The Last Poster Wins! [v23]

[Chakramaster]

That’s another big one. Merchants are each getting their own exclusives for the game. Where you have to reserve the game with them to get an exclusive item for these games. You can only get it from them too. Reserved it with someone else? Too bad. That’s been quite annoying.

[Neo Emolga]

Yeah, that and Season Passes are becoming infamous. I used to get Season Passes because it was a cheaper method to get all the DLC in advance and you got that DLC exactly when it arrived. Now, it's a bait and switch scheme where you think you're getting all the DLC in advance, but what you get out of it is junk DLC right at the game launch that should have been in the standard game package to begin with and then there's more DLC beyond the coverage of the Season Pass which totally defeats the original purpose of it.

But yeah, no more "pay to win" games for me. If an online game puts you up against other people who can gain an in-game advantage because they purchased microtransaction benefits, I'm instantly walking out on that. That's even worse than letting hackers run around freely because the developer is now capitalizing on players wrongfully getting an advantage over each other instead of actually earning their resources or building their skill in the game.

And yeah, I agree with Noble, thankfully Nintendo doesn't usually do this kind of thing. These are just some of the many reasons why I got a Switch rather than a PS4 or XBox One.

[Noblejanobii]

Yeah Nintendo has kinda done that reserve with a merchant get a special item thing with Gamestop, but in my experience with pokemon at least it's always just like 200 pokeballs or something so nothing game breaking.

[Chakramaster]

Even certain groups like that, that said they didn’t want to go that route finally have. I guess they figured it’s just catching up with the times and age. Where to keep up you have to offer more. To offer more means you gotta work harder and more often. To do that you need to get paid. So there’s your deal breaker and your “season pass” and “dlc.”

[Neo Emolga]

I've heard stories about people spending thousands of dollars just to keep up with other people in online games because of how horribly bad escalation of commitment situations and peer pressure from guildmates had become. That's just ridiculous and no game is worth that kind of money sink.

Also, if a "free" smartphone game has enough money to advertise on television (and especially during the Super Bowl), run like hell from it. That's the kind of junk that's guaranteed to be fueled by microtransactions and the only people that are going to do well in it and be on the top are going to be the ones that have the most disposable income to waste on it. Every time I've tried one of these kinds of games on a free play basis, I've seen it where you will eventually hit a wall where you can no longer progress because you'll inevitably be up against people with game-breaking microtransaction-fueled benefits and advantages. And that's one of the worst ways to spoil a game.

Recently I tried playing Disney Heroes because hey, it seemed like a fun and cool idea to have a crossover game with Judy Hopps from Zootopia battle alongside Ralph from Wreck-It-Ralph, Sully from Monsters Inc, and so on. And... I tried to ignore the microtransactions being constantly pushed in my face. Problem is spending actual money is the only way to get certain heroes on your team. Heroes which, as you probably guessed, often have a way bigger advantage than the standard heroes that you can earn through regular play. That and those same microtransactions allow you to beef up your characters further and faster than just playing normally. Considering there are PvP Arenas, guild wars, and all that other stuff, you're going to run into this problem if you play this game. And that was a terrible disappointment, but I think I'm going to have to pull the plug on this one, too.

At the end of the day, microtransactions are like paying off the Olympic Committee to be allowed to use steroids, get head starts in races, and have more players on your team than the other guys.

[Noblejanobii]

Yeah and thankfully Nintendo was even pretty good about that with Pokemon Duel and Pokemon Quest. Sure in Pokemon Duel players definitely get a leg up by buying new pieces in advance or whatever for pay, but those pieces are made available to the public later and while it is harder for the most part you can obtain enough jewels to get rarer figures or possibly draw them from boxes. I didn't pay a cent for any of the rare figures I have and I have some of the better ones in the game.

Fate/Grand Order is pretty similar and even though their gacha pool is... very bad, it's not an awful system.

[Shruikan]

Ouch, don't remind me of Disney Heroes... Still mad that EVE was a "Premium" character with no way of getting her beside forking over for the loot boxes.

Dragalia Lost is pretty good with the microtransactions. You get a ton of free characters, and your first character is guaranteed to be a rare one,but all the more common characters are useable, and even better in some cases. Plus, the only multiplayer is co-op, so having a stronger/rarer character is only needed in the super end game bonus boss stuff.

Fire Emblem Heroes on the other hand... Well, at least they're removing the earliest 5*s from the pool for new characters, so that's a start.
PVP? Check. Less than 3% chance of getting the character you want at the best of times? Check. Each summon costs around £2? Check. Need 11! of said character to get them to full power, not to mention certain other 5*s to trade over abilies from? Check.
Most consistant FTP way of getting new characters? Doing well in the PVP mode. -_-

[AD]

Fire Emblem Heroes.....

IVE THROWN SO MUCH MONEY AT IT. FATE FORGIVE ME.

That game is mint af, help me

[Neo Emolga]

Ouch, don't remind me of Disney Heroes... Still mad that EVE was a "Premium" character with no way of getting her beside forking over for the loot boxes.

I'll admit, I was legitimately enjoying Disney Heroes for a while but I'm now at the point where I've hit the wall and I'm essentially stuck because progressing any further in the campaign for me (I'm on stage 9) is impossible, so I can't get any of the badges I need to evolve my best heroes (I tend to run with Judy Hopps, Merida, Baymax, Stitch, and Sully or Moana). And now my coliseum and arena ranks are stuck because the only people getting promoted are the ones who obviously have orange-level heroes and six-star ranks thanks to microtransactions. Meanwhile, they've introduced newer heroes that totally made a mess of everything. Olaf is so hilariously broken because you have to defeat him 3-4 times before he's officially defeated, and each time he revives, he gets full health and freezes your entire party. And his "ultimate" is freezing your party yet again. Maleficent is another one that's also seriously overpowered, and that's definitely one that's impossible to get unless you're busting out your credit card.

You know there's something really fishy going on when my team, with a power rank of 40K, loses to a team that's around 30K. :\

[Noblejanobii]

Yeah the one thing I'll say about FGO is that at least powering up characters isn't absurd. You only need to get a character six times to fully power their Noble Phantasm (special attack), and with some of the rarer characters like Arthur or Mary Reed & Anne Bonny it's really not necessary because their attacks are so powerful without being boosted. But even then some of the lower ranked characters like Cu Chulainn are common enough that while they don't start out great once you boost his NP a couple times he becomes a monster of a character. And while I hate that you can't level them up by grinding battles and have to use essences as the only way to power them up, it's not hard to do so since they have EXP, money, and item events literally every day of the week. You just gotta make sure you pick the right day of the week for whatever class you want to power up.