It has come to this

[FinCameli]

Hiya folks!

This will be a long and annoying, so if you are not interested to see why I am leaving the game, don't bother. Go do something efficient.

Been playing TSO for a quite a while now. Haven't spend a dime for the game, and got quite far (lvl5 barracks, provision houses, myself to lvl42)...

Just realized, I've put hours and hours of my time to the game, and it has given me so little back. I see no development, other than getting few buildings upgraded a week, which just messes with my production. Tried to upgrade 5 bakeries to lvl5. That messed up my water production (don't have watermills), had to build more than 100 wells.

The bakeries require flour. Needed to build 10 more windmills too. They require wheat. Had to build 20 more farms and fields. So upgrading 5 bakeries has given me around 40 more wells to rebuild in every day and 20 more fields to rebuild every single day... twice.

This will keep on going; people will quit. All they do every day is rebuild wells/fields and send out geologists to find marble/gold/copper etc..
Even if you'd get to high levels and buy those lvl3 wells and fields, they are just not good enough, they are not endless, as they should be. They are just 800 wheat and 2000water.. that'd mean you'd have to "only" rebuild them once a day...

Realized also, that the game offers nothing enjoyable: Adventures are the same, and even new adventures would go on the same track: There are enemy camp, you calculate carefully how many recruits/soldiers/cav... etc. you need to get them efficiently. No surprises there, all is pre-calculated. It is all calculating, not fighting. There is no room for chance!

So the game offers nothing new, exciting, sudden.... once you built your island to the efficient point... then what? You just upgrade buildings to lvl5... and then what? What do you do once you have upgraded every building you got to lvl5? You do adventures... to get what? Resources, you don't need? There is no other island to conquer, no more space to get, no new buildings...
And the trade is gone berzerk! Pumpkins costs more than anyone can afford, people are only making trades like "1 fish for 100gc" and hoping someone mixes that up and accidentally buys it. Only around 10-15% of the trades are reasonable, others are there just to rip you off, at least in the sandycove, where everyone is starting to be at high levels and got loads of coins.

How about the PVP? It'll be around the same. You can't conquer other ppl land, nor lose any. So you just clash on with other players for what? XP? What do you do with XP? So it offers nothing more; just pre-calculation and no surprises. You can't choose tactics, no attack-order (who attacks first, and who they hit)... It's just dull.

Main thing: BB is stripping the game, and basicly forcing you to buy gems. If you don't want to rebuild your fields/wells, buy gem-items (watermills/silos), i'd need hundreds of them, and they'd cost me more than 20 other pc-games together. And If you don't want to wait 30minutes between sending generals to adventures, use cash.
Thought that this halloween-event would be different: You'd get grim reaper, silos etc... reward for hard working. But no, if you CONSTANTLY buff your pumpkin semataries, you'd get just enough to get the grim-general. Not the silos, schools or the buffs. BB doesn't even bother to read the "suggestions about the game", co'z i see no change in anything. Game is made dull in purpose: to get ppl to buy gems with real money. Way to go!..oh wait... no, not the way to go. You should listen to the customers, the ones that play your game. They know what they want and how to make it better.

Hope you make more "basic" settlers game, where there is clear ending (build strong society and defeat enemy -> win), not any online games. I enjoyed the settlers II with it's great idea, changing levels and enemies, the randomness of fights. If you'd be lucky, you could defeat general soldier with less advanced troops... but if you want to prevail, you'd need to be smart. Here's nothing like that. Everything is pre-calculated... the game is BORING!

Over and OUT!
--
FinCameli


EDIT

Thanks for replys guys.

Forgot one important point: Once I was at average level, 28 or something, I really thought that the game has lot to offer, since there are many more buildings to make, such as titanium smelter, damascene/crossbowsmith, all the buildings you need for cannons... But once I reached level 40, I already had over 2000 damascenes and crossbows from adventures, and at 42 I started to get enough cannons too. What I am saying, that making any of those titanium smelters, expert weaponsmiths etc. is completely useless. The price of titanium, damascenes and crossbows are very low. So nobody has to build expert buildings, and if you got titanium/saltpeter as adventure reward, that was a sad moment, because they are useless and worthless. Why make such buildings, if there is no point making them? You can get 1000 crossbows from victor the vicious, not really useful to use licenses, buffs, resources and time to make them yourself. So there is nothing new you can get if you level up. You are stacked with crossbows once you reach the level where you can make them yourself. And if you don't, just buy them from trade: Once you have 200 (or 250 if you have veteran general) of crossbowmen/elites, you don't need any more, coz you calculate every attack so carefully, that none of them dies... So once you have the 200 (or 250), every single xbow/damascene/cannon you got after that, are useless to you and you just have to sell them. Once over 50% of players reach that point, no-one really needs them, and everyone has too much of them = the prices hit the bottom, they become less valuable than normal stone. Not really the idea of the game, that the best weapons are the cheapest to buy, and everyone is mass-producing the bronze-swords, coz they are cheap to make.

[peck_ed]

Good thing it didn't cost you anything then!

[matie2506]

i like the game

[Flowoster]

completely agree with the author. It seems the game will die in several month: first people will stop buying gems, next leave and, since the trade will be slow, the other leave as well... It not just a speculation, one can see it from the traffic the game accumulates and, you can also look at your friends list which is slowly being filled with inactive players.

Why? my understanding the marketing was/is incorrect. Instead of developing the concept of the game they focused on small improvements. Of course, I agree that moving buildings and the advanced trade system are necessary futures, but, honestly, half of year into implementing them!!! That is a nonsense for the work which can be done by one experienced programmer in 2-4 weeks. That will end soon. The only hope that they bring all hidden futures immediately to stop players leaving. They will not come back, especially, taking into account new projects starting in 2013 and completely overpriced futures.

[itsmegavin]

Well for the reasons you have given there is nothing I can really say to try and change your mind as it seems you really have reached the end of the road with what you are looking for in a game.

I have to say I am with a completely different attitude and at level 46 I still find the game fun, however yes I have to agree that the game at times now is very slow and could really do with a cpl of new adventures or something to keep it interested whilst at the high end levels in the 40's as there are such big spaces between anything new happening and all we are literally doing at the moment is adventure after adventure to get the experience points to advance.

But I am am quite happy to overlook this for now as I have a very big friends base on the game now and I don't just come online to play the game but I also come here for a chat with all my new friends and guild members. so all in all i think the game is exactly what you make it.

So I am very sorry to hear that you have reached this point in your settlers time and wish you the very best in what you choose to move onto but for now at least I am staying put and still enjoying every minute of the game however there should and could be some more quests in this Halloween event as there has been nothing at all to do today and I really thought there would have been a couple of spooky limited edition adventures like with the euro event, so please BB take a look at what people are saying and try and actually listen to people and act upon things.

One other thing is since the new trade system has been introduced it seems that people have gone back to posting completely stupid and pure rip off claims and items hoping people make mistakes and accept them by accident. and global-3 has become more like a chat room with not a mod in sight half the time and people keep getting away with spoiling for the rets of us who actually still enjoy using global three for arranging prices and amounts etc etc which you cant to through the trade program.
So please take note of this, I did speak with BB_ravel and applied to actually become a mod just for the global sections which they agreed and welcomed me to apply but as to yet I have not heard a thing back and the global-3 is still not being watched at all by even some passing mods who spend all there time in global-1 and help and it really wouldn't hurt just to pop over silently once every hour for just ten minutes and watch what is actually going on and you will be surprised just how much these select few people are spoiling the game for alot of others and making it almost impossible to make any posts in there without having to repeat yourself every 30 seconds as the room is just filled with chat which is not even about trading and more about there social life, and when I ask them to please use there guild chat rooms, or the global-1 rooms etc for such chatting I get loads of abuse and vile language thrown at me with alot of insults, im not the only this happens to and im not going to mention names on an open forum.

So if someone from BB or a moderator could kindly get in touch with me I could explain who the people are who are making this hard for others and who the victims are as they have asked me to speak out for them.

So please BB_ravel could you look at my application which I don't think you have even read yet as I asked for a receipt of when its opened and let me know what is happening as I play alot on sandycove and am also very trusted there within the trading section as people know me and i know them.

Look forward to hearing back from you on this matter and once again sorry to hear that you are leaving mate.

[FinCameli]

Thanks for replys guys. (copy&pastet this to the first post, so if you have read that, you've read this already)

Forgot one important point: Once I was at average level, 28 or something, I really thought that the game has lot to offer, since there are many more buildings to make, such as titanium smelter, damascene/crossbowsmith, all the buildings you need for cannons... But once I reached level 40, I already had over 2000 damascenes and crossbows from adventures, and at 42 I started to get enough cannons too. What I am saying, that making any of those titanium smelters, expert weaponsmiths etc. is completely useless. The price of titanium, damascenes and crossbows are very low. So nobody has to build expert buildings, and if you got titanium/saltpeter as adventure reward, that was a sad moment, because they are useless and worthless. Why make such buildings, if there is no point making them? You can get 1000 crossbows from victor the vicious, not really useful to use licenses, buffs, resources and time to make them yourself. So there is nothing new you can get if you level up. You are stacked with crossbows once you reach the level where you can make them yourself. And if you don't, just buy them from trade: Once you have 200 (or 250 if you have veteran general) of crossbowmen/elites, you don't need any more, coz you calculate every attack so carefully, that none of them dies... So once you have the 200 (or 250), every single xbow/damascene/cannon you got after that, are useless to you and you just have to sell them. Once over 50% of players reach that point, no-one really needs them, and everyone has too much of them = the prices hit the bottom, they become less valuable than normal stone. Not really the idea of the game, that the best weapons are the cheapest to buy, and everyone is mass-producing the bronze-swords, coz they are cheap to make.

--
FinCameli

[unlucky]

if you follow the threads in the forum and look at the postings, you will see from people's join dates, that most of the original / early players have left, because basically as you have said there isn't a lot left for us in the game.

Progressing slowly without spending money on gems is time consuming.However I believe that this is actually part of BB's marketing strategy - after all they are in the game to make money . . . Losing a high lvl player who doesn't spend money on gems is in reality, no loss to them especially if new players who buy gems take that player's place. . .

This has been very noticeable in Newfoundland which has been re-opened and is swamped with new players, and one assumes spending money to rise through the lvls. At the end of the day someone who has spent say £20 or equivalent and then leaves after 8 weeks - the lvl friends seems to go dead at seems to be around 26 - and is then replaced by a new paying player is what the game is all about.

It's just a shame it isn't a bit easier to get from lvl 40 to lvl 50 - probably more long time players would leave . . . and don't get me started about other things which encourage people to leave!!

[Nogbad]

Following on from unlucky's post, there do seem to be 3 major "choke points", where players leave in their droves. Maybe some tweaking might make these less of a 'crisis point', this is what I've observed:

1) Level 17 - The first moment of despair. Having struggled through the earlier levels whilst always waiting for stone, you've aimed at this to finally build a trade office, where you believe your days of waiting will be over as you will be able to trade for the stuff you need. However, this building itself is costly, and won't be available immediately, by the time you do build it, unless you're willing to part with the scarce gold coins you have, nobody's really interested, and in fact, you should now probably be producing more than enough planks and stones anyway, so it's quite an anti-climax.
Also, if you thought stone was slow, by now you're already realising that you are going to need marble, and that is still several levels away, even slower than stone to produce, all you have to go on is the minute quantities your explorers come back with.

2) Level 32 - Probably the biggest turning point in the game, you've battled across the island, and defeated Mary. You are now king of all you survey, surely an epic moment?
Perhaps not, all the while there were bandit camps, the goals were very clear. Now you're left with only one way to continue playing, and that's adventures.
Now these aren't everybody's cup of tea, whilst Bounty Hunter was very quick and easy, the real ones take up much more time and resources, there's a couple that are reasonably quick and painless to do, but then there's a big gap to the others in difficulty level, and at least 2 really aren't worth the effort.
By this stage, you've probably been lucky with the explorers, and got 1 or 2 at hand, but it's painfully clear that accumulating map fragments is going to be a long, laborius task.
Besides which, to really be able to cope, you are in need of many more building licences to beef up the economy, and noble residences are at a premium to give you a reasonable sized army, you could really use some more farms to boost your bread and brew production, but you also need to build living space, and more storage.
Gold coins are incredible slow and costly to produce, so upgrading existing buildings proceeds at a snail's pace.
To compensate, you're logging in at regular intervals, merely to rebuild fields, mines and wells, and this is soul-destroying, it's more like work than a game.
After you've killed a bunch of recruits on an adventure, something else becomes clear, just 6 copper deposits is a joke, it's the lowest number of any resource in the game, yet by now, it's the one you're using the most. The stronger weapons which will swing battles in your favour are way off in the future, so you're jealously protecting your best available ones, as losing a stack of these will take ages to remake.

3) Level 42 - The end is in sight. This is the point where you've built the last really useful building (crossbow maker), and got your explorers up to the longest treasure search. All that seems left is an eternal grind, spamming adventures to an all too familiar recipe, hoping for some epic loot, and dumping all the stuff you can't use onto the market. Apart from the loot, the only hope of getting anything you need is with the explorers, and this comes in very small quantities, and the randomness leaves things in the laps of the Gods.
The xp needed for each level is now huge, and apart from an extra 200 gems, nothing seems any different, and with only 8 levels to go, these will be the last gems you'll ever earn from playing, so really you're now picking the very last item to purchase.

The anomaly (Level 26) - As mentioned above. This is an odd one, on the face of it, things should be looking up, as you enter the adventuring world.
Maybe, for those who don't like this aspect of the game, this could be a turn-off. Also, at this point, making horses can cripple you, they're so greedy. Militia are only marginally better than recruits, yet cost much more to build, and the two best units available, steel swordsmen and longbowmen, take ages to produce.
Very few of the adventures lose you only recruits, unless you are lucky enough to have the top general, so losing these expensive troops sets you back way too far.

[Cully]

Level 39, been here 12 months and no intention of leaving. No reason too. It's all down to how you play and what you want from the game. If you look at all the guides and help around, there's not much of a challenge. If you ignore them and never look at any of then, believe me, there's plenty challenge when you get to an adventure with not enough cavaliers, because you didn't know what you were going to find ( or forget what you encountered last time). For me it's not about loot or levelling up. It's a steady progress to get my buildings upgraded while maintaining the resources needed, and I will make every building available to me. weapons may be given as loot from adventures, but there's no challenge if you just settle for that. i've just built a titanium smelter and crossbow. They don't run all the time but I have a certain sense of pride in using my own weapons, not ones I've won or traded for.

As for development - I see a lot more here than in other games i've come across. We will be getting more content for level 50+, we will be getting different types of adventures (and I hope more normal adventures - we've already had some introduced since we started), and for those interested, there'll be pvp. And of course we have our events and the chance to get extra stuff. What do people do when we get them? Moan. Can't have it all ways - either you want BB to give us more content, or you don't, but don't just moan when they do and dismiss it.

I wasn't sure I'd be here this long, but after almost 12 months I can't see me leaving anytime soon.

[Makedon]

I agree with the OP, the game has nothing greatly exciting to offer but also isn't worthy of quit mentioning. Just log 10 mins a day do some stuff. It's not something you need to quit per se.

That sums it up. Gl hf