Shake your head all you like. Pleasing the player base only works if there are enough paying players. When a game doesn't have enough paying players (which appears to be the case with Elvenar, since there are more abandoned cities than full ones), the only path to success is getting more. If they think they can attract more paying players in the future by p*ssing off many of the existing ones, that's the best path forward for them.
Actually, I'm afraid you got it backwards here. Any business needs some kind of investment to get started.
Elvenar is no exception, so they need to get players first, then entice them to pay for additional features. And in fact, that worked pretty well UNTIL they started changing a lot of stuff.
Since the changes with the battlesystem, and with every change after that, I see more players who used to pay stop doing so because they no longer feel it is worth spending their money on. And from paying go to non-paying...and move on to non-playing. A loss all the way.
And it may be so that the big spenders aren't affected as much, but generally speaking it's much easier to convince 1000 people to part with $1,- than 1 person to part with $1000,-. Yet I see even people who spent large sums on the game pulling out.
Most games thrive on a the fact that they have a large base of players with a limited budget, offering enough to make them pay small amounts regularly. Elvenar seems to be alienating that group, with the hopes there will be more big spenders to make up for that.
If they feel that's the way to go, they might want to take a look to other businesses. Most who take that path fail miserably, because to succeed in that one needs to offer something really extroardinary. And apart from very good graphics, this game doesn't really offer anything that will attract people to spend big bucks.
In fact, the only thing that really made it different was that it did NOT focus so much on fighting and they have pretty much taken that part away, turning it in a fighting game again. And those tourney battles get harder as one progresses, but not because of any serious challenge or puzzle, or strategy but because the numbers increase against you. And pretty much every province has something like 4-5 battles that are 90% alike, so those fights are extremely repetetive...not exactly something that will challenge people who are into battlegames.
So if they persist on that route its very unlikely they will succeed because there's not much being offered that is really special. And they'll have my blessing...but no longer my money, nor my patronage.