šŸ§Ŗ Early Information on Costumes (Formerly Skins) [Part of The Beta Beat v23, v24 & v25]

I actually agree, lol. It doesnā€™t make any sense to level up a hero to 4/1 and keep it there. My OCD would make me max both hero and costume to 4/80. But honestly what I dislike more about this costume idea is that it seems ascension mats will be required for 4* and 5* heroes.

Having to spend tons of gems to summon a 5* hero, then its costume, then use valuable 4* ascension mats to max both, and that new shiny costume doesnā€™t even get close to a HOTMā€™s stats? It is not worth it imo.

Electro Quintus better be stronger than Ursena if SG wants people to spend that many gems and 4* mats in all these new costumes.

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So, some summoning math for you all. With a 1.5% chance of getting a legendary costume and 20 classic 5* heroes, thatā€™s a 0.075% chance of getting a specific costume. So, youā€™ve got a 1 in 1333.33 chance of getting that new Vivica outfit. Obtaining it via single summons at 300 gems each will on average cost you 400,000 gems, or about $4000 at the best gem store price. I realize that there is mixed opinion on the new costumes, but I donā€™t understand why people arenā€™t straight up revolting over this.

I could perhaps see 1.5% odds if instead of getting a costume, you got a token that you could redeem for one of the legendary costumes (your choice), but even then the summons cost would have to drop substantially to makes these worthwhile.

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Youā€™re an evil, evil man for proposing something that I would very much like to have but would never in a million years level Atomos for :rofl:

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Power creep

I agree, in principle if not execution ( rumored execution ).

Instead of adding X*+40 class nodes in 2 years, and X*+60 in 4 years, the Devs appear to be just adding class abilities through multiple costumes every X years.

This will address power creep by letting them adjust the bonus per additional costume. And if necessary nerf/ buff costume bonuses without nerf/ buff new class nodes.

Rumored execution

So if you hate Guinevere as a Wizard, you could change her class.

But that is undercut by the change in special skill. You might not like Jinx plus Guinevere, but you might not like Evade plus new Guinevere special skill either.

This also appears to be a way to stealth nerf powerful Talent + Special Skill combos ( looking at you Fighter Boldtusk ).

Healers

This does appear to be a way to address the lack of healers when doing class quests.

Instead of adding more healers, existing healers just get more class options.

Same class, different element

This would be even more useful if a costume had the option of staying the same class, but changing the element of the hero.

But it would cause huge problems for F2P versus P2Win players in Tourneys.

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Now, this is getting weirdā€¦ So, what? Iā€™m a fire fighter, I put on a costume and suddenly Iā€™m a surgeon? I supose itā€™s a good thing Iā€™II have to take it from scratch (1/1) Hmmmā€¦ Fortunately it doesnā€™t change the element (color)ā€¦ Michael Jackson, God rest his soul, would have loved that :wink:

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Ouch those numbers are painful. I kind of knew in the back of my head that summoning for costumes from a gate with Epic Hero Summons odds would be bad and whilst I could have worked out the odds for myself I think a part of me didnā€™t want me to think just how bad it would be. Having loved playing the game for such a long time and made significant financial contributions to the game a part of me wanted to maintain a cognitive state of denial of just quite what the developers were going to be asking from us as the price to get our heroes re-balanced. So whilst part of me knew it was going to be appalling another part didnā€™t want to contemplate the development team going this far with a loyal player base. If I may be so bold I reckon that a lot of community here probably had the same sort of mindset Iā€™ve described for myself.

Seeing as costumes will eventually make their way on to HOTM, Event and Season 2 heroes and affect all players we can notch this up as another example for the Double Selling thread (Alchemy Lab/Hero Academy Double selling fair?) only that in this case having won the lottery for a particular hero youā€™re going to be expected to keep trying to re-win the lottery each time they get a new costume to re-balance them.

There absolutely needs to be a non-random method of obtaining costumes, RNG for heroes and mats is enough RNG. I reckon that Hero Academy Level 9 should have the ability to trade in a duplicate hero to receive a costume for the hero you just traded in. Otherwise we face the prospect of waiting 2 years for an expansion to Stronghold 30 and the addition of a costume shop to get costumes ā€˜alteredā€™ā€¦

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Very hard to be excited about this game. The goalposts keep moving and the user never get the chance to feel rewarded and say: Tadaaa! Iā€™m going to enjoy the fruits of my labour and hard earned money. Instead you are always frustrated by a lack of mats, low odds, manipulated boards and tactics to drain every drop from players. Ie: Buy hero space for instance, you already paid through your ears for heroes that can never be used.

Iā€™ve been in a top alliance network now for a long time and must say that the mood is dark and some of the best players quit the game entirely or park it. I think this will add to that.

I went from P2P to C2P to F2P because of all of this, only one place left to goā€¦cut losses and quit

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Youā€™ve just described every micro-transaction game ever, in the last 20 years.

Itā€™s the model for monetizing the game. Never let anyone reach the end. Always have a new feature to keep the monetization goingā€¦

As for this thread, itā€™s been an interesting initial read, but it seems to have become a surrogate third-hand beta comment zone, with people commenting not on first-hand testing experience, but on what they read (and is subject to change).

Iā€™ll worry more in few months, when the features get closer to release.

SG will do what SG does - not based on anything anyone in Beta or anywhere else says, but based on what they believe will be the most effective way to monetize a new feature.

Just like every game, ever.

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I know.

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@ModernThinker Iā€™d question the intelligence of a company that opens a beta to test bugs but doesnā€™t listen to beta testers.

I think SG will end up listening to some of the feedback here, but will keep monetization high, as always.

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It was OK with the idea of heroes having emblem trees but now costumes as well? This is going way too far and at the end too much feature implementation is going to lead us to nowhere other than P2W. Personally getting tired. They added emblems with the purpose to get them into the market as well and now costumes are the new gem mine. So sad to see how is this cool game being destroyed where the only good choice will be to uninstall at the end.

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Well aware bud. Just pointing out that putting so much strain on the consumer leads to a lot of negativity (we know itā€™s beta, etc).
It could easily be a positive if there wasnā€™t this constant feeling of no reward.
Example, as someone whoā€™s gone from P2P to F2P I would spend if I knew I could train a hero. In this case, Seshat. Looks like a very good hero, even if I did try for her & got her, it wouldnā€™t mean much.
Even though we kill 12* titans each day & never skip, the mat income donā€™t keep pace with the game, just as everything else and this will just add on top of that.

So yeah, gamble in the shop for mats which is almost never successful and not worth the money or wait a year in a game that is no longer about pace & a journey. End result, many of us stopped spending. It amazes me how many retired people play this game, they have money, but they are not gullible, they are the ones that is quitting the most at this stage because time is not their friendā€¦

Ps. What happened to wanted titan chests. Iā€™m 0/19 for unfarmable accension items

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Yes thisā€¦or having a pay option for something that was supposed to help F2Pā€™s by giving a boost to classic 5 star heroes.

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Whats your opinion about isarnia? For me with emblemed isarnia it seems like she was nerfed
ā€¦
Lookinh at other 5 heroes they seem buffed but isarnia seems nerfed or is it just me?

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What is SG definition of F2P friendly anyway?

For me, F2P friendly is giving us the chance to grind for them (in map, not chest/titan/war), 5* classic are F2P friendly because we can grind for them by farming recruits/food to train them using TC20. S2 heroes are F2P friendly to an extent as we can grind for atlantis coin (though after completing all levels, the grind is extremely slow as coin drop from AR is rareā€¦)

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That wasnā€™t the context of the discussion. It was specifically around the power gap that was developing between pay and non-pay 5 stars. This was supposed to help address that gap in a way that supported F2Pā€¦as it stands now it help P2P far more.

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I think both of you are kinda agreeing in different words @General_Confusion and @yelnats_24? Basically itā€™s not very F2P friendly unless the drop rates are higher than normalā€¦which I somehow donā€™t see being the case as too much free cuts into the ME$$$ if youā€™re picking up what Iā€™m putting down? :wink:

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So far Iā€™m uninpressed by how the skinā€™s feature is looking and I feel like having to unlock the same version of a hero will greatly ruin my fun and lower my interest in this game.

  1. I feel that having to level and ascend again the skins is wrong
  2. I also feel like have to unlock heroes that still doesnā€™t hold a candle to premium ones, while being harder to obtain, is insulting
  3. And finally I think that the skins should provide more effects as Lianna 2.0 (effects not available for F2P) and less as Horghall/Quintus.

Beta could always be subject to changes and I hope they would think twice before releasing the same version of differently skinned heroes.

Electro Quintus is basically Horghall that deals Isarniaā€™s damage just to do an example.
This is actually a good thing, to decrease his upfront damage and let it gain extra effectsā€¦
but 'cmon, therā€™s a reason why both Quintus and Horghall are trashed by players.
Lianna were actually a surprise as she would have kept her damage but gained a mana slow effect on her first target, even if directly copying 100% of Alasieā€™s special (damage included) but without making her effects undispellable would have been a lot more meaningful.

Really, by comparing the first version of Skins and Eventā€™s heroes I were feeling sick and I hope that the skins they proposed were just to show how the mechanic would work, not how they were thinking of release the skins.

It would have been too much of a hit for someone who cares about this gameā€™s balanceā€¦
taking into account that premium heroes are likely to follow in a unpredictable future the core ones with their own skins.

If it would too hard to increase the versatility of the (ex-)core heroes they could just copy some of their own released cards, even without the undispellable/natural immunity powers granted to the almighty premium powers.

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I really hope they listen to feedback for this one. Last thing I wanna see is ā€œSkins of the Monthā€ :roll_eyes:

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@FraVit93, I agree. I usually like to grind. Hell I killed Savage Lee for the perfect DPUH (double penetrating unkempt Harold) in BL2, maybe 100ā€™s of thousands of times, not to mention so many other weapons, so farming and grinding are relaxing to me.

The issue I have with this, provided there are no changes, is that we are grinding the same heroes levels AGAIN for really nothing amazing, useful YES, amazing Ehhh. Now add the RNG on to getting the skin, or the hero, and I donā€™t think I would find much fun in that? I hold no grudge against a company needing to appease stockholders by increasing profits quarterly (or annually) but sometimes that can push things far out of the ā€œenjoyableā€ zone for the players. Maybe Iā€™m way out of line but Iā€™ve been burnt many times before in games Iā€™d invested a lot of money into and eventually walked away. Now Iā€™m not threatening to walk, I really enjoy this game and especially the forums who have welcomed and helped me so much.

Bottom line, if skins donā€™t feel worth it, or feel like just too much, I simply wonā€™t bother. I will continue on as if they didnā€™t exist. If I lose more wars, Raids etc, ehhh I have fun just playing. This game, and sometimes more so this forum, take me away from the daily work a day life. So Iā€™m not going to over stress something I donā€™t like. I just wonā€™t support it with my wallet. I have no visions of grandeur, not going to be the big dog in the yard. Iā€™m perfectly happy being the medium sized dog humping Seshatā€™s leg as she beats me down with a rolled up newspaper.

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