Miners Settlement

I didn't play this game and even though I downloaded, installed and deleted it.

This game possesses additional ToS beyond what is shown here on this steam store page. The ToS doesn't match the steam page so I was expecting reasonable terms and when I read what the program shows I saw their unreasonable terms.

You are shown these new TOS when you go to use the program for the first time just after you create a character. (This BS is referred to in some States as a "shrink wrap contract" which is not enforceable in some states.)

When you go to review said TOS the pop up window shown via the steam browser has invisible text only visible when highlighted prior to a copy command. Among the text I skimmed through are like terms like "agrees to allow Funventure to gather additional info about the user outside the game" & "shares data" & something akin to fingerprinting my computer so other companies can use the data to spy on me?

The wall of text is so big I can't be bothered to read it all. I won't agree to those TOS so I am not using it and uninstalling it. It's easier to just unistall and find another disposable game that won't violate my privacy.

A masterclass in P2W!

People played this game for 0.5 - 2 hours, discovered the P2W aspect, left a bad review and never touched the game again. Meanwhile, I've been lurking in the Discord and here are the word (no changes, I have screenshot) of the developer/owner: "reviews are mostly from frustrated people that hate F2P and didn't even give a chance which is not fair in my honest opinion to rate the game after 20 minutes of playing"

I played 130 hours (and $16) so that I can give a honest review and because of my distaste to smug game developers like this who treat their playerbase like cash cows.

First of all: This game is full of pain point. You can overcome ALL the pain points through spending money. Plain and simple.

Developer's quote: "While it is true that you can buy many things with real money, the game offers numerous opportunities to obtain everything by playing for free."

You can spend $10 to buy 125 Trade Coins (Currency used in the player to player market). I spent 50 hours farming and upgrading my garden to finally 72 Trade Coins.

You can spend $15 in Gems (Currency with used in various things) to unlock the blueprint required to tackle Dungeon/Mine-Dungeon early on and $10 to by 125 Trade Coins to acquire all the gear needed to unlock Mitar (higher tier content). I spent 70 hours grinding trash mobs, selling everything that I can possibly can, scraping the bottom of my inventory for anything of value then scrolled through the market for hours to get the weapon with minimum stats required to go for Mitar.

The developer didn't lie, you can definitely achieve a lot through gameplay but what was not mentioned is how much pain point is thrown on your way if you are not spending money. You have to spend dozens of hours to figured out/grind/farm for things that someone else can solve by simply spending 20 bucks in the game.

At the time of writing this review, the follow microtransaction is available in this game:
- Gems (used in various things, most importantly for blueprints early on).
- Trade Coins (used in the P2P market where you can get the best gear without going through the pain points).
- Runes (various usage, higher levels are more expensive and requires a lot of work to achieve... or just pay).
- Membership! Yes, the game actually wants you to pay $10 a month. Membership allows you to do various thing (like reviving without having to pay gems, running faster - because the game makes you run a lot pointlessly, faster mob spawn for you to grind higher level faster, etc).
- Materials. Why farm? Just pay to get it all.
- 4 Battlepass ranging from $10 to $25. Yes, those are 4 separate Battlepass.
- Every feature and system available in the game offers you a 'pack' to purchase in some form or shape. Even events.

Speaking of Events... oh boy. New event hits, I go in, I get a new Pirate currency YARR! Let's see what can I do with those 15 Pirate Coins... oh, nothing yet. I need to come back in 3 hours for a second round so that I get the basic weapon which will help me grind through the event to unlock a way for me to get more Pirate Coins so that I can upgrade my weapon further to deal with badder event enemies... but I have to come back every 3 hours to pick those coins and I'll probably have to come 3 - 5 times a day for several days or week so that I can upgrade to the highest possible weapon... then use that weapon as event currency to exchange into useful stuff like actual end game weapon... hopefully before the event ends...

...or just spend $20 LOL SILLY! Of course you can skip all that and outright buy the Pirate Coins to get what you want. Huh? You want to further accelerate the process and spend $50 instead? Pft just skip the event altogether and buy Trade Coins!

Conclusion
Look, you get the picture. I can go on and on but I don't want to waste further time in this game. Spite made me burn 130 hours (though about 1/4 of it was AFK farming I'll admit... yeah, it's a thing). I wanted to give you a no-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ review.

This game is a masterclass in Pay 2 Win mechanics. It's scary how much care was taken to get the player hooked and spend money on the game. Behind all this garbage there's an actually decent game but between the community that's conditioned to spend money and the amount of pain point in this game, I'd recommend anyone that see this review to just close this page and go next.

One last point about the community: They're elitist. These are the people that sticked to the game when it was released on phone. They're the people who throw money at the game, they're conditioned to do that. You're going to get belittled for speaking against the game's monetization. When you need help, you might or might not receive any help to advance in your adventure. Knowledge seems to be kept within group of people. It's strange. People don't want to share, it's like they're encouraging you to find stuff by yourself but what they're really doing is just keeping the know-how to their clique. Sometimes it feels like helping a newbie is straight up a sin.

Either way, I'm done with this mobile trash.

Genuine question to the dev:

Will there be any effort to make this game less P2W and more PC-friendly?

Before writing this review, I gave the game a serious try. When I learned it was also originally released on mobile and there's cross progression, I installed the game on my phone too. Steam might show 2 hours of gameplay but combined with phone I have 5+ hours.

TLDR: Unless there's any change to the monetization, I will NOT recommend this game. I am more than happy to change that anytime.

Longer version:

For the 5 hours I've played the game, I can tell there's a good game underneath the pile of microtransaction (MTX) but right when you start the game and after a short tutorial, the MTX is blown on the player's face.

Progression is tied to MTX. Let me tell you how by using one specific example: You start the game outside of the city (inside of the city is where there's the player driven market and other more interesting game elements). You have to follow the campaign objectives to take care a certain amount of task. You eventually learn about the dungeon. To unlock the city, you need to beat the boss at the 8th floor.... BUT you won't be able to craft any equipment to beat him or the boss at the 4th floor either...

BUT WAIT! There's the RIGHT MTX for that!! Open the shop and find all the blueprints that you can ever have in the game! Yes, all the best blueprints (required to craft new stuff) is right there, in the store. You could literally just swipe and get it... OR you can engage in the in-game mechanic where you farm non-premium currency which then you use on a gacha system... you're only limited to 10 per day. Also, you're not guaranteed to get the blueprint you want. Also, if you get the blueprint you want, you will need 5x piece to make a full blueprint.

It's convoluted AF. You either swipe to get what you want RIGHT NOW or you mindnumbingly send your caravan 15 times a day to gather that currency so that you can try your 10 pull. Maybe in 1 week you'll have enough blueprints to craft some gear that's half good!

You're given a small amount of premium currency to offset some of that pain point BUT if you didn't had the presence of mind to save those currency and user it in the 10 other system where you can use that currency then you're truly cucked.

Monetization

All the above can be fixed with one thing: subscription. The subscription dampen a lot of the pain point but... $10/monthly? Really? And then a mountain of MTX on top of that? Is that how you view your playerbase? Cash pigs?

I'd rather go back playing Albion Online at this rate, I know I can have an outstanding gathering and crafting system AND the huge playerbase to support the economy right from hour 1 of playing the game.

$10/monthly is excessive for the kind of game that Miners Settlement is. Slash that in half and give new players 3 days of free sub so that they can try the game (you literally priced this $1 in the store, for real?).

I have a friend from Ukraine who also tried the game and he told me that the game has no regional pricing. I'm not gonna even dive into how deaf tone this is.

I'll keep an eye on the game, if nothing change within the coming days (for prices at least), I'll leave this negative recommendation permanently.