Maybe look at it like sports, where sometimes friends compete.
I always place greetings to the war-matched ally in our description, but have no mercy during war. 
I even would enjoy a war chat with the competitors, but I know that it would lead to several insults.
Fair competitions with friends before drinking some beer together donāt harm friendship.
Most of the time nobody will be harmed from raiding & wars. 
Itās me, I know. The game format as it is, works for 99.999% of the players. Iām the abberation.
I suffer from depression, sometimes severely. Stressful situations or situations where I am forced to challenge others - with whom I have no argument - are a bad cocktail for me.
Your analogy of comparing raids to a friendly challenge between chums at a bar, makes a lot of sense, I get that. And it might thus be easier for me, if I could meet the person, shake their hand before and after the match. I donāt know.
I left the game two years ago when the structure and mechanics of raiding was making me immensely unhappy.
I came back because I just love everything else about the game.
Iām at level 10 now, my highest team is 1320-ish. My Stronghold is level 6. Iām entering the phase of the game where raiding is inevitable.
Iām going to, sorry for the ironic analogy, soldier through. Because I also enjoy writing my stories about the heroes.
But oh dear gods, I do not want another raid.
@Xorana1 youāre bringing up some interesting points that Iād like to invite you to share in this thread as well, if it would be of interest to you: Waves: Discussion on how to support alliance mates through mental health and emotional aspect of E&P -
(No pressure or obligation, of course, I just thought it might interest you.)
Once you finish season one you never have to raid again. Season 2 has no PvP battles.
Something to look forward to ā¦
Oh thank the gods. Encouraging news indeed.
If you donāt want to raid just let your cups drop to zero and think of the ham and iron as a charitable donation to the poor. Non-tax-deductable unfortunately.
We lost our war!
We opened our war chest!
Both were equally disappointing!
Iām ragequitting!
Be back in 5ā¦
I understand where you are coming from on this term. I used to cringe every time I heard someone refer to our opponent as the āenemyā. That word is charged!
If I were playing a sport, I wouldnāt think of my opponent as the āenemyā.
Iāve gotten used to it now and actually think of it as just a term in the game. I really think it comes from having interacted with so many of our āenemiesā in a shared discord server during battle, that Iāve come to understand the term can be used playfully, not as an indicator as to how we actually view them as people.
Given that you suffer from depression, I would not suggest soldiering on. Instead think of raids as a fun event, win or lose. I used to hate raids because all I had was rainbow 4* team and got raided by fully fledged 5* teams. Nothing worked and I absolutely loathed to raid.
One day it occurred to me that this is just a game and win or lose I still win. Cups donāt mean jack ā ā ā ā in this game. The experience you get from raiding and then analyzing how you can improve will in the long run make you a better gamer and it might also help you see stressful situations in a different light.
I still lose more raids than I win, but I keep learning from them.
Just my 2c. Hope it helps in some way.
I enjoying raiding less than placing toothpicks under my toenails and kicking a wall.
When I first started I felt I had to fill every Hero chest when it became available, (touch of OCD), and I just didnāt have the teams to win. Rage, frustration and every other emotion came out while trying to fill chests. I donāt bother with it anymore. The game is fun when you find an alliance you click with, doesnāt place undue pressure and you dont place any extra on yourself.
It is a mobile device game at the end of the day, there are far more important things in life than it.
I donāt think winning or losing is the issue with raids for @Xorana1 . Itās the person vs person that is the issue. I can understand that. Itās hard for some people to disassociate the attack in-game from an attack against someone in general. If you can, treat it like a chess match. Youāre not really attacking the person, youāre attacking a digital simulacrum. At the end of the day whatever they lose to you they will just gain back by revenging.
Good luck.
Your supposed to loose thatās why the balance is off. Aid is always given to the opposite side which is a computer. Note your opponent hits you 3, 4, 5 times although none are actually ready to fire. But you canāt hit them until your heroes are charged. Your not playing a real person. Once they have you feeling weak and useless they hope you will run out and spend a ton of money trying to get stronger heroes. Occasionally they throw you a bone, woop woop big win but itās just a way to manipulate you remember itās a game itās rigged. Nothing is random, there is no AI, regardless of what they try to convince you of itās programming, the computer knows what moves you can make, it knows what heroes you have and when they are close to or ready to fire. Itās all within the parameters of programming. It can still be fun, just go for it kick some computer butt. But save your money.
Do people actually read this crap?
Sincerely curious
Oh yes lots of people usually the same oneās over and over again. Itās a vent thread. Come here unload, feel better go back to playing
Oh, wait.
The raiding is - like slot machines - geared to make you lose, with just enough occasional win to make you want to play (and invest) more.
So Raiding, really, is just a tool to keep players spending more money.
Comparing the activity of raids to a chess game is a fair analogy for justifying the playing of them, but comparing them to gambling and slot machines makes MUCH more sense.
Luckily, and Petri will hate me for this, Iām taking the slow road. Iām building my stronghold hour by hour, day by day, without spending a single penny on the game. Iāll get to where Iām training 4 and 5ās, about 4 months from now.
Raids are inconsequential for me. I donāt need to be coaxed by a slot machine.
I play because I like the heroes and the castle-building, and the Match-3 game. And, my way, it takes longer so Iāll get to enjoy the slow build. Iām patient.
OK, so Iām not threatening to leave because I realize stuff just sucks sometimes, but for the first time since Iāve been playing E&P, I needed a vent thread, and this appears to be the place. You know those days when you just canāt get a decent board for anything? Today is that day for me.
Started out the morning trying to fill my raid chest. Won the first, then lost 2 out of 3 to a defense with a slightly higher TP, but three reds that I should have been able to take out with my blue stack of Sonya +20, Kiril +20, and Thorne 4^80. Won my next three (allowing a flag to recover) and thought I was back on track. When I got my next flag, I lost very ingloriously to an underpowered team, dropping 48 cups.
Now too far from diamond to reach it in just a raid or two, I decided to use a raid flask to fill my chest and put the nightmare behind meā¦ and promptly lost my next two matches, one with a 3-2 stack and one with a mono stack. Won the rematch and my next two, then dropped another and still wasnāt back to diamond. One final raid brought me just over the cusp of diamond so I could open the chest, and then, naturally, my defense picked up 27 cups. Ugh. Nice timing, guys! 
On to the titan. One flag left on a purple 3-star titan with only 28K HP. With my mono yellow team - Poseidon +4, Onatel +4, Li Xiu +20, Leonidas 3^70, and Ranvir 2^60 - itās impossible to screw this up. Unless you get no yellow tiles and drop an underwhelming 17K. 
So, yeah. That titan got away, because no one in my (very small) alliance logged on in time to drop 11K damage.
A smarter man would have walked away from the game for a bit at that point, but apparently, Iām Forrest-Gump-level stupid, so I set up my farming team to burn some WE and try to at least make some progress on the Atlantis avatar missions. I send in Li Xiu +20, Azlar 4^80, Tiburtus +20, Little John +9, and Thorne 4^80, and set it on auto. I looked up just in time to see a big, fat DEFEATED flash across the screen. I know thereās no healer and a couple of squishy heroes in that bunch, but Iāve never before lost more than one hero on Atlantis 10-1 normal with that group.
So whoever Iāve pissed off - SGG, Google (Android), Lenovo (nee Motorola), or the universe in general - Iām sorry. Please make it stop! 
At least there is no raid tournament this week. I can only imagine the apoplexy it would trigger to bow out of that on the first day!
You forgot moderators.
Iām not saying it was us, but an apology wouldnāt hurt, and I expect your boards will improve.
Especially sorry to the moderators, who have to put up with my long-winded rants on pretty much everything. Brevity is not my strong suit. Next titan up is red. Kiril, Grimm, Vela, Sonya, and Thorne would very much appreciate a generous helping of blue tiles. Please and thank you! 
