Why i still play?
I ask this same question by myself every day, but cannot answer.
Its long time nothing fun anymore, just feel ■■■■ every time i log in and see those fake boards. Give feedback to support but they are not very clever, just copy paste some fake explain every time
Regret i ever start play this.
This is a large part of it. I want to get better at wars, raids and raid tournies. Events I have pretty much given up on - top 10k/top 5k is all I am willing and able to chase for. Titans and mythic titans I do OK in but these are so dependent on having certain heroes that skill plays a much lesser factor (It is no coincidence that since getting 3* yellow food guy in knights portal that my titan scores are on average higher) so I will just do my best there and improve as those heroes trickle in.
However with tournies, raids and wars skill plays the largest factor and this is where I want to improve. My current war average over 30 wars is 262, and I want this to get better despite ever harder war defenses and despite my roster “falling behind” (i.e. not pulling any new OP 5*s). In case you can’t tell, I am being sarcastic here - unless you have a predominantly vanilla S1 roster I don’t think falling behind is an issue for months or years to come, despite the rate of power creep and despite LBs (this is because you always have a huge advantage in offense as long as you put your team together smartly and play smartly). Once I get to an average of 300 I think I will quite because if I am ever at that stage the game is probably easy to the point of being boring. I don’t want perfection, but I do enjoy the quest to seek perfection.
And on that journey experimenting with heroes and synergies and stragies is extremely rewarding - few things (other than pulling a sought after 5*) have the same feeling of satisfaction as finding a way to use a previously unloved or unused hero in an effective way. I just found a new team combo with Ferrant, Frosth, Noor, baldur and a healer that is extremely effective against most teams with a Freya tank and playing with a team with a completely different style of play brings a freshness into the experience.
As part of the above comes the customisation aspect. I don’t think there is much customisation within each hero but at the roster level there is a huge scope for it. This is one of the reasons I am realling enjoying LBs because I can take a holistic look at my roster to decide exactly where I utilise those aethers to patch up weaknesses for my war teams. I now have enough 5* aethers to LB 4 5* heroes but to date I have choosen to LB only 4s and 3s because those have the most value add/impact to my style of play. And facing 3-5 LB’d 5s in defense just doesn’t have the same overall impact as LBing key heroes (whethere 3, 4 or 5) in your offense.
There are a whole lot of things that can be done better/fixed in this game, and a whole lot of things I find tedious. But focusing on those things that bring me fun and challenge is what keeps me coming back each day. Oh and this forum too - I love helping those who want to get help, or who themselves like to help others. And I enjoy arguing with those who don’t. Oh, that reminds me:
What kinds of boards do you want to see exactly? They are digital which by its very definition is “fake”. Or could you perhaps be talking about something else? 
Still a better match-3 than candy crush.
I wanna see fair random boards.
I have great new for you! Each and every board is both fair, and random. Hope this helps you to now enjoy your playing experience
Ok thank you. You sounds just like those support who copy paste same “truth”
You are very welcome! And you sound just like those who like to blame any and all made up external factors rather than trying to get better
I play because I like the graphics of the game the layout and yes I was one that was complaining alot but now I just love the new friends I’ve made and I love finding new things out about the game. Each day brings me new excitement. I love playing this game now. I get to help my team understand the game better.
Thank you for the comment Homeclease. Good to know that you shouldn’t write anything here criticizing this “awesome” game. I will try to avoid this forum if this is just place where is better to say only positive things for game .
Have you met this forum? 9/10 topics are about criticising the game. This is a rare positive thread and should be kept so. But even if you still wanted to criticise I’d recommend going with factual arguments rather than unsubstantiated conjecture fueled by your own confirmation bias
I only stuck this long because of Bertila, she enchant me to no end. Before that, Seshat and the swag Kunchen.
I know I know, what a freak. But hey! To each their own right?
Ok Boss. Sorry about answer this thread question of “Why do you play” with my own opinion.
Its not happen again.
I just realized perhaps the biggest reason I played this game over others: less ads.
Yes there are a bunch of unnecessary pop ups.
I’d say the average game serves you an ad after every “game”. Can you imagine if we got an ad after every map stage, raid, titan hit, etc?
If there is anything I’m thankful to SG about it’s that they make ads a choice for us.
However I do think from reading the above you need to walk away. It sounds like this is becoming a mental health issue and I always implore anyone to go and get help if they feel something is getting them down. It’s simply not worth it to log onto something that brings pain.
If you find you can’t help yourself still then, and I’m being very serious, please go and get some help as addiction and depression go hand in hand.
This is a very good point. I have played a lot of other games that I got bored/frustrated with really quickly and stopped playing only because there were too many ads. I like that E&P don’t force you to watch any ads; the ads they do have are optional and you get rewarded for watching them.
i saw this thread the day it was posted and have been thinking about the question ever since. my reasons for playing have changed drastically from when i started, from when i was three months in, six months in, and now that i’m about a year and a half in, i didn’t have an immediate answer when i first saw the question.
the alliance angle is definitely one. back when i was building the base, i found that fun just a matter of resource management (even if the building times got ridiculous post SH20). i find the resource management fun, especially since i’ve now paused leveling heroes to save food for troop leveling. (i don’t think anyone finds troop leveling fun, but using the newly built-up troops will be fun.)
i had a moment of clarity last night when this happened:
i had garbage tournament hits (2-3) yesterday going 3-2 (i’m normally a mono player) and getting shafted by being one tile off (on fast heroes) from charging specials and by being inundated with absurd cascades into enemies you don’t want going off, even after trying to play the board carefully. this trend continued in raiding, and at one point, i was 6-12 doing all sorts of different things with my raiding teams and getting squat results. it was one of those things where, yes, i know the boards are random, etc. etc. etc., but when you’re in the middle of a horrible run of RNG, it’s the kind of thing that fuels you to believe that conspiracy.
i went back to my normal mono raiding later in the night and rage-flasked my way to global 3 and my new PB in cups. that’s when the moment of clarity hit me: yes, i do have goals in the game outside of results, but i also am just a hypercompetitive gamer by nature. i dared the game, “go ahead, keep screwing me on RNG, let’s see how long you can keep it up” until i finally started winning and went on a run.
yes, it sounds unhealthy to be hypercompetitive in a game where you’re guaranteed to lose at least some of the time, but then the game RNG DOES reverse course and gives you a 5-0 tournament Friday where you go mono and 4-1 and just obliterate enemies with tile damage because the boards are THAT good.
TL;DR: i’m very competitive, and this just happens to be a thing i like trying to win at.
You mentioned the special skill animations, I also enjoy the special skill sound effects like Vela as you mentioned. I even quite like Seshats scream. I think it’s quite easy to miss out on those. A lot of people I’ve spoken to disable the sound which can be a pity.
Why I play.
I like a challenge. I think this is why war and raids are my favourite part of the game and why maps is low on my activities. Partly I blame getting LotL for that as she makes all map stages pretty much easy mode if she is ready for the bosses. I’ve been considering for a while going lotl free for maps to increase the difficulty there.
I also enjoy the challenges on the forum here for ToL as it makes me try to do something different.
The community aspect seeing how different people set up teams and approach different problems also appeals to me as it forces me to question my own thoughts as to why I use heroes a certain way and what additional benefits I could get by adapting my choices.
I still play with sound. 
Gotta pass the time while I’m sitting on the toilet somehow…
