Send a Message: DO NOT GEM RECRUIT TIME!

Midoki have proven to be greedy in so many areas. If not we would have seen fixes to all the areas that are a monetary hog. One person mentioned three attacks with gemming costing a dollar, that's awful, no different from the English Fruit Machines in the chippy that cost a pound per play. Greed.
They would have fixed the excessive cost of buying grog with gems. Greed.
They would have fixed the pirate ship taking ALL your crew with the inadvertent touch of the pirate hat on the main screen. I could go on.
I don't mind paying a little to buy gems. But their excessive drain on these gems is becoming sickening.

 

A simple fix would be to allow more than one Tavern....

This would speed up recruitment times a lot.

 

Sorry to tell you but Midoki confirmed that there will be no second tavern

 

We apprecaite the need for Midoki to differentiate against others, but this is a short sighted move which will contribute to the death of the game. Multiple taverns allows you to speed up times but also helps with donations.

Long wait times are not going to encourage lots of players to spend gems to speed up recruitment. It will mean lots of people will get bored and leave. As there are less players then the game will be less compelling and more of the hardcore players who regularly buy gems will also find it less challenging and will drift off.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, the 50% reduced wait holiday gave us all an idea of how much more fun the game can be. Having shown that an accelerated version possible and more enjoyable, it makes the ordinary version feel slow and dull in comparison. Midoki need to know that they've raised expectations and if they don't lift their game then ultimately they will suffer....

 

I am waiting, watching, and hoping, but I am not buying gems or even spending the ones I have until it costs far less.

I clearly do not have a problem spending money on the game, but I always have a problem with paying what I consider an unfair price. The 50% off sale just made me realize how much I was overpaying. Sorry about that.

 

Two weeks without gemming. I have survived and still play, but boy is it tiring to wait.

I guess the game is designed more for those that will not gem after spending a little for a fourth builder.

How about if we reach "insane PP gamer" level after a certain purchase level of say US$100 or more that cuts recruiting time to half? I should be that level on both of my islands by now (wink wink). I think we have a lot of people at insane gamer level with PP.

And on a bright note, I watched two replays that were actually accurate per the previous gameplay. My guess is that replays have been so inaccurate because the saved information does not include the server settings at the time of gameplay so a replay with previous server settings plays at the current settings. As long as the servers are not changed the replay remains accurate. just a guess. I am not sure if the reasons were ever mentioned here.

With both my maxed PH8 and PH7 islands loot grab is no longer any issue as long as I am not pushing rank, and I see no reason to push rank with the current gem price. One cannot make up for a devastating loss by waiting an hour plus for each of the three to five battles it will take to make up a loss over level 700.

/RAMBLEOFF

 

My son has mostly stopped playing because of the long recruitment times. I finally finished build out of my island and mostly play to donate crew to my guildmates and help with the rumbles. I spent a lot of gems on the 1/2 recruitment time weekend and threw a lot of gold overboard in the process. It was fun to be able to play fast without the high associated costs. We had some massive rumble scores too since everyone was gemming. Everyone has backed off now.

 

Plunder Pirates is the ONLY game that recruits with one tavern. Waiting an hour or more to recruit is the norm. Tack on 8 minutes for the guild ship troops you receive, because you probably give them too and they take time to recruit.

Looking at some games I have installed now at my current play level. I will convert each game to PP terminology.

Let's compare:

Plunder Pirates:
One tavern plus guild ship, lowest troop training time 37 seconds, no simultaneous taverns recruiting unless you count the begging for troops with the guild ship use, approximate recruit time for tavern of 65 is one hour or more even with the use of the "Pirate Catcher" which is just a way to obfuscate the recruiting time. Note that the PC highest levels are not available for PH7 islands. Errands and exploration do not adjust based on level so higher level players get more.

Clash of Clans: lowest value troop takes 20 seconds to train, can have SIX "taverns" working at the same time and can queue extra
Allows boosting all "taverns" (Barracks and Dark Barracks) for a period of time using gems. Worst part of this game is battling with such weaklings that hundreds are required each battle.

Boom Beach: lowest troop takes one minute, can have SIX "taverns" (landing craft) working at the same time, reload is only 24 minutes if you have one or more tank loaded landing craft.
This game's major flaw is not related to recruit time; it is having but one builder. The challenge bases really help grab some loot when you need it and the dives are like PP errands but actual have value in line with the player level.

This Means War: grunt training time 20 seconds, can have THREE "taverns" working simultaneously: Barracks, War factory, Aircraft Factory
This game has a neat option where one can boost a weapon for a time period with their "gold" (red mercury). As with PP there seems to be a shortage of "grog" (supplies). Even with three taverns this game takes the longest to recruit a battle party.

 

Eye-opening information there @Super-Nor
I need to download some of these games to kill time waiting for PP crew to bake.

 

@Tex
If I were going to pick my favorites of these I would use the following order:

Plunder Pirates (spent a zillion), Boom Beach (spent nothing), This Means War (spent $20), and last, but very very very very last, Clash of Clans (spent $150 always hoping something would make it better).

Recruiting time for Boom Beach is always less than 30 minutes, as far as I have seen.

 

I totally agree. I like the insane groupie thingy. lol

 

Nice comparison. It's not quite the full picture though, as you don't consider the number of troops you can take into battle. I'd add:

Clash of Clans: the quickest army that's viable to use is Barbs, Archers, Minions. At end game you have 6 'taverns' and can take 240 troops into battle, or 275 if you count the 'guild ship'. Total training time: 15 minutes, or 17 minutes if you count the 'guild ship' troops.

Also - your army for the next battle can be training while you're hitting 'next' and while you're battling. So actual waiting time is much lower. And you can speed up training time 4x for 10 gems per tavern for 2 hours. You only need to boost 3 to raid more or less continuously - 30 gems for continuous raiding for 2 hours!

Boom beach: At end game you have 8 boats with 24 spaces each. Lowest training time is 24 minutes (warriors), longest is 72 minutes (tanks). BUT if your troops don't die in battle they come back to base with you. Depending on your troop choice, troop level and 'Pirate Rank' it's possible to raid without losses, so you can play continuously for free! (at least until you reach really high 'Pirate Rank')

Maybe someone can fill in the shortest training time in Plunder Pirates for max level troops - mine aren't max yet so it's only going to get worse!

Personally I've spent no money on PP, but have spent quite a bit on both Clash and Boom. Not purely because of troop training time, but definitely a factor.

 

@motto
Thanks for your addition to the thread. I appreciate the information you added. I am no expert on the other games noted.

I have troops maxed in PP for my PH8 base and for my PH7 base and these are each over an hour. PH7 is longer actually due to the fact I can only have PC2 as the game is designed. Donating to the guild ships of others adds 6-10 minutes and that should be added if one accepts troops on the GS and donates in return. So roughly 1:10 recruit time. For my PH8 base I generally use: two HGs, two WDs, eight bombers, eight sky raiders, six thieves, four brutes, and gunners to fill. For the PH7 I do not use HGs but use more thieves and gunners.

 

Just wanted to add (for non PH8s only - sorry) - there are a number of players (PH 5,6,7 &8) who don't protect their PHs ?!?

For those of us below PH8 we can get up to 8BP just for 1* (destroying PH only) - using only a couple of gunners. This strategy can be used while waiting for rest of crew to recruit.

(Apologies if this has already been mentioned in other threads).

 

I'm officially done gemming after the last fiasco of the maxed rumble. I doubt I will ever get those gems back, just like the 4k gems I will not get back for buying the max gem pack the day before the sale, or the gems Chris promised me on bug issues, and then ignored all my emails for months after. No integrity there, none.

 

Go into iTunes, open your account, and open your Purchase History. From there find the gem purchase, and use the "Report a Problem" link to report your feelings to Apple. They are good about making things right!

I have spent $900 on this game to date and been a good sport about all the problems, but I am *done* with throwing money at this game!

 

I feel that we as players are being forced to spend money on gems to play. The long recruitment time even with level 3 PC is killing the game for me. I always reward (pay) good games but it is too costly here! I know all have been said before but right now I am on PP and I have ran out of things to do after 5 mins, so I am here to rant.

 

Come on Midoki. You know how people feel about this. More importantly, you know how people who are willing to spend money feel about this. Get is sorted and slash recruitment time in half. We, the people, demand it!!

You should be trying to keep people interested in this game. Especially those with maxed bases given that we appear to have little to look forward too with any upcoming updates?? Battling is the only fun now, but not at the costs you have appended to recruitment times. It's a shambles!!

Sir Oink - WP

 

Still not gemming. It has almost been one month. I can say it sure makes battling less fun. I can usually get in 6 battles for each of my islands a day if I watch the notifications of recruiting being done and try to maintain my normal work and family schedules. Nothing like battling ten or more times in an hour though.

I also stopped using the GS almost completely. Begging for pirates makes the game less fun too.

I hope the update brings something enjoyable to the game besides longer recruiting times and more expensive walls.

It would be so nice if islands with lower than maxed PH levels could get new features too. My PH7 island is maxed now too and I have no intention of bumping up the PH to get new stuff there.