sorry to hear that you’re past your 1 yr anniversary and still without any 5s. that is some pretty bad luck. one of my alliance mates was like that actually, went for nearly an entire year with no 5s, but during that time, he had built out a very impressive set of over 20 fully leveled 4s, and as such, he was consistently one of our highest scoring war participants, regularly scoring in the mid-high 200s. The past month of March has been good to him and he not only got Frida from an EHT pull, but he also drew quintus from TC20, so he is now on his way to maxing out his 2nd 5 in as many as 30 days. Just don’t give up, keep doing all the quests and events. At a year in, you should have enough maxed out 4* heroes to complete every event in the game. Just keep amassing ascension items so when the time comes and your 5*s finally arrive, you’ll be ready to boost them to max right away.
I do think that if you run 3x TC20s, you’ll likely get about 1 5* per month or so, so that’s certainly worth doing. In fact, that’s what I’m doing now. I think that the newer 5s all have fairly unique abilities (but not always better). To be honest, some of my most desired 5s are actually season 1 snipers. So I think there’s tremendous value there.
With regards to guaranteed ascension items, rare quests are on an average 9 day rotation, which guarantees a 3* and 4* ascension item. Paired with titan loot, you should be able to collect a fair amount of ascension items. There are certainly ways to improve chances of getting better loot, but you do have to work at it, taking on higher level titans and improving your titan attack strategy. I’m regularly an A-scorer (about 130-150k dmg on avg) on 9* titans (with 3300-3600 titan attack teams). Building the appropriate titan team can make a huge difference and getting A-class is important to maximize your loot rolls.
Maybe I’m missing the point altogether, but even as a F2P, I’m still able to progress in the game, albeit slower than someone who is willing to throw $$$ at the various summons. Of course, I also deeply desire the unique heroes, especially guardians for their elemental def down, but I can still enjoy the game without them.
It’s a very very difficult balancing act to keep 5s rare enough to be valuable, yet at the same time, give everybody enough heroes to level so they stay interested. I personally think that the game gives F2P folks enough opportunities to build a 5 team. Yes, their team will never be truly competitive with the big spenders, but at the same time, there are enough solid heroes to be competitive. Not to mention, you get quite a few chances at nabbing seasonal/event/atlantis heroes through free atlantis coins, gems, EHTs, etc.
I humbly disagree with TC20 drop rates. I’m also frustrated by having only had 1 5* out of nearly 60 pulls, but 5s are supposed to be rare! I.e. TC20 should grant you access to 5s, but it shouldnt be so powerful to give you every single season 1 5* within a few months time. Again, focus on the long term nature of this game. As such, 1/month is about right. Even 1 every 2 months wouldn’t be outrageous. The more dedicated you are to keeping TC20 going, the higher the chance you’ll get rewarded with 5* heroes.
Perhaps it’s worth taking a look at your own play style and compare it to someone who has achieved that goal. After all, I know a lot of folks who play a LOT. They complete every event, every quest, make sure to use every single titan atk and every war flag to maximize damage and contribution (thereby improving titan loot and helping to win more wars), they stay on schedule for all available quests and knock out 3-4 monster/raid chests daily to push rare chest spawns, etc. I’m certainly not the most dedicated player out there, but I do think there’s a huge range of F2P in terms of commitment.
If you truly participate in everything this game has to offer, then I think you will be rewarded. Bad luck and good luck tends to cycle. You’ll get a payout. Eventually, your EHT will hit a 5* and/or an HOTM. You certainly won’t get every single HOTM, but you will eventually get one. It’s the nature of the RNG in the game. And likewise, it is a rather fair system. Just read all those posts about people who blow MAJOR $$$ on 30, 60, 90 summons and getting a single season 1 5* and no hotms. For the same reasoning that you’re asking for an increased drop rate on S1 heroes, they are asking for an increased (or even guaranteed) drop rate for having spent that much money.
RNG is designed to maximize developer profit, but at the same time, it also keeps the game from being purely pay to win. Wouldn’t it suck if a few dollars could buy all the best heroes in the game? Everybody would have the same team. This is already the case for the top 100, with the same heroes making an appearance over and over again. At the end of the day, this is a for-profit system. The whole point of these unique heroes and the super low chance of pulling them is to encourage folks to SPEND MORE MONEY. I get that much. As such, I’m grateful that I even have the opportunity to get free rolls. Food for thought, each atlantis level offers up to 8 coins and with 270 levels total PLUS a 300 coin reward for completion of the storyline, you can earn a whopping 2,460 atlantis coins. That’s nearly 25 free pulls. Statisticallly speaking, you’ll get some pretty good 4s and maybe even a 5. Forget about all the free gems you can collect from missions. It really adds up. The game does give sufficient opportunities to “get lucky”. Question is if you’ll stick around long enough to actually “get lucky”.