What does the future hold for Forge of Empires? Hear from our Product Head!

Hello everyone,
I'm excited to share with you our plans for the future of Forge of Empires, especially our focus for 2024. Our approach aligns with InnoGames' strategic vision, and for Forge of Empires our goal is to "Find the right balance between engaging gameplay and strategic depth; we provide each archetype with an epic and engaging player experience without compromising game integrity. All whilst hitting the balance between accessibility for new players and depth for seasoned players."

Based on your feedback, we've identified key areas for improvement and innovation:

1. Reducing Repetitive Tasks: We aim to streamline army management, enhance the Great Building donation process, and improve messaging.
2. Guild Enhancement: Recognizing guilds' role in player retention and depth exploration, we plan to overhaul guild search features and expand guild activities.
3. City Focus: We'll continue to support and enhance the city-building aspect of the game, a key enjoyment factor for many.
4. Expanding Competition: Exploring cross-world competitions and adding seasonal challenges will create more dynamic player interactions.
5. Reward System: Introducing new avenues for relevant rewards outside of events.

Addressing these issues will likely take 2-3 years, but our priority is to create a smoother, more engaging experience while maintaining the game's integrity and financial sustainability. Our immediate priorities are:

• New Reward Areas: Diversify rewards and add depth to gameplay.
• User Experience Improvement: Focus on reducing frustration in interactive features.
• Enhanced Social Gameplay: Improve guild integration for new players and enhance guild functionality.

For 2024, here are some exciting updates:

• Events Evolution: We're refining our 10 main events, accompanied by mini-events and challenges. Each event will be supported by a selection of mini events or challenges. These are mostly questline based, which are designed to help you through each event and focus on areas that can make a difference for you - and offer you access to more rewards - both in the mini event but also in the main event.
• Cultural Settlements: The introduction of the Polynesian settlement and a rebalancing of rewards across all settlements. We'll also make some general improvements to whole cultural settlement system; by improving the balancing of the gameplay.
• Guild Expeditions: Introducing 5 new difficulties with a smoother difficulty curve and more frequent transitions between offensive and defensive boosts. We'll make the later levels deliberately difficult so that you have something to work towards over the next couple of years.
• Guild Battlegrounds: Implementing diverse boosts and revising the league setup and matchmaking system.
• Quantum Incursions: A new raid system featuring Heroes, details of which will be revealed later.

In addition to these major updates, we'll introduce smaller features throughout the year with a focus on transparency and community engagement.

You will have noticed that we're discussing adding in both offensive and defensive boosts to more features, this will vary gameplay but it will also stop the "one solution fits all" city layouts that we're seeing. We want to inspire varied gameplay and varied city setups, it also allows us to offer rewards in multiple directions rather than just pushing the power creep further and further. It also means that Guilds will need players from both sides, as it were, to contribute to Guild-based features and really excel. Overall, I believe this will be better for the game in the long-term, although I realize it will cause some controversy in the short-term.

We also plan to conduct two "Community Sprints" in 2024. These will be dedicated periods where we focus on implementing changes directly requested by you, our players. Our community managers will provide more details soon, including a voting process to determine the topics.

As with everything, this has to be taken as a living document. As the game and industry change, we have to react to those changes. That means that we may alter our trajectory and not do some things as described above. As we want to have more regular communication from our side, we will keep you as up-to-date as we can should anything change.

Thank you for your ongoing support and enthusiasm. We're committed to making Forge of Empires not only endure but thrive for the next decade and beyond. Stay tuned for more updates from us!

All the best,
Matt (Product Head, Forge of Empires)

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