I'm enjoying this game a lot. Slowly building up the gems to unlock the Plague Priest. Is inventory shared across characters? If I find a good item for another class should i hold onto it or just vendor?
I like the game, as well. The exponential time between playing different areas is the only negative for me. If they could cap that at 15 minutes, the game would be better. But, I'd still give this game four (out of five) stars.
Well, obviously some others have come out of the woodwork and looking back through the thread, guess there were a few others. But with everyone stomping on the game's freemium model, it seemed like it was just squarezero and I coming to its defense. I understand the freemium backlash. There's quite a few games that I've turned away from because of it (mostly when there's freemium consumables involved). Just don't think this game is as bad about it as some other posters have suggested. Still hope for an all encompassing wait-time unlock though.... What happened to the dev? Please come back and join in the fun! Would be nice to hear your side of the story and any possible updates.
Just to make things clear, the game is nice and I love me some Diablo Clones on the go. The graphics are pretty and so are the rooms, albeit a little scarce of enemies. I really dig the efforts the developers put into this but that's what is worrying me the most: I'd threw my money at them, if it wouldn't be hidden under some IAP rocks... Small bugs: - I once lost all my armour/items between level3 and 4. - sometimes the armour levels are changing while equipping them. A Lv6 Shield becomes a Lv4 shield when equipped. Happend also once while I was in the shop but with another level. - sometimes the "cursor" sticks to white instead of green - camera only near or far (nothing in between) - some random crashes (4S and iPad1 both newest OS) And what really puzzles me is why is it so easy? I miss some bigger bosses to chew on... Even the giant spiders need just two slashes. Three sword slashes are maximum. Didn't even need potions or special abilities. Just wondering who playtested... Edit: ok, its a little unbalanced, I see. On later levels you have hordes of 6-8 that attackspam you, thats when the potions and special attacks come in handy...
So far I am really enjoying this game. I just play a mission from the guild until the next mission comes available. The speed at which the character runs and fights really does not bother me. After all, he is wearing heavy armor and fighting with a heavy sword. The attack animations look good and the stun and knock back features really help when you are surrounded. A few times when my health was really low, I ran back to a stairway so the skeletons could only come at me a few at a time. The knock sword worked great! Questions to the developers. The archers never miss. Can you have a double tap to roll or make it so you can dodge arrows? Also, body parts(from skeletons) float and do not drop off ledges. Can this be changed so they actually fall down instead of float? Is it possible to have a quick change weapon button. After stunning the enemy, it would be nice to quickly switch to a regular sword to finish them off instead of using the knock back sword and having to go into inventory to change it to a regular sword? Thanks
There's +movespeed and +attackspeed items to counter the sluggishness. Therefore, it's a design implementation that you are slow without customization.
Haven't run into any bosses yet, but there's definately times when I haven't thought it was "easy". On level 5, it's easy to get overwhelmed by a mass of skeleton warriors and die. Of course, I've learned to run away and try to pick them off in smaller groups. But I wouldn't say that, with the exception of the first three levels, that the game is a cakewalk.
I'm now level8 and I encountered bigger threats, yes. But nonetheless its exactly that, a cakewalk. Because you gain abilities and proper armour by then. If you grind through the old levels again (while waiting for the next "quest") you should gain enough gold to purchase better armour/weapons, which again makes it easy. I should add, that if I played a game for a few hours for free, it definitely deserves a better rating. Its only fair.
Nothing happened, we're just on Australian time which means we're only just coming back online. For the freemium side of things, we set out to make a freemium game from the start, and we've tried to make the best freemium game we can (and for a market that's generally not addressed by such games, action RPG). Freemium lets us be really aggressive about our plans for support, updates, new characters, new levels and new challenges. A lot of the criticism seems to be that we're not a premium game, and while that's true, we never planned to be either (nor is Heroes Call going to change to a premium game mid-stream). We're aiming fair and square in the direction of making a great F2P experience for F2P players - we don't set out to make every sort of player happy with every game we make. On the other hand, for premium players we have Ski Safari (a casual endless runner with an update on the way soon) and Rocket Bunnies (a casual game which has a pretty hardcore time-attack game under the hood). If you want something that's a premium RPG, well, we've got various thoughts about what we might do next and that includes more traditional premium RPG designs (and RTS, and more casual games ... we have a lot of ideas!). Every game we make, we've made with an audience in mind. If this one isn't right for you, that's okay! The good thing is that it's free, so you get to check it out and make that determination without sinking any cash. That's all I'll say about freemium from here - for the most part the discussion seems split between people who are okay with freemium and those who aren't, and I don't think we'll convince people to change sides. I do think we've managed to make a game that some people who normally don't like the types of genre you get with freemium games will enjoy, which is good - we're big fans of making games that go after a slightly different market. On difficulty - we definitely have a gentle learning curve. It's possible that it's too gentle - we'll be able to see by looking at the data that's coming in now (as to where people are dying etc). It does get harder, and we're definitely considering higher level challenges + other ways to make sure there's plenty of different ways to get yourself in trouble. On crashes - damn. Sorry to hear people are having problems - can you fling me a message with the details of your device and where it crashed, and we'll try and get that sorted by the first update if it's not something we can fix live. Someone mentioned they lost all their items - definitely send us email about that ( [email protected] ) and we'll get to the bottom of that. Should never happen! Quest replay is something we should make clearer while you're waiting for new missions to unlock. That will definitely go in the first update.
I support your right to make your game any way you want, but I was more sympathetic before I read this, because it doesn't make any sense at all. The question of whether you make people pay to overcome arbitrary delays that you insert, has pretty much nothing to do with how aggressive you can be in creating updates, new characters, new levels, and new challenges. You can still sell all of those things and *also* sell a game unlock that lets people not pay every time they want to play.
Yup a 4$-no-wait IAP and you have another buyer. If not, then I will manage and still keep playing! Great game. Now go make multiplayer.
Well that's all to bad. Somebody call me if this ever comes closer to a real game and further from a Facebook app.
Hi, I also work at Defiant with Morganj. Yes inventory is shared between characters so if you find some epic gear for the plague wizard, and are thinking of purchasing him, then it might be worth saving some space in your inventory. Here it's worth noting that the first extra page of inventory isn't an IAP, it's just costs 1,000 in-game gold.
In general, this is quite the decent aRPG, especially once you're in the game and not stuck navigating the menus. It also improves the more time you spend with it as well, with a satisfying progression as you unlock more skills. Feedback: Very much agree with the comments about the game feeling slow. It feels much better when you're in Frenzy mode - this should be the base game speed! UI in general could do with a bit of an overhaul. Buttons are a bit pokey on my iPhone. There also isn't enough feedback when I press a button - no size bumps or colour changes or anything. There is also no indication that a page such as the Equip screen is loading up your items; it just appears blank, and then some time later all the items pop in. The 'Guild' level-select screen is confusing and could easily be called 'stage select'. It also seems to have the other character's levels as selectable, despite the fact that I'm not playing that character? You could easily display tips while the game is loading, rather than throw them all at you at the start of a level. I don't like how little loot there is for my low-level character. Rather than constantly finding gold, there should be loads of rusty swords and semi-useless items for me to either equip or sell. In the first few levels I've picked up one usable helmet, and then a bunch of higher-level stuff I can't equip. And lastly, the 'Mission Complete' box is quite irritating. Can't I just open an end-level gate? As it is, I have to keep the box on-screen as I keep going deeper in the dungeon to find the reward. chest that's generally at the end of the level.
If you've read through this thread at all, you'll see that a lot of the people supporting the game don't necessarily want you to change the entire business model. But we do feel that things could be greatly improved and get more people to get the game with one simple change that's been echoed by almost everyone who likes the game --- the implementation of some sort of unlock to get rid of wait times. I don't think that's an unreasonable request. It's fine to have IAPs if you want to greatly advance your player by buying advanced weapons or armor...or just have more gold in general to buy things before you may otherwise not be able to. But the whole wait before you get the next quest is a big turn off for people wanting to get into the game. As we've said, instead of having to have gems every single time you want to eliminate the wait, it would be great to have a one-time IAP just to get rid of wait times. I don't like freemium games in general, but think most of this game is fine. I think you'd get a lot of people buying a one-time unlock for the wait times. The other gold/gem purchases can stay in there as IAP for those that want them as well. Anyway, I'm not going to argue, but since it's been brought up numerous times, I was hoping you might address the idea of an IAP to eliminate wait times. I think someone else said there's another game that has the same type of IAP. For people like myself and others in this thread, we'd like to support you by pitching in for one of your IAPs. BUT almost all of us here have also said there's no way we're going to continually buy IAPs just to get rid of a single wait time every time we want to. So for us, at least, you're probably going to either get something for a one-time wait-time unlock or nothing at all. I know I'll keep playing and just wait for the quests. I have other games to play, but you'll lose getting any money from me. That's the point. I like the game and have been one of the few here singing praises overall. Just would like to see just that one adjustment done to your business model as an option.
Didn't you hear what the dev said? They didn't make the game for you. Or for anybody else who wants a complete game for a reasonable one-off payment. They made it with the aim of exploiting a very specific minority who become addicted to games of this kind and then keep paying because they can't seem to be able to help themselves. Even those people though, would jump at the chance of a one off payment, and that's precisely why it will never, ever happen. Look at companies like Gameloft even going so far as to remove prequels from the app store to deny their targets so much as any semblance of that type of "out." People who think a freemium model can exist side by side with a single price purchase option are missing the whole point and don't understand how and why freemium works.
I do understand your point. And, really, even with a wait-time unlock, it still wouldn't be a "complete" game since you have to pay to unlock secondary characters or if you aren't good at the game and need more gems to resurrect or buy better weapons. Just wanted to see if the dev was even open to that one aspect of the game (the wait-times) being something you can make a one-time purchase. Honestly, I'm not the type of person any freemium game is going to make a ton of money on. Period. That doesn't stop me from being one of those that skates by on some of the freemium games and enjoys them without having to fork out the dough. I just don't believe in the never-ending IAP model of freemium. That said, why can't you still maintain most of the freemium aspect of the game and still adapt the model to still make some money off of those willing to "grind" to advance in the rest of the gameplay? Just a thought because regardless of whether they add a wait-time unlock or not, I'm still going to play through the game because I like it. The difference is they won't get a dime of my money.
The exact same reason: taking your $4 will mean losing $40 from some poor schmuck. Because he'll be able to pay just the $4 too. A freemium model such as this one accounts for players like you paying nothing. It's perfectly content with you paying nothing. It doesn't want your one-off x bucks. It wants "that other guy," paying through the nose. And paying. And paying.
