It’s a thing because it’s insanely profitable. It’s basically shiny gambling that you are allowed to advertise to kids under the disguise of a game.
It used to be limited to East Asia, which is the largest mobile gaming market on the planet. Now it’s slowly spreading to Europe and the Americas, hampered slightly due to more aggressive anti-gambling regulations.
Some months ago, a certain revolutionary gacha game was shipped to the western market - revolutionary in the sense that it had actual 3d MMO-like gameplay, married to gacha mechanisms of character acquiring. That game made TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION dollars in the FIRST MONTH of its existence.
It’s mathematically proven that heavy spenders have a significant higher probability to get something good: that is what they pay for!
Given a reasonable amount of time, the spenders will be so ahead in what hey have that no F2P player can hope to reach them.
The good point of E&P is that you CAN play even without spending competing with the ones that are at your level.
Many other games heavily limit your options if you do not spend: events you can only enter by paying, a limited number of games per day, etc. E&P let you play for as long as your ability (and luck) keeps you alive.
Sure, you will never in the top 10 of the cup leaderboard without spending but you can play as much as you want, any event you want and hope for a good pool with the Epic Hero Token you got from the last Titan loot.
I believe this is a smart move from SGG: keep f2p players in the game for long time hoping they’ll start spending.
To tell the truth, i don’t care how much people spend for heroes etc.
I have a small budget, that i stick to.
My roster isn’t great but not pathetic, got some lucky pulls.
My main gripe is the unbalanced way that the mats are distributed.
I have plenty of D swords etc but not a single compass i have to wait for that event to get 1.
It translates into dozen or so heroes stuck whith no where to go and no new heroes to levelup.
Raids were never all that important to me, maps, most events and such I find entertaining, summons only when i have coins, Tc 20’s supply enought feeders to the few that i can work on (mainly dupes that will never be maxed), otherwise Tc11 get loaded.
This is a game, i feel that we shouldn’t have to pay all that much to enjoy it.
After all you are not getting anything of any real value, you’re are just spending time with friends and comrades.
That my view.
Have fun.
Wolf9
Ps: been playing for about 2 years.
One thing I see repetitively compared is a coin to a programmed RNG with a defined code to determine odds that has limitations and rules. RNG is never actually random, especially with odds stated. It may feel like RNG on the user end, but on the company end it most certainly is not. Say for example using 1.8% odds. In computer terms there will be 1.8% of all pulls resulting in that outcome. There is no statistical chance for deviation outside whatever the programmed threshold is. It is entirely possible to flip a coin 100 times and get 100 heads. It is not possible within the code to do only 100 pulls and get 100 hotms. Odds are most likely calculated as a whole for the entirety of the player base, so if 100,000 pulls are done, it will fall within 1.8% results being the target. Deviation threshold most likely 1% such that if the pulls hit 0.7% without the target, then it is a guarantee that the next pull will hit target to raise the % back into range. The converse is also true, if your buddy just got super lucky and pushed the rate to 2.9%, you can not pull the target until it falls back into range.
Yeah, wasn’t really the point of my post. The point was to… well, for one thing, complain that there is no viable way to get most of the good heroes without spending, no matter how long you play.
And to also then point out the reality that it is a P2W game.
Life will never be fair, kind, or equal. But I play video games because they’re not supposed to mirror real life. Who in the hell would want to play a game that was accurately based on real life? That game would suck on so many levels.
That much is obvious, yes. Also quite unfortunate, IMO. Games shouldn’t work like that.
Smart for them financially, yes. But it doesn’t exactly make for a “balanced” game.
… and if they never had any intentions of making it a balanced game, why did they go to the trouble of nerfing Telly and Vela?
If we all knew it was pay to win coming in, why in the hell would any of the previous pay to win players complain that the “newest” heroes (at the time) were way too… pay to win?
Now see, this is just sad to me.
Your F2P account looks very much like my account did when I first started playing. It was more fun back then. But a big part of the fun was this crazy idea I had that, the more I played, the better heroes I would end up getting later.
That, as it turns out, was only partially true.
I guess I’m just crazy, or old school gamer, or whatever, in thinking that any content that is available in the game should be realistically obtainable by any player who works hard enough to try to get it.
IMO, if a hero in the game is not realistically obtainable within 1 entire year of dedicated play without spending money, that hero is essentially paywalled. And any time a video game locks its most powerful heroes / armor / weapons / etc. behind a paywall, that game is officially P2W.
Quick question…have any of you played any truly "f2p mobile games? I have and they are, in my opinion, extremely limited in their functionality, art and gameplay. They also bludgeon you with ads…lots and lots of ads.
I understand why they do this, as their only revenue stream is from the advertising. You also know this when installing the game.
Okay, well other than that, there was a casino game I used to play. It was kind of fun until I ran out of virtual coins, and it started asking me to exchange real money for fake money to gamble in a fake casino that would give me back… fake money.
Haha! Nope.
It did have ways to earn free coins though… one of those was by watching ads for other mobile games.
Ta-da! That’s how I found myself here.
For some dumb reason, I didn’t think this was also a casino game. Because it certainly didn’t look like a casino game.
But… as it turns out… it is.
EDIT: ohhh I forgot, I also had a “fishing” game. Where you would cast a fake fishing rod onto a fake lake to try to catch fake fish.
It had ads, and it tried to get me to buy stuff (upgrade your fishing rod! LOL)
Yeah, they do, as an excellent example of what I meant.
E&P is glossy to look at and, if nothing else, deep insofar as its requirements to reach end game level. I’ve no idea how it ever truly expected its player base to believe it is “free”. Again, just my opinion.
Edit: @Pompitous types faster than I do! He also shows how a game needn’t be a complete money sink to have the aforementioned glossy bits
I have played many, many games on PC and console that were either F2P or relatively C2P, and they were fun! Some only kept my attention for a couple of weeks… others kept my attention for years. Many of them I still own, and still go back to play from time to time.
Oh I never expected to get very far for free! But for some stupid reason, I thought that purchasing a 10-pull plus a year’s worth of VIP, I’d be a “big shot” eventually! I mean, how many people spend nearly $100 on a silly mobile phone match 3 game?
…
Apparently… tons of people do.
Not only that, but… compared to their spending? My $100 was absolute chump change! Embarrassingly low, in fact.
Seriously. People on here literally laughed out loud at me. So loud that I could hear their laughter echoing through my screen from thousands of miles away.
Wow. Here I just sunk a decent chunk of my paycheck into a freaking silly gem match game, thinking I’m like a boss…
“Hey bro, don’t you know? Most of us here have spent over $1000.”
LOL. Okay then. Good one!
Wait… you’re serious?
Oh yeah, that’s right, you’re in a different country! So when you say $1000, you actually mean like 1000 of some other currency, right?
“Nah bruh. U.S. dollars.”
For real?
Well . @#$% me! I don’t even know how to begin to compete with that.
I’m over 2 years and 4 months of playing many hours a day and I used to spend a bit each month. At this point I have all s1 but marjana( who I really need despites running 3x tc20 over 600 pulls) and azlar,quintus and thorne who I can live without . But my ONLY s2 hero is mitsuko and she is a game changer but seriously that’s it? And I’m done s2 so getting coins is next to zero. I have one hotm grimble from a coin pull with pixie . My event heroes are Buchan, pixie and a lucky pull hat gave Peters but still no Wilbur so I’ll likely never see him as I’ve long gone ftp. S3 I’m saving all my coins til the end.
I love some things you said like the bargain bin. I mean like u also said where have all the atlantis heroes gone?
The only time I get to use these great heroes is in beta which is great but I know it’s going to end and my regular account won’t see a ninja or any more s2 or likely event 5s unless my ha10 pays off. Tc20 has been great to me but I am even tired of my third lianna and I know it’s nuts since at one point I’d have killed for any 5 now I have dupes of joon, Magni, lianna, etc but again where’s the long grind reward. I’ve spent I’ve watched endless ads in mv. Can’t I get an older hero that others don’t care about anymore? Or maybe a chance at one that’s great. 34 tokens and no telluria though I did get 2 lady wool and the 3s but like you said so well that there’s sooooo many new heroes that s2 have nearly disappeared.
Can I get a pity reward after hundreds of pulls for a guaranteed 5? Other games do it. And I grew up where you played a game and skill won it not your wallet. And for what a card you’ll likely never level anyhow cause of mats. Remember when the offers were 1 and done? Now each let’s you get 3 or more of each cuz…money.
Anyhow you’re post was great and I used to write long posts like that as well but it seems for nought so I just play with my toys and in beta I borrow great ones and do pulls like crazy just cause you can and oddly get happy when I get a great hero despite knowing I can’t keep it.
Bargain bin…work on that, better name, refine idea and you may have viable argument in new feature topic. Thanks for the great posts.
I was always OK with spending, especially because I started to play just before the lockdown, so it was justified with “only fun available”. And I liked the game, was eager to make some progress (my partner is playing, and was year ahead, so, you know).
I’ve never checked my balances tbh. Thought it might be around 100€ a month on average. Until August, there was a general feeling that I get value for money spent, whatever that is. However, since September, that changed. Partly, it was due to the fact that I managed to collect almost all 3* and 4* heros in 6 months (except Proteus). So, the only real value added to my roster became getting a 5*. What happened in last 2 months? I had a feeling that the game is not being rewarding, and for the first time ever I looked at my expenses at Google Play Store. I’ve spent almost 400€ on this game in last 2 months, and only “improvements” to my roster were Zulag and Norns. None of them is a top class hero, some people would say they are even trashy.
My sentiment has changed. My perspective has changed. For the first time ever I actually looked at what I’m really getting for the money payed. And the picture was not rosy at all. To cut the long story short, from now on I’m not falling into the same trap. Monthly budget will be 30€ and that’s it. I’ll consider that as a monthly subscription to the game I love to play, whatever I get for it.
PS. Sometimes I’m really puzzled how the heck I’m so unlucky?
I’ve been thinking about this myself, and I can’t see myself playing this game forever. Eventually I will run out of interesting heroes to work on (unless my luck or the odds dramatically improve).
And waiting for mats to ascend my vanilla 4*s will seem boring and tedious as new cooler shinier heroes are released with minimal chance to get them. (I haven’t started on Hero Academy yet!)
I’m nowhere near that point yet - enjoying it a lot still, and I have my lovely alliance . and my expectations are aligned with reality at this point. but who knows how I will feel 3, 5 years in the future. maybe then I will want more, will realize this game cannot give it, and will move on.
but anyway, i’ll put it this way - real life is difficult (and often depressing) enough. That’s why we play games, to escape for a bit. great games give us something to aspire to - something ANYONE can reach with enough effort. depending on what a player prioritizes/seeks, that can be severely missing in E&P.
My only question is why would a F2P player need a roster like that. Any player with a firm grasp of the game mechanics, good tile play skill and a decent roster of mostly maxed and emblemed 4 stars, and about 10-20x 5 stars, can actually complete each and every event in the game and even finish in good positions, and also do well in wars and titans. Personally, I consider this game as F2P friendly because I don’t have to pay to participate in wars, tournaments, events etc.
Imho, the entire premise of a player trying to catch up to another player seems moot. Because there is no end game, and it’s not that players who finish in top positions get any monetory benefit out of it. A game is supposed to be enjoyed, irrespective of one’s spending level.
You could read right from the beginning, that it always favors p2w. It’s not only now, threads like this have always been there.
Pay to have fun, since there’s no way to win, neither with nor without paying or grind without spending to get proud of what you will reach as f2p or c2p.
You can just speed things up by paying, nothing else.
Whales have all heroes but mats.
F2P have mats but heroes.
So what, go to have fun, since that’s all the game can deliver.
Very c2p/occasional spender here. Been playing for 2 years and 11 months. Still have exactly one non-vanilla 5*. Plus 2 5* costumes.
I do not expect it at all: However, it definitely would be nice just to have a little more variety.
Unfortunately, I’m reaching the point where further grinding no longer seems worth for me. The mats just continue to pile up.
I have a slight hope for Hero Academy 10. IMO, something is better than nothing. I just need to finish maxing my food storages, then build the rest of HA AND then research level HA10…
. @#$% me! I don’t even know how to begin to compete with that.
