Amazing Shop System!

I'm not blaming Battle Bay alone, all games do some type of these things. After all, a good amount of money goes into developing games.
What all games try to do is a daily login, but battle bay tries to engage the user to login atleast 7 times (4 times for shipment, 3 times for quests).
Also, games try to restrict gameplay and to resume that there is an optional purchase. Battle Bay has the biggest thing: training crew members. Even with monthly subscription you can't do much: it's just that 37.5 days of crew training can be done in 30 days.
To get an MK5, MK6 ship from MK4 ship, you need a significant amount of time.
There are not enough parts in the shipment.
These all above things are okay.

Now, the real thing I noticed that Battle Bay is itself playing game with the users: the RANDOM items.
A person can't purchase a legendary item directly, and can't purchase a second item.
I've seen lots of users who have spent 15 x 3900 pearls epic containers or more, but didn't got their desired legendary item. One person got legendary carronade!
I think it would make a dent in the earnings if they allowed the option to purchase duplicate items from the store.

Anyway, they are not forcing anyone to purchase, but I shared my thoughts.

 

The real problem with people being able to buy their desired legendary or a duplicate of a certain item is they will get exactly what they want faster. So pay to win becomes more necessary. At least with the random aspect people probably end up spending x2 - x5 what they normally would have but don't get what they want. I actually think the shop is genius, gives the long shot option but doesn't penalize people that want to FTP

 

Yeah, i definitely dont think allowing duplicate items to be bought should be added.
But, it would be great if we could at least narrow it down a little?
Like, if you want to pick a red, blue, yellow, or green item be able to have a roulette for items in those categories?

 

https://forum.battlebay.net/threads/current-shop-system-does-it-suck.151/

Here ya go, a thread I created long ago with much opinions, suggestions and insight.

 

Your post almost has 19 pages (including comments, etc). Time to reach higher levels and the menace of randomness, is only troubling this game. In youtube videos, we see people with MK6 ships, etc. Don't know in how much time they may have attained these higher captain levels?

 

I'm one of them, the reference of that thread is comparing to the "Old" Shop system, which existed about 5 months ago. Most of the high level high number of games players have been playing for over a year. I've been playing for about 6.5 months when it was still beta.

 

The shop system is good but flawed
The rarity with which fixer pieces come around is ridiculous considering three out of the four pieces I get out of the day are rare weapons pieces (which I would get if you're looking to build you weapons to gold faster)
But there's no rhyme or reason for how the market works
Example
I have been waiting on rare parts for two days now, however they keep shoving 20's my way
Even when my rare pieces need to level up at this pace I need to wait a week to level up a weapon, that's quite limiting and counter productive, especially when I would probably be spending more of my actual cash to buy gold and sugar to upgrade

 

I actually think the fact your comparing the "Old shop" when the game was still in Beta isn't a fair comparison. Its like playing a game when its in early access, they just want testers to find bugs and gather data for balancing. The fact they didn't wipe or reset players levels at least to me is pretty ridiculous. That's for another conversation I guess. I read most of your other thread, its like comparing Obama to Trump. "Obama was great just the greatest, lets go back to him!" Honestly it could be a lot worse, at least there is an option to refresh the shop and you can buy the first instance of any item you want.

 

Comparison was just so that there's a least a scale. With nothing to compare to, there's no definitive proof that the system is better or worst.
I've also said that the old system wasn't great either, and it had it's share of flaws, but that system still had a shorter time scale and definitely a lot less randomness.

As for the shop refreshing, the old system had that too, instead it gave you Full Items and not pieces. That aside, my point of the thread is a bit broader than that. I was trying to make a statement and prove that Rovio has created a shop system that intends to impede progression to about a 3 year time scale at the very least to achieve close to End Game(of one ship).

 

Fair enough, I would agree with that. Most of the mobile games try to push out end game to 2-3 years. Like Clash of Clans if you farmed all day while spending money it would still take over 2 years to reach end game. I guess the big difference here is this game was just released and might as well still be in alpha. They still don't have Guild wars. There is only 1 game type. There is frankly no benefit to being in a guild/tribe/whatever. You can't queue up with more than 2 people together. I feel like the shop is the last thing they should be focusing on... Even if you got all your gear and were the best you could be, what then?

 

Right. I did mention one ship for a purpose, most people probably would like to switch ships once in awhile to play. So that time scale doesn't actually change, it's pretty close to being "linear" for each ship as the items are mostly very different per role. So unless you're a player that sticks to one ship the full way through, or swaps midway, the 2-3 years to reach end game can be extended further.

As for the game, I agree. I mentioned this in another thread:
https://forum.battlebay.net/threads/give-me-guild-wars-or-give-me-death.8649/#post-28544

Rovio needs to add more content, and quickly. As the top players are getting bored of the game. There needs to be more variety, since they have been targeting the p2W whales they need to keep them interested.

 

A suggestion from the shop thread that I really liked (it was mine, so maybe thats why!) is to allow 1 duplicate item purchase pr month - Keep the 3k Pearl price or w/e. The ability to pinpoint 1 item you want a month would ensure that everyone has just a little control over their own destiny and give a tiny bit of guaranteed progress.

At the going rate Ill have my Repair Pulse at lvl 50 in 2020, unless I get unlucky and keep combining into tape. It would be a vast improvement if I could save up / buy 3k pearls a month and slowly make my way there.

Fully agreed that instant access to unlimited duplicates would not be pretty for f2p/low spenders, but to me the above suggestion sounds like a win/win. Happy players that have at least a bit of guaranteed progress & happy devs because it also stimulates pearl sales (and perhaps even for a segment that is unwilling/uncapeable to spend in the exorbitant amounts required for any spending to be worthwhile as things are now).

 

I also think that to reach MK7 for a person who starts as new will take years. Maybe, they would come up with MK8 with more health. and some more crew training!

 

Admins answer is

 

Keep the "items can be purchased only once", but change it to: "players can purchase each item once, whether they already have one or not"

 

The whole system is frustrating, but it's by design that people can't get what they want. I was chugging along with some favorite weapons early in the game until it became impossible to evolve most of my rare items because second items just never came around. After 80 rare items, I still only have a second of 2 of my first 5, which forces me to go back to uncommon variations of them. Ultimately that's fine because there are NO FREAKING RARE PARTS in the store, so there is no point in upgrading. I have many rare items I want to level up, each of which take hundreds of rare parts, but the store gives me about 80 parts per day, so the game feels like chopping wood at a casino. It's laughably frustrating for now, but I'll be honest, if I start getting stuck a second time in this game due to the "random" algorithms not working for me, I will most definitely back off on playing.