Power Creep Really Means SGG Needs to Loosen up on Ascension Mat Rarity and Troop Leveling

I seem to notice - and I wasn’t playing that long before the limit break mat’s were introduced - that now emblems are easier to get. Like 1 in 3 “mystic vision” is dropping some emblems, maybe 1-3 emblems, and 1-in-5 mystic visions drop >10 emblems. Unless my memory is deceiving me, I’ve gotten 20+ emblems sometimes, which, when you think what it takes to get 20 emblems from a class quest, that a high pay out rate for watching an ad. The reality is that emblems are IMHO behind hero-power inflation, and the pressure to emblem up 4* among f2p who might otherwise sit on emblems until they get a good 5* to use them on means that the gap between the folks who are paying and those who are f2p simply widens.

In Alliance Wars, due to more teams to use, it could widen the gap, but that gap is already big enough not to matter. If an F2P player gets to ascend a few more heroes, good for them; the P2W players probably already have 6 teams of 5 stars. So they get to ascend a few more? No big deal. (Yes, I am aware that not all 5 stars are created equal.)
F2P players are already resigned to being in lower tiers of things like Mythic Titan battles and other competitive events so that isn’t really going to change. It’s not that hard for a F2P players to hit TC20 and start getting 5 stars, plus the occasional event drop. Why should they be held back when the true whales are always going to have everything pretty much maxed out regardless of whether or not more items actually drop for them?
What this would do is give F2P and light spenders easier access to at least reach a low level of competitiveness, pass seasonal levels more easily, and not miss out as much at events like limit break events by being able to push forward a little bit sooner to the more difficult tiers.
It’s absolutely a boon to F2P players because at least they will be able to take part somewhat more easily in the increasing number of power creep methods, and P2W players will still be on top, just as they always have been.

1 Like

Yes. There’s always been a gap between f2p, and basically anyone who spends (I think it is fine to have a gap). However, sometimes I do feel that the gap is getting too wide for me. Every player has to decide for themselves what difference they can handle.

The amount of time spent playing is a factor. As F2P, I do every quest, fill my chests pretty much daily, and watch a lot of “mystic vision”. Other than at the start, when I was still scraping by with a team of partially leveled 3* and wanting to ascend my first 4* was a short on mats. Even with a L.20 camp, 4 & 5* heros appear so infrequently that most of what I do is just collect mats and wait. But I really do see a higher drop rate of emblems (and a lower drop rate on summon tokens - after all, the summon is the only real ticket to get the superkalifragalisticexpialodocious heros … The biggest disappointment to F2P in terms of the game running away from me is how crappy the advanced buildings and Hero Academy are. You still can’t make non-farmable ascencion mats. You can’t make ether. You can’t retrain and s1 5* and be sure you won’t get another s1 hero back. Maybe a crappier one. The only good thing might be trainer heros. I did quite well with L.11 farms and L.11 food storage + minimum iron stores to get my castle to L.20. In fact I am choking on food and iron all the time because I just don’t have that many heros to level. But waiting for the advanced building upgrades is what was going to make me leave the game, until I heard that HA was junk anyway, and then I just kinda stopped with the build out and gave up on ever “bridging the gap”.

3 Likes

What you say is true; however, the idea that a F2P can ever “bridge the gap” to a P2P player is not possible if you’re talking about getting the high end heroes, and getting a roster to rival a top 100 player. OTOH, if you’re just playing for the sake of playing, what you can get out of F2P is some enjoyment of the game. Even with a limited roster you can get into the top 100 rankings if you care to. I don’t since cups don’t really mean anything to me other than staying in diamond.
Even if HA is considered junk, I still run HA10 for a chance to improve my roster at no real cost. It’s actually at a better rate than a portal with a 5% non-S1 hero. Some are luckier than others, as it took me 40+ pulls to get my first non-S1 hero. With the retired challenge heroes going into HA5 and HA8, that means I have a good chance to get some good 3*/4* heroes, particularly G. Falcon, and G. Jackal which are the 2 elements that I don’t have elemental defense down heroes.
Personally, it’s more of a social game with the alliance, so I compare myself to them rather than the whales. If I’m pulling my weight in an alliance of spenders and F2P, I consider myself to be in a good position.
It took me 3.5 years to get to this point, but I still depend heavily on S1 4* during raids, mainly Melandor and Rigard (albeit with costume bonuses, emblems and limit breaks). I’ll also throw in Lianna and Domitia as my main damage dealers most of the time, all depending on the defense.

Edit: Also it’s fun when this happens:

2 Likes

Yes, for me also being in a friendly, like minded alliance is really what makes the game fun at this point. Can an F2P every crack the top 100? It would be nice to think so, but really the point is not so much to break the top 100 as it is to have good competition. When you are looking at a battle of 5x5* vs 5x5*, or even more frustrating, 4x4* vs 4x4* the outcome shouldn’t be pre-ordained based on whether one team is S1 and the other is S3 or S4. This isn’t just for raids, but also for quests. I have one S4 4* that is worth it’s weight in gold against quest bosses… I bring a few minor mana pots, and they never get to fire a special. He has gotten me so much loot that when I hop onto another account to take a turn for my kids and they don’t have that hero, I’m totally sunk, even though the team strength is pretty close in points. So I guess my opinion is that power creep arguments need to not just address drop rates of ascencion mats, but that special skills of early characters kinda are getting left in the dust. (Also, IMHO the HOTM special skills are kinda getting to be arcane so that those heros are not so usefull unless paired with another particular set of high rarity heros). Some costumes fix this, like banking surplus health, but for every costume that trasnforms a special from a screwdriver to an impact driver, there are 9 costumes that change a standard screwdriver to a phillips screwdriver. Nice to have, but not really an upgrade. Cardemon and Sojna come to mind. Litterally the same specials that got the same “upgrades” with their costumes. Or costumes that take a special and make it the same special but just tweak a bit the trade off between damage and duration of the buff/debuff. Totally meh.

1 Like

I’m sure there are some who can crack the top 100, it’s not overly difficult. I used to do it often when I get on a decent win streak, but things have changed. There are always some key heroes to make life easier for maps. Mine is S2 4* Proteus. Old hero who I still use in my default map team. He’s my key hero for rush wars and unless the board goes completely void of purple, it’s pretty much an instant win. So even if he is years out of date, his usefulness due to his special is more than enough to keep him in the mix.
You’re underselling the costumes. Caedmon and Sonya costumes are very useful. How many fast+ mana heroes are there that cleanse? Zimkitha comes to mind (whom I have), but I’ve been making more use out of Sonya and a lesser extent Caedmon for that role depending on the color mix I want to bring.
Even the tweaks have some use. I got Vanda with costume, and I prefer the costume as the extra turn for the special is worth the tradeoff of reduce health steal. Or Sabina, whose costume dispels and then prevents buffs instead of just dispelling, which is something that can be used to counter cKadilen who is another S1 with costume that’s seen pretty often.
There may be some power creep with new heroes, but the fact of the matter is, the tiles will decide the outcome for better or for worse. You could take a squad of S1 heroes and win against S4 defense team depending on the makeup and how the tiles fall. In the example I showed, I could have substituted Malosi with Joon, as in that particular match, I don’t recall much in the way of yellow tiles.

It very simple really, I have around 20 5* heroes and the same in 4s which are still waiting for their final tier of mats and then so many 5s not even started which means doing more summons only means those heroes sit there doing nothing at all at least for the next few years.

There is no encouragement here to do summons as the mats don’t catch up.

They allow as much assertion items to level a 1 or 2 of each a year but yet expect you to summons 100s at a time each month.

No point doing new summons until the mats start showing signs of improvement.

1 Like

Guess what guys,

The most likely scenario is that you don’t actually get all of the 5* heroes and/or 4* mats and/or boatloads of emblems and/or aethers and/or multi-packs of ham that you desperately believe you deserve and need.

It’s a game and to play it best will require strategic choices that might not all look correct a year from now. I get that it can be hard to make some choices when you feel you’ve been spending a lot and don’t want to compromise. But the game does in fact require choices, and if the amount of money your spending will make you upset when things don’t work out, it’s a good sign you’re spending too much.

I’m only pointing out what others have said before. You don’t actually need the bestest of the best to enjoy the wide array of content available. If the low drop rate is driving you that crazy, rethink your game and what makes it fun to play. If you can’t stand not being at the top of diamond arena in an elite alliance right away, you will surely be disappointed. About 0.3% of the player base is in a top 100 alliance (right, less than 1/2 of 1%).

Maybe there could be a request to make reset tokens for heroes, one for each element and make them as scarce as the red ones.

You get your mats back but lose the trainers put into it, you just get the mats, this way you could swap around from old to new heroes.

Just a thought

1 Like