Thought it apt to resurrect this topic.
I’m moving on after a good 9 months in the game, so thought I’d give my final thoughts of what I love and dislike about it. (Me moving on is not worth its own topic - my ego only stretches so large… 
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Love:
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Truly addictive. I didn’t count myself a match 3 fan, but the combination of match 3, RPG and hero + building/resource development is a great combination. Truly inspired idea and deserves its success.
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Beautiful artwork and lovely little touches (people that wave; the lighting in the seasonal events; birds flying past; pumpkins at halloween; suicidal bunny rabbits; etc. etc.). It shows a dev team that have imagination and a love for their game.
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My alliance. They are the reason I continued playing for as long as I did. It was excellent to see them grow from a pss-ant little semi-interested group (originally called ‘wot’) struggling on 3* and 4* titans to a band that regularly takes down 8*, only lost 1 war since they started and climbed to over 100k alliance score. I am extremely sad to be leaving them behind.
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The forum community. Very helpful and often forthright (to the point of amusement) (@Brobb I’m looking at you). The time and effort they spend in helping players and advising (@Revelate; @Rook; @Gryphonknight; @Dante2377 and @Brobb to name a few) is a credit to the community. The forums have been as much a part of the game as the game itself.
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The ability to succeed even if you choose not to spend… as long as you have patience. The balance between F2P and P2W is always hard to strike, and SG seem to have it about right in this one.
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Alliance Wars. This was a good boost to my interest in the game at a time when it was flagging seriously. I like the concept of needing to develop more of your team and the decisions you need to make when attacking after your main strength is gone. Utterly ruined (in my opinion) by the arrows - more on that below.
Dislike
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Raids started on ‘hate’. Grew to ‘accept’ when I got the hang of it. Grew back to frustration towards the end. An entirely personal thing - I take the wins as my rightful due (yes, that’s me being honest about my inflated ego) and take the losses hard. As such I get only little pleasure out of the wins, and great frustration from the losses. This (for me) was ultimately an unrewarding pursuit. (The fact that I needed to continue to do them to keep the chests turning over added to this problem). Very personal issue… it’s actually not a criticism of raids. I grew to understand and appreciate that they are well thought out and well balanced and a necessary different aspect to the game… but I just could not grow to like them.
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AW ruined by arrows. Many will sing their praises. I never did (and still don’t) accept their value or their point despite having read and participated in many a debate about them. They sucked the joy out of AW for me - personal opinion, but that’s the effect they had. So many potentially interesting encounters in AW cut short or not allowed to develop because of them. I appreciated AW despite them, not because of them.
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(Towards the end) The absolute unrelenting constant slog. A lot of my joy went out of the game when my resource usage rate depleted my stockpiles of material and I found I could not earn them fast enough to recoup. This happened when hitting the higher end Titans. I now face being denuded of necessary offensive items after an event, and lack the necessary defensive items for the higher Titans. They share common rare materials, which my farming rate cannot replenish fast enough. My choices are to accept lower contributions in Titans; harder battles in Events and spend more time farming. All unpleasant choices… and will only buy temporary relief. It drained my enjoyment and became more like work than a relaxing game.
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Gambling everywhere - everything is random. Really get tired of the RNG sticking a thumb in the eye again and again and again. Finally get 5* (yaay). It’s Leo (awww). I get another 5* (yaaay). It’s Leo again. (Awww). I get yet another 5* (yaaay). It’s Leo again (wtf?!?). I (FINALLY) get a HOTM (yaaay). It’s Aeron. (meh). I draw a 10x pull from gems and get all 3* (awww), but I do get another HOTM (yaaay), but it’s the same month, so it’s Aeron again (Awww). I spend money for that final 4* ascension mat (Royal Tabards) after literally MONTHS of needing them. Guess what the next ascension mat that comes up in the next rare quest? You got it… Royal Tabard. The final straw comes when in 3 consecutive AW battles, I double on 2 colours… leaving 2 colours unequipped. In all 3 the majority of tiles I start with and that replenish were the missing colours. 3 battles in which I managed to fire all of 1 special. (Awww). Left me thinking “Why am I doing this?” Basically, the RNG got old for me. Had enough.
So, what would I improve?
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Shards. Given enough spend, or enough investment, they bring a bit of a guarantee. Reward consistent investment in time and/or money with something a bit more certain.
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Lose the arrows in AW (or introduce other constructs to help the defenders and at least vary between them). I came up with some ideas in one of my posts… a worthy one I feel was reserve heroes - defeating a hero brings in a replacement from reserve allocated in advance by the defender.
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Have AW defenders vary after defeat (i.e. you need to set 3x defences without being able to use the same hero in more than 1 team). This keeps it interesting for attack and gives the tail end attacks more legs. Who says the defenders should always win? History is littered with wars where they didn’t.
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Some relief to the resource slog… maybe ability to sacrifice resources for other resources… or spend gems to boost needed (as opposed to random) resources. Or maybe a form of crafting in which you switch your slog to focus on needed resources (at the cost of experience, troops, heroes, etc as that’s no longer where you’re spending your time… but able to shore up your resources to last you another couple of weeks).
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Better tools for alliance recruitment and management. The months of broken alliance search is ridiculous… and that introduced by a change to ‘fix’ a system that wasn’t actually broken in the first place. Alliance management is also much harder work than it needs to be.
Yes, plenty of food for debate in the ideas above. They are my personal thoughts, and unlikely to participate in any serious debate about them.
I’m not moving on in anger, or in disappointment. The game served me well and I got a lot of enjoyment out of it. But when it starts feeling more like work and less like a game, then it’s time for a change.
Wish SG and the players every success. It’s been a journey… and an interesting one at that. 