Yo Peter and Jack and the dev team! Let's jam!

1. Belief collection - By enforcing manual belief collection they force you to visit often and to 'tend' to your game, logic being that the more time you spend 'tending' your game the more likely it is you'll choose to drop some cash. A mechanic thats lost on the PC version of the game, as there is no monetization.
   
2. Build timers - Another one of those monetization triggers. By putting the timers up "high", they force a mentality that makes the player wait. They then offer you a "skip" solution in the form of gems so you can power through this roadblock. Or force you to sit it out and wait (the so-called 'moral' F2P method, by allowing themselves the excuse "But we never FORCED you to pay, you can wait if you want..."). Again a mechanic that is lost on the PC version, as there is no monetization.
   
3. Stickers - Now I'm not talking about the childish nature of stickers here, but the method of acquisition. Stickers are random by their very nature, they are designed to make buying sticker packs the "best" way to play. The alternative of grinding stickers is inefficient at best and often results to boring and grindy chores. Again, a mechanic lost on the PC version because of the lack of monetization.
4. Beacons as expansion tool - Now this one is likely due to the mobile nature aswell as the F2P nature of the game. Beacons as expansion limit the player in movement and thus make it less likely the player will "move outside of the designated scope". This way the world can seem larger than it really is, because anything outside of the pre-designated area is unaccessible, yet still visible.
   Lowering performance drain by pre-defining how the player expands his world and at the same time gating their progress with a paywall.
5. Overall costs vs playtime balance - Again here shows the need to "force" the player to monetize their gametime. The idea being that if you want to progress faster, you can always drop some cash.
6. Gems - Anything that needs gems is monetization focused. Yet, the PC version doesn't have monetization? But the remnants are still left because 22cans doesn't want to alter their core game mechanics.
   

Now Godus' / 22cans' approach to this has been to band-aid the F2P elements on PC rather than altering or fixing the core problem.

Hence we got in-game means to grind our way to gems with the Pit of Doom. A very time-intensive chore, that isn't particularly enjoyable.

Its a cheap solution to a problem that otherwise would require them to create new mechanics for their game - something they apparently seem unwilling to do even though their original pitch promised they wouldn't "dumb down" their game for the sake of mobile/F2P.

A number of solutions here that would easily resolve many of these issues, aside from some proper balancing (balancing alone doesn't solve the core issues at hand...)

1. Belief collection - Passive collection, that isn't gated by gems. There are so many methods that don't even require them to create massive changes to their game and infact, there are even those that uphold their idea of wanting to promote player activity and revisitation of older area's of play. Namely the idea of "impressing your followers", by being active and present in the game your followers will 'believe' in you and passively generate belief for you. If you remain inactive for a long period of time they'd end up moving away from their worship to do their own thing, requiring an active intervention from you - their god. This way, rather than becoming a chore, they turn the mechanic into a driving force of their game. It mostly needs polish on top of some balancing.
   
2. Build times - Again mostly a polish issue. The go-to solution is introduce resources. By having buildings rely on resources, the player gets a modicum of control over it and the game actually feels less "cheap". Times are a developer saying they don't know how to or do not want to create an actual mechanic. Times are an excuse to have the player 'wait' without actually creating something why the player has to wait other than the simple stopsign and timer with its "pay to skip!" notification. Since monetization isn't an issue on PC, there should be no reason why alternate methods shouldn't be explored. And I personally believe that the mobile and monetized version would benefit greatly from such a resource expansion as the added layer of depth would provide the players with something to look at in their world. (As elsewhere noted, this doesn't even need to add more micromanagement for the player as everything can be done in the background.)
3. Stickers - The key lies in the acquisition. While the paintjob is something that can be altered at the drop of a hat (call it something else and its still a duck...) The core mechanics can be altered quite easily. Focus #1 would be to include followers into the acquisition. By providing a passive acquisition method (followers dig up chests) you already make it more logical and less of a chore.
   Focus #2 lies in the random nature. By providing more logical points of acquisition, you boost the level of control the player has over this. Stickers could come from the various jobs your followers have or could be found in specific trigger zones. All of this could be "monetized" in the F2P release of Godus by adjusting some balancing accordingly and would not work detrimental to the design of the game. The simplest solution would be to include stickers into the already existing tasks your followers perform, having them passively provide typed stickers that fall in line with their jobs.
   Immediately representing their "skill" or "progression" towards a certain overall resource or concept. (It makes sense that after they have spend so much time building, their proficiency with the concept is enough that they could 'learn' something new that relates to building. So why not provide 'building' stickers. The same goes for other catagories.)
   
4. Beacons as expansion tool - The PC platform isn't limited to performance and has less need to be paced as such. Creating a more natural method of expansion would give the game more depth and make your actions feel more relevant aswell as your followers feel more alive. As there is no need for monetization, there is also no need for roadblocks to pace the player.
5. Overall cost vs playtime - Mostly a balancing feature, but some minor adjustments in mechanics would benefit the platform. Make it less of a chore, focus on making the player want to do something rather than forcing them to do something to progress. Its a clever way of HOW you do it, not so much what you do.
6. Gems - Much like belief and stickers, the key here lies within the method of acquisition as much as its paintjob. It'd be really easy to rename gems and make them "feel" less of a mobile/F2P mechanic, but that wouldn't solve the core issue. The core issue would be resolved by providing the player with more choices to acquire this 'divine currency'. Turning gems into a more potent, but scarce, "upgraded version" of belief. Rather than making it a gateway currency, they could integrate it into the core game design and paint it as such making it stand out much less.

Now all of this relies on the fact that 22cans wants to turn Godus-PC into an actual PC title. That we're not an afterthought or initial marketing tool to create momentum for their project.

While it would take some time and resources to alter some of these core mechanics, I don't see it as an obstacle they can't overcome. And I definitely can see that they currently need to focus on the mobile release of their game. I also see that any promise they make regarding this wouldn't assure us anything as nobody would believe them, making the position a rather awkward one.

While acquiring the promise or assurance that such fixes are going to come into the PC version in the future (I'm talking 6 months time seeing progress, not 6 years...).

Which is why a more potent assurance from 22cans is key here. Anything they can do to show the PC players that they do not intend to neglect us entirely would benefit the mutual understanding.

The core idea here aswell being that 22cans wants to improve the retention on their mobile platform and some of the problems could benefit both sides as they are getting fixed.

We should be asking questions like:

•When is the PC spring starting?
•Where is hubworld at?
•What will be different about PC to mobile?

If they aren't willing to discuss this then they fail.