Time for me to go & my parting feedback

@Guy answering your paragrath 4 question: are you really not getting the difference between “being able to choose from a board of, say, 10 fitting (for a given task) 5* HotM or event heros and showing in the forum (very impressive, btw.) to level a 5* hero within a day” vs. “not being able to gather enough items at all within (almost) a year to level even 1 5* hero” ???

In general:

About “patience”: really ??? Waiting almost a year to fully ascend one 5*, and then giving up is still not patient enough??? Really???

About RNG (I guess that should be some acronym for randomness) and the so often cited "you just got unlucky"s, “you will be lucky again”, and the much loved “you have a change for …”:
There is a (playing this game I start to thing good) chance, that you will suddenly disintegrate and reintegrate (fully!) at a totally random place somewhere in the universe, right beside a hot, horny, compatible alien girl, who right away silly f-words your brain out and right after you’ll reintegrate in the exact position you’ve left, right in time for dinner. The chance for that is strictly bigger than 0, but, of course, there are not enough zeros in the universe to put after the decimal point, to write that chance down.
My point being: if you do not give a precise percentage (and people believe you), saying “there is a change” is just an empty phrase.

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@LarryLaffer, I read frustration, but no answer to my question.

Can you decide to run a 100m race with 5 people who are juiced up, 5 bone fide athletes, all of which have had a 2-second head start and expect to catch up to them and even win? I don’t see how you could reasonably expect that. But it seems many do, and then are disappointed/frustrated… One needs to manage their expectations and understand in which way they can actually be competitive. I recognize that there are issues with the game and the changes devs have made. I am only discussing the competitive aspect.

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The OP describes many areas for improvement and hopefully at least some of them will be taken into account for implementation. Thank you for writing this thorough message, a complete selflessly and empathic act.

Guy replies to this and includes a question he has been asking multiple times:

I have been playing since March this year and lack the experience to express thorough and correct thoughts. However, based on what I have read on this forum so far I would like to clarify the situation more.

As the OP has concluded, getting ahead is achieved by obtaining the better heroes and rarer ascencion items more often than other players. The system is developed in such way that players can invest money to increase their chance of summonning these better heroes and buy guaranteed packages of ascension items when these show up. A player who invests none or a couple of bucks every now and then is unlikely to get ahead due to the small odds of pulling the excellent heroes and the few ascension items they sometimes obtain and/or buy.

To increase your chances of getting ahead you can invests a great amount of money and hope for the best or continue investing great amounts of money until you obtain what you aim for.

A logic answer to Guy his question is: a miraculous miracle.

In the OP Ellilea writes:

The game is designed to give ‘‘big spenders’’ a higher chance on making a bigger difference when they invest money compared to those who invest a little or nothing at all. If you don’t, then you do indeed need more luck during summons and rewards, more patience and more strategic skill during raids.

I often read on this forum about players having the feeling of being unfairly treated, concerning this aspect of the game. They don’t get their expected return on investment; money-wise or time-wise.
And because of this they can not compete with the current top players on whatever aspect of the game. I understand and agree with the reasoning about not being able to compete as much as you want to.

I don’t agree with the reasoning about being unfairly treated. I think it’s reasonable that the ‘‘big spenders’’ actually deserve to be able to become one of the best more easily and faster. They make excessive use of the system which provides a higher chance to achieve this goal and still need to invest lots of time doing so.

In other words, if I had played for a year and have spend €300,- I think it’s fair to say that I should be ahead of someone who had played for a year and has spend €30,-.

If what is written about nerfing drops and increasing sales with regard to ascension materials and hero tokens is true, then the Devs are indeed trying to make more profit. I am convinced that they know what risks this entails, such as reducing the number of players. Whether or not it is the right strategy to raise more money and if it is ethically responsible for everyone among the current loyal player base, that is debatable and needs feedback.

This feedback must be objectively written. The opinion of unfair competition, because someone can / want to invest money is unfounded. That is a way you want to play. Something that you can decide yourself.

The opinion of unfair competition, because someone who invests little, is getting less and less chance to prove himself (due to a drop in drop rates), already has better argumentation. I can understand that and that might happen to me. But that is still a personal choice. No matter how crazy it sounds, I can understand the Devs. If you can make 100 people pay 50 euros per month more and you lose 10 people who pay nothing, you make more profit. It is not fun, but that is doing business.

It is up to the Devs to determine where the breakpoint is. When do they lose so many players that it is no longer viable? Do they want to counter this? If so, they have to make changes to the irritation points of the players. And well-structured feedback such as the OP helps with this!

Ascending one 5* a year apparently is a major issue (for F2P or players who invest little) and causing lot’s of complaints and people to leave. It would be a nice starting-point, if the Devs want to keep E&P viable.

Sorry for grammar mistakes or constructions. :grin:

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English is not my first language either.

To avoid some of the frustration, it’s been recommended in my alliance to track all unfarmable ascension items we get by playing the game (without paying for them, so rare quests, monster/titan/raid chests, titans, etc.). And each of us averages at about 1 item per day, which was higher than the overall feeling was before we started tracking. Getting enough items for a 5* in a year is completely realistic. It still takes a long time to get the feeder heroes to level him up, though.

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@Guy

Will just try to answer that point of yours since you say you’re trying, and failing, to get answers from others.

a) if a game has competitive aspects - ladders, scores, challenges where you compete against other players, to a competitive person being the best (or striving to, and knowing they stand a fair chance) is going to be the goal

b) if a game is difficult, but is not based on PvP competition, then it’s fair to strive to just better yourself and other players (their strength) does not affect one’s personal enjoyment and feeling of accomplishment

Let’s take a look at a theoretical event, based on the E&P challenge events.

Currently:
if you want to “take up the challenge”, you have to compete with other players, and, as it is right now, you can’t, unless you shell out a mountain of cash

Alternatively:
you don’t have to beat other players to receive any reward - you have to get to X points to enter a new reward threshold. Therefore, you’re competing with the AI, boards, and have clear goals ahead of yourself. Whether Zero scores 50k points more than you has absolutely no bearing on how you do and what you get.

Case 1 - competing vs. other players is moot and your skill is hardly relevant if your team sucks (despite being maximized as F2P

Case 2 - get better, climb better, strive to achieve your goal and “complete” the event (in a score-way, not stage-finishing way)

In the second case, the P2W aspect becomes WAY less jarring and WAY less relevant. Because you’re playing to best yourself and achieve your own goals.

Does that help?

As for the second part of the question.
There is a major difference between.

a) I pay money to get things faster - I don’t have to wait for SH20 to get good heroes, I can ascend them all quicker, I can get maximum event rewards faster
b) I pay little to get a small edge and nudge me forward, I keep climbing at a decent pace
c) I am F2P and it will take me much longer to get to the point where I can ascend my heroes, collect them all, and max the events, but I’ll grind my way to it

and

a) I pay money to always be better than F2P players. I not only get things faster, but most importantly, I get exclusive things they will never see, which means they can never truly compete with me, even if I stop playing now and they grind for another year.
b) I pay little, but the boost is small and it only gets me to the “hit the wall” point faster. If I get an insane luck, I might be competitive, but that’s a fat, fat chance. Blob-fish out of the water fat shaped-chance. Basically, same as F2P.
c) I am F2P I can forget about ever being competitive with other players, I can only enjoy the casual content in the game

~~

@Petri
They may be around, but if we don’t see them, we don’t know or feel it, do we? So it doesn’t matter much to us :stuck_out_tongue: Ninja dev mods :man_shrugging:

I don’t know. I just believe in the dev presence in the community. The less distance there is, the better the contact, and the more trust from the playerbase.

~~

Thank you to everyone who wished me farewell and I’m happy to know that all my longtime spamming on these forums was enjoyable to some of you :blush:

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With regards to my question:

I was more looking for the short answer “you can’t”.

And my question was mostly in reaction to your statements:

But here’s the problem - if you don’t pay in this game, you cannot, and will not, be able to compete on the highest level.

Was I a dummy expecting anything else? Maybe. But I thought that patience and SH20 will eventually open the door that’s locked behind the pay wall.

My point was that to your first point I quoted above, it is not a problem, simply normal that things do not and cannot come for free; and to your second point quoted above, I do think you had the wrong expectations. If you try to see it from the other side (the P2W side), if you had your wish, all the P2W players would be wondering how dumb they have been to pay and be caught up by F2P players. The very idea that there should be ways for F2P players to catch up to P2W players would mean that paying for anything in this game makes you a sucker, would deter anyone from paying for anything and means the game would just die because the devs are not making money. Now clearly, they are making money, and one can reasonably argue that maybe they are pushing too much that side of things and deterring F2P players to even bother with this game. But like I tried to point out and you did as well in your reply to me, there are ways for F2P players to enjoy the game, as long as they manage their expectations.

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If you are looking for one specific answer you came up with then why ask questions and go around looking for it?

I don’t agree with you, and will not. There is a difference between P2W getting things faster (and prettier - cosmetics), and P2W getting things F2P cannot get no matter how long and how much they play.

“Expectation managing” in a game that employs PvP should be based only on two factors - time invested (accounts for RNG boards/teams/disconnects/bad days etc) + skill.

Get rid of the PvP aspect and we can talk about managing expectations “to better oneself” and playing one’s own game withing the game. Otherwise that’s only something casual players can do. Nothing wrong with being a casual player, but bulking everyone together with them just doesn’t work.

With a PvP game where P2W exists, competitive integrity is dead and competitive players have nothing to look for unless they want to fork out the golds.

And even then, I’m not convinced. If I were to push to compete I sure would like it to be on my merits and knowing that I had the same chances as everyone else. I was just better :man_shrugging:

Anyway, that’s it from me. If that still doesn’t address your concerns, maybe someone else will respond better.

In the end, all the stuff one buys in a game is only worth anything while the game is alive and many people play it. It’s in everyone’s interest to keep both P2W and F2P players happy.

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This such a great point and one I agree with completely. Even if I were able to spend on this game, or any game, I wouldn’t feel any sense of achievement knowing that all I did was use money to gain an advantage or effectively cut out a bunch of my competition

So for me the true drive in this game, in addition to just having fun with other people I like, then becomes doing well precisely without buying any advantages

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In my opinion you are wrong. I have played many games, especially mmorpg and in all, with money, it is easier and faster, even some is tedious without money, but I never saw, until this, that you could buy something, of importance, that It can not be obtained without money, although it costs much more. The hotm, as it is implanted, is a fatal error.

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Some lucky players have HOTM from free epic tokens.

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There is not a single hero (with exception of previous HOTM) or item you can’t obtain when playing in a F2P way. Sure, these chances for F2P players are smaller than Kiril or Boril their children would be. Also F2P players will need an insane amount of luck to obtain said heroes with gems they have collected for months if not years. It is definitely possible. But if you combine the odds to obtain them with the waiting time to collect the gems, then it’s basically end of story for 99,9% of the F2P players. That is if they want to compete with the top P2W players.

Very true. It’s a business model they are using. People will pay for it anyway, unfortunately for those who don’t. As you’ve said earlier:

This is indeed natural behaviour. The current ranking system makes it impossible for said F2P players to reach that goal. However, I think it should stay that way! Why? Simply, because they have invested a lot of money and time. If Devs take away this part of the game, the income of SG will decrease significantly. And that will just make things worse for us I bet. :frowning: Not to mention the anger it will cause among said big-spenders.

A solution is to adjust the system and ranking in a way players can adjust their goals. Let’s say, you could aim to be the “best of the rest”. For example, introduce a raid level within a division; platinum 1, platinum 2, platinum 3. It’s more complex but would provide possibilities to more transparently compete with people who have the same actions concerning P2W/F2P as you have yourself. Probably also more satisfaction if rewards are distributed and actually worth it, such as rewards which could help you promote to higher levels within your division.

I think someone has already mentioned it on the forum, but I can’t find it at the moment. Same counts for alliance wars.

Nevertheless, unfortunately the reasons for you to say goodbye (and receive the lovely farewells!) are very legit.

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Great post @Ellilea. Very sad to see you go - your frustrations are very similar to mine. I’ve resorted back to cup dropping for raids because the top 1000 has become completely stacked with overpowered HOTM and event heroes. I was tired of paying tens of thousands of hams to skip Guin tanks, and Alby gives me similar frustrations. It appears a majority of heroes in the top 100 defenses are HOTM/event, and I’d wager same for offensive raid teams. The efforts by the devs to “balance” heroes have been laughable. On the topic of HOTM/event heroes, I’m increasingly having a hard time believing odds are the same for everyone. Several members of my alliance spend similar or less than me yet somehow have many more HOTM/event heroes. Yes it’s explainable with RNG, but I wish the devs would just simply come out and say “the odds are the same for everyone”. Their hesitation to do this is convincing me otherwise.

I spent a lot of resources to finish towards the top in one event. It became very apparent the cost (world energy refills, expensive items) was not worth the reward. But I had plenty of items saved up and only did it for the special avatar.

I still very much enjoy titan hits and my alliance, but with titan level caps that is even p2w somewhat. That, and the very slow progress from troop leveling, is what’s keeping me in the game. I look forward to Season 2, but all the new heroes makes me think dev time is going to shiny new heroes that make more short term money rather than balancing existing heroes for the long term. If Season 2 is a blatant cash grab I’ll switch to F2P for the remainder of my time playing this game.

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So sorry that you’re leaving us, @Ellilea! Your creativity and passion for this game will truly be missed here.

There are too many aspects of the game that are PvP (or P vs. AI playing another P’s heroes) to completely erase that element: raids (and the associated world and regional rankings), alliance wars, and challenge events. One idea (yours? maybe) about challenge events that would make it less PvP would be to have some of the higher tier loot packages be awarded for achieving a fixed Master Score. The current system doesn’t scale as the game expands. I’d still leave the top-10 and winner packages unchanged. That might help reduce some of the PvP stress.

Again, best wishes in whatever lucky game next engages you, Ellilea!

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I am going to explain why the departure of @Ellilea (Echo) and other very skilled FTP players will affect the SG bottom line. Those who had the patience to get through the game without the benefit of extra gems were often among the most skilled players, and they added invaluable advice for the entire alliance. In turn this made it worthwhile to spend time in the chat rooms. I won’t even mention her obvious intellect and sense of humor which made it really fun to converse with her, nor her beautiful posts with suggestions for game improvements.

I am decently skilled but while it is fairly routine for me to finish at #20-30 in the challenges, I can’t quite get to the top 10. Echo could do that with almost none of the benefits in troops and heroes that I had. Guess who I looked up to for advice? When people like her leave, it will make it less likely that spenders like me will play. We all realize that SG needs to make money and some of us have contributed mightily to that cause. However, the burden of FTP players like Echo seems small relative to their value to the game social environment.

Aloha and happy trails, Echo. I already miss you dearly.

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I wholeheartedly agree with the OP.
One observation that it never mentioned in the debate of P2P vs F2P, is that the longest serving players in the biggest alliance franchises, have had the best of both worlds. They made out like bandits while the devs tinkered around the edges of the game in the early days.
Now that P2P is the route SG are so obviously implementing, mid range players, like myself, are getting hammered because of the Devs loathing of the merc.
Regarding the spending aspect: it garuntees nothing, other than to empty your wallet. 10x summons costing $45NZ for 10x 3* is not random, more a blatant ripoff. They can surely include 1 4* by default in any given 10x pull?
Whatever happens to the longevity of the game will be decided by Season 2, in my opinion. If there really is a more expensive summon gate (400 gems?!) to access the new heros, players will leave in droves and ST will have finally killed its cash cow.

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To be clear, most of the people in the top alliances were NOT around in your theoretical “good ole days” I started August 1 last year and things were more or less set as they are now - the ascension materials necessary were set, etc. I caught a couple of months of better elemental chests, but you’re taking maybe 5-8 ascension items (mostly 3 *) difference over the course of those months.

Also, most people did NOT merc. This was a very small subset of people who did that consistently.

And most of the “franchise” alliances didn’t have multiple alliances until the game was basically set into what it is now.

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Well that told me. Suitably put in my place I shall never darken these fair and balanced forums again.

Thank you for taking the time to write this good bye. I’m following your lead. L8r!

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Competition: Am I able to become one day, if I play everyday, if i learn everyday, number one in this game, even e.g. Zero is still playing? He is spending a lot of money and I am f2p. Normaly, you’re able in sports to win the race with patience, devotion, motivation, health etc…

I have a different opinion than the OP, it’s not necessarily in agreement or disagreement.

When I first started, I was f2p for two months. I was happy to be in the top third of the entire player base seeing that there are millions of active players. Then I became p2p, I’m just happy being in the top 10,000. I don’t know why would someone lose the joy of competing just because they can’t be #1.

E&P is just one of the endless sea of completely free games to download, and you choose how to make the most fun of it. When I first started, I was having fun with just 3* heroes. In fact, I acted as if 5* heroes didn’t even existed and ascension materials were worthless. Yet, I still felt competitive within the rankings I believed I reasonably belong to. That’s because I don’t compare myself to any top player, especially the #1 spot.

When I decided to invest in this game, my mindset didn’t change. I wasn’t more or less competitive. Me being p2p had nothing to do with competing or winning, I admittedly just have a gambling problem with gacha games. Regardless of being f2p or p2p, the most fun I had in this game was communicating in chat with my alliance and taking down titans and other alliances together.

I actually don’t like the monthly event. When I saw 7DD’s live stream videos on how players rank on the top, I didn’t really see competition. I just saw someone having certain heroes, items, and lots of luck/replays. I can do the same thing since I do have the heroes (Falcon, Jackal, etc.), but it wasn’t fun for me. I play raids instead and reached #1 several times. But I didn’t reach #1 because I was competitive, I just wanted to make myself #1 and go on global chat to recruit for my alliance. :laughing:

I’m not even part of any top alliance. I can easily be recruited by a competitive alliance, but that’s not me even though I have a huge roster of heroes to do major damage in wars. I also recruit newbies. And the highest titan I’ve ever faced was 8*, but I usually face 7*. :grin:

The OP has brought up some good concerns that are shared a lot by this community. However, I think people should reevaluate on how we view competition. Being competitive shouldn’t be about getting the #1 spot. It should be within a certain level of ranks (like how we want to make Alliance Wars fair). I used to play competitive chess in the amateur level, and not once I thought I cannot be competitive because I wasn’t in the grand master level. My advice to anyone getting frustrated about this game’s competition is to forget about it and resist the urge to compare. Games just become fun when comparisons are gone, when you play for the sake of playing, and when you just love the community. Just because there are ranks and ladders in a game, doesn’t mean you have to be on it.

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