Not too long ago, Paul was saying he missed the days of the forums being a fun place where the community could gather to discuss strategy and build camaraderie (or something to that effect), and now all we do is complain. Well guess what, the "whiners" miss those days, too.

It pains me to say this, but the game is in a real sad state. EVERYTHING is being monetized to the point we're only complaining about how MUCH we're paying for each item. SP needs to go back to giving players more for free - as in beer. Something to keep customers happy enough to stick around. And I'm not talking about decorations or (now) useless rares in Monsterwood.

Earning the top prize in card flips through gameplay is literally impossible for higher-level players. Progress in mazes is slower than ever with fewer coin opportunities. Breeding events yield so many genies and epics that even if you speed some up, there's a better than ever chance you'll come away broke and empty-handed. The vault.. my gods... THE VAULT! I'd say they're nickel-and-diming us to death, but they've moved on from "micropayments". For very minor enhacements in our game, we're paying what other mobile games cost in their entirety.

This business model is NOT SUSTAINABLE. Either SP/TT doesn't care and plan to milk the game into the ground, or they think this golden cow will last as long as the servers are running. I'm here to tell you that unless things change, they're on a fast path to destruction.

We're already witnessing a steady stream of long-time players leave the game in frustration. As a co-lead of a pretty good team (well, now lead since @Sam retired), I've seen good people quitting and the pool of potential replacements far smaller than it used to be. Teams are fighting for scraps just to stay at 30. And with each new overpriced feature or event, that pool gets smaller and smaller.

SP/TT, please understand that you've got a real good thing going. You have a great game and a loyal fanbase. Quit messing this up. Give us all (not just the whales) good reason to keep playing. Fix the things we've been asking you to fix for months, and in some cases over a year. Do it more to regain our trust than to squeeze us for more money. Don't you get it? This community WILL PAY if you do business the right way. Keep doing what you're doing, and no one but the whales will remain. And how long do you think they'll stick around when there's no one else left to squash?

Finally, I implore anyone interested enough to still be reading to make SP see the light. I won't suggest a boycott for purchases, but please be more mindful with your spending. And if you agree with this post, please show our game runners by posting a reply here and in any thread speaking of the same issues. Show SP we're not just whiners. We're concerned customers who hate seeing such a well designed game become such an un-fun wallet-buster. This is not a time to be passive. Join with me in encouraging SP to pump the brakes before they crash and burn!

The biggest problem with Monster Legends is that it didn't make the transition from free to play breeding game to Pay2Collect kind of game.

I suspect that Social Point (at least the Monster Legends office) has a very high turnover of staff, in which case continuity will always be lacking. The guys who created the game have moved on, now there are employees in the office who just do it for a pay cheque and have no idea about the various intricacies of the gameplay. THIS CREATES INCONSISTENCY.

At some point, ML stopped being about breeding and hatching eggs and became more of a bleed-the-players dry game - BUT surprisingly there was no improvements to the gameplay to acquiesce this change.

We now spend real money to collect a monster but cannot use it until Social Point tell us we can. I have NEVER heard of anything so stupid!

There needed to be a metagame involving the epics and rares and uncommons (high level players don't need to worry about this as they have their own legendary metagame), yet Social Point just let the lower rarities die a slow death...after all, they are cheap to buy so why let players have fun with these monsters?!

@Sinisism - I agree with these observations. The progression of events since TT has taken over is very apparent. They are going to extract their pound of flesh despite our objections .

I played Clash of Clans for many years, progressing to th11. That game was purchased by a new entity and went through a similar process. The highlight is the apparent total disregard for its players. COC is now a hollow shell of its former self, with little resemblance to what made the game successful. Nobody that I know plays it anymore.

Enough said, but I'm very close to pushing the delete button on ML as well.

@Sinisism well said & wholly agree with you...watch this space, when the accusers, slowly but surely, join the "whiners".
New players, you do not realise how big a jump we had to put up with from playing team wars, breeding events, Progressive islands, 72h challenges with lvl 100 monsters, aiming to gain the better monsters & craft/buy better runes. Then came post Monster Lab prices, let me tell you...no one thought & agreed to the introduction of the Monster Lab, but we were told that this would be made easier with better breeding events with a higher % of gaining the monster/s you were breeding to help you rank up & progress in the game. Pre lab, breeding events were probably almost as hard as it is now, not kidding you. Yes, we got sucked into the oldest marketing ploy, lure your prospective customers with a few scraps, & true to form, we fell for it, hook, line & sinker. Actually, we're not "whining", but we're absolutely furious at how SP have been fleecing us, just because we have been loyal & have been great fans of the game. Imagine, we were buying legends at 225 gems each & only feeding them up to lvl 100 & us, wholly enjoying every aspect of the game, including the hard breeding events, pre lab. Bear in mind from buying a single monster to play your game, to needing 18 to fully rank one up (legends, can't remember the number, for epics etc) to lvl 130. Fraternity event gem's sales boosted SP's profits even more, by the "elite" teams. They weren't the only ones, lol, there were teams being set up just during the frat events with a group of 30 players all agreeing to buy 2 packs each of the most expensive pack of gems, to earn the maximum war coins. Lastly, fb groups were started, to prey on weaker teams, by a group of so called "elite" teams who shamefully exploited their "strength". This last fb groups, were causing weaker teams a string of losses, as each he would take turns to attack a particular weaker team. This invariably caused weaker teams to struggle for every coin they earned, or rather tried to earn...new players are under the impression that veteran players have all got lvl 130 Thetys in a matters of months...sorry, to burst your bubble, but it took me a year to rank my Thetys, only the stated groups got their monsters ranked up sooner. So many promises made on YouTube Q&As seem to have been broken over a period of time. We were given the chance of accessing the various Progressive/Maze islands & 72h challenges for 3 rounds. Well, that has suddenly been made difficult for mainly veteran/high level players, right, but we're meant to accept it quietly. SP is a business & we're their paying customers, start another new game & fleece the customers from day one... don't try to fleece us more than you already have. SP have managed to kill the breeding events for me, same with the Progressive/Maze islands & 72h challenges, killed off PvP, made a stupid rule of not being able to use your PvP defence monsters anywhere else, messed up the trophy wins & losses, that only gives joy to the AI & now, taken away the refresh button. I can tell you now, that after that last decision, I will not speed up PvP fights for the horrid team races, nor will I even bother trying to get 12, 15 or whatever number it is, attacks done, before my shield goes up! Incurring, losses & having to spend more gems, then even more, without the refresh button is just plain ridiculous. Do what you want SP, yes you have a business to run, but as many have said, time & time again, happy customers will always reach further into their pockets, because they're happy! So, now you think that we should be happy, because you've finally introduced an extremely overpriced solution to "store" our unhatched or whatever the extra space was needed for...bearing in mind, that this has been delayed for at least a year! @Sinisism is struggling to keep his team at 30...we're struggling to keep our team at 25...& why? Because all our applicants happen to be new players or leeches who can't be bothered to do any attacks... can't tell you how unbearable recruitment is during team races, & have players sit through the frat event & then promptly abscond to join "race teams". Do you (SP) even realise how demoralising it is for teams? But let's get to this one, the "cheap" Monster Vault...(sigh), SP, you may have a business to run, but you should treat your customers better than you have recently, don't try to sell us an expensive, useless storage facility & expect us to be grateful. I've been reluctant to post on the new monster vault, because I am absolutely livid over this latest fiasco...enough already, SP, we weren't also my for the moon, by the way, we were asking for habitats to hatch our monsters & have the space to rank them up without having to play musical monsters. Another thing, how can you (SP) even think that it's ok to sell us an overpriced storage vault, when you cannot even sort out other huge problems, such as bugged skills, bugged traits, & the extremely horridly implemented PvP system, that seems to get worse every season...how is that even possible..?! I have been pessimistic about everything, since things started changing for what seems like the worse, post lab, but I'm happy to be with this group of "whiners".

Im whining with you also because I don't want to leave my team. So many already asked me to stay also outside my team and every time someone does it feels so sad because yes its only a game but it used to give me such fun and more but now when I open the game collect food and gold I think why would I. I dont do pvp im in l4 and if i dont do anything I stay there. So only come in the game to donate cells do my attacks chat with others if they are there. I miss the rest, the need to go the game because you want the monster and the reward if you hatched him and can feed and use him. But now if I can get him I cant hatch him or use him so why should I bother.
I wont say all change was bad but...

@Sinisism said in SP is failing this community:

This business model is NOT SUSTAINABLE. Either SP/TT doesn't care and plan to milk the game into the ground, or they think this golden cow will last as long as the servers are running. I'm here to tell you that unless things change, they're on a fast path to destruction.

Got curious one day and decided to go take a look at Take-Two's wiki page. I can already see how SP is going to end up if this continues when I reached the "defunct" list.

Great post Sinisism. I’m one of the people who stopped playing because of the reluctance of SP to listen and make appropriate changes. What’s worse is that it feels like SP is doubling down and their egregious behavior is accelerating.

I believe that wouldn’t be the case if profits were down. Idk how much of an impact top team spending has on their overall margins but between the elementium in frat events and all these new expensive monsters, they’re no doubt profiting from them.

It’s pretty obvious that SP recognizes there’s an arms race going on with a few hundred people who are more than willing to spend a pile of cash to keep their elite status intact. The old SP regime left a lot of meat on the bone as far as milking the elites. But they still made enough profit to be able to sell it for what they did and the game as a whole was healthier, more sustainable and people actually enjoyed playing.

There’s much more money to be made with that model, it just takes a little time and patience. It’s either something these guys lack or they’re deliberately maximizing their profits for the short term while killing the game for the long term. Kind of like winning the lottery and taking the lump sum instead of yearly payments. I just wonder if they’re simply underestimating the damage they’re doing to the game or from the start their intention was to make as much money as they possibly can as fast as they can.

I also wouldn’t tell people how much money to spend on the game but I would suggest that before making any purchases you think about:

1. This purchase will serve as a positive reinforcement to SP that their business model is successful. Much more so than any amount of complaining having the opposite effect.
2. Am I buying this monster or gems just to try to make the game fun? Because if I am, a) The fun it brings doesn’t last long and then you’ll be right back here spending more; b) It’s SPs job to make the game fun. Spending money to do so should not be a requirement.
3. Am I ok with possibly throwing money away? There’s no guarantee that any game will be around in another year. But because of the reasons listed ML feels much more likely to die sooner rather than later. Momentum builds very quickly with these things. Some people quitting here and there can become an avalanche at the drop of a hat. A new 130XXX nemesis isn’t worth as much if this game becomes a ghost town.
4. Is there any other game I could spend this money on? ML can be a very expensive game to play. If you take the money you would have spent on a VIP (which in and of itself doesn’t help much at level 100) and invest it in another game you’ll most likely get much more bang for your buck.

If you’ve been thinking about quitting the game but are hesitant because you don’t wanna leave the friends on your team, find other games that you guys can play. Even games that aren’t as involved as ML like cards, scrabble, word games, trivia games, etc. Most of those games you can challenge friends anytime. Once you set that all up then maybe quitting ML will be easier.

following the thread. :( Please SP . reply to the people who are begging for some attention to address their concerns. What is it exactly they are upset about. Can it be fixed. I miss my community, the helpful bunch. The group of players who are passionate!

@Carlos , peek in please...

@Sinisism I have deleted my post 3 times, as I had so much to say, but I feel like it doesn't matter what I say it falls on deaf ears. I have gotten to where I am not spending anymore money. I have spent way to much on a virtual game that I have nothing tangent to show for it.

I use to think it was ok as I was having fun and I wasn't blowing it at a restaurant or bar. But when a game becomes no longer fun because everything is about how much they can make and not about the players anymore it is time for me to spend my money elsewhere.

I am not quitting as I enjoy my team, although wars have gotten ridiculous with all the Nemesis and Team Race Monsters. It is quite ridiculous using your regular monsters to try and even compete against them.

This thread, Sam and Marianne's threads all express how I feel right now about this game and the things that need to be addressed and fixed.

I fear that if this game keeps going in the direction it is there won't be a game anymore as players will move on to another game where the game does care what they think.

The choices they have made are some of the worst business decisions I have seen a company make. They are either trying to grab all they can before it all falls apart or they just haven't a clue that short term goals are only that. They are not even looking at long term goals of the business.

Sad to say I am real close to following some out the door. For now I will stay and see if maybe SP has a change of heart and listens to it's player, but I am not holding my breath.

I have been saying this for a couple weeks. @Fox said that this is not their business model, I had it all wrong, and I shouldn't accuse SP of things like milking the player base because I'm not privy to their meetings.

I agree with all the constructive criticism above, but would love to know what SPs own team of monster designers feel about their creative new products only being used by a tiny fraction of players? There are tens of recently released monsters that I doubt have done anything more than fill up people's storage, or at best take up island space, rather than being used as a strategic part of a battle. Nanukk, Obsidiane, Hoodini, Ahran, Bright, Virtue, MC Boss, Pigredo, Avaritia, Watinhart, Globrush, Himass, etc all have strategic value, but are unlikely to have been used outside of a wealthy collector or newbie battle. For the majority of players who sit between these extremes, there are so many monsters that aren't even considered when resources are limited to ranking and runeing a select core. The reason? The monster lab has undoubtedly boosted revenue for SP but made the game a boring arms race to 130.

I would have loved to have properly experienced ML prior to the lab's release where I could simply get my monsters to 100, then concentrate on runes. Tactically moving runes, or having the choice of a wide range of monsters, depending on the opponent seems like nirvana compared to my current narrow selection. I have 240 hatched unique monsters (small in comparison to some), but I probably use no more than 30.

Like many on here, my continued participation is purely down to the camaraderie of my current team. An entity that exists outside ML and in theory could be maintained on any mutually agreeable target / game/ pursuit.

I would implore SP to think of the enjoyment of its game first rather than the size of its bank balance, as there is only one order of the above that ensures long term success.

@testcyp I don't believe any of us need to be privy to their meetings to see the bad choices the decision makers have been making...all clearly made by people who have no interest or knowledge of the game.
Just to add...I don't blame or have anything against Fox or Carlos, both of whom have a job to do & can only pass on our grievances to the relevant people, nothing more. And in all fairness, where they have been able to intervene on our behalf, have done their best. Thank you both Fox & Carlos for those times.

Wow, lots of great responses and points.

@KungFuHamster mentioned searching for a new game as a team. I've done this with my guild in Guild Wars 2, but beyond a few fun drunken nights playing Cards Against Humanity online, it was hard finding a game our core all enjoyed. Still, if you get to that point with ML, it's worth a try. Many of us have made good friends here, and carrying that to another game can be a lot of fun.

@Asterix brought up a good point, and that's how outside of race monsters, many of the new well-designed monsters aren't being used. Take earth deniers for example. Say we got our Brontes to 120+, do we really want to start all over again when we get a single rank 0 monster from an event? Heck no, that's a ridiculous amount of work. However here comes a lvl115 Moutezuma, so it's not such a stretch. I wish they would give us more of those opportunities either through more events with big prizes, or more opportunities for elementium.

@ss13 mentions Fox & Carlos. I may not always agree with SP employees here, but I think I can speak for most of us when I say our beef is not at all with them.

Let me reiterate, I don't want to be a "whiner". I don't want this to be a forum of "whiners". But man, SP isn't exactly giving us much to cheer about lately.

@Sinisism said in SP is Failing This Community:

@Asterix brought up a good point, and that's how outside of race monsters, many of the new well-designed monsters aren't being used. Take earth deniers for example. Say we got our Brontes to 120+, do we really want to start all over again when we get a single rank 0 monster from an event? Heck no, that's a ridiculous amount of work. However here comes a lvl115 Moutezuma, so it's not such a stretch. I wish they would give us more of those opportunities either through more events with big prizes, or more opportunities for elementium.

Aaaaaaaand there we are. I won't pretend that the ranked Baba Yaga was thanks to that post, but I sure am glad someone at SP thought to do it. Please, guys, keep it up. We WANT to talk good about you instead of smack. We're not asking for everything to be free. We're more than willing to spend - if you're fair with us in the process. This is a good FIRST step toward finding that balance!

@Sinisism don't want to whin anymore but baba was a monster i finally could craft if I had the room and i dont mind spending gems or money but I rather have a 2nd or 3th round then fill in the huge coin difference i heard of a level 72 that got 12000 coins already I have 164 coins how much do you have?

@Sinisism
Every game comes to a point where it starts declining I think sp has decided that monster legends has passed this point, and instead of continuing to build a player base they try to extract as much money from the the existing players as possible, and they don't care if they drive players away.

Sad, but i can't come to a different conclusion. The game has been great for the whales recently, the nemesis monsters are way op...

@Sinisism
I think I'm done with f2p games in general. All the good ones became massively p2win at some point, don't see why i should take up another game to be frustrated again.

@Frunobulax How long do you think Monster Legends has left?

I can't see the game being here this time next year...so why spend more money on something that is going to disappear?

@Clackers said in SP is Failing This Community:

I can't see the game being here this time next year...so why spend more money on something that is going to disappear?

My advice always is: don't spend as in investment, but as a back payment of the fun you already had. You never know how long a game is still going to last. If you did not have fun recently, do not spend.

My guess is, however, that despite all complaints ML revenue is going up, not down. And therefore the game will continue for a while longer.

@Sinisism That was a great post
Though I did not agree with every point Sam was trying to defend (which is good thing too, not everyone can have same opinions about things or the world would be so boring) he actually had points that I support and I always considered a vocal person like him as a strength for our players community. And i find it shameful to lose such dedicated players and I sincerely hope that SP can take notes about this... (I am an optimist so I hope few things will change and he will get back)
I truly think that communication is a key thing here and though it has improved through Fox and Carlos (who are doing great here by the way), i still think it is the greatest failure from SP: that can be greatly improved. The cost of the vault is one example, I cannot even understand how they did not anticipate players' reactions to this... To me it looks like "amateur's work" and I do hope they will correct it if not things will only get worst. The dragonarium model from dragon city seems to be a working model that players accepted and use, why would they drastically raise the cost in ML? The reason that were given to us were a total joke and if one of my student was giving me such an argumentation i would likely tell him to go back home.
We are told that features implemented in the game are done after thorough analysis of lots of game data but being a person who produce, process and analyze loads of data i feel that it is far from being as thorough as they think, which is a common observation that can be done in other places (I'm not going to give more details here as it is irrelevant but i often observe that high amount of produced data often correlates with high volume of data that are left apart from the analysis). If the main part of the analysis is done based on profit optimization then it is inherently flawed as it needs to take into account gameplay. One example is Samael's release, at elite level the use of Demise already appeared to be a severe flaw so why releasing Samael with such a skill as Samael's warrior? (his skills should have been centered around his ability to resurrect in my opinion but that's another discussion that I am not motivated to start right now). I just feel abnormal that using a monster's combo that includes a Samael level 105 in wars, I am able to reach a 50% success in a war against a team that are far stronger than us, with players attacking me with monsters level 110, 120 or even 130. I hope SP acknowledge that this monster with these skills was a mistake.
Overall I still like this game, I'm doing well in the events that I choose but I am part of the lucky ones who can connect often during the day so that makes things easier for me. My main concern is about the communication. We are told that our feedback is passed to the concerned parties and I believe it but I think many players would like to have some feedback from SP regarding our feedback with stronger argumentation that what we have currently. As it has been said many of us are ready to pay if we enjoy the game and don't want everything for free but that won't happen if the trust between the players community and SP keeps degrading. I just hope the bad surprises will stop and more positive things will occur in the coming weeks.

@Marianne-van-Es off topic, but just to let you know...I'm getting a reasonable amount of coins from breeding (I have the guardian activated, so the 4 hour breeds are shortened, lol) & I'm getting around 400 coins from growing black lotus root & guardian activated, which I believe is more than we were getting in the last few challenges. I checked 2 rounds before posting this, just to make sure it isn't a one off...plus higher level players have a 2 star Baba Yaga on offer.

@ss13 Thanks for letting me know my food guardian is still cooldown but have my breeding on who knows buy the end of 3 days I have Baba on a reasonable amount but won't hold my breath

@ss13 said in SP is Failing This Community:

I'm getting around 400 coins from growing black lotus root & guardian activated

I got 29 coins for 14 black lotus root & guardian activated

lvl 103 and getting 625 coins for growing black lotus root & guardian activated.

@Keith-Romberg what now..? I'm a lvl 130 too...
Edited to add...see what happens when you collect again...to be honest, I only activated Faunus as I was low on food, so thought that there was no harm trying

@Clackers I no longer spend money in the game because I'm so disappointed that nothing changes. The game crashes frequently since vault came in. The pvp matches are still hopeless. The only thing I enjoy is the interaction with my team whom ive been with a year and now have actual friends on the team. No more money is going to be spent.

@Sharon-Hancock said in SP is Failing This Community:

The game crashes frequently since vault came in.

Maybe you could post this in the bug section? I personally have not had any crashes.

Fantastic post! Bravo!! 👏👏👏

In playing the game it is obvious the new building you had built cost more than you anticipated. Jesus! A castle would have been cheaper. You must have other revenues. You are putting a bad taste in everyone's mouth. It is obvious why this game is here.

@Sinisism well said - I'm with you all the way!!!

Agreed. We love the game and only complain when the best bits are being hurt.