People leaving game

[DeletedUser]

I have noticed that more and more people are leaving game, and more are soon to go as well. Myself and others have posted ideas on how to get players to stay, but as of yet, nothing is being done. I really hate to see a game ignore it's players. It is frustrating when you spend a lot of real money on a game and enjoy playing only to get to the point where the game stalls, issues arise, and you just want to quit playing. As I have said in an earlier post, I understand a game needs to make money, but things are getting out of control ! It is no longer fun to play ! Please review player posts and ideas and make it fun to play again ! Please lower costs to unlock blocks on the research tree, lower costs for manufacturing goods, training troops, and upgrading before more people leave. I would hate to see such an awesome game like this one get a bad reputation, and it is, in the gaming world Elvenar is getting a bad name and this makes me sad because it really is a beautiful, fun game. I have seen youtube posts as well as gaming site posts saying bad things about Elvenar. We love this game and would hate to leave, but it is getting to the point where we almost have no choice. And again, I really hate seeing such negative things being said about Elvenar ! Please help !!

 

[DeletedUser]

They have added some cool additions since I started playing. The fellowship and Guest races. The Fellowship gives us plenty of opportunity to do trading with our fellows and any active neighbors. We have chat now which we didn't have before, We have an extended tech tree with dwarves to come, and new guest races after that. I hear mention of PVP , which will be awesome. All takes time and patience. All games have people try it and decide that it's not for them, I've seen inactive players removed and replaced with new players. So yes they are hearing what we say. Maybe you need a more active fellowship that keeps track of active players and keeps it fun for the group. Good luck with your game.

 

[DeletedUser]

They have added some cool additions since I started playing. The fellowship and Guest races. The Fellowship gives us plenty of opportunity to do trading with our fellows and any active neighbors. We have chat now which we didn't have before, We have an extended tech tree with dwarves to come, and new guest races after that. I hear mention of PVP , which will be awesome. All takes time and patience. All games have people try it and decide that it's not for them, I've seen inactive players removed and replaced with new players. So yes they are hearing what we say. Maybe you need a more active fellowship that keeps track of active players and keeps it fun for the group. Good luck with your game.

Oh, my Fellowship is very active ! Just loosing a lot of neighbors because of costs etc as I mentioned in my post(s). Hopefully this will change so we can enjoy the game more. After a certain point it is a struggle to advance further ! I really love this game and want to continue playing it, if they lowered costs ie silk etc to unlock things i would play alllllll day ! It is such a beautiful game. Hope things continue to improve !

 

[DeletedUser]

Building more of your boosted goods should help, your paying a lot of extra tools to run the non boosted goods for what you get back from them, I have marble, silk ,and gems as boosters and have 9 marble 4 silk and 2 gems, I have 1 each of the non boosted goods just so I can watch them grow, even though I'm paying extra tool to run them, My workshops are keeping up with the demand for them and research and such. If you have a lot of your boosted goods going then you'll have plenty to trade with your fellow members and neighbors. The game goes a lot smoother that way. It took someone talking me into letting the others go, but once I got the concept of the game as a trading game, things are going quite well now.

 

[DeletedUser1061]

Building more of your boosted goods should help, your paying a lot of extra tools to run the non boosted goods for what you get back from them, I have marble, silk ,and gems as boosters and have 9 marble 4 silk and 2 gems, I have 1 each of the non boosted goods just so I can watch them grow, even though I'm paying extra tool to run them, My workshops are keeping up with the demand for them and research and such. If you have a lot of your boosted goods going then you'll have plenty to trade with your fellow members and neighbors. The game goes a lot smoother that way. It took someone talking me into letting the others go, but once I got the concept of the game as a trading game, things are going quite well now.

If you have neighbors and if so do they trade? I love the penalty for not finding your trading partners as it is a brutal penalty by the time tier 3 goods are needed.

 

[DeletedUser]

Some do trade , I have more trades with fellow members than neighbors, Some times I get an email for a new player thanking me for neighborly help and Help them as also with their game, Let them know about Elvenar wiki and the forum for good information on the game and guide the them best I can. I explain to them the concept of the game and it has helped with keeping people interested in the game around me. I was lost at 1st when I started the game and found good people to help me and in return I can help others with what I learned . Maybe if we each reached out to new payers , then there will be less quitting the game, just a thought.

 

[DeletedUser627]

On Oct 15 a new beta phase is being released - Ancient Wonders. Reading the description on beta wiki...this will include another form of player interaction for KP assistance, use of non-boost relics, all as part of a new element of play (collecting "rune shards" in order to build ancient wonders, which give permanent boosts).

Once this is up and running, perhaps we can band together and convince Inno to speed up the intermediate progress?! The latest release reduced the quest rewards in low / mid-range play (while our high level rewards remained high, perhaps because they heard our loud complaints!)...but now that the game is playing considerably longer, they might be inclined to set things up so y'all can move forward at a faster pace.

Is it only speed that's causing frustration, or other issues?

 

[DeletedUser1061]

For me speed is only a minor concern but the MAJOR concern is the neighborhoods who have no one in them. Oh, you can see a lot of neighbors but all are abandoned so trading outside of a fellowship is dang hard if not impossible (depends on where Inno threw you when you created the world) and once in a fellowship it isn't much better. So, fellowships are starting to crack down and rejecting players because they don't have the goods, or goods production, they need. Rejection, no matter the reason, is not a good move. I understand why it is being done but does Inno?

 

[DeletedUser627]

My neighborhood was emptied, and it took about 6 weeks before new players made it into my section. It seemed too long a wait...

 

[DeletedUser]

A good leader will keep track of who's active and who's not. When you keep track of the boosted good between players then yes you have to be selective who joins with whatever boosters are need to keep it even for better trading. It's nothing against anyone they might have to reject. A good leader will email and explain this to people they reject. If your not happy in your fellowship pick one that's active and fun.

 

[DeletedUser1061]

A good leader will keep track of who's active and who's not. When you keep track of the boosted good between players then yes you have to be selective who joins with whatever boosters are need to keep it even for better trading. It's nothing against anyone they might have to reject. A good leader will email and explain this to people they reject. If your not happy in your fellowship pick one that's active and fun.

That is the issue right there and Inno needs to address this el pronto. I shouldn't have to be in a fellowship to go forward in this game in the first place but you MUST or else and in the second place fix the trading system. Being in a guild or in a fellowship should be a nice thing not a necessity due to VERY poor game mechanics (it should be like icing on a cake not the only sustenance in the game else you die).

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't see how it's poor mechanics, You can have anyone you want in your fellowship. It can be uneven if that the way you feel your fellowship should be, but you'll suffer for it by not having a good even playing field. You can always buy from the trader wholesaler and pay extra. INNO games let's everyone play the game, it's not their fault if people lose interest in the game, It happens with every game made. Smart cookies prevail.

 

[DeletedUser]

Thanks for the update BobbiPiazza, The ancient wonders looks really cool, I'm looking forward to us getting the addition.

 

[DeletedUser1061]

I don't see how it's poor mechanics, You can have anyone you want in your fellowship. It can be uneven if that the way you feel your fellowship should be, but you'll suffer for it by not having a good even playing field. You can always buy from the trader wholesaler and pay extra. INNO games let's everyone play the game, it's not their fault if people lose interest in the game, It happens with every game made. Smart cookies prevail.

You still are not seeing what I am saying so let me spell it out. When a trading system is this barbaric and ruthless and just so clumsy as it is we have to resort to using our "click" (notice not Clique) to get what we need. Click as in this clicks in here and you click in over there until we have this well built machine because the trading system just blows. Now couple this trading system with a horribly designed, and implemented, neighborhood system and you suddenly have the infamous one two punch of a death system. Both of those need to be fixed not a simple bandage wrapped around it in the guise of a fellowship.

As I said a fellowship is not supposed to be there to take up for poorly working mechanics. Not a soul playing this game should ever feel they have to join one else they are stuck forever because two parts of this game just blows. What someone should do is WANT to join a fellowship not HAVE to and that is what I am saying. The fellowship piece of this game is alright but Inno needs to walk down the hall, or in the next room or the next building and see how Forge of Empires did their aiding system and implement it. I think that would be step #3 with neighborhoods and trading being #1 and #2 fixes really really needed by Inno.

As far as Smart Cookies what you call smart cookies a lot of people call elitists (like the fellowships I see on A demanding <=200 for your ranking before they allow you in). Same difference and to exclude for any reason is very very bad and in every single game I have ever played when a game mechanic caused it to be like this the company changed it. The only difference between those and this is that diamonds will ease your pain and I seriously believe all of this is done to cause the players pain to whip out their wallets. Don't punish your players into buying stuff get them to want to buy them.

 

[DeletedUser]

I see this has made you angry, We'll let a moderator take it from here. I will not subject myself to your rude mouth.

 

[DeletedUser68]

If you do a bit of googling, about 15% of the folks who look at a FreeToPlay Browser game will return to play a second day, and only half of that 15% will still be around a month later.

If you look at the 80th percentile in the rankings, you'll see that the player scores are in the mid-three hundreds, which implies a Barracks and a Trader, but not much else, and then the scores start to climb quite rapidly.

Joining a fellowship provides you with access to that active 15%, regardless of where they happen to be located on the World Map.

If you're just depending on your neighbors, the math is pretty simple. 85% of the folks in your neighborhood will only visit the game once, and we'll gain about 10% every 30 days when new immigrants arrive. After 6 months, or so, if the Elvenar demographics are typical for the genre, then we'll have mostly active neighbors simply because the percentage of immigrants drops lower and lower.

InnoGames can do some clever things when they yuppify the various neighborhoods, but it's always going to be a slow process when only 10% of the visitors are going to stick around for a more than a month.

 

[DeletedUser1083]

I'm glad I read through this discussion. I just joined yesterday and came back today and discovered that one of my neighbors had gifted coins. I can see how that support is needed to help us through the game.

 

[DeletedUser1061]

If you do a bit of googling, about 15% of the folks who look at a FreeToPlay Browser game will return to play a second day, and only half of that 15% will still be around a month later.

If you look at the 80th percentile in the rankings, you'll see that the player scores are in the mid-three hundreds, which implies a Barracks and a Trader, but not much else, and then the scores start to climb quite rapidly.

Joining a fellowship provides you with access to that active 15%, regardless of where they happen to be located on the World Map.

If you're just depending on your neighbors, the math is pretty simple. 85% of the folks in your neighborhood will only visit the game once, and we'll gain about 10% every 30 days when new immigrants arrive. After 6 months, or so, if the Elvenar demographics are typical for the genre, then we'll have mostly active neighbors simply because the percentage of immigrants drops lower and lower.

InnoGames can do some clever things when they yuppify the various neighborhoods, but it's always going to be a slow process when only 10% of the visitors are going to stick around for a more than a month.

Not going to doubt those numbers but how is it that Forge of Empires got it right in this department? One forge point to trade with someone not in your guild but it is a vibrant and active trading system unlike here AND they are not just your neighbors they are the entire game's worth of players. They seem to have done it right and why Inno couldn't just borrow something that is working correctly from one of their own titles into a newer title is beyond me.

 

[DeletedUser68]

Ummm - Nope! Take a gander at https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...borhood-Merge-Inequity&highlight=neighborhood.

In Forge of Empires the "neighborhoods" are defined by the Neighborhood Social Bar, which contains 80+ characters. Neighbors who have been active during the past week. Even so there's all sort of hair pulling about how "unbalanced" the neighborhoods happen to be, so referencing FoE sort of destroys your argument, even without the additional step of showing city locations on the world map.

To your point, however, Tribal Wars and Grepolis both have user cities on the world map, so InnoGames is quite aware of the issues. There's an interesting tradeoff:

• Do you want heterogeneous neighborhood, with a nice mix of player levels?
• Do you want homogenous neighborhoods, with folks who all have similar needs?
• How do you accommodate advanced and/or premium cities that have become isolated?
• How much calculation overhead will be needed to achieve either goal?

It so happens that I prefer homogenous neighborhoods, and if you search for Climbing the Penrose Stairs, both here and in Beta, I suspect you'll find a lot that you would agree with. The Developers, however, who have much better activity data than I'll ever have access to, are sticking with the heterogeneous model, and fellowships are, admittedly, a pretty good tool that allows us to play both sides of the street.

Regarding trading, I can find you any number of FoE threads where folks are complaining that it's impossible to get a FP trade, so you're limited to 70+ guildmates, 70+ neighbors, 70+ (140 max) friends, as compared to the 200 + 25 here in Elvenar. Elvenar has gone the rather more interesting route of using trade as an incentive for exploration, which makes a LOT of sense when you think about it.

 

[DeletedUser1061]

Ummm - Nope! Take a gander at https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...borhood-Merge-Inequity&highlight=neighborhood.

In Forge of Empires the "neighborhoods" are defined by the Neighborhood Social Bar, which contains 80+ characters. Neighbors who have been active during the past week. Even so there's all sort of hair pulling about how "unbalanced" the neighborhoods happen to be, so referencing FoE sort of destroys your argument, even without the additional step of showing city locations on the world map.

To your point, however, Tribal Wars and Grepolis both have user cities on the world map, so InnoGames is quite aware of the issues. There's an interesting tradeoff:

• Do you want heterogeneous neighborhood, with a nice mix of player levels?
• Do you want homogenous neighborhoods, with folks who all have similar needs?
• How do you accommodate advanced and/or premium cities that have become isolated?
• How much calculation overhead will be needed to achieve either goal?

It so happens that I prefer homogenous neighborhoods, and if you search for Climbing the Penrose Stairs, both here and in Beta, I suspect you'll find a lot that you would agree with. The Developers, however, who have much better activity data than I'll ever have access to, are sticking with the heterogeneous model, and fellowships are, admittedly, a pretty good tool that allows us to play both sides of the street.

Regarding trading, I can find you any number of FoE threads where folks are complaining that it's impossible to get a FP trade, so you're limited to 70+ guildmates, 70+ neighbors, 70+ (140 max) friends, as compared to the 200 + 25 here in Elvenar. Elvenar has gone the rather more interesting route of using trade as an incentive for exploration, which makes a LOT of sense when you think about it.

I have 39 pages of trades in FoE at any given time on the two worlds I play on whereas here I am lucky if I have 3 or 4 and there are more per page in FoE than there is here. Now I might not see what I need there but at least I see trading whereas here it is pretty dead and couple that with a huge expense if I haven't found them (which becomes too darn difficult eventually) by the time I need tier 3 goods. It is a really poor system and being a maker/trader that was the first thing I went after when I joined the game and I have been let down by it ever since but I can honestly say I haven't been let down by the one in FoE even when I was not in a guild. I can't say the FoE one is perfect because that would be a lie as I need explosives, and some need whale oil, and we can't find any but here I went for a solid week stuck on a tech because not a soul could produce it and the trader was DOA. It is not a good system you have here and I think the people leaving are for several reasons.

#1 On some of the GPT sites there was an offer to join Elvenar and they got paid. I was one of them but I stayed they were just after the quick money for signing up.
#2 The trading system makes people feel isolated and isolation in a MMO is Bizarro world time.
#3 Elves have a heck of a time fighting but make wonderful traders while humans make wonderful fighters but not as good for creating. I asked around and that seems to hold true at least up to Dwarves.
#4 Not enough to do with too much standing around. I am no PvP'er, nor will I ever be, but a lot of people (the wallet warriors especially) want that as it relieves the utter boredom these sorts of games have. Now in FoE that is NOT PvP that is Player versus Computer with the dumbest AI I have ever witnessed (AI designed to give the edge to the attacker who has probably spent money to get where they are).
#5 The lack of a quality well rounded game where there is something to do every second you are in the game. Quests galore and exploration and team work within groups of players. Stuff like LOTRO, or DDO, or Everquest1/2, Asheron's Call 1/2, World of Warcraft, etc... has and games like these do not have. This is hardly a MMO in a sense from a player perspective as I never really interact with another player ever but in the mentioned games you do all of the time OR you can go do something alone if you wish. This reverts back to #4 in a vicious cycle.

There are more reasons for your stats and all of the dead cities in this game but those are the top 5 reasons for now. Some you can't help and some you will not help due to diamond sells slumping if you did and that is partly why the figures you quoted are pretty dismal too.