Formerly great game takes a nosedive

I am writing this from the perspective of a serious gamer. I was one of the leaders in the strongest team in this game (at the time of my departure) so this review comes from the perspective of a hard core player so it may not apply to all.

Rival kingdoms began as a very good game. Even with a long beta that gave early players an advantage for a while, with many levels to climb and lots to do, players kept busy as they grew their kingdoms. And there were lots of kingdoms. But as the bulk of players started to catch up to similar levels, the game took a drastic turn.

In the first 4 months players were allowed to climb in stronghold level from 1-14. In the past 8 we were allowed to climb two. Yes. Two. Because there was so little forward momentum, players converged.. And big teams took over the game. Smaller kingdoms had a very difficult time keeping a foothold in the game. Because of the slow development of defense, both offense and defense had to constantly be retuned as players were basically playing the SAME content over and over and after a while, a good player can beat anything.

Adding to this leveling, or lack of leveling issue, the developers took to including events every single solitary weekend, which REQUIRED competitive players to stay strapped to their devices for long three day weekends, competing in events that were grueling, exhausting and had well known cheats built in (like purposely dropping player score until they were getting noob strongholds to compete against this. This well known strategy was known as 8-1-8.) There was literally NO way to do these events without either paying money.. Real money.. Or giving up all weekend free time. Usually both.

Competition became a joke within the game. The kingdom wars were seriously unbalanced. My kingdom which had only maxed 16 players frequently ran roughshod over kingdoms with strongholds as low as SH8. It was not fun for us.. It was not fun for them.

The developers tried to fix this by introducing Relic Wars.. A much more difficult event (to their credit) by forcing players to choose a different ancient for every attack. The relics were supposed to have attack and defensive bonuses that would stay with the kingdoms until challenged and beaten. Unfortunately, true to RK developers track history, at the last moment, the developers removed the bonus, leaving only a pixilated tin monument as"reward" for giving all of our team players serious indigestion every day for weeks at a time.

As a leader of a powerful kingdom, I got to a point where I spent all my time trying to retain players from rage quitting or leaving, constantly moving about looking for more of a challenge (it doesnt exist) or consoling them about the many unfair and unbalanced rules that had taken over the game. It just was NOT FUN anymore.

So, after some soul searching, I said goodbye to my beloved kingdom, unloaded the game, and have regained my weekends. I miss the Rival Kingdoms that was. The balanced interesting game it started out to be, but I do not miss the stale, money hungry beast it had become, and based on Space Apes track record (Samurai Siege) I will not be investing in anymore of their games.

Jamesalot about Rival Kingdoms: Ruination, v1.0.38