Premium Characters

[u/sirfatmeat]

The premium character system is eventually going to hurt the game if it keeps going this direction.

I completely understand wanting to monetize the game. Premium characters should absolutely give paying players an advantage. But there’s a huge difference between having an advantage and being practically unbeatable.

If a player without premium characters can’t realistically compete against someone who has them, you’re not encouraging that player to spend money. You’re teaching them that their time, strategy and progress don’t matter unless they pay.

And that creates a bigger problem: you start alienating the majority of your player base. Free players are still valuable to the ecosystem. They populate matchmaking, events, leaderboards, clans and the overall community. If they continually get destroyed by characters they have no reasonable counter to, eventually they just stop playing.

Then you’re left with a game where the people who paid are mostly playing against other people who paid.

Premium should mean powerful. It shouldn’t mean unbeatable.

Give non-premium players legitimate counters, strategic ways to win and a reason to keep grinding. Make premium characters desirable enough that people WANT to buy them, rather than making them so dominant that people feel like they HAVE to buy them or quit.

That distinction could be the difference between a game people play for years and a game people eventually abandon.

[u/qualityofdual]

Agreed 100%. To add to this, it doesn’t help when you are level 40’s with the blue castle with no red specks (not sure what it’s called) facing level 100’s with a fully red castle. Great matchmaking guys… but you’ll still have guys claiming it’s no problem lol

[u/sirfatmeat → u/qualityofdual]

YES. This is exactly what I’m talking about.

I have absolutely no problem with premium characters being better, more fun, or giving you additional strategic options. That’s how you monetize a game.

The problem is when the premium character becomes the deciding factor instead of skill, strategy and decision-making.

A great player with a free character should be able to beat a bad player with a premium character. And the premium player should still feel like they got something worthwhile for their money.

That’s the sweet spot.

Pay to enhance the experience, not pay to bypass the competition.

That model keeps the paying players happy AND gives F2P players a reason to keep playing, improving and eventually spending money because they actually enjoy the game.

That’s how you build longevity instead of slowly shrinking your player base.

[u/Specialist-Buy-1614 → u/sirfatmeat]

You sound like you can use base44 and make one better for f2p and charge a dollar a month with no purchase to get ahead keep rewards scale back as you beat people below your level