Gems of War is too P2W oriented!

[Koromac]

Hello,

I have been playing this game for a while now, yet I have made no significant progression.
Most players just demand top contribution, like gold and other resources, which means that any fresh players or recent players don't really have a chance in this game, but that's only a minor issue.

Sure, you can join some other guilds that have much lower requirements, but that's not the point. The point is that there are several, most P2W elements there that are clearly giving you an edge over F2P players like me.

The Soul Forge is not difficult to get and upgrade to level 10, but the requirements are just insane. If I want to forge something, with my current progression, it can take several months just to get one Mythic troop, and even that means that I must defeat at least one Boss in the Dungeon, daily, and spend 50 purple jewels as well to obtain a free reward.

Troop traits requirements are extremely high, almost ridiculous, so far I have been only able to invest in some simple traits, most secondary and final traits are out of the question for me.

This is a problem, if you're a F2P player like me.
Price tags are too steep for the amount of rewards that you can get, most are random as well.
Unfortunately, each update is getting more P2W oriented, solely based on paying players to gain their immediate advantage over F2P players, which is understandable, but the gap is simply too great!

The amount of grinding, progression, levelling, upgrading traits, ascending, etc., is simply taken to absurd levels. To get 1 Celestial Traitstone, or to farm for some Runic items in certain region, with Explore option, you may not get those items, or they will drop extremely rare, yet you sometimes need over 16, along with Celestial Traitstones for a single trait, which may take several months if not more.

How much money must you invest to get to VIP level 20? Can someone tell me?
I am just curious.

Sure, it's not my place to judge their decisions, but it's clearly evident that developers only care about profit, not much about opinions of other players who can maybe spend less or can't afford that as well. Just pure greed, unfortunately. It works, so there is no need to care for anything else, I suppose that's the mentality behind it. Such a shame.

If only the game would be 75% less grindy overall and more appropriate with price tags for the content they give, I am pretty much sure that this game would have been much more popular.

Of course it needs to get funded from players, I am not opposing that, I am just saying that with a better economic system you could attract more potential players who will support your product.

Game itself is very fun and enjoying to play at least.
Too bad that it's ruined by such business model.

That's all I wanted to say for now.

[icy]

tldr


U don't even need any vip level to get the same results of your troops/teams. It may be easier, less grinding, less time you've got to invest, but well... I bought myself the vip level needed to instantly view the enemy teams which i think personally is a super nice feature. at the time i bought things up to vip3 (i think its vip3) i also played the game much more and I think its fair that you pay something back for a game you enjoy and like to put time into.

[Koromac]

Originally posted by icy:

:tfhi:
tldr
:tfcu:

U don't even need any vip level to get the same results of your troops/teams. It may be easier, less grinding, less time you've got to invest, but well... I bought myself the vip level needed to instantly view the enemy teams which i think personally is a super nice feature. at the time i bought things up to vip3 (i think its vip3) i also played the game much more and I think its fair that you pay something back for a game you enjoy and like to put time into.

If you don't read the whole post, then you don't know what's all about.
There's no need to post your feedback in such case.

I agree that you should put something in the game you enjoy, but even so, that's not what I was complaining about in the first place. Again, it's all in my initial post.

[marten1974]

You are a typical Player of this Generation it seems. All you guys want is instant Gratification. This Game is Yeahrsy old and its meant to be played very slowly for yeahrs in Order to have the progress you want very fast. There is 2 means to fast Progression play alot like me or pay. But there is for sure no need to pay ! You want a game you join and at the Top 1 week later this is not the game for you sir. I just checked with my guild for Fun and 90% of the players are free to play or Vip1-2 so the only made very small contribution overtime. Now the Shocker for you almost everyone is haveing almost every pet weapon and troop in the game and maxed the traits. The Trick is the all play for ages allready. There is no Play to Win here. This game is a very typical Type of Pay to Progress alot faster. Pay to win means you have to pay in order to win. This is not the case in this game non of the content is behind a Paywall. But where you are right the progress is very slow for free players. Play like 8 hours a Day or Pay if you want fast Progress.

Asked some more People and half of the top 100 Pvp Ranked players in moment are Free to play or atleast claim to be. But if you check there profiles it says the are 300 or more days in the same Guild allready that should say you all you need to know. If you where right with you claims than only highlevel vips should be top 100. But all it really needs it play alot and i mean alot :P

Only thing i would really sugesst new players buying is the Deathknight armor. This thingie helps really alot with progression. It doubles it so to say. But you do not need to buy it you can play for a Week or so and Buy it for Diamonds thats why this is not PLAY to WIN !

[Dorgath]

I'm not sure by how much you've been playing when you say "for a while". So while I can't relate my beginning experience (2 years ago) because the game was much different then, this statement jumps out at me:

Originally posted by Koromac:

Sure, you can join some other guilds that have much lower requirements, but that's not the point. The point is that there are several, most P2W elements there that are clearly giving you an edge over F2P players like me.

In the current game, joining a good guild is HUGE. The resources you get from the guild completing the various tasks will allow you to do other things - souls to level troops, keys to get troops, gems to get "stuff", and shards to craft diamonds for soulforge.

Regarding the other points, you get whatever you want from the game from what you put into it. If you put a few hours in farming explore to get traitstones, you end up with that much more than just logging in for 5 minutes and playing a battle. You take the effort to get to PvP 1 and the rewards to go with it or.... don't. You take the time to complete the weekly event, or at least to get the copies of troops or.... you don't.

I'm not disagreeing that there's a huge grind factor. Like I said, I've been playing for 2 years, still don't have all of the troops (even a couple from back then), am nowhere near leveling up all of my troops via souls and traits, and now need ingots to power level kingdoms, among other things. But I joined a more active guild when the one I was in for a year and half faltered, upped my playing time a little to complete more of the tasks that give these 'free rewards", and consequently have more "stuff". But as marten said, playing the game is for the long haul - you're not going to complete everything or "get everything done" in 6 months or so.

So basically, what's your expectation for the game and is the time you're putting into the game reasonable for that expectation?

[hypersot]

Game now *is* pay to win but it's also free to play . The p2w factor comes up only when one wants to play on a competitive level.

I have stopped playing the game due to the greediness of the game's creators but I still feel it's the best match-3 game out there.

Regarding the ridiculous leves of grinding,
I remember when I got my first mythic; it was just when I hit just a bit over 2 thousand hours in game. Ofc, I could have paid to get diamonds and reduce that time to a few minutes of just clicking my chances but I enjoyed the game so that was ok.

Note that me + wife (playing the same account) have spent over 5-6 thousands of hours playing the game so what I say comes from pretty good experience.

[Storm_Chasee]

I don't see it as pay to win, but rather pay to get stuff more quickly if you don't play a lot. If you play several hours a day which several people apparently do given the amount I play and how many people have more pvp points than I do, you'll get more stuff than you will by simply paying for some and not playing much. You'll get more stuff by being in a moderately active guild than by relying on buying stuff. It's more fun too. I wish I understood the usefulness of being in a guild sooner than I did, but I was unduly influenced by the usefulness or rather lack therof of guilds in the previouos game I was playing.

[Dorgath]

I don't see it as pay to win, but rather pay to get stuff more quickly...

Exactly.

The p2w factor comes up only when one wants to play on a competitive level.

If you're referring to the leaderboards, I would say "gems to win" rather than pay to win. Although you can pay for gems, indirectly....

I personally think this is precisely why the rewards for the leadership board are so low. You get the "bragging rights" but the low rewards serve as an incentive to *not* go all out everytime the event comes up (and use cheats). And being #1 doesn't really affect other players progress; you're not really "winning" in that respect (game-wide). Just a personal goal.

[FhqwhTODD]

You can play this game without using real money but you will hit other players that will just stomp you. It's a bit pay to win, sure but my bigger complaint would be that keys are way overpriced for what you get from them.
And I mean way way overpriced.

Even worse are the legendary troops they try to sell for 50$ per card. If I want to level these up to Mythic I need 6. 300$ please. Nah. Never worth it.

[Kmany]

It certainly has p2w.. If you want to be the best, you have to either but a considerable time investment in or pay up.

But it is an enjoyable game, that offers a lot even with no, or little money invested.
I would not mind paying for a couple of mythical troops and keys, but 50$ is too much for me too.

But I have spent a bit of money..
Which is okay, since I enjoy and want to support the game.

[Hundezahn]

What makes this game so seemingly imbalanced is the amount of whales, who spend absurd amounts of money, srsly everything is way overpriced but people buy it, and freaks, pardon, "hard core" players, who spent absurd many hours daily with this game. You have to realize that these people are the target audience.
If you don't see yourself there, you need to distance yourself from the obsessive circle of needing to have everything and compete on leaderboards or whatnot. And play the game in a healthy amount as the game it is: just some match-3 to chill out with.

[FhqwhTODD]

Originally posted by Kmany:

But I have spent a bit of money..
Which is okay, since I enjoy and want to support the game.

This. VIP level 3 is a nice spot to stop.Spent my money mainly on subscriptions for maps and gems because I had no real source for them until I switched to an active guild.

[Koromac]

Originally posted by Fhqwhgod:

Originally posted by Kmany:

But I have spent a bit of money..
Which is okay, since I enjoy and want to support the game.

This. VIP level 3 is a nice spot to stop.Spent my money mainly on subscriptions for maps and gems because I had no real source for them until I switched to an active guild.

Okay, how much do I need to achieve level 3 VIP, in EUR?

[Dorgath]

Originally posted by Fhqwhgod:

You can play this game without using real money but you will hit other players that will just stomp you

Not true. There are several decks/cards that can easily beat "top decks" (whatever that is)/mythic decks/whatever you think "can stomp you".

Originally posted by Kmany:

It certainly has p2w.. If you want to be the best, you have to either but a considerable time investment in or pay up.

Best at what? Winning at what? Is there something wrong with "time investment"? Not sure if I said this here or somewhere else, but you're going to get out of the game what you put into it, whether time or money. But even the cards you can "buy" and get immediately, that's still no guarantee that you're going to "be the best".

[Kmany]

Originally posted by Dorgath:

Originally posted by Fhqwhgod:

You can play this game without using real money but you will hit other players that will just stomp you

Not true. There are several decks/cards that can easily beat "top decks" (whatever that is)/mythic decks/whatever you think "can stomp you".

Originally posted by Kmany:

It certainly has p2w.. If you want to be the best, you have to either but a considerable time investment in or pay up.

Best at what? Winning at what? Is there something wrong with "time investment"? Not sure if I said this here or somewhere else, but you're going to get out of the game what you put into it, whether time or money. But even the cards you can "buy" and get immediately, that's still no guarantee that you're going to "be the best".

Chill dude!
Did I say that there is something wrong with time investment?
I just stated the obvious..
That you can pay to get ahead, and get good troops with stuff to upgrade them, or you can acquire them over a long time.. and you can pay to make the rewards bigger, during the time you are playing the game.

Are we starting an argument over "being the best" at this game.. it was a statement to illustrate how the p2w works.. Having better cards with stuff that upgrades them certainly gives you a huge edge over people who do not buy them, because time is finite.
You know exactly what I mean so dont be an ass..
I am not comparing ♥♥♥♥♥ here.

There is certainly a p2w element in this game, but that is totally okay.
It is a good game, and you can play it without putting down money, and theoretically it is possible to have the same cards, stones, souls and such, without paying,
but it takes more time than most of us have. (Not the same armor tho, which certainly gives you a p2w edge.. I mean I bought it..).

Of course you can have great cards and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ combo, or basic cards with good synergy.. but I would have a bit more respect than that towards my fellow players, and say that if you put in a bit of time, and understand the game mechanics, you can make successful combos that are more powerful with more powerful cards available to you, and you can get some of those more powerful cards much sooner if you spend your own money or borrow sugar daddys credit card..
I mean, most people are not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ here..

[Saltypatra]

This is getting a little heated. Thank you for your thoughts on this subject everyone. Please treat each other kindly when moving forward with this conversation.