I haven't been around for all the changes. Some changes were brought around before I even joined. But for me I'd say it's better and worse
The responsive design makes for much better play. The interaction and attacking is more balanced.
But the change to the design makes the site slower, especially on mobile. It also sucks the life out of your battery for some strange reason.
We can now watch our pixel cars race around the track. We couldn't do that before respo. xD
Most everything has a cooldown or cap now.
There never used to be a cooldown on boosters, so for those fortunate enough to be able to afford the expensive ones that change made it worse. However that change makes it better for the average player as now everyone has to deal with cooldown on boosters.
You used to be able to use however many medical items a day as you wanted, now you have a medical cooldown. The change to life and the fact that items now give you life makes that better though.
There used to be no cap on the bookies, now you can bet 1b max. I suppose that's good for a lot though, as I've lost quite a bit to the bookies over time on "sure bets".
So, to make a short story even longer, yeah it's way different even from when I started (5 odd years ago). Overall it's for the better and needed to change to bring in new players and keep the older base happy with change
To be honest I thought respo would allow for bigger changes to happen much quicker but I suppose the base for all big changes still needed to be built and can then be expanded on
As a "dog breeder" I used to have weekly fights and made tons of cash back in the day. It was not easy, it took a lot of activity, you could not miss logging in more than 3 hours a crack to care for all the dogs I had (80+) it was a full time job. I hated to see the dogs leave but it was a total relief as I could play the game and not just concentrate on dogs and fights.
I also co-lead one of the top factions in the game and spent hours and hours chaining and extorting money from the top factions. That alone was also a relief for me since that took a ton of my personal time.
Now, today I just "go thru" the motions, do my own thing and no longer let this game control my life like I did in the past.
So if your asking me is it better now? Yes by far.
I think its better in alot of ways and worse here n there in others. Theres always going to be things different players like or dislike. And any good change will come with some bad effects in some areas i think. Over all i say its better tho.
I can say I have been here are a quite a while although others might be older than me. I would go with better in many ways. Like Jackson said above, there will always be some likes and dislikes, it just the way it is.
A lot of the older players will tell you the game is worse because they have less things to abuse(stocks, dogs, self busting, unlimited bets), now I am not saying this was completely easy, but in the long run this gave those who took full advantage a huge lead, then there was the ones who got in on it a little late, they got a little boost but now they are regretting it and the result of this is them saying the game is way too easy for noobs, all that cash from richer players, all those guides, just an easier game all over apparently.
In reality it is a game, it was easy then, it is easy now, if you are willing to put the effort in, and play the game you will reap the benefits.
I voted better because the game is more polished and has more features than it used to.
That being said, I don't think it's more fun. Obviously there were easily abused features in the past, and no one would argue that they were fair, but finding them was quite good fun. Plus suddenly realising that there were super easy ways of getting stats/money was exciting.
Also back in the day I was 13, everything is better when you're 13.
Go back through all the available Announcements ... this new forum came along with Respo in June 2014, so everything (major) that's changed since then has been documented and it's good to bone up on the details if you haven't read them yet.
It is kinda telling that the very first Announcement there is that "The missions system has been rebuilt from scratch ..." but then it wasn't finally released to the General Population until 18 months later in December 2015. But hey, it's now an enjoyable and challenging part of the game.
Its better, so much better.. there is a lot more depth to the game now and so much more to do/learn... i was inactive for a few years and missed the change to Respo, if Torn had still been Torn City and the same as before i dont think I would have come back... Only thing I do miss are some of the old faces that have since left and the faction war threads that were just flame-fests!!
The game is better in every way now than it was when i started playing. More stuff to do, problems getting fixed faster etc. Earlier on there where bouts of lag so humongous that they where probably bad enough to drive some people away from the game ie constant lag lasting for hours/days or even weeks. Those days look to be gone.
The one thing which is worse is the forums. Where has all the wonderful whining gone? There used to be 10 times as many awesome crying threads than there are now. I suspect the spot faces have either hit puberty and quit or they have been forum banned.
There are only a few people left that have been around longer than I have...
There are a lot of good and bad things that have happened in torn....
When I started... Army was the only job, and there was NO attacking system. All you could do was train and do crimes.
We've seen some great wars pre and post official factions, and I believe that is where things have gotten worse over time.... Overall this game keeps evolving and is for the most part getting better.
Faction? Get off my lawn, you damn kids! :P Back in the days being in a faction was adding a couple of capital letters before your name. You felt like being in a faction when one of your mates was in trouble and you ganged up on the other schmuck. You had to work your ass off all day long for a couple of months to be able to gather enough money for a decent house (I think mansion was the best available, but I may be wrong). Yasukuni sword was THE weapon and you had to swap your precious merits for one. Erm... what was I saying? Oh, yes, get off my lawn!