@Aimbot I've spent the $99 + TAX on the tokens, Missle Rack 12 was the last item I got in this roulete wheel game of chance. Missle Rack 12 it a terrible weapon in my opinion, it does nothing but bost my power to 2233 - which makes me face even harsher AI.
Since I've had some critical sentiment towards Plarium I do must say, that if nobody ever bough anything in the game, the game would eventually cease to exist, so someone does have to buy something or the game should be converted into a monthly subscription model, but you cannot just have a Free 2 Play game without people paying.
What I do find kind of sketchy and toxic are the last 6 months of changes to the entire enterprise or Mech Arena - this may have to do with mergers and aquisitions of Plarium into "Aristocrat Leisure" (Lottery and Slot Machine Developer) and their acquisition and consolidation of other game dev teams from similar mobile gaming platforms, where the highly addictive side of "Freemium Games" which was illustrated very accurately in an episode of southpark is being dialed up to 110%.
So slowly Mech Arena is becoming a game of chance and not a game of skill, you probably see this differently Aimbot, you might think it's just 'unfair' to you - just like I though it was extremly unfair just like I saw it extremely unfair to my girlfiend who plays, and she is presented with the Missle Rack challenge with no hope of even reaching the XP level needed in time to participate in anything but two of the rungs on the list, as Missle Rack 6 XP (and I don't know the a-coin commitment) are too far away, better yet, the game does not even present an option to purchase said item. But it's more than that. Basically from an overall game design perspective, Mech Arena is being converted into a fancy slot machine with some AI robots on the side. I mean the graphics are wonderful, the stages are cool, the whole idea is fairly good, but actual fun of playing the game is going out the window. When I used to lose, I'm like "I know why I lost, let me learn from that" - recently it feels like "Wow, there is nothing I can do to adujust my game strategy, I cannot spend or overequip, I cannot cheeze it - (term referring to doing repetative cheap shot moves say like Killshot + Javelins 6) and not playing "honorably" - I can just watch the AI converge and make sandwiches out of me 20% to 30% of the time, especially if on any type of repetative success streek - guaranteed.
So the AI is doing what it's told to do, make sure you ultimately fail at achievements (like win 4 battles in a row, get grandmaster's 1st place etc..) and no amount of actual money a player has will cure the problem, it's not a p2w issue, it's a game play design issue - and it sure was not present 6 months ago.
On a positive note, newer accounts will have an easier time than myself or older players getting missle rack 8, missle rack 6, disclauncher on the timeline, but will have a very painful time being able to open the 5th mech slot without spending cash as thousands of A-Coins have been removed from the achievement path and converted into in-game currency (c). - So before when I first picked up zephyr way back when for actual money, I knew I had at minimum 75 A-Coins headed my way the moment that thing did any real play, now nobody has this option.
I don't know if I can label the disaster update (at least on the Apple IOS side of things) as a sign of things to come, or when everything is said and done will the game play enjoyment finally return - so I cannot condemn it yet as some players in the forum have by blatantly screaming they're uninstalling the game and etc..
Only time will tell, the least they can do is unrestict XP accumulation, nobody can get those things anyway due to lack of in game tokens/coins or other substitutes for real money.
