November 2018 - last edited November 2018
Every now and then I check the forums to see if the game has been updated. Guess not. Saw this and I think I'd like to share my 2 cents.
I started playing the game when it first released and ranking up was extremely hard (you had to win 20 games in a row to advance, instead of the current 5). I put about $40 - 60 into the game total to help me out.
After I built up enough cards I could fully maintain myself w/ decent decks. Made ultimate league every season from season 2 onward. Being a plant main, I sold all my zombie legendaries and super rares to be able to buy the specific premade plant decks in order to have multiple legendaries. The bulk load of my purchases were made from selling all my expensive zombie cards... cause I don't care about playing zombie.
The last deck I made was a berry deck. Pretty cheap and extremely OP. Doubt they'll ever patch it anytime soon since they stopped updating the game.
Hope that provides some insight.
TL;DR: I payed money in the beginning to help support this game I love, but ended up not having to do it anymore once I stuck to one side/strategy.
November 2018
I have a whole separate thread on here about Berries being WAAAAY OP now. :-)
November 2018
November 2018
So you don't know about Strawberrian? That costing only 3, being only Rare, and bonus attacking for +1 EVERY TIME any berry is played is super-powerful. Esp when you play Sgt Strongberry on Round 4, and then Sour Grapes after that. Just too cheap, too common, and too powerful. So now everyone is playing them ... esp near the end of the Tourneys. :-)
November 2018
November 2018
Mr TAllen Sr, I respectfully disagree with your views.
I think the main issue I have with what you wrote is that calling PVZ:Heroes Pay to Win essentially makes the the term completely meaningless and thus, I don't understand why the desire to call it pay to win in the first place other than to voice your displeasure at losing to a powerful card played the way its meant to be.
Why is it meaningless? Because by the definition you are applying, every single game with any kind of rarity distribution and micro transactions is pay to win, and if that's the case, then any game where you have to pay to play it, for example call of duty, or the sport of golf, is pay to win. In golf, you need to buy golf clubs. The better they are, the better equipped you are to play. However, nobody calls golf, or any other sport for that matter, pay to win. In call of duty, you have to pay $60 for the game itself. If you don't you can't even play. Nobody calls that pay to win even though those who pay have a complete advantage over those who don't, given that those who don't can't even play.
With CCGs, you also often have to pay to play, depending on the economy of the game. For MTG, you will likely need to pay quite a bit if you want to play competitively. But really, what is the difference between paying to purchase the right cards to build a competitive deck and purchasing golf clubs of the quality necessary to play in a competitive tournament?
With a CCG that is advertised as free to play there is an important difference: it has an avenue of progression for people who don't wish to pay money to be competitive. What you are saying with this rant is that the free progression in this game is too slow for you because you don't already have absolutely all the cards and would like to without spending any more time or money. Even if you remove the p2w label, I disagree with the notion that the progression is too slow.
For starters, at least one public player has shown that they can create a new account and get to Ultimate league within a couple of months without spending any money. I personally did this too with my son's account and I've seen a few posts on reddit from players boasting that they got to Ultimate with budget decks or within a small amount of time. To me that shows that the game has a pool of cards that enables skilled players to created decks with minimal rarity count. In my experience this game has a progression much faster than most other f2p online CCGs and a design much more balanced towards budget decks, and to me these examples are proof of that.
That's not all. The ladder system, while not ideal, tries to ensure that most matches are fairly even. Thus, a player should be growing their collection along with their skill, that's what progression should work like. It sounds like to you a game can only be truly f2p if from the get go you have all the cards. I hope you realize how bad that would be for any game's reward system. In this game people complain that once you get to UL you don't get anything. Imagine if you started with all the cards and never ever got anything! nobody would be interested in playing.
In addition, this game actually has a very fair and generous rewards system. Veterans and people who paid or have played for long don't get much of an advantage in terms of rewards because the bulk of it comes from the ads and daily quests and the difference in gems of what a newbie can get to what a veteran can get is about 20 gems every day, on average, essentially 2 more quests. I say that these rewards are quite generous because within a year anyone playing this game will get over 72 legendaries without spending a dime. I challenge you to show me another online CCG with a more generous reward system.
To me, the pay to win term should be used for games were at least one of these things happen:
- Paying more GUARANTEES winning.
- Paying more is REQUIRED to win.
For example, a pay to win game is one where you can purchase additional life points. Such a scheme would allow you to guarantee a win since you can just buy as many life points as you can to win the game. There are plenty of games like that. Calling a well designed CCG pay to win just makes the term meaningless.
I'd like to also answer to a few of your points.
November 2018
November 2018
Yeah, saying this game is "pay to win" makes the term meaningless because then all other games (including all real life sports) are also pay to win, given that this game has some of the most generous f2p rewards in any CCG out there.
November 2018
@Gabochido wrote:Yeah, saying this game is "pay to win" makes the term meaningless because then all other games (including all real life sports) are also pay to win, given that this game has some of the most generous f2p rewards in any CCG out there.
That was a really great, detailed description of the different games. However, I think you missed a few of my points:
THANKS FOR POSTING THOUGH! Really enjoyed reading it and learning more about the other games.
November 2018 - last edited November 2018
@Gabochido wrote:
Mr TAllen Sr, I respectfully disagree with your views.
How the HECK did this get "Accepted Solution" status? I did not click on that button.
Oh ... I see ... the community manager did it. So they see a long post that defends them and they say that is the "solution"? Got it. Thought this was a place to discuss openly. LOL