It's all fine and well being a challenge but personally I thought it was a challenge before I know I'd rather play a game where I had a long battle and won because it was fun and I enjoyed the game, now I'm at the point of "I'm not playing a 15 min battle to lose and get nothing" that's just no fun and wasting my time. It's just gone from wanting to play each day to not.
This may be the problem with trying to straddle the freemium and premium game experience. I can't remember if it was on this forum or pockettactics, but I remember a statement by you that buying the tripler in essence made this a premium title. That is why it is disheartening to see these changes. I know the payouts for wins are very small without the tripler. So when you say people were winning too much, I assume you mean the people who bought the tripler. So even though people bought the feature that you claimed to make it a premium title, you later change it because they are getting a benefit from the feature you sold them? As far as the adverts, that is a feature that you put in. You can look at it both ways. You are getting paid for those advert views. That is money you may not have seen at all without that feature and your customers taking their time to view them.
It was meant to be a mutual benefit. We get paid a little bit from players not willing to spend, they in turn get extra ways to gain free coins and get more of the experience on offer. Sounds pretty good to me. However we actually make bupkis from this particular advert feature, and if all we're going to gain from this is complaints and accusations of greed, then I'm happy to remove it in future.
Guys, any suggestions on starting with archer?! I'm getting my ass kicked even on easy quest, the first one!!! I tried multiple times already and the enemy always advances alot and kills all the archers I have... And when they are too close I have no place to move them -_- all the archers I have die in 1 hit... I try to use my hero as shield but the enemy just overwhelms me easily.
As nice as it is to have devs come on to the forums here at touch arcade, I think this exchange shows somewhat of the pitfalls of this open communication. First of all, I find your tone to a paying customer distasteful. To have questions about a feature, and the response is basically that if you complain we'll take it away, is in my opinion unprofessional. Secondly, I take issue with your statement about "players not willing to spend". Almost everyone questioning the changes made to the quick play-challenge mode has stated they bought the tripler. The tripler is $2.99 which is a pretty standard price for a premium style iOS game. So to dismiss their concerns so flippantly is concerning.
You're right, stopping now. Our support forum is www.rubicondev.com/forum if anyone needs specific help.
I have two strategy threads over on Rubicon's forum, one for general deck building tips and one for playing the AI.
I can understand both sides of this argument. As players of iOS games there is a certain expectation that we've come to accept with freemium games. Most freemium games will allow you to play for free for a decent length of time before hitting some sort of paywall which requires you to shell out money. A really good game will give many hours of free play before you hit that wall. And then the cost to keep playing is generally less than $5 or so. Overall I think most people like myself would like to think that we could get very deep into the game for $5-$10 dollars and that we'd have a very length intro period where we get to experience most of what the game offers for free. As developers of iOS games they need to set a perfect balance to give players a chance to really experience the game for free and yet not so much that they get bored before they spend any money. They are also up against the iOS pricing model which relies heavily on selling mass quantities of the game for cheap. Therefore I can understand why the developers are pushing facebook integration and referral bonuses. I can also understand why they would want to increase the difficulty of the game if they are seeing too many people getting the in-game currency for free and not spending any money on the game. For me however, I've very unlikely to spend more than $5 on any iOS game. If I really like it I might be tempted to spend more but I generally find some new game that distracts me before I do that. With CM I liked it enough to buy the tripler early on hoping to get through the Medium quests with just that investment. At which point I might look to spend more to get a new Hero or chests. I personally have found this game to be a heck of a challenge in the Medium Quests and even the Quick battles (before the update). I was actually getting discouraged which made me even more reluctant on investing more money on the game for fear that I was just in over my head on this game. So far I've managed to watch enough ads, win enough Quests and QBs and Multiplayer battles to allow myself to buy one Medium Chest and One Large Chest. With that I've got enough good cards to let me get half way into the Medium Quests with hope that I'll win a few more. All in all the pay model isn't completely turning me off. I'm somewhat satisfied with where I've gotten with my $3 investment. That said I am bummed to here that the QB difficulty has been ramped up. I only won about 50% of the battles before and was feeling discouraged with that. I'm also concerned that the Medium Quests are getting too tough to beat which will then give me a very difficult decision to make. DO I spend another $5 with hope that I can get enough good cards out of a new chest to allow me to continue? Or is that too big of a gamble. I personally would like to see them reduce the payout on games over increasing the difficulty. If you make the game too hard it's much more discouraging than if you win a lot but have to play more often to get the same money. Rewarding the consumer with positive feedback (winning) is likely to keep more of your fans than frustrating them with higher difficulties.
Spending $5 on a freemium game is considered on the low end. I dropped more than $50 and counting on Candy Crush Saga and that is still the low end. Successful freemium games are expected to rake in $1 million per day in revenue. That is the daily take, not the lifetime money collected while the game is available...
This goes back to my statement about trying to straddle the line between freemium and premium games. I personally do not play freemium games, and I do not purchase consumable iaps. I purchased the tripler under the premise that it made this into a "premium" title. In hindsight, that may have been poor judgment on my part. It is a shame, because I had really been enjoying this title prior to the update.
I agree 100% I spent on the trippler and on the 4.99 gold and had no problems getting through the whole campaign. But after this update my wining the challenge mode went from 90% to only 60% since. Also its always the same map what gives??? Please revert this disgusting update like others i used to play around 30 matches everyday online and off but now find myself maybe doing it 4 times more or less lol. Also the Epic chest for 30K that's ridiculous at least make it 3 times more then Mega chest. All your showing us is how greedy you are and your putting all these money grabbing bs. Come on to buy the Epic chest you would have to spend 20$ to get enough coins WOW. Anyways it was a good game i spent 10$ had fun with but until they remove the changes or update it so we can actually get more ppl playing(online is next to dead most of the time), this game is getting deleted to make room for Magicka and other good premium games that are out and coming out next week Cheers just my two cents
Perhaps my spending habits are in the minority. I'm a little stingy with my money as I've got 3 kids heading to college and driving school and braces etc. So I can't justify spending as much on games. As a general rule I won't spend more on iOS games than I would for a premium console game. In reality I've never come close to that since the most I've spent on an iOS game is $20 for Xcom. That was money well spent as that game kept me entertained for weeks and it was basically a full blown premium title. Right now CM is riding the fence for me on being a game worth sinking money into. I love the gameplay but find the presentation a little lacking. With some high quality visuals and a tweak or two to the UI it could go a long way toward feeling like a quality title. And now with changes coming in the form nerfs for the player it's starting to feel like it might be heading in the wrong direction for me. I'm probably going to have to hold out for that December update to see if the difficulty settings make this one enjoyable enough for me to want to invest more into it.
Not a real paywall, but a reason to restart This post made me chuckle, blaming the devs for your 'mental paywall' -- it's hilarious! I bought tripler late in single player game, & bought a $4k chest. I started w/Mage & did not buy any heroes. I regularly (but not always) win multiplayer. Here's a catch which surprised me: many common cards are more effective bc of low cost. I still beat the AI quite a lot on QB, but not always anymore. I like the update. Another point -- some decks work better vs certain other decks. Build a few, emphasize different aspects (ie a deck which pushes 1-2 races, or a class, or works relies on a few runes which you have 2-3 of) & you will start to see when you will win & when you won't. I have hard times against elf legendaries & elemental decks. Pretty much can trounce most others -- depending on the board. The legendary 1 mojo monster cards are quite difficult to beat. I'm happier when I beat AI who plays all Legendary, but still -- no extra payout when AI plays *ALL* Legendary?!?! If you hit the 'mental paywall', maybe just start over w/tripler & just buy $400 chests until you have most commons. Seems like 3x of a good common can be pretty darned good. Don't value weapons over shields & helmets. Shields & helmets can go on anyone. Same w/runes, but runes need sidekicks, armor doesn't. Last point -- when AI drops a 'devious' or has 15+ mojo, pretty hard to beat that. There's a few other painful moves & a couple neat tricks w/board positioning which play to warriors (& against archers).
A few questions - reposted Rubicon, would you consider answering my questions please? (Or any knowledgeable player???) Thanks...!
please dont stop communicating with us here. i hope im not the only one that chose to support this game because of how brutally honest you are. i've seen your posts in the forums and i can understand why there is a split opinion when it comes to your style, but know that there are definitely two sides and not everyone is against you. sure, you can be abrasive, but imo thats better that fluff and lies. also, did you hot fix the QB? i dont know if i just needed time to adjust and develop new strategies, but i find it much easier now. im closer to 2/3 now, but it is still certainly more interesting than the bulldozing easy wins it used to be. i will admit i do have a fair collection of cards by now and still believe going 50/50 on QB is out of reach for anyone who hasnt beaten hard mode yet or poured some money into this. as for ads, 20 coins isnt that bad if it didnt have a limit to how many people could daily watch. i guess we were pretty spoiled with 50 coins.
im not quite sure if you have ever read any of my other posts in this thread or even bothered to read the post you are quoting in its entirety. here's a little bit about my experience with combat monsters: *only cash i've spent so far is for the tripler *beaten hard mode and used to regularly beat QB 4/5, now closer to 2/3 *i haven't run into a pay wall by any means my whole message was that the pay wall exists if you do the following things, not that i've experienced it myself but that i have a sense of understanding and awareness. if you cant grasp how brutal a pay wall you can create by running into those very easy pitfalls, you just aren't critically thinking.
im positive if you put another $5 into this you can very realistically beat hard mode just by putting that 9,000 into mini chests. thats almost 23 mini chests that will really flesh out your deck and give you tremendous options. i could build an amazing deck out of just commons and uncommons, one far greater than a handful of rares and legendaries. especially given that so many rares and legendaries arent even worth playing competitively to begin with. it wont necessarily make you competitive in pvp, but i found theres a lot of fun to be had with a slight edge against the npcs.
Let me start with some background on myself: I've been a gamer since 1990, that said I have played a ridiculous amount of games on pretty much every imaginable gaming console including the old Commodore 64 tapes and beta tested over 100 different games over the years. That said my perspective carries behind it more than 2 decades of gaming experience and experience with game developers in general: I think we can all agree that on IOS there is a only handful of exceptional Developers who care and are actually involved with their community and make sure their game is balanced or frequently patched/fixed. This is very rare to find and in the case of Rubicon believe me when I tell you they are truly involved with their community. There is virtually no question unanswered on their forums and they have been open and forthcoming with any changes or plans. I feel the situation can be somewhat compared to the whole "my iPhone 3gs/4 cant play this game/cant play this game well" - crowd of players who feel entitled that their old devices need to be able to play every single game perfectly. Well, reality is no, that is not possible and they are being unreasonable and too stubborn to realize it in many cases. In this case, Combat Monsters: I feel a small player base often takes for granted that this game was neaver meant to be easy, it is not meant to be compared to whatever you may be used to so leave your expectations at the door. Since day one the Developers did want the game to be challenging and the progress is available to everyone equally. Those who play more or those who spend more might get progress quicker but the progress potential is there for everyone equally. The one thing I think this game and developer did exceptionally well is in fact their Mulitplayer aspect. I have not had trouble finding matches 24/7 and their servers are ROCK SOLID unlike so many other fail developers I will not name here. It is a collectable card game at its heart and players often are not ready to tackle the challenge of collecting 308/308 cards and perhaps even 4 of each of those cards which is the max you can hold in any deck of any particular card (4) would make it = 1232 cards total you would need to collect in order to feel a sense of "completion." The developers made it clear that by next year hundreds of new cards will be released so you might as well double that number by next year which is just incredible! This is amazing for all of us who enjoy collecting cards and competing online allowing great variety. In fact there are so many possibilities of very competitive decks where there really is no "best deck" even at this stage of the game. With the upcoming multiplayer fixes and the single player difficulty selection being made available in next patch I honestly do not see why players have so little patience and are quick to criticize this last patch. The players who feel the single player challenge mode is "too hard" might not even be the majority because personally I ALWAYS found single player campaign, and challenge mode to be too easy. In fact I played multiplayer nearly exclusively after single player became no challenge at all hoping to find a challenge more often. I welcome any type of difficulty increase personally so the complaints definitely do not represent 100% of the player base. Regardless of our difference of opinion and different point of views, the upcoming changes should satisfy EVERYONE 100% but as we all know in IOS gaming and gaming in general that is never the case. There is always someone quick to complain about something. In the end i just hope we can agree that the developer has created an amazing game that they are still working on and we need to understand that as the player base we need to be a productive and supporting community. Arguing or calling calling developer greedy is just unfair in light of how generous they have been in allowing multiple venues for gaining cards quickly and easily. Perhaps we should all focus on going on their forums and sharing our "feedback and suggestions" and recruiting new players to the game to help it grow. No developer can support a game that is not producing financial gains for them, that would not be a sound business strategy but if we take care of them you can be sure they will take care of us like they did in their previous games. If you don't believe how cool these developers are, then join us on our Facebook group chat by Saigo (send me a Private Message for invite), the developers are right there in the group chat where we can all talk together live. How many other games/developers do you know that do that? They really deserve A HECK OF ALOT MORE praise and patience for trying to make this game better. It is my hope we can all be more understanding of developers. All developers need to try and make their games more profitable and we can expect more content and game support. Nothing Rubicon did forces anyone to spend any real money in the game, and if the game rewards seem low, then play more games to make up the difference and do not forget they increased in game rewards across the board just 2 weeks ago by approximately 33%- they did not need to do that! In fact they did not need to add free coins into the game either, and they did not need to offer achievements rewards (quite big rewards) and they didn't even have to add referrals 50% more coins or these new legendary chests for free for just referring players. Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me. The referral program for example is also a great way to get tons of Legendary cards, personally i have unlocked 13 Legendary chests FOR FREE just from getting more players to play the game and use my referral code. We are talking about 156 FREE Legendary cards for getting about 13 of my friends to try the game... developer is greedy? I DISAGREE they are in fact incredibly generous. That is just my 2 cents above, hope it comes across in the intended positive and helpful manner.
i completely agree with you. i can understand your viewpoint as a "whale" (one who buys much more iap than usual) but can you understand the viewpoint of the players who have absolutely no interest in putting any money into this game? while they bring no cash directly, these people are still critically important to a multiplayer community because they either spread the word, eventually open their wallet, and/or do the opposite. the 80% have a huge impact indirectly. just try making a new account and play the game picking warrior deck, no iap, and not buying a single mini chest. can you understand how frustrating that is? do you still find the game fun and stay driven to complete hard mode? i understand you and i get it, but can you see how you could come off to the majority of the community? having 156+ legendaries, potentially every card in the game, and complaining how its just too easy? thats like driving a car and stopping by someone walking along the road just to say they are wrong to complain about the heat and distance and are being "unreasonable and too stubborn". of course rubicon is amazing. of course this game has a ton of potential and is still very early in development. i wouldnt bother posting as often as i do if i didnt really enjoy this game and want to see it flourish. most every developer hypes up their game and all these expansions and new modes and features it will have. not every game finally lives up to these lofty hopes. all we can do is judge a game based on how it is today. right now, these arguments are warranted. i take your two cents and do see the positive and helpful spin on it. i just want to make sure you can understand the other side too. the side that didnt get 156+ legendaries and is struggling through easy quest. the side that certainly has potential to purchase iap but is leaning further and further away from it, not because of all the great promises made, but because of the state of the game today.
