First off, I’d like to note that I’ve also played WWE Champions (another game created by Scopely) in the past and the same problems that made me stop playing that game are starting to become glaringly obvious not only in this game but it seems to be Scopely’s M.O. in general.
1 –Scopely only seems to care about the game’s client being stable enough for players to buy packs. When it comes to the actual servers where CUSTOMERS play, they are a laggy, buggy mess that most times (regardless of platform) are dang near unplayable. Anytime I have to restart my client (regardless of whether I’m playing on mobile or PC) multiple times do to crashes or constant server lag on a daily basis, there is a major problem. The latest update, which was supposed to make the servers and clients more stable has instead made them more laggy and buggy. QA goes a LONG way in fixing these issues. Also, I know that Scopely are using players as QA as well as (I hope) in house QA, but if you aren’t going to listen to feedback, what’s the point of QA (Quality Assurance).
2—Scopely doesn’t care about server balance AT ALL. If they actually did, they would actually have servers where whales and wallet warriors can run rampant, and leave those of us who honestly don’t have the funds to do so to actually have fun playing the game. Right now, on the server I play on, there are a couple of alliances of wallet warriors who basically bully those who aren’t able to spend 100s and 1000s of dollars on this game. How would Scopely think that was fun? It seems to me (as a player of two of their games so far—WWE Champions and STFC) that they don’t give a damn about player retention for those that can’t whale out for it, and that’s sad because the game actually isn’t a bad game in principle. It’s just in practice, this game is frankly an unbalanced bit of garbage.
3—There is a lack of functionality when it comes to the diplomacy system.
Why is there only one setting for marking an alliance as an enemy? Why did Scopely not make a setting for untrustworthy alliances, like…I don’t know…an untrustworthy tag? I mean you have it as a part of the faction system. Right now, on your server, if an alliance is set to an enemy, it’s automatically an all-out KoS (Kill on Sight) sentence. Why not have a tag for those alliances that aren’t fully at war, but that aren’t very well-liked or trusted by an alliance.
If you are going to allow multiple alliances to either aid a defending or attacking side during a territory skirmish, why aren’t allies shown up as green, and enemies show up as red? Is it the point that you want friendly fire, Scopely?
Why can’t a single, non-allied player be targeted as an enemy? I’m sure that if Scopely is actually paying attention to their servers, they would know that such players exist.
4—The story arcs should be for all.
Why have story arc events that only whales can complete? For instance, I give the “Syndicate Advancement SLB” event. On a server where the whales and wallet warriors have taken a foothold, there is no way an actual free-to-play player, heck or even someone who buys one pack a month (say for instance the monthly Battle Pass) can actually compete in an event like that. If you are going to have events like this, at least change the way your servers are set up so that whales are on a server to play amongst themselves.
Second, let’s take the “Turf Wars” event as an example. On the server where I play, the top ten players in the individual leaderboard are whales and are the top five alliances in the alliance leaderboards. Most of the rest of us don’t have an inkling of a chance to compete, because we aren’t (for whatever reason) spending 1000s of dollars on this game. How is that balanced and fair? Is it meant to be balanced, or does Scopely only care about the money that’s spent on packs?
Also, for a player who chooses not to be in an alliance, there are a lot of events and activities that they can’t participate in. If we go by April 4th, 2022 events, a single player with no alliance wouldn’t be able to participate in any event that involved alliance play, those are quite a few, especially during the “Turf Wars” event.
5—How is it logical that a level 44 player is able to battle a level 29 player? How is that even fair in any sense of the word? I can understand players being able to hit other players +/- five (5) levels in disparity, once players hit level 25, but anything above that, and it just becomes a griefing session and frankly will drive and has driven many players away from this game. This is one of the main mechanics that needs to be changed in this game.
6—What’s the point of having the means to report a player for misconduct, if you, Scopely aren’t going to actually create a proper way to report them.
Anyone that plays STFC knows or should know by now that clicking “Report” when targeting a player in STFC’s piss-poor chat system doesn’t absolutely nothing. No matter how many times we try to use this method, it is basically a placebo—it does nothing. Why not have a proper system to report players when there is serious misconduct. On the server I play on, I’ve read with my eyes as certain players have verbally threatened other players with not verbal and emotional abuse, but have also threatened with physical abuse, even going so far as to threaten to find where another player lives and have threatened to show up at their door. What is the response from Scopely? A report button that does nothing and goes nowhere. The only way any real type of response is achieved is through live-chatting with customer service or tech support, and even then the abuser only gets at most a 24-hour ban.
Also, why are chat bans at a max of only 24-hours? If someone is a repeated offender, why isn’t there a permaban option? Why is the only permaban option available to those that hack or bot in your game?
I really wish Scopely would think about some of the things I’ve said here, because I know I’m not the only player that thinks about these issues. That said, at present, there is no way I would recommend this game or any Scopely game to anyone that asks me, because at the end of the day it is a waste of time and money, if Scopely isn’t going to remedy these issues.
