Trader Are there too many changes coming to the Elvenar game?

[Jackluyt]

I represent a fanatical group of lovers of Elvenar - as anyone will see if they visit our Facebook group, or look at all our videos!

I have played many Browser Games, and generally I think that this is a very well designed game. And many of the recent changes have been well-considered.

But I wonder if the Development Team realise how much they are, unintentionally, upsetting people?
They still have not given a GOOD reason why it was necessary to change the wholesaler!

A large number of my players feel that it was working perfectly well - and the changes have not helped make it better in any way at all. They feel it is worse now, without benefit!
You can look at this thread if you want to see some of the minor rebellion it has caused!
(I have deleted quite a few offensive comments!!)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/165...tif_t=group_comment&notif_id=1486065623297957


What is lacking for all of us, I believe, is an insight into the Devs long-term plan for the game. If they told us where they were going, it would make individual changes much easier to understand, if one could see them as part of a bigger picture!

Now the changes are arriving will-he, nill-he every few weeks - and they force us to change the way we play.
And because we do not understand the need for change - we throw our toys out the cot and have a temper tantrum, and threaten to leave the game and never return!

There are a lot of retired or disabled people playing Elvenar: elderly, bereaved, lonely, sick and suffering from debilitating diseases. Just in my fellowships I have several who are severely depressed, two on chemotherapy who must face the real possibility of death every day, and one with a degenerative muscular condition who needs physiotherapy every day.
Those are the tip of the ice-berg; the ones I know of. I am sure there are many, many more.
This is the general pattern for browser games; healthy active young people are generally out there in the real world...
So there are many, many people who come to the game for solace - for a pleasant distraction from the unpleasantness of real life.
As they grow to feel competent at the game, it gives them a feel-good - so if the Devs keep pulling the carpet from under their feet every few weeks, they can never settle to just enjoy it; they constantly need to keep learning a new style.

A very larger number of my players DO NOT WANT THAT!
They do not want everything to keep changing; they would like to settle down and play the way they know for months at a time.
They would like to wake up in the morning and click the buttons mindlessly; placing a building here and starting a few factory runs; catering and fighting a few encounters.
They do not want to have to start all over again, regularly, learning how to play all over again!
They would like a break from the endless repetition of game changes; they would like to play the game they know, the way they know - without having to relearn it every three weeks.
They would like a 'holiday from change'; they would like the game to stay the same for several months!

Are the Devs aware of all this?

I wish we could pass it on to them!

J

 

[SoggyShorts]

I like playing a game that changes and grows, but in 9 months or playing i haven't seen a change yet that made me think "oh, nice they made____ easier."

Good changes would be good, bad changes are bad.

 

[DeletedUser1677]

I love that they develop on the game, trying to make it better, and give us more stuff to do (events, new chapters and so on).
That said, I do think they should listen more to the players, when the players gives a good argument.
No, it should not be too easy, so it's not everything they should do as the players wants. But things like nerfing the units big time, thats a biiiiig redo

 

[DeletedUser1877]

Not gonna quote it, but VERY well writtten Jackluyt, ty from yet another disabled couple who need outlets such as this game.

 

[DeletedUser1899]

I just want to know the end plan for all these changes, what they want the game to be when all is said and done, what picture they have in their head that they are working towards...
I do not mind changes in the game as long as they make sense... This is supposed to be a fantasy city builder game, but it is not improving on the city builder aspect of the game, just the progressive and combat parts are being updated all the time, and the city building parts are being neglected or forgotten about..
It seems to me the reason for the new tournament format and the new wholesale system is to force people to join fellowships and cooperate with each other to further trade and encourage team work in the tournament.. I can understand why they would do this.. But first they need to work on retention.. People are leaving the game because of these constant changes that seem to make no sense to the player base.. And if players keep leaving the game at this rate, there will be slim pickings for fellowship tournament play and trades...

 

[Heymrdiedier]

Changes are a must in any game.

there is just a lack of communication between the develop team and the users as to why this changes happen and how they make the game better in the long run. Without proper communication everything feels like a nerf just because we wanne bully you.

 

[cpickett76]

Good changes are necessary to keep people interested and playing the game. However, there does seem to be a lack of communication between players and developers. It seems to me the recent changes with the trader reflect this. The release notes say it's to "balance" the trader. That's not a good or accurate explanation. There are many of us in fellowships that use the general trader whenever possible to get goods when they aren't available from our fellowships. We use the wholesaler to fill the gap when we have no other choice and when our supply points and coins are in excess. Some things that I think were not taken into account is that some people do not have many active players as neighbors to begin with and need the wholesaler to buy more non boost goods than others. Some people can't find fellowships right away for a number of reasons and others do not wish to play in one. I don't think it's right to penalize them for this and the new trader appears to do that. I also don't think they considered that we don't just use our boosted goods for trading. We need them to activate research items, to negotiate on our map, for tournaments, to build, and to upgrade. The required amount of our boosted goods for these things hasn't been reduced as part of "balancing" the trader. And how is this going to encourage more people to play in tournaments? There are only so many goods and so many suppliers available at one time and during tournaments everyone is looking for the same thing and it makes it even more difficult to get what it needed. The wholesaler used to fill this gap but the amounts that can be bought now and the prices are extreme. I think if players and developers were able to work together before this change occurred, there could have been a much better solution that made play more enjoyable, avoided players becoming frustrated, and didn't penalize people who are not in a fellowship at the moment or do not have a good location on the map.

 

[Dhurrin]

Changes are a must in any game.

there is just a lack of communication between the develop team and the users as to why this changes happen and how they make the game better in the long run. Without proper communication everything feels like a nerf just because we wanne bully you.

Change is a must. But only when talking about changes that either fix a real problem, or improve the game in some way. And by that I mean for the players. It can be a more userfriendly interface, a new way of doing things, new features, faster, better graphics, making an easy thing a bit more challenging etc etc

Change just for the cause of changing, or making a game less playable or less enjoyable is not a must. Doing things like that, without any kind of real communication or justification, while ignoring many other issues is even less of a must, its a slap in the face of your players, who happen to be your customers. It will only result in people leaving.

btw, for those interested in new trader features, take a look at
https://beta.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/more-trading-features.7249/#post-45154

 

[DeletedUser1657]

I like playing a game that changes and grows, but in 9 months or playing i haven't seen a change yet that made me think "oh, nice they made____ easier."

I have found sometimes it takes time to see the bigger picture that certain changes fit into.

I don't agree with 1/2 of the first option but definitely would love to see a kind of road map, even in broad strokes. Having an idea of areas under review would also allow us to focus our ideas in those areas. The change to the wholesaler is generating a lot of ideas in that space but the update has already arrived so it will be a long time, if at all, for changes to be added. Lets say we knew they were reviewing quests I think we would find more suggestions focused in that area that could help with the planning of the changes that will arrive.

 

[DeletedUser1852]

I have found sometimes it takes time to see the bigger picture that certain changes fit into.

I don't agree with 1/2 of the first option but definitely would love to see a kind of road map, even in broad strokes. Having an idea of areas under review would also allow us to focus our ideas in those areas. The change to the wholesaler is generating a lot of ideas in that space but the update has already arrived so it will be a long time, if at all, for changes to be added. Lets say we knew they were reviewing quests I think we would find more suggestions focused in that area that could help with the planning of the changes that will arrive.

This! fully agree!

 

[SoggyShorts]

The change to the wholesaler is generating a lot of ideas in that space but the update has already arrived so it will be a long time, if at all, for changes to be added. Lets say we knew they were reviewing quests I think we would find more suggestions focused in that area that could help with the planning of the changes that will arrive.

Yes, exactly. Inno is wasting a great resource in its playerbase. With thousands of players, we are bound to come up with something.

 

[Marindor]

Please use our feedback threads for feedback about changes. The ideas section is meant to bring up actual ideas for future features/alterations. We'll archive this thread now.