Do you consider this pay to play?

roysmalley

over half of the bonus players over the weekend are all brand new, only available in todays box. I have Strop, but he isn't the special player.

is this how the game has always been? Makes me feel cheated!

DFBB

I do consider it to be a 'pay to win' game. However, if you put in the time, you can certainly compete.

Metsicans

DFBB said:

I do consider it to be a 'pay to win' game. However, if you put in the time, you can certainly compete.

For now.  If Walkoff rewards continue to decline, then not so much. 

UltimateWarrior

Yes and no @roysmalley . To be competitive you have to spend and have a little luck. All top players and top clubs spend so they will always be 1st.  If you don’t care much about were You finish in the standings you don’t have to spend.

midgetmullet

You don't have to pay to play this game, but to have a great team you have to watch a lot of videos for gold.  

Metsicans

midgetmullet said:

You don't have to pay to play this game, but to have a great team you have to watch a lot of videos for gold.  

I think you can have a great team at silver or gold if all you do is watch videos and do some free offers.  At platinum and especially diamond, I think you need real money. 

If you subsist on video watching, I'd consider $9.99 for the stadium.  I got to 26 gold/day already, almost entirely using gold earned through videos.  It's a helpful and affordable supplement to watching videos. 

DFBB

If you put in the time and make good decisions with resources, you can have a killer team. There are countless VIP teams that don't have ideal teams. I'm just saying! 

midgetmullet

Metsicans said:

midgetmullet said:

You don't have to pay to play this game, but to have a great team you have to watch a lot of videos for gold.  

I think you can have a great team at silver or gold if all you do is watch videos and do some free offers.  At platinum and especially diamond, I think you need real money. 

If you subsist on video watching, I'd consider $9.99 for the stadium.  I got to 26 gold/day already, almost entirely using gold earned through videos.  It's a helpful and affordable supplement to watching videos. 

I had a 176k team last year, brought Mantle, Ichiro, and Gibson as my keepers and did not spend $1.

JEDDDOGGY

Yeah, I have to agree. Even with the gold required to level players at Diamond last year, I only had to do that with maybe 3 or 4 guys. Everyone else on my roster was leveled up with re-pulls via WOH. I spent far less money after I got to Diamond, not the other way around.

hornsup17

I don’t know what to call it...I’ve spent, but seems like I always get the same results. I got to where I spend on guaranteed players in the specials. The three free POM boxes yielded the same player for me. Bought 5 additional and got the same player yet again in one of those five, rest was basically xp. This frustrates the hell out of me. And it seems like the same players in my club land the top guys every wknd with one or two pulls. I don’t get it

hornsup17

Thank the lord for WOH and Slugfest, if not for those two events I would struggle, because glu don’t give me shit, and I rarely get the guys I’m after or need by spending gold on them

Wicked0Wildcats

The biggest mistake people make in TSB is giving up on Slugfest by April.  

Your patience, decision making and resourcefulness will get you further than your wallet in this game. 

roysmalley

So why is the weekend event so lack luster? It’s hands down the most boring part of the game yet it’s when everyone has the most time to play

Bigpredfan

roysmalley said:

So why is the weekend event so lack luster? It’s hands down the most boring part of the game yet it’s when everyone has the most time to play

It’s also when most Glu employees probably have days off 

BOZZCO

I agree. Weekend event is a giant bore. Pretty sure glu sells a ton of box’s because people are bored out of their mind from just grinding out prime games.

JdotChristopher

Glu has always put the game on autopilot mode for the weekend events.  Boxes drop late, spelling errors, huge rush to get out for the weekend for them!  

bigvivec

roysmalley said:

So why is the weekend event so lack luster? It’s hands down the most boring part of the game yet it’s when everyone has the most time to play

Least time to play for me.

tomciz2

bigvivec said:

roysmalley said:

So why is the weekend event so lack luster? It’s hands down the most boring part of the game yet it’s when everyone has the most time to play

Least time to play for me.

Me too restaurant industry never off on weekends

Scioscia_Fan

I don't think it's pay to play since you can enjoy the game regardless of how much you decide to spend. Spending coin obviously gives players an easier road and perks.
I think of it like this, if two of you are at a MLB game. A VIP is basically sitting behind the home team dugout while the FTP guy is sitting in the right field bleachers. Both are still enjoying the game. 

bigvivec

LOL......enjoy.......


.....went 12k deep on boxes this weekend chasing Baez and did another 9x package for dog food.   Enjoy!!!!!!   I’m chewing my arm right now!!!!   LOL

Bigpredfan

bigvivec said:

LOL......enjoy.......


.....went 12k deep on boxes this weekend chasing Baez and did another 9x package for dog food.   Enjoy!!!!!!   I’m chewing my arm right now!!!!   LOL

I got everyone from the box but Baez, the one I really wanted. 

JdotChristopher

bigvivec said:

LOL......enjoy.......


.....went 12k deep on boxes this weekend chasing Baez and did another 9x package for dog food.   Enjoy!!!!!!   I’m chewing my arm right now!!!!   LOL

Didn’t chase him that bad 😂  But I wanted Baez too and I’m just chewing my hand...Haven’t thought about the arm yet!  

Bigpredfan

JdotChristopher said:

bigvivec said:

LOL......enjoy.......


.....went 12k deep on boxes this weekend chasing Baez and did another 9x package for dog food.   Enjoy!!!!!!   I’m chewing my arm right now!!!!   LOL

Didn’t chase him that bad 😂  But I wanted Baez too and I’m just chewing my hand...Haven’t thought about the arm yet!  

Make sure you start with your non-dominant arm. Helps with tapping tomorrow if you save your good arm 

bigvivec

Speaking of pay to play.......

BOZZCO

Pay to play lol.  GLU has it down to an art form... it’s pay to play and then play some more to actually get what you originally thought you already paid for.   

harperphils34

I've been studying freemium games like Tap Sports Baseball for a couple years now. Within the freemium genre are a couple of subcategories based mostly on how the game generates its largest revenue. 

Some freemiums rely on ad revenue. Others appeal to large audiences with relatively cheap micro transactional upgrades. TSB belongs to a subcategory I refer to as "Ahabs" because their chosen revenue model relies on chasing down users known as whales. They want to find that small group of deep pockets that will drop tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, to have every bell and whistle imaginable. 

Ahabs all tend to share some basic characteristics when it comes to user experience:

1. The games are not designed to be "pay to win". In fact, many players who pay to play Ahabs do not actually fare much better than free to play players. The only players who gain an advantage by spending are those who reach whale status, at which point winning and losing gameplay really doesn't matter that much. 
2. Ahabs almost never have an endpoint. You can't "beat the game". The games are designed to progress to infinity. Along the path, there are often progress markers. But, these are actually quite meaningless because achieving them gets you no closer to "winning". 
3. If you are not a whale in the eyes of the game marketers, they really don't care about you. You can spend all day every day trying to grind out wins on the penny slots. Or, you can dominate the mid-limit buy-in tournaments. It doesn't matter. They truly only care about attracting and keeping their whales.
4. It's almost certain that no one on these forums are part of their whale population. If the whales are actively interacting with other users outside of the game, it's only to reinforce their superiority over the rest of the users. 
5. VIP status in the game does not indicate you are a whale. 

What this should mean for your gameplay is really up to you. Just like the dude who sits on the slots all day long or plays satellite poker tournaments looking for a ticket to the big show, lots of people can have a perfectly enjoyable time without ever getting invited to play in the million dollar buy-in private whale lounge. 

But, you should have your eyes wide open so you don't fall into common traps. 

1. Don't try to spend to achieve a certain status unless you're willing to spend enough to make it to whale status. Only spend for your own enjoyment with full understanding that your money means nothing to the house unless you have the ability to make or break their bottom line. 
2. Set your own concept of success based on what matters to you. Always remember you cannot "win" this game. 
3. Understand the game developers will always be adding things on to keep the game progressing towards infinity. They will always be introducing newer characters or levels with higher ratings and better skills. This will happen throughout the game until the new version is released. You can never reach a point where you will always be ahead of their curve. You can only hope to not fall so far behind it that you can't ever get back to it. 

It's definitely a fun game. But, if the fun ever goes away, and you're not a whale, it's time to hang it up and play something else for awhile.