It seems to me that it’s more likely than not that players who pay will gain an even bigger advantage over non-payers due to these VIP rewards that give better items in their chests. Paying for anything extra in games like these always gives players an advantage over others, but now it’s going to be worse. Especially with the ability to level up troops further and give them traits.
Since the update I’ve come across a lot of pvp matches where the health of the opposing team is through the roof as well as their annoying traits and it dwarfs my team whom I’m struggling to get traits on due to the slow access of traitstones/runes.
It seems pvp gameplay is now very unbalanced since the update.
Players who pay get rewards faster than players who do not pay. Aside from an armor that strictly exists to accelerate growth (and some items that are no longer obtainable by anyone), everything can be won via patience and luck. I fail to see the issue here.
I’m on PC but when I was starting out I had the same issues with enemy strength compared to my team. I kept plugging away and eventually my teams got there too. The VIP chests for me usually don’t have anything in them that I don’t already have (level 689) so I don’t buy them unless you see something you really want. But @Lyya is right . . . anything they offer in any of the chests can be obtained through a lot of game play and a bit of luck. Just keep going.
@lyra Then it seems you didn’t read my post. PVP advantage over free-to-play players. By having this advantage it makes it far easier to rack up trophies for a guild - in turn giving the guild advantage in league over others.
If there was no multiplayer aspect to it it wouldn’t be so bad.
I read your post. I just disagree. It takes a few minutes of gameplay, and a look in the cash shop, to see how the economic model of the game works. Some games use a cash shop for pay-to-win, some for acceleration, some for cosmetics only. This game has never attempted to sell itself short. You pay to accelerate, whether that’s PvP, PvE, or anything else.
Health is leveling your kingdoms. You can’t purchase that. Hmm…well you could, but I would not count that as an advantage. Breaking the bank for a video game is nonsense.
Anyway. Everyone on these forums has had to overcome the PVP mayhem; and I assure you, you will as well.
I don’t think the problem is as significant as you fear, due to just how much real-world money you have to spend to reach the higher VIP levels. Most people who play Gems of War never spend any money.
It’s more likely that these powerful players you’re seeing just spent a lot of time playing Gems of War.
I agree with this 100%. I’m F2P, but play A LOT, and I can say (without being egotistical) I am one of the strongest players on the Console. Strategy and Team building will get you 100x further than buying $100 worth of Gems.
I’ve never bought anything and I’d estimate it would cost 1000s of dollars for someone to join the game and pay for what I have… and even then they wouldn’t have the glory or the masteries I have…
Sometimes because of the way the game works you might think someone has purchased an advantage when they have not. For example there are a few players in the 100s with fully leveled kingdoms and very evolved troops. You might think at first that they simply paid their way into it (and perhaps they did). But they also just might be someone who stays in a high level guild and plays a lot of treasure maps. Since maps don’t provide XP, but do provide just about every other spendable resource in the game they are a great method for advancing if you don’t want to mess with Arena or PvP. You can get a lot of advancement through maps without it representing itself in your level.
The fact that you could easily confuse a heavily paying player with someone who just plays in a particular method I think goes a long way towards showing that GoW is not a pay to win game.
I would say that when you run into monster teams the most likely reason for their size is time spent playing not $ spent. While cash can speed up the process a little to grow you have to spend time playing more than anything else. I am level 621, now a member of Match Masters because of the time I spend playing this game. I donate 200+ trophies a week and min 300k gold a week. The only resource I have ever spent on this game is time and now I reap the rewards. With a top guild if you have active guys around you your donating about say 1/20 of what all 30 donate. For that in my case I get hundreds of gems and glory keys each week. Yet I am fairly sure there will be people that run into my defences and tell themselves I spent $$. Nope not $1. Just time spent playing and learning early to get yourself in the best guild that your efforts justify.
You have hit what marathon runners call the wall and like all runners you can either quit or grit ya teeth and keep going till it gets easy again. I recommend the latter as the game is a lotta fun and the people here will do all they can to help.
This game is legit free to play. You can get to the top without paying a penny. You’ll get there a bit faster if you pay, for sure, but why would you expect any different?
Spending money only saves you some time. There is no advantage over other players by spending money. There is no +5 health to all troops by spending $50 or anything like that.
Just collect gold and level up kingdoms to increase health/shield. Open gold/glory chests to get cards to ascend. Be in an active guild and you will get a lot of glory keys.
There isn’t any way to tell if someone spent money or just played alot.
I’ve spent 10$ to get to VIP Level 2. The daily glory Key is nothing overwhelming, but for me it was worth it.
I don’t spent much time into this game (1-2 Hours a day) and my guild consists only of family members and friends who prefer to spend their gold more for gold keys than into the guild. But even then progress can be made over time. It also depends mainly on your mindset and what your goals are.
This is also why I like GOW so much. Spending cash doesn’t give you something that other not-paying players can’t get. I’ve played many other free app games which usually had something like an exclusive character who can only be bought with real cash. And usually that character is also more powerful than others. That is something that makes me quit games really quick.
In my opinion, it’s not unbalanced. I can’t play that often due to my daily job and other games of course, still I’m kinda proud of my level 154. I like the game, enough so that initially I paid 5 bucks to get the Obsidian set. Now with the patch I felt the developers deserved a little more, and as I was eyeballing with the VIP level 5 option of free enemy troop preview, well, I invested a total of slightly more than a 100 bucks, giving VIP level 5 (having a job means more money available but less time to play… great!).
That’s the max I’ll spend on this game, and truth be told, it ain’t that much about giving me an advantage but more to speed up the gain of resources like gold, souls or XP, so that, at least in part, I can compensate for the fact that I have a job and might only get like half an hour of gameplay each day.
You get ~30k gold for 25€. And i get 60-100k gold every day from just playing pvp matches. So why should i pay Money?
The only reason to spend Money would be The deathknight armor for me, so i wouldnt have to Change my armor for The different bonuses. And to Support the devs a bit for their good Work…
But to have an advantage in This Game? Lol, no…