It's good that they changed the needed XP from 1m to 10m
I just had to tell this now. So many people are complaining about this and I can totally understand that but they really need to see what was happening instead of just thinking it was a bad change.
EA is not making this game because they want us to have fun. That is a result, but the main point is to make money! With the possibility of getting so many donuts each day it made them lose a lot of money because people could "grind" the donuts instead of buying them.
Theoretically it would be possible to get donuts, buy things with a multiplier, get more donuts and at some point you would have an almost unlimited amount of donuts to spend without having to pay any money to EA.
And that is (obviously) NOT good. The point of the bonus donuts is that they are a BONUS and not that they are the main way of getting them. With the change from 1m to 10m you still get the BONUS donuts but now they are a BONUS again.
I get that people tried to get a higher multiplier and bought stuff (for example the Beach Hideaways) in order to be able to farm more donuts, but really, that is not the way this game should be played and it would be selfdestructive if EA didn't change anything about it.
I hope everyone who wants it gets their donuts back from buying the Beach Hideaways because they changed it without a notice and you bought it while it was different. But I also hope that people understand that this change was needed and is a good change.
Just my 2 cents.
EA is not making this game because they want us to have fun. That is a result, but the main point is to make money! With the possibility of getting so many donuts each day it made them lose a lot of money because people could "grind" the donuts instead of buying them.
Theoretically it would be possible to get donuts, buy things with a multiplier, get more donuts and at some point you would have an almost unlimited amount of donuts to spend without having to pay any money to EA.
And that is (obviously) NOT good. The point of the bonus donuts is that they are a BONUS and not that they are the main way of getting them. With the change from 1m to 10m you still get the BONUS donuts but now they are a BONUS again.
I get that people tried to get a higher multiplier and bought stuff (for example the Beach Hideaways) in order to be able to farm more donuts, but really, that is not the way this game should be played and it would be selfdestructive if EA didn't change anything about it.
I hope everyone who wants it gets their donuts back from buying the Beach Hideaways because they changed it without a notice and you bought it while it was different. But I also hope that people understand that this change was needed and is a good change.
Just my 2 cents.
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I was freemium until the 939 came into play. THAT is when I started spending money on this game.
But between the Beach Hideaway and this, EA won't be getting any more of my money.
It was nice to be able to level up so easily with the 1 Million XP, it was good while it lasted, and at least we had that time to use it. I am a premium player, I have paid for donuts and I have bloodmobile'd donuts.
In truth, I was surprised that the donut bonus was only 1 million when they did it, I knew it wouldn't last forever.
I am very unhappy with the beach hideaway change. Probably not going to ask for my donuts back, since the new multiplier is reasonable and I hate dealing with EA's horrible customer service. Instead, I just won't be buying donuts going forward.
So much this. I wouldn't have been nearly as upset about this if I hadn't dropped 200 donuts to get a higher multiplier just a week ago.
I think increasing the level xp is a short sighted and bad move though. It will do little to stop the hardcore grinders who were willing to build 100-200 KEMs at a time and have 1000+ multiplier. All it's doing is cutting off and alienating the more casual players who were getting a boost from it.
A much better idea would have been to keep increasing the costs of the KEMs where they'd start costing 100k plus for each one after 35 or 40 or so. That would allow everyone to continue to get an extra boost without anyone being able to rake in bonuts by the hundreds every day.
EA is not a mom and pop local business that is seeing their profits dwindle because someone figured out a way to get a few free donuts.
I and MANY like me, who aren't franchises and paid real money for those stupid donuts. I purchased something as it was and because of what was advertised!! Hell my multiplier is only 143%!! That was approx 15$ real money for the donuts to buy what was advertised.
Seems small enough that a week from now most everyone will say "ah it's just a few cups of coffee" blah blah.
But let's take a peak at the other side of this equation. There are more then 300 people that signed and said they had bought 1-5 of those hideaways. Let's say 10% farmed their donuts, so 270 people paid real money. I'll even estimate the amount to 10$ each to account for the lessor proportion that only bought 1-2 hideaways.
This at the most basic terms is 2700$ now you want to guess how many people around the world, NOT on our little forum that ALSO paid their real $$$ We are an incredibly small portion of the players. I played almost a full year before getting to forum. Wanna estimate how many others are out there?
None of this takes into consideration the other premium purchases large and small that we buy. I know folks that play freemium, but I know more that spend.
Another point that premium items only cost ea $ in development and coding into the game. After that guess what, it cost them nothing, refunding our donuts is not the same as returning cash to my iTunes account!!! This isn't even equivalent to an in store trade! Oh and before anyone jumps on the 'server costs, over seeeing, bug patching (which they aren't real concerned with if their oops lasted several weeks!) etc. That is their Original cost of doing business!!!! Giving everyone back donuts just means they can get a different pretty picture for their towns! I can't really live in it, but I really did Pay for it!!!
But the fog is already rolling over and everyone will just switch over to oh well.
I love this game!! I spend hours working on my town, look at it and you'll see! I don't just stockpile crap everywhere, I work hard on leveling, I love the work they have done on this game and play it gladly. Give myself monthly money to splurge on the extras and support the developers! I choose to spend money to have fun.
I am not the only one! We don't deserve to be ripped off this way. it's only about 10-15$ a person- for me, that's a lot. Collectively they made a pile, and to refund donuts doesn't cost them anything in real terms. Betrayed and bent over to take it?
I'm reporting to BBB, iTunes and EA. Sad they don't just do the right thing. As it is, I had just bought THOH donuts to replace what I spent on hideaways before I found out about the lost %. I don't honestly think I would stomp my feet and say I'm not buying nothing no more! Again, I love the game, but that doesn't mean I should accept being ripped off as if i deserve it!
if EA really want to make more money they should come up with better items to spend donuts on....get more people to spend their last donuts and have to buy more
They can also bring out some good aspirationals so that the money cant be used for blood mobiles
attacking the top 1% of players wont help
At least you get 900 free donuts from levelling up to 939!
As a consumer, I feel that EA has disenfranchised a number of users by demonstrating their ability to take away parts of the game that people have come to enjoy without any prior notice or justification. Keep in mind that EA can pull this game at any time and shut off the servers in 30 days without any feelings of remorse to the consumer.
I wonder what EA is going to do regarding the needed experience to gain a bonus level. I understand it's a bonus for a reason but it's only 3 donuts which will come really slow for a vast amount of players if it stays on the 10 million xp requirement.
Combined with the barrage of premium items that we're getting bombarded with it's either buying donuts, farming them or give up on a lot of new content since events barely have items available for ingame cash anymore.
We used to have this same limit. However, there were new levels added every month or so which would reset the xp necessary required for a bonus level. Though challenging, I believe that was a decent way to gain bonus donuts. Even better if the reset would come earlier.