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Disappointed by the 'special spark shipments' offer

Now, to make clear, I'm not new to gacha mobile games. I'm very experienced with dealing with ridiculous pricing models and a focus on the whales spending for the company to make money with deals having no value for regular sized wallets.

I accept and understand it will always be expensive to acquire characters and be terribly overpriced. I'm ok with that, that's just how it is.

However, even by the obscene standards set by some other companies.. the direction that forged to fight is going seems absurd.

Charging 1720 energon for 80% of the resources to rank up one character you already have to own? You've got to be kidding me. That's taking it a step too far.

I'm a daily player, playing so frequently that I stay on top of away missions, and I enjoy the game and the style of play that it offers at its core, the game is actually fun to play.. but this new deal reveals something about the company that is actually enough to make me consider quitting the game. I've seen this before in other games. Over monetising the wrong aspects of the game. Every single item in the game doesn't have to be monetised to this extreme.

Please reconsider the direction you are going, because I will not follow.

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    MustangjonMustangjon Posts: 1,146
    edited May 2017
    You can earn items for progression slowly or purchase them faster. What's hard about that concept? Everything offer has been this way

    And no I didn't buy it
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    TerminalTerminal Posts: 789
    Mustangjon wrote: »
    You can earn items for progression slowly or purchase them faster. What's hard about that concept? Everything offer has been this way

    And no I didn't buy it

    As I said, the gameplay and progression I have no problem with.

    The problem is these deals reveal a certain type of mindset of the developers. One that I've seen before in other games, which I don't think is healthy.

    The fact that they think it's ok to price 8000 essence at 1720 means the way they view the costs of things in game is warped.
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    MustangjonMustangjon Posts: 1,146
    Price of an item is only as good as the buyers and if enough buy no need to alter course less people buy next time will be lower offer
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    Greenie_81Greenie_81 Posts: 54
    If your gripe is regarding the alpha sparks to rank, there are already a few ways you can get them. The prime challenge (even the mid difficulty map gets you some), raid store, alliance quest, Sunday offer and of course these special officers that come around every once in a while. For the record, the price for the offer includes other stuff apart from the 8000 essences which actually is a lot if you have been grinding hard to accumulate them. The only issue here i feel is that 10,000 to create 1 alpha is too much. But other than that, they have tried to introduce more ways to attain these essences. Get roster ranked up and join a competitive alliance that priorities AQ and you'd see more of these essences soon enough.
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    Hey guys.

    So, from time to time, we're going to make offers. They may not all appeal to you, but that doesn't mean that they're not appealing to somebody else. It's not okay for anybody to make decisions on what others can see value in. If you don't see the value in this particular offer, it's totally and completely fine to pass on it.

    We're working hard to build a game that players of all levels can do their best in, regardless of whether or not they choose to spend.

    And keep in mind, just because you're not a fan of these particular offers, doesn't mean there won't be something coming along in the future that might be right for you!
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    TerminalTerminal Posts: 789
    Miike, I want to spend, but I'm not going to spend $100 for incomplete upgrade materials, I still need to get 20% more alpha from somewhere. It's more expensive than actually getting a 3* bot to use the materials on. I'm sorry, but that is just too extreme and doesn't make sense. Even by gacha standards.
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    SerapthSerapth Posts: 157
    Hey guys.

    So, from time to time, we're going to make offers. They may not all appeal to you, but that doesn't mean that they're not appealing to somebody else. It's not okay for anybody to make decisions on what others can see value in. If you don't see the value in this particular offer, it's totally and completely fine to pass on it.

    We're working hard to build a game that players of all levels can do their best in, regardless of whether or not they choose to spend.

    And keep in mind, just because you're not a fan of these particular offers, doesn't mean there won't be something coming along in the future that might be right for you!

    It should also been fine for people to give feedback on how you are pricing offers.

    I'll agree too, I find it disconcerting for the future that Kabam is setting the price of 4/5ths an alpha at 1750 units. That's whaling at a disturbing level.
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    ZapperZapper Posts: 186
    Nope Miiike, but it might mean that the game is 100% unaffordable for a normal player, hence the time investment needed to play it might not be worth it, since it's essentially pay to win.

    So don't give us that "this offer might not be for you" BS, we read that before over and over again for MCOC. Tell you what, I'm going to monitor your "offers" for a while and when I have the impression you are only catering to the 1% I'm going to bail out and stop playing the game.
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    CastellCastell Posts: 1
    Yes i feel the same here in mexico and the worst part i spend and receive garbage!
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    Mainer123Mainer123 Posts: 29
    Stitch626 wrote: »
    I think the issue I have with these deals is that they seem to be the same sort of deals that Kabam creates for MCOC. MCOC has been around for years and has a fairly solid player base. This game has been live for a few months, is plagued with performance issues, and has a fraction of the player base.

    IMO, you guys should be more focused on offering really great deals to entice players to WANT to play this game to develop a solid player base. As it stands right now, I have a hard time believing that you guys have long term plans for this game, and are only looking to try and hook a few big whales that will support the game for about a year, until they eventually quit and the game has to shut down due to lack of revenue.

    Do you guys realize how much money more people would pour into this game if the cost for things was much more reasonable? Let me ask you, whats better - selling 1 item to 1 person for $100, or selling that same item to 50 people for $25?

    Nobody could have said this any better 100% right on the money. No pun
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    SerapthSerapth Posts: 157
    Judging by the fact they are selling a 4 star bot for 99USD right now... Kabam and I have vastly different ideas of the value of items in this game.
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    TrailfireTrailfire Posts: 590
    Yeah, I'd much rather see more effort put into broadening the base of spending players with offers that entice middle and early stage players rather than the perpetual focus on top tier players. It's very discouraging for new players to enter an environment where there are few paths to catch up, and the competitive pool at the top shrinks if no one can join it but occasionally someone quits. There needs to be some degree of social mobility (so to speak) - paths for new players to catch up with early players. That doesn't have to just be the incredible alpha bottleneck - it can be offers that help the newest players get and rank up 3* bots to 3/30. Most top tier players already have all the 3* bots currently available, so increasing their availability through offers would mostly appeal to early/mid stage players.

    More attention to the early and mid stage gamers would also show a bigger commitment to the sustainability of the game, which is already a concern to many of the top tier players who wonder how much money they want to spend on something that may not survive the year. This sentiment gets expressed weekly in the community chat in Line

    Lastly, I think people are only giving feedback because they like the game - no one would bother talking about a game they didn't enjoy, so any criticism delivered through these forums is implicitly a statement of support :)

    BTW K.Mike, how come your comment isn't orange like normal?
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    TerminalTerminal Posts: 789
    so I see the deal is back with a complete disregard for everyone's feedback.
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    I've noticed a lot of these games give you the option to pay to bypass the grind. It makes me wonder: playing is supposed to be fun. Why set up a model where players pay to not have to play the game? That seems self sabotaging. if the game isn't fun or the grind is too obnoxious, players will move on to more rewarding games.
    I'd think a better sales model is keeping the grind reasonable, and having real money opportunities to increase rewards for playing. In a way, I think boosts are a step in the right direction. They help you earn reward rather than let you pay to bypass playing.
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    Terminal wrote: »
    Mustangjon wrote: »
    You can earn items for progression slowly or purchase them faster. What's hard about that concept? Everything offer has been this way

    And no I didn't buy it

    As I said, the gameplay and progression I have no problem with.

    The problem is these deals reveal a certain type of mindset of the developers. One that I've seen before in other games, which I don't think is healthy.

    The fact that they think it's ok to price 8000 essence at 1720 means the way they view the costs of things in game is warped.

    Cynically speaking, digital goods in a server under someone else's control have very fleeting value. You can pay hundreds for the stuff, but have no recourse if they decide the game isn't profitable and pull the plug.
    From what I've seen, free to play and targeting whales came about due to subscription fatigue. We want to play, to have support and new content, to have some PvP content, but over and over, people don't want to pay for it and jump ship to where the whales are paying for it instead.
    I'll admit I get annoyed by what looks like pure greed and cash grabs, but those are a result of people voting with their wallets.
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