There is no such thing as win or lose in this game.
There are several tiers in this game. P2W vs P2W, F2P vs F2P.
Occasionally, some lucky F2P join P2W alliances fight in their realm, and some unlucky “P2W” perform worse like they never paid anything.
P2W ? You Pay, SGG Wins.
Wow brother … did you discover hot water !!! And you will also discover that SG doesn’t care a fig for those who don’t spend !! you can do all the posts and questions you want … but we would only answer you with lies! Because they are gods 
To answer some of the replies, in general terms:
You don’t need all the best heroes to be competitive.
No, you don’t. But getting new heroes is part of the game. It’s part of the fun of the game. If you tell me that the only viable path to getting new heroes is by spending a ton of money? That’s no longer a game. That’s an investment.
You need to work hard to get good heroes.
Are we talking real life work or game work? Because grinding in this game guarantees you absolutely nothing.
Even those who can buy all the best heroes end up running out of ascension mats.
Of course. Most players end up reaching an ascension mat wall at one point or another. But the big spenders can buy ascension mats too.
People who spend more, get more. That is life.
Yes. That is “life”. I can’t afford to buy a Ferrari in real life. But if I own a car racing game and win enough races, I can win enough fake money to buy a fake Ferrari. Why can’t I do that in this game?
You just have to accept that there are different tiers, and those tiers are mostly determined by how much you spend. Stick to your own tier.
Is that how games should be, though? Someone can waltz in and just buy the best stuff, and I’m supposed to accept that as “oh well, that’s life.” It’s a video game…? No, games aren’t supposed to be “free”, but there is a huge difference between “free” and “spending hundreds of dollars a month”.
Oh, but TGW, don’t you know, those who spend the most are supporting the company.
So that justifies screwing over customers who spent less?
The original point of this post was to ask how long it would take for a low spender to “catch up” to a high spender. In most games I’ve played, the top spenders might get to the top a few months sooner than the low spending grinders. But those who grinded hard enough still had a reasonable chance to catch up to them eventually.
In this game? It’s not even possible to obtain majority of the heroes without spending. Period.
And when I say spending, I don’t mean paying $5 a month, or $50 for the “base game”… because anything less than $100 in this game won’t buy you much of anything. And you can grind and grind and grind for years and still not get half the rosters that someone with unlimited disposable income can buy on day one.
I’m not asking for everything to be given to everyone for free. I’m just asking whether or not it’s reasonable to expect low spenders / non spenders to have to grind for eternity with absolutely zero guarantee of ever being able to update their rosters with new heroes? And yes of course even big spenders run into this problem, when they buy a 30 pull and get nothing new… but if they’re a big enough spender, they can just keep buying 30 pulls over and over again until they get what they want. They might end up bankrupt in the end, but at least they can eventually get that one fancy hero they’ve been wanting.
Is it right that any one of us should have to put up with that kind of though? Shouldn’t there be guaranteed rewards at a certain point? And don’t tell me that an additional chance to pull another Dawa or Prisca counts as a guaranteed reward, because it doesn’t. That’s a waste of everybody’s time, and we all know it.
It’s all good though. You all can either agree that it’s ridiculous, or you can tell me to go ---- myself. I just wanted to raise the issue once again, even though I know that it’s probably a waste of time.
My biggest complaint is never enough materials to ascend. Have at least 9 waiting for MONTHS. 2nd. I get the same heros constantly. It’s never a mixed bag EVER, it’s literally the same, and when we train them, same exact thing. SAME HEROS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I rarely get yellow troops. So I do think the game is ‘fixed’. I have been playing for years, our team is getting super discouraged with this game. Only thing I truly look forward to anymore is Path of Valor and although not super difficult for me, I can see where it would be for beginners and/or those who can’t beat 5 star titans. I won’t walk away from something I have invested so much in, however, it’s become extremely boring for me. I truly dislike #3. I refuse to play it unless it’s part of path of valor and then I just use tickets. I think those little bombs are BS. Lucky in the beginning with great pulls and HOTM, but getting anything good is super rare now. Get the same heros though. Can’t tell you how many I have that are the same 5 star.
That is absolutely the opposite of the truth. The more high end you go, the more you need skill to be able to compete.
It eventually becomes a bottleneck of both. Too many duplicates and/or not enough ascension mats. I think TC20s are great and all, and I suppose if I run them long enough, I will eventually have 30 legendary heroes for wars (I’m getting closer). The problem is - whether you summon or train, you have no control over what you get. So I might end up with 6 identical heroes in each color. 
And that would be boring!
HA is supposed to fix that, but it takes forever to level that sucker up, and then it takes forever to use it, and it’s my understanding that it still spits out random stuff. So your Obakan could turn into a Thorne, and you already have Thornes, so you put it back in and could turn back into an Obakan? LOL.
And either way… you still need 18 unfarmable mats to finish each one of them. So… yeah. Very long game.
Also, it’s always said that big spenders run out of ascension mats… well, this is true, everyone does at some point. But big spenders can actually buy many ascension mats… not enough to immediately level up everything they have, but enough to easily blaze past a lower spender.
Takes more of both luck and skill in the higher echelons, I think. Though either way, it always helps to have the best heroes. I think it takes more skill to beat top teams using only vanilla heroes.
But yes. There is certainly an element of skill to this game. Just look at those with top level rosters coming in to complain that they got destroyed by a smaller level team. Bad boards are one thing, we all get bad boards. But even a good board can be misused and ruined with the wrong moves. Special skills fired off at the wrong times are wasted. Etc.
I do have the HA built all the way up and I am on my last level currently building the Alchemy Lab. I am curious about retraining the heros? I think that is the last stage I am building or researching, I don’t recall for sure. Point is, I have everything built as far as it can go, so other than making items which I have HUNDREDS of, not much left to do with the iron except with emblems but like ascension items, not all that easy to get when you need so many I would agree on skill level, I do know I am not that great of a skilled player at least that is my opinion. I have finally reached level 75. I have done some research on being a better skilled player. Not enough time to really devote to that end of it though.
I’ve been playing this since almost the very beginning, i spent money early on but as time pasted the less I spent being one of those unlucky players with pulls. I don’t have anything against a player who wants to spend money buying everything, my disappointment with the game is my time playing i should have 0% chance to draw a S1 3*, just saying
One thing I wish they would do is make PoV premium actually free. And/or perhaps as a late tier reward a “choose your own hero” token, allowing you to pick any hero you want. It’s one freebie per 50 days. Okay, maybe the greedy big wigs at SGG and Zynga will only be able to buy 14 Ferraris per month instead of 15… but come on, let’s see some love for the non-whales.
Exactly. That right there goes to the very root of the issue I’m discussing. Whether we spent $10 or $10,000, why is it that after years of play, we’re still getting mostly trash heroes from pulls? This whole “less than 3% chance for something other than a feeder hero” starts to get tiring after a while. I’d be better off pulling a trainer hero than another S1 3*.
I recently had a very “crazy” idea that I never mentioned on the forum, because it would have resulted in dozens of posters audibly gasping and shaking their heads at the absolute insanity of the suggestion… but I really don’t think it would be completely awful or game breaking if everyone who paid for VIP automatically got the HotM for each month that their VIP was active.
Cue now the gasps of horror and disbelief and calls for me to be burned at the stake for even suggesting that any 5* hero should ever be available at a price that is reasonably affordable for most players!
I apologize, I am a sinner and a blasphemer, and shall now repent for my sins by pulling only Dawas for the next 7 months.
That is actually a great idea, although I’d probably suggest it be a compromise (to give it a chance to survive the pitchfork-wielding mob!) and it be the previous month’s HotM instead. That way SGG still get their revenue from those who can’t resist spending to get the latest shiny right away (and keeps some advantage to those contributing more funds upfront), while giving those who spend a bare minimum on VIP a way to keep motivated.
Sure, some people would opt to no longer chase the current HotM if it was guaranteed next month, but I think that would be a minority. On the flip side, there would be players that previously weren’t VIP who would now buy it.
That would work too.
I was actually undecided on how it could be implemented exactly… if you buy VIP on the 15th of the month, do you get that month’s HotM right away, or the next month’s HotM on the first of the next month? But your idea would solve that dilemma. 
I think everyone should exercise their options. There are many paths in life and gaming. Choose one that brings you joy and get off the one that doesn’t. It’s more simple than you know
The game brings me some joy.
Spending on the game has not brought me any joy.
I understand that the game devs are running a business, and that the point of a business is to make money. Not to provide free fun stuff to everyone.
But once you spend some money on this game, and realize that you’re not getting much in return… you realize that the free players are having just as much fun as you…
And you think, “I’d be having more fun if I had better heroes”, then you realize how ridiculously difficult it is to get those heroes without spending insane amounts of money…
It is, as you say, more simple than you know.
Spend a lot, and there is a chance you will be disappointed.
Spend only a little, and you will most likely be disappointed.
Spend nothing, and… who cares if you end up disappointed?
I think it would be nice if the game rewarded people more for their long term dedication to the game, rather than mostly rewarding early heavy spenders, but… well I guess they have to make their money somehow, and they’ve made their decision on which customer group they want to focus on for most of their future revenue. Hint: it’s very obviously not players like me. 
I look forward to your friend’s input!
Honestly, I really just want to know where most of the forum commentators stand… is the game firmly P2W? Or is it just “pay to get stuff faster”? And if that’s the case… how much faster are we talking here? Is there even an reasonably considerable timeframe in which a low spending player could even begin to pretend to maybe some day ever try to catch up to the roster of someone who has spent the equivalent of a brand new car for their roster? Or is that just a ridiculous notion altogether? And if so… doesn’t that also make the idea of spending the equivalent of a brand new car for virtual heroes in a mobile phone game equally ridiculous?
Never mind all the side arguments about “oh you can still have fun without all the best heroes!”
That’s basically tantamount to telling someone “oh a Hyundai will get you to the same destination as a Mercedes Benz!”
Sure, sure.
You will never catch up to a whales roster as a cheap player but its pretty easy to acquire a roster with which you can outperform most whales because they are often lazy and/or bad at the game.
Pretty sure you can do alright in most top 50 alliances without a single maxed 5* if you know what you’re doing.
Right, I do understand that. A good driver in a Honda Civic can also probably beat a bad driver in a Corvette in a road race, too.
But ultimately, in this game… no matter how many races you win, no matter how long you play, unless you’re paying enough or lucky enough, you’ll never get your hands on that Corvette. Correct?
I mean, that’s kind of disappointing, isn’t it? In a game that is meant to be all about the heroes… that the only players who ever have any possibility of obtaining most of the heroes are the ones who spend a ton… so grinding for months and months or years and years amounts to nothing? It’s either “buy the fancy hero in the window in the limited time that it’s available” or continue to play with a generic deck for eternity. Yes?
That is essentially what everyone is more or less confirming here. That the only reasonable path towards “collecting” multiple rare heroes is by purchasing them outright, and that skill, longevity, dedication, gameplay etc. will only help you finish quests and such, but they won’t necessarily lead to you expanding your roster with newer and better heroes.
Does that sound more or less accurate to you and everyone else? So we are all in agreement then that only the biggest spenders will ever get to play with all the toys? And that is just the way it is? And that doesn’t bother anyone else but me?
Well i´ll never ever get to the point using all 5* i have. I know a couple people who just collect the heroes.
Nothing wrong with that either.