Oh screw it, perhaps I’ll lay out a potential design for the Hero Academy and Advanced Training Camp – Yes I said both as in my proposal the Advanced Training Camp is being revised – personally I think it was a bad idea ruling it out whilst there were clearly still question marks regarding the Hero Academy but still here we go, at least there was some preliminary artwork for an Advanced Training Camp so it isn’t completely from scratch. But anyway I’ve gone for something that I think could work within the context of the game BUT been as wishful as I like at thinking SG would be anywhere near as generous with something like this - I mean I posted my sensible comprimise at New Year so here I’m just fantasy Dev-ing here and nope I don’t think we’ll see anything remotely like this even make it near beta so yeah it’s just for the exercise really…
The Advanced Training Camp
I’ll start with the Advanced Training Camp as of the two this is the most straightforward. The ten levels being added on to the Training Camp provide the opportunity to train troops, trainer heroes, have increased chances at certain legendaries and make some older HOTM and Season 2 heroes now available from a training camp for the first time which with Season 3 around the corner is no longer unreasonable. In the Advanced Training Camp there will be a number of different tiers to make training more troops to make troop powering more accessible to all player types, colour specific Trainer Hero camps and a few new variations on Legendary Training that have expanded hero pools either in terms of ex-HOTM or Season 2 heroes.
With the mana bonus on costumes allowing slow classic heroes to shave 2 tiles off their charge times it was crucial that some troop training levels were made available to make it possible for more F2P and C2P to see the full benefits of some costumes they may eventually pick up.
List of Advanced Training Camp Levels:
ATC 1 – Train Uncommon Troops
Produces: 50% chance - 1 x 2* Troop, 50% chance - 1 x 1* Troop
Costs: 2,000 Ham, 10 Recruits and 1 Training Manual
Time: 1 Hour
Description: Designed to be the troop equivalent of TC2 for the ATC, produces low level troops cheaply to assist all players with getting the troop fodder to power their troops.
ATC 2-6 – Elemental Trainer Heroes
Produces: 40% chance – 1 x 2* Trainer Hero, 30% chance – 1 x 3* Trainer Hero, 20% chance – 1 x 4* Trainer Hero, 10% 1 x 5* Trainer Hero
Costs: 105,000 Ham, 25 Recruits and 1 Training Manual
Time: 1 Day
Description: A more useful variation on the elemental training from the TC’s with Trainer Heroes being produced instead. ATC 2 produces only Fire Trainer Heroes, ATC 3 produces only Ice Trainer Heroes, ATC 4 produces only Nature Trainer Heroes, ATC 5 produces only Dark Trainer Heroes and ATC 6 produces only Holy Trainer heroes. There could be an argument in favour of slashing the odds for a 5* Trainer Hero in half to make room for pulling a S1 Legendary of that camp’s element (with no HOTM or Season 2 chances either) to give the camp a dual purpose of trying to hunt down a TC20 legendary that still eludes a player or something however main purpose of these camp levels is producing good XP gaining Trainer Heroes.
ATC 7 – Guaranteed Rare Troop Training
Produces: 1 x 3* Troop
Costs: 105,000 Ham, 25 Recruits and 1 Rugged Clothes
Time: 1 Day
Description: An ATC level that allows you to produce an additional 3* troop a day to help with powering up your troops.
ATC 8 – Legendary Training with a chance of an ex-HOTM
Produces: 70% chance - 1 x 3* Hero, 20% chance - 1 x 4* Hero, 5% chance - 1 x 5* S1 Hero and 5% chance - 1 x 5* Ex-HOTM
Costs: 300,000 Ham, 100 Recruits and 1 Sharpening Stone
Time: 3 Days
Description: An improved version of Legendary Training with double the chance of a legendary AND former HOTM up-to and including Drake Fong in the pool of available heroes. Costs remain similar to TC20 as there is just a 5% chance of getting something outside the TC20 pool but duration is a day longer.
ATC 9 – Epic Troop Training
Produces: 90% chance – 1 x 3* Troop, 10% chance – 1 x 4* Troop
Costs: 164,000 Ham, 45 Recruits, 1 Rugged Clothes, 1 Training Manual
Time: 2 Days
Description: A more expensive ATC troop production level that gives F2P an opportunity to get some 4* troops or for players wanting to focus on their troops the opportunity to run an additional troop production level alongside ATC 7.
ATC 10 – Legendary Training with a chance of Atlantis Heroes
Produces: 36% chance – 1 x 3* S1 Hero, 28% chance – 1 x 3* S2 Hero, 20% chance – 1 x 4* S1 Hero, 10% chance – 1 x 4* S2 Hero, 4% chance – 1 x 5* S1 Hero, 2% chance 1 x 5* S2 Hero
Costs: 500,000 Ham, 125 Recruits and 1 Sharpening Stone
Time: 2 Days
Description: With Season 3 around the corner the final stage of the ATC allows for training Season 2 heroes. With chances of getting new heroes at each rarity tier the overall costs are increased a bit but remains at the usual TC20 duration unlike ATC8.
Hero Academy and Hero Crystals
The hero academy sees you be able to exchange your heroes for Hero Crystals. Depending on the number and nature of the crystals you collect you can combine them for a chance to summon or craft a particular hero from the Crystal Chamber.
There are a number of different types of Crystals you can collect which are separated into 4 different categories – Regular, Elemental, Class and Origin crystals. Each of which have different effects in the costume chamber that affects how easily and cheaply they can be got from their appropriate heroes:
Regular Crystal Category
Crystals Included: Regular Hero Crystal
Special Effect: These colourless hero crystals have no special effects in the Crystal Chamber but are the cheapest and easiest to produce in higher quantities for more tries in the Crystal Chamber.
Elemental Crystals
Crystals Included: Dark Hero Crystal, Holy Hero Crystal, Ice Hero Crystal, Nature Hero Crystal, Fire Hero Crystal
Special Effect: For each Elemental Hero Crystal combined in the Crystal Chamber +0.5% chance the hero received will be of the element specific to that elemental crystal.
Class Crystals
Crystals Included: Barbarian Hero Crystal, Cleric Hero Crystal, Druid Hero Crystal, Fighter Hero Crystal, Monk Hero Crystal, Paladin Hero Crystal, Ranger Hero Crystal, Rogue Hero Crystal, Sorcerer Hero Crystal, Wizard Hero Crystal
Special Effect: For each Class Hero Crystal combined in the Crystal Chamber +0.5% chance the hero received will be of the class specific to that class crystal.
Origin Crystals
Crystals Included: HOTM Hero Crystal, Lagoon Hero Crystal, Sakura Hero Crystal, Atlantis Hero Crystal, Pirate Hero Crystal, Guardian Hero Crystal, Avalon Hero Crystal, Grimforest Hero Crystal, Wonderland Hero Crystal, Seasonal Hero Crystal
Special Effect: For each Origin Hero Crystal combined in the Crystal Chamber +0.5% chance the hero received will be from the say family of origin as the crystal.
Obtaining Hero Crystals with the Hero Academy
So to obtain Hero Crystals you need to trade in duplicate heroes to the Hero Academy and the crystals you obtain depend on what level you ran the exchange through (varying costs) and the attribute of the hero you traded in.
List of Hero Academy Levels
HA 1 – Regular Hero Crystals from Rare Heroes
Produces: 12 x Regular Hero Crystals
Costs: 1 Rare Hero, 40k Ham
Time: 1 hour
HA 2 – Elemental Hero Crystals from Rare Heroes
Produces: 10 x Elemental Hero Crystals of same element as hero traded in.
Costs: 1 Rare Hero, 80k Ham
Time: 3 hours
HA 3 – Class & Origin Hero Crystals from Rare Heroes
Produces: 5 x Class Hero Crystals matching the hero’s class. If the hero has an origin family an additional 5 x Origin Hero Crystals of the same Origin are also produced, if the hero doesn’t have an origin family 5 additional Class Hero Crystals are produced instead.
Costs: 1 Rare Hero, 120k Ham
Time: 3 hours
HA 4 – Regular Hero Crystals from Epic Heroes
Produces: 60 x Regular Hero Crystals
Costs: 1 Epic Hero, 240k Ham
Time: 3 hours
HA 5 – Elemental Hero Crystals from Epic Heroes
Produces: 50 x Elemental Hero Crystals of the same colour as the hero exchanged for them.
Costs: 1 Epic Hero, 300k Ham
Time: 12 hours
HA 6 – Class & Origin Hero Crystals from Epic Heroes
Produces: 25 x Class Hero Crystals matching the hero’s class. If the hero has an origin family an additional 25 x Origin Hero Crystals of the same Origin are also produced, if the hero doesn’t have an origin family 25 additional Class Hero Crystals are produced instead.
Costs: 1 Epic Hero, 360k Ham
Time: 12 hours
HA 7 – Regular Hero Crystals from Legendary Heroes
Produces: 240 x Regular Hero Crystals
Costs: 1 Legendary Hero, 240k Ham
Time: 1 day
HA 8 – Elemental & Class Crystals from Legendary Heroes
Produces: 100 x Elemental Hero Crystals matching the hero’s element and 100 x Class Hero Crystals matching the hero’s class.
Costs: 1 Legendary Hero, 600k Ham
Time: 3 days
HA 9 – Elemental & Origin Crystals from Legendary Heroes
Produces: 100 x Elemental Hero Crystals matching the hero’s element. If the hero has an origin family an additional 100 x Origin Hero Crystals of the same Origin are also produced, if the hero doesn’t have an origin family 100 additional Elemental Hero Crystals are produced instead.
Costs: 1 Legendary Hero, 720k Ham
Time: 3 days
HA 10 – Origin and Class Crystals from Legendary Heroes
Produces: 100 x Class Hero Crystals matching the hero’s class. If the hero has an origin family an additional 100 x Origin Hero Crystals of the same Origin are also produced, if the hero doesn’t have an origin family 100 additional Class Hero Crystals are produced instead.
Costs: 1 Legendary Hero, 840k Ham
Time: 5 days
The Crystal Chamber
In the crystal chamber you can combine your gathered crystals to get a replacement hero. You have two methods to choose from, you may either use the crystals to summon a random hero with the specific gate and crystals used affecting your odds or you can craft a specific hero from your crystals.
Crystal Summons
The Crystal Summons are much cheaper than the crystal crafting methods and work better for players who have fewer of the hero’s up for grabs in the summon and so as such is better for F2P and C2P with fewer of the heroes that were behind paywalls. Canny use of the crystals’ properties to narrow down pools of heroes will also improve your chances.
What follows are a brief description of how each of the types of Crystal Summons work:
Legendary Summon – Costs 200 Crystals
To perform a legendary summon 200 crystals have to be combined, as they are combined the Elemental, Class or Origin odds modifiers of each crystal is used to create a probability look-up table to determine how the odds of the pull will be affected. Some examples are:
Example 1 – If all 200 Crystals you combine for the summon are Fire Hero Crystals then you have a guaranteed Fire summon (+0.5% chance per crystal x 200 crystals = 100%) and then the hero you receive will be rolled for from the pool of Fire Legendary heroes that can be won.
Example 2 – If half your 200 Crystals you combine are Wizard crystals, a quarter are Nature Crystals and another quarter are Regular Crystals then a probability look-up table is created for your first roll to determine which prize pool your prize will come from which in this case means if your roll is between 0 and 0.5 your prize will come from the Legendary Wizard pool (as 50% of your crystals were Wizard ones), if your roll is between 0.5 and 0.75 your prize will come from the Legendary Nature pool and if your roll is greater than 0.75 it will come from the basic Legendary Prize pool (as a quarter of the crystals were regular basic ones)
Once the prize pool has been determined the returned hero is randomly selected from that pool according to the rules of that prize pool (detailed a little later)
It should be noted that using all one type of a specific type of Crystal in the Legendary Summon can guarantee the hero comes from a specific prize pool so you can guarantee a particular element, class or origin – however it should be noted that as you only receive half the crystals required to guarantee a specific aspect of the summon your can’t continue doing it indefinitely with the same hero over and over until you get the one you want.
Legendary Prize Pools
Basic: Contains all the Season 1 Legendary Heroes and ex-HOTM heroes with an equal chance of pulling any of those legendaries.
Elemental: Contains only the Season 1 Legendaries and ex-HOTM heroes that match the specific element of the element’s prize pool. Ie Only Fire Season 1 Legendaries and Fire ex-HOTM in the Fire Legendary Prize Pool. Each hero has an equal chance of being returned.
Class: Contains only legendaries of the same class as the prize pool. An 80% chance the prize will be a Season 1 legendary or former HOTM and a 20% chance for a hero of this class that comes from Season 2 or an event.
Origin Pools: Contains only legendaries from the same origin within the pool with each hero within the pool having an equal chance of being returned.
Further dropdowns for info on Epic and Rare Summons from the Crystal Chamber
Epic Summon – Costs 50 Crystals
Epic summons work near identically to the Legendary Summons except that the cost less crystals to do a summons and that at the beginning they will first do a bonus roll for the 10% chance the summon will be upgraded to a Legendary summon. If it is successful a legendary hero will be returned instead and if not the prize returned will instead come from the Epic prize pools.
Rare Summons – Costs 10 Crystals:
Similar to epic summons but this time a 10 Crystal cost and a 10% chance to be upgraded to an epic summon instead.
Crystal Crafting
Alternatively to random summoning the Crystal Chamber also allows you to craft a specific hero instead using even more of your Hero Crystals to meet the specific crafting requirements of certain heroes. As those with more heroes already are just more likely to get further duplicates from random pulls this Crystal Crafting route is better off for the P2W players able to swallow the higher resource, time and hero costs to complete.
The required costs for crafting certain heroes are as follows:
Season 1 Legendary Hero: 400 Elemental Hero Crystals matching the hero’s element + 200 Class Hero Crystals matching the hero’s class.
Ex-HOTM: 800 Elemental Hero Crystals matching the hero’s element + 200 Class Hero Crystals matching the hero’s class + 200 HOTM Origin Crystals.
Season 2 Legendary Hero: 600 Elemental Hero Crystals matching the hero’s element + 300 Class Hero Crystals matching the hero’s + 300 Origin Crystals matching the hero’s family.
Event Legendary Hero: 200 Elemental Hero Crystals matching the hero’s element + 200 Class Hero Crystals matching the hero’s class + 800 Origin Crystals matching the hero’s family
The difficulty to craft each of these increases significantly as you go down firstly because crafting a specific Season 1 Legendary requires half the number of crystals as the later 3 types but as you go down the harder to obtain, more costly and time consuming to obtain Origin Crystals become a larger proportion of the crystals needed for the guaranteed crafting.
Explaining the reasoning for this implementation of Advanced Training Camp and Hero Academy
The intent of this design for the Hero Academy is have it so it at least offers something for everyone whilst also potentially being well set to even reduce the gap between P2W and F2P even if the P2W has loads of resources already saved up and waiting for it.
How you might ask? Well let me take you on a little thought experiment. Let us imagine two people playing a game where each time they get a token they can either spend that token to randomly roll for a prize from a fixed list of 20 prizes or they can save their token and once they have 10 tokens they can buy a specific prize from the board – each of the prizes are roughly equal in value and whilst you can win duplicates due to the nature of the prizes you would much prefer one of each prize than 20 of the same prizes.
Now as it turns out Player A actually by concidence already owes 17 of 20 items on today’s prize board whereas Player B only has 2 of the items. Each turn they get a coin and because the odds Player A would get something new are not as good as if they saved specifically for the best of the remaining three items they don’t have Player A opts to save their coin whereas Player B who is quite likely to win something new each turn rolls for a random prize and often gets something new.
In ten turns time where this hypothetical game will be stopped Player A finally has enough tokens to buy his one prize for 10 coins and so finished with a gain of 1 prize per 10 coins versus Player B’s luck may have landed him something like 7 new prizes for his 10 coins and the gap at the start where player 1 had 17 of the items and B only 2 of the items so that now the difference is 18 items for A and 9 items for B.
The design for the Hero Academy I’ve enclosed works along a similar principle in that F2P and C2P who will have fewer of the heroes the random crystal summons will spit out will therefore find they will find more frequent success with the converting crystals for cheaper summons (especially when using the modifying elemental or class crystals wisely) that would otherwise likely be an expensive way of spitting out one dupe after another for a more P2W player who would find the guaranteed but much more expensive Crystal Crafting route to be better for them. The costs associated with that route specifically how difficulty it will be to obtain the required Origin Crystals for a specific crafting will naturally mean they get less out for what they put in but if it is in pursuit of a much desired guaranteed hero it could be seen as worth it. So whilst the F2P/C2P player has seen let’s say 10 new heroes for the same resources the P2W player poured into getting their 1 new desired hero the gap between has shrunk slight whilst still allowing all to come away with something they value from the system.
Also it has an added benefit for SGG that even with adding event heroes it actually makes their event gates more compelling to pull at for some long term P2W players. Let’s say Player C has all but 1 of the event legendaries in a specific gate – it now means they have just a 0.2% chance of success per pull at that gate to get something new that may not seem worth it however if any dupes they pick up can now be put towards Origin Crystals to craft the final remaining hero should they wish to do so they can actually make progress with event hero summoned from that gate making pulling there again a more attractive prospect as they can at least make progress another way.
So in short not only does this combined plan for Advanced Training Camp and Hero Academy potentially have something that would appeal to each player whatever their place in the game but also makes a wider variety of heroes available than other hinted solutions whilst keeping it desirable to go for their event gates to get heroes that can produce the relevant Origin candies.
Oh man I should probably go to sleep now, will be lucky if the last few paragraphs still make any sense to people and I don’t have to completely re-edit them when I re-awake…
