I bought a character for Marvel Strike Force, which instantly increased my competitiveness. I still had to upgrade it with my resources, but even though it’s only halfway upgraded it is making a big difference for me.
The character is called Black Knight. I had only bought one other character when I first started the game but it turned out that he didn’t matter at all. It was Hulk. I thought he would be more powerful but it didn’t turn out that way. The reason I bought this character is that all of the MSF experts said how awesome he was and I saw that when they played with him. He has been awesome but now people have found counters to his actions.
Which is great. Keeping the gameplay dynamic and challenging makes it more fun for everyone. I have also spent a little bit of money upgrading the second most powerful character. By doing this I can ensure that I stay in the top 100 in Arena which means that I get pretty big rewards. Those rewards have been so helpful in staying competitive with other players.
Now you can always pay money to do better. I don’t pay money until I feel that there is a big advantage in doing something. I don’t mind grinding (doing something repetitive) to get rewards. I would rather do that than pay. However, I have played this several hours a day and it has become my favorite/new video game. In the past, I paid $120 a year for membership to play for a year. I don’t consider supporting a company for a few hundred a year unreasonable divided by the amount of time that I play it. It has been the most expensive game I have played in terms of total dollars spent, but also one of the cheapest because with an iPad I can play it more easily and frequently than starting up a dedicated video game system and playing then. I like that you can take small nibbles at a game, rather than committing yourself to playing for longer periods.
I think the days of playing for longer periods are over. Although when I played RDR2 I literally couldn’t put it down. It was so amazing to be in that environment, and they did such a great job with that experience. I would like to play Cities Skyline 2 as well once the bugs are worked out. I guess I should take another look at that. The last time I looked it still had significant issues.
Video games are just so amazing and I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to play such high-end games. What a pleasure it is to make progress towards a goal.