SOS! (Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3): What's Wrong with Empires & Puzzles; Solutions to Save the Playerbase; Changes are Coming, Are they Listening?

Hey everyone! Here is part 2 of my SOS video video series. If you haven’t seen part 1, make sure to go watch that first. For those who have seen it, here are my ideas to improve the game and preserve or grow the playerbase:

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I rarely watch videos like this but just watched Part 1 and Part 2 of this.

First of all - congrats, a really in depth analysis, balanced solutions proposed and all really well explained.

I’ll list my favorite ideas that you suggested:

  • Mandate different tank color each week - this is genius. Such a simple solution that would do so much for the freshness of the game and so easy to implement, I assume. Please SGG listen to this proposal

  • Reduce number of emblems required to go up a node in 5* - as you said, the jump from 4* to 5* is just insane and not really reasonable. It makes me focus all my emblems on my war D and my teams lose depth because of that.

  • Transmute emblems - not so urgent from my point of view, but would again do a lot for the freshness of the game

  • Add more bling - 100%! I don’t understand how such a P2W game doesn’t have any cosmetics at all associated with it. They could make so much more money on that instead of a goblin balloon. If this helps reduce summoning cost - even better but I would love to see it implemented anyway.

  • Do not require gems to use a building - I don’t even have to explain it, you said it all.

I’ll also highlight one that I didn’t like at the beginning but the way you built it might be interesting

  • Hero Medallions - I am 100% against the idea of chosing your own heroes in this game and think it goes against game freshness and variation. However - having 3 or 4 heroes show up and you pick one of those - that is a good idea. You still get the randomness but feel like you got at least something close to what you wanted.
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Thanks for posting your thoughts. Both commentaries were thought provoking. :slightly_smiling_face:

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20 100% agrees … :+1:

You have certainly put some thought into all this, so well done there. Definitely a good jumping off point for discussion.

The notion of ditching loot tickets is certainly a good one. They always struck me as a very artificial paywall, when we were already throttled on WE. I just can’t envision much downside to that. Ditto all the skinning and cosmetic items ideas. I despise paying for cosmetic upgrades myself, but I’m a rarity; cosmetic customizations are very popular, and there’s very little downside. Certainly, waiting until your country’s pin pops up in the rotation is ridiculous. If people want to give away money for no game advantage whatsoever, by all means.

Many of these ideas will generate significant negative second-order effects, though. The proposed War changes will require radical change to a matchmaking system that SGG insists on thinking about in the most naive way, creating more animosity when the latest fix continues to exhibit exploitable loopholes. Allowing significantly cheaper summons, with better odds, devalues what earlier players paid for their Heroes; like nerfing, this will create a friction point for the big money players with an “investment” mindset. Moving loot around the map will frustrate the data miners; increasing loot without altering what’s available will only trivialize previously hard-to-find items, leading to even more declarations of “boring junk”… but “boring” farming will continue as a method of supplementing food and iron income. And so forth… lots of risk to manage.

One point I find deliciously ironic, and it applies to many games as well as this one: player decisions must be significant (or else, as you say, you may as well just sit at home and roll some dice), but most players largely hate making those same decisions. Consider the Telluria debacle: if there was only one tank in the game, and that was Telly, everyone would immediately react to having their choice taken away by quitting (“Boring game u cannot choose ur heros!”). But because, stats-wise, Telluria was the only tank worth having, those exact same people immediately spent a bajillion dollars to get her, or bemoaned the fact that the game is unplayable without her, effectively enjoying that their decision was made for them.

More and more, I see a game that seems like a solid self-contained system early on, but didn’t have a comprehansive plan for expansion. The Classes/Emblems are a perfect example. The entire original system was predicated on there being a radical asymmetry between attacking and defending. Attackers had an enormous advantage, and a few things had to be implemented (like the infamous hidden 20%) to even make the system useable. However, as noted, defences are enormously strengthened by Emblems; notice how the three Talents named OP are all defensive ones? It seems obvious that they didn’t really consider how so much defensive boost would alter their core principle. In many respects (Pull rarity, 4* AM rarity, Emblems, Challenge Event scoring, feeder Heroes), it really seems like SGG has painted themselves into a corner, with serious negative consequences no matter how they choose to progress. Honestly, if this game is still around in a big way in a year, it will probably be because they bit the bullet and shed a bunch of their legacy game mechanics… and shed, too, the veteran players that are unwilling to adapt to that radical change.

War attack teams

In my opinion, the major problem is it takes 6x the emblems to emblem a full set of war attack heroes ( 3-12 years ), than a full set of war defense heroes (1-2 years ).

If emblems were as plentiful as 2*, or 3*, ascension items this problem would go away.

According to a very good friend of mine, 6x war attack teams with pierce, withstand, evade, mana shield, delay, can do some serious damage to war defense teams. But who wants to wait 3-12 years to get 30x 5*+20 attack heroes?

attack stat soft cap

But you are not wrong.

5* 4.80 heroes attacking 5*+20 defense do not have pierce, withstand, evade, mana shield, delay at 5/5 they have them at 0/5.

And with zero emblems, things become seriously unbalanced:

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i guess many players that leaves are being outrage of bad pulling…they dont really care about technical data especially noob and mid level players…i just have to agree if SG can lower the price in event,seasonal etc…im hopin in atlantis rise sg will also offer discounted price for summonin as its almost ends…

ME! But I recognize that I’m in a tiny minority there :rofl:

It would have been nice, I think, to be able to put Emblems in the middle of Hero development and 4* AMs at the end, and then Emblems could properly be decreased in rarity to fit into that so important (and in E&P, razor thin) area between “garbage” and “achingly rare”. C’est la vie, tant pis pour nous

Also, I’m thoroughly tickled that someone like you thinks anything I’ve said is worth commenting on. :place_of_worship:

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Interesting idea.

According to people, other games with emblems allow you to add emblems at anytime, not just at maximum special skill, maximum tier and maximum level.

Combine this with Alchemy Labs merciless RNG for emblems, and 4* ascension items, seems to indicate SGG/ Zynga is more interested in protecting micro transactions 4* ascension items than adding fun, and variety, to the game.

Thank you for the compliment.

You have been very actively contributing to the forum - giving and receiving likes - since you joined

(Profile - LordDust - Empires & Puzzles Community Forum)

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The option to add emblems before finishing ascending and leveling a hero actually could be integrated into the ascension system, wherein the ascension level sets the maximum emblem tier that could be completed before another ascension level is required (ie A1 to +5, A2 to +10, A3 to +15 and A4 to +20).

Using this approach, you could also tier the cost in emblems to the Ascension level of the that emblem tier. So all heroes cost for emblems going to +5 might be 7 emblems, then 15 emblems up to +10, 30 emblems for +15 and and 60 emblems for +20. If there’s an issue with lower * heroes coating the same as higher * heroes, there could possibly be some kind of a multiplier discount for 4* and 3* heroes at each ascension level (ie maybe it’s only 5 emblems for 3* heroes and 6 emblems for 4* heroes at 1st ascension, and that discount increase to 8 emblems at 4th ascension for 4* heroes, and the cost is capped for 3* heroes at the 3rd Ascension level cost for +16 to +20.

There would be a lot of angry players if they let people keep their existing emblem levels or refunded everyone their invested resources back. But, this approach would make creating functional attack teams much more accessible.

Hey everyone! It appears that SG Games has responded pretty quickly to the SOS videos AND your community comments. Now, what do you think about the solutions they’re proposing so far?

Here are my thoughts…

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I only have seen newer S3 heroes to get buffed. It means they want us to pull more at that portal. Not really a gameplay change.

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They have been buffing other heroes along the way too.

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Previously loads of S1 heroes have been buffed.

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Lol hear what SOS? I think they heard from Finance that people aren’t pulling from the Valhalla portal with purchased gems.

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@PooFlingerJr Exatcly… Lol… Like buffing 20% attack from S1 heroes make the existence of heroes like frigg, old telluria, finley and jabber acceptable and “cool” for the game balance. They only did not destroyed Vela and Telluria before because they aren’t event heroes too.

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Telluria and Vela do NOT need to be further nerfed. I thought that the last nerf made them beatable, but still very competitive which is what I thought that we all wanted. Now they are just ruining them. Full disclosure, yes I have both, but I had actually already removed Vela from my war and raid defense. We will see on the other changes. It is clear that SGG wants more pulls done at the events and Valhalla portals. Those now have the strongest heroes.

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Well the emblem change is welcome, but everything else is nonsense. Improving the pull odds = 0.6% change!! If they were serious about improving it, they would remove season 1 heroes all together and give at least 3% chance of a 5*. They talk about balance but then buff Alfrike? Seriously… the goblin balloon is a perfect example of what they are thinking…

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Looking forward to new war rules, really became a bit boring and will benefit clever leaders/alliances. Telluria nerf isnt much, i see her as a tank to give time to my other heroes, hasnt changed, she is still great and i fear heimdall more anyway when attacking. overall making a stuck game a bit fresh again, nice stuff :fox_face:

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Plus they buffed S2 heroes too. Atmos is now very good and I’d even argue Mok Arr is a hero I’d ascend for my purple war team.

But people have selective and short memories. The changes are really good. None of the S3 heroes are game breaking in a normal raid sense. Sure in some tournaments the V.slow heroes become beasts but they should do! That’s the point of the rush tournaments :joy: Heck my Quintus tank is unbeaten at the time of writing this. How’s that a thing???

These changes are welcome by those of us who want to see the game continue. Cheaper embleming means we can move them around easier and it’s a massive help to newer players too as emblems made my 3* and 4* much better so I could compete in more areas of the game.

If anything I want SGG even more hands on. Tweak the heroes that need it more regularly and if there’s another running amok then bring it back a touch.

For all the faults they have you can never accuse them of hiding changes. We all know they coming and the transparency is very good on that.

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