I would be fine with it being a pay to win. At least that way you know where things stand. The problem is that it's more a pay for a chance, a very small chance it sems, to win. For example, players purchase multiple character crystal packs only to pull nothing but 2 star bots that are duplicates of bots they already have. They purchase coin packages to keep fighting in these events, winning premium crystals that again give them nothing but duplicate bots, so they're worthless as you get very little return on awarded resources when this happens. This is not hyperbole or inflated examples to prove a point. These incidents have actually happened. Not to mention the unashamed greed in hosting another one of these leader board events within two weeks of the last such event. SA has even acknowledged that having leader board events this close to one another is too much. Of course, that is not stopping them from going ahead with it.

 

Yeah, for a time you will be able to grow and expand your game (and bots) but there comes a time that the crappy 2 stars become obsolete in this game. Unless you have 3 o 4 star bots (that you have to win or pay out the butt to get) the game comes to a grinding halt. How much fun will it be at that point when you can no longer get any better unless you shell out hundreds of dollars for "a chance" to get a 3 star bot from a "premium" crystal pack. And when they all turn out to be 2 star duplicates, what will you do?

The short term greed of SpaceApe will the downfall of what can be a superior game.

 

I'm a completely free player and I currently have 8 three-star bots (3 of which came from free crystals) and 1 four-star bot. There is a good chance that, by the end of this weekend, I'll have another three-star bot. None of those are near max level, yet. It's possible that I'll run into a wall at some point, but it doesn't look like that will be anytime soon. I suspect that, by then, I'll be happy to move on to something else. More likely, SA will have either abandoned the game because it is not profitable for them any more or they'll keep rolling out updates to keep even free players interested. Heck, games like Clash of Clans have managed to do that for years now.

Basically, I don't think Earth Wars is particularly any greedier than the average freemium game. I've certainly seen ones with bigger or earlier pay walls. I've seen one's with lesser ones, too, but I don't begrudge a developer their revenue, particular since I'm on the free end of it.

 

Exactly this. Sure you don't have to pay to play, but you will most likely hit a point where your progress will slow dramatically as either your base quickly becomes a raiding ground for far stronger players that have, most likely, paid for where they are, OR the bases you need to raid in order to gather the resources necessary to upgrade cannot be assaulted by your free bot team.

 

At least this end of it isn't a problem in Earth Wars because of the battle selection system, unless all of the lower level bases dry up (e.g., there isn't a sufficient influx of new players/slower players). As to the first (grinding to a halt), we'll have to wait and see whether that happens. It's certainly a possibility, but I don't see it happening anytime soon (i.e., within the next 3-6 months), even for a completely free player like myself, given the current trend and bot acquisition rate.

 

And therein lies the biggest tragedy that pisses people off in a huge way. I have NEVER got a 3 star bot out of the free crystals. Ever. I make sure I get all 3 free crystals every day and have been doing this for many months. And nothing but 1/2 star bots, power boosts or spark.

Are they any greedier than the others? Yeah, I think they are. I play a couple of others and none of them put the full court press on you like Earth Wars to keep buying packages.

 

I got 3 three star bots: Silverbolt, Alpha Bravo, and Prowl, but it is nearly impossible to get better bots and stuff, i just upgraded to level 10 HQ the other day and, i bet if i had shelled out maybe 100 dollars max, i could have been a lot farther in terms of bots and resources.

 

There's a saying. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

I don't begrudge SA making money so they can support the game.

However I do think ethically they need to self regulate themselves against players who can't control their spending (like in Japan). They need to put a limit in and prevent players from their own bankruptcy (plenty of players have shelled out thousands and thousands and I bet they aren't all millionaires.

Should put a limit on spending over time or something.

 

Do NOT do this.

 

OK did they stealth boost the zones again? I am losing more battles then I feel I should be losing.

 

Just ran into a 0 pt with my C team myself. Plus 2 0's with my autobot account despite picking regular zones that are usually shoe'ins

 

They always change the zones to make them harder, keeps you spending money, they will change them again after the event, they can't let you level up and get ahead, bad for business

 

And see I think that's the point for some us, I don't think we mind spending money for this game, it's fun, but the truth is no matter how much you spend the developers keep changing the zones, keep making it harder to get better teams (multiple dupes) all in an attempt to get you to spend more, there is no point in this game where you can get comfortable unless you have spent the ultimate and bought enough bundles, 2 stars will eventually max out and then 3 stars will eventually max out, and 4 stars at lvl 50 or 60 the cool down times for those are so enormous, you need multiple teams of 4 stars, but the only way to get 4 stars is to spend, spend, spend, but the thing is they offer no guarantees no matter what you spend, but if you want to continue real growth in the game you have to have 4 star characters, and the only way to get them is to spend, they know this, so my advice to players is, learn where your cap is and be content with it, or spend a lot of money to make your team better, because once you get into the base level 12-14 range, you can't farm enough resources with 3 star and 2 star teams to keep up, you need 4 star teams that can tackle zones 11-12, other wise you will be months trying to max out level 12-14 bases

 

Looking for some big hitters in search of an alliance. Preferably active players who score over 8k during events. Having issues with dead weight on the team. You could hit me up on LINE at augyz or reply here. looking for 1-3 guys depending how some of my teammates respond in the next few hours. We are platinum/gold league and finished 116th last event. We are an Autobot alliance.

 

Good luck recruiting optionsman. You might want to indicate whether you're bot or con.

 

Ah yes, Autobots

 

You could easily spend more per EVENT on this game than you could paying for a yearly subscription to an based MMORPG and still not come ahead. I, for one, refuse to give SA one red cent until they fix the high bot duplication rate and better space out these burn out alliance position battles.

 

They need to do individual events where the prizes are based on how the alliance does collectively, like the 4 star event. Or, they need to figure out a way of deterring the alliance rotating of members as it will always be the same people winning. It's not sour grapes....look at who wins - these alliances have more than one group. They rotate members so there is virtually no cooldown. Top bots are always out. To me, it's ruining the promise of this game. What fun is it for the average Joe who has basically already been resigned to the fact that their alliance won't touch anything other than a premium crystal?

I have suggested either they do something about curtailing these practices or awarding better prizes for the alliances that get the battle point goals