The Concept of Fairness in Games

General Discussion
21

It’s obviously not fair for someone to have to spend $10,000 on the game.

Period.

Like @AlexMex, I don’t like the “free game concept” - unless it actually is a free game. Make a game that is free to play for everyone, and pays for itself by making us watch advertisements in between fights or something… but otherwise, everyone in the game is “equal” - meaning that their progress is determined by the amount of time and effort they put into it. That I’d be totally cool with.

Just as I’d be totally cool with a game that costs a one time fee to play, or a game that required a small subscription fee, or a game that started as a free trial, but you had to pay a flat fee to play it past a certain point. All of those are fair concepts IMO.

I’m even okay with people paying extra for premium membership which allows them to advance faster. Someone who works a full time job is obviously at a disadvantage in a multiplayer game vs. someone who has enough spare time to play 20 hours a day - I certainly don’t mind a game having an option to allow them to catch up quicker.

Now one could argue that this is how E&P operates - big spenders are just getting stuff quicker! Everyone else can get the same stuff too.

But can they, really? Maybe over the course of 100 years or so. The kind of boosts I’m okay with are things that save players a few hours, not years. It shouldn’t take years just to obtain and level up a few heroes, free to play or otherwise. Nor should it cost thousands of dollars. Both scenarios are absolutely absurd.

The argument I always hear RE: that is, “if everyone had all the heroes quickly, the game would get boring quickly”. I’m not talking about letting everyone get all the heroes quickly. There is a difference between a game you can beat in one day vs. a game that takes 100 years to get and level up all the heroes. A major difference. And believe me, playing with the same damn vanilla heroes every day isn’t exactly a thrilling immersive experience that makes me want to come back for more either.

Of course at the end of the day, it does come down to the question of whether or not you’re having fun. I used to enjoy this game, I don’t enjoy it nearly as much anymore. And it’s not because I’m burned out on the game itself - there’s still plenty of stuff I’d like to accomplish in the game. Lots of heroes I’d love to get and level up. It’s the knowing that I have next to zero probability of ever getting those heroes, let alone the ascension mats to finish them, that is sucking the fun out for me. Add to that the fact that meanwhile, every day I’m forced to fight against stronger and stronger teams while I just tread water? That makes the content that I still enjoyed become less and less enjoyable.

Tiers, sure there are tiers. There are different raid tiers… you could hang out in platinum, and cup droppers from diamond will come down to smack you around. You could do rare level quests… where heavy spenders have purchased all the best 3*s and slapped 20 emblems on all of them. You could do wars… where half of your opponents have insanely OP teams that you’re unable to beat, but you have no choice - you have to fight them in order to reset the board, otherwise you never win a war again. Every corner of the game is completely dominated by the players with the best possible heroes, including the corners that were meant for lower level players to compete in.

The odds being the same for everyone per pull is of little comfort or consequence, as when it comes to pulling for heroes in this game? Quantity is key. Only the luckiest individuals pull good heroes from a small number of summons. You need to do TONS of summons to have even a somewhat reasonable chance of pulling anything good. And gems, summon tokens etc. do not grow on trees. They are sold, at unreasonably high prices. If we were all limited to the same number of pulls, then it would be “fair”. But we’re not, so it’s not. Hell, a spender can buy just about anything in this game - tournament resets, titan flasks, you name it. Get yourself a limitless credit card, and you can be #1 in everything. At least until someone else with a limitless card comes in and smacks you down. Money Wars is what it has devolved into.

The happiness aspect, again… I used to like this game quite a bit. My opinions, suggestions etc. posted here were a plea to keep it fun. They don’t listen to me, they don’t care what players like me think - I doubt they care what any player thinks, as long as they’re getting their money. That’s fine for them I guess, and it shows me who they really are as a “game company”. Simply stop playing is the obvious answer, and I’m already very close to that point. I play just enough to keep in contact with my alliance mates, because I would miss them if I left for good. Otherwise though? No, I don’t think this game is worth spending on, nor is it worth downloading and playing if you don’t already have friends who play. Not with these odds and this model. 0/10 would recommend at this point.

4 Likes
22

No one has to spend 10K on the game TGW. That’s an individual choice, and suggesting that someone feels they “have to” do that says more about the individual in question than the game.

I do feel a great deal of compassion for people who have been playing for years and haven’t gotten much luck on the hero summons front. I fully acknowledge that for the amount of time I’ve played, I’ve had a great and very fortunate last 8 months of game play. And that is an obvious bias to my position.

My hope remains that the developers will acknowledge that some of their proposed changes will not fly with the community, and that making them will damage the game, and their revenue base. They have already done this once this year with the change to the Villains heroes and the removal of the 2% score bonus.

One of the ideas floated in one of my social circles was that ALL of the event and summon heroes get costumes (3*, 4* & 5*) and that they are all released at the same time (at each event) so no one hero is being ignored. That approach would be much more fair, and potentially improve the games depth while adding value to under-utilized heroes.

What I want to see happen as a gesture of goodwill to the community is to have Past HOTMs get costumes, and they are automatically assigned to people who have the heroes. This would add value to those previously less useful heroes, and shake up the meta as well. Can you imagine the joy people would feel if Thoth all of a sudden didn’t suck? Or if Perseus had a meta-relevant special? This kind of improvement would be a big step in the right direction not just to improve in-game enjoyment, but would do a lot to buy back some faith from the community that SG and Zynga are trying to make the game better, not just maximize profits. Who knows? Something like that might even bring back some past players who had previously left.

I would also say that such an approach would be much more fair, since it’s next to impossible to get those heroes now, except out of the ToL, so without such a distribution, players who have the base hero would be SOL of getting the costume without some Superball level luck, or very, very deep pockets.

2 Likes
23

I would probably use roulette as an example rather than poker that still uses some skills when talking about summon portals. :wink:

1 Like
24

I can’t even imagine the joy (or misery?) of having Thoth or Perseus, LOL.

My roster is disgustingly vanilla, and it’s getting to be boring. I have l think about 5% of the legendary heroes available in the game. Do I want more? Absolutely. Can I get more? Probably not. Because I don’t spend enough.

Nobody has to spend a lot… as long as they’re happy with their Richards and Justices and Obakans. And I was happy with those for a while. But waiting 4 months in between getting new heroes is kind of ridiculous.

You can say it says more about me… yes, it says that I feel like heroes themselves are the content of this game. Not the tile matching or map provinces, that crap gets old after the first week. The heroes are the exciting part of this game. But - like you said. Next to impossible to get them without deep pockets or great luck.

And true @AirHawk… I was just meaning the initial dealt hand. Poker wins and losses are not necessarily determined by the hand you were dealt, if you’re able to turn it around or bluff your opponents. Roulette, yes. Someone who gets to bet one time on a one Roulette number doesn’t have anywhere near the same odds of winning as someone who gets to bet 100 times on that number.

EDIT: back to my point about heroes. Vanilla heroes, we all know what they do. You have your healers, your snipers, your slow hit-alls, your DoTs, buffers, debuffers, mana controllers. Compare that to the new heroes that not only hit harder, but also have multiple abilities each? Including abilities that none of the vanilla heroes have access to. When do I get to play with those skills? Never.

Oh, but I certainly get plenty of opportunities to have to play against heroes who have those skills. Yeah, it’s great fun fighting OP heroes with a vanilla set. About as much fun as bringing a wet noodle to a gun fight.

2 Likes
25

Poker is actually a pretty decent analogy because of the concept of random draws combined with skill in play. But nobody here actually completes the comparison. For the poker example, if one person is drawing 50 cards, they’re paying additional for each of those cards. Let’s say it’s $2 a card; player 1 has paid $10 for 5 cards. Player 2 has paid $100 for 50 cards. Best hand wins, odds are definitely in favor of Player 2 for winning. But, they paid/risked $100 to win $10. Player one only paid/risked $10 with chance to win $100.

You can then get into the complications of calculating pot odds and percent chances for winning hands, but the point is that when coming back to a mobile game like this, the F2P player will surely have lower chances of having the best roster, and lower chance of winning as much, but the value calculation is very different. It all comes down to cost vs reward. It’s fair because everyone can determine their own expenditure in time/money and weigh that against the reward of potential happiness.

26

Instead of waiting for another reply to reply to, I’ll go ahead and explain myself, beginning with a few already commonly existing heroes that I don’t have.

Alberich. Hah! What a troll this guy is. You can win 90% of the fight, and in one turn, this guy sends you all the way back to square one.

Black Knight. “It’s just a flesh wound” says it all.

Alfrike. AKA “I’ll freaking kill you and all your friends.” I don’t have any heroes that can do that kind of damage.

NINJAS. Just wait for full charge, then one shot every hero on your opponent’s team in one fell swoop. It’s so easy, a cave ninja could do it!

Baldur. AKA boulder. The immovable object.

Tyr. “Nananana, you can keep killing me, I’ll keep coming back every time! Haha!”

Heimdall. “I boost everyone’s health so that they take twice as long to die… then when they die, I bring them back to life with bonus attack!”

Lady of the Lake. “I heal everyone and give my friends minions that block your mana! Toot dee doo! Have fun making zero progress!”

I mean come on. Why are you guys still pretending that S1 heroes are balanced compared to the current meta? Even freaking Onatel, Ursena, Kunchen, Guinivere etc. are far better than most of what I have to work with. And the only way for me to get anything other than what I’m working with is to spend, spend, spend! That or grind for the next X number of years and sell my soul to the devil in exchange for better summoning luck?

@Rallos but you are essentially saying then that this is a pay to win game. Not a skill to win, but a pay to win. You are basically saying, you have to pay a lot if you want better heroes, and measure how much happier that will make you. Would I be happier if I got a new fancy hero? Yes I would. Am I willing to pay $100 for one hero??? LOL. No I’m not. A fancy new hero would make me happier, but not $100 happier. Good lord, if you are used to paying $100 for a short term adrenaline rush… well, never mind, I won’t go there. Just saying, that’s a lot of money for pixels and “fairy dust”.

When I finally do put this game down for good, I am going back to my PC and console, buy-one-time and access everything video game world, and never turning back. This mobile phone gacha nonsense is absolutely insane.

4 Likes
27

Sorry if I misunderstood, was thinking about the game in a general sense. In no way are S1 heroes on par with the latest and greatest. Nor should they be. The game is four years old, if the oldest heroes were just as good as the newest, there’d be no reason for people to spend on newer heroes.

Games like this always have power creep over time, it’s just the nature of the business. I will say this game has more flaws than most though, because they severely hamper the players’ ability to horde resources and plan for more efficient spending of those resources to target particular characters. Combined with a lack of a pity mechanic, and this game is more like a slot machine than poker. And yes, this game, just like all other gacha style games, is absolutely pay to win. There really should be no debate about that.

But, just like poker (or even a slot machine), everyone has the option to fold and walk away at any time when the value proposition doesn’t make sense to them.

1 Like
28

This is the first gacha game I’ve played. And it will probably be the last one. At least the last one I spend on.

I am used to games where you buy the game… then you grind, grind, grind for months to get your character up to a certain level. You kill certain “titan”-like enemies to get more powerful weapons. You complete group dungeons and other content to get more powerful armor.

Every mission, quest, etc., has a guaranteed reward. No player in the game can simply swipe a credit card and buy the best stuff without grinding for it. Nor is any player in the game forced to swipe a credit card to get the best stuff.

Those games are all almost fully dependent on skill, strategy, and time invested. They may have offers where you can spend X to get faster leveling, faster travel, etc. And the other players will see you with your ‘VIP’ status as you fast travel across the map, and they will harass you for it. “Pay to win!” they will cry, as you get to your target destination 5 minutes before they do. But at the end of the day… 5 minutes later, they arrive there too, and get the same loot that you got, only 5 minutes later. Yet you’re still a “filthy whale” in their eyes, now and forever. Because you got a whole 5 minute advantage.

Come to this game and… wow. Spending $5 on the game gets you nothing. Grind for hours, and you get nothing. Uhhh… how to get heroes?

INSERT CREDIT CARD HERE

Do 30 summons. If you don’t get desired heroes, insert card again and summon 30 more.

“What an insane game concept!” I thought to myself. “Who in their right mind would continue to spend tons of money on something like this?”

100,000 hands raised.

“Oh. Okay.”

Damn. Who ever would have thought that coding a simple match 3 game could make you an overnight millionaire?

Never would have occurred to me that such a thing was possible, but I guess I underestimated the average person’s willingness to part with ridiculous amounts of money in exchange for a few pixels.

Well played, SG. Well played.

ADDITIONAL: Sad part is, that the RNG microtransaction model is so successful, that most other “traditional” game companies are now copying it.

Someone at some game development company is sitting there thinking, “what the hell? We just spent the last 12 months with a 50 member development team creating tons of new content for our game, and we only charged our customers $5 for it. Meanwhile, SG spent 2 hours making a doodle and they’re selling it to their customers at $100 apiece? We are clearly doing something wrong.”

When the average gamer is willing to pay $100 for a single hero… I don’t think the overall gaming community can ever expect to see a truly unique immersive title priced under $10k ever again.

R.I.P. Gaming

7 Likes
29

Great summary of what RNG is. THX.

30

Just buy consoles like PS or Switch. Its much cheaper as compared to playing this.

Main difference, you can play this anywhere and anytime so to speak. :rofl:

2 Likes
31

It may sound like a fun topic (I have entered the fray on many an occasion), but frankly it’s a waste of time discussing.

“Fairness” and “gacha” are generally concepts that are messy to talk about together, for a whole bunch of reasons noted above.

Not only because everyone has different ideas of fairness but because, fundamentally, it doesn’t really make sense to describe any paid lottery as being fair… (I mean you can say it’s fair but it’s just weird to say that)

8 Likes
32

This game will seem entirely fair to one group of players and entirely unfair to another group of players, possibly for the exact same reasons. Often the concept of fair is tied to whether you are disadvantaged or not.

Since the entire concept of the game is to do well at the expense of someone else I don’t think “fair” as in advantageous to all can enter the discussion. And I think that is what many here are aiming for.

1 Like
33

“It’s so unfair!”

I said it so many times as a kid. But was it?

As I’ve grown up many of the things people think are unfair actually aren’t inherently so on the very base level.

I mean, food costing money is fair if it’s the same price for everyone.

Now…I’m going down a controversial road from here. Remember I’m playing devils advocate and it doesn’t in any reflect my views…just trying to put forth some discussion points.

Let’s say one loaf of bread costs £1 and a fancy organic sourdough loaf costs £5. To me £5 is no issue, I earn enough to be able to afford that and I like the taste so I buy it. A single mum making ends meet sees me picking up the fancy bread and thinks “that’s unfair, I wish I could buy that” but then proceeds to buy the loaf for £1.

Both products are set in price (is the same for both of us) and reflect the costs inherent making the product but only 1 of us can buy it and the other can’t. Now that’s not inherently unfair but some may think it because it feels unfair. Which is where inequity comes into play. It can be both fair but have inequity.

In this game the costs are the same in each country. The offer costs me £19.99 and it’s the same for my friend 500 miles in London. So the price is fair to all.

Whether he can afford it or not is outside of the games controls. It may be too expensive for him but that doesn’t make it unfair.

But as I said. Fairness is viewed through the lenses of the individual. They may not earn the same as a colleague doing the same hours and the same job. That’s more than likely unfair. And if that then meant they didn’t have the disposable income to spend on a computer game it may feel that the game is unfair when it is not. The ability to partake in something additional may stem from unfairness but from a universal view of fairness it isn’t.

For clarity I don’t buy £5 sourdough loaves :laughing: But I don’t buy the £1 one either…£2.50 for a good loaf is my line

34

I already own consoles, and I love them. As for playing this game anytime, anywhere? It’s a total data and battery hog. I need steady wifi and a charging outlet in order to play “properly”. I can’t play while driving, not allowed to play while I’m supposed to be “working”…

But anyway, I get your point, I just don’t think that mobility justifies the cost point. If anything, the fact that it’s a mobile game means that it should cost less, not more.

Nice analogy, but people aren’t standing there in the grocery aisles fighting each other over who has the best bread. The person with the sourdough bread doesn’t get to go around beating everyone else on the head with it. You buy your bread, you take it home, and you eat it. End of story. Your cheap bread isn’t getting raided by people with better breads. Sourdough isn’t coming and knocking your cheap sandwich out of your hands. It’s not preventing you from opening your peanut butter and jelly chests. If you get my drift.

And more importantly, if you buy a $5 loaf of bread in the store, it costs $5. If you want sourdough from SG, you have to summon for it with a 1.5% chance of sourdough.

2 Likes
35

I don’t really care whether it’s a console(s) as I own most of them through my lifetime. The newer ones are just sitting there collecting dust.

Look at the intangible stuff. How many hours does a person spend on this game and how much satisfaction is derived from playing it is the answer to how much we are willing to spend.

If spending money on this game makes me happy then hell yeah if it is within my entertainment budget. It varies from person to person. The moment satisfaction drops significantly then just stop spending or do it like me and stop playing for a year. I explored another true P2P game and spent around usd5000 but it was crazy. If I play against another player who spends more than me no way I was going to beat him.

I came back to this game after a year. I don’t know if most players realize this. This is one of the very few games where F2P or C2P has a chance of beating a P2P. Even if the odds are low, you would still have beaten a top dog at least a few times. In true P2P, you won’t even have a sliver of chance to shave off even 10% HP of those whales.

I had this argument here back 2 years ago but no idea where it went. @FrenziedEye may remember. :wink:

1 Like
36

This is true but if everyone has the same 1.5% chance at the sourdough then it’s fair in the context of the game.

Whether someone can afford it or not is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Someone walks into a casino and drops his life savings of $100 on black and loses it. Guy next to him is losing $100 a time and not caring one bit. Was it unfair on the guy with only $100? He knew the rules, he just had enough for 1 go.

As I said at the start it’s a rabbit hole that leads to no clear answer but for me if a product is available at the same price to everyone then it’s fair in its offering. Outside factors may be unfair but that’s the price to everyone.

1 Like
37

I’ve poured far more hours into titles that I spent far less on than this game, and overall I enjoyed them more. “Then why are you still playing this game?” would be a fair question to ask. At this point, I’m not even sure I’m actually even ‘playing’ it. Does spending 5 minutes hitting a titan, another 5 minutes feeding heroes and collecting hams and irons etc., then clicking autoplay X number of times count as playing? I’m not so much playing this game as I am maintaining it, as one might maintain a garden. Watering it, pulling weeds, trimming the overgrown parts.

The argument that “some other games are even worse” does not change my opinion of this game model in any way.

@Cheds it is a rabbit hole indeed, but I’ll circle all the way around back to the beginning and ask, is it fair to expect anyone to spend that amount of money on a game? I don’t care if people are spending 10x as much in other games that are “even more P2W”. I compare this game to console games - everyone pays the same price and gets the same game. Exactly the same game, with all the same stuff. I guess you could argue that it’s not fair because some people can’t afford consoles? But they’re not going to be playing the game at all anyway. Point is that everyone playing that particular game spent exactly the same amount and got exactly the same game and the exact same opportunities to win as everyone else who bought the exact same game at the exact same price. The winner of that game is the one who plays it better, not the one who “invests” the most money into it.

2 Likes
38

That’s why I stopped playing when I realize I was “pulling” weeds. :rofl:

Well I seem to enjoy this game again. We will see until when I will continue playing this game.

2 Likes
39

I guess I’ll just never be able to wrap my head around the concept of putting money into a slot machine and hoping to win a pixelated doll. It would be “cutesy” maybe if the slot machine cost 5 cents and a couple of dollars was enough to buy you a fancy new hero, but at $100 a pop? Yikes. And that’s just for one.

Stupid me, I had this goal of some day having 30 5* heroes for wars. $3000??? And that’s assuming that (1) my actual summoning results line up with the odds, which they might not; and (2) that I don’t just get a bunch of duplicates that aren’t useful to me.

Then on top of that, I need 540 unfarmable ascension materials and who knows how many thousands of feeder heroes.

And to think, I used to balk at the idea of other games that required me to kill 10,000 of a certain monster in order to get a golden sword or whatever. But then… welcome to E&P! Kill 10,000 of a certain monster and you get a whopping 30 gems AKA 10% of a Dawa. Seriously, bruh?

Zocc just sitting up there in his balloon laughing, saying “or you could just give me your credit card, and I’ll make all your wildest dreams come true.”

:thinking:

3 Likes
40

If I understand you correctly, you would like to see costumes get handed out for free if you already have the base hero?
Can you imagine how much money that suckers like me previously spent on a premium portal, and now better costumes for stronger heroes,
will just be delivered for free…?!

Costumes… imo… are the farthest possible thing from, "goodwill" that SG has ever done to this game. Emblems weren’t great. Costumes are way worse!

Why? Indeed…!

You pay for costumes.
Balance updates are free… what’s wrong with making Thoth not suck with a balance update…?

:point_up_2:wait…
Those heroes were previously more useful!
NOW they have become less…
WHY is that???
seriously, why did S1 heroes need costumes? And now… why do old Hotm?

And next… :roll_eyes: