I don't have this yet but am interested. Guess my thought coming from earlier in the thread is that it sounded like it was thought to be freemium during the soft launch. I know that the IAPs are not needed but it does sound kind of strange to have them to things like just opening chests. It's $4.99, which sounds reasonable for a game of this quality. Just seems off to keep a premium currency in the mix. Read the 148apps review which even thought the rate of what you earn in that currency to what is required to get those items seemed unfair for a premium game. Anyway, I'm digging what I'm hearing about the game. Just a little hesitant even after reading professional reviews.
@ Machiknight - GREAT POST. I actually typed a similar response last night and chickened out. @ Hobbesian - I understand you're upset, honestly, but you're pretty much shutting down any chance of meaningful dialogue with your choice of communication style. The developer is here listening, although he most certainly DOES NOT have to, and I don't think anyone would blame him for bailing altogether at this point. If this happens, EVERYONE loses. Your latest post is much more constructive and less accusatory,and thus at least opens the possibility for dialogue, which is what I'm hoping you want. Try to see through the anger and the disappointment to the possible remedies, and then offer them as suggestions rather than accusations, and you stand a much better chance of getting some kind of results. You'd might be surprised by what can happen when players who are respectful and constructively critical engage in dialogue with developers who come here because they care enough to take the time to listen to their customers... @awp69 - Check your PMs... DBC
Glad I came back to this thread. Early IAP talk is waaaay overblown. It's not intrusive at all. Cracking game with stella combat
Thanks Hobbes Hobbes: Thanks for the response. While I can understand if RE is not going to strip out the virtual currency I would have to say that in theory I agree with this statement. I personally don't like virtual currencies that you spend IRL cash for as a general rule. If you can grind your way to anything in-game that you can pay for I'm a happy guy and will grind away. I DO think it's odd you cant just buy the vanity pictures, as that was the route RE went with Hero Academy. I even purchased a set just to help support them. In my head it only makes sense to be able to just buy things outright, a model I am much more likely to support. I was VERY disappointed to hear your last statement about the emblem cost going up as you gain levels, that rubs me the wrong way. I'm not a big fan of the mini-game idea, I would prefer just strip out emblems altogether and have everything have an IGC value (even if high). In general I do agree with your statements and am aligned with you in regards to paying or a chance to get something, and prefer straight up cut-and-dry purchases. I'm glad we were able to get to a more positive conversation here and hope RE will respond again on this subject. Although If so I fully expect it to be something along the lines of "It's still early to make any kind of changes" hehe. Question for you; if this game were free, would you still have the same reservations? (To be completely honest, I haven't gotten it yet, the explosion of ire towards the IAP system stayed my hand. I really do respect RE as a company however given how active I've seen them be for Hero Academy and what they have done for their playerbase there.)
For what it's worth, boosters haven't shunted in price, but at 2 USD for a 5 mission booster (singular, that's not even for all the boosters at once), that's a scary price for what is a very short term consumable, 5 missions barely lasts -one- campaign at level 25. I could see someone not quite as quick with their fingers becoming dependent on the heal over time booster as a very, very expensive crutch *very fast* from L20 onwards, and that would be unpleasant to witness. As for whether I'd be annoyed about the currency were the game free? No. No I would not. The point I am making is that this game is essentially trying to have things both ways, it's charging at a price point comparable to a premium game on entry, and were it a little more expensive it would be in direct competition with things like infinity blade, yet at the same time it's clearly gating bits of content. Regardless of whatever marketing speak is used, there's some very major benefits to empowering echoes, benefits that persist offline as well, which pay off over the longer term in terms of smoothing the higher level grind that in turn is slowly, and constantly forcing your hand toward the "buy emblems" button. You won't notice it at level 10, I've made a point of going a bit deeper because I wanted to see if the mechanics scale, which as evidenced by the chest unlock cost going up, they do. The cost of items starts getting pretty ugly in the high 20's as well, which combined with the absolutely abysmal resale value of items you no longer want (seriously, an item I pay 8k for only sells back for about 5% of it's initial value, who the hell am I selling to, a Ferengi?!?!?), there's some serious economy balancing that needs looking at.
Am I missing some obvious way to grind for currency? I'm just hitting level 4, the enemies/missions are starting to get a bit tougher, and I cannot seem to find lower level missions to aid me in working toward earning new gear? DBC
so is all this griping about a premium title with IAP justified? Cuz I have to admit the walls of text in this thread have me hesitating
Not at all. It's the same as the griping about every other game with iap it's just noise. And it doesn't devour money like the other person said unless you want to throw money at it and level up faster and get more stuff without waiting kr paying for it. I hate iap and paywalls as much as anyone but this is a good example of a game that offers it as a way to get more faster and not as a paywall that stops you from proceeding. I've played a couple hours and haven't felt the need to spend any real money.
I was cautious at first because of the two currencies in game but I have been having a lot of fun without any IAP. Definitely a fun game worth checking out if you are looking for a sci-fi action rpg.
I can't help but compare this with Asterogue. That free game's keeping me from giving in to Echo Prime. No rare currency unlocks to deal with either.
Whats your stats? What level have you made it to? I'm curious if at the higher levels you will run into the same issue as Hobbes.
I would say just do the lowest level missions available and make use of the combat simulators as those are the only ones that you can replay endlessly. Also don't forget to do side missions as those will help beef you up before you take on the story missions. I am still in the first section of the map and I am level 11. I have been taking my time doing lots of side missions.
Am 25 ish now - like I said, I wanted to make sure I am speaking from a position of experience when I discuss the issues involved. Currency grind is -definitely- noticable, XP grind is also starting to show up now, albeit slowly. Empowering Echoes is definitely the way to spend your "free" emblems and here's why. When you're offline your echoes can be pulled across to assist other people, empowered echoes pick up double EP thus getting them to veteran in half the time, once veteran'd they get an additional 25% credit bonus, this translates into a constant passive earnings boost regardless of whether you are at your ipad or not. Empowering the right echoes (all the healing ones, the power buff ones, all the "dual" echoes, and the crit chance ones) will see you net a constant and steady stream of income that will seriously soften the damage the game attempts to inflict with gear prices. Gear resale values are atrocious, not bad, not terrible, atrocious, it's around 5-7% of your initial purchase or so. Who on earth thought this was a good idea? It means that unless you either systematically empower a large core of "correct" echoes which get used regularly and thus fund your ongoing exploration OR you constantly regrind the simulator mission (which is the only one that offers a reasonable credit/time ratio, and you NEED to hit round 10, otherwise the payout is ... not great). In order to keep your gear up to par, else the enemies will trash you, no joke, at 25 they hit -hard-. They start using grenades, you get flyers who saturate the area with AE rocket attacks, there's mine layers, the place turns into a storm of nasty, which also means necessitating the use of +defence echoes if you want to live longer than a few seconds.
Sooo, if I'm already feeling underpowered at level 4, I'm guessing it doesn't get easier. lol I noticed you mentioned the "Healing Echoes." The only reason I've survived my latest missions is because I have a GC friend that I can "borrow" a healer from. Good to know I can at least try to grind the "Simulator," because I'm definitely hurting for funds, and my gear isn't cutting it. DBC
There's five healing echoes available that I've found so far: Dr. Kilgarian - Straight "big" heal, about 50% or so of your health in one pass. 30 sec cooldown. Reduced to 25 seconds once she hits veteran. Patcher - Decent HoT (15 sec duration, about 10% of your health per tick initially, improves to 15% with veteran, 30 sec CD) Dr. Ekatool - (6 sec HoT, 15% per tick, fast ticks though, improves to 20% or so with veteran, feels like it needs to be spammed to keep it useful, 10 sec CD) RG3-12 (Passive 2/4% ongoing healing per tick, moderate speed - VERY useful) - This one is a prime target to empower and veteran, since you can always take a breather between waves and "recharge" your HP with the nanobots Hareon Josephus - Life Leech. Healing by killing, the normal version is minimal, the veteran version, much less so, combined with RG3-12 and Eddy makes you exceptionally hard to kill off, and is a good baseline mix for boss fights. Addendum - At some point you will get a dual echo called the Razor. For the love of god. Take him. Take him, empower him, get him to veteran as fast as you humanly can. He has a ridiculously powerful ability. His passive is time compression which at veteran reduces the cooldown on active abilities by 30%. You work out the effects - Hobbes/ThatFuzzyTiger
I wonder if there are endless side campaigns in each area? If so then the whole emblem problem is non existent because you get one emblem for every campaign you complete and I have completed at least five in the first area of the map and they keep popping up. What does your map look like Hobbesian? This is what mine looks like so far.
