Is TSTO Becoming Too Expensive?

"skollthewolf;96095" wrote:
I've been playing this game for over five years now, and I've been a premium player for nearly as long. However, I've noticed recently that it's becoming more cost prohibitive than it used to be.

Allow me to explain, earlier in the game's run, it was much cheaper to play. There were premium items, of course, but these were balanced by the freemium items that were available for cash. This was especially true for the level updates, where half the released materials were for cash, and half were for donuts. This was also tied into the periodic Gil deals where donuts were purchasable for a decent discount, or bonus donuts were awarded. I remember a time where I could live off of a Gil donut deal for seven to nine months of gameplay (for the record, it was the $100 deal).

However, it appears that the tide is shifting. More and more of the new content is donut-based, especially the majority of the new characters. Gil deals for exclusive content are more frequent than they used to be, but a donut deal hasn't been a thing for years. I spent $50 on donuts a month or two ago for the international event, but now I'm contemplating another $50 purchase to get the new content during this event.

Now, I'm not one of those "OMG THE GAME IS ENDING" types, but it does appear that the game relies more and more on people purchasing premium content than it used to. Is it just me?

Some industrious person (not me, of course) could probably calculate some numbers that would either support or refute your hypothesis. But my impression is that the ratio of premium to freemium content has increasingly tilted in favor of premium over the past year or more. So, yes, the game is probably more expensive to play if you’re paying for most of your donuts and one of your objectives is to amass as much content as possible. Whether it’s too expensive is a more subjective matter.