Do you spend real (m)oney on DS?

I'm just wondering how many people here have managed to get their teams thru trade and auctions only?

For me personally, if I play a game long enough, I donate or b.uy points/credits cause I want the devs to know I like and use their product.

I'm not a big fan of people who don't think they need to b.uy soul points but then turn around and ask people for cards to help build their team. Honestly it really annoys the crap out of me but I digress ...

Spent 3 bucks the first week I started around August. Haven't since then. The thing I hate the most are the people who complain that you can only do good in this game if you spend!!!

I haven't spent a single penny on this game. I've merched in many games over the years and it wasn't too hard to get into this game. I usually get 1-2 people per week who write on my wall accusing me of scamming or having a secondary account to be able to have obtained my AA+ team
@Fenix00 you'll find all kind of people out there. just ignore them and move on, not too hard!

this is a quesion i always ask myself
if most of us have never spent money in this game, so where is EP come from ? for each even, a large EP has been burnt.

I think there are just as many people out there who spend money on the game, as there are who aren't. I'm also convinced that a good number of people who say they haven't spent any money on the game, are lying. ( Not directed at you geeeeeeeeeeeeeee, just in general ). If the game was not making them money, they would not keep going with it.

I agree with above... where else would all these EPs be coming from? Someone's got to be buying them, since you only get MyEPs from doing the events.

Bmfl93 wrote:The thing I hate the most are the people who complain that you can only do good in this game if you spend!!!

well, spending mo­ney certainly makes it easier to "do good"

quite simply; precluding the situation in which you ally-summon AAs, you need "mo­ney" to make "mon­ey" (­mon­ey in this circumstance meaning EP)

it is very easy to get a 50%+ return on most monster investments with time being the only overhead (buying a monster that someone is trying to liquidate fast at a discount, and selling it to someone who is looking for it), however, without that initial capital to get that monster in the first place, acquiring those first couple units of working capital is the steepest difficulty curve in the game.

I know I struggled to get those first few ep when I started playing, trying to pawn off those "ultra common" monsters for some ep (pits, wwe, sky dragons, etc...) was tough since the vast majority of people already have them, and the people who want them are not exactly the types of people who are "informed" enough to be on the forums, or trade on top rank; so you literally need to refresh the random battle button until you see someone with an unevolved version of the monster you are trying to sell set as their leader, and then try sell it to them.


Once you have some start-up, making more is a breeze. as cliche as it may sound; it's really all just buy low, sell higher.


I personally haven't spent a penny on this game, with the exception of one 25$ google play gift card I had lying around for several months when a clanmate told me that those could be used for soul points; I was like why not, I'm using it for anything else. Being that this was during baneful flames, I got 3000 soul points which I exchanged for some ice crystals and dark summons... Didn't get anything halfway worthwhile; 3 dark summons: child of puri, 2 crit Bs. Dark trapped a bunch of ally-summon stuff.

So I suppose I have spent money on this game, although I might as well have not since I didn't really get anything out of it.



That large amount of ep almost certainly comes from people purchasing large amounts of ep. The missions can only give so many. And there are what? 80 mission sets? the first 5-10 only give "my" ep/bp. so that's about 70ep per person which can enter the game through missions. I'm fairly sure more than 70*p ep exists in-game at any given time (p = total players), and most people haven't even finished all 80 mission sets, and you don't even get a guaranteed ep from the later missions which have a chance to give them.


TLDR: money helps, it's not crucial. You don't need to buy lottery tickets (dark summons) to get rich, although it can certainly help.

[quote="larry378"]

Bmfl93 wrote:it is very easy to get a 50%+ return on most monster investments with time being the only overhead

This is the part of the game that baffles me. If it's an event limited monster, then yes, it will probably go up in time, but even that has exceptions... eg Lillin doesn't bring much anymore because of Leth. But in general, with stronger monsters appearing all the time, don't most monsters go down in price over time?

I've spent some money on the game, bought some dark summons because I like a gamble once in a while. It wasn't worth it because I got bullcrap every time, so I can't say it has really helped me. I made my wealth with trading and ranking for events like most people.

ryesteve wrote:

larry378 wrote:it is very easy to get a 50%+ return on most monster investments with time being the only overhead

This is the part of the game that baffles me. If it's an event limited monster, then yes, it will probably go up in time, but even that has exceptions... eg Lillin doesn't bring much anymore because of Leth. But in general, with stronger monsters appearing all the time, don't most monsters go down in price over time?

they are veblen goods lol... there are a bunch of monsters out there like that which are expensive and not all that useful; dawn, selene, glam, tita, endless, valk, and I'm probably missing a few.

feel free to draw your own conclusions on the commonalities those monsters share as justification for their price

hint: ( . )( . )

haha, ok there are also other monsters which don't fall in that category which are also seemingly too expensive for how useful they are; like blink and magma dragon, or NWD (seriously WHY is nwd so expensive lol), etc...

JessicaMD wrote:

ryesteve wrote:

larry378 wrote:it is very easy to get a 50%+ return on most monster investments with time being the only overhead

This is the part of the game that baffles me. If it's an event limited monster, then yes, it will probably go up in time, but even that has exceptions... eg Lillin doesn't bring much anymore because of Leth. But in general, with stronger monsters appearing all the time, don't most monsters go down in price over time?

they are veblen goods lol... there are a bunch of monsters out there like that which are expensive and not all that useful; dawn, selene, glam, tita, endless, valk, and I'm probably missing a few.

feel free to draw your own conclusions on the commonalities those monsters share as justification for their price

hint: ( . )( . )

haha, ok there are also other monsters which don't fall in that category which are also seemingly too expensive for how useful they are; like blink and magma dragon, or NWD (seriously WHY is nwd so expensive lol), etc...

right, several factors influence the price of the card
1. aesthetics of the card
2. strength/utility of skill/filling in niche roles
3. rarity (limited availability) bragging rights

I feel that 1 and 3 influences prices the most.

From my experience you guys who complain that its an unfair advantage to spend $$ on this game are grossly over estimating the value of dark summons. Ive spent, prob, $75 on dark summons and various capture devices and ive seen 2 different prog cards. No joke, the rest have been 10-15bp A's and B's. Just as many B's as A's. Ive rolled some amazing cards, and none from dark summons.

Now i buy a dark summon each week and regret it every time. Remember that double, triple even 10x the normal AA rate is still damn near nothing %. What is it, like 0.001??

@other $$spenders: is this normal or am i seriously unlucky? Id rather just buy cards from people at this point.[b]

So far I have not spent any real money yet (assuming we are not
counting many times a day to charge my phone). If you put enough time
in and out of the game by shopping and researching at this forum,
minding crystals and skill, and trying to trade fairly, then you can
end up with good cards without having to spend real money. Of course
little luck help as well like someone offering me 8ep for regular Iris
at AH. I used that 8ep to buy Lethargic+ from here.

The enjoyment of this game is largely depend on what we expect from the
game. If someone is hopping to get the best formation in game, that
person will be spending lots and lots of money especially the way ATeam
bring out more powerful monster (and some how someone can + it, max it
and put it on AH withing hour). If someone like me just wanting to see
how far I can go while enjoying the social aspect of the game then
spending money is not necessary to enjoy the game.

i used to do 11.99 on the first day of every ep ranking event..that would get me 4 dark summons and 1 ep. If i lucked out and got a prog, cool, resell for a stupid amount of ep. If not, just moved on.

My last one I did try on this current event, and one of my dark summons was Repulsive Reptendo (40 bp covert). I was happy

yinston wrote:@other $$spenders: is this normal or am i seriously unlucky? Id rather just buy cards from people at this point.[b]

I have a bad habit of dropping a couple of hundred bucks into new games that I get hooked on that I'm sure I will play long enough to justify the cost. I think you may just be unlucky because I've been playing for 33 or 34 days now and I've gotten 4 AAs, 12 progs, and decent amount of trade worthy A's. But it could just be beginner's luck. However I'm done spending cash for awhile because at my level I stand no chance of ranking in events.

I've only spent about $15-$20 on DS so far... And because I don't like to take the chance on what I deem to be an "over-priced" cost for a dark summon ($3 for no guaranteed good card?), i spent most of it on EP. Maybe that's not the wisest action, but it's the one out of which I get the most enjoyment.

I agree with the original poster's comment... one of the main reasons I spend/justify spending that money is to show the developers my appreciation... I didn't pay for the DS app like i would for most PS3 or XBOX games, it's kept me interested as long -- if not longer -- than other paid titles, and I'm not plagued by ads (yet). So every now and again I'll show my appreciation to try and keep it that way.

But I also have a mortgage, 2 kids and a wife with a shopping addiction... Sometimes I think it's a miracle I can even afford my measly $20!

I've spent a few hundred dollars on this game and don't really regret it. I also like to show my appreciation for the game. Think about it though, with any other trading card game, you pretty much HAVE to spend a good bit on booster packs/etc. unless you have a rich friend that plays and gives you good cards they consider junk, until you can start trading your way into some great cards.

Most of my money has gone into dark summons most have been random skill sacs. I've gotten a fair amount of progs as well. The best summon I got was at the beginning of the creature raise event trying to get a prog. I ended up summoning a tlon and sold him in the AH for 425 EP lol. Thank god I sold him cuz I saw someone asking like 150 EP buyout for him a week or so ago lol.

is ranking in event that easy? i mean its hard to gamble specially when you're new. It might end all your spent EP to nothing instead of using it for investment.. If there's anyone there who always rank in Events, mind as-well give some hint how many EP should i Spend and capacity of energy for a "Sure" ranked in event?

I've spent a fair amount. But i work hard and make a good living. I have an awesome wife that is cool with my spending. My 2 lil girls even like playing ( tapping the red arrow ) the game with dad. So I dont mind spending the $$. That and I use soul points to get progs so I can pass them to clanmates.