Seperating spenders from free players - Battle Bay's future

Hey Guy's
So was looking at how hard it is to obtain the interceptor in this event. As a F2P player it's hard enough trying to obtain the 10k pieces to get the boat let alone the pieces to level up, as people may know you'll need 10k event pieces to level up one level at the latter stages. This got me thinking

Is this Rovio's way of giving the spenders on the game a better and more rewarding experience? I can see future boats not only having more favourable set-ups but also stronger overall stats that will be very difficult to obtain without spending

I do have to say though that I actually don't mind this approach. I have a full T5 epic set-up across 4 boats, a few legendary items at T2 and lucky enough to get a duplicate legendary and have a weapon on it's way to T3 legendary (once I get enough legendary parts).
There is not much separating me as a F2P player from the big spenders. F2P players have skilfully and patiently stamped their place in nightmare league.

I still think another top tier league needs to be set up above nightmare, this will give players something new to aspire to in becoming one of the Bay's elite.

 

Spender will eventually have ship, either higher new level ship or better item, but im okay with it

 

f2p players will get those ships just a little bit later, the same as it used to be with weapons, crew training. Nothing changed (at least at the moment)

 

Considering how difficult it is to farm 10k ship parts, and lack of information about how many ship parts are required for upgrades, and how they will be available post-event, I can't agree that it's on par with other upgrades in the game... it seems much more difficult, not to mention sacrificing other rewards while grinding for Ship Pieces.

 

Agreed. Based on players who already have been leveling it up it seems to be between 170-200,000 total Ship Pieces to L50 the Interceptor. That's all anyone needs to know at this point because we all know how much effort those first 10,000 coins are... and multiply that by 20.

 

It took me almost 1.5 year to get to mk7, so why getting L50 interceptor should be much faster?
Actually it is not a problem for newbies, since they have time for slow upgrade, it is a problem for those who have other ships L40-50 and cannot use interceptor because it is too weak for their level, but is there better solution? The same story with gatling gun: they introduced a new gun, but if you have T5 weapons you won't use it for a long-long time before you could upgrade it to some normal level, unless you spent some money to get some duplicates faster.

 

I gave up on that ship. For me personally it's unobtainable.

 

Correction...It took you 1.5 years to train your talents, and the combination of talents granted you a blanket upgrade for all ships to be MK7. You didn't solely work on a single ship for 1.5 years.

I don't expect a new boat for free, but I also think it's unreasonable to require 280 hours of grinding to level up a single ship, sacrificing star boxes and all other event rewards along the way which help with item leveling. Imagine if you will that Battle Bay did require 1.5 years per ship? You would never level up more than a few ships before the game dies. If this is the kind of progression system you like, congratulations, Battle Bay is moving in that direction for you.

 

I have the boat after 2 days of grinding, getting the boat for 10,000 pieces isn't that bad for a premium ship. The hard part comes after that, upgrading it. While my main boat is at lvl 47, the interceptor is at a pitiful lvl 16, and the next level cost almost 1,000 pieces just to gain 59 hp. With this, I have given up grinding anymore to get the ship to the point where I can ACTUALLY use it in battle.

I was one of the first players to notice the problem of the premium paywall ship even before the update landed. At this rate, getting the ship up to the point where seniors can use it would be just as hard as getting the new bots in War Robots. Same problem which drove me away from that game.

I hope I won't have to quit battle bay one day when everything else gets locked behind a paywall.

 

My guess is they'll eventually move the new ship over to the gold standard for leveling. They let the spenders get the new shiny toys first, then give everbody else theirs down the road.

 

The problem with the Premium ship model is three-fold:

• It's hard to get. Literally hundreds of hours of grinding or hundreds of $USD required. ($1000 for max)
• It is unusable in Ranked matches until it is fully leveled up
• It is unusable in Events until it is fully leveled up.

To the last point Gear Score matchmaking no longer works for me... no matter which boat or item level I use I'm matched against Max captains with 1000+ higher GS, so I'm already disadvantaged before I try to bring in a low level boat. In that I'm struggling to see value in the new boats the way they are being introduced.

 

I doubt this will ever happen. Rovio developers have surely thought a lot about this new revenue stream and are committed to premium boats being hard to get and will take forever for leveling up without spending $$. I can't really fault them for that, they are here to make money. The only issue I have is that their pricing model is based upon trying to get 1% of the player base to spend $500 each. Instead they should focus on getting 30% of the player base to spend $50.00 each. The "Ship Piece" upgrades are here to stay I am afraid.

What they could do to increase revenue and make players happier is to add Ship Pieces to ALL these places which at least give everyone a chance to make progress:
-VIPs Should Get A Daily VIP Box with pieces(Rovio should be giving more to VIPs to grow the VIP program)
-Add handful of ship pieces to EVERY Free Crate, Star Crate, Premium Crate.
-Add ship pieces to your 3 Daily Battle Crates
-Add a lot of ship pieces to the EPIC Container
-Create a new offer similar to the Pearl Diver (where you pay $4.99 and get a certain amount of ship pieces every day for 10 days)

Will they do any of these things? Doubtful based on the game's track record.

 

I feel you can steer this discussion in either way depending on your view of the details. Is the new ship OP? IMO No, at least it should not be and even if it is at the start, in the end it will be balanced. It might take a few rounds. So spenders are not getting the new Meta, they are getting something new to play.

Is it ok to charge for it? Unfortunately yes. Tactics like this are not designed to draw or keep new players but to keep existing players. People who have maxed everthing out. Their funds result in our next update. Am I jealous that I see all these shiny new ships around and am several weeks from mine? Absolutely.

I would have done things differently. I would have given everyone a new ship at lv1, and then made pieces to level it. The 10k purchase could have been sprinkled across all levels so level 50 would still cost the same in the end. Right now they have put a new toy behind a glass case, which seems harsh to the standard player.

Rovio has some interesting choices to make going forward. They have referenced new shipS which is great, and that each will have their own pieces. So will there be SHIP SATURDAYS or a different mode where the event is to grind for pieces for specific ships? I think likely, but I feel for players who will be torn as to which piece to target. I would like to see pieces standardized and not ship specific. Pieces also should be sprinkled all over the game: crates, battle rewards, rivalry roulette, and season rewards.

 

There are enough successful freemium models out there that prove you can make money on cosmetics without sacrificing the core of the game or the diversity of items. Premium boats do the opposite by sacrificing game play diversity and further spreading the P2W from the F2P. The goal appears to be income over and above the idea of readying the game for eSports.

 

I think spenders should be able to unlock the new content first but FTP players can still obtain the new content in a reasonable amount of time. I unlocked the interceptor as FTP and have really enjoyed it. If Rovio allows me to either keep earning puzzle pieces or allows me to upgrade the most with gold after a week or 2 I will be ecstatic. I would also be ok if they switched the ability to buy puzzle pieces with pearls instead of $$. People willing to drop money on the game is part of the business model. If they only make the interceptor pay to level then that would be bad.

 

I'm F2P ,yeah it is hard to upgrade but I'm more than half of the way,

after this event ends they gotta do something about how to upgrade it ,

total coins spent :2740.-_-'.

 

You are 1/2 the levels - but not 1/2 of the pieces through the upgrades. As you know each upgrade cost more than the previous so you still have a long way to go to 50.

That being said, still really impressive that you are at lvl 28 already with no money spent.