Unfair monetising strategy

[Mad Kat]

I love and respect Rovio…except the person in charge of monetising ABT.

This person made us cough up ten bucks for Jenga mode by making coins an essential currency in the game…then, they launched a new release that devalues coins to near worthlessness by supplying them bountifully for doing next to nothing. We have a new currency of materials for any meaningful upgrades.

Those of us that bought gems believing level ten to be the highest for a character have been suckered by the extension to level 15. Would we have bought gems, had we known the level would stretch to 15?

We have customers who may have paid to progress in the game being calmly told if a bug causes them to lose all progress that they are SOL.

I have no quarrel with the designers and the developers and the customer support of ABT. Even if there are issues, they seem to be working sincerely to resolve problems and dream up ways to keep the game interesting. I also have no objections to companies booking healthy profits. The monetising of ABT does not reflect the values Rovio has stood for. It is one sided and suggests a fly-by-night disregard for customers. I like the work of every other team on this game and if I keep playing it is because they are good enough to overshadow the monetising.

Topic

[Anonymous]

Of all the games I’ve played I’ve honestly never seen such a money grab as this game. Sure it’s fun but the people who made this game seem to be getting pretty greedy. They act like they’re hiding it but it’s not fooling me one bit. And I agree that coins are now next to useless. Before the update I used to have hardly any coins due to constant upgrading. Now I’ve got about 800k because I can’t spend them all due to the insanely high material requirement for upgrade. I actually liked the material cost before when it was like 10 per material to upgrade a lvl 10 bot. Now its 30 of a certain material to upgrade a lvl 10 bot. Its too much man! I liked things the way it was before the cash grab update. Just my 2 cents.

[dmsral]

I’ve never spent a penny on ABT. It was tough in the early, having to build up enough coins for upgrades, but these days, it’s no big deal. I’ve got 3.4 million coins, 3300 gems and almost 100,000 pigs so I can do pretty much what I want. Play the nodes a few times during the day and run the missions to load up on parts and it pretty much takes care of it self.

[Optimus_Pig]

+1

[Cindy]

I totally agree. The game has become pay to play. Actually it’s harder to play and s lot less enjoyable. This is the only game I’ve ever played that the missions are secret. I get three stars on every character and there are times I only get 3 or 4 boxes to open. Each update re-writes the rules. Someone playing this game would have a hard time understanding how to play. I enjoyed the game before all the updates. I wish Rovio would listen because this issue is not new. I didn’t get the new update and I am so glad I turned off automatic updates.

[DawniJeann]

It’s very easy to get 5 Mission keys with [1 Level 12 & 2 Level 11] on Medium missions or 3 [Level 10] on easy missions without watching the video. Very close on Hard missions & with Level 10, 11 or 12 characters, watching the video often gets you that 5th key. Work on getting at least 3 characters to those levels in the Mission: Light Bulb, Missile (bomb) & Magnifying Glass types.

Personally, although I have a weird Boot On Crash issue, I am very pleased with the last upgrade:

Not only double coins, but also double pigs now
SUPER EASY (if you read & learn the recipes) to turn excess Silo materials into coins, gems or needed materials. See “High Yield” recipes here: https://www.angrybirdsnest.com/forums/topic/list-pics-of-all-energonicons/

The Lab is Super Lucrative. If you are poo-pooing it, you have not read the recipes. My only fear is that this will change in some way later. One can easily turn excess Silo materials into gems so you can use gained gems into upgraded characters (not the instant gem upgrade, but the “finish now” upgrade) This is how I upgrade ALL my TF now once I have the materials for that upgrade. I never could justify doing this until the LAB was added to the game in the last update, where one can easily gamble excess materials into enough gems (without spending real money) to do it.

Honestly, of you are STILL complaining about long upgrade time, materials needed to upgrade, missions being a waste of time (anything other than crash or loading/FB connect issues), you haven’t been paying attention to the shortcuts that many members already figured out for you & have provided for you here.

[Optimus_Pig]

@dawni-criswell

No, my main concern is updating, period. I don’t trust these guys enough to be confident that something bad isn’t going to happen to my installation.

“My only fear is that this will change in some way later.”

You know they will. Their strategy is to get everyone addicted to a new feature and then pull the rug out from under it. It’s not in their best interests to make it super easy for people to harvest gems.

[Optimus_Pig]

@20qmindreader

No worries man, you gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

“I admit to being jealous of those who seemed to have tons of gems and coins who were advancing in rank at breakneck speed, while I felt like a chump for waiting nearly two days per TF to upgrade and inc in rank, but am relieved in my resolve to not spend a dime on in-app purchases.”

Same. I refuse to buy into the “pay to win” model.

At the rate things are going it’ll take me around 4-5 months to reach Rank 405 (i.e. maximum progression under my current installed version) at which point I’ll update to the newest version so I can access whatever new TFs they’ve released.

[Stor1]

The game just has to many bugs!