Serious question: Why do the Dev's no longer care about the game. Like at all?

[Kupo]

Not a rant, but serious question. Title was too long to write 'feel like don't care' so had to shorten to that. Been around since about 2018 and over 100 on both overworlds so I'm not super veteran to this game.

A lot of games usually do bare minimum to change things and make sh*t smell fresh. Example Destiny 2 will change all weapon archtypes so something is overbuffed and for that season those weapons are used to make things feel different. Overwatch 2 do similar now with changing heroes and only making small nerfs to try keep that hero different/OP for that season. Then at the end it's easy PR to make a change and say "we listened!" and make changes again. Cheap, efficient, works half the time.

In GOO since Centaurs release. They've been 'nerfed' while 'buffed' at the same time in nearly every single instance, and this has greatly killed the games fun factor. Nothing stops a centaur charging, not even adds being spawned by Athena, they'll ignore and just knock her out no matter how close they are to her if she was targetted.

There is no point whatsoever in adding any other troop spawning building and even defenses to a degree than Centaurs now. Their health isn't just the problem their attack damage is. It's forced people to go full mono and stuff like Hermes Patron which is just ridiculous. You either kill everything and win with running around and ignoring everything else, or you usually die after slow time expires. But by then you've only got a few temples left to kill and can 1 drop a god to them each. You take next to no damage because of inspire/patron haste and it's happening so much that it's another big reason Centaurs or bust. No other add can reach the gods in time, let alone survive to touch and do damage unless it's Centaurs.

I've seen people talk about some alliance wars thing, about Underworld for so long. UW may feel abandoned/an update once a blue moon that makes it worth playing. But when your main game feels like it's been kicked, spat on, and ignored. It really feels like nobody cares about it or how it goes. I mean that annoying YouTuber who does the previews doesn't play the game anymore from what it looks like when you watch the update preview.

It was a really good and fun game. But seriously, why the abandonment? Is it to keep stuff smelling fresh? Because it really sucks. Challenges are similar, one week people get to round 20/21, next nobody can let alone want to be round 14. When I first played I thought it was a mobile game trying to score as much cash as possible to buy gems and have a really horrendous ratio at buying resources with them. The updates would generally make you use/buy them to sell stuff to try new stuff out. With Centaurs you buy as many as you can, upgrade the heroes as much as you can, and then anything left over goes to whatever.

I just want to play a fun tactical game again, slow push was far more fun. But Centaurs and Hermes taking steroids like it's going out of fashion is just confusing as to what direction the game's going. What is the point of any other troop to defend if it cannot reach or touch the gods, even aphro vs centaurs is pointless for her.

[CASTIEL]

Hi Kupo, the whole team have been working on a series of updates. Some large, and some smaller to release while development is ongoing on the higher profile updates.
The team loves and cares about the game, that can be easily seen in the detail of the product they provide. Many balance changes have been made over the past year as well, based directly on player feedback.
You stated that you are around level 100 on both realms, that does take dedication and congrats on your levels. There is still a huge amount of gameplay to work towards beyond level 100, both on offense and defense. Hope you enjoy some of the new releases. We have a small team and a large community. Because of such an amazing and diverse community, every update may not feature changes to the part of the game that each player wants to see but we work to make each update new and fun as well as offering updates that touch on content for each of the various parts of the game.

[Olympia]

Hi CASTIEL, it is nice when we read comments from you developers. Your work is appreciated and that is shown through the large community who plays this game. However, as Kupo rightly said..UW seems abandoned.. so is Alliance Wars. And what about the centaurs... nerfed and buffed at same time.. they are still horrible killers as the pre-nerf. The buff/nerf at same time cancelled the whole point.. and the centaurs are just as fierce as ever ... if not more.

Thus, can we expect some major developments for the next update? Are we getting a serious nerf to these hellish centaurs? Besides this... I would expect a reduction in spartan academy's cost.... spartans cannot be compared to the centaurs and yet they still cost the same...
Are we getting a new UW god... 2nd hero on base... new defenses ?

And above all... can we be updated regularly on this forum? Sometimes the feeling of abandonment described by Kupo for the game is present even in this forum. I am never sure if you are reading us and LISTENING either.

[Lestorm]

Yes, two hero for the underworld 😁😁😁😁👍

[leroy]

As always, I read every post.

We do balance changes literally every release. We balance based upon both user feedback and in-game statistics. So if we hear that players are calling for, say, a Perseus nerf, we can validate that by checking hero usage/trophy rates. Similarly, if people think Adonis is worthless, we can validate that as well, and tweak accordingly (as we've done many, many times!) Centaurs are significantly weaker than when they were first introduced. Perhaps they still need to be nerfed more, but it is very clear statistically that they are not the same centaurs of old.

Interestingly, thinking about the history of patrons, we have gone through many phases of the game with different 'best' patrons, due to balance changes and introductions of new units/buildings. This is us trying to keep things fresh! Hera, Ares, Poseidon, Artemis have all been 'the best patron' for long periods of time in the past, and more recently Apollo, Hermes, and Zeus have been very reasonable choices. Ideally all of them would be getting nearly equal play, but if nothing else it should be clear we are making an effort to make all the gods worthwhile.

I agree that the UW needs more love. We have a very major addition that will be coming soon that is not OW/UW specific, but after that, UW is at the top of the queue for game enhancements.

Our goal (as it has always been) is to try to do a content update every 3 months. Sometimes it creeps up to 4 months, but historically we've done fairly well hitting somewhere around 3 months. I understand (and agree) more frequent releases would be better but it is realistically very difficult for us to produce at a more frequent rate.

leroy

[xprs]

As always, I read every post.

We do balance changes literally every release. We balance based upon both user feedback and in-game statistics. So if we hear that players are calling for, say, a Perseus nerf, we can validate that by checking hero usage/trophy rates. Similarly, if people think Adonis is worthless, we can validate that as well, and tweak accordingly (as we've done many, many times!) Centaurs are significantly weaker than when they were first introduced. Perhaps they still need to be nerfed more, but it is very clear statistically that they are not the same centaurs of old.

Interestingly, thinking about the history of patrons, we have gone through many phases of the game with different 'best' patrons, due to balance changes and introductions of new units/buildings. This is us trying to keep things fresh! Hera, Ares, Poseidon, Artemis have all been 'the best patron' for long periods of time in the past, and more recently Apollo, Hermes, and Zeus have been very reasonable choices. Ideally all of them would be getting nearly equal play, but if nothing else it should be clear we are making an effort to make all the gods worthwhile.

I agree that the UW needs more love. We have a very major addition that will be coming soon that is not OW/UW specific, but after that, UW is at the top of the queue for game enhancements.

Our goal (as it has always been) is to try to do a content update every 3 months. Sometimes it creeps up to 4 months, but historically we've done fairly well hitting somewhere around 3 months. I understand (and agree) more frequent releases would be better but it is realistically very difficult for us to produce at a more frequent rate.

leroy

how does an update require 3 or 4 months? let's look at the last update for example.

"4.8 New features
- Added centaur archers
- Added alliance symbols
- Added new event features
- Holiday decorations

4.8 Updates
- Centaur
o Starts with 4 on the field, max of 40 units
o 40% health nerf, 12.5% attack boost
- Athena patron summon hoplites reworked
- Paris 7% slower
- Perseus 12% slower
- Achilles 7% faster and uses sword more
- Performance improvements"

tweaking a few stats, creating a few christmas themed decorations, adding some symbols, adding a bow to the centaur and designing a range for it, beta testing a few things, requires 3 or 4 months time? serious question, and perhaps too personal, but is this just a side-gig for you guys, like a parttime casual weekend job you put in a few hours once a week on? it certainly doesn't feel like a priority or a main focus. I've joined the ranks of the stopped-attacking gang, we log in to collect resources and gems, we do daily and weekly challenges, we slowly level, but we don't bother attacking, because there's no fun attacking pink house perseus centaur hell bases where the only chance of winning is using the very boring mono attack style where the goal is to avoid the base rather than attack the base.

[leroy]

The answer is because some updates require far, far, far more than 3 months. For example, the underworld release. In that cycle, it 'looks like' it took 3 months to deliver 6 new gods, 6 new environments, lots of new towers and temples and buildings, etc. Way to go us! Clearly we were actually working full time there instead of just part time. But no, we did not do this all in 3 months, we spread the work across many updates. So while some releases may feel underwhelming to you, it is generally because another feature that is much more time consuming is taking most of the development time that you will see in a future release.

leroy

[Seaweed]

Please release alliance war soon. Think it might bring back some old players. Centaur kinda killed the fun of the game. Event are getting repetitive. Is it possible to make them more interesting instead of using similar event that has already been done before?

[Kupo]

As always, I read every post.

We do balance changes literally every release. We balance based upon both user feedback and in-game statistics. So if we hear that players are calling for, say, a Perseus nerf, we can validate that by checking hero usage/trophy rates. Similarly, if people think Adonis is worthless, we can validate that as well, and tweak accordingly (as we've done many, many times!) Centaurs are significantly weaker than when they were first introduced. Perhaps they still need to be nerfed more, but it is very clear statistically that they are not the same centaurs of old.

Interestingly, thinking about the history of patrons, we have gone through many phases of the game with different 'best' patrons, due to balance changes and introductions of new units/buildings. This is us trying to keep things fresh! Hera, Ares, Poseidon, Artemis have all been 'the best patron' for long periods of time in the past, and more recently Apollo, Hermes, and Zeus have been very reasonable choices. Ideally all of them would be getting nearly equal play, but if nothing else it should be clear we are making an effort to make all the gods worthwhile.

I agree that the UW needs more love. We have a very major addition that will be coming soon that is not OW/UW specific, but after that, UW is at the top of the queue for game enhancements.

Our goal (as it has always been) is to try to do a content update every 3 months. Sometimes it creeps up to 4 months, but historically we've done fairly well hitting somewhere around 3 months. I understand (and agree) more frequent releases would be better but it is realistically very difficult for us to produce at a more frequent rate.

leroy

I think that's part of the problem of why things always seem to be so unbalanced. I'm a game developer too, nothing as big as GOO but pretty decent sized for what I do. Things are being based on stats rather than actual gameplay or from a 'standard' player POV. It's usually based on 'how hard' it is for developers who know their own game inside out and feel the need for a challenge for themselves than the actual players.

The 2nd patch after Centaurs I stopped bothering attacking and like xprs me and my clan who used to be in top 12 basically stopped attacking and lost a lot of members because of it. There is no more fun, the changes made are so small they're pointless past Patron changes feeling different due to Centaurs, and there's not much strategy anymore past trying to avoid everything because you're helpless unless you play every attack as if you're on round 18 of a weekly challenge. If I were to join any team member in battle that's under level 90, it is so noticeable how much more playable and fun it is because there are next to no centaurs.

I regret spending hundreds of dollars on gems and getting into this game at this point. I only use them on challenges and have something like 30k left right now. You should do a stat check on how much nectar people have saved up from not bothering to attack anymore and piling up from the gift building and their level. The only thing worth doing is logging in for resources/challenges. And you can only do 2 of the challenges each a day and depending what ones you might not even be able to do them at all that day because it's so ridicously OP like Apollo/Zeus/Poison 120+. Challenges are far more fun than the main game because you feel like you're playing the proper game there but there's no reward for redoing campaign, or option to restart daily challenges.

It was a really fun game and we do want to continue and actually do leaderboards etc. But the way we hear nothing, get some pointless update 4 months later that could've and should've been an emergency patch (not sure how much it costs to post an update on android/ios stores), never hear anything or get a chance to provide feedback on upcoming changes or planned changes. It really does feel like it's a part time job and that it's not very cared for. Centaurs should be their current speed, half the attack, and hp, while spartans being lowered to half cost. In the long run something like Hermes should also get a massive nerf to haste patron, while heros could be weaker but target gods first or more than they currently do. Perseus isn't just used for how strong he is, but because he's the only one that will go for gods and not something stupid like kraken while they run around killing temples for 30 seconds of slow.

You would even be better off posting in the forums asking for someone who might be interested to freely make a short straight to the point video of upcoming changes. It would be so much better than that random dude who doesn't even play the game or get it right.

Release a poll in game/google survey link that everyone can vote on what they feel is fun/broken and compare that to stats you look up or something. It certainly is not the way you guys are seeing it for those of us who play the game. Especially not what we saw when we signed up for it. People online are the least vocal of a player base, but they care the most and in this case see things that devs don't. You can't get fun factor from stats.

[Raphasifiout]

Yep, please make attacking worth it at lvl100+ : increased rewards or something. If u need 200 succefulled attacks to get the same as 1 weekly challenge, I don't see why pple would do it

[Melli]

If we talk about nerfs then definitely Zeus should get one too! Staying in a corner, using lightning over and over again and winning like this without even moving much is not a att style or slow push, it’s nonsense. About Hermes, it’s the only possible god you can use for mono atm, after the nerfs Pose as patron died, also because Hermes without being Patron gets eaten from Horses in seconds lolol and with other gods you can’t play mono, just saying… About Centaurs giving nerf and at same point a push was like doing almost nothing to them. And I don’t play much Uw, not a big fan of it but for the people who play it, some new changes would be nice for them. About something big like Alliance war I think too that maybe it would make things more interesting again. 😉

[Umutcan]

If we talk about nerfs then definitely Zeus should get one too! Staying in a corner, using lightning over and over again and winning like this without even moving much is not a att style or slow push, it’s nonsense. About Hernes, it’s the only possible god you can use for mono atm, after the nerfs Pose as patron died, also because Hermes without being Patron gets eaten from Horses in seconds lolol and with other gods you can’t play mono, just saying… About Centaurs giving nerf and at same point a push was like doing almost nothing to them. And I don’t play much Uw, not a big fan of it but for the people who play it, some new changes would be nice for them. About something big like Alliance war I think too that maybe it would make things more interesting again. 😉

I agree with everything you pointed here.
And for Uw, something new would be really fun. I would want to see a counter for gorgons because they make it really tough in Uw for an attacker if there are more than 6-7 in a base.

[xprs]

The answer is because some updates require far, far, far more than 3 months. For example, the underworld release. In that cycle, it 'looks like' it took 3 months to deliver 6 new gods, 6 new environments, lots of new towers and temples and buildings, etc. Way to go us! Clearly we were actually working full time there instead of just part time. But no, we did not do this all in 3 months, we spread the work across many updates. So while some releases may feel underwhelming to you, it is generally because another feature that is much more time consuming is taking most of the development time that you will see in a future release.

leroy

okay, I retract my criticism, I had a blindspot for that possibility and what you've said makes a lot of sense.

[xprs]

I think that's part of the problem of why things always seem to be so unbalanced. I'm a game developer too, nothing as big as GOO but pretty decent sized for what I do. Things are being based on stats rather than actual gameplay or from a 'standard' player POV. It's usually based on 'how hard' it is for developers who know their own game inside out and feel the need for a challenge for themselves than the actual players.

The 2nd patch after Centaurs I stopped bothering attacking and like xprs me and my clan who used to be in top 12 basically stopped attacking and lost a lot of members because of it. There is no more fun, the changes made are so small they're pointless past Patron changes feeling different due to Centaurs, and there's not much strategy anymore past trying to avoid everything because you're helpless unless you play every attack as if you're on round 18 of a weekly challenge. If I were to join any team member in battle that's under level 90, it is so noticeable how much more playable and fun it is because there are next to no centaurs.

I regret spending hundreds of dollars on gems and getting into this game at this point. I only use them on challenges and have something like 30k left right now. You should do a stat check on how much nectar people have saved up from not bothering to attack anymore and piling up from the gift building and their level. The only thing worth doing is logging in for resources/challenges. And you can only do 2 of the challenges each a day and depending what ones you might not even be able to do them at all that day because it's so ridicously OP like Apollo/Zeus/Poison 120+. Challenges are far more fun than the main game because you feel like you're playing the proper game there but there's no reward for redoing campaign, or option to restart daily challenges.

It was a really fun game and we do want to continue and actually do leaderboards etc. But the way we hear nothing, get some pointless update 4 months later that could've and should've been an emergency patch (not sure how much it costs to post an update on android/ios stores), never hear anything or get a chance to provide feedback on upcoming changes or planned changes. It really does feel like it's a part time job and that it's not very cared for. Centaurs should be their current speed, half the attack, and hp, while spartans being lowered to half cost. In the long run something like Hermes should also get a massive nerf to haste patron, while heros could be weaker but target gods first or more than they currently do. Perseus isn't just used for how strong he is, but because he's the only one that will go for gods and not something stupid like kraken while they run around killing temples for 30 seconds of slow.

You would even be better off posting in the forums asking for someone who might be interested to freely make a short straight to the point video of upcoming changes. It would be so much better than that random dude who doesn't even play the game or get it right.

Release a poll in game/google survey link that everyone can vote on what they feel is fun/broken and compare that to stats you look up or something. It certainly is not the way you guys are seeing it for those of us who play the game. Especially not what we saw when we signed up for it. People online are the least vocal of a player base, but they care the most and in this case see things that devs don't. You can't get fun factor from stats.

I'm at 65,000 nectar at this point. I could convert that into at best 65Million stone if I won every attack and the bases were all averaged out to around a million stone each (which is about what I make on my attacks). These attacks would also cost me about 4.5hours of WORK, not fun enjoyment, but actual work where my heart is pounding in my chest as adrenaline spikes because I'm trying to control 5 gods with threats coming from all sides where one misstep means I lose, if I allow just one centaur to reach me I lose a god. 65M stone would buy me 1 gorgon tower which I could level up, maybe my defense trophies would climb by 20 points. Not worth it. Game has to be fun for me to want to play it, when it begins to feel like a difficult stressful job, well.. I've got one of those already, and it pays me in more than pretend stone and gold. Contrast this to the past when I was lower level, I remember many times sitting watching the clock time down to give me new nectar, eager for my next battle, logging in from work at times when I could just to make sure I never had the nectar sitting at 4000, so it was always in a state of replenishing, maximising as many battles as I could in a day, climbing 91 levels in less than a year of gameplay.

All the top players in my alliance, ranging from levels 90 - 112, all get stuck around 2700 attack trophies on OW, that's when we start hitting the Centaur/Perseus/Pinkhouse bases, and they result in crushing defeats every time. Leveling gods does very little to help with that. As Kupo points out, when watching the battles of guys under lvl 90 or so, the battles are fun, fluid, dynamic, there's a LOT going on, there's a lot of room to mess it up, there's a lot of effort required, but with enough skill and focus victory is often possible, and best of all, it looks FUN.

Many games I've played end up hiring a top player or two onto their team to serve as beta testers/advisers, something to consider even if it dries up some income, there's a lot of dedicated players who have played this game for years, they can see the problems, and have spent time brainstorming solutions, give them a chance, relying upon cold hard stats doesn't tell the whole story, and I suspect your team doesn't actually play the game as often as some of the top players who have played hundreds of thousands if not a million+ battles.

[Xar]

leroy I know that you all have a small team and, due to that you can't give monthly updates. That is totally understandable. But, since updates are every 4 months can't you make weekly challenges more interesting?
Here are things which you can do to make weekly challenges more fun.

1- Give patrons to every rounds, even to rounds 20 and 21.

2- Stop reducing the level of hades requiem in round 20 and 21.

3- Stop increasing the recharge timer of gods in glass canons, solo gods, golden gods etc. If you don't understand what I mean then here's an example= the recharge boost of zeus, Poseidon and hades was 25% in round 19 of glass brothers challenge but, it suddenly increased to 65% in round 20. This makes the round 20 boring.

4- Dont make bases too buff, especially heroes and towers. They can literally one shot golden gods which doesn't make sense cause golden gods have lots of health.

5- Listen to the above points and implement them in the game.

Please do these things, and you will instantly see that lots of players will start to play gods of Olympus again.