how I would personally spend more money on the game

[Sandpuppy]

this is a great game, I really enjoyed it throughout the last days. I love the visual style, the gameplay is fun, just what I was looking for on my iphone/ipad.

so I do feel like spending some money to aknowledge the developers work (as well as supporting further developement) would be appropriate, but as well as my friends, I think the way this game tries to sell stuff is way too agressive and actually keeps me from spending any money.

the prizes for game-changing elements which add tactical depth (weapons and characters) are way too high. outfits should be where the high-prized elements come in, and maybe to fasten some moderately paced unlocks, but right now I feel like I could not enjoy the full tactical and stratigic potential of the game within a year of daily games. or I have to spent an incredible amount of cash.

I think there is a good game hidden underneath this “trying to make ppl buy stuff”-surface, but messages like “xx was a difficult opponent in this game, would you like to go to the score and buy him” just make me question the games balance (which I actually think is not that bad - some characters just should have higher squad points to start with - not just because of their weapons) and not consider spending money in the store

I will probably buy the first mappack (even though it seems rather highly prized too - but I will try to look at it as the prize for the basic game) and hope I can convince my friends who are playing to stay on the game and buy it too, right now they are telling me that “this game is just trying to rip you off”

I fear I might get bored with the game sooner if my strategic possibilities stay limited for too long and end up spending less money on expansions than I would if the game kept me interested with a fair prize for a full character/weapons unlock and concentrated on moderate prizes for content-related expansions and high prizes for cosmetic stuff

I hope this kind of feedback is welcome too
oh, and the game defenitely needs a ladder/ranking system of some kind

[Catnadian]

I’m just scholastically curious here, could you tell me your level, what you’ve already bought with coins to start with and who your starter character pick was?

You might also consider there’s a holiday sale going on in which RAD Bux costs for items and characters are generally half of what they would be, and that cosmetic items (barring Squid Ink) are the most expensive items, certain high-cost soldiers and weapons notwithstanding.

[Sandpuppy]

lvl 19, played through most of the challanges now, the 2 lvls on hard with the fixed squad missing

chose the medic (angela merci, I call her merkel) and am pretty happy with it, bought dee hatlacker and carlito grosso, they make a nice combo using the riot shield as cover for the rocket-turret

what I want to do now is buy madame la hacque and equip her with sneaky pete’s rifle, which is going to take ages
would like to buy some weapons, but with this prizes I guess u really need to save up and buy the characters they come with

is there really a holiday sale right now? - u mean prizes are usually 30 000 gold upwards for characters - the cheapest one in my store right now is “specialist suds” with 15000 gold or 10 rad bucks

[Catnadian]

Oh no, Gold costs are pretty much set in stone, adjustment of Gold prices usually comes with patches if it needs to be applicable. Carlito Grosso used to be one of the most expensive units in the game during the selective release phase, actually. The sale only affects RAD Bux, so basically Dee Hatlacker will be 16 Bux instead of 8, Suds will be 20 instead of 10, so on, but Suds will be 15,000 Gold for the forseeable future (he used to be around 35,000).

This’ll be a bit wordy, but if you take anything away from it, it’s that Agents add a fair bit of flexibility to any squad layout, I totally agree you should get LaHacque, and your decision will probably be fueled by whether or not you think having an Agent now would be better, or later. My reasoning is below.

I asked you that, though, since I wanted to get a sense of how you experienced the game. It can be a little slow to start with, I can agree, but as more soldiers are added to the roster this will probably be less of an issue. I picked Sneaky Pete back when I started (Angela was a little different and a lot worse back then - her healing aura was a one-square radius effect) which probably added a lot to my strategic flexibility, as Angela and Taschmann are, by comparison, very rigid starting choices. If you go with Angela, you have to keep your squad close together to maximize the benefit, if you go with Taschmann, he’s basically your frontline grunt and maybe minor area denial (which is not so good when he can only move seven squares maximum and his shotgun takes 4AP to fire).

Alternatively, if you went with Pete, you either had a sniper you could use in conjunction with Artillery to shut down entire lanes of the map, an SMG agent who got two ridiculously powerful attacks with his Critical Hit abilities, or even try putting a knife on him and sneaking him around the map. If you really wanted a heal or something, well, you had the Crate ability. You didn’t need a Sentry because you could use Dave to flank the enemy. I think once you get LaHacque you’ll start to feel less confined by your strategic choices - she’s especially good at being flexible, since Light soldiers are excellent choices for melee weapons and ranged weapons alike. Agents are good like that.

As far as your thoughts on the store and pricing, it all comes down to a matter of personal opinion, and that can’t quite be debated so easily. Personally I feel like the game has enough polish, enough depth and very good support to be worth the money I’ve given it (especially when compared to other games I’ve bought). If you do feel like kicking it some money, and you want to get the most from the money you would feel comfortable giving to this game, I’d have to say now is a pretty good time - don’t quite know when the sale will end. The five-dollar mark will at least get you LaHacque and perhaps a few other things, but on the other hand, so will 20 or so games - which also nets you some experience what with going up against (I’m presuming) 20 different players with 20 different playstyles, maybe some of which who will use LaHacque, for instance, so you can see what works for them and what doesn’t.

[Sandpuppy]

thanks, those are interesting thoughts/insights

still I will refuse to spend any money on rad bucks, but spend some money on the map-pack and try to get to lvl 26 soon so I can buy lahacque with my saved-up rad points as long as the sale lasts (is she really affected by the sale, will she really be 52 rad points afterwards?! - if not I will probably buy sneaky pete for the rad points)

still I think people would get hooked to the game more quickly if you could get more characters through ingame progress (maybe one character for completing each of the three difficulty stages of challenges), I got a tough time motivating friends to stay on the game, who got their three characters and refuse to buy rad bucks, and are not as hooked as me because of the visual style and promising first impressions of parts of the gameplay

[tinker]

Hey Sandpuppy

I tell you my opinion, it could sound rough but I mean it friendly.

You made a mistake followed by many more in my opinion.

1. You picked Angela Merci ( It’s funny I also called her “Angela Merkel” but renamed her few weeks ago) She might has her Pros but defenetly is one of the hardest characters to play in the game due to her passive gameplay. The lack of firepower and one of the (in my opinion) weakest(or worst) starting weapons (I would never tell someone to use the Awuga 6-Gun on a midweight or heavyweight, and also only rarely on leightweigh) makes it so hard to win the first few games.
   I do not say that she is bad, she just needs to be played within the perfect setup and a good eye of her controler.

at the moment sneaky pete is the best choice here - because he is quite easy to use and fits perfectly to what you have from the beginning - dave and commander(artillery)

2. you bought 2 more of the very difficult characters - Carlito Grosso and Dee Hatlacker.
   The Turret(Taschman), the commanders dropable block and carlitos rocket turret need to be placed nearly perfectly to make use of them. Dee Hatlacker is again one, that needs to be in the perfect setup.
   Both have weapons that are only good in melee situations
   both characters need the player to have certain information about the “meta-gaming” (well, that is something we do not have at the moment so it is even harder to play with them)

3. you overestimate the effort you have to bring up to get one of your new characters. It takes about 2 days of “intense” gaming to get one of the characters - maybe 3 or 4 for Ivan or someone in his category.
   And with intense I just mean you have to start 20 games and immediatly respond to opponents turns and start new games when a game has finished. You can watch tv during that, read a book, do homework( I have no idea what age you are ) or learn for university or something like that.
   If it takes a while for the other players to answer, try to finish a few of the challanges - if you get stuck at one or two, visit Youtube - there are already guides for a few - maybe they are in ther . If not, just ask in the forum.
   If you DO buy challange pack or content pack, it takes less than a day - you get between 1500 and 3000 for fully completing one mission.

4. you think that the prices are just too high for the characters - but let us calculate a little - as I did in about 5 other threads already
   lets say you have a low payed job and earn 5$ / hour . for 5$ you get about 2 characters of the middle-cost (at the moment).
   It would take you WITH waiting time 1-2 days to get that character via coins in the game. if you - instead of waiting and playing - work, you earn about 40-80$- maybe more maybe less. the prices are NOT too high. it gives , like I said in other threads, casual players the chance of getting all game content without spending days in there.

5. You NEED MOAR content.
   The game is there to make fun. play a little and get sneaky pete if your not happy with your setup
   ---- sneaky pete + otto semi-auto ; dave with colt automatic ; commander with Hoo-Hah AR — this is my favourit setup and I win a lot of games with it. You do not need more to be better. You have everything that you need RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING.(That is why I ALWAYS claim that this is the BEST “game” in the whole appstore. You need NOTHING more - there is no REAL upgrade. It gives you ONLY more variety for your gaming.
   and if you did not pick pete, there are hundreds of other setups that work perfectly. Taschman and Angela are hard to play - not bad.
   2 days ago I started about 18games with totally cruel setups - things that should not work together. It DOES NOT look like i’m loosing with even 1 of them. tbh I play the game nearly from the day it was released to be beta-tested (canada) and I have the eye for the game.
   But it is no long-trained skill. it is like chess- once you understood the overall gameplay it is just about improving your gameplay.
   You should not play to get more characters - you should try to (have fun but this is in my opinion always coupled with -->) win with whatever you got and IF you can buy new characters, do so to bring some more variety to your gaming.

and that’s my most important tip to you. If you like the gameplay with carlito, angela and / or Dee Hatlacker, continue with your favourit setup. Sneaky Pete is quite easy compared to the other 2 starting characters.
Instead of going away from your favourit characters and gameplay, you should rather search a good player that helps you perfecting your gameplay with what you play.
There is no imbalanced setup or character in the game so do not search for it. search for YOUR favourite characters and adapt your gameplay to what you got in front of you.
You have 3 hard-to-play characters. you do not need more. All you need is a better eye of what the enemy will do and what you should do

I hope you get what I mean

with friendly regards
me
.

[Sandpuppy]

hi, tinker

thanks for your response, but it seems you got me wrong - I have no problems at all with my setup

I am actually winning most of my games (some of them way too easy because many players do not seem to understand that the weapons are what affects the squad point ratings and play with less characters) and went through the challenges easily
keeping all my units close togehter works well, as I said I use merkel and the two mechanics in a bundle, with the additional stopper from my squad leader this makes a formidable turtle-formation at the right places

I just feel like every unit adds strategic possibilyties that u are missing out on in the early stages of the game, when u decide wheter u will keep or delete the game

and since the stronger units do not require more squad points if you equip them with less powerful weapons buying those units not only improves the gameplay by adding depth but enhaces your chances to win

I do not put the costs of the characters into relation to my income per hour but to money I spend on gaming in general
even infinity blade 2 is about 6 dollar/euro in the appstore, I managed to play battle nations for weeks without having to spend a dollar and feeling like I was missing anything. if there is an option to buy rad-bucks for 90 dollar/euro at once, something is seriously wrong

and I know those I mentioned are different kinds of games, different business models and no server costs, etc etc, but I can go play “mechowars” or “ufo hotseat” which are rather similar and nice games for less than a dollar and enjoy them for weeks

as I said, the basic startup is just too limited and free to play should not mean that u can buy advantages over opponents, which “rad soldiers” even advertises with its “u should buy this character”-messages after games

I just do not like the aggressive way this game tries to bully you into spending money - as much and as early as possible - when I think that getting ppl hooked on the game first and make them buy outfits for their favourite units laters could work out well too

I prefer to buy a game for a fixed prize, I can live with “free to play” where several rich or fanatic individuals finance the game for those who - like you wrote - do not mind grinding for hours, but I highly distaste “pay to win”

and you may be right that “rad soldiers” isn’t even “pay to win” regarding the long run, but it certainly gives you that feeling in the early stages, and my suggestion is to make getting into the game without spending money easier so more ppl will stay with the game, which leads to a growing community. but I guess there are some economic studies proving that the average player spends few hours with each game and companies need to milk the consumers as quickly as possible

anyways, I enjoy the game, bought the expansion set - just 3 maps and why on earth are there so many so easy challenges in an expansion pack??? - to support the developers and hope the game gets the attention it deserves, a big community and lots of support, more balancing and an easier start for new players in the future

[Sandpuppy]

oh and pls do not forget my question about the holiday sale, is every character on the game half off the rad-points or only a few?

[tinker]

To asnwer your qeustion first:
as far as I know no character are cheaper right now.
I’m not 100%certain because the price changed many times since I started

the price of packages and the iAP is reduced - but I cannot say if that is holiday-induced or just GOT cheaper.

I got your point… you think and felt like that: new players have no variety and it takes “ages” to get new things

but what to do
MAYBE the turn gain for the first 100 games (100coins per send turn) should be rearranged to 50games and 200 coins gain. you get the same amount but it is there FASTER.
and maybe a free character pool - changing every week. with free to use characters (1 -3 ) for all players.

I will add more, just wanna watch dead poets society first later

[Crozzton]

I have bought the 120 rad bucks and the 2 expansions. The 120 rad bucks where a bit of a waste since I eventually earned the gold for the chars I wanted.
I miss carlitto,spud and Ivan. Not in a hurry to get any of those though. Bought 3 madams 2 Kate/Pete/Dave/archie/dee/angela.
Plus some weapons ottos/cockler/ melee
So it is possible to get it all without using months, but getting 4+ of all will take while.
Most of it I bought before the gold nerf.
Had a period with 50-70 games a day with the same 10 lads which cast off quite a few coins.

I believe it is possible with 2 devices to battle yourself with 2 different usernames if you want to boost your gold. ( pretty boring though I guess)

Anyways I agree with the criticism of the aggressive selling methods. Especially the outfits which is impossible to get without spending more money than what 3-5 new release pc games!?!??

I would suggest other ways of getting them as well (or special costumes only obtainable through special achievements)

let a toon “win” it when it makes max kills in a game. (Killshot on all opposing toons) or when it have killed one of each possible toon on all stages or whatever.

[Sandman77]

So rad prices will increase? Thats crap cause I think its high enough allready, I did get the two expansions though…

[Catnadian]

Seeing the chat on selling methods reminds me I haven’t seen any post-game messages in a while barring the occasional “Bigger Ben” popup which I’m okay with getting. I can’t tell if this is because I’ve been slaughtering people with my Captain (who never got props ) or because they quietly decided to remove it. I was alright with the stat-tracking concept, but could agree that it was a bit too forward a way to promote the store. I have close to 10k gold and 100 Bux left over from what I got out of the sale (and right before it… whoops) and I’m saving it up for the next content release, depending on what gets released anyways, and don’t feel a real need to spend much more at this point (though I guess I could pick up the expansions soon, why not right?).

Outfits I don’t really have a problem with being expensive, since they’re purely cosmetic and you can buy some of the best ones for 4 RAD Bux if you want (I’m just sayin Squid Ink medics look badass as hell), and it shifts the focus to buying what the game is all about if you decide to spend money on it, which would be the soldiers and the guns (or the packs containing various amounts of both). I like Crozzton’s suggestion of special cosmetic things dependent on in-game accomplishments (not necessarily just outfits - maybe weapon reskins or soldier portrait changes?). No idea how tricky that would be to implement into the user interface or game itself though.

I think as long as there’s attention paid to the game and the store, prices are adjusted as they are needed, and sales and the like kept in rotation, we should be fine. I’d talk tactics a bit more here, but that’s for another thread.

[Sandman77]

I spent all my Rad on the sniping lady…

[tinker]

a few hours ago I had an idea.

why don’t they add a special account feature.
buying that thing - what should NOT be called “premium account upgrade” (since this often indicates a freemium game, what RAD soldiers at the moment and hopefully forever is not and will not be) - would give you 1 rad bux every x games. it should be quite expensive but allowes you to get all outfits without constant rad bux buying. but it gives you no hardcore jump. it would take you LONG to get everything but you get it without spending tooooo much money for the outfits.
it will turn out to be the best thing to buy - in the long run. It should cost about 10$ or so. people who get into the game and buy it have the option to get outfits when they are good already- but they are not able to get all character right away.
expension-sets ae excluded - as it should be.

this would be a fair, but all-including option

if you get - lets say - 1 rad bux for every 5th game you finish… and you are very active - you get about 2-4 rad bux every day (with the usual waiting time)
withing 1 week you have between 14 and 28 rad bux - enough for a few outfits (cheap ones) or a big piece of an expensive outfit.
this sounds fair to me

what do you think?

with friendly regards
tinker

[Sandman77]

Tinker cool idead!

[Crozzton]

Think it is an ok idea tinker. Wouldn’t mind though that there where some achievement outfits along the way as well. And again I really would like some way of getting skins for everything ( gear/avatars/toons) through some kinda event as tournament or achievements.

[tinker]

We NEED and WANT tournament.
The thing is, there can not be any rewards for the game if the devs do not start/organize the tourneys.

the only thing “we” could do is meet somewhere on a holiday or weekend and play for real money ( like a usual tournament) but where to meet the world isn’t a small place and we all live far away from each other.
[I think organizing a tournament over the internet is ok but you have to collect the money from everyone - if there shall be a price for the winner]

the only option that stays open to us is, organizing a tournament like we already had. if you remember ; and for those who weren’t here back then ; we wanted to start a pre-release tournament.
we just have no price ( unless someone volunteers for spending a price)

with friendly regards
me

[Sandman77]

We need a ladder/Tournament…