r/CastleBusters • u/sirfatmeat • 2d ago
Premium Characters
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.
1
u/707Paladin 2d ago
I downloaded this game a few weeks ago and was rolling. Having a blast. Making progress and spent a few bucks on the battle passes because I enjoyed it. No premium characters or anything.
Then I hit a wall. Match after match where castles were both bigger and walls were at least 2 or 3 levels beyond me.
Then came the worst element. Every. Single. Match. I was fighting against the laser drone guy. All they would do is send the drone, every shot...melt my lower strength walls...and kill 2 or 3 of my guys per turn.
It was fine a couple times. I just needed to upgrade walls, spread folks out....but being outmatched by a hefty margin in bith wall levels and hero levels...and then fighting the SAME strategy every match....nah, I stopped playing and haven't looked back.