Recent reviews by Nightfire

I started up idleon on a friend's recommendation - the idea of an idle game that had rpg-like trappings where you managed multiple characters was a really fun concept, and really quickly captured me.

I thought the game was pretty well handled for awhile - the paid aspects weren't too unreasonable and I didn't mind giving the dev my money once in awhile.

But I've been increasingly disappointed as update after update, I found the freely offered gem currency was not going as far, and even the gems I got from paid bundles were often not enough to cover the major "important" purchases. What I found particularly disappointing was a slow uptick of more questionable purchases such as:

World 4's Lab Chips:
These can be earned through normal gameplay, but are on an agonisingly slow mostly random rotation of 2 a week. Some of these chips confer very powerful benefits, and the more important ones can be difficult to afford depending on your progress, leaving many players in a situation where they may miss a chance to buy one, and are left to wait an indeterminate time to have another chance. Also, without referencing a wiki, players may not know what they need to buy these chips ahead of time, and won't be able to afford them during the availability window without preparing ahead of time.

From the gem shop, these chips are given out randomly, and you are capped at something like 7 purchases a week. So even spending your limited free gems, or gems you paid for, you may still not get the chips you want. While you are capped weekly, this is still a "bottomless" purchase as it's indeterminate how many you would have to buy to get what you want. (This is in part because duplicate chips do have uses, but I feel this could be handled better)

World 4's Lab also has "Crystals' Which also rotate 1 per week for normal gameplay resources, but the gemshop purchases for these are at least on a knock-out system, meaning there is a maximum amount of purchases you can make, and players can sort of strategize on which they unlock with resources and which they unlock with gems. I think this is a much better approach on the gems side, but the random rotation aspect for game resources is still very disappointing.

"Limited Specials" has been a rotating gem-store tab that provides unique items you often cannot get in-game otherwise. In some cases these items have not been too important, or have just been an alternate way to buy things, or have provided discounts. On other cases, these have been items you have no other way of getting and provide fairly unique and useful bonuses. More importantly, the limited nature of the tab drives a sense of FOMO - buy it before it's gone. While nothing is "needed" it's a bit silly to think that these things don't have an impact in a game/genre that is all about min-maxing. The dev does seem to have cooled off on these rotations lately presumably due to player criticism, so some credit may be due there.

There has also been an increase of other consumable items in the gem shop, once again, many of these have daily or weekly limits, but still represent "bottomless buys." While most players are not going to fall into these, and many are of limited use, I do think it still represents something for players with addiction issues to get abused by, even if it was not the developer's intention.

By in large, I much prefer the one-and-done gem purchases - even when they represent something fairly impactful, such as the second 3d printer slot, or second anvil hammer, despite the disparity the create between have and have not, I think they're still just a more ethical approach to MTX. (Doubly so when you can earn gems for free.)

But I think the Follower Pets update that just dropped really pushes the limits - just straight up adding a gatcha system to the game. While players get 1 free weekly pet, anything past that must be purchased with a new currency that can only be paid for at this time (as mentioned previously, the game's existing gems currency is something you can earn through normal play as well as buy) - it may be that this currency will be earnable in other ways in the future, but it doesn't make this system look good now.

My biggest issue with this system is that there is no dupe protection. All pets have posted odds, with the most rare and powerful pet starting at something around 0.3% chance. (I believe at the best priced bundle, you pay something close to 40$ for 40 pulls) - I didn't verify the math myself but I've seen estimates of 100s of dollars to get this rarest pet at typical luck.

But most importantly, there does not seem to be any guarantee you'll ever get any particular pet. I think this is a really bad practice. What's more, is apparently the dev has said these pets will be part of a rotation system, so in 10 weeks, new pets will be introduced, and old ones will presumably rotated out, adding another avenue of FOMO.

There is also apparently plans to introduce a trading system for the pets, which I think will be absolutely disastrous for numerous reasons - between players directly scamming others who under-perceive the value of rarer pets, or straight up introducing a reason for people to try to steal or hijack accounts, or creating an out of game black-market/RMT. I really don't think much good will come out of the trading system and will largely only create new problems. Ironically, I also don't know if I see trading having a lot of "normal" use since the bonuses the pets give are fairly lopsided - the previously mentioned rarest pet (the one with a 0.3% rate) offers an incredibly unique boost, that basically no other pet compare with, combined with the rarity, absolutely no sane person would part with it, and even if someone had a dupe, nothing would make for a good trade for it. Perhaps that will be remedied with the introduction of new pets, but that seems like it's only going to create problems with out-of-rotation pets having more value.

Additionally, in order to support this trade economy, pets earned from the free pulls cannot be traded or exchanged for currency like pets earned through paid pulls. Its understandable why, but sort of makes the deal even worse for players who don't want to pay, as duplicate free pets offer absolutely nothing

Perhaps the free-pull pet system does not give duplicates, but I'd be (pleasently) surprised if that was the case.

Maybe the dev will walk some of this back, but it's hard to imagine when the damage is already done, as many people have already happily paid into the gatchas and would be understandably angry if the rates were altered or changes were made that otherwise devalued their purchases.

It's too late now, but I think a purely cosmetic pet system would have made the gatcha system a lot more forgivable - it would have also left the trading system purely up to tastes, which would lessen all other potential issues I outlined.

The short version of this review is:
I think Idleon is a fun idea of a game, and has been a lot of fun to play and manage (and leave running all the time) - and I understand and respect the creator's right to make money off of it, but I think they've gotten increasingly unfair with their pricing and are just straight up adding unethical monetisation to their game at this point. It feels rather disappointing too, when the developer seems to almost brag about how generous they are, and how they're not greedy like big corporations, but seem to doing a gatcha that's as bad or worse then some of the more notorious ones.

I say this with some respect for Lava (the dev), I admire the solo efforts and his dev streams were fun to watch in the past, and motivated me to work on sprite art and even dig into some game dev stuff - but I really feel like he has a blind spot for how people engage with his game, and why these kinds of monetisation are predatory and unfun for many players.

This is a wonderful little game with a whole bunch of charm and great music. It's also cryptic and mysterious is a lot of fun ways, and does a lot of fun things with its mechanics that keeps things fresh.

Ongoing bot issues have made the game borderline unplayable at times.

The fact that Valve still periodically updates the game with new microtransaction cosmetics makes the unaddressed botting and cheating issues particularly frustrating.