400+ heroes

General Discussion
1

What a great game! 400+ 5* heroes! Chronological List of Hero Releases. By the way, congrats @BlueHair for your work on the linked topic, great effort putting it together! Made me think, Wow! We have 400 available heroes to chose from! Damn, that’s a lot…

… however, unfortunately, things are not the way they seem at first glance… going through the defenses of top, end game players, we notice a repeating pattern of a few heroes being used over and over and over again. If your bussiness takes you above 2500 - 2600 cups, you know very well what I’m talking about. The obsessive repetition of Elizabeth, Friggodin, Krampus, c.Kadilen, Morel, Wolfgang, Ludwig, Bera and some other, about 20 or 25 heroes, makes the game choke, screaming for diversity. What good are 400+ heroes if we only get to fight against 25? Just take a moment to imagine how much fun it would be if all 400+heroes were on close parr, ballanced and able to replace one another. Imagine re-rolling in high diamond and never know what to expect from the next roll, imagine how great it would be if among the 500 heroes in top 100 defenses, we would meet at least 200 - 250 individuals, instead of 20 - 25… you’re gonna say, the rest are useful on attack… yes, sure, undeniable, but stil, you’re not ever facing them in battle…

I know, wishfull thinking, day dreaming… not gonna happen…

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I would be happy even if it was 100 usable in defences. And I would be content with that even if you saw them grouped into a few different “builds” where like on attack you could face a mana cut based defence or riposte based defence etc that was as good as the other “builds” but may require different tactics or counters to be really effective. Having a singular moving meta (Guins mana cut then pre nerf GTV then the bera / Freya minion machine now the Liz fiend build) is obviously more profitable though so alas this is what we will have forever more :frowning:

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One thing is how many heroes are usable in defense, other thing is the “comfort zone picks”. What if we already have 100 heroes that can form great synergies on defense, but they are undiscovered as everyone just plays copy-cat of the easy picks that started somewhere and got extremely popular?

Even if above is just a theory now (though I wouldn’t bet my head on it) - if things changed and we really got the pool of 100 heroes to be great on defense, do you think a big % people would care to discover those, or would they still stick to the good old C Kadilen / Morel / Elizabeth anyway?

I am afraid not so many actually want to form their own line ups, unless they are forced to due to small rosters; even those who do, how many of those would risk pulling and ascending heroes just to try if their idea worked?

I don’t think it’s the game to be blamed for this entirely, it’s a lot of human psychology here as well. “If something works well enough, why change it”.

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Way Too many five stars VS four stars being pumped out.

At least four stars can ascend and then even limit break… creating more vibrant rosters.

I am curious what ratio of ascended vs non ascended five stars most players have. And how long those non ascended five stars will sit in a roster never getting the mats.

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It’s just like all the people who don’t want to think and post in FB groups about what emblem path to take or is this a good hero.

I’m glad I don’t play nosebleed levels because I just enjoy figuring things out and trying things not just slavishly trying to make always the MOST optimal choice like the people who are constantly redoing their emblems etc. just have fun who cares if it’s perfect.

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Feel free to offer some examples of great synergies that would work as close to as well as the meta defences as to be within statistical margin of errors for testing and I’m sure we will have people like myself that would help test out the line ups via setting those defences and attacking in friendly intra alliance battles to get a data set to back up or refute that claim. I actually think the moving meta with clear “best” options is SG’s plan as it is profitable but I’m happy to admit I’m wrong if proven other wise.

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I think the point is that in general the player base relies too much on hero grading and opinions become taken as fact so then players don’t level independently based on their roster so synergies are not found which could exist if more experimentation is done overall by each player.

It’s not a case of suicide bunny giving g other synergies as doesn’t necessarily have the hero combos to do it. But if as players we all did it more there would probably be other fits found.

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I get the point but I think it is a side step of the original intent of the thread.

For the record I have never had a meta defence as I don’t pull nearly enough for that so I do have to find my “best of the rest” but unlike on offence where you can find great synergies that overcome your lack of the top heroes there are certain pieces that on defence are just so vastly superior to the other options that you will never be in the same tier as those who have them.

My addition to that concept which Ian put forward is that SG deliberately want this to be the case to encourage chasing those heroes then they release counters for you to chase before resetting the meta with a new problem to chase ad infinitum

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SSG can split hero in 4 Tab: Favourite Hero, 5* Heros, 4 * Heros, 3* Heros?

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I don’t want to form any examples for you to prove or prove not, just gave some food for thought. I never chased heroes that were A+++ on defense as that’s not where I focus, so I couldn’t copy cat and had to go with what I had (beside maybe Telly era where I just had to go with the flow…). A defense that gave me a lot of success was Onyx-Guardian Kong-Jade-Guardian Owl-Cobalt in reverse double formation; and except maybe Cobalt, no heroes there were from the top picks. It was just apparently stupidly diffucult for people to deal with the dodges and mana cut long enough until being obliterated by Cobalt or Owl, I lost maybe two out of ten attacks on me. Sadly, that couldn’t be used on wars and tournaments and is no more possible with the changes to nearby logic, but it worked.

I also remember when I was attacking someone who formed their defense mostly on minions, Puss in Boots, Queen of Hearts, Freya and some. I lost all three attacks terribly, despite having heroes like Grimble, Gefjons, Devanas etc. I just couldn’t do anything and it was stupidly effective for how weak and random it seemed.

But again, my point is not to give you a line up to say “look those heroes work on defense as well” and you fight them 100 times and say “ok, you are right” or “nope, try again”. My point is, even if the OP wish is granted, would that work out for this player base? Or would the playerbase still just copy cat whatever from the rich top guys or use whatever works for them already instead of using ‘the new’? If you are using defense that keeps you in 2700, why bother looking for another one that would keep you on the same level? For GTV to be bethroned, 2/3 of that trio had to be obliterated with nerfs as only this way these defenses fell into ~2500 and below to start people thinking. I am afraid, we’re there now, and beside occassional swap Odin for Faline or Bera for Ludwig, you won’t see much change; but not because heroes are bad but because people don’t care.

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I agree that most people would just follow what others say / do but I also believe there are enough non whale innovators that we would not only see those non meta defences developed but we would also see them copied if they proved to be within 5% of the effectiveness of the meta defences. My defence does ok and like yours has 2 of the often seen heroes in top 20 war team defences (I see onyx and cobalt a lot).

And this is where I see if a hero is viable or not - can it hold a spot in a top x alliance war defence without instantly making its user a target (cause it only takes 1 weak hero to make your defence a target close to the top). I know balance is difficult but there have been games in the past that have for the most part managed it, I would respect SG so much more if I believed that they were even trying to achieve this and I think it would give a richer and more varied pvp experience at the top levels.

For the record my current defence for war (same heroes different order / formation for tower) is w rabbit, morel, c marj, c kad, killhare (all LB and +18-20) - as good as that sounds it won’t get you a spot in a top tier alliance and is a definite farm in the 2nd tier where I live

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Well, currently I am running this:

Screenshot_20211130-105057_Empires
Screenshot_20211130-105057_Empires1440×3040 316 KB

Motega just joined there for testing as I work him up with emblems (it was Inari before him), and as you can see, it’s holding close to 2700 without me raiding much so I am fine with it. Whether it would hold the test of 100 raids, and how much worse would it be compared to Morel/Eli/C Kadilen/Odin/Bera it’s hard to tell. I think you need some of the new heroes to form an alternative defense, and if you pull enough to afford that, you’re likely to get the ‘shiny that everone’s using’ as well. So again it’s easier to copy what works than to innovate and risk to fail. Other thing is - as you mentioned - what works for wars, as the formation there is one and only so the synergies and strategy is far more shallow. And experimenting in wars (or tournaments) and failing will cost you or the alliance resources, so it’s yet another drawback. Imagine if defenses were giving more points for heroes who are used more commonly by the alliance. The ground would shake.

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If they made the common hero point penalty any formation war the new rule to add to the rotation I would give both you and SG massive kudos for making my gaming more entertaining.

Edit:
I see it working as the same score as now but for each common hero you then add 1 point to each defence that uses it per extra use (so let’s say there are 20 Liz every defence with Liz is worth 19 extra points).

You will see some varied defences then

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I only have 170 and have been feeding them to get back to that level. My current favourites are Lord Loki and Agrathena and Tethuk, while a 4* is really useful.

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While theoretically, it is good to think all the suppositions / suggestions in the OP, practical reality of the moment will be different, despite the best efforts by SG / Players to have a high variety of active heroes being used in DEFENCE !

How & Why?

We all clearly know, that Defence teams are prepared with competitive angle = to WiN in mind and hence the best synergised heroes are put there.

The game cannot have heroes being the same in terms of power / specials when it comes to each year of operations = Players will not spend & hence the game management will suffer = leading to closure of operations… We all know, but less number of players would like to acknowledge it :laughing:

And hence, we arrive back to the current scenario, wherein we have new heroes with better (A/D/HP) stats being introduced which are showing up in TOP ranking-tier defences…
BUT
the OP clearly forgets that the GAME is NOT about the TOP-Ranking-Tier players…

Reality = When I skip looking at these TOP-Ranking defences, I see a high of variety of heroes are on defences… many variety limit broken… so it all isn’t so BAD :laughing:

The limit breakers have added to the difficulty aspect in favour of both defence & offence !

  • My P2P roster is winning a bit less compared to a month back = shows LBs are doing their job !

So, I see that the game is proceeding well despite shouts, allegations of power-creep, money-grab, OP-Heroes, etc…
though
I do end up :rofl: :rofl: when I hear the usual youtubers use the above words / allegations & keep puling for more heroes, which shows upon their war search roster display :rofl: :rofl:

Unfortunately many players don’t think independently and fall for these propaganda words which clearly don’t match up with in-game action by these very influencers - teachers !!

It aint so BAD … a player can enjoy the game, if the player wants to … :wink:

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And you have great fun in war facing 25 out of 30 opponents with Hannah/ Morel/Liz/Frigg/Odin or Frigg/Prof. L.( Odin)/ Bera/Liz (Garnet)/ Morel( Finley). Sometimes a Freya or squidface instead of Bera. Or a cKad instead of Frigg.
In VF you face 20 Alfrikes…

Cant remember to face a Rat or a Guardian in war defense…

Bring back variety!

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That’s one problem… Yesterday I was stuck for over 10 hours at 2670 cups with absolutely nobody attacking me. That’s a very long time considering the fact that every time I go a few hundred cups up, in the 2900 - 3000 range, my defense gets attacked 15 - 20 times in a 5 minutes time frame… Of course, people are targeting good cup ratio defenses for rapid cup gain, that’s as old as the game itself, but it ruined raiding for me (and many others, most likely). My raiding routine, for a very long time, was to take all the available revenge runs in the watchtower and only then, if any flags were left, go against re-rolled targets. Nowadays, while in my confort 2500 - 2700 zone, I’m rarely getting attacked and whenever the attacks go through and drop my cups down another 50 -100, to below 2500 cups, I basically never get attacked anymore, until I climb back up. I don’t realy enjoy this…

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I play a certain nba basketball video game. Every year they run a tournament for $250,000. There are thousands of players to use. If I look at the ten players the winner used in the championship series last year, I see 9 out of 10 in the second place finishers starting lineup.

With basic rules a meta will exist. It’s not surprising. Based on this tiny example, I’d say it isn’t necessary better in other games.

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FYI - There are only 224 five star heroes and costumes. The email thread you linked was for all heroes.

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Personally, I’m pretty happy with the leaderboard diversity right now. Feels to me like it’s the most diverse it’s been in a long time. Used to be only 1-3 squad ideas that ran everything. Bera, Frigg/Odin, and GTV all had their times when it seemed you’re on top if you have them, and you’re not if you don’t. Now there are a bunch of different viable “top 10” squads.

We know who the best heroes are, but it isn’t like you absolutely must have Ludwig (for example) or you will always be below those who do have him. There are several other options

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