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Domination: Earth

Pay to win?


marcofi

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Hi, I am starting to play now. I really like the idea of this game and I played a similar game in the past (Parallel Kingdom). However, as well as PK, I am worried about the pay to win logic. I would have no problem if there is a fixed price for the app, and also purely extetic purchasable items. But if there are in game benefits, that means that the person that will pay more, will surely win.

I am not going to play with a such logic. I write here to give you a last chance to convince me, since I really would like to enjoy your game.

Edited by marcofi
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Hi marcofi!

We dislike games extorting people for money in order to have a chance at winning ourselves, but I must also say that trying to convince you to play something you dislike isn't something we'd do either; each of us has different taste in games. :)

But I would like to point out that we've tried to minimize the damage from paid elements by restricting them to buildings that exist purely as shortcuts to free features (e.g. Supply Factory offering an alternative source of Supplies, which can be found in abundance just laying around) or as a different version of the Guard Tower (both the Missile Launcher and Nuclear Silo have the same effect, but achieve it in shorter amount of time), but the final outcome is still dependent on your Army alone.
And as you may have noticed, Army is built using non-premium resources only and is limited by the base level, which there's no way to purchase using Unobtainium. ;)

As I mentioned in one other thread, we would love to make everything completely free ourselves, but running the game is insanely expensive and there's only a tiny percentage of people who're willing to pay for an app before trying it first, so... here we are! :)

P.S. You may also want to ask other players for their opinion on "Domination: Earth", as 99% of them never purchased Unobtainium and only advanced through the game using free features, while I may be considered biased in this situation. ;)
We also welcome any suggestions in regard to our paid features, as we're driven by player feedback!

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Hey @marcofi nice to hear that you like the idea of domination. I think I play this game for about 2 months now and until now never encountered the feeling of a pay2win game. Please consider the unobtanium prices and what you would get for them. Those things you can buy (small amounts of resources, a permanent supply factory, missile launcher, nuclear silo) do all have its benefits but you could easily achive those benefits just by playing the game normally and just go outside a little more.

Missile Launcher and Nuclear Silo - Both can heavily damage buildings but consider that you can also build defence really quick when travelling around and collecting some resources.
Supply Factory - It delivers only 1 unit of supplies every hour (when you collect it) per upgrade level. You could easily go outside and collect one or two of those 36-heaps of supplies spawning everywhere when you are active (capture lands)
Small amounts of resources - Same argument as above, it's ridiculous how easy it would be to collect the resources without unobtanium in even greater amounts without spending lots of money.
Base Move  - Consider that the first move is free and every player should think before placing its base somewhere and it cost only one unobtanium which is nice.

Finally, unobtanium is more about supporting the developer and keep the servers running than "winning" the game. You could Indeed get nearly everything you want for huge amounts of money (for example you could not capture lands or level your base up) you had to be a billionaire to make it without actually playing the game.

mho

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@marcofi, I'll take a slightly different approach:

What is winning in Domination:Earth? 

I would argue that the win conditions are in the name of the game.  Therefore, winning is capturing the most land.  The ultimate goal is m² of land.  And you can't buy land area.  That takes time and dedication. 

You can buy personnel and supplies for larger armies, at an exorbitant(compared to just going out and collecting resources) cost.  You can buy resources for upgrading your buildings, again at an exorbitant cost.  Patience gets you a much better and more effective way to collect resources(tracking satellite), which gets better the closer you get to winning(capturing land). 

 

Right now, the only way to win Domination:Earth is spend time playing. 

Edited by Riylan
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Thank you so much for your answers. 

Yes you convinced me to play more and give it a try.

I am still at the beginning so I have to play more in order to understand by myself if and how much this game is ptw. 

Moreover probably I will not meet many players that are going to pay much, because I know the people in the places I play (Italy).

I may want to support this game in the future if I like it. In this case I will feel unconfortable to be forced to pay for some in game advantages. Could you consider to make some payable features that give no advantage in order to satisfy players like me? E.g. some aesthetic changes, useless items, or just a "support" button.

I hope that many players will have my same opinion, so that you may want to minimize the even little purchasable advantages.

Anyway, I was looking for a game like this for a long time.  Thank you for doing it, and thank you for being so fast in answering on the forum.

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34 minutes ago, marcofi said:

Anyway, I was looking for a game like this for a long time.  Thank you for doing it, and thank you for being so fast in answering on the forum.

No problem, we have a great community around here and are always happy to help! :)

In regard to supporting the game without affecting the in-game balance (e.g. a "Support" button): none of the features are purchased directly, you are actually paying for a "premium" resource called Unobtainium, which is then used to buy all the paid content.
So if you don't want to buy all the Nukes that exist in the game, you can just purchase some Unobtainium (or use one of the available subscriptions that add Unobtainium to your account weekly) and not spend it. :)
I'd be happy to throw in a Leaderboard showing the top game supporters like yourself who've simply accumulated a large number of this resource without actually using it! ;)

In any case, welcome to "Domination: Earth"; we hope you enjoy it!

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Interesting discussion this...

Since at this point I am leading all leaderbords and am just spending time I agree with the others it is not pay to win. It is a great game to play especially when you travel and have some time to click now and than. However I do understand the fact that the developers need to make some money. Hence I have been wondering what I like to get in return for money... nukes are nice but that would not have my preference. 

Nicer features for my lands would be;

-something like world wonders or A palace that might be visible on the map for all?

- nicer land view, perhaps that your land becomes a combinations of all your buildings build with the wall around them and some houses?

-to start up an alliance with more people and give that some extra social benefits like chat, trade or sharing of armies? And perhaps that your lands can overlap each other' bases.

Others suggested;

-slight increase of the pick up range (only really useful in the beginning, but it would speed up collecting & hence progress); suggested was 10m jumps I would suggest to max 100m for maybe 5 unobatanium per 10 m?

 

I am sure on the discord we will come up with more, but the above I can see work as well. It is hard to guess what will be handy in the future when the number of bases we all own increases... (but i guess that might ask for more additions)

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Many of the mentioned things sound very interesting. I especially like the idea of places visible for all like @The one true king mentioned.

5 hours ago, The one true king said:

something like world wonders or A palace that might be visible on the map for all?

How about something expensive like a permanent resource station one could place on the map wherever he wants to and everyone would get a small amount of this resource when collecting in its range. This would be a thing which is definitively worth paying unobtanium for. All players could see and if they move to it profit from it. The one placing it could place it somewhere where he knows he and maybe his allies are often around. Maybe also add the possibility to defend and destroy it.

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22 minutes ago, Ruvox said:

Many of the mentioned things sound very interesting. I especially like the idea of places visible for all like @The one true king mentioned.

How about something expensive like a permanent resource station one could place on the map wherever he wants to and everyone would get a small amount of this resource when collecting in its range. This would be a thing which is definitively worth paying unobtanium for. All players could see and if they move to it profit from it. The one placing it could place it somewhere where he knows he and maybe his allies are often around. Maybe also add the possibility to defend and destroy it.

That sounds really good indeed! I'll add it to the task list but cannot comment on any guarantees due to the aforementioned task list's length. :D
Some of the other suggestions mentioned above are already in the same list, so stay tuned!

In any case, we seem to have gone slightly off-topic here; let's move any paid feature suggestions into a separate thread just in case other players decide to comment on the original question (whether "Domination: Earth" is pay-to-win or not). ;)

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  • Mr. D pinned this topic

Ik did this is a really dead thread I apologize for graveyarding it back to the current time but I think it holds relevant again. Currently there's a player talking about how he got money and got a nuclear Silo and is now an able to crush players with 1000 troops in other huge feats in a few minutes just because they put money down. The nuclear silos entirely too overpowering and it needs to be either majorly nerfed or possibly replaced.

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9 hours ago, Republic of America said:

Ik did this is a really dead thread I apologize for graveyarding it back to the current time but I think it holds relevant again. Currently there's a player talking about how he got money and got a nuclear Silo and is now an able to crush players with 1000 troops in other huge feats in a few minutes just because they put money down. The nuclear silos entirely too overpowering and it needs to be either majorly nerfed or possibly replaced.

I wouldn't believe everything that's being said by other people online. :)

Not only each shot from the Nuclear Silo costs 5 Unobtainium in addition to all the construction costs (that is roughly $5 per single missile), it has zero effect on armies and the aforementioned 1000 troops would disable and defeat Nuclear Silo if they attacked land on which it stands (remember, no offensive structures can fire if there's a battle going on nearby).
And as mentioned in previous posts, the conversion rate for resources purchased via Unobtainium is just not good enough to acquire large armies; 1000 Personnel costs 500 Unobtainium and no one's been generous enough to pay that much for a single battle. :)
So it's highly unlikely that the majority of players will suffer from Unobtainium-fuelled attacks.

Please let me know if you disagree though!

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46 minutes ago, Mr. D said:

1000 Personnel costs 500 Unobtainium and no one's been generous enough to pay that much for a single battle. :)

The first in the Top Game Supporters list has a value of 6690. Is that Unobtaimium quantity? Is that a real player?

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10 minutes ago, marcofi said:

The first in the Top Game Supporters list has a value of 6690. Is that Unobtaimium quantity? Is that a real player?

It is indeed Unobtainium units and that is a real person, yes (and we are extremely grateful for his support; I'm considering putting his account in a frame on the office wall). :)
But as you can see it's only 1 person on the entire planet who could possibly launch an "Unobtainium-fuelled battle campaign", but something tells me he has better things to spend this resource on. :)

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9 hours ago, Republic of America said:

This us still s concern to me. However if you feel it is well balanced I'll wait and see but u don't want to see this become p2p

I don't think it's perfectly balanced, I'm just presenting my arguments in support of a theory that Unobtainium threats are greatly over-exaggerated. :)

However, if I start receiving reports from Unobtainium victims and evidence that this functionality actually causes harm I would be happy to review it (and any suggestions are welcome). ;)

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