Since i didn't buy the game, it's difficult for me to comment on the different aspects of your answer so i have to keep a general line in my answer and maybe that could be an advantage rather then a disadvantage in this discussion. The steep learning curve is not an issue for gamers interested in this type of game, the difficulty neither. What matters is the knowledge that with enough effort, even grinding, we can succeed without iap. There really is nothing more to it then that. If you would have asked 12 without all the teaspoon scraping, the possibility to earn the additional wizards through playing, and after reading the review from pocket gamer, i would have payed the price without a problem. And you would have had me for new content in the future. Like i said before, it was a penny wise foolish move, to try to sell the game in its current form and since you participated on the forum during the development i can't understand why you made such a huge and foreseeable mistake. Put right what is wrong in a generous, clear way, without touching the core (difficulty) of the game and you can count me, and probably many others, in for the long run.
This sounds like a much fairer system without the Freemium feeling Turbotape, much prefer the idea of spells failing etc to the current warp stone situation. Hope this helps.
Just to throw in my $0.02 also - I generally agree with most of the comments shared here. I generally like the game, I just feel like some aspects of it need to be re-thought/re-tuned to make it feel more like the premium experience it is. A few suggestions: - When you fail a level, it would be a huge help to keep the loot you had acquired. Earning a bunch of gold during the course of a level, dying at the last waypoint, and finding out that you've lost all your gold/loot is disappointing. - Similar to the point above, people always want to feel like they're improving/making progress (and not getting worse) when playing a game. For example, I just played Chapter 7 of Act 1. I started the level with 5 warpstones. I made it to the very last waypoint only for the wizard I just resurrected to 1/2 HP (with my last 2 warpstones) only to get hit by the last monster *once* (with a die roll of 6) and die again. In and of itself, that's fine - it was just a bit of bad luck. Problem is, if I restart the level, I now have 0 warpstones (remember, I just lost them all during the previous failed attempt). I'll now have to spend 30 minutes grinding earlier levels just to get back to the same state where I was just so I can retry. That's not fun - that's a setback and unnecessary grinding/padding. Most games allow you to restart from the same state you originally started in - consider resetting folks to their original state + any gold they accrued during their last run if they have to retry a level. It would have been a much fairer experience in my opinion if I could have restarted that level with my 5 warpstones (what I originally started the level with) plus any gold I had grinded out during my failed mission. That way, I could buy another warpstone or two if I needed that extra boost to get through the level. IMO, The current model encourages too much grinding to avoid the IAP. I'm glad the developer is listening - there's a rough gem here, and with some proper tuning this could be a great boardgame like experience. Being an old tabletop gamer, I like the feel - the dice, the luck, the cards. Edit: Just replayed a few levels and had a few more suggestions: -The plunder chest rewards for replaying a level are just woeful. 4-10 gold per chest isn't going to cut it. That makes replaying a level to gather plunder almost pointless. -Maybe give the player a default number of warpstones per level - like a par system for golf. They would get a bigger reward for meeting/using less warpstones than the par/default.
We're doing this step by step. Removing option to buy Warpstone for Gold now. At the same time, we update Plunder Packs to keep their (random) content perpetually, and we add Warpstone bonuses to Arcane Fulcrums as well as Irrisistible Force. As such, Warpstone will always be available and never for a price. Ever. Hope that's appreciated. We hope to push this build to Apple tomorrow, which will have it out during next week. - barring any critical bug situations that push us over the week end. We're committing to difficulty levels (with reward for playing hard) and binding for power too. But that requires a bit of testing, so it will come in a later update. Anyway, with the above, I think all talk of pay to win and paywall will be settled. There will be no way to buy healing, and it'll always be available via gameplay. Keep comments coming, though. We can still only get better! Finally: I'm curious: how far have you guys come? Anyone unlocked the Chaos Sorcerer yet?
/salute Great to see a developer listening to reflective criticism only to make their game better for gamers. Personally, I think this game has huge potential, and this news is exciting. With the tweaks stated above, and continued growth of the game through updates, we'll have a splendid game.
Sounds good. Game is on my 'to-buy' list again. I like a good strategy game but unfortenately I am not a great gamer and I hate redoing stages more than twice. I always play games on easy because I mostly play them when I am at work, when I am waiting in between emergencies. As I understand now warpstones are sufficient available in every level so even players that struggle with the difficulty of the game, will be able to heal/ ressurect the wizards for a decent amount?
Well, hopefully the difficultly slider will at least help. I think the message the reaction to this game should relay is that making a challenging game on IOS with ANY kind of IAP, regardless of the necessity to pay into it, is going to be meet with backlash. IOS is generally known for more casual gamers, and games need to be accessible or they will immediately turn against the IAP as the only way to succeed. That said, I hope the other changes you make won't effect the game too much. I am over half-way through the current levels without any IAP purchases, very little grinding, and now have an abundance of resources. Once you get the key strategies down, the game becomes far more feasible to complete without a need for constant heals/rezs. I think bind would be better served having a cost but a risk of failure. Currently it is flat out the most powerful scroll in the game, and once you start realizing how plentiful warpstones are, there really is no drawback to using them. I worry that infinite plunder-packs may be a bit much, especially since some of the early stages could be farmed very quickly. Is there any chance of "side-missions" with random maps that could be attempted instead? Even if existing maps were somehow randomized it might help and make things more interesting for those that need to do some grinding. Another suggestion: I would love to see scrolls with multiple charges, as well as super rare items that are permanent. I feel like this game has potential to add a loot collecting element which would help a lot with the longevity of play.
I've been playing with the Dark Elf Sorceress for a few maps now and she is a beast. Utility spells are incredible, and open up so many more options in how you play. I think one of the things that really makes the game difficult early on is that you start with two purely direct-damage casters. When your units are all glass-cannons, you really need the utility to outmaneuver the types of enemies you face in AM. In the future I'd like to see even more utility. Perhaps traps, illusions, etc? Would really make forming different teams an interesting practise in finding the right combinations.
Just thought I'd stop by before the weekend to let you know that a new build was submitted to Apple a couple of hours ago. It will be out as soon as approval is in. It does away with all purchase options of Warpstone for Gold. Also, it ensures that you will never run out. Some of you may find yourself with overly much Warpstone on your hands, but I think those same of you really didn't have too little to begin with, so hopefully it will have the game feel much the same regardless. We'll be attentive to comments of course, and can continue to tweak these things as development goes on. There is still a lot of stuff that we did not attend to, like binding for power and difficulty. We felt it best to attend to the F2P comments first, then spend the time needed to test the other stuff. All other comments that has come in has been noted of course. Feel free to keep it coming! Another thing the build will bring is achievements. Hope you will enjoy them too! Checking out until Monday now! Anyone who feel we are worth it are encouraged to rate us and spread the word, of course. all help is highly appreciated! Have a great weekend, whenever it starts in your time zone!
Some ideas on the difficulty/warpstone quantity: - Have some kind of reward system with stars/skulls, whatever that you gain on completion. T clarify, something along the lines of, if you beat a stage using 0-2 warpstones you get 3 stars/skulls, 3-5 warpstones you get 2, etc., etc. Then have rewards for stage completion based on how you did. - Maybe limit how many warpstones can be used on each stage? This could be something that varies with difficulty. That way you could have unlimited, but it wouldn't necessarily make the game too easy depending on how many are allowed on a particular stage and/or difficulty. In addition, this would mean you wouldn't need to change binds to use power rather than warpstones.
Can't speak for future plans, but I've seen at least 7 or so different creatures so far. You have basic monsters such as harpies and trolls, with a single attack, bigger creatures like giants, and then greater daemons with a range of nasty attacks. There are a few reviews out so far for anyone on the fence. The game seems to be getting a positive response from reviewers: http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPad/Warhammer%3A+Arcane+Magic/review.asp?c=66763 http://toucharcade.com/2015/07/31/warhammer-arcane-magic-review/ http://tradingcardgames.com/review/warhammer-arcane-magic/ Really hope the game does see more content. I haven't seen any daemons of Nurgle yet, plus dragons and named mobs could really increase the thrill of especially challenging levels.
Congrats on the four star review mates. Good to see alk the wait pay off. Soon as I upgrade me phone, I'll grab this.
Not sure why that's disappointing, how many were you expecting? I'm all for more monsters, but one of the things that has drawn me into Arcane Magic is that every fight is significant. You don't see a bunch of slight variations on the same creature, and everything presents a real threat. Each time a new enemy is introduced, it is a notable new hurdle to overcome. In addition, you also faceoff against enemy casters, and without spoiling too much, there are some epic fights taking down legendary wizards backed up by creatures that alone would be a challenge.
Hi there! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the kind words over the week end, and all the positively great suggestions that have come up on all sorts of gameplay aspects! We're doing difficulty levels next, design pass on it now while the devs get the mechanisms in place. I particularly like the idea of different warpstone allowances on the various levels, that should keep it interesting for casual and hard core alike! Not 100% sure we implement it just like proposed here, but a mechanism or two to support that line of thought will definitely make it into the game! As for monsters, actually there are eight of them in the game. Also, you will encounter a minimum of five enemy wizards along the way, so with them you have 13 opponents all in all. ... For now.
One more thing, people. I'm spending a lot of time here tracking down discussions about the IAP / Warpstone matter, trying to set things straight be informing about our submitted changes. But I may not be getting to them all. If you want to help me out, that would be GREATLY appreciated! Either by commenting yourself, or by alerting me. Either here, or by dropping a line on our website contact form http://www.turbotapegames.com/contact-us/ messages that goes through there arrives straight in my inbox! And if you feel we deserve it, ratings from anyone that has played the game is of course highly appreciated!
Hi Turbotape. From my own point of view the main issue with IAPs and Warpstones is having the option to buy them (with gold) for real money in a high priced game. I've played the game a bit more now and, having read this here, saved up 500 gold to buy a stack instead of buying a few when needed. Just doing this definitely makes the game playable. If you don't do this I found it impossible to progress. I suppose it seems obvious to some people to do this. Also I was grinding and getting hardly any gold, not realising you get more gold the first time a wizard kills a certain monster (bearing in mind though that you would have to buy an extra wizard with real money to use them until act 2 when others unlock). Coupled with some chests on (level 2?) containing nothing but about 9 gold pieces I was left feeling a very familar feeling...freemium game mechanics. In fact the whole IAP model reminds me very much of "Devils and Demons" (iOS and android). This game has chests with a bit of gold and a couple of potions, a spare team slot which can only be filled by spending more money until later in the game. After paying £3 to remove the ads for Devils--and-demons there was the same feeling of overwhelming pressure to spend more cash almost immediately, which is very frustrating. With Devils, I found it possible after several attempts to circumnavigate the game mechanics by not following screen prompts, eg to go to end of level- if you spend the end of a mission repeatedly healing your characters until they're full HP (which feels very unnatural, requiring multiple healing each character a bit, wait for cool down, end turn, repeat) then you don't have to spend gold between levels doing this. There are other ways I found to be able to progress in that game. These techniques do not feel like gaming strategy, buy like your whole strategy is towards battling having to pay more money. Having experienced this frustration with other games (freemium and some lower priced games) I have gravitated towards avoiding them on sight and choosing games in the £8 range which almost always are complete games without this kind of system. I have re-reviewed your game with a higher star rating having played it a bit more. Maybe Apple don't see it as a problem- they have ignored my request for a refund, hence I have been trying playing it again. All I can suggest as a reason to change the game to Apple is that allowing an option to buy gold to buy Warpstones to heal and resurrect has met with some customers frustration as it looks like a free-to-play model, and that the option to buy them with real cash should be ditched. This may seem unreasonable to Apple and yourselves, but I guess future reviews will reveal whether others have a problem with it, which may affect the sales. I notice all the reviews so far on the App Store are low, two (including my own) refer to the IAP scheme, and several people on this website have drawn the same conclusion that it resembles F2P in an already high priced game. Phew. Hope this helps.
