Trade In/Exhange Duplicate Heroes for Epic Hero Tokens (EHT)

dude 1000 gems for a gauranteed gaurdian panther at level 20 on the hero academy would be the greatest thing ever. you would have massive payer conversion from the budget players. yellow titans would suddenly be viable for a large chunk of alliances.

also, I am ok with 4* and all, but I already have almost every 4* (except the guardians…), I am really looking for the 5* heroes that sensible money can’t buy… like the panther. Did you see the thread from the dude who spent over 600 for the panther?

Come on everyone knows we’re gonna trade TC20 for TC20 with tons of resources and waiting a week to see who it is. I hope I’m wrong but this game doesn’t want to give you ANYTHING.

What I meant (the tc20 was only an example) is that all the building need HUGE time.

  1. Time for building
  2. Time for researching
  3. Time for producting

Moreover you must spend also resources (iron, food, items) on all those 3 steps.
So adding gems requirement in a production of any kind is something unfair (you spend 200 gems for a item or item box? Prize is immediate and no extra requirement involved)

The debate then is: gems for non-RNG 5* heroes that are nearly impossible to get vs no gems and not getting the heroes.

I think there are obvious limitations to whatever sg can provide with the hero academy because cannibalizing their sales isn’t an option. Allowing the building to operate as a store for cheap to play players to access heroes they would almost never otherwise access, perhaps rotational for each level (level 20: panther for a week, arthur for a week, etc.) could be a middle ground for a few reasons.

  1. Most of their top spending players already have these heroes. (This is why new heroes are being added to the events like Black Knight because otherwise their top spenders have no reason to spend)
  2. Budget players are inelastic and no matter how amazing an event hero is, budget players will not dump $600 on an event summon portal for that hero.
  3. To capture revenue from a budget player, you need a different sales approach.

I suggest that the hero academy be that different sales approach: for older event 5* and season 2 5* heroes where the majority of the top spending users already have these heroes and no reason to spend additional against them, sell them at an affordable discount to budget players.

Two parties win here: budget players who finally get to use Panther and Arthur on titans (and the alliances they are in) and SG.

The big risk is that top spenders might decide to stop spending big bucks and wait out SG. I think this is a mitigable risk by continuing to focus on competitive content (anything with a leaderboard) and social content (anything your alliance pressures you to do: harpoons, war, etc.) where the desire to be the best at both has been the top driver for top spenders so far and that driver wouldn’t change moving forward.

Yeah. However I could agree in the gems prizes (regardless about what I said) only if:

  1. Gems cost is reasonable (I will explain later what I mean exactly)
  2. You can somehow decide exactly what hero do you want (without randomness) which is normally not accessible to players like me (I am cheap-to-play… I mean sometimes I purchased Vip Pass. Usually I play for free). For example it could be that every day a different hero of a certain color will be available.
  3. The time for obtaining it is reasonable (no more than 1d) considering you spent gems

If (and only if) all this 3 conditions met, then yeah… I could consider acceptable gems cost regardless of my previous general statement.

But I’d like to explain what I mean for “fair amount of gems”. The concept doesn’t mean anything detailed but must be evaluated considering:

  1. Time and resource you need to reach the Hero Academy level to obtain exactly your intent (for example: you need to reach lev 10? You used months and huge amount of iron and food? then the gem cost should consider this fact. (decreasing amount factor)
  2. Cost of a regular summon. We can take the 300 gems for a single Atlantis/Valhalla summon (which is the most expensive single suummon). This should be the parameter to start with doing calculations
  3. Randomness or not. If NOT random and you can choose your hero, this is (opposed to 1) an increasing factor.

I think that 1 and 3 (expecially if the time amount total) could elide each other. Infact, in terms of costs, you also must consider what do you used (after building and researching cost/time, you had to kill a bunch of 4* and 5* in order to produce your hero + food + other possible requirements we don’t know)

So 300 gems or less, in my opinion should the max gem cost for obtaining a 5* in particular, 150 gems or less for a 4). But only if no randomness at all, like you suggested (and it is ok if the hero start by level 1).

It sounds like you agree with me on almost everything except the fine tuning on price.

My question for you then is you wouldnt take panther for 1000 gems?

except SG, I guarantee you SG’s revenue will drop by 90% if your suggestion is implemented. 1000 gems for panther? lol.

I’m not a p2w player, I raid in gold/platinum. I see all kinds of weird defense combos here. I fyou like freshness, come on down :wink:

I make suggestions that are good for the game, for SG and the players. I don’t have unreasonable expectations that has everything handed to me on a silver platter.

I think your idea where it would require very specific heroes like let’s say 2 Leonidas, 1 Quintus, 3 Obakan and 5 Gobblers to trade for 1 panther, and no other combinations of heroes would work, that could be acceptable, given it’s difficult enough;

But, that’s just even better for p2w players because they have the depth to trade for any heroes they like, whereas f2p players still won’t be able to do anything.

Bob, we gotta work on your conversational skills. Simply saying someone who proposes a solution is being unreasonable doesn’t make your opinion correct. Just ruins the conversation.

The character collection business in this game is a content treadmill where players chase heroes. When a majority of heavily spending users acquire the hero being chased (Panther) they stop spending money unless another hero is introduced to chase (the new guardians). What that looks like for SG is revenue degradation, each time they rerun the same event it performs weaker than the prior time unless they have acquired enough of a new userbase.

We can clearly see that SG was in fact facing revenue degradation on their events but we can also see they introduced a new currency, more levels and new heroes to chase for their events to reverse the degradation trend.

So the question then Bob, when the majority of heavily spending users have spent and acquired Panther, and the majority of budget users have not and are not willing to, the question is- do you find a way to sell Panther to budget users?

If the answer is yes, then you find an option via this hero academy.

What about the heavily spending users? Are they going to cut spending by 90% as you imply, no. No they won’t because SG is releasing new heroes for them to chase since this game is a content treadmill. It absolutely doesn’t impact heavy spending users to sell older 5* event heroes to budget users when there are newer, more interesting 5* heroes to chase.

I believe my idea is very reasonable and I think the type of features we see being rolled out and the heroes for those features support my idea. Top spenders are being sold new heroes for new features, budget spenders have neither the old heroes nor the new heroes and are simply grinding it out with season 1 heroes (which get boring after a few years).

So, to sum up my ramble, if season 1 heroes are V1, and the original event 5* + season 2 are V2, and season 3 + new event heroes are V3, let us go ahead and get budget players access to V2 while the top spenders pay for V3.

This is so true. I can’t, for the life of me understand why despite trying to always be as objective, logical and respectful as I can, I get accused of being a SG spy in one thread, and then an ungrateful entitled brat who wants everything for free in the next. I never use profanity, I always try to act in the best interest of everyone.

Yet, time and time again, people just seem to start insulting me with these ridiculous arguments that make no sense (not accusing you btw, but this happens a lot). around 8 years ago in a soccer manager game, I came up with a strategy that was mathematically better than what people were doing before; I spent hours writing out my strategy and why it works with mathematical proof; only to get ridiculed and insulted by the regulars. I eventually reached global rankings no.1 in that game before I quit.

But, I digress. My opinion on this is correct not because my conversation skills suck. It’s because I simply am correct. Your used car example is bad for many reasons which I will outline later on, but even putting that aside, a $600,000 Lambourghini won’t suddenly become a $5,000 lambourghini because it was used for 2 years.

I would argue the app business in general is in the business of customer acquisition and converting free costumers into paid customers, paid customers into “VIP” (big spending) customers. That’s probably the main part of the business.

The answer here is NO.

What gives value to luxury and digital products like these, when the marginal production cost is 0? It’s scarcity.

Did you know, that major luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and burberry routinely burn all of their extra inventory instead of donating it or selling it at a lower price?

The reason is to maintain scarcity and exclusivity. IF cheap handbags and other products were sold, that would vastly devalue their brand; so much so that burberry was willing to burn 37 million dollars worth of inventory.

If we look at next month’s profits, offering panther for 1000 gems may or may not cause it to increase; but if we are looking longer term, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, it would absolutely kill revenue, because what used to be extremely scarce and a luxury item is no longer so highly valued.

Maybe at the very top, the 1% of the 1% of the 1%, those players will still spend, getting heroes in the first hour of release. But for the rest? Big spenders will become medium spenders, small spenders will stop spending and save up their gems for when the heroes they want are released with a small cost and guaranteed chance.

Just look at most of the forum posters here. Many of them are dedicated players who have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars cummulative on the game. But, do they chase every single hero like the types of players you mention? No. Do they want to save money and plan their summons and are they willing to wait potentially a few months for better odds or to summon a better hero? Yes.

Most players are like that. Most players will wait, and even f2p players can easily save up 1000 gems for a great hero. Who would spend then? Other than those people for whom money is just like running water?

If we view Guardian Panther as a luxury good than sure, scarcity serves a purpose.

There are a lot of mobile rpgs and it is actually really easy to draw inspiration from them to figure out how they solve issues.

In Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, for example, there is so much content now that new users are simply taking too long to reach the end game and the number of users in the end game is shrinking.

EA released the so called hyperdrive bundle for $99 which let’s users buy about 80% of their way through the game so that new spending users can swell the number of end game users, keep the game exciting for the core community.

image

E&P game has a similar but different problem, right now there is no shortage of users in the end-game, but there is a shortage of users in the end-game with competitive rosters. This sort of made sense for a while because the delta between a heavy payer roster and a budget player roster was pretty small before season 2 finished and new event heroes were released. (You could reach top 10 global with season 1 heroes and stay there a couple minutes on a regularly basis). However, with the roll out of season 3 and the new event heroes, the delta between budget and heavy spender is suddenly huge.

However the hero academy operates, the goal for it should be to reduce the delta back to where it was about 1.5 years ago, which I am sure would greatly aid in retaining the users of this game. Retaining the community of this game should always be SG’s top priority and the best way to do that is to keep the game competitive across all leaderboards. Gems or no gems, getting rid of, or at least limiting the RNG within the hero academy would go a long way towards that.

Sure sell new heroes every year, but also, give budget players a reason to be excited too.

Now on a more important note, are you a Football Manager fan? Good stuff!

It depends. As I said every kind of price should consider the prior investment done. Using the scenario you are thinking about, you are NOT paying 1000 gems for simply having a certain hero but you must paying 1000 gems, after spending MONTHS of real time (advanced building requires a lot of DAYS for each building tier. More-over other DAYS of reasearching. And moreover resource you spent in order to do all those steps).

Since the idea you purposed is “giving a free-to-play (or cheap-to-play) player” the access to certain heroes. Prize should not be too high when speaking about gems (since a f2p player, expecially when mystic vision gem drop ration decreased when becomed 8h instead of 16h, can actually collect gems VERY slowly). 300 gems for a 5* granted hero (considering all the investments already done in order to reach that building level) is something that a f2p actually can obtain in a reasonable time and that can be perceipt as a fair price.

Also… assuming that (in your scenario) you don’t spend only gems, but also heroes, train time, and probably also resource, you can understand that 1000 gems become too high, expecially considering that this is a thing that a p2w player easily reach, but a f2p or c2p player can’t actually collect in a reasonable time and it can transform the game in something that is accessible only by p2w players.

So again. It is not a matter of “how many gems worth a good hero. I can consider to spend huge gems for good hero”… since it is a thing that will create a barrier for f2p and ctp players. I would like more a mechanism that can be actually be used by all players (also f2p ones) and that can actually work for everyone.

Right now, players are spending thousands of dollars buying heroes.

If f2p players can just get those same heroes for free, who would spend money? Just answer that question.

Why is a f2p player entitled to the same heroes a person who spends thousands of dollars bought? Do you think their money is worthless?

Or a 3* Bane or similar.

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Yeah. Right point. This is why I said, previously, that I highly doubt that developers would introduce anything random free.

Trying to make a brief summary: I said that, as general statement, requesting gems for doing production using a building (which required TIME and resources) is unfair at all. And I said it could be acceptable if (only if) you could get guaranteed heroes for a reasonable gem prize (I explained what I meant).

However the untold part of my replies is: “however this reasonably will never happen. So any kind of ideas (which will surely involve randomness) for hero academy should be gem-free”.

The next step is to understand how a good hero academy (that could be actually useful also for f2p players and not a crappy thing like the Alchemy Lab currently is) could be done.

As general idea it could be cool if you could use it in order to:

  • Recicle Heroes for something better
    • decent chance of getting also s2 and s3 hero for free (like a sort of tc20, but, for example, with rarity 4* or 5* instead of 3*, 4* or 5*)
    • or cycling more heroes of a certain rarity (for example 4*) in order to obtain another hero (not included in the ones cycled) of the same rarity (with chance of obtaining s2, s3 heroes)
    • or cycling more heroes of different rarities and returning an hero which rarity is no less the minor rarity (so if you feed only 4* or 5* heroes, you can obtain 4* or 5* with a ratio equal of the amount of heroes: two 4* and one 5* = 67% 4*, 33% 5*)
    • perhaps a chance of getting previous HOTM that reasonably couldn’t return in Atlantis because “too old”
    • or cycle heroes for huge coins (example: random prize between: 200 Atlantis or Valhalla coins, or 20 challenge coins) (prizes for a 5*. Half for a 4*. 1/10 for a 3*). Since 5* ratio for a summon is 1% or so I think that a single 5* worth at least 2 (if not 3) free summons for a special portal.
  • Train troops (also if only 1*) in at least one of the hero academy tiers (so having a way to have a trusty way to farm troop feeders) (costing only food)
  • Hero trading feature (two players can decide to trade their heroes)
  • (…) - (Other possible ideas) - (…)

But in all this cases I think it would be fair to be completely gem free. Also, having to cycle heroes in order to obtain prize will be avoid to uncentinve players who want to spend money to continue on doing that. But a little re-balancement (like the tc20) for f2p player that can make more accessible also previous HOTMs, s2 and s3 heroes (like tc20 for s1 hero) probably it could be good without necessary dissuade buyers to continue to buy.

It would be a nice addition to be able to exchange a duplicate legendary hero for an Epic Hero Token. It wouldn’t be money out of the Dev.’s pocket as we also get EHT from mythic vision or chest, so it could be added that a legendary hero may be exchange for EHT.

I think better will be ability to exchange 5* heroes in HA for an EHT or some S2/S3/S4/Events coins (randomly). But I am sure - SGG will never do it.

So… replace a legendary hero to get a ~2% chance for getting one more legendary that may still be a duplicate. And if you exchange a dupe from Valhalla, you limit yourself to chance at pulling S1 or max seasonal event hero (most of which are outdated anyways) or new HotM. No thanks. We need to be able to do something with the dupes, but this would be an insult, not a solution.

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20 EHT’s maybe.

20 EHT’s

What do you do with your dupe? I have have 4 Azlar sitting in my roster taking up space, which mean I have to buy more room for my hero roster or use a trainer hero that I had plan for. Krampus isn’t outdated hero neither are the Halloween heroes, or even hero like killhare. It’s an option, I always thought the more options the better. If you want to keep your dupe hero in your roster that’s your prerogative, but give others the option to exchange their hero for an EHT.

Staff members have said last year that they want to make a use for duplicates at some point, but they’re still trying to figure it out. It might fit into the additional progression system they’ve promised in their 2021 preview. We’ll see.

If they make an option to trade duplicates for epic hero tokens, then that’d mean the developers will get the sense they’ve already addressed the duplicate problem. But trading a 5* for a 2.5% chance at a different 5*, and only a 0.8% chance at a better 5*? I really wouldn’t want that to be their final answer

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