Hello to all,
First off, I’d like to say that as an avid gamer of 25 years (very competitive for a few of those years), I’d like to thank SG. Having played this game now for about 2 months, I have to say that this is the first game of this type that I have played and I am enjoying it rather thoroughly. I’ve also read many of the frustrations that others have had (many of which I certainly share), and I’d like to offer my own perspective, through my own gaming experience.
Having previously played some other mobile games such as GOW, Hearthstone (still do), chess, and fantasy sports based games, as well as a history of console and PC gaming ranging from NCAA football to Civ 6 to WOW to Starcraft to incredibly complex data driven table based sims like OOTP15-19, I’d like to offer my two cents.
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The largest challenge in any f2p/p2w game is maintaining the balance in the general community. There will always be people who are upset, as every individual is different, and managing the expectations of so many individuals, as individuals, rather than a collective, is a general exercise in failure.
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E&P seems to sit much closer to hearthstone than GOW on the p2w scale, which I find to be a good thing. The GOW developers, IMO, made the mistake of listening only to their high paying customers, which resulted in constant releases, and soft pressure on the casual base to spend or go away. While there is a degree of fungibility of free players, it is not some perfectly elastic curve, and truth be told, the high paying customers are actually fungible as well. They created a cycle of faster and faster upgrades, which left all but the Ctesse’s of the world in stagnation and boredom. Then, once her uncle stopped paying her GOW bills, she quit too.
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There seem to be a lower degree of p2w frustration in E&P than other mobile games I’ve seen. It’s been a downward trend in general, from what I’ve seen, but I see it even less here. I think people have begun to realize that any f2p with buy options is not going to be a skill based game such as WoW, starcraft, LoL, or other such game where the game is built around the competition tiers.
Here are my suggestions, based on information I’ve gathered (which by no means is complete or necessarily accurate, just my own observations. -
The curve radius of the game is ELO based, specifically for certain rewards, specifically ascension materials. What I mean by this, is, say an 1800 cup rating is needed in order to start having better chances of getting tier 5 3rd ascension and tier 4 last ascension loot. Due to the earlier players having progressed more thoroughly, where they once were in order to hit 1800 is no longer where a player needs to be. That has moved upward, to require more power and a better team in order to get that access. In order to reflect a loot table more reflective of where the player needs to be, rather than create a regressive player ascension path, perhaps those items (not the final ascension mind you, since that is more fixed in nature), should start dropping in gold now? Or change the brackets to be based on team power, or another metric, such that loot drops are commensurate to where the player is, not an arbitrary fixture that, while balanced for players 6 months ago, may actually creating a brick wall today.
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Perhaps my biggest frustration with the game is the lack of defined intrinsic value on gems. While I understand that part of the game’s puzzle may be in actually properly inferring the value of a gem, the gem purchase prices on in game goods and feature items in the shop seems almost as if a monkey picked prices on items by throwing darts at a board. While I am sure for the more seasoned players, the recognition of value is more obvious, it sets about a rather odd trap for new players. The relative value of a summon vs an epic summon being set to half the price is… odd. The featured packs where 600 gems nets 2 of a series of items that all cost 300 gems or heroes that are basic 3 star heroes. Consider that an epic summon, which has a 72 percent chance to give a 3 star hero, a 26 percent chance at a 4 star, and a 1.5 +1.3 percent chance at a 5 star, is valued at 300 gems. So, .7* value of 3 star + .26* value of 4 star + 2.8ish*value of 5 star = 300. So it is literally a feature pack where you pay a dollar, and whether the flip is heads or tails, you get 70 cents back. While many seasoned players would laugh at such a notion of buying that, newer players, including newer players who are spenders, can be left frustrated in knowing this after the fact. Is there actually any utility to the players, or the game, in having packs specifically built on negative net value without even some chance at an actual prize?
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I would love to see the opportunity to purchase a rare questline with gems, although I perfectly understand this may create a well of imbalance.
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I would love to see an infrequent, or once in a blue moon sale that provides high return/value. While I understand these types of sales often annoy the big spender types who need to show off their wallets and complain that these types of sales invalidate their own spending, part of the money spent in any p2w, is to get there faster, not just about getting where no one else can ever get ever (and if that is the case with them, read MZ’s last few quarterly results after spending too much time listening to those kinds of players. They are as toxic and game killing as the casual player who wants everything right now or else)