Interesting post by samvt

From my perspective all the goats not playing but complaining do not add that much, there are just angry sheep!
I'm not apologising for 22cans in anyway shap or form, I've raised a large number of completing unfixed issues that they keep closing, but if I stop playing or stop raising the jiras, they win. They have my money already.

It's not that I refuse to play, I stopped playing after testing each update and finding it wanting; I made my reports and now await the next update. Sometimes I choose to not test an update if it doesn't fulfill any changes I was hoping for (based on my prior playthrough feedback), or sometimes I hold off and see what others think before diving in.
I feel justified, as a backer, that I haave every right to air my complaints or concerns whether or not I have actually played the current build; there's nothing sheepish about that.

Without saying one way or another, it's very hard to tell who's actively playing, who's given up before the last patch, or anyone that's been away from it for months.  All you did was character attack people without addressing anything they've said.  Pick the most respectable and constructive poster on this or the Steam forum.  Chances are, that person only plays for about a week after patch day or hasn't played in a very long time.  It's hard to keep repeating the same thing over and over, waiting on stupid timer mechanics, just so we can see the tiny bit of change.  

Despite the long periods between patches, the changes are rather small. Most of the time post-patch is getting to a point where it's possible to try out the new functionality.

This game's entire feature set can be described in less than a page of text. It's not complicated. Identifying and addressing the issues with the game play takes very little time.  Despite the long periods between patches, the changes are rather small. Most of the time post-patch is getting to a point where it's possible to try out the new functionality.

I'll probably give the game a shot again once they add the Ark... I mean Arc... because Arc is cheeky and Zen.
That said, I'll most likely turn on the Molyneux cheats (whats good for the Goose is good for the Gander, yeah?)
to skip the invest-walls and zip right through Bulldozer Simulator 2014: Level 2 - Cheeky Re-Skin of Level 1 Wayworld.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I don't think your metaphors are helping you make your point.

Sometimes finding a fix is hard, because the mechanic used is inherently broken - not because the implementation is broken.

Freemium mechanics are a good example for this on PC. The mechanics work like a charm on mobile where the average user is likely to play during "breaks" or "in-between" doing other stuff.
They pick up their phone, tap it for 5~10 minutes and move on with their daily business.
Its very much suitable for passive play.

PC on the other hand isn't. PC generally is more focused on active play.
So something like the Astari taking away your followers because you didn't log in every few hours is massively detrimental to the enjoyment of the game.
Being blocked with hours long (at first) and days long (later on) timers totally breaks the enjoyment of the game.
And adding in more chores for the player to do, adding in even LONGER timers... Thats not the solution.

Which I think is what stuhacking was getting at - if you guys were indeed going through the issues, we would've seen some results and the game would've improved rather than degraded.
The fact that mobile users are being viewed as incompetent doesn't really help the matter. "No no, we can't do that, it may scare off our mobile audience, we need to keep things simple and accessible!"

The main complaint I see from both mobile and PC users are about the timers.
The average comments go like this:


Did you see feanix' post about his GF playing?
When I asked him what she'd think about the game and proposed to "solve" the timer issue with resources.
Her response was "I wouldn't like that, the timers already take too long."
Mind you that resources would not extend the timers, but in many ways decrease them.
And give the player a direct lever to control them. Rather than having to sit there and wait.


I'd say that a main issue there is that many mobile players don't mind deeper or engaging gameplay.
They just don't want to have to learn intricate mechanics. They'd like to be able to play it without having to learn or memorize too much.
A good developer can make deeper and engaging mechanics in such a way that the casual player wouldn't even notice they were there because its all dealt with automatically in the background. While offering the more engaged player the tools to tweak and improve efficiency.

A lot of the groundwork for that is already in the game. The seperate parts just have to be put to good use.


I'd also like to take a moment to point out once again that "the way you say things" can have a very deep impact on how it is interpreted.
Remember how people responded negatively to stickers? (and still do)
Well, think about the new tribe introduced as described by the Arc update information.
"Meanies" <= please tell me you recognize that a name such as this comes directly from "Freddy Fish" or one of those similar games for 5-year-olds...

I played each build for many many hours. I will try the newest one when I have time, but after soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many dissapointments do you really wonder why I am hesitant ? It is not like they make any huge changes for the patch is it? I played it about 6 weeks or so ago....am I missing something major from then?

Not that I know but then losing my settlements forced me to not replay from scratch, which is why I posted the question. In the day before the optin refresh the day after the pc update I'd seen just the torch announcement, and noted two new voyages - but since few pc players were commenting on it I presumed only a small number had the hard settlement loss or that no-one was playing. Which passed on the straw poll shows as no-one is playing.

It does take me about 4 weeks of play to get to the current end point a la 300 ore beacon so I chose not to replay all that in the 'short time' between the pc update of torch and the big bag of hubworld/arc/wayworld whatever that turns into.