HappyMofo
Private
After the corona related restrictions being lifted I have realised how much time I've been spending (wasting?) at the game over the last months. I've had enough time to be efficient in every aspect of the game: events, gbg, ge, diamond farms, aiding, sniping, plundering, recurring quests etc etc, and it sped up my progress significantly, at the cost of up to 2h a day. Now, I don't really see myself wasting that much time any more, but the idea of going back to the snails pace race puts me off as well. Most of those 2h per day was wasted mainly due to lack of QoL features, the amount of clicking required to perform simple tasks, the amount of calculations required to be efficient (either manually or through 3rd party websites and calculators), it all adds up. With FoE helper core features removed, I didn't even dare to go back to my daily routine, as it would take an hour more easily. As a programmer, I know that implementation of simple features reducing the required input from the user, would take literally no effort, coded and tested over the lunch break. The fact that the efficient playstyle requires basic knowledge of the game (the strategic depth is just not there imo) and not much decision making, but huge amount of time, makes me think that this actually is devs goal. I understand that it's all profit driven, and there probably is a correlation between time spent logged in and money spent for diamonds, but I'm sure it also has the opposite effect: people who spend a lot of time pushing city in 1 world, would otherwise play more worlds perhaps and indirectly increase player base and competitiveness. People who don't want to spend too much time in the game will skip parts of it entirely. People who want to be efficient with their play, aren't able to keep up with time requirements long term, they are taking breaks from FoE or give up entirely. I just think that quality content and depth + solid player/guild interaction and a bit of competition is the way to keep people engaged with the game. What I see in FoE is more like: "We have no clue how to keep you interested, so we gonna make you click 200+ times to aid your guild and friends, 100 times to spend 1k fp, and tab out to wiki/tools/calculators every time you want to make few extra fp. We think it's fun, don't you?" No, I don't. I wonder if more people feel the same? Or perhaps there is some dev manifesto to prove me right/wrong?