Well said Royce. Phoenix HD is like a field full of freshly fallen snow, and the IAP is like a dog walking through it and defecating.
Argh, lost all my coins. Been playing on my ipad, got coins on that for playing the last 2 days. Then decided to log in on my iphone since it says it would share coins on multiple devices. So I thought it would add the coins on my ipad and iphone. Well, I was wrong, signed in on my ipad, then all my coins disappeared since it seems to be using my iphone numbers which are close to zero. Sigh, really thought my coins would add up, but not a big deal, but was trying to get some coins to play with the drones. Oh well. Maybe you can fix this so the coins add up? Or would be some reason for the coins not be transferred? Could be tramatic if you lost a lot of coins especially after an inapp purchase I think. Too bad, I should have captured a screen shot of being the #1 player in the world. Even if it was only for 5 minutes hehe. Well, now I wanna buy another ship, which one is better been the Shogun and Mirage?
Early adopter ftw! The only thing else I could've asked for was a toothpaste laser ship of some sort. I completely disagree. I doubt I'll by any other IAPs except ships and I'm perfectly happy with the game. If you don't want to buy, then you're just going to have to learn how to play better.
It's not a matter of playing better or worse. It's simply that you don't have a chance at your high score every time you play anymore. Some of my best games came at totally unexpected times. Now I have to plan my scoring runs and spend the rest of my time saving coins to buy extra lives and powerups for when I want to make a scoring run attempt. It's just not the same, and for me, just not as fun or as pure as it was.
I play for the fun, not for the highscores. Ok, I want to improve my personal scores. But first of all, I wanna get excited, thrilled and entertained and Phoenix does deliver, more than ever.
-1 It's hard to ignore high scores when the game is based so heavily around them. The game tells you very clearly where you stand after every run, provides you with a very detailed regional ranking system and gives you medal goals based on those rankings.
The issue at hand is that if everything that is currently available through IAP were available within the gameplay itself, we would not be having this discussion. It would be a level playing field, instead of the outcome of each run being determined by what you initially buy.
It's really awfully simple, I swear if I didn't know better I'd think people were purposely playing dumb: before the latest patch the two weren't mutually exclusive. Every time you played. What exactly is your point?
Not only were they not mutually exclusive, the two are almost inseparable for this genre. Shmups are built around the entire idea of high scores, many of the best and most popular shmups have interesting scoring systems and tactics which make them so great. To say that in order to enjoy the game more freely you have to give up on high scores is ludicrous, especially for a game that allows you to compete at up to 4 levels with the regional rankings. The coin system corrupts the integrity of the scoring system irrevocably. Phoenix HD used to be one of the few endless games where I could sit down at any time and try for a new high score, without the pressure of maintaining my coin reserves or fully utilizing my purchased items. Every run counted for itself on its own merit rather than on the merit of purchased items, regardless of whether those items are purchased through real money or virtual coins.
My point is that you are bitching against having to spend in-game coins for stuff that wasn't there before anyway and you think you have an exclusive right to get it as an update of your design choice. You try to make this game look like crap and broken right now which it simply isn't. I find it to be fun to work for that extra stuff, to earn coins to upgrade it. And the devs did the best they could to A) earn some money while B) not destroying the core mechanics. It feels enhanced to me. Some posts here feel like "oh gosh, they painted my favorite green ball blue without asking me before" and now you are sad that your game changed a bit. I too haven't played this game for months (although I loved it, but losing interest is natural), but since the update is out I'm playing it constantly. Doesn't seem to be a bad thing. And what's even bad about the fact to have money runs and highscore runs... conclusion is, you will play twice as much. And playing a great game often is something I'm looking forward to.
The act of playing a game solely to accrue a precious commodity is known as farming, and if a game forces you to invest your time in farming in order to be competitive then that comes off as poor design regardless of how you spin it. The villains here are not the developers, I recognize that and have said as much multiple times already. It's the state of the app store pricing trend and revenue model which has forced the developers into this new direction. But that does not mean that the new game design is good. Just because everyone is doing it and it's the only way for a indie team to grow does not mean that it is good game design. It only means that our favorite developers are not immune to the ugly freemium wave that has been sweeping through mobile game development.
Well, I ran into another bug logging in my devices. On my ipad, all the inapp ships said "unknown purchase", and I could not play any of them. None of the ships had names, but when I restored purchases, it came back fine. But I am still worried about my losing all my coins between my two devices. Maybe I should have never logged in, cause I lost my coins on my ipad, and my ipad is not cellular, so will my iphone always take priority over my ipad? Will I lose ipad coins if I don't log in for awhile? Or should I just log out and play my two devices locally? I thought the coins would add up, but I guess they don't.
Again, I have tons of fun right now with a game I haven't touched for ages. So, I really don't have to explain myself. I love the current version of Phoenix and think it's their slickest, most beautiful and most motivating version to date. If you don't like it, ok. I love it and keep on playing.
@Connector: You cannot lose coins, so don't worry about that. Earning coins on different devices on the same account does add them up. If you have coins on a device (before signing in) and then sign in on an existing account, the coins from that account are (obviously) shown. You can access the coins that were originally obtained on that device by signing out. You cannot merge coins on devices with existing accounts. This allows you to sign in and out with your existing account on any device, without affecting the coins on that device. Hope that clears it up
I like the new ship but the coins thing is a bad idea. Total sell out is what it is. There should have been another way to implement the upgrades. Shoot even if there were coins just like now, but they had to be EARNED instead of BOUGHT, it might be ok. I'd prefer the upgrades to be random drops. At the very minimum a separate leaderboard system for those who don't use any upgrades is in order. The way CAVE implemented IAPs in Blissfull Death and BPBL is the way to go. You can buy permanent cheats (not crappy sell-out single use cheats) but in games that you use them you don't get access to the real leaderboard, but the 'custom mode' leaderboard. I bought many of these IAPs to support Cave. I can assure you all I will never buy more coins in Phoenix.
Yeah, makes sense. I logged out, and those old missing points in my ipad were still there. So cool, I think I will just played logged out on both devices from now on, but thanks for explaining it for me. I'm going to go by Shogun now, then I will have all the ships. Hopefully in the future you can make a true drone ship. That would be cool.
