I can understand the freemium model from a business perspective. And some freemium games do use the model without damaging the game design too badly.

Phage Wars Live is not one of them. It's fallen into the trap of directly translating money for in-game skill, thus shutting the door of enjoyment to the casual (or simply destitute) players.

Pity - this could have been such a great online experience.

I agree with you on that, death to freemium.

Unless there's some kind of tier system involved, giving players upgrades just encourages tooling on newer players. Is there any countermeasure to this in place?

Just checked the buy upgrades screen, wow. 3 bucks and you win forever. That is SO TERRIBLE. >:| I just want to play this game FOR FREE and not die in 10 seconds to people who paid. Is that so much to ask? I guess so.

many of the players I've run into aren't purchasing, and I've actually beaten players over 10 levels higher than me. Its a little like playing hard mode or survival mode.

Only one player I met purchased the level 100 upgrade, but I imagine most people dont even bother to play against him.

The more you upgrade, the less people there are willing to play with you. Hows that for a counterbalance?

Just a question: I join a room marked "rank 1~10". I see people with rank 20, rank 89 and all that. What was the point of the label then?

I am NOT amused at all. The concept of phage wars (as I see it from singleplayer) is that you can start out stronger than your enemy and quite literally kick their ass because their stats simply cannot match yours...except that when your enemy happens to also be human and does not feel like playing an uneven match, you're not going to find someone to play with you.

Should have seen this coming, but I hoped that the developers would actually implement a system to balance it out. Since they did not, I am quitting this disappointing game.

Yea this is no fun. They should allow people to fight fair.

Yeah, games that playability depends on money sux, that's why i quit spiral knights, each level requires points (you start with 100 each day free), several stuff cost a lot and the only way to buy them is to "convert from real to fake".

They want money for this?

I've tried to play twice, both times the games stopped responding and nothing I did had any effect. I could send phages at a cell, but they would all die without killing anything, until I realized that the game had dropped me.

Buggy beyond belief.