Shop Titans

I played the precursor to this game copied almost identically, Shop Heroes, on and off for several years. This game is nearly a carbon copy, but a more polished, simplified version.

I dropped a couple hundred hours into this over two weeks, and a couple hundred dollars. It was an immensely fun bit of nostalgia. I don't regret my purchases, though I am quitting today. I had two weeks of fun.

1. F2P is not viable in Shop Titans. The main reason is that you must pay $10 monthly to be able to repair your items with gold rather than gems. Gems are incredibly valuable, and items break frequently. Expensive gear can take days or weeks of farming to obtain. So basically, if you are f2p u must run all your dungeons in junk disposable gear, meaning you will progress far more slowly. And who on earth wants to play a game where you can never use the good gear you craft. So I paid my $10 so I could play the game.

2. Guns, crossbows, and wands are behind a $50 paywall. These items are all noticeably more powerful than the free recipes, so it gives you an edge in combat, but more importantly economically.

3. The amount of new p2w blueprints being added to the game is ridiculous. And you must buy them (with real money - $20) within a few days of when they appear or they are gone forever. Shop titan's precursor had new p2w blueprints every few months, and you could always go back and buy them later. Shop titans apparently adds new p2w blueprints twice each month. So there's $20 each pack. Then, if you buy the pack, you get $80 worth of flashback pack offers. And again, you must buy them or the blueprints are gone forever. A few packs give best in slot gear. Having logged thousands of hours, I don't think I made any mistakes. But doing so cost me $200. Then 5 days later I got my second pack offer, which would inevitably be followed by another $80 of offers... and I quit.

They are simply vomiting out blueprints to cash in. New pay packs you must buy or lose the blueprints forever twice a month is ridiculous. This is simply not fun. There are a couple of early game items that can't even be obtained anymore as they were only offered initially when the game was released on steam. And they would be quite helpful/profitable early game, and of course sell for very high prices due to rarity.

Sorry, but if you are going to require a $10 monthly fee, it should not be necessary to also have extremely greedy p2w packs as well. World of Warcraft offers an immense amount of content for $15 per month. Shop Titan's does not provide value for your money... at all.

5. Can't undo champion seed upgrades. You have half a dozen champions forever. If in your noobness you make poor choices in allocating attribute seeds, this is permanent. They can churn out two new blue print packs a month, but the game doesn't even feel finished yet. There's no way to even sort your damned inventory.

I wasn't looking to pummel f2p players by p2w. I simply planned to compete with the other p2w players. But I'm sorry... $200 in, and realising I will probably have to spend $1,000 in the 1st year just to get all the old packs is ridiculous. And then I'll continue to be up for $60 a month in new packs each month, and the $10 monthly fee indefinitely.

This is simply ridiculous, and this game will not thrive. Disappointed. This is shop heroes version 2... with ridiculously increased paywalls. And it's not like the rng ability system on heroes is any fun either, as you can simply spend gems to reroll each attribute until you get the perfect hero, completely removing the rng. Notice the 12 carbon copy ninja's with equal stats on top of the leader board. This costs 20k gems or $200 if you paid for it in cash. Sorry but if the game is built around the rng attribute system, it should not be possible to circumvent the rng simply by paying real money/premium currency. Allowing players to cookie cutter build the perfect characters with enough gems takes any of the fun/accomplishment in obtaining strong heroes. That you would get it was never in doubt... it is just a matter of time or in game grinding.

In their prior game, you could buy any of the old packs any time. I was content buying what i saw a use for, and let the rest be. Forcing players to buy every pack because you never know for certain if they may become useful or meta in the future is... not at all fun.

This is a very expensive, limited tiny mobile game. One that I am quite attached to. But the way this has been setup like a skinner box to try to milk extra money out... removes any and all of the fun.

Game will likely be nearly identical in a year or two, with the addition of dozens more pay packs. Thank you for a fun 2 weeks of nostalgia. But every time I think just maybe this mobile game will be different... it never is.

With 500+ hrs on shop heroes I was really looking forward to this game, its a much better looking game and gave me the impression that overall it was just a better version but barely an hr in and im hating it already, at every chance you are forced into posistions where you are fed microtransactions ("hey here's a chest but no key, dont worry lets spend gems" 3 mins into the game) you cant trade in gems until you have spent 600 gems on cosmetics etc and everything feels restricted and guided down just one path, to get you to part with your money and if you have any hope of doing well in this game and want to enjoy the cool stuff you will need plenty of it.

Please ignore the pre release reviews, the established players that are £1000's deep into the game need as many fresh players as possible to validate thier purchases and will never give you the truth of the game.

Im getting sick to death of these mobile games selling their wares on steam in the hope they can squeeze one last bucket of milk out of the cow before she dies, you are already joining people with years behind them yet need to spend loads more and quickly to catch up.

Its a good game at a basic lvl but I really wish devs could find a way of making games like these without using their customers and establish some middle ground where a £30 purchase will give you the same value as an entire quality game you can buy for the same price and not the £100's they expect you to pay for the luxury of getting ripped of.

Please do yourself, the community and just about every person out there a favor and avoid games like these so we can get back to games that actually have value and dont treat you like a cash cow to be exploited.

Edit: So i have given it some more play time just to be fair and I was interested to see what mechanics they employ.

The issue with having to spend 600 gems on time saving things before you can spend any in the market is huge, simply put it blocks you from speeding up your ranking progress or enjoying the game at a quicker pace whilst also providing experienced players with cheap precrafts for gold which would otherwise be sold for gems due to demand, essentially brickwalling the player the either buy gems or wait until lvl 30 roughly before you can earn enough for free which will all be wasted on time saving items.

I cant even buy chests for gems although it give me enough keys and once I have spent enough hours to get hooked and not want to waste that time I will then have to pay $50 (at least) to get 2 crafters that allow me to craft the best items in the game and have additional perks like a 25% xp booster.

I know to a lot of you this wont mean much but to me its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sneaky and forcing me to pay for the game rather than letting me do it because I think the game deserves it.

These games should come under gambling regulations in regards to how you are manipulated and coned into spending money which isnt made clear at the start.

Who'd have thought it, I assumed this was just a time management type game, quite like those. But incredibly they have brought a mobile gaming experience to PC. Time gated actions, buying gems, rolling for prizes, paid for perk bundles and even a £10 monthly subscription to get all the perks.

This is the cancer that destroyed the potential of mobile gaming, god help us if it start moving into the PC platform as well.