Once again, the event is badly designed

[ovni.demon]

To not change, the event here is impossible (or close to impossible) without spending Darwinium. Just change the formulas of the events, maybe something like fixed max ressources per day like most of the other idle games do. Or make longer duration

[dave.iceman42]

Finished it with 2 days and 16 hours to spare. I get enough free Darwinium just playing the game that I've never had to buy any. Between keeping the boosts going and an autoclicker running while afk doing other things (yes, including sleeping), it's really not that difficult. Aside from the first event I tried where I DIDN'T do any of this, every event since (4 now) I've finished with over a day to spare each time.

[Tolkien Book Fan]

Badly designed, or greedily designed? I have been playing this for nearly two years. Previously the only times I have felt the need to spend Darwinium was on diamond geodes in the Mesozoic Valley and in getting the 'under 2 minutes' speedrun achievement. The James Webb Event was easy. The Fungi event was doable, just, without using boosters or autoclickers if you ran the game 16 hours a day and were active in getting generators and upgrades. This Philosophy Event? I only got halfway through in the beta and I started boosting the moment I started it. Today is the first day I haven't done any boosting, though I probably will if progress slows again, as I didn't see past this point in the beta. I'm honestly wondering if I can finish it even with boosting and not an autoclicker. And I just discovered that spending Logits just gets you a 'Statue' that provides a boost to a generator. That still leaves the question of what the new achievements will be, when the main sim (presumably) is finally expanded.

I don't buy premium currency in incremental games. I'm only willing to buy permanent upgrades or content, things I only have to pay for once. If this becomes pay to play, I won't be paying or playing.

[Umitencho]

I'll tell you a secret: back & forth, back & forth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEt8BJyez0g

[ovni.demon]

Originally posted by dave.iceman42:

Finished it with 2 days and 16 hours to spare. I get enough free Darwinium just playing the game that I've never had to buy any. Between keeping the boosts going and an autoclicker running while afk doing other things (yes, including sleeping), it's really not that difficult. Aside from the first event I tried where I DIDN'T do any of this, every event since (4 now) I've finished with over a day to spare each time.

Well:
1) using an autoclicker wasn't in the game design. The fact that you are using one kind of prove that it's badly designed.
2) You don't earn that much darwinium. Sure, they aren't a lot of useful stuff you can use it too, but it's not something that you earn 100 per day.
3) Don't forget it's an idle game who suffers as of now a lack of content. I already finished the primary and the Beyond and I already have done 1 prestige for the dinosaur. Except for the event and daily reward, there is a lack of intersting stuff to do. In addition, it isn't one of the idle game that is low ressource, so everybody doesn't have the oppurtunity to run it in the background.

[dave.iceman42]

Everyone complaining about the events being "too short" or "badly designed" seems to have two things in common.
1. They won't use an auitoclicker, for the most part.
2. They won't spend Darwinium on boosting the events.
Everyone who completes the events with little difficulty also has two things in common.
1. They use an autoclicker.
2. They spend Darwinium to boost the events.
It's your game and you can choose which group you wish to belong to.

[ovni.demon]

Originally posted by dave.iceman42:

Everyone complaining about the events being "too short" or "badly designed" seem to have two things in common.
1. They won't use an auitoclicker, for the most part.
2. They won't spend Darwinium on boosting the events.
Everyone who completes the events with little difficulty also has two things in common.
1. They use an autoclicker.
2. They spend Darwinium to boost the events.
It's your game and you can choose which group you wish to belong to.

1) If you need to use external program to complete something in a game, it's a bad design. If it was good design, it would include the external program (or its function) directly into the game. Just to say, except for the first event, I used cheat engine each time to get the necessary ressource to unlock everything. Heck, I could even do that from the very start if I just wanted the final reward.
2) If you need premium currency to complete a free event, it's either a cash grab or a bad design because the event is no longer free

[Tubera]

Originally posted by ovni.demon:

Originally posted by dave.iceman42:

Everyone complaining about the events being "too short" or "badly designed" seem to have two things in common.
1. They won't use an auitoclicker, for the most part.
2. They won't spend Darwinium on boosting the events.
Everyone who completes the events with little difficulty also has two things in common.
1. They use an autoclicker.
2. They spend Darwinium to boost the events.
It's your game and you can choose which group you wish to belong to.

1) If you need to use external program to complete something in a game, it's a bad design. If it was good design, it would include the external program (or its function) directly into the game. Just to say, except for the first event, I used cheat engine each time to get the necessary ressource to unlock everything. Heck, I could even do that from the very start if I just wanted the final reward.
2) If you need premium currency to complete a free event, it's either a cash grab or a bad design because the event is no longer free

It's the whole point of the game that you buy Darwinium.

[ovni.demon]

Originally posted by Tubera:

Originally posted by ovni.demon:

1) If you need to use external program to complete something in a game, it's a bad design. If it was good design, it would include the external program (or its function) directly into the game. Just to say, except for the first event, I used cheat engine each time to get the necessary ressource to unlock everything. Heck, I could even do that from the very start if I just wanted the final reward.
2) If you need premium currency to complete a free event, it's either a cash grab or a bad design because the event is no longer free

It's the whole point of the game that you buy Darwinium.

Have you ever played other free games with premium currency? The whole point is that there is annoying tasks to do if you are a free player but you can use premium currency to avoid these task. It is also here to allow you to take less time (Aimed at those working having little time). But if features become locked behind obligatory real money payment, the game is cash grab, or freemium and generally badly reviewed.
This is especially true for Idle games. I have played my fair share of idle game. Premium store are only there for those wanting to support the game or for easing the eventual progress wall. But the games are always designed to not need premium currencies if you are an active player, at the very least not on temporary buff.
Another thing: in Idle games, seasonal events are only meant to make player reinterested in the game. Idle games share a big similarity with MMO: an idle game without update dies pretty fast (big example: before the last update, the number of active players of Cookie Clicker (one of the most famous idle game) was pretty low). As such it needs to be destined to the whole player base, not just the paying ones, or else the popularity will continue to plummet.

[SuperTim]

Originally posted by dave.iceman42:

It's your game and you can choose which group you wish to belong to.

Considering that my earlier post in this thread got removed, it's pretty clear that they already made up their mind and are not interested in any discussion.

I felt that this was a poor event because of several reasons, but since people are only interested in the darwinium part, so I guess I will stop commenting in this thread any more.

[Isaberry]

To use autoclicker is not an argue to deny "bad design" statement. And if you believe that using an autoclicker is a solution to design failure, then hacking and breaking the game code to achieve the high end will also be another solution - just as fair as autoclicker.
And on top of that, ask yourself, if you really can still call it a game. I would not. Yet it is sold as a game.

[DiMono]

I've been using an autoclicker and an in-game exploit pretty consistently since the event launched, more than 12 hours a day. I'm currently in the E27 range with 3 in-event achievements left and no idea how far I am from the last one. The event is clearly designed not to be completable without using Darwinium or cheating (using external programs to help is cheating, just own it if you're arguing it's not).

This is against the spirit of most idle/clicker games, where the idea is that free players can still do everything but it just takes longer. I believe it is perfectly designed for what its goal is: to get people to spend money.

It's not the only game I've played that's suffered from this. AdVenture Capitalist used to be in such a greedy state that without spending money it would take longer than the heat death of the universe to finish, and with spending thousands of dollars it would still take almost a million years. At one point they accidentally released a dev version to the public that allowed you to cheat in premium currency and I took advantage of that to give myself nearly infinite boosts, and then I toggled my system clock back and forth a hundred years at a time, and it took the equivalent of almost 60,000 years to finish the game out of spite. I didn't beat the game AdVenture Capitalist, I beat the developer.

My point in sharing that story is to point out that this event is certainly not the most egregious example of a cash grab that I've seen in an idle/clicker game - not by a longshot - but that still doesn't make it okay. Right now I have 331 Darwinium saved up, and I think I'm done with this game after this event until the next major patch that expands the main game again. I have better things to spend my time on than blatant cash grabs.

NGU Idle still has my love though. That game is great.

[ovni.demon]

Originally posted by DiMono:

I've been using an autoclicker and an in-game exploit pretty consistently since the event launched, more than 12 hours a day. I'm currently in the E27 range with 3 in-event achievements left and no idea how far I am from the last one. The event is clearly designed not to be completable without using Darwinium or cheating (using external programs to help is cheating, just own it if you're arguing it's not).

This is against the spirit of most idle/clicker games, where the idea is that free players can still do everything but it just takes longer. I believe it is perfectly designed for what its goal is: to get people to spend money.

It's not the only game I've played that's suffered from this. AdVenture Capitalist used to be in such a greedy state that without spending money it would take longer than the heat death of the universe to finish, and with spending thousands of dollars it would still take almost a million years. At one point they accidentally released a dev version to the public that allowed you to cheat in premium currency and I took advantage of that to give myself nearly infinite boosts, and then I toggled my system clock back and forth a hundred years at a time, and it took the equivalent of almost 60,000 years to finish the game out of spite. I didn't beat the game AdVenture Capitalist, I beat the developer.

My point in sharing that story is to point out that this event is certainly not the most egregious example of a cash grab that I've seen in an idle/clicker game - not by a longshot - but that still doesn't make it okay. Right now I have 331 Darwinium saved up, and I think I'm done with this game after this event until the next major patch that expands the main game again. I have better things to spend my time on than blatant cash grabs.

NGU Idle still has my love though. That game is great.

Consider Idle Wizard too. The premium is mainly about cosmetics. Even the premium buffs can be obtained freely.

[dave.iceman42]

I have almost 700 Darwinium and have never bought any. If you don't have enough Darwinium to spend on boosting the special events, you're spending your Darwinium on the wrong things. First off, Geodes for cards (and the equivalent in Beyond) are traps. Don't do it. Likewise with buying mutagens (and the equivalent in Beyond).
Don't expect to play the game for hours at a time, unless you are just starting a new Prestige level. Let it sit and accumulate points, then spend them once or twice a day. It's a game to be played minutes at a time, most times. If you're spending all your Darwinium on geodes and things because you're impatient, you won't have any for the events.
And if your purist sensibilities refuse to see the good sense of using an autoclicker, you'll just have to become accustomed to failure, I suppose.

[ovni.demon]

Originally posted by dave.iceman42:

I have almost 700 Darwinium and have never bought any. If you don't have enough Darwinium to spend on boosting the special events, you're spending your Darwinium on the wrong things. First off, Geodes for cards (and the equivalent in Beyond) are traps. Don't do it. Likewise with buying mutagens (and the equivalent in Beyond).
Don't expect to play the game for hours at a time, unless you are just starting a new Prestige level. Let it sit and accumulate points, then spend them once or twice a day. It's a game to be played minutes at a time, most times. If you're spending all your Darwinium on geodes and things because you're impatient, you won't have any for the events.
And if your purist sensibilities refuse to see the good sense of using an autoclicker, you'll just have to become accustomed to failure, I suppose.

If you are a purist and don't use cheat engine, I suppose you'll just have to become accustomed to finite ressources, I suppose

[DiMono]

Originally posted by ovni.demon:

Originally posted by dave.iceman42:

I have almost 700 Darwinium and have never bought any. If you don't have enough Darwinium to spend on boosting the special events, you're spending your Darwinium on the wrong things. First off, Geodes for cards (and the equivalent in Beyond) are traps. Don't do it. Likewise with buying mutagens (and the equivalent in Beyond).
Don't expect to play the game for hours at a time, unless you are just starting a new Prestige level. Let it sit and accumulate points, then spend them once or twice a day. It's a game to be played minutes at a time, most times. If you're spending all your Darwinium on geodes and things because you're impatient, you won't have any for the events.
And if your purist sensibilities refuse to see the good sense of using an autoclicker, you'll just have to become accustomed to failure, I suppose.

If you are a purist and don't use cheat engine, I suppose you'll just have to become accustomed to finite ressources, I suppose

If you're using cheat engine to give yourself infinite resources, why are you even pretending you're playing the game? An autoclicker is a tool. Cheat engine used in this way is you saying you don't want to play the game anyway, so you may as well just not.