I truly do not understand the devs' reasoning. If the object of an exercise, task or change is to make us stay in the game longer, then doing something that is mind numbingly boring, is going to be the answer. 50x 5min, 35x 15mins does not make me want to stay in the game, it just means do it to achieve an objective for an event.
People have lives outside this game, the devs may think that this game is their life because it's their job and they can spend eight or more hours at it, but it's not ours.
Also I still have trouble with the 'most players want to visit to help neighbours' - maybe, but as already stated, in one of my cities virt- ually all the neighbours are inactive and usually, the city has a mh, bh, and a couple of residences and they've been like that for some time. Even one of my fellows where I'm a mage has now gone inactive - as he's not said anything, I don't know if he's gone off on holiday, is ill or even just dumped the game (yes, I know I can evict him eventually, but usually I wait in case it was an unexpected event).
The point is, telling us what we think, and using it as an excuse for making inexplicable and frankly unnecessary changes, is not a good idea, especially when we know they haven't a clue how players think - they've shown it repeatedly.
I realise the mods may not want to come out of hiding and face the crowd of unhappy players, but seriously what's the worst that can happen to them? Wouldn't the mood be a whole lot different if Inno communicated through the mods or one of the development team came on and gave a valid, reasonable and truthful response?
Like Timneh, I don't do the visits to get coins or tools, I have a surfeit of those and am constantly spending them in the wholesaler or buying KP (does this change mean I won't need so many KP to upgrade AWs, if the changes that are proposed mean I don't need AWs, because is any AW safe from tinkering to make it worthless to us).
I do visits because it helps in the fellowship, neighbours are limited to the few that exchange visits. I don't do inactives and I don't do any which can't be bothered to return the visits (I usually try a few times and then give up). So, no visiting isn't about merely helping the neighbours, many of them aren't there to be helped . I don't have time to spend hours visiting, so mutual benefit is more important than altruism. The reason I keep bringing this up is because Inno think making spurious claims is going to make us feel a change is worth it. What is helping me or other players by monitoring and tracking visits or activities, it hasn't resulted in better events or more innovative and worthwhile tasks.
Here's a thought, instead of tools or coins, how about giving goods or spells or kp as a reward to the mindless tasks and I might just do them more often. I just got asked to do 5min supplies when I entered the fairies as a farewell from the dwarves - and the point of this was................... Oh yes, according to Inno, to make me play more. Well, here's the thing, I set up a w/s and did them over two days, and I didn't play more I played less and absolutely wasn't bothered by the more tools and coins. I play 3,3,3,9 for everything including workshops. Sometimes, I don't even come in after the 3hours, I leave it until I'm ready because during dwarves, there's not much else going on.
I realise like Timneh, they probably won't listen to the players and will carry on their merry way thinking they know what's best for us and that we just have to suck it up. Probably we'll continue to play and players will start and leave almost immediately, or they'll stay a while and leave, or like the few they will find a game they really liked and then suddenly it's not and they also leave. Don't think because players stay the course and accept most changes, that they will always be there. There's a lot of business that took their customers for granted which don't exist any more.
If they really want to find out if something works for players, get out of the dev lab, pick up an ordinary, fairly average computer or laptop and play the game for a month as a player. Then have a survey about which are the best and worst features, even ask what improvements the players would like - maybe then they can claim they know something about what the players are thinking.
