I agree with this as well, I am not looking to spend my time banding with the internets and clashing clans, I like the narrow approach of Boom Beach to multiplayer. @Eriatarka I did try CoC's tutorial for a bit after playing Boom Beach for a few hours and I could not stand the graphics or gameplay. I actually felt it was a huge step backwards, but then again I had not been invested at all in Clash of Clans, so we could have totally different perspectives. Also your point about the 1 builder issue I think works in BB's favor as it forces people to pick and choose their upgrades and paces the game. Either way, I favor this game a lot more over CoC for the reason you stated - 5 minute chunks. The first few hours of BB went at a pretty good pace, until I hit HQ 4, and now my time in the game is spaced out a bit which I think fits well with my schedule as I don't really have time to sit on my phone for hours on end playing a game (although I did last week due to being on a vacation from work). I also like all the additions they added to preserving your game even if attacked, not requiring you to sit online 24/7. And I'll reiterate my previous comment - I still think Boom Beach is the best example of 'freemium done right!'
A lot of the comments say not to upgrade the radar too quickly. What is the best strategy in upgrading it compared to your level?
My son plays this game very aggressively, and has upgraded his radar quickly. I, on the other hand, didn't got to level 4 until I had a level 8 Base (that's a game level of 16). He is much farther along than I am, but he gets raided constantly - which doesn't bother him in the slightest. You will never be in a position where you can't progress by upgrading quickly, you'll just have to get used to seeing your base flattened (and then immediately rebuilt) every time you launch the game.
My radar has been the very last thing on my priority list of upgrades and so far it's been the best decision. I make sure I've cleared out my current map, and have decent base defenses before upgrading to the next radar region and it's been pretty fun so far. Currently I'm about to hit level 12 with my radar at level 3. My focus has been upgrading my vault as much as possible and then building my structure levels. If you get to a point where you are getting wiped out flat, that's a good indication that you might want to focus on upgrades.
I've been trying this game and enjoying it quite a bit more than I expected to. I've never played any base building type of game, and also generally stay away from freemium timer-based games, but figured I'd see what all the fuss is about. I expected to put it down after a day or two once I'd satisfied my curiosity, but instead I've been hooked for the last week, checking in on my base and getting better at battling other bases. On the plus side, the graphics and sound are great, there are a nice array of choices for outfitting your base and troops, battles have a nice light amount of strategy without getting too complicated. At the lower levels the timers actually seem pretty reasonable. It's easy to get enough playing in for free, and even if I wanted to bypass the timers and do a few longer sessions every now and then, I could imagine just spending $5 every once in a while. On the other hand, this game has not completely made a freemium convert of me. I'm up to level 12 and I can already start to see the pressure to buy diamonds starting to increase a little. Troops are getting more expensive relative to the rewards from winning battles, upgrades starting to get more expensive, timers get longer. This is a pattern I've seen with other freemium games I've tried, where initially the game is quite nicely balanced, maybe even on the generous side, long enough to get people hooked, and get them to leave nice reviews on the App Store and on forums like this. Then gradually the progression rate starts to slow to a crawl once you've had time to get hooked, and it starts to get very tedious to keep playing without spending money. I don't mind spending money on games, but I've found that freemium games can actually be a lot more expensive than premium games once you get to a higher level, if you don't want to grind a lot. At a lower level, a $5 coin/diamond pack will go a long way, but at higher levels, you'd need to spend much more for it to make any difference. Anyway, I have no proof that this game will get really grindy eventually, but it's clear after playing it for a while that all the mechanisms for that are there, and I can see everything already moving in that direction. The other thing I realized is that this is the first game I've played where you can literally buy your way to a high level if you want, without really playing the game at all (unless you count building your base as playing). Lots of games let you use IAPs to get items for your character that make them overpowered and make it easier to progress, but other games I've tried at least still make you play the game to level up, since you only get the XP needed to level up by actually playing the game, whether it's racing or fighting or whatever. In this game though you get XP by building things, not by fighting. At first that seemed odd to me since building things doesn't take any skill but fighting does, until I realized that this allows people to pay their way to a high level character, which gives big spenders more of an incentive to spend a bunch of money on the game, which is obviously why Supercell designed it this way. For example if I wanted to quickly level myself up to level 30 without doing any fighting, I could just buy however many $100 bags of diamonds I needed, and then just sit there building my base. Every time I'm short of wood or gold it, it lets me substitute diamonds, and similarly I can bypass all the timers with diamonds. And since just building things levels me up, I won't be prevented from updating my headquarters. So I'd guess someone who knew what they were doing and was willing to spend could go from level 1 to level 30 in 30 minutes! Truly a pay-to-win game. I'm not claiming lots of people would do that, but I've just never encountered a multi-player game which intentionally was designed to allow that.
I noticed just now that the price of diamonds has gone UP. I did buy some diamonds at $5.49 now they're $6.49??? And the $10 diamonds are now nearly $13??? I don't mind devs making money from games but greed I hate and loathe. At least games should be made with gamers in mind. This game unfortunately is only made with $$$$ in mind nothing else. A real tragedy. Its a real pity there's no game in this just an endless cash cow. I really, really want to play it but you need lots and lots of gems and they even put the price of gems up which made me wary, very wary.
I'm positive I only paid $5.49 as I was thinking of getting the $10.99 or whatever and noticed the prices had been jacked!!
The price has been $5.49 for 500 gems since I began playing about a week ago. What a bummer as if we're not paying enough already. Pure greed. Look at the price difference between the box of diamonds. Mine's $15 more!!! You can't say that is exchange rate charges. The A$ is close to parity with the US$. I noticed the changes this afternoon.
I just read that Apple are increasing prices for certain regions, including Australia. Perhaps it's due to that rather than the developer being greedy? Link. Count me as another person who didn't get into CoC but is really enjoying this (currently level 14 and not a real life penny spent).
Haven't seen a price change in the US store yet. I also read the article Paulos posted and that looks like your answer. Seems like you might want to consider switching your store to a different region, or direct your anger towards Australia and Apple.
Game Center Playing on my ipad2 I have to login to game center nearly every time I start the game. Logging in within Boom Beach does not work so I have to leave the game, open Game Center, login and start Boom Beach again. Sometimes Game Center shows that I'm already logged in so when I start Boom Beach after checking GC it is ok. This is very annoying. It can also be a Game Center problem, and I know that Game Center is really crap for more than one reason. But this doesn't occur in other games this much.
Same. I'm level 13, have about 400 gems and haven't spent any money. I'm a gem hoarder I guess. I've spent probably less than 20 total this whole time. Honestly, spending money on the game is pretty silly considering how much you get for free.
I have the same problem on my iPhone 4S. On my iPad 4 I never get asked for my Game Center login though.
Happens to me also non stop on my iPad mini. I also have problems with it crashing when it tries to log into game center. You'll see the game center welcome start to come down from the top and then bam, you are kicked out. I've made it to level 13 myself, not spent any real money, and I've only upgraded my radar to level 2. I may well be stuck now though as I've reached stone and not figured out how to get any of it yet once my rocks are cleared lol. Guess its time to raid?
Yup, once stone is enabled, you'll start winning it from raids along with wood and gold. Just got there myself. At level 12 and haven't run out of diamonds yet.
Why am i getting raided by people who are near twice my level? Im level 13 and i just got raided by somebody who was level 22 and had soldiers that i had not the slightest chance of defending against. Whats the point in this? Also in my opinion the AI needs to be better because even though you have flares, if you ever run out, you get to watch your soldiers attack a sawmill while the sniper tower that can easily be destroyed pick them off one by one until you lose.
Its a lie and joke. $15 more to cover exchange rates? That's why I mentioned it because its a lie if exchange rates are the reason. The Aussie $ has increased. US$50 = A$54 not $64!!!!! Whys a box of diamonds $10 more than the exchange rate???
Why would it increase only in Australia and not in the US? Your conspiracy theory would basically be saying that SuperCell hates Aussies? @Friedsushi It might be based on your radar upgrade level compared to an opponent's radar. I'm past level 13 now with a level 3 radar and I keep getting matched with level 9 and 10 players.
