Dear devs, please don't make the mistake to go B2P

[Fox]

It's really almost even unthinkable to release an auto-battler in 2023 and NOT make it f2p. I really do like your game and this is why I made this thread:

A lot of people - me included - don't want to drop 15-25 bucks on a game that will have only 200 players left in a few weeks. Games like yours are supposed to live long by having continious new incoming players. But I have seen many arena-battler games that died after a few weeks because they went buy 2 play and there were simply not enough people buying it.

It's also not a good idea to start B2P and switch to F2P later, because you're going to lose the momentum the game has right now. Nobody will care, amongst so many new releases in a couple of months, that Mechabellum goes F2P. Right now, media is writing about the game, it's on people's radars, and you need to keep this momentum.

If you go F2P there are many fair ways to offer cosmetics without compromising the fair gameplay. You could for instance sell custom battlegrounds for the map side of each player, which is common in this genre. Another, not common but great idea would be, to sell custom colors to paint your army - just like in Warhammer.

These would be things I'd be certainly happy to pay for if it's F2P and I have fun with it.
Please consider going F2P with this game right from the start, it would be sad to see it going into oblivion in a couple of weeks.

[PrinzMegahertz]

Originally posted by darky:

F2P (it's the wrong name, it's a decoy name, you always have to pay somehow) is such a dangerous thing. Devs have to earn money. So F2P means bad grinding (so you pay money for faster grinding) or - much worse - F2P often means "Pay to Win" and I don't play such games. F2P games often make a lot of money because they have such things implemented. F2P often means you are just competitive when you pay money and money and money. Or you don't pay money and have no chance to be among the best players. F2P can destroy the best game ideas without any problems.

I mean, there are games out there that are F2P and don't have P2W aspects. I have been playing Drodo Auto Chess for ages and bought one season pass to get a nice skin for the game field.
The dark side of course, is all the stuff about micro transaction, lootboxes and so on. These models heavily prey on people with little impulse control (basically children and people vulnerable to gambling addiction). While it's fine with me personally if some random moron decides to become a whale and sponsor the game for the next ten years, from a societal point of view, this is toxic and hurts people.

[Fox]

Originally posted by Hellborn:

nah please devs make it b2p. that will filter out trolls and discourage cheaters.

That doesn't help if there are no players to play the game with, hence barely no new players coming into the game. It's smarter to get a lot of players and figure out how to protect the game from cheaters and trolls.

[Fox]

Originally posted by darky:

F2P (it's the wrong name, it's a decoy name, you always have to pay somehow) is such a dangerous thing. Devs have to earn money. So F2P means bad grinding (so you pay money for faster grinding) or - much worse - F2P often means "Pay to Win" and I don't play such games. F2P games often make a lot of money because they have such things implemented. F2P often means you are just competitive when you pay money and money and money. Or you don't pay money and have no chance to be among the best players. F2P can destroy the best game ideas without any problems.

What kind of trash f2p games did you play though? Almost every single popular and successful f2p game out there has a fair system where you can't pay to win.

[puschit]

Originally posted by Fox:

What kind of trash f2p games did you play though? Almost every single popular and successful f2p game out there has a fair system where you can't pay to win.

What games are YOU playing, eh? You seem to have a very weird understanding of f2p and p2w! About 90% of all games are on the darker side of f2p/p2w and there is a huge correlation between the darker side and popular games simply because these systems are predatory and the current gamer generation is mostly made of casuals, smart phone zombies and easily manipulated low impulse control victims. KARDS is one of the few current truly f2p games I know of and that's from a CCG veteran point of view, if you asked the average forum dweller, he will tell you it's p2w.

When I have a look at my favourite and most played games almost all of them are B2P, Kards being the noteable exception.

[Fox]

Originally posted by puschit:

Originally posted by Fox:

What kind of trash f2p games did you play though? Almost every single popular and successful f2p game out there has a fair system where you can't pay to win.

What games are YOU playing, eh? You seem to have a very weird understanding of f2p and p2w! About 90% of all games are on the darker side of f2p/p2w and there is a huge correlation between the darker side and popular games simply because these systems are predatory and the current gamer generation is mostly made of casuals, smart phone zombies and easily manipulated low impulse control victims. KARDS is one of the few current truly f2p games I know of and that's from a CCG veteran point of view, if you asked the average forum dweller, he will tell you it's p2w.

When I have a look at my favourite and most played games almost all of them are B2P, Kards being the noteable exception.

Lol. Okay, then go on, explain to us how you're going to use real money to be stronger in Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Apex, Dota 2, Overwatch or CS:GO.

Can't wait to hear how you pull that off.

[PrinzMegahertz]

Originally posted by Fox:

Originally posted by puschit:

What games are YOU playing, eh? You seem to have a very weird understanding of f2p and p2w! About 90% of all games are on the darker side of f2p/p2w and there is a huge correlation between the darker side and popular games simply because these systems are predatory and the current gamer generation is mostly made of casuals, smart phone zombies and easily manipulated low impulse control victims. KARDS is one of the few current truly f2p games I know of and that's from a CCG veteran point of view, if you asked the average forum dweller, he will tell you it's p2w.

When I have a look at my favourite and most played games almost all of them are B2P, Kards being the noteable exception.

Lol. Okay, then go on, explain to us how you're going to use real money to be stronger in Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Apex, Dota 2, Overwatch or CS:GO.

Can't wait to hear how you pull that off.

I don't know about the other, but back in the day when I played LOL, you could buy those run slots with in game currency, which in turn you could buy with real money. Of course, you could also grind the in game money, but the thing is this: If two players of similar skill and similar amount of time invested in the game would meet, the one that bought the rune slots would have the upper hand, even so slightly.

[Fox]

Originally posted by PrinzMegahertz:

I don't know about the other, but back in the day when I played LOL, you could buy those run slots with in game currency, which in turn you could buy with real money. Of course, you could also grind the in game money, but the thing is this: If two players of similar skill and similar amount of time invested in the game would meet, the one that bought the rune slots would have the upper hand, even so slightly.

You couldn't buy rune slots, you only could buy additional rune pages. The only benefit was that you didn't need to go in manually and change your page #3 for a new hero that you play with a different build, but simply use page #4 instead. But that's just a comfort feature, nothing that had impact on your strength ingame.

[puschit]

Originally posted by Fox:

Lol. Okay, then go on, explain to us how you're going to use real money to be stronger in Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Apex, Dota 2, Overwatch or CS:GO.

Can't wait to hear how you pull that off.

I can't ... because that's exactly the type of games I don't play. They are too hectic for me. Maybe, in that part of the gaming world, the sun shines. But in strategy games and especially CCGs, the opposite is true. With the exception of Kards, ALL my favourite games are b2p. Or, in some cases like the now discontinued WWII CCG from FrozenShard it was f2p with a hefty p2w factor but I didn't mind because I played the pve portion of the game.
See, that's why I wanted to know what you play and where you got that impression from.
Now I know and the question is: How do your egoshooter and dota experiences (all them MMOs!) with F2P translate to 1v1 autobattler games?

[Fox]

Originally posted by puschit:

I can't ... because that's exactly the type of games I don't play. They are too hectic for me. Maybe, in that part of the gaming world, the sun shines. But in strategy games and especially CCGs, the opposite is true. With the exception of Kards, ALL my favourite games are b2p. Or, in some cases like the now discontinued WWII CCG from FrozenShard it was f2p with a hefty p2w factor but I didn't mind because I played the pve portion of the game.
See, that's why I wanted to know what you play and where you got that impression from.
Now I know and the question is: How do your egoshooter and dota experiences (all them MMOs!) with F2P translate to 1v1 autobattler games?

Dota and League of Legends both have 1v1 autobattler games, in fact, they started the whole trend. And they both have absolute fair free 2 play systems. Sames goes for "Minion Masters" here on steam which is basically the most close one to Mechabellum.

And regarding CCGs, Legends of Runeterra (also by Riot, the studio behind LoL) and Legends (Bethesdas CCG) have super fair f2p systems. It's easy to get everything ingame just by playing. In LoR you can only buy custom skins or battlefield sides and little stuff like stickers.

[_Patrick Swayze]

There is a mod for Starcraft, been out for many years and is just the same. 3 vs 3. Have like a minute to add units or sell them each round and then auto battle would commence. Fun addition was, that you could either invest each round in gaining more permanent income or spend it all on units. You can imagine that it would all go wrong if your teammates would be too greedy and barely field any units, just to have loads of cash at the end game. However, often you'd have your ass kicked by then due to that greediness and opponents would have killed the "king" you were supposed to defend together.

Wonder how much this game will cost and I share the worry of how long the community will last / have players to play against. With interesting tournaments, skins for sale and I don't know what, this can maybe survive B2P. Don't think it will survive as P2W, too much of that garbage around, but it could go that way after some months as a last gasp of air and of course money grab. I do feel it's not fair towards the developers to assume that that is their intention, but as gamers (those that agree), we have many bad experiences and good reasons to have our doubts.

[puschit]

Dota and LoL maybe have automatted creeps but you as a player still play in real time. They are also all MMO team games. And while they might not have direct pay to win features, they DO sell a gazillion of skins and mounts that look vastly different from the original model, thus hiding their identity. I played Heroes of the Storm for a while and that's what drove me crazy. In a game where you have to memorize all the abilities of all the characters and have to make split-second decisions if and where to strike, obfuscating your identity and thus capabilities isn't a small thing.
Anyway, I don't think it is fruitful to discuss technicalities like this. Obviously there will always be examples for any model to thrive or where it horrible fails. Just take any game from Electronic Arts for example :) The lure of exploiting f2p models into oblivion until the game dies is just too big for most corporations because, in the end, generating money is all that most companies care for, especially if they have shareholders. Just look at the history of browsergames and their modern equivalents of games like CandyCrush. Diablo Immortal is one of the worst examples of p2w and at the same time huge successful (financially) which goes to show why this entire ordeal is so complicated. Let's just say I am a burned child. One of the few shooters I like I SAS Zombie Assault IV and that game is wearing me down to spend money on black keys because the grind has become unbearable (300hours of play and I am not even max level yet ...). It's experiences like this (alongside my browsergame history) that make me very sceptic of any f2p models.

[Flavalicious]

I'll happily pay money for every game i want to play if i never need to see the words "Battle Pass" in a game menu ever again.

F2P simply doesnt respect your time as a requirement for the grind needed to push micros.

[pRaX]

Don't worry OP.
This will go free2play and stuffed full of MTX much quicker than you realize.

[Fox]

Originally posted by puschit:

Dota and LoL maybe have automatted creeps but you as a player still play in real time.

No, I was talking about actual 1v1 auto-chess games. Leage of Legends has one, it's f2p and called "Teamfight Tactics", and Dota 2 also has one, it's called Dota Underlords and is also f2p.

These two largely have made the auto battler genre popular. So they play the exact same way as Mechabellum.

[Lumen]

I belive the current system is pretty fair.
Low cost release price so paying cutomers can have some fun with it.
When it will turn into a f2p-cash shop game, free riders can enjoy the downhill ride.