Will the next war end KA?

[Rastlin]

I was thinking about all of the 1 and 2 man guilds this last war, and the Splinter Guilds created due to the Win 50, and Win in a Row prizes which are now much better than place in the Top Ranks. Top 1000 and down guilds complained how the hated fighting these guilds, and finally got their first taste of what those of us in higher tiers feel like facing FUN every war.

And why these new Splinter Guilds people ask? Well many in the Top 75 and up spend very good money on the wars. They want the most for their money and have the advantages they have paid for just like FUN, but have never really gotten to use them do to the pool they fight in. In example I am 5 million plus in both Atk & Def Stats, and spend normally more than a couple of mountains each war. For those that do not know; MoC came in Top50 this last war (we chose to "basically" go gem free) due to being pissed at how hard the last Raid Boss Event was, and didn't feel GREE should get anymore of our money so soon after that. In this last war we faced back-to-back SB, then RK, then FUN all in a row. We also got SB, RK, FUN 2, AS and RK3 more than once. We got TRK, and countless other Top 10 guilds this last war. We also did not for the first time ever win the Win 50, or the streak prize.

Now how many other guilds had a similar war like us? Does RK really enjoy being second every war? Will not those players that have spent money for a very long time on the game not decide to make their own guild by themselves to win, or branch off into Splinter Guilds and finally use their stats they have already paid for to get the prizes? Of course they will!

Now so looking into the future of this up coming war, I see many unhappy players and guilds from the Top1250 all the way down to the Top2 (Top 4 is the worst place to be in...beat 6 other guilds but get the same prize). Until now it has been mostly the Top 75 and up; upset with guild matches, rankings, etc... and in turn retiring. This war I predict that we will see that from almost every guild in the game this time around with the only exception being FUN. Is this the final end of KA we have all known was coming?

[Voxker]

Its an issue for any game of this type, there will always be a group of players far above and beyond the rest. IDK what Gree can do.

[It's all a dream]

just wait for the next change in the game. remember we are constantly tested to evolve. :p

but in all seriousness our matchups were quite good many guilds close around us in rank, only been screwed on 3 occassions where the guild was in top25/10 during a high streak.

sure we complain a lot, but thats human nature and part of the game. everybody wants something.
But isnt it a game, find your fun in it or move on.

that being said. Gree really needs to stop putting out buggy events, that is really irritating to say the least.

[Ratma2001]

Good summary Rastlin, most I know now are moving to smaller guilds as a better chance of the big unit, why spend mountains to be busted on a streak by top 10-25 guilds when you can sit out in a smaller guils spend less get more 75K worth , comes down to more bang for your buck and less stress of matching THAT guild that will flog you into next week , SB,FUN,FDK,RK!TRK , so forth, I moved from top guild as a result, had better streaks, less stress and anguish, so smaller makes you bigger and better.

[Vachau]

The game has to evolve as we know it. First of all, a simple observation proves that the world map is almost full. They could reset the map or give us another one that looks like SE Asia. Both of those options would be boring which may cause too many of us to quit. After the map is full, there are 2 choices for Gree. They either need to evolve the game in an exciting way, or watch their most active members leave.

[E-I]

1-2 person guilds are going to be a fad for a war or two. The problem is that when too many people do it, these crazy stong one person guilds will end up matching each other and someone's streak will get ruined. That, plus you miss out on all of the units from guild quest and raid boss, the guild bonuses, and the camaraderie.

[Krayt]

Agreed that these 1-2 man guilds will be a fad. Each player will have to decide for themselves what is best for them. Some are starting to realize though that certain units will always be out of their reach.

[Deadwater]

I did a one man guild this past war and got the win streak goal. I pulled out of my top 50 guild because I was tired of massive spending and not getting those goals on top of it.
I did the win streak and didn't even rank 1250 and I didn't even spend 100 gems. A fad? Not likely. You'll see more. Although I did come across a few one/two man guilds they weren't very strong.
I suggest if you don't want to spend lots of gems and would rather the win goals instead of the battle prizes to go this route!

[Darth Randy]

As suggested in another thread, it's the reward system that's the problem, that and the FUN rule, which indicates that any prize available should end up in FUN's inventory.

Kill the guild quest or kill he game. Put in individual quests like so many attacks on a wall, castle, players, so many winning attacks, so many mega attacks, so many losses to a guardian. Stuff like that which is what good team mates do to help a guild win.

[Valid or]

Some games come and go, no matter how loved by people.
It's the developers who make or break a game, or keep it going for the long haul.
But it does seem hard for freeium(pay to win)games to make it past 2-3years.

[socpa]

This can create the following issue:

People joining large Guilds just to complete gLTQs, Raid Bosses etc..to then leave during wartime to join a smaller one/two man guild. Loyalty can be an issue.

[JBash]

Did Gree ever think of starting new servers from scratch like other games? I've realized that no matter how much money I spend now, I can never catch up to the top players and guilds.

On other games they start new servers periodically. If there was a new server I may play my character differently and I would be on equal footing again. Then maybe I'd spend money to get to the top.

[AllFather Odin]

Think of it this way:

If majority think about forming splinter guilds next time around, then you'll be packed in the bottom ranks fighting other splinter guilds. On the flip side, the top ranked guilds (with the missing players) won't be able to defend their position and the mediocre guilds will surpass them out of manpower alone. Gree will flip it again, offer great prizes for top ranks and another cycle starts.

Agree that Gree needs to be more creative now. For now, it's just LAME LAME LAME! For starters, release the level 200 / 500 ally /1500 unit cap so people can move upwards just to put some interest back into the game.

[justsomedood5]

In that last MW war there were a lot of smaller factions formed with the idea of going for the LTQ units. However, I think Gree kept some balance by adding in a very solid bonus for top 25 finishers (+5% alliance attack, which is something you'd normally expect to go to top 1 or 2). This seems like a nice compromise.

And as frustrating as the war LTQs can be, I don't think removing them is an option at this point. I can't imagine how boring war would be if we reverted to the format where winning battles means nothing.

[DragCro]

I dont think anybody thinked so far.
I realy hope something changes because lately lots of players have just headache and not to much fun.Is it so hard to make something that most of player whil achieve and be happy with it!
Is it so hard to throw a bone here and there so people can get something that usually can't win?
Happy player is happy costumer.
Award him/her here and there and im shure this game whil last longer

[LordIndy]

New strategy ideas only makes the game better. How many guilds shed members and lowered points in an attempt to get more favorable matchups? How many shed allies thinking they could get higher cps? How many of these mini guilds were successful?

Anything that mixes up the game and creates alternatives for success only makes the game more playable for all.

[Deadwater]

New strategy ideas only makes the game better. How many guilds shed members and lowered points in an attempt to get more favorable matchups? How many shed allies thinking they could get higher cps? How many of these mini guilds were successful?

Anything that mixes up the game and creates alternatives for success only makes the game more playable for all.

Very well put....

I will keep doing my one man army in battles because it suites my gaming style.

[Darth Randy]

New strategy ideas only makes the game better. How many guilds shed members and lowered points in an attempt to get more favorable matchups? How many shed allies thinking they could get higher cps? How many of these mini guilds were successful?

Anything that mixes up the game and creates alternatives for success only makes the game more playable for all.

What a load of manure. First off, 'anything' could mean unethical, exploitative, and or cheating, that may be fine in your world view, it certainly isn't in mine. Second off, the forum is filled with mid level guild members complaining about LOST opportunity due to the exploits of those already blessed with great resources leveraging them to the disadvantage of those lacking comparable resources.

Clearly, strong guilds are meant to battle strong guilds and so on, just as clearly, these mini guilds have fouled the expectations of Gree's matching system. It does not make them criminal, nor do I blame people for taking what is allowed. This is all on Gree. If they have intention or vision for how things should be, they sure as heck dont advertise it, and why not? Because for the most part these mini guilds are BIG SPENDERS, and in other cases are mini's, which developing has become the new obsession for the BIG SPENDERS.

The size of your wallet does not dampen the desire to succeed, nor reduce a persons expectations of a game. Players are melting away, but until its enough of the spenders melting away, it wont matter. It will get there, as more and more people get a slap of reality that some game that amounts to nothing just ate up their time and capitol well beyond what they could afford.

Nothing hastens that wake up call like futility and the feeling of being excluded. That is what the last summoned boss event and last 2 wars have provided mid tier players. The summon boss event can be tweaked to make most people happy, the wars need overhauling, period.

[Shinazueli]

You guys are just now learning the hard truth about this game (and others): the developer is not in business to make the gamer happy. They are in business to make money. If you do not contribute to this profit, they could give two big steaming piles of.... Yeah. The freemium business makes a lot of money off of people that have more than sense. And it entices people with the age old "but there might be a chance of winning." It's a lot like the lottery. I'm only happy that I only ever spent gift cards from birthdays and such on the game; I'd feel horrible if I ever spent my actual money after I can read the writing on the wall.

Gree will do whatever makes them the most amount of short-term profits, and when those dry up, they'll shutdown the server and make another game from the same skin. Some of their games are among the top grossing games on the App Store. It works because the majority of humanity is a stain on the gene pool, and likes to throw their money at stupid things. They provide minimal support because (most) people just come to the forum to complain, and continue spending money. It's just like any other retailer, if you continue to give them money, the only people who care are the CSR's that have to listen to your complaining. And, they wisely (depending on your perspective) decided to run and end-around on that issue and just automated the ticket service to places where they have disposable $3/hour workers trained to copy and paste responses from a list. If nobody has to read the ticket, then nobody has to get upset and quit over it. Once their computer detects that you've resubmitted the same ticket several times, a real person will finally read the ticket, and then tell you their own copy and paste response "it is against our policy to <fill in the blank". Apply that to 95% of the players, most especially the ones who don't spend anything. This seriously cuts down on that pesky labor cost of running the company. Then, you lay off most of the developers and engineers who've built the system, and just use the live server as your alpha and beta testing site. That saves a lot of labor and money as well, because you can fire most of the testing staff and use your customer base as your testers, and you can fix the issues that are costing you money and ignore the ones that don't. That allows you to maintain and develop the code with the absolute minimum number of people that actually know how to code, and efficiently use them where you can get the absolute most return on investment. And they can do all of this because the collective playerbase says to themselves "it's a free game, so we shouldn't expect anything better. Even if we complain, it doesn't matter."

TL>DR : They can do this because we let them. Just like the US government can do this because we elected them.

[Jerusalem]

The landscape for war campaigns have changed, and one such as I would argue that it's a good thing because it creates more fluidity within the various hierarchies. Members of top guilds leave and others move up to take their place, and guilds move up as well if there is a sea change in player movement. As a result, upward mobility becomes more possible by it. Anything but stagnation can be good, because players and guilds will adapt accordingly.

But some are resistant to change and too attached to things to dare adapting. That, in my opinion, brings death to the game more than what's being described in this thread.

[kruppe]

New strategy ideas only makes the game better. How many guilds shed members and lowered points in an attempt to get more favorable matchups? How many shed allies thinking they could get higher cps? How many of these mini guilds were successful?

Anything that mixes up the game and creates alternatives for success only makes the game more playable for all.

And what is good about gamers is that they invariably find new ways to exploit a game. 1000 gamers versus half a dozen developers, the gamers are going to quickly recognise new ways to make the game work for them. The single member guild is a valid response to the introduction of the winning streak quests. Clever and focused.

The bouncing back and forth of guild members to help other guilds for example, shows vibrancy in the face of quality and cost.

The next change will probably bring other unexpected (to gree at least) gamer strategies and that is one of those dimensions that makes gaming so interesting.

[JoeDaddy]

And what is good about gamers is that they invariably find new ways to exploit a game. 1000 gamers versus half a dozen developers, the gamers are going to quickly recognise new ways to make the game work for them. The single member guild is a valid response to the introduction of the winning streak quests. Clever and focused.

The bouncing back and forth of guild members to help other guilds for example, shows vibrancy in the face of quality and cost.

The next change will probably bring other unexpected (to gree at least) gamer strategies and that is one of those dimensions that makes gaming so interesting.

Very well said. Gree will keep changing the game, and the players will keep adapting. Until we all just give up and go play FarmVille....

[Billyfarmer]

One thing is certain. Fun has won KA. No matter what you spend you can never catch them. well done FUn.

[Rastlin]

So it is a month later... Was I right about the Top 1000 and Down not being happy with match ups?

[Danthorne]

A lot more players did the small guild this war. We've been doing it since they started the streak bit and this time, we ran into significantly more guilds with high powered LLPs.

[phopjon]

So it is a month later... Was I right about the Top 1000 and Down not being happy with match ups?

We've been hit and miss this war. Started off with great matchups that have progressively gotten worse. This last day has been mostly splinter guilds that kick our butt.

I agree with Kruppe that the best part of these changes is that it has expanded the universe of the game yet again. Before guilds you basically played alone except for the forum and interaction with some allies/bullies. Guilds really opened up the game socially. And the guild hopping for raid bosses and gLTQs has done so even more.

I've really enjoyed that part of the game because a lot of interesting, smart and fun people play this game. It's made the game more fun to get to know them.

All of this said, I have not and will never spend any money on KA, so I don't have that issue hanging over me.

[MrsJonny]

We were in a new guild for the first time ever this war. My husband and I left our Top 750 guild because of cheats who insisted on bringing jumpers into the guild to earn prices we weren't entitled to. I understand people's desire to get the top units, but for us the fun of the game is in working hard and achieving something on your own merit. The others in our guild did not agree so we went solo.

The war was fantastic for us and we genuinely only had one bad match the whole war - with 4 losses over all. We found that our total stats added up roughly to the equivalent of the opposing guilds total stats meaning that when we were against a one man guild we knew we weren't going to be able to win a battle against him and concentrated our efforts against his castle and if we were up against a guild of 20 we were able to fight them all and score points. We seemed to get an equal share of one man guilds and larger ones and were very impressed with the fairness of the matchings. Looking forward to doing it all again!

[E-I]

These wars aren't very much fun when you have to play the same four guilds over and over again. And seriously, you shouldn't have to play the same team half a dozen times.

[Valid or]

One thing I noticed from this past war, going from the individual leader board there's about 6000-7000 gem players, out of that I would say 5000 are moderate-heavy gemmers, I would say that's down a lot from what it was say 5 months ago.
Gree has made some mistakes but have they learned from them, unfortunately it dosent look like it, events are going up in gem costs and the players spending gems are dropping.
They seem to rush out content(at least it looks like that from the amount of bugs), a lot of people have asked for longer time between wars( it seems to get shorter), honestly this list prob could fill a page so I will stop, we all the issues and so does gree.

[Shiloh]

That's interesting, Valid. It's an old axiom that the surest sign of a dying company is a growing share of a shrinking market.

[Skyraiders]

simple answer....no...it will not die

[Shadows]

Even (not) simpler answer... this thread was created on second day of October... it is now the end of the second week of November, and the "next war" is over, and Gree/KA is not... ipso facto, the only answer we can come up with is "No, the war did not end KA."