Opinion: TSTO Will Not Innovate & Should Die
I'm sure that this topic is polarizing. Let me start off by saying that I like this game. I'm not sure why as I do not find it "fun". In a way it's relaxing like a sort of virtual zen garden. I've been playing the game since it's launch and I feel like it's winding down. Instead of a slow, sad death would it be better if EA pulled the plug?
The game launched in 2012, almost 6 years ago. In all that time I can not think of a single interesting innovation added to the game. As far as core mechanics it has worked in a similar way through much of its history. Either pay for donuts to buy premium items for a world building sim or farm virtual currency to make it a free to play experience. I'll come back to this topic. However the core experience has not changed. Small quality of life measures have been implemented. The city hall was granted the ability to find particular citizens, the unemployment office lets you send all springfielders on jobs at once (at the cost of virtual currency). Let's keep in mind these changes were not introduced to make the game more interesting, but with increasing characters just to make it playable. As far as gameplay very little has been attempted. "Mini games" like the rocket, digsite and submarine were added as chance games to win a prize. The monorail was added and provides another way to farm donuts. Springfield heights was added to increase space and make a portion of your town look awful. The single biggest attempt at expanding the scope of the game was also the biggest disaster: krustyland.
In all of this where is the real innovation people have all but given up even asking about? Day and night cycles, more impactful ways to interact with neighbors, real mini games, more control over animated tasks, how about a storage system in which you can actually find things?
While the gameplay is business as usual (stale), the business side has become much more aggressive. While donut prices for cash have always been ridiculous, for example $10 buys 132 donuts which is not enough to buy even a single premium character in many cases. $100 buys you 2400 donuts which seems like a lot but will not go very far. The unspoken promise to the player however is the multiplier. By investing enough into premium items with multipliers the farming can become efficient enough to make paying for donuts obselite. In order to do this the player must invest countless hours or thousands of dollars. I only recently reached this level after having played six years and spending somewhere between $300-500. However this model which has been in place almost 6 years was attacked last year by the advent of pay only prizes. These erode the concept of investing in multipliers and donuts and have made an appearance in every event since. In the latest event land, traditionally available for in game currency has essentially become locked by a new form of currency that the player has not even been informed as to how they may be attainable in the future. These practices are putrid and undercut the original promise of the game. This is after the designers have already made farming a more difficult task for the player.
The most efficient way of farming is to send springfielders on jobs to earn cash. The cash is used to buy Kwik-e-marts or KEM, which gains experience. When enough experience is reached the player has a chance win donuts,1-3, from a level box. There are only a few ways to reduce the progress from this and most are very evident, one is not. 1. Decrease $/xp from character jobs 2. Decrease xp gained from KEM 3. Increase xp threshold before awarding level box. These three have been implemented to some extent and faced community backlash. Only 1 remains to some extent in the reliance of the unemployment center. Here's the solution they went with: 4. Reduce the donuts given in the level box. How is this done? The box awards either 1,2, or 3 donuts. The player has an offer to spend a substantial amount of in game currency to have another chance at increased donuts. However with a high enough multiplier you are spending to much for this chance to be worth it. Thus you either lose time wasting currency or building more and more KEMs with lesser rewards. Here's the catch: the Level boxes are rigged to give 1 donut over 60% of the time. I've found this from play testing over 10,000 times. Now this may not be the same for everybody. I believe the game uses advanced algorithms to determine the payouts based on various factors such as how many donuts you have and how many real world dollars you've spent on the game which can help predict how much more you would be willing to spend if consistently given a lower outcome. I have several friends working for the games industry, especially in mobile and believe me this is not a crackpot theory, it's business.
So where does this leave us? Do we hope for the game to get better when it looks like it's only getting worse? Do we nuke our towns, uninstall and try to forget? Do we send developers suggestions on improvements? I don't know. But I haven't been able to stop playing, so for me, now, I hope they pull the plug.
The game launched in 2012, almost 6 years ago. In all that time I can not think of a single interesting innovation added to the game. As far as core mechanics it has worked in a similar way through much of its history. Either pay for donuts to buy premium items for a world building sim or farm virtual currency to make it a free to play experience. I'll come back to this topic. However the core experience has not changed. Small quality of life measures have been implemented. The city hall was granted the ability to find particular citizens, the unemployment office lets you send all springfielders on jobs at once (at the cost of virtual currency). Let's keep in mind these changes were not introduced to make the game more interesting, but with increasing characters just to make it playable. As far as gameplay very little has been attempted. "Mini games" like the rocket, digsite and submarine were added as chance games to win a prize. The monorail was added and provides another way to farm donuts. Springfield heights was added to increase space and make a portion of your town look awful. The single biggest attempt at expanding the scope of the game was also the biggest disaster: krustyland.
In all of this where is the real innovation people have all but given up even asking about? Day and night cycles, more impactful ways to interact with neighbors, real mini games, more control over animated tasks, how about a storage system in which you can actually find things?
While the gameplay is business as usual (stale), the business side has become much more aggressive. While donut prices for cash have always been ridiculous, for example $10 buys 132 donuts which is not enough to buy even a single premium character in many cases. $100 buys you 2400 donuts which seems like a lot but will not go very far. The unspoken promise to the player however is the multiplier. By investing enough into premium items with multipliers the farming can become efficient enough to make paying for donuts obselite. In order to do this the player must invest countless hours or thousands of dollars. I only recently reached this level after having played six years and spending somewhere between $300-500. However this model which has been in place almost 6 years was attacked last year by the advent of pay only prizes. These erode the concept of investing in multipliers and donuts and have made an appearance in every event since. In the latest event land, traditionally available for in game currency has essentially become locked by a new form of currency that the player has not even been informed as to how they may be attainable in the future. These practices are putrid and undercut the original promise of the game. This is after the designers have already made farming a more difficult task for the player.
The most efficient way of farming is to send springfielders on jobs to earn cash. The cash is used to buy Kwik-e-marts or KEM, which gains experience. When enough experience is reached the player has a chance win donuts,1-3, from a level box. There are only a few ways to reduce the progress from this and most are very evident, one is not. 1. Decrease $/xp from character jobs 2. Decrease xp gained from KEM 3. Increase xp threshold before awarding level box. These three have been implemented to some extent and faced community backlash. Only 1 remains to some extent in the reliance of the unemployment center. Here's the solution they went with: 4. Reduce the donuts given in the level box. How is this done? The box awards either 1,2, or 3 donuts. The player has an offer to spend a substantial amount of in game currency to have another chance at increased donuts. However with a high enough multiplier you are spending to much for this chance to be worth it. Thus you either lose time wasting currency or building more and more KEMs with lesser rewards. Here's the catch: the Level boxes are rigged to give 1 donut over 60% of the time. I've found this from play testing over 10,000 times. Now this may not be the same for everybody. I believe the game uses advanced algorithms to determine the payouts based on various factors such as how many donuts you have and how many real world dollars you've spent on the game which can help predict how much more you would be willing to spend if consistently given a lower outcome. I have several friends working for the games industry, especially in mobile and believe me this is not a crackpot theory, it's business.
So where does this leave us? Do we hope for the game to get better when it looks like it's only getting worse? Do we nuke our towns, uninstall and try to forget? Do we send developers suggestions on improvements? I don't know. But I haven't been able to stop playing, so for me, now, I hope they pull the plug.
