5 nice slots ruined with (too) high variance

gambyx7

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I would like to share some of my thinking about this theme. I could include more slots/providers, but I kept those which I play most.

Please feel free to comment ot to add some other slots.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (Microgaming)

To me, this slot could be perfect, in class with Immortal Romance. Theme, graphic, sounds, features (ok, I never pick Mask feature), but volatility is insane. Played thousands of spins and only once touched 300x. Very difficult to longroll this I simply don't understand why MG did that. It has very nice potential, but wins (from medium to high) simply don't come. Game of Thrones / BDBA and Six Acrobats together can be more player-friendly than this.

REACTOONZ (Play'n'Go)

The less you play this slot, the better for you. It is worst balance killer out there. False frequent minor wins (rarely bigger than 4x!!!) plus series of dead spins and no medium wins which will keep you going. And even Garga feature (every 450 spins in average) doesn't guarantee that you'll get saver win. Yes, 1500x max wins are not rare, but you need to have many, many luck to get it. In 90% your bankroll can't ensure such luck.

LOST RELICS (Netent)

Netent never had problems with graphic and creativity, but always with maths and variance. I don't like cluster type of slots, but I would forgive it here because of nice theme and exciting features. But everything goes down with frequent 30-40 completely dead spins. Like the max win spin is 15000x and not only 150x!!! This goes to almost all newer Netent slots. Sadly!

FORBIDEN THRONE (Microgaming / Mahigaming)

To me visualy the most pleasing and exciting slot. At first look seems like low variance slot because of wild reels, but you can actaully sink quite fast and free spins are not that frequent. Unbalanced game with poor jackpot should give much more in base game.

THE FINER REELS OF LIFE (Microgaming)

I know that many will not agree with this one, but MG had to copy IR paytable here. As said before, to me this game has better theme, features and graphic than IR, but paytable is simply bad.
 
RISE OF OLYMPUS

Much better than Moon Princess or Energoonz but can be a real money burner

DONUTS

Good concept but the awful base game payouts and the rarely seen free spins feature mean this is one to avoid.

EXTRA CHILLI

The bonus gamble ruins the game, 8 spins barely gets you a decent win and the gamble rarely pays off.
 
RISE OF OLYMPUS
Much better than Moon Princess or Energoonz but can be a real money burner

DONUTS
Good concept but the awful base game payouts and the rarely seen free spins feature mean this is one to avoid.

EXTRA CHILLI
The bonus gamble ruins the game, 8 spins barely gets you a decent win and the gamble rarely pays off.
Totally agree with this post :thumbsup: (Except Rise is NOT better than Moon!)

I know Moon Princess is a dangerous game, so when I first played Rise Of Olympus last month I approached it in exactly the same way...
But in a total of 1,028 spins I only got free-spins TWICE - Picked the 4 spin one both times and it was PANTS.
My total RTP on it is 57% and I lost very close to £1,000 with mostly just £2 spins :eek:

Donuts: don't play it - looks too boring.

Extra Chilli: Agree 100%!

------------------------
Re the OP: I only play 2 of the slots mentioned...
Reactoonz is... well, Reactoonz!
It is what it is - I wouldn't call it high variance though, more mid-variance.
In my 2,283 spins on it since VS started the "My RTP" function, my RTP is 120%... so naturally I like it! ;)

Finer Reels of Life is one of my favourite MG slots - play it fairly frequently, whereas I never play IR or TS2.
I like the music and find it very relaxing to play, especially with a beer in one hand and a big cigar in the other :cool:
Not sure I personally would call high variance - but I suppose massive wins ARE possible...

KK
 
I'm a big advocate of Thunderkick but fear that with Jaguar Temple they've missed the mark somewhat.

Unlike most of TK's medium-variance portfolio, this one strays a little too far away from this template into light high-variance territory, chalking off countless dead spins and a very hard- to- trigger bonus round for such little payout. They need to pare it back to Falcon Huntress levels to make it viable long-term, because as it stands it's just another 'bleeder' game :(

And for sheer hilarity, Finn and the Swirly Spin has to rank as one of the worst wastes in slotting memory. Great aesthetics belie a shocker of a slot, whereby one is almost guaranteed to have lost 50% of their bankroll to have the game give back 30%. The endless dead spins do not excitement make, and setting default stakes to 10p does not excuse the fact that it's an 'investment' slot that one has to unlock various bonus levels just to stand a chance. If there is some type of great payout found within, have fun trying to unlock it :D
 
I'm a big advocate of Thunderkick but fear that with Jaguar Temple they've missed the mark somewhat.

Unlike most of TK's medium-variance portfolio, this one strays a little too far away from this template into light high-variance territory, chalking off countless dead spins and a very hard- to- trigger bonus round for such little payout. They need to pare it back to Falcon Huntress levels to make it viable long-term, because as it stands it's just another 'bleeder' game :(

And for sheer hilarity, Finn and the Swirly Spin has to rank as one of the worst wastes in slotting memory. Great aesthetics belie a shocker of a slot, whereby one is almost guaranteed to have lost 50% of their bankroll to have the game give back 30%. The endless dead spins do not excitement make, and setting default stakes to 10p does not excuse the fact that it's an 'investment' slot that one has to unlock various bonus levels just to stand a chance. If there is some type of great payout found within, have fun trying to unlock it :D

Absolutely hate those games that play high variance and pay low variance...

There's so many interesting looking slots, with a different theme than usual or a unique mechanic, that are getting ruined by that. And it's more and more frequent that happens nowadays. Alot of it is ruined by the bonus buy feature, latest one to have the bonus buy is Dark Vortex by Yggdrasil... whereby the regular bonus drops in after 4-500 spins so one is almost being forced to "buy" it.
 
Think I'll add John Hunter and Davinci's treasure to this list.... Yes up to 48000x but as you never get the damn progressive spins there's simply no point playing it. When you almost always get Crap Quest or Prize prick and no those are not typos :mad:

Was so excited about this release but to learn you can be fobbed off with guff. Avoid it. Oh and it eats the balance too.
 
I’ll certainly agree with Phantom of the Opera. I’ve had some huge hits but lots of dead spins and bonus teases. It’s a classic feast or famine slot.

Donuts is a joke. I don’t know what Dunover saw in it.

I guess I’ll add Raging Rhino since Ontario residents can play it now but it’s always been that way.

I’m sure both Legacy of Egypt and Montezuma suffer from this. You can take forever to get the bonus and you get 3 dead spins.
 
Donuts is superb. I love it. :p

Sorry mate but I can't agree. I'm sure it does ok but it's not for me. Give me DHV any day over Donuts...
 
Just my thoughts on high variance...

I don't think players mind having a shit bonus round as long as the potential is obvious. It's why Cleopatra 2, Raging Rhino, Bonanza, Tiki Tumble, Flamebusters, etc work quite well. Because the potential is instantly obvious. You know HOW you can win huge even if you don't.

Games that are high variance but don't give the player any idea how they could win huge in the bonus round and still pay crap very rarely if at all work.

Players won't pay to find out where these huge wins are hidden - they don't know what to chase. But on Bonanza for example you know exactly what to chase... so players do.

Potential, seeing it and being able (rarely) to realise it, is so important to game design in my opinion.
 
Donuts has a manic multiplier potential, but by and large I cannot fathom what's going on with the base game half the time, a bit of a jumbled mess. So all anticipation goes out of the window as it's hard enough to decipher the on-screen mania :D

One could argue DHV has the base game to go with the monstrous bonus. Just a glance at the 66x multiplier strip gives me palpitations :eek2:
 
Sorry mate but I can't agree. I'm sure it does ok but it's not for me. Give me DHV any day over Donuts...

This man speaks the truth!
Just my thoughts on high variance...

I don't think players mind having a shit bonus round as long as the potential is obvious. It's why Cleopatra 2, Raging Rhino, Bonanza, Tiki Tumble, Flamebusters, etc work quite well. Because the potential is instantly obvious. You know HOW you can win huge even if you don't.

Games that are high variance but don't give the player any idea how they could win huge in the bonus round and still pay crap very rarely if at all work.

Players won't pay to find out where these huge wins are hidden - they don't know what to chase. But on Bonanza for example you know exactly what to chase... so players do.

Potential, seeing it and being able (rarely) to realise it, is so important to game design in my opinion.

Same with walking dead 2 slot that I won on and while playing, I know it can pay huge but it gives out terrible bonuses as well but I am aware of that fact, It still sucks though getting the 2x win,lol.
 
Just my thoughts on high variance...

I don't think players mind having a shit bonus round as long as the potential is obvious. It's why Cleopatra 2, Raging Rhino, Bonanza, Tiki Tumble, Flamebusters, etc work quite well. Because the potential is instantly obvious. You know HOW you can win huge even if you don't.

Games that are high variance but don't give the player any idea how they could win huge in the bonus round and still pay crap very rarely if at all work.

Players won't pay to find out where these huge wins are hidden - they don't know what to chase. But on Bonanza for example you know exactly what to chase... so players do.

Potential, seeing it and being able (rarely) to realise it, is so important to game design in my opinion.

That's a good point, even on "simple" and straight forward slots with big payouts for top 5oak, it's almost impossible as a player to know how much of the RTP is stored in those big 5oak payouts (400-2000x). Is it a large %, meaning that you'll probably lose if you don't hit top payouts, or are they so rare and a small % of rtp that you're actually playing a medium variance slot? While you're in the middle of losing, it can be really tough to tell if you're getting atrocious luck or if you've just underestimated the variance of the slot.

It's easy to hate a slot that you have a bad run at without being able to see where the potential payoffs are.
 

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