I think devs got too lazy.

Some staff members try super hard to keep things new and interesting while nothing about the game really changes.

Seeing staff bring back lotteries, revamp shiai tokens, change ranking system and offer rewards for it are all things that i think have positively changed the game for the better.

where should it go now? I think fighting other players should not be the ONLY thing to do in the game. There should be a more open world type environment where you can walk around in 3rd person in a lobby or something, trade items in game, etc...

you should be able to move your tori around in game and trade in game WHILE you wait in queue

this is 2017, people are busy. NOBODY wants to wait in the queue just to miss their turn.

If players arent utilizing 90% or more of their game time actually doing something, they will find something more productive to do.

And people wonder why everyone leaves this game.

This is what i think toribash next should be like.

Devs being lazy is a very arbitrary thing to say, given with what they can work with. When most people think "Toribash Developer" they think Hampa, because that's a large portion of the development and where decisions are made. Being an Indie game ran by a, I would assume, small indie company means Development is slow and staggered, if at all. The Development team is small and as a result things that are rolled out are small changes to a very dated game engine. That said, In the span of Toribash's lifetime there's been a fair bit of consistent change that has been solid enough improvement to keep the game relatively fresh while maintaining the core premise. From 2010 when I started and forward, Toribash has changed enough to where it has been more or less enough to have older people who adored the game stay. However, Toribash Next is innovation that has already promised a lot of new features that will make the game feel new for everyone, old and new.

As an ex-Gamemaster (now Event Squad), being apart of Staff does not automatically grant you the ability to change the game itself in order to make things new for players. Hosting Events is the main role (for the most part) and this provides this section of staff an outlet of creativity to add another layer of things for the standard playerbase to do. Even higher staff positions have set limits that, in actuality, can't really alter the game to change things tremendously. Though, what can be changed by staff is always a matter of "can it be done with the resources we are granted" because at times, simplistic things take ages to be implemented, even to the forum. It took a disgusting amount of time to devise and add a solid ranking system to the game. Even now it has its issues which are being sorted out. Blaming Staff for the death of the game and others crying corruption has nothing to do with the state of the game. Being a Game Design and Simulation Major has granted me a lot more insight on this.

With Toribash in itself, there's typically was/is a lot of performance issues on lower end devices which simply can't be fixed much with the dinosaur the game runs on. An open world environment is simply not possible with this version of the game, and I personally find it to be a redundant feature. Providing UIs for things that could be done on the forums is useful, but impractical when it's easier and less coding for a feature that'll likely be neglected anyways. The Market and Shop would always be a primary source for TC income. The ingame Shop I can say I've never used it, because my forum is usually always open. It's more or less utility for the newer community, but giving less initiative to use the forum is not the direction to go.

Remaining within the realm of possibility, having a Freeplay during queue just seems like it'll create more issues than the benefits that would reap from it. If you want to Freeplay during a long queue, open a second Toribash. Chat to people, use your Internet Browser. There's options. If you honestly believe that people leave the game because they can't spend their time during queue clicking their Tori then you're mistaken. The game has an extremely steep learning curve. I would love to get stats on how many players stay after their first year of playing, compared to those that leave during this game. The game is hard to pick up. From personal experience my friends say they love the game and everything about it, but learning what to do and how to do it efficiently is very hard and time consuming. However, this isn't what this thread is about.

Segwaying off of that reply, the game has changed for the better and only improving. This effort being a combination of Staff, the playerbase, and Developers. 7 Years ago I would have never imagined of a matchmaking system where you have a rank and could climb. Or where graphics could be this smooth while maintaining performance. Or even seeing a diverse staff that grows and works to make sure everything works and is orderly. Even without major gameplay changes the community regardless of its size has worked hard to change the game for the better. It's astounding how the game is still kicking after all this time. But how can it improve from here?

I don't believe the forum has underwent any Insane changes, as in an entire overhaul. Though it wouldn't do anything to make the game itself better, a smoother and newb friendly interface would do a lot to making newer players use the forum more and not feel lost and confused. It would be a big step in terms of improving the spark for the part of the community who primarily use the forums, and giving a hand to newer players so they can learn the game through the forum if not playing.

TL ; DR - Blaming staff makes no sense, and a small Development team plus the old engine staggers the game moving forward. The path for improving toribash now is to let new players stay, and straying away from QoL changes that will be neglected for the most part anyways.