Actually every time I've ever seen the max stats like that in a FTP game for something you can win, it is the fully evolved stat set you can work up to, not what you get up front, at least in my experience, which is admittedly limited in this realm.
Every top freemium game is like that. Again, in Puzzles and Dragons, the game DH5 clearly copied from, nothing you get is max level out of the box. Always start at level 1, and lowest star (3 star for a 5 star monster). I believe the max stats of weapon/armor you get from this event are stronger than premium chest weapon/armor at same star level as well. Also I don't know what everyone is expecting about the lower level weapon/armor, it is something you get easily from farming the lowest difficulty alone. How can it be end game gear? The free gems you get will get you 3 star gear that can be leveled to 5 star. That is the real beauty of these events. They will come weekly/bi-weekly. Also as a previous poster mentioned, there is no pay wall in this game, you can re-log a few times until you get a helper who is drastically more powerful than you and clear any content anywhere near your level.
Well to answer your question on the last page about what it takes to pay to play. Our TA members have spent anywheres from 30-300$ and have gotten nothing out of it. Some (very few) have gotten a 4* item. So considering the events haven't even been a week long and people have 5* armor weps and minions... Could be potentially thousands of dollars. The user above me. No paywall? How can you say that with a straight face. I am now rank warrior 3 and cannot win a match. If I'm lucky I'll get a match with only 3* minions. Stronghold is the only resource for gold pretty much. Missions give no gold and at a certain point armor takes 30-100k gold to upgrade. That's not a paywall? Free gear being 1-3* star only that doesn't allow you to play expert missions. That's not a paywall? Events geared towards players who need to spend big bucks to obtain rewards. That's not a paywall? Even IF you pay there's a paywall
The game is out for a week. From events you will get 1 free premium pull every week or two, in 3 months you will have a full set of 5 star gear. No they may not be perfect stats or slots, but they will be more than enough to get by. That is how this type of games are meant to be played if you don't plan on spending much money (or in my case, any money at all). In the mean time, you can always team up with someone much stronger than you and clear the entire campaign without any problems. Some users will spend thousands of dollars in games like this to hit end game gear/contents right away. If you go high enough on the ladder you are going to run into them, just like if you go high enough on the ladder of Diablo you will run into players who play 16 hours a day. You won't be able to compete, who cares? When I play DOTA 2 or LOL I don't ever expect to compete for million dollar tournaments on ESPN. It is called manage your own expectations based on the resources you are willing to invest in this type of games. Obviously, people who are willing to spend thousands of dollars are going to be much stronger than you early, but there are only 6 slots and so many minion slots in a stronghold, eventually the gap will be a lot smaller. And as the player pool increases (which is why I always emphasis the top of the chart thing, because size of the player pool is everything to games like this), you will have many more players of your gear level to play against. What you are experiencing PVP-wise will go away once season resets.
But this is what I was getting at. Just for a loose comparison, lets take DH5 and Diablo3 (loose, they are very different). Does a normal PAY player of DH5 spend $15-$20 a month on DH5? If so, does that get them gear that overpowers all the free players but makes them underpowered against the people spending $100 a month? Or does that get you more play time by getting you some gear that allows you to level faster and more playtime from spending some cash on stamina and whatnot? It would be like getting D3 for free, but having to buy a big chunk of greater rift stones for $5 every couple weeks... Let's ignore the extremes as the previous poster said. I have logged a few hundred hours into Diablo3, but I have seen people who literally play 12-14 hours a day and have thousands of hours...But who cares, they don't hurt my game other than that I have to realize that I will never be in the top 100 season rankings.
I don't really understand the "overpowering the free player" part. Paid players, if anything, is a huge benefit to free players, I don't need to grind for gear to pass anything in single player campaign, as long as I bring a rich helper with 2x my stats. It is almost too easy once you have a friend-list of whales. Stronghold, is at most a sub-game as far as character growth is concerned. You do not get any gear from it. In this type of games, gold is a non-factor by the time you are in late game. I don't even need to raid other players, I just login and collect my own gold every 3 hours or so, with a shield up. It is more than enough gold to use up all the experience boosters I get. Unless you are spending 5000 gold to get 500 experience from a 1 star loot, I don't see how you can run out of money. Just sell the low experience stuff and you will be fine. Can you top the ladder in a game like this without paying? No, just like you can't top the ladder in Diablo without spending way more money once you convert the hours needed into McDonald wage. Can you have a ton of fun and even occasionally beating people who spent way more money than you once you have a full set of gear a few months from now? Hell yes! It is like this for every MMO. Manage your expectations, and you are going to have a better time than any single player game. Because multiplayer is just way more fun. You will only be frustrated if you are trying to hit top of the ladder as a low/no-paying spender. When you buy a premium game do you care about game center rankings?
Except that I've come to realize that stronghold raids are by far the most efficient way to obtain fusion mats, which are obviously critical to progression. I guess I've been lucky to this point. I'm only level 21/warrior 2, have spent a buck for a piece I have yet to use, and can skate through stronghold raids. Amazingly, my stronghold has also been defending very well with only 2* and below minions. Even more amazingly, I'm in the to top 100 of this week-long special despite having only won the hard level, and still using stamina on other things. I guess there aren't that many people doing it! Speaking of, can anyone give the details on the first set of equipment you can get at around 13k points even though 3* max? Not sure whether to stop once I have the easier gem rewards.
Now you're converting time spent in-game to McDonald wage to add some kind of logic to your already laughable comparison. Tell ya, it's still laughable no matter how many times you are going to post this bs over and over again. Maybe I should take your comment and post it on the blizzard forums so you can get some feedback on it, noob. You look like someone who has actually never played Diablo but made yourself comfortable with the game mechanics by googleing them instead. "Oh there is a lb in Diablo. Yes, this is exactly the same as in DH5 but wait...there is no cap to anything in Diablo. Ha, lets just convert the time spent in-game to money so my stupid argument is able to stand shit". ...damn.
And post of the month goes to... Long time since I saw a person on here calling someone a noob. Props for that though.
So you are saying that when you lose in stronghold, that's a paywall. When you win, you are just being lucky. Cool! Pretty sure u will get some gem from completing maps, I get 2 gem box free. Also some gems during events. Most of the items can be evolved as mentioned earlier. So I don't understand what you are saying. For single campaign, the ally you bring play a big part. No suitable ally? Just relogin in to refresh the list. And you are expecting to complete every expert difficulty for a 1 week game? Lol, seriously? This is difficulty issue. Come back to me in a year time. I guess you are not suitable for online games. Go ahead and play offline games so you get to win all-the-time And for people who complain, and is a free user and has no patience. Go ahead and play offline games, no one is stopping you guys.
I didn't play Diablo 3 as much as I have moved onto mobile by then, but my /played in WOW was hundreds of days. And obviously a ton of Diablo 2. Is there skill involved in these type of games? Absolutely. I even watched the Blizzcon tournaments religiously. But you also need hundreds, heck thousands of hours if you want to be at the top. Third party IAP options were plenty, heck Diablo even implemented a first party IAP before pulling it. A huge business revolved around providing IAP for these games, Blizzard is just too outdated to take advantage of it. DH5 (and all other other successful freemium games, did you know Supercell made more profit than Activision, parent of Blizzard last year?) just offer the equivalent of RMAH as a first party solution, for players with more money than time. That is all there is to it. They fit grown up gamer's schedule much better. I love the fact I can spend 60 stamina in 10 minutes with this event, and just collect stronghold gold when I feel like it. Play the game passively and still make progress. For 99% of the people in TA, you are not going to be top ranked in any of these games, just relax and enjoy the experience of a MMO that is intended to last for a year plus. I absolutely love playing with whales, they subsidize my game AND give me a huge assist whenever I am stuck in a tough dungeon, what is not to love? Oh they robbed my stronghold and I can't get revenge? Who cares, plenty of other players like me in the pool. Only 5% of the players in these games will ever pay anyway. New players will join and you will get to raid them. Some more impressions: 1) They really need to fix the server issues. I hate the fade to black thing after a long (by DH5 standard) dungeon, especially if I got a good drop like the belt!!!! 2) One of my early complaints about skills not powerful enough, I will take that back. Some of the 3-star skills are really powerful, and they are fun to use. The leap attack thing for example you can aim and it is a great escape tool. I love the 10-hit thing obviously, even the fire hammer is a lot of fun to use and knock back a huge pack of enemies for good damage. Well done! 3) I still want ability to sweep dungeons I already beat without playing them, really reduce the boredom of farming for mats and again, incentive to buy stamina.
Let's get back on topic Usually with GL events you are grouped together with a number of other players, between 100 and 1000. I imagine it's the same here, you will be top 100 of your group of players - not everyone. There is someone on here claiming to have the set armour and weapon rewards from the event, so I imagine they would be higher than you as you haven't unlocked the first set yet. I have found raids to either be really easy or not at all possible, there doesn't seem to be much middle ground! I am working my way through the ranks, but I would like to know what is going on with the leagues. I would've thought they should reset last night, but it seems to be running for another fortnight. Anyone know when the expert difficulty levels open up?
LOL WUT? Offline games are easy games for people with no patience wtf? That is the most ridiculous thing I've heard on this entire forum.
Well that would just mean I'm definitely not #1. But yes that makes more sense that my ranking is just within a subset group. Anyway would love to hear from that person or anyone who got the first set of equipment as to attributes. Maybe I'll PM them or check the wiki because it has gotten awfully loud in here! Edit: heh. It actually looks like Infernum armor which is what I'm already rockin' (and love) so I think I'm done with this event. I assume they'll keep doing these by just rotating elements.
You all make very good points, we'll just have to wait and see. Things might turn out well. Although I just dislike that I can't win any stronghold raids. Warrior 3 puts me up against some uber players.
I just left Warrior 3 (in veteran 1 now) and didn't experience any problems there. My rule of thumb right now is to ignore opponents' collected gold and just check the league stats for ~8 or less successful defences (shield icon). The players with 30+ successful defences are not worth attempting. If that's all there is, quit the app and reload for a fresh list of opponents. If I can get past minions, a maxed 3* 10-hit skill takes care of most opponents before they can do much. At some point, I expect I'll start intentionally losing every third match just to avoid graduating to a league loaded with 4* and 5* gear/minions.
Yeah it's an amazing skill. I'm sorry, I'm warrior 2 I believe. Which is above 3. I can definitely defeat opponents but a ton have 4* minions. Also I'm level 27. Most opponents are 33+ 10 hit is great. Haste is AMAZING as well if you get it. Boosts speed and attack speed incredibly. It's just those 4* minions that fear as you get whaled. I'm still having a hell of a time though! One thing they did right, game is extremely fun. All I need is 100k gold and I get to evolve my 3* armor into 4*!
