Current Shop System, does it suck?

PLEASE NOTE: This was written months ago (back in April) before the global release. Please also try to read the thread in it's whole entirety(I know it's long!) before making any judgement. This is meant for the Mid-Range to High level between levels 25-30 and or when Levelling the account/ship becomes a lot slower. So please vote when it applies to you, and not when you just started a game less than a month ago. Thanks - D3X


I've come to a conclusion that the new shop system, is definitely inferior to the old.
It wastes time, consumes more resources, and prohibits users at getting anything worthwhile, especially for players that know what they want. It's about double or triple the time scale of the previous shop system. There's no aspect of focus to allow players to progress.

Here are the biggest reasons why:

• Excessive Item Parts (of 10 needed) to create a single item (this is pure gacha at it's worst). There's even different type of parts for each level, rare, epic, legendary multiply that by colors; red, blue, yellow, green. That's 12 types of parts.
  
• Randomness / Lottery aspect of crates. (textbook Compu Gacha btw, which is 100% illegal in Japan). Free crates are 99% junk. 15 Star crate are pretty much 95% junk. 400 Pearl crate are 85% junk.
• Limited to 8 items per 6 hours, includes materials parts, perks, item parts, cells. Too many random items, resulting in a lot of junk not worth purchasing in the shop.
• Required to have duplicate of items to be useful (T3 requires 3 of the same item). Sometimes getting one is hard enough already!
• Needing both Cells and Parts to upgrade items/weapons.
• Unable to sell or fuse Items like the previous system.

I've been playing for almost 4 months reached Level 27 with an MK4 Speeder. Since the inception of the new shop / weapon upgrade system(I was level 24 ). I've been barely able to upgrade my account, simply because of the randomness and the amount of required prerequisites as stated above. It's like hitting smack dab into a wall. The previous system allowed me to test out new weapons and items, now I find myself just staring at parts and low level rares or epics and not being able to do anything with them. Even if I had enough duplicates, I don't have the power cells or materials on top of the resources needed to make them as one. Epic material and powercells are only attainable in 2 ways, buying from the random shop (of 5 -10 pieces at a exorbitant gold price), or scrapping a unwanted rare item; either of those is really rare occasions.
There's just too many items and parts to this equation, it's kind of ridiculous and here's why.

If you wanted a T4 Rare Weapon:

• 40x Rare Part Combining multiplied by the chances of getting a duplicate (what's the odds?)
• 4X Required Duplicate of the same weapon
• 40 levels required:
  • X amount of Rare Power Cells
  • X amount of Rare Materials
  • X amount of Gold & Sugar needed for each level
  • X amount gold for Perks needed for that item.

As a mid-low level player (I consider anything under 30 as low) as still starting out, and not even hitting mid point in this game. I consider that as a fail from a Pay-as-you-Go game progression aspect. Isn't the game supposed to impose some sort of progress for the player based on time spent and allow the player to feel some degree of accomplishment?

Perhaps I've been unlucky, and I'm an outlier here, but I've been opening 15 Star crates, buying 400 pearl crates and even farming enough for 3900 pearls for the Epic Crate. It took an entire month of playing at least 1-5 hours a day. Some of the pearls came from the Free care packages and some came from exceptional games (with 2or more stars).
I was excited to open this Epic Crate.












It was underwhelming. All in all, I received one Legendary part (which was advertised as such) which will require 9 more (9 more x 3900 Epic crates x 4 different type of legendary parts) and an Epic Item (Cannon). Either of those doesn't contribute at all to what I needed on my current ship and would require more time to collect to get anything useful. I've concluded that it's not worth farming for this. Legendary items would take EONS to level, Rare items are way more practical to work with and has decent specifications at T3 and above. Epics are worthwhile, but far and few between and the parts and materials and resources make it impractical and way too expensive to upgrade. I have yet to get a duplicate Epic item.

I don't understand why Rovio considered this system, it takes tremendously long to achieve anything, if an MK4 takes 3 months (very optimistic guess here, I'll have to wait and see) to progress forward ala get weapons or items that are usable (I mean actually in their best ship), how much time does an MK6 need? That's a question I don't know, but my guess it takes longer than what I've been through.
I'm curious, but what are you're current struggles? I'm sure I'm not the only one. MK5s, what are your thoughts?

Perhaps this is what Rovio has designed on purpose, a near impossible upgrade path, one that takes years(3 to 4 maybe?) on a single class ship, so that they get "Whale" Pay-to-Win customers to buy into this system. For the casual dedicated player, there's no game progression for them and it's more to just enjoy the bay and get smashed by those that do. I honestly don't think it's a healthy system and you lose more players than gain. I'm literally on the brink, because when there's no progress.

...then there's nothing to battle for...

 

You sir are correct in all aspects. At least the old star boxes had a chance for a guaranteed item at the specified rarity. With The new item system the higher level players with high tier items got boosts to their items and us lower level players have to work way harder to progress and try to catch up which in this game model I don't see alot if people doing. At some point a wall is hit and progression seems to outright stop. Levelling epic weapons past tier 2 becomes next to impossible even grinding multiple hours a day.. imagine the struggle for casual players? This game model and the severely overpriced VIP OMFG... is solely aimed at rovios bottom line and has hurt the fan base severely. If this model goes global good luck.

 

Not to mention the absolute crap you get for 1st place in your division now. Of course I got first place the week the new update came out... I got less than half a weapon... If the season had ended a few days earlier I would have gotten 3-4 full rare weapons and maybe an epic...

It's hard to imagine Rovio got huge of angry birds.. A game that had no pay to win parts to it when it first came out.. And now they think they need to suffocate 99% of their fan base so the greedos with way to
Much money forks out many thousands of dollars to get there stupid advantage over the rest of us who will never be able to get to the end game.. I have enough to say about this update I could write a full 10 page essay on it... But I'm gonna stop now

 

Two words...
Share holders

 

@D3X give me that epic cannon I need it to evolve mine to T4!
Actually here is an idea @Miika how about if we were able to "buy" stuff from other members? Think about it, it is a win-win option. The seller gets gold for an object he doesn't want or need, and the buyer gets the object he needs to move forward. Of course it will need development, but this will produce a very big solution to a current problem, don't you think?

 

This won't happen. it will only promote monetizing the game items for players to cash out. selling an account is already against ToS. Selling items outside of the game would break their economy. Items would never be scrapped and players would abuse / exploit this system.

As for the epic cannon, i'm keeping it like all my other unusable weak epics. Until i get dupes.

 

@dex SO TRUE!! Even more so now that they tweaked the scrap returns and boxes. 97% of what shows up in store is useless. It used to be a great way to break out of rut by trying new weapons/items/boats. Nowadays, this is a one boat game, I just can't afford to experiment with different combinations anymore. @Helius Maximus, in theory that's a great idea but reality says it won't happen. If we can swap items amongst players in game that'll decrease the need to spend actual money on "epic" containers. Which is obviously the new direction Rovio is heading since these last updates....

 

So, you prefer sticking to the randomnes of the current system?

 

No, it's obvious that i'm not fond of the current system.

I think there are other ways. Simply by giving out more items (like rares) would do the trick, lowering requirements like uncommon parts can level rare weapons without rare parts etc. A neat idea i have is Crew based Crates from stars or pearls.

 

That sounds interesting, could you elaborate more on the Crew based crates idea that you have?

 

Sure! Glad you are interested.

So instead of 15 Star Crates and 400 Pearl Crates that randomize the 4 items you get inside, it's more focused.

For example, when you hit buy a 15 star Crew Crate, it pops up with a selection box that allows you pick one of the crew members. And therefore, aside from the generic parts, you get a more targeted random item based on the crew tree.

So let's say you select Sinklair, you get a random Torpedo part, or a random bandage part. Rather than the red, blue, green, yellow parts which muddy things, you can possibly get something for your ship class after a few more random crates. This is especially true for Fixer, with healing items, which is by far the hardest to get imho.

 

It is an awesome idea!
Hope the Devs whould take it into account.

 

- They could let you evolve an item with a tier below. so you could use a rare item to evolve an epic.
- I like crew based crates as well.
- Not a fan of the power cells; I don't see how they add anything to the existing system. Stick to quantity of parts to control the leveling rate.
- Pieces are ok but maybe 5 per item instead of 10 would seem more reasonable. Perhaps let you control the color of the pieces you buy in the shop.

 

Gimme that carronade needs to evolve it to t5 rare

 

Very true d3x, I starTed playing right before they changed everything and loved it. Still a fun game but the grind to be a viable player at high infamy will be exhausting for me

 

Okay, I am an 3300 infamy player, and would like to comment on the solutions.
I spent hours to write a long analytic post, but it's gone due to an error. Really sad about it still. So, I would just write solutions to problems you talked about above and reasons about it.

1. More opportunities to obtain resources (parts, pieces and cells)
- Make a spinning wheel to get a small bonus of resources (parts & cells only) when you win a battle. Reward rarity would increase by infamy and level.
--- Reason: people can get more stuff from playing and top players can't abuse this as well (increase rarity, not quantity)
- "Unlock" premium crate so that it can be purchased for 80 stars (some gold as well maybe) when a player reaches level 20 with 1500+ infamy.
--- Reason: Lack of rare and epic stuff are really obstacles for progressing.
- Make a crew box that occasionally appears (for maybe 4 hours) for a specific crew and does not occupy shipment slot. Available for maybe 120 stars. Rewards include a complete rare+ item from that crew member and some resources.
--- Reason: more opportunities.
- Increase item T1 scrap rewards (parts & cells)
--- Reason: We need a lot of parts and pieces to build up items, and scrapping is what we can only do if there's no selling.

2. Levelling up, pieces and combining
- I have already suggested in another thread, but a system should be added in which when you combine it shows you 2 items of the category and the you choose one (for green items nope unless more are added). No rerolling. Will provide comment link if I can find it.
--- Reason: People feel bad when they get what they don't want
- Make it 20 levels per tier with each level needing less resources.
--- Reason: People don't like it when they are stuck and don't have enough stuff to progress.

That's all from me. Feel free to comment.

 

Hate to break it to you guys but Miika and Zeus have addressed these issues in previous posts. In summary:

• Shop is working as intended
• Stop crying abt how difficult it is to get stuff. They are already giving you so many freebies (I.e. Useless free crap)
• The old system sucked cos the epic item you are waiting may randomly appear in the shop. So we revamped the system to make you collect 10 parts which you get randomnly which would then randomnly give you an item. The new system is much better because you don't have to wait for the item you want. Instead you get random items and maybe the item that you want... or maybe not.
• They are not doing this for money. They truly care for players. Which is why after hearing all the feedback from the community, the VIP system was implemented with top most priority.
• The old upgrading system was too complex because apparently they were morons who didn't know how to upgrade their items. So instead of publishing a guide or FAQ for most efficient leveling, the new upgrading system was introduced which has parts, cells, items, sugar and gold. This just makes it harder to level items so it's harder to be a moron.

I know the last sentence doesn't make sense, but hey, so do most of the changes.

 

Meh. It seems to be working for me. In one week I've leveled up a t5 epic canon to max and I've leveled up a t5 rare big shield to max. I've also built 6 t3 uncommon weapons for scrapping, and 2 t2 rare weapons for scrapping. Oh... and did I mention I didn't spend any money or pearls to do this?

Seems pretty good to me once u stop whining about it. Only down side is the lack of choice in building items... It does feel limiting from a "feeling in control" point of view. However, we get 3-4 rare items a week for free anyway, around 25 uncommon items for free, dozens of common items for free... and usually a new epic every other week with pieces. That's roughly the same rate I bought random items back in the old shop as well for fusing.

 

Very well. Just curious @P0rthos -- How long do you play on average per day?
I mean, I play ~5 matches per day (except well... Holidays), and I find myself struggling a bit to obtain resources, especially when I'm on a losing streak.
I'll say more later, for now I await your reply.
(This is just a discussion, not trying to oppose or sth... Cheers!)

 

How much time do you play each day?
Max T5 epic cannon from a Max T4? Teach me how??? It's been 2 weeks and I still haven't leveled my T4 epic overboost to Lvl40. Don't have enough epic and rare parts. How/where are you getting it from?