Trading between players is perhaps the most commonly requested feature addition to the game. You’ve previously expressed a desire to add something related to this to the game. Do you still have that in mind for the future, or will other things like the Alchemy Lab and Hero Academy take the place of trading?
Alchemy Lab and Hero Academy will do something about that. These are are parts of the Stronghold Upgrade. Because they are very doable. Trading has some things to solve, and we are super-busy with all the other things we want to do inside Empires & Puzzles. So because we wanted to get something this year that addresses some of these issues, that’s why we’re adding these buildings.
Alchemy Lab will enable conversion of “junk” (lower rarity items) or items so you can use lower-rarity items to try to get higher-rarity items. That’s the intended use of the Alchemy Lab. It’s not exactly trading, like people want to do, and the social aspect would be awesome, but if you have hundreds of thousands of unused items in your inventory, the Alchemy Lab will provide a use for them. It’s not trading, but it’s a step.
Same with Hero Academy, a surplus of heroes can be converted into new ones. Let’s see how that rolls out. I’m hoping that the Hero Academy would have something where some heroes could be traded or converted into new ones, but that needs to be tested in beta
The Alchemy Lab is more straightforward, and the design’s already mostly done. It’s just waiting to get coded up.
Is there any concern with the Hero Academy that if you’re converting lower to higher rarity that the F2P players might be left behind because they don’t have heroes to convert?
The Hero Academy will be F2P friendly. The Alchemy Lab works differently; we know that people have surplus items. In the Hero Academy, in the last phase of that you can try convert a hero of one rarity into a different hero of the same rarity. So if you have a surplus of a specific hero, say you don’t need your fifth or sixth of a particularly legendary hero, there would be some use for that. But this is a feature where we need to wait and see what happens in beta. Alchemy Lab is more straightforward.
With the direction you’re heading with the Hero Academy, even though the design isn’t finished and things are very uncertain, should people be considering holding dupes and increasing roster size, or is that premature?
I’m hoping there will be a legitimate use for duplicates. Too early to tell, will need to see what is released in beta and how the Hero Academy will be functioning.
But it might be the case that this feature won’t make it into the Hero Academy.
Too speculative at this point to stockpile heroes; we can put out some more information once we are further along.
Kira: Of course, all players have fed away good heroes that we wouldn’t have if this feature had been available so few players get any actual advantage. Of course, if you’re just starting after it’s in beta and you have an amazing pull, then you’ll know not to feed away good duplicates.
Tim: The costs in terms of food and time or whatever for the Hero Academy needs to be set. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of feedback in beta. Interesting challenge, but we want to do it.
