We did touch on the “if” — they’re thinking about adjusting the rewards structure (and possibly how scoring works too). But the “how” isn’t something they’ve decided yet, so Tim couldn’t offer much information about it yet.
And while it’s on the priority list for this year, it’s not the thing that’s being worked on right this minute.
I do think we’ll likely see some sort of change eventually, I just don’t know what. I hope we’ll get more insight into that in the next few months or so.
The rules and reward structure of the upcoming Raid Tournaments suggest that they’ve learned from what went sideways in The Challenge Events and are working to address that. My guess is that a revamped event structure will have more churn at the top and a flatter award structure, based on percentages participating, percentage of top score, or achieving certain milestone scores.
Looking forward to that…
Awesome and thank you for the clarification. I did want to propose a suggestion or an example of what would be cool to see and be constructive. I look forward to see what the future brings with the changes discussed. The AMA did give more hope to the future of the game for me.
He’s waiting for Movember
Great job on all the write-ups @Kerridoc that takes a serious amount of dedication.
I await further information on the “skins” aspect and what it will do for boosting the capabilities of the classic heroes, since I am essentially F2P. I am not sure how they intend to keep this from creeping into the HOTM and event heroes though. If it is not across the board eventually there will be an uproar among the P2W crowd.
Tim said that their plan is to only bring it to classic heroes this year, but that might change in the future, and it could expand to HOTM and event heroes.
One thing that may help with that is the possibility of HOTM being available via training camps, and some sort of hero conversion upgrades possibly being available in the Hero Academy. So F2P may have new ways of getting those heroes by the time skins are introduced for them.
None of these features are finalized — training camp changes, skins, nor Hero Academy — but it’s clear they’re thinking about how to maintain or enhance balance in the game.
Tim demonstrated that in other parts of the conversation too, brining up F2P and game balance issues when talking about summoning, challenge events, and offers.
My impression is they very much care about F2P and C2P players, and have them in mind when designing game changes.
Another option may be to eventually have skins for non-classic but the boosts are much more subtle. I suppose it all depends on what the skins add. If they add an extra mode to the special attack that many HOTM/event already have (elemental link etc) then the HOTM/event skin could be a minor boost to that.
Agreed, and Tim alluded to this possibility: some skins could be mostly cosmetic, while others more substantive.
Personally, i’m enjoying the effect of emblems already, which is seeming to broaden the sets of defenses I see—e.g., some bulked up Justices. It’s a nice change to see some unfamiliar faces. If skins helps to continue this trend, great.
Well well it finally happened! Yay! 
Alot was answered, that’s great… So the big question was asked but I might have missed the answer… Will % change in summoning or no? For at least old heroes? Example… This year its old event heros but its STILL 1% chance. Why would I pay at the same 99% chance to NOT get a old hero… AGAIN?? I understand new players might, and that’s cool, but its OLD heros still. So did I miss that answer?? If I did I’m sorry. Thank you mods for all your help
Tim did not mention any change to summons %.
All things taken into consideration, if you look at the evolution of this game, it’s pretty clear SGG is more player oriented and apparently actually concerned about what we all think, what our experience with this game feels like to us, than Any game developer I’ve seen. For whatever reason. They don’t want their baby to go the way of the dodo and if it ever became a really pay to play game it’s over, but they clearly know that. At the same time it’s a business–they’re walking a tightrope but imo are doing amazingly well so far. Most of these new features are geared towards balance and as innovative as they’ve been thus far, I look forward to what’s coming.
That would be a great way to adjust the TC20 heroes!
As someone who as a spendy account with a bunch of hotm/event 5 and a c2p account with very few of those, I’d have no problem with skins only touching current tc20 heroes to give them a bit of a bump. I’m for anything that helps people get value from the game and lengthens the games overall lifecycle and popularity.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. If the tc 20s provide a solid bridge for people starting out, it could go a long way towards longevity and a large, hopefully permanent, player base. Imo.
That is an encouraging reply. Thank you.
As F2P I have no ambition to be “at the top” in this game. Right now my ambition is to make it into diamond for more than a few minutes at a time and be able to make six solid war teams.
My comment was probably coloured by the current angsty trend on the forums towards complaints about the game. I do realize the vast majority of players don’t complain and most don’t even come on the forums here.
I will say the emblems have added a new twist to the game. Some heroes benefit greatly from them and others not so much. It’s great having to think over and strategize who you want to give the emblems to for maximum benefit (even with my somewhat limited bench it’s a challenge). SGG may be aiming for the same effect with skins.
It’s nice to know we have to keep duplicates now, but it would have been wonderful to see the server outages addressed.
Maybe I’m tech oriented… but that seemed more like “get to know the developers”. Softball questions you ask a first date. Hopefully the next one is more informative.
Tim is the lead game designer, and not the right SGG staff member for highly technical questions. We’re hoping to have another AMA with @mhalttu, who’s the CTO, to address technical questions.
Keeping duplicates: When I keep 3* dupes, will I be able to get even 3* atlantis heroes or event 3* in exchange? I have every normal 3* hero and would like to know if I even should keep 3* heroes.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to know for sure, since they haven’t even finalized their thinking on that yet.
When I explicitly asked Tim if we should advise players to save duplicates, he said no, it was too early for that — though I personally think if you have the roster space, it’s prudent to save 4* and 5* extras for now.
As for 3* heroes, I think the risk of eating them is a lot lower. They’re astronomically easier to obtain from training camps and summons, which both makes it more trivial to replace them, and less likely that we’ll see a notable use for duplicates.