We all know that the only thing that Chicken Hunter License players can do but free-to-play players are not allowed to do at all are Double Team and Ironman Competition, but only Double Team waves are the true brand new feature, while Ironman has these and all normal waves and are not much different from a hard Daily Mission.
We also know that tiers and environment always-on items are only required if you are flying a planetary mission independently by yourself, not for multiplayer and assignments, and iA has said in the past that this is not easy to change, at least for environment items:
Aside from the restrictions above, you are allowed to enjoy almost all features in the game, they are open to everyone except for Ironman Competition. The game is so generous that makes progression through tiers and paying for a Chicken Hunter License becomes unnecessary. Tiers are nothing but a way to see if you are really dedicated to the game after reaching the Retro endgame missions (tier 40), and CHLs are only for those that really like Double Team missions or want to support the developer.
I think this game in full definitely deserves a price of €6.99, but a free-to-play game with almost everything given to the player, then the small amount of major features (Ironman and Double Team, but mainly only Double Team, plus some minor customizations) in the Chicken Hunter License make it not worth that value.
First I will make some suggestions as to how we can encourage players to progress through high tiers to unlock new features (I will talk about CHL value later). Make them stricter instead of being too generous:
I feel a bit strange that if you don’t have a high enough tier to access a mission, you are not even allowed to view mission info, but at the same time you can still play it in any other method, except playing by yourself. I think we should be able to view the mission info, but instead blocking out the “Fly mission” button. For multiplayer, players must reach the same tier requirement as the host to join, again if they click on a room and it is loaded on, the join button should be disabled if their current tier is not enough.
Bring back tier requirement for competitive missions. Although this may sound very strict now that we have been used to it, I think this will make tiers actually bring value and encourage players to grind a bit to get there: Easy Daily (0), Medium Daily (20), Hard Daily (40), Space Race, Weekly, Dares (20) and Galactic Cup (40), Ironman Competition (99, this may be a bad suggestion though because players may feel scammed after buying CHL and discovered this; numbers are open to suggestion by other players). We can allow players to click on the “Fly mission” in their Inbox to view mission info, but lock out the “Fly mission” button in the mission slots.
Have tier requirements for buying some items in the Galactic Store. I think always-on items to help players discover the galaxy should not have tier requirements. Instead, the tier requirements should apply to some spacecrafts (like CHL) and spacecraft parts, may be even have different requirement like 30 for Rare, 60 for Legendary.
Here are some suggestions to make CHL has more value:
Completely lock out licensed spacecrafts, not even allowing free-to-play players to buy them at a doubled price. If you worry about this game becoming pay-to-win, we can only allow F2P players to buy these at a regional store or Shady Dealer.
Completely lock out licensed spacecraft parts (anything that has “rarity”), wich a similar suggestion to above. When I originally hear about CHL, I actually thought this CHL restriction also applies to spacecraft parts, but it is currently not.
More exclusive competitive missions that are much different from standard Chicken Invasion (this would need a separate post so I won’t say more details about it here).
Most of the features in the game are really good and the whole game is worth more than €6.99, it’s just that the game is too generous and open for free-to-play players and low-tier players that make progression and CHL not have much value.
Heroware and Shady Dealers sell equipment with rarity, so it’s not like this changes much - if you’re buying a ship or whatever and have any sense whatsoever, you’ll look for a legendary.
Speak of the devil,
I’ll just say this:
The line between making it a “pay-to-win” game and a game that has microtransactions in it is extremely thin.
It is so thin to a point that, any game that has microtransactions in it will always get some bad reviews claiming that they are “pay-to-win”. If not reviews, then topics will be made about such things.
Take a look at this really long topic about that very thing:
I get that if you’ve played a lot, you’d feel that IAPs in this game in general won’t have much value,
but for a newbie who doesn’t have any idea if what they’re even saying about the game is actually true, when they see all the IAPs, they’ll most likely think it’s “pay to win”.
And when they do, no one can tell them otherwise.
Except from probably the game’s developer, and even then it may not even be enough.
It’s also why “adding value” to paid things without crossing the P2W line is incredibly hard.
Basically Idea of the topic is making the game very strict especially for beginners to reach the degree to make the game even paid which means making the game excessively lose a lot of players and make it have lower support.
No offense but all the cruelty you just mentioned is going to make IA have a “greed for money” look or maybe putting the game at very low tier. Remember that not all of us have their own credit card or money balance to pay for such stuff. and remember that there are kids who play this game.
I don’t agree with that post, I have become a Scrooge McCluck F2P, and has one Legendary spacecraft with all Legendary and most expensive parts. The game is currently not pay-to-win (in real money, but in keys they do) at all: you can buy even the Licensed spacecrafts for twice the cost, plus all of the expensive mountable items to use in missions.
If you want more keys to invest in competitive missions, you can repeatedly play a type of mission that you like (for me is Retro) without any items. If you can make 1,000 keys per day, in 30 days it would be 30,000 keys, enough to buy hundreds of mountables and special weapons. This is very boring, but it’s a different price if you don’t want to spend real money. Ironman and Double Team are paid to access (pay to play), not pay-to-win. And competitive leaderboards are not the best way to effectively earn lots of keys (top 10 out of 70k players).
I have won Easy and Medium Daily once (and I don’t think I’m even invested that much), and I’ve seen #JusticeForMuller won Galactic Cup #3 without buying CHL at the time (whether they have spent money for key packs is unknown, but that means it’s technically possible).
Expecting all newbies to do epic things like this is a mistake in game design.
This is why all games have tutorials my friend.
Some games, the tutorials are pretty obvious, but in others, they are so well-hidden and/or executed, you didn’t even know you’re in a tutorial.
My personal favorite tutorial level is Zelda Breath of the Wild’s tutorial, as well as Half-Life 2’s.
You won’t even know it’s there.
I’d personally set goals for myself. Getting all legendary ship and/or equipment right now.
Anything that has a tier system attached to it, I’ll buy it on Legendary.
Need a harder one? Play Double Team on SSH and win a Unpreparedness medal.
(Or Weekly Challenge, Galactic Cup Qualifiers, Hard variants of Daily Missions, or anything you got access to at the time of the challenge)
Point is: set goals if you feel bored, see what you can do.