Your outcome in the Atlantis summon is an absolute tragedy, and in my opinion something like this should never, ever happen. I think the current workings of the gacha system in place for E&P is critically flawed and needs to be changed badly. Even if Small Giant ends up taking a pay cut in the end I know they are able to make enough money to keep this game going, there is just no excuse for the system to be as lop sided as it is.
Also, let’s be perfectly clear here, the system is not fair for free to play OR paying customers. Trust me, as someone who plays 4 different mobile games quite regularly, and takes a totally casual approach on two of them, but happily pays for the other 2 (well, happily pays for one of them :P), let me tell you, there are good systems for paying AND free customers and then there are bad ones, really bad ones. This one is pretty damn bad, I don’t know if it’s the worst out there, but I know it’s a competitor.
I don’t know the correct approach to take to make this system better, and more fair. I know it can be done though, and without breaking the game in anyway. One start would be to implement some kind of system where there is either some form of “forgiveness” after a certain amount of pulls and can be redeemed in some manner to perhaps draw from some pool of 5s so that your are guaranteed to at least get something of value (hopefully), and this same system would help FTP people as well since they could also build up some form of points that can eventually be redeemed at a later point for a draw at a 5 hero. I would love to take it even a step further and let us actually choose the hero we want, or at least very close to it. I don’t think this would be game breaking at all, especially with how massive the pool of heroes as become, and it only continues to grow. Simply put restrictions on this system, it should take a long time to build up (even for someone who pays, as I said put some restrictions in there). Imagine being able to eventually draw a hero of your choice after something like 6-12 months of getting burned heavily.
This is just a very simple idea that I made up on the spot in a matter of seconds, it’s also something I’ve seen people suggest in these forums quite regularly for some time now, except worded differently. One of the most popular counter arguments I see for this idea is that it would somehow make the game more PTW than it already is. I think this is an absolutely ridiculous notion personally, in fact I think you could implement a reward system like this with virtually no limitations and it would still be a vast improvement over what we have, that’s how bad it is. If the system would provide some form of guaranteed reward down the line for a customer who is regularly making purchases, and also for FTP or CTP players who are very active and participate in the game regularly (these people are very important as well). If anything all this would do is encourage non paying customers to actually make a purchase here and there, cause hey, it not only contributes to the game you like, but you will get something you really want, eventually!
The fact of the matter is if someone wants to own a hero in this game they can, with money, period. Don’t show me screen shots of single pull hero tokens that reward the hotm. That’s just crazy good luck, and it proves that the system is NOT fair. It would be healthy to close the gap a bit on how accessible some of these heroes are, and the means by which we can work toward obtaining them. Please don’t come up with a counter argument on how this cannot be done just because you don’t like my idea. If you don’t like my idea then help come up with something different, but let’s work on formulating an idea of change that can be agreed upon by everyone in the community.