Maybe not just because of Zynga/etc. focus, but it’s arguably a contributing factor — in 2020, the rate of hero release jumped suddenly and has only accelerated since, and 2021 saw the release of the (first) limit break, to name a couple of prominent factors. Now of course I know “correlation does not equal causation,” but there’s a pretty big apparent inflection point there.
And frankly, it can come off as a little disingenuous to say, e.g., “all cars eventually break down” (true in itself, of course) while glossing over if the car, say, were suddenly being driven much harder while no longer being regularly (or at all) serviced.
It may.
Given the reactions I’ve seen in discussion on it, here and within my own alliance, it very well may also, or even more, cause players to throw their hands up and debate how much to play DoD, how much to try to ignore DoD, or whether — if DoD represents “starting all over” — to actually start all over with a different game instead.
Given that plenty of folks are airing some significant concerns over what DoD may or may not entail, it seems like maybe the time to assuage those concerns or even tweak the release is before the release.
I would find this question potentially interesting if it came from SG. It would show some level of engagement with the actual interests of its customers!
Perhaps naively, I might expect that it is literally in a business’s interest to be interested in what its customers actually want… and perhaps to even occasionally ask, not only to demonstrate engagement but out of a desire to actually know.
As with DoD — or even HL! — SG might do well to find out in advance whether something even tentatively planned is something that many players actually want, much less would be willing to spend money toward.
But to answer your question anyway:
- Some kind of better access to heroes would be appreciated, and not least, costume access even for heroes we already have. I would consider a subscription model for players to be able to obtain costumes (even subject to some kind of limitation, e.g. costumes of a given age).
Older costumes are probably not currently much of a money spinner for SG, but could become a sideline for players who might really want to finally land a costume for, e.g., their Ariel or Gravemaker.
SG clearly doesn’t have a problem with players sometimes having a choice, especially with older heroes (Fated Summon, Soul Exchange), so why not extend the idea more generally to costumes?
—More back onto the topic of this thread, none of this is particularly selling me on “why do the Hero League?”
SG is a business, so perhaps it is their job to convince me to try their new version of their product, and their job to figure out what I might spend more money on.