On the one hand I don't agree you can't criticise the way the progression is structured; I firmly believe it should be (nearly) impossible in a game like this to find yourself stuck and forced to start grinding for ages to afford the next car, and I think A8 is geared towards trying to get you frustrated you're not filling out your garage fast enough. There are cars which are flat out pointless bar one or two races they're compulsory for (still not bought that Infiniti, for example), and sorry, you shouldn't have to be checking a FAQ just to spare yourself several hours of kicking yourself that you didn't put your cash on A rather than B. On the other hand, A8 is not even close to something like Real Racing 3 in this respect. I know, I know, you shouldn't pay too much attention to App Store reviews, but Jeez, the stream of OMG GAMELOFT HAS RUIND DIS SERIES WTF depresses me, and I'm just a casual onlooker. I'm almost as far as I can go - no way I'm unlocking season 8 without doing gate drifts, and that's simply not happening - but still not quite done yet. I'm a little annoyed at the way the car costs are laid out but it still hasn't stopped me racking up 26 hours on the clock, 440-some stars, some of the most fun I've had with any game this year and all for pocket change. Gameloft deserve a lot of the bashing they get - you do not build an empire on blatant cloning and avoid any criticism - but they're still capable of making quality games, copies or otherwise.
I'm sure it's possible but I feel that the hardest part of the game is loop-holing the iAP. When I first downloaded the game my first instinct was to grind through the races, save up my cash, and buy the best possible car with my earnings. Of course the tier system isn't explained to you, so I ended up buying a car of WAY too high of a tier for me to use any time soon, so it was wasted money. That one wrong move cost me the game-it was impossible to progress without immense grinding of old stages or dishing out some cash. Luckily I wasn't that far in so I just deleted the game and reinstalled it to try again. I shouldn't have to do that. Game progression should be the bare minimum in a game, not a tricky maneuver. Hitting that paywall was like a game over screen, exept there was no "Try Again?" button. Not unless I wanted to pay to keep going. Nonetheless I can't complain too much, it's a free game that I've actually had a lot of fun in, which pretty much never happens for me. I wasn't even all that mad about losing all my progress.
I, uh. Like I just said, I agree with your general point, but Christ, you didn't stop to think "Will I actually be able to race with this car?" at any point? You just thought you'd be able to buy the fastest thing in the game and race it against everything? What did you think the "C Class", "B Class" etc. signs meant? It does suck that you backed yourself into a corner, but if that was how you got there it was your mistake in large part, IMO. Yes, the game should be actively working to prevent you doing that to yourself, but there are limits. Asphalt 8 has its faults but the menu system really isn't anything more than a nitpick. You want actually terrible, over-complicated, visually confusing UI on a mobile racer, go play 2K Drive. There are some flaws with A8 - why can't I instantly see every single race I can use a particular car on? - but it really shouldn't be that hard to decipher if you take, like, more than a minute to study it.
I didn't know they were class rankings. They weren't labeled as "classes", it just said "D, C, B, A, S". As far as I knew it had something to do with the purchasable car packs, and wasn't mentioned in the tutorial.
But virtually every other racing game works by dividing cars up into tiers (though admittedly, IIRC a couple of big franchises haven't always done this) and the career mode menu clearly says for multiple races "B Class", "C Class" etc. ...sorry, I'm honestly not trying to outright make you feel bad or something, I'm more genuinely curious than anything else - I always wonder how other gamers/regular folks/anyone who isn't me approach things in games I take for granted, and I do agree Gameloft could have done more to signpost working your way through the campaign. At the same time, I can't help but feel you were maybe a bit too focused on getting your Silver Lightning or whatever car it was you wanted, and calling that a paywall is, well, something of an over-reaction.
How exactly are they meant to make money if they drop the iap? You yourself picked it up for nothing so you're a no revenue customer. They still need revenue to actually pay for the development of the game. There's no free weekend sales in that area. Plus its pretty obvious that a Mini Cooper isn't going to be racing a Lamborghini Veneno. Hence an obvious tier or category system. Don't know how much more obvious it could be. All the cars have a class label. All the races have a class label. All the car packs have a class label. Plus, simply and obviously, high end supercars are not going to be racing hot hatches. As for paywall or intrusive iap, I'm not even going to waste time countering it. Its as simple as buying the cars wisely but it appears unless everybody gets everything for nothing and no effort, its suddenly a paywall and that one I just can't even conceive a response to.
If you compare A6 with A7 OR A8. A6 is obviously the only one with a premium style and completely non intrusive IAPS. The only reason they put IAPS was because they were going to make it free but they didn't nerf the money system or anything and it was still easy to get money.
A6 has way more intrusive (as in, in your face) iaps compared to A7 and A8. In A6, its everywhere. You can't even check on the price of a car or the amount of stars needed without the iaps showing up.
Wauv... When I wrote that short comment I didn't expect such an enthusiastic response.. But you're right Habakuk, playing against friends in the same room with some good friends is incredible fun, it's a much more satisfying experience than playing against strangers over the Internet. I didn't know the game supports up to 8 players, that's amazing. I've only played against two of my friends, and it's great fun. We need more games that support local multiplayer, it's perfect for iOS devices, especially for the iPad. In fact it's even more fun than playing against friends on a console. The only thing comparable is setting up several pc's in the same room and playing against friends like that, but nowadays that's a real hassle. When I was younger, I was part of some long and fun weekends with a lot of friends, pc's, pizza, coca cola and not nearly enough sleep playing multiplayer games.
Are you sure? The update when they added it it was purely ONLY to get coins faster. i had lots of fun with it. It didn't have IAPs at the start so its still a premium game (or atleast more than a7 or 8)
You know what? Create a thread discussing strategy in A8, clearly this is a strategy-racing-raging game, everyone is babbling iAPs, including me, but not Rip, killjoy, habakuk, and any other pros here. Seriously, if you don't want to hear IAP noises you should make a thread about your purchases. I just repeated my progress again, I'm back from the start, and well, shit.
As far as I can tell, Asphalt 6, 7 and 8 can all be played without iaps. Just responding to the comments here. This latest game is very enjoyable. I have 13 cars, 200+ stars, season 5 opened up. Only have one B class car so far, so looking forward to more of the faster cars and races. It was cool racing on a reversed Tokyo track the other day and jumping over the moving elevated train!
Is it only me but I dont like the track designs where theres 8 different paths to choose from and you always take the wrong ones and come from first to last within seconds? Its frustrating. and i have bad memory.
Agree!! Imo the A8 track design gives a much more ''open'' feeling than the more of the racers on iOS, that have only two shortcuts and that's it... and of course keeping fresh your routes everytime you play the track... It was a big surprise for me that after 20 times that i had played the Alps track never discovered the path for the HUGE (maybe one of the bigger in a racing game) jump, behind the tunnel!!!
