End of a season can be a letdown: doesn’t have to be. 5*-only summon coins

[BobTheSnark]

Sands (S5) is coming along and it’s making me think about how I felt finishing other seasons. The ascension materials are nice, of course, and the bundle of coins are good…in principle…but in practice the end of a season has been, in my experience, one of each major ascension item, a bunch of duplicate heroes, and maybe one new 4* hero.

It feels like completely finishing a season — including Hard stages! — should feel a little more satisfying than that.

Then: enter Soul Exchange, and its associated “you can buy guaranteed-5* S1 heroes” tokens (to feed into SE, of course).

A solution presents itself.

Include a guaranteed-Legendary-for-that-season coin amongst the Hard season completion reward, at minimum beginning with the end of S5.

To wit: a super-coin, like that offered for sale around SE, only it guarantees one Legendary hero from Season 5. (And then, ideally, a similar feature for each future season.)

Fully completing a season, including all the Hard stages, is a lot of investment, and it’s honestly kind of sad to go to that much effort (especially with an increasing number of twists and challenges in each new season) and possibly never draw even a single 5 star hero from that season. Even for folks who are lucky or don’t mind spending, a guaranteed 5* is a tasty prospect, and this would at least guarantee everyone one Legendary from a season.

It should hardly be unbalancing, given that LOTS of players have maxed and are using any number of S5 5* heroes already; this extra prize would only appear at the end of S5, so lucky and/or spending players would still have a competitive advantage.

It should hardly be difficult, since the coding obviously already exists for guaranteed-5*-S1 tokens; implementing this should be mostly copy-paste work, with a list of S5 Legendaries instead.

And it would definitely make fully completing a season seem more exciting.

[Chadmo]

Sold. You have my vote Sir Snarksalot!

[Ballrash]

I agree. Some of us have had horrid luck. It took me two years to get my first S2 hero. I bought a Skadi from S3 but never pulled a five from there. I finally got a Prof and a Horus recently. Outside of that, those are the only S2-s5 heroes I’ve pulled and I’m gotten every summons coins available so far from all those seasons.

[Tidyup]

I have yet to start S5 despite being able to. Will play only when S5 costumes are in circulation. Is it close to finishing?

[BobTheSnark]

Areas 25-27 opened today; level 33 is the last area visible on the map. If it is the last level, it means two more months until the end of the season.

Waiting for all the costumes is potentially understandable, but it may be some time yet, as to the best of my knowledge there as yet no costumes for Season 4.

If, say, S4 costumes start coming out with the advent of S6, then presumably S5 costumes might appear with S7… which would mean you’d have to wait potentially a year and a half until S5 costumes begin to appear, and it might be more like two-and-a-half years until many/most of the costumes are released.

….which would mean betting that

• ~2.5 years of accelerating power rush won’t make even S5 costumes nigh-irrelevant by then
• the game will still exist in ~2.5 years

…that speculation aside, it would still be nice to be guaranteed one 5* hero from Season 5 upon fully completing it, even if waiting until such heroes were costumed.

[HarryDeB]

I have received my first (!) 5* season hero last week except the S1 hero’s that I all have.
Need to do 2 provinces hard in s4 and then this is done, with s5 I was up to date till today. So the coins that are collected along the way gave me a lot hero’s to feed away and only 1 5* for all the effort.

You have my vote on this!

[Cheds]

@BobTheSnark

Areas 25-27 opened today; level 33 is the last area visible on the map. If it is the last level, it means two more months until the end of the season.

Waiting for all the costumes is potentially understandable, but it may be some time yet, as to the best of my knowledge there as yet no costumes for Season 4.

If, say, S4 costumes start coming out with the advent of S6, then presumably S5 costumes might appear with S7… which would mean you’d have to wait potentially a year and a half until S5 costumes begin to appear, and it might be more like two-and-a-half years until many/most of the costumes are released.

….which would mean betting that

• ~2.5 years of accelerating power rush won’t make even S5 costumes nigh-irrelevant by then
• the game will still exist in ~2.5 years

…that speculation aside, it would still be nice to be guaranteed one 5* hero from Season 5 upon fully completing it, even if waiting until such heroes were costumed.

There’s probably 2 more months when you need to get to the big pyramid in the swirling sands I was say. Kinda like Atlantis but we can already see it.

[Cheds]

If I was a betting man I’d guess something like this:

[H.V]

@Cheds

If I was a betting man I’d guess something like this:

The provinces come in threes, so there will be 3 (more likely, as it sums up to 36 provinces=12 months to open whole season) or 6 (not very likely) more provinces, not 5 as on the picture.

[Cheds]

I just scribbled it at my desk.

You get the idea though right??

[Tidyup]

I may just pull for set. I like the reverse taunt. Also never underestimate SG’s greed. They will create those S5 costumes as soon as unethically possible

[RebelForces]

Making a super cool item like legendary summon token and hiding it behind the paywall is just ridiculous.

Even more ridiculous when you remember they basically hid every new item like these ascencion tomes behind the offers.

Like everything isn’t behind it already.

[BobTheSnark]

@HarryDeB

I have received my first (!) 5* season hero last week except the S1 hero’s that I all have.

Congratulations on finally landing one!

I seem to draw one relatively early in a season (with S3, S4, though exactly one through playing the entire season) or not at all (zero S5 heroes for me still, and zero S2 heroes through finishing the season — I have Ariel [no costume] due only to SE), no idea why.

But yeah, finishing a season should feel like a bigger deal, I think — the ascension materials are nice enough, but beating the final boss on Hard and then summoning… a lotta nothing, is frankly a letdown. (Yes, of course I understand the printed odds, but it still feels like a poor prize to be awarded a bunch of duplicate S1 and duplicate 3* and 4* season heroes.)

@Cheds

There’s probably 2 more months when you need to get to the big pyramid in the swirling sands I was say. Kinda like Atlantis but we can already see it.

@H.V

so there will be 3 (more likely, as it sums up to 36 provinces=12 months to open whole season)

I agree that it’s quite likely! I was just running numbers above based on “how long is it likely to be before some/more-or-less-all S5 costumes are out?” even if what we currently see is all — the extension of areas to 36, and 12-month-run, seem more likely, and would just possibly add a month to my rough estimate (or not, as I assumed some slop time between the end of one season and the beginning of the next as well).

@Tidyup

I may just pull for set. I like the reverse taunt

Good luck if you do, though… pulling for a specific 5* hero (even when it’s featured!) is a dicey prospect always. I’d be pretty happy with any S5 5* I think (sure, I’d overall prefer drawing one of the colors I am devoid of new 5*! —but the S5 5* don’t seem to have many or even any really mediocre members, do have a lot of very strong heroes).

@Tidyup

They will create those S5 costumes as soon as unethically possible

To be fair, if the escalating power rush continues, it is entirely possible that S5 costumes will come out more quickly than previous history might suggest (as I crudely projected above) — but if the power rush keeps accelerating, the question of “will even S5 costumes even matter compared to new hero releases?” might well become even more salient…

@RebelForces

Making a super cool item like legendary summon token and hiding it behind the paywall is just ridiculous.

Even more ridiculous when you remember they basically hid every new item like these ascencion tomes behind the offers.

Of course, the current legendary summon token would likely not exist at all if not for SE (especially given that it only generates a S1 5* hero).

And I get that SG is probably unlikely to want to generate “Season N” legendary tokens for sale because I’m sure it’s much more profitable to entice players to buy coins and/or gems to chase 5* draws at various portals instead (especially, say, when introducing new 5* at old portals).

But having one such token amongst the “you actually beat the whole entire season, even the ‘hidden’ provinces, even on Hard” reward would make it feel more like a reward, and less like a “enjoy your seventh, or seventeeth, Jarif” letdown.

(And purely anecdotally, it sure seemed like the various ascension/exp/emblem tomes actually dropped in loot more often right as they first were released in-game than at any point since, especially since their sale offers became ubiquitous, but maybe that’s just me.)

[Homaclese]

I am one of the few supporters of the SG model of ridiculously low summons odds, as I think it is one of the major factors that keeps players playing years beyond the standard life expectancy of a typical mobile game.

However, I think one 5* hero per season (limit it to the hard difficulty, maybe?) would not as you say impact the balance and I think it would be a great incentive to trawl through all that pve nonsense.

[JackSprat]

For what it’s worth, I voted for it. Seems to me that the reward for finishing a season should give a guaranteed reward for all that finish it.

[FrenziedEye]

Free 5* summon coins?! - you know I am all for any kind of idea like that.

I just don’t think those guys over at SG / Zynga are on the same page…

[BobTheSnark]

@Homaclese

However, I think one 5* hero per season (limit it to the hard difficulty, maybe?) would not as you say impact the balance and I think it would be a great incentive to trawl through all that pve nonsense.

That is my thought as well:

• for folks who do spend and/or are lucky with gameplay-earned coins, one more 5* hero won’t tip the balance (look at how many people have been using fully developed S5 heroes for some time now)

• for folks who are F2P or even VC2P, it is entirely possible to currently finish an entire season on Hard and get only one or even zero 5* heroes

and in both cases earning one guaranteed 5* hero will still very likely feel like more of a reward for finishing the long slog (especially for Hard) than five low-percentage pulls.

Sure, in the long enough run, it means everyone determined enough to slog through all the PvE will wind up with a 5* S5 hero, but …

SG is clearly not opposed to players filling roster gaps with previously released heroes (see: Soul Exchange, Fated Summon).

—and for that matter, one free 5-star S5 will hardly undo the need or desire for SE or the pity counter, since any one random 5* is unlikely to be Everything You Want.

@FrenziedEye

Free 5* summon coins?! - you know I am all for any kind of idea like that.

Heh

Granted, I can imagine SG wouldn’t be behind the idea of free free 5* summon coins, but having even a single such coin per season as an incentive to actually fully finish a season is arguably a horse of a different color. —That’s not so much a giveaway as a better reason to burn through the time and WE to actually finish a season.

[Jfinthecity]

Completing an entire season is a slog, how about you get a special season summon token that guarantees you on 5* hero from that season? Especially for F2P/C2P it would be huge but not enough to flip the power balance of the game

[ProfessorPenguin]

Great idea. See following thrrad

@Dudeious.Maximus @PlayForFun merge plz

@BobTheSnark

Include a guaranteed-Legendary-for-that-season coin amongst the Hard season completion reward, at minimum beginning with the end of S5.

[Iranicarneiro]

EXCELENTE IDÉIA… esperamos que a SG análise essa sugestão