How Predatory are the Microtransactions?

[LordBilbanes]

I noticed that this game is "free" to play.  How predatory are the monetization schemes for this game?  Moreover, is it possible to get the most of this game without spending money?

[FilooGaroo]

0$ but insane grind -

top top game tho

[REAPER4536]

Look at my profile. I think I am not the most efficient player and just play events for clan (Gain Gold -> Upgrade Kingdoms -> Get More resources -> Upgrade Kingdom -> getting even more resources...........-> Long term less grind but at the beginning not much progress towards ultra grindy trophies).

 

So you could shorten this time by just buying anything required for kingdoms and trophies and many trophies would pop easily. Although the 100% is an entire other story.

 

I played so far a couple of hundred hours

Edited March 14, 2020 by REAPER4536

[acasser]

You might get annoyed by the game occasionally bombarding you with Flash Sales and other transparant attempts to get you to spend real money on things, but you can do perfectly fine without investing anything other than time into things.

 

And if you get into a reasonably active guild whose members donate to Guild Statues on a regular basis, you can get plenty of stuff just from that alone.

[GunfighterHefty]

This game is not new player friendly. However, there is very little benefit to spending money on the game. A few things such as a couple types of armor, etc, but buying resources is a waste and any of the upgrades like acasser mentioned don't really function in a "pay to win" scenario. 

 

I would say they do a really good job of adding content, and once you learn the in's and out's you'll realize that it's a pretty good deal for all that it offers for free. 

 

 

[Carbon_Lancer]

You’re fine not spending a single dime, but if you did buy stuff that makes your VIP level go up which the higher you are the better daily things you get, but that’s forking over real money.... no matter if you do it free or spend money you’re looking at 1000s of hours and months if not years going for 100%. I love the game, play it everyday for the past 5 months and with 204 hours in you can see my progress... took forever just to get a bronze badge on a card still not gold... then do that 99 more times.... it’s like a billion hours ? but it is fun 

Like ppl said getting in a good guild is essential, so your strategy should be to get and power level as many kingdoms as you can first and eventually have enough to cover the weekly requirements of your guild. 
Hell just trying for the 100% In pets will take months just cause you have to level it up and it’s different pets each time except a few weeks ago it had back to back cat pets... but the base 100% should be under 100hrs especially after you get the XP bonus for in guild wars when your guild wins each day

[Gefro-On-Defro]

18 minutes ago, Carbon_Lancer said:

You’re fine not spending a single dime, but if you did buy stuff that makes your VIP level go up which the higher you are the better daily things you get, but that’s forking over real money.... no matter if you do it free or spend money you’re looking at 1000s of hours and months if not years going for 100%. I love the game, play it everyday for the past 5 months and with 204 hours in you can see my progress... took forever just to get a bronze badge on a card still not gold... then do that 99 more times.... it’s like a billion hours but it is fun 

Like ppl said getting in a good guild is essential, so your strategy should be to get and power level as many kingdoms as you can first and eventually have enough to cover the weekly requirements of your guild. 
Hell just trying for the 100% In pets will take months just cause you have to level it up and it’s different pets each time except a few weeks ago it had back to back cat pets... but the base 100% should be under 100hrs especially after you get the XP bonus for in guild wars when your guild wins each day

Where does it tell you how many hours you’ve played?

[LunchCannon54]

I've nearly completed it and haven't spent a cent. That Geoff trophy is pure cancer that paying money for the game isn't going to expedite. Forking out for gems might make Exalted easier but you have to get to Level 1000 anyway so you might as well just save them while playing in an active guild in that time; there's not much you can do to speed the level grind up with microtransactions. Overall one of the better games in terms of actually being free to play even if they constantly shove those flash sales in your face without warning and get you dangerously close to accidentally purchasing it.

[Carbon_Lancer]

12 hours ago, Gefro-On-Defro said:

Where does it tell you how many hours you’ve played?

It’s on my YaPSNapp as long as you play online(which this game is online-only) it tracks how many hours and also sessions(each time played) so I’m at 204 hrs with 177 sessions played also tells you your longest session which mine is 24 hours.... I played it an entire day once... It’s a very cool app that every trophy hunter should have....

 

I re read the OP, This is a genuine Free-to-play game... like you don’t have to wait hours/days for battles like some FTP games are.... there’s no limit or restrictions that would hold you up on playing this game. Like most ppl have never spent any real money on this game it’s just a grind grind grind game... You need everything....

Gems, Gold, Glory, minor traitstones, major traitstones, Arcane stones, ingots, souls, deeds.... 

[Vorlon]

Of course you can play for free, but it’s always nice to support the developers. Don’t be stingy!

LunchCannon54 was fortunate he was not in a more demanding guild.

VIP 3 is very useful for free scouting and VIP 5 gives access to VIP keys.

One can easily put over a thousand hours a year in this game and put in quite a lot of money and still lack a lot of inventory to complete everything, but most of the trophies are rather easy, you just need to do the grind.

 

[LordBilbanes]

My way of supporting developers to purchase a game.

[DemonicDraco]

The grind is real if you wanna be in a top guild.. i was i  charge of the #2 guild for a while i never spent any money and it wouldnt of helped much to spend anyhow.

[Herbalistiikka]

Coming in a little late but I got so tired of the fact that the game was almost pure daily work and little else. Want to join a good guild so you can actually get a good amount of free keys and stuff every week? You're expected to do daily grinds every single day because muh ranks.

On the side of MTX I always thought that it was on the worse side of things. Why? Because they outright lie(d) to you about the MTX prices. See these flashy -75% deals? Yeah, well, that's literally the real price because they never, ever, ever went away. Setting that practise aside, I never got a single mythic card. Never. Thousands and thousands of keys eligible for Mythic. None. And they kept adding more and more and a good chunk of the Mythics were really, really good.

[acasser]

3 hours ago, Herbalistiikka said:

Want to join a good guild so you can actually get a good amount of free keys and stuff every week? You're expected to do daily grinds every single day because muh ranks.
 

 

There are plenty of "casual" guilds out there, guilds that won't insist that you do daily grinds and all of that.  They probably wouldn't let you just idle on their membership list, checking in once per week to vacuum up "free stuff" without contributing anything, but there are a number of guilds that won't ask you to do very much.  You just have to find them and see where their limits are.

[GunfighterHefty]

5 hours ago, Herbalistiikka said:

Coming in a little late but I got so tired of the fact that the game was almost pure daily work and little else. Want to join a good guild so you can actually get a good amount of free keys and stuff every week? You're expected to do daily grinds every single day because muh ranks.

On the side of MTX I always thought that it was on the worse side of things. Why? Because they outright lie(d) to you about the MTX prices. See these flashy -75% deals? Yeah, well, that's literally the real price because they never, ever, ever went away. Setting that practise aside, I never got a single mythic card. Never. Thousands and thousands of keys eligible for Mythic. None. And they kept adding more and more and a good chunk of the Mythics were really, really good.

I mean...yeah, this type of game isn't something you can put down for extended periods of time and expect progress?

 

While I don't agree with much of what you have put here - I will say that there is A LOT of information in this game - and while not overly complicated once you learn it - new players will very well feel inundated or more likely just completely be out of the loop to the point where a lot of things seem unfair or out of reach. 

[Herbalistiikka]

On 20.7.2020 at 0:46 AM, acasser said:

 

There are plenty of "casual" guilds out there, guilds that won't insist that you do daily grinds and all of that.  They probably wouldn't let you just idle on their membership list, checking in once per week to vacuum up "free stuff" without contributing anything, but there are a number of guilds that won't ask you to do very much.  You just have to find them and see where their limits are.

Of course there are casual guilds. They're very much a coin flip though with what you get weekly though.

 

On 20.7.2020 at 3:02 AM, GunfighterHefty said:

I mean...yeah, this type of game isn't something you can put down for extended periods of time and expect progress?

 

While I don't agree with much of what you have put here - I will say that there is A LOT of information in this game - and while not overly complicated once you learn it - new players will very well feel inundated or more likely just completely be out of the loop to the point where a lot of things seem unfair or out of reach. 

 

It's not about putting it down for extended periods of time and expecting progress. A game can expect you to work you a bit but Gems of War was especially bad with all the dailies everywhere that you really want to do while usually rewarding you with garbage and getting you nowhere. Doesn't help that MTX itself is scummy and predatory, no matter how you slice it. It's probably close to one of the worst systems with no bad luck prevention. I also believe it's illegal to fake hike prices for sales, but seeing as all their MTX is constantly "on sale" to push a sense of urgency, it's accepted.

 

Granted I've not played in years but at one point so I don't know the extent of changes but I reached a point where my F2P means and no luck with Mythic would get me further as some mythic including PvP setups would just wreck me without me getting in a move and it just wasn't fun anymore.