Why don't they just increase the frequency of Ascension Materials?

In various ways this question is asked or implied in an uncountable number of threads on this forum. On its surface it seems to make sense. We all really want these materials. Really bad. Man - SG doesn’t have to pay extra for them. Just give us some sugar guys, PLEASE!

Well…

It’s not going to happen.

Or at least it will happen only slowly and we should be grateful for this if we enjoy this game. Here’s my take on why:

SG can’t significantly bump the frequency that ascension items drop because it is the single most important control they have over the pace of the game. By this I mean the rate of progression from beginner to expert to ‘bored and on to the next game’. This is the inevitable progression of any of these RPGs. It is the job of the Dev to maximize the length of time people stay active while minimizing the player churn (people quitting). (They also need to maximize spending in this kind of game but I think the amount of time and $$ spent are roughly correlated so I’ll focus on just one)

The first risk of accelerating drop rate is too many people feeling a sense of completion too quickly. “Sweet I got all the materials I needed! Sweet I got all the heroes I wanted! Everyone is ascended! Ya Huge titan hit!!! Now what? Nothing? ugh. New game.” The devs can add features, but this is expensive and not scalable. Eventually the game dies. Sadness for all.

The next (and probably bigger) risk of changing this rate is inflation. This happens when the devs give in to the demands to bump the loot rates. (It also happens when there are too many premium offers - especially P2W offers) Each time there is a bump, it devalues everything that came before. It also builds an expectation that more bumps will come. So they do. Things that you used to drool over are now worthless. Heroes and items that people have spent $100’s on are now just useless pixels on a screen. That hero you spent a hundred hours leveling is now dropping off your 30 man roster. This ultimately causes people to devalue current game assets. I mean you just saw what happened to Hero X who used to be soooo awesome. How long will it be before hero Y sucks too? This realization is the downfall of these games and so is worth avoiding as a game dev. Sadness.

This game is fun largely because of the ability to develop and grow your team. The rewards are the feelings of accomplishment you get. This feeling of accomplishment is increased with the difficulty of achievement. Making it easier would cheapen the experience.

Happy to discuss this further. I’m sure many will disagree. I was going to just start another thread called ‘stop whining’ but figured this would be more constructive :wink:

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This post. 100%. If you don’t appreciate the challenge involved in growing a robust team, you have the wrong game. If you just joined, it will take time, and that is by design.

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