OK Iâm expecting this will be controversial but I thought I should give my two cents on my reaction to what Iâve seen so far and the idea in principle but as Iâm currently pressed for time Iâm unlikely to be able to engage in debate with any one who wants to take issue with anything I write, letâs just agree now to disagree â your opinion is just as valid as mine and all Iâm doing here is stating mine.
Generally speaking I see the Valor Pass as a step in a more positive direction for SGGs monetization strategy within the game. For developers to continue supporting their games they need to have some way of continuing to make money from the game even as players advance further in the game and begin to need less of what they may previously have been spending for (such as hero summons, AM deals and some time in the future emblem deals etc) as such the question isnât whether there will be more features looking to monetise but on the nature of those monetisation strategies.
In the last year weâve seen efforts to introduce or seen implemented further examples of the following:
Loot box-style summon mechanics
Costumes are set to arrive in the next month in which we see getting buffs/re-balances for your existing Classic heroes subject to yet more RNG summons. We also saw with the re-vamped Challenge Events the introduction of new limited edition heroes without any change to summoning odds or a featuring summon odds bonus to now make them the heroes with the lowest odds of pulling in the game. Much has been said about loot box style mechanics (including by myself critically for this game) and wider to the point regulators worldwide are examining the issue but generally speaking more of these mechanics I feel are negative overall, especially without controls to help protect vulnerable user groups or to ensure people actually understand odds and probability (even with published odds people donât grasp things like cumulative odds) before they pull.
Pay-to-participate
The first iteration of Raid Tournaments in beta was implemented as pay-to-play requiring the payment of an entry fee to even play in the tournament. Thankfully it got changed in beta before hitting the live game but should be noted as a monetisation strategy that SGG attempted to bring to the game.
Unnecessary added gem costs
Whilst developers do need to keep making money not every feature needs to be about making money, some need to be for the good of the game. As such just arbitrarily tacking on monetary costs to features that donât need them or are for the good of the game just for the sake of it, it all begins to feel like youâre constantly being hustled for more money and more like travelling a rubbish budget airline that charges you for everything from bringing any luggage to oxygen consumed whilst in the cabin etc. And it is the Alchemy Lab that has been most guilty of this this year. Only Alchemy Lab 9 can increase the number of 4* AMs you receive but with a transmutation time of a week you can only do 52 transmutations a year on this level, with only a 5% of those transmutations producing a 4* AM most players that were to do constant transmutations would only get an additional 2 4* AMs a year. Which means that by virtue of the transmutation time, probability of getting a 4* AM and that by the time a player will have got to AL9 they wonât need the 3* unfarmable AMs any more the feature is balanced without having associated gem costs. Adding the gem costs was unnecessary and to those whoâve been unlucky to receive a surplus of one type of 4*AM and a deficit of another the gem costs of AL10 became further punishment/insult for the unfortunate RNG theyâve had that the feature was meant to address. By adding gem costs where it wasnât needed it both undermined the feature itself but also player feeling overall by being hassled again for money which has a negative effect on peopleâs reception to other money making features whether better or worse in nature.
Now in comparison with these monetisation efforts the Valor Pass is a whole lot better. It isnât pay-to-participate, you can play the entire thing whether you pay or not, all that changes is the amount of rewards you get (Iâm ignoring the quality of the rewards in both paid and free tiers right now as they have been said to be placeholders). The rewards you get from buying the Pass are also not determined by RNG but by how much of the path you complete for fixed rewards making it better than yet another summons gate.
So in principle I am in favour of the Path of Valor and the Valor Pass. However without knowing the actual rewards and pricing I canât say whether Iâm in favour of it in practice as implementation matters a lot. Whether I remain in favour of it in practice depends on the following:
1. The premium rewards from the Valor Pass represents both good value for money AND the effort to obtain them.
This is where people are most likely to disagree with me but there is very little point spending money on the pass if there isnât the rewards to make it good value for money. At the sort of place I am in the game anything I can produce from my buildings or farm on regular map levels is worth ÂŁ0 to me so simply getting double the Hardwood Lumbers or Small Ham Bundles is not worth it. I wouldnât put money in my pocket for the feature without benefits such as 4* AMs, emblems, troop tokens and maybe Atlantis/Challenge tokens (but seeing as theyâll mainly produce nothing this would be secondary consideration) and I would expect many other players to be in the same position.
This does mean however that whilst there could be some of these in the free tier that the difference between the free tier and the premium tier is that the Valor Pass will net a few more of those top quality items than free tier, otherwise what would be the point of buying the pass over saving the money towards something like one of the seasonal deals for the 4* AM you have a shortage in for example? So I would expect that the difference between the free and premium tier will involve some of these big items. I mean in pretty much every avenue of life you expect that if you pay for something youâll get more than you would if you donât so itâs not like this is a game specific point but a fact of life. Whether this becomes an issue in the game kind of hinges on the next point as to how accessible it is.
2. The Valor Pass is priced at a level that a C2P player would reasonably pay for.
(This includes the possibility of Path of Valor being shortened to a 30-day event with the Valor Pass being able to be bought either separately or as part of a VIP+ tier subscription deal but whatever the implementation the cost needs to be at the sort of level that a C2P player would consider paying for.)
SGG has a habit of overpricing many things is this game but I get the impression that this feature is being aimed to try convert some current F2P to C2P players which is understandable as when you look at games that are 100% advertising based the time between adverts is just a couple of minutes so it is clear that the number of adverts served by Mystic Vision is probably just about breaking even on a F2P player. As such I think this feature may be priced at an accessible level which I think would be a good thing. Even if it is to give something for C2P to migrate to once VIPâs second builder seems less useful.
If what you are getting are guaranteed (assuming you complete the pass) rewards that are good value for money and the price is what a C2P player might reasonably pay for then I donât have much issue. Pretty much any other entertainment people might do/consume instead of the game such as going to the cinema, ten-pin bowling, have a night out, have a Netflix subscription etc etc comes with associated costs for their running their services. If youâre enjoying the game an affordable pass that is good value for money for you means both you and SGG win as youâre both mutually benefitting, as opposed to say something RNG based where chances are youâre being screwed.
3. There should be something worth your time even if you only go the free route.
Whilst point 1 argues that there needs to be a material difference between premium and free path rewards and point 2 that pricing should be as accessible as possible that doesnât mean that the free path should be worthless for those opting to remain on it.
Iâm not entirely sure that means there should be a reward on every stage on free tier (as this may then mean the corresponding additional prize in paid tier inflates the paid tier too much) and may also lead to a level qualification restriction so new players canât bag too much goodies too soon but there should be some good rewards from doing more of the challenges. My favoured solution is the addition of an alliance-wide challenge as not only can it provide a buff to free rewards but also provide incentive to be in bigger alliances so help to put helpful pressure on alliance mergers and recruitment to make them easier. To illustrate how this could work:
At the start of each Valor event and for each alliance the game secretly selects a stage from Season 1 or Season 2 that will have some additional bonus loot that will be hidden in that stage in the final week of the pass (the new chest enemies from CE could even be reused for this). The selected stage will be the same for all players part of the alliance when the Path of Valor event started.
Each time a player completes all three of their daily challenges they receive a bonus challenge. If they complete their bonus challenge before the end of the day then some form of visual cue (perhaps changing the gold ring around a stage number to a red square) is added to one more of their stages on the map to indicate where the hidden treasure will not be.
In the final week the hidden treasure/loot becomes active and players within the alliance would share with each other which stages the game has told them wonât have the treasure and co-ordinate a search of the remaining levels to find where the loot is held for all members to then go get.
With the additional effort required, especially the team play element the rewards can be made better thereby buffing what F2P players could obtain and it may be possible to reduce any level restrictions required somewhat as newer players will have advanced less further in the map so be less likely each time to be far enough to get the treasure so that it both gives an incentive to advance further AND reduces the need for a level restriction to get the other rewards in the individual play parts of the path.
and itâs time to move on at that point.
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