Universal Tiny Tower: 5th Anniversary Edition (by NimbleBit)

Aw come on eeen..just because we are on a game forum doesn't mean we're all 12 year olds. We arent that naive, "game balance" would be leastest part of your motivation for changing the bux process,

I don't know how you could possibly want the game process to go any slower than it already was going, slow games don't hold interest long term, if the game went any slower it'd probably be unbearable, I still haven't updated because I don't think I could wait 6 years to finish my tower with 100 floors, I'm on level 65 and it's already going mind bogglingly slow.I'm not sure if ill make it to 100 levels, checking the app for 5 minutes at a time already feels daunting, and the unbelievably slow elevator rides even at the highest elevator has caused me to stop using it altogether. I can't even stock all floors, I only stock the big ones, and leave the workers in the so I don't have to shuffle them around , and by doing that I also missmout on where's Wally since I have too many orange !s blocking my elevator and where's bitty notifications. My entire gameplay consists of pressing "restock" on about 25 floors, 3 or 4 times a day, then when there's enough cash, build another floor and repeat..there really isn't much substance to it at all now that I'm looking back...hmm , I don't know why it's so addictive, I'm almost OCD about getting a fortune teller, but once I get that I'm not sure if the game will still have that feel..
Needs more purchasables if you want the game to last long term, and that'll also generate more IAPs, needs way more elevators, customization, maybe even some mini games,it needs SOMETHING! Before it gets old like lil pirates, which I played for a fortnight then ditched.

you have nothing to feel guilty about, it's absolutely normal for a company to want to expand their horizons by incorporating ways to generate more revenue! as a buyer myself, I admit that the more I played the more I thought I was stupid for making an iap in the first place when bux are so easily obtained! Who'd buy bux when theyre made semi easily, you took that away so now they accumulate much much slower, which brings back the frustrations, which brings back the impulse iap!

I would guess that game balance accounted for a maximum of 10% of the pie slice for changing the bux dream job process, the other lions share of that pie said $$$$$!

Probably spent more on this app than I have on any other app I own, other than my navman app, as it was my first freemium game, $20 spent at the beginning, and now I certainly wouldn't spend another cent simply because bux are almost worthless now, if I bouht the 1000 bux pack for 30ish it would only get me about 4 floors at most, probably closer to 3, you'd have to be a mega nerd, insanely rich, or down syndrome to spend $30+ on 3 virtual floors in a non existent tower!

 

UI suggestion:

Don't know if others agree, but I would prefer if the elevator shaft could only be used to scroll and not to select a floor. The floors are large enough that you could click on them if you really wanted to. I find too many times I go to hit the red request ride arrow and end up clicking on the floor instead. Then again maybe it's just me.

Question:

So that the Dev actually made some money off this game. Do you prefer the IAP the way they are (and thus the change from 3 bux to 1 bux) OR would you rather prefer that it was more like a LITE version (ie. you get to build 12 floors for free, then after that you have to pay $1 to unlock the rest of the game?

 

Could you change the number of characters allowed in the floor title? I tried out changing one just to see what it's like. Well of course I had to randomly pick Volleyball Club... and when I went to change the name back to the original name it only let me enter Volleyball Clu. Now it's really bugging me because I want to keep all the original names and I can't! Can you set it so when you leave it blank in editing, it reverts to the default name? Or increase the number of characters?

 

Don't know if it has been mentioned before, but can the VIP big spender and famous person be totally different to avoid any confusion?

 

I'm not naive enough to believe it wasn't motivated at least in part by keeping the IAP nudge alive in the later game, but I'll take their word it was mainly for game balance since that nudge is very, very mild at its strongest. The number of people who even could use dream jobs to bux farm is not nearly as many as you imagine. There are less than 32,000 players out of well over a million on Game Center who could even break even let alone profit from dream job farming. For more than 97% of the player base, the whole mechanic was a non issue. They could no more utilize let alone abuse the mechanic than sprout wings on their butt and fly. The presence or absence of dream job farming, unless by some crazy coincidence a majority of those who bought IAP were within the 3% of potential bux farmers, simply cannot have an effect on their IAP return at this stage of the game development.

 

They are, one's obviously male, and one's obviously female (at least it's obvious to me )

 

Ah.. thank you.

 

Well, I believe you .. you are the developer, therefore you have the right statistic i guess ..

This meant that I am the minority here but wait .. what I've seen in the appstore comments says another .. and what I've seen here in this topic also says something different .. I'm not so sure now, but what I've personally perceived has already affected my decision regardless what your data says .. and I am not the only one here ..

Hmm .. would it be too difficult to add difficulty as an option? Easy difficulty with bux farming maybe? And Hard difficulty for those who really have the patience that I and those minority doesn't have?

Or maybe you can totally remove Bux as part of in game economy and just use gold as in-game currency?

And then, you should concentrate on the value added content to the game as IAP .. I don't know about others .. but, I would love to spend my money to be able to customize the look of my tower up to the point of skinning .. I don't mind to pay you another dollar for an ability to add extra lift maybe .. I

Hmm .. last time before the update, I did spent 4.99 dollars to buy IAP ..

I always thought freemium is a game that can be played for free at acceptable level of fun with IAP as OPTION .. which I've experienced in tiny tower before the removal of the 'exploit' as you may call it ..

I'm not a cheapskate .. that's why I am more than willing to spend 4.99 dollar for IAP .. mainly for two reasons .. 1st because the bux farming 'exploit' made me thinks that NB wasn't really in for the money .. 4.99 also is the amount that I am willing to pay for Tiny Tower if it is not a freemium games ..

2nd because I need to upgrade the lift which from my perspective is an option, a value added to the game that affecting my gameplay experiences .. also I can't afford to spend apprx. 24 hrs realtime on bux farming to accumulate the bux amount required for lift upgrade ..

earlier, I was hoping NB would concentrate it's IAP into something like the lift upgrade .. but NO, the approach is to adjust the so-called BALANCE of the game of which in my view is a kind of excuses that only my 7 years daughter will accept ..

 

1) Love the new Real Estate Agent VIP (forgot to mention that earlier)

2) For anyone who cares...the spreadsheet listing all the businesses has been updated (thanks dazarath for the data)
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoRVCrTj0E7IdGU5RnoyMDh6V09vNURaMDJaWEh3MWc&hl=en_US&authkey=COXxi44O

 

+1 .. I couldn't says it better than you sir .. I am not a native english speaker .. but I agree with you completely ..

 

If you have enough GC friends to see where they rank in the world, you can figure the statistics out yourself, you don't need to be a developer. The percentage of all players of the game who could even utilize the mechanic is, at most, 3%. Of that 3%, how many made the mechanic a normal part of their strategy? Certainly not all, and almost certainly not even a simple majority. In all likelihood, we are looking a fraction of a percent for players who were actually affected by the nerf considering at least 97% couldn't possibly be affected. Judging by own rank and lack of rushing, I'd say it's around my earlier stated 2/10ths of a percent.

Any time there is a nerf to a popular 'exploit' you can be as certain as the sun comes up there will be a torrent of complaints, curses, damnations, and middle fingers to those brain dead devs who have ruined the game. Hence the common idiom, vocal minority.

Remember, 2/10ths of a percent of well over a million players still amounts to a couple of thousand people, of which, what, 150 or so have bothered to bitch online giving you this skewed impression.

 

Jeez, it must be great to know everything, to always be right, and to mis-read what others are saying.

1. I have not farmed dream jobbers. When a new bitizen arrived and I could place him/her in a good place, I did that. That ain't farming, which as I understand it involves wholesale evictions and replacements.

2. I did not say that the Bux change ruined the game for me. I said that I missed that nice, occasional surprise as I sometimes use saved Bux to speed up a floor I'm building.

3. I did say that I find spending a lot of time ferrying bitizens becomes tedious.

4. As it happens, I don't give a rat's ass about achievements or who has the highest tower. I haven't looked at Game Center since the first week.

Some of your posts here have been interesting and/or informative. But you might read what others are actually saying more carefully and be less judgmental in the future. The Marsh Brothers, whom I admire, can speak for themselves and perhaps don't need you as their spokesperson.

 

Hmm .. I don't know .. I guess you are right also .. I've already uninstalled the game so I can't see what the statistic looks like .. I remember I was in top 20 out of 60+ GC friends.. my tower was at level 52 ..

I certainly don't want to crack my head to calculate this .. playing games is my casual hobby .. if it is no more fun, I'll look for another game .. as simple as that ..

If there is not many people affected, then I guess it is the right decision made by NB .. good luck to them ..

yes .. that is the reality .. and vocal minority often can cause stir towards majority opinion, won't you agree?

 

Since I never contradicted anything you just "clarified", maybe you could take your own advice. Specifically, pay attention to the "If you..." part you just quoted.

Do I find it odd you would bother to complain at this stage if you hadn't ever cycled bitizens seeking dream jobs? Yes, but I'll take your word for it. I posted some ways back that I enjoyed the 3 bux bonus and I wouldn't even care about the new "improved" one, so I get that part.

Still have no idea what tedium and ferrying bitizens has to do with this.

 

Just to clarify, since Chip Hannum seems to think that everyone who enjoyed the 3Bux was some Bux-Farming cheater:

People play sandbox games differently. That's why the design appeals to the casual gamer.

I liked finding dream jobbers for the double-stocking and the sense of completion I got from having all green faces on a floor.

The occasional Bitizen I'd purchase with a Bux was nothing more than a short-range goal.

I had no problem paying for Bux until this update. I liked the way NB seemed to be doing business and praised them to the skies as being the anti-Zynga. Since my play strategy isnt built around Bux my disgruntledness is
less about the Bux themselves and more about my disappointment in NimbleBit for pulling a very, very Zynga move.

Frankly what I'd like to see is a return to 3Bux for dream jobbers capped at three per floor. That's what I was doing anyway, automatically evicting folks who had dream jobs on floors I had already greened out.

 

I've actually stated numerous times I don't really think the nerf was all that necessary, I just don't see the reversal of the nerf as necessary either and I'm not going to argue with the dev's intentions for *their* game. It's a total non-issue for me, and if you were literally just seeking dream jobbers, a total non issue for you since surely you care nothing about saving up your bux for an hour or two and then blowing the wad on your stated goal of green faces

Have fun, I'm out of here until Sunday night at the earliest

 

Uh, the only thing I was using Bux for was, as I said, "buying" a bitizen every time I got 5 Bux.

I never did what you and others seem to suggest in that I'd just take a bunch of bux and keep buying until folks were green. That sort of play isn't any fun to me at all, just as the very idea of Time Traveling in pocket frogs destroys what I feel is the true Zen of the game and turns it into some sort of snarky chore.

The Bux I've got now I just keep on hand because I've promised myself that, at 70 floors, if I get any floors i don't like because of ugliness (hello, Martial Arts) or tediousness (hello Barber Shop) or both (Hello, Diner), I'll knock them down and buy a new floor-filler. Oh, and I also use them to keep my floors organised in a way I find comforting.

I play sandbox games for Zen and aesthetics. Not to have the most frogs or the biggest tower or whatever.

 

"Have fun, I'm out of here until Sunday night at the earliest"

Oh no! Sure hope we can all muddle through without you, Chip.

 

Do certain stores unlock later?
I'm still having trouble getting a furniture store or a diner/sub shop, and I'm at 106 floors.
Has anyone experienced any fluctuations in income just because demand was low? like 50%? or does it not really matter.

Personally, I try to "hunt" down dream jobbers cuz of the x2 bonus when stocking, It makes shops such as barber, pub, frozen yogurt, sushi, mainly all the food places, much more bearable and not requiring as much input effort.