To what level does this hold true? maxbrickems' message at 24 seemed sanguine; Derprozess' at 29 seemed flustered, a feeling to which I refuse to subject myself when there's fiscal upside to it, however mild, for a dev. P. S. Thanks to all who replied to my previous posts; my response has been deleted without notice, I just discovered in checking for any replies/attacks. It seems the best attack, censorship, is far from beyond TouchArcade's repertoire for pointing out what is in my opinion their self-defeating loyalty to toxic business models, not unlike Apple itself cozying up to Big Content. I'd be surprised, at this point, if they don't yank this message, too. Ridiculous.
I'm not necessarily of fan of yanking messages and tossing em in this bin either but I will say that perhaps the idea of a game being easy and suddenly getting hard isn't meant to force you to buy rubies. It's meant to force you to either grind or just play smarter. Kemco doesn't have a habit of forcing players to pay for artificial upgrades so the difficulty spike was most likely a design oversight than an overt attempt to force their loyal customer base to fork over spare change. It's a small indie team working with a limited budget getting published by another indie team with a limited budget, and the result was something very enjoyable. You could always just purchase the premium version and pay for the XP rings and the other buff items to make the game easier. There's also the strategic element of the djinn that perhaps was overlooked. With 20 djinn to mix and match (with 3 skills you need to grind up in levels) the spike was probably more because of poor planning and the desire to steamroll through the game than actual developer conspiracy to bleed rubies from the players.
The thing is, it makes no sense to put a paywall 10 hours into the game (and that's what we're talking about here -- it took me 6 hours to get to level 20) because most people don't make it that far. You are already limiting your audience by making it a paid game, why would you limit it further by striking at the 20-30% who put in a significant amount of time on a mobile game? It makes much more sense to offer those folks DLC with additional content -- or, for that matter, a sequel. When Gamevil started their IAP shenanigans, they did it with a free Zenonia game, and theh put the paywall at the hour mark: long enough to get you hooked, but short enough to reach most people who download the game. At some point, you either have to stop reading the worst intentions on everything, or just stop playing on the platform.
Alternatively, don't give up on the platform. Give up on the game, or the developer, unless you hear different from a reliable source. To walk away from all mobile gaming due to some admittedly horrendous F2P/paywall nonsense is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (Which is a horrible expression.)
The simplest sign that Kemco uses IAP as cheats and not paywalls is that they release many of these games on 3DS/Vita/Wii U in 100% identical forms, just minus the IAP. Difficulty and balancing is identical.
Oh, so a high-handed mod deigned to link the special dog-house thread to which Touch Arcade criticism is consigned, though not without a sneering condemnation of its being "shit"! Touch Arcade's very own Free Speech Zone! OrangutangKungfu & Shaun Musgrave my point is it poisons game design. Paywall versus cheats only proves my point. Gamers are willing to pay for quality, but devs and surveillance capitalism plus chasing after ads and a zillion empty nickels distracts too many devs and more importantly too many who _fund_ devs, always chasing the mythical Candy Crush cloud of money thinking it's their new money-man birthright and indies refusing to feel guilty in light of their faith in their own better intentions. Trying to normalize it all, however unintentionally, as user disempowerment encroaches in other very real-life areas betrays far more than games journalism: nothing short of civil rights and libertieseven human rights under the auspices of current law. Giving devs $ vs offering cheats IS the problem every bit as much as paywalls, kids. And don't think I hate Nintendo or anyone else any less, on these scores. When I say I'd rather not be a videogamer at all, I'm saying anyone willing to trade away autonomy just for entertainment is getting what they deserve, just the way I interpret Benjamin Franklin's quote that he who'd trade liberty for security deserves neither. Nintendo and Apple still get my money for offering full, usable products. One thing's for sure: whatever respect I might have had for Touch Arcade is gone. Damned if the Wish List and forums aren't still a convenient way to track iOS titles in case there are ever any signs of life and for the odd little puzzler or other stupid diversion or if there's ever a truly competent and enjoyable port of a real game, but wow, gross!!!
From my understanding, Boardumb is a TA staffer, one of the folks who regularly writes articles. I had guessed at some point Jared but I have no idea if that's accurate or not. Whatever the case, know that TA is a small-funded group of guys who basically are doing the best they can with limited resources and who generally have a zero tolerance for what they consider (whether you agree or not) toxic discussions. (As well as many if not most of them doing TA stuff on the side as a passion, not a full-time gig.) They are also extremely sensitive when discussions derail into payment complaints rather than gameplay, especially when small indie companies usually only have TA to rely on for either constructive criticism or community reviews (the same way Steam advertises games through user reviews and curators). I know it hurts when you spend time writing a big post out of the depths of your frustration only to see it disappear, but like it or not they are just doing their best to try and create as positive an environment in what is already a messy market that tends to support trashy design and discourage thoughtful games by the nature of the mobile market. I support Kemco wholeheartedly (generally with a buy first play later policy) if only because while their games do tend to be mediocre at best, they are a solid mobile company that continues to produce games in a genre that most serious developers are too afraid to take a crack at, because of the lengthy dev cycles for a JRPG and the backlash the community often gives to them if they aren't held to AAA standards. Before lashing Kemco to the freemium/paymium crowd, consider that the design that frustrated you may have only occurred because of lousy QA or perhaps was actually intended to cause you to go back and redesign your fundamental gaming strategy up to that point. I remember playing Final Fantasy Exvius and got to the titan boss and could not get one inch forward into that battle, until I merely changed party members and gear, and suddenly the battle was much easier. Most JRPGs (including games like this one) rely on that kind of linearity for some fights, especially for overlooked fights that maybe didn't get as much care in design as others.
This gonna be sort off topic but I love premium and I am looking at 3 games and want to get one of them which should I get Sonny, Lanota or Die by Died? By the way on Brave EXVIUS the Japan version gives you double the rewards the USA version gives for clearing an area. I was anti FTP until I got on Japan App Store and I find their free to play games to be better for most part and it kind of changed me on it but having said most of the games on my phone are premium at the Moment. Only free games on my phone are Möbius, EXVIUS,FF Dissidia opera omnia, DQ Monster Parade and DQ Monsters so notice all FTP games on my phone are from Japan App Store and I do not play or download any USA free to play games.
As I said of devs themselves, faith in your own better intentions doesn't lessen the damage of your derilection. The discussion is that payments _affect_ gameplay, but you refuse to acknowledge that because it tarnishes your perceived potential in the market. IAP is reviled because it treats consumers as mice to money's cat in the most idiotically unnecessary and gravely problematic of ways affecting far beyond entertainment with EULAs, surveillance capitalism, etc. You cannot pretend that difficulty and game mechanics are a sufficient fig leaf for the yawning chasm of IAP's ravening, gaping jaws hungry for monetary tears of frustration or block-headed headlong dives off the difficulty cliff because they hate to actually learn to play a game well. Any other snivelling, myopic apologia you want to proffer?
Fasten your seatbelts and light up the smokes, I'm going on a rant You have NO Freedom of Speech here. Zero, zilch, nada. Look it up in your Constitution or whatever applies in your country. Freedom of Speech is protected against the state. NOT against any private enterprise, site, newspaper, whatever. So if a site owner decides he only wants you to talk about pink My Little Ponies and everything else gets banned: That's fine, it's their right to do so. ANY freedom to talk about anything on their own turf a non-state entity grants you is out of their own free will, and up to as many arbitrary limitations (or not) as they wish. See here for an easy explanation: https://xkcd.com/1357/ I also had this other cartoon that said "Freedom of Speech does not mean you can say whatever you want on someone else's site. BUT, you are FREE to open your own and say whatever you want there." , just cannot find the link now. A blogger I really value once said this on the subject: "You are a guest in my house. I will treat you with all the respect I give all my guests. But when you shit on my carpet, I kick you out. You can do that in your own home as much as you want, and noone's stopping you. But not in my livingroom." And personally, I am just sick of seeing all the arguments against F2P game design, "F2P is the Devil, burn the devs at the stake", and other pleasantries we have more than enough of here on TA. Not sure what I am talking about? Go check out the Galaxy on Fire Manticore F2P thread. I felt like burning people at the stake, and it sure weren't the devs in line. You don't like F2P? Guess what, I am not too fond of it either. Do I shit over every thread for an F2P game? No, I just walk away. If it's not a game I want to play, no need to comment. If you want to pour your heart out how much F2P ruined game X or Y, do NOT do in the main game thread, it gets boring. Open a new thread, call it "The evils of F2P in game Z" or whatever, and drop your opinion there. Stepping off my soapbox, your turn. P.S.: Manners, please. Keep the tone civilised, folks. No, NOT looking at you philodygmn...
Nullzone ### Way to use that free speech Like the rant but I can't say it's so much a rant as it is truth Thanks
Philodygmn ease up on the hostile rhetoric. You are toeing the line here and I do not care how much frustration and hatred you have for it is no excuse to try to belittle others here on Touch Arcade. You are not appearing rational and correct here no matter how much vocabulary you toss into your posts. You are appearing as the toxic frothing madman archetype that led to the creation of this thread. Drop the venom, breathe deeply, and clear your head. These are just games after all.
Are they, though? Are they not harbingers of the betrayal of our civil liberties? Apologies to Philodygmn - I can see you're trying to make a serious point. It is your opinion, you're entitled to it, and elements of it I agree with. I just might suggest it's a little overblown - but hey, that's only my opinion. And Nullzone, I love XKCD. As long as you bring it with you, your soapbox is welcome.
Nullzone perfectly illustrates the shortcomings anyone of any principle would defend autonomy _despite_ rather than be so egoistic as to consider such to be "shit" about _themselves_. As OrangutanKungfu points out, these are opinions, not worthy of censorship (civically enforceable or otherwise), to which TouchArcade consigns themselves to an even lower esteem by their instigatingand if anyone's guilty of inappropriate tone, it is Touch Arcade themselves in having lambasted a principled critique such as I have voiced to be "talking shit" (what but pity is there for those like saansilt who apparently can't distinguish between intelligence and vocabulary?). No amount of emotional rancor justifies rejecting argumentation for registering as mere belittlementespecially when _both_ are valid and deserved, as they are in this case relative to the greater role in a greater games space I find likely were Touch Arcade to defend player autonomy and customer privacy. When the legal framework for discrimination is championed by bigots and video game fans alike, and the result is more, worse games and real suffering (e.g. the religious "freedom[-to-flout-the-Constitution-with-a-proprietary-fig-leaf]" bill), I find it unreasonable not to take it as a serious point, which is all the more reason to include it inline with game discussion. The reason I didn't just walk away before saying anything is because production values are higher with Djinn Caster than has proven typical; that nothing I've said about it applies any less to any other game doesn't make me some hypocrite nor dismiss my critique just for not spamming it to every game to which it applies' threadeven Touch Arcade might agree with me there. P.S. My username is never capitalized #
If you can't understand why people having a nice discussion about a silly phone game don't want to have to be interrupted to read through your thousand word manifestos then I don't know what to tell you. Honestly, if you take this stuff as seriously as you portend in your posts, you probably SHOULD stop playing video games. This is most certainly not healthy behavior. Funny, too, that this all comes from a game that you have yet to play yourself. Anyway, another day, another forum member rage quitting TouchArcade and promptly resurfacing. It must be a day that ends in Y. The fact that you were "checking for any replies/attacks" tells me you were never interested in having a meaningful discussion about Djinn Casters in the first place, which is the explicit purpose of the game's thread, but were just trying to get a rise out of whoever was goaded by your inflammatory post.
I gave you straight information in good faith. You returned it with disrespect and condescension. You seem like an unpleasant person to share my limited time with, so I won't make that mistake again. Best wishes.
Nope, Boardumb, whether or not someone checks for attacks isn't an indicator of malice: if I didn't check you'd convict me at least as summarily of calloused bomb-chucking, and yet my daring to have something to say you find inconvenient and attempting to ensure it was heard has proven I needed to do that checking since it was censored. Shaun, belittlement is not condescension, though treating the latter as being of necessity consummate with the former certainly deserves it. I'm sure you'd scream bloody murder had I breathed a word against anyone personally, yet here you are shitting into my ear what an unpleasant person you find me to be *lol* I have merely unflatteringly characterized TouchArcade's comportment in the industry and its effects in a broader sense, unapologetically and stridently, and rather than address them you merely schoolyard taunt, "You worse!", on emotional and tone-policing bases, yet have the temerityor duplicity (or is it due simply to stupidity?)to treat my statements as equivalent to knuckle-dragging dreck. Boardumb considers my behavior unhealthy because of my opinions, which literally doesn't even make sense. One thing is crystal clear to me at this point: Touch Arcade isn't interested in self-improvement.
Well, I can't speak for anyone else except myself philo but you basically called me "sniveling" and "myopic" for expressing my own opinion when all I was trying to do was encourage you to actually try the game with a different approach. I was just trying to help, and was nothing but respectful and polite to you in my response.
