Well, this is the 2nd week of October now so let's see if this game is getting better. Let's start with team wars. The restriction got better. Now we got the elements and more books. Ok, that's a positive sign. I give credit to SP for this. Any other positive things? New season of PVP, same old story. No refresh button, nobody bothers to play, the top players area all big spenders. I was told that the removal of PVP refresh button is the 2nd highest complaint received and they will take a look at this issue but you know, it's SP. Breeding event still extremely, ridiculously, incredibly tough to get the actual monster WITHOUT having to spend. Japanese maze... longer, but the maze coins is still the same, which also means it is STILL IMPOSSIBLE to finish it without having to fill up SP's big fat pocket. Can someone remind me when was the last time we ACTUALLY finish a maze? Oh wait, I think I know the answer, it was the first maze ever created THREE years ago (Christmas or winter maze with caillech, flirty). 72 hours challenge- good for lower level player, but tough as always for high level (level 100++ players). Of course, this is a good way to force players to spend more $$$. When was the last time a high level player can finish a 72 hour challenge? Oh wait, it's the Thyra challenge. I started to believe SP actually made a mistake in that event because that was the only event that we actually CAN finish it without having to spend $$$$. I was also told that SP wants to keep this game alive or longer. I don't know about you, but I am laughing when they told me that they want to keep this game longer. Sure, making events harder, forcing players to spend more money, making decisions against player's will (PvP refresh button, BALANCING CHANGE etc) are a GREAT way to prolong the life of this game. There are so many complaints about this game in this forum and the community facebook page EVERY SINGLE DAY. There are also many SP employees on this page reading these, yet they dont seem to care. I have seen many people quitting this game, many of them announcing it here on the forum too. So is the game getting better?

I would say that, overall, the game itself is getting considerably better.

Leave aside pvp, which in current form just doesn't work.

Artistic design continues to impress. Crashes have been reduced. The depth of monsters available and the shifting and broadening of the meta beyond Thetys/ Volt dominance has substantially boosted strategic complexity and richness.

There is improved focus on balance and mechanic consistency, although it has a long way to go. There are new ideas and concepts that greatly alter the landscape and make things fresh, every time things start to become stale.

And yet, there is serious discontent. Why?

Well, it seems to me that if money were taken out of the equation, all would be rosy. But it isn't.

There appears to be a significant disconnect between the ideas and creativity, on the one hand; and the appreciation of financial impact on players of the implementation of those visions.

Hugely increased diversity comes at the expense of the players. Shifting the meta and the tactical landscape; implementation of otherwise cool concepts like ranking and books and relics come at breathtaking expense to those who want to enjoy the richness they bring to the game.

Players who reached the end game at significant time and/or money investment and wish to enjoy that end game experience find that the introduction of new layers of complexity come with daunting additional time/cost price tags. And so end game players become dismayed and disillusioned. Mid game players see no realistic prospect of reaching end game without investing tens of thousands of dollars. And starting players must find the journey initially intriguing, followed by realisation that the path stretches out far, far into the distance and keeps extending relentlessly.

Mobile game models are, really, still in infancy. TT bought SP to tap into the emerging market by acquiring one of the genres' most successful proponents, to learn from it and to expand into the sector. But it is still trial and error.

The product is excellent, imo. But the model is dangerous. The model is unsustainably increasingly expensive. It is shifting from wide base micro-transactions to narrow apex high-payment dependancy.

Dangerous.

Better by far to reduce costs of everything to a fraction of what they are, and allow the hordes to progress easily through micro-transactions, and in so doing increase the richness and inclusiveness of end game experience to hundreds of thousands rather than the wealthy minority. That would enhance the enjoyment of all, while spreading the payment base and associated risk inherent in the model. Unifying the vision of the developers with the aims of their paymasters and shareholders.

Has the game improved? Yes, considerably. Has the experience improved? That is an entirely different question.

If you never rebuild the lab, the game is fantastic.

The growing abyss between paying players and good ftp is very discouraging, I think I will end up switching to a baby account altogether if I keep playing this game as I am tired of running into these ridiculous nemesis. I didn't have this problem with VIPs but some of these new monsters, one in particular that you see everywhere ( metal Samael) are completely broken. . The current stack of monsters in the team shop is not very exciting ( really who decided to put Hayman there? ) , Shannara's bodyguard is overpriced, the pets/bodyguards suck, I can't say I'm very motivated to get war coins at this point.

I like the monster designs and stories, I think the monster designers are doing a very good job at that. My main enjoyment in the game was derived from trying different monsters and strategies+ being in a cool team, but in the past few months a lot of players have quit, and trying out new monsters is not really an option anymore unless you start with 7 copies. So the events also become a bit pointless, I'm not really doing the current maze. Kihaku looks great but I don't have the resources to use him even if I managed to get him. That's sad. I also have very little interest in new monsters because of that, as is the case for most people in my team as well.

Simple requests since you can't undo the monster lab:

• Bring back the refresh button and let us attack who we want with the monsters we want to use, just make the trophy reward smaller if the enemy is weaker or at your actual level ( ie not 3 full X 130 nemesis)

• Suppress damage multilpliers to lower level monsters, they're completely unnecessary at this point.

• TRy to slow down planned obsolescence of old monsters. The lab has made it very hard for players to just toss out an old monster when they needed 18 copies of him to max him, and when you finally get there after sometimes a year he becomes worthless, it's very hard to swallow.

• Make breeding events chances higher and make old monsters breedable like you promised when the lab came out, everything got so much worse since. Breeding chances used to be 10-15% when we needed one copy of the monster to use him, now the goal is 18 and I'm not even sure the chances are above 3%,.

• Don't make Bernard Madoff design new game features, you can't tell me this guy is not behind the monster vault :p

Why do so many people insist on complaining about events being impossible to finish (100%) without spending money, when there's a lot more legitimate issues to discuss ? In every single event, f2p players have access to enough ressources to get any monster they wish (take current Kihaku as an example), what more do you want ? access to the full content by just logging 30 seconds every 4 hours ?

Even pvp, most people i see complaining are people who are already in leagues they don't belong in and find it odd that they can't go higher. From my own experience (Gold III/II, lvl ~50) i'm enjoying stretching myself to get wins far more than spamming refresh until i get an easy win, and i'm still doing really well.
If you want to enjoy the fights, then drop to the league you should be in, if you want the free rewards stay put where you are, but stop whining about it.

I can't speak of the end game as i'm not there and i'm not aiming for it as much as just enjoying the ride there, no mather how long it takes, that's what mobile games are for to me, if i want a feeling of accomplishment before moving on, i'd turn on my PC.

On this point though, if there weren't so many additions to the game, what would 130 players even stay for ? the joy of collecting monsters they don't need ? Even wars at that lvl must be a bore when the AI can easily be slaughtered (as is apparent from the scores i see in their wars).

Anyway, what i'm trying to get to, is that while i'm a newish player, so can't say what the game was like, i don't get the logic of people wanting to leave because of the recent changes.

Darvys I think maybe you haven't played this game long enough to compare its previous and current state...It used to be much more interesting strategy wise, exciting when new monsters came out, and friendly as there was less pressure to get multiple copies of the same monsters to actually be able to use him, so you could mix a wide variety of players and use different tactics in war which is getting harder and harder as time goes by. It's mostly just "use your highest ranked" now whatever happens, something you probably haven't had issue with yet at your level.

I personnally am OK with not being to complete events for free, what is unfortunate is that you can't use the monsters you do get unless you intentionnally get 2 leagues lower,.Season 1-6 I was in L4 no problem with 500 trophies surplus, then Samael came out, they messed up the matchmaking and removed "refresh" if I want to test a monster now I have to lose 30 fights before I find a suitable opponent, how is that fun? Also a big part of Pvp was trying to find specific players or monsters to fight against which is not possible anymore now. As several have said it's more beneficial to just not fight.

I am waiting for real time PVP (if not global, then at least between team mates), permanent survival dungeons (based on different elements each day), and an option to fight any monster at any time (stamina permitting) in their own premiere dungeons (like the Boss Pit from Dragon Lords) to earn cells. Team Wars also needs to be changed to a league format.

Would also be good if we can compare Adventure Map scores (new Island every week please) with Team Mates rather than Facebook friends (lol, why has this not been updated yet? It is not 2014 any more).

@Darvys If Social Point respected their game - and its player base - don't you think they should be encouraging us to log in more than just once every 4 hours to collect gold? I find that preposterous. There is no game at all.

@tintum You're right, i neglected in my post the one thing messing up the game at higher levels, ranking ... Honestly that's undefensible in its current state, just shameless money squeezing, coupled with the bad match making, i can see how it can lead to some nasty experiences.
For myself i only meet some 110s at most which, as long as they're not the denier, i can still manage even with a 20lvl gap, but i can't say much about the difference in higher leagues.
I would just like to make it clear that i never said the game was perfect the way it was, there are plenty of flaws, some of the most glaring you pointed out, i just wanted to address some of the sillier complaints.

@Darvys said in Has this game got better?:

Why do so many people insist on complaining about events being impossible to finish (100%) without spending money, when there's a lot more legitimate issues to discuss ? In every single event, f2p players have access to enough ressources to get any monster they wish (take current Kihaku as an example), what more do you want ? access to the full content by just logging 30 seconds every 4 hours ?

Even pvp, most people i see complaining are people who are already in leagues they don't belong in and find it odd that they can't go higher. From my own experience (Gold III/II, lvl ~50) i'm enjoying stretching myself to get wins far more than spamming refresh until i get an easy win, and i'm still doing really well.
If you want to enjoy the fights, then drop to the league you should be in, if you want the free rewards stay put where you are, but stop whining about it.

I can't speak of the end game as i'm not there and i'm not aiming for it as much as just enjoying the ride there, no mather how long it takes, that's what mobile games are for to me, if i want a feeling of accomplishment before moving on, i'd turn on my PC.

On this point though, if there weren't so many additions to the game, what would 130 players even stay for ? the joy of collecting monsters they don't need ? Even wars at that lvl must be a bore when the AI can easily be slaughtered (as is apparent from the scores i see in their wars).

Anyway, what i'm trying to get to, is that while i'm a newish player, so can't say what the game was like, i don't get the logic of people wanting to leave because of the recent changes.

Because it's logical that reward is proportional to effort. For example: if the very maximum of obtainable coins during an event is 10000 through gameplay means (collecting, feeding, breeding, hatching, pvp, dungeons) the entire event shouldn't cost more than 10000 coins to complete. Since the pool takes 4 hours to refill nobody would be capable of getting there without real money purchases or gems. IAPs are supposed to be gap-fillers for perfecionists (we're not such a rare breed believe me) and not something that's mandatory for almost everything in game once you reach a certain point.

Who are you to say what PvP league we belong in? It's impossible to say that because none of us are matched against players who are on similar level. And that's a big problem. You don't see top athletes looking to compete against significantly weaker push-overs on a regular basis and vice-versa.

New additions for 130 players are no motivation whatsoever because an unranked, level 100 monster is of no use other than filling a monstagram/book entry. Not to mention that storage is still a problem so there's no incentive to even bother getting them.

You don't understand our logic because you haven't reached that point yet.

@Wololo said in Has this game got better?:

@Darvys said in Has this game got better?:

Why do so many people insist on complaining about events being impossible to finish (100%) without spending money, when there's a lot more legitimate issues to discuss ? In every single event, f2p players have access to enough ressources to get any monster they wish (take current Kihaku as an example), what more do you want ? access to the full content by just logging 30 seconds every 4 hours ?

Even pvp, most people i see complaining are people who are already in leagues they don't belong in and find it odd that they can't go higher. From my own experience (Gold III/II, lvl ~50) i'm enjoying stretching myself to get wins far more than spamming refresh until i get an easy win, and i'm still doing really well.
If you want to enjoy the fights, then drop to the league you should be in, if you want the free rewards stay put where you are, but stop whining about it.

I can't speak of the end game as i'm not there and i'm not aiming for it as much as just enjoying the ride there, no mather how long it takes, that's what mobile games are for to me, if i want a feeling of accomplishment before moving on, i'd turn on my PC.

On this point though, if there weren't so many additions to the game, what would 130 players even stay for ? the joy of collecting monsters they don't need ? Even wars at that lvl must be a bore when the AI can easily be slaughtered (as is apparent from the scores i see in their wars).

Anyway, what i'm trying to get to, is that while i'm a newish player, so can't say what the game was like, i don't get the logic of people wanting to leave because of the recent changes.

Because it's logical that reward is proportional to effort. For example: if the very maximum of obtainable coins during an event is 10000 through gameplay means (collecting, feeding, breeding, hatching, pvp, dungeons) the entire event shouldn't cost more than 10000 coins to complete. Since the pool takes 4 hours to refill nobody would be capable of getting there without real money purchases or gems. IAPs are supposed to be gap-fillers for perfecionists (we're not such a rare breed believe me) and not something that's mandatory for almost everything in game once you reach a certain point.

Who are you to say what PvP league we belong in? It's impossible to say that because none of us are matched against players who are on similar level. And that's a big problem. You don't see top athletes looking to compete against significantly weaker push-overs on a regular basis and vice-versa.

New additions for 130 players are no motivation whatsoever because an unranked, level 100 monster is of no use other than filling a monstagram/book entry. Not to mention that storage is still a problem so there's no incentive to even bother getting them.

You don't understand our logic because you haven't reached that point yet.

You started off on a good foot and I was about to post where I agreed with you on one of your points.....however you had to go and force me to moderate. Please DO NOT attack other posters when responding to topics. If you do not agree you can state your reasons why without attacking the other posters.

@TCML-Lead I am not sure I agree with the tone of this post. Honestly to me it reads like another SP bashing rant. However I will let it stand as it is because it is bringing to the forefront some very good points and opinions. However EVERYONE keep in mind if this becomes toxic, negative without being constructive or abusive to other posters with differing opinions it will be shut down and those abusing the forum rules will face temp or permanent bans. Whatever you feel about the game, its mechanics or SP, SP will be given the respect it is due here on their forum platform.

@Clackers said in Has this game got better?:

@Darvys If Social Point respected their game - and its player base - don't you think they should be encouraging us to log in more than just once every 4 hours to collect gold? I find that preposterous. There is no game at all.

This is no different to many other games and unlike their sister game Dragon City at least the 4 hours does allow for real life to take place.

@Nynaevelan I've read my post five times over before posting and again after posting and I can't find a single attack on someone. If you have trouble understanding something I wrote you're welcome to ask for clarification.

@Wololo So, if i understand you, you wish for it to be possible to unlock every single monster in events for free with money being only a recourse if you wish to save time/effort ? Can you name a single F2P game of this scale offering such ? It's hard to speculate on the cost of following your suggestion for SP since we don't know the amount of players who actually buy coins and how much, but i doubt it's small enough to let pass. I think they are already being fair by allowing the players to pick any one monster (more if not the last) they wish in mazes and get it. As for progressive islands, the fact that gems are usable and the ease with which they can be hoarded makes this issue moot i suppose.

I'm not the one deciding in which league a player belongs, it's the player base itself, the ranking will set itself from the top down, people who can't reach Top 500 will be in Legendary IV, people who can't compete with those will find themselves in Gold I and so on. The fact that match making is so bad right now is due to the players cheating the system for so long thanks to the refreshing.

The match making could become much better if most players continued to play until they reached a stable position, but since each player is attached to his unearned rank and its rewards and so stops playing, the system will never fix itself.

On monster ranking, as you can see in my previous post, i completely agree with you, it needs reworking/simplification.

@Clackers I don't think mazes and progressive islands are meant as active events to be enjoyed, just a bonus players get while completing their usual gaming check lists, the only real event (or close enough anyway) i've seen in this game are races who also unfortunately come with a few problems but that's another story. But i agree that they should explore more ideas for events than the copy/past/change monsters we have currently.

Actually, I am impressed with the quality of discussion here.

I certainly haven't agreed with everything said, but mostly there is something I will agree on in each post.

As long as all of us can check the things they know will set specific others off, and as long as it continues to be genuine expression of actually held views, and not a bashing of each other or SP, this is healthy.

Be frank, but not self-serving or offensive.

@TCML-Lead Somethings have gotten better. I am reasonably happy with the vault. I don't need it per-se, but at least I have the potential to store alot there. I hope that slot prices go on sale at some point, because otherwise it will be painful. I could go on and on about things I don't like and waste more time that I should be spending working. So I am just going to share a revelation I had this morning. How long does it take to become a gold winning olympic athlete? Answer: along time. I am going to try and embrace this and play the game to the extent that I can and think long term. They have made some slight change in PVP.

They still need to make more, but hey we waited a long time for the vault and now we have it. So I think I will just hunker down and hope for the best and in the mean time just keep farming, because if you are not the sharpest tool in the shed, you can try to be the oldest.

@Wololo said in Has this game got better?:

Who are you to say what PvP league we belong in?

This is what I am referring to, it is confrontational.

I have to say that @C0ntr1v3d pretty much nailed it in his post above. And aside from making progress somewhat more achievable for the masses, there are really only three things that I wish they would change/fix:

• Fix the team races, so that teams can't cheat the system with 'race teams'

• Make PvP playable for everybody at all levels

• And nerf Samuel. This Nemesis is just killing everything where he appears.

The side effect of recent changes which makes so many players quit is that we are starting to have a much higher turnover in our team and recruiting in general is becoming more painful. So I wish they would start to please the masses again to stop this ongoing exodus!!!

@David-ML said in Has this game got better?:

I have to say that @C0ntr1v3d pretty much nailed it in his post above. And aside from making progress somewhat more achievable for the masses, there are really only three things that I wish they would change/fix:

• Fix the team races, so that teams can't cheat the system with 'race teams'

• Make PvP playable for everybody at all levels

• And nerf Samuel. This Nemesis is just killing everything where he appears.

The side effect of recent changes which makes so many players quit is that we are starting to have a much higher turnover in our team and recruiting in general is becoming more painful. So I wish they would start to please the masses again to stop this ongoing exodus!!!

LOL, I agree with everything except Sammael, they BETTER NOT nerf him, he is the only thing helping me to hold my own against all these 130s just to keep my place in my league. And yes I am in the league I belong in....

@Darvys Because you are new you havent got to where most of us who 'complain' are at as you dont know how good and fun the game was before. You only needed to spend a couple of dollars but now if you dont spend every month at least $100 you go nowhere. YES the monsters are cool but all matching in team wars and pvp are not good.

@David-ML Fully agree with you and contra

@Nynaevelan I agree. I Got to L4 but not anymore. Happy to stay in gold 1 but who says Im in the league I should stay in.

@Kaiju Love your thought. I just farm feed and war with my team. No longer spend a cent not worth any extra fun because there isnt any. My team is the only reason I stay in the game. Been playing together over a year.

@Darvys sorry Darvys Totally disagree with you. I found with a bit of skill and a bit of luck not using the refresh button that used to be there. I could get to L4. But not anymore. I dont have nor will I buy VIPs. My monsters are max Lvl115 so you would say just stick to your lower gold lvls it's where I belong. Thanks no longer play pvp.

@Darvys said in Has this game got better?:

@Wololo So, if i understand you, you wish for it to be possible to unlock every single monster in events for free with money being only a recourse if you wish to save time/effort ? Can you name a single F2P game of this scale offering such ? It's hard to speculate on the cost of following your suggestion for SP since we don't know the amount of players who actually buy coins and how much, but i doubt it's small enough to let pass. I think they are already being fair by allowing the players to pick any one monster (more if not the last) they wish in mazes and get it. As for progressive islands, the fact that gems are usable and the ease with which they can be hoarded makes this issue moot i suppose.

I don't wish for it, it's the most logical thing to do. The so called free to play system has existed since the dawn of video games. There were incomplete releases called demos and they were free to play. If you liked the game you bought it. This model goes beyond that and free2play games are in fact way more expensive if you wish to experience them entirely (because no amount of time invested will help) and once a person has invested enough money they're forced to either continuously invest more, hit a wall in progress or quit meaning all their investment so far was in fact donations.

Cutting back on the number of pay2win/IAP options doesn't necessarily mean losing money. If you want to compare to other games look at the models applied by ones that were successful in the long run. Asking a price for a game is by no means bad and I'm all for it because I understand that people working on this have to earn a living but putting price tags on almost every bit of content is plain ridiculous and greedy and will collapse sooner rather than later.

Completing an event with minimal gem/cash use is by no means bad because remember you still need 17 more copies of that same monster to unlock it's full potential. And no event monster is free because we did invest our time as well. And like I already said nobody would be able to complete a whole event "for free" unless they log in on the dot every four hours and as far as I know sleeping is still essential to our lives, as are jobs, other hobbies, family and friends etc. Making it only theoretically possible would be a huge improvement in motivation to both play and complete IAPs.

I'm not even gonna take your statement about hoarding gems seriously. A single level 10 rune costs approximately 350 gems on sale. That means you need over a 1k gems just to equip a single monster with the best runes. How long does it take you to hoard that many even if you don't spend on anything else? That's right, quite some time. And that's just for a single monster.

Creating unreachable goals is by no means a good long term plan. It's plain demotivating. Moreso when you realize that the only way to reach certain goals is to pay a hefty amount of money on a project in which you have no say and no impact on it's future.

@Darvys hate to say this but if you have been playing this game long enough you will understand the frustration. This game used to be really fun. I used to do PvP events all weekend when we had fight kings and stolen food. But now, I don't even bother doing PvP as it will hurt me. And you talked about finishing an event for free. Well, two things: 1. some of the old events were completely do-able (finish) without having to spend any money. The thyra 72 hour challenge, first winter maze etc.. The breeding events used to be fun and I could get at least one of the actual monsters. Now, it is totally different story. 2. Ok, I think I can somewhat agree that not all events should be free to complete. For instance, it makes sense that the best monster in an event (maze, progressive island) are impossible to get without spending. The maze events a few months ago are spot on. 21 days, constant maze coins dungeon and if you do your work you should have no problem of getting ALL but the last monster WITHOUT having to spend any $$$. I am not sure how long you have played this game or how much you spent, but if you have played this game long enough (I have played this game for 3 years and I barely spent), you will know what I am talking about. Also, I know this game needs $$$ from players to survive, but the biggest problem is the way SP is trying to make more players spend. The balancing change is not making the game more balance, it is making it worse I am afraid. Without the free to play players, there won't be any pay to win players! You can have thousands of pay to win players now, but remember they will not pay forever!

@Nynaevelan said in Has this game got better?:

@TCML-Lead I am not sure I agree with the tone of this post. Honestly to me it reads like another SP bashing rant. However I will let it stand as it is because it is bringing to the forefront some very good points and opinions. However EVERYONE keep in mind if this becomes toxic, negative without being constructive or abusive to other posters with differing opinions it will be shut down and those abusing the forum rules will face temp or permanent bans. Whatever you feel about the game, its mechanics or SP, SP will be given the respect it is due here on their forum platform.

Not really sure why you keep saying my post are "another SP basing rant" when I don't see anything wrong with what I said. I am not bashing SP, I am just trying to see what everyone else thinks about the progress of this game over the last 2 or 3 weeks. Not really sure you questioned the tone of this post again either. Look, I am just pointing out some of the things that I feel like SP can do better. If I don't care about this game or if I am pissed, I coulda just quit the game and not even bother talking about it here. I just wanna see what everyone else thinks about this game and so far, there are many great feedback and it changes my way to seeing this game in some ways. So, I am not really sure why you keep questioning my tone or post. But I do agree with you- if the response becomes toxic, then yes something needs to be done. Other than that, I don't see anything wrong with everything being said here

@Wololo hmm i'll try to tackle this from another angle, when it comes to mazes, i believe NOT being able to do the whole thing is in part what justifies its existance, forcing the player to make compromises and smartly choose his targets, would you truly be happier if the maze offered fewer monsters but you were able to get them all ? why ? i'm truly curious now, so i would appreciate an answer. Because the way i see it, the additional monsters i decide not to go for are no different from a special sale targeting p2p players.

For your point about other successful f2p games, most i know either require tremendous amounts of time to unlock the purshasable content for free or focus on customization to earn money, which wouldn't realy work for SP games.

I'm also well aware of the nasty spending circle some players can get themselves entangled in, it's not something i'd praise a game for encouraging, but in such cases i'd fault the players not the companies, which are at least known to be hungry entities. Though as a 100% f2p player ( my lvl doesn't really require spending ), i'm in no position to judge.

As for the gem hoarding, you raise the bar a little too much here, you want to both unlock all monsters AND be able to fully rune them with ease ? No, if the game is to survive such things must take time, SP may be adding new monsters every other week, but it's up to us to decide when to spend our ressources.

Your post also touches the monster ranking issue but i in no way defend it, so i'll stop here.

@TCML-Lead I don't know how i could respond to that, since as you say i didn't experience the earlier version of the game to be able to compare, that's why i'm trying to keep my arguments to the issues i believe i understand, and hopefully can make you guys see in a (slightly) better light.

All in all, I notice that the core issue we keep circling back to is the monster ranking, it's the one issue that impacts negatively almost every other aspect of the game, so let's just hope SP is aware of the fact and is working on a solution before the discontent hits them where it hurts.

@Darvys dude you couldn't do the whole maze and get all the monsters at any point as far as I know but you could get any monster in the maze which you can't do anymore. I got Calliech in the maze by saving all my coins and I went and used them all to get her, she was last monster in maze. Other people may not have got Calliech but went and picked up a few of the other monsters.
Now you have to unlock 2 or 3 crappy epic monsters to get keys to unlock a crappy legendary to unlock the last couple of keys to get the good legend unlocked and then try to get it. Or in SP logic hand over $50 or so and you can get this new monster that you will need to buy 15 more copies of in a couple of weeks when it goes on sale before you can use it lol

@Darvys said in Has this game got better?:

@Wololo hmm i'll try to tackle this from another angle, when it comes to mazes, i believe NOT being able to do the whole thing is in part what justifies its existance, forcing the player to make compromises and smartly choose his targets, would you truly be happier if the maze offered fewer monsters but you were able to get them all ? why ? i'm truly curious now, so i would appreciate an answer. Because the way i see it, the additional monsters i decide not to go for are no different from a special sale targeting p2p players.

Because achievement motivates people, and putting goals in front of them that seem unreachable is demotivating. Completing an event entirely is not only rewarding in game content but in our psyche as well, we feel better. When we feel better we feel more generous and more likely to spend money. I refuse to spend money on this game because there's a pattern of it getting more and more expensive and I can speak with absolute certainty that there are hundreds of players like me who think the same way. Heavy cashers will spend money on this game regardless because again a single copy of a monster doesn't do anything for them, they'll either purchase maze coins for additional completions of mazes, gems for progressive islands and 72h challenge, gem packs during fraternity events etc. Social Point would literally lose nothing while gaining a bigger and more loyal player base, and with that more players investing money in it.

@Darvys said in Has this game got better?:

As for the gem hoarding, you raise the bar a little too much here, you want to both unlock all monsters AND be able to fully rune them with ease ? No, if the game is to survive such things must take time, SP may be adding new monsters every other week, but it's up to us to decide when to spend our ressources.

Ease? When did I ask for easy? Just because something isn't impossible doesn't mean it's easy. Endgame content should be achievable within a reasonable time frame as well not just by purchasing it. This is a game, not a career; it shouldn't take three decades of daily effort to reach the top. I'll repeat: more achievable goals will make more players stick around, and more players means more revenue through both IAPs and commercials (monsterwood).

Metaphorically speaking my suggestions put the bar at about 1.5 meters (5 ft) height.

Lets please remember not to start bashing against each other, this discussion has been quite civilized thus far !

I have skimmed many, many opinions and posts and can agree with a lot of what I have read.
Few things I wanted to point out, many/most players (endgame) dislike the ongoing mass drop rate of new monsters because they have no use, unless one gets what ? 12 copies to make it decent and 17 to make it useful at all ?

Mazes and progression are "complained" about because they also have no use for the same reason, yes they can be completed without money or at least preformed well in without $$$ however multiple completions of an event is impossible without money and anything but multiple completions is useless. Thanks Monster Lab.

PvP refresh is not its only problem and the lack of the refresh button has caused some to gloss over the pathetic trophy returns, revenges should be worth equal to what was stolen from you, or at least more than the meager 9-10 trophies given back. given a list of triple 130 monsters one should, upon a victory be given far more than 20 trophies especially if they have lvl 110> monsters.

As much as I would love to see it, nerfs to current monsters, especially VIP/Nemesis would be unfair and a ridiculously thieving act were SP to do it. As a F2P I have to say that P2P deserve the 130 Samael or whatever nemesis they bought and to give them less than what they paid for would be "a kick where it the sun don't shine." so to speak.

Seeing as the lab most likely wont change, I believe the cells in the team shop should be on a weekly schedule and change in that periodic manner. Monsters in the team shop should have prices decreased by about 15% and for Uriel's sake change the runes in the shop that are only purchased for gambling.

My 2 cents... 25 cents probably, thanks for reading if you made it this far.

I have been playing this for years so no noob. I still love the game barring a few points which could be improved. Most mentioned above.

My main point to SP would be to make the team wars far more rewarding than what they are please.

The reason is simple. After all gold collecting, feeding and power grabbing, the one thing I believe holds people in the game is other people. If the wars are perceived as unrewarding then people stop fighting in teams and are leaving. Our team in top 50 lost 2 players last week because of this.

So My view is, rotate the team shop as fast as you like - not every 55 days!
Reduce the costs - even on a random and quick basis. It will make people check and be excited about having coins to get that special offer. 2.5k generals are too expensive for the effort needed.

The rewards could be done in whatever way SP likes but I think a change is vital to player base satisfaction.

@Wololo I think this has more to do with our personal goals, when playing a game i feel better when my skills are put to the test and i come out on top, when it comes to mazes it's purely calculation, the only satisfaction i get is from reaching the goals i set for myself. If other players can be gratified by the fact of completing an event not by the rewards themselves, well i don't get it but i can accept it.
We're running in circles at this point really, since most complaints we have can be linked in one way or another to the core issue which i believe is the lab, so while i argue that the events are fairly well designed, you can easily counter that rewards are not enough since we need X duplicates for the monsters to be effectively usable. How hard can it be for SP to adapt the other events as they did the 72h challenge, give increasingly ranked up monsters for higher player level tiers. The only thing that could prevent that is greed, and that's a shame truly.

What if instead of outright buying a monster's cell from the Lab, we could fight that monster in its Dungeon? So the Lab becomes like another game mode, and beating the monster gives us a certain amount of cells.

If SP are worried about losing revenue by doing this, then why not introduce a buy-in for each fight - 1 gem per fight. If you beat the monster with 3 survivors you get 3 of its cells, 2 survivors means 2 cells, and 1 survivor is 1 cell. If you lose you get none obviously.

This means that for top players, you would be aiming at 3 cells for every 1 gem. I think that makes using the Lab much more economically viable.

@Clackers i thought you wanted to make the game more fun? doing the same thing 100 times to save a little bit on gems is what you consider fun?

@TCML-Lead I agree. You must spend a fortune to play or achieve any rewards. Not only is the refresh button gone, but, so is the option to use items. Therefore, being rewarded for using items is off the table.
The fact that confusion is forced on human play, is yet another example of the game playing itself.
Yes, sometimes humans play the computers but opposing players have the same option when they play against my team as the computer. So what?
The option to have control over play is diminishing. All I know is tha SP is raking in the cash! If we all stopped buying for a month, I bet that would get attention.

Let me begin by saying this is my opinion others have theirs that’s ok if we all stay civil and don’t are condescending to people who have other opinions.
My opinion is based on playing ML for almost 3 years, started in dec 2014

@TCML-Lead There are some things I can somewhat relate to in your post but I want to pick one out which I can’t:

There are also many SP employees on this page reading these, yet they dont seem to care. I have seen many people quitting this game, many of them announcing it here on the forum too. So is the game getting better?

I always appreciate (except for maybe one time)the reactions we get from @Carlos, @Fox and @Tyroz and I absolute do think they care.

I already said this in other post (following in Sam footsteps)that I come to a point that the aggravations outweighs the pleasure.
Aggravations:
• I don’t expect to get all monsters in an event, but I don’t like it to be punished that I’m high leveled and get the epic and I see level 70 the get to round 3, don’t get me wrong I don’t mind they get to round 3 but I like to get my 2 star Legendary once and not only the 1 star epic.
• I think I belong in L4 (not higher) and always end up there but if I keep fighting the way I used to do 1 or 2 losses will throw me back in G1 now, I can fight my way back in L4 without too much trouble but its no fun
• I started this game because I like to collect so I was so happy with the Vault but the pricing of the slots become too high too quick so there goes my fun of collecting.
• War, because of Nemesis wars become now ptp against ftp and maybe even will cause friction in teams between ftp and ptp players
• Race, nothing brings more heated discussions then this subject and the solution is there make it like DC everyone wins the 3 star monster if you complete 14 rounds, 1st price gets the better prices: extra legendary more elementium more food.

Pleasures:
• First my team, I like to co-lead a team with people from all over the world to help each other and figure out game strategies give shouts on messenger and chat to warn there is a lvl 10 on sale for 345 gems trade out cells and even buy cell for others for gems to help them get a monster
• The community as in this forum and discord where you can help each other with info about events even the discussions as long as they stay civil, only negative I see there is the bashing of other opinions or getting reported by someone.

As it is now although the aggravations has more points than the pleasures, my team lays more weight on the balance and it’s still tipped to the pleasure site but not much

The thing I don't understand in the PvP is why we can't see the players runes. We can see their rank. And isn't the runes just part of their rank? I just wonder if there's a reason I am ignorant of.

Look through the bugs section of the forums and you'll have your answer to this question.
Some bugs have been around for months and months and not fixed yet.

I can only comment from the end game perspective. Contrived has made some excellent points, I can only agree with.

I see lots of new and interesting monsters that give the game more depth and room for strategical thinking. All the Bodyguards, for example, are excellent monsters that lift the use of support monsters in wars. They are even easier to rank than the old generals when they return to the shop for 1100 coins, making their use more widespread.

At the same time however, the game knows some broken mechanisms SP is not fixing which makes all of this not very relevant. All Nemeses are borderline OP, but I would not have any problems with them if Samael did not exist as well, who simply is beyond broken. A game, or even one war, should never be about the use of only one monster. It is ridiculous that a team like Power of Fun loses with more than 100 coins difference because Revolution Valkyrie has more Samaels. It is ridiculous that the same team starts kicking players just because they do not own Samael (and what's next, kicking everyone who does not have 2 Samaels?). It is ridiculous that a team like Titans Resurrection suffers a perfect score defeat.

All of this said with much respect to my colleagues in RV, who are not only incredibly strong, but also know how to play and have a good strategy. :)

Even when there is no Samael there still is Demise who is nearly as deadly when she can be paired with Zyla or Voltaik. Obviously broken monsters, mechanisms or combos should be dealt with, in the interest of the longevity of the game. If Thorder's haste and slow can be nerfed, so can other broken mechanisms.

I do see that the game designers tried to break the dominance of Thetys, but they did that by introducing Nemeses. Monsters you can only buy with money to counter a monster you can get with war coins. So no, not really the answer.

In summary: I play the game because I like the use of different monster combinations, and interesting new mechanisms and combos. I do not play the game to think of how to counter one monster, or monster combination. Did the game become better? In potential most certainly. In practice not really.

@Ekto-Gamat truly is a shame that all problems seem to be connected, indirectly or directly, to Samael... Hydratila and its 0 stamina was one thing, but giving that skill a buff and to a monster with a OHKO skill ? The problems in this game need to be prioritized if this game is to progress from the hole it dug...

@PredakingX said in Has this game got better?:

The problems in this game need to be prioritized if this game is to progress from the hole it dug...

Game balance is very difficult to manage and players should expect that mistakes will be made in a game where almost every month includes a new monster that does not operate within the game universe rules. If they make each new monster follow a defined canon of rules then players will complain that the monsters are getting stale. So they make the monsters faster or more wild. It is not enough that Burotgor is a good attacker, he has to be an INSANELY good attacker, so they balance him with a blindness debuff. But even though he is a race monster, he is essentially free. VIPs and Nemesis, those have to be even more OP because people are spending real money, so they deserve real value. Its an un-ending arms race. What comes after Nemesis and there will be something?

@Kaiju said in Has this game got better?:

@PredakingX said in Has this game got better?:

The problems in this game need to be prioritized if this game is to progress from the hole it dug...

Game balance is very difficult to manage and players should expect that mistakes will be made in a game where almost every month includes a new monster that does not operate within the game universe rules. If they make each new monster follow a defined canon of rules then players will complain that the monsters are getting stale. So they make the monsters faster or more wild. It is not enough that Burotgor is a good attacker, he has to be an INSANELY good attacker, so they balance him with a blindness debuff. But even though he is a race monster, he is essentially free. VIPs and Nemesis, those have to be even more OP because people are spending real money, so they deserve real value. Its an un-ending arms race. What comes after Nemesis and there will be something?

Yes but have you read Ekto's post ? If they keep releasing monsters which if you don't have them you lose the game will die quick. Most players agree that the max release of monsters doesn't help the game because the monster is useless unless you can buy 17 copies. Monsters for P2P only should put that player at an advantage, not be a automatic win card, nemesis were fine before Samael, and VIP's are arguably fine as they are.

I agree that game balance is difficult, however creating more and more room for these glitches, bugs and flaws, is stupid and on them. They should stop for a second and fix the errors at hand, and then go to new content. They have been doing the same thing for a while now, and its not working, " if its broke, please just fix it..."

@Ekto-Gamat said in Has this game got better?:

If Thorder's haste and slow can be nerfed, so can other broken mechanisms.

Nobody bought 17 copies of Thorders that time (no war, no lab) so they can do what they want. Now with money involved things are much more complicated. I'm sure SP doesn't want to be overwhelmed with the refund request if they nerf him (or any monster people invest heavily), it happened before (Harusami?)

I personally felt Samael was a result of internal design competition of what best monster can be but somehow someone accidentally made him live...

@SkeelMaster said in Has this game got better?:

@Ekto-Gamat said in Has this game got better?:

If Thorder's haste and slow can be nerfed, so can other broken mechanisms.

Nobody bought 17 copies of Thorders that time (no war, no lab) so they can do what they want. Now with money involved things are much more complicated. I'm sure SP doesn't want to be overwhelmed with the refund request if they nerf him (or any monster people invest heavily), it happened before (Harusami?)

Oh, I do realize that nerfing Samael or other 'money' monsters is more complicated. That, however, is not my problem, I am only interested in a good game. :)

Besides, they gave Nox a mini nerf not too long ago. No one complained.
Samael and Demise can get a mini nerf easily by making their teleport skills able to miss by giving it a 95% accuracy. Looking at Wiki I believe that even was the intention for Samael.

@TCML-Lead can't see where the rules got any better, SP is still so focused on Sam and/or Demise wars. The only difference is how the rules read.

On the topic of this game getting better I'm gonna compare the game's current f2p content to their state ~1 year ago. I've only been playing for some 15 months so I can't go farther back to compare. F2p content is mandatory for a healthy game because nobody in their right mind will decide to spend a lot of money on a product unless they try it out first and decide it's worth.

Early 2017 Progressive island - all but the last obtainable with little to no gem expenditure (7/8 monsters, 88% completion)
Late 2017 Progressive Island - all but the last three doable with little to no gem expenditure (6/9, 66% completion)

Early 2017 Maze Island - all but the last obtainable without additional coin purchases (7/8 monsters, 88% completion)
Late 2017 Maze Island - all but the last two obtainable without additional coin purchases (5/7, 71% completion, pretty sure it's gonna be even lower once japanese dojo island is done with 5/8)

Early 2017 Team Shop - Generals and their pets cost between 800-1100 War coins. The shop included Rune sale events, offering runes up to level 9.
Late 2017 Team Shop - Prices vary from 1100 (lamest pets and bodyguards) to 2500. Runes sales went out the window, leaving a permanent offer of team runes up to level 7 only.

Dishonorable mentions:
It was announced that PvP was gonna get reworked. Now it has become a VIP club in it's entirety.
It was announced we'd get a solution to our storage problems. The vault was released and remains a VIP feature.

I remember sticking with this game because it had quite a bit of quality f2p content as opposed to many other f2p games I've tried. Over the course of one year that content has shrunk substantially. There's heavy emphasis on creating new monsters (with no room to place them!) and heavier emphasis on money sales with little emphasis on what's most important - accessibility and maintenance.

Personally I consider Monster Legends have degraded from an 8/10 to a 5/10 game over the course of 2017.