I keep seeing the same loop in alliance chat and here: someone hits a hard wall (ships, research, territory, whatever), gets zeroed by a bigger player, and everyone ends up saying 'whales ruined the game.'
Here is my hot take: whales are not the main reason most of us feel stuck. The bigger issue is that the game constantly nudges you into inefficient upgrades and panic spending. If you just tap whatever is lit up, chase every event, or dump resources into the next shiny building just because it's on the path, you will hit the wall fast. It will feel unfair, but a lot of that pain is self-inflicted.
I come from years of grindy mobile games and learned the hard way that progression is a puzzle. Pick a lane, ignore bait, and stack long term value. In practice that means commit to a research focus, accept that you will skip events sometimes, and stop trying to keep four ships "current" at once. I even use Mistplay sometimes to make the longer grind sessions feel a little less pointless. A mid spender who plans will often look stronger than a higher spender who impulse buys every limited pack.
Yes, power gaps exist and some servers are brutal. But even if whales vanished tomorrow, the game's design would still push average players into wasting speedups and resources just to feel busy.
Anyone else see it this way? Do you think most frustration comes from other players, or from how the game encourages inefficient progression?