Before you were guaranteed a 4* ascension item after 10,000 Alkashards.
Now you could run 3* â 3* non farmable ascension items AND combine 1,000 Alkashards for years and get zero 4* ascension items while your friends get them.
I cannot do the combined math ( trust me, it wonât be great ), but looking just at shards:
Example
Loot box unit pricing for any 4* ascension item is likely 89,000+ shards, if you can get 1,000 shards per 6 days that is
534+ days ( 1.46+ years ) for 10,000 players per 1,000,000 players.
804+ days ( 2.2+ years ) for 1,000 players per 1,000,000 players.
And you have no control if you are in that 1,000 players.
And you will not know until 2.2+ years without a 4* ascension item.
This is a common problem with simplifying loot box mechanics.
Click for notes Merciless RNG rant
Zero 4* ascension items is click bait - though not untrue.
But.
More important are the mismatches.
5x blue 4* telescopes are not useful.
18x blue 4* telescopes with zero blue 5* heroes are not useful.
2x Barbarian emblems to 1x Wizard emblems are not useful.
500x Paladin emblems with zero Paladin 5* heroes are not useful.
With no way to smooth out Merciless RNG, Alchemy lab for 4* ascension items and Hero academy for 5* heroes can give the illusion of improving your account but actually lock up your progress. The zero 4* ascension items, and zero limited 5* heroes, are just the most egregious cases.
Lab v2.0 and Academy v1.0
It is personally very discouraging that SGG added a mechanism to remove merciless RNG from Lab - at a cost of more prized ascension items/ battle items/ ingredients - but did not offer a similar option for shards, or 4* ascension items.
Not only can you not get the 4* ascension item you want, you might get none at all.
Hero academy added a way to get only 2* heroes for leveling other heroes - a long time request ( even if the cost is gorram frakking annoying) - and guaranteed 4* heroes - another request ( cost is also annoying) - but did not offer a similar option for 4* troops, and 5* heroes.
Not only can you not get the 4* troop, and 5* hero you want, but maybe none at all.
Before you could get 5* ascension materials (about 5%) at level 10. Now you can not.
if you have been playing a long time, you already have such a big amount of 4* unfarmable materials that there is no point in paying gems to get other ascension materials
Well, i guess youâre talking about 4* AM like farsight telescope, tabbard, mystic rings and so on?
Actually, there still is a 5% chance of retrieving those from AL lvl 10A (thatâs former lvl 9).
I only said, that this level seems very fair to me and I will happily invest those 100 gems per week. Everyone needs to decide for their own, but the chances and output seem excellent to me compared with other situations.
I know there were questions about what would happen to OLD level 9, since it became level 10A. I can answer that, as I had level 9 researched. In the current AL it now shows I already have level 10A researched. So pretty much what was expected.
N.B. I already had level 10 built in the old AL, so I do NOT know what happened for people who had level 9 researched but had NOT yet built level 10.
Probably mostly academic at this point, since everyone should have the de facto answers for there own situation, but on the off chance someone is confused, this is the best answer I can provide.
They added a bunch of recipes to the Alchemy Lab for v30. Every level unlocked two recipes instead of one; thatâs why Iâm using 1B, 4B etc to denote the second of the level 1 / level 4 recipes. Most of the recipes are irrelevant or cost too much, although I suppose if youâre looking to trace training manuals for backpacks or something you could use 3A to mine for them. For the most part Iâm mainly interested in farming alkashards for the rare, epic ascension mats and the class emblems so thatâs what my guide focuses on.
I like @zephyr1âs post. They are informative. Information needed for an informed decision. If people donât like it, then they can mute it. Simple. I hope @zephyr1 didnât mean that and continues to do what he usually does here.
@BoolzSan_CrewKNIGHTS I was wondering whether the options in combining shards are permanent or only change when you have already availed of all 6 options. Thanks for the video and thanks for the shard strategy.
Yeah. Actually, your video has already explained it and wanted to raise that question since Alchemy Lab came back in the live game. That has been bugging me and thanks to your video, I understood its mechanics already.
