I think there are many many players feeling this same sentiment.
Thank you for sharing your story.
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@AxPxE best is to remember the happy times and excitement that the overall experience brought you
even though im a f2p, putting myself in your shoes (as much as i can), all i can say is:
âmoney are volatile, memories are foreverâ
5 Likes
100% chance they will work (for something)!
1.5% chance theyâll grow into a giant beanstalk to the clouds, 18.5% chance theyâll grow into a normal beanstalk that can put some more food on your table, 80% chance you can cook them up and eat them as is.
Iâm looking at the recruitment posts that the top alliances put in.
I mean no disrespect but the list of requirements makes a game into an unpaid job.
When you are getting performance reviews on how well a Titan run was or how you lost a war hit them itâs not a game.
So you pay huge sums (on the whole) to make it to this level and suddenly you have a couple of bad boards and you are sweating you might get kicked. Then thereâs the stress of âneedingâ a hero or level 23 troops and then for inexplicable reasons you decide to drop big money to get it.
No wonder thereâs serious burnout. My actual job isnât this intense and I am performance reviewed and my work quality is checked frequently (Iâm in a regulated world so itâs required)
Even with all that I donât feel the stress that some people playing what is ultimately a mobile game must feel.
Where is the enjoyment? You get a natural high when you win and crushing low when you lose or get in a rut of bad luck. I just canât see how this is conducive to good mental health.
Iâm happy as can be in my alliance. Zero stress, zero hassle. We enjoy when we win, we laugh when we lose. All the players tend to chip in, if they donât then no problem. No one should feel they have to rearrange real life events around co-ordinated war hits or have to explain why a Titan escaped because they had a bad board or something.
It becomes an infection and no wonder little things suddenly become huge aching problems. Have a break. Remember why you started the game and if you canât help yourself then quit and find happiness somewhere else.
Soapbox rant over
16 Likes
Best way is to find another game who apriciatetheir players and play it with all friends we found here
1 Like
Iâve stopped spending period and my activity has significantly dropped. Tavern of Legends kind of really did it for me; its yet another summon portal with enormous rates for season one five stars. Thereâs zero endgame to work towards once you have a decent roster and there just isnât any benefit to continuously dropping money on portals to add to something that already has everything it needs. Wars are cumbersome, raids have zero long term benefit and then thereâs the mistake after mistake made with HOTMâs lately. Iâm just tired of the nonsense with little to no recourse for making the game better.
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It really is amazing how quickly five stars become bench fodder after pushing so hard to max them to use them. That is probably one of the biggest oversights of this game.
1 Like
Could not agree more.
I remember life as a tryhard. It was stressful. Work so hard for a war win or defeating a higher level titan⌠âyay! We did it!â
Go to collect your loot⌠âawwwâ 
Well that was a short lived victory dance.
Then the opposite situation: you lose the war or titan escapes because somebody didnât use all of their flags.
âBob? Buddy, look, I like you⌠youâre a nice guy and all, but⌠you really screwed us on that one. We warned you the last time, you have to use all of your flags. Yet once again, you didnât. So weâre going to have to let you go.â
Reality is that chatting with Bob was actually more fun than winning a war. But now Bobâs gone. And suddenly the game is less fun than it was before. While youâre happy to have gotten rid of some âdead weightâ that might have been dragging your alliance down competitively, youâve also lost a longtime team member that you had almost started thinking of as a friend.
Tell me. What E&P game loot is worth more than people or your personal happiness? None of it.
20 Likes
And the Stockholm syndrome all over againâŚ
Yep 100%
Hereâs my final thoughts on it all:
A mobile game should be a distraction from the real world. The real world shouldnât become a distraction from your mobile game.
Mic drop 
4 Likes
While I do agree with you⌠everyoneâs definition of fun is different.
Fun could be hitting the titan for a new high.
Fun could be winning a war with a top ranked player or team.
Fun could be the daily BS that takes place in chat.
Fun could be the data collection and number crunching.
⌠whatever it is for you⌠continue the enjoyment. And when thatâs not happening anymore, Iâd say itâs time to move on.
Whatever course you may find yourself on⌠whenever that time may come, always be able to look back and say âwell, at least I had fun.â
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@Math4lyfe I totally agree. I have fun sorting a tough case out at work. But itâs draining and I canât work at that intensity all the time. This game doesnât really offer break outs and I think rightly or wrongly playing at a high end will at some point catch you up. We see it in sports as wellâŚcompetitive is fine but Iâm just not convinced being the best Empires and Puzzles player is really worth that much
Financially and emotionally tbh.
But here we are at what seems a cross roads moment. The high end players are fed upâŚthe new players are fed up and Iâm just having a laugh with my buddies hitting titans hoping it doesnât all implode.
Ironically though if the top 100 players walked away the next 100 would step up and would probably really like the fact that competition had left and the cycle starts all over againâŚ
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No, itâs not just you. Itâs been brutal to try and recruit players and I think weâre just seeing a natural life cycle take place. Players who have been in this game 2+ years are fed up or burnt out. One can only take so much disappointment in a game that is supposed to provide enjoyment and as much as we cling to our alliance members to make up for that, in the end they are just people who are going through the same motions.
And itâs hard to see more and more of your group decide theyâre done. Itâs a domino effect, the game content isnât what keeps me playing at this point, so if the people leave then I guess Iâm going too. Feels like the game is going through a slow death.
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We lost a few longtime players from our alliance earlier this year/ late last yearâŚand have slowly seen them start to come back.
This game definitely burns ppl out. They are happier and more chill nowâŚalliance vibe is becoming more chill as well
Another well known player today announced they are a former player. The list keeps growing. Iâm sure the amount of players leaving over the past month is huge. In addition to another well known player leaving, the forums over the past month are inundated with unhappy posts. These are beyond the many âI didnât getâŚâ posts over the years. The issues brought up over the past few weeks clearly point towards the game environment as a whole is not a positive experience.
Do these people leaving as well as the well documented discontent of many players matter to S.G. looking at it from the standpoint of your consumers are unhappy? If this does matter to S.G. other than the lost revenue, how will this be addressed?
@Petri, of course you donât owe us an explanation. Every player is here by their choice and if they pay to play, that is also their choice. On the other side, I feel you do owe an expectation as the players are what has made E&P a success.
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When I first joined in 2018 (and ghosted the forums) many many greats were already leaving.
If you dig up their farewell posts, there is nothing new about their complaints: SG not listening, pulls being bad.
In fact, these farewells just prove that SG donât really care about some players leaving and I donât expect this to change.
The revenue model they are working off is to milk the existing customer base as much as is possible, and if people leave, let them leave, because more than enough new sheep will come inâŚ
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They look at like; âthere is a life cycleâ of an average player⌠so people leaving is the norm. Itâs all about how they extract money from each player. Pulls down? Offer an offer which is popular to make up revenue- itâs that simple
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To be honest, I have seen lots of âGoodbyeâ posts ever since I joined this game.
My view is that itâs just natural progression and there must be an average lifespan for a player in each of these type of games.
With that in mind if SG are monitoring this and the lifespan remains constant / improves, they donât need to worry.
What should concern SG is the growing number of players that are now saying:
I am cutting back on my spending
I am only paying for POV and VIP from now on
I am going Free to play Etc
That really should concern them. But that said if revenue continues to grow to projected rates, they naturally are not going to be too concerned
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I guess we donât have any live data to work with but I think the number of players who say this (and what they actually do is another thing) is probably going to fluctuate around the same level. I donât think itâs a new thing.
I wish the impact was catastrophic but doubt that is going to happen yet. Waiting for another Telly-like explosionâŚ
so true !
and so sad 