Basically a pay to win game now you can’t expect to sit in top 100 without spending a lot of money sure anyone can get down there for a second or two on a slow day. A bunch of people who like gambling /spending tons of money on digital pixels secure the top 100. Not judging anybody but it’s kinda there high and EP triggers them with new hard to get exclusive things so they spend kinda like gambling and with enough money you can hit the hero jackpot. The part that sucks is EP is so damn greedy they’re going for every drop they can get and don’t mind pissing free to play players off they only need so many of us. I’m pretty sure there going to ride this cash crop until the wheels fall off. It’s all about the money here in EP. I wouldn’t put anything past them for the right price. Just what it is.
I like this example the most. I have seen numerous times several people going to Starbucks only to have 1 or 2 people ordering a drink while the rest sits there drinking water or sometimes even bring their own drinks.
The completion felt good allright. My comparison was post period vs costumes. I must have miss calculated, forgot about the cheap deal keys. Even so, you still get better summon rate compared to Atlantis summon. I have never collected 100+ coins in a month just from free sources. You must have grinded on the clock to collect that many coins(?)
It sucks that you had such bad luck, but that is not at all a counter-indication of the game’s randomness. If that never happened, we’d have an RNG problem.
It’s out of topic, but:
You could complete it with less than 3000 TP if you bring 10 Healing Potions, 5 Axe Attacks, 5 Bomb Attacks, and 5 Dragon Attacks.
Note that costume quests difficulty is similiar to emblem trials.
I was able to complete the last stage of nature trials with 4x 3☆ and 1x 2☆ heroes with those items.
I know that the trials have been buffed since then (extra boss HP) but as you can see I still have plenty Dragon Attacks left to deal with that extra HP buff.
Even after the buff, I still complete the trials with team less than 2800TP frequently.
Does everyone got Gunnar as their first costume???
That’s something I’ve been wondering too. Also both me and my gf got Gunnar as our first draw. Quite unlikely that all those Gunnars are pure coincidence 
Replayed 6/9 normal over and over on autoplay. Not really the best level for coins, but gave me a huge amount of large bones for small mana potions.
Used quite a lot of loot tickets for 12/10 hard, which seems to be a really good level for coins, and 27/7 hard which also gives a fair amount of coins/WE and helps me to complete “Collect 2000 Atlantis Drones” mission.
All in all I burnt through 10-15 world flasks or so… Didn’t count 
One of the best stages for grinding Atlantis Coins is certainly 4/3 (due to its very high monster count), both in normal as well as in hard mode. Normal mode can also easily be autoplayed with a good team of 4*heroes.
True, the odds in Atlantis are worse. However, if you count in the extra chance at HotM and if several or even most vanilla 5* are still useful for you, the odds for getting a new 5* aren’t much lower than in costume portal.
latest AR madness, I discovered prv 9 stg 7 has an unusually high RNG in terms of monster variety and combinations, and of all the months, this was the best one regarding rare monster encounters… I know this doesn’t prove anything, just sharing personal experience 
I do not care to kill the goose or turkey on who spends what on the game? But obviously there is some difference and I’d hope that the developers think to categorize the players. Who are they? Like the beta players who spends lots on this game and those who don’t. They do it by the team stats so let them stay up there! You can have A B C some of us won’t be fortunate to have those heroes anyway. Play for over a year to get heroes that can pass season 2? That’s a laugh!
You made this statement that you were under the assumption that vanilla heroes would help you compete against all players in all aspects of the game. Show me a disclaimer or something that states you will be able to top the leader board and compete with every player on an equal basis with vanilla heroes for free if you download this game?
The title is Final blow to TC20 heroes. Can we change it to Final blow to this long thread that will never be resolved or perhaps beating the horse loooong past when it died.
At some point don’t you realize that you aren’t going to convince the other person? Of course this will likely cause a long discourse on how its a forum to discuss ideas, etc. thus throwing it further down teh beaten horse path.
And I think one thing causing problems was actually bought up a few times and that is the definition of c2p vs p2p/p2w. I have even seen people say they are f2p yet they buy the vip. That isn’t FREE.
F2p is nothing spent. Like my alt account, which ironically has my only HOTM in over 1.5 years. My regular account is what I call c2p in that I buy the VIP and the gem sales during Atlantis or events. I have since gone f2p for months on both. I did buy the Halloween VIP sale so I guess I was c2p and still am until it expires tomorrow!
To me c2p is just that - cheap or low spending and getting the results without chasing more. You buy VIP and maybe the $1 and $2 sales on gems. That is all. So $5 for VIP and $5 for the specials if you buy the $1 ones and $10 if you buy the altantis ones or $20 total if you buy VIP plus the atlantis and event sales. I think $20 a month is about what I would call the c2p limit.
What that also means is that when you decide to do your pulls after saving up for that 10x you take what you got. If you don’t get that HOTM or event hero you wanted, oh well. You move on and don’t take out the VISA and spend more. You accept the RNG and your budget. That may be limiting in its scope but I think using that would clear things up for how people classify themselves.Again, VIP plus the gem specials so bascially I think this would be a nice definition:
F2P - $0 spent, never, nothing. Saves each gem and hopes to get 300 to pull occasionally and chases the coins in Atlantis and events hoping they produce something good.
C2P - Anything up to $20. Whether it is VIP or the gem specials for AR and events or maybe you prefer the trainer pack, whatever. You aren’t buying the $99 offers EVER!
P2P/P2W - We know you can’t win but the acronym is used anyhow. This would be over $20 and not by a little. It is those that buy the sales everyday during Halloween and Christmas. Those that do multiple 10x and 30x. Those that are willing to chase that new hero until they get it or hit their credit card gets declined…LOL.
Whatever your lot, its OK. I would love more event heroes and HOTM but I am also super lucky that I have TC20 with great results. However my last 2 30 and 40x collections had only 1 5* and that was a dupe Isarnia. Before that I got dupe Magni, Justice and a new Horghall. But I got DUPES of MAGNI. I remember whe I would kill to have ONE!!! I also have Joon and Mitsuko from 2 very lucky portal summons. TC20 blessed me with Lianna and Magni so I have 3 of the snipers and I also have Domitia who I enjoy though I would love Sartana and Marjana.
I also have Vivica at 4.55 now that I got the darts and really want her costume to give me the Kunchen I didn’t get. There are others like Kadilen who I maxed and like, Isarnia who I am working on now along with Obakan since i didn’t get Sartana so maybe next month I will but until then I will use Domitia and Obakan plus my awesome Proteus.
From S2 I am only missing Wilbur from teh good 4* and only have Mits from the 5*. Peters and buchan are my only ewent heroes and I just got both of them in the most recent event.
I have a few other 5* as well as all the S1 4* plus a Bane and Tyrum costume that I am leveling just to try them out. Would I like Kunchen, Ariel, Aegir, Tarlak, Kage, Guin, and so on…YES! Do I finish all events, yes. Though they are harder now with new heroes and the added XP.
I can see where the power creep is getting harder to beat teams and I fear it may be going in the wrong direction I can’t stop it. I watched Call of Duty and Destiny destroy themselves trying for teh cash grab despite player base decline. They still went on. People complained. But new people played. Others quit. Its really a personal decision. I hope they make some adjustments because I don’t think 10 years from now I will be playing this and yet most of us that have played more than a year have benches of heroes that would take that long if we leveled all the heroes. I hope they address things like that. Let me use the things I have now. Let me trade somehow to get rid of a few of my 5* to someone who has Wilbur but not a single 5*. Let me train with a chance at the older HOTM. The coins from events are nice. The AR is an issue though as once you finish it, the only coins are from the seahorse and they are 100 not 10 and just as rare.
Anyhow, that’s my $0.02. Now I have to save up because I am currently F2P and using that $0.02 puts me in debt…LOL!
Ian, could not have said it better myself. thanks for saving me the time
I’m reading some of the people up above most people spend money 10 -50 bucks a month but that won’t get you anything in this game unless you get lucky. So basically anyone wants a rainbow team of say heroes that aren’t tc20 must spend close to a 1000 dollars. Much more money than most games . Most the population isn’t rich. So to be elite or competitive in this game meaning staying in the top 100 or even top 500 you either rich or value pixels over a nice car or house. This game is definitely pay to win and was proven with costumes . A good company would just balance the tc20 EP says you want to even playing field? Level out the power creep? Going to cost you a few 100 dollars. Just fact EP is pay to win. The whole Starbucks analogy up above believe me you can’t buy water and sit in a booth and get much game play. Almost everyone I play with at least gets most the deals. So I get the deals this month 30-50 dollars later ok that’s like 14 spin or so at 2.5% tops for a 5* or 5* item not very good chance to get anything. Leaves you with very small odds. So basically with 100 spins costing 200$ or more rounding up you may or may not get three 5* heroes. You have to be rich or have a gambling problem. I just wish EP would come back down to earth and double the chance on 5* heroes. a lot of companies out gross them I think they’re like 80 on the list last time I checked and all of those companies charge a lot less for fun. if the people that run Empires and puzzles cared more about making a game awesome than money this game would really be cool. I wish Supercell need a copy of this game talk about a good company that’s good to their fan base. About the exact opposite of Empire and puzzles and somehow they make tons more money than them too so it can be done.
I like the idea of scarcity of both heros and mats, and for the record, I still have no hotm after 2years of play.
I have no problem with people spending their money, and while $1000 is alot, its nothing close to paying rent on a house let alone an apartment. Would I spend it on a game (no, I’m FTP), but you don’t have to be rich to get some decent heros. I’m sure a 100-200 a month would get you a decent roster.
(Yes, i do know that for some places in the US and other countries $1000 seems like an exorbitant amount)
If your not satisfied, change to FTP and enjoy the change in pace.
Depends on what leaderboard.
If it is challenge event then I don’t think I’ll see someone top it with vanilla heroes (unless they are toying us by switching their team to vanilla heroes after topping it) but that is not because vanilla heroes are that bad, it is because competing in top spot of challenge event require buying energies which F2P won’t do and non-F2P won’t use all vanilla to compete in it. Even I have non-vanilla heroes despite being F2P.
If it is raid tournament then I doubt it for 5☆ tournament. 3☆ or 4☆ is a posibility with emblem invested as top players mostly put the emblems on 5☆.
If it is raid global leaderboard then just yesterday I saw pure vanilla tean without costume in top 10.
If it just national leaderboard, I had previously top it with 4☆ heroes (even manage to sneak into top 100 global).
Not sure if that kind of thing can be achievable in the future though.
Dude, What disclaimer. It was game devs who said vanilla heroes would be relevant again thanks to costumes. They were asked f2p friendly related questions about their game in one of those AMAs. Look it up. Stop making me do all the work here.
By the way, I keep seeing you cherrypick my comments without rebutting the most important points I made. And I don’t mean to be rude. I don’t have to prove or explain s#$t to you, but I guess I’ll play your game:
It’s common knowledge amongst f2p that the only way to compete against whales is rushing a few TC20. With some luck a f2p can summon a few vanilla snipers and other good heroes.
I’ve been playing as a 100% f2p for almost a year. I’ve pulled four HOTMs and some 4* hero events thanks to RNGesus. I’ve pulled several vanilla 5* from TC20.
I’ve been competing against teams full of Graveys, Mother Norths and Kages with my basic 6 teams of vanilla 4*, some vanilla 5*, and a few HOTMs. Is that the proof you’re looking for?
This f2p here has been #1 local many many times without even trying. The only reason I haven’t reached #1 global yet is cuz I don’t care about a title that would only last a few seconds.
I care about game’s balance though. I care about my f2p clan friends who can’t catch up to all these lackluster new features. That’s the only reason I dislike all these useless costumes that were obviously designed for p2w. And costumes don’t even benefit p2w in my opinion. I already beat teams with costumed Vivica and Isarnia in them.
Me and many other f2p can still compete in the big leagues. BUT… Once devs start creating more and more paid costumes for vanilla 5* (for HOTMs too), and the stats of these heroes get buffed by 15% - 20% it will be game over for f2p.
The final blow to TC20 heroes hasn’t happened yet but looks like it’s gonna happen one of these months. Hero Academy could be it. But we’ll see what happens.
I’m not cherry picking anything and just cause u fight some whales in your raid this is good because you damn sure are not fighting whale in your alliance wars so to.have the experience against tjem.should help all your FTP do better benefitting you all.
The costumes are not designed for p2w as most p2w are more worried about the heroes that dont need costumes to perform better, maxing their bases, finishing their lodges, all kinds of important aspects this costume are completely a luxury that wont change anythjng happening with their roster other than hj ibe them a few more options. ftp alliances fight other FTP alliances some cheap to play NEVER AGAINST WHALE OR TOP END ALLAINCES, so keep deluding yourself if you want the rest of us will continue gaming and wait till this set of FTP taps out so we can hopefully help the next set come along and become at least C2P.
Which then lead to the question, if F2P hate it and P2W don’t need it, why make it in the first place? Of course there are also many F2P and P2W who like it.
He is reffering to never been non-F2P before, some of the F2P are former C2P.
I buy last month VIP discount using gift voucher from my alliance, am I still F2P? 