You only keep getting emblems for as long as you keep finding new echoes at the end of your campaigns. Once they dry up, so do the emblems. Remember what I said : 1 per new echo found, that's traditionally at the end of a campaign. 1 per level. So far I've not seen -any- emblem drops off the end of campaigns as yet, so check if you're not confusing campaigns with echo finds.
Yeah, you're right, I was confusing finding echoes with completing campaigns. While that is a shame it is also kind of nice, at least for me because I will just replay the game to try different combos of boosted echoes to see which I like best. I guess this build just offers me more replay value because I won't spend more money just so I can boost all the echoes. Some of the echoes are actually pretty useless unless they figure into your play style. Anyway, Thanks for clearing that up for me Hobbesian.
Just a quick note you seem to have ignored totally, Hobbes. Weapons and armor can be attuned by using them in combat. When they are attuned you can phasebreak (the ingame term iirc) them for Echoes. This is another way to gain emblems outside of completing missions. Another point not mentioned is that the same piece of equipment can be attuned multiple times. Also, if you choose an Echo you already have, you boost its echo points so it can reach veteran faster. Just some things to note.
Neither of those change the underlying inflow rate regarding emblems. If you choose an echo you do not already have, you gain an emblem, and you reduce the pool of available emblems to gain from that method accordingly. So whilst that's lovely information, it's also irrelevant. Remember, there's 64 echoes total, how you uncover them is irrelevant, 64 echoes means 64 emblems, the speed is up to you, but the pool is by definition finite. Attuning an item can be done multiple times, sure, but unless you're money grinding, you're unlikely to want to do this because in case it's not already been made clear - your gear gets horribly obsoleted by the enemies as you level up, mandating you upgrade constantly and keep at the highest possible tier of kit as often as credits permit. Finally, making an echo veteran improves its' abilities and means it turns into a credit earner, but unless you've empowered it, the credits it earns won't be all that amazing, and unless it's one that people want to use regularly, it won't see much rotation offline.
If you read our posts you would see that all this has already been covered and we cleared up that you DO NOT get emblems from completing campaigns, only from leveling and getting new echoes do you gain emblems. We already knew you could get new echoes by attuning equipment.
Fair enough. I just wanted to highlight it for people on the fence because it was a key piece of information in the sidelines. And sure, you can't empower everything without dropping some cash but outside of completionists, who would want to? Some echoes are essential, most are nice to have. As it is the game is also allowing you to generate ingame currency while you're not even playing. Sounds like a good deal to me. I have yet to see a cap on the credits I'm generating per echo. All I'm saying is, it makes a difference. Chill.
I'm not entirely sure I understand what you guys are saying. Players can obtain Emblems aside from "Echo finding," right? Emblems are used for things other than opening Caches, right? Sorry for sounding obtuse, I'm just trying to figure out what to spend my various currencies on to increase my enjoyment of the game. God, I feel like an idiot trying to figure all this out... lol DBC
Sorry about that, sometimes my hands and brain go faster than they should. Alright. The skinny on emblems: Do not use them for boosters, for "rerolling" echo rewards, or for cache unlocks, at best all of these items are simply gambling hooks, or at worst are very, very expensive consumables designed to munch your emblems at the speed pacman munches dots. Equally, I'd advise against using them for buying up pieces of equipment, it's tempting at times, particularly with the gear grind being what it is, but stay the course. Use them for empowering echoes, it's about the only thing that yields persistent and ongoing value, and the vanity pictures are groovy gravy on the top. Priority order in empowering echoes: Eddy - This one gets used a lot, both by you and other people, the 40% defence buff at veteran means he'll be a constant credit earner. Any echo with a healing ability - Again, core abilities, used regularly by most players. Any "Dual" echo - There's only three of them so far, and all of them are extremely useful. Of the three the Razor is by far and away the most overpowered, with a time slowing ultimate multi-shot and time compression that speeds up active ability cooldowns. Any passive echo that buffs damage - These are useful for buzz sawing through lower grade missions, and for clearing out smaller minions. Any others you feel that you like - From this point on, it's pretty much "up to you", take a look at the various echoes, pick a few that seem interesting or have nice vanity pics, and empower them. Hope this helps
LOL, I hear you, although I prefer to call myself "thorough and passionate..." "Hope this helps?" You have NO idea. Thank you so much for taking the time to post it! DBC
Hobbesses.... Hobbes, SO I'm curious, even with the burdensome IAP structure, what do you think of the game? Your comments on the most part about everything besides the IAPS seem pretty positive. Could you give a little mini-review?
Okay, this is entirely subjective, and will be part emotional as well as part analytical so bear with me The long and the short. The game makes me angry. It's a game with a ton of potential and a great idea which has been ruined by what seems like someone in marketing going "I WANT A PIECE OF THAT PIE". Had the developers stuck to the core principle and not got distracted by the concept of the emblems (and consequent design issues), this could have set the stage to become a showcase game for the iPad in particular. Something that you'd put along Infinity blade and as much as it pains me to say, CSR Racing (if only because CSR's graphics do show off nicely on the ipad 4). Broad strokes story is high fantasy science fiction, drawing from tropes seen in places like mass effect and a sprinkling of other similar works, though the lore has a certain coherency and consistency that if there was more time and depth lent over to it could have easily moved this into "deep" RPG territory. Missions are kicked off with a branching tree structure map accessed from the campaign screen, with a core path that branches off into optionals, some missions additionally offer choices such as reward types or even enemy types to fight against for a given mission, giving variety to the path you take, always a nice plus. How you attack the campaigns is more or less left up to you, with an increasing "width" of potential missions on the go as you level up, so there's always an option to take things easier and grind for cash, or to push yourself against higher level foes where the inclination arises. The levels themselves are more or less the same deal overall, you start at the left of a map, you work to the right, fighting off various flavours of enemies, initially these are basic minion worker johnnies, but they scale up as you level, gaining shields, dodges, AE attacks, and so on. Eventually it becomes pretty frenetic and you need to get the hang of how to create builds of echoes that complement each other and work as a team to enhance your desired play-style, either that or get used to whacking the respawn button repeatedly. Some missions vary this up by having you capture low health mobs, or by defending an objective, or by destroying a marked item, or by killing a "Boss" enemy, but overall, it's -that-. It's diablo in mini bite sized format with a sci-fi feel. One thing I would have liked to see is the levels being shook up so you would run from right to left, or even from bottom to top occasionally, just to vary things up a bit. Gear is mostly of the statistical variety, it's somewhat hard to pick out on your toon, though the main hand weapon is generally very visible and easy to identify, though as I have referenced in the earlier posts, gear costs scale exponentially, resale costs do not, and as a result you end up finding yourself grinding to keep up, which becomes very unpleasant in the high 20's. You -need- to keep gear current, this is not optional, if your gear is more than 1 tier behind your content, you're going to get *munched*. The echoes are a brilliant idea, I like the implementation, I particularly like the social aspect, lending your echoes to your friends and to other people to help them out, and in turn borrowing theirs to get through levels. This is something I very, very much approve of, and the implementation is outstanding, big green tick here. Their portraits and flavour text (which incidentally changes once they hit veteran), also good things, big green ticks there too. Where this game runs into the jarring brick wall is the emblems. Seriously. I've made reference to this some time ago when Real Racing 3 came out, and it's something I keep yelling angrily about whenever a game does this. A game that has dual currency BY NATURE will have it's design informed by that secondary currency, and that in turn means that there will be barriers, no matter how soft, no matter how "optional", they exist, they're there, always lurking, waiting for you to dig into your wallet. What is particularly annoying is that unlike Real Racing 3 where at least THAT was a free download, this has an up front cost. I can't just download and decide if I want to deal with the emblem issue or not, at some point, probably close to L40 or so, I can foresee a point where either I will have to grind for a serious period of time OR purchase a booster to keep up with the damage that upgrading gear does to my credit balance. So. That's where I stand with this game. I want to love it. I truly do. I don't get upset at something I don't care about, but right now as it stands I cannot safely recommend this, and I REALLY cannot recommend this to anyone who is not patient enough to avoid the temptation of taking the boosters to help smooth the path once into the thirties and beyond. If I have to put numbers to the game, I'll give two distinct ratings, one for the game itself, and one for the game -with- the IAP implementation. If Robot Entertainment have a sudden attack of common sense and do some major rebalancing, the first score applies, until then, the second one. Game potential : 5/5 Game as is : 2.5/5 My gaming background.
Wow, what a great post/review, Hobbesian! As one on the fence on this game, I have a feeling that my response would likely be in line with your own view. Excellent explanation and thoughts. I was afraid this may be a game that could be great, but needs some rebalancing to get there.
@ Hobbesian - I hate saying it, but that's the vibe I'm getting early on. I just opened my first cache, using some of my dear Emblems, and it stung a bit. Not because I was using them, but because I've been playing for so long and have so few. If I'm only at level 4, well, extrapolating from here forward, the math isn't complex. Edit: Almost forgot to mention. The item I got in my cache? Some crappy consumable. Ugh. Thanks for a very thorough, fair, and constructive breakdown of your experience. DBC
Something I touched upon and should elaborate : The bosses - These deserve special mention. Credit to Robot for making bosses with actual honest to god attack patterns that you have to react to, learn, and anticipate. Each boss has a selection of attacks that have a wind up, then they cut loose, and if you've not taken the appropriate action, you take severe damage (you can mitigate somewhat with healing and defensive echoes, but tanking is not the optimal option). These bosses necessitate actual use of your brain. This was a new and novel feature, I HAD TO THINK. This is one of the other things that has stood out to me and yet another reason why if they back away from the IAP implementation, all they need do is get some videos up of people fighting these bosses and the game would sell itself.
Official review on the TA site pretty much put together a more eloquent argument than my summary, but drew the same conclusion. It's a shame. This game is a few significant revisions away from being so much more but I swear, this was someone in marketing who saw the whole "dual currency" gig and went "MUST HAVE". Next time, focus on the game, not how to monetise it.
Game Impressions While being stuck at home being sick, I grabbed Echo Prime this week. I found it quite interesting to currently have my played time poll at 14 hours and 7 minutes (game apparently says that in options, pretty nifty). Let's evaluate my progress. Right now I'm at 48 Echoes located, 32 Baseline, 16 Veteran, 18 of them being Amplified. Current level of 30. Money spent on IAP was none. Mostly because I figured opening chests was not worth it after 2 of them and to only upgrade equipment after I've attuned them through normal slaying. Difficulty is in the right kind for me. I often go into missions above my level, but I can fall back into easy missions to grind out equipment or Echoes quite easily. Some pure rampage can be quite relaxing to go back to from having went into hardcore mode. Aside from possibly the game getting too repetitive, I can only give praise here. The game is not boring yet because of difficulty increase that I enjoy quite a bit. It takes planning now rather pure tapping. But even then, I'm at 14 hours of fun gameplay right now. That's quite good. I think the difference here is that I went in with zero expectations here. Yes, I do love Hero Academy and Orcs Must Die... but I didn't know what to expect Robot Entertainment on this one. I was pleasantly surprised and I want to give props to devs on making my sick week more entertaining.
I realize the thread is pretty dead, but a new update just dropped. Anyone run it yet? It mentions "balancing," and I'm kind of hoping "balancing" means, well, you know, removing some stuff. DBC
