I agree with the annoying aiding and visiting taverns however Inno DID improve the tavern feature by removing the sit-down animation so the devs do listen and consider how to make the game better.
There is a trade-off though.
Making a game requires work and workers should (need to!) be paid for their effort.
Most free-to-play games are actually pay-to-win which is a big turn-off for poor, casual, or certain perfectionist players.
FoE is the best all-round game I have come across so far that balances time vs money so well.
I agree with the pain it is to aid, for me it's a mundane task especially with all the time needed between each player( i want to aid as much as possible but it takes far too long between clicks and switching pages )
The tavern sit down system is much better now.
I have left the game and returned a few times, at times because of personal RL situations and others just out of boredom for the continuous repetitive tasks and quests, especially during events.
One reason i come back is that it is possible to advance right through the game and obtain almost everything at least once without spending any, or tons of real cash, many games these days you have to pay just to advance or not get wiped out. The other advantage here is no matter how many times you get attacked or plundered, you really lose nothing that can't be regained,.
On the plus side there is a new ( mini game ? ) on Beta called the Castle System, which i think is rather cool, it rewards you for just logging in regularly and doing your normal daily routine.
Some of the rewards are fair but it's the permanent boosts to your city which is very cool.
To update this, i'm not sure if it's my imagination, but it seems that aiding is much faster on the live server than on Beta ?