Took a while  to understand  financial breaks = financial brakes. 

 I tend to agree with your  suggestion of 

'' You want to get rid of small clans. You have been taking steps to achieve this for two years now.'' 

They really only want the kind of players who in the persuit of nonsense, spend wads of silly amounts of cash like you have before. 

As to 

''The final blow will be raising the diffuculty of SH Siege so that it will be impossible for a single player to defend it succesfully''. 

You must have foresight, insider knowledge or you read about this somewhere.

Given what generally happens when they introduce some new feature and it appears to go in unexpected directions, is they then try to rectify it ,so this wouldn't be a surprising step to take.

I heard this from two different sources that both refered to Plarium as the source of this news. 

Your assumption 'what generally happens when they introduce some new feature and it appears to go in unexpected directions, is they then try to rectify it' has very little backing. This happened three times in six years to my knowledge and if the requested solution deviates the game too far from their plans, they discard the complaints, so I am not very optimistic.

And oh, I assume you are not a lvl 40 player. If you think you can get that high without spending about a thousand dollars, you're going to be in for a nasty surprise.

 Agreed ,they seldom change things players ask for , but that's not what I meant.

They introduced strongholds and sieges and everythng seemed to be fine until single players  started their own.

They dont want this, whether it's just because of complaints , or something else is unknown.

This is the kind of thing I was referring to.

No I'm not level 40 , I see no need to fast track to get to there at the expense levels you describe.

So I understand everyone's frustration at the cost of playing the game at the top level both financially and timewise. However, I believe that Plarium is trying to accommodate both big and small players in the need for shards by increasing the number of troops in marches and only purple and gold marches will be made stronger.

Originally, we were not able to defend L6 SH and now we can solo them. With next year upgrades of addition gems and shaman levels we will again be able to defend Sh sieges.

They key to this game is to find a good group of people to play with at a level you are comfortable. Our clan has decided that we will concentrate on certain events because of RL and being financially able. The costs of events clearly outweigh the rewards and it is our competitive nature that gets us in trouble.

Plarium's downfall will be that the max players get bored, as I am now, with no goals or direction and stop spending. At this point in the game I'm a troop chucker whether at the Throne in Jot, Asgard towers, or trying to os a town with billions of small troops inside only to shield before burning. This has made me reevaluate both my time management and money spending.

I remember the good old days of Level 35 towns and balance of attacking or defending. Where there was a strategy to the game and the ability to play at any level.

Sorry for the ramble but it wont be long for this Viking to hang up his axe.

This site hosts two sets of people.  One set, the larger I think, come here to shop; the second come to play the game.

I belong to the second set so my only insight into what shopping is like comes from interactions in-game, the streamers and what is said on forums.  As far as I can tell the satisfaction for shoppers is rapid development and, to a lesser extent, keeping up with clanmates.  Shoppers measure their progress against the biggest spenders.  Plarium Global Ltd are focused on monetising the site and an impostant aspect of that is constantly to offer wider horizons so that there are always things for the shoppers to buy.

Shoppers love to moan and throughout the time that I have visited the site moans have abounded.

For gamers things are different.  The shoppers are part of the landscape but for much of the time can be ignored.  The peace treaty shield is at the core of the game and fends off a 10 or 50 T town/army as well as a 200B town/army.  Where that device is unavailable, as for example when trying to cope with interference in a siege defence, the existence of the interfering 10 or 50 T town/army is simply a part of the structure/rules which create the game.  Much of the gamers satisfaction comes from devising ways to cope with such things.

What will keep a gamer playing is not assuaging impatience by rapid development but rather the setting of short, medium and long term aims which offer satisfaction when achieved.

It had occurred to me that shoppers might also find satisfaction from setting achievable objectives for themselves and their clans but looking at the posts in this thread that is probably naive - impatience is too strong.

Were Plarium Global Ltd ever to adopt the aim of improving gameplay in parallel to monetizing the site the two sets of players would, i think, find common ground.  Improving communication and promoting clan development would be the single most important aspect with cutting down the number of servers and ensuring that new blood appears constantly in all kingdoms a good second.  If skill could be introduced into gameplay that might actually allow the two sets of people to play the game with each other.

However I will not hold my breathe for any such things to occur and we can all go on enjoying the site in our different ways.

Well, John, since you are a gamer that doesn't spend any money at all on this game, I consider you to be in a third category. Now I may have spent a lot of money last year, but that was the only year I did, and as I said, I don't regret since it was a covid year. I am currently a lvl 39 for over a year now. That surely doesn't make me a shopper as you call them since I am in this game for over five years. If I wanted to be a lvl 40 fast, 1000 USD would have gotten me about half way or in other words a weak lvl 40. So I chose to become a strong lvl 39 first and take my time to evolve. But even that had a considerable price ticket. 

I play in a single player clan with multiple accounts. One major and a few servants to keep the precious dust flowing, all in function of growing my main account and heavily reducing playing cost in the process. The main reason for this is that I am a tactical player, and I have the mentality of a field marshal. That makes me unbearable for some players. I understand that, but my results are good. The fact that I play in an unpopular time zone (SEA) is an additional problem. 

Now I don't know if you ever saw that video Plarium promoted where two major high lvl clans of more than 50 players each were facing off in Holmgang. Both teams were just mindlessly throwing billions of troops at each other. Zero tactics involved, just sending troops out non stop. That is what Plarium wants and if you look at the steps they took ever since it totaly confims this view. But that simply is not the game I want to play. I posted that shortly after.

So I like the post from I Smell Smoke! above. When he refers to 'the good old days of Level 35 towns and balance of attacking or defending. Where there was a strategy to the game and the ability to play at any level', that is exactly what I mean. I have been shouting it out here for two years : the game is unbalanced and fundamentally, that has nothing to do with how much money you spend, but how the game is currently built up. It is totally focussed on the big players and as it seems, even those big players are no longer happy with the current built. 

It's not looking good.

The new jotun troops size is simply rediculous from the sceen shots i have seen,even the white marches have gone from an average of 70m troops to around 300m troops ,over 400% increase.

What is the point of tower of odin levels for the clans to decide when to upgrade it to fight more troops,when plarium can decide to force that decision on us?

Plarium seriously now needs to give us the option to lower tower of odin levels

There is an option to destroy the clan Stronghold.  Upon rebuilding a lower level Tower of Odin could then be built.

I have no idea how much in the way of various resources would be needed but judging from the number of size four strongholds one of the middling size accounts in my kingdom erects it cannot be so very much.

good morning dear Plarium, you should go to work in the factory to understand the effort that must be made to earn money for a living, with these latest updates you are bringing all those people who wanted to play for pastime to their knees.

I will definitely stop playing and deeply regret all the money spent on this game.

with regret, goodbye

The cost in rss is not the problem. It is the amount of prescious dust, 1 jewel = 1 dust and it takes thousands to get a lvl 4 tower and the special knowledge that comes with it. It takes a multitude of that to upgrade to a lvl 5 tower of Odin so that's more than 40k dust lost. Make a count how much invaders you have to kill to get 40,000 dust. That is just your loss. A lvl 4 tower will cost almost 20k, not incliding the knowledge cost. Every siege cost an aditional 1000 dust and meanwhile you have to upgrade the jewels in your weapons. Likely it makes more sense to work on upgrading those and your skills and town skins.

If enemy only has a tower 4 you are still going to beat him without hitting the purple troops and likely you will get more soul shards. And yes, you will likely lose more troops. Then again you develop faster. That is the trade-off. Not that I am supporting Plarium here. I do agree with the people who say they paid for the SH and tower level they had so they should be able to decide to keep the level they are playing it without Plarium boldly interfering.

I feel i should point out that this update has not affected my clan as we only have a L3 tower of odin,we have been ready to take it to L4 for quite some time but the reason we keep it at L3 is purely the dust required at L4 is a big ask for a 2 man clan with no paying players.

i also understand that for those who are affected by the update that there are also workarounds,for example defending the new size blue marches will generate more points and shards than a purple march would of prior to upgrade,(however as you say the trade off beig the loss of more troops).

The bottom line though is it is still another case of plarium bowing to the request of the top spenders to stop them from getting bored,they could of gone about it in a differant way  such as just adding a few more levels to the tower of odin perhaps?.anyway what is done is done and people will either adapt or move on to another game.

Dog , perhaps you can explain  how the increase makes it less boring for top players.

It strikes me that it would make sense to  make it less borng for every player.

they need billions of shards to train T8 and  trillions of points to achive thier checkpoints and personal checkpoint levels,(for runic coins)something which is hard to do with  a number of big players in a clan all competing for those personal checkpoints,this is why there were so many break away one man clans created.

I  agree it would make sence to make the game less boring for all players ,but sadly that has not been the case with plarium for quite some time now

Level 4 tower i hear is also unaffected by the change. I like that. I was afraid it could kill the last event some players still play, which is CvC. They need these sieges as an entry level as many players are rollin around on 30trillion kills. 

However, i would really enjoy cvc more if it was actually clan vs another clan and not anyone whom can come and dump on you and spoiling the event. Technically it ends up not being clan vs clan. - But yes keep sieges free for all to attack during kingdom events obviously. 

Appreciate that, my understanding of  the boredom was wrong, it seems it's not the siege that's  currently boring ,but the slow accumulation of shards.

The asking by top players for this seems totally illogical, it's lke a dog chasing it's tail, plus they are shooting themselves in the foot, they are not going to get  faster progress this way, there's more troops to  be lost and replaced, which is only going to hurt their own pocket.

The concept from the other threads seem more  logical. i.e., that it's company  led

I have to correct myself here. What I wrote above is a no go. I raised the tower of Odin to five and now I can not even scratch those Jotun troops. Mind you I am lvl 40 now, with 10 seasonal town skins maxed, lvl8 troops maxed, weapon upgrades maxed, jewels near maxed, Helheim maxed, only the new aesir are 8/10 and special knowledge II - Health needs a few more levels. Yeah that makes a differrence, but since I can no longer score any soul shards from SH Siege, Aes progress is dead. And since I can no longer score on SH Siege, I can no longer win cvc. What am I still doing here?

So I have put a ten year shield on my accounts and I quit the game. Goodbye moneypit. Welcome free time! 

Plarium only wants players with walletsfull of cash , all other players are worth ZERO

I havn't spent money now since July.  I have been playing since 2017 and the latest updates especially moving the goal posts on the Stronghold  Siege is the death Knoll.  Why not make the option to build a more  competitive SH and put in higher leagues  for those "Bored"  then its their choice to upgrade or not.  Most clans now can't progress in Asgard because the Monsters have the Monopoly.  WRET and Co insured that from the start.  Jotenheim is Gone in 60 seconds unless you have trained a ludicrous amount of meat.  Which then ramps up your clans influence to ensure that you draw huge monster clans in CVC, Holmgang, Fury and KVK.  Only chance we had to get shards was doing peacetime sieges which were hard enough for us mere mortals, as its a challenge to get people motivated these days.  Even so we could manage, have some fun and get some shards.  Now Pink and gold are impossible.  Blue is as well and wipes out everyones T8 (Which is then a challenge to replace) but you have a shot if the right troop types are there.  Green/Silver and Grey are the level we can achieve now and we were not that weak before.  Last siege I managed 18M shards.  normally its four times that amount. plus you have to send and recall troops for the full 2 hours so you dont lose all your troops.    Its match fixing of the highest order, the game is rigged for failure and non progression unless you spend a fortune.  I sense this is PLariums last hoorah and they will hope that people will spend large sums in order to progress then cancel the game.  I for one am not paying for PLariums christmas party!!  You are supposed to be clever people and the only conclusion I can come to is you want the game to end.   Seasonal store skins have gone up from 3M to 7M as well... you are having a laugh seriously ......