I played DIB and am now playing HI, but I’ve never made a post in the forums of either before.
Let me say up front I like both games quite a bit and think they are more than worth 99cents.
I think the new class system for monsters is great and will give a lot more longevity for me to go back and hunt better versions of my favorite monsters. On the other hand I have found the new golden egg spin to be much worse for me than the DIB one.
I can see that some players here have figured out how to time the new one and are successful with the new eggs like people were on the old ones. I didn’t really like the old egg system but even a casual player like myself was able to get to the point of 25-50% capture rate on dragons and that wasn’t SO bad since there was a finite number of dragons I needed and that was it.
Between these two things I just don’t see any value in buying golden eggs in this game. I tried with the eggs I got during the campaign and just wasn’t good enough at getting non garbage to justify spending 300 gold on a D class breezeling when saving that gold meant 3 times I could guarantee getting an S class whatever while grinding for better monsters. Of course that means I am passing up my chance to get egg only monsters, but at the rate I’m getting them it just isn’t worth it, and the key thing for a game, it just isn’t fun. I don’t want play sessions watching the wheel go by in 50second increments trying to time out what I want exactly.
Maybe I’m just too old to ‘get’ the new fremium game economy but I never sink money into premium secondary resources in games. When I get to a point in a game where I feel like that is the only way to progress, that’s when I move on to another game.
Obviously game devs need to make money. And with DIB and even more so here with HI I can see significant follow on effort so I’m not saying there should be no monetization, and of course you guys (the devs) actually see the numbers so if the current gold system puts food on the table I can understand why you wouldn’t tinker.
So I have a couple of suggestions:
Golden eggs should have more (or only) egg only monsters. To balance this so everyone doesn’t have everything immediately you can use rarity within the eggs, i.e. some monsters only rarely show up in an egg. Also there should be fewer higher grade monsters in the eggs, then the egg skill players can still out do those not interested in the mechanic by getting the A or S class versions. I really hope something is done on this front, even if it’s not this, because I actually dread getting an egg now, it feels awful as a ‘reward’ to see some great monster and then get a D or E class trash mob.
Change the monetization scheme. This may be dumb because I don’t have the numbers to bear it out, but if there is a long tail of players who never buys gold, consider making gold an earnable resource and then adding a gold doubler. I know I personally am a sucker for these doublers and almost always buy them. This would require gold to be earnable to work obviously. I think if you earned like 1 gold per battle (maybe has to be level appropriate) and bumped up the gold capture card to cost 300 so you’re looking at 1 gold egg or capture every 300 battles (or 150 with a doubler) that would be interesting. With a finite amount of gold without digging into the wallet I feel very little incentive to bother to try learn the new golden egg spin given the frustration I’ve had so far. If a lot of other people feel like that I wonder if they are buying gold.
It seems like a gold is a bit of a lost currency- given some players have amassed hundreds of thousands of gold through timing. Then again, that’s less than 1% of the community, so perhaps it’s irrelevant and Lars&co. are making plenty of money from gold. We don’t have any way to know.
I do think, if they want to continue this model, they need to update the game with a new currency- Platinum, or something to that effect, with which you can buy Legendary eggs (which would always contain *exclusively* rares). You could make this fair for non-paying players by making all the Legendary egg monsters rank B; so that they still have to spend Grade Boosters and can’t amass easy S arkadians.
The model I’d personally prefer would be the ability to upgrade one’s game to a ‘Premium’ copy, or something, that makes gold earnable in-game. I’d gladly pay $15 to upgrade my game and get access to gold income; I really want to support the devs, but don’t want to buy gold, given it’s a useless currency for me.
To be honest, I doubt it’ll change. The game is out, it’s clearly making money, and any large-scale changes would be prohibitive to future games Lars is planning. I’m okay with the present system; just hoping we can have better in the future.
Ebonfloe, There has already been much discussion about changing the way that the Golden Eggs function in game to prevent the ability to time the egg. The egg is supposed to be a random chance event, which is what it seems like the devs are moving more toward. This could be as simple as making it so you cannot see the Arks on the spin until after you have hit stop, so blinders basically, or they could change the tempo of the wheel every half rotation in a non plottable pattern so timing would be impossible. Personally i think shuttering the wheel would be much simpler to code, but that is just my opinion.
I also agree that i think a different business model would possibly provide higher profits, but like you said without the numbers i cant plot that very accurately. I think there should be a decrease in egg costs, from 300 to something more like 150, leaving the rarity and frequency of the eggs as is, or increasing, i think this would yield higher egg purchases, and if the timing ability were removed, i think the 150 gold cost would make eggs more approachable for more people. I think gold costs should also decrease some, to make the packages more affordable. Ultimately they would make less per purchase, but they would probably see a great rise in the frequency of purchases. and since this is digital currency there is no form of cost increase or anything for the developers since the IAPs are handled by apple.
I would also be ok with an IAP upgrade model to bring something like that in place. But that seems unlikely. IAP profit models are built around repeat purchases, and that sort of negates that. And you are probably quite right Trott in that the system likely will not change except a possible change to egg mechanics to prevent timing from being possible.
I would also be totally down with paying a flat fee of $10 or so for an expanded world with the chance to earn unlimited gold (even if it takes some time to amass), and perhaps different levels/classes/types of eggs.
The idea of paying $3 for each golden egg at this point is a total nonstarter for me, as it’s often a lowgrade monster and my funds are tight at the moment. Even if each roll promised a decent monster, I’d be hard pressed to plop down $3 a spin.
Implement a gold earning system, please! We will pay!!!
Love the idea of paying a price to allow for earning infinite gold, but still the gold should be rather limited such that people may still be impatient and buy it.
I don’t love the idea of gold being used in ways that make the game unbalanced (people getting new, powerful monsters). But this is fine if gold can be earned as was suggested.
I do love the idea of gold being used more for visual customization, though. That is, in ways that don’t disturb game balance.
And I don’t agree with a premium currency that must be bought. That’s ruining the game.
Maybe add some custom stuff to the game that could be gold bought
Such as new Hunter avatars that could be visible in PvP ?
Or changing the background of the PvP fight screens ?
Maybe different battle music packs ?
But as suggested above it would be nice to have some of the gold purchases that could support the game not interfere with the game balance and thus allowing to make a way to gain gold.