In all fairness, InnoGames has done a tremendous amount to increase the diversity of the game. However, I feel like they have added so much, to such an extent, that it ostracizes a lot of the older players from a play-style aspect.
New aspects are great, heck, when I played on US40 I broke down a concept to Heracles favor farming, and it was even posted under enemy forums.
However, it often seems like an intellectual barrier returning to the game to find new meta's. Teamwork truly helps to catch players up, but when it comes to a playstyle approach, it's evident that InnoGames is favoring mobile players.
~ Quicker worlds, with more of a populous management approach, compared to specific ocean isolation (*WW's, etc).
The quicker maps, are not something that I'm innately opposed to, and think it's great to bring in new players. However, because of the nature of Dom. it invites more mobile players, and I could say the same for Revolt. Having new players is a great notion, and I actually played with a player named DemiGod69 on US89 that proved to be a solid competitive CQ player.
However, Dom. at least, focuses on merging alliances to control objective sites, and seems to have some inherent issues from my perspective. (Ex: Last Stand to be the basis of the winner, not highest Dom. value).
I played on US2, where the cap was lvl 40 for farms, and the sole flyer God was Zeus. Introducing more flyers has made it thoroughly enjoyable, and now seeing the Year 10 skins for cities, it gives me a push to play until 11-28-2022.
I think an implemented pact limit, and a lower alliance player count is important to create more smaller, more sustainable factions. As MRA's and merging is an inevitability at this stage, I feel like more should be done to stop excessive grouping. This will create more 'PLAYER DIVERSITY', and create more die-hard players from smaller factions.
In a traditional WW game mode, MRA's truly aren't around to last. Unless they can learn to work together and communicate, they can't control 7 WW Sites. However, in Dom. we see a lot of players hiding in VM out of ally, as an exploit, which has no setback to the Dom. teams.
Controlling anchors from de-spawns, has become a huge part of the Dom. game mode (* which I'd almost never do in WW's). It's a beautiful timing/strategy game, and more-so with Sirens as a tool to time. So, it's upsetting to see the almost de-incentivization to attack w/ NB on some maps (*Ex: us95).
From a competitive CQ player's perspective, it has turned into a bit of a farming/SIMS game. I'd love to see an adaptive approach to bringing back WW's, which is honestly my favorite game mode (Speed 4, so it favors CQ instead of building).
From InnoGame's perspective, it makes fiscal sense. They just put R&D funds into the mobile app, so they want to see their mobile dopamine farm ROI asap. They have no precedent to fix/tweak anything on PC, as they currently favor the mobile app (*to my understanding). They sure give us a lot of tools, that we truly can't appreciate on these quick Dom. maps.
I hate to bring B.o.B. up, as I truly respect TheCelt, binderjoel, Razerchique, and Murtagh Murt for being truly exceptional CQ players. However, recent B.o.B. rosters seems to join servers with literally 2-3 rosters of full alliances. Through cause-effect, this naturally causes the communities to cluster to combat their efforts, and decreases alliance/player diversity.
Cooter88, Sobepurdy, Danzach, and their 'Beer is Good' crew, gain so much of my respect from me. Simply because they stay independent, and don't drink the MRA poison simply because they're thirsty.
Less player diversity, causes more polarization, and in return 'spam' / pile-ons & toxicity. I'd like to see a server, where we have 4-5 strong independent factions unique to their oceans. However, I don't think this will ever exist on a Dom. world since it again favors merging & populous control over fighting.
Note: Also, not a big fan of Night Bonus, it again seems like a measure to retain more mobile players, but in itself causes inactivity.