Yes, that is just the way it is and it doesn’t bother me because i never expect anything else from a free to play mobile game. Sure, E&P might be on the more money-grubbing side even when it comes to mobile games and had i known that before i might have started playing something else but it was once just something to pass time on the toilet so i didnt really care.
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That daily time you spent on the toilet brought you to a top 50 alliance 
AWESOME
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Why do people put the Tl;dr at the bottom of a post?
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I certainly didn’t expect to get everything easily in the game for free, that’s why I spent some money in the beginning. Silly me, I thought that pumping $50 or so into a silly F2P mobile phone game would give me awesome rewards.
No? Okay, let’s put in another $50! Still no? What the heck? $100 and I still don’t have any of the fancy shinies? Here I went over my original budget for the game and way over what I thought was a “reasonable” amount to spend on a mobile game, and I get 
?
Originally I thought “huh, I must either have really awful luck, or this game is a total ripoff.”
Come here and read posts from people saying they spent thousands of dollars on the game. I laughed, thinking they were joking!
Sadly. They were not joking.
Lemme save you some time. When you see TGW is the poster, just assume that the T stands for TL;DR. Because most of my posts are such. I’m mostly only interested in input from people who take time to read my thoughts all the way through before replying to them. But thanks for playing anyway! I’ll give you a like just because. 
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2 cents from 2018
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Forgive me if I’ve missed it or confused your point, but most of what I’ve interpreted is hero library envy.
I think it’s obvious that chances of acquiring even half the heroes or even 1/4 of the heroes of spenders rosters as a free to play player is unlikely if not impossible when we look at it from a quantity vs quality experience perspective.
Personally, I don’t think dev’s intended spenders (such as myself) to amass such a deep library, although there isn’t a definitive prevention of it either. There are things in place to discourage it, ultimately starting with paltry roster space that takes an absurd amount of money to expand, pull costs, pull attempts (which you refer to as limitless), slim drops to utilize acquired heroes, etc. And all for what? A screen shot to post in Line, of trophies because that’s the only evidence one would have of any accomplishment or a pat on the back.
If people are willing to cross these speed bumps that progressively worsen in areas, essentially ignoring all do not pass signs. Why shouldn’t there be a slight advantage? I really emphasize on slight.
Outside of events that rely on a wealth of retries and resources which result in teaser rewards, I think there is a mutual benefit to f2p and those willing to take on these “limitless” pulls to acquisition heroes. We see it all the time on titans, including war. A spenders win is a non-spenders win. It’s only when these big spenders get together, the mutual benefit all but vanishes and they are an extreme minority and for the most part, do they have any measurable effect on others?
No, F2P players cannot and will not in any reasonable amount of time, gather the same quantity of heroes than spenders. Is it really pay2win, when most around me share the chance of bounty equally?
To me, the closest thing to P2W in the game, are events that do insist on spending for many attempts. That’s one area that truly has winners and many of the heroes used in them are not the rarest to acquire (if we go by the leader boards). I do believe a F2P player can acquire heroes to accomplish what spenders do.
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Yes…
No… Can’t see how you would be able to manage this part.
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Is it a straight line race? Is there traffic? Manual or auto transmissions?
Straight-line with no traffic this is extremely unlikely, unless they are manual transmissions and the Corvette fudges a gear change. Not being in the US I am not even sure if Corvettes come in manual these days?
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Pretty sure its possible if you have 30 decent 4* at +20
edit: well, war defense is going to be a problem though
For one thing, your war defense will get hammered each time. I don’t know any top 50 alliance that will welcome you if your war defense gets one shotted every single time.
For another, there are plenty of good 4s, particularly costumed, but typically these are the support heroes. There are not many 4s that will be able to dish out enough damage, especially at average to very fast speed. You would seriously struggle to hit 200 war points, much less have a chance of getting 6 one shots.
In regards to titans, I think you can get away with a good 4* roster and get good enough hits to hit B tier each time. So I agree with you there.
So really it is in war that I don’t think that this will be sustainable
Could you hang in a top 50 and perform decently with a good 4* and purely vanilla 5* roster? Yes, I think you could do that
Edit: Just saw your edit
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Yeah im also not saying that any alliance will let you try. You’re right that there arent too many great 4* hitters which is why you would have to go Mono/4-1 and rely mostly on tile dmg. There are many 4* that can be brought up to very high ATK Levels, a red 4* mono can take Out 4600 Tell Defs even unemblemed and even If the board is not great you can almost always manage to at least kill Tell and clean up the rest with a second attack.
Its true that you might still struggle to average 200 points but guess what, many players in top alliances with stacked rosters struggle to average 180
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I see @TGW as my in-game inspiration lately - I’ve decided to extremely cut spending, and I must say I already feel quite fullfiled.
Namely, in last couple of months I felt the game was very unrewarding considering the money spent. Not only because of crappy pulls, but also when it comes to ascension mats drop rates: since end of august, I’ve got just one tabard and one tome of tactics (in countless occasions, since I generally do well in tourneys, titans, a lot of summon chests, regular chests etc). So, there was some strange dissatisfaction in there, even though I really like the game. Assumed it has something with betrayed expectations, so as a starting point I decided to cut spending. After that I did some research, and yes. The underlying feeling was really connected to the fact that I was giving a lot, while (almost always) not getting what I wanted. So, I’ll share my story here. But one thing first: I don’t regret about things that will follow, it was something I wanted to do. The point of everything is the change of my behaviour in the future. Also, my story may be a good lesson to somebody else. So, let’s begin.
I’ve started playing this game since end of January. My partner was playing, I sort of liked it and decided to give it a try. I wanted to catch up and said, ok, spending is fine. This year is strange as is, so I didn’t spend money on many things anyway.
In the period February-March 2020 I’ve spent 2450€. At first I had no idea it is that much, but ok. I could afford it. Minimal monthly sum was in Febrary (63€), in March it was 417€ - on average 273€ per month.
Now the first striking point: with all that money spent, I’ve got the hero I wanted only 2 times: Gravemaker in May (when he was featuring in May, and Heimdall in June).
For someone who’s 10 months in the game I may have a lot of 5* heros: 30 of them (plus 2 from TC20, so 32). Speaking in money terms, the price of each of them is about 80€. Is that an average luck? It might be, even though it doesn’t feel that way.
But how many times was I actually happy with those pulls? Exactly 8 times. So, here’s the overview of my 30 successful pulls:
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8 HoTM: Was happy about Clarissa and Malosi, I wanted them. Interesting fact is that I didn’t get Telluria despite spending more than 400€ in March.
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3 past HoTM: 2 x Gravemaker, Khiona. Happy because of both, but even though I know a GM dupe is great I was not overly excited about him.
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6 Valhala heros: 2 x Heimdall, 2 x Fenrir, Ratatoskr and Norns. Some decent heros but generally disappointed with dupes and Norns, because I really wanted something else. Bottom line, 2 moments of satisfaction.
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Event heros: 1 - White Rabbit, didn’t see him coming bit was happy with getting him.
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Atlantis: 1 - Tarlak. The same as WR.
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Season 1: 10 heros. I should mentiom here that every time I got them I wanted something else. And many of those are not considered the best S1 heros: Horghall2, Quintus, Elena2, Vivica, Marjana, Isarnia, Richard, Leonidas). One of the Horghalls came from the costume chamber.
To repeat myself from the beginning, I don’t regret because of this. I did get a jump start and I can compete everywhere with less than 1 year spent in the game.
However, I really don’t see any point in spending this much in the future, neither I would recommend that to anybody. The implicit price for “happiness” is just too high. I wouldn’t know that if I didn’t go through my Google Play transactions. Even though I can afford it, it really doesn’t make any sense - 80€ for a legendary hero, and quite often it will the one you actually don’t want. So basically, 80€ and most often I’m not even happy with what I get.
What will I do in the future? Set the monthly budget of 30-40€ (still debating with myself on that). I want to have VIP pass, Path of Valor, maybe loot tickets here and there. It should be enough for those things.
It’s been a week since that decision, and I must say I feel completely liberated now. The first hunch on what it will look lile came from reading @TGW posts on being F2P. Thank you for posting here. It’s not because I will save a lot of money, but because you helped me discover a completely different way to enjoy this game. There’s no pressure anymore, just joy. 
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Thanks for sharing that, it is always interesting to get someone else’s perspective.
I have spent about 500-600 euro in 2 years (which is a lot more than I thought I would). Mainly VIP, all the POV, plus a decent number of small deals with the occasional larger (later regretted) deal.
For a comparison point I have fewer overall 5*s than you with a few heroes I consider as pretty standout:
- Gefjon (first lucky pull in 3-4 months)
- Lady Loki
- Musashi (turned out much better than I expected)
- Frida
- Grazul
The following I consider as good:
- Noor (actually close to being on the other list, I just don’t want to deal with the negativity I will get if I put her there)
- Zocc
- Malosi
- Grimble (getting better every day - he may make his way to the other list soon!)
- C Joon
- C Quintus
- Lianna x 2
Poor to meh:
- Vela x 2 (my take on her after her nerfs)
- Ranvir (use him on Titans and events, but hardly better than Wu)
- 2 x Richard
- Sartana
- Kadilen
- Azlar
- Raffaele
- Justice
- Leonidas
- Obakan
- 3 x Thorne
- 3 x Magni (don’t need a blue sniper, so the first never made it past 3/70)(
Overall enough of a roster to be competitive in everything, but not quite good enough to excel in events or most titans (need elemental downs in green, purple and yellow to get there).
Troops are also pretty poor with the highest at 17 and most around 11
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Well, that was sort of the point. 4-5 times more money doesn’t guarantee you better result than someone who’s in the game twice as long, or three times. And truth to be told, I don’t think of myself as whale or something, didn’t chase a particular hero, but anything nice. This confession adds to this discussion in a way that a player can be satisfied in the game whatever game decides to give him. Chasing anything, or anybody will not bring that satisfaction. 
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@Moldox Are you for real? 
Any top 50 alliance will require at the very least 20+ maxed 5* and high level troops.
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I think he was saying that in theory you would be able to perform in a top 50 alliance with 4*s only, entry criteria aside.
I don’t agree for the most part however as the war defense would be 1-shotted every time, and the war offense would really struggle. Titan contribution could be maintained with 4s.
The other factor is that the alliance rank would be impacted negatively due to the low TPs and likely the low average cup score.
As a side note, the alliance requirements actually vary quite a bit at the top. Some are very high/strict whilst some are more relaxed (especially around troop requirements) and subjective and factor in player history and skill more.
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@Homaclese As you know, a top 50 alliance would be chaining 14*. I suppose titan contribution could be maintained with highly emblemed 4*.
In my experience with a mostly vanilla 5* roster, 14* are too item intensive. I need every big battle item that I can get! 
So true that alliance requirement vary.
@TGW Warning! Long rant ahead.
I don’t know if it’s just me: As a long term vc2p player with mostly vanilla 5*, things like Ninja Tower (yet another summoning portal) and the January/February 2021 HOTM (4th generation), just don’t appeal to me. Same for Mythic Titans.
Sure, vanilla 5* can get the job done. It’s just more and more heroes get released. More powerful heroes that I won’t get. I accept that spend nothing/little don’t expect anything. Is it wrong to be disappointed that player loyalty/dedication don’t seem to be rewarded?
Not asking for a pot of gems. It would be really nice to see improvements that benefit ALL players. Daily log in reward. A collect all button for ham and iron. Reduced cost for HA10. Ability to train non vanilla 4*. I could go on…
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So looking at my titan rosters:
Purple: C Rig, Tiburkiss, Grimble, C Quintus, Ranvir. Ranvir can be swapped out for Wu Kong, C Quintus Grimble can be swapped out for Ameonna and Merlin.
Yellow: Lady Wool, Gillibilli, Musashi, C Joon, ranvir. Musashi and C Joon are just damage dealers so can get two higher attack yellows in, or else get Wilbur in
Red: G Falcon, Shadereave, Wilbur, Gefjon, Ranvir. Swap out Gefjon for high attack red
Green: C Melendor, Zocc, Brynhild, C Brienne, ranvir. Swap out Zocc for Hansel or Peters
Blue: Frida, C Kiril, Kiril, Jott, Ranvir. Swap out Frida for Nordri
So it could fairly easily be done. 14s do require a lot of items to maintain that B tier, regardless of the team setup. I don’t think you would end up using more items for 4* only teams, but you have to use them more intelligently with a higher focus on survivability and you would have to overall perform at a higher level to get the same scores
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@Homaclese Thanks for sharing your titan teams. I see you use 3* C Brienne for green. And two Kirils for blue!
I assume you emblemed Hansel. If so, may I ask which path?
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I can definitely recommend C Brienne, she raised my scores on blues considerably. Come packing revive scrolls for her though, she will die repeatedly!
2 Kirils works for both my raid and titan teams. The 50%+ heal and the double offensive boosts and double defensive boosts are huge, especially at 9 tiles. For titans there are probably combos out there that are more effective but I an happy enough with them to not fiddle around for the moment.
I actually don’t have Hansel, he has eluded me for 2 years. I was tyring to do a like for like comparison with Zocc. Personally I tend do go attack path with all of my damage dealers - except Proteus, who snapped when there was a gust of wind. That was ok when he was part of a purple stack but now I need his special in a 3/2 and so he needs to survive - I completely reemblemed him on the defense path. Looking at Hansel’s stats he is pretty similar to Proteus, so I would probably do exactly the same thing with him as I did with Proteus.
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