Suggestions to avoid losing players

I know people are considering quitting due to the ascension item shortage. People who play daily, beat titans, and haven’t gotten an item they need in weeks.

Rather than gripe I’d like to suggest the following: make the monster chests and the hero chests harder and increase the rewards. Specifically:

  1. Rank each player by the total power of their five best heroes and troops
  2. Give chests of a difficulty according to player rank
  3. Change the scoring system so that beating a defense team for heroes scores points proportional to the defense team’s power
  4. change the scoring system so that beating a map level scores points toward the chest proportional to the XP that level awards
  5. make the number of points needed to earn the chest large so that it represents real work
  6. EVERY chest contains at least one ascension item not available from the map.
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I support this idea… make it harder to get higher tier rewards, but then assure decent items in them.

Can’t help thinking, however, that this goes against SG’s strategy. I think the current overt scarcity of ascension materials is by design. You will then see the occasional £20 special popping up that happens to include some of those much needed items. The result is that people then perceive the special to be good value and will be inclined to spend on it.

Essentially, easing the ability for people to get the items by effort alone will be in contradiction to one of their streams of revenue, so is a tough sell.

For my part, I think it’s possible to be more generous in items and hero pulls and still earn a good revenue, but will need some evolutions in game play and options to make it happen without a cost to game balance. Whether SG (and the existing player base) have appetite for it is another matter, but I personally strongly support it.

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It is an interesting idea! I do see a few possible issues with the “relative power” concept though.

You can have 5x heros with a lot of “power” that are not suited well for either raiding or map fights. So with a system like that you could end up with the short end of the stick and not be able to effectivly complete any of the chests.

But I do like the idea of some chests containing better/garanteed loot chances. Point in case the “Rare Chests” have been very unsatisfactory lately.

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I also want to point out (puts on BA math with statistics concentration hat, adjusts to rakish attitude) that in the long run a RNG balances out for most players but:

  1. Even then you’ll have 3+ standard deviation players who are notably lucky or unlucky and
  2. With the current low probabilities of getting ascension items, the long run is measured in months before a player beating one Titan a day starts to see a Gaussian probability distribution on loot, and
  3. When you cannot trade an ascension item of which you have a surplus for one you need, the possibility of not getting what you need for YEARS is large enough to not be ignored.
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Haha, I’m not sure if thats a retort to my post or if you are agreeing with me!

If it was a retort, dumb it down about 3+ standard deviations for me will you! :slight_smile:

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Could be that I’m gonna repeat what you said here, have reread it a couple of times but seem to lack focus today - sorry in advance :slight_smile:

I agree with the base premise of your post if I understand it correctly - personally think the chests can stay the way they are now but that the way you fill them should influence their rewards.

Monster: if you fill it up at 8.7 you get worse rewards than if you fill it up at 20.7
Raids: if you raid people that are at a certain cup range (for example 500-1000), you get lower rewards than if you raid people in the 2000-2500 range.
Titans: If you fill it up with 1* titans it gives out lower rewards than if you fill it with 8-10* titans.

I think you catch my drift :slight_smile: This way the loot given out would also more closely match someone’s current level in the game I think (so if you’ve just started you get more chance of boots instead of telescopes, and if you’ve been playing for months you have a smaller chance to get your 50th pair of boots instead of that telescope).

Don’t think every chest would need to include an ascension item not available on the map - to be fair that would be about 20 ascension items a week from the chests alone (so also titan loot and rare quests and events). SG still has to make money to keep the game going and the somewhat rarity of ascension items is a way to prevent this game from becoming p2w - which I am personally a big fan of eventhough I too always appreciate more ascension materials :slight_smile:

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I assume SG has access to this and checks it out occasionally??? If not, someone a steer me in the right direction.

Being an optimist with rose colored bifocals, i am going to assume the devs are hard working people that prefer happy players to disgrunted, churlish people on the verge of quitting. I am guessing again, that when we were promised more ascension items, this was their intention. But honestly i would rather work for something a little out of my reach, but something that when I level up or learn new skills there is a chance of earning. There is satisfaction. Something randomly dropped by a RNG with no way that I can understand, that may be fun once in a while, but it leaves me feeling empty. And to wait for many months with no guarantee I am any closer is just crazy making…

So Small Giant, please consider whomever wrote what is first in this thread, please consider hiring this person as a consultant. What was suggested makes more sense than anything else I have read. I’m pretty sure the bottom line and player satisfaction can become better balanced. I am reminded often that this game is a team effort. You need to add to your team.

With great respect and admiration, I am Lenore from English Dungeon.

  1. Player gets points for:
  • number of daily Titan hits
  • number of daily raids finished
  • number of daily province locations plowed thru

These points affect the outcome of their rolls, allow 3* players to compete with 5*, F2P to compete with P2W.

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I think there are many ways to solve this conundrum, I’ve seen plenty of interesting solutions posted on these forums over the past months. Many of these ways wouldn’t hit SG on the pockets either (not as hard as losing many players due to boredom/frustration for sure).

So I agree with one thing - something’s gotta give. Doing the same things over and over again with 2 days a month of variety makes it easy to forget a game exists. I mean, I haven’t been playing THAT long (from August) and already there’s nothing for me to do but farm 8-7 and lose cups/regain cups in raids daily in a firm circle of 1700->2000->1700->2000.

It’s just… I don’t feel any progress lately. Or incentive to log in other than I’m waiting for my chicken to fry.

I really like this game, I want to keep playing it and I want it to stay alive. But meh?

#foreverlobbyingforachievements

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Curious: what do you farm 8-7 for? I know that it gives a percentage fewer (or not as good) items than before (though I hope that will be addressed in a new update).

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Recruits :slight_smile:

I don’t really need any more of the 3* craps items currently, but sometimes I do 12-9 too to make sure the supply doesn’t run out.

Recruits are the only thing I can still do stuff with as it is. Level up some random heroes with random heroes. Nothing else gives me anything.

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I do hope the SH devs are getting the message that they are losing players, hence money, because of the parsimonious rewards given out by the current odds in the chests. You would have to not care very much about 600 :gem: to buy one of those Might chests - you might get an ascension item, or MUCH more likely you’ll get some arrows.

WAG: “But I need Arrows!” :grin:

I see deals I like from time to time. I buy when I can. If I don’t like it, I don’t buy. shrug

P.S. 10 points for using “parsimonious” in a sentence!

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The most important thing to SG is going to be money, when losing players starts costing them money, that’s when they will start examining the reward model, but until then, as long as people are biting on the $20 special, they have every incentive not to change what they’re doing. And I’m guilty of keeping in the way it is. The most recent $20 special had the last sturdy shield I needed (which of course I found in a chest 15 minutes after I paid $20)

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As things stand I’m on the border of quitting the game myself.
Not really because I’m upset… more just bored.

Have a team of 4*, but by now have refined to a Good team of 4*. 2 fully ascended, but blocked by lack of ascension items on the other 2 (one of them badly - needing 2 more of the item).

Reluctant to spend more - even on the current Halloween special which is decent no. of gems for the spend. Why? Because of the maturity of my team, my £9 spend is unlikely to net me any properly useable replacement. So I may get 1 (or if I’m lucky 2) ‘back up’ heroes to my team to have to grind to level up so I can occasionally do slightly better on a Titan that will (on average) give me the same ol’ rubbish loot. Not convinced risking £9 on this is worth it.

I really start thinking ‘What’s the point?!?’. If I had an opportunity to play with more heroes, and build different teams to meet different circumstances… and building those teams wasn’t a multi-month slog, then I may well still be feeling the love.

I think the suggestions at the top, or rephrased version by @loorts is a decent start… but I feel it needs to go deeper than this. We need a way of being able to turn over heroes, or an environment in which it’s more necessary to mix and match them to require depth in your team… without so much difficulty to get them there. That will keep things fresh. As it is, the same ol’ same ol’ grind is getting a bit much.

As @Ellilea says… meh.

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There is only one solution IMNHO - player agency. We must have some mechanism that lets us know “If I succeed at this difficult task, I will (not might) get what I need”. Until then, I’m spending no $.

Reliance on the RNG means a significant portion of players are never going to ascend. Too few rare rewards distributed in too many types of item equals frustration.

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Many of the alliance that I have been with for about 6 months are getting heartily tired of getting no reward for playing the game.
We are almost all active every day, we do quests, fill chests and kill titans at the 7-8 star level at the moment.
All of us are stuck awaiting ascension items, many of us can’t cet any decent draw from a summons and for the last 2 months I can get better loot from 8.7 on the map than titan loot.
I for one will not spend another penny on the game until this situation changes. There are many others who feel the same way.
Excuses about it all being down to the RNG and that luck will change are just that. The devs can increase the quality of drops in the same way as they have seriously reduced it over the last months.
I understand that they have to make a living but driving your customers to no longer spend on the game or just leave is not the way to do it.
I will probably get dismissed as just another one ranting on but if no one takes notice of the feelings of the players things will only get worse.

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There are plans in the works, notably Alliance Wars, that will provide more chances for ascension items

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These are scarey waters for me. I have been part of this game since the beginning of June, and it has been an absolutely amazing and unexpected experience for me. So what is scarey? I have invested my heart in something that may break it…and I should have known better. For a while I have been disturbed by the players with more experience than me that are bitter, disappointed, and discouraged. They feel let down by something they loved. I do not want to end up there. I have seen people healed by this game, but at lower levels, and i have seen people broken. The later happens to experienced players much mire often that it should.
I have no idea what the financial background of you at SG…budget, profits, overhead, salary…and if you told me it is unlikely that I would understand it anyway. I am trying to believe that you are well intended people that are out of touch with the pain you are causing to so many people. One of the strongest and most balanced person I have met in this game tonight said he would give the game a couple more months and if he could not ascend a hero in that period he would consider quitting. You at SG should feel the ripple even where you are. This is a disturbance in the force. You have lost your locus of control. You are on the wrong path.
This game cannot be finding a way to shake more money out of people. I have laughed more while playing than I have for years before. It’s been good for me. And I have felt loved. Little inequities are easy to put up with. No one is asking for perfection. What is rotten has been spelled out above clearly and sometimes eloquently. If you don’t make changes soon you will have given the death of a thousand cuts to something that I love. I don’t want to believe you will let this happen.

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I don’t know what Alliance Wars are, but I’m pretty sure that putting frosting on top of ■■■■ does not change what has been covered up. Holy heck, maybe it is too late to save me from being bitter and disappointed.