A deadly trap

Today I wanted to write about a deadly trap which many players don't recognize.

The trap has 3 components.

1. 

   Exponential resource cost. The higher you want a skill / resource / ability, the more it costs. This is normal in any game: it helps keep the balance so top players do not get 10 or 100 times more powerful than others. In Wartune, every astral level costs twice more than the previous one, resists and will crystals cost 3 times more than the previous level, advancing a gem to the next level costs 4 times more than the previous one etc.

2. 

   Exponential balen cost. Unlike in other games, in Wartune, buying more of something often costs more instead of getting a reduced price. For example, using the second, third etc. gold and daru alchemy on the same day costs more and more. Same for wheel of fate rolls, or flipping a card from the same table on wishing wall.
   
   
3. Decreasing gain. In Wartune, combat has a random factor, your damage can be +/-10% of your basic damage. So if you meet another player, who is only 2% stronger than you, you can still often beat him. If you have a BR of 50.000, improving your BR by 5000 more will make you 10% stronger and you will beat him all the time. On the other hand, if your BR is 200.000 and your BR improves by 5000, you will be only 2.5% stronger and will still often lose vs a 195k guy. So the more BR you have, the less each BR you gain counts.

The above 3 components is multiplied together, and creates a really nasty result. While your BR was 50k, your fate was 1 and you rolled the wheel of fate 2 times each day (costing you 30 balens per day), you gained +400 BR (nearly 1%) for about 400 balens. When your fate is 15, your BR is 120k and you roll the wheel 10 times a day, you gain +400 BR (0,3%) for 20k balens. So you spend 150 times more for the same result!

This is a clever trap, built with the purpose so people who spend MUCH more can be just a bit stronger – so the competition remains, and the moderate spenders don't quit. I know people who spent 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000 and 20000 USD on the game, and are in a similar BR range (160-180k) each has a chance to beat the other (and the one who spent more has not necessarily higher BR).

For this reason, it is particularly important that every time you spend balens, you double-check how much BR you gain from it. I set a rule for myself, never spend balen if I get less than +1 BR for every 10 balens spent – but actually, if you are clever, you can get even better deals. Recharge only when there is a recharge bonus, and spend only when there is a spend bonus can help you in this. Also, the more BR you have, the more careful you have to be. After a while, even 10 balen for +1 BR gets too expensive. Especially, since there is factor 4:

4. Price reduction. Games like Wartune has a relatively short lifespan. This is for the following reasons:

1. Wartune is a highly competitive game. Players who can be 1^st keep playing. Many of those who fell behind quit. If you are the top of your server, you want to advance your rank in cross-server. And the longer the game runs, the harder to do this. Eventually, there is no point in starting a new character if you ever hope to be in top100 in cross-server.
2. A game lives as long as it can keep it's current players and can get new ones. They can get new ones, but due to the above, few of them will be hard, addicted cashers like the old players. And keeping players is hard too, they lose interest, there are too many games around.
3. After a while, it is simply more profitable to make a new game, with fresh new top lists and new content than trying to keep happy the more and more unsatisfied crowd.

Where does the above lead? You prolly guessed it: before or later they begin reducing the prices. So people who already spent a ridiculous amount will say: „damn, I bought this one for 1000 USD, now I have to buy it for 500 too or I made a bad deal.” Also, at reduced prices, people who thought the previous price too steep, might begin paying and buying. So prices WILL begin dropping. We already seen that, fate stones, sepulcrum, mahra, fashion core, gems are getting cheaper and the rest will follow.

Conslusion. Whenever you want to pay, keep in mind: It will be cheaper and cheaper, and the more you spend the less effective it will be. The faster and the more you buy, the less BR you gain. So buy only when its a really good deal, and you are really getting ahead of the others. Skip gambles, skip packs when something useful is bundled with something useless, skip things which you can get for free and where development cost is getting exponentially higher. Be especially suspicious when they want to sell you something brand new what you can't even convert into BR :)