An interesting topic, and one I can respond to by analogy.
All of this is true. And there have been improvements. However, that has been more than offsets by the powercreep of new heroes making it more costly to stay as competitive as before.
I liken it to the changes we see in the economy. Wages have risen, which is a good thing. However, costs have increased more rapidly. What this means is, purchasing power has decreased.
This is similar to what we are experiencing here. Yes, the availability of heroes is growing. But we see larger and larger gaps between the event heroes and the more accessible HotM.
If you recall, in the olden days, HotM wre extremely competitive and key heroes in top defenses. Alberich was a top tier threat way back when. Gravemaker was also a top defenders. Kingston had his time in the sun as well. Then came Telluria and she was the undisputed queen of the tanks. While her power was problematic, SG not only heavily nerfed her, but they subsequently made HotM considerably weaker than event heroes released concurrently.
Consider if you will, Skargremar vs Lasalle. Look at the massive stat and power discrepancy between the two
That is a 74 point gap between a a current HotM and an event hero released in the same month (coincidentally, that is roughly the stat gap between a 4 and 5* from S1).
Now let’s look at something similar in 2017.
Gardian Panther and Alberich. Both released October 2017. One a top tier event hero, the other a HotM. Both had the same 765 power, and both were top tier heroes at the time.
December 2018. Mother North and Evelyn. Again, both top tier heroes of their time. Only two points apart.
October 2019. Finley and Kingston, both top heroes. 11 points apart. The gap started to really take off here, but was manageable.
March 2020. That’s when Telluria came. Only Norns accompanied her that month and they were 15 points apart.
By December 2020, we were looking at a large 20 point power gap, and a considerable quality gap between event heroes and HotM.
By December 2021, we were looking at a 24 point gap.
At the end of 2022, the gap was 28 points.
Now, just up until June, that gap has nearly tripled from the last year. And we are only halfway through the year. I dread to think of where we will be come December 2023.
Additionally, the number of nerfs have ramped up considerably.
If we exclude the nerfs in V1 of the game when the game was still new and SG was still figuring everything out, there had been no nerfs before Telluria. See here for balance change log.
So for 3 years, SG had managed to balance the game well. Now however, there are fairly frequent nerfs and the frequency seems to be increasing.
- Telluria
- Vela
- Frigg
- Odin
- cKrampus
- The whole winter family as well
- Xnolphod
- Miriam & Midnight
And of course, while they walked back the planned nerfs in v58, we have no guarantees that they have been scrapped. But that would have nerfed over 40 heroes.
And when was the last time we had a substantial round of buffs to older heroes, and not just buffs because an underperforming portal was returning? Back in 2020. A balance adjustment for older heroes is way overdue.