Thoughts on how to make this game better
I cut and pasted together a few replies out of several threads. I am thinking of the overall problems and not necessarily some of the smaller ones.
If I missed something feel free to add.
 "Originally Posted by Bambamgunz 
It just you add more events and changes and i know you have a boss to answer to but as unstable as game is it just worse when you add things and even more issues,,I still crash,,i stopped doing ILTQ,Crates cause just don't have time,and i put avg 18 hours on game daily..
Actually i wanna say i have been impressed with what has been fixed in a short time since you stepped up Hightower!
Be patient with us as has been awhile since someone from Gree has actually been available since employee cuts!
Well said, I really want to see improvements moving forward as well. I guess the big issue that most of us have is the lack of credibility gree has successfully instilled in it's customer base whether it is the lack of communications to the perceived lack of response to tickets sent in."
I would add that the current approach though commendable is really just a band-aid fix and is not addressing the real underlying issue which is that the app cannot function with all the overhead placed on it! As long as this issue is sidestepped the app will continue to be crash prone and drive away customers.
That last event was pretty decent, sadly needed to be tested a lot more before being released but was actually fun to a degree which is something that has been missing.
But based on what I am finding over multiple players and devices the issues are absolutely rooted in bloat. I notice that once that boss event ended my iPad is ever sp slightly less crash prone and more so with newer more basic accounts so again I feel that crashes are tied to age/size of a players account. In other words the more data eg buildings/units/boosts a player has the more unstable the app becomes.
Another interesting issue is the serious increase in bandwidth usage and increased battery consumption. Now this issue feels like it is tied to a resolution of the session timeouts we were seeing lately which seem to have improved. I don't get that error when switching linked accounts but that went away when battery usage increased. My guess, this is the work around to timeouts vs airplane mode exploiters. Ok I can get that but I find I have to keep my phone tethered to a USB plug when playing as I only get about 1.5 to 2 hours of run time otherwise. It was no where near this bad a year ago. This is also born out at night, I can't leave the app running as it constantly is sending alerts and forget about turning on sounds which are beyond annoying because they would run all night.
More then anything else, product testing before release is an epic failure. You can't expect your customers to be the beta testers or in our case suckers.....
This app has always shown great promise but until gree tackles the core issues it will continue to be the app that could have been. If the issue is corporate culture which I have seen/delt with in the past and it goes up into higher management which I suspect is where the real issues are then you guys are right and truly f*u*c*k*e*d and I feel sorry for the guys down in the trenches that get crap from both sides. But until the greeniuse(s) that think this is acceptable in the company are marched out the door you guys are doomed.
Off the top observations, iPads are now more crash/freeze prone then iPhones and that goes for iPad2 through current and iPhone 5 through current. Sorry but due to even worse issues anything older we have in inventory is useless now.
The main problem is that you guys have stuck to much junk onto a game engine that does not appear to be scaleable. Add to this the insane amount of graphic support required and this is causing the app to detonate. I do find it interesting that the iPads are now crashing when idle which makes me suspect this could also be a clue.
- game data is severely bloated, seriously you need 1.5+ GB for this bloatware?
- app uses an abnormally high amount of data on wifi and cellular compared to previous versions
- battery life on iPhones is dismal, on iPhone 5's I get about 1.5 hours of continuous use vs all day on previous versions
- iPads are marginally better but still dreadful
- app is active in background which is likely causing above.
- Android is marginally better again in terms of battery and data use
- server pushes are typically pushing the limits of devices in terms of size vs system memory
- Android server pushes exceed capability of devices with under 1 GB of system 'heap' a fail
- too many animated graphics taxing cpu/graphics abilities
- need for more then 1 person doing product testing on an emulator instead of actual devices (ok so I guessing on this one
But there appears to be no product testing taking place
 Originally Posted by [PM] President Hightower 
I'm not sure what you mean by display issue, but players were complaining that all of the tapping required to purchase them was causing lag/crashes/annoyance. As soon as the new store revamp goes live, I'm going to look into adding the Alpha units back with a better purchasing experience (less cash cost, higher bulk quantity, etc).
I politely call the problem with the resale value a 'display issue' if you like I can call it what it actually was.
First off as stated I think the addition of the Alpha units underscores the fact that the units typically available for purchase are outdated and need an overhaul as do the valor unit stats which have also been rendered useless. Had dev had a better overall long term game plan this issue would have been identified ages ago instead of these short term stop gap measures to bump up revenues.
As to the issue of crashing and lags. Doing what you propose is highly unlikely to provide any sort of meaningful fix since the real problems are far more deep rooted then buying multiples of alpha units.
The app is so bloated that doing anything including scrolling while on your base can detonate the app. Case in point, the app still lags and freezes without the ability to purchase alpha units so the proposed fix is highly unlikely to solve this issue. Granted if that is what it takes to get dev to fix the real problem which is that players need an adjustment to the quantities of units they wish to purchase ok whatever.
Actually while dev is at it perhaps fix FL and add a deploy all or deploy in batches of multiple units instead of singles which is something that players have asked for for months if not YEARS. All that tapping cannot possibly make the app more stable, must waste substantial bandwidth and server overhead and be just a plain waste of time.
But the real need is to overhaul all the units in the store but also have some sort of actual long term design for all units and buildings.
 Originally Posted by WBS 
Well said AO. The whole game is now lagging, scrolling through your base, hitting NPC, going to a map etc. I think it proves that no one from Gree plays its own game, Gree does not do quality control, and they only revenue push as there are still addicted whales. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said they have no long term goals for this game. Yes it has been around a long time, but that one factor can be easily explained by factions. And that is even losing its luster.
Would agree completely, factions are the main reason that folks still play. Also seems that those that quit do so in coordination with their faction mates and move to better less bug infested games. I fully understand this as faction play was the best feature of this game.
Sadly it has been greatly undermined by lack of insight by the game designers.
In the smaller factions in WD the trend is to have one monster D/L supplimented by a number of weak new players. Also seems as if nobody is actually online to play so they are just milking points. Participation seems to continue to disappear. I would guess in the top ranks you would need everyone online so this might not be as obvious but to me this is a good indication of how few players are left. WD used to be the flagship event and the top earner now?
FL in the lower rankings seems to have even less participation with maybe one or two high IPH or spenders towing along a bunch of non participants. I think that was where the matching system on Huge Boss worked as it seemed to be more logically based. But FL to me has always been a non starter since all the work is done in the last couple of minutes of the battle requiring no strategy just a fast device or better still a way to deploy multiples instantly. I suspect if gree want to see the spending light glow bright white adding a deploy all function would create bedlam in the final minute of a battle and increase revenues as well. Plus if the server wasn't overloaded by tapping it might actually be more stable and also actually count all hits made before the timer runs out. As it sits now it seems any hits in the last 10 seconds are lost and not counted in the battle but used up. Granted they cleverly designed things so we have no idea how the battle actually played out in terms of deploys because the map screen disappears and is replaced by final stats thus hiding what really happened.
If you want to make WD relevant again I would keep the big MONTHLY weekend battle but also make those points cumulative towards a big yearly or quarterly goal with big prizes. If you do 24 hour WDs then have those count as well.
Same could even be done with FL so in other words have a Masters ranking as well as monthly.
Overhaul the units in the store! most are useless. Btw I notice a bunch of valour units that are unlocked in my store but tapping on them does nothing. What's up with that?
Overhaul faction bonuses, bet most factions are maxed so bump to at least 10 or better still 20.
Same could be done with all the boost buildings. But with the thought that these are goals that might not nessessarily be achieved by a massive gold hit and finished instantly. Well you could as always go for that short term but that would be stupid IMHO but for those heavily addicted I suppose it could feed the addiction some more.
Also update/fix defensive buildings which have been completely worthless for many years! Note that they also have some sort of defensive range which appears to be ineffective yet is there. Fixing this and making them useful would actually put some strategy back into this game. Yeah I know this is a strategy game where there is actually no need to have any strategy….
Fix the Infirmary, I tested it pretty thoroughly when it first came out and discovered it was useless! In fact it seemed to actually increase your losses as you levelled it up. Now most of us leave it dead on our bases or don't bother building one. I keep hoping that one day it will be useful again. Granted most of us are filled up with indestructible units.... Now that you have Alpha units that are expendable have it come into play for heavens sakes! Same goes for the Casualty Rate faction bonus which also appears to be worthless.
Most of these are simple adjustments that shouldn't have the nasty effect that cludging on more events seem to introduce...
Also increase the number of game levels, currently we are capped at I think 350 since you guys get around to this once every few years bump it out to 1,000. That would also make the rivals list require an update...
Map missions seem to be irrelevant might as well nuke them along with all the unneeded NPCs and targets.
On Android fix the targeting for god sakes, it's embarrassing to see how poorly it is executed. I tap on a target and kill something several squares away. WTF is that, other than crappy programming or intentional which could be either since all the crazy moving targets swarm the real target and make doing those mission iratating not fun. As a result I bet I am not the only one that ignores them.
Skill points, I know we had a 'fix' a while back where we could redeploy them but honestly it would have been better if you had actually made attack and defence work properly. Also since this seems to be a bit of a weird fluid issue why not grant players the ability to make a change once every 100 levels or so. Again to put some strategy back into the game.
Recycling units, as others have stated it is a PITA to try and find particular units even with the much improved search features…
Beta testing or lack thereof, this is a very serious issue IMHO. There are many problems that would have been caught well before the changes went live. Honestly I know there was one a while back and it tended to work with select players.
Those are just the off the top things that have been pretty obvious for quite some time.
