Thatfuzzytiger: There isn't IAP for virtual currency, but there is IAP basically if you want to unlock the cache chests you find. And you can't store the cache chests for later » You either pay for them -on the level- or you lose them for good » It's a gambling mechanic, and one that require -real money- effectively to use Chuckiej: Really Fuzzytiger? Banukab: I don't think that's what they said in the video. Thatfuzzytiger: Yes. Really. I just had the "joy" of being charged 3 emblems to unlock a cache chest Chuckiej: But do you buy emblems with real money? Thatfuzzytiger: correct » Emblems are the "premium currency" Broadcaster Robot_entertainment: You do need emblems to open the chests, but Emblems are not purchase-only. There are several ways to earn emblems through gameplay. As Dave mentioned earlier, he's about 90 minutes into the game and has earned his way up to 30 Emblems. Additionally, if you don't want to take the chance on a cache, you don't have to. Anything available in a cache chest can be unlocked from the Gear list other ways.
A little clarification on the whole Gatcha thing: Gatcha refers specifically to the practice of converting a virtual currency that can only or primarily be bought specifically with real money into "chances" to win virtual goods. The name can be thought to be a play on the word "Gotcha". Infinity Blade is different from Gatcha type systems as you pay for either straight virtual currency which allows you to buy items (consumables, weapon, armour OR keys) or in the case of IB3, allows you to buy emblems which in turn allows you to buy various things which CAN INCLUDE keys, but the important element to note is that this is not the only way to obtain keys OR emblems, and indeed, far from the primary way to get either. Chair was quite careful to ensure that the vast bulk of locked items could be opened via other routes. To qualify as a gatcha system, you must be presented with a "one time" offer that can only be unlocked -with- premium currency or lost forever, where the contents are clearly unknown, and where the primary route for premium currency is mainly, or solely "real money" purchases.
Hello, gambling addiction... I keep trying to remain positive and optimistic, while life just keeps finding creative ways to make me more cynical. DBC
Hi, I'm Justin, the Community Manager at Robot Entertainment. I just wanted to jump in here to hopefully help clear things up a bit more.I know you were pretty concerned about this stuff in the Twitch chat, Hobbes. Everything you said above is all fine. However, while the Emblems in Echo Prime can be purchased, it's not the only - or even necessarily the primary - way to get them, as I believe you're implying. Correct me if I'm wrong on my read of what you wrote, by the way. Paying real money for Emblems may be the fastest way to get them, but there are several other ways that Emblems are earned by players just by playing the game itself. We've scattered them generously throughout the campaign. As we noted in the Twitch cast, Dave had earned about 30 Emblems just from 60-90 minutes of playing the game, no money spent. Additionally, the Caches that you can open from time to time never present you with your singular opportunity to get a piece of gear - it's not "lost forever" to you if you decline. All of the items that come up in caches are available through the "normal" processes of acquiring gear that you would go through even if the game didn't feature Caches - you spend Credits or Emblems on the gear when you've levelled up to the appropriate point to be able to acquire it. At best, the Caches give you a chance to get an item sooner and for a little less than you might otherwise get it. Again, it's about haste, not exclusivity. Everything you mention above about IB is present in Echo Prime - you can choose to pay real money to add to your Emblem stash if you want, and you can spend those to buy things like boosts, gear, etc. The biggest difference here is that we don't go through keys for unlocking. Whether you spend your Emblems to open a Cache directly or to buy a key to open a Cache, you're still spending Emblems to get the thing inside - Emblems that you can spend real currency to obtain, but that you aren't required to spend real currency to obtain. Ultimately, you can play through the entire game and experience all of the game's features without having to pay any real money beyond the initial download price. I hope that all makes sense.
Glad to see you in the thread, because I have to tell you, the mechanic being described was more than a little concerning, especially for a game with a (relatively) high buy-in price (I know, I know, but it's the iOS market... ). FTP, whatever, but premium games also pushing IAPs get old pretty quickly. So, if I'm reading you correctly, there is nothing that is truly "lost forever" if I don't have the cash, in-game or real world, to open a chest? Any idea of approximately how many chests the average player should plan to lose access to due to lack of funds? Say, 1 in 100? 1 in 10? 1 in 2? Thanks again for weighing in. DBC
Thank you for clarifying, Justin. This is a download for me. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't paywalls or exclusive item to IAP. As long as everything is available to me in the game, and in a reasonable rate as you say, I'm all for it.
That's correct. The Cache's don't contain exclusive pieces of gear. If you missed it in a Cache somewhere for any reason (lack of Emblems or lack of desire to spend Emblems), you'll be able to get it elsewhere. Honestly, this is a tough one to answer because everyone is going to play the game differently and because there's a pretty wide variety of ways that you can spend Emblems. That said, I just crunched some ballpark numbers with one of our designers. If you played through the campaign in an average way and you reserved all of your earned Emblems exclusively for opening Caches, you could probably open every single Cache that you encountered across the main campaign. Again, though, you don't have to, because anything that will be in those is also going to be available somewhere else. The Caches just give you a chance at getting that piece of gear a little early or for a little less.
This is a little concerning to me as you are saying some items have to be purchased with emblems. So how many different ways are there to spent these emblems. I.E. open caches, buy equipment, and what else?
"with Credits or Emblems" I wasn't saying the gear had to be purchased with Emblems, simply that it could be. Most all of the gear gives you two options to purchase it - Credits (which you earn exclusively through gameplay) or with Emblems (which you earn through gameplay or by purchasing with real money). The pieces of gear that don't give you two options are Credits-only gear, which you pay no real money for. As for spending Emblems, they can currently be spent upgrading Echoes, buying gear (which can also be done with Credits earned through gameplay), buying boosts, re-rolling your post-mission Echo rewards, or opening Caches.
So far that I've seen : Empowering an Echo - gives a unique portrait, doubles Echo Point earn rate, gives +25% credits (I assume stacking) if the echo is also a veteran. - Cost 5 emblems per echo : This is the primary reason for emblem usage, and is something you CANNOT use normal currency on. You want an empowered echo? Cough up. Cache unlocks - Costs 3 emblems. Non negotiable. Contents can be rare gear or credits or other things. Straight Gatcha mechanic. You either unlock the cache crate or the contents of the crate ARE lost to the mists. Sure the items might be obtainable other ways, but you can't store the crate for later. Purchasing items in the store - So far I've not run into emblem exclusive items, but I'd not be surprised if they exist at higher levels. So far all items have either a virtual currency or an emblem cost, which you're prompted to select when you make an item purchase. Emblem cost is set at a tempting level to try and entice you down the real money route, virtual currency route is set at the slightly grindy end of the scale to make it less than comfortable. Classic F2P soft grinding. Attuning items - Virtual currency only, expensive, allows you a shot at the echo roulette table by levelling up an item you currently use, items level based on kills scored, and the rate is fairly slow, about 350-600 kills at L4-L5 items.
As an addendum - There's 64 or so echoes, to empower the lot is about 320 emblems, assuming that you reliably get 1 emblem per new echo you scoop then you'd need to hit level 256 to "Empower" all the available echoes. As there is no other way to empower the echoes aside from emblems that'll be where you put them if you're sensible about it. Anything else is essentially feeding money into the slot machine (something Robot it seems is angling for you to do). Make no mistake, this game is built on gambling hooks.
Thank You both for taking the time to answer my questions. I am going to sit on the fence for a bit and think about the purchase. I am not a fan of games geared towards IAP, even if it's not neccessary, I just don't like being reminded constantly that the game wants my money especially if I already paid for the game. If it's a freemium game then it's to be expected but I don't like paid games with a freemium setup.
This is a pretty hyperbolic example. Why would you Empower all of your Echoes to begin with? If you really want to, that's great, but you really don't need to. Yes, it's a good idea to spend some Emblems empowering the Echoes you use the most. It'll give you a little Credits accelerator and a cool new vanity picture for that Echo. But, again, there's nothing about the game that requires you to Empower any of the Echoes if you don't want to. We certainly haven't designed the game with the expectation that you have to Empower all of them. As I said above, you could simply sit on all of your Emblems for use in unlocking Caches and you'd be perfectly fine. Once again, the things you spend Emblems on are accelerators. They simply speed up the rate at which you can experience the game in various ways.
Pretty much ^this.^ I was already torn because the game looks great but early impressions were, well, not so great, but the confusing mix of currencies and methods of attainment present in what I initially took as a "Premium" title has put me off a bit... DBC
If you are sincerely suggesting that people are going to want to leave an "unfinished grid" once they start empowering their echoes, then either you're very optimistic or you're deliberately attempting to mislead people here. It's a compulsion loop, you're dangling the reward in front of the player saying "This is portrait A but for a nominal sum of premium currency you can have extra cool portrait B!", and once you trap someone in that compulsion loop it's -very- hard for them to stop. In answer to using the emblems for unlocking caches, yes, you could, but by controlling the inflow rate and making it as slow as you have, you've essentially created a very high opportunity cost for that "free trickle" you've supplied, people will very quickly realise that empowering echoes, something that virtual currency -cannot buy- at this point is what you *need emblems for* and will have to live with not seeing what's in the boxes, but of course that too will then needle them with the constant "if you spent just a little money you could open these cache boxes". If this premium currency was to be truly optional for the play experience it should have been on a much more open tap, as it stands it's more or less forcing people to pay up when they've ALREADY paid a premium simply to get in the door. That grates.
It's much simpler than it's being made out to be here, honestly. My explanations are just trying to be overly thorough given the nature of the conversation. If you don't want to spend any extra money beyond the initial price, you don't have to. If you just download the game and start playing, you'll earn both Credits and Emblems, both of which you can spend at various points in the game on various things. You won't ever encounter a point in the game that requires you to pay additional money to get to extra or exclusive gameplay content that is unavailable elsewhere. If you are interested in spending a little extra, you can do so to purchase Emblems. Those Emblems can then be spent on various things that will speed up some of the gameplay elements for you. And that's that. Obviously, I hope you guys will give the game a try. If you have any other questions or reservations that I can help out with, please just let me know. I'm here to help.
Why don't you guys just make the IAP less intrusive and the game require less grinding (148apps reviewer said that as well) in the next update?
