So, it’s abstracted out, but think of it as building up a town/outpost (in previous version of the game, you actually did have a town where you were constructing buildings, etc, from an overhead view. The idea is the same, but it’s been abstracted away).
A large chunk of your player stats are derived from Survivors, which you can get via quest rewards and loot llamas and the like. These survivors are slotted into various squads. For example, adding survivors to your EMT squad will raise your HP. Other squads increase your damage, the effectiveness of your traps, etc.
There are different kinds of EXP in the game: Hero, survivor, schematic, etc. Hero levels up the characters your play. Survivor levels up the survivors you have assigned to your squads. Schematic levels up the guns/traps you craft.
So, the point of rescuing those trapped people you find around the map is that they provide Survivor EXP. This provides you points that you can use to level up survivors in town, which in turn increases your stats.
Regarding Heroes, those are the characters you play. You can only play as one Hero in a mission, but they also have support abilities. You get the ability to set up a hero squad, where you can have a couple other heroes provide bonuses to your active one while on a mission.
Scuttlebutt is that this title is very heavily monetized in the elder game, such that you essentially can’t progress without paying. So beware of that.
You level up individual heroes. Older/unwanted heroes can be “retired” (turned into soylent green, I guess) in order to provide Hero XP. The same holds true for Survivors and Schematics. They can be discarded to provide Survivor and Schematic XP, respectively.
That is what I really wanted to know and is the strongest part of my buying decision. The game looks really cool, but there is no way I want to get involved if I will get stuck against a soft wall where the only way to get around is to pay more money.
From my experience, there’s quite a lot of game to enjoy before any sort of paywall. I have a friend who didn’t put any money in, while I think I bought $20 worth of vbucks for a few llamas.
So if you may find another soldier who is level 1, but has much superior stats to another level 1 soldier (the one you started with) and then pick the new hero who has the same level curve as a basic hero. You can then recycle an older hero to quickly level the new hero?
Correct. The amount of XP you get from retiring a Hero is based on their level as well as their quality, IIRC. In fact, you’ll need to retire guys in order to level up to new tiers, for Heroes, Survivors, and Schematics. A blue quality item provides a material that is used to progress to a new tier (a tier is 10 levels), for example. At least that’s how it worked in alpha.
You’ll have an excess of schematics, heroes, and survivors you find from llamas along the way, so you’ll be discarding those to level up the things you do like. You also earn the different types of EXP via doing the missions.
You won’t need to buy anything once it’s officially released sometime next year, as it’s a F2P title. Just not gentle F2P, apparently. Of course until then it’s B2P with heavy monetization, which really sucks.
And again this only becomes a problem in the endgame. You can play it casually and not pay anything at all. The monetization only hurts those that really like the game. Which I guess isn’t much of a recommendation, when you think about it.
This is my view on monetize games:
Some games do this right, because the things you buy are purely aesthetic or have no real impact on game-play. Path of Exile is this kind of game. I have no problems with this.
Then there are games that these monies give you an actual game-play advantage. In a PvP game this is totally unacceptable in any form. In a co-op or PvE game it CAN be ok.
If I can play the game at my own pace and complete it in a reasonable time without paying anything extra, then this is ok. It is also OK if they provide some shortcuts to people who do not have a lot of time. Maybe they work a lot and do not want to chop down a bunch of trees to get wood or whatever. The pay system just gives them a boost to keep up with their friends. This is fine.
However, if you play a reasonable amount of time per week and then at some point finding that have so many hours of play your just not getting anywhere unless you spend some real $, then that is NOT ok.
I am morally opposed to this, so even if I can get 40 hours play out of this game, it does not matter. I do not want to support this model of game.
I am trying to figure out on what side of the fence Fortnite sits on.
Fortnite isn’t what you describe above, but neither is it Path of Exile (which is hands down the best F2P system out there, IMO). I’d say it’s a little closer to something like Warframe, which I put on the tier below PoE but above 95% of the F2P offerings.
Nothing is going to drop a wall and say “Pay us to get past here”. I never saw a content gate. You’ll still be running and completing missions. You can earn some vbucks in-game (not a huge amount, but they’re available via some defense mission milestones as well as Daily login rewards periodically).
Vbucks are used to purchase llamas, which contain a collection of items ranging from Heroes, Survivors, and Schematics. Llamas are often themed, such as a trap llama, a hero llama, etc. They are guaranteed to contain items of the category you’re looking for.
Now, it’s pretty trivial to get Blue quality items without spending money. In my experience, this is your bread and butter anyway (purple and gold items are very expensive to craft, and keep in mind that everything breaks down so they need to be replaced). It’s also pretty trivial get a variety of Blue quality heroes to play around with, which are solid.
Now, if you’ve been playing the game like crazy and you want to get that very specific Legendary quality hero/item, that’s where you might have trouble because the chance of you getting that specific thing with one llama isn’t going to be super high. For instance, if I have all the ninjas in purple quality but I really want a legendary Dim Mak ninja, it’s probably going to take multiple llamas. That doesn’t mean that legendary Dim Mak ninja is necessary, though. I’m getting through just fine with my epic quality Assassin ninja.
Maybe there’s a point in the game where you really need Legendary heroes and the like, but I never hit it in probably over 100 hours of playing (granted, there was a wipe or two in there, but I still progressed quite far. The bulk of my time was played within one wipe). For me, I’ll likely be done/bored with the game before I hit that point. Plus, it’s a cooperative game, not competitive, and it contains public matchmaking. It’s not like you’re going to be excluded from some raid/guild because your don’t have a super duper widget like in a MMO.
Anyway, that’s just my experience and it was prior to the EA release, so things might be subject to change. I never felt like I had to spend money. I did end up spending some because I was having a lot of fun with the game and I have no problems financially contributing to a game that I’m playing that much. I buy cosmetics in PoE for the same reason, despite not really giving a crap about them.
Besides, one thing I’ll say is that fundamentally this game is a shooter. You might have a Legendary hero and a legendary weapon that I don’t have, but I can still easily outplay you because I’m better at the game. The small stat difference doesn’t make up for the fact that I’m landing more headshots or building my base more intelligently.
awesome description!! dead on! The variability of rewards at the end of a mission also doesn’t appear to be THAT wide as well (unless you’re falling asleep vs. playing)
The largest criticism of the game that I’ve seen above and feel likewise is the lack of some explanation of things.
Like how to get higher level chests after a mission. I understand how to improve my grade to get the higher medals for shooting, crafting, and building. But there are other categories that I’m at a loss as to how to do better at it. (ah I’m forgetting the name of those now like utility?)
What I read yesterday is that people who are trying to push the limits of progression have hit a point where they can’t progress without paying. This ties on with what @KevinC said about grind or lack thereof. Simply put, if you are the sort of player who wants to “beat” the game, this might not be the best game for you. It seems like a journey game more than a destination one.
I just don’t get this… maybe I’m old… but this game has been early released for all of what? less than 1 week? and people bitching about not being able to do “end game content” with out paying to get more chests?
Sounds like they pushed/progressed through the content ASAP such that they are significantly far along the single player campaign, and to keep moving on, they need to materials/weapon upgrades/etc.
I guess I’m just having fun doing any mission, many of the areas I can do are a joke/easy… I have a couple of Legendary weapons I got that I can’t even craft… nor find components for. but the blue weapons I have do a fine job.
I’m playing this game for fun… It’s displaced games like Overwatch or Heroes of the storm that I usually play maybe an hour or so each night; but with a loose campaign to follow.
If you continue playing an hour per night, eventually you’ll hit an inflection point where it’s incredibly grindy to progress without paying. That’s the point.
Is that sort of candy crush style bullshit acceptable in a F2P game? I guess, but I would steer far away personally. In a B2P game it’s abhorrent.
I see the devs have a State of the Game post on progression past the 50+ hour mark. I haven’t had a chance to read through it all, but it seems to address progress complaints.
Again, in ~100 hours with the game, I never hit a paywall of any sort. I just didn’t want to restart again after a wipe until the game was at least out in EA. You can grind missions and survivors to continue to increase your numbers, so I’m not sure where the paywall is supposed to be. I’m wondering if some of the catasses that have pushed so far aren’t unlike the little kid running down a hill so fast he’s tripping over his own feet. Just because you can reach a particular area doesn’t mean that you’ve built your survivors up enough to tackle it. That was always the solution for me in the alpha, not more vbucks.
No, I’m parroting what I heard on other boards and youtube videos. You aren’t literally forced to pay, it isn’t a hard wall. It’s a soft wall. This is very common in F2P games. You can theoretically play candy crush forever without paying, but there’s an inflection point where it gets punishingly difficult to continue.
In Fortnite they don’t spike the difficulty, but the only way to progress your character is endless grinding for rare equipment which you then chop up into crafting materials to craft the stuff you actually want. So you are faced with the choice between grinding missions for dozens of hours for a single meaningful upgrade-- or buying some llamas.
@KevinC: Yep this is absolutely a fixable problem, and the game is still 6+ months out from “release”. But they’re charging for access today, making it B2P, and their store accepts real money, so as far as any reasonable observer is concerned, the game is out.
