12 Things You Can Do to Avoid Game Burn-out

[ajqtrz]

Try combing through the Rankings tab listings of FS, comparing against Elvenstats to get updated info, looking for FS that have the same # of members in their FS that you need and contact them with a nice email suggesting merging. You'd be amazed at how many players are out there in a FS that has been abandoned by the AM, or has a number of inactive players (such as your own). You may pick up 3 or 4 new members from FS that way. Make sure that it's an 'open dialog' situation so that there is not one poor member left behind all alone when people make the move.

Yep, that's my method. Find a "fading" fellowship and give those still active a boost by helping them find a home. We have 3 fellowships, at 3 levels, working together so that when I find a few "strays" in a "fading fellowship" they can all find a place. It works wonders!

AJ

 

[Darielle]

I'm thinking about starting a "Freaky Fridays" event ... where I throw out a poem line, a song line, etc, and the person who adds the next line of it wins a rune in a random wonder (probably one of their lesser ones, but what the heck). It can go all day with multiple winners, each adding the next line. I'd probably have to make a limit of 2 or 3 per person, in order to have enough runes, but it might be fun. Heck, I have more runes than I'll ever use, especially in certain wonders, so at least I'd have something to do with my Enar's and Tome and stuff. Whatcha think?

 

[muffy.]

@Darielle I think it’s a fabulous idea. Anything that makes a person smile and have fun is always worth a try. You have nothing to lose , yet you gain so much in the end.
Doing something so simply could brighten someone’s day because you don’t know what they may be going thru in their lives . Rather then negativity with parts of the game or things we don’t like … just like here on the forum … what a great place this would be if we could feed off the positive and except the things we cannot change …. and sometimes the only positive may be to make someone smile … that’s so worth it in my heart at least.
I hope you do it because I know even if it just lasts a day … it’s a positive day ! This is a game , it’s suppose to be fun , but fun is what you make it

 

[Alram]

Whoever hits the top of the spire first gets to pick the music! Everyone stops by in chat to drop a lyric or two. My Elvis choice almost got me thrown off the roof, Disco went better, and everyone liked the Beatles. I wasn't first this week so we are stuck with Rush music blaring down the spire.

 

[BrinDarby]

Personally, the most important aspect is to remember it is a "GAME," and by definition, it should be fun

Astram..... maintainence is not a game, its busy work....
Having so much of the "game" be maint, then it does
become a J.O.B. ....... and lets face it, thats not "Fun".

That leaves Tourn/Spire as the only 2 things, not maint.
Each runs basically 5 1/2 days each.... So that leaves
9 Spire encounters and 8 tourn encounters per day.
( seriously, that takes 15min/day )

Originally I thought the holy grail would be a "once a day"
maint schedule, so a player could have a "life" and still
"play" elvenar.... Doing this handicaps resource production
and basically rules out Events/FAs/Cauldron/Seasons
because those require non 1 day production runs.....
Heck, there are more "games" ( stupid ones ) here on the
forum, prolly cause ppl want something "to do".... iono.

Noone in Elvenar ever says.... "woohooo, I just collected
20 productions..... that was fun". Elvenar is a "citybuilder"
game, yet there are so many roadblocks to just having a
kewl/fun city.... ( duhh, unless you spend alotta $$$$$,
and are doing that constantly ).

I'm just as burnt out as @SoggyShorts is, and I'm not
even an endgame player, nor do I have any desire to be.
I swear, Inno must envy Hasbro, its nerf or nothing.....

Very few of the little ( easily/cheaply coded ) things us
players ask for ever get done.... Why??? because there
is NO incentive for Inno, because they don't add to revenue.

Therefore Astram, your premise that Elvenar should be "fun",
doesn't seem to equate into "fun" gameplay. If the premise
is that its a game, and games should be fun, then why do
so many suggestions that add "fun" or even "ease of use",
get tossed in the garbage pile ( trash can ) ?????
only 1 reason, loss of revenue or no addition of revenue.
Yet the biggest killer of revenue, is the allowance of both
defacto multi-accounting, and actual multi-accounting.
Rather than fixing that, the game is constantly nerf'd to
make up for all the "cheating", as most sites would call it.

[MOD EDIT] Text removed

 

[Queen of Beltane]

I would wait the week out offline if Rush was the band of the week. lol

 

[Silly Bubbles]

Therefore Astram, your premise that Elvenar should be "fun",
doesn't seem to equate into "fun" gameplay. If the premise
is that its a game, and games should be fun, then why do
so many suggestions that add "fun" or even "ease of use",
get tossed in the garbage pile ( trash can ) ?????
only 1 reason, loss of revenue or no addition of revenue.
Yet the biggest killer of revenue, is the allowance of both
defacto multi-accounting, and actual multi-accounting.
Rather than fixing that, the game is constantly nerf'd to
make up for all the "cheating", as most sites would call it.

It's not only up to Inno to create a game that is enjoyable. It's also up to players to find the most enjoyable way of playing it adjusted to their needs. It's impossible to fully customise it to everyone.

And of course it's all about money, without money there's no game. I'm not sure where you have details about what makes money and what doesn't from.

 

[Darielle]

@Darielle I think it’s a fabulous idea. Anything that makes a person smile and have fun is always worth a try. You have nothing to lose , yet you gain so much in the end.
Doing something so simply could brighten someone’s day because you don’t know what they may be going thru in their lives . Rather then negativity with parts of the game or things we don’t like … just like here on the forum … what a great place this would be if we could feed off the positive and except the things we cannot change …. and sometimes the only positive may be to make someone smile … that’s so worth it in my heart at least.
I hope you do it because I know even if it just lasts a day … it’s a positive day ! This is a game , it’s suppose to be fun , but fun is what you make it

Thank you! I'm thinking of picking really old songs that no one remembers anymore ... that would make the old ones vaguely recall the good old days and the young ones would have to Google, lol. Maybe television theme songs to old TV shows, idk. Or maybe a different theme every week ... one week it's Dead Poets Friday, the next week it's Old Sitcoms Friday, the next week it's 60s Songs Friday, etc, etc, etc.

 

[Siorse]

Whoever hits the top of the spire first gets to pick the music! Everyone stops by in chat to drop a lyric or two. My Elvis choice almost got me thrown off the roof, Disco went better, and everyone liked the Beatles. I wasn't first this week so we are stuck with Rush music blaring down the spire.

Rush is the greatest prog rock band of all time!
They don't just make music, they tell stories.
I cried when the world lost such a great poet in Neil.
Whoever picked Rush-kudos to them for having amazing taste in music!

 

[Tuschunreal]

Try combing through the Rankings tab listings of FS, comparing against Elvenstats to get updated info, looking for FS that have the same # of members in their FS that you need and contact them with a nice email suggesting merging. You'd be amazed at how many players are out there in a FS that has been abandoned by the AM, or has a number of inactive players (such as your own). You may pick up 3 or 4 new members from FS that way. Make sure that it's an 'open dialog' situation so that there is not one poor member left behind all alone when people make the move.

thanks for the suggestion...someone previously suggested that as well. I look about once a week and send a note to the members and copy the AM (even if the elvenstats says they have been inactive a long time). This week got a nice note back from the AM saying they were happy with their small FS. I really appreciated the reply.

 

[Alram]

Rush is the greatest prog rock band of all time!
They don't just make music, they tell stories.
I cried when the world lost such a great poet in Neil.
Whoever picked Rush-kudos to them for having amazing taste in music!

I put in my headphones. I just can't listen to that witch hag of the deep woods voice. I'm listening to Sir Elton John myself.

 

[Yavimaya]

12 Things To Avoid Game Burnout​

After a few years here you may finally feel you are getting a bit bored. Here are a few suggestions on how to avoid burn-out. They, essentially make the game a different game in some degree or other, and that’s what it’s all about – new challenges and new horizons.

1) Stop battling. If you have been fighting your way to the top of the Spire and Tournament and it’s old hat, try doing the Spire, the Tournament, or both with just catering/negotiating. Probably have to do some rebuilding of your city and experience some dropping in rankings, but think about how it will be when you get back to the top with that different of a city and a different method of having climbed that high?

2) Take the lead. Start a new fellowship, recruit small to medium players only, and slowly climb the rankings. You could, of course just bypass the whole thing and get some of those big, strong, buddies you know to join you, but what’s the fun in that? Try raising a really small fellowship from number 200 to number 1! That’s a challenge.

3) Small is beautiful. Set small goals. Like having 90 million goods on hand. For a big city this may be nothing, but it doesn’t have to be 90 million, it could be 900 million. The point is, have multiple small goals you are working on. Like having 2 million Spell Fragments or 1 million of every sentient good (my personal goal). Whatever small goals you have give you a set of reachable targets and, as you know, achieving anything tends to make you enjoy yourself more.

4) Make friends and influence enemies. Join the forum and share all that game knowledge you’ve accumulated. You may even be able to persuade others their approach isn’t the best. It’s a tough thing to do but a worthy goal for you, the “Master of the Game.”

5) Reset and Restart. Okay, at the end of the last chapter, now what? If you did things perfectly with your end of game city, pay no attention to this suggestion. But if you did make a few mistakes, well, here’s an opportunity to try again. This time doing everything perfectly, right?

6) Time is of the Essence. Set a time frame for achieving things. Like you will finish this chapter in 102 days! Or 365, or 10 or whatever. Pressuring yourself may seem to be counter-intuitive, but since it’s you who are putting the pressure on, it tends to motivate you more than hurt. So be a Speedy Delivery guy and take off.

7) It’s a Group Thing. If you’ve mastered herding the cats in your fellowship, why not try herding a bunch of fellowships? Like the Star Fleet group. On all worlds and doing fairly well. They may not do it perfectly but they do it. Maybe you could do it better? Star Wars, anyone?

8) Join the Talkies. Get a Gabber Group together and start a fellowship with the game as only the background thing. Like playing a card game with friends...who cares who wins the game you aren’t there for that. It’s the fellowship in the fellowship.

9) The Master of One. Pick one thing you think you are better at than anyone, or can become better at than anyone, and go against the best. Top the Tournament every week for a year….without a lot of extra things others don’t have, like more than one Fire Phoenix. In other words, level the playing field and then try to be the Master of One.

10)) Make it Beautiful Set your city up like a park. Make it color coordinated, make it look like Paris, London, or Goshen (in Oregon if it still exisits I mean Goshen still existing, not the state of Oregon, which may or may not have been torn down).

11) Take a break. Yep, better to take a break before total burn-out then push yourself until you hate the name of the game. When you come back reread this list and pick one.

12) Add to this list. Just my way of suggesting this isn’t exhaustive and I’m sure others have great ideas. Let’s make it 100 things to do to combat burnout.

Hope this helps.

AJ

Great ideas!!! I must be lucky bc after couple years I still enjoy just as much! Hopefully I don't hit burnout but I might one day.

 

[senate7]

thanks for the suggestion...someone previously suggested that as well. I look about once a week and send a note to the members and copy the AM (even if the elvenstats says they have been inactive a long time). This week got a nice note back from the AM saying they were happy with their small FS. I really appreciated the reply.

I hope you continue to recruit. It's a very tough job, just placing a note on your profile that says 'recruiting' is nothing. Same as placing an 'ad' on the forum. One well-established member of the forum commented once that really very few players look at the forum, so you're only going to get a limited response to any ads that way, and I think I agree.
The best response by far that I got was sending out dozens and dozens and dozens of personal emails to people that I discovered by cross-referencing on Elvenstats. Clearly people respond better to an email that's actually addressed to them than just some anonymous invite to yet another one of 100's of non-distinct FS.
Make your connection more personal and I'm sure you will be successful
I started with about 8 active players in our FS when we were abandoned by the AM. We didn't know what to do when we realized he had just up and left so somebody contacted Inno and Inno appointed me as AM. I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew I wanted to make sure the FS could function well, so I started recruiting.
It eventually took about 6 months of emailing, combing though players names, removing inactive members 1 at a time until now we have a full house of all active members in the FS and got our first 10th chest in tournie.
You will do it if you keep at it : )

 

[Darielle]

Great ideas!!! I must be lucky bc after couple years I still enjoy just as much! Hopefully I don't hit burnout but I might one day.

The only time I experienced burnout was during the nearly 8 months I spent in Chapter 17. But I revived my interest once I got out of it.

 

[Tuschunreal]

I hope you continue to recruit. It's a very tough job, just placing a note on your profile that says 'recruiting' is nothing. Same as placing an 'ad' on the forum. One well-established member of the forum commented once that really very few players look at the forum, so you're only going to get a limited response to any ads that way, and I think I agree.
The best response by far that I got was sending out dozens and dozens and dozens of personal emails to people that I discovered by cross-referencing on Elvenstats. Clearly people respond better to an email that's actually addressed to them than just some anonymous invite to yet another one of 100's of non-distinct FS.
Make your connection more personal and I'm sure you will be successful
I started with about 8 active players in our FS when we were abandoned by the AM. We didn't know what to do when we realized he had just up and left so somebody contacted Inno and Inno appointed me as AM. I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew I wanted to make sure the FS could function well, so I started recruiting.
It eventually took about 6 months of emailing, combing though players names, removing inactive members 1 at a time until now we have a full house of all active members in the FS and got our first 10th chest in tournie.
You will do it if you keep at it : )

you have done well, we have tried 10 chest pushes about a month apart and made both of them so far

 

[ajqtrz]

Astram..... maintainence is not a game, its busy work....
Having so much of the "game" be maint, then it does
become a J.O.B. ....... and lets face it, thats not "Fun".

That leaves Tourn/Spire as the only 2 things, not maint.
Each runs basically 5 1/2 days each.... So that leaves
9 Spire encounters and 8 tourn encounters per day.
( seriously, that takes 15min/day )

Originally I thought the holy grail would be a "once a day"
maint schedule, so a player could have a "life" and still
"play" elvenar.... Doing this handicaps resource production
and basically rules out Events/FAs/Cauldron/Seasons
because those require non 1 day production runs.....
Heck, there are more "games" ( stupid ones ) here on the
forum, prolly cause ppl want something "to do".... iono.

Noone in Elvenar ever says.... "woohooo, I just collected
20 productions..... that was fun". Elvenar is a "citybuilder"
game, yet there are so many roadblocks to just having a
kewl/fun city.... ( duhh, unless you spend alotta $$$$$,
and are doing that constantly ).

I'm just as burnt out as @SoggyShorts is, and I'm not
even an endgame player, nor do I have any desire to be.
I swear, Inno must envy Hasbro, its nerf or nothing.....

Very few of the little ( easily/cheaply coded ) things us
players ask for ever get done.... Why??? because there
is NO incentive for Inno, because they don't add to revenue.

Therefore Astram, your premise that Elvenar should be "fun",
doesn't seem to equate into "fun" gameplay. If the premise
is that its a game, and games should be fun, then why do
so many suggestions that add "fun" or even "ease of use",
get tossed in the garbage pile ( trash can ) ?????
only 1 reason, loss of revenue or no addition of revenue.
Yet the biggest killer of revenue, is the allowance of both
defacto multi-accounting, and actual multi-accounting.
Rather than fixing that, the game is constantly nerf'd to
make up for all the "cheating", as most sites would call it.

[MOD EDIT] Text removed

It's interesting to me that you say "maintenance is not a game, it's busy work." And that might be true for the vast majority, or not. Some people maintain their city so they can have fun. After all, all the side games you don't have to do require at least something from the main game and thus, if you can maintain your city at whatever level you are at, you can do all those side games, or any one of them, but if you can't maintain and let the city deteriorate, you lose the fun of the side games. A lot of things are like that. I change the strings on my guitar every few months (or weeks in some instances) because to me it's maintaining the instrument so I can have the fun of playing. Just about every game has some maintenance aspect and we do it to actually have the fun of the game.

I do think this just shows sometimes you have to find the fun wherever you can rather than relying on the devs to make it fun. The devs didn't build my fun fellowship, I did. They provided few, mostly boring tools of recruiting, (and nothing hard in this game than recruiting) but I built the fun group we have. I and many of the members in my group make it fun. In the end it's the players who are responsible for making things fun, I think, and sometimes no amount of coding will do it for all.

AJ

 

[BrinDarby]

After all, all the side games you don't have to do require at least something from the main game and thus, if you can maintain your city at whatever level you are at, you can do all those side games, or any one of them, but if you can't maintain and let the city deteriorate, you lose the fun of the side games.

@ajqtrz ,
So that means you classify everything other than CH progression,
a side game ?? or am I missing something from your text ??

Using that as the premise, then in order to "play the game" you
need resources, coins/tools, and KP....... yes ?? Now, the game
gives you free KP, so even Tourn is not necessary, nor is the Spire.
When you finish a research, it doesn't say (3) advanced tools, and
(8) 3 hr T1 production runs , it would just say, X amt of supplies and
Y amt of 1 of 3 T1s....... Keeping production constant 24/7 to give
you what you need, is maintainance....

Doesn't matter if thats every 3 hrs, or once a day.... how you set up
your maint schedule is up to you, your time constraints, and your
necessary resource demands.... but its still maintainance...... If you can
set everything up for once a day collection and still make enough
stuff to sustain your city, then you only have log once a day to
collect your production....

"The side games" , ie- Tourn, Spire, Seasons, Cauldron, FAs, Events...
as you I guess put it fall into 2 catagories.... Those tied to Maint, and
those only requiring more stuff ( troops/resources ).... Therefore
Tourn/Spire are in one, and the rest are in the other one.

You can do nothing else but.. CH progression, and still "finish"
the game @ the endgame CH. Everything else, just makes
that easier to accomplish on different levels.

AJ, we differ on what exactly we define as "side games I guess,
and even for that matter maint. Do I have that correct ?? If so
untill we talk apples/apples we can't have a fruitfull discussion.
Can you elaborate a bit more or say where we differ or agree....
( so far ) ?

 

[Dreamyn2]

In the end it's the players who are responsible for making things fun, I think, and sometimes no amount of coding will do it for all.

 

[Iyapo]

@Silmaril. This is an active post that has been archived.

 

[ajqtrz]

@ajqtrz ,
So that means you classify everything other than CH progression,
a side game ?? or am I missing something from your text ??

Using that as the premise, then in order to "play the game" you
need resources, coins/tools, and KP....... yes ?? Now, the game
gives you free KP, so even Tourn is not necessary, nor is the Spire.
When you finish a research, it doesn't say (3) advanced tools, and
(8) 3 hr T1 production runs , it would just say, X amt of supplies and
Y amt of 1 of 3 T1s....... Keeping production constant 24/7 to give
you what you need, is maintainance....

Doesn't matter if thats every 3 hrs, or once a day.... how you set up
your maint schedule is up to you, your time constraints, and your
necessary resource demands.... but its still maintainance...... If you can
set everything up for once a day collection and still make enough
stuff to sustain your city, then you only have log once a day to
collect your production....

"The side games" , ie- Tourn, Spire, Seasons, Cauldron, FAs, Events...
as you I guess put it fall into 2 catagories.... Those tied to Maint, and
those only requiring more stuff ( troops/resources ).... Therefore
Tourn/Spire are in one, and the rest are in the other one.

You can do nothing else but.. CH progression, and still "finish"
the game @ the endgame CH. Everything else, just makes
that easier to accomplish on different levels.

AJ, we differ on what exactly we define as "side games I guess,
and even for that matter maint. Do I have that correct ?? If so
untill we talk apples/apples we can't have a fruitfull discussion.
Can you elaborate a bit more or say where we differ or agree....
( so far ) ?

I think you miss the point to some degree, and in looking back I can see I wasn't clear. It's not "maintenance" if it contributes to the forward progress in some other aspect of the game. The Spire cannot be climbed without sufficient work in the "main game." Even if you don't work at Chapter progress you still have to do something in the city building part and do it fairly regularly, especially if you have decaying goods. I can imagine a layer just doing tournaments with a parked city. He/she isn't worried about progressing. But he/she still has to do things in the city to have the resources to do the tournament. That's the "maintenance" part. The city is maintained to enable the tournament. And some players actually like the maintenance part exactly because it allows them to do the "side games"...the things you don't have to do to make forward progress in the chapters.

AJ