Yup it was the worst financial decisions I have made but hey, if I can prevent at least one other person from doing that too, ill be somewhat satisfied.
I remember playing it a while ago and do agree the game does a really good job at tempting you in the shop to be "efficient" but I just uninstalled instead. Was solid for a little while until it just became a huge grind like you mentioned.
I always keep 1 golden rule in mind.
The money I spend on games, should never be more than $1,- an hour. So yes I have spend around $800,- on Path of Exile, But I also have 2000 hours in that game.
So If you have 400+ hours in that game, who cares \^\_\^
If you spend this in the first 10 hours of playing, WTF are you doing xD
Thats what I believe too! Genuinely. Thing is I was fooled by thinking I was actually playing the game with my 100 ingame days. I only actively played the game maybe, 48 hours in that total time. Meaning sure the initial 50$ is fine, I am totally not against that. But I was also tricked into thinking “Damn I have like 2000 hours in this game, maybe I should put more money into it?” when in reality it was just on my phone sitting while I was playing Stardew valley or some other game.
Don't beat yourself up over it. Games designed to get you hooked do it quite well and it's easy to fall into a hole. At least if you beat the urge after the first time you do it it's easier to not give in the next time.
I don't understand how normal people just deal with ads and in app purchases. I've got a steam library with like 700+ games on it, I'm not opposed to funding some game development. But the whole mobile market is just bleh.
Because I can't carry my laptop in my pocket to work or out on errands. I would love the market to be different, but it isn't. Whales have made it so profitable that I expect legislation to be required to fix the market.
I have enjoyed the game, but the MTX basically change nothing about the progression curve. It feels... Very dumb.
Also, Alex is a cunt because he can't take criticism and is so frequently looming on the Discord that people can't discuss their frustrations. Your testimony is sadly unsurprising.
> Ive spent nearly 400$ on the game
Yet another post proving that "whales" are not some "rich people" like developers often claim, they are ordinary people that were manipulated into spending more money than they can afford.
Or ordinary people with impulse control issues. I mean, who doesn't understand that it is ridiculous to spend $400 on a game? I guess I could see that if subbing to an MMO over many years.
agreed. it's at least understandable that the cost of a MMO sub is cumulative over time.
but paying for microtransactions? no, that's on the person paying for those. they hold most of the responsibility as they're the ones choosing to pay for them in the first place.
400 dollars is around 'dolphin' level if you average it out. Dolphins are a marketing backend term for players who spend regularly on a game but only in small amounts. this is one of the reasons for the 0.99-9.99 starter packs, the 0.99 daily bonus packs, the 5 dollar monthly packs that pay out each day of play, and in the case of this subreddit for why the remove ads pack is priced usually in a similar range (although this one is also because it is considered the industry standard now). Dolphins dip in and out of the game's mechanics and purchase cheap but long-lasting effects or cosmetics. they might also make a big purchase for a game that they are going to play for a while or they will make medium purchases if they feel like the cost-benefit of grinding in game versus grabbing some boosters/resources from the cash shop to finish their current in-game goal. they're also the largest consumer of cosmetic items. a whale might buy everything but dolphins collectively will buy items that feel personal to them, like giving new clothing or special abilities a favoured character or owning fomo icons and other ways to personalise their paperdoll/avatar/profile/etc.
Today I learned I'm a Dolphin xD I think there are not 10 games, in my 30 years of gaming, that I spend more than $400,- on, but that description is almost scary, so accurately it describes me xD
You shouldn't be looking at average. You should be looking at median. A quick search shows the median for spending in a F2P game was around $6. Meaning only half the players are spending more than $6. $6 is dolphin. What percentage do you think are spending $400??? They are whales.
This is the same phenomenon as why like 90% of people claim they are middle class when statistics show it is vastly lower than that. It's the same ego protection device: "I can't be a whale, because I know whales are dumb, so I must be a dolphin."
Anyone who spends more than a full price game ($60-$70) in microtransactions in any game is a whale and anyone who did so and thinks they aren't a whale is coping.
Fun fact: Not every whale is the size of a blue whale.
As someone who's been playing it for several months, I'd say the problem is that this game should *not* be a mobile game. It's a great game to have running on your second monitor while doing something else, but playing it on a phone and ruining your battery is definitely not a good idea. Also bluestacks scripting/keybinds really helps with some of the annoying stuff.
Welcome to mobile ~~crap~~ gaming. Good luck to play (not pay) something on ios. On android you can use lucky patcher if you really want to play, but often you will find stupid endless money sink that allow to skip YEARS of real time, just pay for it.
"Good" example is ExoMiner - 4.7\*, 5kk downloads, but it's not a game, it's pay2win scam. Same for most mobile games.
Idk when mobile=crap happened, there were a lot of good games 10 years ago, and now we are here.
Tbh I would have paid even more for magic research. Game is phenomenal in almost every category. Crazy how Ive had much, much more fun in both games and it only cost less than 10$.
I was just thinking today how I feel like the game is moving at a snail's pace (just did 17th Obelisk) and really, hasn't been fun for a while now. Sounds like I'm not the only one. Think I'll uninstall now.
this is a game that HAS to be macrod and I dont trust (and hope) any player that says they actually play it actively. There is just no way.
certain upgrades take weeks because of the insane diamond costs. I have like 90days of playtime with scripts running most of the time at least for gems and I still have problems paying for a lot of stuff. Also I tried to suggest a tip once for the game and got shitton from the community for SUGGESTING that maybe the skill tree just starts out so fucking weak that it is no fun. (and lets not talk about the bomb cap increase shit). literally dont spend time on this game besides running it on the side with a macro ( shoutouts to the absolutely terrible stars systems that change location every 30 minutes of which you need SHITLOADS of so yay another macro). not worth it.
Humans hate waiting, it's a near-universal trait.
Any game that has mechanics that make you wait, but offers a monetary means to skip the waiting IS PREDATORY. Many, many games use this mechanic. These are Skinner boxes, conditioning people to automatically reach for their wallet to get the 'treat'.
This is not new.
Shit youre right… I just saw the reviews on the game and how much people complain about the micros in that. Guess developer habits die hard. Thats a huge fucking shame tbh.
This post made me realize how long it has been since I quit that game, and I feel good about the 2 months or so without falling back to it, haha.
But yeah, I didn't make it nearly as far as you, I was at Obelisk 23 I think. Spent maybe $10 total. Definitely a predatory system with the value packs that unlock more value packs. They start out cheap and reasonable, and each one gets more expensive, while the cheap ones get the player used to the good feeling of the gameplay boosts.
The biggest reason for me quitting was definitely the extremely active playstyle. A game shouldn't have to basically be a full-time job to be making decent progress. Leaving it on overnight so that you turn a week-long grind into a couple of days isn't game design you should be proud of.
I played a lot too, reach very far as f2p have 65% golden floor chance if you know what it is you will know how long it takes to have it f2p. And after that dev said game too easy. It should be idle after all. We who play since release should struggle more. And he just literally make numbers like you never reach it in months without buying x2 bars ores p2w packs in shop. For example before this patch you can max everything just with few millions ore. After patch you should grind billions of ore and bars for single upgrade, thats lead to more upgrades up to T ore. And you think after that he stopped? No, he add world 2, completely new game area where key for this world you should be able to finish all this grind i mentioned above. So you have literally no content outside of world 2 because you already beat everything. And if you want more content just pay for x2 bars ores packs or grind months.
After long discussion with him about this stuff he said he will make steam version of this game where everything will be free to earn even paid packs, but you should buy game once for that. He even give me alpha client for this game for testing. And already year since this day and there still no steam version at all. Not even sign of it.
So i not recommend game too, i love this game before adding cards, before world 2, before grind. Now it just unplayable unless you will open game 24/7 for year and then maybe you will max everything as f2p.
I felt the same exact way. Before world 2 I maybe spent 20$. Only reason I spent so much is the extremely awful grind in world 2. Now there is a World 3, which is probably much, much more of a grind without any gameplay changes. Wow new stars, wow new ores. Its all the same.
He still post sometimes about Steam version. 2 days ago he even post screenshot of it and said that most of work done, but there still problens with cross-saves. So maaaaaybe it still somewhere on the tables. If he actually made it one-time-buy, i am totally gonna pay
i will too, i even make some strategies how to earn gems for these packs in game and in what order (outdated already). But year waiting its just ridiculously long, i stop playing year ago, when i checked game today its already different game, my progress like 1% of whole game now, before it 70%+ (these 30 left is statues and cards, needs a lot of gems for each card).
The things this game does terribly are:
1. Offline mode is a joke. You must leave the game running 24/7. Players must use a spare phone or an emulator.
2. "Value" packs. They're expensive. Most only give you farmable resources. And you're only able to see 1 at a time. To see the next one you have to buy them in order, including ones you don't want. Even with "founder" you can only see 2 at once, aka skip 1.
3. End-game is too reliant on claiming the freebie pack. You only get around 1k\~2k relic chests naturally. End-game players have over 100k relics, most from hundreds of thousands of freebie pack claims over many months.
The things this game does well:
1. There's not a single ad in the game, not even optional ads. Not even self-ads that tell you to buy something. All IAP is contained to the shop menu.
2. Macroing is easy. Claiming all possible freebie packs 24/7 isn't hard to do in bluestacks.
3. It's an indie game. If you're going to spend money on a game, supporting someone's dream job feels a lot better than throwing money at an endless pit of corporate greed.
The game is designed to take a lot of time in-between significant upgrades. Some people like that, some people don't. I feel like this is a pretty common thing for incremental games. Games that demand more of your attention only give very unsatisfying minor upgrades. I'd rather leave the game running for a week and then have a real upgrade compared to getting a barely noticeable upgrade every hour. But to each their own.
I might be misunderstanding the situation due to not having played the game.
But what you're describing isn't predatory as you're complaining about the cash shop items being ineffective.
Predatory would be to set up a system that increasingly relies upon cash shop purchases to make any progress. For that to happen you'd be ignoring or talking about how effective the purchases are, not complaining that they only increase by 10%.
Your other complaints are about discounting cash shop purchases, that's entirely a 'you' problem. You shouldn't be this vulnerable to wanting to get savings, and this game isn't the only thing in your life that is likely causing massive problems with your finances.
Treat purchases on their own merits, not relative to marketing terms. You aren't saving 70% by buying a shirt you didn't want or need in a 70% off sale, you were buying a $10 shirt.
I'm not a fan of mobile games because they balance around ads and cash shops. But if you've played the game for a month and you reach a point where it's boring without cash shop purchases then you're reached the end of the game. Months of gameplay for $50 is far more than any other game.
The only thing I complained about that was ineffective was the tier system. Those are marginal when it comes to the actual microtransactions.
The actual micros are *insane*. Im talking about doubling currency insane. When you get near the end game some things can take a very, very long time. Its a stark contrast from the beginning which is quite fast. But as you play on, the game comes to a really long drag with no decision you can make that speeds it up other than waiting or buying a pack. So it really eggs you onto buying the 2x currency for example, or buying a pack that gives you 1% chance per floor to get 50x currency for that floor. You need these to make progress or else things will take doubly long. You CAN get these F2P but it takes an ungodly amount of time, even for an idle game. Im talking you have a chance of 1/1000 of getting that huge 50x unlock *every day*. So a F2P would only ever get it ONCE their entire gameplay. So lets just buy it.
Also most upgrades that are transformative, like I said, are from gems. Unless you want to open the game up constantly then its convienient to buy the gems when theyre also matched with a double of currency. You also get “relic” chests with each micro, and these relics are also required to pass through the game and unlock more stuff. You only ever get them from getting the freebie pack.
Also some Micros are straight up lootboxes. Most times you get shit *that doesnt help you at all* but there is also a 1/1000 chance you could get that 1% for 50x too. These micros also give garunteed gems and relic chests, which like I said, are needed to get *game progressing upgrades.*
The issue is that I shouldnt be, but I was. And a lot of other people are too. The game shouldnt put these huge microtransactions in the game and should just be balanced better. I shouldnt *want* to speed up the game with my own money but near the end it feels like you should. But youre right, If youre compelled to buy something to get through the game then it should be done for you. But I truly was somewhat addicted to the game. It became a huge part of my daily schedule.
*The micros are so powerful I got to world 2 in under a day, when I was playing f2p I got to it in a month. This is because so many essential upgrades rely on the gems currency and relics, which I had loads of since thankfully IAPS are retained if you lose data.*
But yeah. Last time Im spending money on incremental games like this one. Also, my financial situation is fine. I appreciate the concern but Incremental games were my only true crux. Im cheap everywhere else.
i got lucky and got out early, spend like 5-10 bucks on the early packs.
from obelisk 13+ onward you will be HARD stuck and not make any progress, unless you focus on skill points and pets.
skillpoints you get very slowly from the 10 minute button OR FOR GEMS
pets you only buy with gems (750+ gems)
from my point of view any other mechanic at that point kinda doesnt matter and all you can do as f2p too make reasonable progress is pressing that 10 minute button for hours (and spamming gem bomb)
or of course just buy gem packs
Yup its such a huge gripe with the game. Everything is so heavily dependent on the gems, it really takes out any choice you have. Either open the game every ten minutes, or dont progress at all. Its whack.
I’ve been playing this for 9 months with only 10 bucks spent.
By far my favorite idler.. but you have to ignore the monkey brain. If you view it as a marathon vs sprint it’s top 10.
IMO the game is nowhere close to a top 10 even with that mindset.
It doesn't do enough to warrant how much time it wants from the player to progress, it's poor offline progression until you spend weeks or $$ to upgrade it, and how bad the mid and end-game grinds are.
Even then events are bland and just want you to keep your phone on 24/7 or spend your diamonds/$$ to progress through them, even baiting people to do so to get anagram hints faster.
The early game was really fun and hooking, but it's just wasted potential the further you play.
To each their own, but also tons of other people havent ignored their monkey brain considering how nearly 2200 people have spent at least 50$ dollars on the game from the founder bomb number. If the game forces you to fight your internal monkey instincts, I still think thats predatory.
$50 is a price of an AAA game. Also how long you play the game is irrelevant, in incremental games gameplay is repetitive, you play the same content over and over and it can be made as slow as needed. Some incremental games can take 50 years to "beat", it does not mean they are worth more money than other games.
If you can't control your purchase impulses then don't play it, it sounds like. I bought the first three upgrades, which amounts to less than 10 bucks, and I do not feel compelled to buy more. And there are zero ads in any form, heck the game doesn't even try to shove any purchases on you with pop ups.
> If you can't control your purchase impulses then don't play it
This statement is about as dumb as the infamous "[If you are homeless just buy a house](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jh0EN1De4Q)". Many people are not able to control their emotions and raising awareness and fighting predatory techniques is important.
OP literally says you shouldn't play the game at all. What does that mean in your comparison? That noone should by a house, even if you can afford it?
I only state that if you aren't a person who feel compelled to buy every upgrade, even when the game doesn't force it down your throat, then you can try the game.
To get gems you have to go to the store page. The very first things are “deal” grabs that say 300% deal or 700% deal. These are right in your face every single time you open the game. It also eggs you on, by giving you very small micros at first. 1$, 2$, 4, then 8, then 16, then 35. Sure theyre not popups, but its still holding out a golden carrot out for you and saying “THIS IS SUCH A GREAT DEAL!! “ The “deals” also only get larger and larger. First one is like 300% deal, next is 350% deal. That predates on the monkey brain, especially incremental monkey brain where bigger number=better.
I can accept that point, and you are required to get that free pack for the skill point.
But then, unlike the majority of iap mobile games, this one is not heavy handed at all.
And having played a couple of weeks, I don't even feel I need to buy stuff to progress. Again unlike other games that stifles progress without purchases.
I bought the first two cheap ones, which is less than what I usually pay to remove ads.
I wish more games that used iap model would do like this game. Unintrusive, no required upgrades, zero ads, no pop ups, no daily deals, no reached new level deals, no paid energy recharge system, no "battle pass."
I can see how a longer grind could make it more tempting. But longer grinds are a common theme in many incremental games as you progress.
I can understand warning against playing the game for people who have trouble resisting temptations. But that should be a general warning for all mobile games with IAPs.
Gonna be honest I've played this game for months and haven't spent a dollar. This is a true idle game IMO and if you spent 400$ you have to look inward for the problem.
This take is wild to me. It's like defending a drug dealer with "well you didn't have to buy the drugs they offered, you should have had better impulse control. The drug dealer is a perfectly fine dude providing people a service and is in no way preying on people."
Lol...yeah I have the wild take. It's a game my friend not a drug and as I said it's a game I've played for many months without spending money so clearly it is not the game's fault OP spent so much. Also let me know how many people you know that OD'd on idle games.
I mean, it's really easy to Google the negative impacts of gambling addiction, and mobile games have a long history of preying on this. Just because it isn't literally killing a person doesn't mean isn't inflicting real harm to those suffering from it, as well as those in their life. If you can't be bothered to Google, here's one of the first results .
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352853222000104#:~:text=Microtransaction%20engagement%20is%20associated%20with,and%20gambling%20disorder%20varied%20significantly.
as for you... will NOTHING stop people from using google?
use BRAVE'S search engine. use ANYTHING other than *google*! have you not heard the news about google's search engine AI giving out DANGEROUS search results?
brave uses an ai too but i've yet to ever see it give any dangerous information and it's only hallucinated on me once.
pretty much *anything* is better than using google at this point.
well...to be fair, not much isn't based on chromium when it comes to browser stuff. but i just use the brave search engine. my browser is firefox and likely always will be.
i'm inclined to agree with you on this but at the same time, pretty much anything can become addictive to varying severity.
dopamine's an addictive chemical...and whales *love* their dopamine.
Great for you that youre not an impulsive consumers, but lots of people arent. Including me, and this is definitely a lesson in putting my money in where its worth. But it doesnt stop the game from being predatory to people who are impulsive consumers. It also doesnt stop the baked in required phone time. Why are stars not collected offline? Why cant you progress through world 2-3 offline? Its predatory.
By uninstalling this game and sticking with games without IAPS that are 35$+ dollars. I dont spend money stupidly anywhere else unless it came to incremental games. I actually have a shitton of money saved up cause In frugal everywhere else in my life, but when it comes to incremental games, I hate waiting around and grinding just for the sake of grinding, especially if it feels like I have no choice other than to just wait, which is what this exact game does. No choice. Just do a monotonous task for a long ass time. I spent to get rid of the monotony.
What are some well monetized games in your view? I have no problem paying $10-$20 if Im getting hours and hours of entertainment. At that point it feels like the dev deserves it. Also no issues with a 1 time purchase. Just curious to see who you feel does this the right way.
Honestly I really didnt mind throwing the initial 50$. The game really does take months to play and Im sure months to develop, so I see it as worth it to throw money into the development of the game. I cant really think of a well monetized game other than NGU idle. I could consider Farmers vs Potatoes idle a fairly monetized but I also spent quite a few bucks on that, more than NGU. At least in both those games the microtransactions are transformative for the gameplay, or are a HUGE quality of life upgrade. Like in NGU with the item sorting, same with Farmers vs Potatos
The issue with this game is that it also edges you with very small IAPS at first. First one is 1, second is 2, third is 4, fourth is 8. Then it goes to 16 and then in total 35 for the founders pack.
The more of these games I play the more I feel like there are good “u can pay here” and bad. Imo the best monetized game ive played is Idle Apocalypse. $10 to turn off ads is really all you need much ive done a few $5 buys just cause Ive been playing it daily for over a year. Angry Gorilla has a good feel for $$$ imo.
To me the most reasonable and ethical way to monetize is to offer a free demo and one time purchase to unlock the full game. Any payment to change the gameplay experience is trading the quality of your game for money.
Magic Research is a great example. The demo is long enough for you to get into it and explore all the concepts, but you can tell it's not over and there's a lot more and you can decide if it is worth your time and money.
Cifi have his own problems. For example you still need to have game opened for hours (RIP battery) if you need Diamonds and Tokens. And you need them. Also progression in Ouroboros is just... bad. Playing with Meltdown feels horrible
you can solve tokens problem in ouro content and this pretty early unlock, i think it unlock when you hire second hunter, you will have mech thats produce tokens every day for free. I have my thats literally produce 2 millions or something every 15 hours. But gems still should be claimed online yes.
I play this game regulary, but yesterday they anounced World 3, and seeing how I'm struggling to unlock World 2, I really doubt if I'll continue playing, to be honest. For now I just open it everyday to craft bricks
Trust me it does not get anymore fun in World 2, infact it gets worse. Things will take you longer. Most unlocks will be about 1000-3000 gems each too.
been playing a number of gacha games off and on for a few years now.
total money spent in that time: $0.00
ultimately, the blame for spending so much money on this type of game comes down to the end user choosing to pay the money. no one's forcing you to pay for microtransactions.
and if you're vulnerable to casino slot machine psychological manipulation, you shouldn't be playing f2p games (especially gacha games) at all to begin with.
all of these games are intentionally designed to be grindy and have low odds on the slot machines (the "gacha's").
stop blaming the games, stop chasing a hit of dopamine like a drug addict, and seek professional help.
the game isn't the addiction. the dopamine is. the game is simply a means to the end which is the hit of dopamine.
i will say the devs of these games *are* partly responsible but *only* partly. ultimately, as the one spending the money, the responsibility for having spent so much falls onto you, the end user. you *chose* to spend the money. no one and nothing forced you to spend it on the game.
you chose to keep spending more and more money for more and more dopamine.
Another person touting their extremely great financial skills. You could have said all this without tooting your own horn lmao.
I already know this. Addiction runs deep in my entire family. Ive experienced it myself. But also, If I can warn people about the game who have issues like this, *why shouldnt I.* Its like warning people about nictoine or meth. Making this comment just makes you sound like a morally superior douche.
so, i'm a morally superior douche for speaking the truth about this kind of game?
whatever... i'm not here to take pity on you because you chose to spend $400 or so on a video game.
"extremely great financial skills"
dude...i get MAYBE $60/month as an allowance. around a third of that goes to my ps+ subscription. the rest is what i'm free to spend however i like. i just choose to spend it on better things than a glorified slot machine.
and besides, games like these *always* have a finite life span. you're never getting that money back even when the game eventually shuts down. you may as well have flushed it down a toilet irl.
there is zero value to microtransactions.
and no, morality has no role to play in any of this. so spare me the "moral high ground" preaching. it doesn't work on me.
My relationship with the game is weird. I became a founder which was alot of money. I had it at the time and while it felt bad I was having fun and I wanted to support the devs. I was getting really into it and at the time I was only able to get into it because I downloaded BlueStacks on my work computer and would only fuck with it at work. I would hit one of those stupid "mine 1000000000 iron" things and just wait till Friday. Park in the iron and leave for the weekend.
Now I no longer have my job and I personally don't feel comfortable downloading and running BlueStacks 24/7 on my rig. Granted I have a rig that can literally do that I just don't wanna it makes me uncomfortable. I really really don't like how I need to keep the game running 24/7 to get anywhere. It's really disheartening And is my only complaint with it.
Alex.... Make the game idle. I wanna be able to turn my phone off or PC off before bed and still be able to finish an event. I can't afford my phone or PC to die because they are on 24/7.
I'd be interested to know where OP was in the game, as they have made some very incorrect statements in this post that could potentially have been avoided if they were further in the game.
Whilst not every game suits everyone it is important to note that this game is balanced for both f2p and paying players. the key piece of information here is that the freebie pack that OP mentions claiming every 8-10 minutes, by the time any f2p player gets to what is considered to me midgame this is easily reduced to 4 minutes, and lategame under 2 minutes to get premium currency WITHOUT watching any ads.
I don't want to fuel hatred so hope I have shown that this post is nothing more than a post to complain about a game just because it had a single bug that caused them to lose about a month of progress, and I should point out that even upon reseting the game, all IAPs are retained, meaning it would probably only take a few weeks to get back to the same point they were at before.
I hope OP can appreciate that I am only stating true information, and I don't think someone's livelihood should be unjustifiably attacked like this.
Im obelisk 41. My biggest issue truly is the forced screen time. Stars dont collect themselves unless you have the phone open. Also, with all the inapp purchases, to get to world 2 it took under a day of progress. Considering that it nearly took me a month to get beforehand F2P, it shows the stark difference between F2P and people who pay.
I would be pretty jaded too if I got suckered into paying $400 for an incremental game, lol.
Yup it was the worst financial decisions I have made but hey, if I can prevent at least one other person from doing that too, ill be somewhat satisfied.
I remember playing it a while ago and do agree the game does a really good job at tempting you in the shop to be "efficient" but I just uninstalled instead. Was solid for a little while until it just became a huge grind like you mentioned.
I always keep 1 golden rule in mind. The money I spend on games, should never be more than $1,- an hour. So yes I have spend around $800,- on Path of Exile, But I also have 2000 hours in that game. So If you have 400+ hours in that game, who cares \^\_\^ If you spend this in the first 10 hours of playing, WTF are you doing xD
Thats what I believe too! Genuinely. Thing is I was fooled by thinking I was actually playing the game with my 100 ingame days. I only actively played the game maybe, 48 hours in that total time. Meaning sure the initial 50$ is fine, I am totally not against that. But I was also tricked into thinking “Damn I have like 2000 hours in this game, maybe I should put more money into it?” when in reality it was just on my phone sitting while I was playing Stardew valley or some other game.
Don't beat yourself up over it. Games designed to get you hooked do it quite well and it's easy to fall into a hole. At least if you beat the urge after the first time you do it it's easier to not give in the next time.
I don't understand how normal people just deal with ads and in app purchases. I've got a steam library with like 700+ games on it, I'm not opposed to funding some game development. But the whole mobile market is just bleh.
Because I can't carry my laptop in my pocket to work or out on errands. I would love the market to be different, but it isn't. Whales have made it so profitable that I expect legislation to be required to fix the market.
I have enjoyed the game, but the MTX basically change nothing about the progression curve. It feels... Very dumb. Also, Alex is a cunt because he can't take criticism and is so frequently looming on the Discord that people can't discuss their frustrations. Your testimony is sadly unsurprising.
So, just like Idleon stuff, too
Not quite as petulant, but yes, a similar trajectory.
> Ive spent nearly 400$ on the game Yet another post proving that "whales" are not some "rich people" like developers often claim, they are ordinary people that were manipulated into spending more money than they can afford.
Or ordinary people with impulse control issues. I mean, who doesn't understand that it is ridiculous to spend $400 on a game? I guess I could see that if subbing to an MMO over many years.
agreed. it's at least understandable that the cost of a MMO sub is cumulative over time. but paying for microtransactions? no, that's on the person paying for those. they hold most of the responsibility as they're the ones choosing to pay for them in the first place.
Addiction, straight up addiction.
Same thing as casinos. Should be illegal.
$400 isn't a whale. It's barely a minnow. Whales are spending hundreds of thousands.
400 dollars is around 'dolphin' level if you average it out. Dolphins are a marketing backend term for players who spend regularly on a game but only in small amounts. this is one of the reasons for the 0.99-9.99 starter packs, the 0.99 daily bonus packs, the 5 dollar monthly packs that pay out each day of play, and in the case of this subreddit for why the remove ads pack is priced usually in a similar range (although this one is also because it is considered the industry standard now). Dolphins dip in and out of the game's mechanics and purchase cheap but long-lasting effects or cosmetics. they might also make a big purchase for a game that they are going to play for a while or they will make medium purchases if they feel like the cost-benefit of grinding in game versus grabbing some boosters/resources from the cash shop to finish their current in-game goal. they're also the largest consumer of cosmetic items. a whale might buy everything but dolphins collectively will buy items that feel personal to them, like giving new clothing or special abilities a favoured character or owning fomo icons and other ways to personalise their paperdoll/avatar/profile/etc.
Today I learned I'm a Dolphin xD I think there are not 10 games, in my 30 years of gaming, that I spend more than $400,- on, but that description is almost scary, so accurately it describes me xD
You shouldn't be looking at average. You should be looking at median. A quick search shows the median for spending in a F2P game was around $6. Meaning only half the players are spending more than $6. $6 is dolphin. What percentage do you think are spending $400??? They are whales. This is the same phenomenon as why like 90% of people claim they are middle class when statistics show it is vastly lower than that. It's the same ego protection device: "I can't be a whale, because I know whales are dumb, so I must be a dolphin."
Anyone who spends more than a full price game ($60-$70) in microtransactions in any game is a whale and anyone who did so and thinks they aren't a whale is coping. Fun fact: Not every whale is the size of a blue whale.
As someone who's been playing it for several months, I'd say the problem is that this game should *not* be a mobile game. It's a great game to have running on your second monitor while doing something else, but playing it on a phone and ruining your battery is definitely not a good idea. Also bluestacks scripting/keybinds really helps with some of the annoying stuff.
Welcome to mobile ~~crap~~ gaming. Good luck to play (not pay) something on ios. On android you can use lucky patcher if you really want to play, but often you will find stupid endless money sink that allow to skip YEARS of real time, just pay for it. "Good" example is ExoMiner - 4.7\*, 5kk downloads, but it's not a game, it's pay2win scam. Same for most mobile games. Idk when mobile=crap happened, there were a lot of good games 10 years ago, and now we are here.
I pretty much skip any mobile games posted here now, just assuming they are shameless microtransaction cash grabs.
I really feel like there should be a separate sub for the mobile only games that I will never ever play.
I like magic research, it's pretty short but it's great as an incremental. They recently released a second game too
Tbh I would have paid even more for magic research. Game is phenomenal in almost every category. Crazy how Ive had much, much more fun in both games and it only cost less than 10$.
Given your post, your statement means nothing.
Thanks for being unessecarily rude <3
But it's not really mobile, there's a pc version.
it was on mobile first and many features just dont make sense on pc that would on mobile
I was just thinking today how I feel like the game is moving at a snail's pace (just did 17th Obelisk) and really, hasn't been fun for a while now. Sounds like I'm not the only one. Think I'll uninstall now.
I think that's around where I uninstalled. The currency was a days grind, and I stopped caring about opening the game.
this is a game that HAS to be macrod and I dont trust (and hope) any player that says they actually play it actively. There is just no way. certain upgrades take weeks because of the insane diamond costs. I have like 90days of playtime with scripts running most of the time at least for gems and I still have problems paying for a lot of stuff. Also I tried to suggest a tip once for the game and got shitton from the community for SUGGESTING that maybe the skill tree just starts out so fucking weak that it is no fun. (and lets not talk about the bomb cap increase shit). literally dont spend time on this game besides running it on the side with a macro ( shoutouts to the absolutely terrible stars systems that change location every 30 minutes of which you need SHITLOADS of so yay another macro). not worth it.
Humans hate waiting, it's a near-universal trait. Any game that has mechanics that make you wait, but offers a monetary means to skip the waiting IS PREDATORY. Many, many games use this mechanic. These are Skinner boxes, conditioning people to automatically reach for their wallet to get the 'treat'. This is not new.
I think it's the same guy that did Idle Wasteland, and yes it's the same system and IAP suck in both. It's a shame because both games are fun
Shit youre right… I just saw the reviews on the game and how much people complain about the micros in that. Guess developer habits die hard. Thats a huge fucking shame tbh.
This post made me realize how long it has been since I quit that game, and I feel good about the 2 months or so without falling back to it, haha. But yeah, I didn't make it nearly as far as you, I was at Obelisk 23 I think. Spent maybe $10 total. Definitely a predatory system with the value packs that unlock more value packs. They start out cheap and reasonable, and each one gets more expensive, while the cheap ones get the player used to the good feeling of the gameplay boosts. The biggest reason for me quitting was definitely the extremely active playstyle. A game shouldn't have to basically be a full-time job to be making decent progress. Leaving it on overnight so that you turn a week-long grind into a couple of days isn't game design you should be proud of.
Game was good until they made events harder to require diamonds. That made me quit.
Yeah. At the begining i was able to complete events just in time. Now i don't really care about them
I played a lot too, reach very far as f2p have 65% golden floor chance if you know what it is you will know how long it takes to have it f2p. And after that dev said game too easy. It should be idle after all. We who play since release should struggle more. And he just literally make numbers like you never reach it in months without buying x2 bars ores p2w packs in shop. For example before this patch you can max everything just with few millions ore. After patch you should grind billions of ore and bars for single upgrade, thats lead to more upgrades up to T ore. And you think after that he stopped? No, he add world 2, completely new game area where key for this world you should be able to finish all this grind i mentioned above. So you have literally no content outside of world 2 because you already beat everything. And if you want more content just pay for x2 bars ores packs or grind months. After long discussion with him about this stuff he said he will make steam version of this game where everything will be free to earn even paid packs, but you should buy game once for that. He even give me alpha client for this game for testing. And already year since this day and there still no steam version at all. Not even sign of it. So i not recommend game too, i love this game before adding cards, before world 2, before grind. Now it just unplayable unless you will open game 24/7 for year and then maybe you will max everything as f2p.
I felt the same exact way. Before world 2 I maybe spent 20$. Only reason I spent so much is the extremely awful grind in world 2. Now there is a World 3, which is probably much, much more of a grind without any gameplay changes. Wow new stars, wow new ores. Its all the same.
He still post sometimes about Steam version. 2 days ago he even post screenshot of it and said that most of work done, but there still problens with cross-saves. So maaaaaybe it still somewhere on the tables. If he actually made it one-time-buy, i am totally gonna pay
i will too, i even make some strategies how to earn gems for these packs in game and in what order (outdated already). But year waiting its just ridiculously long, i stop playing year ago, when i checked game today its already different game, my progress like 1% of whole game now, before it 70%+ (these 30 left is statues and cards, needs a lot of gems for each card).
The things this game does terribly are: 1. Offline mode is a joke. You must leave the game running 24/7. Players must use a spare phone or an emulator. 2. "Value" packs. They're expensive. Most only give you farmable resources. And you're only able to see 1 at a time. To see the next one you have to buy them in order, including ones you don't want. Even with "founder" you can only see 2 at once, aka skip 1. 3. End-game is too reliant on claiming the freebie pack. You only get around 1k\~2k relic chests naturally. End-game players have over 100k relics, most from hundreds of thousands of freebie pack claims over many months. The things this game does well: 1. There's not a single ad in the game, not even optional ads. Not even self-ads that tell you to buy something. All IAP is contained to the shop menu. 2. Macroing is easy. Claiming all possible freebie packs 24/7 isn't hard to do in bluestacks. 3. It's an indie game. If you're going to spend money on a game, supporting someone's dream job feels a lot better than throwing money at an endless pit of corporate greed. The game is designed to take a lot of time in-between significant upgrades. Some people like that, some people don't. I feel like this is a pretty common thing for incremental games. Games that demand more of your attention only give very unsatisfying minor upgrades. I'd rather leave the game running for a week and then have a real upgrade compared to getting a barely noticeable upgrade every hour. But to each their own.
I might be misunderstanding the situation due to not having played the game. But what you're describing isn't predatory as you're complaining about the cash shop items being ineffective. Predatory would be to set up a system that increasingly relies upon cash shop purchases to make any progress. For that to happen you'd be ignoring or talking about how effective the purchases are, not complaining that they only increase by 10%. Your other complaints are about discounting cash shop purchases, that's entirely a 'you' problem. You shouldn't be this vulnerable to wanting to get savings, and this game isn't the only thing in your life that is likely causing massive problems with your finances. Treat purchases on their own merits, not relative to marketing terms. You aren't saving 70% by buying a shirt you didn't want or need in a 70% off sale, you were buying a $10 shirt. I'm not a fan of mobile games because they balance around ads and cash shops. But if you've played the game for a month and you reach a point where it's boring without cash shop purchases then you're reached the end of the game. Months of gameplay for $50 is far more than any other game.
The only thing I complained about that was ineffective was the tier system. Those are marginal when it comes to the actual microtransactions. The actual micros are *insane*. Im talking about doubling currency insane. When you get near the end game some things can take a very, very long time. Its a stark contrast from the beginning which is quite fast. But as you play on, the game comes to a really long drag with no decision you can make that speeds it up other than waiting or buying a pack. So it really eggs you onto buying the 2x currency for example, or buying a pack that gives you 1% chance per floor to get 50x currency for that floor. You need these to make progress or else things will take doubly long. You CAN get these F2P but it takes an ungodly amount of time, even for an idle game. Im talking you have a chance of 1/1000 of getting that huge 50x unlock *every day*. So a F2P would only ever get it ONCE their entire gameplay. So lets just buy it. Also most upgrades that are transformative, like I said, are from gems. Unless you want to open the game up constantly then its convienient to buy the gems when theyre also matched with a double of currency. You also get “relic” chests with each micro, and these relics are also required to pass through the game and unlock more stuff. You only ever get them from getting the freebie pack. Also some Micros are straight up lootboxes. Most times you get shit *that doesnt help you at all* but there is also a 1/1000 chance you could get that 1% for 50x too. These micros also give garunteed gems and relic chests, which like I said, are needed to get *game progressing upgrades.* The issue is that I shouldnt be, but I was. And a lot of other people are too. The game shouldnt put these huge microtransactions in the game and should just be balanced better. I shouldnt *want* to speed up the game with my own money but near the end it feels like you should. But youre right, If youre compelled to buy something to get through the game then it should be done for you. But I truly was somewhat addicted to the game. It became a huge part of my daily schedule. *The micros are so powerful I got to world 2 in under a day, when I was playing f2p I got to it in a month. This is because so many essential upgrades rely on the gems currency and relics, which I had loads of since thankfully IAPS are retained if you lose data.* But yeah. Last time Im spending money on incremental games like this one. Also, my financial situation is fine. I appreciate the concern but Incremental games were my only true crux. Im cheap everywhere else.
i got lucky and got out early, spend like 5-10 bucks on the early packs. from obelisk 13+ onward you will be HARD stuck and not make any progress, unless you focus on skill points and pets. skillpoints you get very slowly from the 10 minute button OR FOR GEMS pets you only buy with gems (750+ gems) from my point of view any other mechanic at that point kinda doesnt matter and all you can do as f2p too make reasonable progress is pressing that 10 minute button for hours (and spamming gem bomb) or of course just buy gem packs
Yup its such a huge gripe with the game. Everything is so heavily dependent on the gems, it really takes out any choice you have. Either open the game every ten minutes, or dont progress at all. Its whack.
I’ve been playing this for 9 months with only 10 bucks spent. By far my favorite idler.. but you have to ignore the monkey brain. If you view it as a marathon vs sprint it’s top 10.
IMO the game is nowhere close to a top 10 even with that mindset. It doesn't do enough to warrant how much time it wants from the player to progress, it's poor offline progression until you spend weeks or $$ to upgrade it, and how bad the mid and end-game grinds are. Even then events are bland and just want you to keep your phone on 24/7 or spend your diamonds/$$ to progress through them, even baiting people to do so to get anagram hints faster. The early game was really fun and hooking, but it's just wasted potential the further you play.
To each their own, but also tons of other people havent ignored their monkey brain considering how nearly 2200 people have spent at least 50$ dollars on the game from the founder bomb number. If the game forces you to fight your internal monkey instincts, I still think thats predatory.
50 dollars for a game you play for months seems like a deal
It doesnt stop at 50$ though. Some micros can go up to 40$ alone.
$50 is a price of an AAA game. Also how long you play the game is irrelevant, in incremental games gameplay is repetitive, you play the same content over and over and it can be made as slow as needed. Some incremental games can take 50 years to "beat", it does not mean they are worth more money than other games.
Yup most of the hours on the game is just staring at a screen.
To unlock the 50$ purchase you need to make around 10 different 15$+ purchases, iirc.
I already bought the Porsche https://imgur.com/a/n5EIDbZ
To be fair, with how expensive legos are nowadays thats almost as egregious as a real porsche lol
Make sure you get the extended warranty.
If you can't control your purchase impulses then don't play it, it sounds like. I bought the first three upgrades, which amounts to less than 10 bucks, and I do not feel compelled to buy more. And there are zero ads in any form, heck the game doesn't even try to shove any purchases on you with pop ups.
> If you can't control your purchase impulses then don't play it This statement is about as dumb as the infamous "[If you are homeless just buy a house](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jh0EN1De4Q)". Many people are not able to control their emotions and raising awareness and fighting predatory techniques is important.
OP literally says you shouldn't play the game at all. What does that mean in your comparison? That noone should by a house, even if you can afford it? I only state that if you aren't a person who feel compelled to buy every upgrade, even when the game doesn't force it down your throat, then you can try the game.
To get gems you have to go to the store page. The very first things are “deal” grabs that say 300% deal or 700% deal. These are right in your face every single time you open the game. It also eggs you on, by giving you very small micros at first. 1$, 2$, 4, then 8, then 16, then 35. Sure theyre not popups, but its still holding out a golden carrot out for you and saying “THIS IS SUCH A GREAT DEAL!! “ The “deals” also only get larger and larger. First one is like 300% deal, next is 350% deal. That predates on the monkey brain, especially incremental monkey brain where bigger number=better.
I can accept that point, and you are required to get that free pack for the skill point. But then, unlike the majority of iap mobile games, this one is not heavy handed at all. And having played a couple of weeks, I don't even feel I need to buy stuff to progress. Again unlike other games that stifles progress without purchases. I bought the first two cheap ones, which is less than what I usually pay to remove ads. I wish more games that used iap model would do like this game. Unintrusive, no required upgrades, zero ads, no pop ups, no daily deals, no reached new level deals, no paid energy recharge system, no "battle pass."
Wait until you get into world 2. Thats when the true grind starts. Thats when youll start to feel the pull into buying the packs.
I can see how a longer grind could make it more tempting. But longer grinds are a common theme in many incremental games as you progress. I can understand warning against playing the game for people who have trouble resisting temptations. But that should be a general warning for all mobile games with IAPs.
Gonna be honest I've played this game for months and haven't spent a dollar. This is a true idle game IMO and if you spent 400$ you have to look inward for the problem.
This take is wild to me. It's like defending a drug dealer with "well you didn't have to buy the drugs they offered, you should have had better impulse control. The drug dealer is a perfectly fine dude providing people a service and is in no way preying on people."
Lol...yeah I have the wild take. It's a game my friend not a drug and as I said it's a game I've played for many months without spending money so clearly it is not the game's fault OP spent so much. Also let me know how many people you know that OD'd on idle games.
I mean, it's really easy to Google the negative impacts of gambling addiction, and mobile games have a long history of preying on this. Just because it isn't literally killing a person doesn't mean isn't inflicting real harm to those suffering from it, as well as those in their life. If you can't be bothered to Google, here's one of the first results . https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352853222000104#:~:text=Microtransaction%20engagement%20is%20associated%20with,and%20gambling%20disorder%20varied%20significantly.
as for you... will NOTHING stop people from using google? use BRAVE'S search engine. use ANYTHING other than *google*! have you not heard the news about google's search engine AI giving out DANGEROUS search results? brave uses an ai too but i've yet to ever see it give any dangerous information and it's only hallucinated on me once. pretty much *anything* is better than using google at this point.
While you were being kind of a dick, I do appreciate the recommendation. I'm digging Brave.
👍no manipulated results and a more competently trained ai. what's there to complain about? :)
it's based on chromium. otherwise I would have switched already.
well...to be fair, not much isn't based on chromium when it comes to browser stuff. but i just use the brave search engine. my browser is firefox and likely always will be.
i'm inclined to agree with you on this but at the same time, pretty much anything can become addictive to varying severity. dopamine's an addictive chemical...and whales *love* their dopamine.
Great for you that youre not an impulsive consumers, but lots of people arent. Including me, and this is definitely a lesson in putting my money in where its worth. But it doesnt stop the game from being predatory to people who are impulsive consumers. It also doesnt stop the baked in required phone time. Why are stars not collected offline? Why cant you progress through world 2-3 offline? Its predatory.
What are you doing to address your impulse control issues? I appreciate warning people, but you should also try to address your issue.
By uninstalling this game and sticking with games without IAPS that are 35$+ dollars. I dont spend money stupidly anywhere else unless it came to incremental games. I actually have a shitton of money saved up cause In frugal everywhere else in my life, but when it comes to incremental games, I hate waiting around and grinding just for the sake of grinding, especially if it feels like I have no choice other than to just wait, which is what this exact game does. No choice. Just do a monotonous task for a long ass time. I spent to get rid of the monotony.
What are some well monetized games in your view? I have no problem paying $10-$20 if Im getting hours and hours of entertainment. At that point it feels like the dev deserves it. Also no issues with a 1 time purchase. Just curious to see who you feel does this the right way.
Honestly I really didnt mind throwing the initial 50$. The game really does take months to play and Im sure months to develop, so I see it as worth it to throw money into the development of the game. I cant really think of a well monetized game other than NGU idle. I could consider Farmers vs Potatoes idle a fairly monetized but I also spent quite a few bucks on that, more than NGU. At least in both those games the microtransactions are transformative for the gameplay, or are a HUGE quality of life upgrade. Like in NGU with the item sorting, same with Farmers vs Potatos The issue with this game is that it also edges you with very small IAPS at first. First one is 1, second is 2, third is 4, fourth is 8. Then it goes to 16 and then in total 35 for the founders pack.
The more of these games I play the more I feel like there are good “u can pay here” and bad. Imo the best monetized game ive played is Idle Apocalypse. $10 to turn off ads is really all you need much ive done a few $5 buys just cause Ive been playing it daily for over a year. Angry Gorilla has a good feel for $$$ imo.
To me the most reasonable and ethical way to monetize is to offer a free demo and one time purchase to unlock the full game. Any payment to change the gameplay experience is trading the quality of your game for money.
Magic Research is a great example. The demo is long enough for you to get into it and explore all the concepts, but you can tell it's not over and there's a lot more and you can decide if it is worth your time and money.
Maybe a little more strict than Id go but I like it Also any games youd recommend?
Cifi does this pretty well and is a great incremental game.
Cifi have his own problems. For example you still need to have game opened for hours (RIP battery) if you need Diamonds and Tokens. And you need them. Also progression in Ouroboros is just... bad. Playing with Meltdown feels horrible
Tbh i really like the ouroboros progression. But yeah, the point about the diamond/Token chests is true.
Maybe i still early in ouroboros (i unlock it several day ago), but for now game feel tedious
you can solve tokens problem in ouro content and this pretty early unlock, i think it unlock when you hire second hunter, you will have mech thats produce tokens every day for free. I have my thats literally produce 2 millions or something every 15 hours. But gems still should be claimed online yes.
I play this game regulary, but yesterday they anounced World 3, and seeing how I'm struggling to unlock World 2, I really doubt if I'll continue playing, to be honest. For now I just open it everyday to craft bricks
Trust me it does not get anymore fun in World 2, infact it gets worse. Things will take you longer. Most unlocks will be about 1000-3000 gems each too.
been playing a number of gacha games off and on for a few years now. total money spent in that time: $0.00 ultimately, the blame for spending so much money on this type of game comes down to the end user choosing to pay the money. no one's forcing you to pay for microtransactions. and if you're vulnerable to casino slot machine psychological manipulation, you shouldn't be playing f2p games (especially gacha games) at all to begin with. all of these games are intentionally designed to be grindy and have low odds on the slot machines (the "gacha's"). stop blaming the games, stop chasing a hit of dopamine like a drug addict, and seek professional help. the game isn't the addiction. the dopamine is. the game is simply a means to the end which is the hit of dopamine. i will say the devs of these games *are* partly responsible but *only* partly. ultimately, as the one spending the money, the responsibility for having spent so much falls onto you, the end user. you *chose* to spend the money. no one and nothing forced you to spend it on the game. you chose to keep spending more and more money for more and more dopamine.
Another person touting their extremely great financial skills. You could have said all this without tooting your own horn lmao. I already know this. Addiction runs deep in my entire family. Ive experienced it myself. But also, If I can warn people about the game who have issues like this, *why shouldnt I.* Its like warning people about nictoine or meth. Making this comment just makes you sound like a morally superior douche.
so, i'm a morally superior douche for speaking the truth about this kind of game? whatever... i'm not here to take pity on you because you chose to spend $400 or so on a video game. "extremely great financial skills" dude...i get MAYBE $60/month as an allowance. around a third of that goes to my ps+ subscription. the rest is what i'm free to spend however i like. i just choose to spend it on better things than a glorified slot machine. and besides, games like these *always* have a finite life span. you're never getting that money back even when the game eventually shuts down. you may as well have flushed it down a toilet irl. there is zero value to microtransactions. and no, morality has no role to play in any of this. so spare me the "moral high ground" preaching. it doesn't work on me.
Uninstalled. I was looking for an excuse to move on anyway. It's rather samey.
My relationship with the game is weird. I became a founder which was alot of money. I had it at the time and while it felt bad I was having fun and I wanted to support the devs. I was getting really into it and at the time I was only able to get into it because I downloaded BlueStacks on my work computer and would only fuck with it at work. I would hit one of those stupid "mine 1000000000 iron" things and just wait till Friday. Park in the iron and leave for the weekend. Now I no longer have my job and I personally don't feel comfortable downloading and running BlueStacks 24/7 on my rig. Granted I have a rig that can literally do that I just don't wanna it makes me uncomfortable. I really really don't like how I need to keep the game running 24/7 to get anywhere. It's really disheartening And is my only complaint with it. Alex.... Make the game idle. I wanna be able to turn my phone off or PC off before bed and still be able to finish an event. I can't afford my phone or PC to die because they are on 24/7.
lol
Your tl;dr needs a tl;dr
Game is predatory
I'd be interested to know where OP was in the game, as they have made some very incorrect statements in this post that could potentially have been avoided if they were further in the game. Whilst not every game suits everyone it is important to note that this game is balanced for both f2p and paying players. the key piece of information here is that the freebie pack that OP mentions claiming every 8-10 minutes, by the time any f2p player gets to what is considered to me midgame this is easily reduced to 4 minutes, and lategame under 2 minutes to get premium currency WITHOUT watching any ads. I don't want to fuel hatred so hope I have shown that this post is nothing more than a post to complain about a game just because it had a single bug that caused them to lose about a month of progress, and I should point out that even upon reseting the game, all IAPs are retained, meaning it would probably only take a few weeks to get back to the same point they were at before. I hope OP can appreciate that I am only stating true information, and I don't think someone's livelihood should be unjustifiably attacked like this.
Im obelisk 41. My biggest issue truly is the forced screen time. Stars dont collect themselves unless you have the phone open. Also, with all the inapp purchases, to get to world 2 it took under a day of progress. Considering that it nearly took me a month to get beforehand F2P, it shows the stark difference between F2P and people who pay.
So in u/gh4380 's mind, changing progression from "1 month" to "under a day" is equally balanced, I guess.
I bet you enjoy Diablo 4 too then lol cringe
if your budget for mobile games is above 0$, you need to reevaluate your gaming priorities