Recent changes to game balance

[Brecon]

Recently there have been changes which I am sure are in the hope of increasing game income. While I appreciate making money is essential, sometimes changes can go too far and players are liable to leave rather than to pay significantly more than they do already.

Side games balance has changed. This is significant in the current colour splash game which was my favourite. It has become a choice between pay or give up due to frustration. The Christmas game was absolutely boring with at least a week of unusable energy being acquired after the quest was completed. Other side games recently I have not bothered with. The fun goes when they can only be played with significant cash.

Regatta. It is absolutely noticeable that 135 tasks are becoming fewer while tasks below 80 points are proliferating. Feed tasks, mining tasks, helicopter tasks and other enjoyable tasks do not happen with 135 points anymore. We wait all day, dumping hundreds of low value tasks, for just one 135 task. It has become a chore not a pleasure. Pointless paying to generate a task when 99/100 times you will have to dump it.

The game used to be fun. It is not fun any longer. Great job developers. I suggest you recalibrate your random generator.

Time to quit, but, I am a patient sort with a friendly team. However, if this is not re-balanced very soon I will have no team left! Then, I too will quit. We have already stopped taking in new members as more members would mean more pressure to secure worthwhile tasks.

Don't shoot yourselves in the foot!

[KittyC]

I agree with Brecon’s post here on both the regatta low point task spawning as well as the cash needed for mini games which are IMO getting tedious and not worth playing anyway let alone worth the cash...the Christmas rescue (totally agree) was pointless and I finished it in literally a few days so had it sitting for well over a week (and with house of luck and gifts from friends all going to useless energy for a game I finished)? So I had nothing to do but randomly cut down trees and find a few chests here and there...and wasn’t worth the searching either (very boring).

I found the gum ball mini game my first experience with spending some significant town cash on but figured I just wasn’t good at dexterity. Then I kept falling on the snowboard game so I spent lots of cash to finish levels there...noticing a pattern here guys...

But this colorblock one is ridiculous...one big problem is the point goals are incompatible with the leaderboard goals for the first time - ie to get the arrow drill things you must only match 5 - doing better (matching more) means different boosts and thus a lower leaderboard position and sometimes to beat a level means you benefit from other boosts...so again your position on the board remains low...who came up with that? Also, since I also play fishdom and other matching games from you that means I (and you) know the number of moves to complete each level on this colorblock game is ridiculous and especially unachievable if you’re messing around trying to get a high ranking with the stupid arrow drills. Between extending the moves and buying boosters, I spent $100 on ONE level, no kidding ...was shocked to see my town cash balance after I did that level! So I hope you’re happy about that as now I am done dumping cash on that game - it’s really frustrating as I was looking forward to a fun mini game and getting nice prizes...I’ve collected most of those so now I’m playing for rank and that’s crazy to spend money on that with no reward but a stupid lottery where I could spend at least $20 per level to get what $2 or $5 after completing what 10-20 levels? We aren’t stupid, guys...c’mon.

My favorite mini game so far was the fast food one...I played that one just for pure enjoyment. I liked the fishing and airplane ones a lot too. And i liked the Halloween one too (ghost castle). Funny how you didn’t list any of those on your “choose your favorite mini game” facebook post - why not ?

It would be fun to do a mini game relating to maybe our zoos? (I love the zoo concept but we don’t do much with it in the game). Maybe stacking cargo (a la tetris) with ships? There are lots of ideas that come to mind that would be more fun that these - it seems you are now designing the minis to JUST make money and not make the game more fun / enjoyable.

Side games balance has changed...It has become a choice between pay or give up due to frustration. The Christmas game was absolutely boring with at least a week of unusable energy being acquired after the quest was completed. Other side games recently I have not bothered with. The fun goes when they can only be played with significant cash !

[Mayfield]

They really have managed to make regattas a misery but I disagree about the Christmas event. I thought that it was a clever, well drawn and lovely side game and they gave us two really nice decorations from it. I think it was a kindness that they made it fairly easy so that players of all levels had a good chance to complete it, knowing a lot of us would be busier with other things or traveling and generally playing less getting ready for Christmas. Yes, I also finished it pretty early, but I can't see complaining about them giving plenty of time for others to finish too.

I've never liked the color blocks mini game and hadn't noticed it being especially worse this time, but these mini games are far too frequent especially now they are filling the moments in between with the new events that aren't really anything at all, just keeping score of one game aspect for a few days. I'm ignoring all of those and more and more of the mini-events.

[Cuddz]

I disagree re the Christmas event. They gave us an easy way to gain prizes just for playing as we would do anyway.
Yes a lot of players finished quickly, but lower level players had a chance too, which we don’t see often.
But as they say, you can’t please everyone, and there will always be someone to complain.

I agree about the mini games though, they are getting more and more a cash cow.
It’s virtually impossible to complete levels without tcash input.
Whilst I understand this is business for Playrix, they really should be more considerate of their players.
As for leaving the game altogether, Playrix won’t even notice, as one leaves a newbie joins.

[missy.]

I agree regarding the latest Color Splash event. All I want is to collect the prize, but the last leg has been impossible to complete any levels. I completed maybe two and have used at least 100 blocks. They have made it impossible. I will not pay cash to complete it. Either I get the decoration or I don’t. But it shouldn’t be this hard. It is supposed to be a fun side game, not the main event and it shouldn’t be impossible to collect the decoration. It didn’t used to be this bad (although at times it has been pretty bad) but it has gotten worse.

ETA: I finally managed it. So glad this event is over for me! The decor is pretty, but it should be easier to obtain.