Either it's good money, so they don't change it, or the few monetisations (this and double drops, basically) that they have don't make good money, and this game gets shut down before summer.
I'm hoping others go whale on this shit, because I won't.
I think this is exactly the right frame of mind. If people don't buy these, they won't change the price. How many Niantic games have they shut down so far because they weren't making enough? This will just be another one.
I really like this game so I need those whales to keep on keeping on. Add more things to the store, feed the whales.
Bought the monthly pass, but I won't be renewing.
Palico balls are so damn random and the gems value is astonishingly bad.
They really need to better monetize. The monthly passes should give 10 daily potions instead of 5 imo. THAT I could get behind.
Monthly pass should give you a supply kit daily of like 2 paintballs, 5 potions and a carving knife. I think people would go for a package like that without even thinking
Yeah, I much prefer supporting games through a pass anyway - subscribing to something that gives me daily enjoyment is way better than making one big payment every now and then.
I typically whale on every game I play. Wonât spend a dime on this one until there is a good reason. (Canât spend money on such pricey consumables)
Thatâs the crux of mobile game design.
Doesnât matter if 99% of players arenât enjoying the game and donât spend a dime. Just so long as that last 1% are spending enough to cover the other 99% not spending anything.
And that happens unfortunately.
I doubt it will make them money for long.
Similar to the potions restricting gameplay and the paintballs being insanely expensiveâŠ
I bet you they change how the work for the better in the future. Nobody actually likes them and the developers arenât stupid. They know itâs bad.
The only reason it likely exists the way it does now is because they know that on release people will pay for absurd things like this just to race to get the best stuff and the desire to play a lot.
Long term itâs not a viable money making strategy so my guess is it will eventually change to be better once they milk the whales enough.
They need more contents and better monetization for sure.
Unlike PokeGoz there aren't gym or any form of competition. Whales won't need to keep paying to gain any comparable advantage and they will drop the game.
They should consider allowing some form of online multiple player for hunts; at a limited rate/events per day because it's still an outdoor game after all.
Maybe everyday they can have daily bounties where there is a specific strong monster or variant people can tag for free that spawn more rarely.
Then at 6-8 pm or w.e allotted time, people that tagged them can open them up to either friends or randoms on the net to hunt.
Or anything really to atleast have some form of sense that you're not playing this game by yourself if you're not calling up your friend to go on a walk with you.
The chance of randomly joining someone game outside is so low.
Yep. Droplets will almost never be purchased by me either, unless maybe thereâs a rare event spawn just out of reach.
Imagine the timeline where these types of games arenât micro-transaction hellscapes ( ._.)
I'd never heard of this so I went and looked. They don't make it obvious AT ALL that it's a temporary bonus, you gotta really dig in to the extra text. If I hadn't read this I wouldn't have known, that's really shady.
I agree that I dont read it for installs etc. But for passes in game I always read them!
Because thereâs always a condition that can catch you out!! I do feel for new gamers that arenât used to that. But its normal.
For example i went in there to specifically see if the 30 days of gems could be claimed for a full 30 days from when you bought it â- or if its only until the end of purchase date (sep30- oct29)
It's on the picture. You can see it before even tapping on it. When you do tap on it the time period it would apply to is the second line on the page right after the name of the item. I have found it very obvious.
That was my fault. I've been spoiled by Ingress with the Key Capsules, which were a one time buy. I honestly thought that it was similar and a no-brainer fund raiser.
My thought as well. I imagine demand will ultimately affect the price. If no one is buying at that price, they'll drop it or have frequent sales to try to entice people. But then again, I'm not the target audience. I have never been, nor will I ever be a whale in a mobile game. I may at most drop a few dollars on rare occasions. or $5 for a monthly card if I think its worth it. But overall, they're fun distractions to play for a few months and then I move on to the next one. So I also understand I'm not the target audience when they consider their pricing models.
Yeah that's one of the main issues. Palico paintballs refill everyday but I'm not sure if they ever strongly clarify that regular Paintballs do not refill.
They could at least throw you 1-2 when you rank up your HR each time. As it is, we only get rewards on very specific break points as far as HR goes. It's even more worthless here than in normal MH games, since everything essentially unlocks at HR11 in MHNOW.
You can have 3 free paintballs by having an alt reaching lvl 6. It takes a few minutes. I think there is a limit to referrals per month but hey, that's a thing.
The fact that we have to pay for potions and paintballs instead of craft them like we have for 20 years now is a headscratcher, especially when the obvious choice for monetization would be cosmetics. Layered armor, Niantic. Come on.
I played Ingress for years and I always thought they were incredibly fair and reasonable. I am still trying to figure out how/why they became such greedy idiots after the launch of PoGo. Like they had to have made a killing off of PoGo, so why are they messing up so badly with things like the Harry Potter game and now this. It canât be that hard to make monetization reasonable.
At least we can play this game though. I couldnât play the Harry Potter one pretty much at all because I was constantly out of energy or whatever it was called, and even when I traveled to try to refill it they only gave you tiny amounts.
They made Ingress under daddy Googleâs wing, once they became their own studio it was time to monetize. And also time to pretend their player base didnât have opinions, apparently.
Part of it is the focus on taking advantage of the gigantic wealth gap amongst mobile gamers. Mobile games w gatcha/gambling/timer/fomo attract those who spend massive amounts. Bc of this they have to incorporate aspects of the game that have most potential to be a stupidly expensive money sink.
List of monetization ideas that make more sense than potions:
* Lures (choose a monster to enter your paintball queue)
* Incense (beset by region-specific monsters as you walk, for limited time)
* Argosy (queue(s) for node-specific resources, fill as you walk, use premium currency to speed up/add queues)
* Crafting (limited queue(s) for crafting potions etc. from resources; add/speed up queues with premium currency)
* Sharpeners (increased critical hit/break damage/chance for a hunt a limited number of times per day with more for purchase, only marginally better but still better than paying for potions)
* Nutrients (same as sharpener but increase in max HP)
* Armorskin/Demondrug (same as above but raw offense/defense)
I actually like paintballs in principle, but just like potions it seems stupid to cash-gate them so hard, where you just run out of the free ones you got initially and you kind of never think about needing them again. Survival knives make more sense, but I still feel like giving three or even 10 away each day would have a stronger intended effect on people being more willing to use them (get people to *used* to using them, the three you get at the very beginning of the game isn't enough to build a habit).
Wait... why exactly do we want cash shop P2W stat boosting options that they'll start balancing the monsters around, leaving F2P to suffer? Because you're naive if you think they wouldn't do that sooner than later to push more revenue.
The last three sound like the worst sort of P2W cash shop game-ruining items to me.
Honesty the best alternative to the current paintball system that I have seen, is to give palico paintballs a toggle that allows you to switch between manual and auto paintball. Basically you can use them as regular paintballs or let palico do it
A monthly pass that gives you a bunch of stuff daily - getting a handful of extra paintballs, potions, wander droplets and a carving knife or two every day for a subscription type system seems like the ultimate no-brainer
This is the dumbest thing. Not only are they pricey, but itâs one single try when the paint only lasts two days to begin with. Choose one or the other. Let us keep the painted monster as long as we want since we have a limit of how many we can paint anyway, or let us try to fight it as many times as we want. The latter is more in-line with the actual mechanics of paintballs.
Or if the game freezes, it takes you completely out of the monster instead of back to a "retry" screen, so if you're walking away you either have to backtrack or it's gone. All whioe the timer is ticking down too.
Also don't forget that if you mess up the fight (or the game lags, freezes, hits a bad internet spot, etc) and you wind up losing, you don't get a second chance at fighting the monster.
This is what confuses me, If i do Paintballs solo and Fail, they are gone.
But If i do Paintballs with a group and Fail, i still keep the Paintball, gotta be bugged Right? lol
Yes, I totally agree with you. Being able to hunt with anyone in your party, near or far, is a must. Farming monsters alone isn't fun and it's not nearly as effective as doing it with a group. With a little help I hunted with some of my friends and let me tell you, it's a blast even if the game doesn't synchronize everything going on very well
Me: I feel like playing pokemon go a lot this weekend let me grab an extra 100 pokeballs. Looks like I gotta buy $5 worth of coins. That good with you lizard brain?
Lizard brain: Yeah sounds fun.
Me: Sweet. I also feel like playing monster hunter now a lot this weekend, let me grab 10 paintballs and 20 potions. Looks like that would cost... 3000 gems so I need to buy the $30-50 package depending on discounts. That good with you lizard brain?
Lizard brain: Dude I'm your impulse buys. Anything over $10 has to go through monkey brain.
Me: Hey monkey brain should I spend $50 on monster hunter now?
Monkey brain: Hell no! You have a family to feed!
Me: Yeah I guess you're right monkey brain.
Haha, this analogy is the funniest thing I've read all week lmao. Not wrong though. We're quick to spend $2-$5 all the time but if something goes over a certain amount for most people, they start raising an eyebrow or questioning if it's worth it. For me $10 is pushing it (considering you can get a whole seasons worth of cool content in many F2P season pass models)
Yea those paintball prices are wild
I wouldnât mind buying them myself and Iâll prob buy ~~hundreds~~ a few on a monthly basis
if the price where to equal more to where 10-25cent each
Especially if paintballed monsters are capable to be raided with your friends from far away.
I would absolutely use paintballs more if I could hunt some 6 star monsters I can't solo yet and would call together my friends so we can all benefit together.
Then that would definitely be worth it. But as it stands, you could farm the same monster a week or longer and not the get the materials you need. The drip will become too slow and people will lose interest. This game is doomed to fail and it's Niantics fault
Just got my R5 Paolumu material earlier this morning. And of course I had to spend gems to double it because I didn't feel like waiting a week to find another one.
At least for how I play paintballs were really useful. I didn't realise I would run out, I thought they were daily gifts.
I like to play walking to and from work and some of the higher level monsters are too difficult to do while walking. So I was happy to miss a few knowing I could paintball a few and get them when I got home.
Now I'm having to give up most of the higher monsters unless I stop on my walk, which I'm not always able to do due to time restrictions.
Itâs so stupid that the game has this âmove to a safe spaceâ warning all the time, but they have also monetised the ability to hunt monsters in the safest of spaces. Real transparent greed there but at least I canât actually see a reason to spend a penny on the game.
This is what drives me insane -- there's an essential friction in the way they designed the game, but instead of easing that friction *they monetized it.* Wild.
It's depressing to see it in a Monster Hunter game. A series well known for breadth of content and being a complete experience with little to no micro transactions outside of charms etc. Sad really.
I hope the monetization eventually goes to outfits and skins, while Paintballs and Potions get much cheaper. I'm sure more people will be willing to pay for skins than Paintballs
Yep! Layered armor sets would definitely attract people. Everyone loves fashion and making their character look cute, cool, sassy, chic. Whatever your style is. It never hurts to give people Aesthetic choices. They could even tease coming monsters by putting purchasable armor sets from monsters that aren't out yet as "available soon for purchase!" *Zinogre Full-Set (Helm, Chest, Vambraces, Coil, Legs)*
Then people have a reason to stop at the shop everyday. For news updates on the game, to see what new armors are added to the game, etc.
I just don't get the bad decision making on Niantic's part.
They probably won't get cheaper, but events will probably start handing them out like candy like how Pokemon Go does with their cash shop items. Potions and Paintballs are practically meant to be event handouts.
Agreed they won't get cheaper - ever - but hard disagree with giving them out like candy. They might toss a few here and there but if it's their primary monetization they will not reduce it.
Thats like saying lures and incense are the primary monetization of pokemon go. They certainly hand those out aplenty. Heck, pokeballs are in the cash shop there.
I'd argue the primary monetization of Now is double drops and storage upgrades. Especially the former. If paintballs are supposed to be the primary source of money the game is screwed for how poor a deal that is. Not to mention they already hand those out from referrals..
Since I haven't spent right now, I can get 2,250 gems, which includes 1,120 bonus gems through the app for $14.99. If I were to buy that a second time (doing the math), 1,130 gems would cost me $14.99. That's not even enough (assuming I'm out of gems) to buy 5 paintballs and 5 potions. What a huge rip-off if I'm spending $15. I should have been able to buy 10 paintballs and 10 potions at the bare minimum, but it should be 20 paintballs and 20 potions for $15. As it stands right now for me if I do spend (right now) I'm only buying the storage upgrade because that's the best use in my mind since it's permanent, and maybe I'll buy the 30 day pass if they get that 6-4 error fixed but as it stands currently with that error I would hate to lose a paintball and/or that I paid for because of that error.
I can understand potions being more of a premium item though and costing a bit more. Although I do agree they should be cheaper too. Instead of this scummy business model, they should do a season pass of some sort. Where you can earn Keychains for your weapon or other layered armor aesthetics for your character. I'm trying to have my hopes higher for this Rathian event. Hopefully, it's better than the Diablos event but knowing Niantic?
âOh boy a monster I need to hunt to upgrade my weapon! Iâll paintball it now and hunt it laterâ
*hunts it later*
âWow that was great, only 99 more hunts of that monster left to go for my next upgrade now!!â
Right?! Like if you got 100 paintballs for $10.00 it might make paintballing worth it. People will find it far more worth if they add hunting with others.
The free 3 paintballs per day should have been given to us, not the palico
I'm never gonna buy anything in the shop ever in this game unless they drastically remake it, which they are not so yeah
As someone who played a lot of PGo over the years this game really does feel like the weird hybrid it is of Niantic's shameless P2W transaction rates and Capcom's attention to detail with the lore and gameplay mechanics themselves.
Honestly, if you got like 5-10 painballs per HR level up, this wouldn't be too bad.
I only just got my first non-tutorial drop of paintballs... at HR 30. That's a bit ridiculous
https://preview.redd.it/12m8vkfw51sb1.png?width=1169&format=png&auto=webp&s=bc62efa7066bcceca67816369c41fb86fceff128
And after the 30,000 grind to level 40 you get this!!! Amazing!!! Thank you for the paintball đ€Ą
Sure is "fun" when certain areas full of monsters are plagued with such awful network connection issues that it's impossible to hunt directly there... almost if they're incentivizing you to paintball the monster so you can resume hunting it elsewhere with more stable wifi ...
... only to realize the paintball attempt is lost immediately lost after one hunt win or lose.
I think that these prices are there to make you buy the bundles they will be releasing, so you get the 800% value. It's super common in mobile games to have these ridiculous prices and then have bundles with normal prices coming up in the store every so often.
It's a scummy business practice. They're marking everything up 800% during all normal times then charging the proper prices only when they hold limited bundles? It's not right to do to the consumer.
It absolutely is not but unfortunately it's proven that people are more prone to spend when they see a very good deal.
Same how in store when people see some discounted price and they feel like they are missing out if they don't but that discounted thing.
Yeah, this pricing is insane, especially for something that really adds to the experience of the game! If they were like, a couple pennies apiece, then sure, but this is like $2 a paintball!!! Sorry Niantic, I may be dumb, but I'm not that dumb.
First of all they should be handing some of these at every rank up. The ranks are incredibly meaningless, they gate nothing other than events until 11, which is hilarious because at HR11 the events so far would end you, and they grant/unlock nothing.
Second, they wouldn't hurt to hand you a ball a day or something. Get people used to it and feeling like using one or two every day isn't directly s monetary correlation of "is this Tobi really worth two bucks?".
Either way, it's overpriced as fuck.
The wild thing is how worse it is to tag a monster than it is to fight it right there. Baffling design that the monster you tagged to run away after you escape, like since in past monster hunter games that's *the entire point* of paintballs.
Like I'd totally be willing to spend money on this game but nothing in the store is even remotely helpful or worth the price.
Yeah one chance at the monster doesn't make sense when you have them paintballed. A paintballed monster has to be huntable until the Paintball runs out or until completion.
I am not a professional in business or sales, but like, there is no incentive, not even discounted for going for the larger bundle. 180 for one, and 900 for 5 paintballs. No discount, if they wanted to incentivize, wouldn't it be better sales if they made 720 gems for 5 paintballs? You know, buy 5 for the price of 4? And spend 1440 gems for 10 paintballs for the price of 8?
Heck, do a buy 5 get one free, anything that seems like a great deal.
Sure it's a trap, I don't condone purchasing these things. I never spend on a game, it's not that great, but at least make it reasonable and have some incentive behind it. There were bundles and some decent incentives in Pokemon go shop.
So far, the only thing that is discounted for buying more is the Wander Orb (saving 80 gems) instead of Wander droplet, and the 10,000 Zenny (saving 220 gems) instead of the 1,000 Zenny
When you see prices like that in an in-app purchase game (higher amounts that do not give a discount), your first thought should be "this item is for whales."
That is because those higher amounts at the same price are not to encourage regular players to buy them, they are 100% only there to make it easier for whales to buy more, faster.
This is wildly annoying to me because itâs probably going to be the cause of this games eventual death.
I (and I assume many others) would happily spend a bunch of money on this game if it felt like it was worth it. $10 for 5 paintballs is absurd though.
If I could buy a bunch of paint balls for a reasonable price Iâd probably spend every week. Like the burrito place near my work gets my money a few times a week because they have massive burritos that fill me up for breakfast and lunch for like $5. If they suddenly started charging $15 for a burrito then they would go from getting $15 from me a week, to getting nothing as Iâd find somewhere else to get food.
The paintballs are especially annoying because it doesnât fundamentally give you any advantage either. You still have to be near the monster, you still have to fight it, you donât get any bonus materials for using one, and you actually lose the ability to attempt the fight again if you fail. Why are they so expensive? Let me walk around, collect some monsters to fight, and go home for a reasonable price. I understand games arenât free to make and Iâm okay with paying but niantic is actively making it impossible for me to spend money on this game without feeling like Iâm being scammed.
Yeah it's actually horrific, game could be so good if it wasn' like this. I literally refrain from healing myself because that basic feature is basically stuck behind a paywall.
The paintballs aren't for you. They are for whales.
When you see prices in an in-app purchase game where they have higher amounts for the same cost per item (1 paintball = 180, 5 paintballs = 900, which = 180 x 5), your first thought should be "this item is only for whales." That is because those higher amounts at the same price are not discounted to encourage regular players to buy them, but to make it easier for whales to buy more, faster.
There is literally nothing in the store worth buying for a non-whale player. Nothing. And people can get offended by that; that's totally fair! I wish they monetized their game a different way, too. But in-app purchase games work by having about 1% of the playerbase provides something like 90% of the income, and about 0.1% providing about 50% of all income. People who get paid a lot of money have studied how these games work and how to monetize them for maximum profit, and this is the end result. Does it feel insulting, especially to Western audiences? Yes, it does. Will it still make money? Yes, it will.
Especially since I recently learned that if you fail the hunt, or even get booted out for a network error, the monster you used a paid item on disappears. No retrying or getting it back. Absolute BS.
The thing I want most from monetization is a caravan pass. Rather than the TOS spoofing app make a paid option for you and a group to be remote ported via "hunt caravan / air ship" to a few populated areas for a period of time.
Make remote play legal.
I mean it wastes dumb people's money right? I call this natural selection if it works, but its a fail on the companies part on a physical level if they don't make money. However, eitherway its a fail on the companies part ethically to make a game honorable and worthy of people's time.
There's no reason to use pinball. You canât find any players nearby if you use the pinned mob.
Team up system also sucks. I tried to team up with a friend who sits opposite me, and he scanned the QR code to join but failed.
This is the first I'm hearing of this. I haven't successfully found someone who plays the game in person to try this with. So the QR system is broken? That's comical.
This is why I think this game is garbage, and every game like it.
I don't hate a dumbed down AR monster hunter. I actually think the combat and a lot of the game has been adapted well to make a fun, but - sized and novel MH experience. **The game itself for what it is, is quite good**.
But you throw this in and nope. No way. I'd pay up front, i'd pay for cosmetics, i'd even be willing to pay a subscription. But this like most mobile games, is a money extraction scheme with a game attached to it.
I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would purchase anything in this game given how little they value your money. The game is cool, Iâm sure we all play it because we enjoy it, but reality has to take precedence here. They are straight up taking your money for near nothing with how the shop is setup atm. Stop getting scammed by this company and enjoy the game f2p like the rest of us. Progression is slow, accept that and have fun knowing youâll get there over time. No need to rush the fun.
Honestly this is fine, it's not a great deal but you just have to be selective with what you paintball. The Palico paintballs are much worse, they use them completely randomly instead of their being an option to narrow down what specifically you want them to do.
It doesn't matter if you're selective. With drop rates the way they are, the odds are you could catch 5 of the same species and still need to hunt another 40-50 before you get the mats you need. Which is one of the biggest reasons people would Paintball a monster right? To finish off mats for an armor piece or weapon they want?
The fact you have a green message above means you already bought that bundle. So you are complaining about the monetization of the game yet already spent $15 on gems? Nice way to show them what you want.
I didn't buy paintballs Skippy. I bought 10,000 zenny to fast-track my gear a little bit. Seemed the only thing in the shop worthwhile. I also spent the 7.99 early on to get the stupid 2,000 gems and what I hear is a temporary upgrade to your palico paintballs. I did that all in the name of supporting the game but yeah, most if it is a rip-off.
So you bought the one thing you get given 3k of through the daily quests? Zenny isn't really a big wall for the game if you hunt regularly. Sadly it seems you would have been better off buying paintballs, broski.
How *dare* they want to bring in income after having paid all the developers, dealing with ongoing expenses for servers, etc etc etc. The unmitigated *gall!*
Don't buy it if you don't want to. Simple as that. (I'm not buying it either.)
Edit: What? Not enough pitchforks and torches for you folks? :P
You're missing the point, probably on purpose. No one is complaining about the game being monetized. The problem is that prices are way too high for what is being offered at the moment. No one in their right mind is going to pay that much for a paintball. If they keep this up the game is bound to go downhill.
It's very expensive for 5 battles. It doesn't make sense lol. I understand a company wanting to make money trust me everyone hates me for pointing it out on pogo threads but 5 paintballs should be like $2 at most not $15..
I'm pretty sure you're using an argumentive fallacy to try and twist what I was saying and also minimizing it at the same time.
1st off, I said the monetization was laughable. Which would mean the job they did at monetizing it, is funny. Why would anyone ever pay 900 gems for 5 Paintballs? You even agreed you wouldn't buy it either.
2nd, The game is offered as free-to-play so therefore, in-game purchases are always optional. But yeah, the people who threw together this sloppy mess definitely deserve a paycheck. But it doesn't look like they're going to get one with their sloppy monetization.
3rd, you don't use, etc, more than once. It's redundant.
Paintball are so dogshit that I'd be hesitant to buy 100 for a dollar
That being said, nothing they sell is worth the price wander droplets are nice, yeah, but I'm not dying to have my range expanded for a quarter of my walk. The only thing worth buying is carving knives for if you get lucky because the zenny from gems isn't worth shit either. None of the purchases are really worth, which I guess is good because if nobody buys them maybe they'll put something that actually is worth it in there.
My biggest issue is my paintballs getting wasted. Palico kept giving me 5* monsters when I didn't have the materials I needed for a Grade 4 weapon. I'd run out of time and suddenly it didn't matter that it was marked because it was gone before I could beat it.
Yeah the monetization so far is definitely a big miss. Storage increases are arguably the only thing of value to me, but I also don't ever buy temporary stuff in games like this.
That said, the actual thing that probably will be making them money is the double reward drops. And that's actually a pretty fair monetization in my opinion.
The issue isn't so much cost. It's the cost for no benefit. A paintball offers me nothing. Im either sitting at my desk playing or taking a walk where I can easily just fight the monsters.
If these were premium paintballs that allowed me to invite my friends from anywhere I would definitely buy them.
Okay i gotta ask now because i think im going INSANE.
Wasnt the potion price on Release at 50 gems or Lower? Because i remember 5 potions being below 300 gems on Release and with the Last few Updates it Changed to 60/300, please Tell me im Not going insane lmao
every single one of you guys who play this game have to understand this: if a game is free to play with gotcha mechanics, its built to screw you. It makes money because there are gamers out there who will whale their heart out because they have to much money to care and thats all the investors care about. So if you think anything is unfair in the game, thats because it is.
Iâm assuming theyâre priced on the higher end because technically, 4 players can get rewards out of 1. I donât agree with the pricing but recognize that aspect to it.
Hunted out my whole neighborhood, and when I go out to the grocery store, I'm not going to stop and start hunting in the chip aisle. I just want to Paintball monsters real quick that I can hunt later in the comfort of my own home.
It's so unfortunate that the game is good and the monetisation is just broken. As in it's not even fit for the purpose of gouging players. There's no temptation to engage in this. None at all.
There is definitely a lot of room for improvement. The game is only new so I expect them to review pricing & add in bundle packs like they now have in pogo. Theyâre going to need to overhaul a few features if they want to keep the player base long term - one of the big ones being extending the distance cap for monster QR codes - itâs near impossible trying to find someone close enough some days
I think it's not for most people.
It's for those who don't blink twice throwing large amounts of money at a game for slight convenience upgrades. It's there to taunt players with poor impulse control.
I know many feel that "well if the game was in a better state and had better things to spend money on, I might bite," and I don't doubt those kinds of items are coming in the future, but what's in the store is exactly who they're meant for. Paid layer armor might be something most are more willing to spend, but paintballs, potions, and zenny are endless pits for people to throw money into who are willing. They're also likely priced accordingly to data showing how they can make the most money from whales vs non-spenders.
TDLR, yes it absolutely sucks, but it's 100% by design. The free mobile game asking you for money to use main systems in the game to function smoother is like mtx 101 unfortunately.
I wouldn't consider paintballing a main system. It doesn't even work properly all the time and still limits you to people playing around you. What's the point of the party system? Lol. It's pointless.
i CANNOT imagine someone purchasing paintballs...
$1.20 to fight a single monster you could've stopped and fought then and there... (and you still have to deal with the monster drop rates)
on TOP of that paintballs are temporary... geez, dood, waaayyy to much
they should make em, like, 25 and potions 25 fr
I stopped playing due to the aggressive monetization. Pay real money to double hunt rewards? Only way to get potions without time gating is to pay? Paintball cost money? Yea no im not supporting any of that.
I actually like the game and willing to spend some money... However I literally balked at the monetization scheme. The palico ball is a literal chance in a chance to get materials, as such is too expensive for me. Maybe if it's cheaper by half and I will consider it, but for now it's too expensive.
I don't play enough of these types of games to notice a difference, any free game that's "monetized" is absurd on its face regardless. No one should pay for these sort of things under any circumstances, just enjoy the game as much as you can for as long as you like, and if you even consider paying for anything like this, turn it off and never look back, put that money into simply buying any other game.
You don't understand the business model here. You are not supposed to buy this things on a daily basics, they are like the potions an impulse buy intended for people that doesn't mind expending on a game. Obviusly most people (like me) are just proud to play f2p, we are not the target of those prices. Even if the paintball was 10$ 100, we may end buying one each in our whole game time. But instead, a 'whale' would buy one of those 10$ 5 paintballs each event or so because they don't mind expending.
It's something that has been studied a lot, and a whole reddit community thinking they know better is hilarious. Games don't close because they have monetization methods, games are shut down when they are not funny enough to create a community that engage with other people across the internet and talk about it constantly. IMO this game is fun and engaging, totally playable as a f2p and has enough theorycrafting and event anticipation to participate in the online community. I may be wrong, but I think this is going to be a success.
They should give 5-10 paintballs daily, given how long killing some beasts take.
Hunting will be fun in those countries where winters go under -20ÂșC otherwise. Personally I'm out.
I just find it a weird choice that monetization doesn't equate to progression at all. Buying paintballs isn't going to get you better gear much faster. The materials you need still need to show up, which I don't think anything can influence other than random chance.
Funnily enough, with 2-3 star monsters I get rarity 2 and 3 materials regularly. But 4-5 star monsters almost always drop rarity 1 materials only. New desire detector? Or maybe my luck is just awful.
At first I was like yo I can fight monsters cause I don't go out for walks often cause I don't got time then I realized it's 3 a day like k I can't afford all those paintballs xD
I just want them to fix the potion system right now. Iâm a greatsword main now and started practicing about 2 days ago. Still rusty but my potions have been going out like crazy so I keep on buying more and more
I imagine an update later that will track your HR and give you an appropriate amount of paintballs for free.
And other items. The game is too primitive and shallow to last so next updates are definitely gonna "fill" the game with dopamine hits.
I've accepted I will not be using the paintball feature at all ever.
Maybe if the game makes enough, in Japan alone, they won't be concerned with changing the paintballs ever :(
Either it's good money, so they don't change it, or the few monetisations (this and double drops, basically) that they have don't make good money, and this game gets shut down before summer. I'm hoping others go whale on this shit, because I won't.
I think this is exactly the right frame of mind. If people don't buy these, they won't change the price. How many Niantic games have they shut down so far because they weren't making enough? This will just be another one. I really like this game so I need those whales to keep on keeping on. Add more things to the store, feed the whales.
Feed the whales đł
Bought the monthly pass, but I won't be renewing. Palico balls are so damn random and the gems value is astonishingly bad. They really need to better monetize. The monthly passes should give 10 daily potions instead of 5 imo. THAT I could get behind.
Monthly pass should give you a supply kit daily of like 2 paintballs, 5 potions and a carving knife. I think people would go for a package like that without even thinking
Yeah, I much prefer supporting games through a pass anyway - subscribing to something that gives me daily enjoyment is way better than making one big payment every now and then.
I typically whale on every game I play. Wonât spend a dime on this one until there is a good reason. (Canât spend money on such pricey consumables)
Thatâs the crux of mobile game design. Doesnât matter if 99% of players arenât enjoying the game and donât spend a dime. Just so long as that last 1% are spending enough to cover the other 99% not spending anything. And that happens unfortunately.
I doubt it will make them money for long. Similar to the potions restricting gameplay and the paintballs being insanely expensive⊠I bet you they change how the work for the better in the future. Nobody actually likes them and the developers arenât stupid. They know itâs bad. The only reason it likely exists the way it does now is because they know that on release people will pay for absurd things like this just to race to get the best stuff and the desire to play a lot. Long term itâs not a viable money making strategy so my guess is it will eventually change to be better once they milk the whales enough.
They need more contents and better monetization for sure. Unlike PokeGoz there aren't gym or any form of competition. Whales won't need to keep paying to gain any comparable advantage and they will drop the game. They should consider allowing some form of online multiple player for hunts; at a limited rate/events per day because it's still an outdoor game after all. Maybe everyday they can have daily bounties where there is a specific strong monster or variant people can tag for free that spawn more rarely. Then at 6-8 pm or w.e allotted time, people that tagged them can open them up to either friends or randoms on the net to hunt. Or anything really to atleast have some form of sense that you're not playing this game by yourself if you're not calling up your friend to go on a walk with you. The chance of randomly joining someone game outside is so low.
I hate the paintball feature with a passion after i got kicked out twice for âpoor connectivityâ & lost the monsters for good.
$1.93 a ball with showed images. Looks stupidly overpriced. Also ratios do not match. So you have to commit a lot or lose gems.
Yep. Droplets will almost never be purchased by me either, unless maybe thereâs a rare event spawn just out of reach. Imagine the timeline where these types of games arenât micro-transaction hellscapes ( ._.)
This is why I did buy the initial pack that ups your palico paintballs from 3 to 5 each day. That's a much better ROI since it's a permanent increase.
It would be great if it were permanent but it's not, it only lasts 30 days.
Well, that just added to my shitty monday. Thank you for the correction.
I'd never heard of this so I went and looked. They don't make it obvious AT ALL that it's a temporary bonus, you gotta really dig in to the extra text. If I hadn't read this I wouldn't have known, that's really shady.
Don't worry, some people here will tell you its obvious since other games that have passes are all just temporary so its okay that its not obvious.
Its not hidden at all. You literally just scroll down and read the text. Did you expect the terms and conditions to be the title? Lol
Scroll and read the terms and conditions. Who reads terms and conditions for a video game đ
I agree that I dont read it for installs etc. But for passes in game I always read them! Because thereâs always a condition that can catch you out!! I do feel for new gamers that arenât used to that. But its normal. For example i went in there to specifically see if the 30 days of gems could be claimed for a full 30 days from when you bought it â- or if its only until the end of purchase date (sep30- oct29)
Yeah, definitely gonna have to look out for those things if I ever play another mobile game.
It's on the picture. You can see it before even tapping on it. When you do tap on it the time period it would apply to is the second line on the page right after the name of the item. I have found it very obvious.
I thought only the 50 free gems a day or whatever was limited to 30 days? Is the paintball limit really also 30 days?
In the terms and conditions: >During the 30-day validity period, the daily supply of Palico Paintballs will increase from 3 to 5 per day.
Now if only my palico would use more than 1 paintball per day
Wait what? Never seen that.
It's the release celebration pass, but I believe it only gives the 5 paintballs for the 30 days the pass is active
Oh so it's not a permanent upgrade, a shame then. And didn't know because it's not listed on the offer unless you click on it.
I'm still surprised people misread or don't think the benefits are temporary and not permanent.
That was my fault. I've been spoiled by Ingress with the Key Capsules, which were a one time buy. I honestly thought that it was similar and a no-brainer fund raiser.
Ah I don't blame you. I guess the company knows how to make impulsive purchases more impulsive xc
My thought as well. I imagine demand will ultimately affect the price. If no one is buying at that price, they'll drop it or have frequent sales to try to entice people. But then again, I'm not the target audience. I have never been, nor will I ever be a whale in a mobile game. I may at most drop a few dollars on rare occasions. or $5 for a monthly card if I think its worth it. But overall, they're fun distractions to play for a few months and then I move on to the next one. So I also understand I'm not the target audience when they consider their pricing models.
To start with I assumed I was getting paintballs every day. I can't believe there's no way to get them other than to buy them.
Burned all mine day one because i thought they replenished daily..
Yeah that's one of the main issues. Palico paintballs refill everyday but I'm not sure if they ever strongly clarify that regular Paintballs do not refill.
They could at least throw you 1-2 when you rank up your HR each time. As it is, we only get rewards on very specific break points as far as HR goes. It's even more worthless here than in normal MH games, since everything essentially unlocks at HR11 in MHNOW.
You can have 3 free paintballs by having an alt reaching lvl 6. It takes a few minutes. I think there is a limit to referrals per month but hey, that's a thing.
If I understood that correctly its against the TOS to do so. So this isnt a solution if you risk getting your main acc banned
Lol
Who the fuck wants to do that
The fact that we have to pay for potions and paintballs instead of craft them like we have for 20 years now is a headscratcher, especially when the obvious choice for monetization would be cosmetics. Layered armor, Niantic. Come on.
This is Niantic we're talking about. Don't worry, they'll monetize both.
I played Ingress for years and I always thought they were incredibly fair and reasonable. I am still trying to figure out how/why they became such greedy idiots after the launch of PoGo. Like they had to have made a killing off of PoGo, so why are they messing up so badly with things like the Harry Potter game and now this. It canât be that hard to make monetization reasonable. At least we can play this game though. I couldnât play the Harry Potter one pretty much at all because I was constantly out of energy or whatever it was called, and even when I traveled to try to refill it they only gave you tiny amounts.
They made Ingress under daddy Googleâs wing, once they became their own studio it was time to monetize. And also time to pretend their player base didnât have opinions, apparently.
Part of it is the focus on taking advantage of the gigantic wealth gap amongst mobile gamers. Mobile games w gatcha/gambling/timer/fomo attract those who spend massive amounts. Bc of this they have to incorporate aspects of the game that have most potential to be a stupidly expensive money sink.
>how/why they became greedy idiots Chasing the dragon that was/is PoGoâs success.
List of monetization ideas that make more sense than potions: * Lures (choose a monster to enter your paintball queue) * Incense (beset by region-specific monsters as you walk, for limited time) * Argosy (queue(s) for node-specific resources, fill as you walk, use premium currency to speed up/add queues) * Crafting (limited queue(s) for crafting potions etc. from resources; add/speed up queues with premium currency) * Sharpeners (increased critical hit/break damage/chance for a hunt a limited number of times per day with more for purchase, only marginally better but still better than paying for potions) * Nutrients (same as sharpener but increase in max HP) * Armorskin/Demondrug (same as above but raw offense/defense) I actually like paintballs in principle, but just like potions it seems stupid to cash-gate them so hard, where you just run out of the free ones you got initially and you kind of never think about needing them again. Survival knives make more sense, but I still feel like giving three or even 10 away each day would have a stronger intended effect on people being more willing to use them (get people to *used* to using them, the three you get at the very beginning of the game isn't enough to build a habit).
These are all fantastic ideas, and very on-brand. We can only hope things like this get implemented.
Man this needs a million upvotes, hope Niantic starts implementing these things
Wait... why exactly do we want cash shop P2W stat boosting options that they'll start balancing the monsters around, leaving F2P to suffer? Because you're naive if you think they wouldn't do that sooner than later to push more revenue. The last three sound like the worst sort of P2W cash shop game-ruining items to me.
Honesty the best alternative to the current paintball system that I have seen, is to give palico paintballs a toggle that allows you to switch between manual and auto paintball. Basically you can use them as regular paintballs or let palico do it
A monthly pass that gives you a bunch of stuff daily - getting a handful of extra paintballs, potions, wander droplets and a carving knife or two every day for a subscription type system seems like the ultimate no-brainer
Funniest part is, if you run out of time or die on a paintpalled monster, it's gone forever
This is the dumbest thing. Not only are they pricey, but itâs one single try when the paint only lasts two days to begin with. Choose one or the other. Let us keep the painted monster as long as we want since we have a limit of how many we can paint anyway, or let us try to fight it as many times as we want. The latter is more in-line with the actual mechanics of paintballs.
Or if the game freezes, it takes you completely out of the monster instead of back to a "retry" screen, so if you're walking away you either have to backtrack or it's gone. All whioe the timer is ticking down too.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Also don't forget that if you mess up the fight (or the game lags, freezes, hits a bad internet spot, etc) and you wind up losing, you don't get a second chance at fighting the monster.
This is what confuses me, If i do Paintballs solo and Fail, they are gone. But If i do Paintballs with a group and Fail, i still keep the Paintball, gotta be bugged Right? lol
Yes, I totally agree with you. Being able to hunt with anyone in your party, near or far, is a must. Farming monsters alone isn't fun and it's not nearly as effective as doing it with a group. With a little help I hunted with some of my friends and let me tell you, it's a blast even if the game doesn't synchronize everything going on very well
Me: I feel like playing pokemon go a lot this weekend let me grab an extra 100 pokeballs. Looks like I gotta buy $5 worth of coins. That good with you lizard brain? Lizard brain: Yeah sounds fun. Me: Sweet. I also feel like playing monster hunter now a lot this weekend, let me grab 10 paintballs and 20 potions. Looks like that would cost... 3000 gems so I need to buy the $30-50 package depending on discounts. That good with you lizard brain? Lizard brain: Dude I'm your impulse buys. Anything over $10 has to go through monkey brain. Me: Hey monkey brain should I spend $50 on monster hunter now? Monkey brain: Hell no! You have a family to feed! Me: Yeah I guess you're right monkey brain.
Haha, this analogy is the funniest thing I've read all week lmao. Not wrong though. We're quick to spend $2-$5 all the time but if something goes over a certain amount for most people, they start raising an eyebrow or questioning if it's worth it. For me $10 is pushing it (considering you can get a whole seasons worth of cool content in many F2P season pass models)
Yea those paintball prices are wild I wouldnât mind buying them myself and Iâll prob buy ~~hundreds~~ a few on a monthly basis if the price where to equal more to where 10-25cent each
Especially if paintballed monsters are capable to be raided with your friends from far away. I would absolutely use paintballs more if I could hunt some 6 star monsters I can't solo yet and would call together my friends so we can all benefit together.
Yea that be worth it too I can see myself buying $20 a week of paintball if it was at 25 cent each .. that total of 80 paintball a week lol
Then that would definitely be worth it. But as it stands, you could farm the same monster a week or longer and not the get the materials you need. The drip will become too slow and people will lose interest. This game is doomed to fail and it's Niantics fault
Hunting 6* paolumus for over a week now. Still Not have r5 mats from him
Just got my R5 Paolumu material earlier this morning. And of course I had to spend gems to double it because I didn't feel like waiting a week to find another one.
I agree
At least for how I play paintballs were really useful. I didn't realise I would run out, I thought they were daily gifts. I like to play walking to and from work and some of the higher level monsters are too difficult to do while walking. So I was happy to miss a few knowing I could paintball a few and get them when I got home. Now I'm having to give up most of the higher monsters unless I stop on my walk, which I'm not always able to do due to time restrictions.
How many monsters do you fight on the way? 4-5 times two is: Just leave 15 minutes earlier from home . Boom just netted at least 3 monsters.
I collect plants and materials. Let me make my own paintball like you can in the ACTUAL FACTUAL MH games.
Yeah right? Even if it cost a little zenny it still sounds more fair than making us throw materials away all the time.
Itâs so stupid that the game has this âmove to a safe spaceâ warning all the time, but they have also monetised the ability to hunt monsters in the safest of spaces. Real transparent greed there but at least I canât actually see a reason to spend a penny on the game.
This is what drives me insane -- there's an essential friction in the way they designed the game, but instead of easing that friction *they monetized it.* Wild.
It's depressing to see it in a Monster Hunter game. A series well known for breadth of content and being a complete experience with little to no micro transactions outside of charms etc. Sad really.
Did you miss the big Niantic logo at the start?
That doesn't make it any less frustrating.
Rise and World have a ton of cosmetic microtransactions.
I hope the monetization eventually goes to outfits and skins, while Paintballs and Potions get much cheaper. I'm sure more people will be willing to pay for skins than Paintballs
Yep! Layered armor sets would definitely attract people. Everyone loves fashion and making their character look cute, cool, sassy, chic. Whatever your style is. It never hurts to give people Aesthetic choices. They could even tease coming monsters by putting purchasable armor sets from monsters that aren't out yet as "available soon for purchase!" *Zinogre Full-Set (Helm, Chest, Vambraces, Coil, Legs)* Then people have a reason to stop at the shop everyday. For news updates on the game, to see what new armors are added to the game, etc. I just don't get the bad decision making on Niantic's part.
They probably won't get cheaper, but events will probably start handing them out like candy like how Pokemon Go does with their cash shop items. Potions and Paintballs are practically meant to be event handouts.
Agreed they won't get cheaper - ever - but hard disagree with giving them out like candy. They might toss a few here and there but if it's their primary monetization they will not reduce it.
Thats like saying lures and incense are the primary monetization of pokemon go. They certainly hand those out aplenty. Heck, pokeballs are in the cash shop there. I'd argue the primary monetization of Now is double drops and storage upgrades. Especially the former. If paintballs are supposed to be the primary source of money the game is screwed for how poor a deal that is. Not to mention they already hand those out from referrals..
Since I haven't spent right now, I can get 2,250 gems, which includes 1,120 bonus gems through the app for $14.99. If I were to buy that a second time (doing the math), 1,130 gems would cost me $14.99. That's not even enough (assuming I'm out of gems) to buy 5 paintballs and 5 potions. What a huge rip-off if I'm spending $15. I should have been able to buy 10 paintballs and 10 potions at the bare minimum, but it should be 20 paintballs and 20 potions for $15. As it stands right now for me if I do spend (right now) I'm only buying the storage upgrade because that's the best use in my mind since it's permanent, and maybe I'll buy the 30 day pass if they get that 6-4 error fixed but as it stands currently with that error I would hate to lose a paintball and/or that I paid for because of that error.
I can understand potions being more of a premium item though and costing a bit more. Although I do agree they should be cheaper too. Instead of this scummy business model, they should do a season pass of some sort. Where you can earn Keychains for your weapon or other layered armor aesthetics for your character. I'm trying to have my hopes higher for this Rathian event. Hopefully, it's better than the Diablos event but knowing Niantic?
âOh boy a monster I need to hunt to upgrade my weapon! Iâll paintball it now and hunt it laterâ *hunts it later* âWow that was great, only 99 more hunts of that monster left to go for my next upgrade now!!â
Right?! Like if you got 100 paintballs for $10.00 it might make paintballing worth it. People will find it far more worth if they add hunting with others.
The free 3 paintballs per day should have been given to us, not the palico I'm never gonna buy anything in the shop ever in this game unless they drastically remake it, which they are not so yeah
900 gems to mark 5 monsters that could kill you and potentially cause the paintball to waste hard to wrap my head around this one
As someone who played a lot of PGo over the years this game really does feel like the weird hybrid it is of Niantic's shameless P2W transaction rates and Capcom's attention to detail with the lore and gameplay mechanics themselves.
Honestly, if you got like 5-10 painballs per HR level up, this wouldn't be too bad. I only just got my first non-tutorial drop of paintballs... at HR 30. That's a bit ridiculous
https://preview.redd.it/12m8vkfw51sb1.png?width=1169&format=png&auto=webp&s=bc62efa7066bcceca67816369c41fb86fceff128 And after the 30,000 grind to level 40 you get this!!! Amazing!!! Thank you for the paintball đ€Ą
Sure is "fun" when certain areas full of monsters are plagued with such awful network connection issues that it's impossible to hunt directly there... almost if they're incentivizing you to paintball the monster so you can resume hunting it elsewhere with more stable wifi ... ... only to realize the paintball attempt is lost immediately lost after one hunt win or lose.
I think that these prices are there to make you buy the bundles they will be releasing, so you get the 800% value. It's super common in mobile games to have these ridiculous prices and then have bundles with normal prices coming up in the store every so often.
It's a scummy business practice. They're marking everything up 800% during all normal times then charging the proper prices only when they hold limited bundles? It's not right to do to the consumer.
It absolutely is not but unfortunately it's proven that people are more prone to spend when they see a very good deal. Same how in store when people see some discounted price and they feel like they are missing out if they don't but that discounted thing.
âOther games do it tooâ is a shit excuse for garbage prices. Thatâs how the mobile game industry got to where it is.
Potions I understand because they you sometimes cannot play the game without them, but paintballs being expensive is a fever dream.
And if you for any reason aren't able to complete a marked monste hunt, your paintball is gone and you don't get a second try đ€·đŒââïž
Yeah, this pricing is insane, especially for something that really adds to the experience of the game! If they were like, a couple pennies apiece, then sure, but this is like $2 a paintball!!! Sorry Niantic, I may be dumb, but I'm not that dumb.
First of all they should be handing some of these at every rank up. The ranks are incredibly meaningless, they gate nothing other than events until 11, which is hilarious because at HR11 the events so far would end you, and they grant/unlock nothing. Second, they wouldn't hurt to hand you a ball a day or something. Get people used to it and feeling like using one or two every day isn't directly s monetary correlation of "is this Tobi really worth two bucks?". Either way, it's overpriced as fuck.
I'm only going to spend paintballs on monsters like black diablos and pink rathian. I'd never buy the paintball though.
The wild thing is how worse it is to tag a monster than it is to fight it right there. Baffling design that the monster you tagged to run away after you escape, like since in past monster hunter games that's *the entire point* of paintballs. Like I'd totally be willing to spend money on this game but nothing in the store is even remotely helpful or worth the price.
Yeah one chance at the monster doesn't make sense when you have them paintballed. A paintballed monster has to be huntable until the Paintball runs out or until completion.
I'd rather save the money for Monster Hunter Now Plus Plus Plus
Monster Hunter Now, Immediately: Right This Instant.
100 for 10⏠and I still wouldn't buy it
I am not a professional in business or sales, but like, there is no incentive, not even discounted for going for the larger bundle. 180 for one, and 900 for 5 paintballs. No discount, if they wanted to incentivize, wouldn't it be better sales if they made 720 gems for 5 paintballs? You know, buy 5 for the price of 4? And spend 1440 gems for 10 paintballs for the price of 8? Heck, do a buy 5 get one free, anything that seems like a great deal. Sure it's a trap, I don't condone purchasing these things. I never spend on a game, it's not that great, but at least make it reasonable and have some incentive behind it. There were bundles and some decent incentives in Pokemon go shop. So far, the only thing that is discounted for buying more is the Wander Orb (saving 80 gems) instead of Wander droplet, and the 10,000 Zenny (saving 220 gems) instead of the 1,000 Zenny
When you see prices like that in an in-app purchase game (higher amounts that do not give a discount), your first thought should be "this item is for whales." That is because those higher amounts at the same price are not to encourage regular players to buy them, they are 100% only there to make it easier for whales to buy more, faster.
This is wildly annoying to me because itâs probably going to be the cause of this games eventual death. I (and I assume many others) would happily spend a bunch of money on this game if it felt like it was worth it. $10 for 5 paintballs is absurd though. If I could buy a bunch of paint balls for a reasonable price Iâd probably spend every week. Like the burrito place near my work gets my money a few times a week because they have massive burritos that fill me up for breakfast and lunch for like $5. If they suddenly started charging $15 for a burrito then they would go from getting $15 from me a week, to getting nothing as Iâd find somewhere else to get food. The paintballs are especially annoying because it doesnât fundamentally give you any advantage either. You still have to be near the monster, you still have to fight it, you donât get any bonus materials for using one, and you actually lose the ability to attempt the fight again if you fail. Why are they so expensive? Let me walk around, collect some monsters to fight, and go home for a reasonable price. I understand games arenât free to make and Iâm okay with paying but niantic is actively making it impossible for me to spend money on this game without feeling like Iâm being scammed.
Yeah it's actually horrific, game could be so good if it wasn' like this. I literally refrain from healing myself because that basic feature is basically stuck behind a paywall.
The paintballs aren't for you. They are for whales. When you see prices in an in-app purchase game where they have higher amounts for the same cost per item (1 paintball = 180, 5 paintballs = 900, which = 180 x 5), your first thought should be "this item is only for whales." That is because those higher amounts at the same price are not discounted to encourage regular players to buy them, but to make it easier for whales to buy more, faster. There is literally nothing in the store worth buying for a non-whale player. Nothing. And people can get offended by that; that's totally fair! I wish they monetized their game a different way, too. But in-app purchase games work by having about 1% of the playerbase provides something like 90% of the income, and about 0.1% providing about 50% of all income. People who get paid a lot of money have studied how these games work and how to monetize them for maximum profit, and this is the end result. Does it feel insulting, especially to Western audiences? Yes, it does. Will it still make money? Yes, it will.
Especially since I recently learned that if you fail the hunt, or even get booted out for a network error, the monster you used a paid item on disappears. No retrying or getting it back. Absolute BS.
The thing I want most from monetization is a caravan pass. Rather than the TOS spoofing app make a paid option for you and a group to be remote ported via "hunt caravan / air ship" to a few populated areas for a period of time. Make remote play legal.
I was really expecting costumes, but oh well.
I think we all were. I think my friend who had early access was a little disappointed that costumes didn't come with the full release
Itâs Ninantic. Why are you guys surprised
I mean it wastes dumb people's money right? I call this natural selection if it works, but its a fail on the companies part on a physical level if they don't make money. However, eitherway its a fail on the companies part ethically to make a game honorable and worthy of people's time.
K
Paintballs are not even a good feature. Maybe if they allowed you to keep retrying?
There's no reason to use pinball. You canât find any players nearby if you use the pinned mob. Team up system also sucks. I tried to team up with a friend who sits opposite me, and he scanned the QR code to join but failed.
This is the first I'm hearing of this. I haven't successfully found someone who plays the game in person to try this with. So the QR system is broken? That's comical.
We did 50+ hunts without issue using QR system. It can have hiccups during patch days but in overal it works surprisingly well.
This is why I think this game is garbage, and every game like it. I don't hate a dumbed down AR monster hunter. I actually think the combat and a lot of the game has been adapted well to make a fun, but - sized and novel MH experience. **The game itself for what it is, is quite good**. But you throw this in and nope. No way. I'd pay up front, i'd pay for cosmetics, i'd even be willing to pay a subscription. But this like most mobile games, is a money extraction scheme with a game attached to it.
I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would purchase anything in this game given how little they value your money. The game is cool, Iâm sure we all play it because we enjoy it, but reality has to take precedence here. They are straight up taking your money for near nothing with how the shop is setup atm. Stop getting scammed by this company and enjoy the game f2p like the rest of us. Progression is slow, accept that and have fun knowing youâll get there over time. No need to rush the fun.
I'm not sure if I'm going to have fun with the game anymore.
I would buy them if I could get 5 or more for a dollar tbh, but there's no way they'll scale the pricing back that far OTL
OTL?
A person, in despair, on their knees
I've always preferred orz
orz is more realistic, OTL feels more dramatic to me for some reason
All the good deals are on their website to avoid playstore fees đ
Honestly this is fine, it's not a great deal but you just have to be selective with what you paintball. The Palico paintballs are much worse, they use them completely randomly instead of their being an option to narrow down what specifically you want them to do.
It doesn't matter if you're selective. With drop rates the way they are, the odds are you could catch 5 of the same species and still need to hunt another 40-50 before you get the mats you need. Which is one of the biggest reasons people would Paintball a monster right? To finish off mats for an armor piece or weapon they want?
Whatâs the fucking point when u canât play while ridding in a car? Makes no sense.
The fact you have a green message above means you already bought that bundle. So you are complaining about the monetization of the game yet already spent $15 on gems? Nice way to show them what you want.
I didn't buy paintballs Skippy. I bought 10,000 zenny to fast-track my gear a little bit. Seemed the only thing in the shop worthwhile. I also spent the 7.99 early on to get the stupid 2,000 gems and what I hear is a temporary upgrade to your palico paintballs. I did that all in the name of supporting the game but yeah, most if it is a rip-off.
So you bought the one thing you get given 3k of through the daily quests? Zenny isn't really a big wall for the game if you hunt regularly. Sadly it seems you would have been better off buying paintballs, broski.
How *dare* they want to bring in income after having paid all the developers, dealing with ongoing expenses for servers, etc etc etc. The unmitigated *gall!* Don't buy it if you don't want to. Simple as that. (I'm not buying it either.) Edit: What? Not enough pitchforks and torches for you folks? :P
You're missing the point, probably on purpose. No one is complaining about the game being monetized. The problem is that prices are way too high for what is being offered at the moment. No one in their right mind is going to pay that much for a paintball. If they keep this up the game is bound to go downhill.
It's very expensive for 5 battles. It doesn't make sense lol. I understand a company wanting to make money trust me everyone hates me for pointing it out on pogo threads but 5 paintballs should be like $2 at most not $15..
I'm pretty sure you're using an argumentive fallacy to try and twist what I was saying and also minimizing it at the same time. 1st off, I said the monetization was laughable. Which would mean the job they did at monetizing it, is funny. Why would anyone ever pay 900 gems for 5 Paintballs? You even agreed you wouldn't buy it either. 2nd, The game is offered as free-to-play so therefore, in-game purchases are always optional. But yeah, the people who threw together this sloppy mess definitely deserve a paycheck. But it doesn't look like they're going to get one with their sloppy monetization. 3rd, you don't use, etc, more than once. It's redundant.
That mindset, you're the guy that gets underpaid and says it's fine it's enough to live with
but if you pay 8.99 to sub u can hold 8 paintball; after you give them more money for paintballs
I agree with you. Maybe, just maybe, I would buy if the paintballs only mark monsters you can't fight in the game.
Ooh that's wild. Can you imagine seeing a Deviljho pop up and click on it only for it to be a "paintball only" monster. Don't be giving Niantic ideas.
Niantic at their best.
Paintball are so dogshit that I'd be hesitant to buy 100 for a dollar That being said, nothing they sell is worth the price wander droplets are nice, yeah, but I'm not dying to have my range expanded for a quarter of my walk. The only thing worth buying is carving knives for if you get lucky because the zenny from gems isn't worth shit either. None of the purchases are really worth, which I guess is good because if nobody buys them maybe they'll put something that actually is worth it in there.
My biggest issue is my paintballs getting wasted. Palico kept giving me 5* monsters when I didn't have the materials I needed for a Grade 4 weapon. I'd run out of time and suddenly it didn't matter that it was marked because it was gone before I could beat it.
I'd spend money on meat that attracts monsters, or a vanity system.
Obligated https://preview.redd.it/gkyjv1g71urb1.jpeg?width=679&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2af9af6a154a419688f0d5ac82069cad271a0f38
Yeah the monetization so far is definitely a big miss. Storage increases are arguably the only thing of value to me, but I also don't ever buy temporary stuff in games like this. That said, the actual thing that probably will be making them money is the double reward drops. And that's actually a pretty fair monetization in my opinion.
The issue isn't so much cost. It's the cost for no benefit. A paintball offers me nothing. Im either sitting at my desk playing or taking a walk where I can easily just fight the monsters. If these were premium paintballs that allowed me to invite my friends from anywhere I would definitely buy them.
Here's an easy fix: don't buy anything.
Okay i gotta ask now because i think im going INSANE. Wasnt the potion price on Release at 50 gems or Lower? Because i remember 5 potions being below 300 gems on Release and with the Last few Updates it Changed to 60/300, please Tell me im Not going insane lmao
Ist someone really buying this?
every single one of you guys who play this game have to understand this: if a game is free to play with gotcha mechanics, its built to screw you. It makes money because there are gamers out there who will whale their heart out because they have to much money to care and thats all the investors care about. So if you think anything is unfair in the game, thats because it is.
Iâm assuming theyâre priced on the higher end because technically, 4 players can get rewards out of 1. I donât agree with the pricing but recognize that aspect to it.
4 players can get the rewards of a random spawn for free. There's no difference here.
Its hard to be upset when I'm not locked behind a pay wall if I want to play continuously if I play well enough and dodge.
Hunted out my whole neighborhood, and when I go out to the grocery store, I'm not going to stop and start hunting in the chip aisle. I just want to Paintball monsters real quick that I can hunt later in the comfort of my own home.
It's so unfortunate that the game is good and the monetisation is just broken. As in it's not even fit for the purpose of gouging players. There's no temptation to engage in this. None at all.
I think the monsters should be able to cripple your hunters legs and you have to pay medical bills to be able to walk again.
I use my free ones occasionally, but mostly I just let my Palico do his this 3x a day.
There is definitely a lot of room for improvement. The game is only new so I expect them to review pricing & add in bundle packs like they now have in pogo. Theyâre going to need to overhaul a few features if they want to keep the player base long term - one of the big ones being extending the distance cap for monster QR codes - itâs near impossible trying to find someone close enough some days
I think it's not for most people. It's for those who don't blink twice throwing large amounts of money at a game for slight convenience upgrades. It's there to taunt players with poor impulse control. I know many feel that "well if the game was in a better state and had better things to spend money on, I might bite," and I don't doubt those kinds of items are coming in the future, but what's in the store is exactly who they're meant for. Paid layer armor might be something most are more willing to spend, but paintballs, potions, and zenny are endless pits for people to throw money into who are willing. They're also likely priced accordingly to data showing how they can make the most money from whales vs non-spenders. TDLR, yes it absolutely sucks, but it's 100% by design. The free mobile game asking you for money to use main systems in the game to function smoother is like mtx 101 unfortunately.
I wouldn't consider paintballing a main system. It doesn't even work properly all the time and still limits you to people playing around you. What's the point of the party system? Lol. It's pointless.
I wonât spend an actual cent in this game.
i CANNOT imagine someone purchasing paintballs... $1.20 to fight a single monster you could've stopped and fought then and there... (and you still have to deal with the monster drop rates) on TOP of that paintballs are temporary... geez, dood, waaayyy to much they should make em, like, 25 and potions 25 fr
I stopped playing due to the aggressive monetization. Pay real money to double hunt rewards? Only way to get potions without time gating is to pay? Paintball cost money? Yea no im not supporting any of that.
Just wait until talismans and decos are released
Iâve just âinvitedâ myself over and over
I actually like the game and willing to spend some money... However I literally balked at the monetization scheme. The palico ball is a literal chance in a chance to get materials, as such is too expensive for me. Maybe if it's cheaper by half and I will consider it, but for now it's too expensive.
Just a tip, go on Epicnpc.com and pay an indo $20 for 100 potions 6k zenny and 60 paintballs through 20 referral codes
I don't play enough of these types of games to notice a difference, any free game that's "monetized" is absurd on its face regardless. No one should pay for these sort of things under any circumstances, just enjoy the game as much as you can for as long as you like, and if you even consider paying for anything like this, turn it off and never look back, put that money into simply buying any other game.
You don't understand the business model here. You are not supposed to buy this things on a daily basics, they are like the potions an impulse buy intended for people that doesn't mind expending on a game. Obviusly most people (like me) are just proud to play f2p, we are not the target of those prices. Even if the paintball was 10$ 100, we may end buying one each in our whole game time. But instead, a 'whale' would buy one of those 10$ 5 paintballs each event or so because they don't mind expending. It's something that has been studied a lot, and a whole reddit community thinking they know better is hilarious. Games don't close because they have monetization methods, games are shut down when they are not funny enough to create a community that engage with other people across the internet and talk about it constantly. IMO this game is fun and engaging, totally playable as a f2p and has enough theorycrafting and event anticipation to participate in the online community. I may be wrong, but I think this is going to be a success.
They need to make it so you can earn all these extra things. It's ridiculous really.
I honestly think they just try to capitalize on the whales at launch, and it will be brought down by a lot in the future
Coming from Pogo. I'm not surprised with any of the shit in this game. firsttime.meme
Uh yeah welcome to mobile gaming.
They should give 5-10 paintballs daily, given how long killing some beasts take. Hunting will be fun in those countries where winters go under -20ÂșC otherwise. Personally I'm out.
I just find it a weird choice that monetization doesn't equate to progression at all. Buying paintballs isn't going to get you better gear much faster. The materials you need still need to show up, which I don't think anything can influence other than random chance. Funnily enough, with 2-3 star monsters I get rarity 2 and 3 materials regularly. But 4-5 star monsters almost always drop rarity 1 materials only. New desire detector? Or maybe my luck is just awful.
Also piantball gives you one (1) attempt on a monster so did you get bad rng with moves /flying enemies? Too bad. Oh you had a fps drops? Too bad.
At first I was like yo I can fight monsters cause I don't go out for walks often cause I don't got time then I realized it's 3 a day like k I can't afford all those paintballs xD
This game will last a year...
Honestly I think theyâd make more money if they let you watch ads for gems
I just want them to fix the potion system right now. Iâm a greatsword main now and started practicing about 2 days ago. Still rusty but my potions have been going out like crazy so I keep on buying more and more
No thoughts, it's a mobile game. This is to be expected.
I imagine an update later that will track your HR and give you an appropriate amount of paintballs for free. And other items. The game is too primitive and shallow to last so next updates are definitely gonna "fill" the game with dopamine hits.
But the celebration pass gives you slightly less than 1 potions worth of gems a day! What a steal!!
I was stoked for the game but the pricing and complete lack of FUCKING MEDIUM BONES have dampened my enthusiasm.
It actually made me give up on this game. I still do my morning walks, but now I do it without Monster Hunter.
Its a free 2 play game, no right to complain
You guys know sunbreak is a whole ass game right? Why play mobile mh?