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The new update which is also called the esport update in the competitive world of polytopia in itself isn't bad, replays are a pretty good mechanism and so are live games, while tourneys being live games shrink the already small fan base into just Europe and USA, it still does a good enough job BUT the real problem is
Removal of choices from random games, This problem has been called out so many times in the discord server of polytopia and in this subreddit once and twice, I am a part of the competitive community and have friends but this update ruins not only casual gameplay with random but also effects the over all community as a whole by being restrictive.
The Devs opinion is that of 'Shorter queue times' and minismilistic ui, but both of those fail extremely hard on there base concept
'Shorter queue times' refers to games being filled early but people who used to play 7 day games/massive map types which are mostly casual won't just switch there schedule to play polytopia everyday, they would quit! And the queue's would be shorter for already... Short games which would get filled previously as well in the same speed, For example if i like playing normal Waterworld and now that is gone, i won't play the random multiplayer at all instead of playing 196 drylands cuz if I wanted to play that... I would have done so previously? Really ridiculous argument by the Devs
Minismilistic ui is also a bad argument as the game selection screen doesn't look any good because... There is nothing to select and by even removing the number to just 1 and 3 it also looks extremely odd. A solid example would be if you went to pizza's Hut website and all they sold was 2 pizza's but hey... Those pizza's are properly arranged on there website even if you don't like them so might as well buy? Yea no, the same way no point in having a good 'minismilistic ui' if you can't even play.
The Devs also said that you can use all those map types/times/no of opponents with friends but that is a flawed argument as well, as it just locks half of the game behind a friend-wall, most of the casual community don't have friends(I am not joking) so just to access the game they would have to either get friends to play the game just so you can experience the full game to which you did bought a tribe but too bad or join a community and spend your time there just to experience the whole of the game, which any casual player won't do.
I used to be a casual player as well but after being amazed by the game I joined the community, but if I had started playing from the starting of eSports update, i probably wouldn't have bothered cuz I would think the Devs are trying cheeky ways to increase there communities and this will probably happen to many newcomers who will get tired of playing the same map size...
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