Player since launch and why I recently uninstalled.

TasteDaTang

I have been a player since day 1. Tapered off during the first few months because spell energy was so scarce, played very casually when inns were adjusted to give out more spell energy, and had a hardcore resurgence when COVID lockdowns put spell energy on the ground!

But lately, the bugs have gotten unbearable and the task lists have become chores rather than fun—many of the tasks are outright slaps in the face in light of the bugs in the game (e.g. heavy fortressing tasks when there is known bug that game restarts when using potions too fast or portkey tasks/plus 1920s task list when adventure sync is broken for all android users).

If I had suggestions to improve player experience:

-prioritize fixing crippling bugs so the game is playable (it’s been over a month now and the very major bugs from v2.18 remains unfixed: spell energy gifts causing game to freeze, potions causes game to crash, adventure sync broken for android, etc).

-introduce a way to invite friends for fortress battles. Cooperative fortressing using the few stragetic spells we have from our chosen professions is one of the few fun parts of the game, even more fun if we can reliably recruit specific friends with whom we can communicate during battle.

-continue to make spell energy more available—especially to barren locations—even after COVID changes are lifted. perhaps regenerating spell energy supply or just a more even ground energy and ingredients distribution. i picked up niantic games because i do walk and jog, but there is a huge disparity in gameplay experience between barren areas and spawn-dense areas.

-adversaries are BORING! adversaries were my biggest disappointment content-wise: the lesson plans were uninspired, cut and paste across the 3 professions, and the encounters themselves were flooded onto the map and i got sick of battling the bosses by the second adversary event. it is nothing more than a potion grind that halts the player’s walk for way too long a duration rather than encourage exploration. please overhaul adversaries before releasing the much the bigger Lethal bosses. make the encounters feel earned and special (if i can make a parallel, it would be with giovanni battles in pokemon Go—the player does a questline and fights sub bosses before getting the honor of facing the big baddie—and he is not easy to fight, but at least is scaled by player level so everyone has a chance to beat him). i would be horribly disappointed if we had an event where we were spammed into **** through 12 voldemort encounters like we currently do with feared adversaries. introduce stragetic spells and/or team battles against adversaries.

-make storyline tasks much easier and somewhat relevant to the actual story. rather than random tasks like “collect 6 brilliant runestones” (why?), how about “place image of XXX” then proceed to have to story talk about XXX. move all the difficulty to the bonus sections for the hardcore players.

-make ways available for newer/weaker players to be able to catch up (mainly ways to get restricted section books and access to book 2 of combat training without having to complete book 1) and ways for older players to foster newer/weaker players (for example, keep the enemy count and difficulty the same regardless of additional players joining a battle—so no one has to worry that an incompetent wizard/freeloader/somone whose game crashes is causing the battle to be harder just because they joined).

-the 1920s release came at terrible timing. i actually dont mind the walking—it was the main reason i play these games after all—but having an added task list during an ongoing pandemic where various places are in strict lockdown is just bad. take away the task list for now and assure your player base they can wait to walk for future events.

-MONETIZATION: if the game doesnt make money, then there will be no game. i have no problem with it, but seeing the bonus video tasks just makes me sad because it seems cheap and desperate—meanwhile there are so many wasted opportunities where a player like me would have dropped dough. i will pay for a good experience and even more if I can better play it with friends.

-introduce a premium bus ticket to warp a player to their friends’ fortresses or lethal adversary battle

-edible dark marks really should not drop from fighting adversary guards. someone who can roam spawn-dense areas too easily accrue EDMs and never have to buy them nor use them until forced to by tasks (although, NEVER have a task require a player to use more EDMs than would be provided by the event—it’s a sore play against those who are under strict lock down).

-gold gifts are frankly too generous for those who play frequently—they essentially earn more chances to get more gold. i play relatively casually, but by targeting trace charms, i was able to earn regular gold gifts and thus gold through gift exchanges. just when i was at peak interest in the game, i found myself never needing to buy anything since i had a steady supply of in-game resources. perhaps a once per 3 day limit on gold gift drops?

-slow down and present a quality product. rushing stuff out to meet some deadline and forcing it through despite even worse bugs with the release does not inspire confidence. it just hemorrhages players who are frustrated with a worsening gameplay experience.