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    Your Elvenar Team

When the game becomes a job, it's no longer fun

Myne

Oh Wise One
We do have rehab fellowships....the FSs that state clearly that they have no minimums to achieve and allow people to play the way they want. Its good for the soul even for larger players to join one of these laid-back FSs for a while to take a break! Having said that....

Crackie, you are cordially invited to the Good Golly Gang for rest, relaxation, reprieve, and revitalization!!!! Love to have you! :)
Who Knew! I have a rehab fellowship on Elcysandir! Go me!
 

Deborah M

Oh Wise One
That’s the problem with wanting to be number 1 though, ain’t it? Eventually, the only direction to go is down, unless you want to maintain the frantic pace of keeping up with the Joneses.

Not really. I’m usually #2 ranked and sometimes #1. That wasn’t my actual goal. I wound up aiming for staying on page 1 of the rankings. I agree that I have seen top ranked players leave because they felt it had become more like a job. I did leave a top ranked Fellowship when the demands caused the game to feel like a job. That pretty much solved the problem. I just do what I am comfortable with at any given time. I’ve gone through stages in the spire of 3 levels, 2 levels and 1 level. I do not manually battle the tournament because I didn’t want to commit to any game I would be forced to battle in. I rarely do more than 20 provinces using auto-battle. One of the advantages is that with my timewarp AW I can take a day or 2 off whenever I need or want to. I got tired of the stress of the Fellowship Adventures so I only do 1 path of each level most of the time. I can do that and not feel bad about my FS members not getting prizes they may need even if I don‘t. I did really enjoy events until it became self defeating to gain prizes I can’t use without selling or storing something else I like including premium culture builds. At the same time, I would not block any event because I think I will always need the unurium I get collecting the event currency around my city. My main goal is not to stay top 2. My main goal is to have a city that enables me to be able to play at any level of busy or not busy that I want to play. I guess my point is that big or small there is no reason not to stop doing whatever it is that makes it seem like a job. There are just so many different aspects of this game I will always recommend choosing the ones you enjoy and not doing too much of the aspects that you don’t like or that you burn out on. I’m still happy with Elvenar even after heading toward 7 years.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
I think part of the problem is that there are so many decaying resources in the advanced chapters. First is mana, then comes seeds. Followed by 3 tiers of sentient goods. And then if you choose to progress beyond this point you run into Unurium and then hit Ascended Goods. The early chapters of the game can be played and progressed through on a laid-back, casual basis. But if you want to progress through the late game chapters it is virtually impossible to do on a casual basis. You MUST log in multiple times daily to collect stuff if you want to progress. I think this is what people complain about when they say "it has become a job."
 

defiantoneks

Well-Known Member
as to the original post:
as someone in beginning to slightly intermediate Exile chapter work, I would say the issues are (in no particular order)
- repetitive event play
- repetitive FA play
- really lengthy chapters
- rewards that rarely gain a lot of my interest (most of the time the daily prizes really dont do anything for people past ch 16)

basically, we do the same thing every day and get the same rewards. people that play these sorts of games are a lot like a Border Collie: we need mental exercise, and the game stops giving us that as we climb higher in the chapters.

so my thoughts:
- revamp the rewards for FA, and maybe the entire structure. How about a whole new theme or idea rather than the maps and whirlpool?
- find ways to let us have a little more control. prize options in the spire, ability to exchange artifacts, have inter-FS swap shop for rare items, etc.
- create some side-worlds. they could be as in FOE (dont scream at me for the comparison) the little bit I played there, they had side quest of creating a settlement elsewhere. so why not have a "start a colony" task. could be temporary or have an end once you do certain tasks, but at least something new & shiny for a while, as we make badges or dark creatures or pearls for months on end.
- fix some of the stuff we've repeatedly brought up and asked for a fix to (like the ridiculously small rune fragment storage, and "winning" prizes that decay or cant be collected because of the aforementioned)
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
it makes me agitated to see a quest sitting there and not do it.
What about the cycling quests? I've ignored those for... 4 years? Longer?
Which brings me to:
- revamp the rewards for FA, and maybe the entire structure. How about a whole new theme or idea rather than the maps and whirlpool?
- find ways to let us have a little more control. prize options in the spire, ability to exchange artifacts, have inter-FS swap shop for rare items, etc.
- create some side-worlds. they could be as in FOE... they had side quest of creating a settlement elsewhere.
Add new quests to the above list. Those declinable ones on the side are boring AF.
Replace them with a 16 optional progressive quest board (reuse the FA interface) Make (some of) them achievements even. Keep the balance by making the rewards (mostly) cosmetic.
 

Deborah M

Oh Wise One
I think part of the problem is that there are so many decaying resources in the advanced chapters. First is mana, then comes seeds. Followed by 3 tiers of sentient goods. And then if you choose to progress beyond this point you run into Unurium and then hit Ascended Goods. The early chapters of the game can be played and progressed through on a laid-back, casual basis. But if you want to progress through the late game chapters it is virtually impossible to do on a casual basis. You MUST log in multiple times daily to collect stuff if you want to progress. I think this is what people complain about when they say "it has become a job."

I have to disagree. I finished chapter 20 a while back. I logged in multiple times a day while doing the chapter but before and after I was fine logging in twice a day. I can do log in more when I feel like it to stockpile but I can also do morning & night if I have other things I need or want to do. After years of every 3 hours it was very nice to realize that my city can do just fine maintaining when I want to slow down. Again, another way I stopped the burnout.

I have to add. As usual @SoggyShorts has a great idea to improve the game. A revamp to make the cycling quests even remotely interesting would be great! I also have ignored them for years.
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
What about the cycling quests? I've ignored those for... 4 years? Longer?
Which brings me to:

Add new quests to the above list. Those declinable ones on the side are boring AF.
Replace them with a 16 optional progressive quest board (reuse the FA interface) Make (some of) them achievements even. Keep the balance by making the rewards (mostly) cosmetic.

The cycling quests, and their rewards, are totally useless once you get far enough in the game, maybe chapter 9 or 10? I would like a way to turn them off completely. The only issue with that is if you are done with all the chapters when a new one is added. The only way to get the new chapter quests to start showing is to decline a couple of the repeating quests, so that would have to be changed, if they gave us a way to remove the repeating quests from our screen. Maybe a check box in the settings to show or hide them.
 

Killy-

Well-Known Member
Manual fighting is only pain, after you done the same fight 10 times, 20 times, 100 times? At some point you don't have to think about your moves anymore and you know what the opposing troops gonna do. All you do then is waiting for slow animation to finally catch up, to what you already knew gonna happen. I liked the fighting in the beginning, but almost only do auto now, because it is painful to wait and watch for no good reason. A simple solution would be higher speed options, for all I care, I would take an option with no animations at all and I don't even need to see what the opponent did.
I feel similarly about events. The fog event is fun for me, because I am thinking while doing it, but the events with 3 chests are no fun at all. I have to think once, which chests are the best for me and then I have to waste 10? minutes to get rid of my event currency without making any decisions in that time, watching slow animations for no good reason (actually worse than work).
Neighbor help is kinda the same, I know what I have to do and it is just tedious clicking.
 

Deborah M

Oh Wise One
@Killy- I'm the opposite on events. I greatly prefer the chests so that at least I can choose what I want to try for. I refuse to do the fog event since so much of the time you don't even get to hope for anything. Then even when you find something you have zero choice what to try for. The only time I really did the fog event was solely to get the black cat avatar because I have a beautiful black kitty with green eyes <3

I have to ask. Who or what is Buddy?
 
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Lelanya

Scroll-Keeper, Keys to the Gems
@Killy- I'm the opposite on events. I greatly prefer the chests so that at least I can choose what I want to try for. I refuse to do the fog event since so much of the time you don't even get to hope for anything. Then even when you find something you have zero choice what to try for. The only time I really did the fog event was solely to get the black cat avatar because I have a beautiful black kitty with green eyes <3

I have to ask. Who or what is Buddy?
The short answer: Buddy is Crackie's nickname for the Bud Sorceress. She's on a campaign to raise awareness to strengthen the fighting unit. But, as it's Crackie, there are a couple of longer stories.
Edit: But to give a fair and complete answer, I would have to tell you this. Buddy is also, a generic name for a random person, whose real name you may not know, but wish to refer to in a conversation. Folks have also used gender specific terms, " guy said this, chickie did that" but Buddy is gender neutral.
 
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Moho

Chef
Even the most entertaining undertaking can become a chore due to lack of motivation. I like cycling and swimming, and they're highly repetitive activities too. I've always wanted to do them, and I enjoy them a lot.

It's not that people don't want to play the game anymore because it feels like a job. No. It's that the game resembles a job because people don't want to play it anymore. Once they've lost their enthusiasm and sense of purpose, the game is nothing but a burden.
 

Killy-

Well-Known Member
@Killy- I'm the opposite on events. I greatly prefer the chests so that at least I can choose what I want to try for. I refuse to do the fog event since so much of the time you don't even get to hope for anything. Then even when you find something you have zero choice what to try for. The only time I really did the fog event was solely to get the black cat avatar because I have a beautiful black kitty with green eyes <3
Sure everyone might feel different about what is fun, but if there would be an option to spend all your event currency at once in the chest event (of course you would decide the picking order for the chests), would you use that option or rather click through the chests yourself?
My black cat was good for a month, maybe the voodoo doll will last longer.^^
 

Deborah M

Oh Wise One
@Lelanya Thank you for the explanation. It peaked my curiosity mostly because that was my Grandpa's and some other family members' nickname for my Dad.

@Killy- I sure hope you don't mean it stopped working! I personally have not seen any available avatar that I like more. Anyway, it was a good example of how I pick & choose when I want to be all in compared to when I am participating at a slower pace to keep my FS getting silver in the spire and 10 chests in the tournament week to week.
 

Lemon Wren

Well-Known Member
Question: Is there anybody else that although they don’t really want to do the event just can’t make themselves leave those event quest alone?


Just thinking out loud here.
I have four active cities that are sitting on thousands of event currency in each one (currency I earned passively in this latest event) because I hate the fog mechanic. It's not fun for me so I just don't do it. Personally I find it pretty easy to ignore now.
 
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