So, As I play this game, I'm finding more and more fault with it.
I'm frustrated at this to the point that I have started trying to obtain a forum account to post these issues.
The quote box below if what I've written for this post, and I'd like to know what you all think of it.
I'd like to start this post off by saying that I do very much enjoy this game. It's plenty entertaining and does have quite a bit to do. That said, the following wall of text is going to be a mixture of Criticisms and Frustrations. I ask you to bare with me and, read to the end if you so choose.
My first bit, Involves the Open Expansion Quests. I'm sure others have touched on this in the past, but it really needs to be drummed in before anyone changes it, I suppose. I picked up my first expansion quest, and it wasn't even outwardly labeled as such. The Main and First Gronckcicle quest. I believe it started with either Eret or Fishlegs (or one lead me to the other) and than went to Johan, and than to Hiccup, who proceeded to tell me to fly to Icestorm. Of course I couldn't get there, as I didn't have the expansion, and as this was September of last year, It was still on offer for Gems. I was stuck with a quest I couldn't complete, and Hiccup wouldn't shut up about (I've since discovered how to switch the quest focuses).
This leads into my next act, Regarding the inability to discard a quest. Being stuck with a quest in my book is more a matter of frustration than anything, but an issue all the same. Once you're down to only that one expansion quest, The game will constantly remind you of it with the task listed at the bottom of the screen. So you've only one thing to do, that you can't, because you you can't afford to buy gems and the game simply doesn't generate them fast enough for you to get anywhere. I've done the math for a 1000 Gem expansion, and it would take you from the first of June to September 28th to get that expansion. That's about 4 months, and in the meantime there's nothing to do in the game as you've run out of quests to preform.
But, That poor rate of gem earning Brings me to another point; The unreliable Gem earning system. The Videos seem to be permanently broken unless you find them on the offers page, and sweetie you need to /have friends/ before you can invite to anything. I had no problems completing a couple of offers at the start of my game play; I had to earn gems to buy the next level fishing rod for some salmon (and frankly I'd have rather used the gems on something better...). I wanted to earn even more to maybe bring me up to speed in purchasing an expansion, since it was glaringly apparent that it would become a necessity to do so. I was completing these offers on a separate device to the one I played on because I wasn't going to risk my actual phone for the sake of a game. At first I thought that The gems weren't being rewarded do to the alternate device, but at the time I was to frustrated to deal with it. I was owed probably around 160 gems. Coming back to the gameplay now, I decided to give the offers another try. Re-downloaded and installed the game on the same device, watched a video, got nothing. I was ready to chalk it up to the fact that it may just be the device, but I've looked at the Customer support Thread to see that this is a frequent problem.
And deeper into the rabbit hole we go. The Customer support thread is useless. I looked at the thread, saw the screenshots, and opened the game back on the old phone to see if I could find this mystical page wherein I would find my pending Gem rewards. No such page exists. I load up the offers page, and all I see are a list of offers and the exit button in the corner. I don't know if this is because they've changed offer providers, or because this provider is tried of hearing about how crap their system is. Furthermore, this Offer system only seems to exist on the Mobile version of the game. I've got it downloaded on this older laptop and the only option that appears for earning gems is inviting friends, and I do believe we've covered that already.
So now, with my only free Gem option being to get them through daily rewards, I'm left with only two options; Get a Membership, or Buy the gems. In case it hasn't become apparent by my only touching on it at this point in the post, I can't afford to go purchasing Gems or a Membership. The is a shame, considering more than half of the game seems to revolve around gems. Sure, I can get a Nightmare egg for around 5k Coins (Earned painstakingly through farming and fishing, Because as I've mentioned the quests dry up), but to get a Stable for it would require 300 Gems. It would take me 5 weeks to get that.
I don't have fancy armor. I can't use "Features" that are rudely put in plain sight despite my lack of membership (You know, so I can see em' and not touch em). I don't have the "Cool" Dragons. I can't get stables to even house them. The Quest payouts are unbalanced (500 coins for a saddle, only get 50 from the quest itself. Having to purchase a Gronckle, because it's the only dragon that can fish over the sea, and the Quest gives you 25 coins. >.>). There aren't even enough quests for players without expansions.
So like the post title I beg the Question, Is this Free to Play, or Pay to win?
It feels pretty pay to win for me right now, and that's upsetting considering how much potential this game has.