4 replies to this topic

[CaptC]

I am told that you can now buy an additional 50 energy for a diamond cost. Apparently as much energy as you want.

 

ARE YOU SERIOUS? The only thing that kept a balance between free and paying players was the limits on available energy.  Money could make the game easier, faster, more convenient.  But you still had to put the time in, work to build your character a day at a time.

 

That is no longer true.

 

All of us that foolishly wasted time on a limited budget, building a character, over weeks and months, can now be passed in a few days by an idiot with a big wallet. Want to be able to beat anyone in the game in a duel? How much are you willing to spend?

 

The days of the free player, in a competitive studio, are now over. Being top dog no longer depends upon skill, or dedication, or effort... it is strictly dependent upon how much your studio mates are willing to spend to acquire and spend energy.

 

Great for the developers, I am guessing... For a while. But this is a blatant and over the top money grab that makes casual players with limited budgets strictly non-competitive. I hope the game can survive catering just to whales, while driving away all the minnows.

 

I sincerely hope I am over-reacting. But this change has the potential to completely unbalance the game, converting it from a pay to win, to a pay to play. 

[CaptC]

A couple more thoughts:

 

1) Infinite energy breaks many features of the game.   

 

But for example:  I am never running a convention again, I don't care whether it will fill or not. Running conventions for equipment has always been fun, but ultimately a waste of time... but trading time for a finite resource (energy) was worthwhile.

 

Now? It is cheaper to simply buy the extra energy, rather than run the convention. And you haven't wasted 60 or 90 minutes NOT spending energy, as well!

 

2) I actually don't have a problem with infinite energy, per se. At least, if you were required to use actual clock time to spend it. That would simply trade one finite resource (energy) for another (clock time.) But the game now has infinite acceleration AND infinite energy. The only finite resource is the size of a players wallet.

 

I am hoping that the developers realize what an error this is, and they simply say "Oops, that was a bug.".

 

And they close down generating infinite energy pronto.

[Stoney]

All good points, but you missed a HUGE one. The Temple events that are based on spending energy.

[CaptC]

Eh, you can buy a lot of temples now. Since it is already happening, I didn't consider that a fundamental break in the way the game balances.

 

But you are, of course, correct.  Temple balance is destroyed just as badly.

[CaptC]

Analyzing some of infinite energy's bad effects on the game:

 

Infinite energy makes conventions less significant, because the nominal vendor value of an item from a convention isn't why many of us did them. It was for the bonus energy, because it was one of the few ways to gain extra energy. It was also a way to gain bonus experience (which is vicarious way of attaining the benefit of extra energy)  as the more shows you did, the more bonus exp you obtained. That came at a cost of 19 diamonds to instantly finish, and each show was only worth a small amount of extra experience at the end of a convention.

 

It also makes successes that give bonus energy that much less significant, because it's now so easy to obtain that same energy for less effort.

 

Energy was a finite resource. We all had the same base 100 + 4 refills, all players. Beyond that you only got more from successes (which themselves are also finite), clothing sets (again, finite and rare), and then it was conventions and trophies.

 

This made conventions worth while, because you gained additional amounts of a rare, finite resource, possibly that a competitor did not. It made trophies valuable, because they were also one of the few ways to obtain more.

 

Here's the math. 5000 diamonds cost $30, which breaks down to 6/10th of 1 penny per diamond. At that ratio, 30 diamonds costs 18 cents and gains you 50 energy.

 

18 cents now negates 2.5 trophies, and 18 cents will get you almost twice as much extra energy as you can get from a successful convention, AND, you don't have to click a convention job every 3 or 4 minutes, fastidiously, for 60 or 90 minutes. 

 

That means the bonus energy you get from a convention is now worth between 8-12 cents.... and you'd have to spend 60-90 mins to get it, and that's 60-90 minutes that you aren't using energy. You're better off paying 18 cents, getting 50 energy, and spending 50 mins doing missions, as you'll gain more notes/exp in the same time frame. Likewise, the 19 diamonds you would have spent instantly finishing a convention mission, is now better spent instantly finishing a long mission/challenge worth much more experience/notes instead.

 

So for big spenders, there's little reason to invest many diamonds in conventions when really think about it, and without their participation, they become even less likely to succeed for everyone.