» Mon Feb 15, 2016 3:25 pm Okay, I've read tons of posts on this, and this particular thread is NOT to rehash that Bethesda seems greedy or moneyhungry (that's good for a company to be that way if it means they provide things worth spending money on), or how the explorer cap is bad (it really doesn't bother me), or about things we'd like to see added (any game could add things that would make it more fun to some people). This post is about why this last update will cost Bethesda more money than it will bring in.
To start off, with this update I am through with this game. It went from fun and challenging to frustrating and tedious.
A little background: The first lunchbox I opened when I got this game had a Legendary weapon in it (Smuggler's End, I think?) and the third lunchbox had a Legendary explorer (Sarah Lyons). I didn't get another legendary item for another 6 or so lunchboxes, but I got two in the same lunchbox and then another one right after that. So, in the first dozen lunchboxes opened, I had 5 legendary goodies. This was enough that I got excited and bought my first in-app purchase EVER (I spent $20 on lunchboxes!) From those 40 lunchboxes, I got one more legendary dweller (Colonel Autumn), 3 legendary outfits and 5 legendary weapons. I thought the game was so great I bought 5 Mr Handys to make sure I had all the goodies I would need to make the perfect vault. I still have that vault.
In the beginning, Bethesda did a great job of dangling the carrot in front of us players. Then the updates came.
After this update, I ran a little test after un unlucky streak of 11 lunchboxes in a row with caps for my rare. My test: I started the game over 38 times and got the lunchboxes in the beginning of the game. Sometimes I got 5 lunchboxes, sometimes I got 4, but the total number of lunchboxes I've opened for this test has been 176 (not counting the original 11-in-a-row-caps-rares that started this whole experiment). These are the results:
1 Legendary dweller (Rothchild)
7 Legendary Weapons (1 set of duplicates)
4 Legendary Outfits (1 set of duplicates)
68 caps rares
2 pets
If you count the pets as rares, the percentages really aren't off that much (10.4% in the first and 8.5% in the second), but there are some notable differences why the new ratios won't inspire people to purchase lunchboxes. Of the regular rares I got, 13 were Elf Outfits! That means I got an Elf Outfit every third lunchbox. First one...cool. Second one...meh. After that...grrr.
The number of 500 cap rares meant 1/3 of the lunchboxes had caps for a rare!
Making 500 cap rares that common is frustrating, and would never inspire me me to buy lunchboxes for real money!
And with that frustration, I noticed a few more things that have really chaffed me. I think Bethesda made some critical errors for both new ond experienced players, including:
1. By making Legendary items more difficult to get, people are less likely to get excited the way they did before. Even the lottery industry knows to give more prizes to people because it makes them want more and subconsciously think they are pretty lucky to buy 12 tickets and get 5 payouts...even if they lose money overall, they get a feeling of winning. When you're opening lunchboxes in the game and you're getting mostly caps and okay treasures...you are never going to pay out real money for more so-so payouts.
2. The Legendary goodies aren't that much better than than the regular rares, but when you get that shiny burst...you're excited to use it, you want to get another lunchbox, and you're more likelyl to spend real money to get one. For a game that doesn't have leaderboards or competitions, these legendary items are nice payoffs AND AFFECT THE GAME ONLY MILDLY!
3. The on-by-one inventory scrolling deal is beyond assinine. It is so tedious to scroll through inventory now that getting new items loses the excitement when you have to take ten minutes to find the dang thing! This was the worst feature I've ever seen added in a game update and may be worse than the cap rares increasing. I can't imagine why anybody thought this was a good idea.
4. The game crashes frequently now. I rarely lose much other than wasted time, but it's irritating to be inexplicably kicked out of the game and wait for it to reload. It definitely kills confidence in the publisher...even if on a subconscious level.
5. Nothing new was added as far as rooms or dwellers go. They did add pets, but this came across as more of a by-the-way announcement and doesn't change the game at all with the miniscule bonuses given. They need to add more substance (add a room, add a new enemy, add a legendary item or two and TELL PEOPLE THEY WERE ADDED, or any number of non-game-breaking elements that would make the game feel less stale.
6. The game feels stale. Adding a Christmasy Barracks is fun, but doesn't take away the stale feeling in the game. With the increased difficulty in getting good gear and dwellers, people are less likely to stay interested (especially when they open box after box and get nothing noteworthy or interesting). The really good games add new challenges, new items, new storyline, or something makes you want to play the game some more. Digital Christmas decorations is not that something.
7. RESPOND TO THE PLAYERS! Adress questions and concerns that people have! Often the people on these forums are more involved players and are more vocal than a lot of others, but It's much like a retail store that has customers complain. If only one person complains about something, you take note but usually don't worry too much about it. When 2, 3, 4, 10, 20 or more complain about something, you listen! Why? Because every person who is vocal about a problem represent a much greater number of people who aren't vocal but are still unsatisfied. Most of the silent unhappy customers just leave and don't come back, but their leaving means money you don't get for that store. When a problem comes up multiple times with the vocal customers, pay attention. It seems Bethesda is NOT listening. Why make a statement like that? Because...
8. Bethesda is silent. Their responses have been very generic and vague, and almost feel like an intern cut-and-pasted it from "The Book of Default Responses to Act Like You Care About Customers".
Bottom line? After being frustrated with the silence from Bethesda, the same-ol'-same-ol' feel of the game, and the frustration with caps rares making lunchboxes simply not worth paying real money to get, I'm done with Fallout Shelter. Like a lot of others here, I'll keep my one pre-update vault and check on it every month or so to see if there's anything worthwhile enough to play the game some more.
Thanks for the fun times the game gave us, as it was truly enjoyable for a while.
