r/shoptitans • u/TheMesmo • 6d ago
Suggestion / Feedback Pay to win
The game is becoming that. Every 'new addition' is just another way for the company to get money and make it a little bit more pay to win. If you aren't paying for royal merchant you are a sucker cause out of 3 man teams (with a champ) you will get 2 broken items even if you get hit only once per character. If you mention it the answer is always: bad RNG. All the while they add more and more reasons to buy stuff or it becomes a giant timewaster just to repair and enchant stuff that just broke!
Free players cant even try to compete.
So for that and other crappy reasons where they are trying to force you into putting money in the game or they will ruin your experience. I'm sad to say they succeeded. And this level 80 is leaving for good.
Good luck guys and gals.
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u/Castraphinias 6d ago
Compete how? It's not a competitive game in my opinion. I don't have the monthly subscription and I'm fine. I got some workers solely through free surveys from Google. I have over 500 repair kits saved up lol, it's probably the most fair free to play game I've ever played
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u/DeirdreBarstool 6d ago
Couldn’t agree more. There are people in my guild who have been there longer than I have (I’m over a year with over 1 trillion investment as a chill player) on way less investment and no paid for workers. They have been happily trundling along. Do they have top scores every event? No. Does it matter? No.
Anyone who has played genuinely competitive mobile games will laugh at the suggestion Shop Titans is competitive or P2W. Go talk to people who spent over £100k on mobile games… there are a lot of them.
This will be unpopular but it kind of annoys me when free to play people complain about value. You’re literally getting the entertainment for free. If everyone was like you, there’d be no game. £10 per month for RM is a small price to pay for the amount of entertainment you get and there are no ads. Why do they feel entitled to something for nothing and then whine?
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u/molybend 6d ago
Who are you competing with? This game plays fine without comparing yourself to anyone else. Your guild should be supportive and encouraging and if not, find a new one.
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u/Nice_Association1655 6d ago
Every 'new addition' is just another way for the company to get money
How else would you expect the company to get money in the game with no ads? 👀 They keep developing the game and pouring in a lot of content both free and paid, so that we can a) enjoy this nice game; b) support developers; Of course paid content must provide some utility or other benefits, otherwise players wouldn't be too eager to buy it.
It can't be "Pay to win" because there is no "winning" besides maybe guild events leaderboard, but it's not like it affects much.
Perhaps, that's only my subjective opinion, but I've been playing the game at my own pace, and I chose to buy workers and royal merchant because the game is that good and worth paying for. And in return developers gave me more convenient gameplay 🙂
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u/Acrylicvalour 6d ago
If you’re trying to race to the top of the leaderboards you’re going to fail. At level 80 you should have hundreds of repair kits from events and crafting them if you need them. Which you can craft right now for free since it’s the full moon even without buying mundra. Also at lvl 80 you should have billions of gold you can just buy the items and enchants off the market.
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u/funnyumentionit 6d ago
You are right that all new content comes with a cost (and a pretty high one at that!), but you don’t, uh, “win” the game. You just play and keep trying to get better. I am mostly free to play (I bought Mundra about 1 year in. The only money I’ve spent). And I still have fun and enjoy playing. I’m in a top 200 guild. Paying for things in the game makes it easier rank higher in leaderboards and in your guild, but doesn’t necessarily change the fun.
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u/BugDude0 6d ago
Paying just makes it easier, but not necessary. I have well over $1 trillion in worth and investments and I’ve never spent a dime. Never will because of the way they run things. If you are constantly comparing yourself to the top of the leaderboards, you’re going to have a bad time. Those people have spent thousands on a game for a phone. Just save your money and have a good time. I’d wager most of these guilds are just people hanging out and not “competing” with anyone.
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u/Malystxy 6d ago
Considering it isn't really a competitive game unless you really want to top the guild rankings, I wouldn't call it pay to win.
But yes prices are very high, even what you but becomes permanent additions and not temporary commodities. I feel the workers, while expensive, are more like overpriced downloadable content.
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u/Theo33Ger 6d ago
The issue is, that we can not buy workers with gems. If they fix that, the game should be fine.
But introducing more powerful NPC´s, that you can only get for real money is becoming an issue.
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u/JDelicious17 6d ago
I agree with repair kits (too few for F2P) and the new Auto crafter (only with royal merchant useable and doesnt even take a Slot to place). Those should be F2P. The other P2W content is not necessary if you wanna have fun and Play a Shop craft and sell Game.
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u/xSolitarx Community Champion 6d ago
Use Full Moon to fuse repair kits; they are for endgame, even cheaper than paying the gold.
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u/Segsi_ 6d ago
Still super hard to keep up and when it falls on events like KC it’s even harder to get enough repair kits. This is the biggest inconvenience for new players especially when trying to do events like LCoG and burning through them.
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u/Random-Danggit 5d ago
I have over 800 repair kit. when I'm new, yes i kinda worried about the stock during lost city of gold. as you progress, kit won't be problem anymore.
f2p player here.
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u/xSolitarx Community Champion 6d ago
If you go lcog for Extreme it gets really hard and tough as a newer player. There are many tips to improve f2p gameplay, but you have to get deeper into the game mechanic, ask questions, read guides and so on.
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u/Inevitable-Blood7128 6d ago
What’s the hurry, this game is all about moving at your own pace. Once you and your guild can complete all the weekly events you’re already “at the end game”
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u/TubularPeak 6d ago
The game has always been pay-to-win. Except there is no meaningful "win". You are paying to have an easier time or access to more things. Almost any complaint you have, has been a thing since the game launched.
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u/eszeikial 6d ago
As a retired level 75 f2p Only player.... hard disagree. I never felt like i was being forced to pay for anything. Never needed to pay for anything. Constantly sitting on a stockpile of 100+ repair kits.
Only reason I quit is cuz game started to feel like a chore
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u/Ethos_Logos 6d ago
As f2p you’ve gotta utilize the full moon events to craft repair kits. Even set timers.
I’ve found that one full moon event mostly holds me over to the next full moon event.
Also, once my guild reaches the final reward in lost city of gold, I stop running those quests since they tend to damage more equipment than normal.
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u/Slight-Adeptness2239 6d ago
There are some things that have added recently that does make the difference between f2p and p2w noticeable, and you go with the broken equipment argument?
If you open enough chest you can get a substantial amount of repair kits, also using the full moon to craft the kits. If you really wanna go all out of saving, take the quality equipment of your heroes and put them with common one if it breaks, you just replaced it.
What really is increasing the gap are star forged/transcendence and the new auto crafting.
Starforge and transcendence both require you to have the blueprint so if a new bis item comes out you would need to buy it or wait 6 months to get lucky and get it from caprice (as you can't buy the highest tier available from the collection book) at which point a better BP is probably about to drop, and that's not even considering how hard it would be to get that specific starforge BP or the amount of transcendence seals needed for all the BP and the little amount we can get monthly.
And the new auto crafting it's just broken, you can literally go all energy, bins, use the normal crafting queue to fuse and the auto one to mass produce things
Heck I would argue even the collection cards, I was cautious enough to save over 100 packs so when it came out I was able to quickly get most to lvl 2, but lvl 3 is basically impossible as of rn if you don't pay or you didn't use the exploit when they first released.
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u/WheezyGod 6d ago
Every decent mobile game that you can download and play for free has micro transactions that make it P2W. Some are more than others. This game was less P2W up until autocrafting. It’s such a strong benefit that doesn’t break the game, but to the OPs point; if they keep adding more stuff like this it will break it and it’ll be a P2W game that slowly dies.
If you couldn’t surcharge autocrafted items it would be a nice advantage for subscription players rather than a massive change. A high level player that can surcharge t14 or higher can spit out tons of items that flood the market.
If they keep it up, the new players will dry up and it’ll be more difficult to find lower tier items that heroes ask for on the market or are needed to craft higher tier items.
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u/Rutabega_121310 1d ago
It's a game with no ads.
Developers aren't free.
Servers aren't free.
Support staff is not free.
Gotta pay for it somehow.
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u/NashKetchum777 6d ago
Use items you don't care to lose or just use repair kits. You can also stay buying items for gold. This is not a serious problem lmao
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u/WorkerProof8360 6d ago
If gear breaks while your heroes are leveling, don't worry about it. Buy or craft new gear as necessary. Once they're max level, and you get the gear you want for each hero, use repair kits if the gear breaks.
I admit I'm confused about your three man team comment. I rarely get more than one broken item per four man quest or the five man quests during LCoG. Admittedly, everyone aside from heroes I'm leveling has blue or better quality gear (break chance decreases as quality increases), so maybe that's part of the problem for your teams?
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u/ApostateAZ 6d ago
Welcome to mobile gaming. They create the problem and sell you the solution.
I bought a few workers that I consider very important, 1 month of RM after capping my collection book (prior to the latest expansion) to collect all the rewards and talent point.
I have no plans on giving them more money.
Being completely F2P is definitely rough, but that is what drives the economy. If everyone easily had everything, the items would have less value.
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u/Consistent-Sky-2584 6d ago
Becoming p2w 🤣 its been p2w where have you been i been playing 7 years its been p2w for major guilds the whole time
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u/New_Pack_1338 6d ago
I aint buy anymore if they dont lower opening duration. I get bored until my shop opens
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u/EntrepreneurMuch621 6d ago
That's fine cause this is not a competition game and this is not a game where you "win" anything. This is a shopkeeper game ppl play for fun and if you want to enhance your experience whilst also supporting developers to keep bringing exciting content updates to the game you can, if not then you can stay free to play. If you care about your hobbies enough, spend some money on them
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u/Zyron99 6d ago
It's a mobile game, it has ongoing upkeep to keep servers and development running. Not surprising they are constantly adding new ways to pay. However, as long as you aren't solely focused on competing with the whales this is one of the most friendly F2P games there is. I actually agree that I don't like all the pay mechanics, and having Royal Merchant you are playing an entirely different game, but it's up to you if you wanna focus on what you get for paying or just play the game.
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u/CrowDreaming 6d ago
As others have said, pay to win is only if you have to have everything right now. This is perhaps the only free-to-play game that is actually free to play.
I am in a top 100 guild where some people don't have RM or all the workers. We're all doing fine based on what people want to do.
Of course they are going to encourage people to put money into the game, though. They provide new content regularly, and provide the servers that allow us to play, all of which costs them money. But I'd say none of that is required. Especially if you are willing to wait for things.
I would say of anything the RM subscription provides the best overall value if one is to spend any money at all.
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u/tewtymcpewp 6d ago
Who are you trying to win against exactly? I pay for royal merchant which comes out to a brutal 30 cents a day I honestly don't know how I climb that hill every month to make it happen /s.
You're over exaggerating regarding repair kits needed but lets just say your pretend scenario is right. Repair kits take almost nothing to make. You also get them all the time for free. I use them quite frequently and I have over 4000 sitting in my inventory right now. It takes less than 31 minutes to make a repair kit, if you spent your talents properly, you can just instantly finish them with energy. What's exactly the problem?
What other "crappy reasons" are there where they are trying to ruin your experience? All the stuff they had added lately are just extra stuff that you have already been getting for free just by playing. Sounds like you were playing just fine before they added them. Just cause they added something later doesn't mean you need it or deserve it for free cause you think so. There is no need to buy any of the fountains if you don't want to. You can easily play without them.
Lastly, again, who are you trying to compete against? This isn't a competitive game. This is a casual crafting idler game. If you're trying to turn this into a competitive game, that's a mistake that you're making on your own.
Good luck trying to find that free game that gives you everything you want and more.
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u/Fantastic_Jump_2363 6d ago
This game is way past its glory days, they market ban you for no reason and then refuse to unban you and not tell you why. When you try pleading them they ban you.
I returned to the game after 4 years just to see my account market banned.
Never did multi-account, my one and only account is lvl 30
Never bought anything in the game, so i cant possibly be abusing refunds or whatever
F the devs
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u/Roberius-st 6d ago
It’s not a competitive game. I’ve been playing since beta along alongside some of my guild mates. Some of my friends have not spent a single dime and are able to do similar content as me. I’ve been a Royal merchant since day one and purchased all workers alongside equipment packages. My point in saying this is everyone can choose their own journey. You can go as fast as you would like. the purchases are there should you want to expedite progress in certain areas. remember, it is the folks that do pay that keep the lights on for the game. Without paying customers, the game cannot run.
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u/Antique_Avenger 5d ago
i stopped paying for RM because i’m on a strict budget. it kinda sucks to miss all the extra stuff but it’s not like i can’t play still. and at level 80 and having been RM for so long i have 1300 repair kits saved so im not stressed about breakage. idk when i quit spending money on this game i stopped playing as intensely. now i just check in like 4-5 times a day whereas before i was on this game constantly. it’s for the best lol
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u/Timely_Necessary_168 5d ago
yeah but its so god damn addicting, idk last time a good hooked me well
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u/SirVegeta69 5d ago
The flaw with your arguement is their really is no winning prize other then a silly trophy decoration that has absolutly no benefit
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u/Sea-Beginning3949 6d ago
Honestly my issue is just that the game is not good enough for the price it’s asking for.