Hard truth what's wrong with the game - Veterans point of view

Nk3 · Feb 8th 2019

I started this game when I was about 10 years old. I knew nothing and was beaten EDITED out every game. A lot of action, tons of players and battling across the servers.

Today I'm 22 and a lot have changed since i first started.

I love this game, all time favorite and a huge part of my life. I'm sad to say this journey might soon be over if the game keeps heading the same direction as we are today.

From my point of view:

1. We are pushing out way to many servers. There aren't any damn players on the servers, 900 compared to the 10 000 we saw before. It was a great move merging the nordics. BUT NOW!?

I have been saying that for 5 years...

2. The hero system. It's straight up pathetic what it has become. A gold digging moneymaking machine. Is it in your opinion a accurate battle when you have a "guy/girl" (what a great improvement, love to have visuals of how my hero looks. totally useless, the star was good enough) killing over 100 phalanxes?

Is it a fun way to force players into using the hero as a tool for attack?

There is no way any attacker will ever attack without their hero and the extra 20%. You made the game incompletely boring and predictable. Without a hero you could use strategies between own villages and attack multiple targets with different villages. You have made sure this isnt an option.

The hero is better than damn Ezio from assassins creed.

Gold use is absurd to buy items.

Cosmetics are unnecessary for a dying game with the player base that we have today.

Off/deff bonus is ridiculous.

3. Gold use, this might have something to do with the hero. But since you are pushing players to buy a lot of gold to buy items giving advantages increase the gap between new players and experienced players. That is a big turnoff for new players. Also between experienced players it increases the gap and I'm quite sure people stop playing for this reason. The joy has died and the hero/gold have taken over.

Instead of a thriving community we are stuck with few goldusing people trying to win the servers by having the most cash in real life.

As a student Im trying to get by with only a 600 gold for the start. Rest I earn from the "*dio*s" on the auction house. I can stay in the game with 600 and still be top 50.

4. Cosmetics and graphical. Travian looks better than ever, it is smooth to play and the tasks in the beginning get the game going faster. As far as I know we wont attract more players upgrading the looks every other month. You need to start listening to the community.

I got plenty of ideas. I do get that you need to earn money for servers and people working. More players means more money, we dont need to milk the few we have. We need to attract new ones that are here to stay and not scared away by the experienced ones.

The first thing that will need to go is the hero.

The special servers were fun and all but it still has the gold and hero issues. Instead of the hero we should try to use generals and you should be able to have multiple.

Please bring back the old travian, the travian that we love. We dont want travian 3, we want a hybrid of travian 3 and something new. Travian 4 and its versions was a downgrade.

Best regards

Nk3

PS. I love the game, I just want it to be as good as it can be.

Tricky Martin · Feb 8th 2019

improvise, adapt, overcome

haiku:

you are 22

get money

Qvintex · Feb 11th 2019

so the main problem i see, is you not being able to afford gold? Find a job and you will be good.

Deux ex machina_COM · Feb 11th 2019

Qvintex wrote:

so the main problem i see, is you not being able to afford gold? Find a job and you will be good.

what a stupid thing to say, from an obvious NOOB

Frozen Angel · Feb 11th 2019

yeah and no

1 - they are already shrinking servers and merging but yes I agree with your point 1 somewhat - we need servers with more players in them

2 - Absolutely disagreed. Hero was amazing addition. It added a lot of strategical thinking to the game - attack planning - lot of new parameters to stuff. You just wanna play an old version easier game. loving the hero items they should add more complex stuff. Loving the deff off bonus and level up system and special tribe bonuses.

3 - who said this is a free to win game. Its free to play not free to win.

regarding newer players disadvantage - is because there is no good guide for them imo not because of the gold.

If just there was a better tutorial - or a system explaining the profits of gold club and that they can stack their early gold to buy it they want at start and a better guide and explanation about how raiding works when they are out of bp a lot would not get destroyed at their first experience.

that has nothing to do with gold.

4 - not sure what is your point here. yes travian looks better. it still can be improved but I love the new version.

Also need to add the special servers and versions are amazing and travian got better every year. I'll fight whoever disagrees.

asterix.ns · Feb 11th 2019

Quote

1. Travian (v2.x) was ranked at second place in the medium games category of Gamesdynamite's Superbrowsergame Award in 2005, and was chosen as the Most Innovative Browser Game of 2005 by Coole Browsergames.

2. In 2006, Travian (v3.6) won the Superbrowsergame Award, in the large games category, and was chosen as the Browser Game of the Year 2006 by Coole Browsergames.

3. Travian (probably the the old versions, it was before v4.x introduction) was chosen as the Browser Game of the Year 2011 in the classic games category by GforGaming's jury.

* () comments not belong in quote, but are usefull to explain the quoted text about (all) Travian awards, and which versions were awarded...

There is much space for improvments but TG always show so much greed for money, even while developing a new Travian-like space opera (Imperion during 2010-2012) they charged money for gold in the bug-filled Beta test versions (Closed and Open Beta) - spent two and a half years trying to give my best as test player, but the last half year i was making a guide (with screenshots) how to use all the unsolved bugs to get as single player in the top 50-100 in all categories (except endgame), w/o using any gold...

Nk3 · Feb 12th 2019

Frozen Angel wrote:

yeah and no

1 - they are already shrinking servers and merging but yes I agree with your point 1 somewhat - we need servers with more players in them

2 - Absolutely disagreed. Hero was amazing addition. It added a lot of strategical thinking to the game - attack planning - lot of new parameters to stuff. You just wanna play an old version easier game. loving the hero items they should add more complex stuff. Loving the deff off bonus and level up system and special tribe bonuses.

3 - who said this is a free to win game. Its free to play not free to win.

regarding newer players disadvantage - is because there is no good guide for them imo not because of the gold.

If just there was a better tutorial - or a system explaining the profits of gold club and that they can stack their early gold to buy it they want at start and a better guide and explanation about how raiding works when they are out of bp a lot would not get destroyed at their first experience.

that has nothing to do with gold.

4 - not sure what is your point here. yes travian looks better. it still can be improved but I love the new version.

Also need to add the special servers and versions are amazing and travian got better every year. I'll fight whoever disagrees.

Show All

I dont know how you can appreciate Travian games using the hero for milking money. Absurd prices on the auction house.

And also the hero is limiting possibilities, we must attack with the hero and we must defend with the hero. There is no other way and it is very limiting.

Think a strategy game like Starcraft 2. If they implemented a unit in the game that you MUST use to be able to win, removing every different play style and decreasing the players different options of how to play the game. It makes the game very repetitive and predictable.

Maybe you have not played the game for as long as I have but I can tell you it is completely dead compared to before. All Nordic countries on one server a 27 million potential player base and we have less than a thousand players on every server.

Sure the game looks better but the gameplay has not been improved. Except for the beginning where things have gotten sped up

Nk3 · Feb 12th 2019

Qvintex wrote:

so the main problem i see, is you not being able to afford gold? Find a job and you will be good.

Im a student, did you even read?

I am always top placed. Its not the problem.

But the gold use takes away the joy and the game has become pay to win. We are not attracting new players with this gameplay.

If the game was alive and we hade 10k players on every server I would not give a single s*it. But paying to be the "coolest" and "best" of 400 players is just ridiculous

Wolkenengel · Feb 12th 2019

Money keeps things going, almost everyone is doing it. Paid users/accounts get benefits over f2p people, what's so hard to grasp?

And besides, I saw a fair share of accounts on the far top with like only 20€ gold used over the 200+ days servers lasted, which is next to nothing.

You can use almost no gold and if you're a skilled player you'll easily outbest the gold mountain accounts.

Gumi · Feb 12th 2019

There are two forces:

We - players - The mighty jedi - The light side of a force.

TG - creators - well let's call them Ewoks.

We want to have fun. Creators want to have profit.

I often find myself reading posts of players trying to explain or even rationalize TG actions. And I believe we shouldn't. Let them take care of their buisness, and we should take care of our buisness which is making game more fun.

That's why it comes to me naturally to understand Your frustration, and I agree with many of Your points.

More players means more fun - sure.
There are less players then before - sure.
Pointing out gold as main reason of that - half-sure. Gold whaling is big factor, but there are other factors too: tons of new games on browsers, toxicity of forum/game maniacs you can often experience in game, old grudges hold for too long, and probably many more factors I didn't mention.

I must agree that gold whaling is frustrating, but whales to feel succesfull need to put themself on some kind of background. And like You mentioned it is getting smaller. This is why I am very excited to see changes like artwork cooldown, and am looking forward for more to make this game more populated and fun for everybody.

Frozen Angel · Feb 12th 2019

Nk3 wrote:

I dont know how you can appreciate Travian games using the hero for milking money. Absurd prices on the auction house.

And also the hero is limiting possibilities, we must attack with the hero and we must defend with the hero. There is no other way and it is very limiting.

Think a strategy game like Starcraft 2. If they implemented a unit in the game that you MUST use to be able to win, removing every different play style and decreasing the players different options of how to play the game. It makes the game very repetitive and predictable.

Maybe you have not played the game for as long as I have but I can tell you it is completely dead compared to before. All Nordic countries on one server a 27 million potential player base and we have less than a thousand players on every server.

Sure the game looks better but the gameplay has not been improved. Except for the beginning where things have gotten sped up

Show All

I played this game for past 12 years

I know its dead compared to before. but hero is not the reason. shrugs

In my opinion the extra parameters included in game with heroes made the game more balanced for each tribe and added new narratives and aspects to game. the game play improved 100%. You can't say a hero is like a troop that you must use to win. Hero is not like other troops at all. other troops don't have a life bar and are not editable as hero is!

asterix.ns · Feb 12th 2019

The key is not about money, hero system or making the game playable for more different skilled players - TG introduced since v4.x a online gambling system through the auctions, as vital part od the game.

Most similar games have something like Travian Plus or the Gold club, but bying game currency to get some ingame advantages by placing bids on virtual auctions against other players, that is a pretty unique idea for online strategy games, where "the house always wins" gambling strategy has a good mask to avoid rules applying to online gambling.

IMHO, that is the main difference to the awarded old Travian versions, and certainly the reason for nostalgic complains against the new versions - playing Travian and other online strategy games since 2005., and definitely one of the "old grumpy players" mentioned earlier in this thread...

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