Re:This Dumb Industry: Wilson Boxes
by swivelmaster on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @11:42AM
(#15862492)
Clash Royale's system is set up so that the more money you spend to progress, the more money you need to spend to progress. That's because the cost to upgrade cards increases as they level up, so [purely as example because I don't know the actual numbers behind this] a dollar can get you to level 3 but it'll cost a thousand to get to level 10.
Most loot box games have this as a general concept because pure randomness ensures that the chance of getting a new unique item from a finite set decreases for each new item you get, but Clash Royale compounds this by geometrically increasing the number of each thing you need to get to upgrade it.
They also don't use pure randomness. They very finely tune the way the drops come out. If there's a card you don't have (or that you don't have much of), there's a MUCH higher chance of finding it than a card you've maxed out, or that is at similar level to the rest of your cards.
No opinion on its microtransactions, but I couldn't believe it when that game became an esport. For one, I looked down on mobile games (is one of them really this good?). And you've got a casting team and studio audience to watch two guys sit and twiddle on tablets.
Re:This Dumb Industry: Wilson Boxes
by swivelmaster on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @11:43AM
(#15862501)
It's an astoundingly well-designed game.
Indeed, but it's definitely a hardcore pay-to-win game (at least ladder definitely is).
If you play well, you get to a point where your opponents' cards are way overstatted against yours. And that's where the temptation to give in and make a purchase comes...
Yes. Core mechanic is incredibly fun and it starts when you start playing. Cards you get by reaching higher ranking are not necessarily more fun to play and you don't win more with them because you are playing always with players of similar strength to you.
It's a PVP game that all players get points for winning and loose points for loosing. Power of your deck comes from lootboxes you get at decent pace for playing or can buy for real money.
The great thing is that thanks to the ranking people are matched with players of the same strengh (either skill or money/time investment) so you are always facing challenging but not impossible opponents.
Getting higher in ranking just makes few new cards available when you are above respective ranking thresholds. Those cards are not obviously stronger than others because units are well balanced.
All this makes the game fun for all players no matter what is their time/money investment.
My take is that it's not worth spending money on this game but I recently found out that TotalBiscuit came to that conclusion only after he spent few thousand dolars on this game. So it's a great game for everybody, rich, poor and the game developers themselves.