Atlantis Rises is a great feature: it’s been met with near universal acclaim and finally gives a place to use flasks for those of us who don’t compete in events.
Raid Tournaments: sure there are issues with matchmaking and the loot debacle, but the bottom line is it’s a good new feature, the extra raid flags help fill chests, and the loot tiers are done by percentages (unlike the events, where the loot tiers are asinine).
Titans: I’m not in an alliance where this matters, but I know 13 and 14 star titans were agitated for and it made sense to get them back out there.
Costume Chamber: I think it’s given new life to the S1 heroes, and they fixed the biggest flaw of getting a costume with no underlying hero.
Mystic Vision: while I think 7 hours would be vastly superior, the tweaked cooldown timer is an improvement.
Recent rebalancing: no one thinks it was perfect, but overall many of the changes were good. More importantly, regardless of what anyone thinks of the actual Telluria and Vela results, the process (multiple iterations, different combinations, some deliberately designed to be too much) was VERY good.
Season 3: generally, the new heroes, effects, art, stages, etc. have been pretty good.
Path of Valor: it’s properly rewarded daily play and, more generally, the calendar is now replete with content.
Attempts: setting aside how successful each component was, I think that SGG has made many attempts to add new game elements and features (AR, Share the Gems, Tournaments, Costumes, a green tank, AL, PoV, Legends, etc.) and should be commended for much of that. Not everything was a success, but it’s important to think about the process and not always be results oriented. I hope SGG is learning from these game aspects, how they’re implemented, and how they’re received.
Thick skin: I am as vocally critical of SGG as most posters, and while I somewhat doubt it hurts their feelings or anything, it can’t be the most fun to just get flayed in the forums.
Bad
Communication: I’ve harangued SGG about it in multiple places. There are many game aspects they should address, including the departure of long time players.
Alchemy Lab: the initial design has been a complete flop and widely panned. SGG has complicated this problem by being slow to redress it.
Hero Academy: similarly, this looks pretty lukewarn (at best) and has been inexplicably slow in coming. It cost us MysterySpin.
Additional alliance content: this has also long been promised and has never materialized. There has not even been a hint about it.
Quests: Most of the quests are hilariously outdated and an incredibly poor exchange of World Energy for rewards. An update is badly needed here.
Portals: I continue to be baffled by the stubborn adherence to the S1 heroes in every portal, most recently S3 and ToL. It just seems out of touch with the current game state and borderline deliberately aggravating.
Four star AM availability: with the release of emblems, five star heroes at 3.70 have taken a serious hit. Loosening the reins on the four star ascension material drops would have been a good way to keep up with the power creep in the game (I mean here that +x heroes are more powerful, irregardless of whether recent HOTM and S3 heroes are better). SGG’s failure to do this displays a lack of understanding about the game state.
Raid Index: many players were interested in this and have clamored for an update. SGG has never given one, nor even communicated about it. I imagine they must have this data at their fingertips, so the failure here is that they could do very little and make us very happy. That’s a great value proposition, but SGG whiffs completely.
Hero balance: I do NOT mean this in terms of OP and UP heroes. What I mean is that Holy heroes are still largely neglected (though admit that Mist and Lady Woolerton have helped). Where are the costumes for Chao, Hu Tao, Wu Kong, and even Gan Ju? They really need help. Similarly, with the rash of five star heroes we’ve seen comparatively little increase in the pool of four (and three) star heroes. Yet these heroes are vital in many aspects of the game.
Hunter’s Lodge: overall, while it was a good idea, I think this has been a failure. Harpoons are useful, but titan parts and most items in the Lodge are not (rather, they are too resource intensive in a game where there are many other, better value options).
