Animal Pack

[Arevi]

I'm legit confused why this costs real money but the cosmetics can be earned? The 2nd Animal pack gives you 22 new creatures out of 55 (i may be of a number or two, i manually counted)
That's half a deck being locked behind a paywall? Surely the decks should be the earn-ables while cool backgrounds and cool hats should cost real money? Just let the basic ones be earn-able so that players get interested in them at all.
If the current model continues it will potentially lead to a P2W situation where the best animals could be in a cash only deck at the worst and at the best its just gonna split the player-base.
Am I wrong here with this? Do you guys like the current model or would you agree that a swap around would work better? I know I'm far more likely to buy a cool cosmetic over having to unlock parts of the game itself

[Joe Burrow]

Pretty much agree tbh. Cosmetics should be what cost the money and the animals should be free, otherwise I'm also expecting a P2W situation.

[Greg Riba]

I don't even like the idea of unlockable animals having different abilities even if they were free. You are already at enough of a disadvantage as a beginner because you don't know the how abilities actually work (e.g. can't summon any more than 6 animals with abilities) or what animals will come up later to plan for synergies.
Just make them cosmetic reskins!

[Hawk]

It's a weird psychological thing. The game is free but having in-game functional items locked behind a purchase feels bad. Having the game cost a flat amount but you get everything even if it actually costs more feels "better" as a gamer.

Now that the game has exposure I think the better monetization system would be a small purchase price (say 2-3 dollars like Snkrx) and then having unlockable or purchasable cosmetics. Like Fall Guys make it so the cosmetics are unlockable through playing but you can spend money to get them faster if you want.

[Gigzzif]

The creator deserves compensation for their work, I have no problem with the game being "free" with the full content locked behind a $5 paywall. I do see how it could be a slippery slope though if more and more winning content is released for more and more money. But for now, $5 is a great price to pay for a game like this, IMO...

[Arevi]

I do agree that the dev deserves payment. 100%. I just dont agree that it should be game mechanics that are locked behind the paywall. Its very much a P2W style of doing things. Like i mentioned in the original message, I personally think they would get much better value from better cosmetics. It makes me cautious about spending money on the game because I wont be paying for each individual card pack if thats the plan for future updates

[Mr. J.D. Gumby]

ITT: Entitled cheapskates.

[Arevi]

Originally posted by Mr. J.D. Gumby:

ITT: Entitled cheapskates.

How so? I have stated more than once now that the issue isnt paying for something, its the thing being paid for. Ive said that cosmetics should be the use instead of game mechanics. Noone here has said they shouldnt pay anything. How does this make any of us ''cheapskates'' ?? Do explain

[SlayerT13]

So, I certainly get people not liking having content, especially mechanically different content being behind a purchase. I'll just say though, I don't honestly think it's a big issue here myself, as the pack seems fairly balanced with the free pack. I look at it as just having an option to support the dev for cheap, and unlock yourself a new playstyle to try out. If it were a case of the paid pack being definitively better than the free, and they were still matching people against the paid pack with the free, it would be bad. Personally, I even hope they let us go against other packs as more come out. I like the variation to the gameplay, and not seeing the same build or two over and over.

[Arevi]

Originally posted by SlayerT13:

So, I certainly get people not liking having content, especially mechanically different content being behind a purchase. I'll just say though, I don't honestly think it's a big issue here myself, as the pack seems fairly balanced with the free pack. I look at it as just having an option to support the dev for cheap, and unlock yourself a new playstyle to try out. If it were a case of the paid pack being definitively better than the free, and they were still matching people against the paid pack with the free, it would be bad. Personally, I even hope they let us go against other packs as more come out. I like the variation to the gameplay, and not seeing the same build or two over and over.

Thats a fair response. At the moment it isnt exactly a balance issue but you do play against players will the new deck. Again I dont think the pack is worth, you get half the first pack in it after all. I just think its a slippery slope to start on.
I guess its just gonna have to be a wait and see kinda thing

[SlayerT13]

Originally posted by Arevi:

Thats a fair response. At the moment it isnt exactly a balance issue but you do play against players will the new deck. Again I dont think the pack is worth, you get half the first pack in it after all. I just think its a slippery slope to start on.
I guess its just gonna have to be a wait and see kinda thing

Actually, you currently do not play against people using the new pack, it's a change they made recently. The post talking about matchmaking changes addresses it. Though I do see you point as well, it could become a pain if they decide to just pump out packs with no balance to make more money, but personally I'm just hopeful that they will handle it well.

[Arevi]

Originally posted by SlayerT13:

Originally posted by Arevi:

Thats a fair response. At the moment it isnt exactly a balance issue but you do play against players will the new deck. Again I dont think the pack is worth, you get half the first pack in it after all. I just think its a slippery slope to start on.
I guess its just gonna have to be a wait and see kinda thing

Actually, you currently do not play against people using the new pack, it's a change they made recently. The post talking about matchmaking changes addresses it. Though I do see you point as well, it could become a pain if they decide to just pump out packs with no balance to make more money, but personally I'm just hopeful that they will handle it well.

Ah my bad, so they did. I havent played in a few days and only spotted that thanks to you mentioning it. Thats....kinda its own issue i guess. Now we have a player base thats split based on money. This is literally something that kills quite a few online games. I do hope it gets handled well, just personal experience has shown that it tends to not be. It is nice that the Dev is clearly trying to make sure people dont feel that the current system is unfair at the very least. Thats a positive sign indeed.
I would 100% prefer to purchase cosmetics to support the Dev, im a sucker for skins honestly . Even just better hats or backgrounds, maybe even Shiny Animals or something would work imo. Itll be worth seeing how it moves forward because i really do enjoy this wee game.

[SlayerT13]

Originally posted by Arevi:

Ah my bad, so they did. I havent played in a few days and only spotted that thanks to you mentioning it. Thats....kinda its own issue i guess. Now we have a player base thats split based on money. This is literally something that kills quite a few online games. I do hope it gets handled well, just personal experience has shown that it tends to not be. It is nice that the Dev is clearly trying to make sure people dont feel that the current system is unfair at the very least. Thats a positive sign indeed.
I would 100% prefer to purchase cosmetics to support the Dev, im a sucker for skins honestly . Even just better hats or backgrounds, maybe even Shiny Animals or something would work imo. Itll be worth seeing how it moves forward because i really do enjoy this wee game.

Yeah the matchmaking change would be pretty easy to miss if you're not playing it right this second, which is.. terribly painful. To save you time, I'd say wait until a patch to play again, because something in that patch broke things pretty bad, where the game is freezing a lot, making me close and relaunch a lot.. there's another discussion thread going on about it, so I wont bog this one down with it.. but on the note about splitting the playerbase, I couldn't agree more. It seems queue times aren't suffering or anything like that, but I can see it being a problem in the near future if people lose interest at all... not to mention, I really want to face the other pack xD Give some more variation to runs.

I see a lot of people wishing the paid content was cosmetic as well, which makes sense with how common practice it's become, and it just feels more fair to the players.

[Bellpepper]

I think the elephant in the room is while it would be nice to have the animal packs as unlockables via points and cosmetics you pay for, the cosmetics in this game suck ass and are way less value than the animal packs. Paying 5 dollars for a few extra hours of entertainment is completely fair IMO and if they're seperating the queues by pack then there's no pay to win aspect to complain about, although mirror matches constantly may or may be a bad thing for variety because there's not a huge number of animals in each pack (how many times do you see a horse-dog combo)

[Arevi]

I agree the current cosmetics are pretty bad and barely feel worth saving points for but they are all we have so may well spend them i guess. Im glad to hear that others are indeed feeling the same and would rather have the method of paying and method of earning, swapped around.

It is sad to hear that something has gone wonky at the moment, hopefully that gets fixed up soon. It does indeed mean that P2W shouldnt really be an issue if you only face the same packs but yes i agree, its more fun to have variety in the matches you face rather than just the same animal combo's over and over, especially when there are clear dominant strategies and winners. With it only being a single pack we cant really see the impact but if a Third pack gets added, whats gonna happen to the player base then? Each Pack gets its own queue? Thats potentially a disaster waiting to happen.
The other issue at the moment with this method is that you have no real choice in how you play, there is no mix and matching or even deck building. You kinda just have to choose one or the other and roll with it.

Instead of packs, perhaps unlocking Animals directly via points would work? That way you can only swap out an Animal of the same Tier and could make a custom Deck to play with?
It could make people more likely to want cosmetics for the Animals they enjoy the most. If the Dev doesnt really have the time/work force to do so, simple color swaps are always a good idea. Maybe add Shiny/Sparkling or Solid Gold versions, maybe even some Monochromatic ones or flip the colors on the animals? I dont think many people would mind seeing a Pink Elephant or something similar. It could even be ''color packs'' that unlock a few colors you could use on the Animals themselves?

Just trying to through out some ideas for money based cosmetics so its clear I dont mind spending money on a free game, thats not the issue ya know?

[Hellfirebam]

I think it's funny because for the most part, playing against people with the beginner pack only seems just unfair: you're diluting your pool, and I don't even think majority of the other cards hold a candle to the consistency of base set. I kinda wish you were only queued with others who bought the pack.