jou makes some valid points I believe the solution lies in the original Fort Fighting Formula. Those that tanked up and relied upon the GG stack to make up for their lack of aim, dodging, leadership, stamina, and hiding may find themselves doing poorly now. Those who stuck to pure fort fighting attributes and skills are more like to be doing very well at the moment. Defense, either in the game, in the real west, in any real life battle does and should almost always have the advantage. New tactics and reskilling to fort fighting skills is a must now. Will it take some in game cash...... yes..... has everyone that is currently complaining spent their fair share of nuggets and in game cash to re-skill before....... YES .... Adapt, overcome, move forward and enough of the flip flopping and complaining!!

 

[DeletedUser]

Your not alone

I'm down to my last 35 nuggets, and like most players, I won't be buying anymore. I'm a gamer, and I have no problems spending my money on my hobby, providing it makes sense to do so, and so, I did what I wanted, and needed to, to get my GG at lvl 75. I burned nuggets on the shaman every 16 skilll points, or $2000 of game cash. I moved 285 Skill points and 16 app points and with the best GR gear my town could borrow me, I had 728 lp. and in 5.5 hours, I had the 3rd key.

Broke, out of anything to sell that I didn't need, and over 400 nuggets to skill one way, only to need to reskill back. Now looking at reskilling multiple times for the 95 and 100 quests? nope, I don't see myself doing the quests, the costs are just to high. For the record, I knew the GG stack was going away, I wanted the accomplishment, and missed the last big W12 GG stack by under 12 hours.

I see The-West going the same way Evony did, and it killed that game. When Evony started, medal drops were plentiful enough that a dedicated player could compete with "the Coiners". Now, the only way to get them is to buy them. ten's of 1000's of people have left the game because players have learned to spend massively, and turn a profit in real cash doing so. They are even bold enough to call themselves "COIN" alliance with the buy in being in the $1000's of dollars for entry. Evony is dead because you can buy your way to an advantage.

Make money yes.. I understand your running a business. but your losing people because you have no new worlds, meaning those starting are facing a horde of 100+ level people and it just isn't worth it., and your losing your competitive balance chasing ways to get us spend more money.

those left, will never spend the $'s your looking for when all our friends are leaving already. why would we?

MidnghtOwl Worlds 12, 11, and beta

 

[DeletedUser]

You were wrong back then Jouais, and you're wrong now. There are many of us who knew what will happen and we voted on not to change GG. But we're black sheep here, so who cares.

GG could have been be slightly nerfed, but the whole stack removal?
And now, when the game is ruined, months after some of us explicitly posted that level 120 = masssive HP increase and it'll be impossible to kill HP monsters, you want to speed up the solution to HP problem... And that HP problem exists for years. If it wasn't fixed for years, then don't expect it fixed in a next few days. It didn't escalate before because there was no shaman premium and jobs were 2 hours long, by the time you'd respec to HP, world would be already dead.

But talking about this here is plain silly. You may slap me as much as you want, I can return the slap too, but we'll solve nothing. There is already a thread in Ideas section that HP should be nerfed, thanks to HelenBack who started it. I was the one who voted yes, and I hope you'll vote yes in it too so it can be passed to devs. Here it is, ppl please support the idea:
Limit the Health Skill

Expect the update 1.32 in a couple of months. It'll change something in forts, yes it will. We get fort shops. Anything else? I seriously doubt it. Unless the HP nerfing Idea is forwarded to devs in the meantime.

 

[DeletedUser]

It all seems like such a simple fix to me. Inno could just implement a few minor additions and things would balance out:
1. Fort Health - Have it applied like the other fort skills, using the diminishing returns formula
2. Required nugget use - Create a few more quests at high levels that only require ingame cash and some reasonable and measured respecs (say 10 AP or SP in total, maybe 20). Let me explain my thinking here:

Nugget use when you're low to mid level can be a real boost. What you pay for versus the benefits you gain (extra cash, energy, etc) make it a very good deal. But the incentive to use nuggets at a higher level is more about the desire (IMO) to complete the higher level quests and to obtain the GG (and now with 1.31, the extra AP/SP and possibly the steel lined chest). Probably the biggest use of nuggets outside of this questing is the speed boost nugget.

So I think that Inno is trying to create interest in keeping higher level players. The problem always used to be how do you keep level 80+ players interested in the game? Fort fighting? Yes. But what about quests/puzzles/adventures, one of the key reasons I joined this game? I also think that Inno went with the commercial decision to raise/maintain interest in the game, for higher level players, by creating two quests that require nugget use to accomplish in a reasonable time-frame.

So my solution is simple, I think, and comes back to my several posts about long-term viability. Make some quests that can be considered very hard, or long, or just plain interesting, that gives decent rewards (items, skills) but just don't make them require to use nuggets to complete.

My suggestion on needing to move 10 or 20 points around maximum is reasonable since it doesn't cost too much and waiting 10-20 days for the shaman to go back to base isn't too onerous, IMO.

 

[DeletedUser22685]

Well I think the reason the devs opted to remove the stack is because that option was the winner with daylight second in the poll. They had to listen to the players. Although, your point of the devs reacting too slowly and allowing people's opinions to change still stands.

As for signing up to attacks being suicide, it's no more so than signing up to defences was suicide while the stack was at large. Attack numbers won't be hurt any more than defence numbers were, especially since now you get to shoot at a 45k HP tower whilst hiding behind your own HP tanks and amassing a wealth of exp whereas before defenders were almost guaranteed to die within a few rounds and gain a couple of hundred exp for their efforts.

 

[DeletedUser]

futu, what are you talking about?
devs decided that the stack bonus is gone before players massively objected. check .de forums for dates. also check devblog when one of devs said "we're aware of the problem and are working on the solution". it was before *you* knew what power gg holds.
devs didn't have to listen to players. they have a sort of fort fighting simulator and knew gg will disturb all worlds.

and now what happened. because of attack's advantage, many forts were conquered. the new update came, stack bonus is gone, and now it's (near) impossible to get those forts back. who ever forced attacking more than defending last month (certain multibattles come in mind) practically made a profit.
so you saying devs had to listen to players and then create even bigger rediculousity?

and this game is not unbalanced only in forts. this game needs thorough rebalancing. not just for jobs and items as planned for 1.32. it needs rebalancing for everything. forts, duels, jobs, building, crafts, classess, skills. everything.

 

[DeletedUser22685]

futu, what are you talking about?
devs decided that the stack bonus is gone before players massively objected. check .de forums for dates. also check devblog when one of devs said "we're aware of the problem and are working on the solution". it was before *you* knew what power gg holds.
devs didn't have to listen to players. they have a sort of fort fighting simulator and knew gg will disturb all worlds.

Then what was the point of the poll in the first place? They obviously were looking for player opinions as to how to handle the matter or Diggo would not have needed to create the poll. As for the GGs disturbing all worlds, many older worlds remain largely unaffected by the GGs.

so you saying devs had to listen to players and then create even bigger rediculousity?

It's generally best to listen to the players, yes.

 

[Diggo11]

Well I must say I'm extremely disappointed in you Josh. You know as well as anyone that being a part of the community management team provides you with additional opportunity to present opinion that can be sent to the developers, at the price you restrain from venting any frustrations in an offensive manner that could be perceived as inappropriately representing InnoGames. Any player, especially any moderator, is more than welcome to represent their views and recommendations to me. As community manager I consider this to be the most important aspect of my job - to represent the international community consensus to the development team and management. As it's been highlighted a thousand times over, foolish outbursts like this do not result in any productive resolution. To put it bluntly it's a hatefest on the convenient scapegoat of 'them anonymous developers', which will merely result in negative argument and a headache for whoever is tasked to deal with the problem. (I do wonder how many people would whinge and moan the same way to the developers' faces.) Similarly, it's been made abundantly clear what options you do have to make a positive contribution to resolving what you consider to be an issue. If you have a targeted solution to a potential issue you can post it in Ideas & Brainfarts, if you wish to brainstorm for a widespread or important issue you can create a thread here in the Saloon, or otherwise you can run your comments past me and see what I can to do aid your cause. Hatemongering is simply unacceptable, and severely disappointing coming from you of all people.

Whilst I would ordinarily remove such a thread, I have decided I may as well address some of the issues in light for you to see. Of course, the thread will still be locked awaiting those with a productive discourse to offer their advise and opinions in a more civilised fashion, however I believe transparency may help enlighten you as to the nature of the situation. I suppose that is why I decided to dedicate my time as a moderator to begin with, I wanted more insight as to how InnoGames ticked and what I could do to aid and influence it for the benefit of the community.

For the obvious reasons you provided, I will not even attempt to discredit your belief that The West revolves around money. It does; it's a business product sold to you, the consumers, to fund the lives of InnoGames' employees. When the new premium system was introduced, it was designed to raise revenue that could fund payments to additional developers and ensure the longevity of the game. However, that is where the truth turns to conspiracy. Ultimately, whilst the finance department may clap when the line on their graph goes up, both the executives of InnoGames the developers of this game are gamers themselves and wish to create the best possible experience for the users. Considering the fact that neither the project manager or developers really benefit personally from a short term financial profit, it is in their interests to develop a product that will attract the interest from new users and therefore offer job security, advance their careers from a successful project and in the end provide a sense of satisfaction knowing they just helped create a really cool game. Notably, I know Zet is really passionate about the game, and isn't afraid to poke the toes of other departments to ensure we get the proper resources necessary to maintain a successful game. Whilst I do not speak directly to every individual developer, from the couple I've had the pleasure of speaking with I am sure the same enthusiasm runs throughout the entire development team. It's in their own interests to create the best game possible.

Clearly the developers aim to develop the best possible game, however if you've ever attempted such a large scale project yourself I am sure you will come to the same conclusion - stuff happens. It will never be possible to please everybody, let alone come to a consensus within a passionate team, and mistakes will be made beyond the way. As Joxer correctly pointed out, no-one pretends to be some almighty god that does things perfectly every time. Taking the golden gun as a prime example, it was recognised almost immediately that the detail in the implementation of the golden gun was a mistake. There were no far fetched justifications, no drama from the development team, just the collation of user feedback in addition to remedy in the next update to the game. Whatever allegations of premium, money making schemes that may have arisen from the incident were solely generated from the kinds of wild speculation that I attempt to shelter out from the Saloon. As Joxer acknowledged, the developers openly stated it would be nerfed in the next update to occur at an unspecified date. (To clarify your argument above, I am not sure exactly how they initially wanted to nerf it as they never specified anything except "a solution", but I know they were open to opinion on whether their perceived misjudgement was a opinion or not.) Users who went ahead and used premium to obtain it really just got a tad lucky that 1.31 was slowed down by a number of factors including the absence of the technical lead amongst other things, however as of now that money "well spent" is no longer effective as a tool to manipulate game mechanics. It was never planned that users would received a prolonged window in which to do so, and on the contrary it was publicly stated that window would not remain as a permanent addition to this game. Take from it what you will.

To conclude, the developers really are always listening. It is evident that hateful bashings such as these ones do not offer them much reason to listen, and I most dearly hope the developers do not share such an opinion, but as of now they do. If you want to discuss the development priority in regards to tweaking fort battles or the overall nature of the update cycle, you are more than welcome to do so. In fact, I openly encourage you to do so. I may be able to explain the situation or offer some suggestions, perhaps I'll even outright agree with you. Nothing pleases me more than presenting a thread headed with a poll to the developers indicating a strong consensus in favour of a change I have been patiently awaiting as a player myself. (Fort shops being included as a teaser for version 1.32 is an example of a proposal that "won" of sorts.) Well perhaps that is a lie... nailing a :censored: bug pleases me just as much. And for the third time kudos to Joxer. Whilst some of your past actions have been less than agreeable, you've clearly taken the time to investigate the issue and made an outstanding assessment because of it. Looks like supraxus has also got their thinking cap on... rep and respect to both of you.