Some thoughts from a non-2014 player
nicoga3000
Registered Users 18 Posts
I've been noticing a LOT of negative feedback on DH 2016 after it's official release. I was really excited for the release because I missed out on the 2014 launch/hype. I played the first few regions of 2014 while waiting for 2016 to release, but I didn't invest in anything because I wasn't sure what life that game had left. It's clear that there will still be some support and additional content for it, but it's NOT clear for how much longer.
That being said, I jumped into 2016 with a very open mind and an unbiased attitude towards everything. My goal was to enjoy as much of the game as possible without feeling like I was pitting it against 2014. My thoughts thus far:
1) There are only 3 regions. I am working my way through the Trophy Hunts currently, and I realize that as soon as I am done with them, I only have the option of grinding contract hunts to build up bucks for future regions and upgrades. I'm totally fine with that. The game is brand new, so it's unreasonable to expect 20+ regions of content at release.
2) The gold costs are out of control. This complaint is the one I tend to agree with most. The inaugural event expects you to spend at least $5 in order to make it past the first phase. That is NOT going to draw people in. I'm actually pretty upset about it, as I figured the first few regions and events would cater towards fresh starts. This sets a very dangerous precedence. Glu - you need to review these prices very carefully.
3) Because the game is so fresh, the lack of special hunts and such is totally understandable. As long as they intend to include things like this later on, I'm fine with it.
4) I purchased the starter pack for $5 because I wanted to get the extra energy cap. 12 vs 10 is pretty nice. However, the gun included is good for region 1 only. That's silly. I should be able to use it in R2 or even R3 (even if it's not "optimal") like in 2014. I would love to see a mechanic in 2016 that allowed you to increase you max energy more regularly (or for cheaper than $20). Maybe every x levels give +1 energy? Reward your repeat and devoted players.
5) Graphically, I like the new infrared. It's easier to see and work with. I also like the environments and hunts so far. Repetition is strong in these games, but that's sort of par for the course.
6) The ads that randomly pop up in the game that give you no gold or energy that you are forced to watch? What the hell Glu...That's absolutely inappropriate. You can't be doing that. Do not force players to watch ads if they don't want to. For those that DO want to, let us do it and reward us. You make money off of it. So let us do it at our pace. Forcing ads upon us is slimy and says a lot about your intentions.
I understand F2P games are all the rage. But from what I've read, DH 2014 was NOT as in your face about spending money as this game has been. I am enjoying DH 2016 right now and have spent $5 on the starter pack. I'm OK supporting games that are good and fun. I will continue playing the game for the foreseeable future, but I do hope that Glu takes a close look at some of the complaints and issues that people are bringing up.
The best F2P games out there are the ones with the best support and communication from the dev teams and community managers. I was a whale when I played Puzzle and Dragons and Brave Frontier - the games were fun, but I was OK spending money because the team was always communication with the player base and LISTENING to the suggestions and ideas we put forth. DH 2016 is not a revolutionary game by any stretch of the imagination. Fishing for a whale is a dangerous way to start this title off. I truly believe that DH 2016 could live up to the praise that 2014 gets if a few tweaks are made to the systems and costs.
Here's to the future of DH 2016!
That being said, I jumped into 2016 with a very open mind and an unbiased attitude towards everything. My goal was to enjoy as much of the game as possible without feeling like I was pitting it against 2014. My thoughts thus far:
1) There are only 3 regions. I am working my way through the Trophy Hunts currently, and I realize that as soon as I am done with them, I only have the option of grinding contract hunts to build up bucks for future regions and upgrades. I'm totally fine with that. The game is brand new, so it's unreasonable to expect 20+ regions of content at release.
2) The gold costs are out of control. This complaint is the one I tend to agree with most. The inaugural event expects you to spend at least $5 in order to make it past the first phase. That is NOT going to draw people in. I'm actually pretty upset about it, as I figured the first few regions and events would cater towards fresh starts. This sets a very dangerous precedence. Glu - you need to review these prices very carefully.
3) Because the game is so fresh, the lack of special hunts and such is totally understandable. As long as they intend to include things like this later on, I'm fine with it.
4) I purchased the starter pack for $5 because I wanted to get the extra energy cap. 12 vs 10 is pretty nice. However, the gun included is good for region 1 only. That's silly. I should be able to use it in R2 or even R3 (even if it's not "optimal") like in 2014. I would love to see a mechanic in 2016 that allowed you to increase you max energy more regularly (or for cheaper than $20). Maybe every x levels give +1 energy? Reward your repeat and devoted players.
5) Graphically, I like the new infrared. It's easier to see and work with. I also like the environments and hunts so far. Repetition is strong in these games, but that's sort of par for the course.
6) The ads that randomly pop up in the game that give you no gold or energy that you are forced to watch? What the hell Glu...That's absolutely inappropriate. You can't be doing that. Do not force players to watch ads if they don't want to. For those that DO want to, let us do it and reward us. You make money off of it. So let us do it at our pace. Forcing ads upon us is slimy and says a lot about your intentions.
I understand F2P games are all the rage. But from what I've read, DH 2014 was NOT as in your face about spending money as this game has been. I am enjoying DH 2016 right now and have spent $5 on the starter pack. I'm OK supporting games that are good and fun. I will continue playing the game for the foreseeable future, but I do hope that Glu takes a close look at some of the complaints and issues that people are bringing up.
The best F2P games out there are the ones with the best support and communication from the dev teams and community managers. I was a whale when I played Puzzle and Dragons and Brave Frontier - the games were fun, but I was OK spending money because the team was always communication with the player base and LISTENING to the suggestions and ideas we put forth. DH 2016 is not a revolutionary game by any stretch of the imagination. Fishing for a whale is a dangerous way to start this title off. I truly believe that DH 2016 could live up to the praise that 2014 gets if a few tweaks are made to the systems and costs.
Here's to the future of DH 2016!
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As someone who was not quite a first adopter of DH2014, but was in on it at around the time R5 was released, I actually share pretty much all of your thoughts.
The only thing that you were not able to observe directly (but was still the reason for your post!) is that long time DH2014 players currently playing at or around Level 23 are faced with going from more challenging hunts in advanced regions to basic hunts in low regions. This makes your perspective particularly valuable.
With respect to your point #1, I know that Dino Hunter started with 3 regions, and am pretty sure DH2014 did as well. Seems to be the model and it worked well for both other games (until Dino Hunter was dumped!) with new regions released about monthly.
One of the things that I like about DH2014 was that you could do all basic game play for free. Gold availability came and went, but you could usually manage, even if it meant skipping some events. There is no question that as the game progressed, it was harder to "keep it free," but many of us were able to do just that. This game looks like it will be a challenge to keep both free and stimulating based on what I have seen of the shotgun contract hunts so far...
I do like the free energy opportunities three times per day. I am currently unable to play due to a glitch that should be fixed soon, but can check in and collect energy and gold. Right now, I have accrued 36 energy, so I really do not see the point of spending any money to increase your energy capacity.
With your newness to the game, I found your last paragraph most interesting. Through DH2014, Glu has actually been pretty good about listening. They may not always be visible around here, but they clearly watch what happens:
-In random discussions about new regions we would like to see in DH2014, dinosaurs were mentioned and got a lot of traction. Lo and behold, Dino Hunter was launched (although it went extinct shortly after region 8)
-DH2014 Bounties were born from the forum, as were suggestions for new bounties (especially the eye shot bounty)
-The forum talked about wanting to hunt alligators and crocodiles, and eventually they were incorporated.
-Bows and crossbows were not originally part of the game and were incorporated later based on user feedback from the forum
There would be more examples, but I am not going to trudge through the old posts to remember them.
They have not, however, been as quick to incorporate fixes to the basic business model as they are will content improvements with the exception of Dino Hunter. They started making exotic hunts mandatory to progress, and after hew and cry implemented the "no hunter left behind" concept that let us keep playing for free, but also seems to have coincided with the beginning of the end for the game.
For me to keep interested at this point, the biggest improvement that they could make would be to make ARs available for reasonable HB prices instead of astronomical gold prices. That would at least double the amount of contract hunts available to keep me interested and hopefully keep playing the game instead of getting bored with the same 4 or 5 hunts over and over and over and over and over again.
The list of improvements could go on and on, but for me, that is the single biggest one they could make.
iPhone 6, iOS 9.2
It's pretty great to hear that Glu did listen to the forums and expanded on DH 2014 with the changes they did.
I do agree that the situation surrounding ARs and gold/HB is a big "oops". I hope that they reassess the economy they're attempting to create. I am one that has no problem spending money on F2P games if they game is good and well supported. But I'm very skeptical on it all right now. I want to play the event hunts, but I can't without spending money. I want to do some AR contracts, but I can only do R1 because my R1 AR doesn't "work" in R2+.
I'm not sure how Glu has done in the past with updating and reevaluating prices on things, but it seems as though this game would benefit from it. Trying to pull the devoted DH 2014 players into DH 2016 requires very careful balance of free and paid content. It will be exciting to see how it progresses.
1) I spent money to get gold. As such, I have completed the first 3 steps of the current event and all of the currently available hunts and trophy hunts. I only have 10k silver coins, so hopefully the final stage of the event gives me enough to get the special AR (R1-R5).
2) The fact that ARs cost gold is really annoying and quite disheartening. I only bought gold so that I could buy the event weapons required to make progress. I won't be buying any region specific ARs because they become immediately useless once you finish that region. Because of this, I have been farming the shotgun hunts on R3 and getting board killing 7 Polecats over and over and over again.
3) The game is still young, so as much as I want to complain about the lack of "stuff to do", I can't because the game is brand spankin new. I fully expect new special hunts, hidden regions, elite hunts, etc to show up later. At least they really really need to in order to keep things interesting later on.
4) I don't know why people are complaining about the graphics. Yes, they need to update the game to include blood, but the graphics look the same to me right now. Not sure what the issue is.
5) Slowdown is something that needs to be addressed. I am on a Note 4, so I SHOULD be able to run this game with zero issues. However, on one of the Bigfoot hunts, there were a bunch of Bigfoots and deer on screen. As such, the game was hiccuping multiple times making it impossible to get the 4 deer kills. I had to run that hunt a few times before getting lucky. So performance optimization shoudl be a priority (probably after adding additional content).
6) It's really a bummer that the gold cost to get involved on the current event is as high as it is. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford gold to participate, but those hunts are a TON of fun and have some really cool hunts. The enviornments are also neat. The introductory event should be significantly cheaper so that people get excited about the game. Let people enjoy the 70 event hunts currently out there. They're fun, but cost prohibitive to DH 2014 and potentially new players.
Overall, still REALLY enjoying the game, but I'm at the point now where I am just farming shotgun hunts waiting for new event hunts or regions to open. Glu - please consider giving us HB ARs or cheaper ARs to give us some variations in our farming.
Oh - one other thing!
THe fact that you don't have to juggle equips is really nice. Having all 4 guns available to you in every hunt is really cool. However, I wish you could access the upgrade menu from anywhere. The only way to upgrade a bow (for example) is to do a hunt that requires a bow and upgrade from there. I'd like to be able to upgrade my bow or my shotty when choosing a rifle hunt just because. That menu is currently missing and is quite a nuisance.
I only started DH14 this May so I don't know the quality of its initial launch. I would think that with Glu already having DH14 down pat that they might have started better.
Hope these forums do guide the developer to keep things like slow motion kill sequences for all weapons and not just the rifle.
Missing the organ presentation when the animals are in the pounce position. I also hope we get a clue of what type of hunt is about to be undertaken; stampede, predator, varmmit, etc, that was always helpful.
I also hope we will be able to use any weapon were we choose to. Right now you have to use an AR to hunt for maximum HBs. The shotgun contract hunts pay less. Glu needs to incorporate the best features many of the hunters liked best.
On graphics, go back and have a good comparison of the landscape and animals. DH2016 is a long way off.
...more so for us that refuse to spend real money
I agree completely, the animals are very cartoonish looking. Everything graphics related is more realistic in 2014. People have talked about better graphics in 2016 but I do not see it.
Great thoughts and I totally concur... Seems like Glu has gone over to the politically correct society also... Where's the blood Glu... All of your prior hunting and sniper games had the blood splatter... bunch of weenies.
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