Unfortunately a lot of parents from last gen aren't exactly technology capable. Google / android also by default doesn't ask you for confirmation when you make purchases. So when a card is loaded and you buy stuff, no confirmation is needed. Remember parents that are older, a lot don't game / use tons of apps. So they don't know there's 100$ iap's in games. It's quite sad. Curupt industry. Mobile is becoming toxic. Doesn't mean they're not responsible parents.. A large chunk of parents have no idea what the hell in app purchases mean. So when they see free they think free. Who would have thought you could spend thousands in a game in a minute? I surely didn't when phones first came out. I'm a fanatic so I know all about terms / iap's ect. Most don't. Your on touch arcade, you made it here for a reason. You love to game. You clearly know the in's and out's of the mobile device. A lot don't. Unfortunately parents are coming out with 5,000$ bills. All because they let they're kid play a game for 20 minutes. Don't blame this on irresponsible actions, blame this on the toxic freemium model. Believe it or not, our minds are unique and complicated. The brain can be easily tricked and manipulated. These games feed off your mamal-like instincts. To be at the top, to be the best, to be competitive. Feeds off your reward system. Love a game enough, your brain will learn to love it. It will release dopemine whenever you earn some big loot. You'll want to make those big purchases, for those lovely bag of diamonds. Card games feed of you, gamble / luck is in our blood. Spend to possibly get something great. Little do we know it's all rigged. People get hooked, and spend there entire pay checks on games. So many are in dept from this phenomenon. It's sad, some are weaker than others, some give in. To keep reaching for something that isn't physical. It's a bigger problem than all of you might think.
Looking for strategic advice Ok. I'm lvl 9 and I'm on the 5th map (12/21). I'm using armor with three rune slots open and a weapon with 2 slots open. Any suggestion for a good combo of runes to use? So far I've been using 2 energy runes both lvl 2 , on the weapon to give me +60 to energy attacks.given map 5 is mostly weak to energy.. And I've been using 2 water runes on the armor for water resists , again as lots of the mobs are using water to attack, But I can't help but think there may be better uses of my rune slots. Is stacking the element the mob is weak too on the weapon the best way to go? Or using the element on armor to what they are attacking with? I haven't levelled or made use of attack,defense , drain, or heal of any of a the other runes that exist .. I've been going only with numerous mastery runes .. Just not sure that's the best strategy. It's been working well so far.. Except against corruptors with no weakness or element type they attack with.. But I'd love to hear if anyone has found a combo of runes that work really well together.
Personally a good way to combat against children abusing IAP purchases is for parents to fund iTunes through iTunes gift cards. This way a specific balance is accounted for, and once it's gone that's it. I had to do this to the bad child inside of me, I was making way too many app purchases without thinking when I had my credit card attached to my account . Once I removed it, it takes a little more thought on if that purchase is worth going through the hassle of heading to the store and picking up an iTunes card.
What a short sighted and selfish opinion. Why is exploiting anyone ok? Besides, they're not exploiting the rich - they're exploiting the ignorant and young. Basically they're manipulating people who aren't smart or mentally developed enough to spend intelligently (which includes mostly young adults and...dumb people). It's the same reason that the Path of Exile developers discontinued their insane $10,000 IAP. They did so on moral grounds because more people buying it were going bankrupt (i.e. not wealthy) than not - and they couldn't sleep at night - a problem most F2P iOS developers don't seem to struggle with. More importantly (onto the short-sighted argument), doing so impacts the game design directly, making it a poor experience for everyone, including you (as you pointed out). The thing to remember about virtually all manipulative F2P practices (the vast majority of which are employed by this game btw): Spending more money doesn't make the game more fun (and in most cases actually makes it even less fun). But having the ability to do so makes it less fun for everyone else (e.g. compromises the design/balance). That's why this industry is so broken. Sadly, the cherry on top is that more than 90% of these games, even those with high production quality and potential - fail at their crazy greedy monetization strategy anyway. In other words, the developers don't make any money, we don't have fun. Everyone loses.
Assume much? Actually, I've thought about it a good deal. I play several games where IAP can be very expensive. For example, I have conversed with people that have spent $100s on Hello Hero. (I have spent nothing.) The people that I have spoken with are employed with well paying jobs and have the attitude that if they want to spend on a game, who are you to judge them. Now admittedly I have no idea what % of people actually fall into that mold as opposed to your "young or stupid" category. Neither do you. Since its very easy for parents to set parental controls - my kids have never made an unauthorized purchase because they can't - your making an assumption that doesn't ring true to me. The point of expensive IAPs is likely about profit maximization, which is a good thing for developers to be able to do. Simply put, if 10,000 comparatively wealthier are willing to spend more than 200,000 comparatively poorer, the company should be able to do that to reward a quality freemium product. Which this is not, but that is besides the point. Developers have to have an incentive to make quality games, and your ideas about what they can charge without being "exploitation" just limit their options and may restrict their incentive to develop. By the way, I'm perfectly willing to spend a few $ on IAP if I like a game. However, if a developer choses to price IAP out of my comfort zone, I just evaluate the game without IAP and decide if I like it as a freemium game. Either way, I evaluate the game based on how it plays as a free game (because I usually don't buy IAP right away) You are assuming that the $ price of IAP has anything to do with the quality of the freemium product, and that a high $ price for IAP is necessarily a negative for freemium players. That does not logically follow. IAP in Hello Hero can cost 100s as I mentioned, yet I enjoy the freemium experience there because progress is steady and you can do quite a lot without running out of stamina/energy. I've never spent anything. If you want to debate a point with me fine, but calling my opinion ignorant or unreasoned just because I didn't spell it out on the off chance that someone would not understand is wrong. For me, the freemium model is screwed up here because you can't do enough as a free player, not because of how much the IAP that I wouldn't buy anyway is priced at.
I assumed nothing - everything I said is backed up by well documented research (not mine, but rather smart people dedicated to either prolonging or solving the problem). If you're sincerely interested in learning more, I suggest starting here: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/194933/The_Top_F2P_Monetization_Tricks.php There are tons of great articles and whitepapers on this subject - but that is one of my favorite rundowns. I'm an employed adult with an absurdly well paying job and I'm sad that it's currently acceptable that they're preyed on by manipulative tactics. I don't personally care how they spend their money unless their doing so negatively impacts others - which in the case of F2P it typically does, via the compromised design of the game. It's basically the gamer equivalent of - do you care if rich people pollute your environment? I do. I never called your opinion unreasoned. I called it short sighted and selfish - which I stand behind. If you're really OK with "exploiting the rich", then I pity that stance, but I was just quoting you. If you said it in hyperbole then I apologize for the misunderstanding - words on a page are all I had to go on. The real issue, as I've stressed, is what that does to the game design. Of course I also have no idea what your background is. If you grew up with this just being the way it is (i.e. you're young), then you likely know no better scenario, but again - I have no idea where that attitude came from. For the record, I'm not against F2P as a model - I'm against it in it's current popular form on mobile (and to a lesser degree on PC), which is often extremely manipulative and exploitative. I own every champion in League of Legends and ~400 skins, not because I have to or because I was manipulated to, but rather because I love the game and have no problem spending the money for the ~2000 hours of enjoyment I've gotten in the last 5 years. I understand that I'm being idealistic in this statement, but I'd rather see games profit on their own merits of being great, as opposed to using targeted psychology to try to get rich quick.
I just use the heal rune that you start the game with and go back to fights that are 2-3 levels below me and use those fights to regain health. I can fully heal myself in under 5 mins, and get a bit of gold, exp, and rune points while doing it. Much better than waiting 30 mins to regen health. Drain runes do speed things up a bit too.
Poison damage doesn't seem to be affected by weakness or strength or whatever, so I charge up my poison in easy fights and then use that against corrupters. You can even get a second poison rune and charge them both up to do even more damage.
Newb question: Do chargeable runes stack? I see from some of the posts that passive ones do, but will two heal runes heal for twice as much per charge or are they "seperate" on the switchable rune list?
I'm not done with the 3rd map, but here is what I noticed on ruins. The extra attacks rune starts at 3%, which seems attractive, but its hard to level. The life drain rune goes 2%, 3% and to get to level 3 you need 600 upgrade points (ouch). The enchant rune makes a glowing tile (a spell) and fills up pretty easily (to level one anyway). It looks like another very slow upgrading rune, but its clearly powerful. I gave up on recharge, +attack and +defense. Right now I'm running one health, 3 life drain, the enchant rune, and a chance of extra turns rune.
Sine - On page 5 you comment about how satisfying it would be to screw over this pay model. Then a couple pages later, you talk about how exploiting anyone is wrong: Just an observation.
Thank you, but actually, I said that it would probably feel satisfying to exploit a an exploitative business model. I didn't condone it, nor did I bother doing it, and actually defended not doing it, as it wouldn't actually make the game any better anyway. Just like it probably felt pretty satisfying to think you caught me in some weird moral loophole, right? Yes, I stand by the statement that I cannot see how supporting exploitation of any broad demographic is a good thing. Since you're clearly detail focused, I'll clarify that this includes rich people, middle class people, poor people, white people, black people, latino people, asian people, women, men, religious people, non-religious people, gay people, straight people, transgender people, employed people, unemployed people, students, military people, and so on. That said, I am officially indifferent to exploiting manipulative business models. Personally I wouldn't do it, but I can at least empathize with why someone would. I hope that clarifies my stance for you Lazer Kat. I can see how you'd be concerned. Try harder please - trying to have an actual conversation here...
20 Day weapon When you reach day number 20 you DO get to select which weapon you want. They are all exactly the same except that they are different elements. The calendar resets after 20 days, although the awards get better as your level increases. At day 40 you once again get to choose from the same weapons. The one you chose is no longer an option. At day 101 you will notice that the free weapon is now gone, replaced by a purple flag, just like the green, red, & blue flags on days 5, 10, & 15.
Played up until the 4th area.. my honest opinion is that this is a well done match 3 game ruined by awful FTP mechanics...
I'm in the fourth area now. Overall, I really like the game. It's desparately in need of a $5 iap to make that heal button on the map a free-to-use thing. That single addition would give this game the premium feel it so greatly needs to become the great game that it should be.
If you buy 2 runes that are the same kind and equip them both, do their effects stack? I'm asking because I'm too lazy to test it out. ...Wait, can you even equip 2 runes of the same kind? Great game, btw.
Yes you can equip 2 of the same kind & they do appear to stack, although I haven't tested this definitively.
