Forwandert
Taxiarch
There's numerous things that have driven players away over the years, especially the last 5/6 years. (not going to go into the list of changes that made me stop playing 5 years ago again but there where changes and I didn't like them so stopped playing)
Unfortunately the loss of the player base makes what I think is the problem even worse.
Main issue in my opinion is players like to play certain settings (creatures of habit) and if you're only wanting to play certain settings there's sometimes a very long wait between servers. That wait can be years sometimes and in all honesty it's hardly worth the wait anymore. Players get bored waiting and I dont think its a solveable situation now, it was the same 2013/14 onwards but there is no solution that doesn't dilute what's left in terms of play base.
You will also have some players that tend to only play with the same people, when your waiting x amount of time for the right settings pop up, then you're trying to get hold of everyone and everything to line up with RL activities isn't always possible.
Years back with the larger playerbase servers where pushed out every few weeks so there was more chance of a server with the settings you liked or close enough that you could live with it and just play, you could even join one 6/12 months in and play but now servers are done by that point.
I'd be happy just playing on a long term server with decent settings and play as long as I wanted. Your buddies could come and go as available. That would keep me playing more than the current set up which seems to have gone worse, There's no time to establish the alliance if you start with new players and create the allaince community as we used to, now it's all game end, game end from the start. If it wasn't for the settings I would have moved to Achilles 8 years ago.
[Edit] The only possible solution I can think of to the preferred settings is remove 90% of the options and just have servers either fast or slow (someone figure out optimal settings for that) and then alternate between morale and no morale. That would mean 1 in every 4 server (revolt and conq) would have the 'right' settings so every 4 months if released monthly. Think we have had to much choice and that's created the situation. Before I figured different servers had different settings I was happy with the game just playing it. Adding different game ends might have actually made the problem worse as its created even more choices that players might prefer. Essentially it's diluted even further the servers I might want to play.
Unfortunately the loss of the player base makes what I think is the problem even worse.
Main issue in my opinion is players like to play certain settings (creatures of habit) and if you're only wanting to play certain settings there's sometimes a very long wait between servers. That wait can be years sometimes and in all honesty it's hardly worth the wait anymore. Players get bored waiting and I dont think its a solveable situation now, it was the same 2013/14 onwards but there is no solution that doesn't dilute what's left in terms of play base.
You will also have some players that tend to only play with the same people, when your waiting x amount of time for the right settings pop up, then you're trying to get hold of everyone and everything to line up with RL activities isn't always possible.
Years back with the larger playerbase servers where pushed out every few weeks so there was more chance of a server with the settings you liked or close enough that you could live with it and just play, you could even join one 6/12 months in and play but now servers are done by that point.
I'd be happy just playing on a long term server with decent settings and play as long as I wanted. Your buddies could come and go as available. That would keep me playing more than the current set up which seems to have gone worse, There's no time to establish the alliance if you start with new players and create the allaince community as we used to, now it's all game end, game end from the start. If it wasn't for the settings I would have moved to Achilles 8 years ago.
[Edit] The only possible solution I can think of to the preferred settings is remove 90% of the options and just have servers either fast or slow (someone figure out optimal settings for that) and then alternate between morale and no morale. That would mean 1 in every 4 server (revolt and conq) would have the 'right' settings so every 4 months if released monthly. Think we have had to much choice and that's created the situation. Before I figured different servers had different settings I was happy with the game just playing it. Adding different game ends might have actually made the problem worse as its created even more choices that players might prefer. Essentially it's diluted even further the servers I might want to play.
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