I’ve attempted to start some version of this thread several times over the last few weeks, but wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to frame this.
But I think I’m clearer on that now:
I’m interested in a discussion for players who’ve long been very active, and who are looking for a way to step down their game time and find more balance to prevent burnout — without outright quitting, and feeding their Roster to Aife.
It might be a permanent or temporary reduction — either way, I’m looking to discuss strategic ways to limit gameplay time.
When I say very active players, I mean people who do things like:
Use every WE flag (and have an itchy constant awareness throughout the day of when their flags will be in need of use again)
Use every (or close to every) Raid flag
Routinely fill as many Chests as possible each day
Use every Titan flag
Never skip any Rare Quests, Class Trials, Challenge Events, or special Quests with useful loot (Recruits 2 with ETT, etc.)
Play in every Raid Tournament
Complete all of Path of Valor
Never let Farms, Mines or their Watchtower fill to max
Avoid letting Builders sit idle
…and probably sometimes adjust their sleep, work, and/or personal schedules to make those things happen.
And my thinking for some of the purposes of reducing gameplay activity are reasons like:
Avoiding game burnout, particularly from the later-game grind
Balancing time with other activities
Staying in touch with alliance mates or other game friends, without feeling the game is a burden
Keeping gameplay fun, rather than a sense of obligation (especially important for optimizers, who feel compelled to complete everything, and utilize every resource)
If you’ve reduced your gameplay some amount, what have you cut?
If you consider yourself a bit more casual to begin with, what do you choose to skip or reduce?
Are there things you’ve been considering skipping or reducing?
For me… reducing line chats and turning notifications off was a huge way for my to cut back the time I spent… not necessarily in the game… but doing game related stuff.
I also try to be supportive as a leader when players talk to me about burnout. I’m a social person… most of you know that… losing players who quit the game completely is very hard for me… losing players due to wanting something less competitive is bad enough… but it’s important to give them space so they can decide what is best for them.
Some come back… others don’t. But if they’re happy with their choice, then I suppose I am too.
I was playing very active for over 1,5 year. I was using almost all WE and RE.
I almost quit game once, but I didn’t beacuse of my alliance. I just leave wars and other activites for ~month (I was hitting titan 2-3 times but they accept that) and it pass.
Now I’m less active (but I have 2 acounts so maybe not?), I’m using almost every titan flag but I don’t care about WE and I’m almost not raiding.
I skipped few rare quests and trials but I never skipped any event. Now playing E&P is more entertaining.
I’m a year and a half in and very active still. I’m aware I’m too active if that makes sense And have considered trying to cut that back but never really sure how to start it…
I was thinking of trying to only play when my WE had refreshed which for me is every 7 1/2 hours which would put me playing it about 3 times a day…but then I get bored and pick it up again.
I’m still active but I have reduced the pressure a lot.
I changed alliance.
In the Guardians family, I was a founding member and felt really responsible for the performance of the alliance.
When people left, I took it quite personally, not as an insult, but a failure to completely engage them.
And there were a lot of heavy pastoral responsibilities in Line with illness, mental health issues and personality clashes.
So I moved to Misfit Toys, it’s at a similar level but without the claustrophobia that I’d allowed to build around myself.
I had a great experience at Guardians, I still visit and I encouraged Mrs the Bard to join the training alliances, but a bit like Frodo at the end of LOTR, I can’t go back to the Shire
Try to not care much about all of it. Make fun out of almost every in-game action. Find an alliance that don’t care that much for competition.
Forget about timing your life to fully charged energy, wars, titans, events or whatever. Plan your life away from E&P and look it up whenever you have a spare hour.
SGG needs to start seriously considering player burnout and fatigue. Many of my alliance mates have been discussing this issue. The exponential increase of portals and special events is unsustainable.
Here are some recommendations on how to play less:
uncheck from war. It is the worst time input to reward output in the game. It is also likely the highest stress point for most people.
Join a different alliance with very low requirements. This separates you from the social aspect of your digital friends, but also lessens that competitive drive to beat everyone else all the time.
Be very aware that if you have paid $ in this game, you are gambling. And the house always wins. “loot crate laws” are popping up all the time to address this and many games are being required to implement methods to prevent minors from purchasing loot crates. Try donating to charity every time you buy Gems or in-game offers. It’s pretty hard not to be C2P if it costs you double every time you want to summon. Just be careful not to mentally associate (serotonin burst) that donation with your E&P purchase so I recommend making the donation first, E&P purchase second.
Get a dog.
Get a dog that will eat all your stuff if you don’t run with it every day.
I am still classed as very active, even though I am not using every raid flag NOT willing to set an alarm because of energy maxed or Titan appeared or something. You DON’T wake me up in the middle of the night, I like to sleep uninterrupted (though now, being level 62, I can get my 8h sleep just for 1 energy loss).
Ehm, one thing I would do is to complete challenge events no score, just for completion rewards. Second is throwing raids out of window completely unless for a chest. Raids are most time-consuming, along with wars. Not participating at wars is good option, because war rewards are crap (got two battle manuals for my trouble from war chest yesterday), but PoV needs them and your alliance might not be happy with this. Anything else can be played with loot ticket or on automat, so does not require much time. Resource collection at 12h intervals is perfectly possible with maxed buildings. Most of energy used on 8-7 then recruits stacked into TC20 along with food. Only problem is mystic vision which appears at 8h intervals and occasionally drops good stuff (got poison darts this morning).
Thanks for starting this! I’m interested to see what kind of feedback this generates as I’ve been feeling a bit of burnout lately as well.
One of the biggest things I’ve identified struggling with is my personal sunk cost into the game, both time & money. I’ve been a self professed C2P player (VIP, Valor Pass, the occasional Atlantis/Valhalla & event offer). I think my first step will be a transition to F2P. I’d been holding out to see what we’d get with HA, but what I’ve seen reported from beta is uninspiring enough that I don’t think I’ll be in a rush to max it out so the pressure of needing a 2nd builder is lessened anyway.
Hopefully untying my money from the game will help make it feel like less of an obligation. Who knows, maybe in a few months they’ll be reevaluating things similar to AL and I’ll be ready to ramp up again. A breather sure sounds nice though
I’m in that exact situation… every 6 months or so.
Change alliance or go free, alone or so.
Uncheck wars.
Leave forum (I know, I know… but still)
and most importantly, accept that you’ll fall back a bit. Cuz let’s be honest, it’s a race. A marathon. The only way to go faster is to pay but even if you don’t, it’s still a race. And if you walk instead of running during a marathon, you’ll finish at some distance from the winners. You have to accept that. Once you do, everything is so much less stressful and time consuming. Every time I step away from an alliance to spend more time with my family I know I’m falling behind a bit on ascension mat, heros, exp, food, irons, etc. But who cares?
I’ve been considering these things lately and I’m glad to see this post.
Just yesterday I removed my payment method and am going F2P. I’ve also stopped worrying about WE and Raid flags being wasted.
I’m lucky that the alliance I’ve been in for 1.5 yrs is not ultra competitive and encourages downplaying when needed.
My response is not exactly what you were looking for:
Whenever I play a game I am fully dedicated to it. I can’t enjoy the game otherwise and actually I don’t truly understand the point of view of people enjoying playing a game casually.
If I get to a point I feel I don’t want to be fully dedicated to the game - for me this is the indication to move to another one…
Whenever I need to save time, I reduce my raiding. Yes, raid chests are better than monster chests, but the reward per unit of time spent is lower.
Farm on auto while you are doing something else.
Don’t be cheap. Pay the gems to speed up the chest when you have a free block of time rather than spending 30 minutes in the game waiting for the chest to open.
Set timers for important events (chest cool down expirations, titan spawn times, wars, etc.), so you are not logging on to check.
Avoid the forum.
Delete Line and Discord. Rely on the alliance banner for important information.
I definitely tick all the boxes for VERY ACTIVE. However, I’m in a tiny 4-person alliance (actually 2 now, the other 2 have been offline for a couple of months). And that reduces the pressure, no complicated War strategizing or synchronizing tank colors or things like that. We prioritize consistency (hit the Titan as much as you can, and if you opt in for War use all your flags - but you’re free to opt out!)
So even though I try to be Very Active and use all my flags, I can slip up from time to time - and it’s okay, because I have enough leeway to not miss the most important things (War, Class Quests / Rare Quests, Raid Tourneys). That keeps my frequent log-ins from being an obligation.
Most of my long time game friends have either quit completely, or taken a break. Some, like me, keep hoping it will become fun again. But the burn out is real. Raids went from the favorite part of the game, to the most boring/frustrating part. Waiting months to get mats is equally frustrating, as there seems no real hope to make your heroes better. I have quit raiding, PoV makes you feel the pressure, but only if you pay for it, so don’t pay. The loot is terrible in the chests, so I no longer bust my tushy to fill them. After my current vip runs out, that will be it as well. No more buildings to build ( tested HA & AL, they are not worth building imo) Most long time players stay for the friendships. So now we are searching for new games to play together. Some have started new accts that the only alliance rule is no money may be spent, and no 5s allowed, possibly no 4s. Lol The no pressure approach has made that the favorite acct at present! 1* titans and no war! But all the friends sharing an evening…
Thanks for starting this thread @zephyr1 and bringing a discussion that seems to be happening more, within alliances, out in the open.
Reducing game time :
Changing alliances. Hmmmm - Its the people in the alliance, that make an alliance the place everyone wants to be. Will this make the game more enjoyable? Idk. Finding a new home at a similar level does work as @JonahTheBard shared. Staying in touch becomes even more important if you were there from the beginning.
A lot of my current alliance mates were former alliance leaders, and just taking on less responsibility has worked a treat for them.
Logging on just twice during the day, before and after work has made it more manageable for another team mate.
Mass replying to a bunch of posts to avoid spamming the thread a bunch…
I think this is a great suggestion. I turned off Line notifications a while ago too.
I also recently started using iOS Screen Time to limit my time on Line, Discord and the Forum (as well as news sites, but that’s a separate issue).
I often extend my daily time still, since I set the limits low, but it’s helped me reduce my time and be more conscious of when I do choose to spend some extra time on the Forum/Line.
A “vacation” of sorts — seems like a potentially useful approach.
I often play during moments of boredom/free time too — but I’ve started to think that can contribute to burnout a bit.
I also find that sometimes I pop into the game to see what I can do, and end up sort of just wasting some time because it’s before there’s really anything ready. Checking in less often could actually make each time a bit more useful/fun.
This is definitely something I have to personally reflect on more, since I’m in a similar position as one of the original alliance members, and the official “Leader” label carrier.
Easier said than done?
I think you’ve achieved E&P enlightenment.
Thanks!
And I agree, I think the game design could help reduce fatique, which would be healthy for the game in the long run.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like that’s been the design direction — they seem to keep adding in even more grinding elements.
I agree with this, and I actually have been opting out of War at times — which is interesting for me, because a year ago I NEVER opted out of War, and actually felt weird when I first did to go on a trip.
Offering?
It definitely helps that I have 53 WE now, so I can comfortably cover a decent amount of time.
I came a bit closer to this last month, after months of competing enough for 4* mats in Rare and Epic — I just have less need for some particular mats these days, so it’s not worth going for them if I don’t really need them.
Having looked at the rewards for each Challenge Event, I can definitely reduce my competing a bit without feeling like I’m missing out on anything.
Taking a total break from competition for a month or two might be worthwhile too.
You’re welcome!
Really great observation — sunk cost fallacy is definitely a thing, and certainly motivates me and other players to stick around.
I actually reduced my spending in May a chunk, for the first time. I increasingly don’t get much value from new Heroes, so it seems silly to Summon.
I’m even taking a break from leveling them, and just working on Troops for now.
I have cut down a bit — but do need to consider this piece further. Somewhat of a unique situation for me, I suppose.
Definitely a great point, and something I’ve said often to others.
Probably should take my own advice on that more.
Glad it’s helpful!
I’ve suggested reducing or eliminating spending to many players as a way to increase enjoyment — I’ll be interested to see how that goes for you.
I actually think that’s a very reasonable perspective, and one I can relate to.
That’s why I’ve found it difficult to take an incremental approach, instead of an all-or-nothing one.
It’s a fair point that it may just not work for some people — might be better to just stop playing when it’s time in those cases.
I really like the way you’re thinking about this as an optimization strategy.
It feels more satisfying to think of it as being scrappy with time as a limited resource than to think of it as just skipping things.
That would be a potentially appealing change of pace, at least for a bit — thought Path of Valor’s Titan requirements have made it a little trickier these days.
Considering whether PoV loot matters may be warranted in this thought process.
Given how much of my personal motivation for continuing to play is because of people, and not the game itself per se, this seems like it would drive burnout even faster.
The PoV loot is sort of enticing — and relatively easy to get, even at a more casual play level.
But at the least, I’m definitely not buying Valor Pass until the end, when I see where I end up.
I may well decide not to complete enough of it for it to be worthwhile.
You’re welcome, thanks for joining!
Definitely a really good point, and something we’ve been discussing in our alliance — can we meaningfully keep in touch with each other without the game as glue?
It’s a pragmatic consideration, as we have some members who have to reduce or leave the game for real-life considerations anyway.
Again as I mentioned about in response to @JonahTheBard, this is something I personally need to think more about for sure.
Good to know that’s worked well for them, since I was considering trying that as a strategy for a bit, perhaps starting tomorrow.
Just be honest about how much time you can afford to spend on this game and start trimming down excess. Be it time or money, what’s expended on this game can be limited.
I tend only play the game when I’m all done with work and chores. I prioritize time for Titan hits, war hits, monster chests, and rare quests. If I miss some raid chests or overflow raid/world energy then I don’t sweat much about it. I also stopped caring about leaderboards (raid, event, tourneys etc) completely. We also have a very chill alliance.
