I hear you. It's just that this game with these mechanics was going to be an incredibly tough sell using occult looking symbols on glowing dice while two barely animated dark fantasy art figures stared at one another. Maybe if it had featured sickeningly cute bunnies and baby skunks playing forest yahtzee over peppermint tea... If you're going to target a more serious slice of the player base, you need free to play mechanics more in line with what they're looking for is all I'm getting at. There's a genuine game with tuning and polish here, it's a shame that it's using the same caliber of free to play mechanics as your average made in under a month Chinese freemium builder with "millions of players battling glorious for fortune and good times freely!" This game could do very well as free to play, just not with *this* iteration.
À idea could be, Next to pay for souls, it would be cool to add or change some mechanics to "farm" for souls. It takes more time, but it keeps you playing to gain souls. In that way there is more choice for the player. Instead of stop playing because you have to wait for revive, or pay, there should be a way to continue playing to gain souls.. Ah wel.. That's my cup of tea
1.0.3 is out! Here is the changelog - removed resurrection. You no longer have to resurrect your character when you lose a battle. - 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
back from holidays. I will take some time later that day and make a longer post. give us feedback of what you think of the new patch!
somewhat delayed, my answers! I agree with you that a 3-4 hours wait is far too long. we will alter it. just how we alter it, isn't yet decided (either we remove heal completly or we make it 1 soul -> full heal, regeneration to 100hp/minute) we are working on that. I think I understand what you mean. there's no greater goal to achieve, no special missions etc. It will come, give us some time. we are thinking about ways of making "premium" more attractive. one of the things we have in mind is a much reduced transfer price for the special dice (other things are already in place: much reduced cost for heal/skill, no ads for premium users). well then, don't pay. I agree with you that we made mistakes. And I feel that we didn't communicate all the plans/updates we have in mind for the game, which would give you your "sandwich and chips" amongst other things. we thought the "pure" fun of rolling dice would be enough for many people. for you, it seems, it wasn't enough. (just out of curiosity: did you pay for Clash of Clans? you mentioned you play it). believe is not knowledge. the ARPU is already (even with the relatively few users we have) three times higher in our game Nosferatu (which has lots of users). syntheticvoid: too bad you don't want to give our game a chance. as I said, we made mistakes. perhaps you'll try our game later again. Misguided, you're of course right with this. As I stated above, the game currently lacks a solid meta-game. we are working on that. that's one of the things we're looking to integrate (see -> meta-game). a better mission structure, more fun to finish quests and earn extra souls/resources. auver, thank you! just a quick note to the problems we face right now: what we see, that only 33% of the players complete the tutorial and the first 5 tutorial battles. another 50%+ percent of these players drop off even before the first boss fight (-> read: monetization isn't that much of an issue with player engagement). and we already know why: the game is too difficult for beginners. there's too much going on at the same time. 1.0.3 has Charon, the first boss, on Level 1, not 4 or 5 as before. the basic enemies also have been made easier. I have the feeling that it's still not enough and I see it coming, that we will have to reduce the hitpoints of the enemies for the first 20 or so battles by 50% or even more. we will also alter the tutorial with 1.0.4 and make it even more step by step (explaining the use of skills in more detail, the real-time structure and whatever else needs explanation) again: we value every input, so keep it coming!
So long as premium remains a subscription, you have failed to understand your market. In fact, that you're still stubbornly clinging to such a hopeless business model gives me no hope for the future of this game. Let me be blunt(er ): fully completed with all 9 circles of hell, no ads, and no other IAP, I can't see this game with it's current meta design asking for more than $4.99 on Steam. You're asking people on iOS to give you $10/month. Good luck with that, you're going to need it. Spent $5 once, got my 3rd builder with it, have never needed to so much as consider dropping another dime, been playing daily for months. Heck, if you feel like playing for free, they even hand you 450 gems, which 90% of the way to the magic 3rd builder once you ding 1250 trophies, but I could see clearly that the game was designed such that dropping $5 once was all you needed to do to get over the grind hump, so I did. Dropping $5 on Hell Quest? Couldn't even unlock the Saint for that, and 'invested' in bonuses, it wouldn't buy me more than a couple of weeks of premium that, with MUCH grinding, would put me... one week ahead, that's it. I think you're mistaking people realizing the game is not for them for some sort of inability to figure it out. Yes, your initial tutorial was pretty vague, and the current only modestly better, but I suspect most people are simply going, "What? All I do is roll dice against their dice?... moving on". That's the beauty of $0 to download, everyone who even *thinks* they might like your game will download it and give it a shot. The vast majority won't stick with it. While you want to strive to make the game more accessible, I wouldn't fall for the illusion you'd retain many more players than you already are. Sure, you can improve the initial retention with better designed tutorials and initial difficulty curve, but ultimately, it's the slow slog of the core game design butting up against the IAP system that is going to lose you your market. In other words, you may be getting triple ARPU than Nosferatu, but you're still leaving money on the table with this design.
you may be right. if so, I will be the first one to admit it. we still think it can work. as I said. meta-game currently lacks the "fun" factor. we're on it. what do you think: would cooperative multiplayer (turn-based) with leaderboards and "clans" enhance the game a.) a lot b.) somewhat or c.) not in the least? I played the game in vacation. very grindy without IAP, but still very well done and fun game. and I see why people spend money on it. may be or may not be. we have a close look on retention and will see if our suggestions work. we need data. everything else is just guessing (which sometimes works too). that said, we discussed the details of 1.0.4 today. here are a few points: - mission timers/quest timer completly removed - regeneration 100hp/minute - 1 soul full heal (with premium automatic heal) - premium gives you +10 faith per hour - prayers and dice transfer costs are halved when you choose to go premium - tutorial will be refined - new quest overview (graphical display of the hellcircles, a map basically) - Everplay video recording of your games - even easier game at start (much reduced HP of the enemies) -> depends on the data coming in from 1.0.3 - detailled statistics (battles won, agains whom etc.) for all characters have a nice weekend y'all!
Is there any strategy to deal with incubus? I'm playing with man of the faith (lv.22), but I always being defeated by incubus (lv.19). Her eternal suffering skill is really suffer to me.
you should be able to deal with the Incubus with your Man of Faith. at start, try to play fast and collect as many heal/enfeeblements as possible without getting too much damage. you need a bit of luck. if no crosses come your way, he will slowly grind you down with his attack skills. the Protector still is a better match for the Incubus. his shield and damage skills somewhat negate the Incunubus' attack skills.
Many thanks! I'll try again edit : Still cumbersome for me To me, protecter is far worse than man of faith. No luck, no win
yeah, if you haven't leveled the Protector up a bit, he may be to weak to play his first battles in hellcircle 2. have you upgraded your MoF as far as possible?
Here's my character :MoF Life lv4 Reserve lv3 ManaRegen lv3 CrossH lv1 Enfeeblement lv3 Elicitation lv2 Rootage lv4 Sanctuary lv1 My only problem is Incubus. She drain my life too frequently. After severe turns, I lose more than 100 lifes per turn. If I failed to win before she use eternal suffering skill twice, I have no hope How about Saint? Now I can play with her.
looks good. I'd upgrade elicitation with your next level-up. destroying more reserve dice is mandatory once you enter the higher hellcircles. You have to use your healing skill in the right moment. try to only use it when you have at least 3 crosses (better even 4 or more). It may be that the Incubus you face has his eternal suffering skill leveled-up quite strongly. Is that so? About the Saint: the Saint is perfect to play against the Succubus. The Incubus is not her speciality, because of her low HP and the attack skills of the Incubus. Weapon of choice against the Incubus is the Protector, but the Man of Faith should be able to beat him, too.
I just successfully played through gluttony. I only used protector and saint. Now I'm leveling the man of faith. I have a question about rootage. What do you mean with "active" skill? I don't see any mana gaining at the start of each round. Maybe I'm just stupid..
hey PGS3000! great to hear you beat Gluttony! active skills: the three you actively use in battle. passive skills: the two (like rootage and sanctuary) that are always active, without the need to actively use them. as to Rootage: you gain a certain amount of bonus mana at start of the battle (not every round). can come in handy if you start the battle with low HP, amongst other things. note: with 1.0.4 (will be uploaded next week) we replaced Rootage with a more aggressive passive skill: "Divine Thunder" -> each rolled bolt symbol increases you points by 7 (lvl 0; +1 for every lvl up). we did this because we thought that the MoF needs some more attack power. new content (new hellcircle) will hopefully make it into 1.0.5! we are working on a mission system and other stuff right now, but already have 2 of the new enemies ready. boss is missing though.
Ah thanks for your quick reply I know what passive and active skills are, I just didn't understand how that one worked. Good to hear there will be an update soon. Will there be more classes to play in the near future? I like this game and also the effort you are putting into the game by constantly updating. Also the feedback we give is taken seriously, something a lot of gamedevelopers don't. I seen in the notes that the last patch should give a higher drop rate for souls, but I am not noticing it.. (Could be me, I'm just saying) Cheers from the Netherlands (Found my mistake... I thought Every round... But its The start of each battle... I feel such a n00b )
