perfect! have you noted that you can take more than one character on.a mission? some enemies are best countered with a special character. take the Succubus for example: her skill which burns all doubles is often the death toll for the Protector or the Man of Faith. but the Saint, who can reroll dice is, in many cases, not overly affected by this skill. of course you can still beat most enemies with each character, but it may be harder to do so. btw, circle 4 (Greed and Avarice) is coming with the next patch!
So how is the revenue on this game? I hate to say it, because I played as much or more of this game as any other on my vacation last week, but I remain completely turned off by your monetization approach. I will not pay a dime with this current scheme. It's just plain awful. Rather just tip a couple of dollars that bought me nothing at all than reward this current abomination of a freemium monetization scheme. Souls? Good lord, you earn, if you play like a crack monkey, maybe 10 a day, yet you've priced moving a single die between characters at 150 (and raised resurrect costs with the latest patch while you were at it, yikes). "Premium" was and is still a joke. Overpriced to begin with and, worse, actually is just a way to find yourself pressured to spend more money. Spring for "premium" and you'll still have to pay for souls so you don't waste the premium period on healing and resurrect timers. Then you've got your version of the dreaded Tapjoy ads and offers to get "free" souls, just screams slimy used car salesman tactics. You have somehow made one of the best "competitive" dice games I've seen, really taken the core idea of Farkle and done something that works well with with the variable reserves and special powers, and then screwed it to hell and back (heh) with one of the most ham handed freemium schemes I've ever seen. Early resurrect of a hero? $0.25-$0.50 and up, want to transfer a die between heroes? $1.50 *per* die, want 50% greater rewards, which aren't much to begin with? $10/month. On what platform does that sort of pricing make sense? I can't name one. You've created the worst freemium has to offer: a true welfare state where a few players are grossly overpaying so the majority can play for nothing. You should have just capped hero levels at 20 or something at the price of free, then had a one time unlock of $2.99 that bought the full game. That way you make the barrier to try the game painless, and if people aren't sure if they like it or not by that point enough to drop a few bucks, nothing is going to convince them. Souls should have been priced a lot lower and cleanse rate upped so players don't feel like it's so much of a pay to play game. Instead, you continue to offer us nothing worth paying for. Basically, you've engaged in the classic blunder of freemium monetization: you haven't given us anything to pay for, merely loaded the game down with lots of stuff to pay to avoid. Freemium vets just set the game aside and wait on the hero to heal/resurrect or learn their skill, and freemium newbs will soon be put off when they realize the timer they just paid more than the cost of your average iOS title to avoid is right back in their face later that same day.
^^^ Harsh... but COMPLETELY agree. The souls are ridiculous... and the pricing? Well... I can't say anything that Hannum hasn't already nailed on the head. Shame too... this game has the real potential to be a true iOS classic... but not in its current state.
This is exactly my problem. Removed from the constraints of the godsawful freemium system they shoehorned the game into, it's a fantastic game. The real time nature of the dice battles where you have the "active time battle" system with the three different powers both changing up game play but adding a great deal of tension, frustration, and elation is a great twist on an otherwise tired mechanic that makes it work a lot better than I thought it would. The leveling up of the heroes and slowly progressing through the deeper circles of hell, well done. Gathering of resources to purchase new heroes and augment the heroes' special abilities, classic RPG stuff and mostly well done. ---- And what irks me the most is, not even sure what the right word or phrase is, but, essentially, the complete and utter daft cluelessness being presented by the devs in their defense of how they structured the IAP. It's not like freemium is a new thing, it's not like it's exactly rare in the iOS market, and yet they decided to base a pick up and play head to head quick fire dice game's payment structure on a hardcore grognard's free to play online wargame, WTF? It seems as though it should have been obvious that the core freemium mechanics they were going for were going to be poorly received (and the crickets chirping with the game's activity on the app store bear this out). Yet, all they've done so far is tweak the resurrect times and soul cleanse rates, as if there's ANY level of tweaking that's going to change the fundamental flaw that none of that should have been in the game to begin with. ----- Free of charge, here's how you fix this game: - Basic game is free and comes essentially the same, Man of Faith, with a faith cost to unlock Protector. - Heroes are capped at L20, you cannot access the Saint, period. - $1.99 unlocks hero levels above 20, gives access to Saint (and future hero types), doubles loot rewards permanently (yes, the entirety of the "premium" system needs to go). - Healing, gone; if you survive a battle, you start the next battle at full health. The current mechanic serves NO purpose other than force people to set the game down or pay you money. You may or may not need to tweak health totals for heroes with this change in mind. - Allow players to buy the other skill components with faith points - Resurrect: regardless of level, death is a 1 hour penalty or 5 souls to be instantly resurrected and fully healed. Resigning from a fight no longer kills your hero but does remove you from your current mission. - Skills are learned instantly. The current system is, again, just an enticement to put the game down or pay. - Dice can be moved between characters for free once a day to reduce grinding and encourage "deck" building, but cost 1 soul per move after that to discourage just constantly shuffling dice around. - Sell random packs of 3(?) dice at varying prices based on the level of hell, e.g. the the 0-3 pack is $1.99, the 4-6 pack is $2.99, and the 7-9 pack is $3.99. Introduce a forge that allows people to convert 3 dice of a particular level to a random one of the next level. - Make soul cleansing success increase dramatically with hero level. BAM, you have a game that is free to download, gives players hours of time to test it and determine if they like it, has a one time cost that opens up the full game to them now and forever more and still gives you a variable revenue stream with the ability to buy random packs of dice instead of farming bosses for those who want a fast forward. Keep the option of buying souls for those who want to skip the much kinder penalties, unlock a hero sooner, or buy missing skill components, but, regardless, nothing is cut off from those who don't want to pay extra after their initial $1.99 game unlock.
I don't usually chime in on freemium pricing discussion because at the end of the day, it's the developers choice what they do. In this case, I really like the game, I'm a fan of the devs previous stuff, but I absolutely hate the way the freemium has been done. I'd love to see some of the above suggestions implemented because I can't really play the game anymore. It just constantly feels like like I'm up against the pay wall.
thanks again for all your input! we will discuss all of the things you guys mentioned. it'll take some time though (two of us are currently in holidays; I'm one of them, so please excuse if I don't answer immediately and that my answers will be rather short).
That's all I can ask. I know I've been a bit blunt but, well, that's me. If I didn't think there was a game here worth fighting for I would have already deleted it and moved on. HQ is the odd duck that is both a great game and an utter failure at the same time. I really want to reward you guys for the entertainment that I've had, but the current payment model combined with its negative effect on certain mechanics is such a bad fit for the game's underlying design I simply can't do it. I'm not opposed to freemium and/or IAP at all in the abstract (many of my most played games are freemium and I've paid money into most of them), but I do know a size 20 trying to cram its ass into a size 10 when I see it Enjoy your vacation
new patch has been uploaded. should be available next week. Patchnotes: - removed resurrection. You no longer have to resurrect your character when you lose a battle. - reduced start souls from 300 to 100 - added additional basic dice. - redesigned inventory - made start easier - decreased healing cost - decreased time and cost for learning skills - increased drop rate for souls - improved some skills ( Man of Faith ) - minor bugfixes
But do you start healing from 0? I hope not, one of the chief flaws of the freemium design is the healing, not resurrection (although that played into it to a lesser degree). In the current design, you've gone for the "we want the cake, we want to eat the cake, and we want a few more cakes". Health doubles for the energy systems employed commonly in freemium games but it also determines your likelihood of winning the next battle, it's a system fighting with itself against the player. If you've removed resurrection but kept the health system as is you've done little to fix the problems with the freemium implementation. Sure, we'll be able to push on a little longer since losing the next match won't necessarily lock us out for half or more of the day, but it will still leave us unable to play for 4 or 5 hours. You'd be better off just going for a standard energy system that the hero has to pay to start a fight, but health and death are totally separate affairs. And see, this indicates you HAVE kept the healing, which is, bluntly, idiotic. Having the healing remain in the game as the principle nudge to pay is a chief reason why this game remains unsupportable. If you didn't decrease it to 0 you have learned nothing. After the player has spent a few dozen matches waiting to have enough hearts to finally upgrade a skill, having them put the game aside if they're not going to pay is ridiculous. It's like the health=energy problem, you never decided on a system. Is the bottleneck to progression the extremely limited rewards for battling hoping we'll sign up for "premium", or is it the timers just to get an upgrade? Or maybe it's the slow rate of healing? Or the randomness of boss dice rewards to entice you to pay more than the average iOS game just to avoid another week of playing to get a die you need for your Protector because the MoF has the die (and vice versa)? We are fighting your monetization scheme far more than the forces of Hell, and we can never forget it at any point playing the game. But apparently kept idiotic prices like 150 souls just to transfer a single die. Ugh. You guys really, really do not get it at all. You started off with a, "In order to continue play, allow us to kick you in the nuts half a dozen times" payment system. People point out they don't want kicked in the nuts to play your game and your response is to release an update that changes the cost to getting kicked in the nuts "only" 5 times. People correctly point out that we still have to get kicked in the nuts to support your game and your response is to release a patch that reduces it to "only" getting kicked in the nuts 4 times. How about you try the not getting kicked in the nuts approach? Crazy, I know, but it might actually garner you some support instead of feeling like we're dealing with devs too stubborn to admit the very foundation of the monetization scheme is flawed.
thanks for the holiday wishes! if you ever have the chance to visit sicily, do it! now onwards to your comments. first things first: I know you like the game and that's why your language becomes agitated sometimes, but there's no need to become insulting in any way. we're neither idiotic nor stubborn and while we value your opinion, we have to evaluate how and what changes we adress in the oncoming patches. besides the fact that some alterations aren't so easily implemented/removed in our time plan for the next patch, I also just disagree on some points you made. healing is not the principal nudge, now even less than before. costs are at 1 soul per 100hp now and the droprate of souls will be doubled compared to the value at launch of the game. It is NOT necessary to buy souls, just for the sake of healing. having to spend premium currency to speed up build/upgrade times is done so in many games. in fact, in HQ you can continue playing while your skill is being learned. in other games your factory or whatnot is not able to produce during the build/upgrade time. sry, we didn't mention we lowered this too. cost is now 30. before that it was 75 btw. again: some of your points are valid. please continue giving us feedback, but also acknowledge that in the end we decide what is altered when (and if it's altered in the first place). cheers!
I'm not trying to be personally insulting, but the fact that you have kept healing in the game at all is something that reeks of a series of bad design decisions no matter how you justify it. Health is both the energy to play the game at all, but it's also a chief component determining the probability you will win if you do play. Reducing the cost to 3-4 souls to go up against a tough enemy or set the game aside for 3-4 hours just hammers home the disconnect. I've played a bunch of Injustice recently. Has an energy system, has IAP out the yin-yang, and it's never bothered me 1/1000th as much as the system in HQ. The game throws free recharges at me. You earn several "teams" in short order. In under 2 hours everybody is fully recharged even if pushed to zero energy (and setting it aside for 15 minutes while you answer an email is enough to run another match or three). And if a hero has energy to pay the fight cost, they function at 100%. Compare that to HQ. When I play Clash of Clans I don't care that it takes me 4 days to finish a major upgrade on an archer tower - the game is multiplayer, everybody is functioning under the same constraints, and it IS a "simulation". When I play Happy Street, I don't care that it takes time to build a structure or to craft something, again, it's a real time (very, very, very light) building "simulation". I don't feel any "simulation" from HQ. I feel that's it's a great setting for a quasi competitive dice battle game that *thinks* it's a simulation of some kind. And, again, I feel you miss the point: The main impediment to upgrading heroes is the component system - my heroes usually have free skill slots because I just can't afford the components to upgrade the skill I want. So, you've already delayed the ability to buy an upgrade through the use of randomized and limited component rewards. You've already reduced our component rewards sharply if we don't pay for premium. Then, we finally do get the components necessary and... we have to wait more. Just how much waiting is justified before it stops being a component of the game and becomes an annoyance? I'm a pretty patient guy with freemium systems and it's way over the line for me. My bad on the pricing, was confusing the $1.50 that 75 souls equates to with the soul price. Regardless, even at 30 I think you're still missing why this system doesn't work. I've played this game since *before* it launched, now, sure, I've probably not played more than a 10-20 matches a day on average, and I've certainly not "invested" in "premium", and I know there's been some tweaking to soul recovery values, etc., but I'd be able to transfer a whole ONE die under the current pricing, and a whole 3 dice under the upcoming pricing. Considering all the other things souls can be put toward, I'm probably better off just going ahead and grinding out dice on the different characters than ever transferring them. But, that's not the biggest annoyance: Here's what irks me about this non-trivial cost to transfer dice - *I* earned them. Not my Man of Faith, not my Protector, I did. I sat down and slogged my way through a series of repetitive battles sometimes playing more than I even wanted to because you've hung a time limit over my head to go after a die altogether. The nature and length of some of these "quests" (e.g. Crusades, literally dozens of enemies) all but forces you to commit 2 or more heroes, but after days of doing this, only one of them can walk away with the extremely random reward die. And if the boss die goes to the wrong hero, hey, why not invest your entire soul haul from multiple days in transferring it to another character, and if you should eventually find a better die that makes that one obsolete, you can invest the entire soul haul from multiple days to transferring it to another hero. For a quick fire head to head dice battle devoid of multiplayer, you have far too hardcore of a system in place. I feel like if you're going to do a free to play game, you should have a target price in mind you think most players would be at least be hypothetically willing to spend and feel like they got something for their money. Then you have the infinitely extensible systems and components to bring in the whale money. When games are designed like this, the sane people out there don't bristle (the rabid anti-freemium people will never be placated, but you already knew that going in). Look at it like this, here's what you've thrown in front of me as the player to play your game for no up front cost: 1. Timers to earn dice 2. Timers to heal heroes 3. Timers to upgrade heroes 4. (Previously) Timers to recover from a loss 5. Only 66% of the faith and upgrade component rewards unless I pay a subscription fee (average cost is around $0.75/day) 6. Non-trivial cost to move "gear" between heroes (even at 30 souls that works out to $0.85/die) 7. Expensive and consumable boosts (~$1 for a single major prayer) 8. More money sinks to prolong boosts (~$1/day) 9. Ads Now, what do I get for spending money 1. As many one-time timer mitigations as I can stomach 2. Full game rewards... on a timer before they go away 3. The "privilege" of moving the dice that I earned between my heroes. 4. Completely random boosts that may or may not be useful that themselves come with timers that I have to pay more to mitigate 5. Unlocking the Saint sooner if you want to drop $10 worth of souls on faith. Can you play this game for free? Sure. That's never been my contention. Can you pay and get ANYTHING you'll feel was worth it? Absolutley not. The system was and remains all stick and no carrot (c.f. my analogy about simply reducing the number of times the system kicks us in the balls instead of, say, offering us a nice sandwich at a fair price). I want to buy a sandwich and maybe some chips to go with it, you're only interested in charging me to kick me in the balls less, understand?
^^^ I have to commend you Hannum.... with so many developers (and games) on the iOS, it's hard to stick it out with the ones that just... don't 'get it'. After this last update notes for the upcoming version, I deleted the game. I'm assuming there's others out there that will stick with it as well, but even more that will just give up on it for many of the reasons you've so graciously laid out in deep detail for the developer.
The developer has really spent a great deal of time making this game fair and adjusting based on your feedback with the latest update. In the next update, they will be adding more characters to choose - and even more balance tweaks and fixes.
I'm just going to pretend you didn't chime in with this utterly tone deaf bit of PR. None of this is about fair. You can play this game for free, no doubt, the system is not unfair, per se, it's simply an awful system that gets in the way. The good game that is there suffers from the free to play mechanics, and the existing free to play mechanics give nothing to pay for, merely things to pay to avoid. It is and will remain a loss for both the player AND the developer so long as the current paradigm is tenaciously held. The biggest reason to delete this game? The near certain knowledge that the project will be abandoned long before the game is finished for being fiscally non-viable.
Josh, that's great. And I truly believe that Martin and co. are decent people whose intent was to make a great game. What is clear to me is that they didn't get enough feedback before the game came out. If your testers told you this game was fun as released, get new testers. I followed the development of this game for months, and was rather excited about it, but any potential fun to be had here is swallowed up by uninspired, repetitive design (there's something about the Puzzle and Dragons-style presentation of quests that just screams "grinding".) and the fact that the game repeatedly punches the player in the face as a reward for playing, whilst we chant "thank you sir, may we have another". I won't rehash the whole thing, since it was stated rather well by C. hannum. I'm not an IAP expert, but it strikes me that great IAP-based games encourage the player to want to spend money, not because they have to, but because there are cool perks for doing so. This game is not in that category.
Well I don't admit to be a free to play expert and I appreciate the honest feedback. I personally think you should be able to buy dice and not just earn them. Hell Quest and Dragon Blast are our first true f2p games - and we are learning many lessons from them... Like how much I can't stand f2p... however in this market...
