Where is the game going?

That’s what I’m talking about: You start playing with 2* and spend time and effort on building 3* team(s). After that you build enough 4* to advance in the game. Next you build 5* roster. Once you have enough of 5* it doesn’t matter how they are balanced. Anyway you have some favorite and some outsider. It is not about a balance, it is about a game play that allows you using all your heroes.
Like Raid tournament restricts you in using stronger heroes or heroes of a color. Gives you a chance of using slow mana heroes etc.

I hope we will have more such modes and those modes will cover all the diversity of heroes.

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да. Разнообразие это хорошо. Мне жаль. я не говорю по-русски. это из гугл переводчика.

Yes. Variety is good. I’m sorry. I do not speak Russian. This is from Google translate.

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NEWER PLAYERS
+1 support for newer players. SGG community needs growth and fresh blood

This means more money to support the game (i.e. possibly better updates, maybe even balancing updates :open_mouth:), easier to fill alliances, and general popularity of the game.

Newer players need incentive to invest in the game not old stale heroes. Hence why I understand the need for powercreep…

That being said, the progression for new players to become war-ready (i.e. ~TP3700) is too slow IMO and 5*'s are often a pipe dream.

SUGGESTION: Make ascending 4*s a bit easier and more available so newer players can become war-ready faster?

CASUAL C2P/F2P PLAYERS
War has gotten boring with mono colors and seeing the same tanks (Guin, Kunchen, Ursena, …). Haven’t seen too many Tellies yet in war (rank 8000ish alliance). Maybe it is time to shake up the war format???

People rage about GM-Telly-Vela difficulty but new stronger defensive heroes will continue to be coming down the pipeline. New defenses usually present a new challenge (good thing) but there is a breaking point for casual players where disparity becomes too much (i.e. hero depth and emblems).

SUGGESTION: Make it easier to max emblem 4* s. For example, 4* emblem materials could be separate from 5*'s and more available maybe from a building. This way, most casual players can eventually beat tough defenses yet still be motivated for 5s and 5 emblems if they wish to be competitive.

TOP PLAYERS
Not too well versed on their needs but from my experience as top 1-5%-ish player in past/other games (King of Avalon, Walking Dead RTS, AFK Arena …i know they’re very different), it gets more interesting when there is some kind of championship war battle bracket/tournament/league/etc…

It is also engaging for other players to watch the spectacle in awe on their team power and strategies…lol

SUGGESTION: Give top players a unique challenge/championship/tournament/etc… to keep it fun for them and motivate aspiring players/alliances to de-throne the winners

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Just an observation. The game is pretty tiered to accommodate. We don’t expect new players to be competing against top end opponents, for raids and wars. They end up getting paired up against players and alliances of similar capabilities, so regardless of how long they build up their roster, they should be matched against comparable opposition. In fact, it’s unlikely they’ll ever catch up to older top-end opposition simply because these types of games don’t allow for that, regardless of how much money you spend.

An anecdote from our last war, we had 2 new members participating with partially ascended 2 and 3 stars in a field of 3400-4200 opposition. They were able to pick up points and finish off one of the teams. So, in my view, they are war-ready, or at least ready to learn. As well, it’s not overly detrimental to our alliance as a whole because their low war score means that our average player war score is reduced, which was reflected in the opposing alliance, i.e. they had fewer top end defense than us. It was still a fairly close war though.

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I agree with you. Newer players currently have a place in war. In our alliance, they do the cleanup from missed one-shots. But sometimes they really struggle if there isn’t enough cleanup to do.

A big problem for this game is the shortage of new quality players and difficulty to recruit. We still don’t have a full alliance yet and the new players we get are flaky.

My suggestion was in hopes to getting more new players that are eager to grow in this game, where the game can better accommodate their pace of eagerness

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Here’s where I have issue with that.

Good defense based on vanilla heroes was defense where the tanky heroes used to be slow, most heroes were average and the fast heroes were single-targets. Matches used to last some time - let’s say 20 tile turns on average. Working the board, managing heroes specials had significant impact.

Now first round of powerful heroes was released (first HotMs, first round of events). Tanks are now average and they punish bad boards faster. Flanks are fast aoe heroes. Snipers get secondary effects which make their allies more powerful or cripple the enemy. Matches now last 15 turns, you need to consider stacking to destroy the most concerning heroes before they fire.

Next round of powerful heroes. Now you can meet tank that basically requires specific heroes at your roster to take them down. Flanks are powerful and very fast, all have 2 or 3 secondary effects, wings can turn the entire game around so you need to worry about them also. Starting board now must be in your favor, if you can’t take favorable combos within first few moves, if you don’t take down crucial targets before they fire, you are done for. Luck determines the outcome of the game. Matches are finished by round 10. Whoever fired their heroes first - wins.

Now we are at the point where you have average tank that completely turns the game around when they fire, have abilities of 3 other heroes combined, with a flank that punishes the strong stack against it. Other heroes are available that punish other stacks as well (GM for Green, Ursena for Yellow etc). Sniper tier damage is now also AOE and fast or average. You can with 75% certainty guess the outcome of the match based on the starting board and the result is pretty much determined within first 5 moves. Rarely your strategy or thinking mean anything, you may have the best idea for team composition and it doesn’t matter because you can’t even pull it off as noone may charge within these 5 moves.

Now what’s next, a hero that instakills all the enemy heroes of element of the tile that hit them? A hero ability that autocasts regardless of whether they are charged mana or not? Well, we already have innate abilities for that so who knows…

The longer I think the more I realize it’s not really the powercreep that is an issue here, it’s the fact that the powerful heroes introduce so much power that they require a lot of luck to be dealt with. And it’s not even powerful heroes that you need to counter them, it’s also a lot of randomness that is out of your control. And this is what really sucks nowadays. It’s deterioration of quality of gameplay.

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I agree on both counts. Our alliance is pretty casual and we don’t organize hits or anything, so sometimes weaker players end up using their attacks against very strong opponents if they don’t/can’t wait for cleanup opportunities.

Recruiting is pretty difficult as well, but everyone has a different rate of progression. Most of the alliance have been together from the start, but it is pretty evident on who spend more time on the game, vs those who will log in once a day, do some titan hits and finish for the day. I guess it depends on what kind of alliance you want: one that is light and casual, or one that is serious that wants to challenge for the top alliances.

I’v been at this game for nearly 2 yr. In raids I’m in the 2600 cup range. I do spend some but I cant make a team full of HOTM(must be blue whales). I’ve grumbled when Quin, GM, Kutch and not Telly came out. This IS an arms race (AKA USA vs USSR kind). each generation of weapons get better. That mean the defense (ability to attack new hero’s) has to change(adapt). Is that not the value of playing this game but to stretch you mind. By stretching your mind and overcoming your initial frustration from the newest mean hero, you now can have some sense of joy from your success but remember this game rewards patients and persistence. You can whine and complain if you don’t succeed at first but that gets you nowhere.

I look at emblems as a means to trying to give us a software upgrade to to the original part of the game relevant. Yes it would be nice that this S1 hero’s are not dished out as frequently as in the past. I also see that the future could also bring and ability to rearrange the emblems on the costume but FIRST they have to get them all out.

we don’t fight with shield and swords any more. So those that don’t adapt die. Basic evolution

As yes i am learning how to take down Telly which has helped with Quin and the others.

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Yes. the battle duration has dropped from 20, 15, 10, and now sometimes shorter… I understand where you’re coming from and the gameplay meta has certainly changed over time.

It’s like a can of worms by adding more and more defensive faster high damage heroes/combinations and this has led to quick death battles to where next meta there will be almost “no more room” in terms of starting tiles before deciding a match. People need a margin for error and/or maybe even pity for bad starting boards to not rely on luck?

I hope SGG realizes this too. Usually, games proactively and regularly rebalance all heroes (not just when people complain), the game, or sufficient c2p/f2p access to counters to make sure it doesn’t get out of control .

Thus, to my original point, I referred to a “breaking point” for just what you were talking about and was trying to suggest that possibly decent 4* counters with grindable access to maxed their emblems could at least help out the casual player.

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I think managing an alliance would be made easier if something was done about all the dead alliances out there. I think if the alliance leadership doesn’t log in for 100 days then it should default to the next active player with the most days in the alliance and the alliance dissolved if there is nobody active in it after 100 days. That said the many play styles will mean there needs to be effort to match players to an alliances. Something else I never understood was if a player or alliance changes there name, you have no way to find them again to hookup with your friends or alliances you were part of in the past.

On the subject of raid team balance and overpowered heroes I have to agree with the previous few posts. More and more skill has become victim to random chance and there is little to no room to recover from really bad boards with slow or very slow heroes becoming obsolete except in rush attack tournament. I like the idea of providing a way for CTP and FTP players to obtain more desirable heroes as long it isn’t to resource intensive. I current have enough emblems to add about 10 or 11 talents to my 5* heroes, but don’t have the resources to do it even when holding back on building and harpoons.

This last batch of HOTM have broken game balance and the main reason is the devs not listening to the beta testers. They need to give them more time in beta testing or work more closely with the beta testers, they were told the heroes were overpowered. I see a of players vehemently defending these heroes especially Telluria and I would like to hear from the players that don’t have her since they are less likely to be biased. I personally have Telluria and Vela and think they are overpowered with the combination of the 2 being well overpowered because of their synergy. When it was Guinn and Boss Wolf they “fixed it” albeit by partially breaking Boss Wolf, although he is still a strong hero, just too slow to really be effective.

These heroes should have never been released in the current form because once that happens players start throwing their tantrums when the devs try to balance them putting SG in a no win situation. The game is quickly loosing it appeal for me and I see it heading farther in pay to play faster and faster as time goes by. It’s a real shame.

Anyway, sorry for the long post since I didn’t really come up with any solutions for most of what is going wrong. However, the devs just need to listen to the beta testers more and no, I’m not a beta tester myself.

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I will say I’m happy I got my new tank… and green needed a hero like this badly. She is a pain to deal with but so are Guinn and kunch and some of the others. It all falls down to the color stack and a good board lol. But any team can be beaten. I will say that I feel bad for some of the old school 5*… I think some changes should be made there to help balance them better with the new hero’s being added. The costumes can help but hero’s with the elemental link and resist will always get picked before them.

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As mentioned in the previous posts, this game in many areas appears to be devolving into quick death matches relying on starting board luck and deeper rosters rather than actually solving puzzles …

Just curious on people’s opinion if devs were to rebalance all high damage/“extra damage” defensive heroes like Ursena, GM, Vela, Kage?, Finley etc… in proportion to their speed (e.g. very fast would have less damage).

Good or bad idea?

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image

Brian - HOTM December 2028

This is where the game is going :point_up_2:

I have peered into the future and foreseen this new hero that bestows bad luck to all enemies. Your teams shall be so weak that 1 Aife shall destroy you.

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New Brian-Aife OP combo

God help us all

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Look at the Challenge Event Top 10s - month in month out it’s the same guys. How can this hegemony be broken? I finished top 1000 in Rare in my sixth month playing this game but another six months have gone by and I used more flasks than ever and finished 2500 or something. I was motivated that maybe I could push for higher honours instead it feels like it’s getting away from me.
Maybe you get ONE level to compete in - could be based on your cups or up to you to choose but then the same guys can’t win all three.

This literally just happened to me. Telluria came up and I re-rolled seven times in a row to get someone else (Guin).

Mildly annoying now that I can actually field mono teams over 4000 in most colors. I still try to avoid 4500+ teams with a purple tank though.

Back to the original topic though, I’ve found the game so much more fun this year. POV, Season 3, the improved Costume Challenge. There always seems to be something interesting going on besides just farming.

What’s the problem with the fact that someone can win all three levels? Player has enough time and resources to score the highest.

You want to win? Just do better. Simple. But keep in mind that other hundreds thousands of players do their best to push you back.

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My 2 cents. I still haven’t got guin andI got telula late in the month and took some time to level up, so while that was happening I was facing all the top tanks. I don’t raid much mainly just revenge hits (and I revenge anyone who raids my tower) my strongest to is just under 4500 but the team I use for raids is 4350 this is so I use the hero abilities that suit my needs.
I average around 90% win rate so those who complain that heroes are op need to look at there roster and try some changes.
My raid team runs
Albie, hel, hatter, posidion, krunchen.
If you look into them you will see why. I have no debuffers. All teams are beatable you just have to try

You get the FA Cup in which any team can play any team (although stronger teams enter later in the competition) but then there are leagues. I wish there was a trophy of sorts that everyone could compete for at whatever level they are with a reward that helps to progress to the next level or tier.

You do realize that you’re talking about a team that has 3 highly ranked HoTMs in Alberich, Hel, and Kunchen along with a fast Season 2 hero who prevents negative mana status effects in Poseidon, and an event hero that steals dispellable buffs with the Hatter.

In other words, these aren’t heroes that most people would have. The Hatter is unique as I don’t think there is another hero that does that. Maybe substitute Mother North for Alberich, Proteus for Hel (but that’s a significant downgrade), maybe c-Vivica for Kunchen, and Grazul for Poseidon. But I suspect running this alternate team would probably have a lower win rate than what you have.

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