Pay to Win? Please tread carefully, this game can be amazing

I too think that $10 for club is overpriced.
But so what, I like the game and I want to support it. Paying keeps the servers running and the features and upgrades flowing.
The club window annoy you? It takes nothing away from you playing the game, it takes no money from your pocket. Why begrudge the devs the tiny bit extra revenue it brings in.

This game is currently NOT P2W. How would you feel of the devs threw in the towel and sold the ip to EA? They could make it like "Plants vs Zomies 2" or "Mighty quest for epic loot"

 

A club membership requires you to play a lot if you want to maximize, but very little to make more worthwhile than treasure hunts.
Treasure hunts just aren't good value for money. Even if you account for the (little, considering the price) content included.

I'm not saying it's excessively P2W or begrudging anyone, I'm saying that the way it's done now does not give me a good option to pay the amount I'm willing to pay.
And I'm pretty sure that I'm far from alone in that situation.

 

That comment was more aimed towards the "Remove the club window it is annoying me crowd"

 

Oh, I do want it toned down

 

I've been playing for about two weeks now as have gotten my cousin and my neighbor to play. Neither of them has dropped a penny into the game. They are not interested in costumes and Kris is perfectly fine with 3 identical dwarves who are different colors only. He will never ever buy an aesthetic item. That is just how he is. My friend Amanda might, she has in the past for games. So you have two playing customers who are not paying customers.

I have bought a few figures so far and have also ponied up for the Club as well. I do not so far have any inherent advantage over kris. He is unemployed and plays waaaaaaay more than I do. He has a slight advantage over me honestly because he gets more pulls so a better chance to get better cards. I get the extra item from the club but in two weeks time it has not given me a clobbering ability to rampage on either of of them. Of the 3 of us Kris has the most wins just because he has a huge library of cards to pick from.

Personally I do not mind the micro transactions in this game. I play a lot when I can, and I like that I can still keep up with Kris who pours a lot of time into this game. I have the club that helps give me a slightly better chance at an extra goodie. But there is no option that is pay money = win.

Obviously if I up and spend a $1000 dollars on gold chests. Yes I am going to have a VERY high chance at having great gear. The same can be said of the unemployed who give no money to the games development but play for 100's of hours a week and also have a very high chance of getting great gear. They are both due to volume. One is due to the ability to funnel money the other is time. If you want to nerf the guys ability to buy stuff in the game to stay competitive how are you going to nerf the guy who spends 100's of hours a week to get gear? If we are talking about fairness here.

 

Unlocking 10 treasure hunts is the same price as 1 month of club membership. From the 10 treasure hunts, you get 10 epics and roughly 30 sure fire rares via quests (ignoring the 1 health quests that are quite difficult). So roughly equivalent to 40 or so normal, first time, adventure completions with club membership. If you are pretty casual, that doesn't strike me as very little. There have been a ton of casual games I've spent money on and yet played less than once a day on average. I don't think that I am an extreme outlier on that really.

 

Not really, if you are doing them for the content.

 

Really. If you're doing them for the content and loot.
If only for the sake of not feeling like a sucker.

 

I've got a friend that played the game for a few hours and quit exactly because of this reason.

 

If the price of card club was lowered to $5 bucks a month, I'm pretty sure almost no one would quit out of P2W frustrations.

The reason is that even if people felt the game was pay 2 win, guess what? It's just $5 bucks. If you cannot afford five bucks then you've got bigger problems other than pay 2 win.

 

I can, and sometimes do, toss money at games I feel are worth it but stating that if someone can't afford $5 they've got a problem is very condescending. Maybe they are playing F2P games because they know can't afford it and are responsible about it, but still want entertainment value. Avoiding P2W games might be their top priority in that case, so yes, they may quit if they feel as though the barrier to gaining an edge on someone is so low that it's too enticing to others.

Aside from that, as someone who can afford it, effectively saying it's just $5 so I should pay it is insulting. Maybe I can afford it, and much more so than you, but don't want to have to. It doesn't matter if the club was less than $1, some people don't want to have to compete with others who can pay their way through games to get an advantage in MP, additionally people in some countries, of some age or socioeconomic groups, may be disallowed from paying online at all and through no fault of their own.

While I'm sure this was an offhand comment and not intended to be inflammatory, please be more considerate to people in situations you can't possibly understand.

 

Pretty much blindsight said, my credit card is locked inside my country actions only so I can't pay for online things such as online games and I I was annoying quite a bit by that careless comment forlorn

 

I have way more money than time. I like to have the ability to make up for not being able to not have as much time as I'd like in this game buy making these small purchases to keep me competitive. I touched upon this in a post above but my ability to not spend as much time as I'd like to in this game keeps me from grinding the random machine for cards. Getting that one extra card (usually rare or higher until you beat the mission for the first time) really feels like I have a chnace to make up for lost time. All I am buying in this game is chance. I cannot flat pick out an item and drop money on it (unless it's in a shop, again random).

If we go by rule of people's money should not help (as a side note I completely disagree with pay to win type games and I do not feel as if this is even close) them to have a chance at better cards, why should extra time someone manages to have give them a chance at better cards?

 

Prices DO matter, prices matter a lot. $5 bucks a month is what Spotify uses. That's the price Amazon Prime uses for students ($60) over 1 year.

I run my own business. When I lower prices, the reaction is immediate. People come flocking to buy my service with even a $5 dollar reduction in price. The more you lower prices, the more people will be inclined to buy and the more satisfaction people will have the product/service. It's amazing what lower prices can do.

If someone cannot pay the $5 due to other reasons, then it's not their fault and I doubt they'd feel ashamed. However a game is still a business and must be built around some kind of price incentive. I don't understand why anyone would get angry at paying for a competitive advantage if a.) the prices are low enough and b.) you compare card hunter to most games you need to buy for $30.

 

Additionally, this is an idea:

Give a student discount for card hunter. Adults pay $10 a month and students pay $5 bucks a month. Make it so students can send in a screenshot of their student ID and get the discount, or something like that.

 

You prove my point: you've got bigger problems than being able to afford $5. Your credit card is locked? Is that due to laws or something else? Either way $5 is the least of your concerns.

My point isn't that poor people suck, it's that $5 is such a low price that if someone cannot afford it then the developers cannot reasonably be held responsible for anyone who claims the game is unaffordable.

 

Since you replied to my post it feels like this is geared toward me so I thought I'd clarify: I don't think this game is P2W, I think it's relatively balanced in the time vs money aspect. There's no reason that, in a F2P game, money shouldn't allow someone to utilize that resource instead of time to achieve a certain level of gain.

 

Apparently you're missing my point so let me rephrase: If a game has a real money avenue model some players will not want to compete with others who have the money they can spend on the game. The AMOUNT of money that is needed to be spent does not matter to these people. Some people are unwilling, or unable to pay and do not want to feel disadvantaged. Where prices DO matter is that it is increasingly unnerving the lower the prices for the real money avenue are.

It is very different to play a F2P game where the pay avenue entry level is at $300 than it is a $5. The lower the price, the more people you are going to encounter who have paid. Good for developers (maybe), bad for players who don't want to/can't compete against paid accounts.

They may not be ashamed, but they may still quit.

So you wouldn't be upset if a MP game you loved offered all of the best items to any player willing to pay $1, but you weren't allowed to partake? That wouldn't put you off? Would you feel differently if it was $100? $1000?

 

I think the problem here is that the game is putting a lot of effort into things (like the club pillow) that make it appear to be P2W, when it really isn't.