Current Shop System, does it suck?

How long will this profit exists thats the question? I reckon developers are not aware of retaining customers interest for long term profitability. Maybe they just want to make a fortune for next 6 months and bail out. You know what happens next? They are going to innovate BB2 and attract the same uninformed investors!

 

i think a quick way devs will be enlightened is when a similar game will be released by a different company and that game will have an awsome and not so greedy inconvenience store.

 

If they want to keep the game alive in the long run (6 months plus) they have to change the item acquisition system. P2p gamers need fodder for their cannons and if f2p find it too hard withour money, soon there will be an army of frustrated lv 1-2 legendary players getting owned by legendary 3-4. Old top playera might be competitive, but the system needs to allow grinders to at least play against top paying players. That is to keep the paying ones entertained. I play a fixer, green and blu items are impossible to find. Despite being very active since the launch I am playing with uncommon items as I can't find even rare duplicates of green items. Not to say i have never seen a green epic.

However, since players spent thousands already they can't simply revert the system. I reckon adding new gimmicks and new weapons could help bring balance to the game.

 

Now the shop system may or may not be perfect but... Having sailed with many of the players who spend their time complaining in this thread, I can assure all that it is not the shop system that is holding them back...

 

I'm really not amused with this comment.

So you have access to check out our accounts and see what items and what we've have obtained compared to our infamy? You track us? It really does appear quite hypocritical and arrogant now doesn't it?

Then the other aspect is, your comment seems to almost imply that we lack any skill(which is the magical thing you speak of that's holding us back right)? meanwhile how many battles have you seen any of us in your games, a handful, a dozen, a couple hundred? And with that, you can tell and tabulate that data and conclude that's what we're missing?

If skill is so amazing. Show us, run a ship with rare T5 items or better yet T5 Uncommons and prove in battle that you can maintain that infamy. You'll never take on this challenge. That's because you won't, because you'll know you will drop to where we are with these items, similar items that we have that have "sailed" in futility against your infamy peers.

3rd and lastly, we've been stating that the shop slows progress. So if you disagree with that, then prove why that is. Your comment about what's "holding us" back has zero relevance to the point we're making: That the shop system, random generated items and progression is harder, and it seems to be becoming more and more like proven as fact. Even your 10k / 1 year baseline is looking impossible to achieve with this Shop 2.0 unless you drop thousands of dollars.

 

Hehe, time to set the thread ablaze?

I'm by no means a perfect player and surely make tons of mistakes - That being said my infamy ceiling takes massive gaps when I upgrade my boat, better items leave much more room for poor play. Like it or not, hitting for legendary damage vs epic tier 2 damage does result in different infamy
Regardless of how terrible I am, it would be fun to know that eventuelly I could try facing the players at the top in equal gear and have my ass handed to me due to my incompetence - With how gearing works now that will require years (and im not strickly f2p).

But this thread is not really about infamy is it? Im perfectly content with my current infamy, yet deeply frustrated by the realization that it will take 2-3 years to finish my Repair Pulse at the current pace. What mostly bugs me is how @Miika tossed the arrogant bullshit "stop complaining, we've run the numbers and the new system is much better for players - just wait and see". Still waiting!

 

Hi, thought i might as well put my two sense in. Currently lvl 22 mk4 fixer at 2100 infamy. I am surrounded by players with legendaries, teir 2 epics, and teir 3+ rares.
However, I play with teir 2 uncommons (overboost, repair pulse, and box) (that i am unable to get to third teir till my captain lvl rises), one teir 2 rare standard shield, and one teir 1 rare cannon.
One thing i would like to say is that it is astronomically more difficult to get even one rare, let alone epic green fixer item then it is to get red, yellow, or blue items. (red weapons being the most common, then blue defense, then yellow)
I get it it is a grind, and I am willing to play the grind. but. the problem is simple. I. have. no. items. to. upgrade.
By god, am i just unlucky or do i need to spend money to get good fixer items??
Current shop system definitely needs an uphaul
*not to mention I have not received one other rare cannon, and have filled out at least 10 red rare weapons, and have played well over 2k battles, you would think at least one would pop up while i am surrounded by those with teir 3 rare cannons???

 

Couldnt have said it better good sir.Some of these high league players think they are Gods and everyone else are skilless scrubs.Instead of helping the new players they come here and post arrogant comments.And lol no way he will take up that challenge.These playets got most of their gear because they have played since soft launch.If om not mistaken you have aswell and see the flaw and atleast trying to help the new ftp playerbase.Im tired of getting getting absolutely melted by players with T3 weapons at 1.4k infamy....and not to mention legendaries.There will be a slight difference between ftp and paying players yes but if its this big I dont see this game lasting for long inspite of being awesome.

 

You arent unlucky.Green items are the hardest items to get because they are very few in number hence low chances to get them im the RNG system.

 

Like yourself, i'm also a player not yet at the end game or the top of the ladder. I came late to the soft launch party, and i've seen the original shop system. That wasn't perfect either, but it had its benefits; being able to buy items to save gold(when you sell it), being able to upgrade items quicker by fusing weapons into another, being able to actually save and conserve resource to buy what you actually need. Compared to you, i'm just further along that path and journey in this new Battle Bay progressive system.



I'm also a paying player, in moderation, but i've spent money into this game and i periodically buy bundles. I'm down to earth and i don't view myself as a weak player, i believe i'm a bit of a overachiever with the weapons and items(see above for screenshot) i have on my current MK5. I don't have high level Epics and certainly not any legendaries. I have reached a high of 3150 infamy, also topping League Ace III, Master I and Master II, III at the number 1 spot on previous leagues.

I'm writing this thread and being active in this forum because i believe that this game has more potential of being a great game. Right now it's a "good" game and if they toned down the pay-to-win and blatant greed of this system, they may have a long term game in their hands. To be quite honest, there is a few members in my guild that started near global release that are becoming impatient with the shop and contemplating quitting(the same way i've contemplated previously in this thread). They may not have the same patience or determination to continue.

As for Porthos, he's a so called YouTube Battle Bay celeb. So he acts and struts his stuff like one around here. i get that he's built up a persona, an alter-ego and that he's viewed as among and he has to maintain that image of being an elitest.
I have nothing against him per say, and his videos are very informative for the most part.

 

wow I have to say you have achieved quite a bit inspite of being a player from late-soft launch.I wish I could sell items for gold because Iam extremely short on gold.Im at captain level 21 and a lot of rare perks,epic item pieces are coming up in the shop but I cannot buy them.As for POrthos yea I just think he is another dude trying to bank off youtube.If he really wanted to help the players he would be active here instead of just throwing a comment here and there and just advertising his videos.I think thats why his status became 'Well known member' from active member lol.

 

Hehe @Kitterini you caught me, I couldn't resist. It's just too easy to poke. Sorry sorry, I'm backing away slowly now.

 

There doesn't need to be a discussion of P2W vs. Skill. Even the smallest difference is significant. If two players are of equal skill level, the one with better gear wins.

I've spent most of my MMO-playing time on PC so, honestly, I'm really surprised to see "P2W" being thrown around so casually, like it's not a big deal. For any other platform, for a game that has no PvE aspects, P2W would mean the game has no future. We're just considering it differently because this game is on phones, but I don't think it deserves to be. There's no rule that says people who spend money have to win. Nothing needs to be in the game to let cash users succeed above anyone else. It's just like this because P2W games do very well on mobile devices and Rovio has no reason to break the mold.

On-Topic:
I've been playing about a month, I've spent most of my time at 1500 infamy, and I've spent no money out of policy.
From my point of view, the shop is pretty reasonable until you start needing equipment above rarity Rare, or above tier 2. Common gear only drops from one source, so Uncommon becomes the way to go very quickly. You fight a bunch of people and think you're doing pretty good, then someone with an Epic/Legendary two-shots you. So, you start on the quest of making yourself more powerful, which means moving off of Uncommon gear.

So, where do you get gear that isn't Uncommon? A single Rare from the shop is 750k, which isn't completely unreasonable if you want to just sit and play this all day. Rare parts show up relatively often from scraps and in the shop, plus the free weekly box, so acquiring a wealth of rares isn't too difficult. Getting Rare equipment ends up being about the same amount of trouble as upgrading your Crew trees. Wait out the time-wall and go play something else, and a hopefully-useful Rare will be waiting for you after you play a couple of matches to clear your quest pool.

Nah, in my opinion, the real problems with the shop are in Epics, Legendaries, and Parts.
Epics are where the pearl-begging begins, since you can't even buy the initial one from the shop without 3000 pearls. The only guaranteed Epic comes from a chest that costs 3900 pearls. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of extremely slow RNG, trying to find pieces from free green and blue boxes. Unless you spend cash, the amount of pearls you gain doesn't guarantee a "free" epic crate more than once a month. Legendaries are even worse since they have the added detriment of granting you immediate disdain from all of your peers. Yes, even if you're a clannie, if you show up with a Legendary, I already hate you.

What slows you down even more than trying to find these weapons in the first place, however, as a free player, is parts. It's always parts. You're at the mercy of a shop that refreshes 7 slots every 6 hours (the first slot is a gift package, which has no parts). You need hundreds, then thousands of parts for every single upgrade on every single piece of equipment. Scraps provide some parts, but not nearly enough, so the majority of parts needed come from the shop. The prices for parts is insane, so you need to play more to get the gold. After spending a week farming gold, buying parts, and upgrading things as close to max as I can, I'm usually not feeling any more powerful than I did at the start of the week. Unlocking Bhurt's tier 3 and then unlocking tier 3 on my Blast Cannon should have felt great, but it didn't. I was just relieved that I could spend gold and cells to upgrade for once, instead of another bulk of sugar and parts. Then it's back to continuing to feel inadequate as someone shoots me with the same gun, but for 200+ more damage.

They could add some system to convert cells to parts, they could increase the amount of slots in the shop, they could increase the amount of drops by adding more types of crates, they could increase gold gains, or they could lower the gold prices (bought a rare perk, costed over 500k). I doubt they will do any of these things, though, since Rovio wants you to give them money out of desperation.

I would love to hear the opinion of anyone who thinks the shop system is good who hasn't spent a dime.

 

Says the guy that has all his gear at T5 prior to the global release...
Here is an idea, ditch your current account and start a brand new one... Let's see how fast are you able to upgrade and have real progress with the current system. Put your self in the shoes of the ones that complain before assuring anything.
How many months have gone by now? I still haven't got the epic standar canon to evolve it to T4. I haven't got enough duplicates to have another weapon with enough power, and still managed to be in 3k+ infamy range... And yes i still have battles with Nightmare players, and with so much effort sometimes i can do what you do very easy with your higher gear.
So, don't assure the system is not broken when you are safe and sound in your epic bubble.

 

Not taking sides here, just sharing my 2 cents especially with the younger players from global launch...
I started playing from Dec 2016, half way or more after soft launch and had the chance to experience the shop, RNG system pre 2.0 update for a while.

Pre 2.0 update although gave an option of full rarity items from time to time and an epic 150 star box once in awhile. You might be able to get more epic items but the RNG system is still the same so no guarantee you will get a specific duplicate that you need. What most of the player did with extra epic items they do not need at that moment is to use them to fuse an item to level them up. At higher tier just by dumping random items to level it up was very slow, in order to make full use of the fusing bonus same item of different rarity were used to bump up the experience points as multiplier and main experience came from epic and rare items. For example for fusing an epic sniper cannon @ level 5, I used 5 of each common, uncommon rare sniper cannon and some mics fusing bonus items like training cannons or bolts n' nuts which may give me a fusing bonus of 50% more experience. Then I dump in rares and epics I'm not using at the moment for the main experience points, after fusing I might gain 2 levels. It was another type of grinding compared to Post 2.0 update where you got enough parts from shops to upgrade your item slowly level by level.

Pre 2.0 update evolve system was slightly different from now. Back then evolving any item to tier 2 you just need to have another duplicate with the same rarity, same as what we had now. But the nightmares start when you want to upgrade it to tier 3, you will need to have 2 extra tier 2 duplicates of the same rarity to fuse your main maxed out tier 2 item to tier 3. Most of the player from soft launch got stuck for months going from tier 2 to tier 3. Post 2.0 update increase an item tier to 5 but just need a duplicate of the same rarity to evolve to next tier. Overall I felt that they are about the same but that's just me, I can't say for others.

As a F2P player, as long as a mobile game serves my purpose which is to sink my free time while enjoying at it, I can keep playing it till the next game comes along or when I'm getting busy again.
Sure there will be a time I will get frustrated due to the RNG system or losing streaks, I would just take a break from the game to find something else to do. It's not the end of the world if you can't get a duplicate item for evolve or get high enough on the ranking.

Keep grinding, be happy.

 

All comes down to greed :\ i wish they would respond and let us know if they plan on changing anything. Its becoming less and less enjoyable. Idk how much longer people will last if they don't fix the shop and matchmaking system.

 

Well see, now your inexperience is showing again. There was no t5 before global. I had one t3 canon and one t3 frost blaster after a year of playing before the global release. Check the vids. They are all online. It's only been since global release that I was able to upgrade my canon and napalm to t5. And that's literally all I have too. The rest are t3 items or rares. And I've only spent a sum total of $55 in this game to date as well.

You don't need t5 epics or legendaries to rise in ranks. Sure, you won't get as high as you could with them, but you will get higher. But don't take my word for it, look at Smile Shark, Kenzer, Waveblower, and plenty of others who are regularly in the top 10 players in the world. None of them rock t5 epics (that may have changed recently... haven't checked this season), and last I checked they were still using some rares too.

The shop system might not be perfect... but all I'm saying is if some focused more on tactics and playing smarter and less on crying over spilled milk they'd most certainly do better. I've been training a few noobs who have already surpassed the infamy of some here, and they haven't payed a penny yet and have thousands less games played too. It can indeed be done.

Helius, in your case, you are kinda screwed tho. Defender is the worst ship in the bay at the moment, and the most in need of a buff. It's a lot harder to gain infamy in a defender than in a speeder. Believe me... I know. lol. I can barely crack top 50 right now in my tricked out defender. But rest assured, our day will come!!

 

You got there with total skill not tier 5 epics i fail to see much skill difference between some players at my league and nightmare league just better items. I guess they have the ability to lead shots but i saw some of hodges gameplay on thewarnet channel and he didn't even bother to stick with his team and fix them he just fixed himself and killed them with his fixing power most of his team should have been alive.

 

The fact that you have a t3 epic weapon already is pretty awesome. It's been what... 3 months since global release? I didn't have any epic weapons after my first 3 months of playing this game. I had to stick with rare weapons for the first like... 9 months of my career in battle bay. So congrats on that and be happy!